Contemplating Peter Ralston's contemplation

[4201]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@The observer Stop assuming that everyone is wired the same. There is enormous range in how people's brains/minds are wired.

Highly spiritual people have special wiring. This is absolutely the case. They are not like normies. A normie can meditate for 20 years and get nowhere. A spiritually talented person can meditate for one weekend and have an awakening. That's the harsh reality no spiritual teacher will tell you.

Isn't the way the brain is wired totally flexible, especially when using neuroplasticity-increasing substances like psychedelics? Assuming the materialistic paradigm of course, otherwise brains do not exist.

Although the topic of the brain and neurons is perhaps not the most woke topic, its definitely something I struggle with right now. I started becoming increasingly worried about "noise" connections in the brain, e.g. meaningless connections which are created by a drug rather by a meaningful event. Studying neural networks in machine learning indicates to me that adding random connections to an otherwise fully functional neural network would indeed decrease the effectiveness. Even if you are looking for Truth, it is not required nor recommended for some parts of your brain to change, like the face detection system or the edge detection system for example. When you look at symptoms of HPPD, especially things like "visual snow" it really feels like it could be created by random connections added to the convolutional layers of the part of the brain treating images.

What I would want is to have a fully understanding of how and why those connections are created, yet I lack the knowledge and I wonder if this knowledge is even known to anyone. For now, in my last mushroom trip I directly experienced the "noise" in my neural network, or rather the fear/thought the of the noise. It was showing me meaningless/unbeautiful images which I would compared to a glitched video game. That with constant inner screaming but also in a glitched manner, comparable to a poor taste "ear rape" youtube compilation.

Only after this mushroom trip I started noticing my HPPD symptoms. I've gone a long way letting go of them (stopping to focus about them) but it has been haunting me ever since. It's clear to me that I need to have those fears sorted/let go before tripping again with anything and I can't just bring myself to "stop caring about the brain". It's ok if the brain does not exist but I don't want to be creating a reality where I deprecate my physical body for stupid reasons.

 

[montecristo]

@Leo Gura or anyone else who's studied with Peter Ralston I'd love to get some input on this. It's discontinuous with the previous thread but it's certainly relevant to his teachings.

According to him all emotions are voluntarily generated not automatic responses such as heartbeat etc. and yet if you carefully observe your consciousness it seems there's no such thing as free will. There is an interesting conflict/strange loop here, let me give a personal example. 

I have fear of commitment and marriage, so the excuse  that arises (to avoid commitment and continue to survive my current unmarried self) is that i'm a black hole, that I'm misleading people by participating in normal life with them giving them the false impression that i'm a normal decent person worthy of a happy life that includes others.

So that tactic/emotion seems to arise out of nowhere, by no will of mine and yet according to Peter I'm the one who caused it to happen and if I simply use my consciousness I can generate a new disposition, also out of nowhere. So this begs the question, was that initial thought totally arbitrary or in fact grounded in some truth corresponding to reality? If it was arbitrary why would it show up in the first place?

Maybe the answer is that when he is saying YOU generated it voluntarily he is talking about the true Self,  which i suppose he must be because that's the only one in existence. That seems to reconcile the conflict but I'm just not sure what he meant exactly by YOU can generate emotions at will.

I think this is something very important to clear up. This is because I find myself utilizing this principle very often in my life, noticing my emotions and changing them at will BUT there's something eery about it in that I feel I could be deluding myself by tampering with the autonomous wiring. Mustn't there be a very good reason why I'm supposedly generating these emotions in the first place???

I sense a growing arrogance in me thinking that my conscious mind has access to more and better data to make decisions than my subconscious does. At least in the context of survival. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by montecristo
clarification of a few points

[Forestluv]

8 hours ago, WHO IS said:

So... it should be possible to become so Conscious that one can turn "reality" into a lucid dream?

Yep. 

Yet it gets tricky with the phrase you use of  “one can turn”. I prefer the term “create”, “imagine” or “be”. 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, 0ne said:

@Leo Gura  What if kangaroos are already awake?

They ain't.

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, innerchild said:

Can we exist in both phases at the same time, without physically losing one's body and without entering momentary God-consciousness (through psychedelics)?

Form is mutually exclusive. If you are a human, you ain't a kangaroo. You can't be a human and a kangaroo at once. You must pick one. Just like if you were making a video game you'd have to pick if the main character was a human or a kangaroo. Those are two very different games. You can play both games, but not at once.

This isn't rocket science. Just some basic logic.

[The observer]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Form is mutually exclusive. If you are a human, you ain't a kangaroo. You can't be a human and a kangaroo at once. You must pick one. Just like if you were making a video game you'd have to pick if the main character was a human or a kangaroo. Those are two very different games. You can play both games, but not at once.

This isn't rocket science. Just some basic logic.

Do you realise that many people have been literally saying this to you for the last 3-4 years? Do you remember how you used to answer us? What's changed? You seemed to have broken out of the limitations of logic (the mind), so why limit yourself again?

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, The observer said:

Do you realise that many people have been literally saying this to you for the last 3-4 years?

Saying what?

[electroBeam]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Form is mutually exclusive. If you are a human, you ain't a kangaroo. You can't be a human and a kangaroo at once. You must pick one. Just like if you were making a video game you'd have to pick if the main character was a human or a kangaroo. Those are two very different games. You can play both games, but not at once.

This isn't rocket science. Just some basic logic.

there's nothing 'human' or 'kangaroo' about form, you're free to interpret form however you like. 

[The observer]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Saying what?

That you are just a limited human being and not infinite God. You used to deny that, and I don't mean it like that, of course you had a deeper understanding than them, but the point still stands. It's like you've come back to square one after a long ride.

[Leo Gura]

26 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

there's nothing 'human' or 'kangaroo' about form, you're free to interpret form however you like. 

Smoke some salvia, become a roll of toilet paper, and then tell me that.

You are not free to interpret a kangaroo as something else. It is precisely whatever it is until it is not.

26 minutes ago, The observer said:

That you are just a limited human being and not infinite God. You used to deny that, and I don't mean it like that, of course you had a deeper understanding than them, but the point still stands. It's like you've come back to square one after a long ride.

It's complicated. You are both. And it depends what state of consciousness you are in.

I've never denied that humans are limited while in their human form. But you can become other forms, or even formless. You are not limited to the human form.

[electroBeam]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Smoke some salvia, become a roll of toilet paper, and then tell me that.

You are not free to interpret a kangaroo as something else. It is precisely whatever it is until it is not.

I'll become your roll of toilet paper and tell it to your 5 meo ass. 

Who says you're a human, and who says that's a kangaroo?

A kangaroo was once an animal that hops and punches people.

Then you meditate...

Then that kangaroo reveals itself as a holographic projection, with culling.

Then you meditate more...

Then that kangaroo is YOU

 

What a kangaroo is, is your interpretation of form. 

 

And even on the dualistic level, science revolutionises. Back in the old days, that kangaroo got sick because it had a demon in it, now it gets sick because bacteria, who the fuck knows why it will get sick in 100 years time.

Its all form interpretation, there's nothing absolute going on. 

what a kangaroo is, changes every century, and it can change every day through meditation, and it probably changes massively of psychedelics. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by electroBeam

[Benjamin x]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Smoke some salvia, become a roll of toilet paper, and then tell me that.

You are not free to interpret a kangaroo as something else. It is precisely whatever it is until it is not.

The other one point that I paused at is when you said "God is everything you desire." Yea. Sure.

But you equate God with everything. Then it got limited to everything that you desire. 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

You guys are getting way too pedantic. These teachings are pointers and you are starting to debate the pointers, as if sorting out the pointers will get you any awakening. It won't. The mind will forever spin its wheels.

Go become a roll of toilet paper. Then let's talk.

Way too much smartassery and debating going on lately. Every pointer will have its limitations and point where it breaks down. Get what the pointer is pointing to and then let it go.

[Roy]

9 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

And even on the dualistic level, science revolutionises. Back in the old days, that kangaroo got sick because it had a demon in it, now it gets sick because bacteria, who the fuck knows why it will get sick in 100 years time.

Its all form interpretation, there's nothing absolute going on. 

what a kangaroo is, changes every century, and it can change every day through meditation, and it probably changes massively of psychedelics. 

I like the way you think @electroBeam, but be careful not to put all your stock into one perspective or way of understanding.

[Benjamin x]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You guys are getting way too pedantic. These teachings are pointers and you are starting to debate the pointers, as if sorting out the pointers will get you any awakening. It won't. The mind will forever spin its wheels.

Go become a roll of toilet paper. Then let's talk.

Way too much smartassery and debating going on lately. Every pointer will have its limitations and point where it breaks down. Get what the pointer is pointing to and then let it go.

I have arrived at "Who am I ?"  Nothing~ 

(Referring to Peter Ralston)

Even this, no one can know what I mean. Except those who have a higher knowing. 

[electroBeam]

Yeah there seems to be a 'dislike' for Nothingness on here. As soon as you talk super deep about Mu or Nothingness, they shit on you. Leo is too caught up in Everythingness. A repulsion to emptiness. You can go just as deep into nothingness as you can in everythingness, but people on here just don't get it. 

[Bittu]

He does understand Love as well from my experience.

Lets' send him some, he is a really awesome guy in my opinion.

[HolyAndPromiscuous]

1 hour ago, electroBeam said:

Yeah there seems to be a 'dislike' for Nothingness on here. As soon as you talk super deep about Mu or Nothingness, they shit on you. Leo is too caught up in Everythingness. A repulsion to emptiness. You can go just as deep into nothingness as you can in everythingness, but people on here just don't get it. 

Electrobeam with all due respect, I'm fed up bro, and I'm going to voice my feelings. I think you and a select number of users are annoying the FUCK out of me, Leo, and other folks on this forum with your constant bitchy chit, chat, and chatter, spending countless hours pointlessly debating the FUCK out of small nitty-gritty details with your smartassery, thinking you know something others don't. If you had spent that time away from the forum by meditating, contemplating, or going balls deep into psychedelics, you might have been enlightened AF right now. 

 

I love you <3 

[electroBeam]

4 minutes ago, HolyAndPromiscuous said:

thinking you know something others don't. 

you really do, but it takes listening and believing in others for a long time to realise that. 

[lmfao]

There can never be too many Peter Ralston appreciation threads.