FirstglimpseOMG

..And most likely unnoticed. The complete and pure level of serendipity of every single living being's life is ridiculous - off the scale. It will never, ever show in a way that's predictable or fathomable. This is usually seen only in retrospect, incredulously. When you begin to see it, it will be undeniable, and you will be floored.

Why, to see how big of a load I can blow? It's a natural thing, love it or leave it lol.

I have had several massive insights, understandings and experiences in the year since being exposed to and to a great extent, immersed in, this new world of growth. I'm coming to understand, through direct experience and lots of time for contemplation, that most of my 'aha' moments, though incredible and mind-blowingly expansive and progressive, have been only partially right, flawed, incomplete, somewhat misinterpreted, or to an extent, illusive. Witness; me having my first breaktnrough of this journey in a massive flash of universal consciousness, but literally only getting a half-second flash of this unfathomable beauty and power before mind catapulted in with a submitted image and 'further' feeling. As it goes, the slam of reality, as thin as it was for my ego as a newbie's capacity would allow, the power and Truth of that flash was immediately elbowed out by egoic intrusion and it's weak-assed, laughable attempt at 'enhancement' and labelling. My understanding was thin, my body/mind attempt at categorizing my experience was pathetic, my subsequent integration of my epiphany was (and still is) slow and stuttering, and it would almost seem, in retrospect, that I had half-assed a life-changing experience and that I wasn't equipped to take any of this on, or in, in any way that my dullard old egoic self could manage to understand or build on. Another time, I had a realization about how life, the spark of life itself, is maintained. How the tree keeps on growing, how the body keeps on living, all by itself. I suddenly became aware, out of nowhere, how the nature of nature keeps on 'naturing' after the initial spark. After it comes from nowhere, how life keeps on 'being'. It was an incredible realization, an integral understanding, a furthurance of my place amongst, and my affinity with, the spark of life that is me. However, it really became apparent that despite the amazing feeling of being closer to nature, and obviously, how more completely natural and mystic and miraculous just being was, that I had 'thought' my way into the thing. The feeling was sort of right, the idea I had about nature was sort of right, the place I was coming from was the same place I was looking for, but the 'aha' realization itself was flawed, speculative, too 'mindy', and rather small, despite the 'feelgoods' that snuck through, via the tiniest part of the idea that held some Truth. But Truth is Truth my friends. Get it wrong, fuck it up, mangle or repackage it beyond recognition with ego, dismiss the tiny slivers that poke through the garbage bag, and if there's any Truth to your slim understanding or misguided little excursions, it will stay with you, somehow. Any tiniest bit of Truth that you have swept the maelstrom of unconsiousness away from, will sneak it's way into the very center of your being. (Where it actually lives and hides and waits.) So, my epiphanies come, and are often impartial, scattery, messy, flawed, corrupted, close then distant, clear yet obscured, amazing yet frustrating, massive and full of light, yet sometimes made smaller and duller, embraced and laughed or cried over, then heaped upon by habitual distraction and weakness or complacency. But there was something too big, too real, too Truthful, too majestic and free, too intrinsic and undeniably exciting and progressive, too beautiful and powerful for any of the thin sliver among the packaging and debris to be anything but what it IS. Keep with it, trust it, let it be, and cultivate it with love, no matter what form it takes, no matter how much self-made garbage you have to embrace as truth and then discard. Keep with it, Truth knows itself, and will always remain a diamond in your slimy, stinky, gargage filled palm after digging through the bag. Get it wrong all you want, and love the process. Truth is sticky. Get a little bit of Truth into you, (rather, out of you), and don't sweat the bullshit that you added, or that flew in the window during your searching. The flotsam will fall away as it can, as your slivers of Truth gather, congeal, and shine through on their own, as only they can.

Nice, we all need more flow and way less fear and doubt. In fact I imagine that 'flow state' is natural, inherent, and readily available to us for cultivation. Remove the fear, doubt and resentment from your operating system, dumb down the Default Mode Network, and voila, there sits a state of flow, ready to accomodate your expanded views and scenarios.

Betcha it was an unconscious, ego-originated manifestation of illness as distraction and deflection away from it's further diminishment. Gotta give it credit, it's ruthlessly clever and endlesly resourceful and inventive in it's defense against obliteration.

...all dependent, I guess, on the tangibility of our individual belief systems and personal opinions, which at this point is pretty suspect.

Intuition and experience tells me that suppressing the natural release of bodily fluids and sexual tension through the genitals is about as beneficial as blocking your sneezes, which I imagine are basically nasal orgasms. I think orgasms as well as sneezes and yawns are all thought to be governed by the parasympathetic nervous system. Experience also tells me that cranking off 3 or 4 orgasms a day for a few days in a row leaves me wanting to leave it alone for a few days. The desire to play diminishes or disappears after drawing out total satisfaction and releasing the tension so completely and effectively, or to the extent that I mentioned, overdoing it for whatever reason, but I don't feel that I lose other energy or vitality. I don't feel weakened in any manner, I'm just not horny for a day. Horny is awesome. Not being horny is awesome.

So well written. So very inspiring to read about and recognize and relate to your insights and openings, damn nice work.

Interesting. Hard to get around the time-delay effect of our biological information-relay system.. but what if we skew our perspective or widen it and shift the context a little? Are we not truly present fairly easily just by maintaining or prolonging any current run on awareness of our present moments, moment by moment, as consistently and as often as possible? Hmmm, I'm pondering as I write, and my gut says that (as we become more and more awakened) we manage (or realize?) more of an actual reality as presence than a 'pseudo-presence' that's retarded or offset in any manner by biological limits or time constraints. And actually, how excited are we going to get about labels and symbols? What's stopping us from embodying our essential nature as being outside of time and not coached or limited by such constructs? Sure, practical clock-time as a tool so I can pay my rent on the first and meet you at two for lunch, but... let's strive to just recognize our self-limiting concepts and delusions for what they are and work towards transcending all that.

Yeah buddy! This exact and eternal present moment is the sweetest life of life. It simply is all you have. The eternal present moment... "It's the only power you have." - Amoda Maa Jeevan

It is such a sliding scale for me. It took me mountains of videos and lectures and books and intense curiosity and interest to discover and then begin to understand and adopt a mindfulness practice. I'm one lazy, undisciplined, impulsive mofo (not all extreme or radical, but in a mickey-mouse, lame way), or at least I was. I'm improving exponentially after learning about a mindful way of being, and realizing that I wanted the results and that I was good at it pretty naturally and quickly (we all can be). It probably took me ramping up the mindfulness more and more over a period of 5 or 6 months, and before I knew it, I honestly became surprised if I went any more than 5 to 10 minutes without being present and aware of the voice in my head being a useless, antagonistic, victimy, usually wrong, angry goof about the smallest, stupidest shit, or watching my thought process and recognizing the phenomenon of me thinking of a story in my life and then instantly and sub-consciously creating the emotional reaction to it. Mindfulness takes naturally with a little work and vigilance, and the positive-feedback of scaling results and exponential improvement. Be patient and keep at the mindfulness during your regular day, day after day, the brain re-routes and grows new neural pathways by the SECOND as you do this! You get a bit better at it, putting in effort that gets more and more effortless, and in no time at all your brain is adapting constantly to help and be a more unconscious part of contributing to mindfulness. Your Divine, beautiful, unfathomable biology does it's own upgrading naturally as you enjoy and refine your awareness and strive to sink into ever-widening circles of consciousness and to egress away from ego to sit more and more often behind it, as the silent witness. Don't be be put off by the cycles of straying from mindfulness. Even as I got better and better at the whole game over a period of months, often when a frustrating, high- anxiety situation or challenging day presented itself, I could easily lapse into worry and angst for an hour or two, or piss away most of a day balled-up and annoyed about a situation that was out of my control or I knew better than to expect a different result from. I'd sort of be aware that I was reacting foolishly and pretty uselessly as I slipped, and still sort of watched myself sink into reaction, watched my common sense and proactive solutions flash and be sort of mindfully ignored as I regressed into egoic, lower consciousness. Then my pretty decently progressing mind and newer higher-consiousness tendencies would kick in and I'd be like; "For cryin' out loud, I know better, or should by now, how much of a perfectly awesome day I have pissed away by succumbing to ego and baseline emotional creation and reaction, sheesh - enough!" When this happens I need to just go to all I've learned and am coming to understand and embody about non-duality, spirituality, and remember that my true essence is eternal light and love, and that every second, second by second, ONLY the eternal NOW exists, and one second behind or one second ahead does not, and will not ever exist, so umm, maybe happy up and quit clinging to results or past stories, quit forgetting that I am not a bag of skin born into this world, but a wave of expression and a miraculous modulation of Universal consciousness that is of this world, co-creating it with billions and billions more points of light and view. (I am, however, the undisputed King of the Run-on Sentence, according to my all-important Ego!) Oops.. Getting pissed off about money, or lack, or perceived slights, or my apparently (illusively) limited, slow-growing human-ness, or the state of the house, town, country, world, or that damn gravity plotting to spill my cup of coffee on the floor when I don't watch my clumsy elbow?? ...well - you get the picture. Don't sweat the sometimes uneven, cyclic, initial path to mindfulness; it only takes a little persistence to build that exponential momentum to more and more awareness and presence. It gets harder and harder to slip and slide away from mindfulness without more and more often becoming - wait for it.. - more mindful each time you slip. Better and better, more and more easy and natural with persistence, and honestly, before you know it, the mindfulness becomes the habit, more the norm and not something to work towards constantly. Soon it gets pretty impossible NOT to be mindful. I've been working on it all too, and trust me, there's less and less going back from mindfulness, you just get to a point in good time, that there's no going back from - it is awesome. And the quality of life and diminishment of needless conjecture, worry about the future, sense of lack in a first-world country, worryful fantasizing about future problems, annoyance at the sinkful of dishes, any kind of 'woe is me' victim mentality, teeth-grinding about lack of customer service or rampant corporate grift, the asshole neighbour... deep sigh... holy shit! - I'm ecstatic to be alive, present, healthy and vital, imaginative and full of capacity, endlessly inventive, flexible and adaptive, expansive and spiritually growing.. woohooo... lighter and lighter and lighter, I'm all awesome natural love and intelligence and glowing, growing kindness and positive strength, I'm life itself, ready to create, ready to be tapped, living to LIVE, taking it all in, fascinated and invigorated and inspired and just shining more and more... FUCK I LOVE LIFE, ALL OF IT, I AM... I AM... I AMMMMM! Now I love people and gravity and messes and rainy, overcast chilly days and my sinkful of dishes... but they can wait, beautifully, in my sink, while I laugh at contrived anxiety and rush off to create something, or love and appreciate and en-JOY the day, or something or someone. Ok, now I'm just doing the joyful rambling thing. Mindfulness is awesome practice (not even work after a very short time really), for bringing and keeping awareness more and more fully within the present moment. Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, Rupert Spira, Gary Weber & Rich Doyle, Shinzen Young, Leo Gura, and many many more teachers, sages and gurus are available at your fingertips to instruct, inform, enhance and guide you. Oh, and to answer the posted question, I'd honestly guess that my average level of mindful existence is likely.. shit, I guess maybe 55 to 65% mindful. Maybe 65 to 75% or so if I keep referring to inspiring literature or media. It gets better and better, easier and easier, despite backsliding. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ = Less Suffering! Enjoy!

If you were inclined to avoid talking while tripping maybe you keep pads handy for jotting down questions, experiences or insights to hash over with your buddies later. Or maybe jot down the good stuff & reserve 'come down time' for opening up to discussion. Awesome plan for the retreat though, kudos!

I love you all too, just not quite in a heart shaped baboon-butt kind of way. Well.. maybe the girls.. oh.. that degenerated pretty quick..

Oh my, this one has a way with her words and love... http://janfrazierteachings.com/the-embodied-expression-of-consciousness/

Hey bud, keeping with Rupert for awhile won't hurt. Soak it all in.

Hiya.. I was just relaxing into another session (very new meditator here), and started with three-syllable stuff. I've come up with one or two before but they just wore out or they started to remind me of something, which is no good. I said them in my head, all relaxed and not anxious at all for outcome I guess, just knowing I was experimenting without pressure.. got into a rhythm of repeating nonsense words as they formed, as they came to me.. a wee tiny bit of intellect knew to just concentrate enough to switch up the consonant and the vowels as I hit each repeat, and it started to be all 'flowy', as it was play and not work.. just a worry-free frickin'day, - ...montoya montoya ..montoya.. nope, wants to go to motoyota or something.. ..montaya... ..montaya.. montaya.. means nothing to me and doesn't turn into anything for me (yeah, I know- montana.. but the 'n' is such a far sound from the 'y' consonant that I'm good.. so far... it was working.. ok no. nooo, no no, don't think montana, forget that. No. Aw crap.) Anyway, just be all relaxed and easy and don't care if you get it or who's trying to come up with it or give a shit at all and some wordy rhythm will come out of nothing and the game is on.. all natural - montaya.. ffs lol I liked montaya because as I was breathing and releasing and feeling all love and peace and and surrendurring I could turn it into montaya-aAAUOMMMMmmm.. when it felt good lol. Fuck montana.

So, watching the first few Vimeo vids of Leo Gura's nightly meditation retreat wrap ups in the 'Insights' page at Actualized.org compelled me to look into who Shinzen Young is. I wasn't sure what Leo meant when he mentioned 'labeling and noting', and wanted to know about Shinzen Young's way of teaching mindfulness. His way of expanding on the scope and durations of focus within concentration practices prompted me to post, I'm only partway into this vid, the second of his I've watched, and I'm learning good new stuff.

Nice, thanks! I watched another evening of Leo's retreat wrap up and enjoyed learning about how he incorporated more labeling and noting of breath with good results, as opposed to bouncing around the thoughts, sensations, sights and sounds for content. Leo also mentioned how staying with those other sensations a little longer when using them, rather than only a second or two, seemed more effective for him. Interesting how our body/mind adapts and modifies our learned practices as it sees fit, enhancing our abilities and experiences in a very natural, individual way. I was trying out different mantras yesterday during a 20 minute sit, and the appropriate, foolproof one for me emerged out of the blue within minutes as I invented and tried them out as I went along.

Wow, guys - start looking for the serendipity in your lives, day to day. I was in aquire mode for some shrooms, havent seen any in years.. I posted that above - 5 hours ago.. - I was just handed an ounce, not 5 minutes ago. Trip reports pending.... got some set & setting to attend to lol.

@Azrael Hey bud, nice going. I enjoyed your plain, clear report very much, and I feel happy that you invoked such a majestic experience through shrooms. I'm in 'aquire mode', trying to track down some fungus, and very much look forward to some shroom experiments this summer. Thanks again for sharing, it's inspiring.

I say by the way he leans forward sometimes to make a point that he is standing. Are there prizes?

I imagine it's a preference thing for me if I'm sending off money & taking chances on the return. I'm more intriqued by some of those designer drug labs that ship AL-LAD & 1P LSD, etc, for about 10 bucks a hit. I get excited when I see a live review/comments section and lots of customers are able to submit and see their reviews, uncensored. Not to hijack the thread though, any reports on katy would be great.

I guess you're right bud, maybe worth the experiment. They seem sketchy to me due to the fact that they recommended alcohol consumption as an enhancer to the effect of their pill, and they seem to be flakey on the actual testing and any real deep research or understanding of their little cocktail. It appears that customer feedback makes up an ongoing base for their claims. It would actually be cool to hear what your impressions are if you do part with a few bucks to check it out.

I don't think I'd be sending that bunch $15 for an evening of 'I wonder if I'm high yet'. Real MDMA at ten bucks a pop removes any doubts about what you just swallowed an hour ago. ZOOOOOOOMMM!!

I'm thinking that the less time spent worrying about paying the bills, the more time and energy to spend on the spiritual side of self-actualization. Also, if you're successful to the point of 'well off', you are able to more easily and effortlessly give back. Paying it forward and spreading it around as much as you are comfortable with is awesome, part of the good fight no? Success can be a thing of beauty. Look at Leo Gura - top notch, life-changing free content from the heart for years, including the overhead of top-shelf cameras & mics, website maintenance & development, including this very forum, all his research time and materials, travel and retreat and seminar fees, on and on. His success is a thing of beauty and he radiates that success out for all to benefit from.