Consilience

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If you don’t seek enlightenment, you’re fucked. If you seek enlightenment, you’re fucked.

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I prefer the question “What am I?” Ive exhausted the who question. Im more interested in the ontological investigation “What am I?” Which I suspect most people are actually after when using the “Who am I?” question, both are useful for this purpose though, ultimately. To address the thread’s title - what is the purpose? To know what our existential nature is. When we keep asking who/what we are, we may begin to notice many things about experience. For one, no matter what we experience, there is always the experiencing of it, so naturally, experience cannot be who/what we are. ‘What’ is experiencing experience? Secondly, as we question, we may begin to notice that experience is never static. All feelings, emotions, self referential though, sensations, perceptions, etc. are in a constant state of expansion and contraction, or arising and passing. There is nothing static, or formed about experience at all. If we’re truly perceiving reality as it is, we would experientially recognize that the moment we’ve placed attention onto an object of form, that form has already contracted and given rise to a new, completely fresh and totally unique new form, yet upon recognition even that is now gone. We can see through a deep paying attention there is literally nothing in existence. Everything is utterly new moment by moment, so it is quite literally impossible for what we are to be anything at all because quite literally, ‘things’ do not exist. Eventually the question takes us to the context out of which experiences arise and pass, expand and contract, the context where the primordially feeling of “I am” resides. That context becomes more palpable than the field of dancing, impermanent form and yet is seen to be inextricable with form. This context is pure, liberated, potentiality - the space wherein all comes and goes, moment by moment. Buuuut that’s about as far as Ive gotten… ha. Still going.

This is great.

The path is pathless. Practice is the practice. Experience exists within the universe; the universe exists within experience.

Yeah these type of small premonitions seem to occur more frequently the more we’re “tapped into source” haha. It’s interesting for sure.

?? So much wisdom within so much concision and poetry.

This. Not only are you owning your sexual intent towards her (ie being honest), you’re respecting what she said. A double win. If she seems like a good friend, yeah by all means! But if you’re really into her, but honest and don’t manipulate your way into getting her re-attracted. If that’s what it takes to get a certain girl interested… eh. I’d personally look for someone else.

Next time tell her you’re not interested in being just friends, but if she changes her mind let you know. If she’s going to pull away that hard, even attempting to take things more slowly is sub-communicating scarcity and neediness, especially if you haven’t slept together. “Well hey, I’m not really interested in being just friends. If you change your mind, hit me up. If Im not seeing anyone seriously Id love to go out. Take care!” You want to leave her hanging, not the other way around. Most guys would respond with either going along with just being friends (worst fail), or trying to persuade her to change her mind (fail). But not accepting her terms and walking away (pass) communicates masculinity. And overall, someone you really click with probably wont respond this way, but leaving the doors open can lead to all sorts of wild possibilities. You never know.

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Well documented past life experiences, NDE’s, and then anecdotal past/future life experiences plus just basic common sense - if we randomly showed up once, why wouldn’t it happen again? Only way that would make sense is if we were the body and mind, but of course that is pure illusion. Yeah @BeHereNow I don’t see why reincarnation would be linear or even necessarily in the same “reality.” If reincarnation is true, there’s no telling how wild the mechanics of it are.

True spirituality adds consciousness, understanding, insight. True spirituality is about seeing clearly into the ‘way things really are’ which we could frame as an “adding,” relatively speaking. It’s also fair not calling this adding anything due to the fact that this process often involves a releasing, a letting go, a subtraction of beliefs, concepts, and grounding. True happiness is only possible when we one clearly sees into the nature of truth. True spirituality is the path of authentic human happiness, but does so not by adding anything, but seeing into the nature of everything, which is a new quality of consciousness ‘added,’ seen to have always been present in the first place and therefore, nothing was added at all.

Human perception is only a fragment of human experience. Pure consciousness, directly, is not perception. Turns out the context of the "larger context" is pure consciousness, directly.

The idea that there are two bodies experiencing simultaneous is littered with existential assumptions about the nature of reality. There are not two human bodies, not two sets of experience, not two perspectives experiencing simultaneously, no time, no space, no “things” at all exist. There is just the actuality of being. Being is not two, completely non-dual, not form, not space, not time, not formless, not nothing, not everything. You aren’t going to find a satisfactory answer through words, logic, or reason that doesn’t devolve into some form of nihilism and solipsism, which are precisely incorrect positions as well. The Truth of the matter is utter paradox, complete unity. Experience the answer, don’t expect the mind’s conceptualizations to leave you satisfied.

I don't normally feel a need to share, but I felt a deep calling to share this one with the community. I just released a video on my YouTube channel about my experiences meditating 2 hours per day for a year. If you're interested in hearing about what deep, consistent meditation practice looks like, check it out. If not, you still may find the below post useful. Below, I elaborate on some of recent feelings regarding the forum and this whole meditation vs. psychedelics debate, as well as share more in depth about my meditation journey. Lately, there seems to be a growing chasm in the Actualized.org community regarding psychedelics and then other spiritual practices such as meditation. In one camp, we have people raving about the power of psychedelics, how they provide higher levels of awakening, raise consciousness to higher degrees and how psychedelics more or less shit on other sober practices like meditation, being far superior for Spiritual Awakening or more recently "God Realization." In the other camp, you have people who are against this growing sentiment regarding psychedelics. I seem to have fallen into the latter camp. Initially, I was extremely pro-psychedelics, believing spiritual teachers who more or less dismissed them were full of shit. Let me be clear, I am still pro-psychedelics and still believe many spiritual teachers who dismiss them are full of shit. I have achieved enormous amounts of healing, enormous amounts of spiritual growth, have elevated my baseline levels of compassion and understanding using these tools to degrees that I cannot attribute to anything other than psychedelics. They've propelled my meditation practice into levels and depths that I do not see other meditators achieving, even serious practitioners with more experience. They've tested the limits of my sanity, broken my conceptual paradigms over and over, provided absurdly magical, mystical, and profound journeys into the fringes of consciousness… The journeying has been utterly beautiful and I still have every intention to continue their use for these purposes of exploration. At the very least, they're fun! And even after some heart wrenchingly dark trips, like borderline traumatizing trips that almost feel like they've left scars on the energy body/soul, all of my trips have been nectar for the True Self awakening to what it really is. However, after my first 9 day vipassana meditation retreat, there was a 180 degree paradigm shift. Originally, I was using meditation as a tool to propel my psychedelic journeying to deeper levels. I was successful; the harder I meditated, the deeper my trips became. Yet after that retreat, something very primordially deep shifted, almost like an internal earthquake, a transformation at the level of soul, at a level of self identity which transcends individual lifetimes and is instead the self activity driving reincarnation into subsequent and past lives (I don't know the validity of this necessarily, only that the experience points to something 'like' that). I spent 5 straight days in the most heightened states of consciousness I've ever experienced, essentially tripping balls while being completely sober. Every time I sat to formally practice, reality would just melt into and out of itself. My concentration had penetrated so deeply into the present moment, I was just watching infinite intelligence spontaneously emerge, moment by moment, while simultaneously being palpably conscious of the boundless, formless void of God as giving rise and fall to these microscopically transient fluctuations of formed experience. The space of consciousness would boundlessly expand into infinity as the formless jhanas, and contract into a singularity of non-existence… It is a challenge using words to describe just how profoundly powerful these meditative states really were. Since this retreat and after 2 other vipassana retreats within the span of the next 5 months, these types of mystical experiences have become regular. By the end of this first retreat, I realized psychedelics are tools for plunging more deeply into meditation first and foremost, not the other way around. While rigorous meditation will certainly facilitate deeper trips, meditation will also uproot the attachment to psychedelics as the means by which we awaken to God. Though I do respect the authority and individuality of everyone's path, from what I read on the forum, Leo and those who align with Leo's paradigm have vastly underestimated the potential for meditation and utterly misunderstood the true nature of God. It is very clear to me Leo understands the mechanics of God, his videos are evidence of this, but true understanding of God is the embodiment of God in all moments, not in the transient states of psychedelic trips nor the intellectual conceptualizations about reality after the fact. Furthermore, the paradigm that claims it understands God because of psychedelics and meditation is peanuts in comparison is a paradigm NOT based in direct experience. It is a paradigm based on reifications of self that happen when the ego structure reforms after a deep psychedelic trip. Without the appropriate attentional skills (mindfulness) sober meditation trains, this paradigm occurs at an unconscious level, at a belief level, at a level that is silently creating the context by which psychedelic experiences are conceptualized after the fact. Of course such an explicit criticism will most likely be met with opposition by the ego structure, an authority built behind "You don't know what you're talking about, I've achieved levels so far beyond all teachers, teaching or techniques. Your awakening is far less than mine! Etc. Etc." But please keep in mind, I have enormous experience with tripping. Not just tripping, tripping fucking balls. Please look at my past trip reports as evidence. This position I'm coming from is from the very principles Leo promotes - radical open-mindedness, experimentation, rigorous work ethic, balance, taking my own authority, existential curiosity for knowing what is really true. Now let's be clear - The True Nature of God God is none other than this moment, exactly as it is. This moment, exactly as it is appearing in all of its ignorance, entanglement, delusion, and suffering is an expression of divine perfection, as none other than the love of God. The capacity for God to awaken to itself is infinite. The context out of which experience expands out of, and contracts back into, moment by moment, is God. You as what you really are, is God. God is not an ego structure, but an ego structure is God. God is Mind. The human mind is not God, but arises out of God, as God. God is pure intelligence. God is pure imagination, manifest. God is pure formlessness, unmanifest. The True Nature of Love Love is that which holds space for all states of consciousness. When the mind stops pushing and pulling at experience through the contraction of craving and aversion, the surface level of the human mind slowly comes into union with God's Love. In Buddhism this is referred to as Equanimity. Equanimity is Love. As the activities of the human mind cultivate Equanimity, you are merging into the union with divine, Absolute Love. Notice, the Universe never fights with itself; the actuality of what is happening is the IS exactly as it is appearing as itself. As the Universe permits the actuality of what is, is radical permission of all form, as Love. A mind which radically permits all form, regardless of state, is a mind that embodies Absolute Love. This form of love is heart wrenching, heart cracking because it recognizes the necessity, role, and beauty of horror, delusion, suffering, atrocity. All states of consciousness are Loved, recognized in divine equilibrium. Absolute Love is not an emotion, perception, or transient form, but the context out of which all forms appear. The True Nature of Self You are the field from which all arises, passes, emerges, and vanishes. You are comprehensible through direct incomprehension. You are the expansion and contraction of all phenomena. You are the expansion and contraction as all phenomena. You are the context out of which all phenomena expand and contract. You are the witness that sees self activity act its drama. You are the witness, witnessing, and witnessed. You are the witness of the witness. You are the space from which time and space manifest themselves into and out of existence. You are the womb, the creator, the created, simultaneously. You are the grain of sand and the Sahara. You are the wave in the ocean and the ocean. You are paradox itself. You are the absolute unknown mystery, as well as the humility and arrogance that proports to understand. You are the nothing at all, the still point where all points of reality envelope, develop and exist as unmanifest potentiality. You are yourself, exactly where you are, as you are. You are always here; you are always now. You could never have been more or less you. If these types of insights and pointers are only deeply available through psychedelics, if you believe you cannot become palpably conscious of these insights and pointers through meditation, then your paradigm may very well be backwards. A psychedelic insight's true utility is to bring back the insight into lived, everyday, mundane experience. How can we effectively do that? Meditation. A LOT of meditation. There are two fundamental lessons we will learn from deep meditation practice. 1) Meditation can take us into states rivaling and surpassing the profundity of psychedelics, while doing so in a way which actually trains the mind to access these states without the need for psychedelics. 2) Right where we are, exactly as we are, is Absolute Truth. This is the beginning of the final awakening that 'what we are' truly seeks. The self activity keeps going, the dramas of life keep playing. The awakenings pull us ever deeply into the unimaginable depths of consciousness, yet on some level 'what we are' understands that what it is cannot exclude even the most unconscious of states. The appreciation I have for Actualized.org is ineffable. I found Leo at an inflection point in my life, a point where I was so lost. It was Leo's brash, borderline arrogant teaching style that cracked open my mind to start questioning itself. It was Leo's wit and philosophical intelligence that forced me to challenge my long held intellectual positions about the nature of self, mind, and consciousness. It was Leo's channel that invigorated my interest in psychedelics and facilitated a Hero's journey across the internal cosmos. It was Leo's channel that lead me to understand my own authority and limitation. It was Leo's channel that challenged me to become a true sage, mystic, and lover of Truth. It was Leo's channel that propelled me to take self-actualization and the cornerstone practice of meditation even more seriously. But it is precisely because of Leo that I write these words. It is precisely because I Leo that I so vehemently disagree with the direction this forum is heading. And in a sense, I'm writing into the collective here, urging, challenging and demanding that this community, an actual gem for humanity, not get pulled off track. And yet Actualized.org will do and become whatever it will. As a move and practice of detachment, and love, I won't be spending as nearly as much energy trying to pull back on the collective ego that is caught in the hamster wheel of samsara, constantly seeking the illusion of deeper, more grandiose awakenings. As long as you're meditating, you will awaken to infinite degrees of consciousness until you die; you don't need psychedelics to do it. And as you're awakening to the true nature of God, you will lose attachment to all of it. When you finally awaken, you will let yourself unfold in its own time, in its own sequence. When you finally awaken, you will recognizing the perfection of every step up the mountain, honoring the necessity of every grain of sand, blessing the flow of each drop in the ocean. Unity will emerge As infinity unfolds Life will be death And all states, surrendered All moments will be one A seeking which as was sought All delusions to be none Contractions of craving Finally, undone As children, we'll keep growing Expanding evermore But in the light of Truth, Does this moment truly soar In the Love of God Perfection's indiscriminate pour I am happy to answer any questions below. I wish all of you well on your path. Perhaps you may find value in my perspective, perhaps not. Thank you for your path, thank you for your dharma, in whatever form it takes on. With Love, You

I would wonder if the seeking energy transmutes to exploration/play but maybe not. I mean there are for sure still distinctions being made by mental energy and what we might call hierarchal significance for the purposes of self-survival activity, as ultimately empty as it may be. How the significance, preference, and intelligence manifests is always interesting to watch. In my own experience there is what many might consider “seeking” but what Id consider play. There seems to be a crystal clear recognition of the fundamental lack of duality between god realized states and taking a morning shit in a daze, for example. But the energy “curious to go within” is very alive, very palpable, and very appreciative of every. step along the ultimately pathless path. Not sure why there’s such a kick out of it but the wave does what it does ?

@Pateedm Thank you ❤️??

Do you see intensity ramping back up? Is there still suffering present within experience?

No there’s not. Both are ineffably beautiful. A chair can pull one into the infinite just as the cosmos can. What I love in particular about stars, space, galaxies, etc., is the grandiosity they introduce into the heart-mind. We’re looking at a very overt physical manifestation of our true nature that is nearly impossible for the mind to distort, as it does with chairs, although materialists still manage to pull it off. The spaciousness, vast like emptiness we see as we stare into the cosmos, the beauty and intelligence we see when we stare at nebulas or galaxy clusters… It’s just a fractal of what’s going on in every direction, it’s pointing home, it’s a mirroring of within. But don’t forget, so is a chair

A nice simple way to frame it is: Suffering = Resistance * Pain When resistance goes to 0, no suffering, even during pain. How is this achieved? By training the sensory circuitry of conscious experience to have a high level of mindfulness. More mindfulness = less suffering, eventually to the point of zero in extreme cases, like that of Buddhist meditation masters. Practically, start with just being mindful of your breathing, how the breath is intrinsically settling, re-setting, healing, and satisfying. Meditation is the number one skill you’re looking for. ??

A quote I randomly encountered today; it's so relevant "I felt in need of a great pilgrimage. So I sat still for three days and God came to me." - Kabir, a Sufi mystic

These 1000s of hours would be some of the most fulfilling hours of your life... Of course the ego would hate that, the idea that just being exactly as we are without some far out state could be just as meaningful as merging with God. Here's an insight for you - Only the mind of God would have 0 preference between and equal appreciation for awakening to itself as God in a psychedelic state and being in the grounded, sober state and just sitting.

Thank you dude. Really happy it resonates and appreciate your contributions to this forum as well. Thank you and you're welcome!

Thank you. I would trust the instinct to turn within. If you're feeling motivated to try 2 hours, ride that wave and see where it takes you.