Maddening, frightening levels of Infinity an consciousness

[WelcometoReality]

2 hours ago, Ry4n said:

oh bro don't say that ahahaha

Yes those questions can be interpreted as being quite provocative but they weren't meant be that. Just something to contemplate.

[Breakingthewall]

the enlightenment work with psychedelics would say it is like this: are you willing to disappear and be the absolute emptiness? Yes or no? if it is yes, it will happen, if it is no, then If you have been kind to yourself and have not forced the situation, you will kindly see a glimpse of infinity and you will continue to evolve to be ready. if you have not been kind and have forced? Well, you will have a good cosmic horror. nothing fun but the warrior is hardened in battle.

Disappear and be the absolute emptiness , In my opinion, it is not something that can be forced. It is not the same to see the infinite emptiness that you are, touch the infinite and realize what you are, and another is to become it 

What is clear to me is that this, without psychedelics, is not even an option

Edited October 25, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Moksha]

People sometimes realize the joy of the unitive state, followed by the horror of the void. How do you reconcile these realizations?

Each path is unique, but as I have experienced it, awakening to the Love of God was absolute, effortless, bliss. My entire life changed, and spirituality was my mainstay. I no longer suffered, and believed that I would continue to see myself in God for the rest of my life, until I finally dissolved back into my ultimate nature.

Then I made the mistake of asking God to take me deeper. I sensed that seeing wasn't enough, and needed to release all of my attachments, until there was only a transparent self left. I deeply wanted the light of God to fill me completely, knowing that this light would entirely reveal the illusory idea of me.

Be careful what you ask for ? It was through grace that I first saw God, and through a deeper grace that I was no longer able to see. Again, my entire life changed. I fell into a horrific void, where the God that I had seen was no longer present. The suffering that I experienced before seeing God was nothing compared to this. It is worse to feel the love of God, and be forsaken, than not to feel it in the first place.

I now realize that this was the most loving gift God could have given me. It has deepened my awareness of the emptiness of the self, and stoked a desperate fire of desire for the love of God. I see that I am literally nothing without God, and am more prepared to let go of this I, and return to the ultimate state of my true nature.

I call it God intentionally, because it has been a deeply spiritual journey, and the divinity of it cannot be denied. I have been contemplating, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross (the Mirabai Starr translation and commentary are beautiful). For anyone going through something similar, this is required reading.

St. John was captured by the friars of the established church, and interrogated and tortured. They imprisoned him in a tiny closet that had previously served as a toilet. He suffered near starvation, brutal cold in the winter, and stifling heat in the summer. After 9 months, his clothes began to rot on his body. It was in this state, where he felt utterly abandoned by God, that he composed "Dark Night of the Soul".

My suffering is nothing compared to his, but I have found deep inspiration in his words. My favorite verses from Songs of the Soul:

with his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.

I lost myself. Forgot myself.
I lay my face against the Beloved's face.
Everything fell away and I left myself behind,
Abandoning my cares
Among the lilies, forgotten.

I hope this is helpful for anyone else going through a similar experience.

[Adodd]

On 10/23/2021 at 0:39 AM, Godishere said:

So I just had what I would consider the most horrific experience of my entire life/construct. My first time having a "bad trip" I guess you could say. I'm left wanting absolutely nothing to do with enlightenment and spirituality. God Realization is fucking terrifying and I want my old life back. I'm feeling completely shook and terrified of psychedelics now. What to do?

 

what to do? Of you dont want to do psychedlics now than just don't do them. Or take a break. No worries. Easy peasy. ?

Edited October 25, 2021 by Adodd

[Flyboy]

@Moksha May I ask, have you moved beyond this "Nothing" stage?  It seems like this is perhaps the last step before transcending all the stages and returning to the "natural state," as some call it.  Would love to hear more about that process

[OneHandClap]

One of the scariest experiences of my life was a moment of radical solipsism on LSD, and second to that was a similar thing on DXM. Total void. Nobody else. I was Jesus, I was my mother, I was Trump, I was Hitler, I was everything and everybody entertaining myself in the vast nothing. 

Shook me up for a good few months, made it hard to function like a normal person and go to work and all that.

Then one day, I just realized that it doesn't fucking matter. At all. If you make the choice to love, all the questions disappear. The struggles cease. The answers are silent yet blindingly obvious. Love yourself, love others, love reality, love the absurdity. 

If you can learn to love hell, is it really hell? 

Anyway, these experiences were a definite reason I shifted from "all is God" to the things Flyboy is suggesting above - that is, the negation of all -isms. The primordial wisdom at the heart of Zen and Dzogchen. Nobody on the path, nowhere to go, nothing to attain. The great and boundless perfection. As long as we are clinging to any type of framework about reality/God/infinity, we are bound to suffer. True realization is beyond literally every conception and dualism we can apply (including being alone, existing, etc). 

[Moksha]

@Flyboy I'm still slogging through the night, but it's less dark than it was.  Sometimes the path takes me to a higher place, where I'm able to see the sun peeking over the horizon and feel its warmth.

God speaks to me when I need it most, and the feeling of abandonment has transformed into humility and deep gratitude for those sacred moments of reunion. When it grows dark again, I try to move forward through the suffering in silence, knowing that the darkness continues to be a transformative gift.

I am gradually moving away from my suffering self, toward the translucent self I want to be, before surrendering it entirely. I find myself pleading for God's grace more often these days, and have realized that without it I can't make any progress. After leaving religion behind, I never thought I would utter another prayer, but there you go. ?

[Flyboy]

@Moksha Hang in there!!  I've heard Ingram talk about 3rd path as the "dark night" of the macro process of awakening (which seems to roughly correlate to the I Am Nothing stage), and both Adya and Frank Yang describe the letting go of "God" as THE most difficult part of the whole path.  But, they all say it is worth it.  The night is darkest before the dawn... You are so close to freedom

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, OneHandClap said:

As long as we are clinging to any type of framework about reality/God/infinity, we are bound to suffer. True realization is beyond literally every conception and dualism we can apply (including being alone, existing, etc). 

Any idea about reality, any search, any need for something to be different creates a distortion that prevents love from flowing. The only answer is love flowing 

1 hour ago, OneHandClap said:

Then one day, I just realized that it doesn't fucking matter. At all. If you make the choice to love, all the questions disappear. The struggles cease. The answers are silent yet blindingly obvious.

That ^^ . The void is pure love . Simple and at the same time so difficult to see, the ego needs structures, hates the void, hates the love

[WonderSeeker]

@Godishere Okay, so you're scared shitless. So what? You're fucking God, you can handle it.

Look, going through what you did is one of the risks associated with this work. Really, some degree of horror and freight is mandatory upon pursuing consciousness. I know this sounds harsh, but just hang in there. You will develop one hell of a character over the coming months and years. 

On 10/23/2021 at 0:39 AM, Godishere said:

I would seriously question your intentions with awakening and ask why you are doing it in the first place. Your life is already perfection in every sense of the word and I mean that. Awakening is not this glamorous thing as it's portrayed. It's actually the last thing you want.

I don't blame you for saying this.

On 10/23/2021 at 2:42 AM, Godishere said:

It's the alone part that gets me. It's too much my ego to handle. I don't know how others have dealt with it. I see alot of people of this forum playing hide and seek with themselves. Awakened. Asleep. Awakened. Asleep. It's just so backwards though. 

Or this especially, lol. To this I would say that in the long-term awakening is cool. But in the short-term it is torturous (especially if you take a strong psychedelic which blasts you there rather quickly). Much love.

P.S. What psychedelic did you take?

[Moksha]

@Flyboy Thanks for your encouragement ? I see that there is no I, and God is just a name for ultimate reality, rather than a being. Yet, God is writing the story of this self, to itself. As God, I am already free, but the apparent self isn't fully liberated until it is dissolved. The more translucent it becomes, the more free it will be.

[OneHandClap]

24 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

@Moksha Hang in there!!  I've heard Ingram talk about 3rd path as the "dark night" of the macro process of awakening (which seems to roughly correlate to the I Am Nothing stage), and both Adya and Frank Yang describe the letting go of "God" as THE most difficult part of the whole path.  But, they all say it is worth it.  The night is darkest before the dawn... You are so close to freedom

This correlates strongly with my own experience. At a certain point, I had to let go of God as a term. It was causing more suffering than alleviating it. Spent a long time hating on Buddhism for dismantling ideas about Hindu things such as Brahman, but at the bottom of the barrel, I understood why they phrased it that way. Trying to turn reality into an entity leads to infinite intellectualization. For some, it may be a great pointer ( @Moksha, you clearly are doing wonderfully with God as an anchor term), but for many others (such as myself) it can breed some fear. All depends on personal relationships with language and conditioning

[Moksha]

@OneHandClap That was true of me as well. For a long time, I avoided God as a term because it tends to be so dogma-driven, and can reinforce identification with beliefs. Earlier in my life, I saw God as a being. Then I dropped the idea of God entirely. Now, I love God as a pointer to my ultimate nature.

During the period of bliss that I described earlier, I kept finding myself drawn toward sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. There is a joyous awe of the divine in them that I can only describe as spiritual. I don't espouse the beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, but I love the essential truths that all of them point toward.

[Carl-Richard]

At least I'm not alone in feeling this way

[Godishere]

@Breakingthewall well it's one thing to conceptualize "nothing is real" or  "everything is a construction of consciousness and mind", but the second that actually hits you(ego or not), it's horror because there is no one for you left to lean on. There is no Leo. No friend. No one. Just consciousness, infinity and apparently a fragmented ego. For example, I use to see people saying things about God and Love and think to myself "this person is not awake". Untill it hits you, YOU are not awake. There are definitely levels of "awakeness" and I'm starting to consider the possibility that maybe some of you haven't actually reached that level. Keep in mind, I have been on the spiritual journey for some years and had many trips(30 give or take) and as I've said I've awoken many times(all beautiful experiencs). On the other hand, you are all just me, so you have in that sense. How could it be any other way? God is singular and all dualities collapse and that is what I've discovered. 

Anyways, I'm back in duality now and I trust that God wouldn't show me this for no reason. Although reason seems to be dualistic so who knows. I'm gonna make some materialistic gains and work on a meditation practice untill I'm ready to surrender to God again and face this voidI resist.

 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Godishere said:

There are definitely levels of "awakeness" and I'm starting to consider the possibility that maybe some of you haven't actually reached that level. Keep in mind, I have been on the spiritual journey for some years and had many trips(30 give or take

@Moksha

Moksha sorry, i can't remove that. 

Could be that about levels, idk.  But one thing is for sure: any horror of any kind is your ego resisting. there's no more. the psychedelic dissolves your ego, but ultimately there must be a surrender of heart, without reservation. I sometimes do 5 meo (for example today, I'm doing often lately because I feel i have to do), and some times was horrible. I have already taken the measure, I go little by little and listen to the signals, sometimes the signals were no, and for lack of humility, big shot. there are no words. other times I see that yes, it will happen gently, without resistance. then yes. the good? I already know that a horrible realization is my ego resisting. it is quite simple: no ego, no pain

Edited October 25, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[RMQualtrough]

8 hours ago, CuriousityIsKey said:

Exactly. The QUESTION is then, Is there a part of you that is not the human -self ? In other words is there any part of you that will move on?

Well nothing of the self at all is carried forward. As in there's as much you in you as there was in a Brontosaurus millions of years ago, and as much as is in me right now as we speak...

[OneHandClap]

19 hours ago, Moksha said:

@OneHandClap That was true of me as well. For a long time, I avoided God as a term because it tends to be so dogma-driven, and can reinforce identification with beliefs. Earlier in my life, I saw God as a being. Then I dropped the idea of God entirely. Now, I love God as a pointer to my ultimate nature.

During the period of bliss that I described earlier, I kept finding myself drawn toward sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. There is a joyous awe of the divine in them that I can only describe as spiritual. I don't espouse the beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, but I love the essential truths that all of them point toward.

Beautiful! I started with the gitas and loved them, but nowadays find a lot of solace in Dzogchen teachings and Buddhist methods in general. They're all just words anyway - points to reality itself. Many paths for many mind-streams. I am so grateful you found something that pulls you toward the Source. May all beings be happy

[Moksha]

1 hour ago, OneHandClap said:

Beautiful! I started with the gitas and loved them, but nowadays find a lot of solace in Dzogchen teachings and Buddhist methods in general. They're all just words anyway - points to reality itself. Many paths for many mind-streams. I am so grateful you found something that pulls you toward the Source. May all beings be happy

I started with the Gita, but have since found a lot of wisdom in the Dhammapada. I agree that spiritual writings are merely pointers, rather than direct channels to truth. What I find beautiful about them is that regardless of tradition, they speak to the same ultimate reality. As Aldous Huxley summarized in the Perennial Philosophy:

The Perennial Philosophy appears in every age and civilization:

• There is an infinite, changeless reality beneath the world of change
• This same reality lies at the core of every personality
• The purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially, that is, to realize God while here on earth

Amen! May all beings be happy, especially realizing that our ultimate nature is beyond the apparent separateness of form. The more clearly we see this, the less identified we are with form, and the brighter the light of our true nature shines within.

[Nahm]

?

(No catch)

I think there’s a little added conditioning in the from of conjecture, specifically solipsism & spiritual ego, but there’s no catch. This is your dream, perfection made manifest, and if you desire, want, need, or even have the slightest inkling for someone to lean on - here we are Dude.