But Leo... How is it possible that no other teachers are AWAKE?

[Water by the River]

6 minutes ago, RedLine said:

It is not something that I rationally believe. It is something it is deep in my susconscious and involuntarily arise in deep sleep every 6 months or mayby 2 or 3 years. That´s also the source of my pessimism towards life that I carry since I have memory and the source of my maniac impulse to get achievements (including spirituallity) to ran away from death. I also feel that the idea of dissapear after death is the same that the idea of I don´t really exist right now, I am holding my fake self alive trough the creation of mental content all the time , it is hard to expalin. 

Here I explained the night death experience:

btw that night experience was the last I had. I did not have any again. I attribute it to my mind is less clear and entertained with regular life goals and deep existencial material is even  deeper repressed than ever 

Water by the River

 

 

[Salvijus]

@Artem 

@Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

17 minutes ago, RedLine said:

is not something that I rationally believe. It is something it is deep in my susconscious and involuntarily arise in deep sleep every 6 months or mayby 2 or 3 years. That´s also the source of my pessimism towards life

Just vape 5 meo DMT full dose 10/20 times. in the end, you'll see.

You will wake up in your room with open arms, and you will be the absolute. the door will open, and the unimaginable will manifest. infinite. you. obvious, which has always been. The control is released. Later you will forget it, but your life will have gained another light, another calm, another joy.

[Moksha]

1 hour ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

It's the difference between a visionary and a mystic. Ram Dass, when speaking about the difference between himself and Timothy Leary, said that Tim was the former while he was the latter. That always stuck with me.

Great comparison, and it is vividly illustrated in "Being Ram Dass". Both began the spiritual journey with psychedelics. Timothy Leary chose the party bus along the roller coaster of imagination, and Ram Dass realized the limitations of psychedelics and found himself within the solitude of a sangha.

I had thought of psychedelics as a spiritual path, and now he was pulling that conceptual rug out from under me. From the place of oneness where Maharaj-ji sits, psychedelics are just a fragmentary shard of a vastly deeper reality. He showed me they are a limited window, all the while reflecting back to me the deeper place of love within myself…

"These medicines were known in the Kulu Valley long ago," he said, "but yogis have forgotten about them." He said psychedelics could be useful if you took them in a quiet, cold place and your soul was turned toward God. "They allow you to come into the presence of Christ, to have darshan, but you can only stay for two hours."

It was good to visit Christ, Maraj-ji said, but it was better to be Christ. "This medicine won't do that," he continued. "It's not the true samadhi, absorption in God. Love is a much stronger medicine."

- Being Ram Dass

 

[Breakingthewall]

Just now, Moksha said:

Great comparison, and it is vividly illustrated in "Being Ram Dass". Both began the spiritual journey with psychedelics. Timothy Leary chose the party

21 minutes ago, RedLine said:

 

Leary is not an example of anything, his mystical leanings are entirely superficial. just hedonism, nothing more

[Water by the River]

8 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

@Artem 

@Leo Gura

 

.  Sorry.

Selling Water by the River

[Adrian colby]

9 hours ago, Artem said:

 

A healthy mind doesn't dissociate and doesn't produce delirium, only the ego dissociates and produces delirium.

No. I will not be psychologically affected by a bottle of vodka, alcohol does not affect me psychologically. I will only be physically affected.

What you call "human self" I call "ego". Ego is very fragile and malleable, this is true. My mind is not fragile, I understand that yours is, but you don't get to speak for other people.

 

I get what you are saying. I experience more or less in the same way. Substances don’t force me into altered states so I don’t ever get fantasy and colour. What they do is subdue my body so I can do conscious work. The same with alchohol. It doesn’t affect my mind. It just subdues my body and allows my mind to be more free to explore without the distraction of the bodies sensations. I am making a guess but it might be to do with how well you can stop the process of thinking and how good of a command you have over when and how you use the thought process. Like you say, one is the ego and the other is awareness. It depends which one is in control or the master. People who are still identified with their thoughts have no control over them so taking a substance or getting drunk leaves them in a state where their thoughts run rampant, create visualisations or leave them unable to filter what they say or do.

with alchohol I may slur my words because my bodies motor functions are effected but what I say is more coherent than usual because I’ve been able to use it to become a more pure mind than body.

I don’t drink but just got drunk a few times to experiment with my conscious state. It’s similar to psychedelics. I’ve trained my mind to be quiet and focused. No visuals occur unless I deliberately ‘create’ them. Most of my psychedelic experience is black with no visuals but I get my insights in a formless manner. I can go through a whole contemplation without visualising anything but just getting impressions. 

if you do much consciousness work like developing your mind without substance use, I personally find that things like substances and binaural beats etc become a hinderence like they were just training wheels. 
 

I’ve lately found that I can relax enough to switch the body into a sleep while keeping the mind awake but quiet and my reality dissolves into what could best be described as a warm white light experience similar to 5MeO. I’m currently exploring the realities that form beyond that but it takes allot of balance between concentration and absolute calmness. Not easy.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

@Moksha

Nice excerpts, thanks for sharing. I love me some Ram Dass.

[Moksha]

7 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Leary is not an example of anything, his mystical leanings are entirely superficial. just hedonism, nothing more

And Ram Dass?

[Breakingthewall]

18 minutes ago, Moksha said:

They allow you to come into the presence of Christ, to have darshan, but you can only stay for two hours."

Well, that's a total difference. 99.99% of those who try to open up to reality, without psychedelics will never achieve anything. with them, most just glimpses, and perhaps some the full openness full time. but glimpses and total openess for 1 minute, not two hours, is huge compared to nothing

Edited July 13, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[CARDOZZO]

What do you guys think about Andrew R Gallimore & Terence McKenna?

[Breakingthewall]

34 minutes ago, Moksha said:

And Ram Dass?

I haven't read ram Dass, just fragments. I guess he's interesting. but something tells me that his opening is limited.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Moksha]

9 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I haven't read ram Dass, just fragments. I guess he's interesting. but something tells me that his opening is limited.

According to him, you're right. The opening he experienced through psychedelics was limited, but once he moved beyond psychedelics, he realized a profoundly deeper connection to truth. The same was observed by Aldous Huxley and others.

You could argue that pyschedelics are more powerful now, but I feel there is an underlying pattern. Psychedelics can show you that reality is not what it seems, but only briefly and then they become a memory. As Ram Dass said, you can become god for 2 hours or perpetually become god. Integration is the most powerful medicine.

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, Moksha said:

According to him, you're right. The opening he experienced through psychedelics was limited, but once he moved beyond psychedelics, he realized a profoundly deeper connection to truth. The same was observed by Aldous Huxley and others.

You could argue that pyschedelics are more powerful now, but I feel there is an underlying pattern. Psychedelics can show you that reality is not what it seems, but only briefly and then they become a memory. As Ram Dass said, you can become god for 2 hours or perpetually become god. Integration is the most powerful medicine.

Huxley also had a limited opening, with and without psychedelics. there are very few people who have really intended to get to the bottom of psychedelics and who have the intelligence to not get lost along the way. It has to be someone who meets certain conditions, which basically means being born for this. we will see

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Salvijus said:

@Artem 

@Leo Gura

KO in 1 round. Leo better throw in the towel before starting and admit that maybe, well, things were not as he thought. but who knows, we'll see

[Moksha]

17 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Huxley also had a limited opening, with and without psychedelics. there are very few people who have really intended to get to the bottom of psychedelics and who have the intelligence to not get lost along the way. It has to be someone who meets certain conditions, which basically means being born for this. we will see

Do you see how this becomes a disprovable hypothesis? Psychedelics must produce the deepest awakenings. If they don't, the psychedelics weren't powerful enough, or the person had incompatible genetics, or they weren't intelligent or sincere enough. There is literally an excuse for every false outcome, therefore the hypothesis becomes meaningless.

The same trap is true for people that claim profound insights on psychedelics. How can you prove they aren't deluded, or outright lying? I provided recent research suggesting that the insights gained on pyschedelics are sometimes demonstrably false, no matter how sincerely the person believes them to be true. Worse, for insights that can't be disproven, how do you know they aren't made up?

I have yet to see a credible example of someone who took psychedelics exclusively and learned to live in lucid peace and love, free from suffering. Instead, I've seen a multitude of examples of people who try the most intense psychedelics for years, and despite claiming increasingly bizarre realizations, never learn to perpetually keep the portal open. Leo certainly hasn't. His realizations are only as good as his next trip, and they constantly change. What does that tell you about the staying power of psychedelics?

[Adrian colby]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

All this means is that you have insanely high tolerance and psychdelics do not work with your genetics and metabolism. This does NOT mean that you are somehow more conscious than psychdelics.

I’m not so sure… having watched many people come and go from ceremonies dealing with trauma and ego related issues over and over without resolving anything, I’ve noticed that some people use a substance with the expectation that it is going to fix or heal them (thinking it’s showing them the truth when all they are seeing is a reflection of their own subconscious). They never go away and do the hard work of actually changing their thought process or behaviors. They never bother to stop and observe their own minds or free themselves up from this perpetual victim, self indulged mindset. It’s an endless loop and they never move on. 
 

 Other people who approach substance use as a tool to help observe themselves and how their mind constructs the reality they experience or who are actively ‘seeking’ and discovering the nature of reality, deconstructing reality and getting to know how consciousness works prior to ever taking a substance… of course their ‘traumas’ do arise and they have to deal with them but they seem to get over that phase much quicker and go on to more coherent consciousness exploration ( more possibility opens up including deeper insights and I’m aware you know all of this as you approached it in the same way as part of a toolset for an already existing search for absolute truth). People like this often don’t have bad trips or extremely few( difficult or intense as opposed to terrifying). They are often fairly good at silencing their minds, they often don’t get visuals rather get formless impressions that fuel their insights and spend a lot of time contemplating and integrating and observing daily activities in the same manner.

I don’t think @artems disposition is related to genetics as he’s previously said he’s had psychedelic experiences that are just the same as everyone else’s in the beginning but that there has been a point at which it has changed. I would have been the same so it’s not genetic.

Tolerance? I would have thought that to build up a tolerance to substances, I would have had to use them either fairly regularly or over a long period of time. I’ve had the usual ‘trip’ that anyone else would have in the beginning but there was a point that it changed for me too. The dose doesn’t seem to matter whether it is high or low. And the type of substance no longer matters either. They all can be used to induce the same experiences. As time has gone on I’ve become more sensitive with smaller doses not less sensitive. I’ve also started having those experiences without substances and during a long period of time where I haven’t taken anything in over a year so it’s unlikely it’s a reactivation. I can be in an intense immersive experience surrounded by chaos and colour/ fractals or I can focus my mind and bring myself back into the room as if sober just like @artem described. It doesn’t mean we are more conscious than psychedelics. It means that consciousness has the ability to do that when it is not so rigidly bound within its mind ( or beliefs) and has a better command over itself( more focused).  Eventually reality begins to resemble the trip and insights come directly from observing it. it is, after all consciousness communicating with itself. Everything becomes a metaphor for its own understanding within its own hall of mirrors.

dissolving reality ( the relative) and exploring other realities ( albeit less finite) is something I’ve taken interest in recently. It’s not something that I would have perused because I didn’t believe in it. However, after coming face to face with what consciousness was and was capable of (with the help of psychedelics) I decided not to dismiss it until I had experimented with the possibility and it eventually happened. It wasn’t what people had described it to be but I had finally experienced it from start to finish without loosing consciousness and understood it from direct experience. Doing it without a substance is not easy at all and often very frustrating but it’s something I want to pursue now that I know it is possible.

I maybe mistaken in what @ Artem is saying or even what you’re saying but from what I’m reading of his experiences, I’m finding similarity with my own. I wouldn’t dismiss it, I’d explore it further.

[OldManCorcoran]

@Adrian colby

IMO it's just magical thinking. There is of course one primary truth of total oneness, Brahman, whatever term. Always whole, never changing, only the forms it appears as change.

A human claiming they the person have the power to override brain chemistry is I think probably BS. If you open ANYONE'S skull, even Buddha, Jesus, Leo, whoever you choose, and directly stimulate the part of the brain responsible for any given reaction, such as fear, then you will cause that reaction.

I'm very skeptical otherwise. It becomes kind of dualistic in approach, that mind and matter are two SUBSTANTIALLY different things which means your mind can ignore whatever material thing is happening. It could be true but I don't believe in it. And Sadghuru cannot levitate either.

[BojackHorseman]

On 12/07/2023 at 9:35 PM, Leo Gura said:

It should not be so surprising that the sober human mind is very limited no matter how hard it tries. You just cannot overcome your chemical limits through hard work.

Ok. But then are we meant to overcome it?

At some point I believe you said to someone that God gave us the body we need and that trying to grow bigger muscles or something was not needed? Or something like that. What's the difference?

And even without that example, why are we trying to break a machine that doesn't seem to be made for such knowledge and states of consciousness in the first place?

 

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

@Artem 

he doesn't say that. He says that they worked on him when he had an ego, and now that he doesn't, they no longer affect him. nothing genetic

Sorry, I don't buy this is at all. That's not how psychedelics work.

The consciousness-raising power of psychedelics has nothing to do with ego. Even if you had no ego to begin with psychedelics would still raise your consciousness (assuming your got a normal genetics and metabolism). You could give psychedelics to a baboon and it will raise his consciousness.

And NOBODY here is walking around in a default state of 5-MeO-DMT consciousness. NOBODY! Don't bullshit yourselves.

4 hours ago, 112233 said:

@Leo Gura How about you stop trying to explain it and instead delineate the specific protocols used to access such a level? The drug, the dosage, the route of administration, a word on harm reduction, etc.? I understand these variables will vary widely depending on the individual. Simply sharing what you have been doing yourself would be of great use to the community.

That's what the course is about.

4 hours ago, VictorB02 said:

@Leo Gura if you could have spent less time on some things and more time on others, in regards to pursuing awakening, what would those be? I'm thinking stuff like meditation, breath work, retreats, psychedelics, etc..

I wasted an enormous about of time on self-inquiry and taking various enlightenment teachers too seriously. Wasted a lot of time doubting myself too much.

Quote

Do you think your path had a pretty natural arch or do you wish you would've spent, let's say, way less time meditating? Just curious what your thoughts are now looking back and how you would do it differently if you had another try. 

My path was pretty natural. Whatever that means.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Leo Gura