Consilience

U.G. Krishnamurti has always struck me as a stage orange enlightened type. From reading about his teaching style (or lack thereof) he seems to not understand Love and reduces truth and consciousness to a sort of biological, materialistic cold thing. Ive gotten major nihilistic vibes from his stuff... but nihilism that hasn’t yet gone full circle. Yet somehow the dude seems woke as fuck, like I wouldn't be surprised if the fear of death had completely vanished from his experience.

Purple: Laughing Bull from Cowboy Bebop

It’s like the infinity of finitude

Man... I feel you op. I used to be very anti leo and anyone claiming the ego was an illusory self and I was nothing/infinity/god. But I guess my reaction was “well either it’s true or it’s not and the only way for me to find out is if I try to find out.” So I started doing the practices. I started consistently meditating 1 hour every day and learning how to focus and build awareness. I learned how to properly contemplate and sought out other teachings/teachers, trying to find counter arguments to eastern mysticism while also slowly (and accidentally) discovering the holes in western science, philosophical rationalism, and agnosticism (at this point I already saw how atheism and religion are both blind beliefs). Long story short, Ive had direct encounters with consciousness, formlessness and infinity.... but it was from a place of HONEST investigation, not belief nor blind criticism of Leo. I guess I see what you’re saying about belief but it doesn't really resonate with my path. I honest to god didn't know what meditation, contemplation, or psychedelics would do... but I was deeply curious and wanted to see where the road would lead.

So much yeeesssss.... You killed it.

It’s weird... It feels like sometimes I feel like I see powerful, obvious signs but then they don’t pan out the way I thought they would. And it makes me wonder, perhaps there was/is a version of reality where those signs did in fact lead me down a particular path but for whatever reason, the reality Im experiencing did not.

True but yet... not true. Great question OP, I have no idea personally.

"You think of yourselves as humans searching for a spiritual awakening, when in fact you are spiritual beings attempting to cope with a human awakening."

@Petals Fosho! @Recursoinominado Thank you yes it felt incredible. It felt like everyone at the workshop felt the utility of these and I hope everyone’s been successful with implementation. The ones I listed where given to us by Brendan, I can’t take credit. But the possibilities are endless, and he encouraged us to contemplate and discover new ones for ourselves, so basically you already have access to them you just have to discover them Other examples: Happiness, effectiveness, effortlessness, appreciation, compassion, patience, honest communication. It could be anything really so yeah it’s fun to contemplate. Id give yourself time to slowly implement them though. I haven’t been 100% perfect, and the ego isn’t going to like integrity, for example, so taking it slow and being methodical with transforming yourself is what they advised.

@Petals For sure but to properly explain imma need more than a few sentences so hopefully you don’t mind. The way I think of Principles is that they’re almost these psycho-existential operating systems for behavior. They aren’t beliefs, they aren’t concepts, and they aren’t better or worse than any other way of living life; this is what Peter and Brendan both seemed to both stress anyways. Instead, Principles are simply ways of living life that create sets of outcomes. They limit the ego’s available options for behavior and paradoxically, this limiting of available choices manifests an interesting and powerful freedom. So for example, Do It Now: When you notice your bed needs to be made, the kitchen needs cleaning, your computer desktop needs organizing, food need to be prepped, you stop trying to plan when these small little day to day tasks get done. When I feel lethargic and notice dishes in the sink, I dont put it off for later. I do that shit now. It basically helps declutter your life from the things you already have to do by doing them immediately and not creating excuses for putting it off for later. Once I implemented this, I noticed how often I put off small tasks. So my behavior had to transform to align with the energy of this principle. Get Shit Done: You live your life getting shit done. Stop wasting time doing bullshit. Stop being distracted. Just start noticing how much shit that needs done, and start DOING IT. Very simple. But when someone actual makes the decision to live life this way 24/7, serious momentum starts to accumulate. When you notice yourself wasting time, the incongruency with this principle will be felt in the mind and body; it’s precisely the directed decision to implement the Get Shit Done that helps manifest the momentum instead of a yo-yo of productivity and laziness that people often experience when trying to be productive. But there’s one final principle worth mentioning that holds the web of this whole system together. Integrity: Imagine living a life where your word actually meant something. A world where when you tell yourself, “Im going to do x,y, and z” and you actually fucking do it. This principle is you essentially creating absolute accountability with yourself and your own word, true genuine self-honesty and self-trust. So when I tell myself, “oh Im going to implement the get shit done and do it now principles into my life after this workshop.” I actually do it. I actually can trust myself to not backslide. This one is actually extremely profound because your word suddenly has the CONSISTENT power to manipulate the future... very heavy metaphysical implications Im still contemplating on. I digress. So yeh sorry for being long winded, but I felt like this was a more genuine response.

Beautiful. That healing you speak of... it’s such an important process with awakening. And you're right, we all carry so much.

Have you had much of an opportunity implementing the Principles into your life? So far, the Do It Now and Get Shit Done have been absolute game changers. They’re so simple but so so so effective.

Still working on trying to write my write up, I attended the fall series as well! I only did the ENB and TSW though... so much to integrate that Ive felt paralysis trying to write a cohesive write up. Maybe ill add it to this thread instead of starting another thread or maybe Ill start another haha. Also a darkroom retreat is intense af after doing all 5 weeks of Cheng Hsin!! Great report Edit: Also +1 to Brendan being a great facilitator. Was bummed Peter wasn’t leading but seriously Brendan was phenomenal.

While I agree traditional psychedelics are more effective, I personally consider weed to be psychedelic. Ive had visuals, insights into my subconscious mind, and a dissolving of self/other while blasted on weed. If someone doesn’t have access to normal psychedelics, weed can be a better than nothing alternative. It DOES have a high potential for abuse though for sure...

Smoke less, like get less high and cut back on frequency. The drowsiness comes on faster the higher our tolerance is, and the peak lasts longer the lower the tolerance. Also +1 for sativa strains although as someone who lives in a legal state and has gone through periods of heavy usage, the line between sativa and indica isn’t as nearly important as everyone thinks. It comes down to the individual strains and finding a strain you resonate with that gives you that energetic cerebral high you’re looking for.

That’s a great start. I wouldn’t necessarily say thoughts are in our control anymore than the sun rising and setting is. Im just meaning literally directed action leading to outcomes is possible. For example, you hear the call, the passion to get really jacked and become a bodybuilder. Well, perhaps the call toward that passion wasn’t “in your control” but the decision of whether to actualize this vision is. Or something smaller. You have the urge, the drive to wake up at 6:00am. Maybe this drive isn't in your control but the decision of whether waking at 6:00am is. You can either wake up, or not wake up... both realities are freely allowed to manifest. And equally, as these realities unfold and actualize, you can drop back and observe them as though no one was in control. And to take this one step further, awakening to the True Self means all reality that’s unfolding is in accordance with your will, and your will is so infinite that it’s completely free to be what it wants. But this is entering into thought-story realms and none of it should be believed. Instead, I invite you to consider that maybe all of reality and all thoughts and experiences appearing are actually in accordance with your free will, you just aren’t conscious of this fact yet. And this will is manifesting in the same way no free will would. Such that it appears that there is no control whatsoever. The more work Ive done with meditation, contemplation, and psychedelics, the more twisted and paradoxical free will appears to be. All I offer is my perspective and I do recognize it sounds like bullshit relative to rationalism. Im sure intellectuals like Sam Harris would love tearing it down haha. But just try to be open that both free will and no free will are occurring simultaneously. If such a truth was true, how would that change the way you live life?

Yet you can still grasp it. The mind is a tool that’s great at grasping logic and reason (well.. sometimes. Some minds struggle with even this). Literally look and watch as you can surrender will in your experience, taking on the perspective of reality continuing to move and operate without any intervention of will. And equally, notice how conscious intention and action can freely manipulate and control, manifest various outcomes. Let go of the idea that the nature of free will is a function of mind but rather a function of experience and consciousness. Once you can see this paradox playing out, and your mind is okay with paradox, then your mind will be content, albeit it wont be able to make a rational, logical argument for why this is possible.

Here’s the spooky thing about reality... free will is precisely no free will and no free will is precisely free will. Look in your experience and notice how both perspectives can manifest. It’s not one or the other, we could say it’s both or neither and yet language will never be able to capture the paradox of this. This is what Ive experienced at least Leo’s video on relativity applies here.

Very interested in hearing everyone’s results

Thank you for this. Your posts are always uber helpful, as a fellow TMI practitioner. Unfortunately Im still battling subtle distractions in stage 6 so Ill have to revisit this post again in the future once my mind is more unified... But still helpful nonetheless. Interestingly, I started incorporating the smile with my sits and Ive already experienced a noticeable increase in joy, happiness, and pleasure. Joy has been the slowest and most subtle result of the smile, but it’s funny how effective such a small change has made. The good news about the subtle distractions is that even though they continue to be projected into consciousness, the speed at which attention autocorrects itself back to the meditation object continues to increase. Hopefully Ill be able to start cultivating effortlessness soon.

Looked extremely fascinating. Ordered and thank you for sharing!

Hearing about the Hard Problem of Consciousness on Sam Harris’s podcast and realizing science did not take the significance of this problem seriously. Also smoking a lot of weed and being extremely fascinated with how consciousness was able to change so dramatically.

I've found the commonality to be concentration/stability of attention. In all forms of meditation, the scattering of mind is not conducive towards whatever you're trying to accomplish. The only exception would be the "do nothing" technique, which I don't find to be particularly useful anyways. I've also heard the essence of meditation being described as concentration and surrender. I've also heard it being defined as building mindfulness, concentration, and equanimity, which I find to be a really good model. Building mindfulness is essentially the same as expanding one's awareness, concentration would be the stability of attention aka single pointed focus, and then equanimity would be the ability to be content, perhaps even happy, with simply being and nothing more. This last model is how I view the end "goal" of meditation itself, but I use quotations because if one is trying to achieve this state, you're already unable to actualize what this model points towards. That being said, this is the direction my practice has led me to: the cultivation of awareness (mindfulness), concentration (stability of mind/attention), and equanimity (life's good mayne).

The principle of integrity is huge here. When you say you're going to do something, DO IT. If you can’t trust your own word, what kind of results in life do you expect? Start small, build momentum with your integrity, and over time let your word mean something. The principle of integrity is one of the most powerful and under appreciated principles of self actualization.

Great post.. Never really thought of actualizing the inner warrior this way, but I really like it. Thank you for sharing