Consilience

@Raptorsin7 For starters, cultivating that state requires an absurd amount of concentration.

Surrender vs blocking (resistance) is a duality, it creates the destination of surrender. I see what you’re saying but you cant escape the even the notion “YOUR DOING SOMETHING TO BLOCK IT” is duality. Everything which is not Truth is duality. Ive said this before I'm other threads and ill say it again: Im very grateful I never fell into the trap of thinking there was no point in seeking. Seeking and essentially creating a duality of enlightened vs not enlightened was super necessary on my specific path. Eventually this duality has been seem through... but it was very much needed early on.

@LfcCharlie4 Okay so I was only really doing the technique once a day rather than twice or more Thanks for the input and high quality thread!

@Mo0ngrass ??❤️

“If you are paying complete attention, everything is nirvana, but if you lose your attention even for a second, samsara begins all over again.” This is from Christopher Bach’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe. I think this quote has profound implications for our consciousness work. One of the reasons psychedelics are so effective for amplifying our consciousness and providing insights is that they essentially force our attention into the present moment. At high doses, your mind has no choice but to submit to right here, right now. Typically the ego is surviving by creating a never ending stream of distractions through the form of thoughts or by being captivated by the distractions we see in every day life. Yet many of these distractions are only given meaning as a function of time and separation. This is huge to notice. Yet if we’re being 100% honest, it’s easy to see that this moment is the only thing which fundamentally exists, existentially there is no time or separation in which a distraction can be given meaning, truth value. All meaning is empty. When we take certain psychedelics at the appropriate dose and with the appropriate set and setting, the artificial separation our egos superimpose onto reality get shut down, and our attention is completely stabilized into the present. This dynamic is what allows us to become conscious of The Self/The No Self/God. God is this moment, the only moment to ever exist. If your attention span is too weak to truly stabilize onto right here, right now, you will not be able to become conscious of existential truth. If your attention span is constantly slicing and dicing your field of consciousness into separate bits, you will not be able to become conscious of God. If your attention span is easily pulled into time by thoughts while doing nothing, you will not be able to become conscious of God. Unwavering attention stability is a requirement for being able to see Truth. This is why I always am so quick to recommend meditation, specifically a Samatha based meditation practice which cuts straight to the point and had its practitioners working on concentration. (Shameless The Mind Illuminated plug) Until you can sit for hours straight without attention shifting, you wont know God, you wont know yourself. In fact, attention instability is one of the ego’s most powerful defense mechanisms, its why distractions work so well at all. Combining psychedelic work with a meditation technique that works on attention stability all while knowing how to contemplate is the mother of all cocktails for discovering truth. But even with psychedelics and contemplation, until your attention is strong enough to stand still at your will, you wont be able to integrate your trips or insights into every day life. As you learn to hold your attention, you will necessarily become more deeply conscious of the present moment, which is of course the only path to know Truth. Truth is right here, right now. Attention stability not only allows you to know this present moment at deeper and deeper levels, it allows us to see more clearly falsehood since nearly all falsehood exists as a function of time and separation. Separation can only function if our attention span and mind is allowed to rapidly create objects out of experience. If we can slow this process down to super advanced degrees as it does on a psychedelic, this falsehood is seen even while sober. Basically what Im trying to say with this post is this: If you’re serious about consciousness work and understanding God, you’ve got to make it a focus to learn how to concentrate.

@Crystalous @Inliytened1 Thank you both. Yes this is one of his most important episodes. What Ive found is that it’s not merely the fact of distraction though, it’s also the fragility of attention stability which gives power to the distractions. This then ends up creating a negative feedback loop. The more distracted we get, the weaker attention becomes, the weaker attention the more easily we are distracted. While I agree with you insatiable seeking can become problematic, I also think if the seeker never commits to practices like attention stability via meditation or contemplating, they'll probably be lost in samsara. The ego-mind is just so so so conditioned for this distraction business.

I do cold showers but haven't stuck with breathing. For some reason I haven't found it to produce any noticeable changes? As I understand it, there is a gap in the breathing as you breath into your stomach and then into your chest while lying down. In your op, you mention there’s a larger gap outlined in his course. How long is this gap between stomach inhale and then the chest inhale? Perhaps my gaps aren’t long enough.

Ive had the opposite experience with my continued psychedelic use. They seem to have helped me unlock a reservoir of energy, willpower, and drive I didn’t truly understand. Sure it was always inside me and I didnt need the substances, but the substances have been facilitators nonetheless. I feel more energetically alive since starting them than before. Id trust your own heart and experience over what you hear.

I just bought it as a way of saying thank you for all the free content on his YouTube. It's what, like 2 lunches? It's dirt cheap and it has heaps of insightful books. Just do it dude. There's very low risk and you're helping Leo. Chances are that you'll find some really insightful, helpful books for your own path.

Not really sure. However, I've noticed the more detached I become, the more I surrender to letting the Universe flow without resistance, the more magical and synchronistic it becomes. Get rid of your desires for manipulation and let the Universe's magic come to you. I'd start by noticing that right here, right now is pure fucking magic.

Good luck! You should tell us how to retreat goes. Really cool picture btw

For whatever reason reading this report moved me to tears. This is beautiful, thank you for sharing. Thank you for the work that you provide for humanity and your life purpose.

Read the book “The Mind Illuminated” and start practicing a samatha based meditation approach. Until you have an extremely stable attention span, you will be limiting (perhaps greatly limiting) the effectiveness of meditation.

Super powerful:

??

Start with something so easy it’s impossible to fail. For example, your first week of exercise could be something as easy as 3 10 minute walks per week, and you just build from there. Also always holding onto patience and persistence with your goals. Progress isn’t linear and backsliding does happen. When you fail, let it go. Study the triggers that created the backsliding but ultimately let it go and move on. As far as the nihilism you faced on the trip, yeah... it’s a lot to handle sometimes. I think as hard as this is, the only solution Ive found to be effective is meeting nihilism/apathy with acceptance and love. Even apathy is a form of consciousness and it is no less deserving of love, it is no less perfect than any other play of form. I also agree that a higher dose might counter intuitively propel you into happiness or love however if you’re having suicidal thoughts while tripping, maybe using psychedelics alone isn’t what you need right now. As many moments of fear and nihilism Ive faved while tripping, Ive never had the thought to kill myself. Please be careful. If you dont have a regular sober spiritual practice like meditation or yoga to ground yourself on a daily basis, I would start there. Even 10-15 minutes a day of either practice can be life transforming. Same rules apply in regards to patience and persistence. If you’re looking to unlock suppressed emotions, Id look into Breathwork.

This is amazing! Thank you for taking the time to write this.

I had a massive enlightenment experience today and I wanted to record my insights in this thread. These insights were an extension of the material I was working on Saturday from Ralston’s material. What is this self thing that is creating my entire experience, meta interpretation, and emotional state out of this empty perceptive field of reality? In other words, what is the context for the end result of ego to manifest? Principles So Brendan and Ralston spent a lot of time with us going over the distinction “Principles” at the ENB workshop (I highly recommend). Principles can be thought of as these psycho-existential operating systems that are controlling our behavior. An example of a principle might be like this: “Do it now” which would mean when you notice something needs done, you do it, or the principle of “Integrity” which would mean that you don’t lie to yourself or others, or finally “Happiness” which would mean you take on an attitude of happiness regardless of external circumstance. The insight I had though: literally every single action we take can be derived from an unconscious principle in action. Literally EVERYTHING. Communication, for example, relies on a flurry of principles all playing out simultaneously and in precise synchronization. The principles of Using the english language, Reading, Intelligence, Time, Meaningful Sound, Socially acceptable body language, etc. I noticed that all of these are in effect, the same substance of what “Do it now” has. It’s a context for generating the way reality plays out. Principles, literally all of them, are context for the play of reality and we are all generating an insurmountable amount of principles in any given moment. And that’s when it hit me like a tone of bricks: The little self, the ego is an amalgam of principles playing out, all of which contribute to the manifestation of various emotional states, thoughts, behaviors, or any experiential state at all. Depending on how I value one principle over another, this will influence the content of my conscious state. So if I value “Lazy” more than I value “Do it now” I will generate resistance to cleaning my messy room. Furthermore, the quantity and quality of this resistance is interdependent on the quantity and quality of value Im giving each of these competing principles. Yet if one were to examine the existential structure of a principle, you would see that they are all empty of real substance. You are free to adopt and reconfigure the principles your operating from once you’ve become conscious of their existence. At one point during this contemplation, I tried to release the principle of survival and ended up landing back into the state I had been on the LSD, when I “left my body.” The Self In that moment I saw the oneness of all things. I saw that no one thing in particular could be separate from I, there was only The Self. After a complete cessation of Principles, there was nothing left to interpret reality, no context to generate meaningful distinctions or create context’s for emotional disposition. The process generating the context which gives rise to the little self, aka the ego, had stopped. At first I felt cold, and isolated, totally emotionally cut off from reality, and basically my self. There was a great void, and emptiness about this state. Nothing meant anything at all. Yet while In this new state of emptiness, I started spontaneously contemplating what Love and Beauty are. I noticed the principle of curiosity arising. Love It turns out Love (and Beauty) is an intrinsic property of reality. And not only is reality LITERALLY love, but the FEELING of overwhelming existential love, unconditional love is available no matter what form reality takes on. The emotionally charged feeling of love when we’re having sex with a soul mate is available for all manifestations of form. I saw that my most authentic expression of Self was feeling an infinite openness, acceptance, and existential love of this moment, this one moment no matter what content appears, including all forms of suffering. To choose to constrict this love to some form and not others is merely playing pretend, operating from and valuing one set of principles over another. But I truly, and deeply love it all, I am total Self-Love. I still don’t understand everything Im writing about here, but this one felt big. Who knows how my ego will react in the subsequent days.

Background: I came into this trip extremely curious about the nature of The Self. However not merely my true nature, or who I actually am; I was also curious about the ego and self survival. Something I learned from Peter Ralston’s work is that this creation of ego is an active in the moment process that we’re actually doing! According to his work, we are generating the context for our ego to exist, yet we are normally identified as the end result of this process, the ego. The implications of this are massive. If Ralston is correct this means that all of our suffering, trauma, happiness, joy, and really any conscious state at all is something that we are actively creating and participating in, we just aren’t conscious of this fact. It’s worth repeating though that it’s not that we ARE those states, but that we are creating the CONTEXT for those states to arise in any moment. Normally when we examine the ego, we are examining the end result, the self image, emotions, and thoughts yet this is not where my attention was going for the trip. My attention was focused on contemplating the existence of this hypothetical context. So this all means when I suffer deeply, it’s because I am wanting to suffer deeply. When I find great joy and love, I am responsible for that as well. Themes that emerged: - Responsibility - The Self - Survival - Energetic Integration Responsibility Unsurprisingly the coronavirus outbreak was on my mind during this trip. While I was contemplating how it’s possible that I am an active participant in the state of my mind and emotions regardless of external circumstance, I kept considering the existential fact that I am also actively generating the whole of reality. I kept looking at my hands and asking myself “Why am I doing this?” over and over and over, almost neurotically and to the point of tears. I couldn’t understand what the point of all of this suffering was for, whether there was some greater good it was serving, or some higher purpose. I couldn’t understand why I was actively creating this suffering and how helpless I felt within this process. During the trip, I honest to god could not experience what Ralston was talking about; my emotional states feel very automatic and unconscious, how one might describe a lack of free will. It feels like states ebb and flow regardless of what I’m up to. So for a solid 4 hours I was tripping out about how none of what is going on makes any sense at all. I create the suffering. I don’t like the suffering and because of my heightened state, I was really tapped into the collect fear that’s spread throughout humanity. I could feel just how afraid we all are about this pandemic; it feels like we DON’T want to suffer from this fear. Yet again, if what Ralston is proposing is true, we are all entirely responsible for this collective state; the virus has little to do with it other than how we’re interpreting it relative to our survival. And this here was the key, it is an interpretation. In order for anything to be interpreted, there has to be a context for these interpretations to arise, other was phenomena would just being perceived through a lens of void, which is where I suspect 5meo-DMT takes its users. So what was this context? What is the context I’m generating as The Self? What is that which gives rise to this ego, this form of survival? Another interesting aspect of this context is that it is running operating principles in the background as its functioning. These principles are what then give rise to our interpretations. The most obvious principle we all share is the principle of survival. This is perhaps our most deeply held principle as it trumps everything else. More on that later. Well during the beginning of the trip, I couldn’t become conscious of this context. Eventually I just sort of gave up and started Being. However, one thing I realized is that if this was in fact that case, I was existentially speaking, 100% responsible for EVERYTHING and this felt overwhelming to face. The Self The self only exists right now. At one point I was looking down at a hallucinogenic looking floor. As it was slowly morphing, almost like reality had turned into a viscous liquid, I left my body. It wasn’t that I *really* left my body, I just saw very clearly that I was never actually in a body at all and that I’m actually nowhere at all. Awareness felt expanded to a massive degree in this state and I just abided as what I know to be true. There is no one here, there is no time, there is no space, there is nothing at all, there is complete freedom, and all is the self. I honestly have no memory of how long I remaind in this state. Funny enough, eventually a memory came into awareness reminding me that I still didn’t understand the inner workings of self survival and then I lost focus on the Absolute, at least the degree to which I’ve become conscious of it. Survival I decided that I wanted to visit one of my favorite trees in a nearby park. I call it The Tree of Knowledge and I consider it a friend (very stage green I know lol). It’s taught me much over time, and it’s a comforting presence to be in while tripping. Here’s where it gets weird though. It’s Saturday around 3pm, beautiful weather outside, but as I get to the part it’s literally only me and a distant murder of crows (more on that in a second…). I was a little weirded out to be all alone in this enormous park, but I saw my friend off in the distance and knew that the journey had to be complete. Upon reunion with the Tree of Knowledge, I began doing a standing meditating, trying to mimic what the tree was doing. My feet felt firmly rooted to the ground, my body feeling fluid and loose yet active. During this tree meditation, I was super conscious of how integral having a firm root was when it comes to living life. For me and I suspect many of us, this root means our finances, health, shelter, social community, and even something psychological like integrity. If we are not strongly rooted in all dimensions of our being, trying to live a fulfilling life, a life where life purpose is the focus, will be next to impossible. I started reviewing all of my roots in life and trying to understand where I stood with all of them, especially given the pandemic. Eventually the meditation ended. I turned towards the ground and start watching a tiny worm travel across the ground. I felt so curious of its context, and roots, and how it must feel in its own moment of survival. It was interesting how clearly survival looked in the context of watching a worm crawl, but very regularly I fail to see the same mechanism within myself yet survival is the underlying principle (one among many others though) through which all of my experience and distinctions arise. Okay but then… I started to hear squawks off in the distance get closer and closer. As I turn my head up, I see the murder of crows from early start to circle me in the air, on the ground. They where closing in around me like a pack of wolves and even now I have no clue why or what I did to piss these dudes off. So, being the logical dude I am and in my altered state of mind, I decide my best course of action is to sprint out through the murder and back the way I came. I assumed I could outrun the crows. Boy I tell you what, LSD is a powerful drug because I went FAST. Not only that, but as I’m running at top speeds of my life, I’m contemplating the self-survival at play which gave rise to this whole situation from unfolding, and the subsequent decision to sprint. The fuckers followed me all the way home. Tripping out about being followed by crows, I decided it was best to try and repair relations. So later I went BACK out to try and feed them walnuts. Once returning to the park, one flew up squawking. It perched in a tree and kept aggressively squawking to which I yelled back, “Namaste! Namaste! Namaste!” while throwing walnuts on the ground. I then quickly backed away and surprising the Crow took the bait and went to the ground. I watched as other members of the murder flew over to check out the commission. Two days post trip and I still haven’t seen the murder at the park… I almost feels like I dreamt up the whole thing. The whole thing felt like a weird real life encounter with survival… The tree, the roots, the worm, the crows, my sprint… Such a weird moment on the trip. Energetic Integration Not going to lie, this trip wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. After how profound my last mushroom trip was where I went Super Saiyan, this felt a little underwhelming and unproductive. Yet as I exited the trip, I felt changed. My whole body felt different. My mind feels different. This seems strange, but it somehow feels like the energetic currents circulating my body during the trip where cementing the previous trip deeper into my being. Now I know that sounds super woo woo, but it’s the only way I can describe the after effects of the trip. I feel more and more whole, more and more integrated and ready to take on life. I am really starting to not give a fuck about what other’s think when I speak my perspective. In other words, I feel much less resistance with penetrating my perspective into the world. I feel less resistance about embracing the principles that give rise to excellence. I also feel like I am growing in my understanding of compassion and love and the balance that these play with being equanimous and unemotional. It’s almost like my masculine and feminine energy are slowly working into one another while also retaining their individual current. As I enter into the days post trip, I already feel the call for a much higher mushroom trip. The number that comes to mind is 3.5g and it felt like this trip was an energetic training ground to prepare me for what is coming. I’ve also since seen that I am responsible for creating the context for all of reality. My state of mind is mine for the making. Reality is a reflection of the self, totally and as such the Self is responsible, totally. Responsibility with a capital R so to speak. There was no big insight though… I just woke up the next day and saw how obvious it was and how funny it was that I didn’t see this while on LSD.

Love it. Thank you for writing this up.

I love this. Thank you for sharing.

Ive found most meat eaters, even ones who are enlightened, haven’t truly become conscious of the magnitude of collective suffering these animals go through. It’s immense and it’s being fueled by pure ego. We value gluttony over health and compassion. There are states of being where one’s empathy literally can start tapping into collective forms of consciousness and one can truly feel into the suffering of other beings. How is this possible? Because of our underlying unity. We all experience empathy to some degree this isn’t radical, but the more consciousness work one does (meditation, contemplation, yoga, psychedelics) the more empathy can begin to grow. If this expansion of empathy is centered and energized around ego though, we are literally blocking ourselves from the truth of the matter. The truth is, everyone supporting the meat and diary industry wouldn’t want to be in the situation those animals find themselves in and by supporting the industry, it’s one big hypocritical, selfish, and cruel way of being. Is this state of being wrong? No. But there are no good arguments for supporting it other than if it was truly life or death. That all being said, karma is a bitch... From what Ive observed, the Universe has a way of enacting justice and balance that transcends our human centric egoic ideas of justice and balance.

So happy I didnt fall into the no truth trap early on my path. Would have wasted so much time not seeking and stuck in maya.

No truth is precisely the truth.