Owledge

Well, since you asked, here an answer: existential fear. If we fear we are to weak to survive, or if we fear that we cannot achieve our goals in life, which can be a creation of fear, too, then we try to amass that universal means of applying power - monetary wealth, and other forms of wealth. Other reasons might spawn from that: personal enjoyment of the different forms of material goods - a way of cherishing the pleasant aspects of the life experience. There's also that article posted recently, about buddhism and nothingness, where it was stated that it might have to do with a desire to validate our illusionary existence out of a doubt that we exist. There can be many more reasons. It's a bit sad that the only one you can think of is "in order to get more sex". The conviction with which you state that sounds a bit like a personal philosophy born out of painful life experiences.

A true master of inflating a message into a huge mass of words. And still not including any "why" or detail. This is pure doctrine, and strikingly trivial thinking.

Confusing the Devil with God because both seem almighty?

I think the topic has been way to politically charged the whole time for doing widely publicly known and proper(!) research. First it was shunned, a taboo (and still is in some cultures), and now you better not say anything against the mainstream, at least in many regions. Based on numerous practical case examples, I consider it highly likely that homosexuality has psychological causes. There are just too many striking correlations, and it is also a common laziness of science to just say "It's natural." / "It's in the genes.". Curious anecdote: I've been told that in Asian (or Japanese only?) cultures, the topic of homosexuality is so much a taboo that they don't even have a name for it.

Haven't watches them yet, but it sounds logical that that's where the biblical number of the beast "666" comes from.

Although it is relatively convincing, if you consider chaos theory, the true origins of the crime reduction effects are worth examining. I'd be more happy about a repetitive ninja-meditation project, where it is tried to keep the meditation the only exceptional activity, also making sure that the time for meditation doesn't fall into a timeframe where other activities with substantial effect on the environment would otherwise be performed. I hope you get what I'm pointing at. By the way, the graph in the link is somewhat ambiguous. It says "percent change", but is that based on the previous sample or cumulative figures? By the way, maybe there comes a time where peace meditator becomes a paid job. After all, reducing crime saves a lot of money. I would also like to see a 4000 people meditation group focusing on specific persons that are performing severe warmongering. Maybe one day, political demonstrations will be replaced by political meditations, if it is found that they are more effective.

First: His definition of nirvana is an absolute state. So if there is anything ever that brings you out of that state (like getting upset during very difficult times), then you have never reached nirvana in the first place, but were delusional. Then he says that once your reach the state of enlightenment, you see everything that ever happened and will happen on all worlds in the universe, on all planets. But if he cannot take any knowledge away from that, how can he be sure that he wasn't fooling himself? That he merely thought he saw everything, but because nothing was specific, it was merely the experience of a belief, without the reality behind it. Also, wouldn't that mean that that state of enlightenment is limited to the state where you perceive everything? Maybe there are rare cases where people brought back knowledge from 'up there', but I don't know of a case that has been verified by investigating the claim. It's all very strange. You literally have access to everything in existence, and the only thing with any effect on the physical realm you bring back from that state is emotional change and changed views on things.

There's this interesting language difference between German and English. "The Age of Enlightenment", in German, is more like "The Age of Intelligence/Education/Elucidation". Maybe they should be equalled. The enlightenment in that title is that which leads to or helps to achieve that kind of enlightenment that spiritual people talk about. Is it like the "De" in "Dao De Jing"? That's the kind of compassion I developed from intellectual research about world affairs and many other areas. Just by being naturally curious, you'll figure out a lot of stuff.

This is a common fallacy originating from a lack of understanding of society and people. If someone can perform miracles, then that is seen as great power, and those who fear to lose theirs will perceive that person as a threat. Or more generalized: Darkness doesn't welcome the light; It is afraid of it. This at least smells fishy to me. There could be a lot of delusion involved in that. Could in fact be a good example of someone who thinks he is fully enlightened and is not. And not to overlook the fact that this is a widely used justification for cruelties performed by religious people: It was God's will. If that story is authentic, then maybe that Samurai simply chose a documentable moment for showing off his supposed spiritual superiority. How about telling them: If you think your actions are no longer influenced by worldly impulses, then why don't you get out of this world? What are you still doing here? Don't want to follow the rules, but still drawn to this place?

@Mokona "You also mentioned more less? that you were the author/ creator of your own reality? your experience ... so maybe the plant is not separate from you... maybe the effect of the plant is to simply allow you to experience yourself? hence why everyone's experience is "tailor made" The awe etc that you experienced for the plant... maybe the awe of you/ your "true self"" That could very much be the case. You gradually discover how 'you' are more and more, and at each level, you consult your own inner wisdom. People might object and say that eventually they talked to other sentient beings, but hey, at some point you don't distinguish between yourself and others anymore, right? So from that level of awareness, you'd still be talking to yourself. "I believe there are different levels of ego / identity - maybe we have trapped / limited ourselves somehow to this present image...forgetting our Divine Self / Personality... maybe you are worried about realizing your Awesomeness... but also this could be from conditioning or the idea of "no-self" the damn buddhist idea of being extinguished completely... a lot of things (extreme/ misleading) lead one astray in buddhism i feel - you said you saw the outline of a buddha? buddha is just another projection?" Maybe it's a delusion to think of yourself as trapped as if there are malicious forces at work. This is the perception of a threat, and that is fear-based, and fear-based behavior is unwise. Eventually you might discover that those allegedly malicious forces are no-one but yourself, and then you can accept them as part of the game. As I hinted at, my personal ayahuasca experience kind of explained to me that if everybody and everything returned to the source, then what's the point of that state? The 'illusion' exists merely because there is a cause for it to exist, a cause that originates from the source, and that is sufficient justification. The point is also that even if you saw stuff from past lives, what was before all those lives? You were separated from Oneness, right? But that oneness spawns new separations all the time, right? So what's the point of spending your lifetime in pursuit of returning to the Source? If you return, the show will go on anyway. Another part of you will get separated and go through lives. Based on those widely accepted models, the whole strive to abandon everything of the so-called illusion seems ludicrous. Then again, that, too, is part of the game. "Slow realization or instant the end result will be the same?" Well, that's an interesting question. It seems from my own and others' experiences that drinking ayahuasca is more useful than smoking DMT because it gives you the time to process the experience, so your intellect can gain insights more distinctly and change itself, while a short and more harsh experience might leave more of a temporary emotional effect. But there might be many exceptions to the rule.

Ok, this is supposed to be playful. I think it might be an interesting mind game to ask this: Could it be possible that the mind, during spiritual experiences, still objectifies too much, too early? That it will believe that there is something 'higher' or 'beyond', when at that point it was all just the mind messing with itself, just a rewiring of the brain's processes? I know this still would not explain the ungraspable idea of infinity, but here are my relatively unrefined thoughts that I wrote down: If you go on a quest for something that does not exist, you will, eventually, arrive at where you started. And in people's so-called spiritual experiences where they talk about how they perceived the source of everything, or nothingness, or oneness, maybe they simply didn't find what they were looking for, because it doesn't exist, so that gives total affirmation of the situation where they began the journey. Do you know the movie "The Silent Flute" / "Circle of Iron"? It was to a great degree written by Bruce Lee. The protagonist, at the end of his long quest for enlightenment, opened a book and was looking into a mirror, seeing himself. Isn't all spiritual search based on a feeling of dissatisfaction with how the own life is perceived? And doesn't the search eventually lead to more satisfaction with life? How could it be any different, if this search only points at life itself? Isn't everybody eventually getting their personal version of what they are looking for? If you are eventually happy because you believe you have transcended the suffering that is life, doesn't that require you to affirm life, since transcending something needs a reference to what it is that is being transcended? My experiences with ayahuasca made me wonder about these things, since it is so well-known that the brew always gives you what you need at that moment and that it's almost like you talking to yourself, giving you advice on how to proceed. It's as if you explore what else there is, and you get an answer colored in your personal belief system, but the message is the same for everybody. If there was anything except life, wouldn't experiencing that further affirm your discontentment with life instead of the opposite? Isn't it the greatest (most powerful) help with the troubles of life to realize that there is no alternative? Maybe these words can inspire some novel thought. If not... who cares?

That evades the question. I didn't equal the mind to the brain, but brain function can alter the mind's perceptions and thus experiences. Well, whether external or internal cause, in both cases it can be 'dismissed' as fiddling with brain processes. If done without drugs, the cause is intention. (Shortly after my ayahuasca experience, I could almost recreate the experience of timelessness and external illusion by merely re-imagining the experience.)

@steam It is amazing how creative and inventive our minds can be during sleep. I once dreamt a scene that could have been taken from a thriller movie, with spy agent stuff. Never seen like that anywhere, and it was clearly fictitious ... but pretty good. BTW recently I am consciously trying to 'get stuff done' during sleep, and I am dreaming illogical stuff most of the time. Not confused, but very much reality-based, but with people doing or saying stuff that has very little connection to what is happening. Like being in a plane that was landing right after the airstrip, with gear up, and there were mats (!) where it was sliding on, and when it came to a halt and we had exited the plane, I asked the pilot "Landing gear malfunctioned?" and he said something like: Yeah, the soil is contaminated."

Just found these awesome and funny animations: Animator vs. Animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql339uG65Sw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpkEXsQXGmQ

"I saw everything!" OK, like what? "Everything!" Ah, I get it.

... the fuck?!

Then only one walked into a bar, no? Appears to me that humor often is about being surprised, being confronted with the unexpected, and laughter is the act of cherishing the expansion of one's awareness, being faced with something new. Reminded me a little of the creepiness factor when ayahuasca made me say goodbye to normality. Appleyasca - very good name. That video is so much depicting how the brew can be. Treating animals as equals. Beautiful!

And that progress is enlightenment. If you argued that there's a final state, you'd have trouble really being sure you reached it, or defining when you reached it. Apparently there's a lot of disagreement about it. Imagine you finally reach enlightenment, but don't realize it and thus continue working towards it. Or you think you reached it, but didn't, and stop working towards it too early. Does all that matter?

One day... "Hey Max! I gave that practice to anybody who asked! ... Greetings from Jenny! Haaaaaaarharharharhaaar!" And I didn't even visit drama school.

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/23103-had-a-profound-one-consciousness-like-experience-with-ayahuasca

Yeah, I don't know whether people consider this advanced, but my observer is active a lot during normal daily activity. It's like part of my normal thought process. I guess it's called mindfulness if the observer is in sync with the current moment, which mine is not so much.

Nice graphiti art. I find it amazing that he can carve a movable chain. Hm... I see a saw carving and a hammer carving. But where's the pencil carving? "Mr Ghetti has made about 100 carvings, and is currently on an epic piece inspired by the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center." Accurately depicting how building 7 collapsed? "When I’m done they will form one big tear drop. It will take me about 10 years but it will be worth it." If you love 'epic' emotional attachments ... definitely.

May I recommend that you replace "Enlightenment" with "full enlightenment"? Otherwise you might cultivate a thought process that disregards all progress on the path of (not to) enlightenment and makes reaching the final state impossible.

@goldisheavy Then explain to me why no medium in the world seems capable of telling someone about their future lives, or their lives not on this planet, and never or rarely about their lives as animals? Shouldn't this be a major part of spiritual knowledge, why that is? I haven't found a text dealing with that yet.