Consilience

Usually spontaneous psychedelic trips aren't the best idea. Getting mind fucked by reality tends to go a lot more smoothly when one carefully plans the set and setting beforehand. However as I've grown in experience with tripping, I've also learned to trust my intuition. I knew I would be tripping sometime this week, but I didn't know when. One thing lead to another and the next thing I know I'm in a hotel room on the west coast (not worth getting into with how or why this was booked.) I wanted to write this trip report primarily to help me with my integration process. I know I enjoy reading trip reports so hopefully some in the community will find this of value. Set: To let the experience be and teach whatever it wants while contemplating "who am I?" Setting: 6pm at a hotel on the beach on the west coast. The entire trip took place that evening roughly from 6pm-12pm. Because I live far enough north the entire thing occurred while the sun was down which created a very cold, and dark vibe, but despite the weird initial energy, it felt like the Universe had guided me to this beach for a purpose and to back out would be to ignore a very authentic call to trip. Moreover, a ridiculously odd synchronicity occurred after checking into the hotel room. Out of all the cheap 2 star hotels available close to the beach in this particular town the one I picked had a very crazy wifi password: AGAPE. For those who don't know, AGAPE is traditionally a Christian term meaning "the love of God for man and of man for God," but from a non-dual perspective, I take this word to simply mean the love of god, of infinite consciousness, of the universe, of the absolute, etc. This wifi password seemed to set the entire tone of the trip. Pre-Trip: It feels like the more psychedelic trips I do, the more sensitive I become to the substances; specifically LSD and magic mushrooms since those are the only two I have access to at the moment. It seems that a reverse tolerance effect has taken place overtime which is why I only took 1.5g. Plus, since I was in an unfamiliar setting doing a not so legal act. Themes that emerged: Agape Infinity Void/Emptiness Stillness Lightness of mind Sobriety Agape Man… What can I say… As I was peaking, I walked out of the hotel room and wandered to the coast. The beach was pitch black; the further into the sand I traveled the darker the light from the town became, engulfing my vision into darkness and the light of the stars (the sky had no clouds at all). I remember looking up and out into the physical universe, and soaking in the energy. My heart chakra lit up as if receiving literal energy from the cosmos while also emitting this energy back out. As I stood there, listening to the waves and watching the stars, I felt the interconnectivity of all phenomena, all objects, all experience, all beings. And I realized that the thread connecting this giant tapestry of existence was none other than the Love of God, Agape. It felt overwhelming. And even as I write this out, I tears form. Words can't really be used to describe what this love is. It's formless, but it connects all form and is not separate from any form. It can't be thought, experienced with perception, or really experienced through form. The body and mind can react to this Agape with tears or ecstasy (or horror), but those experiences in and of themselves are not it. The mushrooms seemed to open my body (specifically the heart center) and still my mind in such a way that a conscious leap took place. Upon which all I could feel was how much love their was for all perspectives, all evil, all good, for my specific egoic life, for all the horrors of mankind, for all the saints and sages across time, there is this deep existential acceptance and infinite love for it all. There is nothing, but love for all of it, and I am that love. This love is light, it is all encompassing, it is completely formless and free connecting the entirety of existence. This love is truly infinite and indiscriminatory. This is both utterly tragic and beautiful to my ego. Thank you wifi password. Infinity How could I not feel the magnitude of infinity while looking up at those stars? Truly a conscious leap that transcends mind, logic, language, time, and even space must take place to truly feel what I felt on that beach. It was as though I was standing at center of eternity with the cosmos smiling down. I remember feeling really happy and at peace at this infinity. It felt light, and harmonious. Something specifically about staring up into the universe created a spaciousness to my awareness; it felt boundlessly free, extending to all of reality. The duality of self and other collapsed as well. Oddly enough, I wouldn't say there was an ego death. Rather, the true Self emerged and watched the ego, while the ego cried with deep appreciation. It was so obvious how infinite I was and how illusory the self was, yet the self wasn't sad nor reacting with any negativity at all while still persisting. I was simply infinite, and have always been. 10/10 recommend tripping under the stars at a beach. Void/Emptiness I've encountered this insight many times before, but it was taken to a new level. In that darkness I could see just how "not there" everything really was. It was strange. On the one hand, I felt the magnitude of infinity and all its creation, but on the other, it was as though the beach, the trip, the perceptions, the feelings, the body, the ego, were all truly not there. Because well… they're not. I don't really know how to say much more about this one. But yeah, there was no beach truly. There was no me. There was no reality at all which was precisely the fact of the beach. In a sense, I'm still on that beach looking at the stars, BECAUSE, the direct perceptions we experience ARE NOT ACTUALLY REAL. There are not actually anything at all and completely empty and void of real substance. This is a tricky insight to communicate. Stillness One of the most interesting aspects of this trip compared to all other psychedelic experiences I've had is how still the mind became. It was like gaining a lifetime of meditation training in one night. The mind literally was thoughtless for the majority of the trip. I felt 0 need to contemplate anything because there was nothing more to understand. Usually when I trip, my mind can get pretty worked up or excited about insights I'm having, but this time there was no such activity. There was simply a complete and utter stillness and abiding as the Self. The conditioning of thinking was gone. I realized that this is the state that meditation ultimately leads towards. This stillness, as far as I can tell, felt very important towards integrating truth. As long as the mind is wandering, thinking, discriminating, planning, worrying, creating, etc. oneness will be difficult to abide in. Overall I believe this state was achieved because of how much effective meditation I've been doing lately. And I believe that this trip let me glimpse into what no-mind is like and where persistent, effective meditation practice leads to over a lifetime. It's fucking beautiful. Lightness This theme was similar to the stillness. Both arose more or less simultaneously, but I think it's important to create the distinction. My mind could best be described as being extremely light… Very not dense. If someone's never done psychedelics or has thousands of hours of meditation under their belt, I don't really think they'd understand what I mean here. Literally the mind while sober has a density to it. It feels heavy. There are 1000s of random unconscious thoughts drifting in and out of awareness so quickly throughout the day, the overwhelming majority of which we don't recognize. Don't take this to mean that this undercurrent of thought doesn't influence your experience just because we don't recognize them - it very much does. I consider myself to be a pretty decent meditator, but I was shocked to see this contrast so fully. There is a metric fuckton of mental activity that goes on and shields consciousness from being conscious of itself, inadvertently (or perhaps purposefully) creating a heaviness to mind. This heaviness literally condenses us into the body, into identification with ego, creates and manages survival strategies at macro and micro levels, and it does all of this at lightening speeds. It also creates a myriad of random, completely meaningless and distracting thoughts, which also contribute towards survival. This is a very active, powerful, and DENSE mechanism. The mushrooms dissolved all of this activity. All that was left was this abidance in the present moment at a level I've never experienced before. It was insane. It felt so light… The experience also made me appreciate the path of meditation, and just where it ultimately leads at advanced levels. Sobriety Thought the trip itself was a wonderful and almost healing experience, I remember feeling very appreciate of what my sober state of mind really does. I feel so grounded while sober and having that ground pulled out from under me is difficult. I like feeling the grounding and tranquility that sobriety offers. Plus, at some point I realized that I'm gonna have to let go of the substances. I'm not sure when, and maybe it won't even be in this lifetime, but at some level, I will have to accept how I am without influence of chemicals. This doesn't mean tripping is bad or wrong, merely that sobriety is enough. My work is to work until I stay conscious of these truths at all times, sober, tripping, suffering, or blissed out on something as simple as breathing. The struggle is that right now, my sober state of mind is so engulfed in the illusion of separation, and survival that having psychedelics temporarily destroy this functioning helps immensely. That being said, there is something very wonderful about our sober minds. Take Away: Overall a very powerful experience for as little mushrooms as I ingested. I feel at peace with my spiritual development and I'm happy with how far I've come for only having done this work for less than 2 years. I feel very grateful to only be 23 and have seen what I've seen. It feels like if I had to die, in a way that would be okay. After all, 99% of people haven't experienced what I've experienced; the gratitude I have for Leo and this community is very strong. Thank you everyone for how you've contributed towards my path. I also feel very motivated with my meditation practice. I can tell anyone reading that meditation, when done correctly and effectively, leads to a dramatically different state of mind. This state will be extremely conducive for contemplating and discovering existential truths, as well as experiencing the magnificence and beauty of reality aka YOU. The other thing that I took away is that eventually I'm going have to up these doses… I've continually stayed within the 1-1.7g mushroom range, and 100-200ug LSD ranges. Even though a reverse tolerance effect seems to being taking place, I think there is a lot of value in having your reality completely destroyed, but having the courage to face it with love and acceptance. The call for a high doses seems to be brewing, but for now, chop wood carry water haha.

@peanutspathtotruth thank you! ❤️ To respond to your question, that’s a tough comparison. For me, TMI has been invaluable at really transforming my mind and integrating contemplation insights. But on the other hand, the more psychedelics I do, the more energetically active my chakras become.. Giving credence to the idea that dedicated purification practice would help stabilize this energy and allow it to transform my experience however it wants. Aka I think Kriya would be very helpful. Overall though, my body feels like it handles the energy well on its own without the need for practice (I have a lot of experience with exercise and nutrition which I think helps) and therefore, I concluded that meditation is more useful for me specifically. Generally speaking, I recommend TMI to people just because of the sheer power of the ego-mind and how directly TMI works on the mind. Id love to hear other’s perspectives on this too though.

Hehe. Thank you! And yes, yes you were ? @Leo Gura Thank you ??

“We shouldn't be worried about anything related to Trump's actions. America is gonna be fine with or without Trump.” That’s easy to say from a place of privilege. As someone with a chronic disease who struggles to pay for expensive medication every month, it’s hard not to let it where me down or stress me out if I were to not be able to afford what I need. If Republicans would have had their way and truly gutted Obamacare, it would have generated a lot more suffering in my life. Notice how much privilege this excerpt speaks from. If you were on the receiving end of Trump’s/conservatives disastrous policies, you’d be speaking differently. There’s around a 50% correlation with clinical depression people with my disease have and Im fairly sure this number would be lower if American’s actually gave a fuck about trying to help the chronically ill. The fact that it already is difficult to manage PLUS the absurd cost of healthcare can be psychologically taxing to say the least. Thankfully Im happy and not depressed, but I have my moments where the collective lack of care hurts and the fact that a major political party actively works towards making the challenge of this disease already more challenging.

Great post and weird synchronicity. I was listening to Leo’s Survival part 1 video this morning and contemplating survival in the woods. Love the insights.

Such a thing is completely possible for the average seeker. Samatha meditation practice is what I recommend, specifically from the book, The Mind Illuminated. I feel like a broken record because Ive recommended it in a lot of threads but it’s too powerful not to mention. Ive made more meditation progress in the last 3 months than the other 1.5 years Ive been serious about it. And I've had “peak” sessions where my mind was effortlessly calm and stable. My attention was completely at my control, so to speak. To give credit where credit is due, @ardacigin is the one who first introduced me to the book awhile back in another thread. Id also recommend psychedelics. In my experience, as I see more and more existential truths and embody them, my mind has gradually grown calmer. If you can maintain awareness and equanimity on a heavy psychedelic trip, well doing it sober will be easier by comparison. Moreover, continually exposing oneself to infinity, emptiness, void, love, fear of death, etc. the mind will naturally grow tranquil. You just cant unsee certain mindfucks and those mindfucks have definitely left their mark on normal mind operating patterns. Edit: I want to be clear that what Im talking about here is specifically “controlling” the mind from an experiential, subjective point of view. I have no clue what such states and experiences would look like on a brainwave machine.

Beautiful post. Thank you ??

@Serotoninluv Thank you for your perspective.. That's a very good point. The distinction between tripping and sober is truly relative and one isn't more real than another. Perhaps I need to experiment with higher dosages... haha. I've stuck to moderate doses aside from one 4g mushroom tea experience which hit like a freight train. But that trip in and of itself wasn't really about awakening, bad set and setting. You're right. Much of what I wrote about is relative to the person, self. Even the notion of someone to embody it is hinged on self. It feels like there are qualities to enlightenment I assume are so, like equanimity, focus, tranquility, lack of suffering, which seem like states of a mind which has fully understood truth. However, I don't know if this is true. What I have noticed in my experience is that psychedelics don't seem to have this enduring mind effect I assume awakening will have on the mind. But this may be due to a lack of experience with these heroic doses. Welp thank you again for you input. You too, @TrynaBeTurquoise , even if I got a little feisty.

1) That post wasn't anti psychedelic 2) Expecting psychedelics to do the work for you seems to be what Leo is doing by forsaking all the other forms of consciousness work he's promoted in the past. 3) "You are never going to get around putting in the effort yourself. As a catalyst though, psychedelics are extremely extremely powerful for the person who wants to learn and put the work in themselves. " aka the psychedelic trip itself is not going to help you embody, aka horrible for embodiment, aka you're in agreement with what I'm saying so I don't really understand where the criticism is coming from.

Perhaps you miss understand what I meant by embodiment. " It depends how seriously you take the lessons learned in your trip and want to change your habits and how you want to approach life." The taking seriously of the lessons is embodiment, which takes place outside of the trip. It takes work. But this work is usually in the form of things like meditation, self inquiry, yoga, journalling, and otherwise sober activities. Embodiment isn't done through taking more psychedelics. The psychedelics reveal the work that needs to be done, they don't replace the work. That's been my experience. So when Leo talks about ONLY doing psychedelics, it doesn't really seem to imply he's doing the other work needed to stabilize those peak experiences as actual, sober embodied truths. "Maybe you havent done the right psychedelics with the right dosages in the right set/setting. Or maybe they just arent for you. In which case Leo is directing you to do other practices." Perhaps this is so. I've only done LSD, NN-DMT, and Mushrooms.

I think Leo’s approach to consciousness work feels a off. I am very appreciative that he opened up explaining that he no longer does formal spiritual practices such as meditation or Kriya yoga, in favor of psychedelics, but I think reliance on these substances is a limited approach. Perhaps its part of what he wants to discover/pioneer, which is that psychedelics alone can lead to awakening. Yet here’s a crucial element Ive found missing with psychedelics: while they’re fantastic for providing insights, they are horrible for embodiment. They provide these amazing sometimes horrifying sometimes ecstatic states of consciousness that facilitate wisdom, insight, and the expansion of consciousness. But! Once the peak ends, it’s more or less over. Yes there are residual effects, and lessons to take away. I don’t want to undermine their power or utility for this work. But they aren’t, in and of themselves, powerful enough to create lasting effects in sober living. How many times has Leo tripped? How many times have the individuals in this community tripped? Hell, Ive lost a mental count of how many times Ive tripped! And in my experience, these trips are only as useful as the work I put in while sober. If I dont take action to embody via mediation, yoga, sober contemplation, journalling, self actualizing without drugs, they feel pretty useless. Psychedelics dont help build my focus, calm my mind, build my equanimity, permanently increase awareness, or make me capable of facing hours upon hours of boredom. It’s one thing to face your physical death on a psychedelic. It’s another to face 10 days straight of doing nothing, and being so woke you dont suffer whatsoever from Boredom, boredom with a capital B so to speak. Being so woke that during those 10 does of absolute nothing, you’re joyful and completely fine. Just my 0.02. I have nothing but respect and appreciation for Leo though. He’s changed my life and Im glad he seems to be living his most authentic life. Plus I wanna know where the psychedelics only path leads! So thank you for pioneering Leo ??But for me, Ive realized psychedelics are only one piece of this work and a piece worth pursing yet not relying on.

Fosho. Meditation is like a meta skill that’s improved all areas of my life

Thank you for the update ?? Do you think 1 hour per day of meditation practice is really enough? What’s interesting is the more advanced I get with my practice (also using TMI) the more it feels like an hour isnt really enough. But sometimes with spiritual work more doesn’t always equal better. So my question, what are your thoughts on meditation volume? Is an hour a day enough in your experience or will eventually someone have to level up and do more?

You’re missing the point. The point is the lack of experiential insight despite the vast amount of intellectual knowledge.

You're correct, but this is the key. When they do understand, when they finally can make the distinction, an entire new range of possibilities opens up. I remember when I was in college, when I first realized this distinction, I had a huge epiphany that lead me down the rabbit hole of consciousness and spirituality. So when discussing this stuff with a materialist, literally point this out to them. "Until you understand the distinction I'm making here that you are not, you won't understand." Either they can open up to the insight or there's no point in continuing the conversation, but at least now the materialist has a more precise understanding of where the disagreement arises from. This may eventually be the seeds needed to have insight.

I've become conscious of the fact that free will is spontaneously generated... As strange as this may seem, this is what is occurring. I am spontaneously generating will in the moment, but the even weirder part is that this is precisely the same thing as no will at all. And in effect, I can observe both this odd manifestation of will as well as literally phase shifting my perspective into a position of no will and watch as reality seamlessly flows on without any doer-ship. At first I thought maybe this meant no free will was the equivalent to what Leo would call "meta." as per his latest video That the no free will was a higher truth so to speak. And perhaps, by virtue of the fact that everyone runs around thinking they have free will the alternative would seem more meta. But see, this isn't what I'm experiencing. What I'm experiencing *is* that this no will is the same exact thing as will. And that both are completely spontaneous experiences. If I really want to, I can continue to survive as a biological organism. If I really wanted to, I could literally do an infinite variation of behaviors. I can and constantly manipulate reality in all sorts of ways. Even when I'm sitting still doing nothing, I'm exerting a will, a manipulation onto reality. Free will is like taking Responsibility with a capital R. 100% Responsibility for understanding our influence in this life. Understanding that there is a very specific force inside our being that comprises our feeling of self (which is an entirely infinitely unique experience that only you are experiencing) and this force is not random, and completely Free. I'm not entirely sure how to write about with this free will is other than that it's not really a perception, persay... But I do perceive and acknowledge it within my direct experience. But it's a spontaneous presence. When I'm lost in thought and distracted, my body and mind are in autopilot mode. However, when I'm fully present and locked into my direct experience of Now, I see Will. And yet all of us can phase shift into no free will. This lack of free will is going on in your experience. It's not something to be believed but to be observed. Like literally, with just a change of resolution, you can relinquish your experience into one where total effortlessness, total flow is the driving energy behind your experience. Moreover, realize that this perspective is never not there. It's accessible at all times; it's essentially running your life at all times. Moreover pt. 2, realize that the perspective of free will is never not there either... And the no free will or free will are simply two different interpretations of the same thing; a thing our minds can't merge or deal with. So then what the hell is going on? What's going on is that free will and no free will are the same thing. You can see free will. You can see no free will. You can see free will and free will. You can see neither free will nor no free will. To put it in terms of Leo's latest video, there is a meta-structure of Free Will and No Will occurring wherein these two perspectives are content within a larger metaphysical structure. I invite anyone who's happened to read this thread to contemplate the matter for themselves and become directly conscious of what these words are pointing to. Just please acknowledge that these words are indirect and not to be believed, or taken literally while also being open to directly experience what I'm describing.

That's not what I see. Determinism is a mind a model of reality. It implies cause and effect, which is a function of time. Determinism, at least how I have conceptualized it throughout my life, is based on time. It's based on action, reaction, causes leading to effects occurring in a process oriented fashion. But this is not what's going on in reality if you look closely enough. There is no such thing as cause and effect, there is no such thing as time, and there's no such thing as determinism. There's also no such thing as randomness either. Determinism is based on the notion that reality is 'determined' but reality is completely causeless and free. But within this absolute freedom is an absolute lack of freedom too. Again, I'm not entirely sure how to explain it other than by saying I don't see determinism. I also don't not see it in the sense that I'm able to phase shift my perspective into no free will. So making the statement that determinism is what's going on misses the fact that determinism isn't occurring. And that's what I want people reading to directly experience for themselves. It's not only one or the other, it's both and neither. Being paradigm locked into "oh it's determinism" or "oh we have free will" misses the other side of the coin.

Here’s a very practical easy to follow example that demonstrates the limitations of science: Imagine you are a world class scientist who studies the color red. You’ve determined all the energy frequencies that emit red, you know all of the particular wavelengths a red photon can have, you understand the anatomical structures of the eye, what chemical reactions begin when the photons make contact with the eye, you understand the chemical messenger systems that begin in the optic nerve and travel to the brain. You understand completely how the brain’s state changes once red is carried along this nerve pathway, you understand which brain structures are activated and how they communicate with one another to process the color red. You understand it all! Yet this is the tragedy of your situation: While you may be a world class scientist, and you understand all the physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms of red, you’re color blind and can only see on a greyscale. See, despite all of you’re intellectualizing and scientific investigation of this specific light phenomena, you’ve still missed a crucial component to what red *is* existentially. You’ve missed an experiential insight into what red is that no amount of science can help you with. What this example demonstrates is that there are certain limitations within science and sometimes there are truths about reality which require a different form of investigation and a different form of insight than what science provides. If something as simple as “what is the color red?” cannot be solved by science, what other truths may be missing from the domains of science? This is how Id explain it to someone.

I was right where you were when I first found Leo’s videos. Highly recommend learning to meditate and learning how to contemplate. For either, Id recommend a book called The Mind Illuminated by John Yates and a book called The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston. And when you’ve got a solid practice going and intellectual understanding of this stuff, highly recommend finding a way to do psychedelics. Though unneeded, those substances offer power glimpses into the radical nature of reality, your mind and this work. Welcome to the forum though I think you’re skepticism is great but don’t let it turn into a self deception. In fact, Id watch Leo’s skepticism video! And rationality video. Very foundational stuff.

I really like this post and it resonates a lot for me. I use resistance training and practicing using various compound lifts to connect with my body. I also informally practice yoga to keep everything supple. Both of these practices over the years (mainly resistance training) have had crazy effects on my body awareness, body control and mobility. Moreover, my body feels healthy, strong, and capable of supporting the intellectual work I need to do.

Ime as an INTJ and meeting/talking to other INTJs, this personalty type does a massive amount of questioning too.

Couldn’t agree more, thank you for the post ?? What I have to add is reality is as magical or un-magical as you want. It takes open-mindedness, surrender, genuine wonder and work to see the magic though, at least that’s been my experience.

I would 100% look into the book The Mind Illuminated. It teaches you how to achieve states of samatha through a systematic meditation practice. States of samatha are essentially extremely advanced levels of focus, which are extremely useful states to have when doing something like self inquiry or contemplating the nature of reality.

In a certain sense, yes the past and future exist now. From a certain sense no. From a certain sense, yes and no. And from another certain sense, neither yes or no. ?