Osaid

The proper action is to leave and go no contact. You can't be in a relationship with someone who has NPD without being abused, because the only way they know how to relate to people is by using and manipulating them emotionally. They will purposefully use your hope and optimism against you. They purposefully manufacture these emotions and ideas in you. If you assume that they feel emotions like normal people do, then that means you've taken their bait. Because they don't. They only act like it to create an image of themselves in your head, which you emotionally relate to. They will bank on your assumption that they can change and that they have empathy. They don't have either. That's why they have behaved this way for their entire life without ever changing. The fact that they never changed through all these years is proof of this, despite what they promise to you. They are like AI robots that are constantly looking for different ways to manipulate your emotions. It's all calculated. They purposefully do this. They know you're hoping for them to change and they know that's why you're staying with them. It's all part of their plan. It's all purposeful. They know that they are hurting you.

She definitely has covert NPD. Look it up. I went through the same scenario although obviously the details of my situation are different. But the manipulation tactics they use are always the same. In regards to her attempts to "make you harm her", this is called reactive abuse. People with NPD will often try to make you "snap" so they can tell other people about it and make you look crazy or frame you. You aren't the problem. You aren't responsible. You've been gaslighted since birth. Recognizing this is where freedom starts. Previously there is denial, but now there is recognition. Which means you can educate yourself now. You are probably experiencing "enmeshment" and "parentification", which are also manipulation tactics used by people with NPD. It will also serve you to look into those, and educate yourself on the NPD manipulation tactics in general. This will make you very good at spotting it the next time it happens. The "guilt" you feel in trying to leave her is purposefully manufactured by them. The motto of covert NPD is "always play victim". They drill this dynamic into you since birth. You will come to find that many others have gone through the same, and in that way you can "learn from history" so to speak. Hell yes, I can totally relate to this. In the end, you become very very perceptive to people and emotions. And you can read narcissistic people like an open book. And you learn to appreciate genuine relationships much more. Once you recognize the manipulation, it becomes very easy to let go of. It is your own decision to stay and care for them which feels hard to let go of. That is why they have to manufacture the "victim" dynamic in the first place. They have to create that image of themselves in your head to take advantage of your love and empathy. Once you recognize you're purposefully being manipulated, then that desire naturally just vanishes, because why would you stay with someone trying to purposefully harm you? Good riddance!

Duality vs non-duality has always been a common contention.

Done. Peace!

There is no evidence that anything is conscious, or ever was, or ever will be, because that is impossible. There's nothing in the cave!

It's not just about mechanically cleaning it. It is also entirely dependent on how you eat. Otherwise it doesn't matter how well you clean, the rate of buildup wont change. On cheat days, my plaque build up becomes like 20x faster than normal. In the morning there wont be any, and by the end of the day there will. I have no idea about acid reflux, but I do know that acidity dries the mouth, and dry mouth will speed up bacteria and build up.

Yeah something like that. Before enlightenment, it's like you're a sky which believes it is the cloud inside of it. After enlightenment you realize you're the sky and you encompass all the clouds, thus you aren't limited by the clouds, no matter what shape they appear as. Clouds are analagous to "thoughts", sky is analagous to "unity".

There is one thing, which is you, or existence, or life, or reality, which is what you always will be. There couldn't be something that is separate from life or reality, or it would not exist by definition. This means that all comparisons are ultimately false. All conceptions of higher or lower, up and down, etc. Thus all separation is assumed, never actually experienced. By inspecting the assumption, it can be dispelled. The most common way for separation to happen is through the concepts of time, specifically past and future. The false self constantly tries to define itself through past and future, even though it is never actually experienced. You cannot experience past, present, and future at the same time. It can only be one at a time. You can't experience the past from the past, and you can't experience the future from the future. You can only experience what is happening now. It is not correct or incorrect. What matters is your goal and what you believe the mind is doing. The mind is a tool. If you have a belief, you must traverse the mind by questioning the mind. This is self-inquiry. In order to realize Santa doesn't exist, you must ask questions about Santa. Who experiences Santa? Where is he? etc. You should explore every single concept in your mind until you are sure that there is nothing there for you to find. It is not true that your thinking is unlimited. There is a limit to thinking. In fact, all thinking is made up of limitations. Thinking is the mind's ability to divide. By seeing that you can only think in limits, it opens the possibility to see what is beyond those limits. If you clearly see why thoughts are unable to divide you, that is the moment of enlightenment. It is just your natural intelligence playing itself out. Your body listens in on everything you believe and think. Everything is connected without exception. That is why your heart starts racing when you think of something stressful. That is why you physically laugh when you think of something funny. If you assume you are a unicorn, you will act like a unicorn. If you assume you are a separate self, you will act like a separate self. The body serves your beliefs. It's a conduit for your beliefs. The "Real Self" is always here now, it never moves or goes anywhere else. The body moves but you don't, unless you assume that you are a body, which is not the Real Self. Ramana Maharshi had a relevant quote: "You are where you have always been. It is your body that moved till it reached this ashram." The seeking happens because you think there is something valuable in thoughts which can define you. If I tell you there is treasure in a cave, you will seek the cave. If I tell you there is treasure in thoughts, you will seek thoughts. Enlightenment is realizing that there is nothing valuable in thoughts because thoughts can never define you; the entire assumption which drives the search is false. When the assumption is realized to be false, that is enlightenment. There is a fundamental misunderstanding with how knowledge works. You think that you can define yourself through knowledge gained over past and future, but this is false. Realizing why it is false is enlightenment. As long as you believe it is true, there will be an imperative to search for knowledge in thoughts. There is no other option than to be. There are simply assumptions and beliefs which you have built which must be questioned and torn down. Envision this for a moment. Throw away all knowledge about what you are, about humans, about reality. See how freeing and limitless it feels. That is what you are trying to realize. It is an absence of beliefs and limitations and knowledge, it isn't something gained. And that absence feels amazing, because in that absence you are not limited or defined by anything anymore. It is pure potentiality. It is fine. You must explore the cave first to realize there is no treasure. Similarly, you must explore the mind to realize there is nothing there.

Important to note that enlightenment isn't an understanding that you gain, it is an undoing of a false understanding. It's the removal of a belief. That belief is the separate self. This is the same belief that drives anxiety and all other psychological suffering. It's not a motto you adopt like "yeah I just gotta push through my anxiety", it's realizing that the belief in "I" which drives anxiety isn't actually there in the first place, you just assumed it was. It's not gaining understanding forever, it's realizing that what you're trying to understand doesn't actually exist. There can be understanding of things afterwards but it's not spent on non-existent dualities. Obviously there is no shortage of profound and beautiful experiences afterwards, such is the nature of unity.

The tool you are using to define yourself is incorrect because it divides you into two. Mind can only divide. When you realize exactly why it is useless to try and define yourself, that is enlightenment. The core belief of duality is that the mind can define what you are, when in actuality there isn't a "you" separate from mind which can be defined. In actuality, it is all one undivided perception. There isn't something separate from that perception which could be somewhere or lack knowledge about itself. You will never find a version of yourself in the future which understands yourself better, because that itself is the misunderstanding. The future is a mental reflection of yourself, and so is the past, but there is no one in the present who experiences either. There is absolutely no function or need for you to acquire more knowledge about yourself because the knowledge you have now is all you will ever have. You don't have to travel back in time in order to gather memories of yourself, because those memories appear now. You don't have to travel into the future to gain knowledge about yourself because you never experience the future by definition, only what you experience now. When it is completely realized that all knowledge about "yourself" is false because there is nothing present which is separate from that knowledge, that is enlightenment. There isn't anyone who acquires knowledge over time, or will acquire knowledge in the future, there is ONLY the knowledge you are perceiving now which contains all ideas about past and future. Knowledge is its own self-contained perception. In the exact same way that you don't need something separate from hearing to hear, or something separate from seeing to see. No one "has" knowledge. No one "has" seeing. No one "has" hearing. Everything is a self-contained perception which perfectly regulates itself. You are ALWAYS experiencing exactly what you are no matter what you think or believe about yourself. How can something that is only itself ever lack itself? It is self-knowledge which says "maybe I don't know what I am", but that "I" is never found in experience, it is an assumption. The error is that you can't know something which does not exist. Duality does not exist.

Wise!

It's very simple in hindsight, isn't it? It is actually a common trap in self-inquiry. The goal of self-inquiry is to examine direct experience. But mind says "I will be enlightened and more conscious in the future after I do this and that" which actually points to something which isn't directly experienced, AKA the future. The mind constantly churns beliefs about yourself which aren't actually experienced. Mind overcomplicates everything, don't fall into it!

Right, but whether you do or don't contemplate, you never experience Santa.

Not speculation. Two experiences is a belief. "5-MeO makes me more conscious" perpetuates that exact belief. 5-MeO might temporarily remove the belief, which in turn creates beliefs about the experience like "it made me more conscious", which is just the perpetuation of the same belief. When someone who does a bunch of psychedelics comes up to Ralston and tells him that, he can see that the belief is still operating just from that statement. You don't need a psychedelic experience to undo the belief precisely because the belief isn't true in the first place. It's not something he can only claim after having hundreds of psychedelic experiences because it is absolutely true, which means the belief can be falsified from anywhere, with or without psychedelics. That is what it means for something to be absolutely true. It requires no relative parameters. You don't need psychedelics to realize that Santa doesn't exist precisely because Santa does not exist. The only reason you would need something to realize a truth is precisely because the truth does not exist right now. That is why you need it. That is why you need psychedelics. That is why you need higher states of consciousness.