I had an unusual experience at age 18. I can only compare it to descriptions of people who have had a stroke, and people that experience "Kundalini Shakti", the power of the coiled serpent in Yoga Kundalini. It felt as if my head and spine opened up, and liquid electricity began to flow through my whole body. Felt the dissolution of ego and separateness between the internal and external world. This lasted several months. I learned a lot about the connection between body and mind. When the experience ceased, I felt drained or burnt out. I learned from instruction in Kundalini Yoga that I had opened up that energy pathway without any of the foundational work to properly cool the flow of energy, and as a result overheated from a faster metabolism. My sympathetic nervous system was hyper-active, while my parasympathetic nervous system was underactive. Since then I have been slowly learning the foundational techniques of realization, through learning meditation and pranayama yoga/breathing practices, Taoist spiritual alchemy, did a lot of reading on biology and the relationship between the endocrine system and the nervous system. Diet and hydration is also foundational to health. The biology of whatever people report as Kundalini awakening is poorly understood, but I like to believe there is a deep metabolic reason for these sort of awakening experiences that has to do with strong feedback in the nervous system and endocrine system. In the book, "I am a strange loop", Douglas Hofstadterchaos argues that chaos theory can explain the persistence of self-consciousness; all chaotic systems exhibit self-referential dynamics that lead to the kind of sense of self which is both sensate or receptive to the state of the environment, as well as proprioceptive or aware of the internal state of itself. The question that is more difficult to answer is: what is it that is aware of the outside and inside? The brain and body are surely the interface which is aware of the world, and itself. But the distinction between the inside and outside isn't very solid. Hofstader describes a tornado as a good example of a type of primitive self awareness in physical processes that resembles life. The tornado has no mind, but it has inputs and outputs that causes it to steer towards and feed off heated air, it can merge or split like cellular division, it grows and then dies, it's organized toroidal flow of wind energy dissipating into the background heat of the air. I think biological life is very similar. A circular or toroidal flow of water and Oxygen and chemical energy and everything else that our body moves around. It has inputs and outputs, it lives and reproduces and dies wherever there is the energy in the environment to do so. The big mystery to me at the bottom of all these ideas about how biology supports consciousness will always be "does consciousness continue after death"? Maybe but I'm skeptical. The Taoist idea of immortality is, to me, somewhat like Christian idea of Resurrection, in the former you must cultivate an immortal spiritual body in life through virtue and spiritual alchemy (transforming your food and breath, and therefore your bodily substance and energy, into spiritual energy given form), and in the latter that cultivating a relationship with God and accepting the offer of salvation through repentance allows one to partake in immortality by Grace. Both traditions seem to state quite clearly that the truth must be apprehended directly through experience here and now, not necessarily after death. As it is written, "Behold! The Kingdom of God is within you!".

Only while watching Wall-E

First ever DMT experience (pharmahuasca) - i *think* it was Big-E.. (but could have been like a medium ē or something.. 🤔)

Yes…I’ve had both. Life-changing to say the least. 🥰🦋🌈✨

Oh, man - I can't pass up the opportunity to reply here! YES! Big E when I was 16 and on acid for the first time. I saw "myself" as the All - The Everything - the I AM That! :) I was looking out from the center of all things and knew myself as every blade of grass, every bird, every planet, every person, etc, etc, etc... :) The experience in consciousness was of being those things, not just seeing them, so knowing the details of all creation from the inside out. My first thought upon returning to my small self was to rip off my clothes and run down the street shouting, "It's just us - it's all love - there's just love!" My best friend was sitting for me at the time and calmer heads prevailed, but I have always felt like I'm one heartbeat away from some next-level, naked-love-run-evangelism :) Thank you for such a cool video and such a cool channel!

So well said! Concise yet so profound. A little 'e' epiphany?

Yes, and I think that is because our practical/survival brain (aka EGO) has to take control back to run our lives,

That part is very hard

I don't think you can "stay enlightened", or that we're meant to (that is, constructed to hold onto that state, with our busy minds and fizzing bodies). I've noticed that the few experiences I've had of contact with another person that was warm, beautiful, and completely trusting for both have been more and more elusive as time passed, and that the best way to keep these moments alive in memory was to let them go, to *not* clutch at them or try to recreate the experience in my mind. They were transitory by their nature, at least for me in whatever spiritual state I was then and am now. Maybe more experienced souls, Older souls in terms of lives lived, slide more easily into that kind of state, and I'm still too "Young". I don't know, and here toward the end of this lifetime (I've entered the low 80s), I don't feel any urgency about it. So I meditate every evening, and expect nothing, and that contents me.

Wonderfully put! It's a seemingly small but vital distinction that's easy to miss. Nothing is permanent, not even enlightenment. It has to be won over and over. A verb rather than a noun. Makes me think of that BoJack Horseman quote: "Everyday it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That's the hard part."

It's very true--and it is necessary. There's far more information that is coming into our senses than we can process. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j9GJpbSDndqqqp8.html

@@The-Well even though in many cases this information that is coming in is poor, our brains do an amazing job of filtering and enhancing it

Yeah, most of our experiences are ways of conditioning that takes place in our minds, I think they become forms of beliefs and our filters to see. The mind tends to patterns. So to understand who we are we can take a look at our thinking, and if we’re honest we can observe all our fears and hatred, as well as our most sublime thoughts of bliss

these mental and cognitive biases literally alter your senses over time

Very true. It should be everyone’s mission to strive towards the “primal nature,” as Lao Tzu termed it. A mind liberated from attachments and conditioned ways of being.

I had this experience by falun dafa pracitice. I had similiar experience, described by this guy from youtube. From my experience: You feel like God is in connection with you. All things in every minute are like written by God to you. All things have meaning. You don't fear anything even death. You feel love and gratitude to God. it is constant... but some other experienced occurred also in my journey even - like being aware for few days and nights in a row. I didn't sleep. I didn't experience hunger. I was eating 1 slice of bread per day and it was enough. Most strange experience I had it was body, or my body parts like legs or hands or torso floating in zero gravity bubbles. I didn't levitate but I was not feeling weightiness of my body. Amazing. And of course I had visions.. or more precise I was leaving body to travel with 100% consciousness on. Before I get to this points - all my diseases disappeared. I spend 8 years meditating for 1h per day... and nothing special has happened... and some day I decided to truly, but very honesty live with values. I decided to be really pure. To really fight with addictions and entangles. After 3 months Iv had seen falun and things begin to happen. I was practicing falun dafa. only book and exercises. I only one time meet other practitioners - so Im not of part of any group. What I want to tell you: enlightenment is real and very extraordinary. This is real experience but you must be absolutely honest to get it. No margin for mistakes. Pure sanctity.

2 years of meditation? wow. i have a long way to go. by chance, do you drink alcohol, have intercourse, and/or eat meat because i have heard that these things you must quit if you want to achieve enlightment

​​@@TheALLisONE.TheONEisALL you must quit things that are attachments. Duing spritual improvement not eating meat will occure naturally. Some day you will feel not good eating meat. It will taste raw even grilled or boiled. If you like meat don't eat because it is attachment. Sex is something hard to explain. During ejaculation you loose energy which is necessary to enlightenment. Second is how you can manage sexual intercourse. You must be aware not to be "animal" during sex. Interesting think is that sex when you are enlighten is better stronger and perma orgasmic without orgasm or ejaculation. Alcohol is banned but when you are enlighten and your way to achieve that includes not only mind but body training, alcohol will not affect you.

Your journey has just begun.............................Falun Dafa is the Way. Never mind peace and love for all, evil exists.

Wonderful book.

Irvin Yalom's books about death anxiety are powerful too

Just the first step on a long journey....................Falun Dafa

Enlightenment is when all attachment to this planet is given up.............................Falun Dafa

Suffering is not a choice, it is black karma being scraped from your soul. Falun Dafa can show you the Way

Yes that is most certainly the case. 🙃

Yep, it can make the obvious... obvious. 😢

I have wondered and thought about this, and can conclude that for us humans, for the most part we see enlightenment as growing up, maturing, because I know a lot of people that don’t get bothered or hurt by whatever is going on in the families, friends circle, community and society at large, and I think, as I once read in a metaphysical book, for us, peace is the closest to enlightenment, or the most sublime of the mental states, which is the love spectrum

I had a nervous breakdown 8 years ago and started meditating every day and now I don’t have any anxiety, depression and very little thinking. I no longer identify my thoughts as me. I still have days or weeks where feel this heavy load but it’s ok I let it stay as long as it wants. I literally didn’t my life stuck in my mind and controlled by my mind. I feel free now

yes, i have lived a life of hell and have come to the conclusion that all this spiritual stuff is great in theory but on planet earth i just sex, money and life of leisure. that is what makes my soul and heart sing. My spirit wants to enjoy life not be a slave ; 0

Falun Dafa can answer all your questions.

You're very welcome!

Truthfulness-compassion-tolerance.............................Falun Gong

Thanks so much, really appreciate it!

The soul thinks, not the brain. Falun Dafa can show you the Way

That's very interesting. Is it possible for this to happen through trauma, or could trauma cause a kind of inverse of this experience--a negative epiphany?

@@The-Well it depends. It's more like conditioning, but conditioning works for a reason. Like when you keep getting sick when you drink from a water source, so you use another, or when you're conditioned by your bosses, parents, teachers, rulers, and clergy to be very skeptical of those who seek out authority, because the most celebrated ones almost exclusively do so for the ability to abuse that authority.

The brain is like the cockpit of an airplane and the soul is the pilot.......................Falun Gong

Our brain does not think, it i the soul that thinks and orders the brain to take action..................Falun Gong

If you are seeking the Way.....................Falun Gong is it.

Words are cheap. Falun Dafa can show you the Way

@@jeff_forsythe Jesus Christ is my teacher

@@Callummullans First there was the Ten Commandments, then Jesus and now a new Gospel, do not be like the Jews of old and be afraid of the Truth.

@@jeff_forsythe there is no new Gospel. There is the word of God. My faith is in Jesus Christ and not the men of this world.

@@jeff_forsythe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the light.

So nirvana is a healthy response or not?

Overall, yes, although nirvana sets up another conundrum which has to be accepted, that of the eternal mystery of the universe. This can be a real downer because it quells ambition and hope. So, nirvana has positive and negative impacts. Another example - my organic chemistry teacher at uni did research into the tears of joy and tears of sadness and their effects on immunity and found happiness, bliss, etc, keeps you healthy. I plan to to do some youtube vids this year describing all this stuff.

@@Yogi-Koala-Bear Thank you and subscribed.

Like most of us, you are lost. Falun Dafa can show you the Way

Glad you think so! Thanks for watching!

@@The-Well I really enjoyed it! I had an awakening in 2017 at a ayahuasca retreat. So really interesting to look at 'enlightenment' with the science-glasses on. Keep up the good work!

Psychedelic drugs have a huge role to play in the future of enightenment. They don't change the ground of being and of course they cant change 'reality' (whatever that is), but what they can do is manifold. They can shake people out of their sense of complacency. They can open doors and provide insights that even many years of meditation can fail to do, and in effect move your practice up a level. They also drastically increase neuroplasticity, so your brain can respond much more easily to effort in meditation, yoga or whatever other method you apply. What's wrong with validating spirituality? What if it is true? I've seen evidence of, and experienced directly, all sorts of stuff in my life that cannot be explained by recourse to the brain alone.

Enlightenment is achieved through suffering..................Falun Gong

Yes meditation which is really a non doing, just an understanding can give you the experiance easily. You just have to understand it and it happens in an instant. By being in a state of acceptance, non choosing. Allowing the mind. If angry etc allow, is stressed, if sick etc and you will notice a detatchment between you and your mind. Between you and the experiance the mind is generating and you will experiance enlightenment

Like everyone else, you need a great teacher. Falun Dafa can show you the Way

@@ILikeLanguages What kind of references would help you?

One can only wonder how Buddha has reached his enlightenment without a proper scientific aproach 😳

It's quite amazing how doing mushrooms - even once - can be a life changing experience. See also: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a7pgf9CTvLize40.html

Not for me. However acceptance does that for me. Acceptance is the way of Buddhism/ zen.

Complete Physiological change means a complete enlightenment it's change is brain chemistry,some may have complete neurological change and may be it called complete enlightenment.Some very less so called half . But one thing is clear that every difference we have are just neurological, cognitive difference

The Asian traditions, and the Buddhist tradition itself, and even _within_ the Buddhist traditions, have many different models of the stages to 'full' enlightenment. Enlightenment can absolutely be a temporary experience or direct knowing of Reality, even if it doesn't stick. The effect of these experiences can be enormously important, because they can remove skeptical doubt, the greatest hindrance to a dedicated spiritual path, and they can tremendously relieve anxiety, another huge hindrance, besides anxiety just being an awful thing to endure. And getting rid of anxiety, depression, anger etc., all the negative emotions, is universally agreed-upon to be the goal of enlightenment. It just progresses in stages. In Zen, there are four. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are 5, 12 or 16, depending on what you mean and who's counting. In Tibetan and Southeast Asian, there are also eight stages of concentration and then eight stages of insight, but they don't count as 'enlightenment', even though they are very beneficial for you, and neither are they considered essential for enlightenment. It's all very confusing, which is why we need neuroscience to sort all this stuff out from an objective perspective. I also foresee AI teachers that have been programmed with all the information ever to exist in Buddhism and all the information ever to exist in Western psychology combined to tailor-make a Buddhist path for every specific individual, in a way no one person could ever come remotely close to matching. Trial-and-error over millennia has resulted in a tiny fraction of the world population at any one time getting enlightened, and that's not going to work for the future of humanity when we face so many challenges. We only have two or so decades, if that, so we had better get to work.

@@deardaughter they are a religious foundation that uses a scientific speech.

Focus on the substance, not on the form

@@enterthevoidIi What a stupid advice. The form is extremely important, from wine glasses to text fonts. Not only that but form has nothing to do with this discussion. My statement is that Templeton has a baseline agenda: truth is second to them

@@marcelozerbini5411 And my point is that you're focusing on form or rather who's speaking instead of focusing on what they're saying. Is there something wrong with what this person is saying? If yes, what?

@@enterthevoidIi again, your point has nothing to do with my statement. I didn't refer to "what this person is saying", I stated that the forum in which that person is speaking is untrustworthy. Do keep up

Happily Jewish here. No need for Jesus to see the light. Thanks though.

Religious teachers do not know when spiritual insight and progress is taking place in the minds of those who may appear to be very humble and of no account socially. Religious teachers must cease their criticism of the founders of other religions because they do not know the heights of spiritual knowledge, insight and enlightenment they may have attained. Religious teachers must realize that they, themselves, are only as spiritually advanced as is their personal perception of Reality. If we have no perception of what lies beyond the veil of the material world - we may be a believer or a scientist, but we do not have a spiritual consciousness. This is the true ideal, the true aspiration, the highest goal - to understand and experience the Reality behind and within all things giving them their individual being. We may call the Reality - "God," "Allah," "Jehovah," "Infinite Intelligence," "Divine Mind," "Divine Consciousness" or "Universal Consciousness," or the "Tao" - etc. All these names mean the SOURCE of BEING - the CREATIVE ORIGINS. WE CAN HAVE NO HIGHER ASPIRATION THAN THIS - to understand and experience the Reality behind and within all things - giving, maintaining and sustaining all individual beings. This was the goal presented to us by Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, Lao-Tzu - etc. They all shared the same vision, the same realization and the same understanding. Such teachers were held in high esteem, but few of their followers misnderstood what they were being taught. Each follower placed their own interpretation on the words of their teacher. Each interpretation arose out of the personal conditioning and bias of the follower.