Thread: Exploration of the Mind

God's on acid, and we're all one entity living in his dilated pupil.

...

Seriously though, its a well established fact that our consciousness by default is rather limited. I, among many others, believe it to be because of this "ego" thing sucking up the rest of our brainpower. And the ego isn't limited to our sense of self. Its also our latent map and guidebook to the world we live in. It causes an effect known in the scientific community as "latent inhibition", which basically impairs our awareness to keep things simple. Its part of our evolution to function properly in this ridiculously complex world we've created for ourselves.

Those who have taken psychedelic drugs know what its like to exist outside this map, this network of mental patterns. You're suddenly thrown into the moment as you're mind's ability to inhibit sensory information is shattered. For those of us who are concerned with our own well-being, this lack of control over the environment is terrifying. To those who can submit to this stream of sensory input and ride it without care, its beyond liberating.

But one doesn't need psychedelics to see the world like that. They just force us to. Its a valid option, but a temporary one. Through different forms of meditation or other sorts of mind-body interventions, anyone can tap into this usually inhibited stream of consciousness.

What life means to me is living in that state of awareness so that every second of existence is as intense and down to earth as possible. Its sure not easy, after all there's no "ego" switch in the mind you can switch off, but believe me I have experienced it before in the absence of chemical assistance.

But the real beauty of life is how subjective it is. These are just my beliefs. No more or less intrinsically valuable or correct than anyone else's.

I think the whole point of life is to be happy and connect with each other.

Once you lose the fear, life is a gift. I found my true self through weed and socializing with weed is great, like you really "connect" to people. You can read read peoples emotions like a book. I read some story where someone was like they could actually share thoughts with another person high on weed. I really do think weed is heaven sent.

Being your true self and walking around in a state of pure awareness, with no thoughts bombarding your mind is probably the best feeling you could ever achieve.

Originally Posted by Speesh

God's on acid, and we're all one entity living in his dilated pupil.

...

Seriously though, its a well established fact that our consciousness by default is rather limited. I, among many others, believe it to be because of this "ego" thing sucking up the rest of our brainpower. And the ego isn't limited to our sense of self. Its also our latent map and guidebook to the world we live in. It causes an effect known in the scientific community as "latent inhibition", which basically impairs our awareness to keep things simple. Its part of our evolution to function properly in this ridiculously complex world we've created for ourselves.

Those who have taken psychedelic drugs know what its like to exist outside this map, this network of mental patterns. You're suddenly thrown into the moment as you're mind's ability to inhibit sensory information is shattered. For those of us who are concerned with our own well-being, this lack of control over the environment is terrifying. To those who can submit to this stream of sensory input and ride it without care, its beyond liberating.

But one doesn't need psychedelics to see the world like that. They just force us to. Its a valid option, but a temporary one. Through different forms of meditation or other sorts of mind-body interventions, anyone can tap into this usually inhibited stream of consciousness.

What life means to me is living in that state of awareness so that every second of existence is as intense and down to earth as possible. Its sure not easy, after all there's no "ego" switch in the mind you can switch off, but believe me I have experienced it before in the absence of chemical assistance.

But the real beauty of life is how subjective it is. These are just my beliefs. No more or less intrinsically valuable or correct than anyone else's.

Well put. The only "problem" as such i have with this explanation is the part which is highlighted. I see the ability to live in the moment and nourish direct experience as an intrstically natural human attitude, as can be seen in the attitudes of shamanic and tribal people around the world. The difference lies for us Westerners in culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU

I truly beleive and see it to be, in my eyes, obvious that culture is, not metaphorically, but literally an operating system, and a negative one at that. It is our culture, that places a heavy emphassis on negativity (for example, CoD 2 got released recently, tipped to be the gretest selling game ever, its all about killing people, war, death, violence and criminality are gloryfiyed in our culture), false happiness and endless consumerism, all of this serves to prserve the status quo and increases level of criminality which is an extrememly effective way of the government informing us, through endless moral panics and folkdevils in te media, that we need them. I'm tired and its late here, so I'm not going to elaborate too much but it seems to me that humanity is at a very worrying position. If you try and explain this kind of view to a 40 year old man; that psychdelic drugs, marijuana, sexual liberation and so on are not inherently "wrong" you will have a hard time. Just because after 40 years playing this game, after 40 years of valuing belief systems, material items and false happiness ahead of experience, beauty, understanding etc it is extrememly hard. We are all being coerced and indoctrinated by culture and the various institutions respnsible for cultural control; the media, religion, politics. Psychdelic drugs are just one of the agents that can help in this decondition process. What really hit home for me was something Hard_Wired wrote the other day. Something along the lines of it is obvious to see what kind of collective conciousness we are in by how much easier it is to think a negative thought than a positive one. This is so true; now i found myself numerous times a day questioning my and other people's thought processes, and i see so much needless negativity.

I don't understand why everyone is against the ego like it's a bad thing. (I'm not directing this at anyone here, but just something I've been thinking about lately.) Obviously it's a tool, used to help us survive among other things. I admit, that it is constructive to temporarily be with out ego, because it causes you to see things differnently. It's like a carpenter no longer having a hammer - an essential part of being a carpenter. It helps him see his profession in a new light, and gives him a chance to try something different. This is all great, but the Carpenter will want his hammer back eventnually.

I've experienced ego loss with psychedelics and without. The experience is vital to growing as a person, absolutely. But some people seem to think that the goal is to get rid of the ego all together. Learn how to be a carpenter without a hammer. I think this is a foolish ideal. I've read people say shit like "Keep chiping away that ego" on psychedelic forums and it just urks me.

Culture on the other hand, is something that can be both negative and positive. It is definately an operating system, that's an excellent analogy. That's why people experience culture shock when traveling. Having to adapt to a new operating system is shocking, there is so much to learn, and it must be learned quickly in order to survive. Actually, I think having all these operating systems is great. It allows those fortunate enough to experience new operating systems to see their own in a new light, giving them a much better perspective on life as a whole. Not life as an American, Canadian, Mexian...etc.

irman_p: Ah yes, I've seen that video. I usually have trouble relating to McKenna's teachings but that one definitely got me thinking. So would you say its the culture taking up all that valuable brainspace, as opposed to this 'ego' thing? And what would constitute culture exactly? All media manufactured here, or just commercially interested media? Also, it seems rather difficult to give it up, seeing as it literally surrounds me all day.

grasshoppa: I see where you're coming from, and you make a great point. The way I see it, there's two different paths to the state of liberated receptivity I want to be in. The best way I've heard it put is liberation 'of' the ego versus liberation 'from' the ego. On the one hand, you can get to know the way your mind works well enough to take control of it and create your own patterns. Using the tool instead of letting it use you. Its certainly possible to free the ego from fear, delusion, etc. But the mind is often an elusive and paradoxical thing, which makes it very difficult.

On the other hand you can just free the ego. Exist without patterns, ditch the tool. Obviously they're both good paths. But I've tried controlling my mind for a while now (meditation, NLP, drugs, philosophy etc.) and years later its just led me to more frustration and suffering. Without many positive results to speak of. At this point I just want to take the easy way out. Only reason I'm personally against the ego is cause of my subjective experiences.

This guy said it best:

"We're all looking at the point of view from our own reality tunnels. And when we begin to realize that we're all looking at the point of view from our own reality tunnels we find that it is much easier to see where other people are coming from, or the ones who don't have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant or deliberately perverse, or lying, or hypnotized by some ideology, they just have a different reality tunnel. And every different reality tunnel may tell us something interesting about our world. If we're willing to listen."
-Robert Anton Wilson

By the way, I do realize how paradoxical it is for someone who aims to be liberated from the ego to be spewing forth his opinions over the internet. I just couldn't resist contributing to this thread .