StripedGiraffe

Do not cling to any answers. The answer you're looking for cannot be explicated. Confusion is wonderful sign that you're on the right track. Keep going, my friend !

Thanks everyone! I'm happy to share

Keep doing the work, my friends. Be patient with yourself. I know it can be difficult to stay on this path when you haven't quite experienced awakening yet. I promise you, it is so worth it. There is nothing in life more worthwhile and profound than the spiritual path. If you are wise enough to follow this path even though it has no guaranteed payoff, you are blessed, my friend. It took me 5 full years of spiritual practice before I had my first spiritual awakening and about 5 1/2 years of practice before I had my first enlightenment experience, and let me tell you, it was worth every damn second I spent in meditation and contemplation. The deeper you go, the more beautiful and motivating the path becomes. If you're stuck in a rut or struggling to stay consistent with your practice, don't beat yourself up. You'll get there as long as you keep coming back to spirituality. Leo, if you see this, thank you so much. There's no way I'd where I am without your teachings. Feel free to check out the story of my first awakening. To be clear, the awakening I share in the video is shallow compared to my most recent awakenings but I think it might be helpful for newbies. Much love!

I haven't smoked weed since my enlightenment experience, but I haven't experienced partial ego death from weed like you are describing. Maybe next time, I will. I have, however, experienced these deep emotions telling me to change in some way. I discover trauma and different emotional blocks and discover blind spots in my consciousness. I fell like my subconscious mind is revealed to me. This happens pretty much every time I smoke unless I smoke habitually. I personally find that these insights on weed point me toward greater love and consciousness. Trust your gut on this one, my friend.

@Mo0ngrass Thank you for the thoughtful response. I agree, this certainly has ego and control written all over it. I see the "creating cues strategy" as a sort of a strategy to support specific habits, goals, and integration work, especially after awakening. Thank you for sharing the insight about counter-beliefs interfering with integration. Intuitively, that seems key to me. I had my first enlightenment experience last week and I think my ego is trying to concoct strategies to get back to that state. It's becoming very clear to me that enlightenment is so elusive because it transcends all concepts, thoughts, knowledge, and understanding. The thoughts I had during my enlightenment experience were thoughts I've had many times before. The difference was I was intensely aware of what I am. I think I just need to double down on the practices (meditation, kriya, psychedelics, self-inquiry) as well as unravel and question the delusional beliefs that I have held for decades that, which as you said, are interfering with the integration. Much love my friend.

What does it mean to forget? Forgetting means a concept leaves your awareness. We only become conscious of forgetting when we try to recall something, but we cannot remember a specific concept within the frame of the "search". If we do not become conscious that we have forgotten or we never try to recall a concept, it's as if the concept never existed. Perhaps these concepts are still stored subconsciously and affect us from the subconscious but in terms of remembering, if we cannot consciously recall a concept, that memory is erased, we have forgotten. This is what happens to 99.9 % percent of everything we experience and conceptualize over time. We can also say that we have forgotten something even if it is possible to recall. However, we often don't remember to recall the concept without a specific trigger. For example, If you have homework due at midnight, it's possible to totally forget and not do it even though if somebody had asked you if you had homework, you would recall that yes, you do. So we might say that forgetting is simply being unaware of something you were previously aware of. So if you're practicing concentration on your breath with your eyes closed, if you achieve true concentration, by my definition, you will have forgotten everything else you know because the only thing that you are aware of is the feeling of your breath. Of course, you still have access to all of your normal information but until you actually remember it, it is forgotten. Notice that before reading this sentence, you were not aware of what you had for dinner last night. One could say you forgot. Notice that this forgetting extends to the most basic knowledge. For example, before reading this, you were not aware of your age. Of course, you can probably remember it very quickly. The concept of you being a certain age did not exist until you became directly conscious of it in this moment. Here's a thought experiment. Let's say nobody ever asked you your name for the next year. You don't have to write it, say it, or even think of it at any point in the next year. One might say you have forgotten your name. You might be thinking "But StripedGiraffe, just because I didn't directly think of my name, doesn't mean I forgot it." I still know it. But notice that you have to recall it in order to bring it into your conscious awareness. That's what it means to remember. Just like forgetting to do your homework does not mean the assignment was erased from your memory, it just didn't come back into your awareness. What determines what we remember and what we forget? The likelihood that you will remember something is determined by the significance of the concept relative to your egoic survival. The more relevant a concept is to your survival, the more often you will recall it. The more often you recall a concept, the longer that memory will survive. Also, the more often you recall a concept, the easier and faster it will be to recall in the future. This whole process is one of the main forces at the root of how we create thinking patterns. Thoughts are also concepts that we use for survival. To better understand this, I'd like to create two categories of thoughts: memories and creative thoughts. By definition, creative thoughts are new, original, and can never be repeated or habitual. Memories, however, are strictly thoughts that you have previously have had before. They are concepts that you have previously been aware of and have become aware of again. Much, if not most, of your thinking is "memory thinking". We're just rethinking these old thought patterns that are most relevant to our survival over and over again. It's also not necessarily true that these patterns are even currently very relevant to your survival. When a thought is repeated enough times, it becomes our default way of thinking, especially when we experience the same thought cues and triggers every day. That's why switching up your environment and routine would be helpful for changing thinking patterns. Notice that these mechanisms do not work in a way that promotes happiness, peace, growth, and self-actualization. Instead, these mechanisms promote homeostasis. You can use this knowledge, however, to take some strategic actions that will support you. What can we do about forgetfulness? First of all, it's worth mentioning that we can improve our memories through proper diet, exercise, meditation, brain training, and nootropics. It may be impossible to control what you forget, but it is very possible to influence what you remember, which is actually much more important since remembering is the primary driver behind our thought, and our thoughts create our reality. We can strategically create cues or reminders to trigger thinking patterns and habits that support our higher consciousness aspirations. For example, if you want to be more grateful, you can set reminders to pop up on your phone that ask "What are you grateful for?" or you can write it on your mirror. When you get an important insight, it's important to record it, or else it may be erased into nothing, never to be remembered again. Don't trust your ego when it says, "I don't need to write this down, I'll remember." The tricky part is when you don't recall something that you wanted to remember, you don't even remember that you've forgotten anything! Because of this blind spot, your ego will never be caught when it truly forgets something. Remembering or recalling something is totally outside your control unless you consciously create a cue to remind you of it.

I just remembered some more details. Before I went lucid, I smoked some weed. Not sure If If actually felt high. While I was lucid, either right before or after I smoked the "DMT", I was running around all excited that I was in a dream. I had gum in my mouth and I took it out and chucked it behind me with no regard for anything. The gum smacked my dream friend in the face and he groaned. I apologized. I felt like a selfish prick. Then, I started thinking about if I should respect dream beings. If the substance of this dream is the same as the substance of waking reality, does that mean everyone in this dream is conscious, just like I assume they are in waking reality? My ego, even while I'm dreaming, is still an illusion. Are dreams an egoic hallucination where only I (as a human) am conscious of them? I'm so confused. Maybe a more accurate way of looking at it would be that dreams are consciousness grounded in nothingness and any 'I" in that dream is a delusion, same as waking reality. I think it's funny that during my last few awakenings, I discovered that reality was a dream, and in my dream, I discovered that dreams were reality lol. It's paradoxical but it makes sense. They're fundamentally the same thing.

I just woke up from a luciud dream, and to my amazement, I pulled it off. Diclaimer: I didn't do the exercise in the video. I didn't watch it till afterward. Instead, I smoked DMT in a lucid dream. I was in a basement and right when I went lucid, I started flying, as usual lol, and then I remembered this post. I landed, ran over to some shelves, with hopeful confidence that there would be everything I need to smoke DMT. Sure enough, I found a strange pipe that was difficult to use, and sticky dark blue substance. Fuck it, close enough. I packed the bowl, found a lighter in my pocket, and smoked that shit. I immediately went into a nice headspace. I didn't see visuals or anything but I became conscious that everything I was experiencing in this dream was "real". Its just as real as 3D waking reality. I was blown away. I've had this insight before, but not with this much depth. I played close attention to see if there was any fundamental difference between this dream and my perception of waking reality. Nada. They're identical. The only differences are conceptual such as I'm able to break our laws of physics by flying in a dream, and waking reality reality has continuity. Those are really about the only differences.

@4201 That's a very good point you made about connecting the dots. My intuition tells me that even though we make a connection or come to an understanding, we can also benefit from strengthening that connection with repetition, especially if it is a high-level abstract connection you might get from doing contemplation, psychedelics, or exploring non-duality. I intuit that it's also possible to "forget" these connections were even made if they are not revisited and built upon. This theory is more mechanistic brain-based and I admit, it is fundamentally limited. However, even when I consider the metaphysical mechanics, which I don't claim to fully understand, it seems intuitive to me that understanding would create a neural connection that could be strengthened with repetitive recall. And that recall might never happen if we don't create a cue. This all theory and speculation lol, I honestly don't know what I'm talking about at all.

holy shit, this is genius. I'm totally going to try this.

I just wanted to share a simple idea because this has been so incredibly powerful for me in the little experience I have with psychedelics. IMO, insights on mushrooms are very profound, fleeting, and slippery, so, I added a voice recorder widget to my phone's home screen for recording insights. This makes it incredibly easy to record your most profound insights so you can contemplate them afterward. Writing or typing notes, for me, is too cumbersome and takes away from the experience. I did this with my most recent trip (see my trip notes) and I was utterly shocked at how many profound insights I had totally forgotten about until I played them back. I'm sure this is common practice for many people, but it's worth mentioning on here if a couple of people try it

Would love to see this video. This inspired me to do some contemplation about memory and forgetting. What does it mean to forget? Forget means a concept leaves your awareness. We only become conscious of forgetting when we try to recall something, but we cannot remember a specific concept within the frame of the "search". If we do not become conscious that we have forgotten or we never try to recall a concept, it's as if the concept never existed. Perhaps these concepts are still stored subconsciously and affect us from the subconscious but in terms of remembering, if we cannot consciously recall a concept, that memory is erased, we have forgotten. This is what happens to 99.9 % percent of everything we experience and conceptualize over time. We can also say that we have forgotten something even if it is possible to recall. However, we often don't remember to recall the concept without a specific trigger. For example, If you have homework due at midnight, it's possible to totally forget and not do it even though if somebody had asked you if you had homework, you would recall that yes, you do. So we might say that forgetting is simply being unaware of something you were previously aware of. So if you're practicing concentration on your breath with your eyes closed, if you achieve true concentration, by my definition, you will have forgotten everything else you know because the only thing that you are aware of is the feeling of your breath. Of course, you still have access to all of your normal information but until you actually remember it, it is forgotten. Notice that before reading this sentence, you were not aware of what you had for dinner last night. One could say you forgot. Notice that this forgetting extends to the most basic knowledge. For example, before reading this, you were not aware of your age. Of course, you can probably remember it very quickly. The concept of you being a certain age did not exist until you became directly conscious of it in this moment. Here's a thought experiment. Let's say nobody ever asked you your name for the next year. You don't have to write it, say it, or even think of it at any point in the next year. One might say you have forgotten your name. You might be thinking "But StripedGiraffe, just because I didn't directly think of my name, doesn't mean I forgot it." I still know it. But notice that you have to recall it in order to bring it into your conscious awareness. That's what it means to remember. Just like forgetting to do your homework does not mean the assignment was erased from your memory, it just didn't come back into your awareness. What determines what we remember and what we forget? The likelihood that you will remember something is determined by the significance of the concept relative to your egoic survival. The more relevant a concept is to your survival, the more often you will recall it. The more often you recall a concept, the longer that memory will survive. Also, the more often you recall a concept, the easier and faster it will be to recall in the future. This whole process is one of the main forces at the root of how we create thinking patterns. Thoughts are also concepts that we use for survival. To better understand this, I'd like to create two categories of thoughts: memories and creative thoughts. By definition, creative thoughts are new, original, and can never be repeated or habitual. Memories, however, are strictly thoughts that you have previously have had before. They are concepts that you have previously been aware of and have become aware of again. Much, if not most, of your thinking is "memory thinking". We're just rethinking these old thought patterns that are most relevant to our survival over and over again. It's also not necessarily true that these patterns are even currently very relevant to your survival. When a thought is repeated enough times, it becomes our default way of thinking, especially when we experience the same thought cues and triggers every day. That's why switching up your environment and routine would be helpful for changing thinking patterns. Notice that these mechanisms do not work in a way that promotes happiness, peace, growth, and self-actualization. Instead, these mechanisms promote homeostasis. You can use this knowledge, however, take some strategic actions that will support you. What can we do about forgetfulness? First of all, it's worth mentioning that we can improve our memories through proper diet, exercise, meditation, brain training, and nootropics. It may be impossible to control what you forget, but it is very possible to influence what you remember, which is actually much more important since remembering is the primary driver behind our thought, and our thoughts create our reality. We can strategically create cues or reminders to trigger thinking patterns and habits that support our higher consciousness aspirations. For example, if you want to be more grateful, you can set reminders to pop up on your phone that ask "What are you grateful for?" or you can write it on your mirror. When you get an important insight, it's important to record it, or else it may be erased into nothing, never to be remembered again. Don't trust your ego when it says, "I don't need to write this down, I'll remember." The tricky part is when you don't recall something that you wanted to remember, you don't even remember that you've forgotten anything! Because of this blind spot, your ego will never be caught when it truly forgets something. Remembering or recalling something is totally outside your control unless you consciously create a cue to remind you of it.

I'm also trying to focus on the good. It feels like shit to focus on all of the fear and negativity. I agree that maybe CORVID-19 will help Bernie with the election. Tomorrow's debate could totally change the course of this election if Bernie is savvy enough or if Biden displays his cognitive decline with new depth and obviousness. By the way, don't feel guilty about seeing the good of this crisis. There is always good to be seen. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the duality of good and bad.

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking but here's what I've learned about mental imagery. We can use it to assist with the Law of Attraction. We can essentially visualize what we desire and feel the emotions as if we already are experiencing it. This will basically change our vibration and attract our desired situation to us. Also, we can use visualization for healing work. There are tons of guided visualizations and similar exercises like hypnotherapy and guided meditations on YouTube. These exercises have personally helped me heal from emotional trauma, resolve past experiences, forgive myself and others, enter deep states of relaxation, and love myself more. Visualization is so powerful because visual data is so much more richly complex and rational thought. Hope this helps!

During my most recent awakening, this question came up for me. Basically, what I concluded is that there is an Absolute Truth. Any belief we hold is, by definition, not that Truth. The Truth cannot be held, grasped, or conceptualized. You can only be it. You are it. At the same time, all beliefs are the Truth because the truth is everything, and everything does not exclude delusional beliefs. Everything is imaginary and reality is Infinite delusion and because everything is a delusion, nothing is a delusion and everything is true! Like you were suggesting, this creates a strange loop as we transcend the dualities of true and false, delusion and truth, and illusion and reality. All of these are One Truth or Being. Also remember, everything I am claiming is completely delusional! Of course!

I recently had my first ego death on mushrooms. I've had nothing but positive experiences. I would start with a small dose and ramp it up until you feel like you're on the verge of a breakthrough. Then, level off your dose and contemplate the shit out of your trips. It's also vital that you do the contemplation work to unravel the delusions of your ego and sort of shake the dogma loose.

Nothing is more shocking and beautiful than seeing what you actually are.

Yesterday, I ate 3g of Penis Envy Magic Mushrooms. This was my fourth mushroom trip and was my highest dose to date, considering the strength of the strain. I went so much deeper than my other trips. It's extremely difficult to describe, of course, but I'm wondering if I had some degree of ego death during my peak. The whole time, I was conscious of my body and personal history but at the same time, I was also conscious that my life, current perception, and even this universe are just a temporary illusion and in a way, I felt tapped into the infinite possibilities of the Mind. I felt like my consciousness transcended my identity. I was aware of my absolute nature. It was beyond logic and every time I tried to think of how to grasp or explain this, I just laughed my ass off because of how absurd this notion is. What I experienced could net ever be communicated. I also became aware of new meta-patterns of my ego. I pretty much experienced the same thing on Ayahuasca like 6 months ago, except, this time, I was less scared because I had pretty much experienced this form of consciousness before. From what Leo says, ego death has many degrees and variations, but I just want to know if this seems like some sort of ego death. Are you even conscious of your human identity during "full" ego death? Thanks in advance!

@Leo Gura Thank you, brother. I wish you love on your journey of healing your health issues and awakening.

@Endangered-EGO Thanks for your input, my friend. My experience sounds similar to yours, although it's ridiculous for us to try to understand each other's experiences through language. But that's the best we've got lol. Overall, it was absolutely jaw-dropping amazing and positive experience. I think I wasn't scared because I Experienced a very similar state six months ago, so although it reshattered my paradigm and sense of self, it was more of a remembering than it was some foreign shift consciousness, even though my shift in consciousness was obviously dramatic.

@Chakra Lion I said I felt TAPPED into infinity. I definitely did not feel trapped haha

@Leo Gura I recently started tracking my supplement intake in my commonplace book to attempt to gain a nuanced understanding of how each one affects me. I also started tracking other practices to see how they affect me because I realized that nootropics only have a supplemental effect on my state compared to meditation, kriya yoga, breathwork, etc. I'm a bit overwhelmed about how to collect this data so that I can use it effectively. Am I overthinking this? Is this even beneficial? And Leo, have you had any major insights about nootropics since you shot the video? Thanks.

Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Dignity is defined as self-worth from your own perspective. Typically, the ego makes up certain rules about what it takes to be worthy or not. Worthy of what? Probably love, happiness, or peace. We often subconsciously frame this issue as "In order for me to be happy, I must meet these certain criteria so that other people will love me." It's ultimately a mechanism of survival. Of course, dignity can surface as fear when we're making changes to our life because we're stepping into the unknown and that might cause you to break some of the rules that are your self-defined prerequisites for happiness. So in that way, dignity is an ego defense mechanism because it is promoting homeostasis.