Fraggin said:

Even though we have evolved in knowledge over the centuries, the human condition is still the same.

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Simulacra541 said:

So I've never really said hi to the shroomery before or introduced myself so I'll do that now, Hi!

I don't even know how to introduce this, I guess this is the problem that has been bothering me for 2 years now.

That thread about the Guilt Ridden Yogic lifestyle has prompted me to write this.

I dont even know what it is I want, something feels like its missing. I guess it's the problem facing everyone in life, we all suffer. I'm going to die, but I don't want to. Why don't I want to? If I can't live forever then it makes it hard to justify me doing something useful, everyone else will forget about it too after I die. Everything seems so meaningless. But then again why do I want it to have meaning? Life is so fucking weird and confusing, here I am, alive, for reasons I didn't decide and I will leave for reasons I can't control. Why something rather than nothing? Why are we all afraid of dying? Fear of the unknown most would say, but again why are we afraid of the unknown? I feel like there's something, someplace I should be.

I started smoking marijuana a little over a year ago right when I finished high school. I had never been into Buddhism, but marijuana effects me ALOT more than anyone else I know. I've always been plagued with continually trying to answer those "Big Questions" yet I dont even know if there is an answer to find... i dont know what im looking for.

I thought marijuana would help with this, sort some things out. A lot of the things I've thought about while high correlated a lot with Buddhist teachings. So during my first year at University I read Alan Watts and anything online that was related to what I was thinking about.
  I wanted to know what enlightenment would feel like, cause once i had that then i would have all the answers haha. So my options are... move to a monestary and meditate for years and years and hope I experience it, or take a large dose of a psychedelic.

Last Easter I did shrooms for the first time, and I found what I was looking for. Complete silencing of that chatter in my head. I felt that "cosmic consciousness" experience that has become all to common when dealing with psychedelics. But it really effected me deeply, I went and sat down the next day next to this lake to just think about what just happened and what do I know now and how does it relate to my problem.
But I realized then, there is a problem with trying to lose your ego, how can you? How can an desire fueled ego lose itself without desiring? Then came this feeling of 'wow there isn't anything I can do because whatever I do is because of desire even trying to stop desire'
I came to the conclusion that I couldn't be my ego or I couldn't be egoless. "I" or whatever is happening is something other than, that I can't understand. And that's frustrating if you can't possess it and understand it. But again why do I even want to understand this so badly?

But even thoughts like these are only in my head, they're not really even a part of me, they don't seem to pervade into my actions.

See look at the 1st long paragraph    I get stuck in those thoughts and thought patterns. I think about it constantly every day, I'm constantly meditating on those ideas they never leave. I wish I could find an answer so I could stop. Haha even now I just looked at that last sentence and thought why do I want to stop? why am I looking for an answer?

Instead of silencing the chatter in my head, these past couple years I've sped it up to a point where it exhausts me to listen to it.

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you want to understand it so badly because you must!
your intense thirst for truth is making questions bubble up for you

all questions depend on the Self

if you clear one doubt another will come, one after the other
so first before you move to pick up effort or resolve a doubt or attempt to silence the mind, turn your attention on who the doubter is?
whose mind is it?

your thirst for freedom & truth is born inside yourself
where else can it be quenched but diving fully into that Self?






lay down your chisel, you are not the sculptor

Simulacra541 said:

Yeah all questions do depend on the self

I agree with Chronic when I or we as people should focus on knowing the knower.

And although I haven't tried, I believe this is done through meditation and yoga?

I've never put this idea of trying to know the knower into practice, although from listening to people talk about Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy I know where it will eventually lead to.

It will lead to the realization that who I call "I" is not who I thought it was. That I am all that is happening, the whole works, just energy, energy that will last forever, isn't this is cosmic consciousness, or what the Buddha called enlightenment?

I know this mentally, it's in my head, but that's not where it should be. You guys probably know what I mean, you can know a fact but it can still not be a part of you.

But then again if there is no I, there is no self, who knows this deep truth? It would seem its creation looking at itself. Maybe thats the point, i dont know.

I would just try to identify myself with something larger in an attempt to save myself. I guess that's the question, one of the pillars of the human condition, why are most of us so afraid to lose ourselves?

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Meditation is good, but the meditation i speak about, Self Inquiry, becomes as natural as your breath, as its facing what is here Now

Your right to say knowing mentally is not satisfactory, so don't go for mental knowledge, know with your entire Being.

That is knowing in the purest sense of the word, Being.

if the goal is to realize the Eternal Truth it can not be a goal for an object, it must be for Truth & only for Truth

the Truth is here in all circumstances & is never not experienced

You experience "I", all Beings say "I", so "I" is the Truth of all Beings

Leave aside everything & dive into this "I", how far can you dive in?

What physical sensations can you report fully diving into "I"?