StephenK

@arlin If there is a thorn in your foot, and you wish to be free of the pain, it is necessary to remove it, even though it may cause pain in the process. It would however be unnecessary to push a nail through your hand to relieve yourself of the pain in your foot, would it not?

How do we differentiate between necessary and unnecessary suffering along the path?

@Shroomdoctor When you're feeling more grounded, go towards your pain; listen to it -- it's trying to tell you that something is out of balance. For years I ran away from my pain, my fears, into a philosophical / spiritual cocoon of my own making. The pain never went away -- it came into the cocoon with me and forced me to be intimate with it. It was only in acknowledging it, accepting it, truly seeing it, that I realized I was holding onto it with a clenched fist. Good luck. You'll get through this.

So recently I've been undergoing some radical shifts in my consciousness. I'm starting to feel like a zombie (in the sense that I'm caring less and less about life and death). I no longer worry about the future, career, getting old, etc. Everyone around me seems buzzing around, anxious, collecting things, objects and people. I'm not suicidal -- but at the same time, I don't see the problem with it either. I'm finding it hard to relate to people. I'm finding it hard to connect. But I'm happier than I've been for years. I've tried to not share this internal state with those around me, as I'm sure they're not equipped to handle this kind of stuff. Hopefully this forum can shed some light on the situation, as I'm sure this state is temporary?

@LastThursday ?

So I've been making a lot of progress recently, especially when it comes to self-honesty and dis-identifying with the ego. I'm more able to quickly stop bullshitting myself and drop personal narratives. However, one side effect of this is that I'm finding myself becoming hyper aware of just how dishonest people are with what they're truly thinking/feeling, as I am hyper aware of those dynamics within my own mind. I am starting to come across as impatient to others, and have been recently accused of being rude and insensitive. I am by nature a people pleaser, so this has come as a shock to me. Has anyone here got guidance on what is occurring / if this may be shadow material coming out? Thanks.

@LastThursday certainly. What I am more pointing to is the fact that striving for self-honesty can sometimes have the effect that the honesty spreads over into our interactions with others -- and sometimes that honesty is not appreciated. I think it comes down to the fact that some personal insights may be liberating for you, since you've processed certain things, but incredibly painful for others (since they've not worked through whatever they need to work through.) This is perhaps why certain spiritual teachers can come across as rude or indifferent, because they do not understand the space that other people come from. Insight unfortunately tend to to be conveyed through the medium of words, and words have been known to start wars.

@Elisabeth I agree with this, and suspected it beforehand, so thanks for bringing your own take on it. @Michael569 It seems that there are refined ways to challenge the status quo, without invoking the monsters from the subconscious. Some people are able to do this. It seems I can't -- at least for now

@LastThursday Have you interacted with people before, read their body language and noted contradictions in motivations? If so, you do what most people do instinctively, and read into the psychological or mental web of beliefs that person may hold. Nothing to do with being a mind reader. Just human. It's the ability to say, "Hey, where you are, I've been there before. I can go there. This is how I got out of that bad mind-state!" Those that are further along in the spiritual path than myself can develop an incredible intuition with this stuff, as they've been working through it themselves. I need look no further than this forum for that proof. In fact, seeing a video of yourself in a social setting can be incredibly illuminating as to how you're behaving. I think this is more an issue of knowing when to speak, and when to choose words wisely, which I think has been adequately addressed by others, which I'm grateful for. "Mind-reading" as I've described here seems to be an organic, natural progression people go through as they develop more refined abilities to discern what is actually occurring in consciousness -- to see deception play out in others instinctively is a property of human empathy, that we, to a large extent, share as a species.

@Nahm It's just not nice to see a good friend suffer needlessly over his career. I guess I'm trying to impart the message "Don't worry, everything is fine. Relax. Your world is fine as it is." Needless to say, this message can really piss people off

@Nahm A friend of mine was moaning about the stress he's experiencing at work / anxieties about his future/finances. He truly hates his job. I told him that he's from a wealthy family and that worrying about his job is pointless, since he's always got a safety net to fall back on should things go bad. Needless to say, he didn't appreciate my input, as it probably came across as me saying his anxieties are just in his head / all the work he put into his career is pointless. I dunno. I just said what came to mind. Bad mistake.

@ajasatya Interestingly, I've become more quiet recently as well -- less prone to having discussions with people, purely out of a lack of interest. @Nahm This may be true. I realize that the radical honesty I strive for within myself is not easily imparted upon others -- when I attempt to impart that honesty on their lives, I just end up hurting them / souring relationships. I guess it's coming from a place of compassion, but it just results in pain. Maybe I just need to stop sharing my opinions, as @ajasatya mentioned. Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has got one -- this may be good advice for myself. The world doesn't need my opinions, nor my insights.

I think society as a complex system would not like to admit to itself that it could be the cause of a large part of depression -- after all, society has a collective ego as well, and really wouldn't want to own up to it's own shortcomings. So yes, the system might be defective, but the system would never admit it. If I look at my own life, all my depression and anxiety is as a result of seriously defective thinking (as a result of fucked up societal and family dynamics.) It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society --- Krishnamurti

I eat meat and yeah; in some sense I know that it is causing suffering. I am also a consumer and I participate in an economy that gives money to others that themselves eat meat. By merely existing in society, you are inducing suffering somewhere down the line. In all seriousness though, if minimizing suffering is the goal, then surely wiping out mankind would be seen as a virtuous goal? Go one step further, adopt Antinatalism as a world view? Hmmm....

@Joseph Maynor I'm inclined to have this view of ego, as insight into not-self/non-duality/Self does not remedy the more subtle(and tricky) aspects of our conditioning, as you mentioned (primal fear responses, physical desires, preferences etc). As such, letting go of ego fully would mean a lack of desire for any conditioned phenomena -- in Buddhism, Nirvana is described the as liberation from repeated rebirth in Samsara. Using your description, would this be 'no longer being a system with an adaptive preference'?

Had it since 2013. I use white-noise to mask the effects when I sleep. Took a few years to get over the anxiety about it -- now its just a part of life.

We should just nuke the earth repeatedly and end all life -- no more suffering animals or people hahahaha! But if I eat meat, I am unconscious, so you cant blame me anyway. Judge not! hahaha! But wait, there is no 'me' that eats meat, so all's good hahaha! Blame the universe, suckers! Ohhhh shiiiitt.....

To be fair, don't all spiritual texts/dialogues/conversations have that exact problem? Who is to say that science will not one day 'meet' spirituality and merge?

@winterknight Do you still feel emotions such as guilt, shame, anger?

@electroBeam In a sense, yes -- if your 'wants' are coming from the ego structure, psychedelics can/will pretty much destroy them (for a while), depending on the dose. Psychedelics, for me, create the desire/force to liberate myself from the ego structure, and this force stays with me after the trip and energizes me to do whatever practices are need (self-inquiry, meditation, etc). Psychedelics are like enlightenment steroids -- take too much and you may 'die' ?. If you take just enough but don't do the required 'exercise', you'll see little benefit.

@kieranperez Psychedelics have shown me that what I want is not necessarily what I need. The ego-structure with its false narratives can have you chasing all kinds of meaningless, distressing, self-defeating and downright ridiculous shit -- as I'm sure you're aware -- and psychedelics can give you that space to see that, " Oh yeah, this shit is painful, false and not needed". I think it's healthy to view psychedelics as a tool to better inform your life, rather as a quick fix. They give you the ability to see through the clouds, towards the sun (temporarily), to know that there is something beyond the constant barrage of the ego-mind.

@Dizzy Thanks for reading. @Nahm The trip was definitely short compared to others (I think that grinding up the shrooms allows them to be metabolized faster, and hence hits harder). @FredFred Yeah, the desire for change can really hurt.

Trip report from yesterday T = 0 minutes: Took 3 grams of shrooms (dry) ground up into a fine powder with yougurt. T = 20 minutes: Hands feel clammy. Breath feels deep and electric. Took a walk down to a wooded area. Slight nausea. This is hitting me harder than I expected. T= 45 minutes: Mind is cycling continuously between acceptance and control. The ego rocks up with concerns and anxieties, only for me to see whats going on, then letting go of the thought, from which spaciousness opens up. This battle goes on for about another 45 minutes. Practice deep slow breathing to center myself whenever things start getting hairy. T= 90 minutes: A plateau seems to have been reached. A deep underlying agitation is noticed within me. I feel paralyzed, wanting to do something, but knowing that nothing needs to be done. It dawns on me that wherever there is suffering, the ego structure is at play. Nothing matters. Everything just is. There is an inherent painfulness in the desire for change. I asked myself the questions: "Why be afraid?" The mind then immediately tries to run to thought for an answer, and this is how I know deception is at play. The mind wants me to get lost in the complex maze of thought. There is no reason to be afraid. It is simply a choice. In fact, everything, in every moment, is the choice between love and fear. T=180 minutes: I'm pretty much sobered up at this point. I realize that the spiritual search is far more urgent than previously thought. The ego structure is like an addiction far worse than any drug. Given my previous life trajectory, if I don't ramp up my quest for liberation, I will die achieving nothing as far as liberation goes. There's a shit tonne of work to be done. The clock is ticking.

@Identity Oh ok, so I assume the truffles (Psilocybe tampanensis) are wet/fresh? Typically a dry dose of Psilocybe cubensis is 3.5g, which is the species I will be taking.

I have experienced trips with shrooms in the past, but normally in a very people oriented setting, without much taken from them -- that is, not much opportunity to reflect inwards. I'm thinking of taking a relatively small dose (1-2 grams) in a dark room and doing self-inquiry. Hopefully it gets the juices flowing? Any experience doing this? Thanks.