Tim R

@Forestluv Wow, nice!! Where do you teach? I mean, in what sort of institution do you teach?

Intuition is having an answer/solution to something without having taken any prior mental (deductive) steps. "I just know"

I don't understand.. Aren't the facets of awakening beyond the mind? Why would I need to "hold" them in my mind?

Well the concern would be that more and more people would start to get into spirituality and psychedelics way too fast, which could result in all kinds of delusions (of grandeur). Which is obviously not the point of spirituality. Just imagine what it would be like if a not so insignificant percentage of society would be like Connor. Wouldn't be too nice, would it? He doesn't keep his cool about being God/Enlightened, at all. A slightly more Zen-like attitude would be appropriate, as long as you watch out not become a Zen devil of course. @Preety_India I'm excited about the Psychedelic Renaissance of the 21st century, especially because I'd like to contribute to it as a biologist/biochemist who's (if I dare say so) equipped with a decent epistemological and philosophical knowledge structure, but I also think we have to be very, very careful and strategic about it. We can barely handle our current technologies without wrecking humanity and the planet - and psychedelics are way more powerful than anything we currently have.

Is it just me or... Is there actually a substantial risk in enlightenment becoming mainstream? I mean - the egoic inflation of someone who's deluded can grow to absolutely enormous sizes, no? Next step for our culture would theoretically be Stage Green. Which is the first Stage that really experiments with Psychedelics. Which is already happening more and more. We don't want thousands of Connors running around, do we? Can't we keep it cool? Do you guys think this might be something to be concerned of? (not seriously concerned, but, you know, sincerely)

No. Actually it's the contrary in my experience, since with a silent mind, your awareness for all occurring sensations is heightened. Oh but there's no difference between the breeze and nothing If the breeze is, then focus on the breeze. Try not to get too hung up on whatever it is that you call "nothingness".

Question above. When do you guys expect humanity will understand its unity with the Universe? Scientifically speaking, we could do it today already. We are still in the dark ages but our development is accelerating - are we going to develop quicker from Green to Yellow than from Orange to Green? Human history certainly suggests such a trend, I'd say. Supposing we won't blow ourselves up or wreck the planet - will we witness this new paradigm shift occur?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this: Here in Germany, there is a fundamental law concerning the inviolability of your home, which means that nobody is allowed to enter someone else's home, not even the police, unless either you let them enter or they have a warrant granted by a judge. Since a couple of weeks, the infection rates in Germany have spiked to a new record. Today, one of our politicians proposed the following: "We find ourselves in a national emergency that could get worse than this spring. The inviolability of the home must no longer be an argument in favor of a lack of controls. When private celebrations in apartments and houses endanger public health and thus safety, the authorities must be able to intervene." Obviously you can't get a warrant for something which doesn't violate the law. Fortunately, the aforementioned politician is not in the government party and I'm certain this won't be implemented, however I find it somewhat concerning that such a proposal exists. It reminds me of Orwell's novel "1984". Do you think such an immense and obvious invasion of privacy which also violates the constitution (!) would be justified?

Yes. What is, is not a belief. To call something "consciousness" or "direct experience" or whatever is in the final analysis entirely meaningless, that's right. That doesn't change anything about the underlying "Tathata" which we call "direct experience" and that's the point.

But Leo!!!

LOL?? Edit: sorry for not responding properly to that. Your insisting on duality is simply misguided. If you think there are actual divisions in reality, show me "up" or "down". Show me "left" or "right". Don't be silly.

@Dodo No, there's nothing good or bad in this universe. There is only the magnet, not a south or north pole - why? Because you can't have the north pole without the south pole, they are one magnet. And there's nothing but that magnet. You see? The poles aren't real, they are simply conceptual divisions of one magnet. Although it is true that we can see "good" and "bad" things in the world, that doesn't mean that they are real. Just in the same way as we divide a magnet into 2 poles, we divide between good and bad, whereas in reality, there is only one magnet - and since that one magnet includes everything (since it is One), it is identical to absolute, undiscriminating Love and Goodness. The universe is a magnet that rejects nothing. How could it reject anything? It's not "the world" - it's your mind.

@Leo Gura May I ask how it is going? Have you changed your release date?

I was wondering, do you think a shared taste of music could be an indicator of potential friendship? Especially if it's very narrowly defined combination of taste, like for example "Minimal Techno, Blues-Rock, Post-Rock and Baroque Music" - this would be a more or less unlikely combination of taste. Do you think that if two people share an unlikely combination of taste in music genre, the potential of these people resonating on a interpersonal level with each other is increased?

Is your meditation practice accompanied by sounds like Om/mantra chanting, singing bowls or flute music or anything like that? I for example have found this singing bowl to be very immersive and helpful: Could you share some of your experiences? Do you meditate with or without sounds? Which sounds do you listen to? Any favorites?

I have no other explanation than this. If you don't want to learn anything from psychedelics, you won't. If you'd really wanna learn, you could even extract a decent amount of wisdom from a 1g mushroom trip.. Doing Ayahuasca and coming back with no insight at all? It's like... At least you should've noticed that reality is not some rigid, objective world "out there". Maybe she somehow misunderstood your question?

@nitramadas That is just so not true.. Leo is older than me so he was more aware of what happened at the times, but I was born in Russia (Siberia) in the 90s, and those were no good times. Standing in line for a loaf of bread wasn't even the worst part, people got mugged on the street at night, the police was utterly corrupt (because they were struggling as well of course) so you really couldn't expect much help from anybody. Stores were robbed or had to pay protection money and in some cases if you happened to be in a store that got robbed, you and the rest of the people would be shot (although that was "rare"). As soon as it got dark you'd better be at home or at least with someone. I don't know man, even if your family had the fortune of living better than the majority, there's absolutely no denying of the miserable living conditions of most people - especially of poor people. Why do you think alcoholism was (and still is) such a problem? Sometimes (and I'm not kidding) the only thing we'd have in our fridge were some damn pickled cucumbers in a jar... Meat was the most expensive food. @Haloman But only because there really wasn't much choice about this. Being a egotistic individualist in the 90s wasn't exactly a very promising strategy... My whole family literally sold everything they had to get enough money to travel to Germany (where we live now). @nitramadas People wouldn't have left this country if it was paradise, would they?

So what?

He's 16 y/o, I don't think that's healthy advice.

Your desire to surrender is standing in your way to surrender fully.

That's still the wrong question

You're on the wrong track.

https://youtu.be/Ktj050DxG7Q?t=3920 Andrew Huberman was on Lex Fridman's Podcast, he's a neuroscientist. He says "I'm happy to have a talk about consciousness, but it's a scary talk and I think most people don't want to hear what I have to say..." (link above) Every (neuro-)scientist who hasn't completely fallen prey to the materialist paradigm will have to acknowledge this - consciousness is scary to them, because they know exactly that their current approach won't cut the mustard and because they know that consciousness won't be explained away with neurons and electrical impulses. They are scared because their paradigm is under severe threat - from their own direct experience. They all know what consciousness is (or rather: is not), they just don't want to admit it - because it would mean the end of... well, everything I think/hope that we'll be witnesses of a scientific revolution, psychedelics have (rather recently) entered the chat and they are going to dissolve our naive assumptions about the world and our place in it - so will Artificial Intelligence. We can't dodge this issue any longer. Better to carefully open this new Pandora's Box than to refuse to admit what needs to be admitted and wait until consciousness ruthlessly kicks in your front door...

The current form of untrammeled western capitalism comes to an end. It has become apparent that it is utterly unsustainable, it greedily devours itself. What form of economy, society and government will follow? Will we be wise enough to initiate the transition ourselves if we want to survive, or will we be forced by our own destructive behavior to change?

Yes, I mean its current form will change (and thus die) Should've used other words Anyway, into what will it evolve?