Osaid

You wouldn't happen to own any bows or arrows, would you? Just out of pure curiosity.

I mean, I wasn't in Vegas, so maybe you know more about Pete than I do.

Memory is not awareness. How are you perceiving this "unawareness" you speak of?

He has a new neighborhood to stroll through: Heaven

mental model syndrome

Yeah

I don't think they are operating from self-image, which I believe is the basis of the shift. If you want to add the qualifier of "self-reflection" to it, then enlightenment just becomes a human phenomenon. I don't like this, because it kind of implies that it's separate from other states or experiences, and it also turns it into something human. It's just the natural and truest state of things. It's just a complete relinquishing to experience, whatever that experience may involve, whether it's being a cat, a bird, etc. I don't think cats second guess their experience or imagine anything on top, same for babies or other organisms which have not developed an imaginative intelligence as high as normal functional humans. It is normal, but I think this can be changed. Most people just don't take any of this seriously, and they are sick of hearing the word enlightenment. It needs to be communicated in a more direct and palpable manner, so that you don't have to journey off into some cave somewhere, but rather just do it from home or something. But yes, this is the reality of most people nowadays.

True, if everyone relinquishes their carnal desires, cave demand goes up. The next version of capitalism.

Thank you. Don't know how to define it really. I've always been super critical of reality and its metaphysics, so to speak. For me, reality was like a video game, and I was always trying to question it and find "bugs" in my experience. Same goes for humans and any ideologies they tried to push onto me. But really, it was just simple sober contemplation and self inquiry. I look at experience, and I ask, what are you hiding from me? Do you really work this way? What if I assume that you work this way instead? etc. And, experience can't hide anything from you of course, you just have direct access to it all the time. If your assumption is wrong, it will just get rid of it for you through your own conscious experience. If it's right, it will just be confirmed by experience. It's all direct, right there in front of you. I genuinely believe any human can become enlightened through simple sober inquiry. It's not directly some genetic thing. It's learned. You can unlearn it, and become enlightened. Cats are enlightened. Worms are enlightened. Babies are enlightened, since they have no object permanence. It's just that humans gain intelligence in the form of memory and imagination, and we get tangled up in this intelligence. Our intelligence starts telling us "You have to always use this form of intelligence to navigate reality", and so on. My specific enlightenment experience is briefly described in this post:

❤️

Aw, that makes me happy :)

You can't actually think you're enlightened, it's just an experience. So there's no "thinking" that is involved in enlightenment, it's just an experiential shift. I still have my old personality or whatever, but all the neuroticism has been removed. Just like a cat wouldn't become an "enlightened person." Cats are naturally enlightened, and they are not human, and they don't have any ideas about it. I am well aware that "enlightened" is a label that appears to describe people who achieved this. But, it really isn't about the person. It's about what the person achieved. And that word isn't even used in some circles. There's no certain way I'm supposed to act after enlightenment, really, the way I act either naturally changes as a result (the neuroses disappear), or I'm just completely the same. I'm definitely more loving and all that, but that's a strict consequence of the experience shift, it's not something I'm forcing or intellectualizing out of some newfound enlightened ego. You can think of it that all of this is just me looking at my experience and thinking, how can I communicate this to this guy? It's just intellectual, not embodied, probably. He remembers understanding it from some trip, but now it's just converted to memory, hence, no embodiment. There is an existential aspect embedded in experience that supports the intellectual conclusion and allows you to actually just live in it without depending on any intellectualization or philosophy or memory, and then this would be "embodying." If I had to guess, he might be misinterpreting enlightenment as an end to exploring psychedelics or something of the sort, which is not the case. I also saw him make this analogy that people chasing enlightenment are "just trying to reduce suffering" and that "truth has nothing to do with suffering", which is again, not the case, because enlightenment is truth, the reduction in suffering is just a side effect. If I had to guess further, he is misinterpreting newer and more intelligent states as "more to understand", but like existentially, they literally become untrue once they are not being experienced. So, more "stuff", as Ralston puts it. It doesn't change what you are. It just recontextualizes "stuff", which is relative. The truth of what you are never changes though, and then that is not relative, and it is experienced in every experience.

Vita Coco I wouldn't even consider coconut water because of the added sugar and acidity, it has a very odd flavour profile for sure. It's very tangy because of the added vitamin C.

100% Depending on the brand, you will get a completely different taste and nutritional profile (sugar and potassium will vary a lot) Best brands IMO are Thirsty Buddha, Thirsty Buddha Organic (probably the healthiest, high potassium low sugar), Blue Monkey, Taste Nirvana (tastes the best) You just wanna find one that is not from concentrate and has nothing added to it, can't really go wrong with those

Paradoxically, in order to find what you are, you have to let go of the desire to find what you are and just let experience happen by itself. Because the thing that is desiring to be "found" or "identified" is an error, it is a thought form, and you cannot make contact with yourself using it. That "happening by itself" is what you are. You cannot explicate experience further. Experience doesn't have to identify with anything to be itself. You don't have to identify with anything to be you. You are experienced, therefore you are experience. When you're trying to identify yourself, it's like a TV that is trying to display itself on its own screen. The medium of the screen is wrong. No matter how accurately it displays itself, it will never actually approximate itself and it will always fall short, because it's just an image appearing on itself. The TV does not realize this, so it spends the rest of its life trying to understand itself and perfect its understanding of itself, but the input of "understanding" or "displaying accurate images" is unnecessary, because the TV just exists exactly as what it is by itself, so all it has to do to find itself is literally nothing. It can't not be itself, even if it gets the wrong image on its screen. The TV creates a problem for itself that does not exist. There is no "self-image", because it's just an image, so it has nothing to do with "self." It can't ever be correct. A rock has no self-image problems. A rock doesn't have to identify with anything. That rock is part of you, and its existence is as factual as YOU. You are the entire thing, including the rock, and the trees, and the chair, and the sky. How does the sky have self-love or self-image problems? Your existence is as seamless as the sky or any other object, because they are all part of you, and they are you. Unknowingly, you are separating "you", which is the entirety of experience, and you are focusing on this image of yourself, just like the TV, and you can contort this image any way you want, you can imagine that it lacks love, you can imagine that it is stupid, etc. But none of these ideas can actually affect your love, or your intelligence, because it is always just an IMAGE of those things, not love or intelligence itself, hence, "self-image." When someone calls you stupid, it doesn't ACTUALLY change your intelligence. But, despite that, it still affects how you perceive yourself. Now you start thinking that you ARE stupid. This is the where the crux of all this discrepancy is. You cannot point to anything that is actually "stupid" in your experience right now, because it's not you or experience, it's just an image that you created. Existentially, you are just wrong to ascribe that quality to yourself. It doesn't exist.

My initial inclination is to answer "yes", but I find that this immediately creates a separation in your mind that says "I am not the part of my experience that is changing", which is not true. It's kind of paradoxical. Enlightenment is something that doesn't change (because it's absolutely true) and it applies to all experiences, but experience itself does change all the time. But, there is a meta-logic, or "truth", to all experience that is always there, and that is "you." So this "enlightenment" thing is always present, even when the contents and ideas of experience change. It's just always true, and thus it is truth. It is what all experience runs on, so to speak. To further Ralstons point, in the video he says "It's the nature of stuff, it's not stuff", which is basically correct, but it is also intimately interwoven with all "stuff", so it's not that there is some part of reality hiding in the background which is more true and separate from "stuff."

Sorry for the late reply. My main advice from this would just be that, when you start eating healthily, if you eat that way long enough, your body will get accustomed to that, and then there will come a point where when you try to "indulge" in junk food again, you'll just be like "Holy shit what the fuck did this just do to my body? Why did I think this was a good idea? There are foods that taste just as good as this, and don't make me feel like shit, so why am I eating this?" Also, your body craving things or being hungry or malnourished is completely valid. If you have not eaten properly, you will be hungry, and your body will look for ANY food source to satiate it. So, don't try to combat this feature of your body, work with it. When you're at some pizza shop, and you feel a strong craving for pizza, that means you simply didn't give the body enough food and nutrients it needed beforehand, so now it is seeking out the closest source of nutrition possible. Work with the intelligence of your body. The body doesn't play around, it only thinks in life or death. It is a fact that if you eat ANY food in proper porportions, there will come a point where you are simply full and completely satiated. Just do this with healthy food, and you won't have a desire to binge on anything. From time to time, I will eat things that are not optimal if my energy levels are low and I haven't eaten properly, but I tend to be very careful about it, and I try to wash it down with some hot drink like coffee or tea to make the digestion more efficient. This is what it means to eat intuitively. All food is fuel and energy, none of it is really "junk" per say, it just might be trickier to utilize or metabolize. It's up to you how you want to utilize the fuel source.

Interesting idea of shrinking everyone. I have also had this idea, though, that if everyone just started eating more healthily and consciously, the load on the environment would simply dissipate naturally. Like, Imagine if no one wanted to use unhealthy plastics anymore, or if no one cared about eating tubs of ice cream anymore.

Coconut water? Simple. Can buy in bulk. Natural electrolyte drink.

I've always found this sentiment so odd, never understood it. People will literally care less if you commit actual murder lmao

You better not steal my mountain cave, I called dibs

Lol I guess this makes sense. I've literally "coaxed" it into thinking that a basic math equation was wrong.

I did read it. What it says is basically correct but I think it's being misunderstood. There are "awakenings" or certain insights that come before enlightenment, but all of these are not enlightenment. For example, at the end of the first section he quotes Ken Wilbur (and I would agree with this): "Or as Ken Wilber said: From experience, to plateau, to permanent. Yet, Enlightenment is a decisive shift, or realizing/being/understanding for the first time fully the nature of ones True Being and of Reality." So, what there is to get from this quote is that enlightenment is: -a decisive singular shift -understanding for the FIRST time (the awakenings before were not it, just breadcrumbs leading towards it, therefore this is the first time, not the second, third, or fourth time) -it is permanent Awakenings are more like "hints" or specific insights about enlightenment. For example, this is what every psychonaut is basically doing. They'll have a genuine awakening through psychedelics, which is valid, because by definition they are insights and temporary, they don't have to be permanent, they are just states/experiences, they are nuggets of truth that you have to bring back or slightly embody. They'll bring back some insight like "oh, the universe is love" or "the universe is infinite" or "God is completely alone", but you'll always sense this lack of completeness in their resolution, you'll see this desire to chase after more "truth" in them, and a lot of times you can easily see some human delusions are left over, therefore, they are unenlightened. That's because the medium of memory and knowledge is wrong, you cannot understand what is absolutely true through memory or knowledge. There is an existential reality which supports those insights that is directly embedded in experience, and you can view it without memory or knowledge. Enlightenment is like a resolution to all those awakenings and improvements from before. It's a recontextualization that embodies ALL of those instantly and permanently. It's like finally seeing the entire elephant for the first time rather than just touching parts of it (using the analogy of the blind men and the elephant). At a certain point, something will sort of "click", or you'll untie the final "knot", so to speak, and then there won't be anymore "increases in truth", the realization will just be final. You'll just kind of realize: "Ohh ok, so every single experience works this way." And this is what enlightened people can directly see 24/7, it's not some idea or philosophy, they are just conscious of it forever, because it exists in all experience. And, there is no identity involved, it's just pointing to existence/truth. I have to say, since my enlightenment, I have realized the absolute biggest trap in this "work" is just getting lost in stories and ideas about enlightenment/reality and never actually achieving traditional enlightenment. You can't skip over it. It's not just some trivial human desire to reduce suffering, it is the only way to perceive reality accurately. When you get there you will understand. If you don't understand, that is ok because you're not enlightened. but you need to have the open-mindedness to actually consider it, or else you're just stuck there forever. I find that the term enlightenment is very bad for teaching enlightenment (in certain circles at least), because when you try to describe it, you get a bunch of unenlightened people trying to tell YOU what it is. So, it's just a mess. And I completely understand why private workshops are conducted now, and why every tradition has their own terms and descriptions and methods. I also understand why enlightened people sometimes don't call themselves enlightened. It just puts ideas in people's minds that aren't supposed to be there. I am not saying that it is an end to exploring metaphysics or psychedelics. I'm not saying it's an end to exploring life. I'm saying that it's actually the beginning of life. And this is where you can actually start doing what you want from a place of clarity and love, not a place of attachment and fear and delusion. If Leo became enlightened and THEN pursued psychedelics, this would transform his work into something even more amazing than it already is (assuming he still has the desire and interest afterwards). Not to introduce some appeal to authority or something, but just using another person I would consider enlightened as an example, there was a newsletter from Ralston, and Leo asked a question about his experiences, and his response just perfectly encapsulated my sentiment here, and now I understand why Ralston is so careful about psychedelics and the like, because it can really pull you away from enlightenment (truth). The entire thing is in the link, but this is the quote I am specifically talking about: https://mcusercontent.com/8a146e2bfe98efdd8c326d97a/files/08332a98-370d-44da-86ff-2c04a3ff1858/CHNL_Summer_2020.pdf?mc_cid=f12b90ff1c&mc_eid=3667cfd58d "Direct conscious is not relative and so there is no this or that. In your descriptions of awakening there are a lot of this’s and that's, here and nowhere. You may well have had some insights but I think you are also making conclusions about it and extrapolating out where things might go. Please consider this as a possibility. I have had many conundrums come up along with intense contemplation. Something "calling" me to join, the pull to leave or stay, feeling like dissolving, or the whole world falling apart, shattering, and so on. These felt urgent and important at the time, like I had to decide something or now knew something about reality. But to tell you the truth, although they may have been impressive and dramatic, I doubt I could have "left" or done much at all really, it really wasn't my decision because I (as are you) was still the central player in all of it! They were all states, experiences, desires, longings, ideas, etc. They were subjective in the end. Cool, but subjective." Furthermore, here Ralston briefly talks about "testing" his enlightenment with acid:

No way? When did ChatGPT become so spiritual

First, I wanna say that it's really admirable that you are posting this despite everything you've gone through. It's commendable that you're still hanging on, that takes a lot of strength. There's also nothing wrong with feeling bad or having trauma or anxiety, these are all perfectly normal reactions to what you currently think you are perceiving. It might seem like a discrepancy when you're feeling scared whereas everyone around you is acting normal, but that's just because you're perceiving things differently, so it makes sense for you. Right now you're in a compulsive state, and this state triggers many different thoughts about reality. Your previous state had more hopeful thoughts. Your current state, maybe not so much. But, there is this aspect to reality of "change." Things can change. You experience it all the time. And intuitively, maybe some part of you senses that there is "more" or there is "potential", which is why you are still here. That part of you that existed in the previous canvas still exists, and it is trying to return, so to speak. That part needs lots of love from you in order to be nurtured back to health again. And, deep down, you really do love that part of yourself, no matter what anyone says about it, no matter how harshly it was treated, it's one of the most important things to you, and it's not hard for you to love it, because it is you, and so you understand it fully, and so it's not hard at all for you to love it. You might have developed assumptions about reality and yourself as a defense mechanism. You might assume that reality is unkind. That reality doesn't love you. That you can't be loved. That you're broken. And so on. And all of these assumptions and feelings come very naturally to you right now, because you are in a compulsive state. But, there was a moment where you weren't like this, and so there is that potential for change there. There are maybe some moments that you remember, or experience from time to time, where you forget or stop perceiving any of this. Maybe when you go for a walk, or hang out with your friends. These moments are really important from bring you out of that compulsive state I mentioned before and helping you think clearly. The way you feel in those moments can be made into something 24/7, and you can even make permanent positive changes to your life from those moments. Suddenly, things don't feel as hard anymore. There are moments like that. And these moments hint at the real YOU, which is absent from the newfound memories or assumptions or thoughts about yourself. You slip into this state sometimes. If anything I said was off or didn't feel accurate, that is fine. My main point or sentiment is just that you are stronger than you think, and that you are more loving than you think, and that you always have the potential to change, even if it's just going for a walk, or going to a cafe. And that these actions keep you in touch with the old you, which is not actually old, it is present right now, but it is clouded by assumptions and memories and judgments.