i want to start a discussion about a concept that is thrown around a lot, this is the idea/concept/action of "Letting go"....

letting go or allowing one's self to be fully immersed in the experience without holding back is a skill vital to deep psychedelic exploration and at times some might say often in life in general. i find that until i can allow my self to "let go" and embrace the experience, my journeys are held back from there truest potentials...

i want this thread to be about peoples thoughts/philosophy/and advice/methods of allowing themselves to "let go", so that we may help each other grow through our experiences...

this discussion was purposely made broad to see what comes up and so people dont have to feel like they need to hold back if they want to express something...

It's amazing, "letting go" really is the most important skill when it comes to psychedelic exploration. I am constantly working on it. Every now and again I will have a misfire, and say to myself "damn it" it only you had let yourself go... It's all there waiting for us, we just need to open ourselves up and let it pour in.

First i take into account where I'm doing it because a relaxed and distraction-free setting is necessary for me to fully let go and be immersed in the experience, i.e. not smoking facing my patio door because i may trick myself into thinking its my parents walking outside instead of a buncha visuals and entities dancing around. So outside/inside where its safe, secluded from distraction, whether night or day it doesn't matter but i prefer at night, even though visuals in broad daylight sometimes seem more astounding. Sit or laydown, whatever I have to do to get comfortable. After the settings all dandy I just relax and breathe think meditate until I enter a peaceful state of mind and feel its time. A lot of times its not that simple though, especially for the longer and potentially more introspective trips. It helps to hold intentions clearly, and during tough times to go through all faults, regrets, and fears, so all that is out of the way and won't impinge more than necessary on the trip. Simple acts like smiling shouldn't be underestimated either :]

below is a post i put up on the nexus in the middle of june last year. i just reread it (i'm writing a book right now so i've been sifting through past posts, etc..). i think it pretty much sums up where i still very much stand with this. i hope it helps any and all who chose to read it...


INTENT AND SURRENDER AS IT PERTAINS TO WORKING WITH SPICE:

for me, i believe that the only thing that is different about here and hyperspace is the level of control we have in these two respective places.  in this world, we have the ability to make focussed choices and consciously manifest outcomes.  in hyperspace we surrender this ability to be given an even greater ability....the ability to be everything.  that takes no intent.....merely a willingness to surrender what you currently "know".... which, by the way, ain't much!  

when i "go to church" every day i recognize that as i am sitting in my "blast-off chair", i am in that moment straddling two very distinct worlds or realities.  with my VG in my hand and my body as comfortable as possible (fed, eliminated, comfortably clothed, etc.), i begin to try to bring the highest vibration from THIS world into my entering of THAT world.  i set my intent.....to be shown wisdom and onesness with compassion and kindness.  to see my truest self , that i can bring back a part of that experience and have the most positive possible impact in this world.  that the love and compassion i feel, i might pay forward into this world....
and then i light my pipe and take my sacrament.  as i exhale my final hit i set my pipe down and speak my final intent in the form of a mantra.....LOVE...PEACE....ONE....SURRENDER....any of these...

and then i surrender.  i have none of these conscious goals or constructs available to me when i have shaken off this ego-self.  i am that which i had prayed for.  i can only hope that on some vibrational level, all of the intent that i had focussed prior to my leaving THIS world has in some way "set a course" for where i am now.....the land of no "i"....

it does serve some purpose- i tell myself- because when i return from communing with the oneness i am able to remember my intent and, as i have been blessed to discover, i am capable of remembering my journeys in great detail for days, weeks, even months after having them.  honoring my word as my self, i do my very best to integrate my experiences into my life and positively share with others a clearer, more "connected" me.

intent and surrender.  they are seemingly contradictory terms....yet, so are silence and sound.  when put together- those two create music...

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!

That's awesome antrocles!! I also find that letting go helps in everyday life. I find that the more I just let things happen the more they just fall into place perfectly. Its almost as if the less I try the better things turn out. Not in the sense that I give up but if I just let things run their course then things work out correctly whereas when I try to force something to happen it never does or doesnt turn out quite as good as I want. I find that the more I use DMT the more things seem to just come together as if Im drawn where I need to be. Truley an amazing thing.

Much Love!

yes yes yes! the more we are able to let go, the more we are given. the more we can empty our bowls, the more we can have them filled. the only thing that gets in the way of completely letting go is fear and that is what we are training as warriors to overcome. we are warriors against fear. warriors again being snared by illusion and pulled to a halt. our hearts' desire is to be like water....flud, ever-moving, never stagnant.

fear is a joke. it is the big "secret" that makes this illusion have any ability to keep you from truly knowing yourself. there is NOTHING to fear!! you are infinite, so stop trying to hold on to finite definitions of yourself!!

'nuff said!

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!

stoicism helps me allot

some quotes (see wiki) to give you a rough idea:

"Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them."
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
"Get rid of the judgment, get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself."
"Outward things cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul; but the soul turns and moves itself alone."
"Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes."

Great thread.
Myself, have been working on my fear. I recently developed a bit if a fear of DMT, after a string of amazing experiences last year, I am now at a place where I am terrified of it. I have been occasionally smoking very small hits, but there is a fear of letting go completely - when that overtaking buzz of hyperspace is felt/heard, thats when the fear kicks in... my ego is holding on for dear life!!

I have also been realising that a big part of all this fear that keeps coming up (not just of DMT but of life's unknowns) is from my parents, and no doubt they inheritied it from their parents.... One of my goals is to work through this in order that I do not infect the next generation (whether I end up having kids or not)

Recently on a difficult ayahuasca journey I had the distinct feeling that I was experiencing the pain of my ancestors, that was passed down through generations... my friend told me after, this is the work we are doing, we are healing not just ourselves but the healing goes back in time to our ancestors.

Balaganist,

I really like the idea that all of us have the energies i.e. (thoughts, hopes, fears, triumphs) of our ancestors imbued in us. And as a unique soul and creation of a family lineage we are responsible for evolving the concept of the families energy as well as our own. Cool stuff, being alive really is friggen' amazing!

Great posts everybody

really good thread....but then, given the title of the original post, how could it not be? "letting go" is something we ALL aspire to being able to do. we are all somewhat aware (if we've ever had any truly powerful and positive breakthroughs) that we are RICHLY rewarded when we CAN do this..

and yet.....and yet....even with the direct experience of seeing what surrender of fear can bestow upon us....we STILL wrestle with this challenge each and every time we lay down with pipe in hand.

it is not an "okay, now you got it...so you'll never have to deal with that fear stuff again" situation. this challenge will be put before us in every possible manifestation possible: breakups, death, money, illness, confusion, desire, delusion....fear has many costumes and will use them ALL and in ALL possible combinations to keep you from knowing the truth. from truly KNOWING it! as in....it is such knowledge that you actually EMBODY it.

this is the game we are playing. we are ALL capable of making it to the winner's circle on this one....we simply have to understand that we only have one opponent and that is fear. defeat fear and you move to the next level. it's that simple.

virola- i love the quotes! got a couple that i really love as well:

"no harm can befall a self-free person" - tao te ching

"unhappiness is defined as a feeling of being trapped in one's self...in one's own mind.." - buddhist teaching

these (and all) profound teachings always say the same thing, don't they?....this "self" or "ego" that we have created is an illusion. any suffering you are to experience will be the result of buying into this illusion that "you and i are two separate things".

DMT gives you the experience, if only for a brief while, of being freed from this tether to delusion. this prison we ourselves have constructed called a "self". once truly free of it...there is nothing but bliss....

balaganist- breakthrough again. immediately. surrender all that you think you are and allow yourself to float in the infinite ocean of what you TRULY are. everything. it is your truest self. your god self. the you that never dies.

don't we all want to create as strong a relationship with THAT self as possible before we leave this world?

i'll leave it on this image: imagine you had the strongest sense of self (ego) imagineable. you had all of the THINGS that makes this possible: lots of possessions, strong identity that was reinforced by EVERYONE (fame), strong beliefs that contributed to this strong identity (faith or religion).....

now imagine at the moment of your death you were required to give ALL of those things up. would you even be able to grasp for the tiniest nano-second what you truly were? now- i make no claims to know what lies beyond death....but i do know this: what i have experienced in hyperspace and all of the wisdom i have been able to glean and bring back to work with in THIS world has ALL been made MUCH more accessible and "work-with-able" by my surrendering of self. through my many journeys i have come to know a me in that place that is beyond death....it is beyond all destruction. i have taken many of my THINGS off and discarded them before going in to this place.

the gift of doing this?

i see these THINGS as THINGS that arent' me.
i see glimpses of what I truly am.
through seeing what i truly am, i am better able to help others do the same. i have a genuine "me" to give the world....not some construct i made up that i thought the world "wanted" me to be or what i thought it saw me as....
i have far less fear of surrendering these THINGS when the time does come.

letting go. it's what's for dinner!

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!

Very inspiring thoughts Ant...

Letting Go might have to be for lunch today....
I have been hesitating and second guessing the last few days. I know that I am ready to go, but I have managed to attach a bunch of BS fears/excuses as part of the build up. I am ready to jump off that cliff and dive into myself.

I completely agree with the concept of letting go. The trying to hold on is one of the biggest hurdles in embracing and working with the experience, but letting go can only get you so far.
During an aya ceremony I was struggling and felt uncomfortable and unable to purge, a friend who was watching over us said to me "have you tried loving it" and it made all the difference. Don't hate the pain and discomfort and confusion you are in, send it love, it is part of you and everything about you deserves to be loved, to be properly healed. If you embrace and love the pain, the cause will be healed.
Letting go is vital to immerse ones self, but by projecting love to every thing you are feeling, some serious healing can be achieved. Plus with acceptance and love, the letting go becomes easier and easier.
I have been in some confronting situations when the fear took over, the fear of letting go is what caused all the anguish. The aya really taught me so much about letting go, it is wonderful medicine.
To quote Dune:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I think that "letting go" is a very diffused concept which needs further explanation. I havn'T fully come to grasp with it, but I think it has to do with opening yourself up for love, embracing love and oneness from the beginning. Spice doesn't guarantee that, you have to do the final steps. They thought it to be funny that it "always takes him so long before he gets it" ....that is love.

love is needed to enter, it's the key to the kingdom, in the dmt world and in waking life. We just somehow forget it because of the disconectedness we feel all the time. This makes it hard to feel and express love. Instead we have all this anger inside us we can't control even though we think we are in control...we are not...we are far away from our true nature, because we don't listen to the voice of life, because we don't follow this stream of pure and honest life energy,.....because we are not letting go of something called the self, the ego...at least not enough to be able to connect...to the source, to the transcedent human sphere, to the kingdom, where god lives...where we live.

Antrocles wrote-


Well said..... and, soooo true.

I have been dealing with fear and anxiety with my psychedelic adventures as of late. I understand letting go. Sometimes I dont think I ever can. I realize that I must of many times already at many different points of life's voyage or I would not be where I am now.

Some times its tough.. The hurdle is always there. No matter how many times you jump over it.

i have always loved this quote. very awesome. THANK YOU for posting it up!!

L&G!!

I found that by allowing the me that i created within the experience to be destroyed/killed i found my indestructable self.

This post inspired me today! I decided to caste my fears aside and embrace the DMT trance that I have been reluctantly craving. I feel such awe and relief right now. I could feel all the work I've put into learning to let go help me go deeper and deeper into the experience. Awesome!

Thanks All!

beautiful.... welcome back once!!

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!

YES!!!! awesome stuff all!!!

i want to use an experience my cat gave me to use as an analogy for a different perspective of this "action of letting go"....

a little tiny almost newborn kitten came into my life earlier this year, i had to nurse the little guy back to health and became his mother/ guardian so to speak. this little one depended on me in every sense of the word and i did my best to comfort and shower him with love and affection like any good parent should, and he in turn has shown me the love back, by becoming one of the most affectionate little purr bodied monsters iv ever had the grace to share my life with.

now when this little guy sleeps he sleeps like any other cat, fast asleep but if there noise he is immediately startled awake claws out, fight or flight. but when he sleeps in my lap he sleeps the sleep of the dead, his surrender and trust in his safety in my arms is amazing, he just lets all of his fear go and is out, dead asleep i mean you can flop him around and hes like a rag doll, its actually kinda unnerving its like hes dead hes that out, and even if you broke a plate on the ground in the next room he doesn't care or wake, his trust in his safety in my arms is that great, its beautiful and inspiring to say the least.

i think because of this profound connection we formed at such an early stage in his life, he looks at me to be the most safe loving place ever. it breaks my heart and i love it! (i know im such a sap ) i was reminded of this last night while i was reading and the little monster slept on my lap....

now we are going to bring it all home, YOU were forged and born in the loving arms of the universe, you are made of star dust and believe you me, despite what you may led your self to believe and society has taught you, YOU ARE EVERLASTINGLY LOVED but it is up to you to participate in the dialog of life and love, it is up to you to remember/relearn how to communicate and connect with existence...

let go of your fears and apprehensions, recognize them for what they are and just......

.....LOVE.....

i just turned into a dead ragdoll after reading that.....

beautiful kazoo....just beautiful....

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!