BipolarGrowth

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 ❤️

I love swami sarvapriyananda, but his opinion on psychedelics is ignorant in the same way that a materialist’s view on spirituality is ignorant due to lack of direct experience. You can read theories then encompass them in your own worldview all you want. It won’t give you much knowledge of the thing itself. It mainly just reinforces bias which is essentially the path to plateauing insight. If you don’t have experience with the thing itself, you can’t really see the full picture. From my experience, the best action is to combine the methods if you feel drawn to psychedelics. Do all of the typical serious spiritual practice as well as psychs. If you don’t feel drawn to psychedelics, don’t do them. If you don’t like how they affect your life, stop.

Keep moving forward man. If you haven’t felt discouraged or like things aren’t working as they were advertised, it’s a sign of progress. Becoming disenchanted with the idea of moving on has a way of just moving you forward anyway. Lean into it. I’m in a really similar territory where I’m most likely 2nd or 3rd path if I had to guess. Less than a month ago I had a huge awakening which was more Love/Divinity than anything before which quickly lead me into three days of depersonalization and a huge dark night which lasted a little over two weeks. The stormy waters have passed though and lead to some pretty nice views and skillful reduction in suffering.

It has triggered many manic episodes and some deep depressive episodes. My bipolar disorder basically flipped on hardcore after I started meditating, doing psychedelics, and studying spirituality. I already had been diagnosed and had multiple episodes, but the episodes became stronger and more frequent once I was spiritually focused.

Go with what resonates. This exact video gave me some good progress 1-2 years ago.

Yeah, that’s the process in my eyes in a nutshell too. Would you rather be a chimpanzee or a human?

Well that’s good. How do you define suffering personally? I’ve noticed a huge shift for myself in how suffering is. It’s reduced heavily. I imagine by even higher paths it will be even less. “What's bringing non-doership and enlightenment to the next level has something to do with suffering outside of formal practice.” I agree with this totally. Maybe try using Krishna’s advice on devotional service with the added ability to practice it more effectively with your added vipassana and mindfulness skills.

Have you reached stream entry yet to be even remotely qualified to speak on how Buddhist practice may or may not be a path out of suffering? If not, you’re shooting in the dark and likely don’t know what you’re talking about.

Do you have some examples of illnesses you think are not as genetic as people think? In my experience with bipolar disorder, it’s known to have a large genetic component. Spiritual progress has both helped it and made it worse in many cases for me. Overall, spiritual practice has made it mostly worse from the eyes of others who do not understand spirituality and even for some who do, and from my perspective spiritual practice has made it much better although my life is more unstable in a sense than when I started.

The second video is a bit better IMO, so I recommend watching it first. Navigating Attainments & The Complexity of Awakening – Teachings From The Psych Ward #4 Suffering, The Ananda Method and Comparing Models of Enlightenment –Teachings From The Psych Ward #5 This is a great book which can be accessed for free if you’d like to learn about things I mention such as stream entry, nirodha samapatti, cessation, and other Buddhist terms. It has helped me tremendously in understanding the process of insight and awakening in Buddhism. https://www.mctb.org/ These videos do get a bit heavy on Theravada Buddhist jargon and maps, but they also discuss other enlightenment map systems. I also talk about some of my unique methods. I’ve found that a great way to put your ego on the chopping block after a deep spiritual experience is to make an honest (as much as you can be while likely still on a spiritual high to an extent) assessment of yourself. If it really does feel like an enlightenment realization, God realization, or something else, make the claim confidently to yourself and consciously watch how that changes over time. I found myself having many emotional responses based on the ego trying to defend its new level of specialness that it wants to feel. The process for me was to feel these as fully and consciously as possible and research maps from other spiritual traditions and go back to the maps I was using for more clear understanding. These videos were recorded 1-2 months ago. A lot more mature progress has been made since. My enlightenment realizations have been put in new context. I understand how enlightenment realizations relate to suffering and normal life in a more nuanced way. In the end, I’m incredibly confident that I’ve at the minimum reached stream entry according to the Theravada maps. Reaching cessation several times has made spiritual progress come much more quickly, and I would encourage people truly motivated to awaken to learn about it and potentially pursue it as a goal if it feels right for you. Please keep in mind that maps are only a very small part of spirituality. There are many drawbacks and advantages to using them. Lastly, these recordings were done while I was still in a semi-manic state related to my bipolar disorder diagnosis, so keep that in mind. There’s some added goofiness, immaturity, and enhanced idiosyncrasies among other odd things due to this. The “enlightened being” designation you see on the screen was put there by my friend and editor. It was also egged on by my enhanced ego at the time. If you want to discuss Buddhist techniques or have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM.

I discovered several years ago that for me as soon as you reach them the dream ends. I used to have nightmares with grays in them all the time before that. I can clearly remember I was trapped in my childhood house with one, and I had no options other than to confront it. That’s how I discovered the way to end the dream. Now they are no longer nightmares. The last time this dream happened I just got pissed off rather than scared lol.