WeCome1

I used to fall asleep every night for the best part of 2021 to the soothing sounds of "... To what appearance the appearance that appears appears to appear to?.." Good times No intention to derail the thread, but I just want to take this opportunity to say that you are cool, @Water by the River . You and your formatting

All the feels, together, all at once, and up to 11. Lyrics translation is provided in the description. Whoa, this was unexpectedly good.

There is a pretty cool old school documentary on this topic called "Hooked: Illegal Drugs & How They Got That Way". There are 4 episodes, they can be found on YouTube separately, but here are permanent links to IMDB: S01E01 Marijuana and Meth S01E02 Opiates S01E03 Cocaine S01E04 LSD and MDMA Basically, all major illegal drugs became controlled substances because general public has too little self-control to be trusted using them freely. That, and the Nixon's dirty move against black pacifists. And psychedelics were little studied at the time but still got banned alongside "the big ones" for good measure: a drug is a drug, right?

I'm in tears, man. This is worthy of a tattoo.

Well, Shapiro is at least capable of cohesive reasoning and argumentation most of the time; Razard is more like Ben's "woke" opponents who would lynch mob you for not using their preferred pronouns. I mean, @SoonHei (god rest his soul) uses a metaphor: @Dodo replies, that, basically, his experience feels too real to be compared to VR, in his opinion (a fair point to make): After which, they respectfully agree that it was just a metaphor, as good as any other, no big deal: And all is well for 3 years, until Razard comes along and does what he always does: derails the thread and attempts to shove his valuable Truth opinion down people's throats, since they aren't awake enough to see for themselves: However, Dodo has THE AUDACITY to prefer a different definition of "virtual reality": THE BALLZ on this man, amirite? I have seen some truly fucked up shit, but to draw the line between VR and "consensus reality" where "real" people appear strongly real and self-aware beyond reasonable doubt - and "VR" people are obviously just pixels?.. Man, Dodo, you kiss yo mama wid dat mouf?.. Well, you brought it unto yourself: You expect that there will follow a conclusive proof that images on a computer screen DO in fact experience life? You fool! Razard hits your delusional ass with a non-sequitur about how apparent phenomena in both "consensus reality" and dreams are made of the same stuff, as if there were a single person on this forum who has not heard that a hundred times: Translogical argumentation, fellas. Watch and learn. In addition to all that, Dodo clearly stated that he has a history of mental problems, as did SoonHei. What seems to be a productive course of action? Of course, doubling down on solipsist rhetoric, because there isn't enough of it on the forum already. So no, he isn't a Ben Shapiro. He is half a walking non-sequitur and half a Leo quotes bullshit-bingo; but quite harmless: notice how he replies to everybody, but once CarlRichard brings up a valid point - it's crickets. We used to run a small but quite lovely forum back in the day; we banned spiritual ChatGPTs like him on sight, and it kept things civilized and productive. But being Awake (TM) doesn't necessarily mean being useless: he is a prime example for us all that a mind cannot be transcended before it learns thinking straight. There is an old soviet joke, goes something like this:

But that is not what the message of Mahayana Buddhism is about. This is: Buddhist philosophy has been evolving for 2500 years - and so has their idea of what is the ultimate attainment. Early Buddhist schools like Theravada set the goal of realizing one's true "buddha nature" by overcoming kleshas ("poisons of the mind") that obscure it. Basically, a permanent ego-death, which, in turn, ends the dukkha (suffering discontentment) and reveals that "samsara" has been "nirvana" all along. Not unlike the post-nirvikalpa-samadhi state in yoga/vedanta philosophy; or the final 10th season of the zen bull, if you prefer. Mahayana does not reject this attainment - it merely states that it's not the ultimate one, and expands upon it. Remember how Leo likes to say that "enlightenment is not GOD-realization"? Well, the way I see it, Mahayana's ultimate attainment, Prajnaparamita (perfect wisdom, absolute knowledge) and the accompanying Karuna (compassion, (Love?..)) - is something along these lines. And how does one develop perfect love and wisdom? Certainly not by blissing out in sitting meditation - but by engaging with the world, even though it is now clearly seen as illusory. And in what way would one engage with "the sentient beings" of this world in order to develop perfect love; what is the one most loving thing to do? Using Upaya ("skillful means") to rid them of their apparent suffering certainly comes to mind. I've heard that the misconception about "Mahayana bodhisattvas rejecting enlightenment" is mostly common in the Western academia - and mostly due to overemphasizing this one Ksitigarbha Sutra, where Buddha tells Ksitigrabha about the merits of dedicating ones efforts to the good of all beings, and how it leads to unimaginable levels of bliss - and Ksitigrabha takes it to the extreme; thus forming "the ideal of a bodhisattva".

I mean, if you think about it - there's never really been a complaint; it's overwhelmingly life-changing. I never took Aya myself, but a friend of mine recently did. The previous 5 years of pretty hardcore spirituality, shamanism, psychedelics and what not, with all the "insights" - went completely out of the window in an evening. He found his peace and love for life; he is crystal clear in his purpose, and basically 100x more chill. But he describes the difference between taking a psychedelic at home and going through the Ayahuasca ceremony as one between taking a plane to Shanghai and walking there across Eurasia; so there's that.

My bad. Walk me through this one. Why, tho? You literally said you didn't care.

Ok, my bad, "practical" wasn't exactly what I meant. It's more along the lines of "science can only make claims about what IS - not about what OUGHT". And, in this sense, I certainly agree with you that knowing "how things are" improves one's quality of life. But it doesn't tell us anything about WHAT we should do. And that's only relative knowledge. If we talk about absolute realizations - everything above is even more true: yes - having a glimpse at God changes this "game character" here, and how he responds; and no - having a glimpse of God does not imply this or that course of action. On the contrary - it reveals the total absence of any agent whatsoever. And what is the "game character" to do about that? Love more? Or go full-on Joker? Or proceed as before?.. I dunno.

Some of my most life-changing shroom trips were actually outside (in a big city - but at a time when it wasn't that crowded, think "late Tuesday evening") and with a group of friends, most of whom are deep into psychonautics an consciousness work. But I can see how it could potentially go sideways if it's more of a "broooo let's pop some mushies on the beach man, I heard this stuff's mind-blowing" kind of situation. Doesn't mean it will, but it could. But if your bros are chill and mature you will most likely be good. There is a certain synergy effect to mushrooms: if you are taking them collectively, people sort of "speed each other up", so the subjective effect of 1.5g can feel more something like 2.5g, keep that in mind. Also, if you are going for a "mind-blowing experience", then an option to sit/lay down should be readily available at any time. In general, it is probably a bit counter-productive to go for some "grand metaphysical earth-shattering realizations" in a social setting; however, I assure you, the deep appreciation of "mundane" things and quality time with your people can be equally, if not more, epic sometimes. 2 grams dried sounds like a plan. Have fun!

If I may. That's the thing right there, you've said it yourself: you are not seeing Razard's perspective. And that's okay, because there isn't one - there's actually two perspectives mixed together. And that's exactly where the real Self-Deception (TM) hides. By the way, just for the sake of mental exercise - without reading further, in your own words, how would YOU formulate Razard's OP position? Like, in 1-2 sentences, what IS the essence of his communication, in your opinion? So, see, a man experiences some absolute states of consciousness and realizes that I = You = One = God = Love = Truth, or some such. It's all one big total illusory appearance that sometimes takes a form of a person suffering - but, in actuality, in the absolute sense, nobody has ever suffered, yay! There is a movie about a flood - but the screen is not wet, right? However, deconstruct me this. How come that, when I kidnap Razard's little sister and put him on a video call with her, while me and my buddies Bogdan and Dmitry take turns at raping her in all sorts of creative ways - he suddenly DOES care about her suffering, and, instead of indirectly and subtly nudging her towards realizing her true nature and absolute sovereignty with his peaceful presence and clever rhetoric, he finds himself taking practical steps towards finding me, stopping his poor sister's apparent suffering and, perhaps, cutting my d**k off with a chainsaw. Why does he bother with all that? Is he not God-Realized (TM) enough? Did he read his Bhagavad Gita upside down? Maybe not. Maybe it's because, while the Absolute be Absolutin' itself in itself all through itself, Razard, with his apparent life, has nothing to do with it. In his actual perspective, whether he admits it or not, he is living in a material world and he is a material boy. And his lofty advice, based on the absolute realization, is not in any way applicable in this relative domain. Which is the only domain in which any sort of advice is, in fact, required. My point is, I guess, this. Any Absolute Truth (TM) is a thing unto itself and only "valuable" for itself - it does not have any "practical" application in the relative domain - if it does, you are missing the whole point. It doesn't imply that a person must act upon it in any particular sort of way. But if you feel the urge to be good, kind and compassionate - don't let your Understanding (TM) stand in the way. Not worth it.

Ok, this would have been funny, if it weren't really dangerous. I've seen more than my share of this kind of backwards rhetoric - and the very real suffering it perpetuates. So I have to call bullshit. * Proceeds with three paragraphs on how to trick people into suffering less. * ... Go ahead. Tell a meta-joke to a person with depression or mental illness. Compliment a crippled veteran with PTSD. Be patient with war refugees. I'm sure cows in a factory farm will appreciate your graceful presence oh-so-fucking-much. People who suffer (and I mean REALLY suffer - and not "somewhat inconvenienced") don't need to "awaken" to some higher level of consciousness or jump up a stage on some Spiral Dynamics - what they really need is a fucking break. Someone who will take responsibility and carry them on his shoulders from the neck-deep shit they've found themselves in. People suffer because they ARE helpless, that's what suffering IS - the despair of the apparent helplessness. Even if the problem is indeed in their head - for them, at that moment, it is equivalent to being in a real prison cell; if it weren't - it wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. What people would really appreciate is YOU rising up to the challenge: meeting them where they're at, doing something tangible to remove the cause of their pain, so they can catch a break and regroup. And, heck, maybe even a simple act of genuine compassion, if it's not to much to ask of a God-realized person. Man, some people really need to touch some grass, pull their head out of their privileged spiritual ass and maybe have another look at the unfair inescapable brutality that the majority of the world is facing every day. Just an opinion.

Yeah, I did some digging a couple years ago as to what science had to say about this; nothing interesting turned up - it is indeed a very little studied subject. My theory is that the consciousness is a pattern recognition/abstraction machine - it's just something it inherently does, it's hardwired at the very core. So, when a sensory overload begins during the trip, on one hand, that pattern recognition tends to default to simpler geometric forms in order to keep up (like, you know, in extreme situations, you recognize forms and movement faster than colors, because it gave your ancestors evolutionary advantage back in the day); and, on the other hand, is able to recognize more patterns where it previously wouldn't. Hence, everything gradually turns into one big fractal. And, since reality is indeed structured in this very deliberate, almost mathematical, orderly manner all the way from top to bottom - that fractal representation is not at all surprising: you are just becoming conscious of more of it.

Haha, that one's on point! Personally, I'd define "enlightenment" narrowly as a "permanent removal of false self-identification". There is a persistent illusion of the subject being within the body and having the body; and then there is a whole "descriptive layer" of ideas in the mind, supporting that illusion (the false self-identification in question). The illusion itself, as far as I can tell, cannot be removed permanently - but it can be escaped temporarily, which allows to see the true state of things. I like the analogy with a sunset: the Sun appears to set behind the horizon; we can go to orbit and see directly, how things actually are (experience a high-consciousness state); but then, once we return to the surface, the Sun appears to set exactly the same as before - however, the whole thing has forever been recontextualized in our mind; the whole construct of "the sun - setting - in the west" is thrown away. Of course, it can still be used in daily interactions for convenience. Also, for some (for most, actually), the recontextualization might be too radical - so several trips to orbit might be necessary for the message to sink in, so to speak. So, as the result of all that, the non-dual nature of reality is radically more often and more easily apparent in daily life. In my experience, it is a very gradual process; to the point that it's almost impossible to imagine, how one used to imagine all that duality 24/7 - but also not sure how exactly one got here to the present mode of perception. And, obviously, there are infinite other aspects of Truth/Reality one can become conscious of, to various degrees of depth. This doesn't make the "enlightenment" realization any less valid, final or total.

Riiiiight?!

Isn't it enough if we just pass the Turing's test consistently?

I don't. But maybe ask around more - I'm sure there is still someone NOT awake on this forum somewhere

Well, I hope it works out, take care. It's actually a (long) walking distance from where I live - careful with assumptions! Also, given current circumstances, I probably would rather want to get tf out, not in

THIS ^^^ /thread

Well, since nobody asked, I like to think about psychedelics as rocket fuel. You can be 10 times Michael Jordan - but you simply are never going to jump into space to explore it. You need fuel to, well, fuel a rocket and launch it into space. However, fuel (and the rocket) is not the only thing needed, is it? You need a bunch of astronaut training, some insane levels of mathematics for navigation etc etc to explore space strategically. All these other things are, of course, what that "other spiritual work" provides: control during the trips, correct interpretation of your insights (exactly what your today's question was about) etc. Or you could, of course, simply launch the rocket into the void and see where that gets you. You get the idea. That is good, but not exactly what I asked about. I meant some deliberate practice of connecting with your body and this "consensus reality" in MEANINGFUL ways. I'll explain: Yes you are, and yes you will. As the Infinity. But, as Vlad, as this particular instance of the Infinity, you are going to live out the rest of your apparent life, and that's it. And you will live most of it in the states of consciousness much closer to the "ordinary" ones than to "absolute" ones, you will not take the realization of your God Nature beyond your current "life". This here is something of a "base camp", something familiar, a place to regroup and restore power. It is valuable. And the insights you get during peak experiences are really only as valuable as what you make of them HERE. I mean, the Absolute already realizes its Absoluteness Absolutely right now/always/eternally - I assume you've seen this much; however, it "forgot" - that's why you are searching, right? So, if you are not being "A Strategic Motherfucker" (TM) - you, as Vlad, are simply risking to not explore as far as you would otherwise have. And the Truth isn't going anywhere, it will explore itself through other means. I sincerely urge you to reconsider your assumptions about "other practices". You are unlikely to brute-force your way to the Absolute Truth - it will aikido the shit out of you.

Vlad, you seem like a real courageous man who sincerely wants the truth - and is smart enough to acknowledge, that this truth is going to be what it is, no matter how you feel about it at this particular moment. The truth isn't going anywhere - but your capability to pursue it efficiently might, if you paint yourself in the corner with your own mental constructs. Are you serious about your integration? Grounding? Do you practice any other spiritual techniques besides tripping balls? It might be productive to chill the F out with "balls to the wall 100 confirmations or until the psyche gets fried, whichever comes first" - and ask yourself: "how did others (Leo, for example), who also appear to have realized the Absolute, overcome that solipsistic shock?" Wouldn't you agree? I mean, really. TRUTH. ISN'T. GOING. ANYWHERE.

Why not, though? Anything in particular about it that you'd rather NOT be the way it is?

God forbid! On a more serious note, though - I recommend this video, it's really one of the best verbal pointers to what you are asking about: That pseudo-solipsistic talk about "who's real and who imagined whom first" is really misleading. However: That's the thing - you don't ask, but it sure looks that way. But not in the sense that "I deny that you ARE HAVING the subjective experience of you asking". Rather, one might say, that "I deny that THERE IS A YOU who is having the subjective experience of asking". It's not about LEO imagining or not imagining you - it's about YOU imagining that there is "someone home" inside your skull having this subjective experience of asking something on the forum. And by "YOU" ("the Big You") we, of course, mean the absolute non-dual consciousness, of which both your and mine and Leo's illusory "bubbles of first-person POV perceptions" are made of. It's imagining all of us. Even more precisely, there is somewhere within its infinite potential, forms that appear to look like our subjective lives. Or something

It's really hard to grasp the full scope of this issue if you haven't grown up in the Soviet or Post-Soviet country; even the experts of top-tier western press struggle with this - it is obvious that they simply lack the cultural/mentality context. They also lack nuance in understanding the real structure and distribution of power in Russia; and how the Soviet legacy determined what we see today; "siloviki and oligarkhs calling the shots" is a bit of a naive view. I suppose, that this holds true for any country: I'm sure you can think of many examples where some issue from your own country is naively misrepresented in foreign press/analytics due to the lack of context. That said, we do have a guy who is in the position to answer our question exhaustively (great guy btw, highly recommend him on the topics of Russian economics and politics). The answer is in Russian, and there are no English captions, but I'll translate the main talking points: Challenge #1 - Legitimacy: if someone were to to attempt to take power, they would have a very hard time convincing anybody in Russian government/power structures to obey. The main de-facto power structure that determines foreign and domestic politics presently is the Security Council of Russia - and it is barely even constitutional; and - needless to say - completely under Putin's control; the current legislation is crippled beyond repair in terms of checks and balances. Moreover, throughout the years, Putin meticulously weeded out anybody in the government with any semblance of free will; those that are left today are either completely loyal, or politically impotent, or, in most cases, both. The simple fact is that there is currently no person, group or structure that commands enough legitimacy to attempt a coup; and even if there were - most lower-level government and military officials would be too doubtful and afraid to take their side; that's just a cultural/mentality thing that goes waaaay back. Challenge #2 - The power structures (siloviki) are unprecedentedly divided. There is the, more or less, eternal conflict and power struggle between FSB (ФСБ - FSS - Federal Security Service) and the military; and within the military itself, there is also a conflict brewing between the Ministry of Defense and the GenShtab (Генштаб, Генеральный Штаб - General Staff of the Armed Forces); it is basically extremely unlikely that any of them will unite against Putin. Then there is the RosGvardiya (National Guard), which is separate from all of the above, has about 300,000 armed men, and is under the command of general Zolotov, who is Putin's lifelong guard/buddy, is extremely dumb and fiercely loyal. And the cherry on top is this little thing that is rarely mentioned in political commentary outside Russia called FSO (ФСО - Федеральная Служба Охраны - Federal Protective Service) a.k.a. Putin's personal 50,000-men army - extremely secret, extremely loyal, well-paid and motivated, highly influential and placed above all existing laws, commanding virtually unlimited funding and resources, and practically autonomous. It's sole purpose is precisely to protect the president: you want to get to Putin - you have to go through them; and good luck with that. Every piece of analytics on the topic of coup that does not mention the FSO commander general Kochnev can be disregarded. A small side-note: when you take power from Putin, one of the first things you want to do is to cut his communications; guess what - FSO is in charge of all Putin's communication infrastructure, not the army or FSB. Challenge #3 - Everyone fears surveillance. Mother Russia is an actual panopticon: everyone who amounts to anything in terms of power or influence is under total, constant surveillance; and everyone slightly below them in rank has to operate under the assumption that they also are. Putin is former FSB and has always been a total paranoic - so he made a point about building that system right. Two people seriously discussing a coup is extremely risky; the idea of a group of actually powerful people discussing that without Putin being informed within an hour - is absurd; and you can imagine the consequences - so nobody pushes their luck. Challenge #4 - Who would take up such responsibility? It was already mentioned that the current government is devoid of people with initiative, leadership capabilities and any decent level of competence, really. The video was recorded a year ago, and, since then, everyone who is not a parasitic opportunist is either already in jail, or left the country. On the other hand, politically and economically speaking, Russia is currently neck-deep in shit, and this crisis is already going to last at least a generation; and we can't really predict how much worse it will get, one of the important reasons for that being that Russian government is highly compartmentalized, meaning that each branch does not know much about what's going on in the others - and it was designed in this way deliberately. There is nobody in the government/power structures today who would be capable to manage this crisis. Also, anybody who overthrows Putin will have to restore diplomatic relations with the civilized world, which will, among other things, entail putting war criminals through fair trial. Putin made everyone currently in power his co-conspirators at the Security Council's meeting on February 21, 2022 when they unanimously approved the declaration of war.