kieranperez

First off, I want to applaud you taking action, going out of your way to give this a shot. Good on you! I don’t say that lightly! Second, finding the right therapist takes time. It’s rare you land a good psychotherapist in one go. A lot of therapy is about finding that right one. In a way it’s like dating. Don’t waste time finding someone that isn’t right for you and isn’t going to understand you. Third, you have to understand that psychotherapy doesn’t directly deal with existential truth. Think of them like mechanics. They try to get an idea of the mechanics of your mind. Of course, they can only do that through their mind, which is why it’s important to land that psychotherapist that is going to understand you as a person, because “you as a person” is the same as understanding your mind, which is why they don’t really deal with existential truth (whether they realize it or not) because they mind itself is an illusion. Psychotherapists work with helping you to help yourself create a more “integrated illusion”. I’ve personally given up trying to explain this stuff to most people and even psychotherapists (even though my psychotherapist now is a really enlightened guy who used to study with Krishnamurti) because they only try to understand this through mind. Which is fine because that’s what you’re there to work on. Lastly, try using a psychotherapist to help with your psychedelic integration when you realize deep stuff around your own person and psyche. Psychedelics can open you up to really horrifying stuff about your own mind that can feel so impossible to integrate on your own. That could be huge for you. Hopefully this provides more perspective. Decide for yourself though what you feel is best for you. No one is in charge of you but you

The smell of your try-hard act is starting to really fester along with all the other piles of bullshit that go with your act on here. I suggest you switch from a dust pan to a scraper because man it’s nauseating. You’re only bullshitting yourself dude. You ain’t free. You’re a 23 year old talker on the internet. Stop kidding yourself because you’re not fooling anyone here.

Don’t worry about it. How many times do I need to repeat this? He’s ACTING. This is done all the time in authentic hardcore spiritual communities and circles. He’s not actually angry. This is done for example in Zen monasteries to break you because that’s what it takes to get some people to drop shit. Ralston has a 50 year history of being one of the greatest martial artists of the 20th century. He’s not a sweet little spiritual bunny. That’s how he does it. and you still don’t get what he means by saying don’t not confusing a state for consciousness and there not being a method. Certain “focused states” can help but that is still merely and only a process and invention done to facilitate a direct consciousness towards Absolute Truth. That is no different than what Leo said earlier regarding the proper usage and intent of psychedelics. Ralston is trying to make the point that a direct consciousness of say what you are CAN lead to a change of state but all because you have a crazy experience or state change doesn’t mean you have a direct consciousness into the nature of something. I gave this example already but I’ll give it again: you can have a STATE/EXPERIENCE of seemingly infinite space. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean you grasp what the nature of space IS because if you did you’d realize that space doesn’t exist. That’s the different between having a direct consciousness (or a direct knowing) into what something is FOR ITSELF AS IT IS and having a crazy experience and then inventing a whole meaning and confabulation that you generate, fabricate, and invent from mind. A direct consciousness/knowing is transcendent of mind as is enlightenment. That is the point being made.

I want to preface this by mentioning that MANY masters are known for acting (and that is a keyword... keep in mind, he’s acting to get something across) like this and being much MUCH more brutal and real to get points across. Zen masters for example are known for playing the theatric of being extremely brutal and harsh to shock you deep enough to get you to drop fantasies, acts, games one may be playing, etc. I bring this up because I see time and time and time and time and time again on here, people who project fantasies of what they think enlightened people SHOULD be like in their minds. Truly free “people” no longer operate or play under that distinction. I also want to mention regarding the video that I’ve enquirer many many many people who have studied under Ralston for more than a decade and even 2 why he doesn’t talk about states, if he knows these different stated. Ralston knows such states VERY well. Why does he dismiss them? They aren’t the Truth and if it’s not the Truth than it has no place in what he’s teaching, which is the pursuit of Truth. For me, I’ve had many astral projections, experences of being one with all things, deep sleep samadhi states, siddhi/paranormal experiences, etc. time and time and time again I run into the same thing “it was just another experience. It may be a very unsual and different one, but still just experience. This is not the Truth. This is merely a function of mind. Not truth.” I’ve met and have friends now whom are deeply enlightened and have taken psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT for example AFTER their own enlightenment and it’s the same answer every time “it’s a cosmic state of ignorance. This isn’t enlightenment.” That speaks WAY more than people taking substances and experiences crazy states whom aren’t enlightened and never even had enlightenment experiences thinking that they now know what they’re talking about. This isn’t to say psychedelics are not helpful for human stuff like healing, emotional work, psychological work, getting past certain issues. I thought I’d preface that before sharing.

You seem to misunderstand what that stick is used for. It isn’t to berate monks. They hit them in a certain spot in their shoulder that helps wake up their nervous system. There’s a tendency for Zen monks to really enjoy the stick because it really helps them and actually feels good. Zen is a very stoic flavor of spirituality. Ain’t nothing wrong with it and in fact, I see something admirable about people who thrive in such environments. It really shows how free one really is. It’s easy to be free in a cuddly friendly spiritual fantasy condoning environment. Again, it ain’t for everyone. Nor is it meant to be. You seem to be interpreting Ralston’s acting for projecting. Ralston has a very authentic Zen take in yet still being indepdent from all tradition . If you don’t vibe with that, that’s fine. If you have some qualm with it, that’s about you. Ralston is a very intense guy. Probably goes hand in hand with being one of the best martial artists of the 20th century. He’s not a cuddly spiritual teacher. Hes ruthlessly real with people and he’s actually backed off in recent years given the new younger generation. Back in the 80s and 90s that was no problem. You also have to understand that he’s acting. He’s not actually angry. It’s a theatric to wake people up out of their shit. In a sense it’s no different than an intense psychedelic that completely overwhelms your ego. Ralston isn’t one of those teachers that would appeal to modern young spiritual seekers for the most part unless you’re the kinda guy or girl that resonates with that ferrocity or can take it. All because it doesn’t resonate with you to diminish its value.

Good on her for taking responsibility and leaving. Very eye opening. This guru smelled like a cult leader since I first saw a video of him. Great lessons to be learned from this. @Leo Gura you’d like this.

I was not clear enough when I wrote that part you quoted. To be more specific, those experiences are never truth realization. I hate to use another Ralston example but it’s just such a clear example illustrate my point... he had one talk where he was talking about the nature of space and how one can have experience of seemingly infinite space but that alone doesn’t provide a direct consciousness into the true nature of space. Only when one becomes directly conscious that space doesn’t exist is that an enlightenment into the Absolute nature of objective reality and it’s nonexistent nature. To be more specific, using stories to create a cosmology around an experience that wasn’t actually say one of truth realization. Example: having an out of body experience and then creating a whole story about how you now know the nature of consciousness, enlightenment, reality, etc. To be succinct, it’s where the “knowledge”, as if, came. It’s the difference between if I met the real Leo Gura in Las Vegas and hung out with him for say 2 years and got to know you from you vs. just inventing an entire narrative only from watching your videos. Of course, in this example, my encounter with you in person would still be interpreted through mind, that is still nonetheless a nore genuine understanding interpreted via mind based on a direct experience of the matter rather than just fabricating something purely and solely from mind. Fair point

In yet it’s also the heart of sprituality of the highest order lol. Be careful with your accussations. If you had really low self esteem and not have had the chance to learn about the stuff we learn on here and came across this stuff, you could also get picked up into it.

This is the point that I tend to bring up but in the end I get the same response which is that state is irrelevant as shown to them by the work they’ve done facilitating others. I tend to rebuttal by saying something among the lines of “yeah, the Truth is the Truth independent of the state I’m in but surely it helps to be able to get into a highly concentrated state in order to contemplate.” And I get the same response back “sure. It can help so long as you actually get enlightened. It’s not at all necessary though.” Where the line has drawn for me is when I notice for example in my enlightenment experiences I notice how irrelevant my state is or was because the Truth just is. Plus when I look at most people who trip or even get into “deep states” independent of substances, i notice just how much they invent a whole story around the experience itself. Not that this is any fault on your end but when I see people on here who get into some little state or have a “cosmic God” experience, I see just how much their inventing a narrative around it using your language (again that’s not any fault on you but I’m pointing out a pattern). Although I can understand and empathize how much the mind wants to invent stories and dramas around psychic, siddhi, or grand cosmic onesness experiences, I still must be honest at least with myself that it’s just mere entertainment. It’s not freedom and it isn’t the truth, no matter how much I may want to make myself feel special or narratives about how I think I know how it all works now. However, I can see where you’re coming from and I still intend to test it. I’m not saying I’m closed to psychedelics now. I’m currently in the process of buying 5-MeO for this reason. You make a fair point on the breakthrough and that if people are going to make a firm ciritique on it as far as the domain of enlightenment goes, at least get a full breakthrough.

I’m asking this genuinely - I’ve met several enlightened people and some of whom are facilitators as teachers or in workshop setting and I’ve asked them on this matter as I know this isn’t the first time you’ve said this. I’ve gotten the same response based on the people they’ve facilitated (not that enlightenment is the result of their facilitation): “you can be totally pissed off and/or lost in thoughts. None of that matters. I’ve seen people be totally depressed and then have their enlightenment experience. I’ve seen people lost in their minds and it still happens.” Again, I’m asking genuinely trying to get your point of view as clear as possible.

Psychedelics is just more states and just more experiences. Ralston has a lot of history with psychedelics. Enlightenment is not experience. It is not a state.

You underestimate how manipulative megalomania narcissists can be. It’s not that people are just so stupid they blindly fall into it. They fall into it because cults play off of human needs, desires, and base level human psychology. They use techniques that work in such a way that people get bought into. There’s a reason cults happen so much in spiritual circles. What is that reason? Everyone wants to stop suffering! Become a god! Save the world! Develop superhuman powers! You know how inviting that is to people whom are suffering and lack a sense of direction? Then you throw in a really charismatic guy who knows very well how to appeal to you, seem 100% genuine, empathize with you, talk about bliss, unconditional love, etc. Right there you’d be caught by the short and curlies. Everybody wants those things!

Show some empathy and compassion dude.

Well done by Science & Nonduality An amazing sage who lived a very simple life in a small little house/apartment in a city in India that touched the lives of many.

Yes & Kelly was my neighbor who was also my little brother's swim team's strength coach since his daughter was on the team. Been into his gym in the Presidio in SF and his other guy Nate Helming whose YouTube channel "The Run Experience" (highly recommend) is a buddy of mine back in the Bay. I find Kelly, based on my extensive experience applying and learning his stuff down to the very guts of it, to not be holistic enough and really just aggressive in how he does mobility. I find Nate, whose one of Kelly's top coaches at his gym but now has his own gig going, applies a better balance towards mobility work that isn't as aggressive as Kelly. I found I moved way too fast in terms of forcing deep stretches and releasing stuck sliding tissues to such a degree where it actually caused more problems. However, I've learned a lot from him. The man knows his shit better than 99.999999% of strength coaches out there. At this point, if I meet strength training guys or coaches whom aren't familiar with guys like Kelly or Vern Gambetta (absolute GENIUS), I tend to be able to predict where the limitations are in their strength training and what they're missing and can see it in the way they move. Kelly is a "mainstream" example of a Yellow strength/mobility coach.

@Soulbass good shit man. Yeah, strength, mobility, and mechanics/form is the foundation. Don’t overthink all this ancillary stuff. Tbh its a distraction but glad you’re running again. Dont make this more complicated than it has to be. a hard workout once or twice a week. Touch all the bases: lactate threshold (tempo rubs, cruise intervals, etc.), neuromuscular/cns sprint work with plenty of recovery between reps (5 reps of 8-10 second Hill sprints w/4 min standing rest), high end vo2max workouts (10x400m @ mile effort w/90 sec rest) A long run every week Strength 3 times per week focusing on the posterior chain, stability and foundational strength mobility work before and after runs Easy runs 80% of your runs are done easy. Make your easy days EASY and your hard days hard but doable. Keep it up.

Take your damn medicine, stay in bilateral symmetry, be honest with yoursel, don’t indulge the desire to create fantasies, surrender.

@mandyjw I suggest you take honest ownership for your projections and stop creating cosmologies and fantasies to explain away your own projections.

Real ADHD is a bitch. Living in a western society and going through the scholastic system with ADHD, regardless of whether or not you’re on medication, is a bitch. Spiritual work, and specifically meditation, with ADHD can seem like the most impossible task, considering that the majority of what spiritual practice is is cultivating the discpline and art of paying attention. What could be more of a nightmare for someone with ADHD then to sit down, shut, don’t move, and pay attention even when what you’re focusing on has no interest to you for long periods of time? I was on ADHD medication from the age of 6 till 22 until I went cold turkey (DON’T DO THAT!) and never went back on. Since that time I’ve struggled with energy problems, had to cut out certain foods once I got off because for one reason or another they just would train wreck my nervous system (it would feel like pouring water onto a circuit board), and had even less capacity to tolerate spiritual practices. Though there was an adjustment over time, I had to find for myself ways through experimentation ways of being to sit down and meditate and train my mind. I tried nootropics for a bit but, for those that have been on medication for a LONG time (I’d say beyond 10 years), you know how easy and quickly the body adapts to such short cuts. I was tired of using pills and shortcuts that didn’t work long term. Then I started experimenting with feeling my body, Reichian therapy, the release of energetic blockages where I hold a lot of my psychosomatic trauma and all of a sudden I would find myself in states of deep samadhi with little to no effort. How? A mind/body holding in emotions/tension/energy is a mind that can’t stop thinking. Release that and the mind will quiet. For those who feel great quietness of mind after a cathartic emotional release from a lot of crying or therapy session know what I’m talking about. Somewhat recently I video chatted with one of the highest Zen masters in the West (I’d argue the world), Doshin Roshi. As Ken Wilber puts it “Doshin is one of the most accomplished spiritual teachers on the planet.” Though I’m now part of Doshins Integral Zen sangha here in Boulder/Denver, I had the opportunity to video chat with him before I moved here back in early August. I explained my struggles with my practice because of my ADHD and he cut me off and said “I have ADHD and OCD. Don’t mean nothing,” followed by a hearty laugh. Left speechless, I took him up on that and that maybe I was just making excuses for not just continuing to find what it is I’m doing wrong in my practice. Boy was he right. Now I want to give credit where credit is due to @ardacigin where he talked a lot about Culadasas approach to teaching meditation and Arda gave an outline of the progression of practice along with a very detailed explanation of the how it is this works, why it works, and why this outline is important. I bought the Mind Illumibated on Kindle and by the time I finished reading what Culadasa calls the first stage of practice and immediately tried it out, within 5 minutes I FINALLY could hold access concentration. Totally blown away I kept doing it and was able to sustain it longer and longer and longer. This is being done by someone that dropped out of college because he couldn’t pay attention (and more stuff). So, what exactly did I do? Do NOT make the intent to hold your focus. Yes you read that right. That is NOT the goal. The goal is simply to remember whenever your mind wanders off and gently bring it back every time. If your mind is going so crazy you can bring it back, remain in the same posture but just take some time to regather, then resume when ready. Why do you not just go for yoking your attention? Because if you’re still struggling to maintain focus, you can’t force because the very “act” of forcing is a thought itself. Concentration develops on its own. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS. I am blown away at how this is working. So in conclusion, if you have ADHD, I don’t think you necessarily need to go about the route of paying for excessive nootropics or neurofeedback. I no longer subscribe to ADHD being a reason you can’t progress without special something that necessarily costs thousands of dollars to fix. Da Vinci was enlightened and realized the nature of Nothingness and he had terrible ADHD. There are Zen masters of the highest order who have it. I think it takes a matter of working with emotions, your nervous system, and the right practice. I recommend you read The Mind Illuminated. Look into traditional Hatha yoga practices before you get steeped into Kriya. Look into releasing energetic/emotional/neuromuscular tension built up. And most importantly, I suggest you take responsibility and start. If you want Truth, you want to go as far as you can with this path? Stop talking shit about how much you want it. DO IT. Figure it out. Stop theorizing. Stop neurotically analyzing. Spend the majority of your time practicing and contemplating. You don’t even necessarily need high concentration to realize who and what you are. Find what works for you. Nothing that is effective is done because you follow a certain system. Systems are bullshit and a waste of time if they don’t work for you. Find what works for you or create what works for you. If you need to meditate in intervals, meditate in intervals. If you need to give verbal reminders to yourself and break your outer silence while you meditate to console yourself, provide determination and discpline, or just regather yourself, give yourself verbal reminders. If you don’t know what to do, talk to enlightened masters. They are available. You even know of them. Do you email Ralston? Do you email or get in contact with guys like Martin Ball? Do you message other yogis and other such people? From the fantasy I see on here regarding what you think enlightened people are like, the answer I would give would be no and that’s just insane. These people are available to help you. They even WANT to help you and give you their perspective. They will help dispel fantasies and just downright bullshit. They will give you tips and even provide encouragement and hook you up with connections. You need to be responsible for your own awakening because no one else is going get you to awaken but you. No guru is going to do it. You and only you can. Who else could do it? Done.

Do you miss having hair?

That has everything to do with you. That has nothing to do with him. Lol “I consciously hate him”. You are such a prime example of spiritual narcissism. You enjoy fantasies dude. I’d bet lottery money that if we put you to a test to see how free of fear, pain, suffering, etc. you’d crack. You’re a parrot. You parrot stuff on the Internet pretending you know people with the way you lecture people. As though you know a damn thing. You ain’t free. You ain’t awake. If you are still bound by suffering, you ain’t free. You parrot Leo because it’s convenient. If you really were as awake as you like to talk you’d be doing something other than projecting on a forum and would actually be doing something in the world. You enjoy fantasies. Which is to say, you enjoy lying. Ralston is an enlightened master whether you like it or not. A person whose truly free is not bound to a “spiritual” agenda and have to fit your fantasy of what an enlightened master should be. Grow up dude. Youre projections on this forum are honestly getting nauseating. You lack empathy. You lack humility. You lack compassion. You lack real truth. You lack self reflection.

That’s true whether you’re “powerful” or “weak”.