Consilience

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Posts posted by Consilience


  1. 5 minutes ago, Outer said:

    I've done edibles,whatever, many times in the past and it's nowhere even close to the effect of psychedelics. The only thing I found familiar is the body load on psilocybin.

    If you're an avid weed user be careful to not justify your own usage. You can admit you like the feeling of being high.

    Weed is an amusement park ride while actual psychedelics dissolve the amusement park.

    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. 


  2. @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. 


  3. 5 minutes ago, Outer said:

    I only want scientific evidence, mechanism of action, whatever... Self-inquiry, meditation, psychedelics, yoga, exercise... all have that. Weed, not. In fact the evidence points to the opposite, lower DMN deactivation.

    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. 


  4. 4 minutes ago, Outer said:

    Proof?

    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. 


  5. @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. 


  6. 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. 


  7. Just now, Joseph Maynor said:

    What's the same end that they're pointing to?  I'm trying to withhold my answer to probe all of yours.  I'll reveal my take on it at some point in the discussion.

    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 


  8. 7 hours ago, yawning_ said:

    welcome fellow long-time-lurker!

     

    love is love itself :x

     

    allow it to be more than just a conception, its depths cannot be fragmented into knowing...

     

    far too often we seek to make categorizations in the mind, instead of allowing things to be and reveling in experiencing

     

    gratitude, love, peace, and even understanding can all be just expressions (or categorizations) of the mind/ego if we limit them to that -

    make no judgment!

     

    contemplate what is love, listen and observe without defining and this will lend to deeper insight

     

     

    n̪͓͚̪̙̯̻̟̙̖̲̜̱̪͕̬͔̪ͥ̅̌̌̑̈̚̚ͅa̬̬̲̭͔̲̤͚͈̤̮ͯ͛ͮ͊̂̉̏̾̄ͩ̓͒̈́̂̈̀m̦̞͙̻̜̞͙̗͎̤̆ͤͤ͂͗ͨ͛͗͐ͩ̀ͣ̀ͪ̂a̻̞̪̫̮͚͎͖͈̠͔͖̺͗͋ͨ͋̍̉̾s͚͎̱̼͙̲̲̳̟͎͕̍͐̂ͤ̌ͧ̆t͍̤̱̻ͦͪ̌̍̉ͯ͋ͬͭ̂͗e̤̖̮͕͎̠͍̖̩͈͔͓̲̲̫̻͓̼̓ͧͯ̈͗̽̉ͧͧ̾̍ͭͥͤͤ̍ͮ̃̔

     

    - yawning gap

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


  9. 14 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

    Maybe this shines some light on the topic!

    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


  10. 16 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

    Love is all part of the illusion of Maya.  I think the highest form of love is compassion which comes from seeing the self in the other.  When you can see the self in the other, that enables compassion.  When you see the other as different than you, that’s what enables lack of compassion.  You would never want lack of compassion to be directed towards your self.  So lack of compassion is caused by an ‘othering’ of reality — there’s a ‘not me’ quality to lack of compassion.

     

    15 hours ago, iamme said:

    Everybody knows what Love is. The winning question is how one can be it. Some say fake it till you make it and let it take care of the rest. That's good advice but don't beat yourself up if you can't sustain it. Even better advice is to not focus just on love while ignoring your demons, but let it aid whatever practices resonate with you. The goal being to rid yourself of all your false conscious and subconscious beliefs. 

     

    15 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

    Faking it until you make it can cause suffering because that’s Ego.  Love can be a very Egoic thing paradoxically.  If your compassion isn’t Metaphysically grounded, it could actually backfire and cause you a lot of suffering.  Think of Stage Green as a great example of this.  Stage Turquoise falls victim to ungrounded compassion as well.  Ungrounded compassion is you getting lost in Egoic distraction.

    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 


  11. 16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Love is a facet of the Absolute.

    This makes no sense from the materialist paradigm. You have to stop thinking of reality as a dumb physical mechanical object. Instead, think of reality as a Giant Mind, and minds can love.

    I'll make a video about it in the future.

    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 :)


  12. 17 hours ago, Nahm said:

    @Consilience

    Hi & welcome to the forum. 

    Hi thank you :)

    15 hours ago, Nahm said:

     

    If Love’s infinite, omnipresent, then thinking won’t do. You’d have to become directly aware of it. You’d have to go within, like a drop seeing ocean.    Excellent name btw!

    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!  


  13. 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!