A Critical Perspective on Psychedelic Use

[zurew]

35 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm just speaking my mind. The option is speaking what I think I know, or not speak. I'm not saying "this is ultimately true". I'm not doing that game. Maybe you're used to bowing to that game, I'm not, not anymore.

Its insane that some people cant recognize and track the fact that what you are saying isn't always sensitive to empirical critcism (in this case to the content of the given awakening) because its a definitional issue.

Its like saying "I discovered in my new awakening that there are married bachelors" - for you to recognize that that statement is incoherent, you dont need to know the content or the profoundness of said awakening.

It always comes back to the same shit - its either the case that he is contradicting himself and he is conceptually confused regardless how profound the awakening was or it is the case that he is using the terms differently in which case his statement means something completely different and he is talking about something related to Maya.

[Oppositionless]

@Oeaohoo the part I didn't like was when he said he damaged himself so much that he would pay for it in the next life. And the implication we can offend God "breaking into the inner sanctum". Both of those points just seem like some dualistic nonsense to me. The point about fetishizing experiences over truth / insight is completely valid.
 

I also don't see the distinction, ultimately, between maya and God. The insights I've had, and I'm not saying this must be the case, is that every experience , structure and modulation of consciousness has always existed and will always exist, and that if you removed even a single grain of sand the entire reality would instantly cease to exist. Distinguishing them might be part of the journey to liberation but it's not ultimately true.

I personally got nondual insight from my own experience which I thought was eerily similar to Leo's alien consciousness. Essentially my consciousness was slowly but surely replaced by that of another being (this was my only ever "bad trip"). It was a horrifying dive into insanity and loss of control, but I came out the other side with a deep understanding of the illusion of self. This was before my true nondual experiences but I feel in a way it paved the ground for those.

also, I want to apologize if I come across as a dick. That's not the intention.

Edited Saturday at 10:33 PM by Oppositionless

[Joseph Maynor]

I don't think Leo has explained Alien Awakening yet, am I wrong?

[Oppositionless]

4 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I don't think Leo has explained Alien Awakening yet, am I wrong?

No he hasn't but when it happened to me I just instantly recognized that this seems like alien awakening, I mean I truly felt like I became a different being. But Leo could mean something different .

Edited Saturday at 09:39 PM by Oppositionless

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Eskilon said:

Yeah, I think this is huge, maybe leo is not seeking liberation.

This has been abundantly clear to me for years. I'm just reminding myself from a different angle:

He even admits it himself that he is not ready to let go of his limited identity, that he likes using his mind, that "understanding" is his game. Yet it's couched in "awakening" language. I've explained why that is.

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Sincerity said:

As if you even know what he's talking about...

Seriously, how do you live with this arrogance? It's repulsive.

And by the way, imagine perpetuating the exact same defense mechanism I'm pointing out, as I'm pointing it out. "As if you know what he's talking about" / "you just don't understand". That's what's repulsive.

 

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm just speaking my mind. The option is speaking what I think I know, or not speak. I'm not saying "this is ultimately true". I'm not doing that game. Maybe you're used to bowing to that game, I'm not, not anymore.

And to clarify, I can say "I haven't experienced it yet, he hasn't explained it in full detail yet, so I can't say for sure", as I have done many many times. But then if you ask me what I think, this is what I think. And I like to say what I think. It can't be much to ask on a forum that prides itself on "thinking for yourself, questioning authority, challenging conformity".

And for contrast, I did not say "I've had an anti-Alien Awakening Awakening, and if you question any of it, you don't know what you're talking about". That's appalling, even if it's supposedly true that you don't know what I'm talking about. It's the epitome of anti-intellectualism, thought-terminating defense mechanisms (which not so coincidentally are only brought up when no other arguments are brought up).

I'm just requesting even playing ground on matters that are obviously personal, obviously Maya, nothing to do with non-dual awakening, the Absolute, Truth with a capital T. None of "Alien Awakening", none of "Infinity of Gods", none of "solipsism". "You just don't have the right experience, you don't know what you're talking about". No thank you, I don't want to hear that stuff even once. But again, this is just what I think. No "Absolute X" awakening here from me. And I'm of course not expecting you to actually listen and take my advice. Only some of you, like @Eskilon, @Oeaohoo, @zurew.

Edited Sunday at 12:53 AM by Carl-Richard

[Eskilon]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

6 hours ago, Eskilon said:

Yeah, I think this is huge, maybe leo is not seeking liberation.

This has been abundantly clear to me for years. I'm just reminding myself from a different angle:

He even admits it himself that he is not ready to let go of his limited identity, that he likes using his mind, that "understanding" is his game. Yet it's couched in "awakening" language. I've explained why that is.

I read the thread and from my personal experience I have to agree. 

Traditional methods like meditation, yoga and so on helps you grow and integrate, psychedelics gives you glimpses but that doesnt mean its automatic growth nor ultimate realization and liberation.

Also, I never really liked Leo and others trashing on Buddhism(Therevada, Mahayana, Zen, Vajrayana) as if its a lower thing. Buddha and his sutras gives wisdom, insights and much more. Including higher realities, spiritual beings(aliens), spheres of consciousness etc. I have a feeling people havent read and contemplated Buddhism enough. Its quite profound and deep, Buddha was a leap in consciousness and a great step in human evolution. And Btw I am not a Buddhist lmao, the value of it its just too obvious and deep to be trashed at like its trashed here.

This video is on point at what we are talking here. Psychedelics are powerful but they are momentary and they dont seems to liberate people. They give glimpses and might even change your baseline for the better, but they might not be the ultimate tool like people in this forum tend to believe.

Edited Sunday at 01:11 AM by Eskilon

[Sincerity]

@Carl-Richard 👍👍

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Also, I never really liked Leo and others trashing on Buddhism(Therevada, Mahayana, Zen, Vajrayana) as if its a lower thing. Buddha and his sutras gives wisdom, insights and much more. Including higher realities, spiritual beings(aliens), spheres of consciousness etc. I have a feeling people havent read and contemplated Buddhism enough. Its quite profound and deep, Buddha was a leap in consciousness and a great step in human evolution. And Btw I am not a Buddhist lmao, the value of it its just too obvious and deep to be trashed at like its trashed here.

And I think it should be perfectly acceptable and reasonable that you can say that without some condescending comment that "you're not awake enough" or whatever other variant I've already mentioned. And that when we disagree, as a default, we speak to each other as equals, of course not denying experience wholesale, but not using it to literally terminate thinking or lines of argumentation or to make your perspective something else than it is, a perspective.

Then you can ask "is non-duality a perspective?" and then I will ask you back "is it?". Can you say with a straight face that the fact that existence itself, IS, is a perspective, again, without trolling? "But your perspective on non-duality, the way you talk about it, the way you practice, the notions you have about how you go about inquiring into it, etc., that's a perspective", yeah yeah yeah, but just keep it real. "The Absolute" has been made so ridiculously complicated, it's an exercise in gaslighting to try to unwind it. "The Absolute This, The Absolute That", Chill. And yes, I still love Leo. But man, keep it real, dawg.

[Oppositionless]

3 hours ago, Eskilon said:

 

Also, I never really liked Leo and others trashing on Buddhism(Therevada, Mahayana, Zen, Vajrayana) as if its a lower thing. Buddha and his sutras gives wisdom, insights and much more. Including higher realities, spiritual beings(aliens), spheres of consciousness etc.

Same with Christianity. I didn't learn God is Love from Leo, I learned it from being raised Catholic. As a child I loved to cry and get emotional in church. Getting interested in very strict nonduality where emptiness and pure consciousness are emphasized above all else coincided with a closing of my heart.

If you put a gun to my head and told me I had to pick between psychedelics and yoga (or between yoga and vipassana meditation), I'd pick yoga with no hesitation at all.

Edited Sunday at 04:13 AM by Oppositionless

[Eskilon]

15 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

And I think it should be perfectly acceptable and reasonable that you can say that without some condescending comment that "you're not awake enough" or whatever other variant I've already mentioned. And that when we disagree, as a default, we speak to each other as equals, of course not denying experience wholesale, but not using it to literally terminate thinking or lines of argumentation or to make your perspective something else than it is, a perspective.

Then you can ask "is non-duality a perspective?" and then I will ask you back "is it?". Can you say with a straight face that the fact that existence itself, IS, is a perspective, again, without trolling? "But your perspective on non-duality, the way you talk about it, the way you practice, the notions you have about how you go about inquiring into it, etc., that's a perspective", yeah yeah yeah, but just keep it real. "The Absolute" has been made so ridiculously complicated, it's an exercise in gaslighting to try to unwind it. "The Absolute This, The Absolute That", Chill. And yes, I still love Leo. But man, keep it real, dawg.

On point, this is wisdom.

[Eskilon]

15 hours ago, Oppositionless said:

Same with Christianity. I didn't learn God is Love from Leo, I learned it from being raised Catholic. As a child I loved to cry and get emotional in church. Getting interested in very strict nonduality where emptiness and pure consciousness are emphasized above all else coincided with a closing of my heart.

If you put a gun to my head and told me I had to pick between psychedelics and yoga (or between yoga and vipassana meditation), I'd pick yoga with no hesitation at all.

That's a cool perspective. There's definetely a lot of wisdom in religion, we just need to sort the wheat from the chaff.

[LambdaDelta]

23 hours ago, Eskilon said:

This video is on point at what we are talking here.

Pfft, I can do the same thing; give me a fat bowl of N,N-DMT or even 5MD, at most I'll just grimace from the harshness of the vapor. There's your proof I'm already permanently awake. Wanna join my cult? 
That's one interpretation anyway. The other one is that my MAO-A is so hyperactive it shreds those tryptamines to bits before they have a chance to reach the brain. And whichever is true of me or the people in the video, in the end it still comes down to genetics; can't escape that. 

Liberation, bliss, ending suffering, and so on bear little to no relevance to understanding of reality, which has always been the explicit priority here. They're like a cute extra perk you may get along the way. 
The highest states of consciousness are so intense one can hardly breathe. This doesn't just apply to psychedelics, Beguines have reported being bedridden for days after deep prayer, so have other mystics across history through whatever techniques they used. When someone can nonchalantly walk around while claiming to be 'permanently enlightened', it's because their peaks are weak sauce. 
Living from a persistent consciousness of the imaginary nature of reality isn't even particularly difficult, yet many still fail to reach that. The proper metric would be the depth of this awareness and how much you're able to out-imagine Maya before its forces break your consistency. 

[Eskilon]

19 hours ago, LambdaDelta said:

And whichever is true of me or the people in the video, in the end it still comes down to genetics; can't escape that. 

Yes, that is true. But, it could also be the case the Yogi is saying something true regardless of genetics -- that substances, however powerful does not bring ultimate liberation and could be only a glimpse. Either way not saying its the case, but its worth considering since he is fully imersed in spiritual work 24/7 while we are westerners who apparently cant even sit cross-legged.

 

19 hours ago, LambdaDelta said:

Liberation, bliss, ending suffering, and so on bear little to no relevance to understanding of reality, which has always been the explicit priority here. They're like a cute extra perk you may get along the way. 

Well, not to fight you or anything but maybe it could also be said that, if one's understanding does not bring liberation, bliss, or ending suffering, then one's understanding might not be complete, it might not be ultimate and in fact incomplete. One might actually be asleep and not totally awakened. If those things were truly separate(I don't think they are) I would choose liberation over understanding any day of the week. You understand reality, and then what?? More games? Won't you get bored of it?

Thinking about it now its kinda funny one could get understanding but not bliss, ending of suffering and stuff like that, like what?? A total thing is a total thing, these things must be understood otherwise is just higher forms of games.

Gods and superior undestanding migh be sweet sweet dreams, but a dream nonetheless. Like the case of devas and hindu deities. They supposedly live in higher realities, but they are still bound to suffering, and karma, still forms dancing around.

Edited 8 hours ago by Eskilon

[Oppositionless]

The beauty of nonduality is that it's available to anyone who does the work, whether they raise their consciousness a lot or not. I hate it but most people won't be able to raise their baseline by more than a few percentage points, even if they're highly disciplined with practices. But I still think a few percentage points is amazing and worth pursuing.

Psychedelics can give us a glimpse of what genetic lottery winners like Ramana Maharshi are able to experience on a daily basis. Most awakened people are not Ramana's, by the way, not even close. That's why they live relatively normal lives and get involved in scandals. Peter Ralston might be approaching but not at Ramana level, a random blogger I found named Amara* might be too, I can't think of very many others.

******

I haven't gone through any of her training  btw, this isn't an ad. Also she seems to have taken down the blogs where she went in depth on her state of consciousness and siddhis.

*https://amarastrand.com/about/

Edited 7 hours ago by Oppositionless

[Oeaohoo]

22 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

genetic lottery winners like Ramana Maharshi

I don’t buy the genetic explanation. It must have been accumulated karma from past lives.

People who are into psychedelics prefer the genetic explanation because they have come to associate Awakening with a chemical process. The True Self is chemical, not chemical, chemical and not chemical and neither chemical nor not chemical!

22 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

Most awakened people are not Ramana's, by the way, not even close. 

I think there’s a difference between awakening and embodiment of that state.

After all, the True Self is the True Self, is it not?

[Oppositionless]

@Oeaohoo just do the best you can with the tools you have available. If you raise your baseline by 5% over the course of many years everything will fall into place and your life will be beauty incarnate. 

When I use the word genetic I'm not just referring to physical genetics. I'm essentially referring to Rupert Sheldrake's idea of morphic fields, which encompasses the physical, astral, causal, ancestral, past life etc all rolled into one.

The True Self is available to anyone who does the work, you just might not reach uninterrupted ecstasy in this life, and that's okay, part of the spiritual path is letting go of outcomes. Which is hard.

Edited 7 hours ago by Oppositionless

[Oeaohoo]

30 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

@Oeaohoo just do the best you can with the tools you have available. If you raise your baseline by 5% over the course of many years everything will fall into place and your life will be beauty incarnate. 

I wonder if it works like this… Is it a mountain that you gradually climb up or is it something like a sudden rupture of levels? The teaching that the True Self is never revealed and therefore anterior to all of creation implies a disjuncture between any action one might take to raise one’s consciousness and the ultimate objective of Self-Realisation.

30 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

When I use the word genetic I'm not just referring to physical genetics. I'm essentially referring to Rupert Sheldrake's idea of morphic fields, which encompasses the physical, astral, causal, ancestral, past life etc all rolled into one.

Interesting.

Edited 7 hours ago by Oeaohoo

[Oppositionless]

12 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

I wonder if it works like this… Is it a mountain that you gradually climb up or is it something like a sudden rupture of levels? The teaching that the True Self is never revealed and therefore anterior to all of creation implies a disjuncture between any action one might take to raise one’s consciousness and the ultimate objective of Self-Realisation.

Self-Realization happens in an instant, but it usually doesn't stick. In Yoga it's called Nirvikalpa, vs the abiding state of Sahaja. Nirvikalpa is, in the context of serious practice, common. Sahaja is quite rare. And then beyond Sahaja there are levels of baseline consciousness which are indescribable but can be glimpsed through psychedelics- this is sometimes called Turiyatita or the God-state.
 

If I were to give an argument against psychedelics, it would be that they might make people ambivalent about raising their baseline state (although for me it was quite the opposite). Which is a tragedy, raising the baseline is far more important than glimpses. 

 

[Oeaohoo]

1 minute ago, Oppositionless said:

Self-Realization happens in an instant, but it usually doesn't stick. In Yoga it's called Nirvikalpa, vs the abiding state of Sahaja. Nirvikalpa is, in the context of serious practice, common. Sahaja is quite rare. And then beyond Sahaja there are levels of baseline consciousness which are indescribable but can be glimpsed through psychedelics- this is sometimes called Turiyatita or the God-state.

Interesting, thanks.