Consilience

@Buba wow congrats on the sobriety ? Yeah I mean at the end of the day, it is all kinda the same shit haha. But it’s beautiful shit... and it can be beautiful without drugs as Im sure you’ve seen!

Caveat: Strictly speaking, I wasn't smoking daily, however some weeks were 7/7 while other 5-6/7 so basically daily. I've known for the past 2 years that one day I'd need to seriously cut back on my weed use. However, even in the midst of this addictive behavior, I always tried my best not to judge myself and instead, I tried to get as much value out of my experiences with weed as possible. And it feels like that's exactly what I did. Weed has given me quasi psychedelic states, insights into non-duality, and insights into my own emotions and subconscious mind. It truly has been a gift from Earth and it's the reason I got into spirituality at all. My former atheistic, rationally minded self was flabbergasted at how strange it was that consciousness could be altered to such a degree, and the philosophical implications thereof. This lead me down the path towards investigating "the hard problem of consciousness" which eventually had me watching "brains do not exist" from Leo and well... here I am haha. That all being said, while weed has been a spiritual ally on the path, it has its shadow side of addiction. However I realized I needed to transform my relationship to the substance... Because there was (and still is to a degree) a massive clinging to the substance. It's a subtle craving that I had, craving that always undercut my experience, particularly in the evenings, my favorite time to get lit... I think the sneakiness of the craving and addiction is what has been the most fascinating aspect to observe. Until I've stopped for this long, I don't think I realized just how MUCH I actually craved, how quickly the urge to go smoke drove my behaviors. It wasn't until I actively decided to stop did I start noticing the sheer volume of these microscopic, lightening fast urges to go get high. So after 30 days of no longer smoking after such heavy use, what have I observed? Benefits: Clearer mind More stable focus/attention Less random thoughts while sober More satisfaction with baseline consciousness Higher sensitivity with senses/perceptions (i.e. more overall mindfulness) Body feels incredibly more energetic during meditation Feelings of Kundalini movement while sober More physical energy Better sleep More willpower and discipline Meditation satisfaction has really ramped up since abstaining Short-term memory feels more powerful Can operate quite well off of less sleep Dream more often and more powerfully Baseline happiness feels higher Everything feels sharper, and higher resolution Baseline consciousness feels more psychedelic My heart chakra has opened up substantially this last month (but this could have nothing to do with weed) Music sounds better sober More synchronicities while sober Negatives: Less creativity with personal projects Less random insights/discovery Less euphoria in life (but this could also be a positive?) Less direct connection with my subconscious mind No more medical benefits (weed helps manage a chronic disease I have) Emotions are harder to investigate Missing the crazy presence and NOW'ness I get while high Feel less connected with intuition Where do we go from here? I told myself when I stopped that I wouldn't get high again (with weed, LSD and mushrooms are still kosher lol) until January 1st. After having taken this much time away though, I'm not sure I'll be ready by then... We'll see. From my pov, I still consider weed to be an amazing substance. Even though it can kinda energetically wreck the mind and body, and is definitely addictive, it has taught me so much about myself, about life, and about consciousness. It's helped carve out my particular journey through life in a multitude of ways. For some reason, I don't really think total abstinence is the direction I want to go with it. I can't really be sure what the optimal frequency of use would be, but the ability that weed has with connecting me to powerful intuition, subconscious thoughts and emotions and the creativity is something I do see genuine value in. However, I honestly think a frequency akin to 1-2x per month is the limit... I feel like more frequently and I'd run the risk of cravings returning. Conclusion I just wanted to share my experiences with the community. Weed most certainly has powerful properties that I find useful for both life purpose work and spirituality. But god damn it's addictive... So you gotta be careful. I hope I can be successful with transforming my relationship with it into just another tool I occasionally use, akin to normal psychedelics, but I am open to completely letting it go if that's what I feel is best. Time will tell. Thanks for reading, I hope you found value for your own journey, and all thoughts are welcome. :)

It took me about a week to feel totally sober. Interesting that our stories are so similar though... good luck on your journey with da bud ?

@fridjonk I see! That makes sense... I might have to follow your edible protocol then. It's very interesting how edibles and smoking are both so similar, but so different haha. I appreciate the feedback. Yeah that was a little unclear. I have them more frequently while sober now, but I still used to have them sober. I also got them while high. Crazy shit would just fall into place and I'd feel like it was even more profound because I was baked

Really appreciate your last sentence. Thank you. I guess what I see is the creation aspect is made of distinctions not separation. I draw a distinction (lol) between distinction and separation. So I fully see how I as a human am distinct from say, a tree, a rock, another human, but I don't equate this to literal separation. Separation itself is a relative thing. Like, separated by what? Separation has to be a function of something else. Separated relative to space, relative to boundaries, relative to time. Is one finger separated from another? I would say no unless we're saying separated relative to distance. Instead I would say, a finger is distinct from another finger, but it's all one unified, un-separated hand. And so when I look at the totality of my direct experience, my direct experience as 1 conscious experience, I don't see or feel separation, I see 1 thing, 1 form which contains within it an infinite amount of distinctions. Maybe what you're calling separation is what I'm calling distinctions?

Oh nice That's cool that you feel this is an appropriate frequency. Do you feel urges to get high in the days following one of your sessions?

@acidgoofy Great question... I think just getting really really really sensitive to your own mind is step 1. By that I mean being able to make distinctions within your experience whether what you're doing has evolved into purely hedonism, or if you still feel an intuitive pull to use weed. For me, I started to see how the urges to get high were starting to be dominated by an under current of dissatisfaction with sobriety. Through meditation, I was able to start seeing the craving I was continually exposed to and how it was being reinforced through my weed use. So basically, when the suffering/dissatisfaction of craving outweighs the benefits you're getting, you'll feel the call to stop. The thing is, the call to stop can be a subtle energy... And easily missed. And forget about feeling that call to stop while high haha. I mean, usually when I got high I wasn't thinking about the ways weed harmed my health and mind. You really just have to be honest with yourself, and sensitive enough to the inner workings of your own mind to create the distinctions between craving and usefulness. Inquire: Why am I getting high? What do I genuinely get out of this? How is my continual use creating suffering and/or ignorance? How would my life be different if I let this go? But hey man, there is no judgment either way. Just trust your gut, but be sensitive enough to hear your own gut... if that makes sense.

What if you’ve already experienced oneness and a cessation of separation? See, separation is literally a conceptual webbing over direct experience, it’s the mind’s operating system for survival of the body and self as a particular one. Interestingly enough, separation as an experience is not needed for survival to keep going. I can feel the oneness of all things while still eating food, or walking down a street without falling and smacking my head, or conversing with a friend. Oneness is always the case and therefore is always assessable. Furthermore, the more one inquires into this oness, this lack of separation and unity, the deeper it goes. This is a radical thing though... and not everyone will understand. I invite to consider your experience is one unified, unseparated whole made up of an infinite amount of distinctions which fuel the feeling of separation which isn’t actually so. Separation is concept, unity is actual. At least... this is my experience

?? Self deception is a powerful force...

@LfcCharlie4 your point was illustrated ❤️

I wonder if he’s genuinely happy with life.

@LfcCharlie4 In my experience, this has been the case. Eventually you just feel compassion for beings for no other reason than that they are alive; there's no energy for violence or aggressive behavior... I mean... If it came down to it, I could probably tap into survival drives and fight someone, but the desire for power and control over other's is not there. At this point I'd say I do genuinely care for pretty anyone and everything I meet. It's odd to think of the contrast of my younger self to now. Exploring the texts helps give perspective though and I personally find it fun

Yes typo Thank you for the resources

What constitutes a virtual way of living though?

So much wisdom

@Nak Khid Radical transformation = gradual transformation change over the long run.

Again, dogma, clearing speaking from an absolutist's paradigm. When I say dogma, I am taking aim at your absolutistic attitude about meditation. This is further ironic given that you keep citing spiral dynamics and suggesting that meditation is a tier 1 activity. Yet if you've ever deeply studied SD, you'd recognize absolutism (dogma) is a tier 1 activity lol. So again, so many chuckles. Speaking in my experience, meditation has radically transformed my experience. Stable attention, unification of mind, heightened sensitivity to body, and metacognitive awareness of thought (and more not worth listing) have all played into what I'm calling "radical transformation." Hahaha thank you friend. You've made no enemies here. Only helped me see first hand self-deception and made me look more closely into my own. Which is part of why I qualify most of my meditation comments; qualify that I acknowledge meditation isn't for everyone. If you are too dogmatic to see the utility meditation has for Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence, I can't help you. Refer to my above comments regarding SD. I invite you to transcend into tier 2 relativism, and acknowledge that maybe, just maybe meditation has utility for certain individual's based on relative mind structures, histories, environments, culture, perhaps even past lives, etc. Or don't. Making absolutist claims that meditation has no utility for Self-Actualization or Self-Transcendence is dogma my friend. No way around that one. If you read, I actually addressed this point about meditation. I agree with you. Meditation is not inherently about uncovering truth. It is about the rewiring of one's mind, and emotions which facilitate the integration and processing of insights. Dry insight alone is rather weak if one's attention span can't stay still, if one is constantly being dragged around by the mind. Believe it or not, you can have deep insights into the existential nature of reality but have these insights poorly integrated into lived baseline experience if attention is weak. So again, I invite you to consider the possibility that your perspective is partial and does not contain within it the full truth. I further invite you to take a leap into tier 2 thinking and try to see the partial truth in the words I write rather than clinging to your absolutist's attitude with meditation, if only to help make you a better teacher for those who do not understand Self-Actualization or Transcendence.

@V-8 So much dogma.. cant help but internally chuckle. Ill say this again, insight isn’t the primary utility with meditation. Radical transformation of mind and emotions are. If being happy while doing nothing isn’t something you’re interested in, no meditation needed. But all I can say is meditation has been one of the most rewarding decisions of my life But Im also not dogmatic enough to think it’s for everyone.

@Dovahkiin Definitely agree with everything you wrote... It really resonates. And yes, happiness isn't insight, however happiness IS an insight haha. I use the techniques outlined in The Mind Illuminated, which is a book heavily focused around Samatha, but it's more accurately a samatha-vipassina hybrid as it combines elements of both in an integrated way. Feels like a SD stage yellow meditation book, with streaks of turquoise. Highly recommend it if you feel more pull towards traditional meditation vs. kriya. I've done some kriya yoga, but it feels a bit too active for me. There's something about the stillness and potential boredom that arises with meditation that attracts me. I think eventually I'll give Kriya another shot once I've developed the skills with meditation I want. My strategy with consciousness work is using meditation to transform my mind and use contemplation/psychedelics for insights. I don't really regard meditation as an insight generator (though I have had many insights while meditating), but rather a tool that works directly on reprogramming my mind and emotions, as well as a tool for integrating the insights I've gotten from both dry contemplation and contemplation under the influence of psychedelics. Edit: To give credit where credit is due, @ardacigin is the one who initially brought The Mind Illuminated on my radar. He has a lot of really great posts talking about facets of meditation and its utility.

Good point. Perhaps trying a more concentration oriented practice like kriya yoga or samatha meditation would create noticeable differences? I used to have very similar viewpoints on meditation vs. psychedelics until I started actually training to have a stable attention span. After around 5 months of this work, I've gotten much more noticeable results from meditation, less craving, less suffering, more equanimity, more happiness during meditation... And perhaps most importantly, I've had much better integration from psychedelic trips. Ive noticed all deep psychedelic trips have a stability of attention, a honing in on 'now' that I don't normally have with my baseline state of consciousness. It seems as I've developed a more stable attention, the line between psychedelic states and baseline consciousness dissolves. There seems to be something extremely crucial about concentration, at least this was the case for me. Either way, you gotta find your own path. A 3 month vipassana retreat is fucking epic man... Insane but really impressive.

How stable is your attention? From what I've observed, the mind doesn't start to seriously reprogram itself until attention can be stablized.

Poorly done meditation doesn’t give much. Effective meditation has been absolutely game changing for me. Equanimity is an underrated tool in spirituality; the type of equanimity needed to literally sit doing nothing while feeling joyful and happy.

Tbh I see more Leo backlash than Leo idolizing on the forum. People here seem pretty independent and willing to share novel advice to help others, rather than always citing Leo. Moreover, I actually see a lot of frustration and criticism of Leo, which I think is a good thing. The most idolizing I see is actually just people appreciating him, which I can dig because I appreciate him too. Interesting how one’s interpretation sets their reality.

Maybe if you think the whole “you’re already enlightened.” “There’s no need to meditate” advice is solid, we simply disagree Not everyone is at the same level or even on the same path. Giving advice like what the quotes pointed towards are realistically unhelpful for someone who could really benefit from meditation. If Id have listened to those quotes while beginning my journey, that would have set me way back. You gotta be more nuanced. I understand what you’re cute little winky face is pointing towards and I still think it’s bad advice.