winterknight

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Everything posted by winterknight

  1. Well, for the reasons I laid out in my previous post, this makes zero sense. You’re commenting without actually understanding how or why therapy works. When a psychedelic enables someone to play the violin without ever having picked one up before, or learn German without studying, you can make these sorts of claims. And I’ve had trips and have talked to people who have had many, many trips.
  2. Well they’re certainly related if not exactly the same. I’m not an expert on either K or O’s writings, but K’s method seems like surrender rather than self-inquiry (surrender is linked but different). O’s method is a useful first step but is not enough. Self-inquiry has to hunt the I and not be content with being the witness.
  3. It comes down to trying to become increasingly honest about what you feel and want and pursue what you want, as opposed to what you think you should feel or want. Of course, you could genuinely be in conflict, having multiple conflicting desires, and it’s fine to acknowledge that too. Anyway, as you do this and pay attention to how the desires change as you pursue them, you will find that is over time going to move you in a spiritual direction.
  4. I conducted this in NYC a few days. I lay out the big picture theory of the spiritual search, and then go through several coached self-inquiry meditations with seekers.
  5. Show your therapist what you’ve written here. Have this conversation with your therapist...
  6. The closest analogy — though it’s far from perfect — is when you’re doing something, say, driving, and then you look up and you’re suddenly at your destination. You don’t quite remember having gotten there. You zoned out. So apply all your above questions to that situation. Who was driving? Where was your focus then? And you’re welcome.
  7. From the mystical standpoint that sounds reasonable
  8. It's a nice thought, but psychedelics -- while valuable in certain ways for some people -- are in no way capable of replacing the long-term benefits of psychoanalysis. They might perhaps work together in the right person, but they are no substitute. Psychoanalysis is not fundamentally some kind of set of "ah ha" insights and shifts of consciousness. It is not some set of realizations about what your childhood was like. It is fundamentally a relational discovery and restructuring of your self. It requires two people. It exercises and brings into juxtaposition old and new ways of relating, and requires the use of the slow, intentional mind to gradually build a substantially new set of capacities. There's no way of shortcutting this process with psychedelics any more than psychedelics could suddenly make you a world-class golfer when you've never picked up a club before. That's not how the relevant knowledge works. I know people who are long-time users of psychedelics (and have benefitted), but some of them continue to be in long-time therapy as well, because for them the effects are complementary. And I know people who are long-time users of psychedelics (and have benefitted) and clearly would benefit from analysis as well. And I have read articles about psychedelics have been helpful to people who then discuss and integrate these insights into therapy. But psychedelics are not a substitute for analysis. These are excuses the mind uses to rationalize not seeking the truth. What's wrong with being a human is that it is, compared to the truth, self-torture. But look, feel free to keep doing that... people have to play the games they have to play until they're tired of playing them. Like any "why" question, the only spiritual answer to this is to examine the one who is asking. Spirituality doesn't provide verbal philosophical answers to these kinds of questions. You should discuss these feelings and this experience with your therapist.
  9. It seems bittersweet from the standpoint of the person who thinks that so much has to be given up... but this is, as the Buddha said, a mistake -- what is given up is only unhappiness. The person who believes that ordinary life is pleasure is someone, he said, who believes that grasping red hot iron bars is fun. It's just not so. Absolutely. It's definitely not about numbing emotions. Quite the opposite.
  10. The truth is that the truth is beyond good and evil. But it is worth it, of course. It's the highest goal.
  11. Yes and no. It is truer, but all words are false, and it is also true that a seeker cannot simply rely on those words in an abstract way but must directly know the truth, even if that truth is that there is in some sense no truth to know. The seeker can keep in the back of their mind that in some profound sense there's nothing to realize, but must nevertheless seek as if there were, as if there were a barrier, and there were an effort to pierce it, and if there were a realization. Because that is their emotional truth.
  12. The truth, when it's discovered, is not discovered by a "you." Rather, the "you" is what has always stood as the barrier to the realization of truth. Anyway, it's blindingly obvious.
  13. It's impossible to say. Spiritual pursuit is not one activity. It's the ongoing process of trying to understand what it means to pursue the spirit. It's not like "Oh, it was 10,000 hours of meditation." It can't be broken down like that. And progress depends on the intensity of desire -- and the very intensity of desire is also built up over time. Some people have very intense desire very early on, and they may make progress much faster. So that's why this way of looking at things is misleading. It's not some kind of sport or skill which you can measure by the # of hours committed. One single split second of true looking inward is actually enough... but how long does it take to actually want that, is the question. Yes, it's a myth. If there is a you, there is seeing and emotion. If there is no you, then there cannot be said to be either seeing or not seeing or emotion or no emotion (because to whom would they pertain, and who is there to judge what is happening)?
  14. There is really no 'becoming enlightened' in truth, but if we're going to speak in those misleading terms -- about 20 years of intense searching and psychological self-work.
  15. Ok, this conversation has long passed its expiration date. Good luck.
  16. Who asks those questions? Could asking those questions be a way of avoiding looking within?
  17. Well, I recommend that they try to quiet their mind as best they can -- thus the recommendations of psychoanalysis, artistic expression, and an intellectual framework. Beyond that, the mind can never be fully quiet anyway, so if someone has the intense desire for the truth, that is the main qualification for self-inquiry. With that desire, it doesn't matter what else is going on -- it can be overcome.
  18. If you want to know the answer to that question, you have to engage in self-inquiry.
  19. Yes, that's what you should investigate if you're wondering.
  20. Yes, this is called being caught in concepts. To whom do all these questions occur?
  21. The answers can't be put in words. Follow the path of self-inquiry and find out for yourself.
  22. That’s a good question. Inquire into the I and you will find the truth. But you have to start from the position of humility, that you don’t know and are looking to find out. Intellectual conceptions of “there is no ignorance” will not help you.
  23. Well technically nirvikalpa samadhi, if we define it as a separate state of consciousness, is, as you say, simply the formless. It is not, however, the removal of ignorance. It’s simply a state. Nirvikalpa samadhi, as Ramana Maharshi said, is simply samadhi with eyes closed, and savikalpa with eyes open. And Maharshi (and the Buddha, and no doubt others), cautioned against viewing samadhi states as the final goal. They are not. Samadhis quiet the mind but they do not, in themselves, remove ignorance. What removes ignorance is technically discernment — namely, the discernment away of all temporary states, including all samadhis, to see that which is constant. Samadhis can facilitate this because a quiet mind is more discerning. But they do not in themselves cause it. Ultimarely of course one can call — as Maharshi did — the final knowledge “Sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi” — ie natural habitual formlessness, but in the end this is pointing to something that is not a samadhi state at all technically.
  24. I've put out a list of my most recommended books for seekers of enlightenment with little blurbs describing them. Comments and questions as always are welcome.
  25. Enlightenment can't ultimately be defined, but a provisional definition is that it's the direct realization of the falsity of the belief in the individual self due to the the revelation of the silent perfection that cannot be named.