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I exchanged journal time with sauna and thai massage so I was in bliss afterwards. I become aware of the fact that all what I'm going to write might be used against me in the future. Despite that I'm going to keep honest posts. One of the goals is finish Leo's LP course, it might fill gaps that I might have in my current journey. I listened to 10-20 percent of videos long time ago, I realized that I do not need it per se and Leo has lots of stuff already in his videos from the past. So I started to review all core concepts and I plan to finish it this weekend.

I'm not kidding, I've only just started meditation and I'm already feeling different, more productive, more self-confident, etc.❤️ I've even miraculously stopped the wine just like that, which beggars belief. Huh, and that's only with a lousy 20 minutes every day. I hate that it has taken me this late in my life to discover it. Leo's a pretty persuasive guy! Nobody (including myself) has ever been able to convince or galvanize me enough to do meditation before. I've had this book on my bookshelf eyeballing me for donkey's years: "Peace of Mind" by Dr Ian Gawler. He actually has a website and does meditation retreats. He overcame terminal cancer through meditation and wrote about it. I had read the book, as you do. And then put it back on the shelf, as you do. And then the wasted years go by, as they do. So glad I came across Leo's videos and this site. I was just innocently googling "karma's a bitch" two Sundays ago, and there was Leo. I loved his explanation straight away. It seems Karma has more to do with the ego (who sounds like the real bitch around here!) than any "carrots and sticks". The only problem now is my addiction to this site. A site with all these resources pooled together and an active forum like this just doesn't exist anywhere else, it's unique. Now I wanna know everything. I understand though the need to vary one's sources and not just fetishly stay on this one site. I started reading some of your journals @zeroISinfinity, sorry I don't "get" them much yet. I'll probably understand them better when my "colour's changed". It looks like a great and crazy party though, haha!! It's actually starting to give me a bit of FOMO. Before coming to this site, I was kinda agnostic, even if my upbringing was solid catholic. I've always been afraid of ghosts and the paranormal so was perfectly happy deciding to just believe "what you see is what you get". You just die after three score years and ten, and kaput, you are no more. No reincarnation, no after-life, no hell nor heaven, nada. I was SO happy believing that. Ignorance is bliss as they say. So as you can imagine, I'm going through a major paradigm shift at the moment, lol. But it's all good. The Real Bliss will come later. Still scared of ghosts though. My dad frightened us when we were kids, threatening to lock us in the attic with the ghosts if we were naughty. Discovered years later that's where he'd kept all his porno mags. Go figure! No wonder he'd frightened everyone away from ever snooping around up there. Still the damage had been done, the phobias created. Since I've been on this site, I've had to put the light on again when I go for a pee in the middle of the night. In case I see or bump into something scary. I'm just going at my own pace right now. Slow and steady wins the race. And starting at the bottom of the heap dealing with the "easy stuff" (the physical stuff) first. My goals are more to do with the body at the moment. And yeah, I'm getting the meditation sessions in. Am even feeling optimistic I may really get a sense of "God" one day. Ha, I'll be able to join in the same "party" then, or at least understand some of the more "cryptic" posts here better. But if I don't, no pressure, maybe in my next life haha. I don't want to spook myself out by running before I can walk. Damn, if only I hadn't put that Meditation book back on the shelf all those years ago! I'd have been way more advanced by now. So yeah, feeling really indebted to Leo for all he's done and is doing!! ❤️ I'm going to honor his generosity by doing the Work.

Has any one seen this movie? I think its the perfect analogy of platos cave, the way truman discovers his fabricated reality not out of being motivated by pleasure, his drive for truth comes from an inability to stand being false, he couldn't live his fake life when it didnt seem real. I feel people think enlightenment is a state of bliss, its not but its a state of being true. I feel like i would go mad if i was truman if everything in my town that i was trapped on all started to revolve around me, maybe thats what enlightenment is like going mad for unravelling truth ps i feel its great they called him truman, ie hes becoming 'a true man'

Read this about Carl Jung this morning. "One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

45 min sitting today. Many of the same qualities as yesterday, but it didn’t quite catch fire the way it did yesterday, so I feel a bit disappointed in one way, but it is also very interesting to surrender into this disappointment, and there is something very grounding about it. So whereas before I would have craved to get back what I had yesterday, and felt like a failure for not, it is a huge success to see that my attitude is getting much more mature. I’m working on creating a stable platform for this deepening to happen, and finally I’m getting process-oriented, instead of result-oriented. I guess ultimately meditation is this freedom to let go of any craving for the present moment to be anything else than what it is - total surrender into what is. But it is really interesting that I have to learn how to navigate these addictive mind-states as part of that process. They come as a by-product of learning to let go, but experiencing them can trigger some really painful patterns of clinging, which I guess is a really potent opportunity of studying the minds tendencies of exactly this tendency. As the mind learns to rest in itself it will naturally starts to gather and focus all this energy that is usually wasted on chasing something outside of itself, and this energy then turns into bliss, well-being and healing.

One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

I had while light experience few days after 5-meo trip while meditating, it was total bliss. Since then nothing :).

@Hansu Oh no! Sorry to hear. What comes to mind from experience is weight, muscle to fat percentage, and balance. Bit of a shotgun approach, but hopefully something clicks or is useful. Short term... You mentioned the plank on the bed helped. Maybe a maximum firmness mattress, if you don’t already have one. Daily exercise is key imo. A few things to consider. During, and for a bit after weight loss, many small muscles are adjusting to the change in weight & how it’s distributed, specifically the back, as it was holding the extra weight of the front. This is a good thing, and it plays self out. One thing however to consider... if exercise involves weights / any strength training, you want evenly spread distribution. I had a major lower back pain issue for years, even though I was at a good weight and fit. I found that I had neglected the muscles area lowest on the back. Never even thought of it. I started doing a pretty simple exercise where I’m basically, from a standing point, lifting each leg up behind me. Like the opposite of a kick motion, but slowly. I used the resistance of about 10 lbs at first on a bow flex. You can google this, it can be done without weights, and lying on your stomach too. After 1 - 2 weeks, the pain was completely gone, and that was maybe 5 years ago or so. Never came back. So if you’re getting fit, make sure there’s a daily exercise that targets the area of pain. Also have a bone spur in my neck, got a neck weight thingy, and it fixed that too. It’s not perfect, but there’s no pain anymore. I definitely recommend bow flex. They’re simple and last, and old models which are great, can be found very cheap on EBay etc. Also, when exercise is done daily, the chemistry of the body changes. @Michael569 would know the details here...but endorphins, etc from exercising in the morning sure do seem to reduce pain all day. It also improves mood & outlook, which also (I believe) psychosomatically have a positive effect. If the pain is too much to exercise, a short term solution might be a steroid shot, with the exercise / fitness being the longer term plan. Seeing a chiropractor can help on a few levels. The manipulation overtime can significantly realign and bring relief. Also, if you find a good one, just seeing the X-ray, listening to their explanation etc, Brings a lot of finite awareness to the situation, and sometimes I think the biggest piece is just the going and doing something about it. The body likes that, so to speak, and response in kind with healing. A self-love fest. I would do some research on an anti-inflammatory diet for sure. Ime, sugar, bread, and any carbonated drinks just blew it up, and it would take days to get back to good. Take a while to get off such roller coasters but it’s worthwhile. The right nutrients, and eating without those foods, allows the body to divert energy to strength & healing, as it is not having to compensate for what is really imo not actually ‘food’ (sugar, bread, etc) The time of day that you eat could also play a huge role. I know it can be difficult, but try not eating anything after 8...or better yet 7. It might take a few days for the body to adjust to that but it can be a game changer. This could also aid in sleeping through the night, in addition to cutting caffeine off by maybe 2pm. This is ‘out there’ for some...but have you tried telling your subconscious you want this? I’ve seen this be very effective. Simply talking to yourself basically, and requesting the subconscious bring healing to the disc, and that the past is changed in kind. Longer term... Go get two or three sessions before you assess it. Then try out that reiki class. Reiki 1 is healing yourself. Powerful stuff. Reiki is arguably the most under-appreciated, underrated practice imo. The release of things emotionally / psychologically benefits the body, allowing more efficient natural healing. We all hold onto a lot, and get used to it, and don’t realize we are. We’re so naturally adaptive it’s nuts. It takes energy to do that though, and likewise, we adjust and don’t realize low bodily energy has this at it’s root. Reiki 2 is about healing others. This is the real mind blowing stuff. Love in action. Love & bliss through your body would be one heck of a change of pace, and you’d be without the pain. I’d think of it as when you give your self & time for the love & healing of another, as the universe would have it, you are filled with love & healing. But, and I know it’s cliche...the thought about reiki is nothing like the experience of taking the 2 classes. There is also Letting go, and moving awareness. Many people find a ‘clearing’ of specific pains, by tuning into the awareness in the body, right where the pains at, and ‘moving’ the pain to another location. It’s a risky thing to say, but, the pain isn’t really from the location it seems like it is, it is all mind. “Loosening up” the relationship between the mind which is where the pain is, and the body where the mind “believes” it to be, can reduce the pain. Meditation of course, specifically breathing & filling the body with the breath, as well as walking meditation can be very helpful. There’s a bunch in my signature link. Also, Yoga, holding positions and breathing, oxygenates & strengthens the muscle which balance the body, helping muscles acclimate to weight loss muscle / balance shifting. I don’t want to assume, so...have you went to the dr’s? Ideally a wholistic one. Again, the hearing, doing, loving your body, taking the time to go, as well as what the doctor recommends diet & weight wise could be helpful. The difference in pain and energy at a high weight compared to a middle weight, in terms of the median ‘healthy’ weights dr’s use as a reference is very significant. And then the difference in going from a middle weight, to the ‘ideal healthy’ weight (example 6’ tall male, 150 - 155 lbs - don’t quote me on that) can be a huge difference. There is a certain carefree-healing-body zone at the most ideal weight. 5 lbs more, and we’re back at the middle weight, with the body spending energy that was diverted to healing. Hope something helps here. ??

This is not about going from the depressed life story to 5-meo God like bliss, from zero to hero. This is not about playing 'Who is right' game, feeling fear. This is about doing the smallest possible step which feels good. Step by step, until you are loving. This is about asking and then letting go, enjoying the moment. This is about your intuition, choosing the first impulse, before rational mind comes and says 'no'. This is about being authentic, feeling love. ?

Do you do Mahamundra? Nothing creates more silence and relaxation than that as a preparation in my opinion. Especially so once you get to the point that you can do each rep comfortably in the 1-2 minute breath hold range. All the co2 from doing 9-12 moderate breath holds combined with the stretching just create massive amounts of bliss and relaxation.

@Dragonfly210 Sorry you're going through such tough stuff. I'm sure no one has been through exactly what you're going through, but I'd also bet tons of people here have been through some form of dark night like you. I've definitely gone through some tough periods. Maybe you need to renegotiate or change some relationships in your life. Sometimes the old has to fall apart to make room for the new, whether that's a new way of thinking, new people in your life or a new way of relating to yourself. Regardless, sounds like a very good idea to see a therapist like you are. That'll keep you grounded and help you be practical while providing an outlet to talk through what you need to. I'm limited in how much I can help over an internet forum like this, but keep in mind that everything changes. Your level of social awkwardness will ebb and flow. How much bliss you are in touch with will ebb and flow. However bad it seems, it isn't permanent. Hang in there

This concentration stuff reminds me my childhood. I was in a peaceful, blissful state. I was inclining my mind on positive and entering bliss. I had total trust in the existence. I was not comparing myself to anybody. Life was a miracle for me.

Doing vipassana is great but dry insight approach can create a lot of negative emotions and issues even after legit awakenings. Look at Daniel Ingram and his emphasis on dark night of the soul. I also know people that experience a lot issues integrating the insights into emptiness and no-self in the dry insight approach. That doesn't mean samatha vipassana styles like TMI doesn't lead to integration issues with these insights. Awakening has a price of admission either way. But samatha masters go through the progression of insight in a more pleasurable and gentler way. From personal experience, my emotional health is close to awakening levels as Samatha factors are getting more ingrained in the nervous system. Effortless access to jhana basically means activating anti-depressant levels of pleasure in the mind at will and maintaining that with contentment on top of that from waking up to going to bed. Initially that sort of a thing can be effortless, but then a lot of hardcore mindfulness is needed to maintain that as months go by. I don't want to say that this is advanced stuff but this sort of emotional mastery is not too common at the initial stages of awakening (stream entry etc.) Samatha mastery is not to be downplayed. Craving can reduce very radically. A stage 10 TMI master can actually be regarded as awake on a skill-based level. Not actual insight wise but in terms of the skills you need for awakening, it just gives you incredible levels of consciousness on demand consistently. But you are not completely free of suffering until there is no self so that is why vipassana is essential. Samatha skills by themselves only go so far. You need to investigate and go deeper with those skills as a foundation. Now, how will a samatha master react to the truth of no-self when it arises as an insight? Depression and meaningless? Initially, yes. This is a traumatic experience that undermines all of your egoic agendas. The entirety of your life dissolves into meaningless. But you integrate the no-self deeper and get to bliss faster if you are Samatha master already. What happens as a dry insight meditators, noting sensations without stable attention and sufficient awareness? You still get to the insight into no self, but you get stuck in the meaningless and negative emotional sensations. Then you need to deal with dark night sort of issues for a while until awareness gets to sufficient levels. Then you get to bliss. But at that point you master samatha. So the question is, will you do the work now and master samatha or do it after the traumatic insight into no-self, suffering , impermanence and emptiness,? The safest and the most pleasurable path is to do the samatha mastery first. It is harder and requires more discipline initially but it is worth it. I understand dry insight meditators doing noting practices and self enquiry all the time but I'm seeing a lot of people experiencing issues integrating insight into daily life. So I recommend samatha mastery strongly to everyone. And to add the vipassana component, I think TMI is a great manual. It integrates all this and does so in a scientific but non-materialistic way.

@zeroISinfinity I haven't felt the love yet. I feel like i understand all this stuff intellectually but my direct experience isn't anything like you describe yours. Also, i was reading your rold journal about not helping bliss chasers and people pursuing enlightenment for egoic reasons. because they will cause suffering if they don't fully understand god. These people, like me, will cause WAY MORE suffering without enlightenment. Bliss chaser, prisoner, it doesn't matter who. Enlightenment is the best case for me, you, and everyone and everything. There are no reasons to not help someone pursue enlightenment. But i do get your point about you can't do it from egoic reasons. If I want to be enlightened for my own sake and my own desires I think it's going to take a lot long then if i find a different motivation.

@ardacigin You have no clue what my practice is like I practiced for one month of nonstop vipassana in a monastic setting in Nepal before this retreat. I understand discipline and "applying the techniques properly." And just because I rated the growth as lower than psychedelic growth doesn't mean it wasn't substantial. I spent hours in bliss fully present with every footstep, loving every action and moment. I saw some wild stuff manifest in the mind and body. Yet, one ayahuasca retreat I did was like 10 years of therapy in one weekend, and I have to call that more impactful (as of now). There are poems from the first enlightened nuns which talk about practicing for YEARS with little sign of awakening, and then finally getting it one day. Progress and growth aren't linear. And if you want to develop true equanimity, that means learning to be equanimous while actually struggling in meditation practice. You are correct about the importance of discipline, but should be careful assuming that discipline and ease are opposites. You need some ease for your heart to actually be in these practices. My answer should not inform your decision. Every person, trip and meditative roadmap is different. I started with 3g of mushrooms, so this is what I was referring to. I'd recommend less on the first time.

Because the scale was tipped to perception & thinking, to compensate for a lack of feeling. Perception & feeling & no mind = bliss.

This “ego” doesn’t get anything out of meditation, meditation gets the ego out. The doer doesn’t care much for the stopping of it’s doing. Effortless living, your life’s dream unfolding wonderfully, emotional mastery, no mind, non reaction, bliss...the ego see’s this stuff coming a mile away. “Why would I meditate”. Dream board’s great for realizing preferences far more worthwhile, inspiring, & satisfying than a story on a screen. This actual story on a screen is a pinch superior imo. This story you’re actually creating.

Makyō The term makyō is a Zen term that means “ghost cave” or “devil’s cave.” It is a figurative reference to the kind of self-delusion that results from clinging to an experience and making a conceptual “nest” out of it for oneself. Makyō is essentially synonymous with illusion, but especially in reference to experiences that can occur within meditation practice. In Philip Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen, Hakuun Yasutani explained the term as the combination of ma meaning devil and kyo meaning the objective world. This character for “devil” can also refer to Mara, the Buddhist “tempter” figure; and the character kyo can mean simply region, condition or place. Makyō refers to the hallucinations and perceptual distortions that can arise during the course of meditation and can be mistaken by the practitioner as "seeing the true nature" or kenshō. Zen masters warn their meditating students to ignore sensory distortions. These can occur in the form of visions and perceptual distortions, but they can also be experiences of blank, trance-like absorption states. In the Zen school, it is understood that neither category of experience – however fascinating they may be – is a true and final enlightenment. Contemplative literature contains numerous descriptions of the perceptual distortion produced by meditation. It is characterized in some schools as "going to the movies," a sign of spiritual intensity but a phenomenon that is considered distinctly inferior to the clear insight of settled practice. In some Hindu schools it is regarded as a product of the sukshma sharira, or "experience body," in its unstable state, and in that respect is seen to be another form of maya, which is the illusory nature of the world as apprehended by ordinary consciousness. Tibetan contemplative literature uses the parallel term nyam, which fall into three categories, usually listed as clarity, bliss, and non-conceptuality. Many types of meditation phenomena can be classed under this rubric, and are generally tied to the reorganization of the body's subtle energies that can occur in meditation.

After a week or so in i start to feel like an AVATAR. As if i am existing in a higher dimensional plane and feel the perfection and purity in everything. Bliss! I have done 24 hour dry fasting naturally many times, i love being out in nature, i rarely eat and i feel very blissful.

I remember and I will make this short, that I saw God from my window appering as this immensly bright light, everything around this light were happy to see it, I remember becoming conscious of how specificaly the trees became happy. My family saw it too, well not really, but in another dimension they saw the light. Suddenly, in an instant, it disappeared and everything came to normal. I thought my family saw God, but they just looked at me and asked "What is it?". They were clueless and in shock and bliss I said "Did you see God?" And they said no. Which makes me think now, that it's indeed possible that we are within God's imagination. The way everything in an instant was thrown into this dimension even my family, then how it just instantly dissapeared, leaving only me knowing of what just happened.

Set and Setting I meditated for two hours that day. I had two good sessions: very focused and quiet mind. I entered the mushroom session with a clear intent: Contemplating about what I can do to heal or strengthen my body – I have to deal with a very rare genetic disease called FSHD 1, which causes muscle loss mainly in the upper body and is uncurable from the perspective of western medicine. Right before the mushroom session I did some breathing exercises. Before a trip I’m always nervous and this helps me to get the right focus. I did the session at a friend’s house, who also took 2,5 gr. He made sort of a tea with homegrown psilocybe cubensis. Upcoming Normally when I consume mushrooms as a tea, they kick in like hell. I had a 3,5 gr. trip, where after 10 minutes my head was so quiet, that I thought time had stopped – after 15 minutes everything was covered with strange patterns. But this time the upcoming was a lot slower, the mushrooms started to kick in after 50 minutes. I felt a lot of energy, my mind going quieter and a broadening of my perspective. I had some trouble to focus on my contemplation object, but somehow I got along. Darkness I was lying on a couch looking at the ceiling. Suddenly the ceiling turned into a dark moving substance, that seemed to move towards me. This is where the trip gets a bit creepy. I saw that a black tube is attached to my body going up to the dark substance. My first ‘thought’ was, that this is some kind of a spirit attack, because it felt like the dark substance is sucking energy out of my body. My second ‘thought’ was, that this dark spirit/being is stealing my energy and causing my disease. Strangely I felt rather strong in that situation and commanded the darkness to leave. A second later I was amazed that the dark substance actually withdrew. A few moments after the withdrawal I had the epiphany, that what I saw and felt wasn’t some kind of an attack, but rather a prenatal memory: me in the womb of my mother. However as far as I can remember I had also some ‘insights’ about my ancestors being haunted by dark spirits. Unfortunately I can’t remember a lot I experienced in this part of the trip – or maybe I just repressed it. Light After the darkness vanished, the light began to rise. I was ‘called’ by this light or beings of light. I got up from the couch and sat on the floor folding my hand as you do when praying and stayed in this position for over half an hour – normally I never pray. At some point my friend asked me, if everything is good and I replied yes, it is just too good. I don’t like the word ‘god’, I prefer universe, consciousness, infinity etc., but what I felt during this time, can best be described as being ‘touched by the love/grace of god’. A bath in an infinite sea of pure bliss and ecstasy. I remember being shocked and irritated because of the intensity, but at the same time I knew that there is a LOT more. Conclusion As much as I appreciated the second part of the trip, I am confused about the first one. Was the dark substance a visualization of my disease – a metaphor –, a prenatal memory or indeed some kind of a spirit attack – is an attack under these circumstances possible at all? During the trip my intuition told me that the spirit attack was real, but after the come down this seems like a big delusion and my mind making up a strange story. Have you experienced similar things while taking psychedelics? What would be your Interpretation?

5-MEO-DMT Bufo AlvariusTrip Report ROA: Smoking Dosage: 93 mgs After many months of failed attempts at experimenting with plugging 5-MeO at home. And many more months trying to find a professional facilitator close to me, and many more months getting our schedules to align, I finally got to do my very first Bufo 5-MeO ceremony this weekend. He was decades experienced, and had me stay at his home, where we did the ceremony. As it was raining up at the property up in the mountains where he usually holds the ceremonies. I was pretty calm leading up to the ceremony, until he said it was time. There were 3 of us there for ceremony. He would take us up to a room one at a time, for about an hour each. We debated who would go first, I requested I go first, as waiting and listening to what happened for someone else, would just make me more nervous. As it finally came time, I was really nervous. Him and his female partner sat with me in a circle and did deep breathing with me until I was calm and ready. He asked me if I wanted to start out with a low dose, or jump right into a high dose. I told him I am prone to panic attacks when I have time to resist the effects. So he suggested a high dose. I didn’t ask or want to know what he loaded. He later afterwards told me it was 93mgs. Not sure how much that translates to synthetic 5-MeO dosage. He explained to me how it was going to work. He would hold the pipe. I was to slowly draw in, until my lungs were full, as he counted to 10. Then as I lay back he would count back from 10, as I hold it in. I never made it to the pillow, and I only heard the count of 8 before I was gone. It is hard to describe what came next. It was indescribable unimaginable pure nightmarish Terror. There was no concept of who I was or what anything was. I was obliterated. But at the same time my ‘soul’ was being ripped apart in an endless cycle, over and over. There was zero possibility of resistance or surrender, it just was what it was and far too powerful to try to control. It was pure torture. Even though I was gone, I could tell I was screaming the loudest high pitch scream possible. This seemed like it lasted for only a few seconds. Coming back, I didn’t know who I was, where I was, who the people in the room were, for about a minute. Then I came to pretty fast, within another minute. There was an instant feeling of sadness. I knew right away that the ceremony was a failure. No experience being God, no infinity, no experiencing infinite realities, no insights into the nature of reality, no death (at least I don’t think, unless death is endless torture), no infinite love, no bliss, no insights, no epiphanies, no alleviation of suffering/depression/anxiety. I started to cry as all of it was for nothing. I felt exactly the same as I did before the trip. The facilitators told me I had been screaming for many minutes. Then was saying “Oh Shit!!!” over and over again as I crawled around the room thrashing about. They asked me if I wanted to do another dose, I said no. This was traumatizing enough, wouldn’t want to go through that again, even if there was a chance of a blissful God breakthrough. I was perfectly normal and fine within a few more minutes. They offered for me to go into a dark room to process, but I said that was unnecessary. I popped downstairs, and cheerfully said “hey guys!”. The two guys waiting for their turn looked traumatized. They said they wished they had gone first now, as they heard all the screaming and it made them all that much more nervous to go next. I felt bad about that. They asked me how it went for me, and I told them I would tell them later, as I didn't want to influence their journey. All in all, it felt like the trip had never even really happened. There was a few seconds of infinite torture and unimaginable terror, then nothing. So my trip only seemed to last a few seconds. I thought, if I knew nothing about Nonduality teachings, what was possible, or anything about 5-MeO, and a friend just invited me to participate in the ceremony, I probably would have angrily bitched him out for the horrible experience, with zero benefits (other than the awesome people who I shared it with). Oh well, I guess I have to get even more serious about my spiritual journey and try try try again. I’m not sharing this to discourage anyone. I’m not even discouraged. From what I hear, every trip can be different.

i feel this strange thing right now i love myself, i don't need anything, i just feel bliss about everything and nothing really bothers me and at this moment i feel like i want to start getting money, meeting more women and starting my own purpose it's paradoxical and i don't get it, did anyone went through this kind of "phase"? i love myself and i don't need anything soooo let's fucking get everything i can, wtf????

This is an important part of my spiritual training where my experiential understandings of these elements on this path are rapidly improving. All 4 of these elements - equanimity, tranquility, happiness and joy - are inter-related but highly distinct lines of development. A meditator eventually needs to develop these skills to a very high level and integrate all of them to their lives deeply before insights into different facets of awakening can arise. Especially love = consciousness will be 100 times easier if you develop these Samatha factors. To do that, you need to understand what skills you need to develop. Let's define these terms first. Happiness: This is a specific feeling of physical and mental pleasure in the mind-body. It can arise with zero meditation experience if 'things' are going your way. This is the usual dopamine high non-meditators experience. Happiness can also be trained to access all the time with stability in the higher stages of meditation. Happiness can also arise independently of joy. Joy: Joy is a comprehensive positive mental state. In the context of meditation, it usually arises with happiness in dependent of external circumstances in an internal manner due to unification of mind. It also can arise without any pleasurable feelings and happiness in the mind. Joy skews your awareness, emotional health and cognitive interpretations towards what is wholesome and loving effortlessly. In a joyful mind, the following will occur: Something that usually creates a lot of suffering and negative feelings in a non-meditator will only produce mild-unpleasantness. Something that produces mild-unpleasantness will only produce neutral feelings. Something that produces neutral feelings (like sitting down and breathing) will produce mildly pleasurable sensations. Something that produces a lot of pleasurable feelings will produce ECSTATIC levels of bliss. The combination of joy and happiness in meditation directly reduces craving and suffering in a significant manner. Tranquility: This is basically calm abiding contentment. Contentment is the keyword here. We tend to think that someone who is tranquil is dull and neutral. This has negative connotations. It is also inaccurate in the context of meditation. Tranquility induces a calm and serene state of mind. That is true but it does so with energy. So if you are dull, that is not true tranquility. Also, the feeling of neutrality is a misconception as well. Equanimity and neutrality are not the same things in the slightest. This is important because any lack of clarification here can result in a meditator wasting years of their lives getting deeper into sustained states of dullness thinking that they are developing tranquility. So watch out! You can have crazy levels of equanimity with joy and happiness. In fact, that is what you are developing with Samatha. The point is not to develop sustained dullness and emotional neutrality with equanimity. That means you've developed equanimity without happiness and joy. You still need to go back and develop these wholesome emotional states for optimal insight investigation. Back to tranquility! So tranquility means calmness and serenity. That is only 1 side of it. It actually means practicing contentment with calmness. Contentment is different from equanimity. It is extremely important in reducing craving. This one distinction helps you to develop and deepen meditative joy and happiness into daily life. Contentment will enable you to glean more satisfaction from the already existing joy and happiness. It will also reduce craving even more radically than just happiness and joy. If you've thought that high degrees of meditative joy and happiness you experience in meditation has already reduced a lot of craving already, think again! Contentment + meditative joy enables you to see how much suffering resides even in crazy high states of happiness and mental pleasure. This is 3rd jhana practice. But you deepen that practice further with Samatha factors and bring all of those qualities into daily life with TMI. This tranquility aspect of development naturally comes after fully developed meditative joy. Here is how it occurs in a nutshell: 1- Wow! I'm experiencing a lot of happiness and joy internally. This is fucking amazing. I can support this mental state with smiling as well. 2- Wow! This is extremely resilient. I can maintain this in stressful situations. 3- Hmmm...I sometimes experience a reduction in meditative joy when I get really tired and sleepy. Let me try to understand what leads to this experience. 4- I guess there is subliminal craving and suffering attached to meditative joy. I also fear that I might lose this in the future. The overall craving gets overwhelming when I get tired so happiness and joy go away. I don't really know how to combat this issue... 5- I also can't quite maintain joy and happiness in daily life when I'm moving around and doing stuff. It is still very stable but I don't momentarily taste the joy and happiness in evey microscopic movement of my body in movement. I think I need to work on this more. Because, meditative joy in movement results in craving and suffering. I guess I have developed a decades-long habit of urgency and movement with craving. I tend to move fast and speak fast. I lose a lot of mindfulness in these states. I need to add more contentment, tranquility and body awareness to every microscopic body movement, otherwise joy and and happiness can't be maintained on a momentary basis. I might get the illusion that it is stable but it actually isn't. And I'm still suffering quite a bit. 6- WOW! When I bring tranquility, joy and happiness are dominating my conscious experience with more stability in a state of contentment. I also experience more reduction in craving and therefore suffering less when I'm doing stuff in the world, talking to people and planning stuff. 7- This basically means that I can wake up in the morning - get the joy and happiness with tranquilty- pay EXTRA attention to maintaining this in movement with contentment and re-train the nervous system to stay in the present moment without craving. This is the next level after meditative joy development. Your entire life truly turns into high-quality meditation at this point. At this mastery, you are a stage 9 TMI meditator if you've also developed metacognitive awareness and stable attention sufficiently. The next step is adding the equanimity aspect of development. This is very challenging and is the final step in developing samatha. Equanimity: This is sublime non-reactivity to pleasure and pain. The nervous system shuts down its 'craving' operating system and activates equanimity. Your body and mind stop interfering with the present moment experience. This leads to the complete elimination of suffering at the HIGHEST level of mastery. But in its developing stages, it results in significant reductions in craving and suffering. As a stage 10 TMI meditator, you will have a highly developed equanimity. But it won't be high enough to result in full elimination of suffering permanently. That requires deeper and deeper awakenings, not just advanced Samatha development. So once you have meditative joy + tranquil contentment, you already have some degree of equanimity. But it is not enough to do advanced insight practices. You can probably get to profound equanimity occasionally in formal sits, the game plan is to get there every day. Then every sit. Then to get that equanimity in daily life. And then to start an adventure into insight development. At this point, you'll have the following skills applied both in formal sits and daily life: 1- Stable Attention & Momentary Attention (consistent upacara and kannika levels of samadhi) 2- Joy and Happiness (piti and sukha) 3- Powerful Metacognitive Awareness (satisampajanna ) 4- Tranquility and Contentment (passaddhi) 5- Profound Equanimity (upekkha) This is the end of stage 10 TMI practice. You can do many things at this point. Self-enquiry in no-mind? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Dependent origination practice? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Craving reduction? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Mahamudra? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Infinity and love? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Compassion and Shadow work? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Emptiness and Impermanence? Go for it! You have the skills to do it.

Some synonyms Well being Prosperity Progress Flourishing Essence Presence Protection Security Shelter Elysium Bliss Composure Equanimity Equilibrium Ataraxy Sang froid Expand Abound Thrive Vigor Wholeness Strength Maturity Eudemonia Eudaimonia Healthfulness Salubrity Comfort Eupepsia Feel good oasis Affluence Sanity Integrity Safety Prosperousness Robustness Luxury Enrichment Fitness Welfare Positive functioning