What is Leo's main shtick really about? Psychonautics vs. Spirituality

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, OBEler said:

@Carl-Richard Ok then how many time do you meditate? Maybe you are very rare

After my first awakening, I stabilized in a habit of 45 min - 1.5 hrs seated meditation (all in one sitting) every day for 3 years, amounting to around 1000 hours, until I had to quit because I started having fully spontaneous awakenings which scared the shit out of me. I've had spontaneous awakenings many times before that (for example while sitting on the bus, or while walking), but by fully spontaneous, I mean that I would be actively doing something which involves the mind (like engaging in an university lecture) and my mind would tell me that I'm dying. At that point, it feels like there is no escape, and it felt like that for 2 years even after quitting meditation.

 

1 hour ago, OBEler said:

Psychedelics have more to offer than visuals. I mean the consciousness, energy state you are in can last for days

I know what psychedelics can offer. I was hammering home the point that psychedelics have a very different metabolic signature than your brain at rest. If your default state has truly integrated the psychedelic state, you should expect to experience things like visuals.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, amanen said:

I will never understand why people do not just use the most efficient and strongest tools (psychedelics) at their disposal, instead insisting in doing some traditional way, it just seems inefficient.

This is like conflating physical strength with physical health.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Consilience said:

I used to agree with this sentiment. Meditation + psychedelics are the way to go. And I think for beginner practitioners I do still generally agree with this stance. But the last handful of trips I've done have pretty noticeably disrupted momentum with meditation. They've created these microscopic fluctuations in the quality of my attention and created what could be described as small yet detectable rips in my energy body, energy just doesn't flow as harmoniously a week post trip compared to what I'm leading into the trip with. Because of all of the retreats I've done, my sensitivity to the energy body and mind are way way way higher than when I first began using psychedelics, which is probably why I'm able to see these disruptions now vs. then.

However, because of the highly deconstructive nature of psychedelic experiences, I still think they are incredibly useful for most beginners and because of the immense power they have for working through healing, emotional blockages and even energy blockages, I still think they are incredibly useful. In fact, I personally think mainstream psychedelic usage will be a necessity for humanity to confront the growing number of existential threats facing the planet. Collectively, we need something more powerful than meditation to snap us out of our delusion. 

That all being said, for advanced meditation practitioners who have experienced God many times, who have faced death many times on psychedelics, the work becomes about rewiring the default state of mind to merge with the absolute nature of God's mind. Meditation does this, particularly when one has the vast understanding from prior psychedelic usage, a kind of energetic vision of where the path leads. But ultimately the rewiring process takes place at supra-subtle levels of mind that simply cannot be accessed via psychedelics due to their overwhelming power and intensity, as well as their transitory quality. The microcosmic changes meditation produces simply are not produced from psychedelics, but these changes are required to transform the meditator's mind into again, the mind of God. 

Because this process of slowly transforming the mind is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. Occasional usage I think would have benefit. Perhaps once every 4 - 12 months. Psychedelics are also useful litmus tests for how strong one's practice is. If you can't remain clear while reality is crumbling around you, is your practice really that strong? However again, because the process of rewiring the mind from the unconscious to the conscious is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity all of which frequent or even infrequent use of psychedelics can disrupt, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. This is most likely why teachers are against their usage. 

The consequences of psychedelics on the energy body and ability for the mind to access subtle aspects of itself while in the sober state is not very well understood in the west. All of this being said, I am still a proponent of their use, especially for noobies, especially in the context of healing, and even more so in the context of existential risk. 

Great post. a good article. perhaps the time is coming for modern masters, serious meditators who are not afraid of psychedelics. as a suggestion, since you are in this with everything, I would consider 5 meo.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Arthogaan said:

Not acknowledging that psychedelics are extremely helpful and are beyond what meditation is capable of is like saying that you do not need telescopes to explore the night sky because you can just train your eye.

Nobody is doing that.

[Adamq8]

1 hour ago, Consilience said:

I used to agree with this sentiment. Meditation + psychedelics are the way to go. And I think for beginner practitioners I do still generally agree with this stance. But the last handful of trips I've done have pretty noticeably disrupted momentum with meditation. They've created these microscopic fluctuations in the quality of my attention and created what could be described as small yet detectable rips in my energy body, energy just doesn't flow as harmoniously a week post trip compared to what I'm leading into the trip with. Because of all of the retreats I've done, my sensitivity to the energy body and mind are way way way higher than when I first began using psychedelics, which is probably why I'm able to see these disruptions now vs. then.

However, because of the highly deconstructive nature of psychedelic experiences, I still think they are incredibly useful for most beginners and because of the immense power they have for working through healing, emotional blockages and even energy blockages, I still think they are incredibly useful. In fact, I personally think mainstream psychedelic usage will be a necessity for humanity to confront the growing number of existential threats facing the planet. Collectively, we need something more powerful than meditation to snap us out of our delusion. 

That all being said, for advanced meditation practitioners who have experienced God many times, who have faced death many times on psychedelics, the work becomes about rewiring the default state of mind to merge with the absolute nature of God's mind. Meditation does this, particularly when one has the vast understanding from prior psychedelic usage, a kind of energetic vision of where the path leads. But ultimately the rewiring process takes place at supra-subtle levels of mind that simply cannot be accessed via psychedelics due to their overwhelming power and intensity, as well as their transitory quality. The microcosmic changes meditation produces simply are not produced from psychedelics, but these changes are required to transform the meditator's mind into again, the mind of God. 

Because this process of slowly transforming the mind is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. Occasional usage I think would have benefit. Perhaps once every 4 - 12 months. Psychedelics are also useful litmus tests for how strong one's practice is. If you can't remain clear while reality is crumbling around you, is your practice really that strong? However again, because the process of rewiring the mind from the unconscious to the conscious is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity all of which frequent or even infrequent use of psychedelics can disrupt, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. This is most likely why teachers are against their usage. 

The consequences of psychedelics on the energy body and ability for the mind to access subtle aspects of itself while in the sober state is not very well understood in the west. All of this being said, I am still a proponent of their use, especially for noobies, especially in the context of healing, and even more so in the context of existential risk. 

That was a great post and good formulations with words.

I agree both with you and @Leo Gura

I believe that psychedelics surely open one up to a direct and hard hitting insight into reality, even for people who have no clue, plenty become spiritual or religious after that kind of experience.

And meditation and contemplative prayer is also a tuning of the mind to the Mind of God so to speak, albeit through a longer process, like purification, which ultimately leads to this union with God.

Psychedelics is really good for people who is sceptical of the claims made by meditative and contemplative and religious traditions, who believes that it is delusion and pure fantasy etc.

Psychedelics is a good gateway to serious practice with meditation and through that a laborious path towards sainthood for lack of a better word, which transcends both meditation and psychedelics in my view, it is the fruit of the practices.

I also believe that @Leo Gura has gone further with the psychedelic path then any other that we know off, and perhaps he is right in what he says.

I believe the issue at hand might be that certain traditions do make metaphysical claims that is a direct contradiction towards God and Love for example, and I think that it is here the problem lies, that God is ACTUAL, pure act, and not some nihil emptiness void without divine attributes, pure existence and pure conciousness coincides and is revealed as the infinite act of God.

 

 

 

[Terell Kirby]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You think I don't see everything these Buddhists are doing?

I don't practice it because meditation practice is a dream!

Alas .. meditation is a human endeavor, God has never meditated. Nor has it taken a psychedelic.

A truly awakened Buddhist can admit Buddhism/meditation is a construction of his own Mind.

A truly awakened Psychonauts can admit his psychedelic excursions are also a construction of his own Mind.

Both can have their blindspots, which need to be acknowledged and taken seriously. Once one obtains God Realization, the method is irrelevant. Debating over this stuff is useless, yet more human / chimp games that are being played.

[Carl-Richard]

Man, I wrote this topic late at night while having a bad cold, so I apologize for those who read it early on before I fixed the maybe 20 mistakes that were in there 

EDIT: Fixed the complete lack of flow as well 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[RMQualtrough]

No schtick, just genuinely extremely high ego. Literally sky high ego. Believes more strongly in the little homunculus I character than anyone on the planet.

There's, obviously, no more of an I to become one with everything than there is a cheese sandwich to become one with everything (if the idea of a cheese sandwich is appearing). Appearance of cheese sandwich goes, appearance of I goes.

For Leo it is incredibly important that he death grip the narcy ego and not let it go away in the same way the apparently changing world does. Meaning the dude thinks that the fact of isness w.e. that would be called = some omnipresent I character. Even though the idea of the I is of course not any different to the vision of cheese sandwiches or sounds of music.

Just extreme ego.

Hence "new awakenings" monthly. Now some random Joe "Peter Ralston" is the secretly other enlightened being.

You only wake up once from a dream, to the same bed and bedroom. If you have multiple """awakenings""" into different things, then it was all total BULLSHIT. And no don't be bamboozled by idiotic excuses about infinity or use of any other excuse to try to hide the fact.

[BlessedLion]

13 hours ago, Consilience said:

Good. Will help clear things up, especially for noobies. 
 

And if experiencing radical levels of fulfillment, the divinity of the ordinary mind/state, dramatic levels of emotional wellness, and the embodiment of truth are all waste of time, well Im ready to waste this entire life away. ?

Don’t you guys see your just arguing about the same thing. If Consilence find it’s through meditation and Leo finds it through psychedelics, who gives a fug. 
 

For me personally, the two are merging. My psychedelic experiences have merged into my daily meditation practices to where the whole of existence feels like one big trip. I also live in a spiritual community and on an energetic portal of the earth so it’s a bit more trippy than you’re average place. But I can go for a walk on the beach and merge into the whole thing like I’m tripping 

[BlessedLion]

9 hours ago, Consilience said:

I used to agree with this sentiment. Meditation + psychedelics are the way to go. And I think for beginner practitioners I do still generally agree with this stance. But the last handful of trips I've done have pretty noticeably disrupted momentum with meditation. They've created these microscopic fluctuations in the quality of my attention and created what could be described as small yet detectable rips in my energy body, energy just doesn't flow as harmoniously a week post trip compared to what I'm leading into the trip with. Because of all of the retreats I've done, my sensitivity to the energy body and mind are way way way higher than when I first began using psychedelics, which is probably why I'm able to see these disruptions now vs. then.

However, because of the highly deconstructive nature of psychedelic experiences, I still think they are incredibly useful for most beginners and because of the immense power they have for working through healing, emotional blockages and even energy blockages, I still think they are incredibly useful. In fact, I personally think mainstream psychedelic usage will be a necessity for humanity to confront the growing number of existential threats facing the planet. Collectively, we need something more powerful than meditation to snap us out of our delusion. 

That all being said, for advanced meditation practitioners who have experienced God many times, who have faced death many times on psychedelics, the work becomes about rewiring the default state of mind to merge with the absolute nature of God's mind. Meditation does this, particularly when one has the vast understanding from prior psychedelic usage, a kind of energetic vision of where the path leads. But ultimately the rewiring process takes place at supra-subtle levels of mind that simply cannot be accessed via psychedelics due to their overwhelming power and intensity, as well as their transitory quality. The microcosmic changes meditation produces simply are not produced from psychedelics, but these changes are required to transform the meditator's mind into again, the mind of God. 

Because this process of slowly transforming the mind is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. Occasional usage I think would have benefit. Perhaps once every 4 - 12 months. Psychedelics are also useful litmus tests for how strong one's practice is. If you can't remain clear while reality is crumbling around you, is your practice really that strong? However again, because the process of rewiring the mind from the unconscious to the conscious is so delicate, subtle, and demands an extremely advanced attentional clarity all of which frequent or even infrequent use of psychedelics can disrupt, I am not convinced regular psychedelic usage makes sense for advanced practitioners. This is most likely why teachers are against their usage. 

The consequences of psychedelics on the energy body and ability for the mind to access subtle aspects of itself while in the sober state is not very well understood in the west. All of this being said, I am still a proponent of their use, especially for noobies, especially in the context of healing, and even more so in the context of existential risk. 

Very interesting read…

[Gesundheit2]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Waking up from all illusion is NOT natural, it's supernatural

Nature is illusion.

There is a difference between waking up from all illusion and waking up to it. You might have the latter, but you cannot have the former.

[Devin]

7 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

There is a difference between waking up from all illusion and waking up to it. You might have the latter, but you cannot have the former.

Real enlightenment is the conscious ability to fall back asleep. There's no end, "eternal life"

Edited September 29, 2022 by Devin

[Kuba Powiertowski]

Well, well, one of the more lively discussions on this forum; it's nice to watch. I don't know what to write yet, and if at all. Nevertheless, respect for all participants.

[Carl-Richard]

I'll clarify again that I was talking about a difference in intention (seeking states vs. growth), not about a difference in outcome of engaging in either modality (using psychedelics vs. meditation).

Sure, you can have the discussion about how much meditation vs. psychedelics is beneficial for whatever goal you have in mind, which is of course closely tied to what I was talking about, but also notice how many people fall into the same trap of misunderstanding the point I'm making, despite how it's a deliberate attempt to clear up a misunderstanding. Imagine then how confusing this problem that I'm addressing really is for a newbie who just arrived here.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[DocWatts]

On 9/27/2022 at 10:57 PM, Carl-Richard said:

I'm seeing way too much unnecessary confusion about many things, particularly words like awakening or enlightenment, and how it relates to things like spirituality or psychedelics. I would like to maybe present some clarity of language. One of the biggest virtues of teaching is clarity of communication, and while spirituality is in some sense doomed to fail from the start in that aspect, the way this problem is being exacerbated by conflating what I think should be treated as two separate categories is certainly not helping.

What are these two categories? One I will call "spirituality", which is familiar to most people, and the second I will call "psychonautics", which I believe is Leo's "main shtick". I said "main shtick" because it's of course not a full representation of his work, but it's certainly his main area of focus and that which he thinks makes him original. I'm also not going to criticize or devalue any of these aforementioned things. I only wish to shine light on the problem of language that is occurring between how Leo chooses to talk about his main shtick and a more collectively established area of inquiry which I call spirituality.

 

Spirituality – "growth > states"

In a nutshell: purifying and deepening your default state of consciousness.

Examples:

• Sadhguru
• Osho
• Rupert Spira
• Adyashanti
• Eckhart Tolle
• Ramana Maharshi

A very general definition of spirituality, which I'll borrow from Kenneth Pargament, is "a search for the sacred". How this is usually expressed within various spiritual traditions (from the world religions to the New-Age) is that you seek to align your life with the sacred and integrate it into yourself as a person. More importantly, when it comes to the mystical traditions and their emphasis on the direct experience of the sacred, their concern is not as much with the experiences themselves, as the potential growth one can gather from these experiences, as well as an eventual goal of merging with the sacred. In other words, the concept of a final destination (often called "Enlightenment") is generally preferred over a temporary glimpse (often called "Awakening"), and it's tied to a gradual process of refinement of yourself as a person.

 

Psychonautics – "states > growth"

In a nutshell: experiencing the highest states possible.

Examples:

• Leo Gura
• Terrence McKenna
• Martin Ball
• Psyched Substance

Psychonautics, on the other hand, refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research cabal in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychonautics

The reason I'm characterizing Leo's main shtick as "psychonautics" rather than "spirituality" is because of the emphasis on "having the experiences" vs. "integrating them"; states vs. growth. The reason I think psychonautics is largely distinct from spirituality, is that if a state is not properly integrated into yourself and made into a platform for organic growth, then it's either forgotten or outsourced to the intellect. When given the option between intellect or integration, the former is the less spiritual option.

So what is going on when Leo says "none of your gurus are awake", or "this is not God-realization", or "I have awoken to God many times"? Well, he is talking about a "temporary experiential state", with a definite start and an end, and it's induced by psychedelics. It's not the same thing as refining your "organic state" (your baseline, your default state) through other techniques like meditation. Therefore, for any of these two parties (spirituality or psychonautics) to dismiss either one as "not awake", is a category error.

Again, I'm not here to pick favorites, and I'm not going to deny the possibility of refining or deepening one's psychedelic trips over time, or of the general impact they can have on one's psyche, or the potential benefits for spiritual growth. I'm simply spelling out how I think these two things should be treated as categorically distinct. If I were Leo, I would try to make my language much more accommodating to the dominant paradigm (which I've called spirituality, and which most of his viewers have a connection to). Language does not exist in a vacuum, and language that confuses or misleads is bad use of language.

I really like this explanation. Breaking it down to different areas of emphasis is actually quite helpful.

 

[Thought Art]

@DocWatts I just think it’s too simplistic . Leo and Martin both talk about broader things in their writings/ talks.

 

Though, it’s fair as well. 
 

For me, both those things, psychonauts and spirituality fall under spirituality. 
 

Defining spirituality as “a search for the sacred”… is kinda what the psychonaut is doing. 
 

I think there are better definitions of spirituality out there I’ll share in future. I still need to read and re read his opening post. 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Thought Art

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@DocWatts I just think it’s too simplistic . Leo and Martin both talk about broader things in their writings/ talks.

You keep making the same mistake 

 

Quote

What are these two categories? One I will call "spirituality", which is familiar to most people, and the second I will call "psychonautics", which I believe is Leo's "main shtick". I said "main shtick" because it's of course not a full representation of his work, but it's certainly his main area of focus and that which he thinks makes him original.

 

[Thought Art]

@Carl-Richard I get that, and that’s YOUR categorization. Not mine.

[Carl-Richard]

11 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

For me, both those things, psychonauts and spirituality fall under spirituality. 

Defining spirituality as “a search for the sacred”… is kinda what the psychonaut is doing. 

I think there are better definitions of spirituality out there I’ll share in future. I still need to read and re read his opening post. 

You're getting stuck on the very first sentence where I present an extremely general definition in order to establish a consistent use of terms, and then you're missing the rest of topic where I'm building up to a very specific point.

I never said spirituality and psychonautics don't overlap, and I never said psychedelic experiences are not experiences of the sacred.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Thought Art]

@Carl-Richard I’ll get there brb