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July 17th, 2016

Sam Harris, b. 1967, not that weary of this particular topic [Jul. 17th, 2016|09:45 pm]

Mr. Harris: This drug had been advertised to us as something that can reveal something about the nature of human mind. And it was exactly what we experienced. For those who has taken MDMA, it won't be a surprise. There was no psychedelic component in it, no change in visual properties, or anything. What there was, was just a feeling of dropping away of self-concern. That was totally liberating. I'd never realised that I was carrying around this burden of self. To the degree that I was. When talking to somebody, the part of my attention was bound up in worrying about what they thought of me. I wasn't just seeing the other person, I was triangulating on myself, through their eyes. Modifying how I felt about myself.
And so I was sitting there with a very close friend at that time and I didn't even noticed that drop-away at that moment. I kind of retrospectively realised: Oh, My - this thing is gone! This monster of me, which has been behind my face, is gone! And I'm just free to realise that I love and wish nothing but happiness to the person, I'm sitting with. For that MDMA experience Love is the main epiphany. Love is a state of being, which entails just being deeply commited to the happiness of other beings. Whether you know them or not.
The epiphany that really anchored that to me and how I realised, that something unusual had happened to my mind, was that I was sitting, again, with my best friend at that time, and realising how much I love this guy. And we both were teenage, heterosexual men, who even hadn't thought in those terms - loving your male friends. I don't think I'd ever hugged a male friend before that point in my life. There was just this outpouring love to the friend of mine. And then I realised that if a stranger had walked into that room, I had loved that stranger, too.
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