Principium Nexus

It could be anything, you will probably know the best what the cause is. All we can do is speculate.

I'm really wondering what important aspects are repeated in everyday life by monks, sages and also how a day of Leo's life would look like. The general outline would be interesting to know which might be a good reference or basis for people wanting to follow a similar path.

@Leo Gura You have to check out this game currently under development called Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, it's unlike any game I have seen before and is about schizofrenia. What's really cool is that people are able to see how something like that disease is experienced.

Nothing lasts especially not with this mindset, but you probably have to discover that yourself.

Often in discussions I notice that we are all talking exactly about the same thing but some people are just referring to a different layer of the onion. It really depends on what you think you are referring to. For example enlightenment could be defined from the the most absolute oneness, which means there is no such thing because it is everything at the same time, total completeness, a void with unlimited potential. Looking from a day-to-day society experience without all the fancy concepts of spirituality you could call it something that has a positive transformative power that is clearly seen by other people and which eventually is embedded in how you act, think and perceive all the time. From a religious perspective it could be that when you become enlightened you will become like the holy persons described in many text. Give people vision and radiate pure compassion, love and a large understanding. So what do you guys think, from what perspective are you looking at this definition?

@Dodoster Because it is continuous and undisrupted doesn't mean it doesn't occur. We recognize it and it is always happening, same as being your true self. If enlightenment is continuous and a process that has no absolute beginning, then still we can label certain events as more transformative than others. If I were to tell someone how I obtained certain knowledge then I can improve the speed of his learning abilities. If this "certain knowledge" would be called an enlightening experience or understanding than we could say this knowledge would always be significant enough to provide someone with a big transformative insight or his/her life in general. Enlightenment is seen and words fail to fully comprehend it's completeness.

@Dodoster How can something not happen and still be recognized? It still has to happen but what it's definition is might be very broad. What I question is how specific can we be? Are we just solely speaking about a certain experience or has it do to with the transformation of a person that is significantly enough to speak of something extraordinary?

I think it is mainly subjective because as the term says it can "enlighten" your life and there are many ways to do that. I think we cannot define what a single word is, there are to many interpretations which are equally true, but if we were to use a description of some certain situations with certain requirements, then having a more clear understanding what is meant and is much easier to agree on. A cool idea might be to start a poll and then ask a wide variety of people what comes to their mind if they think about enlightenment. In normal life words also have their meaning because many people agree that this word has the same definition, otherwise it would be a complete mess. If someone says he want to buy a chair and gets for example a table then we have a big problem. Fundamentally we have to agree on some facts what we think that this words means and resembles. The majority of the people who are not that into reading lots and lots of books about spirituality and consciousness will probably come up with a different definition than persons who have spend much time into these areas. If we would just ask the top 10 most respected spiritual persons what they think it means and get a general definition from than we have something that can be agreed upon, making it slightly less subjective but providing a clear indication what direction it is pointing towards.

@RossE I know this was nothing special or unique for me and I think everybody can get a similar experience. Understand that I don't think this is "the truth" or something that really happened (ofcourse I don't know for sure) but I value what insight it gave me about the connection between two different states of experience. It is not about the content, it's about how you perceive experience and what bridges those two phenomena (non-duality and duality). You are right I cannot go anywhere, but I can change how I experience or view that exact same experience. From what I understand is that these experiences and not only mine, show you that your perception of how you perceive things to be is equally or maybe even more important than the content.

@Leo Gura They sell them fresh in holland and they are not dried. On reddit they say the following about potency "3g of dried cubensis = 10g of fresh truffles." so you might get an indication of how strong it is.

@Egoisego I do agree with you, each emotional state is equally important and interesting. They are all natural responses to improve your well being eventually and become better in survival. On youtube there is also now some debate about forced positivity because people seem to obviously like those videos more but this forced thing is actually quite harmful. It's maybe little off topic but I think it was worth noting since we are talking about the importance of any emotional state right? However, I think positive emotions do turns us on and reinforce good or useful behaviour. If Leo talks about the love he feels he just refers to the fact that the experience was complete and useful. Which could in turn be an useful indication for people to know what can improve their lives and what not. The debate we are having might be about how truthfully perspective really is? Proclaiming false perspective due to knowledge that was incorrectly established. That debate is subjective and I do think neither really can have the best truthfully view.

@Egoisego I agree, but we live in a society where some knowledge to proceed with life is more valued (emotionally, intellectually, ect.) than some other knowledge. I think in the core all experience is equally valid, but what matters is the context, the meta that gives it meaning in this relative or dualistic world. Enlightement does not exit in non-dual reality, but in our ego driven world where we value some experiences over others it might actually exist. What its well-defined definition is we cannot say since we don't know everything yet in human terms, but we can speak subjectively of "an personal enlightmenent" that is significant enough to give it a term.

@Egoisego There is not much harm to provide knowledge in the first place. All he does it provide us with different perspectives which are all equally true in some way. You have to decide what resonates the best with your understanding and if that helps you to live a better life then thats all you need. What do you mean with "Once again am my thoughts left at the endstation of "everything is real" "it is what it is.", I didn't completely get what you mean by that? EDIT: So you think that enlightement is the actual process of learning itself and therefor there is no absolute understanding of what enlightenment is?

@Egoisego Still I do like all the topics he talks about, it is all part of the journey to broadening your perspective. Like you say most people are not that unique, but that is reinforced since you are in school and in society in general. I think that any debate is interesting that arises from these topics, they all show insight of the current state of being of people, their perspective and what an possible approach could be to show them how they can look differently at the world.

I must acknowledge that I get slight symptoms of PTSD because of First Person Shooting games like Counterstrike. Some of the games require a huge amount of skill, focus and can be quite nerve wrecking. After playing for some hours (sometimes with some coffee) I feel very alert but also get disturbed by loud noises and get somewhat put back into this really alert state which is annoying because you cannot relax. This is also the main reason I'm playing less and less FPS games.

@Egoisego I think Leo is doing a great job at getting people to really think about themselves. Like you say we are already enlightened deep within us, but we first have to acknowledge that if we want to feel that way or be it. Enlightment maybe is about being able to think for yourself with a deeper understanding and background knowledge of reality and that is all he is providing. He cannot show you what it is, everybody has to find that for themselves.

@WaveInTheOcean The real question might be, does the tree really have any locality? What is distance, time, separation? You could say that tree was there physically but actually there is no tree. The concept of something being is just your own reflection of self. Your identity defines how you look through the lens of the mind and project of how you preceive reality to be. You created a distinct concept of the tree, that has it's mental boundaries like the edges of the tree and maybe where it goes into the ground. But in reality concepts are only weak comprehensions of something that has no ending nor beginning. The tree is just made up, not to say it doesn't exist, but it's real truth is that it boundaries will never end. Where do you stop defining what the definition of a tree is? Are the leaves that fly away still part of the same tree? Is the water that went through it roots still part of it absolute presence? The environment makes the tree and the tree in turn the environment. The tree is part of everything in the same regard as everything component of the tree. What i'm getting at is that in true reality without concepts that are comprehended by the mind there is no separation or locality. You are just looking at the same thing from a different angle. I know this goes quite deep (down the rabbit hole we go again) but I think you can see how I come to this conclusion. Speaking in human terms, my imagination got so wild I didn't know wheter I was experiencing the projection of the tree or I was just experiencing what I think a tree is? They say "god" created the world by speaking the first words (or concepts), you might see where this now comes from. My craziest idea is that being is repeated at all scales in the universe. You could think of atoms like mini universa and you are the galactic total sum of all those realities. We all together again inhibiting this world "the body of god" you could say, which could be a being just like us. We interact with it's body and therefor he also influences our lives at cosmic scales. If he gets sick or the "galactic state" tends to go in unharmonious directions, we might as well suffer because we are its inside organs

@WaveInTheOcean Thank you for replying! I would prefer to call it an experience rather than a trip since I don't like the association with "drugs" that people directly force when they hear the word trip, but it sure was one big journey haha! The trip has changed much about my perspective on life, mainly what it is all about, how it functions and that we are really limited to our own imagination. Before this experience I was really atheist, from early age I was really fascinated with science and couldn't really grasp what any religion was really about outside being some mythological stories that help people to live better with each other. After the experience I was obsessed with finding different views of what reality could be and also my interest of psychedelics peaked due to their enourmous strenght to transform ones experience temporary. A short period after the trip I had some trouble like you also say with placing stuff in everyday life, some things feel unnatural and you have to re-invent how to behave in certain ways, which was really hard from time to time. But what it really showed me during that time of becoming so aware of previously natural behaviour is why we do it and how it arises. It was like I had been given a second chance of preceiving how it is to be a child but from a more understanding perspective. It offered me a chance to conciously redesign how I control my body with much more control than before. My empathy for everything in this reality has been growing ever since. I still have my moments of falling back to hating some situations but I can't really blame anyone for it anymore. All the misery people project is their own suffering and I feel deep empathy for that their situation is unfortunate. Everybody looks for one thing and that is love, when the world is out of balance we do the opposite which is fear. You cannot hate anyone for fearing his own existence. All the terrorist attacks are a direct result because they fear and find anything except love or certainty for their existence. It is sad that people have to go so far to take their own lives to give their last hope that any act will religiously be fullfilled. They do it from pure existential crisis and probably want to invoke change, but fail to do it in a good manner. Those are some things I can clearly see now and reconfirms that we have to talk more with each other. Between any nation, religion or whatever. +What was your dosage? If i'm correct I took around 12g magic truffels, it's not a really heavy dose but what is really important is your intention. Being conciously aware of what you experience can get you to much deeper levels of the psychedelic state than doing big heroic doses. They can bring you deep, but I see that they can also be very confusing and are almost too hard to integrate. Meditation and Psychedelics go really well, if you master the psychedelic state you can do anything. There is no mountain larger than the mind you have to conquer and live with. I have also great respect for shamanism, they handle with so many emotions when for example guiding persons that are being healed, without meditation they would be nowhere. +Problems with sleeping? I cannot recall I had much issue with sleeping. I might have been disturbed for a while in general for what I found, but I think my vividness increased in general for lucid dreaming. +Have you tried LSD and how does it compare to shrooms? I did try several analogues of LSD; AL-LAD, 1P-LSD and probably LSD-25 but I didn't got it tested by an official lab. From my experience the Lysergic family (LSD) is more structured and the experience feels more "synthetic" than for example shrooms. Shrooms are harder to control people say in general but therefor also offer you to go to unseen places, which you may like or not. LSD feels geometrically straight like sharp edges and distinct objects whereas shrooms are really morphing and have more natural colours. They can also be sedative while LSD is quite energetic. LSD feels like you get really awake to experience the physical world and shrooms to go more for introspection and a trance like experience. I could imagine that tripping on shrooms with a eye mask and some music can bring you an intense introspective trip. Therapeutically speaking this is much better to handle than for example the overwhelming outside impulses that can enter your LSD experience. Life is just really fascinating and I'm really looking forward to just only grasp that tiny amount of understanding that we can gain during this life time. I want to integrate this all into my life in every aspect, helping and loving people in general is what I want and that also give me the feeling of purpose which I didn't acknowledge before. I want to say that psychedelics are a tool and a master, you will find yourself in every aspect of the experience and learn from that. Important is that you don't over do it if you think you don't immediately find something useful. Give it time, they will call you back when you are ready again.

Must watch, if you enjoyed this there is an application called "Headspace" which helps you guide during a meditation. For beginners this is excellent, because you stop thinking for a while and can enter a trance if you really follow what he is saying.

Kabbalah might be what you seek. I don't proclaim it as any truth but it certainly is interesting to read. https://www.kabbalah.com/what-kabbalah

If life is only but a dream, then define a dream? Life is filled with infinite perspectives, each equally true.

I have been meditating now for several years with some sessions of meditation over 5 hours straight. Meditation is a tool that when learned you will be able to clear all the everyday chatter from the more deeply emotional feelings, which can sometimes be very annoying, but also shows a challenge that when mastered you are more and more able to self-realize. You learn the most during the time when you indeed get crazy about sitting still or thinking it is enough because these are the exact cause that cause procrastination and other "unfocused" thoughts. You have to understand it is not "meditation" making you mad, everything you do is you and since you acknowledge that you don't like what you find there is the possibility to do inner work, or chose to ignore it while it still affects your thoughts in some deeper level. In short, your doing the correct thing! Try to embrace the silence and let it be.

@___ Wow I didn't know there was a word for that. I can relate to so much stuff about agoraphobia. Good thing is that we are all here to help each other growing knowledge, healing. I think the combination of all of these things is a good step towards improvement of any situation of well-being.

Working on various skills like making art (drawing, painting, writing) are great self-development tools. Making music is great for translating emotions into physical reality and therefor very good as reflection. All these creative skills are great in reflecting on your own ideas, but also how you depict the world. If you focus on recreating scenes from real life in creative arts you increase your awareness about the small details since you are slowly learning how structures are build (geometrically/relations/emotionally). People often overlook the importance of creativity since it might not be as applicable as earning money, but it helps great amounts with understanding your own emotions which is essential for thoughtful behaviour. Additionally reading various books to greaten your knowledge about how reality works; scientifically, economically, spiritually, etc. is required to have a great background knowledge to be able to understand certain decisions/events/situations that are related to your life, but also how to improve those. Good to note is that when reading anything you should never critisise it before hand since it will immediatly close you off to some insight it might offer. Like other people said above, working on your physcial body is good to also improve your mental health, they go hand in hand. Lastly, socializing is important to keep structure to your self-development. Talking on forums is a good way to talk with people about subjects you would normally not talk about with anybody in your direct environment, but direct contact is also important.