tlowedajuicemayne

Hey everyone, I've been practicing Jhanas recently and I've learned how to enter the first one pretty well. I wrote this guide in my commonplace journal and thought I'd share it for anyone interested in entering Jhanas themselves. In this guide, we'll go over the steps you need to take before attempting to enter Jhanas, as well as the actual meditation. What is a Jhana?- A Jhana is a state of complete, perfect equanimity and happiness that comes from training the mind to withdraw from automatic responses to sense impressions….well, something like that atleast. Words don't quite do it justice. Bliss state, peak state, whatever you wanna call it. The best way to see what it is, is to see for yourself. The first thing to remember about Jhana's is that Jhana's are all about happiness. Jhana's begin with happiness, they operate in the domain of happiness, and they leave you happy. You can't enter Jhanas without happiness and because of this, 'striving' for a Jhana won't do. Zen Masters commonly say- when you stop wanting a bliss state, it will arise. This is the case in my experience. There are 9 Jhanas, all with varying levels of depth and profundity but for this we will only be talking about how to enter the first Jhana. Once you are able to enter the first Jhana and gain some experience with it, you will see very clearly how to progress to the others without my input. NOTE- Not everyone is going to be able to enter a Jhana on demand. If you don't have a regular zazen practice I'm not 100% sure how well you'll do here, so don't expect a miracle. But do keep practicing and soon, you'll be able to enter Jhana's no problem! NOTE- this is all based on my own experinece. It might not match up to what you have read in a book somewhere or even to what you might have experienced in your own practice. If this works for you, great! If not, try something else! Step 1- Practice being happy. I know this sounds dumb but hear me out. lol. Happiness is fully surrendering to 'what is'. Surrender is stepping directly into happiness. When you sit down on your cushion, and put your full attention on your practice, you step directly into happiness. This is the first step. Practice being happy. I recommend that you begin sitting zazen atleast 3 hours daily in one hour long time blocks. This will require some experience with sitting meditation as beginner meditators will have a hard time sitting this long without moving. The hour long sitting will allow plenty of time for surrender to take place and for 'the river' to be perceived (I'll explain more on this 'river' later). So Yeah, begin by sitting for 3 hours minimum each day, one full hour at a time. I recommend that you sit on a zafu (cushion) in a cross legged posture with your hands clasped together. This is important that your hands be holding one another and not separate. You can make the cosmic mudra, or any other hand mudra you like but don't be so fancy, you'll have to hold whatever hand posture you choose for an hour straight. If you have a hard time with these cross legged postures for this length of time, you may sit anywhere you like- a chair, a beanbag, whatever. As long as you are able to keep your back straight, chin slightly tucked and focus on your practice without falling asleep, day dreaming or moving around you'll be okay. Begin to practice being happy while you undertake step 2. PS- If you sit down and are overcome with thoughts and emotions, do not fight these thoughts and emotions. Don't try to make thought stop, and don’t strain. Just simply return to your practice again and again very kindly and gently. Don't get caught up in trying to get rid of anything. Surrender! Step 2- Practice abstaining from worldly (dopamine) based pleasures. Sex, Masturbation, sweet and savory foods, internet, TV, etc. Try to abstain from these as much as possible. Don't be a tyrant or anything. Take away the top 3 dopamine related pleasures you have and start with that. Do this for atleast 7 days. The reason abstaining from these ordinary sense pleasures is necessary is because dopamine related pleasures are often centered in and arise from a sense of lack. They begin with lack, fulfill that lack for a while, and return you to lack. It is an endless cycle. Jhana's are all about happiness. They begin with happiness, operate in the domain of happiness, and return you to happiness. Therefore worldly pleasures and the sense of longing and lack that they bring aren't needed for Jhana practice. What place does lack have in happiness? Also, Jhana pleasure is un-worldly pleasure. It is not dependent on the body or the world or anything outside of you. As I mentioned earlier, Jhanas take place IN HAPPINESS ALONE. They are not dependent on the condition of your body, your brain chemistry, the circumstances of your life, or any worldly concerns. Jhana's are openly available to everyone despite your conditioning. This is because Jhanas operate in happiness, which is inherent to everyone. It is common for practitioners to expect dopamine related bliss from Jhanas and because of this they spend a lot of time on the cushion waiting to be hit with an orgasm or something. Lol. Don't do this, it is a waste of time. Un-worldly pleasure doesn't operate on dopamine receptors at all. The type of pleasure that I am talking about here takes place on an entirely different set of circuits. One of the main reasons that we (human beings) are so addicted to worldly pleasure is because we don't even know that other forms of pleasure exist. I assure you that Jhanas operate on an entirely different set of circuts in the brain and until you experience it for yourself, you should just take my word on it. When you know it for yourself, you'll see very clearly what I mean. Step 3- Attempting Jhana So you've gone 7 days abstaining from your pet pleasures and sitting for 3 hours each day. By this time you are probably already in a state of deep happiness and don’t even need the Jhana. All of that lack from your sense pleasures is discarded and now we can focus on the meditation without having to fight our craving. From this point forward, discard your clocks and timers when sitting. Keeping time is not needed for this part of the practice so you can let go of all clocks and timers. When you sit meditation, you will sit happily and focus your attention on whatever your practice is. When you feel like getting up and ending the round, simply get up and end the round. Don't worry about how long you've gone on for. Focus on being happy while you sit. Being fully satisfied. Whether you're doing breath practice, koan practice, shikantaza, whatever it is. Begin focusing on your practice and do so happily. Peripheral awareness and spotlight awareness. This next step might sound advanced when written out but its actually not I promise, just follow me here. After a while you'll start to feel good in your body. Your mind might start wandering over to the good feelings and off of your practice. This isn't necessary though. All you have to do from here is put your attention back on your practice and allow your peripheral awareness to open up to the good feelings. For example, if I am practicing watching my breathing, I will keep my breathing in my focused awareness, and I'll also be aware that I'm feeling really peaceful and happy with my peripheral awareness. So in short, keep happiness and all your good feelings in your awareness while holding your practice simultaneously. This is not difficult to do and does not require the mind to do. Do not engage your intellect to try to figure out how to do this, you are doing it already just become aware of it. If you want a practical example of how you're doing it as you read this- focus your attention on your breathing right now and also feel your foot on the floor simultaneously. You see? Easy peezy. The spotlight awareness is on your breathing and your peripheral awareness on your foot. No mind needed. Your mind may try to enhance the good feelings in your body. Don't spend too much time enhancing anything though, it will do it on its own. The river begins to flow. After a while of practicing, while feeling the good feelings in your body, you will begin to feel a river flowing in your hands or in your feet. Its different for everyone so feel around for it. It shouldn't be hard to miss though. It will feel like, what TV static looks like. If you have ever taken LSD you will be familiar with this static river that is flowing through you. This river will typically flows through your hands. As you are doing your breath practice, become aware of this flowing feeling in your hands. Your hands might feel like they are inside of boxing gloves, or that they are bigger than they normally feel. This is good. Don't try to enhance this or anything just be aware of it for now. Makyo Begins- As you go deeper into your practice and concentration Makyo will begin to appear Makyo is hallucinations of various sorts which appear when the mind gets quiet. You may see the room in from of you start to black out, various colors float by, you may see the room melt, buddhas coming out of the floor, or whatever. Don’t worry about these and don't focus in on them. Bring your attention back to your practice The river roars- Eventually, the river in your hands will come to a point where it is steady and fluid. It isn't a small flow but not a big one either. You will be able to clearly distinguish the flow in your hands or feet and you'll easily be able to put your attention on it. Now that it is stable and steady, stop putting your attention on your practice and put all of your attention on the flowing river in you. So to clarify the whole thing- lets make a timeline of a sitting period while practicing Jhanas- You sit down and begin focusing on your breath practice or whatever practice you're used to. Each time your mind wanders, bring it back kindly and gently as normal. You'll begin to feel content and peaceful after a while (usually 30-40 minutes for me). Be aware of this but don't make it your primary focus, let it be secondary for the time being. You'll begin to feel some vibrating in your hands or feet or somewhere in your body, like a river is running through you. Become aware of this but don't make it your primary focus just yet. Keep it secondary. After a while the river in your hands (or wherever it is) will become steady and obvious. Once you notice this, put your whole attention on the flow. If the flow disappears or stops when you pay attention to it, this means that it wasn't strong enough to handle your full attention just yet. Go back to your practice and wait for it to recover, or simply try again the next sitting round. If the flow continues as normal or gets bigger when you pay full attention to it, this is a good sign that you can go to the next step. simply make the river the primary object of your meditation and the rest will happen on its own. There you go, enjoy your bliss! Some other cool facts and tips about Jhanas. -Since Jhanas begin with happiness, operate in the domain of happiness, and end with happiness- you may have as much of this pleasure as you can take without any negative consequence. -Since Jhanas do not operate in the body nor are they limited to the body, Jhanas may end in a single moment. If you are sitting and you enter a jhana, and the bell rings for you to get up and do walking meditation, you will be able to simply get up and do walking meditation. You will not be slowed down by your bliss. This is different from worldly pleasures such as drugs and psychedelics where you would be bogged down and slowed down by the bliss. Should someone need your help in a dire situation you would have to fight your bliss to help them. With Jhanas this is not the same. You may end the experinece completely in a single moment and simply enter it again later if you'd like to. This way we can live normal worldly lives, and be of use to our communities and experience unworldly bliss in our free time. -Sometimes you may enter the Bardo when attempting to Jhana. The Bardo is the place the soul goes when the body falls away. Sort of like an in-between place. Entering this place can be especially confusing, frightening or incredibly blissful. Don't worry about entering the Bardo should you enter it on accident, plenty of practitioners do this by accident on retreat. If you feel disconnected from your body and get frightened, simply return to the present moment. -Out of body experiences sometimes happen. -Don't try to 'hold' onto a Jhana. If you come to a place where the bliss begins to end, don't try to cling to a jhana or walk around with it in your daily life. Allow it to come and go freely. When it is here, great! When it goes, let it go.

@BipolarGrowth I've heard your talks on YouTube and you seem to enjoy making these sort of wild statements and comparisons about your drug experiences and every time you do this, It always makes me think you actually haven't tried that many of the psychedelics you talk about. I mean- LSD and shrooms don't even operate in the same realm as dabs. These two substances as well as their subjective experiences are literally several dimensions away from one another- How could they ever compare? Its like- if you actually tried these substances you would know this. I mean its not even debatable they're so different. Have you ever had a breakthrough dose of psilocybin or LSD or are you just assuming? I've heard you use this kind of talk before in your videos as well. I think in one video you said that you've experienced states which no man has ever experienced or something like that...How can you know this? Even if this is true, what purpose does it serve to talk about it? To make you appear special? 50 unique experiences you've not heard other people discuss....Its like- Have you genuinely looked? Have you studied other cultures, and read their mysticism, travelled around talking to teachers, or are you merely assuming this after not really looking? Once again, this kind of talk reeks of the need to feel special. Also- how do you know that these experiences you had were even facets of awakening? Are you assuming this? Most people have garbage neurochemistry and that's why they aren't experiencing the psychedelic effects of dabs? That's the conclusion you've arrived at? After what research? I digress tho

and lemme guess, you're describing yourself when you say this? lol

Hey Leo, would you mind shooting a video on how to detox your body from heavy metals? You mention this in your video about God realization and I'm curious now about what you've discovered. Thanks!

No prob! I'm glad to hear you've taken the time to do your homework on MALT. I hope I'm wrong and it truly clears up your emotional blockage and changes your life for the best! I have considerable experience with LSD and working through trauma. I'll post some of my other trip reports on here soon. Look forward to your trip reports!

because the word 'god' has too many associations to it that have nothing to do with what you're actually talking about when you say 'I am God.' To correct this I use the word 'Mystery', 'Truth', etc.

Hey whats up, I'm not a spiritual teacher by any stretch of the imagination but IMO turning to Malt to clear up emotional issues like the one you mention here probably isn't going to work very well. Mostly because psychedelics like the one you're planning on taking are in the realm of awakening and less in the realm of self help. Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, and LSD are more in the realm of self-help and you'll probably get better results with these more established psychedelics. Not only is the duration of these psychedelics longer which will give you more time to process and work through your trauma, but they are also more widely known and proven to work. Do you have experience with these more well established psychedelics? MALT is very novel and there are many things you should take into consideration before jumping in head first into this experience- I sure hope you've done your homework and aren't just jumping into this because Leo said so. If you aren't truly ready for this experience, I feel for you. Psychedelics like the one you're about to take are not forgiving. Ready or not the Truth is going to be revealed and what you do with that when you get back will have a lot to do with your level of spiritual maturity. One last thing- Taking any psychedelic with the hope that your trauma and emotional issues will just be cleared up afterwards is unskillful. These types of spiritual issues can only truly be solved by you. Whether you do it with the help of a psychedelic or not, you're still the one whose got to work through your baggage, no one and no thing can do that for you. Psychedelics can help you progress more quickly sometimes, but they aren't going to do all the work for you and spit you out squeaky clean in the end. If I were you, I'd spend some time working through your trauma's and emotional issues with other psychedelics and maybe spend some years sitting meditation before taking something like MALT. There's no rush to the finish line homie. You literally have eternity to get this awakening thing right. Anytime you want to, you can coast for a bit, and enjoy the ride. Goodluck!

Its time to put down the psychedelics and pick up your spiritual practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJAnencycUg this whole movie is spiral dynamics stage red energy @Leo Gura if you never seen this movie you gotta watch this. Certified classic

@Inder if you are still experiencing these symptoms, you are probably experiencing costochondritis. Look it up. Its harmless, but it mimics heart attacks, also causes shortness of breath and dizziness too so yeah...this is what i discovered I had going on with me. It happens when you have an experience which causes the tiny muscles that attack to your sternum to inflame. It happens during really intense psychedelic experiences as well as other drug induced experiences. So yeah, that's probably what you had going on and still have going on.

@Breakingthewall Yeah I don't think I was necessarily coming at this from a perspective of positive and negative', but I do see your point tho. I really just wanted to put this as a part 2 to my original trip report as I see the integration stage as a part of the psychedelic experience and it doesn't get talked about that much. I only recently realized that the LSD loop had closed and that I'd fully integrated all the lessons and was feeling great so I posted this as a follow up. I'm definitely glad it all happened tho and wouldn't trade it for the world. However I do think that people who have very little spiritual practice, or none at all should defiitely be warned that this God stuff is waaaay more real than anybody is probably ready for lol. Thanks for reading!

A few weeks ago I posted about my recent LSD experience in which I had God realization for the first time. That experience was easily the most beautiful and life altering experience I've ever had, but it also traumatized me in ways that are difficult to describe. If you want to read it, you can find it on my profile. I'm writing this post as a follow up because I keep hearing about how great psychedelics are and how amazing god realization is but I never really hear about the aftermath of those experiences. I think a lot of people believe that you can access these states of consciousness for free, without any consequence and that just isn't the case. This post is gonna be long so be prepared. But I wanted to tell my story about the 6 months following my God realization experience and how it changed me. I want to be as detailed as I can, so we'll begin immediately following the God realization as I lay on the floor of a bedroom in a large log cabin starring up at the ceiling in awe of what just took place. A feeling came over me as I laid on the floor that seemed to be saying that my life was about to get harder. I didn't know exactly what this meant but I accepted it without question. I spent the next full day seeing ordinary reality as God. I couldn't un-see it. I was hanging out with my two best friends but when I looked at them I didn't see them as my friends, I saw them as God. They lost all sense of 'other-ness' from my POV. It was like watching two hand puppets pretend they were separate. Every word they said, every action they took was Holy. They didn't seem to notice their own divinity though and this didn't take away from their divinity, it amplified it. I spent the day being very quiet. My friends would talk to me and I'd talk back but not in anything other than very short sentences and phrases. I wasn't speaking from the point of view of my normal sense of self. It felt as though I was speaking automatically, without any need to know what I would say next. There was very little to no sense of any control over my body and mind either. Though I was seeing out of my eyes, hearing through my ears, tasting my tongue, feeling my body, hearing my thoughts, etc...It didn't feel personal to me anymore. My gaze became wide and unfocused. Instead of looking at individual objects in a room, I was looking at the entire room as a whole. I loved everything and looked at all things as if it were a beautiful women. We (my friends and I) eventually packed up and left the cabin and headed home. I remember sitting in the backseat of the car thinking to myself that I'll never be able to relate to my friends again. I had seen something that very few human beings had ever seen. How was I ever going to explain to anyone that ordinary reality is not what it appears to be, that it is God in disguise? and Who would I explain that to? When I got back to my hometown- I spent the majority of my time sitting on the couch looking at the wall. I wasn't interested in doing anything, going anywhere, saying anything etc. God realization slowly wore off and an immense doubt took its place. I looked at soda cans, walls, streets, tree's with a look of disbelief. As if I knew they were not what they appeared to be. It was as if all of reality was holding back a laugh while pretending to be something it wasn't. The soda can on the table, the plate of food, I saw it and said to myself- I'm not fooled by you. I became deeply devotional and did everything with a high degree of consciousness. Every step I took, I took intentionally. I saw every action as a form of devotion to God. Washing the dishes, driving my car, ironing my clothes, all of it was imbued with a deep sense of religious meaning. An immense sense of responsibility came over me. I knew that I couldn't simply go back to being who I was before, I had seen God, now I had to live in such a way that was in accordance to that realization. After a day or two of this- thoughts began to arise in my mind like "was that experience of God real?" "Is that the Truth?" My ego was beginning to reconstruct itself slowly but I could tell that there was still a large piece of it missing somehow. I wasn't sure how but I knew something wasn't right. That feeling I got at the end of my trip echoed in my mind- Your life is about to get harder. But I still had no clue what that meant. The Dark Night Begins- The following three months were horrible. I began experiencing physical pain in my chest, shoulders and arms. I thought I was having heart attacks but every time I went to the emergency room, they found nothing at all. Sometimes I would drive to the emergency room only for the pain to completely disappear as I walked in the door. On top of that, I had panic attacks every. single. day. In the moment, I wasn't sure what was happening but looking back on it now I'm able to see very clearly that my worldview was shattered so completely that I had no idea what was real anymore. One side of my mind knew that all was God, and the other side was convinced I was wrong about it all. I was constantly torn between the two sides. As I did my every day activities, I constantly wondered if I was devoting myself properly to the task at hand. I wanted to live in accordance to my realization but I couldn't. I fell short again and again and again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't live up to what I had realized. I was incredibly unstable in my thoughts and emotions. It was like I was an infant who had just awakened in a fully grown adult body and was still getting the hang of all the mechanics. Even small, seemingly insignificant things would move me to tears or fill me with existential dread. It wasn't all bad though, my meditation was much deeper during this period. I was entering Jhanas with little to no effort and experiencing deep contemplation at times. No matter what happened though, I still felt as if a large part of my psyche had gone missing somehow. I couldn't put my finger on what was missing, but I knew I needed to resolve this. My spiritual Teacher began giving me psychotherapy sessions to help me integrate. In these sessions, I remembered things about my childhood that I had forgot even happened. I also experienced physical pain in response to childhood memories which showed me that the pain I was going through was mostly psychological. Over a few weeks time, I realized alot about myself. I saw clearly that on some level I hated my parents, and I hated myself, and my life. I sat with those feelings of hatred amidst some of the deepest depressions I've ever faced. I've experienced depression before in my life, but these levels of depression were some of the deepest I've ever felt. I honestly had no idea that getting this depressed was even possible, but it was. There were a few points where I thought about killing myself. I never would actually go through with it of course, but I was so deep in depression that I understood how people would end their lives early because of it. Without my spiritual practice and my Teacher, I probably would not have made it through these parts. This particular healing process lasted three months. I was in total confusion most of the time, not knowing what the truth was or what was going on with me. I'd never experienced anything like this in my entire life. Every day my spiritual practice was tried and tested to the limits. I spent most of my days balled up crying or having panic attacks, being depressed and bedridden. I wanted this nightmare to end but I knew that the only way out was through so I spent as much of my time as possible facing my demons and owning up to my past. After three months the physical and emotional pain began to let up. I had worked through some horrifying emotions and past traumas and I was finally able to start feeling normal again. I began to notice that the 'hole' in my psyche was nothing more than drywall (figuratively speaking). Behind that drywall was a lot of childhood trauma and pain that I'd stored away when I was a kid. I never saw myself as an angry kid, but it turns out I was quite angry as a child. I couldn't let it show because my dad was ruthless and overpowering, so I suppressed my anger and became overly compassionate to compensate. Once the feelings and emotions started calming down a bit more I began to feel normal again. When I say 'normal' I don't mean normal in the sense that I was 'back' to my old self, but normal in the sense that I was someone totally new. I felt more integrated and complete as a person and I was more honest with myself about who I was and what I wanted out of my life. I felt like I'd regained my power over myself and my life. The next three months leading up to the present day were more or less like the previous three but on a less intense level. I gradually continued to integrate my past, my pain, etc. and I continue to this day working through my past, my traumas and my other areas of spiritual growth. Every now and again I'd fall into a pit of despair but I knew now how to work with my pain and my fear so I would simply work through it and integrate the lessons. Daily zazen and regular meditation retreats helped to ground me in my 3D throughout this entire process and I'm grateful for that honestly, but ultimately I'm grateful for myself. Psychedelics threw me into a hole and I dug my way out of it on my own. Sure, I had my teacher to give advice and other people to talk to but ultimately I did everything myself and I came out way stronger because of it. I realize now that the insights you gain through the use of psychedelic's aren't at all 'free'. You don't get to just go see God and then walk away from it unscathed and unchanged. Especially if you didn't earn it. Before this experience of God realization I sat zazen every single day for 6+ years. I've worked with a teacher closely, I moved to and live at a zen center and made sure my entire life was centered around practice. I've even had my own spiritual realizations while on meditation retreats without any psychedelics and despite all of that I was still not prepared for God realization like I thought I was. I was not prepared for how real this spirituality shit is and honestly I don't think many human beings are either. I remember watching Leo's videos for many years and hearing him say things like- You won't understand this until you have had X amount of awakenings, or you can't attain this realization even if you meditate for years and years, etc... etc... and every time I would hear him talk about God, The Truth, Wisdom, etc...I always felt like he was taunting me, challenging me to go and have these experiences. I realize this was probably my projection onto Leo, not knocking Leo at all. But I always felt like he was having all the realizations I wanted to have and that somehow I was missing out. I wanted to have an awakening so I could finally experience what all the hype was about but it wasn't happening in my meditation and that led me into psychedelic's. But I realize now that maybe...just maybe, the whole point of being here as an ignorant human being who doesn't know shit is to just be an ignorant human being who doesn't know shit. I spent so many years trying to enter these advanced levels of realization only to realize that the whole reason I wasn't experiencing them without psychedelics was because I wasn't actually ready for them. I mean...the sheer responsibility that comes behind a God realization is immense. Anybody who knows God knows what I mean. I didn't actually want that life like I thought I did back then. Even though I experienced God, I couldn't uphold that realization and live in accordance to it like Buddha, Jesus and many others had in the past. I just plain wasn't ready for that. Had I been really ready for God realization like I thought I was, it would have happened all on its own. Suddenly. Like it does for those few human beings who are actually ready for it. exa- Buddha, Christ, Dogen, etc... So that's my piece. I'm not shitting on anyone who wants to take psychedelics but I am saying that if you are using psychedelics and you haven't hit Gold yet, you haven't had that grand awakening experience you want so bad yet...stop and consider that you might be 1000% wrong about what it is you really want. I want to end this post by putting a letter written by Carl Jung to a Catholic priest after the invention of LSD, this letter really speaks volumes IMO, Thanks for reading everyone. It has indeed very curious effects— of which I know far too little. I don’t know either what its psychotherapeutic value with neurotic or psychotic patients is. I only know there is no point in wishing to know more of the collective unconscious than one gets through dreams and intuition. The more you know of it, the greater and heavier becomes our moral burden, because the unconscious contents transform themselves into your individual tasks and duties as soon as they begin to become conscious. Do you want to increase loneliness and misunderstanding? Do you want to find more and more complications and increasing re­sponsibilities? You get enough of it. If I once could say that I had done everything I know I had to do, then perhaps I should realize a legitimate need to take mescalin. But if I should take it now, I would not be sure at all that I had not taken it out of idle curiosity. I should hate the thought that I had touched on the sphere where the paint is made that colours the world, where the light is created that makes shine the splendour of the dawn, the lines and shapes of all form, the sound that fills the orbit, the thought that illuminates the darkness of the void. There are some poor impoverished creatures, perhaps, for whom mescalin would be a heaven-sent gift without a counterpoison, but I am profoundly mistrustful of the “pure gifts of the Gods.” You pay very dearly for them. This is not the point at all, to know of or about the unconscious, nor does the story end here; on the contrary it is how and where you begin the real quest. If you are too unconscious it is a great relief to know a bit of the collective unconscious. But it soon becomes dangerous to know more, because one does not learn at the same time how to balance it through a conscious equivalent. That is the mistake Aldous Huxley makes: he does not know that he is in the role of the “Zauberlehrling,” who learned from his master how to call the ghosts but did not know how to get rid of them again: It is really the mistake of our age: We think it is enough to discover new things, but we don’t realize that knowing more demands a cor­responding development of morality. Radioactive clouds over Japan, Calcutta, and Saskatchewan point to progressive poisoning of the uni­versal atmosphere. I should indeed be obliged to you if you could let me see the ma­terial they get with LSD. It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with, without the faintest knowl­edge or feeling of responsibility. It is just as if a surgeon had never leaned further than to cut open his patient’s belly and to leave things there. When one gets to know unconscious contents one should know how to deal with them. I can only hope that the doctors will feed themselves thoroughly with mescalin, the alkaloid of divine grace, so that they learn for themselves its marvellous effect. You have not finished with the conscious side yet. Why should you expect more from the unconscious? For 35 years I have known enough of the col­lective unconscious and my whole effort is concentrated upon prepar­ing the ways and means to deal with it.”

@Vincent S Yeah I agree, I think love was a HUGE part of this healing process and I often think to myself throughout my day- How can I be a better friend to myself in this situation? It helps me infuse my daily actions with a sense of love. Thanks for commenting!

@Inder Yeah I think you're right. I certainly still fear pain, and death for sure. Discomfort...not so much tho. I plan to continue my psychedelic use, as I see the value in their usage in my spiritual process. SWIM does plan to face DMT very soon which I hope will help me shed some light on more trauma and perhaps 'infinite love'.

@Leo Gura @Leo Gura Yeah, I admit I was naïve but not foolish. I didn't expect an easy come up, I only expected to catch a glimpse of what I'd been searching for. I agree that using psychedelics as a cheap easy shortcut is foolish tho. I did not realize however that even glimpsing, isn't free. I wonder since you are experimenting with much more powerful substances, are you experiencing more powerful and difficult healing processes?

So, a few things here- Firstly, Not all practices work for everyone. There isn't a 'one size fits all' meditation practice. Some practitioners have an affinity for koan practice, some others may have an affinity for mindfulness practices, etc. Give someone who has an affinity for koan practice a breath practice and they may stop meditating all together, the opposite is also true. This is why its SUPER important that you seek out a Teacher (preferably one who has a lineage, exz- Rinzai, Soto Zen schools). This is critical to your practice if you're serious about awakening. The role of a Teacher is to firstly assess where you are in your practice and to make sure that you're working on a practice that harmonizes with you. This takes some experimenting. My teacher and I spent a few years working on various breath practices, before I finally landed on koan practice. Beyond that the Teachers role is to provide you with encouragement and insight so that you don't wind up deluding yourself and spending years lost in thought, or going in circles. This is done through a one on one meeting with a teacher called 'Dokusan'. This is essential to a quality vertical practice. Secondly, Stop listening to Leo for spiritual advice and spiritual practices. You do not know Leo, you also can not contact Leo and get one on one (face to face) practice instruction on a regular basis, on top of that Leo is not a spiritual teacher. Leo is not going to sit down with you on a regular basis and see where you are stuck and help you get unstuck. It is critical that you stop filling your mind with endless chatter from spiritual channels on YouTube and focus on the simplicity of practice itself. These 'spiritual teachers' on YouTube are not going to take the time to meet with you in person and give you practice instruction, therefore they are not helpful to you at all. I recommend stop listening to any spiritual information online that does not come directly from a proven master who is CURRENTLY meeting with students face to face and giving practice instruction regularly and who is open to meeting with you face to face, not online. If someone is talking about spiritual teachings and is not actively helping students awaken that person is not a teacher- he is a preacher. They are not the same. Leo is a preacher, not a teacher. Thirdly, Assuming you are over the age of 20. You have spent the vast majority of your life (at least 15 years) being deceived and deeply deluded by your parents, the adults in your life, your society and by your culture. You have only been working to remove that delusion an hour a day for 2 years. That tally's up to about 30 days of practice if you add up all the hours. Do you really expect to dent the mountain of delusion in only 30 days when it took you 15+ years to put the mountain there? Your expectations seem exaggerated. At the risk of sounding like a broken record- You need a teacher to point these kinds of things out to you. As far as quitting the practice and giving up. This is happening for a variety of reasons I imagine, but one of the main reasons people leave the path is because they do not have community (sangha). Trying to lone wolf your way to awakening or insight is nearly impossible. Community (sangha) is one of the pillars of quality long term practice. Without community, your practice will become stale and lifeless. Practicing in community with other practitioners who you meet with face to face, is essential to a good practice. Online forums, video chats and YouTube videos won't cut it. You need direct experience. Try seeking out a zen center or other meditation community near you and attending weekly and daily sitting in community with other people. Meditation can be really dry sometimes and having a community of people around you for support, will help you push through those dry days and into the deeper parts of practice. EDIT- One final note- no drugs or psychedelics. Don't bother with that stuff until you have a fully grounded practice. A lot of the people on this forum will recommend these things to you but they don't realize the damage they are doing by recklessly recommending psychedelic's and drugs to people. While psychedelics are great for insights, they often deeply delude you and you have to spend the next year or so prying off the deep layers of delusion you incurred in these experiences which can't really be done without a deep spiritual practice to begin with. Don't listen to anyone suggesting you should try drugs as a part of your practice. It did not take drugs to incur the delusion, it will not take drugs to remove the delusion. You are whole and complete, and fully capable all on your own. I hope this helps you in some way.

@forestfog hey man, your channel is amazing! I've been watching your videos to prepare for a NM DMT trip I'm planning soon. My first one! Stumbled across your channel and was blown away by the detail and quality of your content. Please keep making videos and thank you!

when you said that reaching these levels of consciousness isn't possible with meditation, I allowed the possibility that this may be true sink in and I had a bit of a crisis within myself. This crisis was enough to shake the ground loose in my mind. Led to me diving deeper into my koan. Thank you for that Leo.

You feel lost, because you are lost- in thought. Be careful not to take internet teachings and try to make a religion out of them. If you haven't got one already, get a spiritual practice which grounds you in your direct experience. I recommend a breath practice. Anytime you start having thoughts about being everything, perspectives and all of that stuff.. acknowledge it, and then kindly return your attention to your breathing. Do this again and again and again. You will eventually begin to see the difference between your direct experience and your thoughts about your direct experience. Based off of this question you haven't reached this point in your practice yet. Which is fine! But it is important that you put down the books, videos, psychedelics (if you're into that) and spiritual teachings and return to your direct experience for a while. A little grounding is all you need.

Seeking out a teacher is a good first step. Trying to navigate this alone with the teachings of online gurus and teachers will only lead you to confusion and waste alot of your time. Go seek out a zen master or a teacher who you can go and see in person and have guide you on a weekly or daily basis.

it begins with a daily sitting practice. Practice being aware of the breath. In doing that, many things will come up. Thoughts, emotions, resistance, pleasure, pain etc. Just return to the practice, again and again. Kindly but firmly. Then you begin to practice while doing your daily life. While walking, while running, working, cleaning, etc. Returning to the practice again and again. This will train you to be more conscious throughout your day so that you are able to feel more as you go through your life rather than thinking all the time compulsively. Once your thoughts start to wind down a bit your feelings will be more pronounced. When you take an action, if it is in accordance with Reality, you will feel bliss. If it is not in accordance with Reality, you will feel misery. This ability to feel whether what you are doing is in accordance is called your 'third eye'. Once you're able to feel the feelings, you will be able to see The Way. The Way is not to the left or to the right, it is in the middle.

@Flowerfaeiry Its good to try to wrap your mind around this concept and to attempt to see the world that way but you have to be honest with yourself simultaneously. If you see a tree and to you it is just a tree, you have to accept that. To see a tree and then to throw on top of that- I am imagining that tree, is delusion. When you realize that you are imagining the tree, there will be no thought or explaination needed. You will simply be imagining the tree. Be very careful not to take ideas and try to look through them like lenses at the world. This is what religion does. Until it is in your direct experinece, doubt it.

@Inder So I want to empathize with you here. Great Trip report btw. After I had my God realization experience on LSD I exited the experience and I had the intuition that life was about to get way harder than ever before. I had months of chest pain following this experience. Along with depression, anxiety and GERD. Still goes on to this day actually. Went to the doctors, all came back clear. Not sure what to make of it honestly.

These kinds of questions, while interesting to think about and discuss never really get you closer to the Truth (in my experience). You could spend years debating and discussing models and frameworks, philosophies, ideologies, etc. about consciousness and never take a single step in the right direction. There is something about the human mind which makes it prone to lusting after the complex and ignoring the simplistic and I find that this is the main reason why these types of questions only lead to further confusion. Consciousness is actually quite simple. It is only when we try to understand it that it appears complex and paradoxical. If you turn to your direct experience of this moment, you will find no confusion in your sight, your hearing, your feelings, you will only find confusion in your mind. When your mind is quiet, there is no further confusion, no further questions to ponder. It becomes quite obvious. There is a popular zen quote- 'It is like a mosquito trying to pierce an iron bull.' All Conceptual models and frameworks (while helpful) merely bounce off of the surface of Dharmas leaving no trace, returning to the mind with empty hands. I think if you're serious about discovering the Truth of consciousness and you aren't merely looking for an idea, or belief system. You might consider putting an end to your intellectual pursuit and instead, listen with your entire body.

Had my first experience of God on LSD in April and this song was playing in my headphones at the time (Sea of voices by Porter robinson). Earlier that day I'd taken one tab of LSD and about 8 hours had gone by at this point. I had some small insights during the lsd experience but nothing crazy. I smoked a little weed with some friends thinking that the trip was over. It wasn't. Once the weed hit my system it knocked the wind out of my lungs. I got an intense feeling that I should be alone in a dark, quiet place. I told my friends that I was being called to be alone and I went into an empty bedroom with my meditation cushion. I sat down on the cushion and waited. The room glowed and colors were vibrant. I looked at the large California king bed in front of me with its large solid oak frame. The lines in the wood wiggled and swirled around in a pretty way. Then all of a sudden the bed and I entered dharma transmission. Full on telepathy. It spoke to me directly without words and it told me its secrets. We engaged in dharma war. I don't know how to explain what that is, i don't think that there are words for this kind of thing. But essentially, I showed it my spiritual practice and it showed me how to deepen it. I deepened it, and met it on a deeper level and it showed me how to go deeper. We did this together time and time again and every time I met it on deeper levels it was happy and excited that I was able to do it! It was pleased that I was practicing this without psychedelics and that I had meditative insights without drugs. The bed and I engaged in telepathy until i was conscious enough to begin showing the bed how to go deeper and expand its understanding. It was so pleased! Suddenly my attention shifted. I looked around the room and began to notice that all of history has led me to this very moment. I saw the light come in through the blinds, the dust in the air, the little items on the bed frame and realized that everything that ever occurred in my life led me here. To this moment, in this place. I didn't know what was about to take place in the coming moments. I spent a while looking around at the room and noticing how beautiful it was. I would occasionally go into a dharma transmission (telepathy) with inanimate objects and liberate them. The world was pleased. Suddenly, Out of nowhere I put my hands in the prayer motion, It was as my body were being controlled and had no autonomy. Tears rolled down my cheeks but I didn't know why. I began to witness all of the things that I had done in my life (as a human), it passed me by in a single second yet I saw everything with profound clarity. The good and the bad, the ugly. The bad things that I had done struck me mercilessly to my very core. I felt so awful about myself and how ugly I was. Then suddenly, out of nowhere I bow as hard as I can. I pressed my face against the floor so hard I nearly broke my jaw. Then it happened to me. God. GOD. GOD!!! IT took one look at all of my ugliness, evil, self hatred, pity, envy, jealousy and all the things that make me terrible and before I could even speak a word, I was immediately forgiven. I let out a cry so hard it was as if I'd never breathed air before. I let out all the air in my lungs in a single breath I cried so hard. I've never felt acceptance like that. I didn't know love like that was even possible. I couldn't see God, I could only see white light but I knew it was there, just out of view. I dared not look, it was far too Holy to even dream of looking at directly. The divinity was so intense that I didn't' dare to even breathe. I let out all the air in my lungs and choked...then before I passed out, It breathed life into me and I breathed it out...choked till i almost passed out...etc. As I was nearly passing out again and again, it was pure ecstacy. Choking and nearly dying again and again was pure bliss. When I thought it couldn't get any better, a feeling came over me that said 'look at me!' and I looked up and I saw God Directly. I was shocked to my core. It wasn't a man in the clouds, not a ruler, a king, or a transcendent being. It was a bed, a blanket, the sun coming in through the blinds, the carpet, the walls. It was physical reality. I looked down at my hands, and saw that I was also it. I looked at my hands and saw that they were made of the same material as everything else. Suddenly I became one with the fabric of reality. I was alone, as my Self. No more tears, no more divinity, no more special-ness, just I AM. A thought appeared that said 'What is it?' and my attention focused so hard on a point in space, smaller than an atom. I focused so hard, yet effortlessly till space and time itself broke open and what was there? What was I made of? Nothing at all....NOTHING. Emptiness. Forever. I laughed harder than I'd ever laughed in my life. Of course its nothing! How could I have ever forgotten this?