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@BipolarGrowth But man, don't you get it. Anytime there's progress. One step forward dukkha comes back stronger. One step forward, and then dukkha bites you in the ass. 2 steps backwards. Concentration on objects of awareness --> AnP (finally bliss from God) --> intense meaningless suffering --> equanimity and non-doership. Every cycle of the path gets more intense. Life cycles. Phase of life cycles. Yearly cycles. Monthly cycles. Daily cycles. I am absolutely sure that full enlightenment is no more cycle,or cycles just being instants. Anicca (impermanence) and annata (no-self) also grow stronger with dukkha (suffering). How I define suffering: Suffering is in everything. Just take any object of awareness and tell me there's no suffering in that point of focus. Sufferings little brother is called "aversion" imo. Anything awareness does is pushing awareness away from the object towards itself. That's suffering, and it ends with complete dissociation from any object. The opposite of grasping or attachment. Suffering is not reduced in higher paths. It's equalized. Theres no longer gonna be a big difference between mild discomfort and intense physical suffering. The intensity of suffering that increases, just pushes towards cessation or dissolution anytime it shows up. For what I've heard that's thousands of instances per day of cessation.

@OneHandClap That was true of me as well. For a long time, I avoided God as a term because it tends to be so dogma-driven, and can reinforce identification with beliefs. Earlier in my life, I saw God as a being. Then I dropped the idea of God entirely. Now, I love God as a pointer to my ultimate nature. During the period of bliss that I described earlier, I kept finding myself drawn toward sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. There is a joyous awe of the divine in them that I can only describe as spiritual. I don't espouse the beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity, but I love the essential truths that all of them point toward.

People sometimes realize the joy of the unitive state, followed by the horror of the void. How do you reconcile these realizations? Each path is unique, but as I have experienced it, awakening to the Love of God was absolute, effortless, bliss. My entire life changed, and spirituality was my mainstay. I no longer suffered, and believed that I would continue to see myself in God for the rest of my life, until I finally dissolved back into my ultimate nature. Then I made the mistake of asking God to take me deeper. I sensed that seeing wasn't enough, and needed to release all of my attachments, until there was only a transparent self left. I deeply wanted the light of God to fill me completely, knowing that this light would entirely reveal the illusory idea of me. Be careful what you ask for ? It was through grace that I first saw God, and through a deeper grace that I was no longer able to see. Again, my entire life changed. I fell into a horrific void, where the God that I had seen was no longer present. The suffering that I experienced before seeing God was nothing compared to this. It is worse to feel the love of God, and be forsaken, than not to feel it in the first place. I now realize that this was the most loving gift God could have given me. It has deepened my awareness of the emptiness of the self, and stoked a desperate fire of desire for the love of God. I see that I am literally nothing without God, and am more prepared to let go of this I, and return to the ultimate state of my true nature. I call it God intentionally, because it has been a deeply spiritual journey, and the divinity of it cannot be denied. I have been contemplating, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross (the Mirabai Starr translation and commentary are beautiful). For anyone going through something similar, this is required reading. St. John was captured by the friars of the established church, and interrogated and tortured. They imprisoned him in a tiny closet that had previously served as a toilet. He suffered near starvation, brutal cold in the winter, and stifling heat in the summer. After 9 months, his clothes began to rot on his body. It was in this state, where he felt utterly abandoned by God, that he composed "Dark Night of the Soul". My suffering is nothing compared to his, but I have found deep inspiration in his words. My favorite verses from Songs of the Soul: with his gentle hand He wounded my neck And all my senses were suspended. I lost myself. Forgot myself. I lay my face against the Beloved's face. Everything fell away and I left myself behind, Abandoning my cares Among the lilies, forgotten. I hope this is helpful for anyone else going through a similar experience.

I feel stuck again. Right now I am now conscious. But I am still suffering. I can feel the tension and pressure of suffering. I don't understand why recognizing my own conscious presence is not enough. I wonder if it's because I am striving too much. Hmm idk. This is very frustrating. Sometimes I feel in tune and surrender comes easy and natural. But then there are moments like now, where there is just tension and frustration. If anyone is reading this and has some insight that would be great. I want to find a way to make money to become independent. I don't know how to do this either. Overall things are progressing, but I'm just so sick and tired of suffering. I want peace and freedom. I want the bliss and clarity of knowing myself as pure consciousness. I want these headaches and pains to end. I even know that accepting the feelings and feeling into them is the key. And i've been trying to do that. But maybe the effort and striving is paradoixally perpetuating the suffering.

I love Metaphysics and Spirituality, Psychology, Technology, Invention(as a subject), and Research and Development. These make my soul dance in absolute bliss. The application happens in many ways, from LP, to trying to prevent disasters for people due to the current political scenario by creating the right technical foundations, to getting inspired by the divine Love that by my existence if a stranger who is crying becomes happy and no longer cries or if someone who is going on his path full of fear and uncertainty feels peace then my life is certainly worthwhile.

@Ry4n I obviously don't know where you're at in your journey but to be clear this was not my first awakening, I've had plenty of non dual states before and many insights into Love, bliss, oneness, God consciousness, nothingness etc but just not to this level. At this level, you feel insane because you're so conscious that nothing is real that everything loses all meaning. I'm not sure what would have happened if I faced this infinite horror but it was just too much for me. In my mind I thought that this life would be up. That if I became that conscious that nothing was real, life would become meaningless, so I distracted myself from going any further and as I said, begged for my life/the illusion back. People can say whatever they want about solipsism, but at that level, there is no other. Which means right now, there is no other, I'm just buying into the fact that you're me in "another lifetime". The bizzare thing to think is that whoever reads this, will experience this cosmic horror, as you are me. You are me.

You get more of what you focus on I had almost forgot about this truth, and it came out right on time. The one thing left to manifest from my vision board for 2021 is a love relationship. I had a one-on-one call with a coach on the Mindset training I’m into and thanks to him I now have more clarity around my non negotiables for a love relationship: Invested in personal growth (NO workshop junkie!) No kids and doesn't want kids for the next 5 years Deep communication and intimacy Respect Exclusivity Open to travelling Financial stability (same level as me or more) Sense of humor The coach also asked me t “follow my bliss” and I did it very well: I went out a lot and had plenty of fun. But the guy is still not in my arms.. Then I realized that since July I’m spending an average of 2 hours per week speaking to a guy I met on Tinder and with whom I have a sexting-based relationship. He doesn’t have the first and most important non negotiable so I should have stopped already talking to him to make space for other people or just more space for myself and my growth.. So.. I want to attract (AKA I focus on): Excellence A fulfilling and thriving love relationship Being the best version of myself at least 80% of the time so that I can continue to attract the best that life has to offer. _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ Reviewing October 2021 I am very happy about this month yet looking at my goals I failed to achieve most of them. I didn’t study, run, dance, nor meet new people as much as I had planned. The good thing is that I love myself anyway: I don’t beat myself up anymore for failing to achieve any given goal. #failrecommit!! That’s the way it works: I can love myself and be happy even while not being yet arrived where I want to be. As Elliott Hulse says: Failure is an experience that lends to wisdom the ultimately makes you the best version of yourself. Failing shows that you’re growing stronger!! Every time you feel failure it means that you’re moving forward. How much time did I spend in my soul presence? I’d say “more” as I can’t quantify it. I’m learning the importance of living my life from the inside out, focusing first on taking care of me and my soul and then the rest. And it works!! I am imperfect and happy on purpose and amazing things happen to imperfect and happy people!! Like the way I got to celebrate my birthday this Friday: in the past I would have done everything to be perfect in every detail while preparing myself but in the end I did the “bare minimum” to look pretty and that made me able to enjoy the time while I was preparing, arrive without rushing to the restaurant and we had an amazing night even if I was a little bit more hairy than I would have liked. How am I better? I take more time for myself. How can I improve? Creating a more actionable plan for November and December. What is my next step? Right now it is reflecting on the last one on one coaching call I had on anxiety. The answer the coach gave me was just brilliant!! She said “our medicine for anxiety is dancing”. And it is sooo true!! One pf my homework from that call was to dance before meditation every day. I’ve been doing it this week and I love it!! The interesting part is that I’ve wrote many times to dance every day in my schedule, but I hadn’t been able to do it regularly. So now I am conscious that I am my own medicine, I have inside of me the answers I need, all I have to do is trust myself and stay in radical action (as self-love is daily action).

The same experience can happen with meditation or a spontaneous awakening. We say this all the time here but the you does not awaken. The you is seen to be illusory and falls away leaving Infinity or total Oneness. The realization that you are everything. This can be shocking to the ego and thus it will want no part of awakening because it cannot be..., it literally cannot function when the duality of self vs other collapses- which is why you felt like you were losing your mind. We tell you guys all the time that spirituality is serious business and to be aware of what you are getting into. I'm not going to sit here and blow smoke up your ass and tell you it's all rainbows and butterflies. But this will pass in time and you will also have beautiful, amazing awakenings of Divine Bliss and Love. This too shall pass.

@Snader "But you draw a connection between psychedelics and stuff like high IQ and concentration ability." Why did you exclude the bliss supposed to be reached more easily with psychedelics while at the same time claiming it is more likely to reach enlightenment through this substance. You wanna enjoy just being. What couldn't you enjoy if you were able to enjoy just being? "But if you've done spiritual work and are conscious enough, you learn that there is more to life beyond logic, and that's something psychedelics can show you." This doesn't make psychedelics the only way to go beyond logic. @Salvijus I am glad you got most of my points. But here : "And not to think that you can just skip 40years of work with this "new" technology." 40 years? Are you serious? There many people who reach enlightenment without using anything like psychedelics or artificial DMT. For all that, there also a lot of people who fail in this enlightenment process no matter how many different types of it they have tried for however long. Thanks anyway for being sufficiently open-minded. I am doing my best to understand why so many people are into this kind of substances with as much open-mindedness as possible.

It’s ok to be attached. Just know it will continue to lead to suffering in your life. You can live in comfort while the suffering consumes you (and it will), or you can face your fear and come out of the other side in permanent state of bliss. This path requires you to choose one or the other. There is no judgement in your choice..only Love.

I strongly recommend against psychedelics. They are very few people who ostensibly benefit from such a thing. Psychedelics simply do not have any effect on most people. They reach same insights. They still talk about the already existing same information inside their head. Claiming they have made contact with a "spiritual entity" or reached "god recognition". And most of those who overdose psychedelics just because they don't have any effect at first end up being hospitalized. So what's the point? I don't think this psychedelics thing benefits you this much. When you examine people with high IQ, concentration ability, continuous bliss, for example, you realize none of them are taking anything like a special drug, be it psychedelics or any supplement at all. What does that mean? That means you are just doing something else wrong. You need to find that thing. Of course, it will take a lot of time and effort. Nothing hard is easy to achieve. Very similar to the process of gaining muscle. It will be very painful at first. It will be very difficult to lift even the lightest weights. But you need more patience and perseverance. Otherwise, If you keep thinking like this, constantly trying to reach perfect results without putting sufficient effort into it, you will not be able to arrive anywhere. There is no short-cut. At least, not possible when you consider today's primitive advancement of technology when compared with what artificial general intelligence could achieve once found. When it comes to the dosing, it depends on what psychedelics you use. If you take mushroom, for example, which is naturally poisonous, you need to be careful about the amount you take on your "trip". Even when you take LSD, overdosing causes "bad trip". If you choose to take less, you'll have little to no effect. Most of the time, maybe, all the time, psychedelics do not cure any psychiatric illnesses. It can't resolve excessively heavy brain sickness, it is claimed to solve mild mental illnesses even though I highly doubt if it is really psychedelics that cure these other than placebo. What logical use could psychedelics have other than confusion, sorry, "deep insights"? The reason depression or obsession patients can't cure their illnesses with psychedelics is because they have set up a lot of wrong, inefficient, misleading, twisted connections and accumulated domain-specific dopamin addictions that you can't target directly apart from holistic targeting. Not so different from taking a lot of methylphenidate instead of patiently trying find out what you did wrong and lost your mind. Just because the the person in question can't pay attention to things he would like to, she stupidly keeps taking more and more of these sorts of dangerous pills. Your brain will burn. That's very similar to loading a very inefficient computer program to a better hardware instead of changing those inefficient algorithms. If there is an infinite loop, you could even damage the CPU no matter how powerful the new hardware is. So what's the point of psychedelics? Even the lightest psychiatric drugs can lead to sudden deaths let alone terrifying and sometimes permanent side effects once abused. Encouraging random people to use psychedelics is a terrible idea. Even if that person's illness is seemingly untreatable, psychedelics is last means you should resort to, maybe never. Understanding of biology of the members in the forum is limited. So think twice, talk once. Edit : I have got quite logical answers. I thank everybody whether they use psychedelics or not. From the answers I got they psychedelics are pretty useful tool to aid the process of enlightenment provided you already know how to apply it properly. I prefer more natural nootropics such as concentration and non-reactive meditation to disable your brain's default networking mode also know as "ego", semen-retention for more energy and rapid processing information of the brain, intermittent fasting(both watery and dry) to deactivate the inflammations genes, light therapy for resetting your circadian rhythm so your pineal gland secretes so called god molecule DMT naturally instead of relying on external pills, hydration, physical movement be it aerobic or heavy lifting, unlike what hinduists claim, eating more animal products like read meat, milk, egg, chicken, fish since these have higher absorption rate in terms of the minerals, vitamins, has more all proteins needed by the formation of new memories in the brain, shortly gives more energy because it is at higher levels in the ecological pyramid. Buddists are right about potential harms of our ego but it is not something to keep turned off forever. Do not become a mad hermit who climb to mountains, settle in a cave, and live the rest of their life there forever. You are not disabling your ego to isolate yourself from worldly matters, pleasures, desires. If you become enlightened and die, then what's the point of becoming enlightened? There are a lot of unenlightened people who contribute more to the tools or corporations increasing welfare of humanity than supposedly enlightened people. You have to become enlightened anyway. To make a more higher difference. Hinduist buying the idea of the necessity of brahmacharya for faster and more complete spiritual development are right. Semen retention either through full celibacy or non-orgasmic tantric sex is necessary. But they are doing more harm than good by also promoting veganism. Instead, at least, be vegetarian. Like Leo Gura also said, there are really valuable insights you can acquire from religious teachings but bullshit encompassing the most contents of them is more. Edit 2 : When it comes to meditation, most of the methods shared also in this forum are pretty valid. Most relies on the same logic. It all boils down to non-reactive meditation(careful observation of thoughts without reacting) and full concentration meditation(bringing your awareness back to the moment or the object of concentration each time your mind wonders). It is more likely that you are doing something/s else wrong related to your general health. Look also to https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/73676-meditation-done-properly-for-all-sort-of-handicaps/

hehehe. Wow, that is amazing. Quite beautiful actually. But I get not recommending it. It's like instead of going up you go all the way down (a place most people will never touch) and then you come out the other end, haha. Suffering turned to bliss, as you say. Mh, yes. It is a lot of effort. What does resistance feel like to you? I get that in the body it feels like tension and tightness. But what goes on in your mind in the moments of resistance? This is something I'm trying to get a grasp on myself. Because my mind runs so fast and through so many different things it's like I get lost and so become disconnected and confused. It's like a searching for answers instead of letting the body tell you the answers/what it needs.

So true! And then you might try to reverse-engineer it (as I've tried to ) to make it happen again, but it's bloody easier said than done! As for whether it was an emotional transmutation, that's a good question - I would say so, yes. Deep suffering turned into bliss in an instant, amazing really. It's not a path I'd recommend to anyone, though, but learning how to surrender consciously is a lot of effort (or at least it has been for me - it's what my spiritual practice has been all about).

@Thought Art Your thoughtful response is appreciated. Please know that the responses from my end may seem lacking...it's become difficult lately to navigate written conversation. Honestly still not sure why I'm here, haha! The main point I'm trying to get across is: Something happens in our past > we feel the emotion but don't navigate it because a safe container did not feel provided > we label it as bad and write it into a memory > this memory stays dormant until a similar thing happens in the future... Now there's two ways we could go here. If one is not maintaining right view, then > belief system triggers memory and emotion at the same time, yet it stays subconscious and we go with the conditioned response, which is to be averted to the feeling and thusly > suffering. The other option, if right view is maintained > belief system triggers memory and emotion at the same time, one is conscious of it, we recognize the perfection of the experience rather than being averted to it > the emotion is felt without being something bad > we have successfully dropped the aversion. Now the next time it occurs, there is no aversion and peace is maintained. Life is giving you these opportunities ALL THE TIME. The whole path is contained within and as itself through what appears. If one does this mindful work at all times, the karmic windings of aversions fall away with zero effort as the path walks itself. The transcendence of the emotional system simply means accepting all of them as one complete set, not being averted OR attracted to any of them individually, as they are not individual and should not be treated as such. It does not mean that what was previously experienced as sadness is not experienced anymore, just that it's seen as just another sensation, no better or worse than joy. In this, we can release all emotionality to the plane of existence without identifying with them, leaving us in a place where bliss can flower even within "sadness".

that's what i want deluded perfect bliss enlightenment

Of course they say that, they can't admit they fear something if the deluded perfect ideal of an enlightened dude is to feel nothing but pure bliss

Maybe you don't need your pain to alleviate. Maybe that fascination is enough. Its a deeper bliss that goes beyond the emotions.

It's very similar to and NDE actually. Except in this case, you get filled with light, then expand into Infinite consciousness and become the light itself. You become universal consciousness, omniscient, stretching into Infinity, with no beginning and no end. I am more familiar with the Kundalini route, so that is what I can write about, but in terms of the Metaphysics there is union of Shiva and Shakti, which leads to non-duality and an explosion of light energy. Orgasm is the closest thing to this experience in terms of the actual sensations, but this is a lot more intense and it is a constant state of being, an infinite state of Joy, Love, Happiness, Bliss, Pleasure, etc... In Sanskrit, this state is often described as Sat-Chit-Ananda, which is a combination of Truth, Consciousness and Self, as these become Infinite as the person experiencing it becomes one with Brahman, the universal, boundless Self.

It's lonely at the top .... That's what I've been saying for a while now ? It fucking sucks to be so different. Sometimes I think to myself that it was easier living inside a box and not knowing truth. Ignorance is bliss my friend ? All we can do is just hang on.

I am not OP, but this one has worked pretty well for me (I like working with the visual senses as well). Try looking at your entire frame of visual data as a gigantic screen. Pretend that you cannot influence, control, or affect it in any way. It will show whatever it wants, and your only job is to chill and do absolutely nothing. There is no "wrong" or "better" state for it to display. Once you've gotten a handle on the hands-off approach, repeat that with your hearing. Then feeling. Then tasting, smelling, and finally thinking. If you get deep enough with this technique, you will soon find that "you" begin to fade, and all of your sensory systems fade with the selfhood, too. Then the bliss comes out.

@BipolarGrowth oh ok. I see what you mean now. Yeah i have been thinking and talking about nothing else since this happened. My life will absolutely never be the same. Even though the "state" of complete clear understanding is long gone my "self" can never be the same. Yesterday I was gardening and there was a moment where I began rubbing a leaf and came back to the feeling of "I am just consciousness. There's only one consciousness which constitutes all things. This makes me this leaf just as much as my body. " I also thought about how all things are just different incarnations of consciousness so I am simultaneously all things throughout all of time simultaneously. Full of bliss and gratitude I just laid in the grass for a few minutes feeling connected in a new way. I dont even need to specifically consider how i feel about my self dying because only the body will die. Not I. I dont think my work is finished but instead I feel lile I have a solid foundation to begin building a new life. Starting a new chapter was the intention of this trip.

Psilohuasca is said to make shrooms dosages twice as strong. So maybe more like the effects of 12 grams. I took 90mg of harmala extract taken in maybe 1 ounce of orange juice than took 6 grams of mushrooms(lemon tek) approximately a half hour later. 20 mins after taking the shrooms I began to feel a very slight head change from the harmalas. I planned to take a warm shower than make my way to my bedroom. I hopped in the shower and within a couple minutes I began to start feeling slightly distant from physical reality. Not a high feeling or even a normal psychedelic feeling. Just felt a bit distant from reality and my "self" if that makes sense. I sat down in the shower to relax and this feeling of being distant was quickly becoming stronger and stronger. After maybe 5 mins or so I started feeling spacey and disoriented and began zoning out. I became unable to feel almost any connection with my body or normal state of mind. I started feeling a slight panic feeling. I wasn’t panicking but my body seemed to be. The panic subsided but the feeling of being distant was so intense that I felt as if control over my mind was almost completely gone and that was enough to start to make me worry what was going to happen when this got stronger. "Will I completely lose myself and my judgement so much that I am going to do something stupid?" Staying on that train of thought for even a short time was begining to make me panic again so I decided to get out of the shower and head to my bedroom. I turned off the shower, grabbed my towel but was so zoned out into an almost deep meditative feeling state, that drying off felt impossible. So I slowly slid down and sat back down in the shower with the towel in my lap and stared off completely zoned out for Idk how long. I eventually realized what was happening and managed to crawl out of the shower onto the floor of the bathroom. As I was sitting on the bath mat on the bathroom floor I began to lose the feeling of myself being located where my body was located. I also began to lose my usual sense of self. I tried to resist this and extreme panic and resistance VERY quickly began to take over but no matter how hard I I tried to resist this feeling of losing myself, it kept getting stronger and stronger. And I cant quite describe what happened next. "I" was no longer in a state of analyzing or even knowing that I was a person on the ground in a bathroom on psychedelics. I was blank. I was dead. I felt nowhere, and like nobody and felt nothing, like what I thought perception meant was just gone. What I would normally call "me" did not exist. I stayed this way for, I would GUESS, at least an hour until I became aware again. But not aware in the normal sense. Aware as in a sort of nonlocalized and unattached awareness. Just aware. Unbiased awareness. I think at this point someone could've ran in the bathroom and cut my throat with a machette and I wouldve just watched. Without resistance or panic or care at all because I no longer identified with this body as the "I" like usual. I was no longer a human body or brain or ego. I was just the awareness of reality. I did not think "oh im awareness of reality" I just WAS. I had feeling of a realization that this was actually always the case but the drugs had somehow removed the distractions that always stoped me from realizing this. I than found myself kind of back into my body and thought WOW! Everything that is distracting me from what "I" really am is so remarkably well designed! But designed how? And than the realizaton happened of"Oh designed by me!!!" I marveled at the complexity and the perfection of this and I immediately began laughing! I felt like everything and all of existence and reality had always just been me playing the game of god playing hide and seek with himself and I finally found me! Everything made so much sense, NOTHING could possibly be more obvious than this now that the distractions and illusions were gone. Of course! How could I have not known! Still naked I uncontrolably became exhausted and fell face first into the clothes on the floor and began mutter "It could be no other way it could be no other way" over and over and over again until I lost the feeling. The realization was and knowing was gone. I felt much more back in my body again and tried to remember and think about it again. I couldn’t quite put my finger back on it no matter how hard I tried. I spaced completely out for a few mins fell face first again into the clothes and went right back into it, than sat up and lost it, fell face first again and went back into it, sat up and lost it, fell and went back, probably a dozen times until I sat up and was completely back in my completely back in my body and terrified. I was once again a human body on a floor on psychedelics after just being boundless. had the weirdest panic attack possible for maybe an hour, forgot who I was or what was happening. I finally thought to change my setting. I struggled to my bedroom and focused on my breath until the panic was gone and I was filled with a sense of love and bliss like I have never known. I effortlessly realized so much of my childhood traumas that I never realized before and felt instantly healed from them. There was forgiveness and complete understanding of those who I was unknowingly holding grudges against for so many decades. The rest of the night and part of the next day I just felt completely out of my mind. I had no visuals, no auditory hallucinations or anything else that I was expecting during the entire trip. I have tripped maybe 30 times and never have I ever had something even remotely close to this. All of my nn dmt trips seem like NOTHING compared to this.

I hope that works out for you. Being free is not necessarily a good thing forever, and beauty, positivity, bliss, and heavenly experiences all have an ugly side inherently tied into them which you will not escape from for long. I still think it’s totally worth going for if it’s your thing, but I figured I’d mention some downsides.

"Present life is not Ultimate Truth, it is not stable life, so likewise you have to think over it, who am I? That is the main question, that you have to concentrate. After knowing the reality, though you are living this body form, you are unconcerned. Sometimes bliss is there, sometimes pain is there, sometimes depression is there, nervousness is there, sometimes happiness is there. It happens because you are holding the body, today you are happy, tomorrow depression may be there. Sometimes some devotees say “oh, I am doing spirituality, I am doing meditation, I am doing Bhajan, why is there nervousness, why is there depression?”. It is body knowledge, it is going to happen, depression, unhappiness, all these concepts are not there prior to Beingness. After leaving the body, have you got any depression? “OH, I am depressed”, there, nobody is there! The Presence merges with all the entire Presence, like a bucket of water you put in the sea, you can’t remove the bucket of water from the sea, it becomes the sea. Likewise, your Presence, after leaving the body, will merge within, vast, Brahman. So that type of conviction is required, then only, there will be spiritual survival “Yes, I have nothing to do with the world”. At present we survive with the body form, that is not survival at all. So be with you, always, do your job, do your duties. “OH Master, I am having so many problems”, some people ask whether or not to continue service or not, why? What is the harm? Spirituality is not asking you to leave your service, leave your responsibilities and go to the forest. Do your routine life, nothing is wrong with you, that means you have got ego, “I am somebody else, I am a spiritual man”, and that ego is supposed to be dissolved." ~Sri Ramakant Maharaj

24 years ago, when I was 23, I travelled with my best friend to Amsterdam. We decided to try psilocybe mushrooms for the first time. At first we were enjoying the kaleidoscopic effects, but soon it got a lot deeper than that. As I was sitting cross-legged on a chair, I closed my eyes and felt a powerful pull towards a big black nothing inside of me. I knew it was decision time. Try and fight it to keep my identity intact, or let go and surrender to whatever comes. I let go. Soon, a massive energy started to build up at the base of my spine. Moving, contracting, expanding, growing and rising. I kept just witnessing in wonder. When the pillar of energy reached my throat, I had one more moment of hesitation (will it suffocate me if it goes through my throat?). Again, I decided to surrender and accept whatever comes. The next thing I remember, was this pillar of energy shooting up into my head and exploding in white light. It was as if I've been wandering through life in darkness up to that point, holding only a candle to show me the way. Now, everything, EVERYTHING was illuminated. Knowledge simply poured into me. Although a lot more information was "downloaded", what I managed to retain afterwards was enough to completely change my life. I considered myself an atheist up to that point, but afterwards I could no longer deny the existence of AllThereIs. Since I had no idea about what had just happened, I started diving into any book about spirituality, philosophy, religion, Self-Help, psychology, mysticism and and and. Concepts that would have been far over my head before, I could now understand effortlessly. Is this experience enlightenment? No, I don't think so. An awakening, yes, definitely. I spent the next 20 years feeding off of this experience, working on myself, my shadows and my relationships. I got married and established myself quite successfully in the material world by doing something I'm passionate about. But eventually I realized that this wasn't enough for me. The progress was steady, but it wasn't the main priority in my life. This changed when I started to practice Kriya Yoga every day. Personally, I think this is an essential component in my development. In terms of Spiral Dynamics, I would say I spent 20 years establishing a strong foothold at Yellow and now I'm starting to get more familiar with Turquoise. The Kundalini awakening was a peak experience which propelled me from Green to Turquoise, but I had to put in a lot of work over many years to reach Turquoise again. This is not to say that kundalini automatically awakens by using psychedelics. In fact, while I was experiencing infinite bliss, my friend had quite the opposite trip. He was holding on to his ego for dear life and was panicking. I had to force myself to "come back" and reassure him. You can not force Kundalini to awaken. Even if you practice kundalini yoga for many years, there is no guarantee. Kundalini has its own mind and agenda. If and when she comes, is on her own terms. You can lay the foundations for her by living in a certain way, but her appearance is ultimately down to her Grace and Blessing. Hope this helps.