Scout: thank you for the thoughtful responses vineeto, i will explore. (link)
Hi @Scout,
You are very welcome. Seeing you enjoyed the responses, I like to explore your original question a bit further.
Scout: interesting, i’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as i’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence.
Yes, events change but when ‘I’ am in abeyance either in a PCE or when actually free, it is evidently obvious that time does not move, no matter which events take place in the arena of time. Here is a stillness that is all around, unimaginable, inconceivable and utterly magical.
To explain, when ‘I’ am in abeyance then ‘I’ am no longer the centre around which ‘my’ perception and ‘my’ world view revolves. When ‘I’ am in abeyance, or extinguished, there is no “presence”, there is no centre, there is only here, this place in space and now, this moment in time.
I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your loadstone.
is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change i will experience before all experience ends.
Given that you are not sure then it is better not to rely on those experiences especially as most experiences with psychedelics turn out to be ASCs. Viz.:
Richard: In regards hallucinogens: I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) … there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List AF, No. 61, 29 Jan 2004)
but maybe that doesn’t matter when i’m not worried about what’s not happening now. the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?
It does matter a great deal. You would want a clear experience of the actual world in order to guide you, and when you rely on something that very likely was an ASC then you are getting confused at best. If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?”
The “clock ticking” means you live in real-world time of past, present, future, like every other feeling being, and have conveniently convinced yourself of the belief that you are “not worried about what’s not happening now” while the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ instinctual passions are happening unobserved.
Don’t you want to find out how you tick, how your mind really works, how you can genuinely feel felicitous and innocuous 23 hrs 59 min a day? Wouldn’t that be worthy of your fascinated attention?
Here is a short quote from Richard’s correspondence with a spiritualist regarding eternity for your amusement –
RESPONDENT: Or is it that the movement creates time (maybe even different kinds of time), whenever it’s appropriate
RICHARD: Do you allow the possibility that time always was, already is, and always will be?
RESPONDENT: Yes, but I have doubts that that’s all there is to it.
RICHARD: What on earth do you mean by ‘that’s all there is to it’ … eternity (beginningless and endless time) means that it is an all-inclusive everywhen which boggles the mind (intellectual thought) leaving one in a state of wonder and amazement at the sheer magnitude of this marvellous universe. (List B, No. 42b, 7 Dec 2001).
Cheers Vineeto