maldor

There are various ways of attaining altered states of consciousness. Some people are likely more susceptible than others. - Fasting - Sleep deprivation - Sensory deprivation - Intense concentration - Hyperventilation - Trance (induced by dancing and/or dancing) - Use of psychotropic substances Floating in a tank for an hour our or two is not really going to induce much of an altered state. To have effect I do think these techniques need to be prolonged and I would not advise doing so because it is dangerous ... regardless I doubt there are many people willing to push themselves purposefully to such an extreme. I would certainly recommend all of the above in small doses purely for relaxation and self investigation.

Lao Tzu wasn't likely a single person.

Next time you are irritated think of it as misused excitement ... it works

You cannot get irritated in that place. This usually irritates others and they actively try to irritate you and bring you back into their collective view of the "real world". When I was in that place I found that I managed to retain it for so long because I didn't really tell anyone anything. I understood that I could not tell them about it only that I could ask them questions about things that interested them. My ego was gone, I just wanted to listen because everyone and everything "spoke". Maybe it is not enlightenment I am talking about? I guess that depends on what you think it is and what it is meant to mean in the first place ?

My apologies ... I feel this thread may go a little astray. Language is a very important thing. Language can be merely verbal or it can be more. We are using verbal language to communicate now as well as something else ... it is this other language that deeply interests me. Anyway I have to go now ...

"Incapable of refining the real, thought pauses to mimic it." Albert Camus

Here is my thinking: "Energy is not something we can ever directly perceive." We cannot "directly perceive" anything then? "We infer its existence through the behaviour of reality." How? By perception? ... but we cannot directly perceive it (see above). "When a phenomenon is unseen, there is no limit to the number of labels that can be used to name it." Phenonemon is something that can be seen, felt, heard etc., it is something that is sensed. All energy can be sensed. I can see where this is going. Either we can look at the OP as asking what is time, we can look at it as meaning what do we mean by time or we can look at is as what is meaning? I have gone for the 2nd and 3rd options. Acausal is something we direct any meaning towards. It is not in the scope of language and beyond our imagination. You talk about "direct perception". This is a fallacy of language. It is a very intriguing point though nevertheless! It is akin to me only knowing me and not ever fully knowing you. I can only know you by way of being me. To fully know you I would have to be you and could therefore not be me at all. I cannot have direct perception of you by being me, I can only perceive you not be you. The common terminology is phenomena and noumena, noumena being beyond perception yet the cause of perception ... that is a huge oversimplification but boils down to the idea of questioning what is meant by reality and our perception of it. Is there a difference, how can we determine a difference, need we determine a difference, what is the use/purpose of doing so ... the list goes on. This is a very intriguing passage: "Time, by the way, is exactly the same as energy. It is not something that can be seen: it is a category of understanding reality - purely rational in nature. It can cause us immense confusion when we notice that time is the same as eternity. Both can be legitmately used because we only talk about time in the Now, which itself, is not in time and is therefore eternity. The now is the place where all talk of time and space occurs, to put it metaphorically." There is a big problem with the line "Now, which itself, is not in time and is therefore eternity". Does this actually have any meaning at all? Time is an intriguing and puzzling phenomenon ... being a phenomenon how is it we perceive it? How can we perceive it? Are these questions that are appropriate within verbal language?

Er... yeah ? We didn't create time in our head it is a natural phenomenon as much as matter or energy.

Time is a physical phenomenon

I think we are talking about something happening with nothing prior to it. In which case it is a fallacy. Acausal is a term used in psychology that does not really fit into this. You cannot have a literal "acausal" thought because experience constitutes what the thought is in the first place ... and in time.

We are "beings".That means we only know time. There cannot "be" anything before by the definition of the words you are using. Without time there is no space, without space there is no matter, without matter there is no time. Our comprehension breaks down because we can only comprehend temporally. I've heard a similar mistaken question before. "What happened before the big bang?" There is no "before". Some questions seem reasonable but they are false. We think causally, that is why we are "beings". We cannot think non-causally. It is possible there are "entities" (I refrain from using the word "beings") that are non-causal. It doesn't take much looking to see that we can only talk about this "possible" (another highly temporal term) in an extremely abstract and inventive sense. Acausality is an abstract concept wholey beyond the conprehension of a "being". Have a read of "Being and Time" - Heidegger. The book is about defining what we mean by "being" and what we mean by saying we are beings. He uses the term dasein.

I do not understand what is so baffling? We can simply say that not temporal "things" are beyond our comprehension (They do not exist in the temporal sense we know. Ergo they are not "they"- nothingness).

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard P. Feynman

Do what you want, spend money how you think best and basically try to be good ... but not too hard. Being selfless is the same as being selfish. Being considerate is probably better.

You are you're mind. You have the ability to control what you do. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what anyone says you have to guide yourself. You know this. If you find yourself distracted don't fret about or get frustrated just simply start again. Practice and persist. It may be a good idea to reinforce your goals everyday by saying to yourself what you want to achieve and that you can and will achieve it. If you tell yourself it is difficult it will become more so. I am not telling you anything you don't already know here. It is just a case of you reinforcing this in your mind and willfully directing yourself.

You don't need anyone. If you are that willing meditate for longer than 30 mins. Don't be soft, don't look for excuses to stop. You are not helpless so push yourself and stop to ask yourself everytime you want to stop what you are doing this for. Or do what you want ...

I don't really know where to post this so I'll post it here. This is a brief description of what I experienced a couple of years ago. I decided to take a month off and do nothing but think about all the things that I had left alone for several years. I ended up awake all night and slept a couple of times a day for 2-3 hours usually at 10am and 6pm. I ate when I was hungry and slept when I was sleepy. This pattern continued for much longer (around three months). During this time I was thinking about the meaning of life and beginning of everything, playing strategy games online, and generally just thinking about things. I found myself in a spiral of self introgation and was stubborn enough to continue asking questions about the meaning of it all. I got to the point where I was concentrating so hard that I forgot to eat often and basically ended up fasting some days. Eventually I said to myself "**** it!", I'll just play my game online and forget about everything else completely. Then "it" happened. It is worth explaining at this point that I was making a map for the game I was playing. I was trying to make a very complex map that required tiem to think about when playing. It was based on an idea I've had brewing for a story. Better to say it was based on a world I had created in my head and had been slowly building on for nearly 20 years. Anyway what happened when I returned to making this map is from somewhere inside my head I was given the "answer" and I found myself lying on my bed with tears of joy running down my face. Everytime I tried to mentally verbalise what I "saw" it slipped away. Then I was left in awe and speechless and it came back again like a wave or pulse. Physically I felt something akin to a shudder down my spine that eminated from the centre of my brain in steady wave all the way outward and down my body. After this I became paranoid because I could not have been the only one to experience this "bliss" so I thought that someone would be tracking me down. The paranoia subsided quickly enough. All i can say about it is that if every human being on the planet had this experience for one day the entire world would change over night. It was not that I felt like I understood everything it was something more than that! Happiness was something pointless to me in those times. I cannot explain what I mean by that only that to be happy seemed like a trivial think compared to where I was. I would say it is where the word "bliss" came from. Happiness to me now is almost like a simulation of something we have no real grasp of. I have read a number of things since and my experience doesn't really fit into the category of "mania" it seems. I was utterly relaxed. Someone could have put a gun to my head and I wouldnt have been phased in the slightest. I didn't feel invunerable just connected to all around me. I could walk around with a huge aura of amiability and people seemed to gravitate to me more and listen to me more. What is stranger still was my ability to listen became abnormally good. This experience lasted for nearly three months and slowly wore off. I would be very interested to hear any thoughts about this experience and what it was and how to get back there ... I think I know how to get there though and its not pleasant to torture yourself trying because it seems that only surrender works and that is not something I can purposely do. I cannot give up because I want the answers because I know I am not giving up at all.

Teachers are students, students are teachers. There is a lot more that can be asked about this dynamic but this is more about conscious dichotomy.

You've probably all seen this and read the book: https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight It is possible I simply had a mini stroke! If so I am glad I did.

Perceiver - That sounds like what I had but the obvious difference is that it lasted for 3 months, 2 months of it at highest level. I did not have "visions" or hallucinations of any kind (I do in hindsight remember hearing voices at a much later date). At the time I forgot about the voices completely and just set myself to remember how the experience felt because I knew it was too unbelievable to remember fully. Someone mentioned koan. I guess it does it into zen before of the focus I had. I have one theory of what happened physiologically. That is I had a natural release of DMT. I have never tried the stuff so I cannot compare. I am, as you may have guessed, a skeptical person. I am so skeptical I barely believe in existence itself I am very aware of numerous mental illusions that we are blindly guided by every day. The brain is an extraordinary thing. The whole idea of "spiritual"/"supernatural" sets me off. I am not someone who will just take things at face value. Just because I cannot explain or express something does not make it "supernatural". I understand why this experience can be called awakening ... I did "wake up" but now I am dead to it. It is there but out of reach. That is the frustrating thing for me at the moment. Maybe it is simply a brain disorder. Brain disorder or not it was a real experience. I do struggle with the the idea of it being a delusion. If so I could take the wrong step. I do not seem to be able to just take a leap of faith. I need some kind of rationale in order to proceed. Not even sure if I can find any or not. I did try to force it to return and a year later I went the other way ... I had horrible voices in my head. It was a nasty psychotic episode and the scariest thing I have ever experienced. I did actually try to send myself over the edge and succeeded although the outcome was polar, probably because it was forced. I would not call these experiences "enlightenment" or "awakenings" because I am not that way inclined. For me that is religious dogma not a pure individual perspective. From the intial experience I figured out what all these spiritual and religious movements are about. They are schools to guide people (knowingly or not) into altered states of consciousness. Buddhism does seem to be the purest remaining form of this, although it is still not true to the original intent. I need guidance for sure. I have an idea of how to get it and I am proceeding with that. I am not asking or guidance here because guidance from anyone else is pretty worthless. For me places like this online are for learning to express these things and finding ideas to unlock knowledge to help me help myself in order to become myself ... that sounds so hippy it makes me sick!! XD haha! The irrational is the most rational, logic is illogical. There is no reason for anything, we simply are and that simplicity is the most extraordinary and most overlooked aspect of humanness. That is all I know. There is only effect if you think about it not accept it and move on through motions. I'll shut up now

There are certain triggers for ASC's (Altered states of consciousness) and I ticked the boxes of a few of them. I fasted, lost nearly 20kg, sleep dep (although I just didn't need to), intense concentration. Also directly after this happened I found myself curling up in the fetal position and purposely hyperventilating because it just seemed like the right thing to do. I think I did the later because my body was trying to get me back to the ASC experience. After this happened I spent a lot of time pacing and thinking about what I could do. I did feel a weight of responsibility for the universe. It was like I was the parent of everyone and everything and everything was my parent also. I had everything to hand but could do nothing with it, could see no direction that made sense. I feel like my rational mind was in the way yet without rationality I could not exist. You have to understand that this is now just hindsight. Within the experience everything was ... a word that does not exist in the human vocabulary. I was the ultimate communicator, ultimate serenity, ultimate concentration. Although I had calmness I also had racing thoughts (that are related to manic episodes). What blows my mind is that if other people have these experiences and understand them better where are they ? I cannot be the ONLY one to appreciate what this thing could do and how it can shape all of humanity. This makes me feel a weight of responsibility as I mentioned although I am out of the experience now and it is just something in the presence of my ego not the true self that resides - that probably sounds like nonsense but I just don't have the words, and trust me I have looked HARD for the correct wording.

Thanks for the wealth of information.

Uses such as ?

What is meant by the "elements"? Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Symbolic in what way ? What is Agrippa getting at here ?

Well, yes and no I guess it really depends on how you view the unconscious. The conscious mind had being because of the unconscious. The unconscious is part of the whole "self" but not the "me" writing this now. i would not say that I am only a select part of my brain, although the conscious "me" is a specific "operation" of the brain that may exist in various parts at various intervals.