Why Awakening is Not a State of Mind

The more in contact with Reality you are, the more capacity and potential you have to enter altered states of consciousness.

Often times. For most people. But not always. It is not a matter of causation, but correlation. They are related but not the same thing.

All spiritual experiences and altered states of consciousness are the by-products and the side effects of the dissolution of self. People who don’t have a big self to begin with might not have any “spiritual experiences” on the way to enlightenment.

Awakening is not an altered state of consciousness.

It is just the world as it is without a center/self/experiencer/thinker/doer. Which is also a vastly different state from experiencing the world through the ego, which paradoxically is also a contracted, altered state.

But if you do become awake, the ability to enter altered states is a bonus. But it isn’t necessary.

Often times they hit you out of nowhere. It’s like once you become the sky, you won’t know when it’ll rain, be a sunny day, lightening and thunder bolts, snow or hail. It’s like being moody, but not as a separate entity, but as God.

You can have no idea what Reality is and still have great “talent” to enter altered states of consciousness.

People can go into all kinds of samadhi and jhanic states or take psychedelics who are not awake at all. This is why a lot of people worship “gurus” who have the gifts to enter altered states on demand, but who happen to not be awake at all, who have no idea what Reality is, so they tend to abuse and take advantage of their higher social status to manipulate spiritual seekers because altered states are like the THING, the candy for seekers, but they’re simply means to an end, not the end in and of itself.

Usually though you do get glimpses of true nature every time you have a spiritual experience but it’s merely content and most get trapped in it instead of seeing the context it reveals.

Although on the ultimate level content and context are one and the same thing because Truth includes everything. But before it is Realized it’s important to know the difference between the two.