Awakenings make everyday life better but strip away the peaks of being human.

[Davino]

Awakenings make everyday life better but strip away the peaks of being human. 

By Awakening your every day life and baseline consciousness will be utterly transformed for the better, this is great.

However, the peak experience of being human will mainly lose it's power by virtue of contrast. Having sex with the hottest woman, riding a rollercoaster, partying or going to a great concert, skydiving, vacations, christmas, your wedding, the birth of your child... All of these are great moments, but they'll lose it's psychic magnetic experiencial appeal, as just one serious Awakening make all of these tiny candles in contrast with a shinning sun.

Peaks only exist in contrast with the baseline and other peaks, your local mountain of happiness looks huge before you discover the Himalayas. 

Just wanted to share this insight that might be relevant so that it doesn't catch you by surprise. Yesterday I did an amazing plan in human terms, but at the end of the day, I just know by virtue of contrast, that no human experience can satisfy the way a profound Awakening does.

[UnbornTao]

Are you talking about a genuine awakening, or an experience induced by a drug? It's useful to get clear on what one is talking about. Peak, transform, better, contrast, baseline, state, appeal, happiness, strip away. These terms point to the subject at hand: perceptual experience.

It seems you're essentially complaining that you're not on the drugs while living life.

[Hojo]

I have never been happier in my entire life after seeing God.

[Davino]

35 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Are you talking about a genuine awakening, or an experience induced by a drug? 

Both, the trigger is irrelevant 

Awakening is the point.

37 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

It's useful to get clear on what one is talking about. Peak, transform, better, contrast, baseline, state, appeal, happiness, strip away. 

These terms point to the subject at hand: perceptual experience.

I'm talking about Awakening, Reality, experience, the mechanics of existence and my unfolding of life.

42 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

It seems you're essentially complaining that you're not on the drugs while living life. 

Anyone who's had 30+ Awakenings knows what I'm talking about. I'm trying to warn those going up the ladder, in the same way I listened in the past very helpful advice and I still do.

It doesn't matter if you haven't touched a drug in your life, what I'm talking about is a very documented topic in mysticism.

Saint John of the cross writes: “All the beauties of creation… are but a trace of the Beloved.”

And:

“The soul now sees that all things are nothing in comparison.”

Likewise Saint Teresa of Ávila in The Interior Castle says after experiences of divine union says:

“Everything one sees on earth seems a mockery compared with what has been seen.”

In Sufi mysticism, Jalal al-Din Rumi repeatedly describes ordinary joys becoming insignificant before Awakening.

"Compared with one glimpse of God, paradise itself is dust."

Ramakrishna again said that after tasting Awakening:

"The pleasures of the world taste like straw."

[...]

 

You think you're so advanced but you're just arrogantly confident and ignorant.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

1 hour ago, Davino said:

Awakenings make everyday life better but strip away the peaks of being human

I think it might depend on your level of excitability prior to awakening. If you’re an extroverted person who gets a lot of their joy from worldly things, then I agree. But if you’re already an introverted person with low excitability, the difference won’t be that big after awakening.

I haven’t gone as far with this work as you seem to have though, so take this with a grain of salt.

[UnbornTao]

29 minutes ago, Davino said:

Both, the trigger is irrelevant 

Awakening is the point.

I'm talking about Awakening, Reality, experience, the mechanics of existence and my unfolding of life.

Anyone who's had 30+ Awakenings knows what I'm talking about. I'm trying to warn those going up the ladder, in the same way I listened in the past very helpful advice and I still do.

It doesn't matter if you haven't touched a drug in your life, what I'm talking about is a very documented topic in mysticism.

Saint John of the cross writes: “All the beauties of creation… are but a trace of the Beloved.”

And:

“The soul now sees that all things are nothing in comparison.”

Likewise Saint Teresa of Ávila in The Interior Castle says after experiences of divine union says:

“Everything one sees on earth seems a mockery compared with what has been seen.”

In Sufi mysticism, Jalal al-Din Rumi repeatedly describes ordinary joys becoming insignificant before Awakening.

"Compared with one glimpse of God, paradise itself is dust."

Ramakrishna again said that after tasting Awakening:

"The pleasures of the world taste like straw."

[...]

 

You think you're so advanced but you're just arrogantly confident and ignorant.

It's a trap I've fallen into, too. But I understand it can come off that way. By necessity this position is going to be one of defiance since we are on this forum, whose whole shtick is the drugs. Given how things are arranged here, this stance must be inherently contrarian.

To me, confusing an experience with direct consciousness is the trap, and where the real ignorance lies. Trigger gives us another hint that it is an experience.

The arguments have been made. How about listening to them? That's all. For some reason there are always excuses not to hear them, no matter how many times it's said. Start with the Adi Da video - he knew what he was talking about. After all, the drugs are taken in the hopes of awakening - which is to say, that prior to undergoing this path, you really don't know what you're after. This is the beginning of the trap.

Why do you seem to want to convince others - as much as yourself - about how many "awakenings" you've had? I don't do that, despite having multiple experiences that could be explained with "awakening" terminology. But if it's a perception or a change in state, that's what they are.

"It's not an experience." - Ralston. "Potentially deluding altogether (about psychedelics)" - Adi Da.

Those are my chosen quotes. Notice that one can interpret them in many ways, but the real point keeps being missed. And they seem much simpler on paper.

Edited 7 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Davino]

@AtmanIsBrahman It's an interesting dimension to add into the contemplation.

It might affect each psychological attitude in different ways. Although each person will still have their inner contrast system, which will be outcalibrated by Awakening.

[UnbornTao]

@kieranperez Japanese soldier keeps fighting 20 years after WW2.

[LambdaDelta]

Hmm, it's more like a phase IME, provided integration is done correctly. Had that for 1.5-2 years on and off, to the point of recklessness and suicidality (those are potentially still lurking in the future for you 😊); now it's pretty simple to handle such states, though who knows what curveball comes along. 
Some peaks indeed permanently lose their appeal, which just reveals they were false in the first place (for you personally), others though get enriched like you wouldn't believe; e.g. let's say with birth of a child you could enter some crazy not-knowing state marveling at how God's mind subdivides itself in 'real time' to create a sovereign consciousness — much better than any normie POV whether religious or evolutionary, since yours includes and transcends all that. Then again a similar thing could be accomplished with buying a microscope and observing cell division, if one's conscious enough to realize there's no difference between their child and bacteria; the more direct the connection to God the fewer mediums required, 'tis a tricky balance to strike between unity and beauty of form. 

Autistic illustration with sine waves:

Orange = sin(x) → perfect harmony of God
White = random function → regular human experience
Cyan = Taylor series for sine → mystical life, get to pick own n, which fully converges with sin(x) when n = ∞

Awakening, after all, is shattering of illusion, and what you're left with is creating cooler ones and recontextualizing existing. 

Also can't go forgetting multiplicity/distinction. Human fun vs. God-consciousness is a category error, instead comp that concert to other concerts you went & will go to, then everything will be peachy. 

 

[Davino]

17 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

To me, confusing an experience with direct consciousness is the trap, and where the real ignorance lies. 

Can you have direct Consciousness without experience?

18 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

How about listening to them? That's all. 

I consider what you say very seriously. I've contemplated things you've said for weeks.

Have you done the same with me?

20 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

iStart with the Adi Da video - he knew what he was talking about. After all, the drugs are taken in the hopes of awakening - which is to say, that prior to undergoing this path, you really don't know what you're after. This is the beginning of the trap.

It's just another tool. I'm not dogmatic about psychedelics, I pretty much do all spiritual techniques out there.

Adi da said the same about all techniques by the way, it's not that psychedelics are specially wrong. You are always already it as he used to say. 

24 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Why do you seem to want to convince others - as much as yourself - about how many "awakenings" you've had?

I'm sharing what is the case. When I had only a few I shared what was the case.

25 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

"It's not an experience." - Ralston. "Potentially deluding (about psychedelics)" - Adi Da.

You can make the distinct between pure consciousness and the experience that "seems" to arise or be the case. But after many years it dawned upon me that consciousness must be in one experience or the other at any case, it must be something, a particular state, always. Because when you are having your "direct consciousness" you are indeed experiencing that.

And yes psychedelics are potentially deluding, like meditation, yoga, and the rest of spiritual practices, of course. We're never free of self-delusion.

[Davino]

@LambdaDelta Thanks for taking the time to answer. I liked the video you shared, it's a classic message always good to be remembered.

It's just that the magnitude of the spiritual path can make most peak moments of human life pale. They are still beautiful but they lose it's epicness so to speak. Human life becomes divine, but the best of human life pales with Awakening, Consciousness, God and Infinity. You know that and you've also always enjoyed reality from a quite unique playful approach.

[Someone here]

@Davino have you dealt with the existential terror you posted about a while ago ? 
God does not punish you for failing to acknowledge Him. The punishment is the inability to perceive Him in the ordinary mundane moments of everyday life. I think psychedelics elevate consciousness to such an extraordinary level..far beyond meditation or intellectual contemplation that they allow people to experience the presence of God in the present moment with far greater intensity. 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Someone here

[LambdaDelta]

32 minutes ago, Davino said:

It's just that the magnitude of the spiritual path can make most peak moments of human life pale. They are still beautiful but they lose it's epicness so to speak. Human life becomes divine, but the best of human life pales with Awakening, Consciousness, God and Infinity.

That is fine, the awakening peaks simply supplanted the old ones; imagination kicked up an order of magnitude, so did the baseline. A bitshift like 1 << 1.
Either way any awakenings you have out here are kids' stuff next to the 'final' merger into Infinity, so comps lose their sense of scale when zoomed out/in far enough. 

32 minutes ago, Davino said:

You know that and you've also always enjoyed reality from a quite unique playful approach.

It's an ongoing finetuning, only lately starting to approach optimal. No reason others couldn't do the same, at least to some extent. Helps thinking about this mathematically. 

Edited 5 hours ago by LambdaDelta

[bazera]

After Awakening, why do you care about that? So do you say that you might regret Awakening because of that?

I haven't awoken yet but those peak human experiences always dissapoint me in the end because they all still seem shallow and not enough, leaving me with a feeling that there must be more to this life then those experiences.

Won't Awakening show that there is?

[UnbornTao]

3 hours ago, Davino said:

Can you have direct Consciousness without experience?

I consider what you say very seriously. I've contemplated things you've said for weeks.

Have you done the same with me?

It's just another tool. I'm not dogmatic about psychedelics, I pretty much do all spiritual techniques out there.

Adi da said the same about all techniques by the way, it's not that psychedelics are specially wrong. You are always already it as he used to say. 

I'm sharing what is the case. When I had only a few I shared what was the case.

You can make the distinct between pure consciousness and the experience that "seems" to arise or be the case. But after many years it dawned upon me that consciousness must be in one experience or the other at any case, it must be something, a particular state, always. Because when you are having your "direct consciousness" you are indeed experiencing that.

And yes psychedelics are potentially deluding, like meditation, yoga, and the rest of spiritual practices, of course. We're never free of self-delusion.

Independent of - and yes. An essential question to ask is: What is experience? I should have shared the full quote, but you must have watched the video at least once.

"It's simply part of the dreadful ritual of egoity, and there's nothing enlightening about it whatsoever. It's deluding, plain old, that's it... With respect to the matter of realization it is useless, and potentially obviously deluding altogether."

The central point is that it's not an experience. You don't call clipping your nails having an awakening, or getting drunk, etc. Just so with any state.

There's a ton of background work to be done on this domain, and too big of a communication gap here. To me you're clearly prone to fantasy worlds.

Years ago, for example, you claimed or implied that Ramana was beneath or "lower" because, in your mind, contrasted with some model or map you've intellectually devised, he "lacked" X awakening or some shit like that. You can probably see where this might be coming from, and it's always about states - often drug-induced, is it not?

A state is a state, an experience is an experience, a direct apprehension is a direct apprehension.

Getting the point would be the preferred option, as the length considering a point is rather secondary if it isn't gotten.

I get the sense that these topics quickly turn into simplistic caricatures in one's mind, as with the self-deception business.

In theory it sounds great and grandiose but in practice it tends to be an artifice or adopted idea, completely superficial and not something that is authentically operated from. "Yeah yeah, self-deception." And then you hear real feedback from genuine masters and it is plainly ignored in favor of one's preferred beliefs. If Leo fails to see this point I doubt that his followers will pay much attention to this dynamic.

There are older threads about these topics, waiting to be put to good use. The main thing to do here is to look at what experience itself is - beyond one's ready-made answers and certainties, no matter how intelligent or reasonable they might sound. If awakening is not an experience, perception, feeling, state, or insight, what is it?

Edited 2 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

There's a ton of background work to be done on this domain, and too big of a communication gap here. 

What background work?

[UnbornTao]

16 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What background work?

Sharpening some basic distinctions such as experiential investigation, being grounded, belief, real honesty, and listening.

[Joseph Maynor]

1 minute ago, UnbornTao said:

Sharpening some basic distinctions such as experiential investigation, being grounded, belief, real honesty, and listening.

So you feel that @Davino doesn't already know this? 

[UnbornTao]

12 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

So you feel that @Davino doesn't already know this? 

Not at all. The problem is what you think knowing these things entails. I'm sure everyone thinks they already understand these terms, especially because they understand the English language. By past interactions it is clear as day that this is not the case.

Edited 1 hour ago by UnbornTao

[Joseph Maynor]

7 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I feel that virtually no one in spiritual worlds knows this. You too, as you speak. It just doesn't get across to people. As I say this - and as I've said before - I'm sure you thought that the associations that came to mind when hearing those terms were the same thing being pointed at, especially with the word "basic." This gap goes unnoticed. 

How am I so sure? Because of past interactions. It happens live. Pay attention at how people talk. 

Let's stick to the source of your quote.  What specifically does @Davino not understand from you?  I'm curious now.