Vercingetorix

10 days ago I returned from my Goenka Vipassana retreat. 9.5 days of Silence, almost 11 hours of meditation per day which 3 of them are SDS (strong determination sitting, aka sitting still meditation). The meditation technique is basically attention to the body sensations. In the First 3 days you practice Breath awareness of the nose area and in the rest 7 days body sensations awareness - moving through the body parts in different ways and being aware of the sensations in every part, while being equanimous to the sensations - not craving a "good" sensation and not averting a "bad" one. the concept that helps you be equanimous is "Anicca" - Buddhist term for eternal change, sensing the changing nature of every sensation. In addition there are discourses every night which explain the Buddhist view on life, enlightenment, suffering and such. What i learnt: -The importance of watching the body sensations. Very important to notice that our reaction to a situation is really not to the situation but to the body sensations that this situation triggers in us. For example when someone verbally abuse me I feel angry not because he cursed me but because of the sensation I sensed (in my case heavy sensation in the stomach and/or chest). -seeing the changing nature of sensations - when you can understand at the feeling level that everything is temporary it can help accept what is without clinging. -meditating for 100+ hours in short time can really help you understand the practice and yourself, you see things you won't see when you meditate an hour a day or so. Many insights dawned on me during and after the practice. 5 days after returning from the retreat I took part in an Ayahuasca ceremony. I didn't follow exactly the preparation but I took 1.5 (grams I think :D) of mimosa (active ingredient containing DMT) at first and after 3 hours 1.5 again. (If you take it this way the effect in more gradual than 3 grams at once). The experience: what can I say, It's the most shocking experience I had in my life. after like half an hour from taking the Mimosa I lied down and closed my eyes and It began: Like you wake up from a dream, "reality" broke up and I wake up and this place that feels familiar and i'm 100% sure that my life was just a dream, that's everything, my 30 years of life were just a dream and everything I did and everyone I ever met where just figments of my Imagination. I contemplated how I put clues in reality to help me come back to this place -I thought how clever of me to create leo Than for the rest of my trip I wandered in this place. at that time to me It felt like strolling in infinity but I think It was just projecting Leo's description of being infinite on 5-MeO. After the trip I googled DMT and I was quite surprised that there are images that describe something close to my visuals: (my visuals were much more red with a clown face). also I had this constant eery music playing in the background. During the trip even though when I would open my eyes reality returned to normal I was quite lost in that place and for part of the time I though I would never go back to my old reality (and it saddened me and frightened me a bit), I remember contemplating that I created reality because I felt lonely and wanted to trick myself into thinking that I am not alone but apart from that I didn't really feel any emotions, it wasn't particularly scary just a bit sad part of the time and very shocking. my sense of time (if it existed there) was kinda screwed - experienced lasted about 8 hours but It felts like only one or two hours, and throughout it was quite the same experience. Although it felt so real that I was convinced it's true, that "I am god and I created this",During the whole trip it still felt like everything is happening to ME so I was a bit skeptical about it still, so no "ego death" experience that I remember. Also I didn't feel that I was resisting anything most of the time so probably I need higher dose for ego death experience What I take from the experience: -It changes how I see death, as it seems I can exist without a body (logically it's ridiculous haha) -it made me more appreciative of my life as at some points I thought I won't return - "you can really appreciate something only when it's gone" -now I can't be 100% sure this reality is just another (long) dream and all of you are just a figment of my imagination, it makes me more loving and compassionate for some reason

Leo tackles this question in his last Rant against realism, basically he is saying that "there is no stuff behind the scenes", reality by definition is what is in your direct experience, so their no point to say reality in inside a bubble and and is surrounded by XYZ, it's just another mechanism to try to explain something you can't explain. I think his point is ultimately: there in no point trying to understand such things, calm your mind and and be present in the moment and enjoy the experience, instead of trying to understand it.

@Leo Gura second and third are mindfulness and meditation IMO but what is 4th?

Would really appreciate if you could share stuff that you have done that helped you the most understand yourself and what you want in your life, stuff that grew you the most. in general it will be stuff that pushed you out of your comfort zone I would guess but I would like some concrete experiences. I'm in a point that lack of life experience makes me doubt my life purpose so I need some ideas for stuff I can do that will help me understand myself. So what was it for you? maybe going to live in a completely new city/country? doing some extreme sports? volunteering in some projects? hiking? drugs?

@Esoteric it's with someone who does it for spiritual grows purposes only. @Toby interesting story, what does it mean to find a tree that will help? I 'm a bit worried to be overwhelmed as well, on the other hand if all kind of crap or existential crisis comes it might be easier to handle it in a retreat than in daily life. Worst case scenario I will postpone the retreat. @Soulbass it will depend on the experience, but I think it might also flood up a lot of unconscious stuff and makes me extra neurotic, but in that case vipassana is also great tool to purge stuff. Will keep you informed

In two weeks I'm going to a Vipassana retreat, and I also was just offered to try ayahuasca for the first time possibly next week. No idea what i'm gonna experience with aya (never tried any psychedelic), but I would guess it will change my vipassana experience, do you think I would generally benefit more from the retreat after a psychedelic experience? or on the other hand it might be too much in a short time for the mind to handle?

@Christian yeah it helped, I am slacking a bit in my meditation routine so it increases my motivation. merry Xmas @Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj sounds similar to what i'm experiencing when suddenly I accept everything that happens to me, a kind of trust in the universe dawns on me and everything becomes effortless and easy, the mind drops by itself. though for me it lasts only for a few days. what do you mean exactly that it gave you what you needed? a kind of wake up call? Is it in general OK to come live in a monastery for a short period of time, for some reason I thought they would accept me only if i'm willing to stay for at least a year.

I would start with mastery since it's such a tiny book, you will read it in a few days.

Well was it a catastrophic failure? about dealing with stress and negative emotions did you hear about the Sedona method? Leo's article about it: https://www.actualized.org/blueprint/sedona-method Leo's video on how to use it for resistance: https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-resistance

@Diane Hang on let me use my telepathic powers... OK I believe what you wrote was: @Dragallur I'm not actualized enough to start making enlightenment jokes.. I fell asleep while trying to edit the post after erroneously publishing it... I meant to tell you that I'll try and see what works best with measuring my progress, I guess that as with any other thing everyone has his/her own style, it's just a matter of finding it.. Amazing things that happened today: I walk pretty fast, especially in the morning while rushing to work, but today I found someone faster than me, we made a mini race and she "won".. It was nice!! I ran with one of my colleagues today!! She said that she used to run 15 to 30 km, wonderful!! She's actually the reason I stepped up my runs from 5 to 10 km each.. I'm not perfect but I'm learning to be a little bit tougher every day.. In Italian they say "to make a virtue out of necessity".. When I was at home, and especially when I was still engaged, there always was someone who could do for me what I didn't want/was too tired to do.. Now if something doesn't get done it just stays there waiting.. Ways I could have made today even better: Studying. Ways I got closer to becoming a wordclass Cardiologist: No one in particular.. What I learned: I need to reengineer my mind so that I waste the least time possible..

Very eye opening to read a girl's journal like that, as usually I find it hard to know what's going in a girl's head about battling a strong urge to buy chocolate - remember not to battle and resist the thoughts and emotions that come, instead accept them warmly and fully and let them pass without identifying with them. Actually if you can the best is to apply this to the thoughts that cause your nervousness. GL, looking forward hearing about schmitzy the great and famous musician.

@Richard Alpert you are talking about the realization that all thoughts/talks are in the imaginary dimension and has nothing to do with reality? Do you still know you exist as an ego? what about working on seeing through this illusion?

why are you afraid of death? because you think it's the end? are you sure? what helped me overcome this fear is realizing that death is NOT the end, I actually don't know what happens after death! maybe it's the end maybe it's not, anything can happen after death, it's actually the number one mystery of our life! And now I view death as a great mystery, like when i'm gonna die i'll be going on a great adventure, I don't where, I don't how, but all this mystery makes my heart sings, it gives meaning to my life. if I knew what happens after death, it would have make my life boring, so i'm quite happy about this mystery. (seeing death as a mystery is an ideas I heard from Osho)

cool, I read some reviews of Power vs Force and it sounds worth reading, added to read list.

this model tries to map the different levels of consciousness https://personalexcellence.co/blog/map-of-consciousness/ somewhat related to The Grand Model Of Psychological Evolution, is this map accurate in your experience? where do you stand?

@Prabhaker so all the people who possess such powers are enlightened being? There is no one greedy person will such powers? And money can be used for good, If you had the ability to gain Lots of money and then use it to improve infrastructure in developing country wouldn't it benefits the world?

@Leo Gura If paranormal phenomenon are relatively common, obvious and easy to prove scientifically like you suggest, why there is not even one who possesses such powers who is willing to show it to the scientific community and receive a lot of money, fame, a noble prize, and most importantly help the world and science see the truth and make the possibility to advance the life on earth immensely?

@Flicker_boy 10-15 per second? why?

@Flicker_boy Do you mean the the false center that convince the ego it exists? So this meditation can help to see "you" are not located in that point? I'll have to focus on it next session.

what do you mean "producing the center point through mental images" ? @pluto IT's really plausible, in some religious tradition there are darkness retreats where you enter a dark cave/room for extended periods of time and after a few day the mind starts to produce Tons of DMT. My meditation teacher told that this meditation is also really effective on DISMANTLING the subconscious. Sometimes I think I can kind of feel it.

well shit, I was about to skip my run today but after seeing how much you accomplish every day I feel lazy and gonna run. Anyway great journal with many interesting insights, very inspiring

for me it's more an emotion / physical sensation, I am resisting "in the body",usually tensions in the body, but there is also a thought. Never tried Sedona

A few things that might help: 1) when you are watching your anxiety, what do you watch exactly? because a sort of resonance can happen: you are giving attention to your anxious thoughts, and the negative thoughts create negative feelings, and those negative feelings amplify your negative thoughts etc... So the better method to be aware is to be aware only of your negative emotion, the pain, and to focus on it, and if the attention shifts to a negative thought return it to the pain. be aware also that you are the watcher and not that pain. 2) ask yourself the question: Is the story that I tell myself the truth, the reality, or is it only in my head? ask honestly don't rush to the logical answer that you may know. 3) maybe the most important is to see if you are resisting something that is happening in reality and dropping that resistance. ask yourself, am I resisting something? what am I resisting? can I drop that resistance? notice that there can be numerous layers or resistance, maybe you see that you are anxious and you don't wanna be anxious, so you resist the anxiety. can you drop it? can you see that any suffering can happen only when you resist something? that's why it's super critical to always monitor yourself and when you are finding yourself resisting something, drop it, and if you can't drop don't try forcefully because it will only create more resistance. So basically you are accepting what is by stopping resistance to what is.

what do you mean by that?

@Leo Gura That's what I started doing Any life experiences you recommend that helped you understand yourself better? I guess 5-MeO is number one