Ry4n

"Death is us at our highest potential." Mike Tyson

I wouldn't say mushrooms have less "consciousness components" but rather just less mental stimulation which makes it better for meditation in my experience. Feels more about surrendering the mind and opening the heart which I think is a wiser path; I get too lost in concepts on LSD sometimes. Too "heady". Not as humbling either. But with that said it's the most direct path to God realisation for a beginner. But man the mushrooms really chill you out. I love it haha. Most therapeutic drug IMO. There's something about the more stimulating psychedelics that can really aggravate your energetic system and cause slight anxiety from my experience.

The ability to gaslight is correlated with one’s degree of wokeness, new study finds.

Without a subject (ego) there is no object (wall) thus if one is having the experience of a wall they are experiencing subject/object duality by definition, meaning they are in the dream as an ego and thus cannot influence it. This is basic nondual understanding. Maybe in some other dimension an ego could do this, but not this one. mmhmm.

The ego does not create the dream but is rather another byproduct of the dream itself, to make such a statement is to believe the former. The ego itself has very little control over the dream at all. Know the difference between relative and absolute. Many people with delusional psychosis TRULY believe your statement, and we can watch in real time how wrong they are.

hahahahahahaha wow. The amount of bullshit I smell is truly off the charts.

wow! was it just a few experiences though? It can take a solid handful of experiences to really hit the nail sometimes to give Leo credit there. Just maybe not hundreds of times to the point you lose ya fucking marbles lol

Yep, since you’re more suggestible in that state this is arguably brain washing. Confirmation bias is real.

Oh damn!! Touche

EGO much?!? Jesus Christ

Quitting's not what I'm saying, but have you taken a break of more than 6 months following your 5meo retreat? (Although IMO even that's not enough). One should not get cocky with their own sanity because this is exactly where said sanity drops away, all purely because of ego. No amount of spiritual work will change the fact that a substantial break is due for those who go especially hard with psychedelics. Time in this instance is the only means of progress. To think that more "spiritual work" can make this an exception would be absurdly egotistical (not that I'm saying you think that.) If not one's sanity then certainly a sense of dissociation can occur and you can see this in people's behaviour; they're disconnected from normal reality and don't have any concern for the wellbeing of others because they are the only being (or ego I should say) in existence. A zen devil in essence. He has had experience with psychedelics, hasn't said they can't have use, just said the results he has seen hasn't been impressive. Which is fare enough. I see more spiritual ego as a result than anything else, even though I've gotten massive value from them personally. Extremely underrated point, all "direct experience" still involves a subsequent interpretation that is occurring within the realm of the ego-mind, thus suspect to delusion (delusions of grandeur, divine purpose, getting a big head about it all as if this makes one special, etc.) which is what makes meditation so crucial IME; it directly counters these risks through pure awareness alone. Metacognition cuts through a lot of the bullshit. I saw Sam talk about this recently but not Adya, do you have a link to that? Would be interesting.

Yes!!! Feels much more beneficial this way.

Very good progress, hitting that "pure consciousness" can be a blissful experience; by being that you become the world. No inside your skin vs outside your skin. Totally empty yet totally alive. You may find surrender and do-nothing pair nicely with these exercises; it's like the less words/questions are present the more potent those questions become. It's all about the timing. In that space of pure silence, not knowing, surrender of all beliefs and attachments, acceptance of all that is...from that place....what are you then? What's left? The answer will not serve your intellect in anyway, but intuitively you'll know. And in the end that's all you'll ever need. Satisfied as fuck!!! I've also found yoga asanas really good for sharpening the brain and staying grounded through this work. I can't overemphasise staying grounded.

Whatever "truth" they reveal....can I recognise that same truth in this very moment? Perhaps not to the same degree, but to SOME degree? Without that I can only hope and believe.

Yeah this is a seriously good point, I honestly don't care at all how "woke" one thinks they are, does their emotionally maturity reflect that? Do they actually live it? Because in most instances I've seen neither have been the case. Just the fact that one would get mad over someone saying they have their downsides only proves my point further. One can also get lost in state-chasing, never seeing the very source of all these states. yep, it's almost the polar opposite of some of the behaviour I've seen in psychonauts, either in this forum or elsewhere. We need people like this in the spiritual community. It's like yes you're GOD but you're no more GOD then the piece of shit I made this morning LOL

Agreed, I see them as like a spiritual supplement; to dismiss them would be absurd, but to overly prioritise them would also be foolish. It's like 5% of the path for me, the rest being yoga, breathwork, contemplation and meditation etc. They can show you aspects of enlightenment you may have never seen, but they lack the grounded-ness and even sometimes clarity that a sober non-dual experience can provide, which transitions back into everyday life and can be applied and lived by much easier without as strong of a risk of being deluded or dissociated. Breaking out of a spiritual rut for example could be where psychedelics really shine. Another downside is they don't care all that much if you lack the maturity to handle these insights; you'll get them anyway, and this is a major downside. The maturity of the individual is truly what makes it or breaks it.

Hahahahhhahah You can definitely experience emptiness and no self on it no doubt; out of body experiences possible as well, very abstract and introspective drug I remember being in the back of an uber home at night going way into myself almost like I was traversing chapters of my life through these abstract hallways in my mind but it was more a trip of your own imagination rather than a full on vivid visual display. Only downside to the experience itself is that it can be overly clinical feeling as opposed to the warmth of mushrooms for example. Not something I'd explore forever though.

I've done similar with changa and it's amazing, stargazing is out of this world awesome. Never had synthetic but I hear changa's more spiritual in comparison so could be worth looking into if you like those threshold doses. And yeah LSD lasts way too fucking long lol maybe if you're camping going for a massive hike it would be good. Shrooms is still great though.

"spacious" is a better word, as opposed to the forms appearing within it. See for yourself; "nothingness" isn't as bad as it sounds.

If you meditated alongside breathwork before smoking a fat joint then I can safely say yes, past that point that dose should provide some type of "breakthrough" experience when combined with everything else I mentioned.

I mean all language about nonduality is occurring at the conceptual level which inherently makes distinctions, so if you’re gonna use language you may as well do it right and not make broad generalisations assuming everyone knows exactly what you mean and if they don’t it’s automatically because they are not “woke” big lol. Sorry that’s my rant over. I just focus on the raw experience these days, yoga is so damn good at taking you out of your mind and into your environment also. This kind of presence is what you want in life. More connected than anything.

I think he was talking about the ego-you. The ego-you does not dream up reality but is rather another byproduct of the dream itself. I think this is where a lot of people are getting confused. "You are dreaming up yourself" may be a more useful pointer for those who haven't realised no-self. Without this many people will walk away from your teaching style thinking in a very egotistical way "ahhh yes! I am God! hahaha I am so woke" Or something along those lines. @Leo Gura It's a pretty devastating misinterpretation to make.

even that is way too much in my eyes. Integration can take literal years if one is honest with themselves. The mind needs time as well to re-stabilise, it can seem as though taking more will help clarify the previous lessons when in reality taking time to simply contemplate/meditate for even longer will create a more grounded understanding that is less suspect to the delusions of grandeur that psychedelics can cause. Better to err on the side of caution and take lower doses less frequently. I respect this take, and feel like I'm in a somewhat similar boat to you (not using any psychs atm), but I don't think closing oneself off to the possibility of EVER using them again makes sense either. Prioritise the contemplation, study, yoga and meditation because that's where 99% of the work is, but I'm sure if say you used them again many years later it would have benefit. It's not needed per se but could still be useful. But it does seem many people on the forum don't respect just how long integration can actually take, and that prioritising psychedelics over other methods is simply unwise long-term. And agreed psychedelics can become a massive distraction. One may not even realise that to be so until they spend sufficient time away from them. They shouldn't even be the main tool.

Absolutely, LSD was critical in my understanding of source but only up to a certain point; meditation showed me a more grounded oneness perspective that integrates source into even the most seemingly mundane aspects of life. I see no contradiction between the physical and the spiritual now. It all nicely integrates into a singular "wholeness" that accompanies a sense of being absolutely complete. The spiritual highs are nice, lots can be learned, but the constant flow one can have with everyday life makes said insights a lived reality for the individual. Underrated comment here, as profound and true as these experiences can be there is always a subsequent interpretation that is suspect to human bias; there is literally no way around this-to me this is what makes meditation so crucial in the end, for shutting off the mind's BS and instead living and embodying truth combined with these direct experiences is (imo) what true "enlightenment" is all about. Takes a deep connection with one's intuition to fully actualise this however.

Im no doctor but these sound like depression symptoms...