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Aaron Abke talks in this new video about how the mind has evolved to always assume the worst as a strategy for survival. When we always assume the worst, when we always take the most pessimistic view, then we are most likely to avoid danger, Aaron said. Good point. That made me think that a sign of a collective consciousness is that all fear drops away when interacting with other people. Because then those other people are a part of one's own being. So it's a total transformation of that ancient fear-based survival strategy of always expecting dangers, which is what we still have at the personal stage.

@egoeimai Don’t be addicted to dumb shit and most of your problems will simply fade away. You don’t realise that you’re positively reinforcing an addiction you didn’t realise you even had, programmed by a screen ? and social networks paid for by news media, film and governmental influences to keep you at a lower state of consciousness. You... Are already free. It feels unnatural to begin with to start reinforcing biochemical feedback loops within yourself that facilitate a higher state of consciousness. But. This. Is. Just. How. It. Is. You’re not going to fool anyone aware here. You don’t deserve sympathy right now because you’re not showing yourself enough empathy, you’re simply looking for attention. When you begin to show yourself some empathy, then you can begin to act with self respect, an intention that you can incrementally leverage to higher states of awareness. This is when we can begin to truly converse on this thread, until then, you’ll be locked in your addiction to fear. It’s an untold lie, that fear was anything more than this, an evolutionary response (survival purposes serves as necessary) and memories with this kind of cellular information that still need to be transmuted. Truth. Love. Freedom. Does this addiction truly serve my transformation towards higher being or does it not? That’s the only relevant question for you on the subject of addiction.

2020: the empire strikes back year. Welp, here we are in 2021. Another year; another benchmark to shame ourselves into buying a gym membership for a month. So 2020 was a shitstorm. The pandemic really did a number on all of us, some more than others. And I don't want to sugarcoat by saying how great of a spiritual opportunity this was to let go of what doesn't serve us anymore and blahbity blahbity blah... Most of us aren't even at that point yet. I'd say most of us are at the point of saying "mercy." I'm there, to be honest. This has been a year of deep psychological excavation; of coming up against huge financial, relational, and emotional hurdles; of testing how well I can fare when I have almost zero emotional resources — when it feels like the darkness won. It's The Empire Strikes Back year. It's not just COVID for me. I have a couple acquaintances who are into astrology, and they say that these next few years of my life (27-31) are "Saturn's return," which signifies a major transition into adulthood. Friends will be lost, moves will be made, and generally speaking, a major transformation is under way. I resonate with that because based on the events of this past year, it's already happening. On the first day of 2020, I moved into the Artist's Den and tried living alone for a second time. The place had a back yard, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a foyer, furnace heating, and other amenities that were luxurious to me. I could play guitar at three in the morning with no noise complaints, walk around butt naked, and have access to the kitchen whenever I wanted. But when my girlfriend at the time wasn't there, I was lonely as fuck. I realized through direct experience that no amount of luxury can compensate for nourishing human connections with wholesome people. Speaking of wholesome people, the dance with my ex was chaotic. We both had our stuff, projected onto each other, triggered each other constantly — yet we kept coming back to each other to try to do "the work" in a break-up/reunion cycle. She quarantined with me and my family after I canceled the lease on the Artist's Den in March, which resulted in the most turbulent, exciting, miserable, and amazing months of the year. I give her a lot of credit for going through that with me. As tumultuous as it was sometimes, I learned so much about myself in that relationship. I also feel truly honored to have had a soul connection with such a lovely, wise, beautiful and kind human being. She touched my heart in ways I didn't anticipate. The restaurants in my area were still open, so I did a lot of gigging in the summer, improving my chops a ton. Fall and winter has been in the parents' basement, caretaking a sobbing inner child with my inner strength. After the (presumably) final break-up last month, I had one session with my therapist before she found out that her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to cancel our future sessions. I haven't seen her since. In the midst of all of this, I've lost touch with several people who I used to call "friends." So... a breakup, losing friends, a therapist leaving, being around a family that doesn't understand the grieving process, being shamed for being depressed and mopey... It's been rough. Outdated ways of relating to people have come to the surface to be released, with grief as unrelenting as a river current. Dreams about fame and success that I thought were my own were merely narcissistic childhood mirages. I've become so disillusioned with horse-whip self-help. I am so sick and tired of being picked on or called "selfish" for going after what genuinely feels safe and nourishing to me. And I'm starting to own and caretake my shadow — the lazy, passionate, exploratory, brash, horny asshole. So while it is rough, it's not all bad. Through this hardship, I've learned about surrender and real self-love. Not just the question I posed last year — "What would someone who loves themselves do?" But a better question in my opinion: "What do I need in this moment to feel safe?" Because we can only make more empowered choices when we feel safe enough to do so. We can only change once we — all the parts of ourselves, including our shadow — feel safe, accepted, seen, heard, validated. My new year's resolution is not to get bigger muscles, a better job, or one hour of daily meditation. It's to commit to inner safety.

The beginning to the end of existence and all of what it is outside of that story. This is all a choice I know it, I’ve tested it. Choice is a manifestation of the way the universe transforms itself, choicelessness is to the experience of our subjectivity from an intersubjective perspective of larger existence where we are in allowance for inevitably to play itself out, we can opt in or we can opt out by the relative measurement of mind. I have choice. I choose you. But for you, black panther of great mythologies, I want you to make sure you always choose you. Everything after that is your choice. May this first day of the year be the beginning of the next stage of your unity with yourself, and through that, all nebula, the universe and all of your past and future lives that now live among the stars forming to create the new milky-way of this great new year that next year will live in the stars that make the beautiful synapses of your mind. Connection to yourself is your revolution and interconnection ours. Let’s write Shakespearean versus, both the meaningless and carefree, “to be or not” said the overly tight pants wearing dramatic actor, to the meaningful and heartfelt, “My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite”, Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare. Two roads diverged in a wood, and we are taking the one less traveled as Robert Frost may say, and able to risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose and start against our beginnings, we’ll be unified always to our true selves, as Rudyard Kipling might say. Today, you live today for you, in the way you truly wish, and the universe will open up to you in ways you can’t imagine, and you to it, for both our betterment and transformation, with no idea what’s around the corner of one another’s minds, but this is why we do this, and even if we know, it’s because we know, that we’ve already chosen why we do this. Laters dork.

Are you familiar with the research of Steve Taylor? He is a spiritual psychologist who has researched awakening experiences. I saw a talk from him a few months ago, where he mentioned one woman that he interviewed who awakened after learning that she had terminal cancer. It dramatically and permanently changed her view of reality, and she lived in a state of joy until she finally passed. Since my awakening in May, my suffering has reduced dramatically. I do have an ego attack once in a while, and am working on dissolving my remaining attachments, but my natural state is mostly free from suffering. It is a paradigmatic transformation that I never could have anticipated, or knew was possible. I no longer identify with my thoughts, nor do I look for happiness outside of myself. My lifestyle has completely changed. I still honor life, but I take it much less seriously. I realize that "I" is just a transitional label, and that "my" identity is the same changeless reality that imbues all things. I had mini-awakenings numerous times during my life, like many people do, but this was different. It was a direct realization that was a seismic and permanent shift in Consciousness.

Logan Paul's transformation is also crazy e: holy shit how fucking crazy is that interview LOL

Mike’s transformation is wonderful. And I can’t believe how coherent he is on 8g of shrooms!

2nd type of kabbalah ecstatic model. Ecstasy is a constant of human religious experience, as the wide dissemination of this type of experience in so many cultures demonstrates. Ecstatic experiences became more and more evident in the written documents of Jewish mysticism in the mid-thirteenth century. It seems that a process of adoption and accommodation of paranormal experiences was characteristic of medieval and early modern Jewish thought, which addressed with a growing seriousness paranormal experiences as legitimate events. The concomitant spread of the Maggidic experiences in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—particularly in the diary of Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (1488–1575), Isaac Luria's claims of paranormal revelations, and the discussions of cases of possession in the sixteenth century—may bear testimony to the legitimation of their discussion in public rather than to the emergence of new forms of experiences. No movement in Judaism emphasized the importance of the pneumatic experiences, in their most intensive and extreme forms, as did Polish Hasidism. The ecstatic model is concerned with inner processes taking place between the powers of imagination, the human intellect and the cosmic one, called the agent intellect. This sort of Kabbalah gravitates around the ideal of devequt, understood as pointing to moderate or extreme types of union with the Godhead. The other vital parts of this model are devices, or techniques, to ensure the attainment of this ideal. Hitbodedut, both as solitude and as mental concentration, hishtawwut or equanimity, and linguistic techniques of combining Hebrew letters or contemplating divine names are integral constituents. Paranormal experiences, like revelations and prophecies are congenital to this type of mystical model, and more consonant with it than to the theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah. The coherence between these concepts and practices rests in an organic continuum between strong mystical techniques and extreme mystical experiences, which include experiences of self-transformation. The ecstatic model was visible at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century in the writings of some kabbalists, like Isaac ben Shemuel of Acre, Nathan ben Sa'adyah, the author of Sha'arei Tzedeq, Ner 'Elohim, and Sefer ha-Tzeruf, and in the sixteenth century in the writings of Yehudah Albotini, Moshe Cordovero (1522–1570), and Hayyim ben Joseph Vital (1542 or 1543–1620). Many of the concepts were disseminated by means of the widespread writings of Cordovero's disciples, though some folios of Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah were in print as early as 1556. Some of Abulafia's manuscripts were known in the eighteenth century in eastern Europe by both Hasidim and Mitnaggedim. This model, though formulated in a systematic way by a Spanish Kabbalist, was not accepted by the Spanish kabbalists in the Iberian Peninsula. In Safed, however, Cordovero and his students were positively predisposed toward this type of mysticism. He described the major revelation concerning the messianic mission of Tzevi as the result of a path reminiscent of ecstatic Kabbalah. Abulafia's influence may also be discerned in Hasidism. The ecstatic approach assumes that the Kabbalist can use language and the canonical texts in order to induce a mystical experience by means of manipulations of elements of language together with other components of the various mystical techniques. This approach is much less concerned with divine inner structures, focusing as it does on the restructuring of the human psyche in order to prepare it for the encounter with the divine. The ecstatic theory of language is less mimetic, and thus less symbolic and theurgic, than the view espoused by the theosophical Kabbalah. While the theosophical-theurgical approach to language assumes the paramount importance of information that is either absorbed by the human mind or transmitted by the soul to the divine, in many cases the ecstatic view of language encourages the effacement of knowledge as part of the opening toward the divine. According to ecstatic Kabbalah, language helps cleanse someone's consciousness by breaking, using a mystical technique, the words of the sacred scripture into nonsemantic units. While the theosophical Kabbalah emphasizes the given, structured aspects of language as manifested in the canonical writings, in ecstatic Kabbalah the deconstruction of the canonical texts, and of ordinary language as well, is an important mystical tool for restructuring the human psyche. Significant for this model is the antinomian feature of the techniques, which means that according to the various descriptions of his paths the rabbinic rites are not essential for achieving the supreme religious experience. Prophecy is the main purpose of Abulafia's entire kabbalistic project, and he conceived himself to be a prophet. The recurrence, at least in principle, of this topic is visible in a Kabbalist who was also well acquainted with the theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah. Isaac Luria, like his teacher Rabbi Nathan, did not have prophetic claims; his vision of prophecy is quite similar to Abulafia's. The linguistic components of these techniques are of paramount importance. Also conspicuous are the strong individualistic proclivities of this kind of mysticism and the deep influence of philosophy, especially Aristotelianism in the case of Abulafia, and Neoplatonism in the case of his followers. The existence of various elements of the ecstatic model is easily detectable in Neoplatonic philosophy and in Spanish Kabbalah. The magical-talismanic model. While the two models of Kabbalah surveyed above are represented in distinct kabbalistic literatures, the magical-talismanic model is found in a variety of writings belonging to those models, and only rarely constitutes a literature of its own. Jewish magic is an old lore, having a variety of forms already in late antiquity. Some parts of it survived in Hebrew and Aramaic texts, some had an impact on Hellenistic magic. No doubt early kabbalists were acquainted with Jewish magical texts and appropriated some of its elements, while others criticized them. From the beginning of the fourteenth century, a distinction between two types of Kabbalah gradually came to the fore: Speculative Kabbalah (Qabbalah 'Iyyunit) and Practical Kabbalah (Qabbalah Ma'asit). In the fifteenth century this distinction appeared several times and in the sixteenth century it became a standard tool for differentiating various types of Kabbalah. The emergence of this distinction may have something to do with the distinction between speculative and practical philosophy, as formulated by Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204). The greater interest in magical Kabbalah became evident toward the end of the fifteenth century in the writings of both the Spanish and the Italian kabbalists. The extent of the magical influence on Jewish mysticism is an issue that still waits for detailed treatment. There can be no doubt as to the importance of various forms of magic within some of the important forms of Jewish mysticism, starting with the Heikhalot literature. The magical view of the Hebrew language is crucial for most of the forms of magic in Judaism and remained influential in numerous texts, especially in Kabbalah. In the Middle Ages under the influence of philosophical views found among the Arabs, an additional explanation appeared, contending that by cleaving to the spiritual celestial source that rules this world—the universal soul—the mystic, or the philosopher, is able to channel the events in the sublunar world. The operation is a spiritual one and takes place in the supernal world. This understanding of magic uses Neoplatonic elements

Hi all, I am Shanmugam, a long time member here; I was posting a lot a couple of years before and took a break from all forums for a long time. I am now divorced and not employed anywhere. I went through an initial awakening in 2002; After 12 years of seeking, I went through a drastic transformation that completely changed the way I experience life. It ended my psychological suffering and removed duality from my conscious experience. I then ended up building a blog, Youtube channel and writing a couple of books, I survive with book royalties and donations alone, and I have more time to spend in making content to help seekers. I am trying to make my Youtube channel as a platform for seekers to connect, share their experience and get help for free. I want to recommend this forum in a new Youtube video in my channel as I have found this forum to be more user friendly and active among the spiritual forums in general. Please share how this forum has helped you. The content of the video will be based on your honest replies; this will also help other users here to know how they can make the most of this forum for their seeking and personal growth. Here is the link to my channel if you want to subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwOJcU0o7xIy1L663hoxzZw

This belief is worth contemplating. You seem to believe she has this power over you, when she pushes your buttons, to control your emotions. Can you see there's some work to do here, a transformation from allowing other people to pull your strings like this, to reaching freedom, letting go of their negative energies, retaining that strong peaceful centre?

At one point I had to quit feeling guilty for shitty thoughts that really weren’t mine anyway. Maurice Nicole said an interesting thing.-“You have a right to not be negative.” Freedom is found there. My Automaton’s cranial receiver was picking that junk up from the ether combined with the minds’ thought by association word mechanism. It was stupid of me to continue feeling guilty for those negative thoughts when all I had to do was proclaim - That’s not me. My mind produced that toxic soup but I could disclaim it. That’s not me. I don’t want to be like that so therefore I refuse that thought. It can go. That automatic guilt that usually hung around was gone. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, The Trap which simultaneously restricts but potentially liberates this ego is its focus on Seeking. The Way of self-realization of this ego is the Way of Self-Awareness, which is “immensely mystical” and which entails becoming aware of one’s “internal inner clarity”. The Holy Idea which acts as a catalyzer for the transformation of this ego is Holy Love/ Divine Love. This can lead to the Virtue (energy) of Action. According to Ichazo, Divine Love is “The awareness that though the laws which govern reality are objective, they are not cold, because these cosmic laws inevitably lead to the creation of organic life, and Life itself, like all natural phenomena, fulfills a cosmic purpose. As soon as the mind’s word mechanism is destroyed, love, the natural condition of the mind, appears. Love begins the moment man contemplates the Creation and says, ‘Thank you, God.’ All men feel this somewhat, no animal can feel this at all. Man alone can know that all comes from God.” taken from; https://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/showthread.php/48274-Oscar-Ichazo-s-enneagram-descriptions

If your finding spirituality isint having a positive effect on your life then don't continue it. But just be careful. There is real spirituality and false spirituality. Really, true spirituality is not something that can be learned. It's not information that goes in your head. It's a transformation of your entire being. To your original question, regarding the benefits of spirituality...real spirituality that is ... Yes. You become perfect. Everything becomes perfect. All of your suffering ceases to exist. You realise you are absolutely immortal (actually). And basically all of life answered and fulfilled.

Well,,,no. Maybe I should. Although these beliefs were and may still be ,,,semiconscious. I guess is the word. I’m open to receiving messages about death I feel.For some reason I just don’t ask direct questions too often. My realization was that I didn’t know. Only conceptually, which makes it more of an opinion than knowledge. I’ve gotten more practice with saying the Inner No when it’s appropriate versus where I was in the past. Linguistic thought. I like that term. It was given to the helper of Transformation implicitly with my realization of these subtle beliefs. Reading your take on this, I’ve now more consciously and deliberately asked that it be handed over. It’s amazing just how differently we both go about use of the I CHING. This is good for me. You’re suggestions are helping me to push into new territory in how I go about things in consultation with the Sage. For now I’m going to ponder this some more,,,

Hey guys, If you are looking for scientific validation of spiritual experiences or spiritual enlightenment, then you should know that it is already being studied in science since 1968. The subfield of psychology that focuses on spiritual transformation is Transpersonal psychology (William James, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung etc are the pioneers). My purpose in this body is to make some contribution in spreading the awareness about the possibility of studying spirituality as a scientific discipline; by the Grace of the Supreme Power, it may be possible for me to do contribution in the actual research. Having found spiritual enlightenment myself, I am sharing my experience with other seekers; in addition to that, I am spending my time in studying Psychology, as it will later enable me to contribute for the research. In this video, I have given an introduction to Transpersonal psychology and discussed how science and spirituality can be bridged. For more videos, click on the subscribe button. For articles on spirituality, temples and more, visit (http://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com If you find my content useful, kindly support me by making a donation: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/donate/ (I am not employed anywhere at the moment and live on donations only; so any amount that you can donate is extremely useful, thanks.)

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama Barack Obama has always been a huge inspiration for me. I would love to read his book, sadly, I will probably not have enough time next year as I will focus on more practical things. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Promised-Land-Barack-Obama/dp/1524763160 ---------- In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

It seems that at the personal stage we are prevented from inner peace, because that would make us passive, inactive and lazy, like being drugged on opium. As a permanent state that's bad, but as a transition from the personal to the transpersonal stage it might be something useful. My idea is that allowing inner peace is useful for melting the crystallized ego and allowing a transformation into the transpersonal stage. And being passive and lazy can then be allowed consciously as a part of that process. Out of the passivity a new kind of action will arise, that of the transpersonal stage.

I am starting a thread on a healing technique and mantra, that was given to me by the Queen of Heaven (Inanna). The mantra goes like this: "It is the Queen of Heaven, that heals me, It is the power of Heaven, that heals me. I am healed by the Queen of Heaven, I am healed by the power of Heaven. " You can create your own version in your own language if you like, the power of it lies in intention, visualisation and invocation, not the actual words being spoken. Repeat this as many times as you can manage and imagine a white light descending from Heaven, suffusing your being and healing you. You should visualise the affected parts being transformed by the white light and appearing healthy. It has worked for me in the past. Usually, when I use this technique, if I am in pain or suffering from some health issue, I get immediate relief and the effect will last for quite a while. You need to repeat this on yourself as many times as needed and you can use it on others too. In that case, just replace “me” with “you”. If you are doing this in person, place one or both hands on the affected area to suffuse it with energy and concentrate on the visualisation. It can also be done remotely, by connecting to the person that needs healing via a photo. In that case, you need to connect to the person first and imagine their energy body in front of you and direct the white light to the affected area accordingly. An added visualisation that you can do is to imagine the Queen of Heaven herself descending to earth and doing the healing herself. I see her as an angelic figure, with long blonde hair, white robes and white wings, but you can imagine her in whatever way you prefer. Usually, when I do healing on someone, I will see her working on a person, placing both hands on the affected area to do energy work and physical transformation on the holographic level. If you try this and notice some effect, I would appreciate your feedback.

Just because most don't care about it, it doesn't become mundane, right? The transformation in consciousness that makes this mundane into inexplicable, jaw-dropping, incomprehensible beauty is what constitutes realizing the supremacy of God. Let us take your hand, for example: Everyone has it, and it seems quite mundane - but if you begin to realize the beauty of it all, it will never be the same. The day we realize the extraordinary in what we perceive as ordinary, and knowing that all ordinary is extraordinary, there would be no confusion left. This is what I think - it has to do with the nature of usage, that gives rise to this sense of othering. Take a blanket for example - it is very easy to put into the bracket of othering. You 'use' it, and it has no existence outside of you, it seems like. 'You' get to decide when and where you use 'it'. We usually extrapolate the same with the nature of reality, as well. Hence, we are all gullible to that sense of elevation and hierarchy in everyday life. Everyone struggles with this, I believe. To totally shun this would take some hardcore meditation, and other practices that I am presently not aware of.

Yes, as one goes deeper and deeper into the Realization, it is very clearly seen why the dream metaphor is so useful in understanding what many call reality. When any self is seen as the illusion that they are, things do take on a very dreamy feel. The first taste can be quite destabilizing, to be sure, but you get the knack for it. The Jungian studies of dreams can help one look into this very similar phenomenon. He also did some very interesting work with Tibetan Tantricism and spiritual transformation which might be useful to some. As always, I say to just go for it if it strikes your interest. Let some light in, but stay devoted to Truth Realization. Only Truth will set one free. Any idea of self is realized to be a bird in an empty cage.

Who says the latest Lamborghini won't make you happy? It's just a believe you hold, without which you would have to admit you don't know what will make you happy. Why would a Lamborghini be out of the question? Especially if you have some sort of pull in that direction. To dismiss something within you on the ground of some belief you picked up is bad strategy; you will never judge or manipulate your way into true transformation. Instead look into it, and be open to why you feel drawn towards all that stuff, but to do that you must first be as and where you are. Spoiler: it is you you'll find. Also, if you don't mind sharing, may ask what you do for a living? Just curious. Best of luck.

Sometime on our human evolution, we developed an amazing capability to conceptualize. Meaning, the ability to have a mental representation of something we perceived. Over time, we learned to distinct different faculties of conceptualization within our experience: memory (a representation of past experience); belief (a thought about certain behavior in existence that is not grounded in personal experience); imagination and creativity (the ability to fabricate non actual reality); language (the ability to represent personal experience with symbols); meaning attribution (the ability to place value or charge for every aspect of experience); internal chatter (the ability to speak with your "self") and so on. We also see that there is a certain overlap between the various distinctions in the domain of Mind experiences. Mind activity is an extremely useful tool for survival. Try to discern all the mind activity you have going right now, in this moment, regarding your current existence, past experiences, who and what you are, what is life and reality, where do you live, how do you relate to certain people in your life and so on. It will be almost impossible to discern all the mental activity your mind is project onto you perceptions, for the benefit of your survival. It is really remarkable, and it is the sole reason for our ability as human species to dominate other animals. Mind is a very complex web of all the memories, concepts and belief a human being "assembles" throughout life for the purpose of survival. In its essence, it is a matrix of concepts imposed on your perceptive faculties, allowing your to ignore, emphasize, distinct, interpret, assign different values, etc., all in relation to the self. Mind serves to maintain the form of the self. As you probably noticed by now, mind also has the capability to self-reference. You are using your mind in order to distinct mind activities from other activities. This means that the distinction mind, created by mind, is a concept as well, and not what mind really is. But using mind for discerning different activities of mind is very useful for transformation and awakening. But again, one must remember that representing mind using mind is self referential and the same as viewing the map as the territory. Hence, every distinction within your field of awareness is the working of mind. That is, even your self. Mind is the organizing principle of distinctions in awareness, and it is the creator of your self. Self is only a distinction your mind creates within your perceptive faculties. Now you must become directly conscious that your experience of being separated from others in purely conceptual, and dominated by the mind. This is why psychedelics are so powerful in insights and awakening. Psychedelics disrupt the normal activity of the mind, allowing you to experience a different mind-matrix for some time. This provides you with more reference points to what mind really is. Mind is a very complex structure of mental activity, and it is probably impossible to map the areas in the brain that give rise to all this mental activity. Moreover, because mind is what used in order to understand and represent experience, it cannot and will never grasp or understand itself fully. The 'intelligence' that enabled the formation of mind in the first place will always triumph the limited intelligence of the mind. This is also why psychedelics are so powerful in realizing what mind is. Shutting of elements of the mind enables to grasp the mind from an experience which isn't dominated by the mind. That is, a different perspective on the mind, or vantage point. Do you get it? And different psychedelics have different effects on the mind, so you can play with the psychedelic experience to unearth different landscapes of mind. It is like position on a mountain in order to view your house from a certain point, and then going to another, different, viewpoint (like a tower) to view it from different place.

Another speculative idea that came to my mind now is that confusion can be used as fuel for transmuting the crystallized ego into a fluid ego. At the personal stage we totally hate confusion, and for a good reason. At least with fear and aggression there is a possibility of taking actions. With confusion there is only complete inaction. My reasoning for why confusion can be used as fuel for a personal transformation is the premise that our consciousness at the personal stage is very limited and isolated. That tiny and separate consciousness has to be abandoned. So turning to confusion and welcoming it allows for a letting go of the personal stage so that our consciousness can begin to move towards the much larger transpersonal consciousness.

The Ultimate David Hawkins Library by David R. Hawkins The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment by Adyashanti Integral Transformation: What Works by Ken Wilber Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilber The Secret of Secrets: The Secret of the Golden Flower By Osho (Basically, the book was written by Chinese master Lu Tzu but Osho expounded upon it) Being Aware of Being Aware by Rupert Spira The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by Pyotr Oupspensky Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walshe Few other esoteric texts that I don't remember.

I'm an intermediate psychonaut with dozens of experiences over the past years behind my belt... benefited from both the blissful as well as the difficult ones. My last couple of trips - mostly with longer lasting psychedelics like psilocybin shrooms or LSD, I really became fond of closing myself in a sleeping bag after the ingestion of the psychedelic. I do most of my trips lying down with closed eyes or in semi-darkness, so being in the sleeping bag for the first hour or two is not a problem... I only get out for a snack, drink or to go to the toilet. It has been much more likely for me to have some kind of experience related to my past, when I use the sleeping bag. I had several forgotten traumatic memories from childhood pop-up to my conscious mind. Couple of times I even had an experience of being in the womb. When the trip is going strong and I go deep into a trance, while in the sleeping bag, I then often find myself instinctively going in the fetus position (I only realize this after I leave the trance). Could a sleeping bag - thanks to its shape and properties, be used to increase the likelihood of revisiting childhood experiences during the trip? Has anyone else tested this? I'd say feel free to give this a try! I know, that Holotropic Breathwork (shamanic breathwork) has been done while floating in water, under professional supervision. This also increases the likelihood of experiencing one's birth for example. PS: the moment I come out of the sleeping bag is also phenomenal! It is like the caterpillar (sober me) going into its cocoon, undergoing a process of transformation (the peak of a trip) and then out comes a beautiful butterfly (God-mode "me")... a true rebirth

As I said I see the concept of death being the end of the whole game as an ‘man made concept’. And we fear it because we are taught so and because it is useful for the materialistic system, we are living in, nothing more and nothing else. The bigger the Ego the better for the consume culture (the need to identify as much as possible with your ego through physical objects / services etc. makes you the perfekt hamster ) Most of us fear death so much and as consequence of that we live a fear driven paralyzed petty life. There is sure some transformation happening after the physical body dies, but all that negative charge connected with it, is mostly cultural baggage. Here a beautiful quote by Vladimir Nabokov “Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”