kbone

Yes, as one goes deeper and deeper into the Realization, it is very clearly seen why the dream metaphor is so useful in understanding what many call reality. When any self is seen as the illusion that they are, things do take on a very dreamy feel. The first taste can be quite destabilizing, to be sure, but you get the knack for it. The Jungian studies of dreams can help one look into this very similar phenomenon. He also did some very interesting work with Tibetan Tantricism and spiritual transformation which might be useful to some. As always, I say to just go for it if it strikes your interest. Let some light in, but stay devoted to Truth Realization. Only Truth will set one free. Any idea of self is realized to be a bird in an empty cage.

@bliss54 After living abroad for most of my adult life, I can sympathize with your state of mind. Every time I returned to visit and/or live for a short while, there was a period of relative fun, but then it wore off and I'd slip into the correlative funk. To get a small grasp of this, read fairly in-depth studies of the phenomenon known as the stages of culture shock, but in this case it is called re-entry shock/reverse culture shock. (Studies on Repatriation) The interesting thing is that these models can also be seen as somewhat helpful in the process of awakening, when one realizes one ain't in Kansas anymore, hehe (a cultural allusion to The Wizard of Oz, btw). I taught intercultural communication for many years, used the various models of development in classes, and continued to clarify certain similarities in my mind about awakening and realization, and it was very helpful to get to, what I call, HERE --- Hint: There is nowhere "else" outside of NOW. But, to your point, what you are going through is normal, and is part of the process. You've stepped outside the cultural barriers, experienced otherness to some degree, shared some great stories, but here you are feeling low. It's okay. This phase will pass, too. It can pass more quickly and fruitfully if you go into it as consciously as possible by watching your mind using the education you derive from your studies on reverse culture shock, and in the spirit of Delphic maxim, "Know Thyself". Feel free to follow up. Peace~

@xxxx Prediction is mostly about probabilities of events unfolding, so in essence it is the ability to see patterns developing in progress. I do believe some peeps have greater degrees of sensitivities to these patterns and the contexts in which they are developing, so sure. I would not go as far as to say that peeps can "tell the future". There is a difference. Even the siddhis, the special powers that arise during "spiritual development", talk a bit about predictive abilities or reading minds. Sometimes they can be quite powerful, but even then, the greater teachers will tell one to pay them no attention (or that they can become traps) when on the quest for Truth.

The Void is more indicative of a complete and absolute break from the "thing-filled" consciousness that one has assumed to make up the "sum of life". There is a someNothing (Void) in which all such things, be they thoughts, breath, hard 'physical' objects, or otherwise... appear. Both terms are just conceptual pointers, but I do find much less for the mind to "hold on to" when using the term Void. It's annoying as hell for the mind, which is very indicative as the desire for control and will. The Void avoids the traps of being given personal qualities, or even divine, for that matter. As such, Truth Realization is very rare indeed. Awake as/within/to the Dream of Consciousness.... Pure Awareness.... Void.

@StarStruck I was able to flip through the 10 pages of feedback and your replies. It sounds like you have been living in your head up until the present and have not developed a sincere connection with (and, therefore, understanding of) your emotional body-self. This is quite normal for men, and you shouldn't think of yourself as deficient; after all, the emotions are there, and are just now becoming more apparent, pronounced, and confusing. It's natural to feel a little unbalanced, or even manic ~ out of control. Relax. “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise Pascal At the risk of stereotyping, it is likely women have a greater sensitivity to these emotional frequencies, whether they are conscious of it or not. According to the Triune Brain studies, women's cerebral cortex evidently have many more connections with the limbic system (the paleo-mammalian part of the brain); whereas, men's cerebral cortex has more connections with the reptilian brain stem associated with the 4Fs (fight, flight, food, and fucking). It's not that men's brains have "no connections", it's just that, on average, they're a little less hard wired for dealing with emotions. With modern society feeding into the constant impulses, it appears that such phenomena have become more pronounced. For men that means access to more addictive porn, intense video games, guns, and foods that are terrible for your mind-body. You are not trapped; you are learning another part of your human nature and, thus, are becoming more adult-like after the years of ignoring the trauma of your childhood (or so it sounds like). If you are seeing a psychotherapist, then you should be EXTREMELY proactive. Study yourself, take notes, and ask hard questions to your therapist that you truly feel you are WANT to explore. The therapist is a pro with their theory.... ONLY YOU know what's actually being explored. Go into sessions with an agenda, regardless of what actually becomes of it. Become somewhat monomaniacal if you have to. It may also be that, due to the lack of exposure to girls/women in your life up until now, your EQ is not developed. So, your emotional outlook tends to be much more self-oriented, rather than empathetic or capable of sensing another person's feelings or intentions. In a way, this likely makes you feel more disoriented and unworthy of love and caring. Fear and it's well-grooved limitations set in. That's a mind-made trap. In short, it mimics the patterns of behavior and outcomes you experienced as a child. It draws you into an orbit, one that sticks close to the patterns of behavior you unconsciously walked and talked as a child in your mother's (lack of) care. Fuck that shit; free that child to try new ways, make mistakes, learn, love, and expand. To be clear, this is just a sense I am getting, and not to be construed as "your truth". I am providing it here as a means for YOU to get fucking proactive in your approach and break beyond any sense of powerlessness or feeling trapped. It takes courage to make mistakes and learn from them.... and GROW for fucks sake. Use journaling to write out hard truths to yourself. Allow it to get as messy as it needs to get... this is messy stuff. Explore what you perceive as boundaries (hint: they are just layers of self to be transcended). For example, what are the three most important take aways you got from that other thread? Be clear, take a stand for that unhealthy child inside, be the adult in the room (i.e., of your mind). This is very doable. At times, you will need to interact more with women, whether anonymously or in person. Open up, be touchy-feely, or just blunt honest, or try some passionate-about-life overtones... whatever. You can reach out to men about some of this, but I have found most (not all) men to be mostly agenda-driven in their convos when it comes to women, rather than authentic. Again, that is not always true, but there really is no substitute for the real deal.

I didn't look through the whole archive, but didn't see anything specifically on peer-evaluated or empirical research on the topics at hand. I thought I'd start one. If there is already one, feel free to let me know, and I'll copy-n-paste and delete this one. Knowing that such experiences are not rational in their origin, it is still cool that there is ongoing research that looks into these topics. If you know of, have, or want to share links, please add them with a small topic header. I usually just skim and scan for the stuff of interest. ? Two Modes of Sudden Spiritual Awakening? Ego-Dissolution and Explosive Energetic Awakening https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1593&context=ijts-transpersonalstudies Secular ecstasies https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-27/edition-3/secular-ecstasies An awakening https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-31/september-2018/awakening Psychosis and Spirituality: Consolidating the New Paradigm (download pdf) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6246808_Psychosis_and_Spirituality_Consolidating_the_New_Paradigm_Second_Edition

@xxxx Yes, just walking away from society and into the mountains/forests/highlands was an important aspect for this mind-body. The simplicity of life and the splendor of nature in its majesty and details were much needed when faced with the massive monkey mind shenanigans that I, literally, asked the universe to show me. It got pretty wild, needless to say, hehe. Be careful what you ask for! ???

Your honesty is refreshing, as is your willingness to search and be open. Relatively speaking, I would say that serious trauma can create very "hard boundaries", so be gentle in the approach. Your psyche has had enough of the "hard school", perhaps. I do not take trauma lightly when I sense someone n the throes of that kind of suffering. The insight you realized sounds like it was an important taste, and you are at least experientially aware of the "jolt of freedom" experienced. And sure, the mind character, interestingly, wants "more" as the feeling held in memory surpassed any form of induced high that one might have felt - acausal realizations are more powerful and, therefore, grounding that the induced psychedelic ones. Yeah, going into that sort of atmosphere with too much unresolved baggage and without proper guide/support can be a bit too much for the psyche, as well. Question: Which of the following is harder on you psychologically: Feeling trapped in the persona, not able to accept beauty and love into life... or perhaps not feeling worthy of it. Feeling anxiety toward the character/events in childhood that perpetrated the trauma.... not able to forgive, wanting to blame. The obvious combination of both, and more... You might even start another thread if you want to explore it. If not, I completely understand. Sometimes, it is good to reach out for ideas to jostle around and loosen up some paths to explore. At other times, a little time in the cocoon can be just what is needed. All depends on how you sense you want to proceed. Just keep in mind that, for the most part, you are not here to take on a bunch of extra knowledge and practices, though they indeed might come as part of the journey, right? Use them, and be willing to discard them if they don't apply. If you do need them again, they will come. But, the real goal is to unweave or see through the web that is holding this present structure together as a closed system. The structure of self is impermanent and only given the power you bestow upon it. Mind is the set of tools for creating, maintaining, and destroying that structure. Being conscious of the tools is being the master of that domain, freed of its unconscious bondage. Slowly simplify and become consciously aware of how your mind has been conditioned. No hurry.

? Melting can get pretty bright.

@UnbornTao The First Joke: Exploring the Evolutionary Origins of Humor Spirituality and Humor Concepts of Laughter and Humor in the Sociology of Religion

@nistake Yeah, the Awareness of the Oneness via the realization of Nothingness.... minds often struggle as they try to bring it down to make sense to its own worldview. He did a g'job.

Are either conditional? Would you say that either "helps" ego?

Good, this is a much clearer assertion than the previous one. It also sounds more "authentic", and less like some platitude. So, when you say you haven't "realized enlightenment", are you saying that you still believe in a self to whom such traumatic experiences happened and, thus, are subject to its limitations? What did Intelligence tell the mind during the glimpses?

In certain ways, I can agree. The problem is that, while sounding nice, what does it really mean or allude to?

All that appears or experienced is what is projected. Most peeps identify with what is appearing and/or being experienced as the life of a self and its memories. What you have labeled as "Godhead consciousness" is likely alluding to what is witnessing the appearances/experiences, and it is not a thing, nor an agent.... more like a radical creating Subjectivity. It cannot be seen by the individuated self with the mind's eye , because it is prior to that movement of thought/conceptualization. True Realization is getting a taste of this deeper/deepest Intelligence, and it makes no sense to the mind.

@Batman Thank you for posting this take on the mind. Just for the sake of reference, did you write it? It gives a very nice synopsis of how mind is actually secondary to Intelligence, which actually informs mind from its impersonal, transcendental viewpoint. The sense of self, identity, world knowledge, and experience are of the mind. More often than not, peeps never actually awaken from that world of boundaries, concepts, and delusion, living a life cut off from and, seemingly, lacking Wholeness. Consciously be aware of when, as Intelligence, touching the mind takes place and the bifurcation into/as duality begins. The sum of such bifurcated "parts/distinctions" will never amount to Wholeness/Oneness.

Change is life; it just happens. Time is a mental overlay. No other species does it. Starting with the affirmation of man I work myself backwards using cynicism (The time monitor, the space measurer) I live sweat but I dream light years, I am the tide - the rise and the fall The reality soldier, the laugh child, The one of the many, the flame child (The time monitor, the space measurer)

The psychedelic renaissance: the next trip for psychiatry? (pdf download) The Psychedelic renaissance: Ethnopharmacology, neuroscience and clinical efficacy The Psychedelic Renaissance (excerpt of Pollan's book)

Two headed boy All floating in glass The sun it has passed Now it's blacker than black I can hear as you tap on your jar I am listening to hear where you are I am listening to hear where you are Two headed boy Put on sunday shoes And dance round the room to accordion keys With the needle that sings in your heart Catching signals that sound in the dark Catching signals that sound in the dark We will take off our clothes And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine And when all is breaking Everything that you could keep inside Now your eyes ain't moving Now they just lay there in their climb Two headed boy With pulleys and weights Creating a radio played just for two In the parlor with a moon across her face And through the music he sweetly displays Silver speakers that sparkle all day Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face And in the dark we will take off our clothes And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine Two headed boy There is no reason to grieve The world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves Left beneath christmas trees in the snow And I will take you and leave you alone Watching spirals of white softly flow Over your eyelids and all you did Will wait until the point when you let go

Here are a few books from authors mentioned above. Not sure if they are found elsewhere in the archives, but nonetheless.... heeeeeere ya go! Nisargadatta I Am That Self Knowledge and Self Realization I AM UNBORN Ramana Maharshi The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Win His Own Words Douglas Harding Audios

You've never been aware in a dream that you may be dreaming, or you've never awakened from a dream (still dreaming?)? But you can confirm that you have a higher awareness inside night dreams. OK, I'm confused. Yes, fear of death is genuinely a mind-body thang. That is what the existential nightmare is about. Thus, that is why "awakening" is often talked about.

1) Absolute Truth includes thoughts. Kick the self-referential bias of "my thoughts" to the curb to reduce the confusion. Thinking happens. 2) Yes, It IS what It Is. I don't even know what inevitable means, unless it alludes to transrational perfection... as IT is. 3) Don't hope; it just spawns doubt. Unconscious self-referential thinking is at the root. 4) Mind is movement of thought. What is not thought is not born of the mind. The mind is born of Infinite Mind (just a way of talking about it). That's why watching it is possible. 5) What is believed to be necessary/wanted is born of the mind, as is the "me"... all part of the same movement of thought. 6) Stages and models are born of the mind, too. It's just a way of talking about things. Again, all part of the same movement of thought.... just as the "I-person" is. What Is IS, regardless of thoughts about IT. Having said all this, what would you say enlightenment is?

There are similarities and distinctions between being conscious of being within a dream and awaking from the dream. Even in your nightly dreams, I'm sure you've realized at some point, "Hey, I may be dreaming", at which point you begin to look around and see all these little thingies that don't quite belong for some reason, you start to create memories of the dream that don't quite fit, you start to get that uneasy feeling wondering WTF is really going on, and things start to spin out of control. Meanwhile, NotTwoness starts to Dream of a self-identified person stirring in the dreamy sleep of their delusion. Does that make sense?

What you mean here is not clear, and perhaps why it is "problematic" and was "lost". The "trying" you speak of is born of the mind. And is believed to be necessary. The "locking down" you speak of is a desire of the mind to control. And is believed to be wanted. You're putting the cart before the ox. You're not home. It was/is never left.

@deci belle Thank YOU. I've always appreciated the Taoists. I once even lived in Taiwan, partially in an attempt to be nearer that cultural influence after having been exposed to them in my search. Seemed like the thing to do at the time, hehe. The passage you quoted is in a style of communicating on these concepts that a gentleman used to share with me. I always appreciated the directness. We can never learn "about" What Is, but, if sincere, honest and willing, something might be read that can arrest one's usual way of thinking "about" it. In that seemingly eternal moment, it's as if light in caste unto a shadow, and the weight of what was seemingly ignored drops. In essence, true learning may not be about "gaining" knowledge or perfect practice, but about Realizing "absence" and the Peace that is eternally available to anyone. HERE. Right NOW. TRUTH.