Azrael

Yeah, read up about sleep paralysis, hallucinations, astral projection etc. It's a whole different world to explore. Have fun.

I'd recommend some drugs for you, lady. Some good drugs. To prove to you that their is neither a body nor a mind that could ever die. (I'm for real here.)

I just have the audio files on my laptop and listen to it over headphones or monitors. Nothing fancy.

EMDR self-therapy. Research it, it'll get rid of your thoughts in a few sessions. I'll talk about it in the future.

Can be, I don't know. I went for enlightenment because it felt right. I am very intrigued by nature and contemplated since I can think. So when I heard about it from Leo I was like: "Whuuuuut? This shit is possible?" So there was never a need to push myself or something. It was how things went. So it's right for me. However, I'd say it's not for everybody at all. A lot of people need to experience other things on the "table of experiences" and they will have their "enlightenments" through that. One thing you'll realize after enlightenment (stream entry), is that you have just been introduced to a new "table of experiences". To a new show. So there are at least a few other fields in consciousness you can get enlightened about and they'll probably be even harder to get into. For example understanding how relativity works, what an object is, what emotions are, what thoughts are, how this dream works, how nothingness works... etc. So yeah, let's see where it takes us.

I do it once a year here in Germany with my buddies as well. It's a great way to leave your normal work routine behind and really experience a kind of different world for a few days.

"And when the end of consciousness comes, there is Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all."

I had a very interesting and deep mushroom trip two days ago. I will probably share it here when I have time. This will definitely answer how I relate with the Absolute. The other questions I think should've been answered by now if you look throughout the thread.

If you wanna get the most out of it just follow the easy instructions. Sit down with it, eyes closed and just listen while doing nothing. It helped me a lot. I use it every time I meditate. The levels are building up, so you need to start at the Prologue and work yourself up. Be careful here, you're fucking with your brain.

@Hsinav, what's a 5-MeO-DMT meditation? Did you do while meditating? How was the trip?

I think you can answer this one for yourself with common sense.

Be open or you'll miss the good stuff.

Not really, no. I mean my character is still the same and there is a lot of stuff you could still actualize. Maybe I will in the future, probably. But it doesn’t bother at all. I love myself and what I do very whole-heartedly and I can see why I function the way I do.

That was a metaphor, obviously.

I would be very, very careful with such a categorization because it leads you in a wrong direction. On a merely rational level you can (as shown above by the other answers) argue that you are more conscious if you can contemplate / think / investigate / meditate deeper. If you can soak in reality deeper. Makes perfect sense. But it presents this distinction as something that you can actually manipulate and change. Meaning that you can increase your awareness like you can speed up your car. And although you can partake in activities like meditation and contemplation that will free up and sharpen your body/mind, this is never something that you consciously influence. When you partake in these activities, what you are doing is throwing wood into a fire and hope that it'll do it's thing, but you can never be sure that it burns in the way you want it to. And it might seem that it actually dies off in the process although it just needs time to inflame all the new wood you put in. That's why somebody who seems very low-consciousness can actually be more conscious - it's just that he needs to purge so much shit that you cannot tell as a beginner or intermediate student. To conclude, keep throwing wood into your fire and just relax. It'll burn you out when the time comes. Until then, have a burger.

I must have forgotten. You tried it 100 times and came to this wise conclusion, I guess.

5-MeO-DMT.

Yeah, that's wrong. Leo has like tons of hours of video explaining how to grow yourself with psychedelics and you'll find a bizzilion trip reports and opinions on this forum. Is it the only way? Of course not. Is it one of the fastest ways? Probably ...

I have experiential proof. It weighs 30mg and comes in powder. Feel free to prove it to yourself.

Yeah, I will when I have the time and will to do it. Right now, I have a lot on my schedule. So, this'll wait.

I can sense God as the Energy behind every occurrence that I sense in this world. I can sense how the Energy is flowing through my body and how it's shooting in my head. I can feel that if it shoots in my head how it goes through all of the neurons and thoughts appear. And I can see that in other people as well. I see how God as the Energy behind it is making every movement, is contracting and expanding, is fighting and healing. And the individual Self that is created through that, seems like a shell hiding the true nature of the Energy. I see the exact same picture that I saw before when I look in a mirror, but I see no human no more. Can you still choose to stop? Haven't you had some deep experiences? I don't think you'll get out of this any more. You can try, but it'll come back in a few years and you'll always ask yourself: "How would it be?" That's the thing with this work. You really should think about whether you want in. Because if you do, you cannot get out ever again. It's fucking amazing. Not like having an orgasm all day long, it's not like that at all. It's very chill, very relaxed, I feel no suffering at all any more, I experience the depth of emotions a lot deeper, I feel very good with how I look, act, speak and be in this world, I love to make fun of myself these days and love to not take stuff seriously. I'm still involved in all the shit I was involved in before, I still am the same character, but loosened up. For me, it's the greatest because suffering went away on every level. And suffering was such a big thing before. Most people wouldn't even say that they are suffering because it's so subconscious for them. But if you cannot sit still for an hour and feel like you own the world, you are still suffering. And you don't aim for shit any more in that neurotic way you did before, meaning that you really feel bad if you want something. If I would die today, I would be sad. But I'd die happily and with a lot of respect for myself because I overcame myself for the love of myself. And I will never do something again in my life that is so fucked up, hard, confusing and liberating in the end. I took a knife and stabbed myself to death just to see that when the knife hit the body, the body disappeared and I am still there.

I think your teacher has a point there. But it needs to be explained. As you practice one meditation technique it will unfold with time. Meaning that it'll slowly open itself up like a flower and through that process you'll experience different phases of the technique that eventually lead to a final state. Complete non-interference because of the dissolution of you and your environment. Or something like that. To get the development going it will probably help to stick to one routine and let it do its thing. And if you've found such a routine like vipassana, you may want to stick to that. You may change if you like. Especially in the beginning I think its good to try a lot of stuff until eventually you find your way to do it and then stick to that mostly. I will always sing my song about SDS + "Do Nothing" cuz I'm a big groupie of that routine plus the whole Taoist / Zen way of living. But that's simply because my character resonates with that and because when I found that I fell in love. It's no better or worse then all of the stuff IMO. It penetrates a certain aspect but leaves out others. So to conclude, try a lot of stuff and then naturally you'll find something that you love and stick to. And if this changes after two years you haven't found the right thing or your development led you to something different. You'll (hopefully) meditate for the rest of your life. That means finding the right set of technique in the first few years is completely fine. Here's a metaphor that sums it up. "The one who is able to do a lot, will with time be a good practitioner of his many things. The one who is able to do one thing, will with time be a master of that one thing." But you only end up with one good thing if you've tried prior to that a lot of stuff and are able to make a good decision.

Yeah, that's probably true. I like to have some of those though, because it's great fun. I like to have some that are interested in the consciousness stuff as well and I like some that are just normal folks like colleagues and stuff. Everyone has different challenges in his life and will go through his own enlightenments to grow, just naturally. Some people need to see a lot of the dark stuff to learn from that, some people need to melt in boredom, some in heavy negative emotions and others might need to awaken to the truth of reality. Every one has his own journey without knowing about it if he doesn't investigate. That's why some people will awaken very easily and others may never, because it's not for them. And that's perfectly fine. Every single human can teach you something whether it's good or bad or very normal. And if you look closely at anybody, you'll see that everybody has a certain field of mastery in his life - even if it is the subtlest thing. And if you see that in people, it's like living around masters who don't know that they are masters because they've been told to want something else. Because .. it wouldn't be any fun if everything would be clear and understood right away, right?

That's a fucking powerful quote.

I've started in this order: Cannabis, MDMA, shrooms, LSD, 2-CB, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT. And this process was a few years long. So start slow and walk yourself up to it.