Consilience

@Mosess Not sure if that's a reply, a question, or something else.

I'm speaking for others, not myself. What I observe is most people do not want max consciousness, they aren't interested in reaching some permanent exalted state, they're merely interested in living a good, meaningful, fulfilling life. This can be achieved without max consciousness. Meditation is perhaps the single most effective technique towards actualizing this aim. And since you're bringing up clear seeing, let's be clear - an exalted, fleeting, impermanent, sacred, empty, God-Realized state that shares the same fundamental essence as taking a morning shit is not intrinsically more clear than any other state when Clarity with a capital C is realized. There is something deeply fundamental missing in your metaphysical model. Obviously you'll disagree with this and I don't even disagree with striving after these states both with psychedelics and meditation both, but clinging to them is just another form of bondage and existential ignorance. But again, most people just want authentic happiness. Meditation is an amazing practice towards moving along this axis, even if the pinnacle is never reached. A good, meaningful, fulfilling life is achievable without psychedelics. To preach otherwise is not only wildly disempowering to your audience, but comes from a place of ignorance, delusion, and falsehood.

Your senses are biased. It depends on what you mean by effective. If living the good life is one’s aim, meditation and even some Buddhism are extremely powerful technologies. If the aim is God, in isolation these are probably not enough. The thing is, “most people” are looking to live the good life. Therefore, meditation and Buddhism are wildly effective.

Ironically, noting not self IS what opens consciousness to the Self.

No that's not vipassana, though looking at body sensations can be a form of vipassana practice. Vipassana is about studying the actuality of one's perceptive experience. Traditionally taught via noticing three fundamental qualities to experience, impermanence, dissatisfaction, and not-self which can lead into other insights such as interconnection, unity, the spacious quality of all phenomena, the dreamlike & empty quality of all phenomena, etc. If there's experience, vipassana is possible. You just turn mindfulness onto whatever is being experienced and notice its actuality. Vipassana while tripping is quite powerful. If there's no body, notice the sensations of no body, the sights, sounds, or other mental phenomena. If there's no form or infinity, notice those too with mindfulness.

?‍♂️

Mu ?

That would actually be a lack of acceptance. You’d be denying the part of your self that feels inspired to change.

Thank you @Inliytened1 and @Adamq8 and for the feedback. In all honesty yes I get triggered so that’s certainly a mirror for attachments, attachments to meditation, non-duality, an attachment to a different view regarding psychedelics. But It also comes from a place of compassion, seeing how lost people can get endlessly chasing paychedelics and never getting to the root of reality, of the self. If you frame awakening, the “deepest” awakening, as only being possible in a particular state, you’re lost. End of story. And to see this with crystal clarity while watching an influential teacher walk thousands off a cliff is stirs a sense of suffering on behalf of others inside. Overall I also recognize it’s all games, mind, projection, ego. And selfishly, it’s a great opportunity for further inquiry and introspection. There is no Leo, teachings, Actualized, self, or other. Agreed. Doesn’t change my view though.

Everytime he gets on this forum or video speaking about Awakenings he’s coming from a place of ego. That’s the whole trap. His mind is paradigm locked in conceptualization and this never ending grasping towards deeper Awakenings. True but if you don’t see the arrogance, you’re stuck in hero worship. 1) It is crystal clear Leo is not coming from a place of selflessness. This should be overtly obvious and if it is not, there’s a shitload of work left to do. 2) Yeah, Leo BELIEVES in his teaching. He’s lost in mind, lost in grasping, lost in samsara and duality, essentially. ? The real work begins finding God right now, not in an altered state. Go and do the work.

vv Yeah not a waste at all. Enormously powerful image. It’s actually on my vision board it strikes me so deeply. Most likely yes. My guess is he was in an extreme samadhi state while burning, had been training intensive retreat level prior to the burning, and was deeply conscious in general. He knew what pain was. He knew he was not a body or mind.

Hai ?

For as many books as you've read on the topic and you still think meditation is about stilling the mind? How could you even begin to imagine what thousands upon thousands of hours of meditation does to the mind? Do you not see how deeply self-deceptive you're being here? What happened to direct experience is king? Edit: The quote feature quoted the user @Hello from Russia, but the original quote is from @Leo Gura

Well said.

That’s the thing, fear of pain is one of the crucial dualities preventing infinity from breaking through while being sober. If you look at higher jhanas (jhana of infinite consciousness for example), it requires absurdly high levels of equanimity.

Well technically Im not trying to fight anyone, but I hear ya ? Im unironically about to go meditate so take it away bro @Salvijus

Two fundamental forces separating ego from God: 1) Fear of pain 2) Fear of death Meditation unravels both. Psychedelics give glimpses into what it’s like to unravel. Astronomical difference long term.

It actually does say a lot about consciousness. The mind’s relationship with pain is one of the most fundamental mis-percpetions, or veils of ignorance about the true nature of reality. Penetrating that level of pain with clarity is only possible via consciousness, as it goes against one of the deepest layers of evolutionary conditioning of mind and body. Although given how out of touch you are with actually increasing one’s consciousness long term rather than short trips, makes sense you’re utterly clueless. Yeah, Shinzen doesn’t teach God consciousness. It’s even better. He teaches the tools needed to get to God consciousness sober. All of his retreats focus on PRACTICE, not spiritual-mental masturbation. Why? Because the masturbation is bullshit and get’s people nowhere. Want to actually wake up? Do the fucking work. That simple. Shinzen teaches people the tools to effectively do the work. Just because Shinzen doesn’t explicitly talk about God consciousness that doesn’t mean that's not where you’re going as a result of the work. The fact that you think psychedelics lead somewhere different than hardcore spiritual practice just proves this. Again, this place is turning into a joke for serious sages. Your lack of holism, wisdom, and arrogance is just astounding given the quality of your earlier content man. What the hell happened? Honestly…

This is almost getting comical. So much deception, so much arrogance, such a lack of direct experience. Ever watched the video where Shinzen talks about his 30 day SDS retreat? Every day, there was a 4 hour SDS sit. Four fucking hours a day of strong determination sitting and you think he’s full of shit? Lmao ok. I wonder how many days of 5-MeO it would take to be able to do 30 days of 4 hour SDS sits without emotionally breaking. I wonder how many 5-MeO trips it would take to do a single 4 hour SDS sit. This forum is turning into a joke for serious sages.

Are you sure? Not trying to be cute. What I tried communicating is extremely nuanced with extremely subtle ramifications.

Can you hold the paradox that exactly where you are right now shares the same existential quality as whatever ultimate awakening you achieve in this lifetime via psychedelics of some other spiritual practice? Can you seek deeper and deeper awakenings without the need for deeper and deeper awakenings? Can you seek deeper and deeper Awakenings with deeper and deeper understandings while understanding that these are no more deep, valuable, or special than exactly where you are? It is truly a paradox, one that I don't see anyone addressing directly or appropriately, including Leo and nevermind the majority of spiritual teahcers. That this moment IS IT, but this doesn’t dismiss the path of increasing consciousness. The thing is, you’re right - it’s an infinite rabbit hole of possible depth. There is no end. So how do you go forward? You keep going home until your dying breath, all the while knowing you’re ultimately going nowhere at all. Hold this paradox, apply this paradox in practice, and an understanding beyond the capabilities of mind to understand or properly articulate will arise.

In my view, this is one of Leo’s colossal misunderstandings about the nature of meditation and the spiritual path. A few thoughts that come to mind - 1) Meditation is not about turning the mind off, though this can happen. 2) There are frequencies of mind, information, and intelligence we can “tap into” when resting in the space of silence and stillness as the mind naturally quiets, giving relative insights on par of psychedelics. 3) The distinction between nothing and infinity is an ego game. 5-MeO God consciousness and meditation lead to the same place, but meditation involves seeing the divinity, and God-ness of the ordinary state. 4) Meditation, particularly when training concentration, can lead to just as powerful, sometimes more powerful, altered states of consciousness as psychedelics. The more advance one gets with practice, the more this begins to take place. 5) Psychedelics cannot cultivate wisdom, meditation does. Though they can open a mind up to being more receptive to wisdom, which in itself is extremely powerful. The mistake is trying to get the psychedelic to do the work for you. 6) How can we be conscious of God right now, in all of our ordinary suffering, just as it is? Can we see the imaginative, illusory, dream-like nature of reality righ now? No? Keep practicing. 7) This framework is steeped in duality. Reality is non-dual.

Hello actualized.org fam, For those of you who are entrepreneurs with experience starting businesses, or have worked with logo designers on passion projects, YouTube channels, instagram accounts, websites, etc... is there any advice for picking a good logo designer? I have a pretty clear vision of what I want out of a logo, but finding an artist to actually actualize that goal is so foreign. I've realized I have no idea what I'm doing and don't want to waste 100s of dollars because I don't understand the nuances of working well with an artist and perhaps most importantly, finding the right artist. So far, I've scoured on r/DesignJobs subreddit and while there are a lot of artists out there, it feels a little unprofessional trying to randomly find a good artist on reddit. Perhaps this is a story I'm telling myself, but I can't shake the hesitancy of using reddit. I did find an artist's work that I loved and fit exactly the style I was looking for, but she was charing a flat rate of $3300 for logos, which is way beyond my budget. I'm willing to spend some money if it means getting it done well, but nowhere near that amount is reasonable with where I'm at right now financially. - How to find an artist that's a good fit? - What if you begin working with someone and they're just not producing material that feels aligned? - Where would one find high quality graphic designers with affordable prices/good websites for this? - Any general feedback/advice? Thank you.

It definitely happens and will more than likely occur again even after this phase of anxiety is released. This is the process of purification, the mind slowly training itself to be at peace in the midst of pain or pleasure without craving and aversion. Long story short, sounds like you’re right on track! As far as strategies to help soften these kinds of phases of practice, 1) A shamatha focus rather than vipassana or open awareness. Focusing on feelings of bliss, happiness, contentment, and equanimity while following a meditation object like the breath sensations at the nostrils or whole body. 2) You can try a short breathwork session before a sit. Ive found doing anywhere from 2-5 mins of wim hof style breathing followed by holding my breath as long as possible afterwords to be extremely grounding and energetically clearing before meditation. 3) Throw in walking meditation. These can be very rejuvenating when formal seated practice becomes too intense. 4) Intentionally scale back practice. If 10 mins is all you feel called for, no reason to “should all over yourself” into thinking you need more. 1 minute of formal practice is better than none. Id keep the daily consistency, no matter how small. 5) Try meditating with meditative music or sound bowls. Can be very healing and help dissipate and transform the anxiety energy. 6) Listening to guided meditations. The only guided meditations Ill listen to are from a YouTube channel called Samaneri Jayasara, which is about as enlightening as guided meditations can be. 7) Endure, push through, bring equanimity and truth even to these sensations. At the end of the day, all moments are moments of truth and freedom. So even if we find relief through transformation, the process of purifying the mind means we will eventually be able to sit in sensations of anxiety with no issues.

Meditation. 1-2 hours a day. During these periods of silence, stillness and space, difficult emotions will arise out of the lack of stimulation. Great emotions will arise too. We sit with them, hold space for them, and not react to them. This is emotional mastery. Learning how to be with our emotions. We can then begin the process of learning how to create new ones. I could not even begin to articulate how powerful of a practice it is to be able to sit in positive and negative emotions with real equanimity.