BipolarGrowth

This happened about 48 hours ago or so. It’s easy for things like this to come and go, so we’ll see if it ends up having the staying power it appears to have. The process by which I discovered this for myself is about as simple as 1, 2, 3 for me as soon as I discovered it, so I’m a bit doubtful it’s something I’ll lose access to. If anything it will just fall into the background of my experience rather than actually go away I imagine. Anyway, this is what it’s like: the feeling of gravity as a thing pulling down on everything has disappeared everything, including the body, is felt to float where it is. Instant stress reducer. How mad can you get when all phenomena are “floating” in emptiness? rather than having concepts of there being no ground to reality or thing behind the scenes of what is perceived, this becomes a visceral process. Viscerally felt — this is IT baby ? the space within objects, bodies, etc. is emptiness. Not even space is felt to be there Mental impressions of the body, objects, visual field, etc. are removed, and only what is in front of you remains. This includes what some call “the dropping away of the body” which is when the mental impression of the body disappears and only the sensations present are felt to be real/present. The way I discovered this was by investigating the phenomenon of “dropping away of the body.” You can probably find more info online about that if you want. After examining this in a sensate way, it was realized that the visual field pointing to something other than emptiness within the body (such as seeing a leg in front of me yet the mental impression already being removed and no sensations being present there) also can be applied to all visual phenomena as the entire field is fitting that same criteria the leg was. After that realization, the effects I described above have been continuous. Vipassana experience or other ways of directly investigating sensations is probably a prerequisite of getting results using the specific way I came to this realization if I had to guess.

After a couple hours of some of the deepest meditation of my life, I had the intuition to pick up the book Sikh Gurus last night and opened it to a random page. I really felt the beautiful nature of this journey (life, existence, spirituality) while reading it. I read that page in the video and then go on to talk some on the relationship between some Buddhism-inspired views and God from my perspective. Enjoy ?

Finding a way to reduce your probability of running into such large emotional pain again is probably one of the best things you could work on. Work to remove the trigger and you won’t feel such a strong need to use it again. It’s hard work to remove that specific trigger, but it can be done. If you’re at a loss for how to work on handling the emotional pain, feel free to send a PM, and I can give some advice.

Been there enough times I’ve lost count. You can overcome these struggles. I hope you have some luck come your way ❤️

He’s advocated for/preferred synthetic from what I remember. Watch this. No need to fuck up some toads for unpredictable dosages.

Put on some headphones and enjoy. Worked wonders for me. Pretty related to what you’re talking about.

Sounds like cessation without the appetizer ?

Lol pretty entertaining for us nerds.

All of this is good and very much the case as you describe. I hope what I’ve written below helps you. I’ve seen it do some wonders for myself. Thoughts are Absolute Truth, but if you’re thinking that thoughts are Absolute Truth, you’re probably straying a bit from Absolute Truth. What does this mean? Thoughts are sensations. The mind is the sixth sense door. If you see thoughts as an enemy forever, you will be giving away your peace. It’s like thinking that there’s something wrong with your arm getting an itch. No! The sensation is not the issue. The bundle of sensations which hijack the universe to claim ownership are the issue. BUT seeing through that bundle of sensations (“ego”) deep enough will uncover that there’s actually nothing wrong with it either. What people seeking Liberation really want (whether they know it or not) is to fuse the six sense doors into the One Sense Door. Ego causes resistance, but resisting the ego… well… I think you guys get the idea ? Allow yourself to operate as a machine of natural resistances. Sensations bounce off of each other like billiard balls. The sensations resist each other to cause further movement in sensations (if we’re speaking of a process which relies on continuity — not the whole answer, but okay as a stepping stone). That’s always what’s going on from the perspective of there being a continuity to things. The trick in all of this is to find a way to reduce the meta-resistance which is “ego” caused or rather “ego” itself. By the time you try to act in a more spiritual way, a more present way, or any similar action/motivation, you’re acting on the past. You and you are already powerless to change anything in a certain sense. Free will is a tool of the meta-resistance. Nothing wrong with it, but if you want more direct and continuous experience of Yourself, let the whole machine do itself. Krishna describes some of what I’ve mentioned as the modes of material existence. They’ll do themselves when it is necessary. Do not fear, you can take your hands of the controls, and yourself and Yourself will witness the alignment and synchronization of true power. This is the Tao. Let the Nature/nature of things occur exactly as it is destined. I’m quite confident you’ll fall in Love/love.

This is all great stuff. I agree especially with the intuitive approach. I think proper meditation is way more individualized than any of the major schools or teachers I’ve seen tend to present it. I also think it can be beneficial to your meditation to spend more resources on growing spiritually with other methods at certain points. This is of course just what worked for me, but I see that it could really help a lot of others who naturally struggle with long sits or structured meditation practice. There is the trap that people can forget that liberation is ultimately the goal and that you can hardly get there without optimizing some type of meditation or meditation-like practice. Eventually you have to move from the other methods back to meditation. Meditation was one of the smallest aspects of what got me to reach cessation. Now it’s supercharged by the permanent shifts which cessation triggered. I’m quite confident that I would be much worse off if I tried to follow the advice to meditate a bunch at the beginning. There was just too much resistance. I have too desirous of a personality which has never been high in discipline when things are optional. I certainly did meditate some with mainly meditation in the Heartfulness tradition which utilizes transmission. I’d recommend trying some meditation with transmission with a teacher/guru if you can find someone good. It did seem to be rather effective on me even at beginner stages. Heartfulness also meditates on the heart chakra. I think meditating on chakras can be really powerful, especially if you feel activity in that chakra already. I’ve felt a lot of activity in the third eye area lately which proved to be a great focus object for a shamatha style approach. Using past insights can be a good way to boost meditation. For example, if you’ve had some deep insight into emptiness, you can bring up the memory and work with it a bit to put you in a similar place although it’s more artificially constructed. The point is just to put you in more connection with that space before you start the meditation or maybe a bit at the beginning of the sit. Then just do your normal thing. Using the memories of deep love awakening or similar positive things can be a great way to set a really receptive emotional state to do things probably more on the shamatha side. Do you want to share what helped you transition into the ability to do longer sits? I’ve not been to a retreat yet. I’d love to go, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to meditate as much in one condensed period as what you’d see in a typical 10 day retreat for example. I also have found vipassana and do nothing to be the best. If you want, you can try switching between the two at potentially a bit of a rapid rate in the same sit. I find that going from the contraction of vipassana to the expansion of do nothing together can make both add to the effectiveness of the other.

Hitting the single sense door is great. Meditation is absolutely effortless at that point, and everything is meditation at that point. I really got into the one sense door last night while listening to Frank Yang coaching calls and doing vipassana on the visual field while staring at a bright light. The vipassana just kind of did itself and expanded to what felt like everything. Cool shit for sure.

What is your best advice on using proper meditation technique? What do you suggest? Sit in silence & do nothing technique? Vipassana? Etc?

Here’s something I had in my notes about it: Authenticity is the highest spiritual teaching. Literally just be yourself fully, and God will reward you for that courage. No one has full insight into your direct, personal experience but you. There are no other masters of your individual True Nature.

The whole “subjective” experience awakens. What makes you think the collapse doesn’t lead you right back to where you were at the time of the collapse? You can experience the collapse for yourself, but no one can experience the destination for that which has collapsed because it is not a destination. And such is the nature of the natureless. Such is Nibbana.

This “continuity” is an even greater mystery. What makes continuity occur? No one knows, and the one who knows is almost certainly no one.

All of my answers will be coming from the lens of some helpful strains of Buddhism I’ve found in the past months which have added quite a bit to my growth. It can be a very fruitful way of thinking about this stuff. In this framework, the mind is just another sense door like any of the 5 senses. You have sensations which occur in your head which we call thoughts, but they’re really just like a tiny itch arising in your body for one example. It arises without your control. It exists for a time. Then it vanishes. If you do vipassana meditation (which you can do at any time whether “meditating” on a cushion with eyes open, eyes closed, music, no music, at work, at the bar, while eating food… you get the point), you can penetrate and clearly see thoughts as they come as sensations alone. 1. Do you regard this sentence to be a thought or would you call this something different? In other words is it only a thought if it is not spoken/written? The sentence isn’t a thought. It’s a representation constructed as a byproduct of thought. I consider thoughts to only occur within the mind itself usually as words, images, and memories/future projections (these two are more of an amalgamation of thought rather than a “singular” thought. 2. Do random sounds inside your mind (for lack of a better word) constitute a thought? Ex. if you produced garbagunk in your mind would you consider that a thought? I would consider these a type of thought, but they’re less attached to the ego mind in most cases. 3. Does a thought have to consist of words? No. Plenty of sources will at the very least say that thought can happen in images. 4. Are all words thoughts? If they are heard in the head, yes. If they are “externalized” from the inner mind experience, I don’t consider them thoughts. 5. What if you said "a" to yourself. Do you consider that to be a thought? Yes, it just doesn’t have survival utility, so the ego will find little need to support such a thing. This is if you think of it in the head/mind as a sound before saying it. Once it’s turned into just sound sensations, it’s not a thought. You can talk/type/write for hours, weeks, or however long as it goes and have no thoughts. It’s just hard for people to access this state of no mind at the beginning. It becomes pretty common I think as you go later on.

Authenticity is so important. It’s crucial.

Psychedelics will be a great tool. Start using them if you are comfortable with that decision. They are the quickest path to truly deep insight. They will help you expand your meditative practice. I highly recommend you start reading and implementing this book which is entirely free online and one of the highest quality meditation/enlightenment manuals. This stuff will be what really helps you get to the point of locking in permanent levels of awakening that do not go away. https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/ I highly recommend trying Bhakti yoga. I highly recommend you learn about kundalini/chakras and how to bring this process on. Do things intuitively. Don’t follow rules. Follow results. There are an infinite amount of ways to awaken. Try all of the typical spiritual methods that you resonate with. Don’t get hyper focused on one technique. Everyone says to meditate, meditate, meditate for example. Yeah, it’s great, but I got most benefit from using multiple other methods then meditating more once I had already reached stream entry (1st path of awakening in Buddhism). Even now I hardly meditate compared to other people. There are things on this path which I can guarantee you would not believe if I told you. Have faith that there are shocking and ridiculous unexpected capacities for growth to occur in areas you don’t even know about yet. You’ll find stuff when the time is right. I hope you discover what works for you.

This is my favorite recycled joke ever. The highest dharma.

It always wants exactly what’s present/experienced.

Neurogenesis doesn’t mean that the negative effects couldn’t possibly be far worse than any (likely small) neurogenesis that occurs. There’s just too little info to say what’s going to happen at this point. There are probably more straightforward and researched ways to impact your brain health than DMT, but a lot of this depends on what condition it is we’re even talking about here. This thread is like calling a doctor’s office and asking if a new compound there is hardly any significant research for can cure a problem, but you’re unwilling to even tell the doctor what your problem is other than it’s in your foot. No details about what’s happening with the foot, just that it’s a foot problem… Any doctor would say I need more info and probably recommend a more tested solution than the obscure chemical you have an affinity for.

The best friend I ever had probably was someone who would vent to me for hours, and I was always able to share anything I wanted to too. It just depends on the friendship. My best friendships were actually always based on an ability for people to share space and do this. So many great car rides/drives listening to our favorite music and talking about our biggest problems at the time and other deeper interests in life… I miss it.

Have you met painbows? *exits the room respectfully with the knowledge that the important work has been done*

Can you define what enlightenment is to you?

Wrong.