Batman

We are not an ego. That is a false assumption. There is conditioning of mind patterns, nothing more. Other than this, there is no one here. No one is communicating with no one. There is just communication between experiences. Feelings are expressed through various means, facial expression is just one of them. Experiences communicate through facial expressions, yes. That happens.

A "me" will never understand or digest non-duality. But You can start by watching the "me", and all the thoughts, beliefs, memories that relate to this "me" that seeks non-duality. False self will never, ever, realize real Self. Consciousness "awakens" by unravelling the false identity it is identified with. Regarding navigating reality and adopting more efficient states of mind and emotion - this is about transforming your experience of life. You can choose how to relate to circumstances, and which emotion to produce. This is rather complex work because we adopt so much different ways of relating, and we adopt the self that we relate things to. So inquiring into self-views, beliefs and emotions is about changing your experience of life. Psychological treatment can help with revealing traumatic memories that produce "negative" states, but meditation, contemplation and psychedelics can also reveal deeply and right to the core the rigging of self, mind and emotion. I would suggest doing Enlightenment work and Transformation work together, they supplement each other. Awakening can reveal that You are neither self, nor mind or body, and empowers the possibility of changing them all. Working on beliefs, traumas, depressed emotions can release much of the things that hold you back from having the experience you want.

Burning sensations (or other sensations) in energy centers (or "Chakras") are quite common when meditating. You can sense them even just by focusing the attention on those centers (crown of the head, between the eyebrows, throat, center of the chest, solar plexus, beneath the naval, and at the perineum). Anyway, physical effects while meditating can happen because You affect the structure of the mind. And the mind affect the body (they are two sides of the same coin). It is more likely to happen if you touch on some core assumption or belief regarding who or what you are.

Time exists only in the Now..

The image of the brain is how the finite mind appears as a perception in the finite mind. So it is entirely reasonable that you can affect the mind by messing with it's appearance in the perceptive faculties. The brain is not the source of thoughts. Only Consciousness can create the possibility for thought to arise within it. The brain is just the image of how this possibility comes about in human form. Remember: perceptions are always indirect and can only reflect what is.

Belief is a formulation of thought, which is an activity of mind. A belief is a conceptual replacement for the truth. Belief is about holding something as truth, without it being the case. Belief, by it's nature and purpose cannot be the truth. Belief comes in the place of becoming conscious of the truth. You can either believe some thing to be true, or you can become conscious of it. This is also why belief is extremely dangerous. It is blocking you from becoming conscious of what the truth really is. This is also why religions has failed miserably throughout ages, and will continue to fail.

Stop with the intellectual musings. Don't fall for mind identification, and become conscious. There is no "my" Consciousness, that is a story in a mind. When dream happens in night sleep, to whom do they appear? To whom, what or within the most psychedelic visions appear? Reflect on your entire life experience up until this point. What was ever present through out life, and never changed or tainted by it? When a movie is playing on a screen, is the screen affected by the content of the movie? When a car blows up in the movie, does the screen blow up as well?

No. Science is about making conclusions, distinctions and models. Consciousness is existence. Science is an activity of and within Consciousness. It will never take the shape or form of Consciousness, because Consciousness has no form or shape. It is impossible to represent Consciousness. Every thing that exists in some way, shape or form is a only distinct manifestation of Consciousness. God 'expresses' it's infinitude and nothingness by being everything.

You are Enlightenment. The mind does not get Enlightened. SD represents character values. Usually, stage turquoise comes about due to awakening. This is so, because adapting trans-personal values is rare if you haven't "seen" beyond self. Remember, SD stages reflect the organizing principles of the mind, not Consciousness. It is possible to have an awakening at every stage. With deeper Consciousness comes about more overarching perspective. The more conscious You are, more psychologically developed your self will be (probably).

Ego cannot die, because it never lived to begin with. Ego is an activity by which Consciousness mistakenly identify itself as concept, a formulation of mind. Becoming conscious of mind activities, rather than being entangled with them, is the unbinding of Consciousness from mind. Psychedelics can untie for the duration of the trip much of the ties between mind and Consciousness. However, it usually does not sever those ties for good. This is where contemplation or meditation comes in. If you practice long enough, You will find You are meditating and contemplating whenever you can, and not just when you "sit on the cushion". Over time both practice and mind will erode, just like two stones rubbing against each other. And then, one day, Consciousness will realize that contemplation, meditation or inquiry are sophisticated inventions invented by mind in order to put the mind in a "position" where it can be observed and seen for what it really is, and what is it's source and reality. The more Consciousness sinks back to itself, the more conscious it will be of mind activities (thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc) and more freedom will arise as a result, allowing Consciousness to not fall again into identification and ignorance.

Hello, This is a trip report of my Ayahuasca ceremony. I won't dive into the setting details, other than stating that it was in nature with a group and a shaman. After drinking the first cup, it was obvious that the medicine works by releasing the initial layers of unconscious mind into Consciousness. This is observed by sensing that the flow of energy in the body (whether physical, emotional or energy sense of the body) is more balanced. This observation is especially noticeable in the "Chakras", like between the eyebrows, in the center of the chest, solar plexus and more. This sense of energy flow was accompanied by complex Psychedelic visuals, that cannot be described by me other than the sense of purifying thoughts and beliefs form the unconscious mind. If I push the envelope on my creativity, I would describe the visuals as emotionally geometric shapes the resembles the visual representation of suppressing thoughts, feelings and emotions. As more and more suppressed thought is brought to surface, nauseous and nasty feelings in the body are felt, which is reasonable if the medicine oblige you to face your shadow and feel it. All and all, the first cup is quite manageable, even though it requires coping with some truth regarding the hidden aspects of our adopted identity. However, the second cup is where the real work knocked on my door and asked for answers. Ready? So after 'excavating' the initial layers of the shadow, it is time to face our most hidden and obnoxious thoughts and beliefs regarding our self and others. This is where I was forced to meet with the deep traumatic events of my life, and the conceptual architecture that erected as a result of this traumas. The deep layers of our subconscious is where fear, guilt, shame, hurt, dishonesty, illusion and attachment lurks. Encountering those aspect of my shadow was extremely painful to swallow, almost unbearable. It wouldn't surprise you that this is the part where most people are crying from the depth of the pain the reside in their emotional heart, and emit unreasonable voices of disgust and terror having to face shame and guilt, and of course, vomit their intestines out. This is purification of both body and mind, which are ultimately two sides to the same coin. During purification and afterwards deep insight regarding thoughts and beliefs can be gleaned, and it becomes obvious that every thought we hold affects the body, that in some way the thought form wishes to materialize in the body. For me, it was no different. Childhood trauma made me cry and emit voices of sheer helplessness due to feelings of rejection, shame and guilt. This was accompanied for me by extremely complex visuals both in shape and color, which I lack the ability to describe with words. Finally, I had to face the belief that I am this specific body-mind. I was "shown" that this is an illusion, that who I really am isn't some specific self, but both this self and every other self. In some weird way I cannot explain, I had visuals that showed me how self and other complete each other and cannot exist one without the other. Every experience of my self was possible only due to the experience of others, and vice versa. Even thought the distinction between self and other seem solid and separated, it is an illusion. The distinction between experiencing only one mind and experiencing another's mind is what enables the Self to experience different minds. This was extremely daunting for the attachment to the mind, which I sensed as some deep pain for being deluded so long. I cried. I realized that I could never hide aspects of my self from others, because I am others so the only one I am hiding from is me, which is a paradox. It is impossible to hide from You, because You is all there is, and You know when the self is hiding. Whenever we manipulate an other, whether it is by lying, misrepresenting, affectations, etc., we are only manipulating our self. The same goes, of course, for hurting or judging the 'other'. Thinking of our Being as some specific self is an illusion, a trick of mind, an attachment that distort the Truth. After realizing that the body-mind is not even a blip in existence, that who I am isn't this body-mind, I experienced a sensation of being reborn. I was relieved completely of my shadow and attachment to thought. I could not care less what others think of me, I only wanted to hug them and tell them that I love them. The perceptions of the body sensations and the sky in night was of pure bliss, joy and love, as in being grateful for just existing. I could not fathom that such sensations of freedom can be felt. Breathing was deep and profound, penetrating every particle of my being and the nervous system felt rejoiced, renewed and "electrical". I could sense profound sense of divine energy between my eyebrows for I finally saw reality for what is is. The magnitude of my enthusiasm and astonishment was out of this world, and I could not hold my self from saying repeatedly: Wow, wow, wow. To wrap things up, I would say that Ayahuasca differs from the classic Psychedelics not only because it is DMT which enables to dive deep into our shadow or unconscious mind, but allow us to flood the unconscious to the conscious long enough so we can see all of our hidden delusions and emotions. Mix this with the shamans music and way of touching our hidden and sensitive aspects of our self, and you get a profound experience. Don't get me wrong, Psilocybin and LSD can and probably will expose your subconscious, but usually not to depths of Ayahuasca. As for DMT in it's freebase form, the trip is usually too fast and too complex to glean serious insight regarding self and mind. But it is nice to make you curious. I would also say that if you "cleaned" your subconscious, than your trips will probably be lucid and without all this repressed emotions and horrific visuals. This is probably rare amongst human beings because we tend to be selfish and dishonest, so only mature and extremely honest individuals will have "lite" subconscious. Regarding practices such as meditation and contemplation, I cannot deny their ability to penetrate our hidden aspects, but if you want to reach the bottom of the subconscious, the root of the false self, they require intense focus and commitment. I really hope this post helped you in some way. Ayahuasca can be extremely complex and emotionally disturbing experience. But it can also mature you a lot, bring modesty to the self, and motivate transformation. It is also a heart opening trip because you can learn the deep truth regarding the illusion of being a specific self, which in turn weakens the attachment to mind and body. Much love

Because infinity is absolute truth, and mind is about survival. The truth can be absurdly scary to the mind, because it reveals it's falseness.

Ask "Who am I?" and "What am I?". Be open to the possibility that you don't know who and what you are. Also, contemplate the "I" thought. What is this thought? How did it came to be? Who or what does it refer to? When you are dreaming at night, is the body that you experience as "You" is who and what you are? Or is it a formed/localized aspect of the your mind that enables appearances from a specific point of view? Do Psychedelics. If you are doing DMT/Psilocybin/LSD/Mescaline and can't see that life is a dream, amp up your meditation/contemplation practices. You probably have too much illusions or world view built around "life". If you want to speed up the process, I highly recommend Ayahuasca ceremonies. But they are intense and the Truth of who and what you can be extremely painful to a deluded and dense ego.

You aren't comprehending the depth of the illusion that the identification with the body-mind is playing on Consciousness. It literally cannot be grasped by the mind. You are viewing the world through the lenses of your character, missing that this character is not even a blip in existence, and that who you really are is every one and every thing in the dream of Consciousness, including Consciousness itself. There is no death, because You were never born. But you are too identified with the character too "see" that. That is the illusion. You are literally playing now the role of the character you are, forgetting that you are not it. You are the infinite actor the plays all the roles. When you "fall in love" or attach to your adopted self, illusion becomes your reality.

Nothing isn't the absence of everything, because it isn't anything at all. Everything that exists is a distinction. What is the opposite of a distinction? Nothing. In order for a thing to exist, it must be distinct from any thing it is not. If it isn't distinct, it does not exist. You can't find Nothing in experience because it doesn't exist, and so isn't distinct from any distinction. If it would, it would be a distinction. Nothing doesn't exist, it is existence and the possibility for every distinction. When we create distinctions, we create them "in" and "with" Nothing. Nothing is always present, it is your experience right now. This goes for every distinction that points to something that is greater than the ability to perceive or know any thing at all (an "Absolute"). Absolute isn't distinct from relative, because than it wouldn't be absolute. It would be in relationship with the relative, and so wouldn't be absolute. The same goes for infinity and finite, You can't conceive or perceive infinity, because than it would be finite. Infinity is the finite. So there isn't something rather than nothing. They are one and the same.

I admire your honesty and resonate with much you shared. I sense that you developed negative self-views regarding your social self and thus you are motivated to act in ways that hide this alleged "facts" about your self. As you said it yourself, you are identified with this thought structure that contains also your self-views or beliefs and opinions regarding who you are. This identification with character tends to perpetuates itself because we continue with this act of thinking who we are. We are afraid that if we be totally honest, others will reject, humiliate or harm us in some way, so we contract in our adopted character. This tendency limits our creativity, spontaneity, self-humor and humor generally, and disrupts our ability to make deeper connection and bond with the other. Moreover, even when we connect when an other as the character, we will always have the sense that they know who we really are, and that we are hiding from them in some way. There is not much to do, other than being honest. And this means both self-honesty and honesty toward others. This may come with resistance because our natural inclination is to protect our precious self, and emotional turmoil should be expected. But being honest can be done gradually so you allow your self to "expose" those hidden aspects of your self to others in a progressive fashion. In time your drive to conceal parts of our self will weaken. You will see that even when you are honest than usual, people will more embrace you and you feel more safe and secure when interacting with others. Remember, when you boil it down, you have the right to be your self, and others have the right to experience who you truly are. I might add that even you prefer that the others you will be in relationship with value honest and straightforward people, and not people who hide under smaller or bigger masks. Of course, that not everyone will accept you, it is totally normal. You don't have to be loved by everyone, and you are valuable just as you are.

Why would I do that? I'd rather communicate and be in relationship with others that do not discriminate based on such shallow distinctions. The use of shallow discriminations serve me, they show me who is conscious and who isn't.

I suggest to contemplate and get to why you feel fear or anxiety around extroverts. Do you feel you have something to hide from them? That they will sense in you something you don't want to be seen? The thing with introversion, is that you are a lot of time locked in your thought world, disconnected from the sensory experience, and this separates you from others. Extroverts can easily sense introvert's energy, and this can cause them unease or discomfort around them. Think about it, you are being open and share with others your world or experience, but some others are keeping quiet, and don't expose their experience to others. This is signaling that introvert keeps thing to them self, that they do not wish to share with others. This can be alarming for some people, and extroverts may very well push you to invert your self outside. So practicing self-inversion can help. Consider it is just about being honest and communicating to others what you feel or think. Of course, some extroverts will deploy in their communications manipulation and dishonesty. But those aren't good ways to relate to an other.

They care about you because they are emotionally attached to you. This usually "comes with the package" when a parent brings a descendant into the world. The mere knowing that there is a conscious being that is a product of your genetic charge can and usually will create emotional connection to that being. This is part of the story. It does seem like you are conflating Consciousness with your self. Even though they are not separate, self is only a limited form of Consciousness. When you distinguish your self from any other thing, than you can also distinguish other "pieces" of information regarding this self - when this self born, how does he look, what does he love to eat, etc. If you are identified with Consciousness then you were never born, because Consciousness does not exist - it is existence and the source for every distinction, experience or knowing of space, time, objects, self and other. You are Consciousness, and You are also being your self. Dividing our social world to self and other, family, parents, siblings, friends, is entirely conceptual and serves the purpose of survival. Don't try to intellectualize it, because it doesn't work like that. When you will "see" that everything is a part of a unified field of Consciousness, and that every distinction in your experience (including experience itself) is a distinction in this 'field', those question will dissolve in an instant because it will be so obvious and simple (yet profound).

You will always have to reject some aspects of experience for your survival. Other wise, you could not survive. Mind is a function of survival and as such he is serving as filter for love. Mind reduces love so the self can maintain its integrity and form. It is okay to make mistakes, and to prefer one thing over another. If you hurt someone with no good reason, than ask for forgiveness. Beating your self up won't do much - you already know that you were wrong. Don't be too hard on your self as well, learn to forgive your self. Remember that in our world survival isn't just physical. Actually, it is mostly social. So if you are identified with some socio-political orientation, you will protect this part of your identity by reject others who hold different opinions. Why do you think people spend so much time arguing and protecting their ideas and opinions? In the service of the false self. Love isn't distinct from Consciousness. Consciousness is the source of every thing that existed, exist and will exist, There is no real separation even when distinctions occurs in Consciousness. Love is the lack of distinctions, or distinctions without separation. So they are one and the same - words that point to the same essence.

Can an eye perceive itself? Of course you are using form to perceive. But perception is not what you are, by definition. If you were your perceptions, you could not perceive them directly. You would be perceiving something else, a reflection. Moreover, if you were your perceptions, then perceiving a bomb explodes would mean that you exploded. What you are missing is that you can't perceive who You are. You are aware of the character that manifests as body and mind, but You are too caught up and confused with the experience of being a self, so You don't get You. Who were you before your parents were born?

Did you ever asked who is perceiving the changes in the body and the mind? Who is aware of this "changing awareness" you cling to? You are trying to solve this on an intellectual level. It won't work.

God doesn't exist. He is existence.

@AMTO I love you bro.

Yes ok you get it. But with Enlightement, when you are really "getting it" and deep enough, that it is absurdly mind blowing to really 'get' that you were so entangled with the character, For real, it is so unconceivable that the mind can't relate to it. You will get that every experience is your experience. There is no real distinction, it is totally illusory. Of course that as a specific mind you will hold that 'other' minds exist, but again there is no other. I get that you are inquiring into the fact that as a mind you can interact with other minds simultaneously, and asking don't they exist "outside"? But again, that distinction between your mind and other minds is also part of the illusion. The mind creates a singular life framework and context for experience and relates it to the character. This entraps Consciousness under the spell that it is this life. But only deep Enlightenment reveals the illusory nature of the ego as a program that binds Consciousness with perception and thought.