kieranperez

Try doing a different approach. Don’t get stuck pursuing one technique. You sound like you have an awesome drive. Remember, enlightenment is getting where you already are. Right here. Not elsewhere. It’s right here. It’s true right now. Console yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. If you’re not getting good results fishing in pond #1, try pond #2. You’re not a failure. Just remind yourself your seeking something true that’s in plain sight. Keep going and don’t be harsh with yourself and spend some of that time just accepting yourself, even if you don’t know what that is. Console yourself, chin up, shed some tears of frustration if you need to (really, get that out of your system. I can imagine you may have a lot of pent up frustration so it’s important to release that and then accept yourself) and then stand back up, get back on the trail, keep your head up and continue your climb up the mountain. Much love to you

It’s counterintuitive that the more you know, the less you actually know

So I currently work at REI (which if you live in the USA you probably know what that is) in the San Francisco Bay Area in Marin. Yesterday I was helping a customer with shoes and as I was just casually answering this man’s questions (he was 72 by the way) we were talking about the benefits of saying barefoot running and all this stuff and, I don’t even know how it got here, we started talking about meditation and I said ‘if people were told what real meditation is they’d never do it.’ We then brought up how he used to live in a Zen monastery that’s part of San Francisco Zen Center in Tassajara California for close to 2 decades and left the monastery 32 years ago. This caught me off guard and of course raised my excitement because I just took this guy as some any other old customer that comes into the store. There was no beaming radiance or simplicity that we often fantasize as still some mark of a divine person. I then asked him “did you find what you were looking for?” And he just responded with a casual giggle “yeah and then some.” I then immediately asked “was it worth it?” He just casually smirked (not meaning anything by it) and said in the tone of voice of any ordinary person his age “of course. It’s the only thing there’s is worth anything. But it’s not a big deal or anything.” Wishing I wasn’t at work and I could just ask him more questions about how I can do the same thing he switched the conversation and asked a couple more questions on the shoes and then thanked me and headed back downstairs and left. I think the part about this whole thing that took some time to really sink in was how ordinary he was and blended in with everyone. He was just an old 70 year old man who knows who he is. Nothing special. No wise words. No mission. And that’s what I loved. He didn’t need to talk about it. He didn’t need to live as anything or be anything. It’s been on my mind this whole time. Its funny because my biggest drive is to both do these certain things in life and also at the same time I want to be a total nobody. I want to be absolutely nothing.

Dude my whole point is that there isn’t some mystical shmystical “energy”. Some, yeah sure you feel a connection but really, toss those ideas. He’s a totally ordinary person that still knows something extrodirnary. I’ve met some enlightened people and my favorite part about these people is that they operate outside of these fantastical norms that we think enlightened people operate as and in. There is no intentional disguise either. He got what he was looking for and now it’s life back in the market place. Business as usual and it will remain business as usual. Climb the mountain then descend in whatever fashion you choose. This whole oozing bliss stuff to be enlightened is literally just a fantasy. There’s a truth to it but enlightened people are never all going to fit a certain bill, because enlightenment also about living life authentically. Some choose to wear robes and start an ashram and that’s their holy divine life. Some choose to live as an “ordinary” lay person and that’s their divine life. Also I’m not saying he’s some master. I don’t know and I really have no interest because how the hell am I or anyone really going to know what he knows? It’s irrelevant and as he said “it’s not a big deal.” Granted he’s saying that after the fact so keep that in mind. Like anything else, it’s a big deal until you arrive and get it.

Well yeah of course he is. I have had thoughts where I’d see those 2 interacting and i think where Joe would be skeptical, and rightfully so, would start if Ralston told Rogan how he’s mastered every single martial art out there. I say rightfully so because of how much of a stretch that is since something like that is so abnormally rare even among some of the best fighters of the world. I mean, even I have a hard time trusting such a claim and I’m a huge fan of Ralston since his style of contemplating and such really fits with me. I think Rogan would be more open to the mindfuck component in terms of the existential stuff. Again, I don’t think this interview would ever happen since Ralston is still a very unknown guy I imagine so I wouldn’t be surprised if Rogan doesn’t even know of him (however I wouldn’t be surprised if he did) and I don’t think it’d make sense to have him on just for the sake of his audience and since no one knows Ralston. I think Rogan is at a point where he’s having bigger name people on now because he’s so popular now to the point where I don’t see him bringing on small name people in terms of popularity at this point unless he knows of them already. Which is why I bring up people like Ken Wilber. Sadhguru would be cool but I doubt he’d come on just from all the stuff he’s doing and everything.

Lolololol @Rilles I just think it’d be interesting considering both their backgrounds in martial arts and what Peter would bring to the conversation.

I’d add a 4th: Who could you have an important impact on?

Lol alright smart guy

How did that work out for Christ. You’re looking for a fantasy.

When you have a deep awakening but the ego comes back

That is such a powerful insight right there that my eyes just went wide open and mouth open

I imagine you’re referring over the course of hundreds, maybe thousands of years? Assuming we survive

@purerogue ?

I have no idea what you’re talking. I don’t know what you’re asking “why?” about. I don’t play coy so please don’t place that bullshit on me. I don’t know what you’re questioned is aimed at. Are you asking why did I pick these 4 people? Are you asking why about a particular statement I made after I made my list? I don’t play coy and I also don’t care for your projections and nonsense all because you can’t make a clear question so I know what you’re asking about.

Contemplate what time is. Anything time bound is not real. Time itself is not real. There is no past and there is no future. I don’t know what that this question has to do with anything on this post but there you go. Please stick to the topic

I also 100000% agree with this. I’ve actually been falling into this the last few months. It turns nonduality a belief system which when you’re doing whatever practices you do makes them harder cause now you have a whole cosmology and those beliefs become very sticky. For me this is a problem (particularly) because I grew up under a dad who I learned this horrible dogmatic habit of hard debating and I can’t stand this habit in myself for all the different reasons it toxifies my life but also because I tend to be good at understanding what concepts are really pointing to intellectually and I have almost this thing, it’s almost like this subconscious talent, of being really good at understanding what’s really being spoken on a conceptual level and tying all these pieces in my mind and can see in my mind how they connect and now I have this whole elaborate cosmology that I tend to lie and pretend I know better than I do and defend those ideas. It’s a really nasty habit but also conceptualizinf this whole thing is just such a trap, especially on here where we by necessity have to use language which indulges the mind to map everything and unconsciously confusing the map for the territory. However, I’m getting pretty good at contemplating and grounding myself in the present and that the truth of what I’m after is right here right now and nowhere else which regrounds me in not knowing and curiosity.

@Joseph Maynor why what?

The only people I want to see Rogan have on: Ken Wilber Peter Ralston Leo Martin Ball I think those 4 would resonate and do well with Rogan. I think the 2 I’d count out seeing is Ralston and maybe Martin Ball (as in I think he may have a shot, but it’d be a long one at best). I’d love to see Wilber on and I think he’d be by far the most likely on that list to make it.

That would make a great koan

More personal stuff and logistical stuff. Don’t want to go into here

By eliminating all beliefs. See them as what they are, and then work on tossing them all (don’t take that as some simple easy thing). Pursue living day to day by means of real honesty with yourself and others and with more awareness of what you’re actually. Become aware that all beliefs are a means of keeping your self agenda in tact (which you likely didn’t create yourself). You can’t really change yourself so long as your working on the surface like a self image or beliefs because those are just surface level things. You can’t change what’s fundamental without working on what’s fundamental and that’s some really difficult business right there.

One entertains you the ego (DMT). The other one kills you the ego (5-MeO).

@Arthur what I meant more was, has this trip reoriented what you want out of life? As an outsider who hasn't taken 5-MeO yet, I personally want to take it just to have all my lies and falsehoods fall away so I can both die as an ego and "come back" having a deeper understanding of what my "authentic self" wants. So yes the God part, but also come to the core of what I deeply want to make my life about, even if it is all totally meaningless.

@CreamCat I've seen that episode and know more about mastery than most lol. Mastery has nothing to do with holding yourself to some fantastical unrealistic expectation. If you want to be driven and have your motivation systems come from irrelevant fantasies than be my guest. You clearly didn't read through my post. Perfection is what's real right now. Mastery as a process is the antithesis of what you're saying. You're not going to master everything. Not only will you not in real life but to pursue (not attain - even though mastery in a sense isn't really something you attain) absolute excellence and mastery in multiple things in your life is just a stupid unwise endeavor. That just leads to sloppy horrible work. Put the majority of your energy and focus into 1 thing. Perfection even as a concept means nothing if you acknowledge it doesn't exist. Just practice to get better. That's all. You wanna go ahead and do that, by all means.

Perfection is what's real. Period because you or anything or anybody else can't be other than what it ultimately is right now. I really want to help ground this whole notion of "perfection" because I see a lot of people talking about spiral dynamics and all the dozens of different lines of development, states, and stages as means to fantasize about creating this perfect person. Particularly people that follow TJ Reeve's relatively small little social media crowd and such people who espouse this whole ideology and just downright fantasy which is quite toxic because of like "I want to have the enlightenment of Christ or Buddha and have the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger (or something along those lines) and the intellect of Einstein or an Elon Musk and be financially free and only then will I have actualized my potential." @CreamCat I'm not saying you specifically are doing this but I see a lot of people wasting their time fantasizing over such ideals. I want you to consider that right now, you, everything in this world as well as everyone in it are already perfect. I'm not saying no one is dysfunctional, everything is all sun shine, kittens, cupcakes, divine bliss. As far as the relative world, hell no. What I am saying is that it can't be any other way than it already is. I remember hearing this great talk on YouTube with Byron Katie in a seminar with someone whose issue inside was this neurotic feeling of not living up to his potential and she was showing him that moment to moment he has living up to his full potential. By noticing this he was able to get out of the way of his own fantasies of what he thinks is his potential and perfect. If you think you're going to live life without regression in anything you're setting up a fantasy. Michael Jordan wasn't the best in the league after he retired in 1998. Father time catches up. Some great thinkers end up getting dementia and all sorts of mental illnesses as they get older. You may get into a car accident or something tomorrow. Regression is inevitable. The question I pose to you is, can you still see the perfection in that regression and still be happy and at peace with it?