Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, gengar said:

You can't speak of a threat when the forgetting is already complete - the horrors of the salvia state take place after complete forgetting, and thus death

It doesn't work that neatly.

The ego is still there and it is suffering.

Suffering is wired so deep into the psyche that you will never just skip over it.

[gengar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

It doesn't work that neatly.

The ego is still there and it is suffering.

Suffering is wired so deep into the psyche that you will never just skip over it.

Interesting. So you're saying the ego as an entity has a more fundamental existence than its human form.

Even when the human form is completely destroyed in consciousness, the ego remains as a suffering entity that goes through ordeals, I guess that is your claim.

The imagination of the ego and its suffering are thus a deeper layer of imagination than the imagination layer of physical matter, including the brain. Suffering can exist/be imagined without first imagining a brain or anything "darwinistic" that uses suffering merely as a tool for its physical survival in the dream. I guess that does disprove your claim about sufferings utilitarian nature, I don't see it any other way?

It really begs the spiritual question, if the ego can persist beyond the bodily human self, and the ego is thus not merely an emergent phenomenon from the physical imagination layer...

Does that mean the ego is even more persistent and consistent than any physical object in the universe? There are static physical objects in the universe that have remained virtually unphased for aeons of time. So what about the ego? it can exist after physical death? are there really separate layers of imagination or is even that imagined?

How did this ego entity come into existence, if it is beyond the flesh, and can exist in many whacky, "non-physical" states of consciousness, even during shapeshifting and forgetfulness like in salvia? And how can God become free from it, if at all? Will it always oscillate between ego and self-realization forever? 

 

[gengar]

22 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@gengar my body receded into a snail shell - like I devolved into an embryonic state but was being reformulated into the shell against my will. Like, recycled.

Imagine Kane from the first Alien film (directors cut, not sure if you have seen it) being remade into an egg. It was like I was being reorganised into the snail totally against my will. 

I turned to the table next to me trying to get away and the wood grain on the table infected me, turning me into a static tree version of Tash. I genuinely thought I was fucked. Like this is it. I am stuck this way. Forever. I knew it as truth in that moment. 

It was really, really bad. I will never do it again. It was more fucked up than mushrooms by far. 

It felt like an eternity at the time, but the trip was over really fast according to my handler.

Holy shit.

Did you forget all of your human memories or did some remain? Was being aware of losing your human self a substantial part of the suffering??

The notion of "This is Forever" is something I read very often in salvia reports. Its scary as fuck.

How can I ever love myself as God when I'm torturing myself to no end? 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

20 minutes ago, gengar said:

Did you forget all of your human memories or did some remain? Was being aware of losing your human self a substantial part of the suffering??

I suppose I had enough memory to know I used to be a "Tash" and now I was not, never would be, that thing (Tash) again - because that thought was repeated. All memories? I don't even think I had time to comprehend a "self" before I was being reconstituted. It hit so hard and so fast, and the pure body horror took over. It was so encompassing there wasn't anything left of me but the feeling of the horror - and my visual field was hijacked in a way everything was sort of fucking itself and giving birth to my monstrosity of a body... The concept of being "stuck this way, forever, I have fucked up and its irreversible" was the biggest generator of negativity. I thought I flushed my sanity down the toilet.

Actually this just made me recall: I distinctly remember thinking how I was going to explain myself to my grandparents. How I was going to tell them I was a tree/snail now. So there were definitely some memories.

Quote

The notion of "This is Forever" is something I read very often in salvia reports. Its scary as fuck.

Same shit my mate who was watching over me recounted, also. I don't even know why I did it. I went through many years with a really pessimistic, black-pilled nihilistic outlook as my only comfort.

Quote

How can I ever love myself as God when I'm torturing myself to no end?

Self torture - the weirdest flavour of connection. Some concepts are like taking a nailgun to the head.

Have you ever done salvia? 

Edited 10 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, gengar said:

Even when the human form is completely destroyed in consciousness, the ego remains as a suffering entity that goes through ordeals, I guess that is your claim.

No, that is not my claim.

My claim is simply that your entire self will freak out at radical aspects of Consciousness. It is not just ego. If we chop your foot off with an axe, it is not only the ego that is reacting there.

The self doesn't entirely disappear in a psychedelic trip. Many aspects of it remain or morph.

[NoN-RaTiOnAL]

28 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, that is not my claim.

My claim is simply that your entire self will freak out at radical aspects of Consciousness. It is not just ego. If we chop your foot off with an axe, it is not only the ego that is reacting there.

The self doesn't entirely disappear in a psychedelic trip. Many aspects of it remain or morph.

when you say it is not only the ego reacting there - what do you mean? which aspect is also reacting? SELF? i thought this aspect is more objective toward experience and thus non reactive to it, it has nothing to lose so to speak.  

[LastThursday]

19 hours ago, integration journey said:

Actually reading through the gospel of Thomas is a refreshing experience and makes you wonder about ancient Christianity. 

If interested:

 

[LastThursday]

13 hours ago, eos_nyxia said:

Me too. Though lately I've been watching more of his videos on Hermeticism which I view as occult-adjacent itself, but the subject is also important if you want to understand how modern science came about. I've also have been watching his videos on Gnosticism. 

Before that I was mostly watching his many videos on Jewish mysticism and occultism, though honestly I don't find it as interesting. (He has a ton of content about it though! I think it might be his main sub-specialization (or one of them).)

Certainly the history of science is super interesting, most folks think it sprouted de novo from the minds of a few, but really it's just a continuation of much older ideas. I suppose the guy is Jewish so he could be cut some slack for focusing on Jewish mysticism 😋

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, NoN-RaTiOnAL said:

when you say it is not only the ego reacting there - what do you mean? which aspect is also reacting? SELF? i thought this aspect is more objective toward experience and thus non reactive to it, it has nothing to lose so to speak.  

Ego is a sloppy term and concept. What is ego, after all?

That concept is not nuanced enough for a deep understanding of what's going on.

We are really talking about the entire psyche, the entire Self. That's a very complicated thing with many moving parts. It is the entire psyche that is reacting to horror. That entire psyche is reacting to a psychedelic trip and you are not removing the entire psyche.

[enchanted]

@Leo Guraon your blog post you posted "God is Reason" -Hegel. 

Does this mean rationality is the highest thing in the universe and is superior to irrationality? Sometimes you talk about being post rational and that rationality is just a human value that academia blindly follows. 

[Rafael Thundercat]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It doesn't work that neatly.

The ego is still there and it is suffering.

Suffering is wired so deep into the psyche that you will never just skip over it.

If the last thin line of suffering or attachment that the individual ego is resisting could be named, what we would call it? I can imagine like a line thin as a hair, and if the ego would just let go of that infinity would be waiting. But the ego dont want to Surrender and keep holding into that single thread.