Forestluv

That sounds like an expression of love. It just feels limited to me - like a story of what love is. Yet that's just my sense. I'm still exploring various dynamics of love.

Two threads on this topic have been merged here. Please use this thread for discussing favorite teachers.

To me, martyrdom can be a beautiful expression of love, yet I don't see how martyrdom is a requirement to reach such deep levels of love. To me, it can be sufficient yet not required. It is one of many expressions of deep love. Some of the deepest expressions of love I've seen and experienced have not involved martyrdom.

Why add martyrdom as necessary to reach the highest love?

I would say the dose depends on experience, mindset and setting. If this is your first time, you are basically mentally stable and plan to trip in a relatively peaceful environment, then 2g would be standard. 1.5g would be a bit more cautious yet would likely be enough to get you into another "zone". Intention varies on the person. I've had specific intentions like asking that deeper blocks be revealed or I've asked that more expansive states of awareness be revealed. I've also gone in open-minded to whatever lessons may arise. I would go into it humble and open. Going in with expectations / demands to get something specific out of the experience doesn't seem to work so well, at least for me anyway. I would also contemplate your setting. What type of environment will you be tripping? This can have a big impact on the trip.

This thread seems to have run it's course.

You seem to have a *place* in *time* in which there is peace. What you describe certainly sounds very relaxing and would likely allow a person to explore deeper states of consciousness without distractions of the rat race. I imagine it could be very beneficial to the mind-body. Yet what you describe is still within the fantasy of the mind. "If I only had abc, then I could do xyz and reach true peace". There are people that spend years, even decades, searching for that place in time. Yet that place is not Now. The transcendence of peace vs. no peace to Peace cannot be found in some place within the timeline - it can only be found Now. Imagine spending 20 years saving money to reach that place and one day finally being able to simply meditate and do yoga all day - and realizing "I'm still in dis-ease. This isn't the pure peace like I had imagined".

@Dodo I've been noticing this lately. From a state of beingness there is a sense of effortlessness. The mind-body is simply doing. It is running, thinking, typing, eating, working etc. It's almost like awareness is simply observing.

The results are encouraging: 48% yes is higher than I would have guessed. They will need to modify the initiative to address some community concerns and continue to increase awareness. I predict the next time on the ballot will pass. There will be more no-to-yes vote changes than yes-to-no over time. Below is an article with a local perspective: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/denver-rejects-measure-to-decriminalize-magic-mushrooms

@Edelweiss To me your mind seems to be deeply immersed within a complex story. Personally, I would step outside that story and observe the nature and dynamics of this story (and other stories) themselves. Rather than getting deeper immersed into a single storyline. My mind-body feels a lot of relaxation and freedom with that.

@Sauvik I love to hike and admire waterfalls in the springtime. What does this mean? Is hiking and waterfalls inherently meaningless? Do they inherently lack beauty? Or are they objectively beautiful? How could we test if they are inherently beautiful? Who would decided the tests or get to interpret the results?. . . These are questions that no longer arise in my mind while I'm in love with the direct experience of hiking and admiring waterfalls. . .

@Ponder Interesting story. I haven't heard that one before. Thanks for sharing it with us

@Surfingthewave Yea. Awakening isn’t for wimps. ?

The deeper question is whether Eckhart Tolle can chug down a six pack of beer faster than Adyashanti ?

Does 5-meo count as “food”? ?

Thinking within a past-future timeline isn't limited to stress and worry. My mind-body can engage is some wonderful past-future thinking. I may laugh with friends while reminiscing about some fun memories of the past. I may get excited about planning an adventure in the future. For a while, I tried to halt / repress thoughts within a past-present timeline - yet I've learned that isn't the best route for me. It just sets up an internal conflict and a struggle for control of the narrative. What helps more is awareness that thinking is taking place Now. It doesn't matter if it is thinking about the beauty of a song I'm listening to Now, regretting something I said in the past or worrying about something in the future. All of those thoughts are happening Now. Right now thoughts are flowing through my mind about taking a nature walk before it starts to rain. Those thoughts are occurring Now, just like the song I'm listening to is occurring Now. With this awareness, my mind-body generally relaxes a bit and a "higher" awareness and sense of being present arises.

Sure, from a self-centered perspective. Yet depending on the context, self-centered wants can have a negative impact to others and one's environment. Yes.

@Enizeo Music and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. It's not like you have to decide between becoming an olympic weightlifter or a horse jockey. Music and spirituality are highly inter-connected. Music and art is one of the best tools to explore consciousness. Ofc there will be time spent negotiating gigs and contracts, some time spent trying to figure out how to pay the bills etc. Yet along the path, there will be plenty of time to explore the overlap of music/spirituality/consciousness. For example, playing music is one of the best ways to enter flow states of consciousness - a form of meditation and nonduality. There is the exploration of the language of music as symbols and emotional expression. There is the collective consciousness with players in the band and the band with audience. Some of the most deeply conscious people I've met were musicians. Music is a natural form of expression for mystics. The musicians at an Ayahuasca retreat I did were off the chart talented in music and deeply conscious. Music and spirituality is a match made in heaven. It's like saying "I wish I had time to get into great physical shape, yet unfortunately I want to pursue a career as a professional athlete. . . "

Interesting how this is a list of "negative" symptoms that most people would like to eliminate, while holding onto the "positive" egoic stuff. To me, the list reads more like a personal development list to me - albeit a very healthy list for personal development. I'd like to see a list with all the "positive" egoic traits. It is so tempting to create a "good ego", "bad ego" dichotomy.

"On what basis" is a relative question. One could create an infinite number of bases in favor and against as well as an infinite number of mixtures of in favor/against. And rather than asking "should", why not get in touch with your heart and truest desires? Without the "shoulds", what do you feel called toward?

I'm not well-studied in QM, yet my surface-level understanding is that the results are quite radical. It is saying something physical is simultaneously material and immaterial. And that this material/immaterial is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. My understanding of the latest experiment is that one observer sees superposition of everywhere/nowhere while another observer simultaneously sees position. This stuff isn't just talk about the relative nature of reality. These are high-tech instruments showing simultaneous existence/non-existence and simultaneous there and not there. Simultaneous nowhere/everywhere/somewhere. How can a "thing" simultaneously be nowhere/everywhere/somewhere. To me, this has radical implications for the nature of reality - and can be a link between science and mysticism.

@Lister Thanks for exchanging thoughts with me in the thread. You helped prompt me to gain clarity on a couple things I’ve been contemplating ♥️ ?

I wouldn't consider it a teaching, no more than I would consider bird chirps as a teaching. It just appears. Yet within the construct of a timeline, one could imagine causation. What "caused" these appearances to arise? This would get quite tricky indeed as there are an infinite number of causative inputs. Yet it certainly appears that my mind-body has been shaped by many occurrences within it's lifetime - including a wide variety of "spiritual" beings - both human and non-human. What has resonated with my mind-body has changed over time. If your question is in regards to "learning" about this through a teacher, book, video, philosophy, experience etc. - then there is no source in that regard. There is no one source. There have been many many that have influenced me. My mind is is not beholden to any teaching or idea. Each sources as a separate entity is very limiting. For me, a deeper level became "no teachers" and "all teachers". In terms of models of consciousness expansion, that is a major expansion. One of the keys of "liberation" at the human level is no attachment/identification to any idea. For example, a test for me at the human level is. . . can I let go of those ideas I just wrote about as I let go of bird chirps? Or do they mean a little bit more to me than bird chirps? Can I wake up totally fresh in this moment completely free of all these ideas? Or will my mind-body carry them around in a backpack? Are these ideas simply bird chirps floating by, or are they attached to my mind-body? Do I actually believe these ideas are true? Will I wake up tomorrow speaking of these ideas as if I believe them. If so, there is some attachment within the mind-body. . . "But wait. . . what I wrote is so profound and insightful. I invested many years for those wonderful insights. . . And I had that amazing Mu experience of nothingness. . . That's gotta count for something!! ". Such thoughts simply arise in the mind-body - it's part of the personal human story.

This reminds me of recent experiments in quantum mechanics. A photon can have a clockwise or counter-clockwise spin orientation. When it is not measured, it is in a superposition - the photon has both and neither spin orientation. Upon observation, the photon adopts either a clockwise of counter-clockwise orientation. Once observed, it has to spin one way or the other, right? So, without observation what is the spin orientation of the photon? Both and neither. . . It gets even more interesting to me. Recently a research group had two "observers". A researcher in one room made an observation of the spin orientation. The researcher in another room only monitored if an observation had taken place. After a while, the second researcher gets tired of waiting and calls over to the other room. "OK Bob, we've been waiting a while. Make that observation any time now. . . ". To which his colleague calls back "We already did Tim, it was counter-clockwise". . . So did that observation take place or not? Was that photon observed to have a counter-clockwise orientation? One researcher says "yes", the other researcher says "no". . . Strange Days. . .

There is no perfect word to use, yet I prefer to use the term "prior" than beyond because the human mind is highly conditioned to think and perceive within the construct of a timeline. For me, it's more straightforward to ask "what is *prior* to conceptualizing". Tons of stuff. In the construct of a timeline, conceptualization would "enter" near the end of the movie. Yet, this of course is trying to explain within a timeline. Within the dimension of Now, it becomes much much harder to explain since the human mind is not conditioned or oriented in this dimension. When it speaks of "now", it is actually referring to a "now" within a timeline. To me, those are very deep "levels" of consciousness. Yet I would say, there is still a "prior" so to speak. What you have written and what I have written (and am writing now) is an appearance within a mind. As much as my mind tries to go "prior" or "beyond", it cannot. In the end, such efforts could be seen as a waste of time or as a fun part of the human experience. For me, it depends on the mood of my mind-body. . . As soon as there is an appearance in the mind, it is a "somewhere". It is no longer "nowhere". Even a thought about "nowhere" is a "somewhere". Even ideas/images that there is "nowhere" beyond/prior to "somewhere" is a "somewhere". Any memory, image, feeling, essence, whatever is a "somewhere". Right now, I am "somewhere". For me, this is an extremely subltle attachment/identification. . . This subtle attachment/identification is not at the personal or egoic level, it is at the human level. This attachment/identification to humanness is apparent when I communicate with an awakened tree. What is communicated via an awakened tree is not what is communicate via an awakened human. What I am learning is that there is transcendence of humanness. All of this talk/experience of enlightenment, nonduality, awareness, consciousness, beyond, prior etc. is all within the realm of humanness. It goes through a human filter. One word or image is too much. Yet it is also part of humanness. Such explorations can be considered a waste of time or a fun part of the human experience. Imagine the word "Gintolfid" appeared. Please explain to me the essence of "Gintolfid". One could say it's silly to try and define/describe/explore the essence of "Gintolfid". Yet that is what many human minds like to do. So we can spend hours, days, weeks or years exploring the essence of "Gintolfid". We can go on retreats, read spiritual literature, take psychedelics, watch nonduality videos. We can spend thousands of hours meditating and contemplating the essence of "Gintolfid". We could also spend thousands of hours describing the essence of "non-Gintolfid". We could learn and experience an enormous amount. Yet at the end of the day, we are not any closer to the essence of "Gintolfid" because there is no essence to "Gintolfid". It is Nothing. It is Nowhere. There is Nothing to find and Nowhere to go. The journey is the destination. Yet the journey goes on. We can spend our time searching for "Gintolfid" or search for that which is beyond "Gintolfid" or prior to "Gintolfid". Or we can do something else - like learn how to communicate about the essence of "Lanhiblik" with a tree. Ultimately it doesn't matter, yet at the human level, it matters a lot.