StephenK

@Identity What do you mean by a small dose? 0.5 grams to 1 gram or less? Yeah, I hope to do this 3 to 4 times over the next month or two. I've been doing self-inquiry spontaneously (without conscious effort) over the last few months, so hopefully that momentum carries over into the trips. Will report back on what I experience.

@aclokay Yeah, that's why I want to avoid a larger dose, as the momentum in a large dose can carry you away on it's own path. Hopefully I can find that sweet spot for self-inquiry/shroom-expansiveness.

@Eric Tarpall We evolved to survive (physically) yes, but we also evolved to have the desire for sex, material possessions, status, social bonding, etc. There are multiple forces that drive our subconscious and conscious anxieties. If you were physically abused when you were young, then sure, the physical survival aspect may be loud in your psyche, as well as a sense of lovelessness. For others with social anxiety, the dynamic could be very different. There are various forms of social trauma and therefore social anxiety.

@Eric Tarpall Social anxiety is the fear of being ostracized and falling down towards the bottom of the social ladder, regardless of whether you're strong or not. Being rejected by the group lowers your perceived status and causes you to struggle to get things you want biologically (social approval, sex, resources, security etc). Its chimp shit really -- speaking as someone that suffers from social anxiety.

@Arhattobe Do you consider yourself to be an Arhat (given the name Arhattobe)? What do you think of those that claim to be an Arhat, such as Daniel Ingram? Do you actively practice Vipassana and Samatha meditation? What do you think of self-inquiry as a practice? Any book recommendations?

@SgtPepper ?

@SgtPepper just curious as to why the word 'belief' was preceded by the word 'linear'? Why not just use 'belief'?

@Joseph Maynor What is the difference between 'clinging to a belief' and 'clinging to a linear belief'?

Daniel Ingram is an accomplished meditator and arahant. A really great interview.

@Leo Gura I find that seeing causality in the manifest allows me to let go of the notion of self ever so slightly. Is the contemplation of causality useful as a spiritual practice, or is it a distraction?

Haven't made any music in the last few years, so these were created back in 2014/2015

The other issue is that often race comes along with a set of cultural values, and these are hard to tease apart. It is easier to do business with people that share your own culture, as social nuances and cultural norms are more readily understood, therefore reducing friction within trade. In other words, maybe the problem isn't race so much as it is cultural values (which race tends to correlate with to some degree because of historical reasons).

What if humans as a collective are simply not evolved enough to rise up the spiral? Perhaps there are situations where engineering a society to rise up the spiral when it doesn't have the capacity to do so could cause untold chaos/misery and could be a deeply uncompassionate act. I fear those that have a 'taste' for engineering society, as they're normally the ones that inadvertently cause the most bloodshed. Systemic thinking has a high cost/reward to it when implemented. Implementation is often where reality will shine through and beat our ass red. There is much talk about 'why x or y is wrong', but there is little in the way of concrete examples as to what solutions should be put in place. In fact, most solutions I've seen proposed to fight systemic racism will just make the entire problem worse, as more and more attention is drawn towards race. It's a messy world out there.

@Emerald Just out of curiosity, do you believe that white racism is more prevalent and important than, say, Black racism, or Chinese racism? Do you think this issue of racism is disproportionately prevalent among white people?

Is that not an objective truth then? Anyway, I don't have any answers to these questions myself, so I'm all ears.

One could argue that everything is consciousness, and that the brain is a conscious perception, which influences other perceptions (just the rules of a 'dream'). In this situation, consciousness does not arise from the brain, it just appears as if it does. What happens after you shoot? Who knows? Secondly, why would someone choose to damage their brain, if the rules of the dream show that it will cause undesirable outcomes? Although I don't necessarily buy this line of thinking, it is easily argued.

@winterknight What fundamentally drives us towards Enlightenment? Is the desire for happiness? Is it the desire for truth?

In your own words, what is madness? Why do humans fear it so much?

@Outer Why do you ask?

Doesn't Brazil have upwards of 60 000 murders a year? That's like low intensity warfare. When subject to that kind of chaos, no wonder people don't trust the status quo and the current mode of governance. Here's a very interesting video about Cherán, Mexico:

I see 314 and 420 and 254 and 168 and 256 and 666 and recurring times such as 13:13, 23:23 etc. It's largely a subconscious thing for me, as I work with numbers all day. Those that have particular (personal) meaning will jump through from the subconscious monitoring systems of the brain into awareness. I personally don't read too much into it.

@Shin I'm infinity years old. Come at me bro!

Does experience in the domain of the absolute qualify one to speak on the patterns that emerge in the relative? I've noticed a pattern that those that have a lot of experience with matters of the absolute delve into the manifestations of the relative (economics,relationships,science,future,past) with a level of overconfidence/arrogance that can often make me pause. The presence of huge disagreement on matters of the relative between those that claim experience of the absolute is a direct pointer to this. I don't want to get into specific examples, otherwise it becomes a witch hunt. Am I imagining this relationship, or have you noticed it too?

Daaamnnnn bro, I didn't know you were dishing out salvation! I gotta get me some, since I'm just a poor ol' non-dualist . Where dat salvation at?