Who is the master who makes the grass green?
Chop wood carry water.
“Reality is what you can get away with.”
Well written, good video. As long as there is sound.
Yeah - not sure what happened to the audio towards the latter part of the video, but the crux is situated within the audio limit.
I used to be more into Anton, when I was predominantly a mystic. Same thing with Alan Watts.
I’m thinking about having another psychedelic/shamanistic adventure into outer worlds sometime. I’m going to try fasting, before I consume the shrooms, though - to see how much more potent the experience will be. By the way, I only do psychedelics once every blue moon and for philosophical/spiritual purposes.
How about you, Fixed? Do you do the same?
I only deviated from that rule one summer. That was when things began to turn around in a weird way. My psychedelic experiences became more normal than my normal experiences. That was bizarre and not worth it. Another big mistake was tripping with a person of radically down to earth disposition. That was the most depressing trip I ever had. Jesus that was depressing. The most grey experience in my life, perhaps.
How long will you fast? I used to find three hours not eating sufficient. But then, he most intense trip I ever had was after I ate a bunch of KFC on top of the psychedelic, when I didn’t know what it was and that it was still coming. I got very sick first and then all hell broke loose – or heaven - in any case of a hellish intensity.
The past few years I have had no urge to do these things anymore, because with VO I have transcended into a realm where the untainted perspectival realities are always accessible, and the psychedelic effect of seeing creatures and motions is entertaining but no longer shocking, much less enlightening. The single realization I had in my last trip, some years ago, was that all of lifes challenges and judgments are irrelevant if they do not lead up to the single goal of [edit - not ultimate but of a type that can’t be addressed here] power. I have been made to understand that I have solved the challenges that the psychedelic mind poses, my philosophy is one of the other side, one of ‘‘breaking through’’, one that demands of the doors of perception to be cleansed.
What remains is a much greater mystery, and a much stranger situation. “Reality” - beheld with open eyes.
Reminds me of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors_of_Perception
IMO, it would be more interesting to understand the machinery of the said doors, i.e. its framework, its structure, the hinges, the many locks that need to be unlocked, the different keys, the master key, etc.
This is one of my faves. Zen is the only ‘philosophy’ that interests me mainly because it’s not philosophy.
Philosophy is dead and has been dead for about 100 years. I’m sure Nietzsche would have come to that conclusion if he managed to break through his psychosis. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I enjoy reading about conceptual ideas whether they be philosophic or religious. They can be entertaining but that’s all they are: entertainment – disguised as something important.
The Zen master is like a parent who enters the kid’s room, turns off the TV and music and tells the child to go outside and get some fresh air and sunlight. There is nothing more to Zen than that. Chop wood. Carry water. It’s the razor sharp clarity and concentrated simplicity that make instructions like this so potent.
There is nothing to define. Nothing to question. Nothing to argue over. Nothing to distract. Just chop wood; carry water. Leave the neurotic mind inside its dank dark room and go outside. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just enter the day for the first time. Behold the revelation.
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This ‘chop wood carry water’ fits nicely and relates with the tenth phase of with the ‘Ten bulls’ presumably you are familiar with that as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls
I like the principles of Zen but I am not seriously into Zen.
However, I would disagree with you that Zen is not philosophy.
IMO, philosophy is a very loose term. There are many who insist philosophy is dead (note Stephen Hawking) and that is because they view philosophy within a very narrow and confined perspective such as academic, classical or Western philosophy. Academic philosophy has been condemned as ‘incestuous’ because they mentally ‘circle-jerk’ amongst their own kind. Despite the negativity, I believe there are still positives from academic and Western philosophy.
From my research of what people termed as ‘philosophy’ from every where in the world, I note ‘philosophy’ is reducible to a constant impulse to optimize good (well-being) for the individual, humanity and living things.
We can thus fit Zen into philosophy at this fundamental level and other sub-levels and to pause at the intellectual thinking phase.
Btw, before Zen specialized in non-intellectual approaches (Southern-sudden) in China, Korea, and Japan there were branches of Zen (Northern-gradual) which adopt intellectual exercises and various philosophies in India, China, and Japan.
With a constant impulse to optimize the well-being of humans and life, philosophy underlies and overrides all faculties of human knowledge. That is why we have a philosophy of Science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of philosophy, philosophy of X (i.e. any thing).
Here’s is one (amongst many others) fundamental value of philosophy,
That was the reference, yes.
Once you pass through a couple of times, you see that these are the same thing.
I can evoke a psychedelic state of mind by simply reminding myself of it. They experience is the key. In the first instance, there is no key and the door can only be opened from the inside or rammed in. The organism needs to be introduced to its potential before it actually has access to it.
One needs to be invited to oneself – or crash the party.
I agree such altered states can be recalled via memories.
Actually my interest was with reference to the machinery and mechanics of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ it works in the human brain in neural and other terms.
The question is why such altered states, which is subjective within each individual, has some degrees objectivity/similarities across a range of different people ranging from the ‘divine’, the ‘mystics’, any drug user (on a good and not a bad trip), the mentally sick, the brain damage, the stressed out person, etc.
Once we understand the above, then we can question whether the founder of the mainstream religion who claimed divine experiences were actually mentally sick, had brain damage, taken drugs rather than being genuinely a divinely [being agent of God] inspired.
If you haven’t already, give this book a read:
I know that there is no set answer to this question.
But my answer: No master. Just the Flow which pulls everything along.
Even THAT “vertical” flow.
The orthodox answer would be yourself, your own consciousness - You are the master. Green is a qualia, that is crafted as such by your mind.
What do you mean by " The Flow " ? Like the Dao? The Way?
You are Your own master. The inner river which has to be navigated as if there were some guide posts, or stars to navigate by outside it’s strictly still.
No, orb I am no great master of myself. I am slowly learning this thankfully so.
But i like your answer to who makes the grass green - but I would say our "consciousness - well - we could also say our unconscious selves.
And green as qualia - what does the color make you feel and sense, orb?
Why don’t you view yourself, as master of yourself?
The color green makes me feel machiavellian, like Loki.
I think I know which way the river flows, the green grass makes you feel green. To all that green re presents, envy, naïveté , money hungry, pastoral , mixed betwixt the coldness of the blue of the ocean, and the yellow of the mellow springtime sun, the Heath, the castle, Kafka , the tart Apple, and much more, money honey, the blueness of eternity in your blue eyes reflecting the yellow gleam of passion, and more.
It’s Everyman everywhere and nowhere.The green of the eternal deliverance into the flowery grave where once, …you were. Whoever You may be, wherever .
I am familiar with DMT but I have not read that Strassman’s book. Will look for it.
OK, got the book, a nice point in this;
Before LSD was made illegal, science was making great use ofcit. The double helix model of the dna strand was conveived in such a trip, to give one example.
I have no illusions about the reasons for banning it. That religion is held in place deliberately and with great force.
Maybe Mechanical Monster and HatingMeIsEasier can analyze the psylocubin and the DMT molecule.