BipolarGrowth

It undulates. Maybe 80-90% of the time I don’t have thoughts in the head anymore no matter how detailed the words I’m saying or typing or whatever is. It does itself. I call it “thoughtless thought.” To that extent, I have no thoughts that I could attach to for that majority of my day. The arahant (4th path or fully enlightened in Theravada Buddhism) Daniel Ingram says that essentially the patterns of sensations of a sense of self still occur after full enlightenment in his opinion. I don’t see him thinking this doesn’t extend to thoughts in the head. The difference is that the insight into no self is so clear that those patterns are not seen to have any self in them even if they are more or less identical to what the unenlightened you would’ve said was what made you have a self. Enlightenment is not about some locked in and consistent state of consciousness that can’t think or any other benchmark really that depends on a single factor of experience like that although it does usually come with some “baseline upgrades” in a sense for most people. I’m probably at 2nd or 3rd path in the 4 path Theravada system IMO if I’m following their designations as much as I honestly can. I feel much of what Daniel says about sense of self sensations to be true to my personal experience more and more as I go along. The biggest shift for me has been in how resistance occurs. Rather than me having a sort of meta-resistance on top of the natural resistance interactions of different sensations occurring, I just allow the various aspects of my human system and the environment to interact in a natural way. Plenty of times this involves things like complex emotions which are easy to link to a sense of self. I just don’t try to resist having a sense of self nor resist not having a sense of self. Self vs. no self is not just an on and off switch. It’s more like a continuum and different experiences and stages of the process of insight (which enlightened people still cycle through according to Ingram) call up much different levels of sensations of self. If you find yourself in the Mind & Body insight stage, you’re probably going to have more sensations which feel like a self than some of the more mystical and positive feeling stages. Mind & Body feels like being dipped back into a truly ordinary human perspective as much as you can be even for enlightened people although their Mind & Body might be above the highest baseline states you’ve experienced. It’s just a natural part of the stage. It doesn’t matter how enlightened you are. Don’t let someone convince you of the magical, beautiful, and ever-present level of their enlightened reality. From my research, there are a lot of highly awake people whose experience is far more subtle than you think. Ideas like never having a sense of self are the ones which make me curious to proof test with a bear or flaming sword or chainsaw. There’s probably more of something there than they are trying to admit.

Psychedelics alone will probably struggle to get people much progress. It can be a catalyst that works really well when combined with other approaches in my experience. Vedanta vs. psychedelics will probably help far less people than Vedanta + psychedelics. As far as Pure Consciousness goes, we probably won’t get far in a communication unless it went beyond just text back and forth on a forum. Too much discussion of subtleties, definition, etc. would be involved. It sounds like a Theravada vs. Tibetan issue which obviously would be quite dense to go through if that is the case.

The answer is way more than no or yes or dream or real. I answer with a question because you’ll need to approach it at some different angles of understanding to see the full picture. The idea that you designed a universe in the sense of the word “design” people usually use doesn’t hold up well IMO. I think that’s just a story you’re telling yourself. I’ve told myself it before too. The worst part about it is that it took place in some concrete past.

When you awaken from a dream, was the thing that triggered you to awaken real? I’d be thinking about how to fully awaken more than that, however, you can use that question to arrive at your answer if you want one.

No subjective present moment experience is more correct, valid, etc. than any other, however, how your subjective present moment experience lines up with the story arch of new ones you’ll find yourself within will certainly make things seem as if an experience was somehow invalid. In Truth, all of the solidity, meaning, and understanding of the entire human experience will be eradicated and replaced with something that makes your current experience look ridiculous, alien, or just plain arbitrary. Ad infinitum. You’re never in some holy ground of understanding where you’ve arrived at an answer that will last forever. Even being a “fully enlightened” human being won’t mean shit while you’re a dolphin.

Good to hear it’s helping on the mental illness front for you. Be careful not to get into higher doses. A datura trip can fuck you up hard.

This is quite good. I really resonate with this. What is your interpretation of the part I put in bold? I described it as Liberation was like figuratively seeing myself put a nuclear virus bomb in the core of the illusion, but at that very same moment I had the memory that it had always been there. There is no unenlightenment or enlightenment process in Truth. There is just enlightenment is closer to what’s going on. Really it’s much more like “enlightenment” is so constant that it actually has no contrast anywhere to ever be sensed, yet this whole dream life has been designed around it to some sense according to a lot of highly awake people. In a sense everything is it, but even that is just a stepping stone to seeing it actually dissolve before your eyes. There’s just the appearance that the awakening journey is what is happening to bring you closer to it. Intense experiences and things that line up with the myth come more and more. Eventually you get there and see you were always “there.” Everything/all “beings” are enlightenment, but only you get to subjectively see it disappear into the Truth which was actually running things.

Overcoming mental illness is far more difficult than having insights or disembodied wisdom, especially while we’re still growing up. Continuous access to strong mindfulness is the key to really developing beyond things like anxiety IMO. You can even have extremely accurate, powerful, and rare enlightenment realizations which cause large baseline shifts in consciousness, but without building up the muscle of mindfulness over time, things like anxiety can make you like a brand new Ferrari with a broken engine. This is not a race or something to rush necessarily. Emotional and mental health mastery might only come in your 30s, 40s, or even later. Maybe you can speed it up quite a bit, but if you can’t, try to look at the situation with more acceptance of your situation and yourself for the time being.

The sad thing is people like the owner of the restaurant are probably unreachable. They will have to grow out of it if their own accord, if they ever do. At the end of the day, it’s completely her prerogative to see so much of the world as her enemy.

The best thing I’ve found is to meet highly conscious friends. I find therapists to be pretty ineffective, especially as you become more highly developed. Better than talking to people is the ability to use mindfulness and vipassana whenever you need to in your normal life. When you can feel things as bare sensations and recognize they are entirely not the property of any consistent self and are impermanent, this gives you a lot of power over negative emotional sensations/patterns of sensations. If you want someone to talk to for processing things and developing the methods I’ve described above, shoot me a PM. Best of luck.

Interesting theory/line of thinking. What does it ultimately matter in your life though? Will you stop doing the right things because of a small potential of an unpredictable illness occurring? When I was 18, our government class was having a discussion/informal debate on medical marijuana. In a sort of synchronous way, the night before I had seen a piece on CNN about how medical marijuana was the only effective treatment for certain children with seizure disorders. In this discussion with around 20 people who were mostly conservative and had no direct experience with marijuana, I spoke passionately and completely dismantled the arguments of a few of the other people at the top of our graduating class. I had never in my life overcame my social anxiety, especially not in front of any moderate sized group of people with differing opinions. I did it for those kids. Within 24 hours, I was in my first manic episode of my life. My bipolar disorder manifested in the first noticeable way ever due to me doing what I felt to be the right thing. If I hadn’t spoke out for the perspective of those kids who were greatly benefiting from medical marijuana, maybe I would’ve never witnessed God, Infinity, Absolute Love, etc. Do the right thing. Fuck the costs.

That does sound like quite an interesting, although not necessarily in a positive way, edge case. I’m glad to see you saw through what you were exposed to without buying it.

5-MeO-DMT among a host of new tools aren’t even really deeply understood by almost anyone even in the modern world who have used and researched them extensively. They have not existed in human knowledge for long enough for people other than the experts of the experts in that to truly see the potential. There was no way to access this in the 5,000 years of research you’re talking about. Simply putting it off as more activity in Consciousness is a bit ludicrous IMO. That’s selling the whole thing way too short. There are many more important facets of understanding awakening than just saying it’s all the knower Consciousness. If you don’t see that, look into Buddhism some more to chop that notion up. I’d be happy to discuss it with you directly. As I said, I love this Swami and this whole 5,000 year tradition which have been very transformative to my journey, but to treat it as some ultimate and all inclusive answer is like a horse intentionally putting blinders on that cover 50% of its field of vision. I have no issue with him speaking from the perspective of Vedanta. He just seemed to take it further than that or at least had a tone as if he was doing so IMO. If a materialist scientist says psychedelics are just chemical interactions in the brain and nothing special, in a sense they’re right from their worldview/tradition/practice. This doesn’t mean they have a holistic understanding though whatsoever.

I once looked into the mirror, fully conscious of how much Love I’ve been lucky to experience in this life, and was brought to some of if not the most intense tears of my life as I realized how little Love the world has been able to experience. I was crying so hard in this state of compassion that I almost vomited. I immediately renewed my vow to become a bodhisattva which I had made 2-3 years prior. To me, if I can get help at least one being recognize the degrees of Love I’ve been able to, my life was worth it regardless of what suffering I endure.

Building up base mindfulness then using that to notice the arising and passing of sensations/phenomena (essentially adding vipassana focused on impermanence) has been working great for me. I do it in meditation and throughout the day. Buddhism (namely the Satipatthana Sutta) describes this continuous mindfulness as a quite important stage to reach for further growth. “True meditation dies on the cushion.” -Personal quote I’ve said before. It points to the importance of allowing meditation to come naturally rather than forcefully.

Judgment from others is temporary. The impact you have on those who will be benefited by your channel will probably be a lot longer lasting. The psych ward is a part of life. If they judge you for that, it shows immaturity and/or lack of experience IMO. Making a YouTube channel based on similar things as you describe has been one of the best decisions of my life. Even just the value of being able to see where you were at in so many different points of life is pretty much worth it alone.

I totally agree. Most people without these tools who have my conditions to a similar level of severity are doing far worse with things such as meaning, purpose, ability to handle intense emotions, and so on. Making YouTube videos on stuff like this is a great way to help others with similar challenges which is quite meaningful work.

It seems like the people advocating for the sun rising being an assumption are assuming that they haven’t taken their understanding of what assumption is too far ?

Losing my mind has lead me to become way more compassionate than I ever would’ve been capable of otherwise.

Best of luck ? This reminded me of an old Vin Diesel movie scene which seems a bit related about getting to 500 fights to be a tough guy lol

I’m up to participate. Sounds like a fun thesis to work with for sure.

It’s rather neurochemical for me although it’s also closely related to the stages of insight. Pretty much everyone experiences what I do to a partial degree if they go deep enough into insight, but I also have an illness factor which amplifies a lot of the process. The arising & passing away and dark night of the soul are especially intense.

How do you distinguish between emptiness and nothingness personally? I find the 7th Jhana (Nothingness) particularly hard to get into also. If anyone has advice on that, I’d appreciate it.

When you let go, it’s never really lost. It might help in a lot of those endeavors you mentioned to pursue spirituality as long as you don’t go too hardcore. Being able to let go can be a huge source of freedom which allows for more authenticity and less attachment/suffering.

Glad to hear things are unfolding in a beautiful and positive way man ❤️