Deleting Your Sense of Self

[tuku747]

I am happy to share this absolutely fascinating interview by What I've Learned. Daniel Ingram goes into the levels of consciousness and claims to have achieved a persistent state of no-mind after years of meditation. Upon entering an MRI brain scanner, Daniel is found to have control over specific regions of the brain at will.

Now, moving this discussion beyond egoic judgements of "another persons" level of consciousness, I wish to point out that creating persistent changes in states of consciousness is completely possible. As we progress along this path, we shall recognize and appreciate moments of inner peace more frequently, and giving thanks and praise when we notice a thought pattern once gone unnoticed, for we have just raised our frequency of awareness.

Then, taking a nice and slow breath, we integrate this into our default state of Being.
There is only Now. There is only Breath. There is only You, basking within the infinite silence.

Everytime you notice yourself lost in thought, simply notice the thought, notice the energy or resistance in the body that the thought is stemming from, and rejoice! Rejoice for having noticed a new aspect of yourself previously unnoticed, and after give gratitude for having gained a higher perspective, gently returning to the inner silence. Thoughts are distortions of Truth. Begin to distort less by balancing the mind, and Your True, Infinite Nature shines through!

Edited December 14, 2022 by tuku747

[BipolarGrowth]

Daniel Ingram is no joke. He knows what he’s talking about and is also a pretty cool guy which is a plus. 
 

In case you’re unaware, he has his main book which is a ridiculously impressive piece of work for free here: https://www.mctb.org/

 

I’ve experienced shifts in baseline consciousness like he describes. It is very real. Frank Yang is another person who has deep experience with this same line of spiritual development. 
 

Seeing that Frees by Rob Burbea is a great book once everything in MCTB is pretty well understood that goes a bit deeper.

Edited December 13, 2022 by BipolarGrowth

[Razard86]

13 hours ago, tuku747 said:

I am happy to share this absolutely fascinating interview by What I've Learned. Daniel Ingram goes into the levels of consciousness and claims to have achieved a persistent state of no-mind after years of meditation. Upon entering an MRI brain scanner, Daniel is found to have control over specific regions of the brain at will.

Now, moving this discussion beyond egoic judgements of "another persons" level of consciousness, I wish to point out that creating persistent changes in states of consciousness is completely possible. As we progress along this path, we shall recognize and appreciate moments of inner peace more frequently, and giving thanks and praise when we notice a thought pattern once gone unnoticed, for we have just raised our frequency of awareness.

Then, taking a nice and slow breath, we integrate this into our default state of Being.
There is only Now. There is only Breath. There is only You, basking within the infinite silence.

Everytime you notice yourself lost in thought, simply notice the thought, notice the energy in the body, and rejoice! Returning to the inner silence.
Thoughts are distortions of Truth. Begin to distort less by balancing the mind, and Your True, Infinite Nature shines through!

No offense.... but what you are describing is changing the content. Enlightenment is not a persistent activity of content change. Enlightenment is jail breaking your mind. That is why deconstruction along with psychedelics is so effective. I have heard people claim that psychedelics do not work for everybody, this is false. What is true, is that everybody do not work with psychedelics. All psychedelics do is raise your awareness so you can access dissociated parts of yourself.

Then you deconstruct your entire identity until there is nothing left. Which is what death actually is. People think little ego deaths will do it for them, noooooo. You need to release all attachment completely and face complete annihilation of any attachment. THEN you escape your mental prison and you reach the peace that passes all understanding. This is simple, only the ego makes it hard. After that process, you rebuild the structure to your liking with the focus on being authentic. 

Meditation is more useful in teaching you how to direct your awareness in various ways which obviously can alter your states of consciousness. But all states of consciousness are impermanent. Enlightenment is the ability to flow through the different states without the neurotic desire to attach to any specific state. This ability is effortless, meaning it happens on autopilot. 

If structural change is not accomplished....you are just wasting your time.

[BipolarGrowth]

2 hours ago, Razard86 said:

No offense.... but what you are describing is changing the content. Enlightenment is not a persistent activity of content change. Enlightenment is jail breaking your mind. That is why deconstruction along with psychedelics is so effective. I have heard people claim that psychedelics do not work for everybody, this is false. What is true, is that everybody do not work with psychedelics. All psychedelics do is raise your awareness so you can access dissociated parts of yourself.

Then you deconstruct your entire identity until there is nothing left. Which is what death actually is. People think little ego deaths will do it for them, noooooo. You need to release all attachment completely and face complete annihilation of any attachment. THEN you escape your mental prison and you reach the peace that passes all understanding. This is simple, only the ego makes it hard. After that process, you rebuild the structure to your liking with the focus on being authentic. 

Meditation is more useful in teaching you how to direct your awareness in various ways which obviously can alter your states of consciousness. But all states of consciousness are impermanent. Enlightenment is the ability to flow through the different states without the neurotic desire to attach to any specific state. This ability is effortless, meaning it happens on autopilot. 

If structural change is not accomplished....you are just wasting your time.

You obviously have no clue about what Daniel Ingram teaches. Classic. 

[Leo Gura]

That's all fine and good, but not God-Realization.

[DrugsBunny]

@Leo Gura Honestly, isn't there a case to be made that permanent cessation of bothersome egoic identify is better than temporary glimpses into God-realization, even if those states are unspeakably good?

[Shane Hanlon]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's all fine and good, but not God-Realization.

Why is there a disconnect between highly trained meditators and God-Realization?

And also why is there no discourse between proponents of God-Realization and highly trained meditators?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, DrugsBunny said:

@Leo Gura Honestly, isn't there a case to be made that permanent cessation of bothersome egoic identify is better than temporary glimpses into God-realization, even if those states are unspeakably good?

Nothing can be better than being conscious.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Joel3102]

@Leo Gura isn’t permanently rewiring you brain to be fully present a bigger goal than short glimpses?

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

@Leo Gura isn’t permanently rewiring you brain to be fully present a bigger goal than short glimpses?

It's not a matter of duration. You are focused on the wrong factor. The most relevant factor is Consciousness. How conscious are you?

It is of little consolation to be mildly conscious permanently.

Ideally you would be highly conscious permanently, but that's a tall order to fill. You gotta start somehwere. So at least start with being highly conscious for 5 minutes so you even know what is possible.

What you ultimately want is the consciousness of God. So just pursue that and see how far you get. Meditation will still be necessary.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Leo Gura

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not a matter of duration. You are focused on the wrong factor. The most relevant factor is Consciousness. How conscious are you?

It is of little consolation to be mildly conscious permanently.

Ideally you would be highly conscious permanently, but that's a tall order to fill. You gotta start somehwere. So at least start with being highly conscious for 5 minutes so you even know what is possible.

What you ultimately want is the consciousness of God. So just pursue that and see how far you get. Meditation will still be necessary.

I’ve found that the two work together quite well. Higher baseline paves the way for higher peaks, and higher peaks pave the way for a higher baseline. Have you noticed a similar effect? I feel like enough results in one side of the equation will lead to results in the other pretty reliably given enough time and practice. 

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

I’ve found that the two work together quite well.

Yes, of course.

[axiom]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's all fine and good, but not God-Realization.

God realisation is all fine and good, but it is not enlightenment ;-)

[Godishere]

37 minutes ago, axiom said:

God realisation is all fine and good, but it is not enlightenment ;-)

Can you please elaborate. Cheers

[axiom]

2 hours ago, Godishere said:

Can you please elaborate. Cheers

God Realisation is at first a peak experience, which later on, with sufficient work (psychedelics, inquiry, meditation) can become something more like a default state ostensibly experienced by a higher Self / God. And in tandem with this process, it is overlayed with (and then becomes inextricable from) some type of understanding and conceptual framework. In essence it is a deep and endless cerebral exploration of the infinite frontier of consciousness itself.

Enlightenment is none of those things. Enlightenment is the complete end of experience, awareness and self / Self. This seems completely incoherent to a dream character. Dream characters tend to argue for their own survival (“awareness is all there is” etc)

God Realisation is a bit like living the fable of Achilles and the Tortoise. It chases infinity but can never reach it. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by axiom

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, axiom said:

God Realisation is at first a peak experience, which later on, with sufficient work (psychedelics, inquiry, meditation) can become something more like a default state ostensibly experienced by a higher Self / God. And in tandem with this process, it is overlayed with (and then becomes inextricable from) some type of understanding and conceptual framework. In essence it is a deep and endless cerebral exploration of the infinite frontier of consciousness itself.

Enlightenment is none of those things. Enlightenment is the complete end of experience, awareness and self / Self. This seems completely incoherent to a dream character. Dream characters tend to argue for their own survival (“awareness is all there is” etc)

God Realisation chases infinity but can never reach it. Indeed, how can infinity be reached? It’s like living inside the fable of Achilles and the Tortoise.

 

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

have you ever had a complete breakthrough with 5 meo? Become the absolute infinite emptiness. When you talk about God Realization, what is it according to you? god is ....depth. that is not an experience. You are the absolute nothing. void. But the void is an infinite source of... everything. Nothing=Everything=love=this moment=you. Impossible to understand, just it is. 

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Leo Gura]

Enlightenment is bullshit.

@axiom Don't you even dare to assume that you understand what I am talking about when I say God.

Daniel Ingram has not one fucking clue what God is.

Stop believing in Buddhist bullshit. It's that simple.

But you still cannot do it.

I dare you to realize that ALL of Buddhism is bullshit!

Edited December 15, 2022 by Leo Gura

[axiom]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@axiom Don't you even dare to assume that you understand what I am talking about when I say God.

Ok sure. I genuinely don't know what you're talking about when you say God. 

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I dare you to realize that ALL of Buddhism is bullshit!

This is easy. Buddhism is a story, just like everything else.

[DrugsBunny]

@Leo Gura It would be worthwhile to hear an explanation on exactly why impermanent peaks of God-realization are better than a permanent liberation from the ego-mind.

If I were given the choices to attain one for free, I would definitely pick the permanent no-self that Daniel Ingram talks about over the God peaks you discuss, but can you please explain why I'm supposedly wrong to do that?

[Leo Gura]

54 minutes ago, axiom said:

This is easy. Buddhism is a story, just like everything else.

Oh no, no, NO!

It's not that easy!

It's more merely that Buddhism is a story, it's that everything Daniel Ingram has done, acheived, and understood about relaity is fictional construct.

14 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

@Leo Gura It would be worthwhile to hear an explanation on exactly why impermanent peaks of God-realization are better than a permanent liberation from the ego-mind.

If I were given the choices to attain one for free, I would definitely pick the permanent no-self that Daniel Ingram talks about over the God peaks you discuss, but can you please explain why I'm supposedly wrong to do that?

First of all, one doesn't preclude the other, so don't create a false choice here. God-Realization includes no-self inside of it.

But more to the point, you guys keep getting hung up on permanent vs impermament, better or worse. These things are irrelevant.

All that matters is how deeply conscious are you or have you been? Do you understand what Consciousness is?

You can have whatever "permament" state but that does not mean you are deeply conscious of Consciousness.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Leo Gura