How come Leo loses his God realization after a psychedelic trip?

[Paulus Amadeus]

Serious question here, not a gotcha question. 

 

When Leo takes a psychedelic, he reports that he becomes conscious that he is god, and that god has just been imagining everything. Time is not real, Leo is not real, biology is not real, other people are not real... etc. Everything has just been imagination! 

But, at some point the psychedelic wears off, and Leo comes back down into his normal state of consciousness.

Wouldn't you think that, after becoming conscious that time, biology, humans, history, psychedelics etc are imaginations... you wouldn't get sucked back into your normal state of consciousness after the psychedelic wears off? 

 

Didn't Leo just become conscious that this stuff is all an illusion? That he is making up psychedelics, brain chemistry, time... He hasn't even really taken a psychedelic! The past never existed, god was just imagining it.  

So my question is: How come Leo gets sucked back into his normal state of consciousness? Does he imagine himself back into the illusion out of free will? Or is there some exterior mechanism that kicks in that reassembles Leo's ego and Leo's normal state of consciousness? 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Paulus Amadeus

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

How come Leo gets sucked back into his normal state of consciousness? Does he imagine himself back into the illusion out of free will?

Ego does not control such things. God is dreaming and it will dream as long as it wants. The ego cannot stop God from dreaming.

God can awaken. God can fall asleep. That's all God does. Nothing surprising about it at all. How do you think you were born? If God could not fall sleep, God could not awaken.

[Paulus Amadeus]

@Leo Gura That makes sense. 

 

But you realise that you are god in your psychedelic trips no? So wouldn't that imply that you could now consciously chose to go back asleep or not? 

Or is your god realisation incomplete, and is there some kind of higher god that still determines whether you go back asleep or not? 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

But you realise that you are god in your psychedelic trips no?

I don't need to be in a trip to know I'm God. I know regardless of trip. But that does not mean I'm infinitely conscious. Being a human requires less than infinite consciousness.

Quote

So wouldn't that imply that you could now consciously chose to go back asleep or not? 

No, it's not a conscious choice, no more so than you choosing to beat your heart.

Quote

Or is your god realisation incomplete, and is there some kind of higher god that still determines whether you go back asleep or not? 

My God-realization is certainly incomplete in that I'm way less than infinitely conscious right now.

You have to distinguish between knowing you are God vs how conscious your are right now. These a very different things. And there are even further distinctions and facets to consider besides those two. Which is why you cannot simply assign someone a simple label to describe their spiritual level. There are not 2 or 5 clean, simple buckets you fall into within this work.

[Paulus Amadeus]

@Leo Gura Thanks for your replies Leo. 

I was talking about your level of consciousness at one of the peaks of your psychedelic trips.

You have said that In these peaks you have been in full god consciousness. For me that would imply that you, in full-blown god consciousness, chose to fall back asleep and become Leo again. And if that wasn't the case, that would imply to me that you were not in full god consciousness, and that the 'higher god' was still determining whether you would go back to being Leo or not. 

Anyway, I'm probably just splitting hairs here. Thanks again for your replies! 

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

@Leo Gura Thanks for your replies Leo. 

I was talking about your level of consciousness at one of the peaks of your psychedelic trips.

That level of consciousness is so high it cannot be sustained by a human.

Quote

You have said that In these peaks you have been in full god consciousness. For me that would imply that you, in full-blown god consciousness, chose to fall back asleep and become Leo again. And if that wasn't the case, that would imply to me that you were not in full god consciousness,

You are assuming God has an ego-like will. That's not how it works. Your ego does not get to manipulate the flow of consciousness. You do not get to become God and then egotistically call the shots.

When you are in such high God-consciousness you just completely surrender to the flow of the Universe. That flow is physics. So physics takes over. And physics means the chemicals leave your brain and you drop into a lower state, the human state.

[Javfly33]

@Leo Gura i thought physics were imaginary ?

[Leo Gura]

33 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

@Leo Gura i thought physics were imaginary ?

They are! That's what a human is.

[Alex_R]

But how can i retain this state forever? Reach Sahaja Samadhi using chemicals is possible?

[Godishere]

@Leo Gura Leo I do have a question in regards to your opinion of the traditional Non dual path and consciousness.

Rupert Spira is clearly a highly intelligent, conscious teacher from what I can tell and he also has nil experience in psychedelics. As we are aware, the levels of God consciousness and Non-duality you can reach with the aid of psychedelics seem to be impossible from a sober/human state of consciousness. Do you find the traditional methods of silencing the mind and self-inquiry are useful anymore? Rupert really does seem to come across as highly conscious of God, Love and Non-dualism. Would you consider him an example of someone who maybe has a high baseline of consciousness? 

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Alex_R said:

But how can i retain this state forever? Reach Sahaja Samadhi using chemicals is possible?

You're not going to retain the highest state forever.

But you can do practices to raise your state.

9 minutes ago, Godishere said:

@Leo Gura Leo I do have a question in regards to your opinion of the traditional Non dual path and consciousness.

Rupert Spira is clearly a highly intelligent, conscious teacher from what I can tell and he also has nil experience in psychedelics. As we are aware, the levels of God consciousness and Non-duality you can reach with the aid of psychedelics seem to be impossible from a sober/human state of consciousness. Do you find the traditional methods of silencing the mind and self-inquiry are useful anymore? Rupert really does seem to come across as highly conscious of God, Love and Non-dualism. Would you consider him an example of someone who maybe has a high baseline of consciousness? 

You can and should do manual practices to raise your baseline state as much as possible.

[Endangered-EGO]

@Leo Gura Is there still an experience of "self" in you, or is it gone for good? Because people like Sam Harris, they say that if they put their awareness on itself they see the emptiness, but it's still a doing. Is there still the illusion of self seeking, or is just seeking happening? I'm not talking about infinite consciousness all the time, but more like automatic awareness of nothingness.

It's really confusing to always need to compare teachers, also using the same words "knowing", "being", "emptiness", "nothing", "nothingness", "no-thing-ness" with different meanings attached to it.

Also the difference between the illusory dog chasing it's illusory tail (There's nothing you can do to get enlightened) and not burning the boat before crossing the river. 

I listen to both. Before I meditate I am a seeker, and after meditation I watch videos pointing towards the illusory dog chasing it's illusory tail.

Also, what's your take on the liberation from suffering.

[Nahm]

@Paulus Amadeus

Claiming you (or someone else) have something is experiential but never actual. An experience so to speak of gained & lost, not an actuality of anything gained & lost. Or if you will, the claim is definitely (apparently) experienced, but there is no actuality of a having of said thing claimed to be had. Same for identity. There is certainly (apparently) the experience of being someone or something, but no actuality of it. If that seems vague or cryptic, though it sounds colder yet clearer to put this way, just apply the term monkey mind (which is likewise not exceptional). 

[diamondpenguin]

That's why you gotta right all the stuff you learned down during the trip. You gotta take a paper and pen and make a list of the stuff you want your future self to remember.

Edited September 12, 2021 by diamondpenguin

[Endangered-EGO]

3 minutes ago, diamondpenguin said:

That's why you gotta right all the stuff you learned down during the trip. You gotta take a paper and pen and make a list of the stuff you want your future self to remember.

@diamondpenguin And use it as beliefs even though you're not directly conscious of it anymore?

That might work for psychology, but not for insights into reality.

[Paulus Amadeus]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That level of consciousness is so high it cannot be sustained by a human.

You are assuming God has an ego-like will. That's not how it works. Your ego does not get to manipulate the flow of consciousness. You do not get to become God and then egotistically call the shots.

When you are in such high God-consciousness you just completely surrender to the follow of the Universe. That flow is physics. So physics takes over. And physics means the chemicals leave your brain and you drop into a lower state, the human state.

That is pretty profound and makes a lot of sense to me. 

 

[JuliusCaesar]

3 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@diamondpenguin And use it as beliefs even though you're not directly conscious of it anymore?

That might work for psychology, but not for insights into reality.

That's like saying it's irrational to believe that Australia is a physical place after returning to your home country after a vacation. If you can't trust your memories of direct experience, you can't trust the present moment either because it turns into memory and is thus objectively indistinguishable from memory.

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Is there still an experience of "self" in you,

Yes there is.

But at the same time I can focus in on Absolute Truth and awareness of myself as God.

It's God selfing as a Leo.

[Endangered-EGO]

@Leo Gura 
 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes there is.

But at the same time I can focus in on Absolute Truth and awareness of myself as God.

It's God selfing as a Leo.

Okay interesting, so with focus IN on absolute truth: Is that the same type of focus as focusing on an object, or is it more like a retraction of focus from any object? Does it need effort or is the effort collapsing during concentration?

I'm very vague but I don't know how to put it in better words. Is it more a going IN or allowing to be absorbed by it?

Also, if you just wait somewhere and don't want to do anything, are you constantly absorbed by it, or is the awareness absorbed by the sense of self?

You mentioned cessation/nothingness is going down and god is going up. Is there a difference between concentrating IN and and being absorbed between the 2? Or was this just to show the distinctions and the awareness does the same in both cases?

Imagine you lost interest in experiments in consciousness. You've had so many God realisations that every part of you is bored or not really interested in it anymore. Would there be a collapse of the focusing on being-god and being focused on ego-mind? Would it switch naturally between ego self and god? Would it only be ego-self, or would it only be god?

I'm asking that, because for me it's kind of the opposite. Reality loses it's meaning and substance, once I am fed up with playing with awareness. There's nothing I can do to make it real again, and once it gets too weird, my ego self automatically jumps in and prevents the getting absorbed into the absolute now.

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@Leo Gura 
Okay interesting, so with focus IN on absolute truth: Is that the same type of focus as focusing on an object, or is it more like a retraction of focus from any object? Does it need effort or is the effort collapsing during concentration?

Notice that you're actually not aware of yourself as "Endangered-Ego" until you focus your awareness on it. You actually forget your human self while you're going about your day, doing mundane tasks. But if I stop you and ask you, Do you know you are Endangered-Ego? You will say, of course.

It's the same way for me with God. When I'm doing mundane tasks, the notion of me being God drops away. But if I stop and ask myself, "Am I God?", the answer is, "Of course! All this is God."

Quote

You mentioned cessation/nothingness is going down and god is going up. Is there a difference between concentrating IN and and being absorbed between the 2? Or was this just to show the distinctions and the awareness does the same in both cases?

I can sort of focus my awareness on various facets of God. I can look at a chair and notice the fact that a chair is God, or I can notice the fact that it is Love, or I can notice the fact that is Nothingness, or I can notice the fact that it is Infinity, or I can notice the fact that it is Me, or I can notice the fact that it is all those things simultaneously, or I can just see it as a boring old chair (which is how I typically experience chairs). It usually take a slight bit of effort to see a chair as God.

Quote

Imagine you lost interest in experiments in consciousness. You've had so many God realisations that every part of you is bored or not really interested in it anymore. Would there be a collapse of the focusing on being-god and being focused on ego-mind? Would it switch naturally between ego self and god? Would it only be ego-self, or would it only be god?

I can't lose interest in God. I am endlessly interested in it. If I just sit around or stand around in line, I can't help noticing things as parts of God. This fills with me endless curiosity and wonder. But I'm not constantly doing this because I got business handle. When I'm lost in the flow of doing business, I'm not aware of God, in the same way that you are not aware of your human self when you're in flow. So it does take some self-reflective effort to notice God. Even though God is always present.

Notice that you're not aware of your ass most of the time until you focus on your ass.