Vladimir

Hi everyone, So we tripped a few times on mushrooms with my ex and she started getting in these loops where she was "in between dimensions" stuck in loops, and at that time she said things were "floating and moving around" and the whole reality was very distorted. This kind of trip would last unusually long time for her, up to 15 hours....and she's had subtle after effects for a few days after. Well we recently went to a Vipassana retreat and she says she's having the same symptoms of things floating and moving on a much subtler level but very similar to the mushroom trip after the retreat. Is there anything that can be done to stabilize her psyche? Would really appreciate any suggestions!

I would hugely recommend a book called: The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary for anyone taking psychedelics. I've gone through a lot of mushrooms and ayahuasca trips in the past year, and so many things that he talks about in the book are SPOT ON and helps me continue working on this path.

@PsiloPutty I'm doing Vipassana meditation too this month starting May 9th, are you going to the one in Twentynine Palms, CA by any chance?

It's been about 15 months since that profound 5g mushroom trip that changed my life. I now find myself completely alone, I have disconnected from my family, relinquished my two cats, I have zero friends and just recently broke up with my girlfriend, I'm all alone. To add the icing on the cake I have also been facing existential crisis which was caused by some very profound and terrifying psychedelic trips, I'm also coming off from hape addiction (tobacco snuff) which my x-girlfriend and I were addicted to and used everyday and I find it has a lot of powerful emotions associated with it while we were together, which makes it even more difficult to stay away from. I'm discovering that I've been running away from this place of loneliness my entire life and I'm starting to feel the suffering accumulated which I have been distracing myself from. I've been spending more time in the nature, eating very healthy, sleeping good, taking cold showers and reading books but I still have way too much free time that I don't know what to do with. I know I could easily start filling that time with distractions like watching Netflix, pickup, going to meetups and other social events, watching YouTube, reading actualized.org forums etc. But I think it's better to face this loneliness now and be okay in complete solitude, because sooner or later we all have to face it. I just underestimated how difficult it would be, having to face existential crisis completely alone without anybody to talk to or any kind of support, but it is what it is.

Would love to meet you brother Leo, I'm near San Diego.

Just did about 10 minutes, started feeling tingling in my hands, it then spread through my legs and other lower areas of my body, then the whole area started vibrating intensely, I stopped at the point and meditated, my whole body was having intense vibrations like I've never experienced before, I just observed it vipassana style, the experience was very pleasant.

I applaud you for your courage, thank for a motivational trip report

Hey guys, The number one priority since I started on this journey has been to heal myself because I knew I had a lot of trauma from childhood and lifestyle. Around 7-8 months ago last year, I ran into my first experience of non-duality, which terrified the shit out of me, making me scream in terror, I thought in that moment I was done for sure. Prior to this happening, I was focusing on my heart and saw how much emotional trauma I have accumulated, I started to puke and then sob and wail like I never have in my life, I knew it was my suffering being released but I couldn't go deeper all the way. I'm not exactly sure when the non-dual experience hit me, but I really freaked out other people in the group (this was an Ayahuasca ceremony) including the host. So at this point, they started doing all kinds of shit to my body to try to "snap me out of the experience", what ensued was the most terrifying experience of my life, where I was facing my death over and over, and I couldn't figure out what was happening to my body, they kept touching my body, then dragged me upstairs and put me in a bathtub and started giving me cold showers and sticking acupuncture needles in my face, all the while I was trying to let go into my personal hell because I couldn't handle it anymore. Anyway, this experience repeated again in the jungle because I couldn't completely let go, and it was like I was stuck in that same loop between the body and merging with ONE again. Then a few months after the jungle I've done 5meo for the very first time, and the experience started happening again, along with the emotional sobbing from the heart, again I started resisting and couldn't let go. My question is, does enlightenment necessarily come with emotional healing/purging? And also, does it happen from the heart or the mind? I was just re-watching Leo's video on "What Is God? - Leo Becomes Absolute Infinity" and he talked about how he "didn't feel anything" but at the same time he said something like: there was so much love, it was being poured down my throat and I felt like coughing it up, so I'm confused whether he felt love or not, or maybe I'm misunderstanding what infinite love is, is not a feeling? So far what I've concluded is that there is a lot of resistance to accepting the suffering in my heart and that's where I'm carrying most of my emotional trauma. What have have been your experience with relating emotional healing and enlightenment?

Thank you for a reminder on taking it slow, I do have a daily meditation practice and recently started focusing on developing metta. I realized after these terrorizing psychedelic experiences that this is very delicate process that must be adjusted for an individual. I arrogantly went into it thinking "I'm going to face my greatest fears and release my deepest emotional trauma" and now I'm taking things slowly. @Nahm Yes you nailed it brother, I haven't been able to break through. I actually don't think I'm ready to completely let go and break through, so I'm concentrating more on gradual healing at this time. You're also right about too much too soon and not having enough foundation. I only had very limited meditation practice and one Vipassana retreat before I started taking psychedelics. My first several mushrooms trips and Ayahuasca ceremonies were very gentle to me, but it all went down hill after that encounter with non-duality. Ever since that episode I have flashbacks of it when using even small doses of psychedelics which makes me very uneasy to say the least.

What's the point of enlightenment if you don't get healed in the process?

Yeah, same, would love to hear Leo's perspective on this.

Hey guys, So I'm at a point where I've been experiencing a lot of distrust and anxiety to this whole process. What keeps coming up during my near ego death experiences is that "If I'm God and I created everything then I will feel all the pain and suffering of the whole Universe" - and that without this there can't be any of this that we're experiencing now, that this is what true awakening is, is to feel absolutely everything. I'm now developing paranoia and suspicion to this entire process, especially after learning about that woman who took a hit of 5meo-DMT and ended up having a trip where she was "dying everyone's death". Also if death is the same as ego death, then basically there is no escaping this path, so now I'm stuck thinking that eventually I will end up experiencing all the suffering of all creation in the end, no matter what path I choose. Leo, or anybody else could you please provide some guidance and wisdom here?

@Samuel Garcia @Leo Gura Were you able to do this without psychedelics? I've had multiple near-ego death experiences on Mushrooms, Ayahuasca and 5meo-DMT and the same themes keeps popping up which makes me resist - as my body starts to dissolve, there is a sense that in order for me to be reunited with God, I first must experience the most painful physical pain (because my ego/mind has constructed a story that without that, there can be no reality, and I have to be the one who does this). At the same time this occurs, I'm starting to have a very powerful emotional release, but I haven't been able to completely let go. I'm realizing this is ego creating this story because it doesn't want to let go, any suggestions on how I can deprogram this story from my mind?

@Leo Gura How did you overcome fear of physical pain?

http://reset.me/personal-story/personal-story-my-5-meo-dmt-experience/ Enjoy!

Thank you all, this really helps.

LOL I wish I had your problems. Your medicine is called 5meo-DMT. Do you mind sharing your experience in more detail? Were you able to let go and go beyond the terror? I've also had an experience where I was begging for death, just to make it stop. What seemed to trigger the loop was the initial resistance from the point where I was going to face my true self, which was terrifying, something kept me from letting go and going deeper and then I got stuck in this loop where I was experiencing attachment to my body's comfort level, and it kept going from comfortable to uncomfortable over and over again at which point I thought I was stuck there forever, I couldn't handle the experience anymore, I was exhausted yet it kept going, at which point I told myself "when the fuck am I going to die already? I can't do this anymore!" I have yet to deal with the terror of facing myself in these experiences, I seem to have some deep programming from religions, even though I was never religious in my life. I'm still trying to figure out what is so terrifying in the depths of my own mind, but it seems to be something like: "if I'm God, then I will need to experience absolutely everything, and that includes all the pain and suffering, I will also have to experience the trauma I have accumulated in my heart in order to fully let go into the experience". What seems to terrify me the most is the fear of physical pain and suffering which is what we associate with death.

Do you mind sharing your experience in more detail? Were you able to let go and go beyond the terror? I've also had an experience where I was begging for death, just to make it stop. What seemed to trigger the loop was the initial resistance from the point where I was going to face my true self, which was terrifying, something kept me from letting go and going deeper and then I got stuck in this loop where I was experiencing attachment to my body's comfort level, and it kept going from comfortable to uncomfortable over and over again at which point I thought I was stuck there forever, I couldn't handle the experience anymore, I was exhausted yet it kept going, at which point I told myself "when the fuck am I going to die already? I can't do this anymore!" I have yet to deal with the terror of facing myself in these experiences, I seem to have some deep programming from religions, even though I was never religious in my life. I'm still trying to figure out what is so terrifying in the depths of my own mind, but it seems to be something like: "if I'm God, then I will need to experience absolutely everything, and that includes all the pain and suffering, I will also have to experience the trauma I have accumulated in my heart in order to fully let go into the experience". What seems to terrify me the most is the fear of physical pain and suffering which is what we associate with death.

The content of the speech is not as important as the way and style in which the content is being presented. The world is full of insights and truth, but the format in which it is being presented is not reaching enough people to cause change. The most important thing for me to develop is the unique way I'm going to be presenting the Truth with all of my talents - body language, dance, martial arts, voice, comedy, emotions, authenticity, confidence, eloquence. The same idea can be talked about in many different ways, just like a tree has a trunk and branches growing out of it, the thicker branches can be other strong ideas closely connected to the Truth and there can be many other branches supporting them. I should create a hierarchy of ideas which are all going to be supporting each other in the same way the tree is growing, the trunk being Truth and Spiritual Awakening. Before the content can be presented in a very powerful way, it has to be created, so it is very useful to write things down, record insights, read books, etc. The content can be posted at weareone.space blog as long as there is no expectations of anybody ever reading that content, that's not the main goal. As long as I'm recording insights and have great content memorized to speak about, the writing and talking to others about it (at actualized.org forum) is going to be very productive and efficient. Also, incorporate Unlimited Memory and Systems Thinking so the information can be easily recalled at any time. Having a lot of outstanding content at my disposal at any time is going to give me a lot more confidence when presenting these ideas and recording videos. As I remember from my solo trip in Idyllwild, there was plenty of artistic expression, but the content was missing, I struggled to come up with the content I wanted to talk about, so having fast access to a lot of content is going to solve that problem and I'll be able to create the most powerful messages possible while tripping and eventually back in this dimension. I should also come up with a list of important keywords that I want to use in my speeches (eg: change, direction, love, truth, ego, death, creativity etc.) I should create an exercise for contemplating all these words and keep asking the question - "what is it?" to come up with more insights and content.

“Meditation is the closest we can get to speeding up evolution, and making the most of our brain’s potential.” ~The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal. 1. Foundation 2. Awareness 3. Change 4. Evolution 5. Willpower 6. Healing 7. Perception 8. Cultivation 9. Authenticity 10. Presence Foundation Before building a house, we all know we must first lay solid foundation which will sustain and support our house for many years to come. Meditation is a very strong and powerful foundation for lasting inner growth and personal change, everything else that you want to master, change and manifest in your life will be built upon this practice. If you rush into this work by trying to learn a bunch of advice here and there, reading a bunch of books, you can quickly find yourself lost in the ocean of information, overwhelmed and frustrated and you may actually end up doing more harm than good. That is why building our foundation is the most important first step when embarking on such an ambitious journey as personal development. You’ll be able to stay grounded, organized and focused. Meditation is the number one habit to develop in this work, as you come across obstacles in the future, you can always fall back on this practice and figure out what's keeping you stuck. Awareness “95% of people's bahaviors are subconscious” ~Joe Dispenza One of the first video games I played back in childhood was called Prince of Persia. In this game, you had to be very careful and mindful how you navigated the dungeon, one wrong step and the prince would end up on top of the sharp spikes. Life is like the most sophisticated and treacherous dungeon, it's like the dungeon from Prince of Persia multiplied by a complexity of 1,000 or more. What if I tried beating the game with only 5% of screen visibility which would only allow me to see the prince’s head. It would be impossible to beat the game, yet we’re trying to navigate this unbelievably complex dungeon with only 5% awareness. Meditation is the best technique for regaining that awareness. Change If our mind is like the operating system of the computer, then we can image that our sub-conscious thoughts are like programs that are running in the background of that operating system. Meditation allows us to go deep into the operating system of our mind, and with time, become aware of thousands of programs that have been running in the background of that system for many years. We can then start understanding where our behavior comes from, see how certain thoughts are triggering specific feelings in our bodies and start uninstalling these viruses from our system. We can then figure out the conditions which will allow us to break out of the loops that we have been stuck for many years (eg: addictions, insecurity, social anxiety, depression etc.). We can also start installing new thought patterns which will be beneficial to our biological systems and create new, healthy behaviors leading to happier lives. Evolution “Meditation is the closest we can get to speeding up evolution, and making the most of our brain’s potential.” ~The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal. We have become a culture obsessed with physical appearance, spending enormous amount of time trying to make ourselves look good by taking care of our bodies. Yet we completely neglect training our minds, thinking it will just take care of itself. The reality is that you can look 100% healthy on the outside, yet at the same time be horribly sick on the inside, just because you look good, doesn’t mean you’re a complete, healthy human being. Actually, most of the personal development work involved, including healing your mind and body is done by taking care and training your mind. By practicing meditation, you are working out your mind by sending more blood flow to your brain and increasing gray matter which unlocks all kinds of super powers that you didn’t even know existed. You are evolving into a higher version of yourself, literally upgrading the most advanced super computer known to humanity which is your mind. Willpower People name lack of willpower as the number-one reason they struggle to meet their goals. There is no better way to increase your willpower than by meditating. Willpower is one of the most precious resources we as human beings have, it’s self control, the more of it we have, the more difficult challenges we’ll be able to overcome. I like to represent willpower as a glass orb filled with blue magic substance, which I have taken from a video game Diablo 3. As we go around slaying monsters, casting spells, this blue energy orb representing our “magic energy” is drained, similarly as we expend our willpower, facing emotionally difficult situations in life, our orb of willpower will be drained. Though at the same time the glass orb will be expanding, growing more capacity for willpower because willpower works like a muscle, the more we train it the more we grow our muscles after allowing ourselves to rest. Once the orb regenerates to full capacity, we will have more willpower and be able to face more emotionally difficult situations along our hero’s journey Healing In programming profession, just like in many areas in life, there are different levels of skill ranging from junior to senior level programmers. When we become aware of our thoughts that are triggering negative emotions and causing all kinds of harmful behavior towards ourselves, we can then start “re-programming” ourselves by uninstalling these thoughts from our minds. This process can lead to healing for a lot of people, but if the root cause of the problem is at the structural level, we’ll need to become “senior programmers” in order to access the structural code area of our system. This area in humans is called epigenetics (from Greek “epi” - upon the genes), Joe Tafur from his book The Fellowship of the River describes epigenetics as “the seat of the seat of the soul” – meaning this is where the core software of our human system design is located. Just like senior programmer would design the interface of the system from which the rest of the code is written, we too can have access to this place by elevating our consciosness to a higher level when we meditate long enough. So, you’ll be able to restructure and reprogram the maladaptive code which you may have acquired during childhood and release that emotional trauma on a deep level. Perception “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ~Anais Nain One of the biggest traps is that we assume that our models of reality which we hold in our minds accurately represent actual reality. You may be living in a state of social anxiety, depression, anger, addiction, and reactive behavior, yet at the same time telling yourself that you are perceiving reality very accurately. I personally had all those things I just mentioned for 20 years and I thought my representation of reality was the most accurate of all people. “Heaven and Hell are within us” ~Joseph Campbell, a lot of people are living in the state of mind of Hell and don’t even reazlie it. The truth is, even if you fall within the parameters of what our society would call “healthy” individual, the room for improving your quality of perception is still gigantic. Your life can still be better by a factor of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 or even 50,000. Meditation raises the quality of our consciousness which should be a prime directive in anybody’s life. We’re able to perceive reality more accurately and get back to the place of love and being, where we all came from before we learned all the thinking and doing. Authenticity When you carry plastic bags in your hands from your car, after grocery shopping, and eventually let go of them, they leave imprints on your hands, after you release the bags from your hands - the first few seconds can be painful as your hands return to their natural state. Just because it’s habitual doesn’t mean it’s natural. Underneath layers of social conditioning and cultural zombification, there is a place of our true self. To get to this place of authenticity, we don’t have to learn anything new, that’s why I think books like “How to Talk to Anyone” may actually do more harm than good, as they teach communication techniques which aren’t coming from an authentic place, and by learning them we are moving further away from our true selfs. Authenticity is more about uncovering layers and dissolving barriers that we have built and unlearning thoughts and behaviors we have practiced living under social constraints. These barriers and blockages are called “allostatic load” in scientific terms which is the accumulation of stressful responses that manifest in all sorts of malignant ways in the body which can include tension, anxiety, depression, migraines and anger. Our true self is already there underneath layers of cultural conditioning, buried by social rules and limits we have learned and imposed on ourselves. Meditation allows us to tune into that place, by elevating our state of consciousness, we’re able to dissolve barriers and blockages we have built and access our higher, authentic selfs. We’re able to access “A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.” ~The Matrix Cultivation Humanity’s greatest treasures are cultivated from within and the nature constantly reminds us of this truth. The sun is shining from within, the seed grows by germinating from the inside, the baby develops inside of a mother’s womb and is then delivered to the external world, not the other way around. The baby doesn’t start growing in the external world and then crawl into a mother’s vagina and goes on to develop into an adult human being and have a life inside of a mother. Yet we are still fooling ourselves by believing that external circumstrances, relationships and material posessions will make us happy and bring love into our lives. We can cultivate all the greatest treasures by intentional meditation including joy, happiness, love, forgiveness, compassion, greatfulness, and peace - all these treasures are available to us no matter what life circumstance or how rich or poor we are. Presence "The past is only a memory, the future a fantasy, the present moment is all we have." ~John Kabat Zinn I first discovered the true power of meditation while at a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat out in the desert here in the Southern California, about a year ago. It happened around day five of the retreat, as I was walking through the desert. All of a sudden, I realized that my mind was completely still, there was no chatter, no thoughts running through the mind, no memories about the past or fantasies about the future. I realized for the first time ever, that I was missing out on life, because I wasn’t living in the present moment. I felt happy just being, my body blending in with the surroundings, the warmth of the sun, wind, earth. I felt like I was transported back to childhood in Russia, when I was about 8 years old, resting in the sun at the beach on a 3-month school break, back then I felt overjoyed knowing I have so much time to enjoy without school, I felt happy. This is what meditation can do for you, it can bring you back to that state of present moment, the state of being, before you have learned how to be an adult, it can bring back the magic of life as it unfolds moment by moment.

Have been reading a book called "Decomposing the Shadow" - lessons from the psylocibin mushroom. The author James Jesso talks about presenting a "conceptial framework", a sort of a map for nagivating and understanding the significant mysical experience induced by the mushroom. I connected some of the dots from Systems Thinking book, Joe Tafur's Fellowship of the River and personal experience of being a programmer for more than a decade. The programming analogy seems to be very fitting when trying to understand these things, and it makes sense because humans are systems with a purpose, interconnections and elements. I now see the mushroom as the master teacher, a quality and valuable source of information from which human systems can benefit tremendously, given the right framework for understanding which is what Jesso talks about. The experience can be thought of as "interfacing/integrating" the Human system with the Mushroom system, without understanding Mushroom's API (Application Programming Interface), it would be very difficult to effectively integrate the experience in our complicated human system. People that haven't experienced learning from a master source which is beyond the usual boundaries of 5 senses, language and rationality, can have a very difficult time understanding and integrating lessons back into the "human" realm, especially going into the experience without knowledge, "knowledge without experience is philosophy, experience without knowledge is ignorance, knowledge + experience = wisdom." ~Joe Dispenza I think we are getting close to merging modern science with mystical experiences which have been ignored for far too long, people like Joe Tafur are in the middle of this process of integration because he has been through both - studying modern science through medical school and learning from direct experience working plant medicines and shamans in the Amazon. He was able to connect the dots using his scientific knowledge from the medical school to understand how these shamans are able to heal people with their icaros (songs) and visionary experiences under the influence of plant medicines. A quote from Joe Dispenza's book summarizes this process of gaining wisdom from modern science and mystical experiences beautifully: "When you and I can connect the dots of what science is discovering about the nature of reality, and when we give ourselves permission to apply those principles in our day-to-day existence, then each of us becomes both a mystic and a scientist in our own life. We should never wait for science to give us permission to do what is uncommon; if we do, then we are turning science into another religion. We should be brave enough to contemplate our lives, do what we thought was "outside the box" and do it repeatedly (sounds like Dr. Dispenza has done his fair share of tripping). When we do that, we are on our way to a greater level of personal power." Another programming analogy I came up with yesterday night is that of inheriting epigenetics from parents and even ancestors. Joe Tafur talked about an experiment where mice were subjected to electrical shocks, while at the same time activating a particular scent, these mice became conditioned to react negatively to the scent, understandbly so, even without the electrical shock after a while. What was shocking to learn, is that even these mice's babies inherited these "epigenetic" traits from their parents, and the effect also got passed on to later generations, fading away after a "few" generations . Which means, we as humans inherit epigenetic code (the structure of our system design) from our parents and ancestors from previous generations, we can literally be carrying wounds from our ancestors and parents at the core of our system which may be creating illnesses in own our lives. If the structure of the system's code is flawed, patching up the system on the exterior level is not going to fix the problem, this is a job for senior programming architects also known as shamans. The programming analogy fits again because in object oriented programming, there are parent classes from which other classes "inherit" which are called "children classes". Children classes inherit all attributes and functionality of the parent classes but can have their own unique attributes and functions, similar to parent and child relationships in real life. The more I learn about this stuff, the closer humans seem to resemble coded systems, I guess having experience in programming gives me advantage because I can use my geeky programming framework on this stuff to organize this information in a structured, step-by-step fashion in a similar way I would code program. I remember hearing about a book in which an author has made a lot of similar analogies relating programming to humans, though couldn't find the name of it, would be fun to learn what concepts he has come up with.

This parable has circulated around the internet over the last couple of years in different forms. According to Wayne Dyer, the original story was told by Henri J. W. Nouwen. However, it appears that all of these “mini-versions” have been adapted from the writings of Pablo Molinero. I’ve included a link to his original in the comments below. It is a thought-provoking idea. What if you could remember? In a way, isn’t that what consciousness is all about—remembering the truth of who we truly are? My question to you is, How are you becoming more conscious? The invitation is here. The gifts are endless. It’s time for you. Because you can. The Parable In a mother’s womb were two babies. The first baby asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The second baby replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?” “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths.” The doubting baby laughed. “This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short.” The second baby held his ground. “I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here.” The first baby replied, “No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere.” “Well, I don’t know,” said the twin, “but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us.” “Mother?” The first baby guffawed. “You believe in mother? Where is she now?” The second baby calmly and patiently tried to explain. “She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world.” “Ha. I don’t see her, so it’s only logical that she doesn’t exist.” To which the other replied, “Sometimes when you’re in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her. I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality when it comes….” Source: https://thebacajourney.com/two-babies-talking-in-the-womb/

One of the first video games I ever played was Prince of Persia when I was about 8 years old growing up in Russia. I had to be very mindful how I navigated the dungeon, which was full of traps and riddles, and make careful, strategic moves, because one wrong step and the prince wound end up on top of the sharp spikes. I now see life as the most sophisticated and treacherous dungeon, it's like the dungeon from Prince of Persia multiplied by a complexity of 1,000 or more. We get lost in the ocean of information, pursuing goals that we think will make our lives better, spend time on all sorts of activities and hobbies, allow all kinds of people into our lives, cling to our ideas and beliefs, hoard knowledge, read all sorts of books and go on living our lives, becoming more attached to this information, creating models of reality which make up they way we end up thinking and behaving and ultimately "who we are". Yet we rarely stop and question, why are we behaving and thinking in this way? What is causing our addictions? What is my life purpose? Why am I pursuing these goals? Why am I hanging out with those people? Why am I in this relationship? Is what I'm doing with my life really making me happier? And that's because people are mostly running on automatic pilot, with 95% of their behaviors being subconscious. It's like playing Prince of Persia with only 5% visibility of the total area of the screen, with the only part visible is that of prince's head, I wonder how long it would take to complete the dungeon in this way. Yet, this is exactly what people are expecting from their lives, we go on with our unconscious behavior, expecting to get to the holy grail with only 5% consciousness. Meditation is how we can start regaining "more area of the screen", to break out of the trap called "bounded rationality" where our understanding about reality and ourselves is very limited, creating all sorts of problems along our life journey. It allows us to go deep into the operating system of our mind, and with time, become aware of thousands of programs that have been running in the background of that system for many years. We can then start understanding where our behavior comes from and uninstall viruses and malware, we can then figure out the conditions which will allow us to break out of the loops (eg: addictions, social anxiety, depression). We can also start installing new thought patterns which will be beneficial to our biological systems and create new, healthy behaviors. Eventually, with enough meditation, we'll gain more awareness and reach a point where we'll realize, that life is in fact the most sophisticated dungeon full of obstacles, and these traps that we're dealing with in real life aren't as obvious as they are in a video game. These traps are disguised, invisible, counter-intuitive, seductive, tempting, promising, real, scientific and many of them seem like it's the only "way out". Our traps come in the form of information, to quote the line from the Matrix - "information is all around us it blinds us from the truth". In this technologically advanced era of information, I think humanity's greatest challenge is to figure out how to effectively manage all this incoming data and figure out where to get information which will actually benefit our lives and humanity as a whole. I think the biggest traps of all in our modern society, has ironically become the science. Science has allowed us to advance our knowledge at a an unprecedented rate, we have created a world where things are moving very quickly and the information is spread out and shared very rapidly. They call it "progress", and on some levels, these scientific achievements are great, though on many other different levels they have huge blind spots which is why we are still living in the dark ages of humanity's development, we haven't become happier as a result of all this technology, on the contrary, many people are as disconnected as ever from their hearts and it has created a dehumanized culture. Science is probably the trickiest traps to snap out from, it's very real - look at everything we have achieved and created, it shows evidence in the "real world" - computers, phones, skyscrapers, Internet, movies, video games, cars - it shows us proof over and over again, and we now rely on science to figure out lives for us. "They'll figure out a way for a better world, they really know what they're doing" we tell ourselves. Thanks to all this real-world evidence and enormous community of "smart scientists with their PHD's" and "research papers backing all this data", we now completely rely on and trust science, we have faith in it - science has become another religion.

As I struggled putting together and organizing ideas for the meditation video, I realized this work is "emotionally difficult" for me and the reason I'm getting distracted so much is because it's painful to sit here and struggle with trying to create this kind of content. I dug deeper to see what's underneath this discomfort and realized that I'm clinging to a lot of these ideas, this creates impatience as I'm wanting to get them out there as soon as possible, I also seem to be very passionate and strongly believe in these ideas which I think is a sign of ego, I remembered what Leo said about having "dispassionate mind", I think it's time to review that video if I can find it. Another obstacle is the revelation of my own ignorance, as it turns out I haven't been understandng these concepts as well as I thought, putting together useful video makes this obvious. The third challenge is actually putting the the best insights, quotes, metaphors and ideas together to create the most powerful message that I can in an organized, fun and authentic kind of way. So 1) clinging to ideas 2) revelation of ignorance 3) putting it all together is what's underneath that emotionally difficult frustration I've been experiencing, and I only now became mindful of it, as I was creating a video about the benefits of meditation. It also depends on the way I feel in the moment, my energy level and emotions seem to be fluctuating a lot lately. Ashley told me this is normal as I'm working with Ayahuma master plant medicine and dieting in preparation for the ceremony. I've changed so many things in my life in the past 2-3 months that it's understandable why my body would be complaining and trying to bring itself back to homeostatis, I'm really glad I watched Leo's video about mastery so that I'm mindful of this balancing feedback loop. At a yoga class this morning, I realized how greatful I am for being on this journey and being able to put the pieces together to start seeing the big picture, I'm starting to notice real changes in my life. I'm so thankful to all the authors of the books that I've read in the past 4-6 months - Terence McKenna (Food of the Gods), Aldous Huxley (Doors of Perception), Joe Dispenza (Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself), Carlos Castenada (A Separate Reality), Joe Tafur (The Fellowship of the River), Donella Meadows (Systems Thinking), Kevin Horsley (Unlimited Memory), Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth), and of course the master jedi knight Leo Gura of Actualized.org and the wisest of them all - the magic mushroom. As I contemplated more on the things to be greatful for and how it all played a role in bringing me to where I am in life today, memories that used to cause suffering, pain, regret, shame and guilt suddenly became learning lessons, and people that were involved in those memories became great teachers.