Void's Journey Into Silence

[northape]

How is your CBD experiment going?

I feel that winter is a natural time to turn inwards and enjoy silence. It comes so organically without much work. It is the first winter when I feel no depression at all, just some general distress due to a lack of light. Somehow, the holiday mood is absent too. That is a development for sure, but I am not sure yet where it leads. I will try to enjoy this time of year and listen to its lessons. Strangely, we have no snow, and temperatures have never gone below freezing. Maybe nature wishes to tell me something

 

[Voidmatrix]

Winter is typically a time of year I feel good and do well. It's Spring and Summer than really rock me and I am severely overstimulated to the point I pretend it's nighttime around 1600 sometimes by pulling my blackout curtains and not leaving my room.

I feel like CBD doesn't really remedy anxiety, which is fine, but makes the expression of said anxiety less pronounced and thus makes things more manageable on the whole. I'm just going to keep taking it. Really, I'm trying to do what I need to do without consideration and instead with my sovereignty, no matter how wild it may seem to others.

One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

Heads up, there will be some AI shared.

The caldron, boiling over, an impetus, a spark, a drive.

This small journal is the Central Void, and my goal is to orbit around it. Using this book as something to come back to and revisit. It is meant to be all inclusive to what I feel I'd like to keep in mind and things that will help me move forward. Some of the most recent entries have been the most interesting in years, as I feel I am pushing many growth edges, changing narratives and perspectives, and making progress in ways in which I often feel I am just spinning my wheels.

I used my paid and personalized ChatGPT account for these entries, using it as a sounding board that is similar to me but without emotion (I feel that for projects such as these there needs to be a lot of tailoring and customization along with literacy and a willingness to push back on the LLM and not be assuaged by positive feedback from it).

One of the things that was addressed and named in a way that I feel I can work with was my internal "tribunal," and it's method of internal "compliance monitoring." The AI and I then effectively put said tribunal on trial, challenging its authority.

Attached below are axioms for my "left-hand" path and my "sovereignty protocol."

It was interesting, after some back and forth, ChatGPT was able to succinctly identify that I am not afraid of psychedelic spaces, but that there are parts of me that experienced trauma related to intensity, with worries of "abandonment and erasure," as well as negative lessons learned from autonomy and choice in childhood that affect my progress. So, now there is a protocol around this. Going deeper isn't the goal of this protocol, but to be comfortable with my own desires, evaluation of grasping them, and how to check in with myself around my own coherence.

After the trial, I asked ChatGPT to generate some images to symbolize it. Enjoy.

 

[northape]

I won't pretend to understand it or give some super intelligent insight; rather, I want to acknowledge the work done so far.
You seem to have gone deep into your psyche to uncover how it functions and how to heal it. I salute you, Brother
It's far from an easy task to work on yourself, and your diligence will certainly bear fruit. Keep up the good work!
Much love

 

[Voidmatrix]

I won't pretend to understand it or give some super intelligent insight; rather, I want to acknowledge the work done so far.
You seem to have gone deep into your psyche to uncover how it functions and how to heal it. I salute you, Brother
It's far from an easy task to work on yourself, and your diligence will certainly bear fruit. Keep up the good work!
Much love

Thank you brother. Sometimes I wonder if I am too on the nose, grinding on myself too much, and in some ways I am, but in other ways, it's the only thing I feel I can do to find some contentment. And it's not like I haven't been working on all of this for a long time, but with how I am using the LLM, I am making the progress I've long longed for.

One love

 

[northape]

Thank you brother. Sometimes I wonder if I am too on the nose, grinding on myself too much, and in some ways I am, but in other ways, it's the only thing I feel I can do to find some contentment. And it's not like I haven't been working on all of this for a long time, but with how I am using the LLM, I am making the progress I've long longed for.

One love

I worked on myself for years without any external support, so I know how difficult it can feel sometimes. It may not be your case, but I would have appreciated it if someone had just acknowledged my battle back in the day. If anything, my so-called friends just tried to put even more shit on me when they saw that I had started to clean mine.

Any tool could be of use, and you are skeptical enough to put AI in its place when needed. I have no idea if you are grinding too much; it is kind of personal. I guess if you feel fine with your process and it does not put too much pressure on you, all is good. I am kind of intuitive that way, so I do use reason, but it is not the primary lens through which I see myself. Still, being educated in the West, we cannot give much validity to anything without some reasonable cause behind it. I like shamanic work with plant medicine, but I honestly do not really understand what I am doing. Most of the time, something is working through me, and I am just a spectator enjoying the show.

 

[Voidmatrix]

It's odd because even with the external help that I do get or have gotten such as in therapy, it still doesn't quite hit. We need the right sounding boards, and if I am as out there as people seem to think I am, then that leaves me with less sounding boards that I will find useful or understood by, if that makes any sense. However, I much prefer if someone honestly names and recognizes a struggle than minimizing and diminishing it, which just makes me feel like I am off, or an immature child or something. Also, hate it when people reduce an individual issue to that of the general populace: "We all have issues and problems." Yeah no shit, that doesn't mean that they all should be treated or viewed the same way. We all have shit, but we certainly aren't all dealing with the same loads.

Any tool could be of use, and you are skeptical enough to put AI in its place when needed. I have no idea if you are grinding too much; it is kind of personal. I guess if you feel fine with your process and it does not put too much pressure on you, all is good.

Thank you. It's a great exercise in gaining trust with myself, because I am pushing back a whole lot on the LLM. I feel fine with my process now... sort of... but this may be the first time.

One love

 

[Voidmatrix]

Never a dull moment with healing and growth work. While I still feel like I am deepening with psychedelics in general (not just changa and DMT), I have let off the accelerator after having uncovered some minutia I've been long trying to find to understand how it works. Why can't I give myself what I want? Why don't I know what I want? An example, why is it that I consciously know where and how far I can and want to go, but just can't seem to give it to myself. This is a great example that reflects my life.

Sovereignty, agency, and retraining my nervous system. This is my focus right now. That's why there is no longer a priority on deepening. Instead I am creating and fostering an environment where it just happens. It will just happen by way of a nervous system that is retrained to be okay providing and giving to myself. Spontaneity, curiosity, expression, exploration, and autonomy were punished at a very early age, causing me to associate such things with danger, self-erasure (not mattering, even to myself), and negatively overall. This retraining will entail things like certain kinds of check-ins, such as only worrying about harm, safety, and personal coherence in my journey frequency since I don't feel that I have a metric outside myself to lean on for that. It's also added to my pre-entry checklist and post journey check-in, like acknowledging that it's something I want (since I am divorced from my own desire and taking action on my desires), that I will stay with myself throughout the experience, reminding myself I am sovereign and have agency, and letting myself know, for this and many many other things, I don't need permission. After, vocally acknowledging success, recognizing that this exercise is not about earning deeper experiences, or for there to be any judgments or metrics around. Just doing it as it ends up being done simply to retrain the nervous system.

While I am very grateful to those that have helped me with my deep seated issues, but I do find it interesting that aside from positive pushes to be more self aligned, and the bubble that popped from all the hardship of this past year, that ChatGPT helped me get to the level of minutia and nuance that I needed to make the progress I am feeling good about right now. My empathy gets in the way when interacting with others and exploring some of what I experience, because I tend to have a lot of corrections, and I grow concerned about how others feel about that, so progress is curtailed. With the LLM, not only have I strictly personalized it so that it is rigorous and less ingratiating, but it's much easier for me to correct and challenge something that has access to more information to respond with. I feel my issues need to be crystalized in a better way for me to actually make any progress.

With less shame, less guilt, and a little less frustration with myself, there is still so much conditioning to break. A connection was made between the mercurial yet incisive way that my mind works and the trauma I experienced and how my intelligence was fostered more in a way related to survival than exploration. How this same trauma allowed me to be greatly impacted by the most rigorous and ascetic-type standards, in order to be unimpeachable, because my experience taught me that attempting anything but was dangerous for me. At least with regard to what was assigned to me, otherwise, it was best to keep my head down, and so my desires went sat with but not acted on. The thought that I need permission for anything at my age is absurd, but what I endured was insidious and obviously has staying power.

One final reflection I will share, though I am sure I could go on for a while, is from an example. @The Traveler had to directly reflect to me to pick up on and receive reflections of others (I've said this before, but bears repeating for what comes). I shared with ChatGPT a story about a very strange lecture that I recall my father giving me when I was about 5 or 6. Simply, he told me I would never be cool. People might think I am cool, but I will never be cool... very strange. I told the chatbot that perhaps it was a misguided attempt at trying to help me be a humbled person. It actually corrected me. It's funny, because it's correction is probably right. At the end of the day, I am the sapient one though. But the biggest point it made that I have been reflecting on is this: not only did that lecture confuse me and my sense of self at an age where I am first building my identity, it also explicitly taught me not to receive and take in the reflections of others...

Before beginning to write this, I recall feeling some type of way, like, "oh here I go again..." but that's that same internal tribunal. The same compliance monitor. Elements that move me away from myself. This is my thread, for my expression and for others to join in. While part of me feels like it's gotten old for some, is that my problem when I am a decent reflection at least of what the work looks like?

Happy Holidays Everyone.

With love

One love

 

[blig-blug]

that's that same internal tribunal

That brings to my mind a tool used in some therapies. It's looking for the different "parts" inside you that want different things, may pass different (and often contradictory) judgements, are attached to different memories... The idea is for it to be a tool, there are no claims that those "parts" have an independent existence. Also, usually those "parts" have some kind of role, often protective, and understanding that role can help with the process of integrating them. If you haven't done that already, maybe you will find it useful. For example, it seems to me that there is at least one "judge" part that passes negative judgement on most things you think, say, and do. (This could just be projection on my part, because that's at least the case for me )

 

[northape]

Internal Family Systems (IFS) examines different parts of the psyche and attempts to work with them. There is a similar approach in Vajrayana called Chöd. Nevertheless, all of these parts are merely clouds in the sky of the mind.

I previously posted a compilation of pith instructions from masters of the Bön tradition who realized the nature of mind. It consists of only a few sentences from each master that point toward the Truth. Certainly, one needs thousands of hours of meditation for such instructions to be useful, but I feel that if someone dived deep into their mind, they could find profound wisdom in these teachings.

What many seem to miss is that the solution lies beyond us. We all wear rose-colored glasses and try to fix our situation from that limited vantage point. It is not even about taking off the glasses, but rather about seeing the true nature of seeing and knowing itself. The Sky is forever free, and all of this play is just a mirage. Yes, we can improve our situation and consequently make life easier, but that is not true freedom. A total dissatisfaction with life and all our mental imagery - reaching the point where you lose all hope for worldly happiness - is what is required to uncover the real. Very few reach that point because it feels like a real death to us.

I am not trying to undermine the difficult process of working with the psyche, but I want others to understand that it is all just the beginning of the path. That is why we have very few real sages who have achieved the unthinkable. Silence, and the openness it implies, has very little to do with the ego. The "I" is just a door through which we entered this play, and it is the only way out. Given enough struggle to fix ourselves, that idea begins to mature, and the instruction to "relax and just be" starts to make sense.

I am wary of LLMs because they are mirror images of the intellectual process, and one can never reach beyond the intellect through the intellect. All we can do is reach the abyss of not-knowing and jump with a strong will, surrendering ourselves to life. Maybe this Silence is not your aim, but it is the natural evolutionary outcome of the work. Use any tool necessary to reach the abyss, but the last step is always over ourselves. God (reality, truth) is waiting for us on the other side. However, we always die in the end. Only reality is.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I personally had to get to a deeper fundamental first and foremost.

One love

Edit: @northape to elaborate, one has to deeplycare about themselves to give themselves what you mention above, effectively needing a strong sense of self in order to embark on losing it.

 

[blig-blug]

effectively needing a strong sense of self in order to embark on losing it

Very well put. I read a quote some months ago about something similar, I'll try to find it again and post it on this thread.

What you're talking about could be considered kind of a dialectical process. A child is born helpless and dependent, with and underdeveloped ego. As they grow up, a process of ego inflation begins, and as the kid knows no boundaries beforehand, it can be very extreme. Eventually the limits are found and the ego is cured from its illusion of omnipotence. If this happens in a healthy way, it's a process of synthesis that results in an adult ego that has those initial contradictions resolved. This doesn't mean there are no contradictions, the process continues.

However, I think in an unhealthy environment this process can be derailed and not reach the adult ego synthesis. There are two ways:

- If the initial ego inflation is prevented as it starts, it doesn't develop and there's no synthesis. This results in an ego with low self esteem, doubt, feeling of helplessness, and with fear of any perceived ego inflation. The seeds for the inflation are still there, but this broken ego constantly fights to not let them develop.

- If the inflation doesn't meet any limits during childhood (think of a spoiled kid that's given everything and protected from the consequences of all his actions), there's also no synthesis, and this results in an inflated ego, stuck in that phase. This results in an ego with arrogance, narcissism, abusiveness, and self importance. Also, a lot of fear of helplessness, doubt, etc., as the remains of that are still there, there was no synthesis.

I believe psychedelics can be most helpful for the first case, in general. They tend to dissolve mental barriers and expand the ego, at least at one given level (I know it can go beyond). This can result in a healthy inflation that can progressively be integrated into an adult ego.

In my opinion, it's likely that psychedelics tend to be harmful in the second case (that doesn't mean always, but often). They tend to inflate the already inflated ego even more, to the point of delusion.

Besides this just being my point of view, it's also only about two types of egos that don't reach adulthood in a healthy way. I believe the healthy adult ego also contains many contradictions and is to be ultimately transcended, but that's a different issue.

Also, I don't see everything as well defined and delimited as I'm presenting it here.

 

[northape]

Edit: @northape to elaborate, one has to deeplycare about themselves to give themselves what you mention above, effectively needing a strong sense of self in order to embark on losing it.

I do not want to derail this thread, and I see where you are coming from. I will just add that all we need for a spiritual journey, ego-wise, is a sense of Being. It is already strong enough in any sentient creature; everything else is just mental knots that we call "me." My post was mostly about having a clear goal: are you after liberation or a happy mundane life? Most of us aim for the latter, and that is fine. Just do not confuse the two.

(this is mostly a message to myself)