Emerald

My thought is that, if I can't watch the killing process happening, then I probably shouldn't be eating meat... or dairy since the diary industry causes just as much death and suffering. I try not to judge things as good/bad or right/wrong as I know that all is one. And that one thing can't really be harmed. However, on the more practical level, I know that I wouldn't want it done to me and I can't even watch it without being disturbed about it for days. So, I choose not to eat meat and I don't eat dairy unless I have no other choice, as my family is struggling financially right now. So, I don't always have the option right now to cut it out as I'm working with just the basic stuff that my family has in the house, which sometimes contains dairy. But as soon as we're back to being financial stable, I'm cutting out dairy again.

I would posit that your experiences of ego-loss correlate to the effects of the drug but are not directly caused by the drug, if that makes sense. So, the not being able to function is probably caused by the drugs and not the ego loss, if that makes sense. I experienced mine as a result of experimenting with Ayahuasca. The high was very mild in many ways, as I had most of my normal faculties. The effect of the drug was mostly seeing images super-imposed on things and at the onset a nice body high. But I was able to function. I don't know if it would have even been super apparent that I was high. But the profoundness didn't come directly from the effects of the drug, it came from the dropping of the personal self. My self-concept just became less important to me, and it was as though I zoomed out from my sense of self. So, all the things I would normally edit out of my internal experience and repress away, came back into my conscious awareness. I could still make decisions and had preferences, but I didn't run them through the filter of the personal self. I still knew how reality worked, and I could still make sound decisions. Less so, because I was high. But none of the impairment came from the dropping of the personal self. It was separate from the drug effects.

Why is that scary to you? I've experienced ego-transcendence before. It's pretty uncommon but not as uncommon as you may think. There are others on this forum have had a glimpse or two before as well. I don't know why I would have to be careful though. These happened years ago.

I'm telling you that you don't from personal experience. I'm not speculating.

I was able to function perfectly fine and even better when I let go of the personal self for that short time. The identity is not needed for proper functioning. People just get used to functioning in a way where everything that happens to them and every thought that they think gets filtered through this idea of the personal self. But it's just an idea, and it distorts things a lot. For example, I have a difficult time standing up for myself in certain situations for fear of seeming a way that I don't want to seem. It causes me a lot of anxiety and takes away from the quality of my life, because my boundaries aren't as firm as would be comfortable for me. However, when the personal self dropped away for that time, I was completely unaffected by this issue. I had such deep love for everything in existence... including myself. In fact, other and self were one thing. It was like an equalizing effect. So, I know that, from that state, I would have no issue enforcing my boundaries. But I recommend trying to get a glimpse of what it is to be beyond ego. You seem to be under the wrong impression about what it is like. It isn't what it seems from the way it is described.

Enlightenment means to have the personal self drop away completely and for good. A glimpse is just a glimpse. If you experience a temporary drop of the personal self but it comes right back, it is of little value to your pursuit of enlightenment beyond having extra motivation and faith, because memory and thoughts cannot understand enlightenment. Even if you have a memory of what it's like, it is not enlightenment and it puts you no closer to it. I think motivation is important to take into account here. Having experienced this shift, I now seek it for the primary reason that it feels so much better to be that way. So, I seek it so that I can be at peace. Despite my experience with it in the past, I don't have that peace now. I'm still attached to the personal self. So, despite experiencing it... I am not enlightened now. There is a qualitative difference, and not just a 'Oh... I saw it and now I know and it's a done deal.' So, even if you have an experience where the personal self drops away, this is not enlightenment. It is a glimpse. Also, a key quality of being enlightened is a complete cease to the seeking process. It just comes about, and it's undeniable. If Leo is still seeking then he is correct in saying that he isn't enlightened. EVERYONE seeks except for the enlightened. If he were grasping at seeking and didn't want his quest to be over, that means he's definitely not enlightened... as this too is a form of grasping and seeking.

That's good to hear.

How is life going for you?

My advice was more on the practical wisdom level and not the higher wisdom level. I'm just saying to be careful putting too much stock in any person. I'm sure that Leo would agree with this statement too.

I respect your beliefs. But I do want to caution you about making Leo or anyone else into a messiah or an answer to some perceived deficiency of reality. If you're seeking enlightenment, you should recognize that your beliefs are beliefs. These will get in the way of your ability to see what is true beyond the frameworks of the mind.

I was agnostic leaning heavily atheist and I know for a fact that I wouldn't have been interested in spirituality, if it hadn't been for my entheogen induced experiences. If it gave me anything, it's that I was able to see far beyond my grasp and understand how reality actually is for a short time. So, it was a very intense and out of nowhere initiation to the spiritual path. I fell down many a rabbit hole and my life suffered for it over the course of the years directly following those experiences, despite the fact that life is better for me now in light of them. But I could have gotten so lost that I couldn't recover from it. So, for those who were already interested in psychedelics and would have done them anyway, I say "sure, why not? If it's that important to you." For those who weren't interested in psychedelics before but now think of them as a path to enlightenment, I say proceed with caution and be very honest with yourself about why you're doing it. Know your limits. That said, I don't recommend using them repeatedly for anyone as this can cause some issues over time. Also, if a person has a genuine awakening from them, they should expect that their entire worldview will be turned on its ear. The ramifications of this can be intense and life-changing, for better and worse.

I had my awakenings as a result of experimentation with entheogens. So, my speculations aren't really based in closed-mindedness. I do recognize them as speculations though. I speculate that they cannot bring about permanent enlightenment because they did not create any permanent expanded awareness for me, even in the slightest. But they did make me believe that I had achieved something, and much chaos ensued in my life because I didn't understand the nature of paradoxes and I started to choke out practical truths for higher truths that I had access to during those experiences. One bit of wisdom that has stuck with me was that it was clear that I didn't need the entheogen to get back to that state. I think entheogens can catalyze a samadhi experience and give a glimpse of non-dual awareness, but that they will not result in a permanent shift. In fact, I found that my resistance and identification simply doubled down, and I became a lot more rigid.

I have always felt that Leo is using enlightenment for a sense of adding significance or meaning to his life, and I've mentioned it to him before in several comments in past videos. He mentions a lot, fearing regretting his life on his death bed and has also said in a comment that becoming a monk is really the only thing of significance, which seems to reveal an underlying urge to become significant. Of course, I don't know for sure as I only see him in videos and occasionally comments, so there is a high degree of assumption there. I see in him similar patterns to that which I had in myself prior to my experiences, and it seemed evident then that these were the mindsets that kept me attached to my sense of identity. Leo seems very attached to ideas of willpower and hard-work and his personal philosophy on life. He doesn't really ever seem to budge on them. Now in most scenarios, these strong values are virtues... and they are necessary in some degree. But they can be huge stumbling blocks as well when it comes to letting go of identity attachments. Also, he has been pretty defensive lately and seems to write off criticisms as simply closed mindedness and projection. So, to critique my own pettiness with the same brutality to separate the wheat from the chaff in what I'm saying... These are, of course, projections and judgements based upon my own experience of my tendencies toward just the patterns that I call him out on. And calling him out is definitely rooted largely in ego. I critique him on it because I often have these mindsets, and I see hints of them shining through in him and others. Since, I see him as more of an authority than me, I feel comfortable calling him out as opposed to other people who I keep my judgments to myself about. I also admire his work and he has inspired me a lot, so any critique I've given to him directly comes from an egoic desire to help someone who's helped me. I have a huge desire to be patted on the head. I'm also a competitive person. So, this competition comes into play when I criticize him. So, I think these are the main petty mindsets that I have, so bare these in mind when I lay out what's genuine about my criticisms. From a more genuine concern for people, I also think that his advice is getting a bit dangerous considering how influential he is. That is because: 1. Leo is a seeker and thus doesn't really know the end that he seeks despite his copious amounts of research and consciousness work. I think he's really getting lost because he's using the - normally very effective - method of scoping out the end goal and putting all his attention and focus toward making that end goal happen. But the end goal of enlightenment is necessarily hazy, even if he's caught glimpses of it here and there. And it's very easy to convince yourself that you know more than you do. So, his hypothesis that psychedelics can lead to permanent enlightenment are necessarily speculative. So, despite the fact that many people can understand that his hypothesis is based in speculation and can make responsible decisions about it, there is a sizable minority who don't grasp this and will believe whole-heartedly that psychedelics are a means toward permanent enlightenment. 2. Many of Leo's viewers are coming from a place of various perceived or actual deficiencies in life and are looking for improvement from his channel. Many of them are very young too. So, recommending psychedelics to someone in such a place of deficiency could be very detrimental. I think Leo, in his idealism, tend to assume that others are as intelligent as he is. It's the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect where intelligent people take for granted that they are average and assume that others can handle the same things as them. So, much of Leo's advice in what he believes that others can handle, many cannot. It can open the door for people to misuse or become addicted to the drugs, and they may easily deceive themselves into believing they are doing something of benefit. Also, on a similar note, I struggled a lot after my awakenings because I wasn't ready to be exposed to higher truths. Imagine taking someone who really needs to improve their life, then they get access to higher wisdom that seems to send them in the opposite direction. This was like, during my experiences, I realized that my drives for self-improvement and success were actually what was keeping me from the fulfillment that I sought. So, I took my hands off the wheel when it came to creating the life that I wanted because I didn't want to indulge the ego. Many may think they're ready, but are not ready. 3. He recommends doing the psychedelics over a course of time, on a regular basis to sort of wear down the ego over time. This just seems very dangerous to me, even for people who can handle psychedelics and a potential awakening that results from them. So, there are real concerns that I have. So even though projection and unconsciousness has a lot to do with my criticism, there are still many things that genuinely don't sit well with me regarding Leo's advice on psychedelics and 5 MEO DMT particularly.

I just got a couple notices of someone trying to reset my password on here. Has anyone else had any suspicious activity on their account?

Oh... Leo... I already mastered that years ago. Get up to speed... plebeian.

I don't know if this is in response to my comment. But I stand by every word of what I said. I think you're often a bit too sure of your perspective, as you have a strong tendency toward idealism and you have a love affair with willpower and determination - the most simultaneously nefarious and amiable of allies on such a path. But I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I still think your perspective is awesome. All that said- and I'm not trying to kiss your ass- some aspects of Rali's videos are way off regarding your perspective. I know that your perspective is not that enlightenment makes it possible for you to walk through walls and do magic tricks. So, I think he should probably watch your videos more thoroughly as opposed to just cherry picking to use them for click bait. But he does have many valid things to say as well.

I did not say that. What I said was that reality doesn't need fixing. But on the topic of knowledge. Prior to and after my experiences of ego transcendence, I was incredibly thirsty for knowledge. I couldn't get enough of it and I wanted to stuff myself completely full with it. It was a constant searching, learning, seeking, digesting, assimilating, and utilizing knowledge. But there was never a sense of satisfaction there. My mind never rested. However, in those brief hours when I had transcended my identity, the urge for more knowledge completely dropped away and I realized that I had only ever been seeking the state that I was now in. I was satisfied in those hours. And there was this deep sense that I didn't need to constantly look around for new knowledge, as I already knew everything that I could ever want to know. And this knowing was already within me. I had access to all the wisdom, and I didn't need to figure any of it out. I could just take from it what I needed. So, if what you seek is enlightenment, my recommendation is to 1. Get rid of your grasping for knowledge. 2. Recognize that reality is perfect, even if you don't prefer what happens in it. 3. Recognize your judgments of reality and others that oppose your worldview as stumbling blocks to your own expansion.

Careful with these mindsets. They are attachments and therefore barriers to enlightenment. It taints your intentions for enlightenment, because you want something from enlightenment that's out in the future. It is a desire for things to be otherwise and a non-acceptance of the current reality. Since enlightenment and unconditional acceptance/love go hand in hand, wanting reality to be some other way and making enlightenment into a means for that desired reality come to fruition is a stumbling block. You have to want whatever is... exactly as it is. So, talking about missions and the like, really gets you off track. Reality is perfect and needs no improvement. Any grand scheme to improve reality is based in the ego-consciousness paradigm. This is not to say you can't have preference... just don't take them too seriously. The world doesn't need saviors.

Thank you!

Rali and I did a collaboration video last night, which we'll both post at some point this week. The way he describes his experiences, I believe - in light of my own experiences, however limited- that he is enlightened and has a lot of great things to say. I think his critiques of Leo are valid, though I know he appreciates Leo's work. My view is that Leo in necessarily riding blind, as is anyone who is seeking enlightenment. So, he's doing his best. But he gets a bit over-confident and gets lost in his own ideas about enlightenment. It's understandable, but maybe not optimal for someone who has so many subscribers. Either way, I really enjoy Leo's channel. That said, I think his idealism and his natural tendency toward hierarchical thinking gets in the way.

I learned about the permanence of death when I was three and smashed a small frog. I thought that resurrection was possible since I had seen shows where people had been resuscitated from drowning, so I was really shocked and upset when my mom told me that we couldn't bring the frog back to life. But my first really memorable anxiety about death was when I was 4 or 5. My sister and I had gone to a youth group at a church in my hometown. I felt weird there the whole time as I wasn't used to going to church, despite the fact that we were only doing arts and crafts and things like that. I disliked it being there very much because I didn't like the feel of it. So, at some point during the week there was also a congregation where the youth pastor would talk to us about things. And one story really disturbed me. He said that- paraphrased from memory- "you have to make sure that you let Jesus into your heart when he knocks. You never know if you're going to wake up the next morning. So, if Jesus knocks on your heart in the night and it's time to go, before you die, let him in." So, I didn't sleep well that night. I wondered what it would feel like if Jesus knocked on my heart and if that would kill me. Then, what if I went to hell because I didn't know how to let Jesus into my heart, as I imagined this scenario literally and not figuratively. What if I wasn't good enough to go to heaven and I had to be with the devil for all of eternity? What if I mix things up? I was terrified that Jesus would come in the night. But I think I was already scared of death before this.

I have occasionally experienced brief bouts of depersonalization while looking in the mirror. Like "Holy crap... is that really me... this is who I'll be for the rest of my life... and this is what I happen to look like... and my name is Emerald... weird... and I'll never be someone else?" It's a very interesting phenomenon.

Although there are certainly some regressive things relative to spirituality in the past and there has been a lot of devaluing and disenfranchisement of women, there is truth in the idea of the masculine and feminine principle, yang and yin respectively. And it truly isn't just men making it up... even though people often use it socially to disenfranchise women. These polar energies can be found in every living and non-living system and supersede but imbue human gender. Everyone has a unique signature inborn and though there is a strong correlation to gender, we can see that everyone is different as nature is never black and white. When I had my awakening experiences, and zoomed out from the particular self that I thought myself to be more things were allowed into my experience because I no longer had a sense of self to protect. So, I was okay with accepting all parts of myself and no fear of inferiority, and the feeling that came over me was a thick pervasive feeling that I immediately recognized as femininity. Given that I was raised in a place that valued the masculine over the feminine, I had been repressing and denying my femininity for years and instead allowing only my masculine side to flourish. I thought of it as an impediment and weakness to be feminine as I saw it as something of a limitation. But this was an overwhelmingly empowering feeling as all social concepts of femininity as weakness fell away, and I was really myself then. Prior to this, I always thought masculinity and femininity were just social constructs but they're much deeper than that. So, in my experience, masculinity and femininity are real but are often socially used to keep women down. So, I always sense this othering that happens in these types of conversations and I really hate it. But to ignore the idea altogether isn't helpful either, even though it can be painful given the social baggage that often comes along with it.

I wouldn't worry too much unless you notice it worsening or intensifying from your use of 5 MEO. Do exercise caution and be sure to space out your experiences quite a bit though. If it were me, I would even set a limit on how many times I plan to do it over the course of the next several years. But that's just my personal advice. But I see things in a grainy way too. This is especially evident when it's dark. I think that might just be the way that vision is.

This reminds me of when I was in labor with my daughter. This was over five years ago before I knew anything about meditation too. The contraction would be so overwhelmingly painful, so I would focus on it trying to find little moments of relief. Then I would fall asleep for a few moments during the downtimes between contractions and wake back up and do the same thing. It was like the pain was forcing me to focus and pay attention to my body.