Osaid

A fate worse than any other, I know from direct experience.

Yes, that's what I mean. He will deny he is doing this because of cognitive dissonance, but he is conflating degrees of consciousness with Truth/God.

He is not clear, otherwise he wouldn't be imagining this:

His biggest error is really simple (although the way he justifies it to himself is probably more complex): He still fundamentally thinks that reality is dualistic. And as a consequence he thinks that something exists beyond the absolute. Hence deeper awakenings, hence more insights into the absolute, hence understanding the absolute forever, etc.

He said that "Alien Love" is a thing. That's probably the most interesting thing to me. Might be tied with the alien mouse experience actually, both sound wild.

God is exactly what it is. Doesn't matter how correct or nuanced or descriptive the answer you reach is. All that matters is if you are aware of it or not. What doesn't matter is that you're aware of some answer you intellectually came up with, because that will always be wrong.

Maybe it's elevated cortisol from some suppressed fear or something. Did something on the trip make you feel scared or ungrounded?

It's NOT like an alien?? Hearsay!

You guys are just stuck in mind. Human finite mind. That's what it does, it chases understanding infinitely. It can imagine and question itself infinitely. That's how questions and imagination work. First you try to understand yourself through science and materialism. Now you move to understanding awakening experiences. And you think doing the latter is somehow more true and spiritual. It's just a relative infinite regress through a different paradigm.

?

? In most people there is lots of "interpretation" which seems to happen in experience. A feeling of something "beyond." But experience cannot interpret itself. It can only create beliefs and ideas. Beliefs and ideas are a fact. Questions are a fact. Questions can occur like "What is God? What is reality? What am I?", but notice that whether you ask these questions or not, you are always 100% what you are. You are always 100% what is the case, no matter if these questions are generated or not generated. And these questions and interpretations are not what you are experiencing, ever. Whether you believe you are God or a human, your experience of being God/human does not change at all. What changes is the biological sensory perception of thoughts/beliefs, which happen INSIDE of God/human/reality/you. The truth of what you are is never affected, but the sensory perception of belief is affected. And the sensory perception of belief cannot be interpreted beyond itself, it is always just a belief. In the same way that you cannot interpret the color red beyond itself, it is always just the color red. A belief is a belief. Human experience is human experience. Human experience contains beliefs/knowledge inside it.

Maybe knowing is not fundamental at all. Maybe "knowing" as you call it is actually just a finite part of something. What is it that you are trying to know? What does it mean to know what God is? Just something to contemplate!

No. Not there yet, if ever.

You think so? I'm not Sadghuru!

Interesting! Happy for you. Was there any specific event or something that caused this or made you realize it?

For concepts? Maybe, but Truth is not a concept. Truth exists outside of something relative like a psychedelic state. I would say they are good for opening your mind if you are very stubborn though, but that's it. If you're using it as some kind of crutch for realizing Truth it can become a massive distraction. This happens even with people who take lots of psychedelics.

I'm glad you're feeling better now ❤ I think there is wisdom in taking your hand off of a stove that keeps burning you, no matter how "logically correct" it is to keep your hand there, so to speak. How you feel definitely guides you.

Since when did future events have to do with what you are? Metaphysics 101?? And also: "You don't have enough consciousness to understand consciousness" Funny. Only a human could come up with the idea that the human state of consciousness is forsaken from Truth and God.

You are not "awakenings." You are not "deeper understandings." It's just fundamentally not what you are. If you deny this, you must consult memory and concepts to do so. It's really really simple. The human mind makes it needlessly complex because the human mind is complex. Don't focus on the results of enlightenment. Don't even think of it as anything spiritual because it's not even that. It's just a recognition of what you are, then you can literally do whatever you want after. OF COURSE it is possible to recognize what you are, and this recognition has nothing to do with understanding anything or thinking about anything, it is experiential. There is "something" here. Enlightenment is just a pointer towards that "something." It's not some ideology or philosophy or way of looking at things. If you think it is, then that isn't "it." Also, anyone can become "enlightened." It could happen immediately right now. A thought could trigger it. A random event could trigger it. Or even nothing could trigger it. It's not something that takes understanding or context. The only context you need is your current experience, because it is your experience, and therefore it is YOU. If you just take time to look at your experience long enough, you might notice it, and then that is enlightenment. It's not something that you're gonna "build up to" or experience far off into the future. It's a very simple experiential recontextualization. "Unenlightenment" is a human phenomenon that occurs from our unique capability to imagine things strongly. It's not an "end" of anything (since when can experience end itself?). It's not whatever you think it is. All your ideas about it are just spiritual dogma and ideologies you've picked up. Psychedelics fundamentally have nothing to do with understanding what you are, they aren't going to make YOU "more" YOU. The "clarity" gained from psychedelics is simply a change in experience which forces you to change your beliefs ABOUT yourself. If you're forced into a state of oneness and love, you are not going to have thoughts that say "I am a piece of shit" because that state of consciousness just completely contradicts that belief about yourself. You are instead going to have thoughts like "I am God" or "I am everything" or "I am consciousness" because those beliefs don't contradict that experience. As an analogy, if you have a dream that you are a kangaroo, you are not gonna have a thought which says "I am human" during that dream, because the metaphysics of that dream state straight up contradict that belief/identity. This is also what psychedelics are doing, and this is what is actually happening when you say that psychedelics are "giving you clarity." Reality has no feature where it "gives you insights." That is inferred. Psychedelics are NOT creating states that are more "true", they are creating states which contradict previous beliefs you had about reality, and thus it dissolves those beliefs, and you interpret this as: "Oh my God, this is the highest and most true state ever! All my human delusions don't even exist here!"

Instead of the classic "Can you point your finger to where you are located in experience?" We need a "Can you point your finger to where the alien squirrel is located in experience?" for Leo.

Dang it

You're basically right and the discrepancy you're noticing has validity. Enlightenment is not the same thing as awakening though. But I think it might be hard for you to reconcile that because you perceive "realizing absolute truth" as something that can happen infinitely and so you lump enlightenment into the same category, but this is actually a misconception spawned from the paradigm of chasing awakenings forever. The thing is, truth is realized once because reality is one thing. That's what enlightenment is, that's what absolute truth is, and that's what all the enlightened people have been pointing to for ages. Awakenings, deeper understandings, and psychedelic trips are not enlightenment. They are relative. Enlightenment is absolute. There is nothing beyond the absolute. The idea of "deeper understanding of Truth/God" is the classic fallacy of believing that something exists beyond the absolute, it is just worded differently because of cognitive dissonance. Deeper understandings occur, but they are all relative (because "deeper" implies relativity), and then that is what you would call awakening. Truth is one thing, it doesn't split itself up into multiple things, and then you would call that enlightement. Awakenings can lead up to enlightenment, but they are not enlightenment. In any case, I think you are noticing a very deep relativity/falsehood poking its head out when it comes to all these awakenings, and I would say that you are on the right track when it comes to this. I particularly like the hypothetical that @Bandman pointed to in a recent thread:

Exactly. This guy became the devil by believing in the devil. Imagination goes deep. Notice the ideas he plants in your mind: THAT is the devil.

Something everyone can take away from this thread, for sure. On a side note, don't you suspect some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy happening here? The idea of a devil judging things and only Jesus being able to save you, isn't that somewhat devilish in itself? Maybe that idea itself is the devil? Maybe you truly have been possessed and deceived by the devil, but not in the way you think of it. I don't think making statements about the afterlife is very humble. You don't even know what the weather is gonna be tomorrow. Humble yourself.

@Vladimir Thoughts?