Carl-Richard

I initially wrote this down somewhere else, but I think it could serve as a helping hand for new people on the forum who aren't too familiar with non-duality, God, The Absolute, relativity etc.. Here I'll mainly present what I like to call "the Relative-absolute fallacy", which is in my opinion a very fundamental problem behind a lot of confusion around spiritual questions. It's obviously a well-known concept by most people here already, but I think it can beneficial to formalize it for some people: Similar to Ken Wilber's "Pre/trans fallacy", which is about conflating pre-rational views with trans-rational views, the Relative/absolute fallacy is about conflating relative perspectives with The Absolute perspective. This is the main source of confusion in the forms of spirituality that deal with the implications of non-duality (Oneness). An alternative name would be "the Dual/non-dual fallacy". Non-duality is most widely known through the conceptualizations of the eastern mystical traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism, but it has been known by mystics from all types of religions through the ages. There are generally two levels to the fallacy: 1. The first level is the conflation that happens when you don't have knowledge about the distinction between the relative and The Absolute (dual/non-dual). This applies to pre-rational religious people (Wilber). The way that traditional religion interprets various holy texts is itself a good example: For example, Jesus' descriptions of God's non-dual qualities in the Bible are interpreted through a dualistic lens and conceptualized as an external being that is separate from its creation. Non-duality posits that God is infact not separate from its creation, and therefore you are God. 2. The second level happens when you do have knowledge about the distinction between relative and absolute (but it's obviously not complete knowledge). This applies to (aspiring) trans-rational people (people who emerge out of a rationalist mindset and adopt a spiritual mindset). A common example is to think that because nothing really matters, morality doesn't matter, and therefore it's fine to for example hurt other people. This is to conflate "the relative" with "The Absolute". From The Absolute perspective, yes, nothing really matters (or everything matters equally), but morality can only ever be defined "relative" to a certain value system in the first place. By taking the absolute perspective, you're deliberately stepping outside of all value systems. "It's fine to hurt other people" would be a moral statement, which means you're actually invoking a relative perspective. One way to know when you're stepping out of The Absolute and into the relative is the moment you start discriminating and creating preferences in a deliberate manner: hurting other people > not hurting other people; nothing matters > everything matters; me > other people etc.. What can you do to avoid running into this trap? Well, truly the only answer is more spiritual practice (and careful use of psychedelics). However, a good rule to have when you're confused about something would be to ask yourself whether you're conflating the relative and The Absolute. Remember that these things can only be "understood" in a trans-rational sense, through direct experience, not merely through deduction. Rationality on its own is not sufficient to grasp the significance of non-duality, but these tools can hopefully still help to clear up some confusion when trying to deal with the conceptualizations of non-duality

Wake up, eat, class, eat, heavy weight training (every other day) or reading, eat, read if lifted weights, eat, time off, sleep. or Wake up, eat, heavy weight training (every other day) or reading, eat, read if lifted weights, eat, time off, sleep.

Hahaha brilliant

Then we should just shut down this forum then

You'd be surprised . Well, it used to be mindfulness meditation, "do nothing", and what I call crying meditation. Sometimes mantra meditation. Nowadays I just sit.

Sitting.

It's not that you're wrong, it's that you're being closeminded. The problem is that people take your advice and still end up with the same problems. Then what to do? More practice, yes, but I see it happening over and over again where people ask the same questions and get the same answer: "you have to distinguish between the relative and the absolute". Are you saying this answer is counterproductive? All I've done is give a formalized summary of that answer which people can use as a tool to identify where they're stuck. How they can solve that problem is of course more about actual spiritual practice (like I mentioned in the final paragraph). In that sense, it's more like a diagnostic tool than a final cure. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to have more tools in your toolbelt.

The "easy" way: take psychedelics, study epistemology. The hard way: develop deep knowledge about one field and general knowledge about extremely many fields.

39:04-40:40 Reminds me of one time I talked about the difference between a Yellow approach to environmental issues like veganism vs. a Green approach, namely by taking a stategic, large-scale, "cold-hearted", statistical approach with the right values in mind, instead of merely changing your personal consumer habits as a compassionate emotional response to visceral images of things like animal suffering or social injustice. That way it cuts through the traps of confusing real solutions with adopting an identity.

Then again, they're only separate in a relative sense, not in an absolute sense, hence the confusion . Strange-loopy stuff.

To find something that aligns with both #1 and #2 in a good way requires a higher spiritual drive that must nevertheless be cultivated. This is what is called passion, love, desire for truth. It's an integrative force that pulls everything upwards in unison, but it fades if you let the two aspects get out of balance. It's a non-linear, interactive, transactional process. Work on finding the balance.

There are generally two ways of interpreting "doing what you want": 1. Being a slave to your impulses. 2. Working towards the goal you want. The former obviously doesn't require much long-term commitment, and it's a central part of your life, so it shouldn't be neglected, but it could negatively impact your goals. Goals require long-term commitment and sacrifices. Without a goal, your life will follow a path of degeneration instead of a path of growth. However, you can't really achieve your goals by completely ignoring your impulses. That will turn you into a hollow shell of a human being. It's about finding the correct balance between the two. There is an interesting dynamic called "the rock-bottom theory" which says that if you just follow your impulses like a slave without tending to anything else in your life, sooner or later you'll hit such a low point that you'll either end up dead or completely change your life around. So in context to the two points I've listed, this theory posits that sooner or later, #2 will naturally emerge out of #1, but it's obviously a dangerous strategy. Some people only learn it the hard way. For example, it's one of the only ways to get out of life-long drug addiction. You realize that it's either #2 or you lose everything. I believe that this dynamic can work in different degrees (you don't necessarily have to become homeless to get the point). In other words, keep "doing what you want" (#1) until you learn first-hand why you need some #2 in your life. Two good examples of this theory is Steve-O and Brandon Novak (from Jackass). I really recommend this first video:

Keep doing that then.

If they had the chance to decide, how do you know what they would choose?

Do you really have any other choice? For me it was that or death.

How do you know that they would make that same conclusion? This is not a one-way street.

The way the lyrics were written reminds me of Yellow : Talk, it's only talk Arguments, agreements, advice, answers, Articulate announcements It's only talk Talk, it's only talk Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker Brouhaha, boulder dash, ballyhoo It's only talk Back talk Talk talk talk, it's only talk Comments, cliches, commentary, controversy Chatter, chit-chat, chit-chat, chit-chat, Conversation, contradiction, criticism It's only talk Cheap talk Talk, talk, it's only talk Debates, discussions These are words with a D this time Dialogue, duologue, diatribe, Dissention, declamation Double talk, double talk Talk, talk, it's all talk Too much talk Small talk Talk that trash Expressions, editorials, expugnations, exclamations, enfadulations It's all talk Elephant talk, elephant talk, elephant talk

Red: advent of agriculture and complex division of labour lead to increased availability of resources, questioning of collectivist tribal values, population growth and areal expansion, conflict between tribes, and the first empires started to form.

Never said that. All I'm going to say is that N'N-DMT and 5-MeO-DMT might exist in the brain. Compare the structure of melatonin (sleep hormone) and 5-MeO-DMT and try to tell me that atleast 5-Meo doesn't exist in the brain: But why do you want to try 5-Meo? The problem with trying to "naturally" increase the production of specifically one substance, out of a plethora of related substances, without ingesting specifically that substance, is that your body doesn't work like that. You can't just turn your body into an on-demand chemical delivery system without doing some serious "unnatural" alterations to your bodily functions. Taking a precursor to substituted tryptamines like 5-HTP together with an MAOI, as suggested by the Erowid article, will mainly lead to an increase in serotonin (and other serotonin-like substances), which is obviously not going to just produce the effects of 5-MeO-DMT. Any effect from the tiny amount of 5-Meo that will be produced will just drown in the noise anyway. The only way to get the pure effect is to actually take the substance.

You'll spare them death but you'll also spare them life. Anti-natalism is ironically enough survival-based thinking: fear, contraction > exploration, expansion. It frames life as a harmful place as opposed to an innately beautiful cosmos of infinite creativity.

Do you want to produce more 5-MeO-DMT naturally or do you want to experience non-duality?

You're being incoherent.

It's not much more than a crazy idea if you ask me.

My theory is that you fear letting go of your attachments, and you have to build up trust in yourself in order to let them go.

I believe the only solution is to build up a lot of self-trust and self-love. I think I'm working on it though