Leo Gura

Ego has co-opted the pleasure/pain mechanism. It uses those two signals to maintain its power and stay alive. "Pain" is just anything which violates the ego's self-defined boundary. So, of course the process of dissolving all boundaries is not likely to be labeled as "pleasant" by the ego.

@mohdanas I don't want to freak you guys out.

I've fallen into the same trap. It's all part of the journey. There will be many traps along the way. Just keep improving gradually and in a few years your life will be going in cool new places.

@Matt8800 Stop reading Yoganada and just do the practices. They are very direct and pragmatic, without any metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. The whole issue is, spirituality must be directly practiced, not talked about or debated. The more practice you do, the faster all of your questions and doubts will be addressed. And you will feel so much better. Read only as many books as you need to convince yourself to do serious practice.

@GomeGabrielDavid What you think of as "experience" will get recontextualized as Infinity/God. It's a matter of context.

Don't be so sure about that. It is possible to visit hell-realms, from my research. It's a pretty common shamanic journeying experience. Best not to listen to Popes about nonordinary states of consciousness. That is not their area of expertise. And many of them may end up in a hell-realm at some point if they ever recognize how much ignorance they've spread.

@UDT No, it is not an experience. It is Infinity. You will not understand unless you try it. There is no such thing as experience. There is only Infinity. Infinity is not a belief or an interpretation of an experience as you're assuming.

No, that is INSIGHT.

@SpaceCowboy Psychedelics in general should be highly effective for treating depression. The problem is, people misuse psychedelics because they don't do the research and refuse to follow proper protocol. If one is already on the brink of suicide then trying any solution is better than doing nothing.

@Outer All of those are facets of the Truth, but not the full-Monty. The full-Monty is God/Absolute Infinity itself. There really isn't consciousness or solipsism. There is only Infinity. Not inside of infinity, but Infinity itself. Everything is Infinity. This is a radical level of consciousness which is beyond what almost any human being has reached. You are not going to reach it without a superhuman effort, or 5-MeO-DMT. I would not trust most Zen monks to have reached this level of awakening. We are talking about inhuman levels of consciousness the likes of which cannot be imagined, understood, or spoken. Absolute Infinity solves absolutely all questions. But you will not understand until you drown in it. Sorry, I wish I could be more helpful, but there's just no way to communicate it. Mu

@TruthSeeker47 Hate to break it to ya, but you haven't been meditating. You've been doing the exact opposite, driving deeper into monkey-mind. For meditation to be effective, it must be done properly, rigorously. You need to pick one proper technique and master the shit out of it. Like: Do Nothing Labeling Observing the breath Kriya yoga Concentration etc. Pick up. Read the instructions for it. Then follow the instructions rigorously. I have several good books about meditation in the book list. Might want to check out the Consciousness section there.

You've been reading some bad stuff. Healing siddhis are some of the most common and credible of siddhis. You can find healers all over Yelp. This isn't rocket science. I have interacted with people who have healing abilities. It's quite common in spiritual circles. I even hired healers to work on me. I have even experienced healing myself a bit during one LSD trip. You can definitely develop this ability if you really wanted to. But without enlightenment you will likely abuse/misuse any siddhis you develop. So be careful. The potential for Zen Devilry here is great. Don't give spirituality a bad name.

@Epiphany_Inspired Hehehe...

No, he is confused. He's pointing in the opposite direction.

Well, if it works for ya, keep doing it.

He hasn't become conscious of Absolute Infinity yet, otherwise all of these issues would be crystal clear. This is God. But what's missing is the consciousness of what THIS is. THIS is Infinity. It's a level of consciousness that's so radical it cannot be understood by the mind at all. God is not elsewhere. God is right here! Atman = Brahman Such a mindfuck, so ingenious.

There is nothing which isn't a mystery. Reality is fundamentally unknowable. But you can be conscious of nonduality, in which there is no life/death, or any other duality, and none of these dualistic questions. See for yourself.

This will not be understood at the level of consciousness (duality) from which you're asking the question. You're asking the question from the POV of the self. There is no such thing. You were never born and will never die. It's impossible to understand this unless the illusion of duality and self is totally shattered. Talking about this is pointless. Go do your practices.

Capitalism vs communism is a red herring, similar to science vs religion. The issue isn't the content of the beliefs, it's ideology itself. Ideology of any kind, be it capitalist, communist, rationalist, scientific, or spiritual will not work. What's required is genuine openmindedness, unbiased empirical experimentation, love, consciousness, holism, equality, and concern for the truth. The reason that communism fails is actually the same reason capitalism fails: they are both dogmatic, just different styles of dogma. If you want a healthy community, you cannot be ideological about government or economics. You must ACTUALLY empirically test for what works, not dictate what you think will work. No body really knows what the right balance is. Government is too complex to predict. It needs to be found empirically. But by being ideological people do not let the empirical tests be run. They are prejudging the experiment. For example, ideally we'd run an experiment about which election system would produce the most democratic results. But of course this kind of test would never be allowed. Or, for example, ideally we'd run an experiment to determine just how much regulation the banking industry needs. But of course this will never be allowed. The issue is that egos in power will never want to relinquish their power once they have it. Society is fundamentally designed from the top down to be unequal. The ego will simply adopt whatever ideology best serves its agenda, be it religious, capitalist, communist, rationalist, secular, etc. The problem is not capitalism or communism, the problem is ego.

There are better books.

@DMM710 Consciousness doesn't shut off. Consciousness is nothing. It was never turned on as you currently assume. You are already dead. You just think you're alive. This is not going to make sense without awakening. When you realize that death is already what you are, how can you fear it?

Awaken first, then revisit your question. Life/death is a duality.

Of course they do. Just not the mainstream westernized Buddhists you hear about. The Dalai Lama has a personal oracle as one of his advisors. Sadhguru actively tells his advanced yogis not to practice siddhis or perform healings or miracles because it would create a PR nightmare for his organization. Many enlightened masters have such abilities but will not tell you about them because you would not understand, and because it will distract you from working on your awakening. You have to understand, people get killed for talking or exhibiting such abilities. There is a huge stigma against witchcraft, even today. Look at how Osho's commune was erradicated. That's what will happen to you when start flaunting spirituality around ignorant people. Sadhguru was accused of murdering his wife after her supposed mahasamadhi. He was also accused of holding people captive and brainwashing them by parents who didn't understand what yoga is. Almost every spiritual tradition has deep esoteric teachings which are kept secret and never penetrates mainstream culture because mainstream culture is so closedminded and materialisitic. These are very advanced things which are not discussed with closedminded people. I am not saying everything they claim is true, but you'd be surprised how much truth there is in esoteric teachings. Yogananda's biography is very fantastical. It's not a good resource for skeptical rationalist western minds. For you to understand the things he talks about requires someone like me to break it down into a western anatyical paradigm. Which takes a lot of work and people still don't buy it. If you really care about understanding siddhis and paranormal abilities, you must spent years practicing them. The proof is in practices. Spend 5 years doing hardcore yoga and then you'll have a better understanding of the possibilites here. Kriya yoga's primary intention is unlocking your chakras and liberation, not siddhis. So don't get stuck on all the fantasical stuff. Focus on awakening. P.S. The deepest truth is so incredible, it will kill you.

Don't go above 150ug. 125ug is good strong dose for LSD. You can cut tabs into quarters.

It's hard to become deeply enlightened as a householder unless you got some special tricks up your sleeve, like powerful yogic techniques or psychedelics or something. The disadvantage is probably 10:1 to 20:1. If this wasn't the case, there would be no point in becoming a monk. If you went at enlightenment full-time, hardcore, you could probably do it in 1-2 years. Although who really knows. These are just guestimates and everyone is different. #1 factor in enlightenment seems to be undivided focus for long periods of time. Which is a rare thing these days. Which is why so few people get enlightened. Unnatural periods of focus are usually required. It will have effect. But not likely to produce enlightenment.