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> inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. I'm thinking that enlightened

> inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. I'm thinking that enlightened states are not inherently stable; they're sharp peaks with shallow troughs. It takes active work to stay in them, and that it's getting habitual at becoming enlightened that we call enlightenment. The main inspirations for this are the temporary experience of enlightenment present in many psychedelic experiences, and the number of koans about "suddenly, they were enlightened" that now make more sense; they're realizing they have a habit of maintaining the enlightened state.

pmoriarty 7y ago
In addition to this, I think people in general are really good at deluding themselves, and a lot of people have very underdeveloped critical faculties (especially in regards to themselves and the revelations they have), which lead them to believe they really are enlightened when they're not. Paradoxically, ego inflation is a very common effect of psychedelics.
- gunshai 7y ago
  What's difficult to ascertain about all of this is meta-cognition in general. Is this really measurable past fleeting binary states self-awareness about your own self-aware state? Past that, I like your connection between naive idealist + self delusion, however I think you have described the human condition of curiosity, in which our conscience mind is able to imagine future states. Then, while we reverse engineer how to possibly do that, we create an ad hoc hypothesis (conscience or not) to end up in that future state. Therefore delusion is almost a necessity, as the mind has little way to tie this hypothesis causation to the ad hoc hypothesis. If a conscience mind accepts the imaginary future state of enlightenment as being one that they ought experience. The following question is ... how? This moment is exactly how I see your point fitting in especially with psychedelics.
deleted 7y ago
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loceng 7y ago
There's a concept in yoga of taking your practice "off the mat" with you. The enlightened stated that psychedelics can help you reach has a similar mechanism requirement for learning; in order to take yoga off the mat with you and back into "regular life" - means you can't be practicing yoga all the time. This also means that there's work to do outside of the psychedelics if you're wanting to bring that enlightened state back with you. I see many people who become dependant on psychedelics aren't putting the work into other areas of healing themselves and healing, understanding, past trauma, and start to depend on the temporary release and excitement the psychedelic state brings them. A simple example of care that many people don't do a thorough enough job is cleaning up their diet to no longer eat food as entertainment, a distraction from their feelings, likewise to figuring out what foods irritate their nervous system and to stop eating those so they can be more grounded in their body, more fully connected to their nervous system.

pmoriarty 7y ago

In addition to this, I think people in general are really good at deluding themselves, and a lot of people have very underdeveloped critical faculties (especially in regards to themselves and the revelations they have), which lead them to believe they really are enlightened when they're not. Paradoxically, ego inflation is a very common effect of psychedelics.

gunshai 7y ago
What's difficult to ascertain about all of this is meta-cognition in general. Is this really measurable past fleeting binary states self-awareness about your own self-aware state? Past that, I like your connection between naive idealist + self delusion, however I think you have described the human condition of curiosity, in which our conscience mind is able to imagine future states. Then, while we reverse engineer how to possibly do that, we create an ad hoc hypothesis (conscience or not) to end up in that future state. Therefore delusion is almost a necessity, as the mind has little way to tie this hypothesis causation to the ad hoc hypothesis. If a conscience mind accepts the imaginary future state of enlightenment as being one that they ought experience. The following question is ... how? This moment is exactly how I see your point fitting in especially with psychedelics.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

loceng 7y ago

There's a concept in yoga of taking your practice "off the mat" with you. The enlightened stated that psychedelics can help you reach has a similar mechanism requirement for learning; in order to take yoga off the mat with you and back into "regular life" - means you can't be practicing yoga all the time. This also means that there's work to do outside of the psychedelics if you're wanting to bring that enlightened state back with you. I see many people who become dependant on psychedelics aren't putting the work into other areas of healing themselves and healing, understanding, past trauma, and start to depend on the temporary release and excitement the psychedelic state brings them. A simple example of care that many people don't do a thorough enough job is cleaning up their diet to no longer eat food as entertainment, a distraction from their feelings, likewise to figuring out what foods irritate their nervous system and to stop eating those so they can be more grounded in their body, more fully connected to their nervous system.