I Asked Peter Ralston About Psychedelics, Here Is His Response...

[Breakingthewall]

33 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Well, apparently every being is free to hug the spokes of the wheel of Samsara the egoic self-contraction, declare it God (and not contained within God), and affirm its inherent nature of suffering as the only spiritual goal possible, declaring that un-Truth as summum bonum. Well done, I know a gentlemen with style that would be proud of that....

here is something in which I do not agree and that for me is the deception of Buddhism. I agree with Leo that Buddhism is false, I wanted him to say exactly why he thinks it is false but he didn't say it. I tell you why I think it is false and where I see the error in your line of thought (imo). For you there is a samsara, maya, from which you have to scape to enter the bliss of true nature. the principle of Buddhism: the end of suffering. moksha would agree with you. there is none of this, that implies a duality that is not real, it is illusory and that is why enlightenment and Buddhism are illusory. there are only states of consciousness, and all states are the absolute. hence we call it "absolute". There is nothing else. suffering and bliss are the same, they are different states of what you are. spiritual work is not escaping from the wheel of samsara, there is no such thing. It is to deepen in the now, in you, to the maximum, for the beauty that this implies. enlightenment=to reach a goal is falsehood. there is no goal, this is self-limiting, and that is the error of Buddhism, which categorizes the state of being as Buddha or non-Buddha. Buddha is a myth . only one state deeper than others but not maximally deep because depth has no bottom 

what is real is the ability to free yourself at will from the logical conceptual mind, understanding what this mind is. there is nothing mystical about it, or rather, everything is mystical, including the conceptual mind. everything is existence and what we do is to be conscious of ourselves. without renouncing to suffering, because we are configured as humans now and suffering is human

Edited August 4, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

5 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I agree with Leo that Buddhism is false, I wanted him to say exactly why he thinks it is false but he didn't say it.

funny, hm?

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I tell you why I think it is false and where I see the error in your line of thought. For you there is a samsara, maya, from which you have to scape to enter the bliss of true nature. the principle of Buddhism: the end of suffering. moksha would agree with you. there is none of this, that implies a duality that is not real, it is illusory and that is why enlightenment and Buddhism are illusory. 

When you hit yourself with a hammer on the knee that is also illusory. Same as with the separate-self that you mostly consider yourself to be during everday life (at least I assume). It hurts (not all the time, but regularly), and if you don't know how to switch that off and release the self-contraction, you are going to suffer. Illusion yes, but suffering.

 

8 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

 suffering and bliss are the same, they are different states of what you are. 

yes. And? You prefer the suffering over the bliss?

9 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

spiritual work is not escaping from the wheel of samsara, there is no such thing. 

Oh yes there is.

It feels quite similiar what you get when to go for a trip. Except one doesn't need the psychedelic then. Dissolving the self-contraction/duality/suffering with on-board-devices, independend of the 5-MeO or whatever, and having a blissfull nondual state of infinite release. The visual field turning into mere appearance/clear light "hovering" in infinite consciousness. Ones true being, right here, right now. No more clouds of ignorance/self-contraction.

The suffering IS the mechanism that never lets the separate-self or self-contraction stop seeking and suffering until it is dissolved in its True Being.

14 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

there is no such thing. It is to deepen in the now, in you, to the maximum, for the beauty that this implies.

After doing that long enough, there is a deep switching point of identity and access to this flow of bliss. Its called Full Enlightenment. Look forward to it! That is actually way better news of your(!) Potential than anything you wrote of in your post. It is your own potential, your True Nature. I am not telling you to do anything different (as practice) than what you are doing right now, but just consider to stop declaring heaven inexistent. You know, its a grave sin listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church to declare heaven non-existant 

Water by the River

[Michal__]

While I'm not a Buddhist and I personally do a mix of Leo's methods, heavy meditation and other methods I think it's important to note that Buddhists are not into stopping thinking at all! No serious Buddhist actually claims that!

They want to remove all emotional resistance from thinking/seperate thoughts and emotions from the rest of sensory experience.

Even those "masters" that claim not to think eventually admit that it's actually more accurate to call it "thinking not thinking" - taking non identification as far as possible 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Michal__

[Breakingthewall]

21 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

but just consider to stop declaring heaven inexistent.

I declare just the opposite. Suffering is the heaven. Existence is.  

there is a thin nuance to what we are trying to express. maybe it's the same. I understand what you are saying about the contraction. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

8 minutes ago, Michal__ said:

While I'm not a Buddhist and I personally do a mix of Leo's methods, heavy meditation and other methods I think it's important to note that Buddhists are not into stopping thinking at all! No serious Buddhist actually claims that!

They want to remove all emotional resistance from thinking/seperate thoughts and emotions from the rest of sensory experience.

Even those "masters" that claim not to think eventually admit that it's actually more accurate to call it "thinking not thinking" - taking non identification as far as possible 

Yes. As a very experienced meditator with longterm-practice and seasoned in Awakening one can do two things

a) completely shut off the thought-flow: A high-speed cut-off at the beginning stage of a thought-emergence. The thought doesn't look like a thought in this earliest emergence phase of it, more like a ripening "seed" that is cut off. Lots of training until that point... And to continue that high-speed-cutoff of emerging thought "capsules" can stop the thought-flow completely. Until having had it, hard to imagine.

b) second, and much more important: Staying lucid while thinking, "riding" with ones awareness on the thought-stream. Pretty impossible to describe, stems partly from the ability to do a) . That skill allows to carry the meditation/awareness into daily life.

It also causes (due to its momentum in daily life more so than a), since one cant act/work without a thought flow running) the Awakened States of nonduality/one with the visual field, mere appearance (solidity of visual field removed), timelessness (time is imagined right here in THAT), boundlessness (any limit would be imagined in THAT. All of the states that psychedelics also cause. But "without the pill".

And it also it cuts the separate-self-contraction in the head which just dissolves, opening up a flow of bliss that is so strong to just overpower the suffering that the remaining separate-self tends to cause in cycles.

These are "hard" states of consciousness, not some wishful thinking or some soft states.

The separate-self/ego main-building block is regular suffering/being unsatisfied, rejecting or wanting something that is not present in that state, seeking it, getting it or not getting it, and suffering again. 

Water by the River

[Water by the River]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I declare just the opposite. Suffering is the heaven. Existence is.  

Reminds me of a joke:

A guy dies and is sent to hell. Extremely frightened because of that, he is very surprised when he arrives; beach, palm trees, sun is shining, happy people around in shorts and bikinis. Behind the next corner there are people eating great food and there's some cool music playing. After some time of wondering, a man in an expensive suit approaches him and says: "Hi, you must be the new one. Welcome to hell, I'm the devil. As you're gonna spend eternity here, make yourself comfortable and have a drink. If anything bothers you, always feel free to ask me." The guy still doesn't really understand what's going on, this is not what he expected. But finally he decides to inspect the area. Everywhere he goes, there are people laughing and having a great time, there's games, party and fun all around. Then he arrives at a steep cliff that divides the paradise hell from an area underneath, and there is hell as we know it: demons torturing the doomed, there's fire and the smell of brimstone. Shocked, he runs to the devil and says "Devil, how can that be? Here, we have the sweet eternity and down there people are tortured and burned! How can that be?!" The devil laughs and says "Oh, that. That's the Catholics - they want it that way."

5 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

there is a thin nuance to what we are trying to express. maybe it's the same.

Yes. Anyway, no big disagreements. You are on the path, which is all that counts. I am just making commercials of the lovely holiday-destination soon to be reached, so to say.

9 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I understand what you are saying about the contraction

And understanding that is extremly valueable. The contraction that kicks in shortly before fully waking up while slumbering, if you ever had that kind of experience. It is a very real and feelable contraction in the head, that at least I couldn't dissolve when I first started noticing it while waking up. It is that contraction that evaporates into/"becoming" the visual field/Infinity when nondual awakened states start to begin/kick in.

And when that contraction/self-contraction is dissolved during waking-life, suffering is just not more possible. Vast spacious tension-free Suchness of Reality, no thought-arising "gripping". It is that what one searches in every experience one normally seeks.

It is that self-contraction/localization (often in the head) that psychedelics tend to blast away, among doing other stuff also.

Imagine you could do that with just cutting your thought-stream and staying "on-top" of it, watching it (the thought stream) spool down in you, but not "gripping" "you". That is a wonderful relief, physically and energetically felt in the body. It is not escapism, its an additional degree of freedom to live ones life from that state.

That is not the end of the story, a subtle identity (althought non-localized) is still left-over after this point, but here its starts to get really lovely.

Selling Water by the River

 

[UnbornTao]

On 8/3/2023 at 0:59 PM, Buck Edwards said:

@Carl-Richard @UnbornTao you both are confusing me. One says spiritual process. The other says direct. How does enlightenment happen? I'm screwed at this point. Mindfuck. 

 

When it comes to enlightenment -- becoming directly conscious of your true nature -- there's no process involved because the consciousness that's required is absolute. It is direct, similar to waking up from a dream. You wake up by waking up, no matter what worthy things are done within the dream.

I'm not talking about transformation, which includes giving up attachments, building a more effective self, healing, improving vitality, etc. Since these are relative they must invariably come about as the result of a process.

Enlightenment is what happens while you're contemplating.   And enlightenment is true now. You become conscious of it. That's ultimately the only way. The mind can be focused and disciplined but no method will produce such consciousness, it is an impossibility. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Michal__]

19 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Yes. As a very experienced meditator with longterm-practice and seasoned in Awakening one can do two things

a) completely shut off the thought-flow: A high-speed cut-off at the beginning stage of a thought-emergence. The thought doesn't look like a thought in this earliest emergence phase of it, more like a ripening "seed" that is cut off. Lots of training until that point... And to continue that high-speed-cutoff of emerging thought "capsules" can stop the thought-flow completely. Until having had it, hard to imagine.

b) second, and much more important: Staying lucid while thinking, "riding" with ones awareness on the thought-stream. Pretty impossible to describe, stems partly from the ability to do a) . That skill allows to carry the meditation/awareness into daily life.

It also causes (due to its momentum in daily life more so than a), since one cant act/work without a thought flow running) the Awakened States of nonduality/one with the visual field, mere appearance (solidity of visual field removed), timelessness (time is imagined right here in THAT), boundlessness (any limit would be imagined in THAT. All of the states that psychedelics also cause. But "without the pill".

And it also it cuts the separate-self-contraction in the head which just dissolves, opening up a flow of bliss that is so strong to just overpower the suffering that the remaining separate-self tends to cause in cycles.

These are "hard" states of consciousness, not some wishful thinking or some soft states.

The separate-self/ego main-building block is regular suffering/being unsatisfied, rejecting or wanting something that is not present in that state, seeking it, getting it or not getting it, and suffering again. 

Water by the River

You can "see" what's outside of thoughts by having cessations. 

You might have experienced that.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Michal__

[ValiantSalvatore]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I have no idea what this means.

With that I meant the general classifications that exist within buddhism about re-birth and beign an once-retuner, arhat stream enterer etc. That these stats of consciouness stay upon death similar to when your body deteriorating deep down the state of consciouness is still there, even if it is overriden with pain etc. As far as I retrace the info correctly. (Similar to stories of Wilber turning of his brain waves & Shinzen not taking his medicine because of his thyroid issue) 

That is what I mean in that sense the cycle of re-birth and consciouness infused with structure-stages and the growth into these. I also recall correctly that you mentioned retreats, solo retreats & etc. can produce mini god-consciouness & or alien consciouness experiences, I don't know if there is a distinction between the two generally speaking it's pretty difficult in this technical area to have any clarity. I am pretty sure it was mentioned in the context of god-consciouness/realization I am still pretty much down to do the normal path and spice it up with psychdelic usage, the research & science of this convinced me that it's a super valid and under used tool, it's just not easy and in fact extremely difficult to navigate this space imo. 
There are plenty of things like even dark room retreats that produce DMT, that should make the use "mechanics" of DMT etc. a valid reference point for conscious experiences. I also presume society is more ready for it generally speaking otherwise we would not have the techno & psychdelic scene rising. 

Considering re-birth and what is written about it, if I recall correctly the ordinary path is already great. I'll legit would need to take a vacay to consume your content seriously just to get the patch download of the recent version, it's not easy to follow someone who works hard. Hope you're not to upset about this would be cool if there is a video about deconstructing buddhism similar to science, that would really fit the channel and might create a better comprehension of what you're teaching. As it's heavily psychdelic oriented and maybe retreats? It's a little confusing as on what to do practically besides psychdelics & thinking / self-inquiry type of exercises. 

Just read you blog post, hope you're doing well recovering! Wish you the best & a lot of rest! ❤️

Edited August 4, 2023 by ValiantSalvatore

[Water by the River]

4 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

@Leo Gura

You're holding enlightenment as a "thing" (relative), that is presumably mediated by brain chemistry. If it's absolute, it isn't a thing. Do you think enlightenment "happens" when the right chemicals are in place? Is enlightenment lost after the "right" chemicals change? You may be talking about a change in state, which is always temporary.

His work is also aimed at understanding the relative domain -- transformation, healing, empowerment. Peter isn't saying that certain activities can't help or that they're useless, but that nothing produces direct consciousness but you.

Exactly, he's saying just that: nothing -- no activity, process, method or accomplishment -- can take you to the absolute because enlightenment isn't relative nor is it a process. Nothing done within a dream can wake you up. Best you can do is contemplate with the intent to make a leap in consciousness which is always direct.

The point is that the brain, genetics, methods are irrelevant here. By that logic a certain brain chemistry has to occur before awakening happens. There's no such thing as requisites to awakening except you becoming conscious.

Yes. All there is is Suchness, or Consciousness. Nondual. "IT" is also the only consciousness "thing" that can perceive anything. Since there is only "itself" (all appearances, every world/dimension), It can only perceive "itself". Normally as an "other", not nondual.

But that also means, since "it" is the only consciousness "thing" there is: "It" can only understand itself. There is nothing else.

 

"Enlightenment is an accident. Practice makes accident prone.":

We can call that "accident" of Enlightenment whatever we want: IT/Absolute is also infinitely intelligent, and an infinite network of perspectives/holons within Indras Net has to align/"approve"/whatever before ones perspective (the sentient being/you) understands/gets what "It" is ("Full Enlightenment").

There is nothing to be done at THAT point of practice, because any doing would be an arising/movement of thoughts/intentions in consciousness. An a movement of thought/ego is FORM, an appearance, and arising, starting-moving-ending IN THAT/Consciousness/Reality/You. So that is not "It".

At the right state, it can happen. That state needs to be cultivated normally over a longtime (practice makes accident-prone).

From (for example a description from the Mahamudra-system, but that step-logic of practice is in most systems): Yoga of One Taste  (=already nondual) cultivating that state in which the accident can happen, to Yoga of Nonmeditation, in which all activity is stopped, and the meditation does itself, keeping the field nondual, boundless, timeless, mere appearance. In that state the reckognition can happen.

When God/The Absolute/The Totality of Indras Net "aligns" and "says yes", "you" get enlightened (the accident). At that point it is grace, Karma, brain chemistry, an act of all of Reality/the Universe/whatever one wants to call it. God/Being/Reality suddenly understanding itself in THAT perspective that is your mindstream of this life. And its impersonal, its not what you think what you are, but what you really are. And the fact that its impersonal is not bad at all...

And if Absolute Reality "says":  No. Then not today darling... Please more preparation for the "accident". Then, not today darling... Even with DMT.

Ok, probably I have confused pretty much everybody with the twisted musings above, but maybe it is useful for some.

Water by the River

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Water by the River

[Breakingthewall]

17 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

And if Absolute Reality "says":  No. Then not today darling... Please more preparation for the "accident". Then, not today darling... Even with DMT.

interesting and true. it's hard to remember what the completely unlimited state is when you're not in it. I suppose that the possibility of being in that state permanently should not be denied, and that could be called enlightenment, and yes, end of suffering.

[Water by the River]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

When you say you have transcended or negated Buddhism, you haven't. It still runs your whole mind and worldview.

When I "look" into the essence of every concept, there is THAT. Suchness. Infinite Consciousness. Reality itself.

Buddhism is a bundle of concepts and thoughts sometimes floating and moving within That which I am. I am happy with any pointer, concept or -ISM as long as it points efficiently to what You, Reality, every other being and also my true essence really is. Some pointers and systems of pointers do, some rather not.

Luckily, I know the spring and don't need to drink out of the jar, and can now tell from my own experience which pointers point in the right direction and which not. 

Don't worry, the time where concepts could cloud what I really am, and make me truly believe in any of them, is long gone.

Yet, it is interesting that you say you are able see to see into my mind concerning the transcendence of Buddhism (and its concepts). Telepatic Skills? I assume you somehow deduct it from my writing . You have never met me, so you can't know for sure which states of consciousness I am in. But well, if it seems it is easier to put me into the "Buddhism-box", it is fine. I can assure you that Reality is not Buddhism. It is beyond all of that, and on that we agree, and there we do meet. Already.

Water by the River

 PS: I wish you all the best concerning your health. Get well soon.

[Javfly33]

The whole point of God to create suffering/bliss is so you are constantly inclined to Bliss/Liberation ,imo, is crazy that some of you guys want to 'reject' or 'deny' this rules, by saying there is no difference between bliss and suffering. Of course there is! 

The difference is imaginary? Of course. But everything is imaginary. The fact that a hammer falling in your hand is imaginary, and a blowjob is imaginary, doesn't prevent that God creates for itself that one thing will be preferable to other thing.

Now...if the goal is actually to feel as Blissful as when the hammer is hitting on your finger in the same way as getting the blowjob, then kudos to you, that is next level mastery. But notice that that goal is itself again God wanting to feel good.

That craving/inclination is totally inherent to the game, is the foundation of the rules. Is how the dream has coherence. Absolutely any movement of any being in reality is subconsciously aimed to move towards becoming free of the bounds/liberation/dissolution/...etc. 

Nothing more egotistical than the ego thinking he is above the rules and he doesn't care about bliss/salvation. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Javfly33

[Breakingthewall]

22 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

The whole point of God to create suffering/bliss is so you are constantly inclined to Bliss/Liberation ,imo, is crazy that some of you guys want to 'reject' or 'deny' this rules, by saying there is no difference between bliss and suffering. Of course there is! 

The purpose of suffering is evolution. We are here to evolve, not to be happy. happiness is an inherent quality of existence, but life in this form includes suffering as a impulse for adaptation and change. rejecting it is somehow rejecting what you are. Imagine a guy climbing the eiger north face solo in winter. is it pleasant? Is it better that they give you a blowjob? depends. It's life. 

[Osaid]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

DMT will take you to consciousness. End of story.

Unless you unimagine that you ever took DMT*

Edited August 4, 2023 by Osaid

[Leo Gura]

44 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Unless you unimagine that you ever took DMT*

So apply that logic to unimagining all the spiritual teachers you took.

But even so, if you take DMT your consciousness will increase more than anything else you do. And that's the only point here which is being obscured. I don't like when a bunch of spiritual logic results in the obstruction of simple facts like that. Which is what Ralston's position amounts to. Frankly it baffles me how people do this.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Osaid]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But even so, if you take DMT your consciousness will increase more than anything else you do. And that's the only point here which is being obscured. I don't like when a bunch of spiritual logic results in the obstruction of simple facts like that. Which is what Ralston's position amounts to. Frankly it baffles me how people do this.

Ralston is just being very picky about his words, as he always is. He is saying that a relative phenomenon like psychedelics has no direct relation to enlightenment or truth. 

Ralston tends to be anal about such things. He never levels with you on your relativity. He always speaks very strictly, with this sort of autistically hyper-Absolute perspective, so to speak.

He's very careful about saying things like "psychedelics will lead you to enlightenment" or "everything is love" or "enlightenment is full of love and bliss." He doesn't want to lead people on with ideas. He is very careful about this. 

Admittedly, he does feel a bit standoffish when it comes to talking about psychedelics. He could offer more nuance so that he is not misunderstood as this entire thread misunderstands him. But, I do believe it is a misunderstanding, as he says at the end "it is possible to have direct consciousness while on some drug."

Maybe this is just his teaching style and it works well in his workshops. I don't like it either, though.

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Osaid

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Ralston is just being very picky about his words, as he always is. He is saying that a relative phenomenon like psychedelics has no direct relation to enlightenment or truth. 

Ralston tends to be anal about such things. He never levels with you on your relativity. He always speaks very strictly, with this sort of autistically hyper-Absolute perspective, so to speak.

No, it's not merely that.

What he says about psychedelics and love is simply wrong.

You are being too charitable to him. I've fallen into that trap myself in the past, but no more.

At some point you will just hit a point of disagreement with a spiritual teacher which will never be resolved and then you just gotta move on. You will never get 100% agreement with spiritual masters. None of them even agree with each other. That's been my experience. I don't think I've ever found 2 spiritual masters who fully agree with each other. What does that tell you?

Edited August 4, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Anon212]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, it's not merely that.

What he says about psychedelics and love is simply wrong.

You are being too charitable to him. I've fallen into that trap myself in the past, but no more.

At some point you will just hit a point of disagreement with a spiritual teacher which will never be resolved and then you just gotta move on. You will never get 100% agreement with spiritual masters. None of them even agree with each other. That's been my experience. I don't think I've ever found 2 spiritual masters who fully agree with each other. What does that tell you?

That's not true bro, I'm pretty sure people like Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Alan Watts agree on their spiritual viewpoints. They really do seem to fully agree with each other.

[undeather]

Ralston could be the slightly autistic twinbrother of Jed McKenna. 
Both follow a very similar, hyper rational, cut through the "bullshit" teaching style. 
But of course, this comes at a cost. 
In my opinion, Ralston lacks an integral component in his framework. 
His heuristic does not leave room for psychodelics.
A overreliance on contemplation is what ultimately limits any further breakthroughs.

That said, I think he is an impeccable teacher. 
If you are new or an intermediate and want to make progress fast, he is propably one of the best ones out there.