Leo Gura

@Erlend K Yes, what you say has some truth to it. Then again, people just get lost in the whole "acting compassionate" game and never reach the true levels of compassion possible post-enlightenment. Either direction you walk, there are traps.

Ain't nothing "universal" about math. Not only it is not universal, it's not even global. Most of the creatures on this planet don't do math or care about it.

@How to be wise Take a moment to stop and just realize how ridiculous your position is. You don't know what you are. You might be kangaroo for all you know. And yet here you are trying to get stuff.

@username Of course. Although.... Without proper theory, you'll still get yourself lost. Even if you manage to sneak in an enlightenment or two. This stuff is just that tricky. There is a good reason why Zen students are also told to study the scriptures. It's not some quaint tradition. You're likely to get lost without guidance. Then again, you're likely to get lost with guidance. Either way, you're gonna get lost. Such is the nature of ignorance. It turns all guidance into further delusion.

Because people are too weak to become enlightened, they are taught compassion instead. It's much sweeter-sounding than facing the truth of absolute relativity. It's putting the cart before the horse. Become enlightened and then compassion will come naturally. Without enlightenment, all your efforts at compassion will be skin deep. The ego cannot truly be compassionate. Note: The Buddha himself never practiced compassion. He practiced yoga, self-inquiry, and mindfulness. His compassion was the fruit of self-annihilation. A lot of so-called "compassionate" people in the world who are actually Devils. George Bush was supposed to be a "compassionate conservative". How many people were killed in Iraq? Hundreds of thousands. That's what happens when ignorant people try to be "compassionate."

Cause otherwise you die.

5-MeO-DMT

A) Of course they are not mutually exclusive. Everything is made out of consciousness, including your neurotic, alcoholic girlfriend. B) Having a high consciousness girlfriend will not make you high consciousness. C) Good luck finding a high consciousness girlfriend. You've gotten better odds of getting spontaneously enlightened

@AlwaysBeNice The issue is one of control. If you believe you're in control, that's the problem. The practical consequence of the no free will debate is surrendering your need to control life. Most people don't realize how much of their suffering stems from trying to control and manipulate life.

The problem with talking about the notion of "no free will" is that people either believe you, or they don't. Either way, it's just a belief, so they go on acting exactly as before: as if they have free will. Breaking this tendency of acting as though one is in control, is really hard. It basically requires enlightenment. The ego's whole function is to act as if it's in control. You can't think your way out of it. It requires a deep experiential surrender to life. But yes, it's good to be mindful of it in your daily practices. Just notice you're not really in control. Your body and mind have a life of their own.

@ParanoidAndroid He's more of a mystic than a classic Western philosopher. So yeah, he's worthwhile.

I find it of little value reading philosophers original works. Read a summary of their key ideas. Most of their ideas are quite bad and deeply misguided. You could spend a decade or more sifting through that dung pile and not come out of it any more developed than when you started.

Yes, that's called letting your dick run your life It does tend to be a problem if what you're after is consciousness. Eventually you will realize girls cannot satisfy you. The only question is, how many years will it take?

Yes, for some people it can happen rather quickly. Depends on many factors (or your karma as the Hindu's like to say). But also keep in mind, there might be more to your true nature you haven't yet realized, and you won't know how significance that difference in depth can be until after you hit it. This rabbit hole tends to go much deeper than people realize, even "enlightened" ones.

As the Buddha said, once you cross the river, throw away the raft. (But not before! So make sure you've actually crossed )

@severedfred Go to a retreat and take a dip in the pool of emptiness

@AlwaysBeNice You might as well be waiting for lighting to strike your head. Maybe it will spark some enlightenment

@Nervewracking It comes from the same place all creativity and evolution comes from.

Definitely the insights. Baseline level of awareness is a trickier thing. It requires consistent tripping to raise in my experience. Of course meditation raises it, but takes a long time (years). I pulled them out of my ass. But once you have some deep breakthroughs, you easily recognize just how long it would have taken you to get there "naturally". It ends up being a horribly long time. The thought comes to mind: "Not in a million years!" My experiences lead me to believe that spiritual masters are no ordinary human beings. They have brains/minds which are chemically and genetically tuned for enlightenment insights. Imagine a spiritual master as someone who naturally has 5-meo coursing through his brain all the time. That gives you an idea why enlightenment is so rare. Natural selection puts a lot of pressure on brains to be pragmatic and low-consciousness, with only a few managing to escape the bell curve. So to me, psychedelics just even the playing field. It's like you're trying to play basketball against a guy who's 7 feet tall.

@DrMobius Good work. But it's certainly possible with meditation and self-inquiry as well. It just requires some super-human effort.

@Extreme Z7 That's very good because it's concrete. Your second line is rather wordy and flowery. Boil it down to simple terms. What is the exact emotional impact you want your music to have on your audience? What is the most important feeling you want them to feel when hearing your music?

@Dan Arnautu What would you do if you had $100 million dollars? Do that now

No, they are not necessary. But you should be prepared to invest 1000s of hours in hardcore practice if you want to get anywhere close to the insights accessible on psychedelics. 1 solid trip done with proper protocol is equivalent to about 1 year of daily meditation practice for the average person. If we're talking 5-meo, 1 solid 5-meo trip is equivalent to 5 to 10 years of daily meditation practice for the average person. Those are rough estimates.

@Wes Thoughts See my video: Grasping The Illusory Nature Of Thought A concept is a thought. You'll need to become very mindful of what thoughts are (in your direct experience) before you can proceed further in this work. Note: it does not help to think about thoughts. You need to develop mindfulness/awareness over them. You have to step outside your thoughts, so to speak, dethroning them.

Of course the zebra runs away because his self-agenda is threatened. The point of emotions is to serve an automatic manipulation towards self-survival. When one becomes conscious, the need for unconscious manipulations falls away. If you like being a frightened zebra, you've got nothing to do. Just stay the way you are. But if you want to rise above animal behavior, you can do it, but it will require consciousness.