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Meditation has been a path to enlightenment for millennia. Neti neti is an ancient practice of deliberately diving into the mind, discarding what is realized not to be your true essence, until only you remain. When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self by means of the Self, an aspirant knows the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the stilled mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing else, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow. - Bhagavad Gita 6:19

The fractal nature of infinity - a solipsism trap for the human mind. This post is not meant to discredit or nullify anything. On the contrary, I want to show you that the expansion and evolution of consciousness (or in consciousness) is like a Russian matryoshka, like classes in school. What follows it does not override what precedes it. When you initiate the process of becoming aware of the nature of Infinity, your assumptions as to what Reality is always doomed to be reconstructed with each new discovery, and this process will never end. The question is, did it have any beginning? I do not know. Contemplating the Infinite transforms your thinking - from linear to nonlinear to spherical. At some point, I realize that looking for the smallest (first) or largest (last) fractal is like looking for the beginning and end of a circle or sphere. I can play around with indefinitely scaling the size of a circle, sphere, or object. I can scale linearly, logarithmically, or chaotically whatever my heart desires. And here, at this moment, when fun, meditation, contemplation, and ordinary everyday life suddenly meet in my magical Now - something I cannot put into words - everything exists. The only thing is an existence born of Consciousness, in Consciousness. Everything is and is not at the same time. Such a superposition of Nothing and Everything. Neti, Neti. I can squeeze everything down to the size of a zero-dimensional point - one of the infinite paradoxes of infinity here - something that has zero dimensions does not exist and exists simultaneously. As a thought, a concept, it is also existence. Infinity breaks the human mind, it is non-human. We are afraid of it and avoid it at all costs. When you experience the Universe within you, the ego quickly captures and conceptualizes the experience. For your own safety, that is mine and yours. But scaling happens in both directions. Suddenly, it slips away from everything you know and goes towards a border that it will never cross, and yet, a border may be there. And behind it, another, greater Infinity. Or less! You can't get it. Figuratively, although it does not reflect what I feel - the wave is only a manifestation of the Ocean, an expression of its activity, but to be the Ocean, it must surrender its existence as something in motion, changing, experiencing its shores and borders. To feel this Infinite Depth, Space, one has to be ready to cross all boundaries, even those whose existence we have not yet realized. There are infinitely many of them. Apart from what is human, there is also the Alien. I recommend the document below - it's a bit too skeptical and too scientific for me, but worth a look anyway till the end. ...and go for Infinity by any means available for human beings and beyond Sat Nam

Neti Neti

Much better practice than "neti neti". Thank you sir.

You Are Infinity! You Are ONE. All is ONE. You Are. You Are Pure Energy. Light is magnetically attracted to Itself. Light is magnetically repulsed by Itself. Repulsion is Attraction. Light = Love. Love = Light. You Are Pure Motion. You Are Perfect Stillness. The Universe Is A Singularity. You Are The Singularity. The Infinite Mind imagines the brain and body. Your bigger brain is of cosmic proportions. Also add: The inverse of every realization listed. Absolute Infinity goes beyond realizations, too! You Are God. You Are Also Not God. There is No Self. And Yet... ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Neti Neti.

I agree with Leos comment that this part of Buddhism is not God Realization. Its the basic teaching from the first turning of the wheel. Ken Wilber also clearly says that insight into Ultimate Reality didn't occur at that stage of Buddhism, it was a insight and experience of the causal stage (Godhead, pure consciousness, but not world/apppearance arising within that), not Nondual Realization of Ultimate Reality. (And experience of Nonduality is not automatically realization of Ultimate Reality). The realization of Ultimate Reality (the imagination or manifestation part) occured later, at Nagarjuna, and the second turning of the wheel, and was only clearly formulated philosophically with the third turning, the Yogachara or Mind-Only school. If you want some really iconoclastic thoughts, read that the founder of Jainism has practically the same story/hagiography as Buddha, as explained in Mike Crowley in "Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic Sacraments and the Origins of the Vajrayana", and draw your own conclusions concerning the historic Buddha. So who knows who had which realization back then... Looking at the literature these systems produced, one can make educated guesses. A quote from Ken Wilbers "Integral Buddhism": "The idea is that Buddhadharma (Buddhist Truth) has itself already undergone three (or four) major evolutionary Turnings in its own Teachings, according to Buddhism itself. The First Turning began with the original, historical Gautama Buddha himself, and is preserved to this day in teachings such as the Theravada. The Second Turning was introduced by the genius Nagarjuna, around 200 CE, with his revolutionary notion of shunyata, or the radical Emptiness or “unqualifiability” of ultimate Reality (which could be said neither to be, nor not to be, nor both, norneither—the idea being to clear the mind of any and all concepts about Reality so that Reality in itself could be directly experienced), a notion that became the foundation of virtually every Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) and Vajrayana (“Diamond Vehicle”) teaching henceforth. The Third Turning occurred with the half brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu, and is generally called the Yogachara school, sometimes referred to as the “Mind-Only” school (which agreed with Nagarjuna that ultimate Reality was Emptiness, but so was ultimate Mind). This teaching became a central foundation of the great Tantra and Vajrayana (Diamond Path) teachings, which particularly flourished in such places as the extraordinary Nalanda University in India from the 8th to the 11th century CE, and continued unabated in Tibetan Buddhist schools—and, indeed, many Buddhists consider Tantra and Vajrayana to be a “Fourth Turning of the Wheel.” Also in Ken Wilbers model the realization of Ultimate Reality started first with the second turning of the wheel (Nagarjuna), which was not descriptive at all but pure neti-neti, pure emptiness, pure not this - not that. The Yogachara-School, or "Mind-Only" school, changed that. To quote Leo from a previous video "Reality is a giant Mind". The Yogachara-School is very in line with that. "This teaching became a central foundation of the great Tantra and Vajrayana (Diamond Path" (see above). Also Mahamudra and Dzogchen evolved out of that. The Yogachara-School (or the lines influenced from it most) today is not Theravada, it is not Zen. Parts of it survived for example in Tibetan Buddhism. In my view and experience there are the most sophisticated meditation systems of the planet, see the writings of Daniel Brown. He practically translated all of the secret Tantric Hermit Yoga Stuff. For the most efficient meditation system on the planet (at least in my view), see his Mahamudra-Book "Pointing out the great Way", and his subsequent Dzogchen-Books, where he translated for the first time with permission from Menri Trizin all the secret stuff. The Yogachara-School, or "Mind-Only" school, is most in line with Leos view, as far as see it. The Tibetan Traditions, like for example Dzogchen and Mahamudra, continued to evolve, and that is why we can read something like the Supreme Source, see my first reply in this threat, coming from these traditions. In my view, much of the Supreme Source is also in line with most of Leos perspective and his experiences and realizations. So when it comes to looking for God-Realization in Buddhism, maybe in these schools one can find the most. But even then, one has to read between the lines. But Buddhism then in some traditions developed backwards, lost its sophistication, as here very clearly (and surprisingly harshly) said by Ken Wilber on Zen for example: " But there were, nevertheless, still more unfoldings to occur. Particularly by the 4th century CE, the question had become insistent: granted that the Absolute cannot be categorized literally in dualistic terms and concepts, is there really nothing whatsoever that could be said about it at all? At least in the realm of conventional truth, couldn’t more systems, maps, models, and at least metaphors be offered about Reality and how to realize it? Already, in such brilliant treatises as the Lankavatara Sutra, the answer was a resounding yes. The Lankavatara Sutra was so important it was passed down to their successors by all 5 of the first Chan (or Zen) Head-Founders in China, as containing the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. In fact, the early Chan school was often referred to as the Lankavatara school, and a history of this early period is entitled Records of the Lankavatara Masters. (Starting with the 6th Head-Founder, Hui Neng, the Diamond Sutra—a treatise solely devoted to pure Emptiness—displaced the Lankavatara, and in many ways Zen lost the philosophical and psychological sophistication of the Lankavatara system and focused almost exclusively on nonconceptual Awareness. Zen Masters were often depicted tearing up sutras, which really amounted to a rejection of the 2 Truths doctrine. This was unfortunate, in my opinion, because in doing so, Zen became less than a complete system, refusing to elaborate conventional maps and models. Zen became weak in relative truths, although it brilliantly succeeded in elaborating and practicing ultimate Truth." So what do we have today when it comes to Buddhism? Theravada, which is a successor school of the schools of the first turning of the wheel, see above. Didn't really participate in the second and third turnings, which explains why its philosophy doesnt really reflect the sophistications of these systems. Here I agree with Leo. Still the meditation methods of these systems work for some if you do them long enough. Zen, see the comment of Wilber above. Tibetan Buddhism: They have in my opinion the most sophisticated meditation techniques, because they continued developing new methods, and contain the Yogachara Mind-Only perspective. The wording is of course not contemporary, one has to overlook a lot of "medieval" stuff, for example the cosmology of Tantra and so on. But even that can be understood and be put into perspective with something like the Supreme Array Sutra, Osto: https://psychedelicsangha.org/paisley-gate/2019/5/8/the-supreme-array-scripture-a-psychedelic-stra-for-buddhist-psychonauts-pp3zz The above overview is for sure not complete. So not all schools/systems of Buddhism have the same level of development, sophistication and efficiacy concerning meditation-methods and views on reality. Personally, I feel that some compassion with some of the traditions criticized in the text above helps me to keep a benevolent feeling towards them. But it should also be clear what the limits of the system are, and how efficient each is, and how good its view is. Ken Wilbers comment on Zen (above) was helpful for me, because I had the same feelings when I compared for example Zen and its anti-intellectualism (which also has its place in the right context) with Mahamudra/Dzogchen. I believe in our lifetime we will start to see which systems "score" in producing realized ones, and which only get lucky in collecting genetically/karmically privileged ones for their own tradition. The efficiacy of a system is getting not only the the karmically/genetically superstars to the finish-line, but normal talented ones also. The Ramanas and Anandamayi Ma of this world always get to the finish line. The real challenge is getting normally talented ones to realize their true nature.

LEO changed my whole LIFE it all started with one afternoon. i had just a little curiosity about what is reality. i thought that reality is might not be as it apears to be. so i just went on searching in youtube "what is reality". thats when i come in contact with leos video titled as "what is reality" . i just watched his video in awe. i couldnt digest what he is saying. because i never heard anything like this before, but i had this intuition in me. its so radical. it shook me at my core. i really greatful watching that video until today. and i had nothing to do with my life in particularly. i was 22 and i was following a course. and i had more time. so i watched his videos as many as possible. i was getting exsited, and amazed what he is saying in each video. these are some videos that mostly changed me "what is reality" "self bias" most effected video so far is "open mindedness" "what is truth" "what is conciousness" "how to discover what is true" "actuality" "recontexualization" "contemplation" all most every video i watched. i took everything so literally. it broke my mind. it broke my worldview, and everything i beleive. i didnt took anything as truth after that. i remember watching tv with my mom and asking what is tv. ? i saw everything as a question. i was also contemplating at that time. as i was watching these videos, i was came in contact with this particular video where leo explains the self i considered to be me is just a negative space carved by its surrounding. i couldnt watch this video. when i was in half way through in this video, i just had to stop the video. i had this very strange feeling in the body mixed with great sense of fear of non existence. and i stopped the video and went for a walk, and finished the video after. something phenominal happened that day. it felt like some part of me died. and i was intuitive that i am not who i thought i was. but i didnt know who i was. in one video, leo mentions a technique called "neti neti" technique. so i searched for it. and i watched it with open mind. but nothing happened. i just kept watching that video again and again to find out who i was. but nothing happened. and i end up in frustration, anger, hopelessness. and i just wanted to stop all this thing with truth seeking and focus on my life. so i decided to stop all this, after giving it a one last chance. so i took a pen and paper, and sat down with the frustration. this time i didnt took anything from anyone. i just contemplated my experience. i didnt took leos word for it. i just asked who i am and explored my experience.. and in one point, i just realized that i am not my body, mind, or whatever i thought myself to be. but i am the experiencer. and it just occured to me that, if this experiencer is not present, then there wont be anything. and with that realisation, my mind and body went crazy. i literally felt like i was dying. im not over exaggerating this. it literally felt like i was dying physically. my body is vibrating like crazy. my heart pounding. i was alone at home. my personal self disappeared. and i was shivering, and vibrating. that experience lasted for half an hour and gradually went away. and i was left with this beutiful sensations in the body and crystal clear mind. its like you went most rush and noizy city from complete silent sound proof room. man, there is nothing in this world that i can compare with that experience. its so beutiful, so profound, i just cried like a child for how long i dont know. there is no other word that i can call it other that "BLISS". after all that, i went to sleep that day, and i was never slept. i can sense that my body is sleeping. but i was fully awake. i was totally aware of my surroundings. i didnt wanted sleep so much, because this experience is so beutiful and satisfying. i woke up early in the morning to meditate. but there is no any tiredness or anything like that. everything is just so easy. and i went for a walk. everything is vibrating with bliss. and i listened to a song, that felt like im in heaven. i never had that experience before when i listening to songs. this experience happened two years ago. and my life completely changed after that experience.but that experience lasted only for a week. and went away. but my understanding in the mind never went away. only the bodily feeling went away. understanding remained. i had my second experience when i was noticing this awareness, while watching rupert spira's video about awareness has no inside or outside. i deeply explored that with my experience. and i just felt like i was everywhere. i literally felt it. i was everything and everyone, not as a idea, but experiatialy i knew it. i was my mother, my father, my sister, and i was leo too. that experience took me more deeper. and i remebered the leos videos about this. and i said to myself "this is what he says again and again. finally it happened. it is real." i wanted to write this long time ago. but never had the chance.The one thing that leos videos different from others is, he explains everything with in very details, so anyone can uderstand what he is talking about. even he stumbled upon his videos for first time. he has a unique way of teaching. All i wanted to say is, to say big thanks to leo.. a.k.a "ME". i am so greateful for finding his teaching. and i couldnt beleive this free and people are not interested in this. thank you man. keep doing your brilliant work to awoke people from this dream.

I think there were numerous useful points you made here. I don't feel competent enough to speak on the non-duality points you made in terms of whether Leo's claims are accurate or not. The way I tend to see it is that when it comes to non-duality these days Leo behaves more like a philosopher than a mentor. It seems to me like he is concerned with gaining more and more insight, and just sharing that insight. However, it seems to me that he has already made quite a lot of content on non-duality. Both in terms of based on his own conclusions, and also the teachings of numerous others, i.e. neti-neti. I agree with you regarding Leo's style of communication on the platform. I think he is repeatedly abusive in many of his communications and I feel upset that it continues. With regards to the forum, I think you are looking at the forum through a stage green lens. I have repeatedly been conflicted about whether to continue using the forum or follow the channel on multiple occasions. However, I believe I am of a greater understanding of why the platform is as it is. I think its because actualized.org is designed to be a stage yellow content provider, not stage green. And to be effective the actualized content will need to appeal to people at all sorts of different stages, i.e. red, blue, orange, and so people will be attracted to the forum from various different levels of consciousness. A stage green platform, to my mind, would cater really well to stage green folks. However, I don't think it would be so useful when it comes to drawing in lower stage people. For example, the why I hate men/ women debate wouldn't, to my mind, make sense in a stage green forum, but it does in a yellow one because if you cancel out those debates the people from that level of consciousness, to my mind, will end up leaving. Now, whether the forum actually manages to effective do spiral wizardry to get folks up stages of consciousness I think is a different matter. I think the Leo and the mod team tend to drop the ball when it comes to that. Regarding other minutia, and how the lifestyle of the west isn't that great. I think that is a stage green perspective you are holding there. To my mind, its important to get healthy integration of all the stages of the spiral. If you go to india I imagine you will find lots of beautiful spirituality over there. However, I also imagine next to the ashram you will find people dying in the streets. The west, to my mind, has serious limits. However, to my mind, in most cases, the political structuring and level of society is significantly higher in consciousness in western countries. To my mind not integrating the lower stages like orange will leave a person or society in a very precarious position and they will suffer greatly for it. On the personal level, Green self help is fab until you, i.e., get a bill for your mum's cancer treatment that you cannot afford, or you can't afford the rent, and your close family dynamic lacks boundaries and emotional incest occurs. All the stages have something one can learn from imo.

I thought they are the same because the spiritual practices like Neti Neti go after the I. So is the no-self awakening also the awakening to solopsism?

Hi I really want opinions on that... I'm reading/practicing Neti Neti Meditation by Andre Doshim Halaw and that's really awesome. Did you use the technique and get an enlightenment experience? What's your thoughts on that? What's your results with Neti Neti? Love you all ♥

@Someone here The solipsism and Nihilism video, the former is what he took done, that one was very scary and hit pretty badly, nearly killed me. The what is anger part 1 and 2, because I suffered from anger issues, and had issues with his lack of empathy. Either the dark side of meditation, or the one with the paranormal. Just doesn't seem to have those paranormal experiences to talk about them, and I have had those and it's just weird. His spirituality and enlightenment videos and the guided neti neti video. Gave me strong depression that took several months to reverse. Every video of his dating advice, made me very insecure. I guess the moral of the story, is that this stuff's not for most normies

Lol. I can't remember who it was, but someone just said imagine your Child was ill and you went to the hospital and some doctor had adopted these Neo-Advaita teachings, yeah your child is dying but its all good because 'there's nobody there', 'nobody this is happening to' Also, I'd look out for a lot of scandals from these kind of teachers (not saying Jim Newman but in general) where the whole nobody there, nothing happening to noone spiel will be used as the excuse- How can anything with 'no' be the final answer? Sure, there's a time and a place to expose someone to the neti neti approach & what not, but as a parrot answer to every question, I'd say that's the furthest thing from Skilled Teaching. Plus, they never go beyond the 'No' 'Not' 'Nobody' and the truth is far beyond the negatives Imo, its quite a hollow, empty teaching, one you don't want to be stuck in

Okay so you just straight aren't ever going to recognize it then... Vedanta takes randomers who have not had these bizarre experiences and will tell you, "you are not your thoughts", etc (as I mentioned they do that whole neti neti process thing)... Now you will say back to them "but that's duality! I am my thoughts!" And it's like, well okay then guess you'll just have literally no chance of ever understanding it whatsoever... You're just talking about something you have never recognized as if you have recognized it, and because of that you will never recognize it... And that is ultimately why you think you "become" God and start performing magic. You will never "become" what you are. You can only ever possibly recognize what you are, but it is what you already and always were. There will never be such a thing as a level of consciousness, there isn't any tier that is higher or lower than what is rigidly the only one there ever was, which encompasses all there is and ever could be. There isn't space for it to grow into, it is itself and it is whole with nothing outside it, not even nothingness (since nothingness is fundamentally what you are), hence why: nowhere for it to grow into. All things happen WITHIN it, like the swirling images on a screen. All you are ever doing, it is not growing outwards into bigger and bigger pictures but seeing "through" the pictures so to speak. It is more like moving the opposite direction. Except you are already there...... Take this. You're at a cinema, super engrossed in the film, lost in it. Suddenly the movie cuts out. And you suddenly feel yourself in the seat there. You didn't "go to" the seat, or "become more seated". You were already and always there, ALWAYS just as seated and just as present in that chair. But you didn't realize because you were distracted by the movie. Leo would understand what I am saying but he doesn't really bother to post lately.

Dude you can't mention subtle dualities when you don't rn comprehend the thing you're trying to discuss... Example: In Vedanta they have a process they call neti neti, which is where the people are taught to understand they are not the thoughts, not the images, etc... Say a guy came in without having touched realization of Brahman and was like "nah that's BS, that's a duality" it's like, oh okay, guess you'll just never get it ever then... Only the entity referred to universally as "I" can """awaken""", AKA recognize itself. The images, your entire personness, cannot... Example: Imagine an elephant in your mind. Now stop imagining the elephant. Is the elephant now enlightened? Could the image of the elephant recognize it is only an image? Could the image of the elephant start "manifesting" things it desires? Well there you go....... ALL of your person-ness is exactly like that. All just images. Your desire to manifest something, is an idea and that is ALSO an image...

I feel like I´ve reached a plateau in my meditation and I know that it is because I haven´t commited to one specific technique to go deeper. But I find it hard to make a decision and commit to one, cause many resonate and I see the potential of them. But I feel now is the time to commit to one for a longer period of time. So what´s your favourite meditation technique? Zazen, Passage Meditation, Mantras, Breathing, Mindfulness, Satisfaction Meditation, I AM- Meditation, Neti-Neti, Loving Kindness Meditation, etc. You got any tips on how to decide for one?

You are absolutely certain that u exist, right? Nobody ever doubts his existence, it's impossible. Even to say i don't exist u need to exist first to say that. So u exist. Absolutely so. Now the question becomes 'i exists but as what?' Then neti neti starts. Everything is impermenant, but i remain and observe existence coming and going. Then by observing all phenomena to its subtlest realms u realize what u are can't be found or grasped. It is nothing or not-anything-tangiable. No-self in buddhist's terms. That's the realization of the absolute. Realization of nothingness. And it has no levels or it wouldn't be absolute. There are degrees of insight into the absolute tho.

Guys, how can there be any sort of consciousness of the absolute? How can we become conscious of *actual* nothing? Nothing can't be conscious because when it is it's something. Like in the neti-neti method: not this trip, not this insight, etc, etc. Am I on the right track?

I was doing the neti neti method and when the last thing was gone (thoughts) I started vaguely seeing in my imagination something that I actually saw in my childhood during a fever dream and this memory from childhood got completly deleted from my memory but when this experience occured it just clicked in me and I suddenly remembered it and it even felt the same. I can't describe it now, and I think I would'nt be able to put it in words even during the experience. But the thing is that during this state what was really present is fear. I, or better maybe my body felt so much fear that it affected my mind and so I started to become terrified. I tried to surrender to this fear and calm myself down, but about in a minute this experience completly wear off and I was left with the biggest confusion and "what the fuck was that" thought. Did I messed it up? Cuz at some point I tried to describe what I'm experiencing and maybe it ruined it. I really want to point out the fact that I definetly experienced that in my childhood maybe even multiple times and it used to scare me a lot (I was a kid cmon who would put a child through such thing) Elp

@Ninja_pig It happened to me aswell. You dispell some illusions, then the mind creates negative beliefs out the emptiness of those as if reality is lacking. Thats the trick. But you have to go beyond. Dont just dispell illusions. You have to simultaneiusly ground yourself in presence. The IAM. Other wise you will be floating in the chaos of your mind karma. Which feels like hell. Dont do much spirituality if you are not going all in. Right now im used to pain. The moment is coming soon when I will drop all and trade my false I for the True "I". Remember that as you drop beliefs that ground you, you might also need some new positive beliefs for specific things/situations. Dont just donate. God wants to trade with you. Also, true meditation makes you very passive and its risky if you have many responsabilities. Unless you are rich with nothing else to do. I prefer Self-Inquiry, Neti-Neti and Psychedelics.

I just wanted to post the same thing but decided to go with more simple stuff like dreams. During my neti neti meditation I somehow entered some "realm" cuz I dont have words to describe it (maybe state of consciousness) and it indeed felt like a childhood dream that I had but it got completely deleted from my memory. And for some reason I felt extreme fear throughout the whole process. It all went away the moment I tried to put it into words. After this I thought why the hell would someone or something put a child mind through such thing

The answer is pretty much what many have already said. The phrase I use which is the foundation for all issues or problems in life is everything starts with you. 1. You must first accept yourself in the present moment. Love is acceptance, and hatred is denial. Accept everything about yourself, your physical appearance, your personality, your past, your quirks, EVERYTHING. 2. Recognize (experientially) that you are the creator. You ARE THE APLHA AND OMEGA. 3. If you have trouble recognizing this go look up Leo's Neti Neti Guided Meditation Video as a good start. 4. Once you start to love yourself you will be able to love others in a HEALTHY WAY. As someone mentioned earlier stay away from co-dependent behavior. Seeking medical professional help is always a healthy choice. 5. Choose to act in a way that YOU believe is noble, and if you make mistakes lovingly accept those mistakes and their consequences and move on. Your lack of love for yourself is ALSO an illusion. Had you met yourself in another form you might very well pedestalize the form you are in now. But when you are inside looking out the form doesn't seem so great. Recognize that you may be thinking more highly of others than you aught to.

One of my greatest experiences of “infinity” was in the split second before my first two cessations. Experiences people associate with Infinity are far different than cessation though. I’m sure some people have reached cessation through neti neti, but I wouldn’t consider it the most likely option. As far as psychedelics go, 90% of the times I’ve reached cessation, it has been on THC which is kind of ironic seeing how people often see the substance as not having value in serious spiritual pursuits. Specifically, it was a delta-10/delta-8 THC mixture. Daniel Ingram says that it’s incredibly rare to reach cessation through psychedelics however. I think he said maybe a rate of 1 in 1000 people he’s talked to who claimed cessation in a way that was convincing got there from psychedelics as opposed to meditation. It’s probably rather unlikely that these forms of THC would help you reach cessation unless the use of other psychedelics has significantly increased the potency of THC and you’re able to use it consistently without seeing the typical negative effects people see with frequent THC use. It also would probably require a certain synergy with your unique neurochemistry which makes things even less probable. I have heard one other person claim that they have reached cessation on THC, but I’m not sure if he actually did or not due to some ambiguity in his description of the event. I wouldn’t count on a substance to get you to cessation even though it was beneficial for me. Vipassana meditation is probably the best thing from what I’ve seen to increase your chances. Daniel Ingram’s forum https://www.dharmaoverground.org/ has a lot of people who have reached cessation and plenty of people aiming for it there. It might be a good thing to check out if you are quite interested in it. Leo’s comment that cessation is imaginary is correct. Regardless, a 9.5/10 woman riding your dick is also imaginary, but there are certainly valid reasons to enjoy that and things to be gained in a relative sense from such an experience. Cessation is no different other than it has the potential to be exponentially better than the example given of sex with a 9.5/10 woman, and it also has the potential to change your perception permanently to make life far better than it would’ve likely been without reaching cessation. A personal theory of mine is that reaching cessation has a lot to do with how much time you spend in radical states of consciousness while also doing active investigation of such states. I think the main issue with serotonergic psychedelics aiding toward reaching cessation is that people typically cannot spend nearly the amount of hours in psychedelic trips in a sustainable way as much as they could do with meditation. In the couple months leading up to my first cessations, I had almost lost my big toe in a lawn mowing accident. I was off from work due to the injury and was using THC for pain relief as well as some consciousness work since I had nothing better I could do being rather incapacitated on the couch unable to move without assistance. I was also running into reverse tolerance with THC at this time where every week or two I would hit a new threshold on roughly the same relatively low dose of THC which made the trips more and more intense. It was rather common for me to reach states while on THC similar in strength, intensity, and profundity to what I experienced on very high doses of serotonergic psychedelics. Once this became a weekly or even daily thing to be in such states, I think this increased the chance of reaching cessation quite a bit. Whatever practice or substance you use, if you want cessation, I think it all comes down to how regularly you can reach high states of consciousness, and most of the rest is just up to luck. Many have practiced spirituality diligently for an entire lifetime and not reached cessation. I was not trying to reach cessation when it happened. I think I would’ve likely never gotten there without Leo’s teachings. I had hardly any in-depth understanding of Buddhism or Buddhist forms of meditation prior to cessation, so I certainly can’t credit it for getting me there although it does appear to be the system which is most focused on cessation and produces that “state” in more practitioners than other forms of spirituality.

LSD Trip 005 February 12th 2022 Imagine taking your most potent hit of acid and then when you're at your peak the world starts going into chaos and there's riots and shit outside. That's what I experienced. Like I was going for it hard in this trip. My Intentions were: So those were the intentions, basically self inquiry. Dosage: 100mcg Rectal administration. Definitely my favorite ROA because I don't get much body load. Putting one whole tab in rectally that's not cut up is A LOT easier to do because it's a nice big piece. Dropped at 10:28am 26 min. Nothing noticeable yet 30 minutes Very awkward and vibratory come-up. Very hungry, tired and a hint of nausea. 34 mins Visuals inbound. 1 hour in, feeling very conscious. Time to start doing the work. Seriously What if I'm God? What if I'm just a field of awareness that needed to create a body and an environment to fool that it is not itself? >So I just sat on the couch and tried to do some self inquiry, the best I could. YOOOOO Your mind is going to come with every excuse in the book to distract you from looking at truth, especially the absolute. If I was just a field of awareness in the room with nobody it wouldn't make any sense. Which is why I created the body. The body grounds my field of awareness in a context so I can fool myself that I am a "perceiver". And as long as "I perceive" I will have a body to back it up. What can I put my Awareness on to prove that I exist? I have no face. I created eyes as an excuse to "see". I'm so stoned that when I close my eyes, I hallucinate like I'm a camera in a different part of the world. Like I'm over at an assembly line of people or I'm literally just a drone flying somewhere. I need 5meo lol. >At this point I am thinking that it's pointless to try to get to the truth using LSD when I can just use 5meo, because I have access to it. This is literally the best stage of consciousness I've had in weeks and I'm just fucking chillin here on the bed... I'm SO DISTRACTED. I don't think I've been this bored while high. There is nothing that my mind doesn't do that is outside of my control. >Yet at the same time I control nothing... What is the substance of substance? What is the substance of substance of substance of....... >So there I was, staring at my reflection in the mirror, doing self-inquiry. Closing one eye, poking the the other eyeball as I observe my vision shift. Also thinking about how ugly I appear to be in that moment, you know, in a loving way, just chilling really, loving the moment. >Then out of nowhere, the ringing from the silence that was in my ears got louder, it got really REALLY loud. I heard it coming from somewhere. I opened the window of the bathroom I was standing in, I realize that I'm hearing honking, SO much honking. I thought some building was on fire. It was complete chaos. I had NO IDEA what was going on. I step outside and I see these people speeding down the streets with their loud as fuck horns and honking the horns of the cars. I swear someone had a war horn or something. Shit was loud as FUCK. The entire neighbourhood was screaming loud. It was really distressing. Instantly, the whole world was chaos, and I was basically in fight or flight mode, WHILE peaking on a very potent dose of LSD. I was like “YOO WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!” I was thinking like there's like a group of terrorists, extremists something. I was also laughing at the chaos. I asked people that were in the house what the fuck was that, and they didn't know! I felt like I was in the middle of WW3 or some shit lol. Like I was genuinely concerned if I needed to defend myself and the house. I only found out several hours later that it was this thing called “the freedom Convoy” that's been happening all across Canada. Dude what the fuck. I had ZERO idea of what this was. >So this basically threw my LSD trip off the rails. I eventually just gave up and used my LSD state to think about survival. This has basically been my fallback intentions anytime I can't focus on the more metaphysical stuff. >Side note, when you close one eye and poke your eye, (touching your eyelid, not the eyeball itself.) and your vision shifts that is literally changing reality as it absolutely is, isn't it? Using a perception to change a perception? It's like how a taking a psychedelic is a perception that changes reality, which is nothing but perceptions. So in this case instead of consuming a psychedelic, it is your finger poking your eyeball. Reality is the device that contains stories. The social matrix is a system to create a homeostasis around the loudest stories. Without the story of the freedom convoy, I would be very worried about what the fuck this group was up to. >Thinking about how I imagine everything in reality. I'm going to imagine the rest of my life. I'm going to imagine what it feels like to create myself. (Align with my life purpose) That is the gift I give myself. To be able for the first time, survive as this "being of consciousness" in this "given reality" to discover his place in the world that HE FUCKING IMAGINED. >We are the Director, the Producer, and the Viewer. We come into this world to create attachments, to grasp onto something, otherwise, it wouldn't mean anything if we realized we were just grasping sand. Here's a decent question: What would I have to do to fool myself that I am not GOD? Why you need to track your time: You need to sacrifice a bit of your time to keep track of the rest of it. If you can spend 10% of your time to make sure you're spending the other 90% really well, you're good. That's like 1-2 hours a day planning. That's plenty of time. >For many this is obvious, but for me this hit different. To construct a life purpose, you must know first how to deconstruct it. You must be the knower that you are the one that constructs all meaning, purpose and value. I really need to train my consciousness more. I need to set aside time to Meditate. My ability to focus is shit, and it's causing problems. Here's an interesting insight. States of consciousness. Creativity is a state of Consciousness. Inspiration is a state of consciousness. Motivation is a state of consciousness The mode when the ideas are flowing to you effortlessly IS a state of consciousness. Dude what the fuck! Success is LITERALLY just a state of consciousness. Feeling like you're going to be successful is a state of consciousness. Feeling like you're on the path is a state of consciousness. Being focused is a state of consciousness. Your state of consciousness determines your life. Having the motivation to turn your life around is a state of consciousness. And all of these states of consciousness can be induced manually. Being unfocused as I am is the gift I give myself. Because when I can figure out how to focus THIS DUDE, I'll know a lot about how I can train others. I want to write a really inspiring piece of poetry. Just like Prince EA. https://youtu.be/ja-n5qUNRi8 To have motivation, I need to put myself in the grip of life, I need to put myself in touch with death. I need to CAPTURE that state of consciousness. The one that doubts themselves the most can teach themselves to doubt themselves the least. How can I get myself into the state of consciousness so that I FEEL like I'm on the path. While knowing that I'm not fooling myself. A state of consciousness where you KNOW that you are giving it your all, where you are pushing yourself to constantly grow yourself. Stay in that state of consciousness long enough and you'll manifest the success you want. One of the greatest joys in life is to create something beautiful. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to make your life a work of art. At the end of the day I proceeded to have a 5 hour conversation with my good friend, making plans to move out, talking about a bunch of motivational shit. >The following morning... So I had mega broken sleep for the entire night. I was basically trying to sleep while half high. So THAT was interesting. I kept constantly thinking about the ramifications of the conversation I had, and I think because I was still on acid, I actually programmed in some of that drive because this morning I am realizing just how real it's going to get when we are living together. I laid in bed for a significantly shorter amount of time and I got up, made my bed and got myself dressed and ready to work. I'll need to practice self inquiry sober for awhile before I get into doing it again on psychedelics. Gotta crack open the neti neti book. I need to practice the Enlightenment guides a lot more as well. But I'm also just going to see what 5meo can do for me as well. Sometime this year...

Okay, so no amount of reading or mental masturbation gets me even an inch closer. That's kind of what I was afraid of, and also probably what i already knew when I asked. So it's literally waiting for the grace of god to strike you. A human is incapable of getting there on their own. Aside from DMT and psychedelics, is there anything else we can do to increase the probability of that lightning strike? It sounds like any form of meditation is about 0.00001% as effective and that seems like the second-best option. (For even an initial experience of enlightenment, not necessarily all the way.) Do you have any theory on how DMT gets a person there? Does the psychedelic state just make someone radically more open to the truth? I'm now thinking of it almost like some kind of "luck boost" potion in an RPG that increases your % chance of finding rare gear (or in this case, enlightenment) while it's active. Does anything besides DMT give even a measurable buff in this regard? Not even do nothing meditation, neti neti, etc?

As many know, nobody ever really comes back from a serious DMT breakthrough. Even though the memory of the heaviest breakthrough ever is so faded that I can only recall about 3 seconds of it, hazily, I still try to understand what happened. I remember the euphoric afterglow... I remember knowing I am not more important than a single grain of sand, but also not less important than an entire solar system. I remember understanding right aftef that spiritual practices are a waste of life, as everyone is equal and their entire lifetime of spirituality/good deeds erased when they die. I remember speaking to Shiva (I was VERY heavily materialistic, had zero spiritual leaning, and in fact Hindu characters have always looked frightening to me). I thought it was a woman. I know now it's a man... I remember Googling "monist religions" (yes the ego death was SO intense from the 5 tab acid DMT combo that I became religious) and then finding Advaita Vedanta for the first time. I remember reading a lot about it then. I remember the dissociation and awful derealization that began after further usage. ... But I remember it was very "we" are one. I have tripped so much, on LSD alone (rather than the acid DMT combos I became religious due to) I had similar abstract realizations of repetition, and of "slithers of being", like I am slither #1948127 in some infinite honeycomb. My own being split into various characters. All had their own personalities and spoke among themselves in the voice of the Friends characters. They were all distinct aspects of me... I had a programmable synth. You program a beat into each square and it plays them in order. I had an abstract acid thought that my entire existence is like that. Where I am programmed into squares like this and I in fact die every single moment. A clown jester PROVED my inherent emptiness to me. It did not just tell me. It pointed at the formless me in the foreground and I was pulled far back. Back behind even my ego. Back behind even the thought of "I", an experiential neti-neti process where I was left as literal nothing... But I also remember the ego deaths where the sense of any locale died and my consciousness became sizeless and all encompassing. ... But back to the main trips where I did heavy acid trips with the DMT smoked on the peak... I have forever been trying to understand those experiences since. There was certainly oneness and unity. But a "we". "We are existence itself, we are eternal" etc. Rather than "I" am. "We" are literally one... When sober I cannot comprehend that simultaneous separation ("we") and the absolute total unity ("are one" - literally) that accompanied. Maybe it's not comprehensible... Laughing with what was at the time stupendously obvious to the point it was hilarious: "I know, they (other living beings) don't even realize they're us!!!" Stifling fits of laughter...