Interesting idea, unjourneying. Over time I have started to come to a similar conclusion about the usefulness or use of psychedelics. It seems to me like in the beginning they are more personally therapeutic, about me in particular and my life, my relationships, etc., then become more impersonal or transpersonal, it's cosmic and more about getting to know the capabilities and limits of consciousness, then after having mind-blowing experiences of high emotional valence over and over, I started to get an inkling that actually the "point" or best way to work with them was to develop to the point where even those mind-blowing experiences were ordinary, didn't cause a physiological, emotional reaction. So that extreme occurrences on psychedelics (death/cessation, hell/torturous experiences, blissful "unity" experiences), both positive and negetive, are like equanimity strength-training. I do think that probably the majority of people would have to go through similar stages instead of being able to jump directly to the last one I described I don't use psychedelics much anymore, but in a couple of the more recent times I've tripped the gist of what came up was "what's the point of tripping anymore? What am I even hoping to get out of it? I already know what should be done. I must work toward being a saint" I agree about non-duality not necessarily being the nature of the mind. If anything what I've gathered is that the mind actually doesn't have a nature. Seems like whatever your baseline state is at the time is taken to be the mind's nature no matter where in the spectrum you're at Regarding the luminosity spoken about in dzogchen vs the mundane clarity of salvia you experienced, I’ve come around to the idea that luminosity may be a cue to aid in correcting a flat, "dark" perception of emptiness, which is common. The same way people become attached to the unity, bliss, and amazement of a sense of oneness "I am everything", which is corrected with the pointing out of emptiness, people become attached to emptiness and reify it "I am nothing". I'm sure you know this, but that was building context to say that I believe luminosity is simply the final cue or correction most people need to have right view. But just like all the other steps, people have a tendency to become attached to the correction and it becomes reified as the nature of reality, where as I mentioned earlier, in my opinion the correct "final answer" is that it in fact has no nature. I know this is probably in disagreement with what dzogchen tradition itself says though so idk, maybe I’ll see the truth of their claim someday
Interesting idea, unjourneying. Over time I have started to come to a similar conclusion about the usefulness or use of psychedelics. It seems to me like in the beginning they are more personally therapeutic, about me in particular and my life, my relationships, etc., then become more impersonal or transpersonal, it's cosmic and more about getting to know the capabilities and limits of consciousness, then after having mind-blowing experiences of high emotional valence over and over, I started to get an inkling that actually the "point" or best way to work with them was to develop to the point where even those mind-blowing experiences were ordinary, didn't cause a physiological, emotional reaction. So that extreme occurrences on psychedelics (death/cessation, hell/torturous experiences, blissful "unity" experiences), both positive and negetive, are like equanimity strength-training. I do think that probably the majority of people would have to go through similar stages instead of being able to jump directly to the last one I described
I don't use psychedelics much anymore, but in a couple of the more recent times I've tripped the gist of what came up was "what's the point of tripping anymore? What am I even hoping to get out of it? I already know what should be done. I must work toward being a saint"
I agree about non-duality not necessarily being the nature of the mind. If anything what I've gathered is that the mind actually doesn't have a nature. Seems like whatever your baseline state is at the time is taken to be the mind's nature no matter where in the spectrum you're at
Regarding the luminosity spoken about in dzogchen vs the mundane clarity of salvia you experienced, I’ve come around to the idea that luminosity may be a cue to aid in correcting a flat, "dark" perception of emptiness, which is common. The same way people become attached to the unity, bliss, and amazement of a sense of oneness "I am everything", which is corrected with the pointing out of emptiness, people become attached to emptiness and reify it "I am nothing". I'm sure you know this, but that was building context to say that I believe luminosity is simply the final cue or correction most people need to have right view. But just like all the other steps, people have a tendency to become attached to the correction and it becomes reified as the nature of reality, where as I mentioned earlier, in my opinion the correct "final answer" is that it in fact has no nature. I know this is probably in disagreement with what dzogchen tradition itself says though so idk, maybe I’ll see the truth of their claim someday