WaveInTheOcean

@Meta-Man The serious brutal eality of death you say. Well, isn't death an illusion? What's really dying during a peak mystical experiance? Nothing. The curtains are just being lifted, right? "Hehe. See, the driver of awakening is suffering." I agree. At least in the beginning - or perhaps later. But you can get past then and experience blissfull ego deaths later on. "What really matters is the Light of Consciousness. Life, while it is entertaining, is like a distraction. " I can sympathize with that, sure. "Funny how Ralston cut down Leo’s assertion that ‘permanent satori/kensho’ is not possible, except for short flashes. " Did Ralston do that? Link? It depends on what you mean by satori/kensho. If you define it as being able to 24/7 see the dream for what it is: dream/God's play, then I surely say that's possible. If you define it as "having no ego", then how come you will still respond to someone calling out your name? See my point is merely, that being a human being entails that you keep your ego/persona. However, sure, you can be loving, conscious, selfless, light permanently. Let's define that as permanent satori/kensho/enlightenment, shall we? Then doing peak mystical experiences you can actually experience brief complete ego-death experiences. That's another thing. But if you want to keep that 24/7 then you're not alive, but death. And I mean physical biological brain-death, not able to respond to any stimulus. "To me my happiness is directly proportional to how little of a person/somebody I am. The less I am, the more I AM." Haha. Well I can sympathize with that, too. However, be wary of the spiritual ego. If you define yourself as having little to no ego, then you simultaneously in another way also define yourself as having a big spiritual ego=D "With a little wisdom you would know that’s not reality" Well, look at healthy children (4-5 year olds for instance). They have zero clue that they're God. Yet they seem happy. However, while writing this, I also realize that in some ways small kids also - unconsciously - know/live as though they were Gods, so yeah...:D "What I can say is that awakening is what we all seek, knowingly or unknowingly. We long for what we fear the most, paradoxically. That’s the human dilemma." I fully agree with this statement, actually. But we should also consider that some people may reach some kinds of awakening in subtle ways that are not clear for the outside perceiver. Hell, maybe some people can't even put it into words like you and I do. Nice weekend to you too <3 Feels like we have had a somewhat fruitful discussion so far. Rare.

Also a last point: You gotta consider what the fuck the point of life is. I already said it is simply just to live. That may be one way to look at it. A more in-depth way to look at it may be to say that the point of life is to be happy. How can anyone fucking disagree with that statement? Enjoy life. Do whatever it takes to make yourself happy. To me -- and I believe for most people, but cannot be sure -- my happiness is often directly proportional to how conscious a person I am. But hey, maybe some people can have zero clue that they're God and still live a happy life? Seems totally plausible to me. Just as it seems totally plausible to me that you may have a sad life even though you're aware that you're God. Yes, nothing matters at all, absolutely speaking. But love man. Love. <3 <3 To pursue enlightenment with the goal of becoming a depressed monk living completely alone in a cave in the mountains for the rest of your life seems beyond retarded to me. Beyond, man. If "final" enlightenment in the end makes someone depressed and sad, I'm sorry that they chose to pursue it. They should not have done it then, in my humble, humble view. Be happy. The end. Love.

I gotta be brutally honest with you here. But your seriousness around this topic very clearly shows me that you have a lot to learn still=D Sure, seriousness is necessary if you want to go down the path towards awakening. But once you finally "get there" you should be light as a feather. And you seem a bit heavy to me, bro, even though you act like you're the smartest sage around town. First of all, yes, you are right. People often think ego-death is always a walk in the park. And I agree, often it can feel just a brutal as a near-death-experience where you were resurrected by some doctors. However, from what I have gathered, heard, learned and directly experienced myself, the experience of ego-death can differ remarkably. It can differ in how deep it is (there are infinite depths to ego-death). Secondly, it can differ in how it is felt. It can either be easy peasy to go into ego-death-space or it can be brutal as fuck. I believe it depends on how calm and able you are to surrender. If you have a hard time surrendering, cos you're clingy, low-conscious and a "bad" person, and not at peace with yourself: expect a bumpy ride. If you're naturally at peace with yourself and have an easy time surrendering: expect bliss from the get-go. :-) Yes, you could say that awakening is something that radically changes everything. However, the opposite is just a true: Nothing is changed. I hope you are also aware of that. Anyway, you fall into the trap of mixing absolute truths with relatvistic truths. And it always tilts me as fuck when people do that, and shows me they're still big n00bs ;D (I consider my self a noob by the way, lot to learn still). Of course, absolutely speaking, yes, for instance, time and death are seen to be illusions. But so is everything else. Life/reality is seen to be a dream. An imagination. An illusion. So not only is time and death imganiry, so is your body, your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, the whole external world. But as I said, it's pointless to "discuss" absolute truths. Totally freaking pointless. Either you get it (because you've directly seen it) or you don't. Simply as that. Instead, what we can do, is discuss the relativstic truths inside the dream. How does the dream function? Time seems to be an important aspect of the dream. So does death. So does the external world, feelings, thoughts, the body. Right? :-) And same goes for the so-called "ego". "Ego" to me is - by the way - 100% synonymous with the word "person" (most of the time, the words can soometimes mean slightly different things when used in special contexts). Anyway, yes, the persons/egoes, you, Meta-Man, me as WaveInTheOcean, they are - absolutely speaking - illusions just like time and death are. However, relativistically speaking -- in speaking of how the dream works -- they are very real. Just as real as trees in the woods and cars on the subway. To contrast this, let's imagine a dragon flying around belching fire. To believe such a dragon exist on Earth -- relativistaclly speaking -- is to me a false belief. But to believe a tree exist, or that I as a person exist, is perfectly geniune beliefs , relativistically speaking. To believe a dragon really exist - outside books and film - serves no real purpose other than play and fun. To believe I exist as a person, WaveInTheOcean, serves a big purpose, namely it helps me to survive and continue on in the dream, among other things. Anyway, the point of all my rambling is, in order to function as a human being -- whether within society or in a cave in the mountains -- you have to believe that you exist as a person. My real point is that it is completely utterly retarded to view "real persistent enlightenment" as a permanent stage of "no-ego/no-self/no-person". Completely utterly retarded. And I'm glad @Leo Gurahas finally realized this, lol However, in another context, if we talk of "no-ego" in terms of: "very loving", "very conscious", "extreme selflessness", "very light-hearted", then we're talking about an entirely different thing. I view these attributes as very important markers of how enlightened/awake you are. And obviously, both you and me have a looooong way to go, right pal? If not, let's agree to disagree. Have a wonderful the rest of your Saturday. I think I have made my point here <3

I get what you mean. Awakening is a suicide of the ego, the feeling of being a self. Yes. But let's differentiate between that -- ego-death -- and then *actual physical biological suicide* which was what I was refering to. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I guess there are two ways you can go when you become seriously awoke to the reality that you're God and that nothing matters. 1. Go back and help people / have fun / live consciously with your knowledge 2. Kill yourself physically, biologically (or perhaps just socially by going into the woods to live alone). I'm sure many dudes have chosen option 2. And I don't blame them. Option 1 just seems so much more fun to me. Why hurry up the death process? We all know our bodies are gonna die at some point anyway. To me, Alan Watts very obviously chose option 1. He had fun. He toured around USA talking. He digged talking like birds like to sing. Then late in his life, when his body and brain was beginning to naturally rotten, he grew tired of life obviously. He didn't really want to live anymore. And again, I can't blame him. I myself have no real hopes of getting past the 60's (25 atm), and I'll surely do something risky to make sure I'll not reach 80 at least. Watts did the same. Instead of just commiting plain suicide, which his family and friends probably would find awful (he knew that), he just chose to dull himself and slowly kill himself with the bottle. And again, I fully understand him. At some point you have seen enough of life. You're tired of it. Better let new fresh eyes see the world anew again!

"Awaken and you’ll understand. " To go live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of your life is equal to committing suicide for me. To do it momentarily (months/years) to deepen ones enligthenment = an entirely different thing for me. "What it means to LIVE, is very subjective." , Indeed, my dear friend, indeed. And I'm glad there is someone who is laughing here. Dear friend, aren't you -- and in a very obvious way even -- contradicting yourself here? To me - subjectively speaking - I would rather die an alcoholic than die alone out in a cabin in the woods

What is life/reality? It's a dream within God's mind, imagined by God, seen by God, created by God, created out of God. God = Consciousness = You = I = Love = Absolute Infinity Now, why does God dream/incarnate as a dog/cat/Human? Because it's fun to forget yourself. And you will always get back to your real being - God - when you die. The more twisted and lost you get in the role/dream, the more fun it is to get back to yourself at least. It's like when you read a good book or watch a good movie: some times during the reading/watching you can become so extremely identified with the persons in the film/book that you forget you're watching/reading a book/movie. When the person gets a sword through his stomach in the movie you may for a blink of a second feel that you also get that sword through your stomach. When the movie ends you are excited and relived: Oh it was just a film, oh god, haha, what a film! What is the point of life? To live. So simple. The point is not to wake up/realize your God doing your dreaming. It is a possibility that this can happen for some human beings. And it can be lots of fun to realize you're God within the dream itself. But it's not "better" than living a whole life, not realizing it. It's just a different type of experience. Sure, when you realize you're God within the dream it gives you knowledge, wisdom and power to influence the dream more (exercise more free will within the dream beyond the will behind the creation of the dream itself). I have always found Leos idea of "hey, I may close everything down and go live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of my life" silly and unmature. Why the hell do that? Sure, I can see the point in going on some long retreats to deepen ones God-realization. It can always be deepened, because God is Infinite Consiousness, and the human life is limited. So it's a never ending development. But do it for the rest of your life? Why? In God's name, why? The point of life is TO LIVE. And sure, it can be nice to live while knowing you're God. But when you know you're God, then for God's sake, go live. Teach, help other people, get lost (consciously) in loving relationships, do something for Earth/society, make an impact, have fun! That's also why I have always found Alan Watts to be one of the most awakened dudes on this planet. This guy knew what's up. And he lived life. Also look at Jesus and Buddha. When they become God-realized, they didn't leave society behind. They came back and wanted to help and change the world for the better. Anyway. So when you within the dream remember that you're God and not the form of the dream, sure, it is obviously God himself remembering he is not form, but God. But he does that "remembering" >>>through a form<<<. And I will just say that I do believe that this remembering through form is only possible through the human form (at least on Earth). Why? Because humans on Earth seem to be the only form/species where God --within that form-- have completely forgotten that he is God. Look at a cat. God -- through the cat -- has obviously not forgotten he is God. Thus he can't wake up to realize he is God, cos the God -- through the cat -- is already "aware" of the fact that the cat is God. You see? But because God -- through the cat -- is already aware of its Godhood, God is simultaneously not aware of it. It's like a man being born blind never seeing light his whole life. Does the man <know> what darkness is? Obviously not! Precisely because darkness is all he has ever seen, he does not know <what it is>, cos he has no opposite of it to contrast it with (light/colour). God -- through a human being -- sees the light all the time (light = ego/existence/separation/form). Thus God -- through the human -- forgets that its true nature is "darkness" (= God). But God can -- if he wants to, through the human form -- close his eyes and look inward and find the darkness, he once forgot. And thus -- if God does that through the human form -- God can see that darkness is light, light is darkness. I.e.: ego/form is God, God is ego/form: he is God, God is him. In other words, because God -- only through the human form -- is able to "know" the opposite of God -- ego/separation/form -- he is thus also able to, rarely, know himself: God. "Father Ocean, hear my song You're the wave I was made from Take me back to where we once began And tell, my love, how I went wrong Years I've tried to be someone Could it be your darkness holds the key? When we close our eyes we may begin to see... Father Ocean, hear my song You're the place where I belong Now take me back to where we once began Ocean Father, I was wrong Years I've followed just the sun But now I see your darkness holds the key And then I close my eyes and I begin to see When we were alone." <<<<<< He wants to go back to the beginning. To emptiness. Before time. Before form, before life. To the universal consciousness that exists behind all appearances. Behind all masks. (‘persona’ in Latin = ‘mask’). You could call it death. But death implies life. Life implies death. You cannot have “up” without “down” and vice versa. In order to really live life, you have to also know death. 'Life' is dualistic, inherently. But 'being' is non-dualistic, inherently. Much of his life he has chased the “goodness” of life. The next achievement. The next dopamine kick. The next “golden nugget”. Now, he has become tired of this process, this constant hunt. He wants to regain what he once lost. The knowledge of who he really is. "But now I see your darkness holds the key And then I close my eyes and I begin to see When we were alone." ----- He realizes that in order to understand who – or what – he really is, he has to cast himself into the darkness. Turn inward, look inside. “He closes his eyes” = he finally goes inside himself. There he sees ‘real being’. He sees that before himself as a person, there was (and is) just pure universal consciousness. God. Infinity. Nothingness. Love. He realizes he truly is everything. There is only ‘oneness’. And that can feel a lot like being completely alone. But it can also evoke deep feelings of love, this deep realization of the interconnectedness of all things. You see that you are the other person and that the other person is you. >>>>>>

My point is. To say "I am God and everything is God" and "God is Love, Infinite Consciousness, Nothingess" etc etc All these statements are Absolute. You can't argue about them. You can't make arguments for the statements. You just either know it or you don't. Only way to know it is through DIRECT EXPERIENCE. Good. Now we are here in this forum. Hopefully we shouldn ot discuss whether our true selves are God or not. We should discuss some aspects of life that are related to this absolute knowing. And in discussions you have to use your thinking mind, you have to be logical, dualistic, rational. Don't mix absolute statements with casual dualistic discussions here. Casual dualistic discussions have their purpose. For example, do you get laid by being needy or unneedy? We can discuss that without saying "I am God, the girl is God. You don't need anything"

Read the rest of my post and you should get it. In an absolutely sense, yes everything is identical. You are Me, God, Cat. Etc. But we are discussing the dualistic/rational nuances of life here. Of whether or not other animals than human beings can become God-realized/enlightened. So stop fucking around and acting retarded:-) It's funny how this spiritual jerk-off-forum often gets used in retarded ways. Like: people blindly believe Leo: "Yes I know I am God, cos Leo says so, and I believe him. So I know it" and then they start using non-dualistic/absolutistic arguments for everything. It's just being dumb. We are discussing the dualistic qualities of the dream of life here. Discussing the non-dualistic qualities of God/Being is impossible. We can only point to them through dualistic language. So anyway, where were we? Oh yes. Your post. "Maybe God is the cause of both our thoughts and actions" of course, duhh. You are God. Leave this forum and get that. Then come back "After all, how can you attribute those qualities to a cat - all your judgement is based on its actions only?" Well, all our judgments/thinking -- both urs and mine and Leos -- are always based on an external world we never have direct acces to (unless in a deep meditative/psychedelic state perhaps). So your statement here is equal to saying: "You are saying the sky is blue, but does the sky really have a colour?" In one sense the sky doesn't have a colour. In another sense it does. "Maybe the cat is contemplating itself through you, via the medium of consciousness/God?" May be.

It's really quite simple. Yes, cats have no ego like humans do. Yet they still have a survival-ego-like-mechanisms built into it's brain like any living social animal has. (And cats are social animals to some degree, yet much less than apes and humans). A cat doesn't ponder why it exists. It doesn't really have a strong sense of self. It just does stuff very automatically without any reflection. Humans ain't like that. We consider our existence. We reflect a lot into what we do and what happens to us. No other animal does that. Not even dolphins or apes. So a cat may be a great teacher. It is a mirror for us humans of how to live life without any real ego. Yet, what is the opposite of God/Unity? ... Answer: Ego. Separation. You cannot have up without down. And vice versa. You cannot define what up is, unless you also know what down is. And vice versa. In precisely the same way, because human beings are the _only animals_ on Earth that feel separated/have a strong ego, they are also the only animals capable of realizing God. Our bread and butter/our natural condition is: *ego/separation*. No other animal has that as their "bread and butter". They only have survival. Because we humans have ego/separation as our basic condition - we "know" we exist, we know we are separated - we are also the only animals capable of realizing the opposite of that: God/Infinite Consciousness/Unity/Love/Nothingness. You can't have up without down. A blind-born man will never know what "darkness" is because he has never seen light. You get it? In precisely the same way, dear gentlemen, you cannot have "no free will" without also having "free will". Free will is a question of how conscious you are. Most people are robots stuck in the hamster wheel of society: they have 0 to very little amount of free will. The more aware - the higher the planes of consciousness you get to - you become of things like your ego, your true self and reality, the more free will you can exercise. (I really want you guys to watch Devs on HBO Nordic. Last episode is freaking amazing film man). So yeah, cats or mules for that matter, they may be God like everything else is, sure, (absolutely speaking). But they will never realize/know it, like we humans are capable of doing. Most humans right now will never realize they are God. And therefore they will also not really realize that they exist either, hehe;) (and thus have very limited free will as well). If more persons started to really dive into this natural human condition of existing as a separate entity/ego, they would become depressed as fuck. I have been depressed as fuck (I made plans 2 years ago how to kill my self, but love for my family denied me in the last minutes). You can't know what true love/happiness is unless you also know what the opposite is: deep depression. And vice versa. But who wants to become depressed? No one. In this time of age, you have to fucking happy all the time. Feel a little down? Can't have that, take an SSRI and get back in the wheel man! So we constantly distract ourselves from realizing that we are deeply separated and alone. And thus we also distract ourselves from realizing that what we REALLY are is: God. So yeah, human beings are the only animals on Earth capable of realizing God. I agree with Leo. Cats may be a "form" / "appearance" / "animal" deliberately put into the dream of life -- by You/God through the means of evolution as a tool for understanding/creating the dream -- to let us humans know what an enlightened life could look like (in some ways). My point is: Cats are enlightened beings in one sense (they act without a human-like ego). And in another sense they are not enligthened at all, cus they don't know they exist = they don't know they are God. Also a cat will do anything to survive by the way. It's very selfish just like basically all humans are:-) But selfishness becomes Love when you widen your definition of "who you are". If you constrict your sense of self to your own body/skin-encapsulated ego, then you are naturally extremely selfish in a "bad" way. If you widen your sense of self to everything and everyone, then you are still extremely selfish, just in a loving/conscious way:-) A cat will never widen it's sense-of-self like some humans are capable of doing. (except maybe beyond its kittens if it's a female cat). (Btw when I say animals don't know they exist, I don't mean they can't feel pain. Of course they can. It's You/God feeling pain when you see a cow mourn for it's new-born calf that has just been taken away from her.)

I would have linked the non-remix version of Father Ocean. My mistake. And Leo has a silly rule that means I can't edit fast (have to wait years it feels like).

Dear folks/spirits/souls/Gods Just sharing some random stuff. I stumbled upon this song yesterday. And the lyrics blew me away. They me blew my so much away that I had to write down my thoughts on the meaning of them before I could come back to life. This forum is about spirituality, right? So I thought I would share. Happy Sunday. Oh also btw, @Leo Gura and everyone. Watch "Devs" on HBO. A science-fiction mini-series created by Alex Garland. 1st episiode is great. 2-7 is decent. Last episiode, 8, is a masterpiece. Honestly, the last episode of Devs, is hands down the best hour of film I've ever watched in my life. Alex Garland - the person behind Ex Machina which is also a masterpiece - is a genius. The Stanley Kubrick of our times. The series, especially the ending, is very spiritual in ways I won't go into detail about here. Just f'cking watch it. Anyway, the song right. Here is my interpretation of the song: This song seems very spiritual. “Father Ocean” could be a metaphor for God. It could also be a metaphor for “the Shadow” according to Jung’s theory about the human psyche. Jung thought that one of the most important tasks for a person was to integrate his or her Shadow. Lastly, it could also be a metaphor for Jung’s idea of a “collective unconscious”. "You're the wave I was made from" ----- An ocean is vast. An ocean has many waves. The human global society is vast. It has many people. On the surface we all seem separated from each other. However, in truth, we may all be connected, we may all be ‘one’, just in the same way that all waves in an ocean are all interconnected and all part of the ocean. In fact, the wave IS the ocean. 'The wave is something the whole ocean is doing, just in the same way that ‘you’ is something the whole universe is doing.' (- Loosely quoted from Alan Watts). "Could it be your darkness holds the key?" ----- 'It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.' - Joseph Campbell "Now take me back to where we once began Ocean Father I was wrong Years I followed just the sun" ----- He wants to go back to the beginning. To emptiness. Before time. Before form, before life. To the universal consciousness that exists behind all appearances. Behind all masks. (‘persona’ in Latin = ‘mask’). You could call it death. But death implies life. Life implies death. You cannot have “up” without “down” and vice versa. In order to really live life, you have to also know death. 'Life' is dualistic, inherently. But 'being' is non-dualistic, inherently. Much of his life he has chased the “goodness” of life. The next achievement. The next dopamine kick. The next “golden nugget”. Now, he has become tired of this process, this constant hunt. He wants to regain what he once lost. The knowledge of who he really is. "But now I see your darkness holds the key And then I close my eyes and I begin to see When we were alone." ----- He realizes that in order to understand who – or what – he really is, he has to cast himself into the darkness. Turn inward, look inside. “He closes his eyes” = he finally goes inside himself. There he sees ‘real being’. He sees that before himself as a person, there was (and is) just pure universal consciousness. God. Infinity. Nothingness. Love. He realizes he truly is everything. There is only ‘oneness’. And this can feel a lot like being completely alone. But it can also evoke deep feelings of love, this deep realization of the interconnectedness of all things. You see that you are the other person and that the other person is you. <3 <3 <3

"The question 'why,' because it can be asked interminably, never leads to any interesting answers. If you ask me then why am I proposing this, I could say, 'Well, I'm making a living this way, or I have a message I want to get across to you.' But that's not the reason. I am talking for the same reason that birds sing and the stars shine. I dig it. Why do I dig it? I could go on answering all sorts of questions about human motivation and psychology, but they wouldn't explain a thing, because explaining things by the past is really a refusal to explain them at all. All you're doing is postponing the explanation. You're putting it back and back and back and that explains nothing." ~Alan Watts The point of life is life itself. Being a human. Doing great and stupid things out of an endless sea of possiblities. Out of love. When you wake up - -i.e. realize life is a dream -- there are no reasons to look down on the game or leave it behind (either physically by suicide or socially by going out in the woods/mountains to live in isolation ((even that is a game in itself)). There are no reason to judge people playing the game very seriously. They are great actors! Give them instead an applause for their great acting skills. You've always been an actor. You' ve just forgot it. You got so into the role of playing X, Y, Z that you forgot it was a role. Waking up is just the simple 'remembering' of being an actor, playing. Actor = God / Nothingness Role = Your ego Now that you've waken up to this reality - i.e. that life is a dream/game - you can still play it! And now you can play it endlessly more free than before. You will now be more open in your playing in constrast to your more constricted, closed-minded nature of playing before. Since you simultaneously realize that everything is one/You/'I'/God, your nature of playing will in most cases be more loving and passionate than before. Listening to music is at same time the most meaningless and most meaningful experience you can have as a human. Likewise is playing an instrument, say the piano. If you tell people "life is a game", most people will react in a negative way and say that you're just fooling around. But is a great pianist playing a great piece in a concert hall fooling around? No. He is most likely playing the piano very sincerely. Playing the piano is a game. But you can play it sincerly. So should you, awakened human being. Play life, not seriously, not foolishly, but sincerely Obviously my post reflects a lot of my inspiration from Alan Watts. Some people judge Watts and say "he wasn't really awakened, he killed himself being an alcoholic in his later years." I beg to differ. I find Watts to be one of the most awakened dudes I've ever come across. Sure, play the game sincerely until you get tired of it. Alan Watts obviously got rather tired of the game in his 50's, and instead of commiting directly suicide, he went to the bottle to dull his experience and slowly kill him. At some point you have to get rid of the old eyes to let new, fresh eyes experience everything anew. Children are so playful, engaged, passionate and interested in everything, because everything is new and fresh to their eyes. At some point we get so caught up in the game of being an adult, that we forget this playful "divine" energy. Hopefully, by one way or the other, most people will in their adult lives regain this playful energy at some point - let it be through psychedelics or any other way. See you out in the dream =) Let's play sincerly That is the most fun. Like, if you gather people to play a board game of some kind, it's only really fun if everyone takes the game "seriously" (i.e. they play sincerely with the goal of "winning"). It's not lots of fun if some people give zero fucks or ruins the game. Likewise, it's also not fun if someone are cheating or playing overly seriously, like getting very mad and aggresive as a result of not winning. It's a delicate balance. Life as a human being is a very complex game. The most complex game I know. The objective is not clearly listed anyware. Going over to a bit of existentialist philosophy, you sort of create your own goals/meanings. However, as we are all humans, we are all more or less bound to some basic human conditions, like getting food, the need of social contact etc. The rest is up to you. I suggest you do not intentionally: - ruin the game for "others" by being a mean egoistic bastard - take it all too seriously - give no fucks about it, even though it's ultimately meaningless (like any game is). Instead, as I said, I suggest you intentionally: - play sincerely. :> One of my old problems has always been the philosophical problem of free will. Is the world deterministic? Is it indeterministic? Do I have any degree of free will, or am I puppet being pulled by long cause-effect-chains with some quantum randomness mixed into it? What do I mean when I use the word "I" in the question "Do I have free will?" ??? I have come to realize that: 1. Ultimately speaking, I = An actor = God = Nothingness = You 2. Therefore I have free will, I'm God for f'cks sake. Yet I don't have complete free will, as relatively speaking, my experience is right now limited to being a human, and the question of free will has to be contextualized in some way, namely the human way. 3. Many things are determined, yet some things I decide on the fly. /rant off.

If everyone and everything is God, than the fact that 99,9999% people don't know they're God must be precisely what God wants - just as every other fact is a matter of God's preference. One may ask why he doesn't want to know himself, the answer may be: play . fun. kicks. . hide n seek . that in order to know himself, he simultaneously also need to not know himself. u cant have one state without the other. “And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the infinite multiplicity of the choices you would have. Of playing that you weren’t God. Because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he’s not. “So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that, only you’re pretending you’re not. ” - Alan Watts

MDMA is a social drug I'd say. Taken with friends it can have the potential to you get to open up A LOT and talk about things that will heal you and 'enlighten' by the very act of talking about them. It can to some extent show you what unconditional love is. What deep empathy feels like. Taken at a party you will have a hell of a time and really feel connected to everything and people especially, but hey, you could so too without it I suppose. Taken with a pscyhotherapist, MDMA has been shown to be able to cure PTSD, and will soon be launched in the US as a treament-option for PTSD-sufferes.

It's not something YOU can bring about by will. You don't exist in the first place. I can tell myself "I don't have blue eyes" , but I still identify as a person having blue eyes. I can tell myself "I don't exist", but I still deep down believe and feel I exist as -insert-name- You have to directly experience that you don't exist as a body. How do you bring about such a direct experience? I can't say, but I've heard meditation and/or psychedelics can work. Psychedelics have surely worked for me.

Well, if a scientist truly knew EVERYTHING about the brain and eyes and sophisticated AI nano-technology, he could without a sweat make a neurological operation on himself that would allow him to see colours again and thus experience the existential nature of red.

anyway, what matters just as much as which psychedelic is the set and setting. Set = your mindset, how you're feeling, your mental preparation, your intentions setting = your immediate environment. Is it cozy and clean and safe?

shed that ego=)

Dno if it has been posted here before, but Schmachtenberger is a brilliant example of a guy who's REALLY good at systems thinking. Very interesting talk about the future of humanity.

A talk about the future of psychedelics in scientific and clinical contexts. Interesting. Exciting future ahead. Btw @Leo Gura Anil Seth calls himself a strict materialist and says accordingly: "As a firm materialist, I believe every experience that we have has a basis in the activity of our brain". Do you agree/disagree with that statement? It's hard to disagree with. Everything is consciousness and our brains are computers that create a special form of "software" that we call the individiual separated self aka ego. Since God/Consciousness is fundamentally the only "thing" that exists, it is God that is imagining all this: the brain, the experiences, the separated self. It is also hard to make a causal order here. Does the psychedelic/mystical experience induce a special observable brain-state or is it the other way around, as Anil Seth wants us to believe? Perhaps it is both. They rise simultaneously. In the philosophy of mind, double-aspect theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same substance. "God is love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved. But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself. And in order to love Himself, He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He as the lover imagines He loves. Beloved and lover implies separation. And separation creates longing; and longing causes search. And the wider and the more intense the search, the greater the separation and the more terrible the longing. When longing is at its intensest, separation is complete, and the purpose of separation, which was that love might experience itself as lover and Beloved, is fulfilled; and union follows. And when union is attained, the lover knows that he himself was all along the Beloved, whom he loved and desired union with; and that all the impossible situations that he overcame were obstacles which he himself had placed in the path to himself. To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are!" - Meher Baba

Dude, do your own research . For example try google "psilocybin depression study" and you'll see that psychedelics in the right context has the potential to be 1000x stronger than tradtional anti-depressants in fighting depression.

@CreamCat "Also, if God is infinitely powerful, God can invent imitations that can fool humans for long enough." There are no humans, absolutely speaking. The only one he's fooling is himself.

"I guess a regular materialist would just say that the brain is in the universe, and that the perception of the universe is happening in the brain. " The idea that you can have an outside external world (aka universe) exisiting independent of a brain is flawed. It's equivalent to believing you can have selling without buying. They go together, i.e. each one gives rise to the other.