Leo Gura

@Echoes So what's your proposed alternative? You gonna pretend to sit on your ass in a nihilistic stupor? That's pretending too. By all means, if you want, stick your body on a bed of nails and eat Cheetos. What you're missing is, you can't derive an ought from an is.

@SOUL Nothing about the "physical world" is objective because it is a function of human cognition. You think an ant experiences the same physical world? Nope! Whatever scientific knowledge you have is from the HUMAN species perspective, which is the very definition of subjective. Whereas spirituality can give you access to the Absolute, which is the only objective thing there is.

If you use anything I say to stop your journey, you've tricked yourself.

@Elephant Like I said, very very odd. That is not the LSD I know and love. Sounds like you're describing a horse tranquilizer.

I already have you rascals to wrangle every day. Some of you here need a good belt-whipping

@electroBeam That is such a thorny issue. Very very very few people get it. It's just too tricky and self-deceptive on so many levels. In a very real sense, most of the scientific work is just number-crunching. Very few visionary scientists exist or are even needed. For every one visionary you need 100 orthodox number-crunching chimps.

The biggest irony is that science is subjective whereas spirituality is objective.

@Hermes Trismegistus As the Buddha so eloquently put it: All life is suffering. Enlightenment is the only cure. Suffering is the consequence of the struggle to stay alive. Basically, to stop suffering you have to kill yourself (Nirvana). I can tell ya, there's no suffering in Nirvana. It's peaceful beyond imagination. So start meditating, or self-inquiring, or yoga to get there. And BTW, "there" is none other than here.

Peter Ralston has a daughter. I've met quite a few enlightened peeps who were married and had children. Don't let your limiting beliefs stop you. And watch out for your assumptions. Sadhguru has a daughter. The founder of Kriya yoga was a householder with a family. (I don't mean yogananda but his master's master.) Gandhi had like 5 children. Although I don't know how enlightened he was. Probably not very.

@Matteo Now you understand the infinite love facet of enlightenment. Cool beans Welcome to spirituality! Use it well. 5-MeO is a whole nother level. It will show you the impossible.

@Vlad Ropotica Be careful. If you cannot meditate in a healthy way, then just stop. Don't play games here or act macho. You need to evaluate when you've bitten off more than you can chew, and take a step back. There's nothing wrong with that. You can always resume later. Don't make this into some kind of mad dash to enlightenment. Let it happen organically. We don't want people here hurting themselves with these techniques. It gives this entire field a bad reputation and turns people off. No responsible teacher or guru would tell you to continue on your current path. You're clearly overdoing it. There is a big difference between meditating hardcore, and actually considering suicide. Hardcore meditators are NOT suicidal.

Hmmmm... I'm not sure what happened to it. We don't usually delete threads. Any offending threads are moved to a special Trash Bin sub-forum for archiving.

Very, very odd. Either you got a bad psychedelic or you got some inner demons to work through.

That is the case, LOL.

Over time, as my tripping technique has refined, I've found that the only thing really necessary is: Totally quiet & safe setting, zero obligations, empty stomach, courage, and after you take the substance: sit perfectly still, concentrate on the present moment, and surrender. Always start each new substance at a lose dose. Meditating before-hand helps to prepare the mind. You want to get all your personal stuff out of the way so you can go deep into existential questioning. If the trip starts to get hairy, just remind yourself to surrender and get more curious about reality rather than your petty personal issues or feelings.

@solr The answer to your question is: the entire spiritual journey is about that. By becoming more conscious you are able, more and more, to let go of your devilry. This process will takes decades to complete. Self-inquiry, meditation, yoga, contemplation, etc. are all very useful tools for spiritual purification. But don't neglect ordinary personal development either. Get your own life together, climb Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs so you're not struggling to desperately fulfill yourself all the time. Evil mostly comes from desperately needing things like: sex, money, love, power, fame, security, etc. Practice unconditional love more, open your heart chakra. That helps a lot too.

Um... why has no one mentioned that food tastes awesome???

Of course there's nothing bad about music. I love music. But it's just that people use it as a crutch. It can become a mind-numbing addiction. When you detach yourself from music is when you can really enjoy it most. When I trip these days, I use no music. I find it distracts from going full-depth. Even though music sounds amazing when tripping. But the point of a trip is not fun, but insight.

@Mrkvn8 Yes, you're right. Taking copious notes is not necessary and sometimes too cumbersome. Trust that as you read, your mind will connect the important dots. You don't need to go out of your way to memorize this material as though it were a high school history class. Read, enjoy, connect the dots, and apply. Take notes on only the KEY GEMS. Underline passages in books, which is much faster than taking notes, and almost as good.

People learn about enlightenment and then start engaging in this sort of black and white thinking: books are just mental masturbation. If you don't know how to make use of books, you aren't avoiding mental masturbation, you are just swinging your pendulum in the opposite extreme. This work requires nuance.

There is Absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth you've never encountered even once in your life (if you had, you'd know). And relative truth is the domain of all other human knowledge. All science is relative truth. Physics is relative truth. That you were born and that you will die is relative truth. Etc. It's relative because all of reality is absolutely relative. A truth can only exist relative to some arbitrary standard which you designate. Without any standards, there is nothing true. Which is Absolute Truth -- utter groundlessness. This is difficult to understand unless you have a direct consciousness of the Absolute. Relative truth (like science) is useful stuff. It's important and necessary for survival. But just keep in mind that's not ultimately true. It's true only relative to your survival and present state of consciousness. Once your present state of consciousness is altered (like if you die), all science and other relative truths fly out the window. They become untrue because all along they were predicated upon you being alive as a human being. Yeah... this is heavy heavy stuff. Consider this: if you were an ant, which truths of yours would survive? Any?

Be more specific if you want serious advice.

The job of science is to grasp relative truths, not the Absolute. So as long as you keep that in mind, you can do good science.

@ItsAvi A lot of good advice here already. I'll just add, have you tried psychedelics? They can show you a more positive version of this process. They can connect you to the magic of life and give you a higher vision for your new life. After enlightenment, you're gonna want to sit down and ask yourself, "Okay, so that's that. But what next? But what do I want to create with my life?" Life is an opportunity to participate in the beauty of creation. If you choose to create nothing, that's what you'll end up creating. Also, whatever awakening experiences you've had up to now, it sounds like you have yet deeper to go to hit the infinite love facet of the elephant. That's what saves you from getting lost in nihilism.

@Staples Here are a few practical applications of epistemology to scienctific research: Question all your assumptions Don't confuse your models for the territory Be much more openminded Learn to admit "I don't know" when that is the case Study epistemology Study paradigms Study the history of epistemic blunders within science Be more holistic and synthetic vs analytical Learn to tap into your intuition vs overthinking your problems Take psychedelics and contemplate your research from that state of infinite mind Etc.