Consilience

This post is going to be a trip report/an outline of insights and experiences I encountered last night while going to a rock concert with my step dad; the band is named Russian Circles. The drug used was weed. I smoked around 6 heavy hits of a strain called Gorilla Glue #4, dosed at 29.6% THC and 0.86% CBD, using a glass pipe. *Warning, this will be a long post, but I'll have it organized by the experience so if you want to only read about certain topics, you can. What I thought was going to be an otherwise "normal" rock concert ended up becoming a facilitator for 3 separate mystical/non-dual esque (I really have no idea what to call them) experiences. We walked into the venue and immediately it felt as though Russian Circle's music kind of shocked my nervous system... Like the vibrations where synchronizing with my body. It was loud of course, but also the style of music that Russian Circles plays is extremely rhythmic, has zero vocals, and is also very complex, so it's hypnotic in a way. They use a lot of loops in their music, so there are multiple layers of sounds going on at once. So we're literally just standing in the crowd and the more time that passes, the more and more it felt like I was beginning to sink into the rhythms of their music, as if my ego just kept getting increasingly quiet to the point where there was just the awareness of the music. More awareness, more awareness, more awareness... And then things got weird. Infinite Intelligence - Probably around 15-20 minutes into the concert after becoming increasingly aware of and into the music, and after still being high as fuck from the weed, BOOM. I'm just in awareness. It was literally just fucking awareness. I was aware of these powerful rhythms, I was aware of all of my body sensations, the visuals of the show and crowd occupied my consciousness and there literally was no more sense of "I." It was just pure, unadulterated conscious experience. And then there was this clear and distinct disconnect from the music, from the crowd, from the power of that auditorium, and "I" just fucking saw into everything that was going on. It was like the universe revealed to me the complexity of every last mother fucking drop of reality. It was as though I was peering into the amount of skill, time, energy, and fundamentally Intelligence, that it took those band members to perfect their craft, how much time and energy that went in to culminate into this beast of a performance, a performance that was able to drawn in a massive crowd and hold their attention, as if they had transcended into some sort of gods. I felt and saw the complexity of the musical vibrations, almost as if the sounds were "dancing" in some sort of patterned INTELLIGENT rhythm through vibration. "I" became aware of how much information and intelligence had transpired to create this exact moment in time in space, how much fucking evolution, how much cellular organization, how much practice and skill, how perfectly aligned the actual cosmos of our universe had to be aligned to create THIS PRESENT FUCKING MOMENT. The sheer intelligence of my absolute reality hit me like a freight train. Like... Every last drop of orgnazation and complexity for every last individual human, every brick of that building, every cell on that room, every atom, the velocity of our galaxy, the gravity of our sun, the pull of our moon, the psychology of these minds.. all of it just poured over awareness like a waterfall. What was also so profound about this experience is I could actually feel the limitations of my consciousness on this matter. I saw just how utterly mind bogglingly complex this ONE FUCKING MOMENT was... And yet how much intelligence I still wasn't able to become conscious of. I'm sure if I had taken a real psychedelic, perhaps it could have facilitated further insight into the nature of this intelligence, but regardless of the strength of this insight and experience, I still was aware enough to see how much further room for growth there was. One of the key insights I came into direct (as direct as I've ever been before) contact with is how that at every scale of reality, there is infinite of intelligence. Whether at the sub-atomic, atomic, physical, biological, psychological, social, all the way up to cosmic scale, there is infinite intelligence at play. The experience was actually beautiful and profound... and ultimately very elucidating. Self Contractility - The way Russian Circles organizes their music is that after each song plays, they play these soft yet melodic interludes before continuing on. So after the song that sent me flying head first into intelligence ended, I was kind of just sitting there shell shocked at what I'd just experienced. And then the music started up again... So at this point, my ego has returned somewhat and I'm a little overstimulated. What ended up happening was my vision just fixated on a man in the crowd. I was staring at the back of his head, at his silhouette. The music kept increasing.... harder and harder; volume and intensity rising and rising and dude I just kept staring at this random strangers head. This silhouette became the singular focus of my awareness, and it began to feel as though "I" WAS the silhouette, as if this outline was the source of any sense of self I could ever have. I became so fixated on this man that it truly felt like my sense of self just merged into his body, there was no more "my body" it was only "Silhouette." Intellectually, I've known for a while how arbitrary the "self" actually is. The ego/mind creates these artificial, arbitrary conceptual identities out of the human body that occupies our awareness 24/7. Just because this body happens to always occupy our present awareness, it does not follow that WE ARE THAT BODY. In fact, it's appropriate to say, we are AWARE of that body. Unfortunately, the illusion as a separate self, built off of layers and layers and layers of subconscious conceptual processes prevents the True Self from actually realizing its true nature. What this means is that the sense of a separate self is actually contractile in nature, and simply "morphs" around the body we always have a direct experience of, despite the fact that this is an arbitrary distinction. What happened with this man's silhouette was that this sense of self arbitrarily detached from "my" body and formed around his. This was achieved through a single laser pointed focus on his outline, so much so that the self "leaped" onto him. This is possible precisely because "my sense of self" is literally just as arbitrary as "my sense of self latching onto a man's outline." Each are bullshit, each are illusion, but each are achieved through a laser pointed focus on either my "sense of self" or another facet of present experience. To put all of this more concisely, the self can expand and contract in any direction it wants, with equal validity in all directions BECAUSE there is no actual self, or EVERYTHING is you so any distinction is arbitrary and equally valid/invalid, depending on how you look at it. Knowing this intellectually is quite different that going through the literal experience of self contractility. Energy Transformation - Towards the end of the performance my ability to focus started really diminishing. It felt like I was in some sort of limbo, unable to really ground myself or make sense of the chaos that was going on. I wasn't freaking out or having an anxiety attack or anything, but it certainly felt like I had started to spiral into a very overstimulated state where all of the senses where clashing and fighting with one another. The music had turned into the propulsive and powerful force that was hammering me over and over with each wave of sound. At the peak of my discomfort, I spontaneously dropped into a state of meditation and started to perform sushumna breathing. For those who don't know, this is a Kriya yoga technique where you essentially imagine/feel energy flowing up and down your spine through the 7 chakras. Through each breath, it felt like the energy of this performance started flooding into my crown and root chakras. What was so interesting though was it felt like I had started directing this overwhelming energy through my spine, and this somehow began to "recycle" the harsh energy of the show into alternative forms of creation. The sounds began to return to their beautiful state, and I began to slowly release the suffering from overstimulation by simple directing all of the energy into my spine. A flash of insight into the nature of energy transformation entered my mind too. As the energy of these rhythms, visuals, and crowd were circulating through my spine, it felt like these were then transformed into and through my body. If anyone has heard of the term "Shakti" which is roughly defined as divine energy and the source of creation, it felt like I was coming into contact with this principle. How each and every facet of our reality transforms itself, through itself, with itself, and ultimately recycles itself into all of reality. As more and more of the shows energy poured into my spine, more and more I became conscious of the strange loopiness that is reality interacting with itself through transformation. This last experience could have easily been more defined as a mystical experience rather than an insight into the nature of reality, however even from a materialistic paradigm, reality literally interacts with itself through transformation of energy and matter. It doesn't seem like too much of a leap to think that one may be able to become directly conscious of this facet. Meh. Sidenote: If you don't do Kriya yoga, START. This shit is powerful as fuck and really starts to open up the mind, body and ultimately self. Key Take Aways - Fuck. This was by far one of the most powerful experiences I've had on weed. It wasn't my most powerful, nor did this feel like an "enlightenment" experience, but nonetheless fuck. It was nice being able to directly experience mechanisms of reality, but I think the biggest take away I was left with was just how much further down the rabbit hole I have to go. Enlightenment goes really fucking deep... And despite how powerful of an experience last night was, I was shown just how much further my awareness has to grow. So for now, I'll continue to chop wood and carry water. P.S. For the forum members who still think weed can't be used as a tool for personal development and spiritual growth, fuck you (jk) P.S.S. If you actually read all of this, you're a G.

The best way to involve out of stage green and into yellow is to start developing and implementing personal development systems. So for example: Do you have systems for: Sleep Nutrition Exercise Meditation Contemplation Service Reading Financial infrastructure Discipline I wouldn't get too crazy with the cheese wiz with creating systems or trying to be "perfect," however, take careful note of that last bullet. It seems like one of the ways you're holding yourself back is that you lack discipline. Discipline is ironically a very stage orange quality (it can be stage orange, but honestly every stage in the spiral dynamics spiral can utilize discipline). Nonetheless, discipline is going to be an absolute necessity as you continue down the path of personal development and spirituality. So developing a system for the development and implementation of discipline can become extremely beneficial. The best advice I could give is to start slow. Start building a productive and healthy habit (literally in any domain, whether sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc.) and STICK WITH IT. Create a habit so easy that it's impossible to fail unless you're just not committing. And then keep building this habit more and more and more, day after day after day, week after week after week... This is what I would consider a discipline system. Discipline isn't built over night, but once the various disciplines you've implemented turn into habits, they are much more easily sustainable. And that's really what this boils down to. You're going to need sustainable and disciplined behaviors as you continue down this path. And in my experience, the best way to develop a disciplined behavior is to start small and then slowly increase it over time. As you generate your capacity for discipline itself, your capacity to implement new systems is going to increase as well, which will allow you to really blossom into stage yellow. Hopefully this helps.

I don't think this would be a trap. The letting go of suffering, or the letting go of the concept that cold = suffering in your case, is very much a form of meditation. Have I had similar experiences? In a way yes, in so far as experiencing pain for itself rather than experiencing pain as suffering. Any sensation which causes suffering is not inherently a sensation of suffering. It is only until our ego's conceptually label sensations (such as cold) as suffering do they actual cause suffering haha. But yeah meditation is powerful stuff! It's not surprising that you're able to achieve this even with little practice. I would continue to contemplate on your experience and try and sink deeper and deeper into states of being, experiencing consciousness AS ITSELF without labeling your present experience as "good" or "bad." Awesome insight dude!

I would still practice meditation just due to the myriad of health benefits (physical, mental and emotional). On the other hand, self inquiry seems to be centered around realizing a state of being-ness, which is ultimately the "action" being taken during any type of meditation. You are "being" in the moment, utterly present and everlastingly aware. Though self inquiry helps point towards the right direction, building the laser pointed focus required for self-inquiry to be effective is achieved (in my experience) through various meditation techniques such as counting, mantras, kriya yoga, metta-focused meditation, etc. It's almost like in order for self inquiry to be effective, one needs the focus built form other meditation techniques. Many techniques work quite synergistically so I wouldn't give up old fashion meditation. I'd be interested in what Leo's opinion is though.

No actually. I originally got the idea from a podcast called "Future Thinkers." Long story short, there was a guy on the podcast explaining how Sunflower was the mantra he used and I just kinda started using it ever since haha. I've been using it for around 9 months now as a basic concentration technique, but only about 1 month ago has the mantra sort of transformed into more of a metta approach towards meditation. It was like... holy shit the mantra is more than just a sound. It's a bridge towards compassion, and consciousness which are ultimately tightly linked. I think the fact that Sunflower is a relative calm word has helped in this regard.

I agree with you.

@Nahm This is awesome. Thank you.

I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm just trying to make suer we all remember that different tools work for different people, dats all.

@Outer Also the overwhelming majority of scientific studies are looking at data as a whole and outliers or exceptions to the average or even *expected* results can often be ignored or overlooked. I have no doubt that for some, perhaps the majority of weed users, the DMN may increase. However I'd also wager that many of these users participating in these studies do not know about non-duality so... the idea that there is no self would be easily dismissed or laughed at. If you really want to investigate drug induced altered states of consciousness, you should simply take the drug and observe the outcome. Try out weed and see what happens imo.

Well them I'm afraid you'll have to ask someone else. Like I said, I can only speak from my experience. I'd be careful with relying too heavily on scientific studies when it comes to this topic. All of these drugs are schedule 1 e.g. there is A LOT more research needed.

Mantra meditation has been really effective for me as well. I use "sunflower" - As I breath in "sun" and as I breath out "flower." It really helps silent the mind for one. Two, I've also found it to have "metta" properties. When I enter into a deep focus of repeating that mantra love, gratitude, compassion, and feelings of connectedness arise very easily.

I don't have any scientific studies if that's what your asking for. I only can speak from personal experience. And in my experience, some of my highest (pun) states of awareness and some of my biggest insights have come from smoking weed and eating edibles. Perhaps the substance's potential is different for everyone.

@Barry J If you have gotten into a habit like this, it may be best to try and ween yourself off. Taking time away from weed and trying to really integrate (and I mean REALLY integrate) the increased awareness and insights you receive while high is really productive IME. It also will help you recover some of the tolerance problems daily smoking will bring so that whenever you return to the substance (if you can not slip back into an addicted behavior), the experiences will be much more potent and potentially conducive towards your spiritual development.

It most certainly has psychedelic properties and can be a tool used for spiritual work though, even if not a "real" psychedelic

I think of it like this... If you walked into a gym and tried to squat 400lbs, the weight would fucking crush you. The "backlash" being that your body's homeostasis was so disrupted by that 400lbs that it resulted in injury/a failed lift. Similarly, it seems that each ego carries a similar "homeostasis" wherein if you deviate too far from the habits, desires, judgments, distractions, etc. that fuel an ego's existence, a psychological backfiring mechanism takes place. Too much stimulus too quickly will result in any system backfiring. This ranges anywhere from ego, exercise, economics, metabolism, invasive species, etc. etc... Essentially large shifts in any system that presently has a homeostasis have a high potential for backfiring to occur. These are by no means perfect examples, but I've personally found this type of thinking to be a helpful model for understanding and preventing ego backlash. It's important to SLOWLY build consistency, momentum, and discipline with these spiritual and personal development practices in the same way that one would need to SLOWLY work up to squatting 400lbs. Hopefully this helps.

Hi actualized.org members, So I’ve been a “lurker” for a while now, but finally decided I’d reach out and engage with the community directly :). There are a lot of interesting and unique perspectives here and low-key I should have joined up sooner. The deeper I’ve gone into this work, the more obvious its significance becomes, but equally, the more obvious its scarcity within society becomes as well. Like, I’m one of the only one in my life I see asking these existential questions that are commonplace around these parts so... It would be cool to finally get involved with like-minded “individuals.” I was hoping you all could give me thoughts or insights you’ve had on the topic of Love with a capital L. What is it? Why would it be present? Does it have anything to do with enlightenment? Often times enlightenment is described as pure “being,” which is achieved by resting in a state of pure “awareness.” So essentially, when we’ve achieved this pure being-ness with our present experience, dropping all beliefs and concepts, we become aware of the nature of our reality, self, etc. By only being our-selves, we are enlightened to the true nature of our selves and reality. Intellectually, however, none of this seems to include or require something like Love to be included into the mix. I can imagine pure awareness being utterly cold, detached, impersonal and observatory without there being any sort of internal feeling of connectedness with the present experience. And in this sense, you are that which is aware, nothing “more” (such as Love) and nothing “less” (such as Hate). How could LOVE be a part of this? If Love were to be found within *being,* it would still be observed via awareness right? (e.g. not YOU because YOU are that which is AWARE) It’s just a strange concept overall, and yet enlightened masters have continually emphasized the point of Love within this spiritual journey. So yeh… If any of you all have thoughts it would be extremely cool to read them Thanks!

Hmm... I believe there pointing towards the true nature of self. And, depending on how you look at this nature, it could be described by either options 1 or 2. (though the caveat being that each of these descriptions is ultimately not that which they describe so it gets weird) So for example, 0 is infinitely small and infinity is infinitely large, and so in this sense, the boundaries between 0 and infinity kind of collapse because the nature of these two are actually equivalent. This math metaphor is how I've always conceptualized the differences between a Buddhist perspective and Advaita Vedanta perspective

It took me awhile to realize the no self of Buddhism and the infinite self of Advaita were pointing towards the same end. Which perspective has helped you most?

Thank you for your words... I shall contemplate dis

@here-now Super helpful! Especially that Spira video

The fact that Ralston is struggling to communicate this topic here is interesting. It's just more evidence for the fact that whatever component of enlightenment is made of Love/Compassion is going to fundamentally be experiential rather than something language or mind may communicate

This is a lot to process haha. I agree though that faking it until you make it seems like a dangerous foundation to lay... But yeah, becoming too center minded on love would be counter productive too considering the "goal" is to rid oneself of false beliefs. An interesting delineation between compassion and love. I'll have to think more on that topic mayne, but thank you Maynor based Joseph and also iamme

I agree, a materialists paradigm wouldn't make sense in this context. Thankfully, I'm not a materialist. I was actually anti-materialism before I knew about enlightenment just because their arguments didn't make any sense to me (obviously they still don't). I think this comes down to me simply not having enough 1st hand experience with the "absolute" and non-duality... I'm glad you'll make a video about it

@nex462 Thank you for the thorough reply. There's a lot in what you posted to process, but I really appreciated the "so be it" component... In that way, if one were to become so fucking accepting of everything, I could imagine how love would be allowed to flourish unobstructed.

Hi thank you This is true. Having an intellectual understanding of enlightenment is initially what got me on board with all of this, but I simultaneously recognize that this is a beast outside of the intellect haha. I see what you mean though. Also thank you pt 2!