billiesimon

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Posts posted by billiesimon

  2. Posted

    3 minutes ago, MarkKol said:

    It's ceases to amaze me how a lot of people try DMT and consistently start talking about one thing: God

    Psychedelics are like a weird 3 dimensional portals to a 'who knows what' detentional world. Like how often do you find something so insignificant directly linked to something so out of this world incredible. I have so many questions, like why is God such a common topic, How are humans, brains and minds connected to a chemical like DMT,psilocybin, LSD etc... why does a dumb plant make me think about shit like this? Which makes me qustion weather or not I'm dumber than it. How did we discover it? It's almost like someone unearthly thought us about it, what prehistoric idiots went around forests smoking unknown plants? And lastly, have psychedelics effected our upbringing? And If not, why do our brains produce it?

    It's an interesting question, that I've explored several times.

    I don't know the definitive answer, but I know that during my psychedelic trips the answer is always the same:
    "Psychedelics are just a story, a fictional catalyst, for awakening."

    It's fascinating because it's all a story. Meditation, self-inquiry, breathwork, DMT etc....

    It seems to me that God put these "devices" inside the story to create a path to self-recognition.

  3. Posted

    3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Definitely progress.

    But you have a lot deeper to go.

    That's just part pf this process.

    Remember how confused you were about math as a kid.

    Well, spirituality is more difficult than advanced math.

    Thanks, at least I'm not psychotic xD

    Before spiritual practice my life was quite anxious but made a lot of sense, it was just normal human life. 

    Now there are moments of normal anxious human life, and moments where my memories are just a fictional story. Of course there is no God recognition, I'm too newbie, but anxiety/monkey mind is replaced with deep mystery and time suspension. 

    It depends on the quality of the day. Peaceful days are more mysterious and time-warped. Stressful days make me dive deep into my human identity and story. 

  4. Posted

    14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    You must let the beauty of consciousness penetrate you.

    If you are not overjoyed with your own consciousness then it's not awakening.

    The highest consciousness is so delighted in itself it is in endless joy. God needs nothing outside itself to be endlessly happy and satisfied.

    I have a real question from my own personal practice (I tend to practice and contemplate daily). 

    Is it normal to feel mindfucked or lost in a sense of void after 3+ years of practice? I also use psychedelics once every 2-3 months and got several Infinity and unconditional love glimpses. 

    But I'm talking about sober states. 

    I also get several timelessness small glimpses while sober and walking alone in the park, where time seems to have never existed for small moments (paradox). Or other times I have to ask myself what's my human identity because I start to feel merged with the flow of the present. 

    Sometimes I look at a water glass (or random object) and it starts to feel like it's the only thing in existence. Just for a minute or two. 

    Because before consciousness work I never had these moments of sober mindfuck, and they started to appear more and more frequently. Now I can get them almost everyday. 

    Is this spiritual progress or a psychological problem? I feel deeply confused in my consciousness recently. 

  5. Posted

    46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    If you're conscious enough, physical death simply never happens.

    I get it, because of time and space disappearing. But what about remaining quite unconscious and receiving a lethal damage to the body? What should happen?

    I think the user was asking this.

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    There is nothing better than being awake.

    I totally believe you, since the dreaming state is filled with suffering. 

    What I don't understand is why does God need to dream up suffering and loss if being fully conscious is blissful? 

    I've had my glimpses of awakening and I swear to God I would have never come back to the human self. Yet, I had to. Why? I don't understand why chase suffering? 

  9. Posted

    On 12/7/2022 at 2:37 AM, Leo Gura said:

    ou are imagining enlightenment and nonduality to keep yourself from realizing that you are God. It's a total illusion.

    Isn't nonduality synonymous with God? 

    God manifests itself in everything, creating the illusion of separate objects. Thus monism is the actual form of God. Isn't it? 

  12. Posted · Edited by billiesimon

    Hey, I have changed quite a bit in the recent 6 months. I have gone through psychotherapy last year for some childhood trauma, and I've been diagnosed as a quite healthy person, no mental health conditions except for loneliness/family trauma. I have also been doing consciousness work for 3 1/2 years, reaching several psychedelic awakenings, a nice level of sober concentration, deep emotional awareness and connection with my subconscious, and some occasional samadhi states in before-sleep meditation (I like to master my half-asleep states to find new levels of awareness). I also get lost in contemplating objects in silence and mystery quite often recently.

     

    THE SYMPTOMS

    Is the following psychosis or signs of spiritual growth?

    - During my alone walks after dinner, I silence my mind and I very often feel in a sensory bubble floating in the empty cosmos. It's quite freaky.

    - During these phenomena, my visual perceptions remain the same but they start to become "nonsense" to me. Like it's not supposed to happen. I start feeling deep mystery and nonsense about the fact that I am seeing, hearing, feeling etc.

    - After some minutes of this, some fearful emotion happens and starts to tell me that I have no business in this phenomena, and starts to pull me towards some human business (please think about the laundry, about the emails, about finding a perfect gf bla bla bla). If I listen to them, the mysterious feeling disappears and my life starts to regain sense.

    - Sometimes I instantaneously realize that I'm here, now, and that I am completely imagining that something is happening outside my senses. If I start to dive deep into it, I feel completely lost, and my life starts to lose quite a lot of meaning. It's not dark or nihilistic. It's just empty and silent. Then some fearful emotion brings up the same old to do lists.

    - It's been 9 months since my last trip, but I've smoked some microdosing of salvia in these months, and I often get the feeling of having this really "all in my cosmic head" feeling, like this universe is inside my huge giant head. Weird. But not an actual awakening. I'm not attracted to a proper trip recently because I sense a deep fear from my ego, so I'm staying away.

    THE MOST WORRYING SIGNS

    - Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, because I like to drink some water and then get back to bed, I go sit in the kitchen, zero thoughts, but strong awareness of the present. And then I feel I have quite some trouble to identify my "body": is it the floor? is it the fridge? I have memories of this flesh being my body but my awareness has trouble feeling what is "me", so everything could be me. If I start to do some daily chores, my awareness refocuses on my body-mind as always, as a normal person.

    - Sometimes while I'm alone, silent and peaceful, I feel a deep desire to self-inquire on the spot. Generally what happens is that I don't understand why I have this story of being a human, of having a past (what is the past?), of having desires for the future (what is it?), and then I generally feel that these senses are made of air, of some kind of dreamy stuff. But I'm not really conscious of a dream (while this happens in psychedelic state). It's just that the senses don't seem that real anymore....

    - Something has forever changed in my life. It's not a material change. Something a lot deeper has changed but I can't really get it. It feels scary but I'm attracted to it also. The deep feeling that I'm the center of the universe. Sounds quite egoic...

    RELATIONSHIPS

    - Interacting with people makes me lose all of the previous phenomena. The sense of other is really strong when some other person appears. All the mystery and dreamy stuff disappears. Might be related to strong emotions that people evoke in me (I'm an empath).

     

     

    What do you guys think this is? Is it psychosis? My therapist always told me that I'm quite a conscious and aware person. I don't understand. Maybe @Leo Gura if he can find time to read :)

    Thanks!

  14. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Imagine telling that to Teal and her audience? They would rip you to pieces like a pack of dogs, haha.

    xD

    I have to say that psychotherapy (classic psychodynamic therapist) has skyrocketed my consciousness. My head is a lot clearer now that my abandonment trauma is reduced. I get incredible loving vibes from objects just from 12 ug of LSD, or microdose of Salvia. And breathwork makes me quite conscious for around 30 mins after. 

    This was unimaginable before psychotherapy. I have to say that healing the ego opens it up for awakening quite a lot. I my opinion therapy is necessary for an ego to walk the pathless path, or the drama will keep stuck in Mind. 

  16. Posted

    13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    You can have a gf and friends, just don't cling to them too much. You can see in the documentary how deeply attached Teal is to her inner circle. And that's a huge problem.

    You cannot build the foundation of your life on any other human. If you do, you're in for a world of hurt and drama. Because eventually you will lose that human. And even before you lose them, those humans will be selfish and will not give you the infinite love you crave. So they will always disappoint you. The only thing that won't disappoint you is God/Yourself.

    Well, she's wrong about that, as evidenced by how much suffering her human attachments are creating for her. But of course you don't want to take detachment to an extreme where you cannot have healthy human relationships. Just don't build your life on top of other humans. Keep your human relationships somewhat loose. Be fully happy without needing anyone, yet still be social.

    That's what awakening is for. The more you awaken the more happy you will be on your own.

    At high spiritual levels you can be in bliss all on your own.

    You should not need an inner circle of pawns to be happy or to support you emotionally.

    Fundamentally what Teal seems to be missing is that she's dreaming up all others. She's lost in that dream, endlessly chasing other, endlessly dissatisfied. No other can ever satisfy you because all other is imaginary.

    Thanks, really helpful :) yes, I want to live a good human life but find my truest nature at the same time. I'm decently conscious of impermanence at this point and I realize how unstable human happiness is. And I want to avoid that. 

     

    Teal has the problem of confusing awakening for global connection and global evolution. She never talks about techniques or practices. She keeps taking about what I define as "advanced psychotherapy". Amazing stuff, but it's not awakening :/

  17. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    That's one of the core problems I see with her teachings. Her teachings are all about human connection, but you cannot ever satisfy yourself with human connection because the love humans give you will always be finite and selfish, creating suffering. Teal's whole approach will create enormous attachments to humans and to community which will prevent and pervert the deepest levels of spirituality.

    The real question is: Why does Teal need a new close group? What is she lacking that she feels she needs those attachments?

    There is good reason why the most awakened people are ascetics and hermits with very loose social bonds. Social attachments create suffering and deepen Maya. Community is not about Truth, it's about survival. And you see how her community is struggling with survival in the documentary. That survival will corrupt any spiritual pursuit.

    On a practical level Teal can cultivate a group of friends who she doesn't live with and who aren't her employees, but are her peers. This would be healthy way to do it. This is what most humans do. You don't need to crawl up inside the asses of your friends.

    That's a really interesting point. In fact, it's been two years that i've been struggling between the yogic paradigm and the bonding paradigm (teal is the major influence here). Psychology is a huge promoter of the bonding paradigm too, all therapists are. 

    It's not that I want to live a yogic life. I want to find a compatible gf and spiritual/philosophical friends like me. But I've battled for at least two years to reduce my chronic attachment to people ; not because i want to eradicate it, but because it was too much. I want to feel good alone too. And find people at the same time. 

     

    And since I like following Teal.. She messed up my idea of expanding consciousness quite a lot, because she keeps repeating that reducing the attachment to people (citing also yogis and monks) is dysfunctional and toxic spirituality. 

    But what about learning not to suffer when alone?!? I deeply crave that, since I don't always like hanging out, but still i suffer when I try to relax on my own. 

  18. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    You're drawing some distinction between humans and animals or nature, when in fact humans ARE animal and ARE nature. There's really little difference. Nature is all about survival and so is society and most humans. Selfishness runs through the whole thing.

    All human interactions are basically built on selfishness. So it does work. It just has certain consequences and suffering that comes with it. But that's true of all of life and nature.

    If selfishness didn't work, it wouldn't exist. The problem is that it works too well.

    It has limits, or we would not be evolving society into a more progressive civilization. If the crudest survival strategies were the best, we would not be advancing since the early greek/latin/nordic tribes. Evolving consciousness means also evolving and enhancing survival. I think you explained this in the SD series. 

  19. Posted

    41 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    So... I watched the whole documentary now, all 4 episodes. It looks pretty bad by the end. But then I listened to Teal's responses to the documentary and it's hard to know who to believe. She claims the documentary was very deceptively edited. How truthfully edited was the documentary? Who the fuck knows.

    There are definitely plenty of red flags in there if the documentary is to be believed at all.

    The biggest problem is that she seems to live way too close with what should be her employees. There needs to be a boundary between employer and employee, such that employees are not your personal servants, pawns, and emotional support system. Employees must be allowed to live their own lives and have their own agenda. It seems that Teal is way too emotionally needy with them, using them as a surrogate family, the family she never had.

    Bottom line: don't live in the same house with your employees. And don't get too emotionally close to your employees. The boundaries between personal life and work life exist for good reason. It shouldn't matter who your employees are fucking. The fact that this matters to Teal is a problem.

    Teal's whole inner circle setup is very incestuous and will obviously breed problems and endless drama. It comes off as authoritarian, with her expecting everyone around her to bend to her agenda and have none of their own. This isn't sustainable, healthy, or in line with conscious relationships.

    Overall, I enjoyed the documentary. It felt raw and real. Even if it isn't true, it has good lessons there for how to not run a spirituality community.

    I agree with the whole "surrogate family" but... How is she supposed to find a new close group? She is not on good terms with her parents. What would you suggest to someone like her about fulfilling that closeness need? 

  20. Posted

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    It's also possible that while her POV is great and her videos are great, she could be running a manipulative, power-hungry organization via her physical community. You'd have to know how much she charges her community members and how she wields power over them.

    Recording videos is easy compared to running a physical commune. There is a possibility that her physical commune is abusive, exploitative, and toxic. But I have no idea. You'd need some deep insider experience of that.

    Yes, that's a legit concern. I don't know honestly. 

  21. Posted

    Teal Swan is a legit spiritual teacher. Her teachings are all based on psychodynamic theory, and can be confirmed by any psychotherapist. She just expresses them in spiritual lingo. She has a huge psychodynamic knowledge, and some of her advice is so deep that the masses misunderstand her. 

    And I'm not her fan, but I've used her principles and they are really powerful and truthful. 

    There's nothing to expose. Mainstream media is dumb, shallow and too materialistic to understand her point of view. The only thing to expose here is the documentary's embarrassing ignorance about psychology and healing. 

  22. Posted

    I feel you, I like philosophy a lot, and I would like to become an impactful teacher and philosopher, and impact the psychological field too.

    Philosophy is all about the subject, it is not about finding an objective collective truth. Philosophy is generated by your passion and connection to your personal truth; then this personal truth expands into a more absolute truth.

    The main difference between reductionist science and philosophy is the subject's inner passion and connection to Truth.

    Almost all philosophers have gained some interesting insights about reality; they are all perspectives on reality, but none of them completely gained an absolute comprehension.

    The root of philosophy is completely subjective and feeling-based. No amount of technology, tools, instruments etc are going to give you insights :) 

  23. Posted

    37 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Always everything on empty stomach.

    Yes, the only psychedelic who does not require an empty stomach is Salvia Divinorum, if smoked. I've used it several times on full stomach and there's zero effects on the body and zero nausea.

  24. Posted

    22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    @AtheisticNonduality Has it ever crossed your mind that these artists were just bad a getting the hottest girls?

    You know who was fucking the hottest girls? The king.

    Yes, but at the same time there was a different standard for beauty in the past. The standard has changed a lot even during the 20th century. Beauty is deeply subjective, even though some vague traits tend to be universal, like hourglass shapes, young bodies etc... But a chubby woman can actually be really erotic in the proper cultural context.

    An example: I tend to always like thin and young girls, but then I really started to like my therapist (yes, there's also transference) who is a bit chubby and nerdy looking, and older than me. Since then, I still like some specific slightly chubby women because I now recognize their beauty too. Every person has their beauty, but of course there are some traits which are more agreed by the masses as attractive. It's not important to "score" the girl everyone wants, it's important to find the ones you personally like. But I'm sure you already know this.

  25. Posted

    1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

    Have you not heard that all seperation is imaginary?

    Yes, that's what I am saying. Maybe it's just another deeper level of consciousness, at the end of which there's just One hugely absolute entity. Maybe you just went deeper and you still have to find the maximum wholeness of God. Maybe that absolute wholeness is never reached by a limited form. Who knows?

    My recent experiences with sober and psychedelic inquiry show that there is just this present reality, not other ones. But I'm not that advanced.