Forestluv

Yea, thats the paradoxical conundrum: Nowhere is the destination. Somewhere = Nowhere

@Scholar Are you familiar with Peter Singer? You seem to share a frequency with him.

@Michael Paul ? ♥️

A very chill playlist. If I was on the Johns Hopkins team, I'd sneak in some Shpongle. . .

Users have the option to "hide" their own posts - within a certain time limit. We ask that users do this sparingly, because if post hiding is common-place it causes fragmented threads and confusion.

This was my experience. I had 20+ years of zen/buddhist meditation and participation in sanghas. I had always resonated most strongly regarding teachings of ego. Yet I never felt like I clearly “got it”. Then I had my first trip - a high dose of 4-aco-dmt. As “me” returned, it was clearly revealed and I thought: “So that’s what the awakened buddhists were talking about all these years!” These days when I visit buddhist communities, I need to tone it down and hold back on some stuff - or they will kick me out ?

Yep!

Yea. There are many ways to frame it: real vs. imagined ; real vs. illusion ; ego delusion vs. non-delusion ; ego's imagination vs. infinite imagination . . . and on and on. . . This is all within relativity and has relative practical value. Yet if someone has the ability to access Absolute, universal, objective distinctions within relativity - that would be extraordinary. Yet it always collapses into someone unaware they are conflating Absolute and relative - which is super common. . .

@Inliytened1 Yes. So. . . if a being had the ability to assign Absolute distinctions within the sameness of real/imagined, it would be an extremely high level of consciousness. This would a level of god-consciousness as high as any I have experienced. . . It seems like generic relative distinctions being offered, yet the OP seems highly confident that he has access to something beyond that and that we are missing something. So I'm curious how it may work. Maybe I am missing something. . .

Your posts have stimulated some exploratory thoughts in my mind. I don't intend to frame this as "you are wrong" and "I am right", so I will use the pronoun "we". . . . These are just explorations in my mind that is helping me clear up some cloudiness regarding God. . . We say that *you* is a "mistaken idea that there is a separate entity that needs to be liberated." And then we say "You cannot liberate yourself. Devotion to God is the final method" This seems the same as saying: "A mistaken idea cannot liberate itself. Devotion to God is the final method (to liberate a mistaken idea from itself)." . . . This seems to make sense, a mistaken idea cannot liberate itself from itself. . . The "catch" seems to come with the Devotion to God part. . . If the person is a mistaken idea, how can a mistaken idea Devote itself to God? This seems strange. Another way of looking at it is that there is liberation from the attachment/identification to a mistaken idea of self. Then saying "an mistaken idea cannot liberate itself from the attachment/identification with the mistaken idea", seems to make sense. Yet how a mistaken idea can Devote itself to God still seems strange. We could say that rather than the mistaken idea itself, it is the subjective experience of a mistaken idea (of self) that seems real which Devotes itself to God. Yet again, how can a subjective experience Devote itself to God? . . . We could say "There is no actual Devotion to God, just a subjective experience of Devotion to God". Yet, this seems to be a different contextualization. To me, the term "Devote" is awkward since there is nothing that can Devote itself to God - especially if the mistaken idea of self and the subjective experience of self are expressions of God. In this context, that would be saying God needs to Devote itself to itself to liberate itself from itself. . . If Devotion to God is simply an illusory subjective experience of Devotion, it raises a common question of whether a path of Devotion to God is the best approach. We are essentially using subject experience to trick a mistaken idea of self (that doesn't even exist) to Devoting it's non-existence to God. In the end, it's a total sham. It seems more efficient to cut to the chase and realize You are God. Yet I suppose that could diminish the human experience in a way. If we say a guru is a symbol of God, we are adding in a distinction of separation. We have created two things: God and the symbol of God. If we say that symbols of God are the middle-men, we have now created a third thing of distinction. There is God, the symbol of God and the being perceiving the symbol of God. . . What happens if we don't add in these distinctions? Then the symbol of God is God. Likewise, the being perceiving the symbol of God (God itself) is also God. The symbol, God and the being are all God. We need to add in human constructs of distinctions to create separation. Taken together, God is playing a magic trick on itself. . .What a prankster. . .

@Nivsch What are your impressions of the election results?

I'm curious of the context of "yourself" used here. There comes a point that "yourself" vs "non-yourself" breaks down. "yourself to non-yourself" is a construction of the mind. As well, who/what is it that devotes "their self" to God? You say that Gurus are the middle men of symbols, yet isn't "yourself" also a middle man of symbols?

Your questions assume that the above is true. I would first question this assumption. Is this even true? If not, the subsequent “why” dissolves. For example: why do purple pigs only fly at night? If we don’t accept the assumption that “purple pigs fly at night” the “why” they do so becomes irrelevant.

Threads merged @AlphaAbundance Please don’t start multiple threads on the same theme.

At the personal level, there is a benefit to being ignorant. If you were at a magic show, would you like to learn how the magic trick works? Or would that spoil the fun?

You seem confident in your ability to distinguish what is real from what is imagined. I'm curious: how do you differentiate between real and imagined?

@Ibn Sina I wish you the best along your journey ? ❤️

A positive orientation can help, yet I’ve also found it important to decondition stuff that was programmed into me. As well, actions are really important. Taking the actions of someone who is healthy. One thing I did was train for a marathon. For the first couple of years, I felt like an imposter - some guy pretending to be a marathon runner. Yet then a funny thing happened. After running marathons for years, I was training newbies for their first marathon. People regularly came to me for advice about training, injuries and nutrition. Then one day I suddenly realized “Holy shit, I’m a marathon runner. This is it”. All that action transformed my mind, body and spirit. . . . So what actions can you take to transform your mind, body and spirit? The next 10 years will pass whatever actions you take. Why not take actions that will transform you into an amazing person?

@Aakash Similar to you, I like to explore ideas and conceptualizing. I could easily go 8 hours straight conceptualizing. Alone or with others. It’s just how I’m oriented. For many years I sought for some “it”. Some meaning or truth. Yet ultimately, it’s all meaningless. It’s like building a sand castle. I would build sand castles wanting to construct a castle that was “it”. Yet like you said in a preposterous, it’s pointless. What’s the point of building a sand castle? It’s meaningless and that can be heart-breaking. Yet the meaninglessness makes it so meaningful. Last summer, I was on the beach building sand castles with my three young nieces. The meaninglessness of it was profoundly sad. Whatever we constructed would soon be washed away to nothing. Yet that is also what made it so beautiful. It was the intimately beautiful sadness of Now. So, I ‘m not naturally a fan of Now. I naturally find it boring af and my mind wants to conceptualize. One nice thing about a medium dose of psychedelics is that it can deactivate the hyper conceptualization in my mind. And it transforms Now from boring af to the most fascinating thing EVER. Even something like watching an ant crawl on the ground is the most amazing thing. So amazing I want to call strangers over to see it. Zero conceptualization. Pure presence and being in awe. This is a whole new world. It is my favorite aspect of psychedelics - more so than the razzle dazzle stuff. Pure presence that is so deeply intimate it makes me want to cry or giggle. It sounds like you have also had glimpses into this Now. It is a new whole world. Yet like I said, my natural state is to think and conceptualize. It takes effort for me to relax and disable this and sidestep the onset of boredom with Now. Yet when I do, Nowness is Wowness.

nothing *+* everything?

Well said. I would just add that love is groundless. . .

@Aakash means "just kidding". You are good.

Yes, an expansion of the Golden Rule. . . Nice. . . I like this framework with animals. I observe a lot of humanism in the world. This is a pointer toward trans-human awareness, yet I think most people would still contextualize it within a human mindset. Yet it's great to encourage people to try to see other perspectives. We could extend the analogy to trees as well. Imagine the earth as a giant organism and the Amazon Rainforest is the lung of the organism. You don't now what type of "cell" you will be in the giant organism - how have to design the physiology or the organism. . . Fun stuff

This was tough to surrender. I really wanted my 5-meo experience to Mu-ville to have been "real". . .