The dire effects of an Enlightenment on epistemology

[Anton Rogachevski]

A very powerful enlightenment experience disrupts the ability to doubt. The intensity is convincing the brain and the “enlightened” is so convinced that now he has it all figured out, as it was all directly experienced by him. For this reason I suggest to be very careful with powerful psychedelics.

In non-dual experience, the usual sense of separation between self and world dissolves, revealing a direct feeling of infinite unity and boundlessness. This experience feels profoundly vast, timeless, and all-encompassing – qualities traditionally associated with divinity. Because the mind naturally interprets unfamiliar experiences through familiar concepts, it often labels this unity as “God.” The intense emotional impact of such states further reinforces the sense of encountering something sacred or ultimate. From a meta-phenomenological perspective, this does not confirm an external God’s existence, but rather situates “God” as the felt substance of experience itself – an infinite, divine-like reality encountered within consciousness. This view honors the power of the experience while maintaining humility about its ontological meaning. 

There’s a subtle fallacy in the yearning for something beyond the ordinary – a belief that true reality must be more mystical, more profound, than what appears mundane. So when someone has a mystical experience, it often feels like confirmation: Ah, this is what reality really is! But this leap is psychological, not evidential. The extraordinary feel of the experience seduces the mind into projecting that extraordinariness onto the fabric of existence itself. 

The intensity or beauty of an experience does not determine its ontological status. The mind is evolutionarily tuned to treat powerful sensations as meaningful, but this is a heuristic – not a reliable truth-detection mechanism. Mystical experiences are vivid, coherent, and emotionally overwhelming, but this doesn’t mean they describe an ultimate reality. They may reveal something about the nature of experience, not what exists outside of it.

Example: A psychedelic user sees a fractal entity that feels “more real than real.” The brain, overwhelmed by coherence and novelty, infers: This must be the real world, and my everyday life is the illusion. But this is emotional inference, not careful epistemology.

[UnbornTao]

I recommend throwing out all that stuff about awakening. It remains stuck in the domain of intellect and assumption, which isn't useful. What's possible is to consciously be your nature - and that very act is the same as apprehending it. This is immediate, self-validating, uncommon, yet available to anyone exactly as they are now. To put it poetically, it's like knowing whether your tea is hot or cold. This is only a metaphor, though, as enlightenment isn't perceived or experienced.

As for drugs, why the automatic conflation with awakening? They only shift one's state of mind, sometimes dramatically. They can be beneficial in many ways, but they don't increase consciousness any more than being dizzy does. These are states and experiences, bound to perception and cognition.

That said, such openings may yield relative insights, facilitate emotional release, support psychological healing, etc. Yet none of this is enlightenment or realization of the Absolute. After the trip - beyond the phenomena, visions, states, preferences, and beliefs - what is it that one has become directly conscious of? Usually, nothing. The memory of a powerful state may remain, and a conclusion as to what it all meant. The mind may manufacture stories to confirm its worldview, but that's just the mind at work, not a consciousness of anything. It's like believing that drinking coffee in a dream could wake you up from it.

Insight can occur under any condition, regardless of circumstance - so it's not impossible. But we shouldn't mistake states and stories for truth.

Checking out Ramana is recommended - if only to get a taste of where he's coming from and perhaps draw inspiration.

Edited August 29 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

@UnbornTao By the look of it, we agree on most things

I do love to contemplate very much to reach a state of strong doubt that is similar to the one a Zen practice is aiming for.

Besides, I can't just throw it all away, it's too much fun!  

Ps- My new theory is finally ready as a first official edition. yay!

Edited August 28 by Anton Rogachevski

[Razard86]

What I love about God is God gives winks if you choose to go down the rabbit hole deeply enough you can discover what is true. The issue is you need to escape your humanness, and that humanness feels so authentic you really feel like that is the fullness of what you are. But what is actually true is if you go deep enough in this work not only will you prove the existence of God you will prove that YOU ARE GOD. All that conceptual baggage will fall away say if you had an experience like this.

After coming back from these experiences, it becomes laughable when you see these silly little humans run around talking as if they know what's going on. You just experienced being God, until you have experienced being God, I mean ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED IT, you don't know what you are talking about.

Reality is INFINITY, if you have not become aware of INFINITY then you do not know what you are talking about. All concepts are literally story, because everything is literally story. You can call God an infinite story creator, because it is PURE CREATIVITY itself. God is so far and away NOT HUMAN that until you have escaped your humanness you really do not know what you are talking about.

[UnbornTao]

4 hours ago, Razard86 said:

After coming back from these experiences

Yeah, this shows where you're coming from and how you're holding the matter.

[Hojo]

@Razard86Its hard to show in the first person and thats why God is even better than what this is portraying.

I like how she went from a rampaging kill on sight dinosaur that cannot be reasoned to a monkey that showed it had intelligence and she can see the intelligence in it.

Gods like a 360 degree Imax theater with infinite sound ,infinite resolution, ultimate creativity ,ultimate capability, through infinite dimensions with infinite qualia, and its infinetly intelligent, and is supplied by no power or anything it just exists. And it knows you better than you know you based on previous patterns you lived through.

Edited August 28 by Hojo

[UnbornTao]

On 8/28/2025 at 5:04 PM, Anton Rogachevski said:

@UnbornTao By the look of it, we agree on most things

I do love to contemplate very much to reach a state of strong doubt that is similar to the one a Zen practice is aiming for.

Besides, I can't just throw it all away, it's too much fun!  

Ps- My new theory is finally ready as a first official edition. yay!

Good to hear. On the other hand, it's more like recognizing that one might not actually know what enlightenment is about. That, in turn, gives rise to an even more powerful opening, beyond knowledge and assumptions.

Looking good!

Edited August 30 by UnbornTao