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Psychedelics Visualization

I want to talk first about psychedelics because it's really fun and it also lends itself well into transitioning into meditation. So, I have been doing work on myself for a few years now under the care of a few different guides you call them shamans and I feel so LA now because I not only have one shaman, I have a backup shaman in case that one shaman isn't available. And so I'm like, I'm way out there on the fringe and I was talking to my wife and she's like, you know when I first met you about eight years ago there's multiple ways you could've gone. I could have seen you going straight corporate route, I could have seen you going into like the Hollywood playboy route and I guess I could have seen you going into the spiritual route. But you've really gone off the deep end now. Because I'll be upstairs with my like little sage, I'm saging around the house and I, you guys watch my IG stories I have like my cardigan sweater on with no shirt and my chain on and I'm like worshiping the sun...

in the morning. If I were to look at myself outside of myself I'd say what is this idiot doing, I would've beat myself up you know in high school because I'm like this is ridiculous. But I've kind of just fallen in to that way of life and it's without some great really transcended experiences. I experienced my first psychedelic trip, this is about three, about four year ago now and it profoundly changed me. It profoundly changed the way that I look at the world. It profoundly changed the way that I look at the way I relate to others. Over a period of years of doing multiple journeys I can confidently say it's changed my personality and it's scary to say that. One of my biggest fears with psychedelics and this was a deep fear of mine, was that it would change my personality to the point that I didn't, I no longer value the things that I valued in the beginning. And one of the things that I was very scared of was that coming in as an entrepreneur, I would find something through using psychedelics that would make me stop valuing money as much. And I was scared that it would actually make me less ambitious and work harder because I would become to holy and wouldn't want to do the work. And to a certain extent I was kind of right I actually do care a lot less about that stuff now but its not in a way that slowed down my ambition not in a way that slowed down my success. It's more of a way that's allowed me to back off from some of the negative emotions that were surrounding that stuff. And my first experience with psychedelics was with a very, very powerful psychedelic called DMT. And for anyone who knows the gradations of psychedelics, DMT would be all the way at the top. So, for you to start with that as your first introduction is like, I've never swam before in my entire life and I'm jumping into the Atlantic. It's very, very, very powerful. It is, it's been called the spirit molecule for may reasons and one of the reasons as this say it's 'cause it's released when you die. When you're born and when you die and it creates the same feeling of connection that you would have if you were to leave your body and die. And it disassociates you from your personality so that in a sense you no longer feel like you. And so, today I wanted to share a bit about my first experience and some subsequent experiences with that, and what I took from that and hopefully delight and shock you. And Terence McKenna who was one of the founders of, or one of the the pre eminent LSD researchers back in the 60's, he's a professor at Harvard, he has crazy stories if you read some of his work and more about him said. Why is this not four inch headlined on every newspaper on the planet I cannot understand. Because I don't know what news you are waiting for but this is the news I was waiting for. DMT, that's what he's talking about. This little molecule is, it's a very innocuous molecule and in fact it actually very much mimics the same chemical structure as melatonin. Meaning that it fits in the same brain receptors and it's actually a metabolite of melatonin. So melatonin breaks down into a bunch of different metabolites and DMT's just one of these metabolites. Melatonin or DMT is found in plants, its found in animals, it's found naturally occurring in you, it's actually everywhere in organic life. And when you synthesize it and you can take it in the form of crystals which you can either, you can vaporize it or you can smoke it. It is one of the most transcendent, inexplicable experiences you'll ever have. You know how you'll smoke like some weed and you'll get high and the feeling of that is just like you'll start to feel a little lifted, you'll start to feel a little happy, it'll be fun and you'll start to feel a little bit chill and you know, you'll just have like this gradual experience. DMT is not like that, DMT is, you'll take one inhale and you'll immediately leave. You don't just get to gradually drift off into a cool, relaxing time, it takes you from your body. It takes you to a place where you no longer associate with yourself and it could be very terrifying but as much terror as there is in the experience there is just as much exhilaration, this is why people return to it again and again to find their, to find what's going on inside of them. So what I want to do is I want to read to you an essay of one of my experiences and as we do that I'm going to trance you guys. You guys are gonna, look into this vortex as I read this. Okay? And this is, again, what I really want to impress upon you is that this is just a record of my experience and I hope that it connects with you in some way. Today I'm going to share some of my experiences with DMT. Now before we get into it, safety disclaimer. DMT is an extremely powerful medicine that you should only take with somebody who knows what they're doing. I always have a trusted guide with me. This isn't recreational, it must be treated with respect and care. DMT is natural it's found in almost every plant and animal. It occurs naturally in your brain and of course it's illegal in most countries. Does that really surprise you? So use discretion, follow your gut, do you research before you make a decision. I believe in God because I've met it. But the God I've met is not the Lord of any particular religion or doctrine. It's not a Christian, Jewish or Muslim God. The God I've met doesn't have a book of rules for what we can't and can't do. It has no sex or race and certainly no white beard. In fact this God doesn't even have a personality or any preferences. The God I've met is pure energy. The energy of the entire cosmos outside and independent of time in all directions forever. You may think think you can imagine something this vast but it's impossible if you haven experienced it. And in the past five years I've done work all over the world with different forms of meditation, putting myself in trances and tons of other weird shit that goes bump in the night including testing the effects of many different plant medicines. One of these medicines DMT, is a psychedelic that many refer to as the spirit molecule. The active ingredient in the the sacred brew ayahuasca, which I'm sure some of you've heard of. Scientists believe your brain releases large quantities of it when you're born and when you die. Through DMT, short for dimethyltryptamine, I've actually seen what I can only describe as the death tube. The death tube is a spiral radiating staircase that many people have described in the near death experience documentaries as the white light. Don't go towards the white light Johnny! And as you ascend the tube you can feel your entire ego, your entire personality crumbling beneath you and falling into an infinite sea. Your brain is a computer on the verge of rebooting, you're about to wipe the slate clean. This is your Morpheus moment. Imagine the terror of knowing that everything you ever felt, thought or remembered was going away, that none of this, including you was ever real. Yet being somehow delighted and utterly content with the irony of it all. Imagine feeling the full intensity of every emotion in the human catalog. From heart breaking despair to tremendous joy. The energy, wisdom and power developed over centuries of human evolution courses through you releasing a choreograph stream of every color, image and vision you've ever had in your entire life superimposed all on top of each other all at once. Every feeling of gratitude you've ever had multiplied by one million, every loving memory with your friends, loved ones and partners magnified. All of it tempered by the intense fear that it was all coming to an end. This is what it's like to die. Imagine your spirit wooing into the collective of every other being that's ever lived or ever will live instantly endowing you with the knowledge of every word that's ever been thought, said or written now and in the future. And once you move beyond self all fear dissolves and just when you think you can't take anymore you'll break into a trillion mirrored pieces and shoot to the other side of infinity down the spiral radiating white tube. You'll merge on the other side into what I can only divinely loving celestial void. Except there is no you, there is the presence of God with no form it knows you because you are it, it's a homecoming, it's looking in the mirror. The entire act is self referential. You will realize that you are God. The reason it's been so hard for you to see this simple fact is the same reason you lose your glasses while you're still wearing them. The reason you cannot see that you are God is the same reason that the fish does not know it's wet. There is no judgment in this elevated place. There is no review of your life or criticism, there is no score being kept or grades being given, there is so, well there's only unconditional love, total and complete love, acceptance for all that is. This complete empathy and understanding, beyond the capacity of human intellect, which is often overwritten by pride and emotion. Pure love and this love is so overwhelming, my words don't have the precision or depth to describe it. It's so utterly filling and transcendent that the experience has etched a permanent mark on my soul. The moment was fundamentally life altering. Anybody in the world who is cruel would only need to experience this once to feel utterly ashamed and repentant. It's the universal equalizer. Anybody in the world who is cruel, I know that my perspective will not necessarily match up with everyone's particular beliefs and I can understand that. I have no desire to convert you to my way of thinking and seeing the world but this isn't speculation on my end. These are experiences that I've actually had. For that reason alone you can take what you like from them. And you know as interesting as it is, that experience doesn't really get old. And every time you experience it it feels like the first time. I've gone on nine different medicinal journeys now, so we're talking ayahuasca or DMT with myself, with my family, with my friends and the experiences that I've had with these people, because I bring these people to it has not only changed my life personally but also has changed and shaped our relationship. You're able to work through so many of these deep problems that are inaccessible to you through just thought alone. And it's very hard to describe the effect that these medicines can have on you until you're able to really experience them . And one of the journeys I had, it was in Peru I was in Cusco and I didn't actually plan on doing a journey there. I was going for another trip and I had the opportunity and there was a store called the shaman shop (crowd chuckles) and I walked in and they said ayahuasca ceremony tonight, I said sure, why not we'll see what happens. And as I'm---- so I sign up for this thing half expecting it not to really happen and so we show up at nine o'clock at night, we get there and the shit starts to get a little bit real and we get into the back of this old 1987 Honda hatchback and we're driving up this mountain in Peru. And of course all my cell phone bars are dropping and gone, I'm like, oh crap, I might be getting myself in a little bit deeper than I, deep water here and as I'm going up and I'm worrying about like, where are these guys taking us what's gonna happen, you know, I kind of just let go and I say this is part of the journey like you're gonna do a journey when you get there, but this is part of the journey, being able to let go. A lot of the themes that you come back to, or at least I have in my journeys is the ability to let go. And we got to the ceremony place, it was a giant barn essentially, a circular barn with maybe 40 or 50 foot ceilings a packed dirt floor and there were mats laying all around and we were being greeted by, we actually thought we were being taken up by the shaman but he was like the junior shaman. The real shaman showed up he was waiting for us in the barn and this guy was a legit shaman, he was like like, straight Native American, with like the leathery skin dark and olive, with long flowing silky, black hair. He had like this multi colored woven parka and he had like a flower or a feather in his hair, I was like well you at least look the part. And so I was shown, I was shown the universe, I was shown life and death, I was shown creation, I was show infinite possibility, I was shown the stop and the flow of all time and I was shown my deepest potential and I was shown that I'm not me. I was show my ancestors and I saw legions and generations of people who I could feel and I could touch their hands and I would look at them and they had faces who I didn't recognize on the outside but who I knew where connected to me and I asked Grandmother I said who are these people she said, you know who these are these are your ancestors you know who these are. And I was absolutely floored. As I was going through this, you know I would see the shaman and I would look up to him and he looked at me and he smiled and says you know, what's going on with you. I said that, well I'm having a crazy experience, and he said you know, you don't have to use ayahuasca to get here, ayahuasca is a tool but it's only a gateway. And through practice and through focus you can get there through meditation as well. And as I learned more about these medicinal journeys and as I still continue to experience them and work with them, I turn my attention into meditation. Because I realize that it would be a tool for me to further my experience. One thing that I'm very, I'm very aware of now is that although ayahuasca and DMT and LSD to a certain extent, mushrooms and other psychedelics are gateways, just like within sickness and health, you are the one creating the experience even if you have an exogenous substance helping you. And so, I shifted my attention to meditation as well to learn how to create this experience within myself. And once I figured out that I could create the same experience doing meditation, the exact same experience of transcendence, complete bliss and diving into things that were completely unknown through this meditation it gave me a lot of power. Because I didn't think that I needed the drugs.