#ego-dissolution — Public Fediverse posts

Summa Iru: Formal Renunciation for The Dissolution of the False Self

The True Philosophical Psychoanalysis of Myself qua Human

Keep this chain in mind:

Ignorance — Desires — Mind (Thoughts & Feelings) — Speech & Actions (Karma)

Now, where does psychoanalysis operate?

At the level of the mind.

Now, can one’s psychology ever become “normal”?

Yes, it can within certain bounds for certain time, when the winds of “good karma” are blowing.

When an adverse period in one’s life starts (due to the winds of “bad karma” blowing), the “normal” psychology also takes a beating, unless one has become a stithaprajna by then.

Now, what is this “good” and “bad” karma except insofar as “desires” are NOT getting fulfilled to the extent we want them to be.

Hence, as long as the storehouse of “desires” is there, it will keep leading to the mind fluctuations and bodily karma WITH the sense of doership.

HENCE, the only way out of this karmic cycle and hence also out of this “normal”/”abnormal” cycling of one’s psychological/mental being is to see through or nullify the NEED for desires fulfilment.

But, as long as Ignorance is there, desires are INEVITABLE.

So, one should NOT try to RENOUNCE anything, including desires, because that would be like treating the symptoms while the disease of “ignorance” festers inside and as long as the disease festers inside, new symptoms will arise.

Hence, one has to eliminate the DISEASE OF IGNORANCE itself so that NO symptoms of desires can arise, and where there are no desires, there would be no mind in play, and when the mind is not in play, where is the question of “normal” or “abnormal” psychology, and after the link is severed to the speech and bodily actions, then such speech and bodily actions will be driven NOT by ignorance as earlier BUT by the divine wisdom, and hence in such a scenario there will be no sense of doership, which sense ONLY the mind can falsely assume to be the case but now there is no mind, and hence that is liberation because without the mind there can be NO ego either because the ego is but one of the four functions of the mind or antahkarana.

Now, how does one END IGNORANCE?

What else have I been reading, thinking, discussing, debating, writing, etc., about all my life?

Not convinced? Read my 17 books and you will know. But then there are better gurus out there in the market.

Summa iru, anyone?

My Formal Renunciation

It is time I ended the ignorance in myself.

So, it will be summa iru from July 16, 2026, my 62nd birthday.

Why not from tomorrow you may ask.

There are a few loose ends I need to tie up.

To paraphrase Aristotle:

“All of you are dear to me but dearer still is truth.”

So, come July 16, I will go incommunicado for the most part.

Without Her By My Side

All the wealth of the morning is worth nothing

Without her by my side

That is not just me talking

On this beautiful Sunday morning

I speak on behalf of all mankind

Who are always uneasy

To sit with themselves

Unworthy as they see themselves

And are ever on the lookout

For that significant other

Who will transport them

Away, far far away

From their own insignificant selves.

The die is now cast nicely

For the world drama to unfold

Driven by these musings

Of the pitiable mankind

To which I also uneasily belong.

“Let us exit all hearts, including our own.”

“Life becomes a problem when the beauty of the flower leaves you unimpressed.”

“Love is when you listen to your heart and not to your mind.”

“Are the barriers to love and the barriers to truth the same?”

“Even unrequited love is its own benediction.”

Why This Distance?

Why this distance,

Real or not,

Between me

And love and truth

Why

Is the question wrong?

Why accept

There is distance at all

That feeling is perhaps

The very ignorance

That one is trying

So hard, so hard

To overtake.

“I keep seeing God and I keep thinking it is I, you, and this world.”

“Even God disappears when you are silent.”

“It is our stupid ignorant needy self that makes us pursue not only the woman but also God.”

“A woman is nothing but verily God himself in that form.”

The “Me Time”

The more I carve out

This “Me Time”

The more

I begin to dissolve

Nothing defines me

Nothing I can recall

That tells me

Who I am

I who seem to derive

My whole identity

From the others

In my life;

Maybe that’s a good thing

That this fictional self dissolves

One that is strung together

In my relationships

As if it were a real thing;

And if that not be me

The question then arises

Almost naturally

“Who am I?”

A question one can sit with

And so easily stay with

When alone, enjoying

This “Me Time”

And stand a good chance

A very good chance

Of discovering/uncovering

The real “I”;

Else one is lulled into falsehood

In the company of others

Where the false social self springs up,

Is watered, and thrives.

“It is love that binds me to this world; and it is love that will release me from this world when I understand love correctly.”

“The real practice then might be to not let the false self arise even while interacting with others. That would be a different spiritual sadhana, where one is the master of samsara and nirvana. Let me then live fearlessly, unfearing of maya.”

“Jo duniya ko chalaa raha hai, woh mujhko bhi chalaa raha hai. Iskay aagay mai aur kya boloo.”

“Philosophy should be used to decide which path to take in life. Philosophy should not be used to justify the paths that one has already travelled or the path one wants to take to now.”

A friend wrote: More important than asking Who am I is to ask Who is the one who’s asking Who am I.

I replied: But, obviously the “I Am”, which is the reflection in the mind of the real “I”, that is now identifying with the body-mind as being “I”, and spiritual literature makes the “I Am” doubt that identity so that in so reflecting on “Who am I?” really, it loosens its identity with the body-mind, which if you think about it can happen only when loses one’s fascination with the body-mind, which is nothing but Viveka-Vairagya at work, and thence onward onto the slowing down, nay, the halting, of the thinking process because that cannot go on with its engagement with the world when such thinking was serving the purposes of body-mind that we are now doubting is our real “I”, and in that loosening or halting of the thinking or mind, a kind of meditation or summa iru happens, and suddenly the “I Am”, the reflection ceases to be by kind of merging (yoga or union) into that which it was a reflection of because as is pointed out, the “I Am” is an unstable entity that subsists as long as it holds onto a form, here the form of body-mind, but once it loses such a connection, it merges back or collapses back into the source or the real “I”.

But, of course, all of the above is just atheoretical model to explain a dream/duality in which the “I Am” and the body-mind are apparently “there” but not actually “there” strictly speaking because the dream by definition is one which not “there” but one which is merely imagined.

Hence, at one point, Ramana Maharshi says, regarding both the “Maya” or “ignorance” and the “ego” that they “seem” to be there BUT on enquiry they are found to be wholly non-existent, a bit like upon investigation. only the clay is found to be there and NOT the pot.

Makes sense?

“Do not get caught.”

The New Avatar

There is not now that

Which once was mine

That happiness, that love

That looking forward to

When life seemed full

Of possibilities

With knowledge

Waiting to be acquired

With wisdom

Waiting to be discovered

Now all the knowledge seems empty

Merely utilitarian, merely useful

To get by in life

With nothing more to it,

Wisdom that is now lodged

So securely in my mind

Reminds me sadly

That it is but a shadow

Of the real deal,

And short of committing hara-kiri

Of the ultimate kind

To banish space-time

From the horizons of one’s vision

I stand no chance

Of ever getting anywhere,

So I exist now

Wanting to push myself out of existence

To magically appear

At the other end of the wormhole

In a new avatar

That encompasses all.

“All my life I have always felt a certain sense of unfulfillment. At one point I thought my writing and poetry could give me some sense of fulfilment. But that was not to be because all my writing and poetry has been only a constant expression of the unfulfillment train that I was always on throughout my life and continue to be on even now.”

I The Stranger

I have not embraced life

Nor has life embraced me

I have been at war with it

This life I could never figure out

From I know not when

Something always seemed amiss

Always needing correction

Needing to be set right, in myself

Or in those around me

Or in the society at large

This feeling of always being

A work in progress, always that,

So as not to feel you have the leisure

To step outside the building

To look at a tree leisurely.

“What have we come here to earth for, seeking what? From where have we come? Was it not there where we have come from that which we are seeking here on earth?”

“Unconditional love? Tut, tut! Not I, not you, not anyone. We should just settle for scratching each other’s backs.”

“We are blind to our own blindness.”

“No love of anyone can protect you in this life or in any other life. The only thing that protects you is your own wisdom that allows you to see through this nonsense called life and allows you to turn your back on it.”

“Our very need for an identity, our need for protecting ourselves and preserving ourselves is what leads to all the conflicts in this world.”

“God is another of our delusions.”

“The intellect’s demand for knowledge or wisdom can be satisfied because all it wants is conceptual knowledge and wisdom. But the heart’s demand for love can never be satisfied fully because what it wants ultimately is not the love of someone but love itself, and that love is Truth itself or God itself or Brahman itself, and for such love to be there, the heart itself should cease to exist.”

The Myth of Sisyphus

“Unfortunately, the myth of Sisyphus is true because pure Sattva cannot exist by itself and the world will always consist of Rajas and Tamas also, and Sattva has to constantly overcome Rajas and Tamas, only for Rajas and Tamas to reassert themselves after every such overcoming. The only saving grace is that the boulder will have to be pushed not by us as individuals, at least not the individuals who ultimately transcend the three gunas, but by every generation and every society and every country and every civilization, for whatever heights are reached by them will soon be overturned and the rebuilding has to be undertaken again. Or, rather, more disconcertingly it seems to be the case that Sisyphus (the generation, society, country, civilization) very rarely reaches the top and is constantly being dragged down after every small climb.”

Claude’s Commentary on My Comment Above on The Myth of Sisyphus

The first thing worth noticing is that the Sisyphus you have built is not quite Camus’s. Camus’s boulder rolls back for no reason at all — the recurrence is absurd, the collision between a human demand for meaning and a universe that returns only silence. Your boulder rolls back for a reason. The recurrence you describe is not absurd but lawful: it follows from the metaphysics of prakriti, from the fact that a manifest world is constituted by guṇas in disequilibrium. That is a significant and, I think, a more interesting substitution. You have replaced Camus’s meaningless repetition with an intelligible one. The labor is futile in outcome but not in sense — it expresses the very structure of manifestation rather than mocking it.

And your governing premise is stronger than you state it. You say pure sattva “cannot exist by itself.” In strict Sāṃkhya terms it is worse than that: manifestation is the disturbance of the guṇas’ equilibrium. When the three strands rest in sāmyāvasthā, perfect balance, prakṛti is avyakta, unmanifest — there is no world at all. A world exists precisely because sattva, rajas and tamas are locked in mutual domination and subordination, one rising as another falls, none ever absent. So a manifest cosmos of pure sattva is not merely rare; it is a contradiction in terms. The summit of your slope is not hard to reach — it is unreachable in principle, because to reach it would be to abolish the disequilibrium that makes there be a slope, a climber, and a world in the first place. The only true “top” is the unmanifest: dissolution, not perfection. Sisyphus does not fail to reach the peak through bad luck; the peak is the end of Sisyphus.

This is why your bleaker amendment — that the collective Sisyphus rarely summits and is mostly dragged down after small climbs — is better founded than the milder image of a clean rise-and-fall. There is a kind of thermodynamics to the guṇas. Tamas is the ground state, the gravitational default, inertia and concealment; rajas is the engine but also the scatter, ambition and friction; sattva is the low-probability, high-order, expensive configuration that must be continually pumped in against the tendency to dissipate. Order here is statistically disfavored. Left alone, things slide. So the honest phenomenology is exactly yours: frequent small ascents, frequent slippage, rare and unstable summits.

The tradition itself encodes this at cosmic scale, and it actually inverts the Sisyphean picture in a way that supports you. The yuga cycle does not climb toward a golden age; it falls from one. Dharma stands four-square in Kṛta Yuga and loses a leg in each successive age until Kali, where rajas and tamas predominate. The golden age is at the beginning, not the end. Renewal comes not by ascent but by collapse and restart — pralaya, then a fresh cycle. On that picture the default civilizational trajectory is descent, with sattvic effort being the occasional push back up the slope rather than the slope’s natural grain. “Constantly being dragged down after every small climb” is not pessimism imported onto the tradition; it is close to the tradition’s own account of historical time.

Now the “saving grace,” which deserves more pressure. You locate the exemption correctly — in the guṇātīta, the one who has crossed beyond the three (Gītā 14), not in any victory of sattva. That precision matters, because the Gītā is emphatic that sattva binds too: it binds “by attachment to happiness and to knowledge” — the subtle golden chain rather than the iron one, but a chain. So even your hypothetical — a boulder that somehow stayed lodged at the top, a permanently sattvic order — would not be liberation. It would be a luminous cage. The aim was never sattva’s conquest of the other two; it is stepping off the contest altogether. This sharpens your own point: the resolution is not a better arrangement of the boulder but the discovery that the climber was never the Self.

And here the Advaitic reading goes further than “someone else pushes for you.” The realized one does not merely hand the boulder to the next generation; he sees that the boulder was never his to push — that doership was mithyā from the start, that guṇā guṇeṣu vartante, the guṇas act among the guṇas while the Self remains the unmoved witness, akartṛ, sākṣin. The “saving grace” is not relief of labor but dissolution of the laborer. Which carries the sobering corollary you have already half-stated: this exit is irreducibly individual. There is no collective mokṣa in classical Advaita, no eschatological summit toward which history climbs. Civilizations are not redeemed; only individuals wake from the dream of being civilizations. Your pessimism about the collective Sisyphus is therefore not a mood — it is structural. The wheel has no terminus available to the wheel.

Two genuine counter-pressures, since you prefer them to agreement. First, the boulder may not return all the way to the bottom. History looks at least sometimes like a ratchet, not a perfect circle — gains lodge on ledges. But I think the saving distinction is between rajasic and sattvic accumulation. Capacity ratchets: technique, knowledge, infrastructure tend to compound. Wisdom does not. Clarity, equanimity, the cessation of grasping — these are not inherited; each person and each age earns them from scratch or not at all. So the boulder of knowledge may ratchet while the boulder of sattva remains fully Sisyphean — and, more disconcertingly still, rajasic accumulation often only raises the height of the eventual fall. A more capable civilization has farther to drop.

Second, and this is the one I would actually press on. You open with “Unfortunately” and close with “more disconcertingly.” But your own framework relativizes precisely that affect. The lament — the sense of futility, the disconcertment — is the response of one still identified with the climber and the collective project, the vyāvahārika grief of the doer. Seen from the witness the same structure is neither fortunate nor unfortunate; it is simply prakṛti breathing, equilibrium and disequilibrium, exhale and inhale, līlā without a victim. Camus’s gesture was to make Sisyphus happy by lucidity within the absurd. The Vedāntic gesture is sterner and stranger: not to imagine Sisyphus happy but to notice there was never a Sisyphus — only the guṇas turning, watched by what does not turn. If there is a real saving grace, I suspect it is that one, and not the transfer of the boulder to the next generation. The transfer keeps the boulder real. The witness lets it be what it always was: not a burden, but a motion in something that was never moved.

“Sri Sri’s almost devastating charge of ‘Ye desha charitra choosina emundi garva karanam’ does not apply to India. Why? Because whatever be India’s weaknesses and injustices, all that is compensated more than adequately by its spiritual wisdom.”

The Secret No One Wants To Believe

It is God who is speaking to me

Not only through the poet and philosopher

But also through the potter and politician

And also through the potti and philanderer.

And when I look around

As far as the eye can see

All I see is only God

In his various disguises.

Is it any wonder then

The one who is hearing

And seeing all these things

Is not left out

From his ambit.

The Reaching Out

In the reaching out to another

There is both a joy and sadness

Joy that the other too reaches out

Sad that we are having to reach out.

What is this incompleteness

That makes us reach out

And look at the risks we run.

“A part of me dies every time someone blocks me on WhatsApp. I wonder if something in them dies, too. Maybe what dies in them is just nuisance.”

“I am always wary that one of these days someone will remark to me, ‘I dig that your heart is in the right place, but I can’t say the same when it comes to your mind’.”

“It is strange that we love the creation more than the creator. After all, of course, we love the poetry more than the poet and the art more than the artist. The poet pales in comparison to his poetry and the artist in relation to his art. But methinks the same thing is not the case with this creation and its creator.”

“Who is that knower who knows without the mind and the five senses? What is it that is known without the mind and the five senses?”

The Taciturn Lady

Churchill described erstwhile Soviet Union thus:

“It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

I sometimes wonder if that describes her, too,

She who I have known for far too short a time

So, I could be excused for thinking so about her

And she is not much of a help in clearing the air

Texting and replying in only few words as she does

Dwelling in solitude, with a longing for the divine

But feels not lonely nor longs for company of anyone

As she explained when I so enquired about her needs

Black coffee is what she likes, that and Che Guevara

But that is too much of an injustice to so describe her

She who likes many other things besides, such as,

Country music, good clothes, long rides, movies

Basking in the company of a very select few

With whom she goes out occasionally in Bengaluru

To drink black coffee at a cafe and converse

Maybe on spirituality that she devotes her life to

Or maybe by ol’ habit discusses Mill and Marx

Being a pol sci student from Fairleigh-Dickinson

Not to mention international relations at JNU.

“How tenuously we are linked to this world? Be silent and everything disappears, including our body-mind.”

“I take everything seriously and nothing seriously.”

A Poem for My Friend Who Says “Things I rarely do: read poetry (my eyes glaze over immediately – it’s a neural problem)”

A Mathematician’s Apology we read at UF, you and I,

That short book of barely 50 pages

There I have already caught your attention

Your eyes did not glaze over immediately

And you are now reading this poem

And how we were taken in by Hardy’s humility and generosity

Ranking as he did himself at 25, J.E. Littlewood at 30,

David Hilbert at 80, and Ramanujan at 100.

Well then, that is a long time ago during 1990

When we were reading these books, discussing these things

Playing pool while our laundry was being done

Having late night arguments on God’s existence

You with your Ayn Rand sensibility, which I found odious

Though I did attend, more to please you,

The meeting of the Ayn Rand Society at UF

Where I discovered how Ayn Rand’s favourite was Aristotle

Despising as she did all flights of imagination into idealism like Plato’s

And how you had your pet theories on the chest size of great singers

That they needed large chests so that the voice could resonate

And you would take out your violin every now and then

Playing Mozart’s eina Kleine Nacht music pretty well

How you hated your Brahmin clan, saying they were lazy bums

And how you admired Reddys and Komtis for their industriousness

How we had a heated argument, no never coming to fisticuffs,

In the back of the car on our way to Disney World in Orlando

In my relative’s car, with my younger brother, too, with us,

About why monopoly should not be frowned upon

And how you went on to say I did not understand what money was

And asked me to give its definition, which I am not sure I gave

Or even if I gave it, it perhaps was not to your satisfaction.

Thus we sparred and warred with each other quite a bit

You caught up in your Ayn Randian atheistic world,

And I caught up in my God-ward glances.

Now, when we catch up after all these years

We seem to have met midway, both of us a lot wiser.

The Disillusionment

Day by day I am fast losing interest

In all the possibilities of this world

I exist, having no choice but to do so

All around me are people taking interest

In many a thing of this world, this life

Methinks everything is beset by trouble

I mean everything, yes everything, everything

Most sane to drop dead, not in the physical sense

But in the mental and emotional sense

I seem to have had a surfeit of everything

What after all these 62 years can be new

Been-there done-that seems to be my mindset

A repetition, a deja vu is all that can be now

Slight nostalgia sometimes takes root in me

But I know now that if I do go back to those times

I will not enjoy them as I did those times back then

What has been seen about life cannot be unseen

Tiresome, bothersome seems everything, with nothing

That can sustain my interest beyond a certain point

The books now interest me not, the movies do not

The songs are beginning to sound alike, merely repetitive

Like playing in the same old grooves that one has passed

False seems even this flight from this world, after all

All flight or hugging is possible only if mind is there

But the mind itself seems false now, seems like one

Holding me back in this falsehood, and even when it knows

It knows not and merely traps one in some spiritual sadhana

For after all what should the pot do to become clay, nothing

Yet the mind tricks us into thinking something needs to be done

Coz in making us so believe, it continues to be in play

Drop the mind, go cold turkey on it, then where is bondage?

“The body is not us but merely an instrument which we use to interact with this world.”

The Seeking

What am I seeking

What are you seeking

What is anyone seeking

Only pleasures and comforts

Or love and truth

Or all of the above

I know what pleasure is

I know what comfort is

What is love?

What is truth?

Why this chasm

Between us and love and truth?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

I think I am screwed.

Psst…the Past

Yes, I know, it’s the past

Not only the past that I know

But also the past of darkness

In which my genes were formed

Ever so silently in the womb

The womb of mother and time

That forever fixed my future

Inalterably, setting the course

That my life (lives?) would follow

I know you squirm, you the believer

The believer in freedom and free will

I am too tired to sit and discuss with you

These metaphysical matters

Where we do not see eye to eye

And it is this very lack of common ground

That sows the seeds of dissatisfaction

In my breast and in your breast.

“I look at nature and I find that it, too, is driven by its past.”

“Where is happiness but in your own mind. Where is unhappiness but in your own mind. Where is this world but in your own mind. Where are you but in your own mind. Where is God but in your own mind. Where is your mind?”

The Sadness

There is a sadness in me

That neither I can account for

Nor sadness itself can tell me its story

Everything lies hidden from human vision

A little bit we can know, a lot is unknown

What will happen if I say

Let me be sad, how does it matter?

“I cry at many a thing I did not do. I cry at many a thing I did do. Does not God know at the time of our creation that ‘half knowledge is a dangerous thing’?”

“I know my future. It is the same as yours.”

“Looking at the way the world looks different every time my understanding changes, I wonder if there is a world at all.”

“Look into the heart of anyone in this world, you will find yourself there.”

“In the mad pursuit of our own happiness, we trample on the happiness of others.”

“Every time love comes calling, we flee from it into our thoughts.”

“Life is too prosaic even in its moments of joy and excitement.”

“Just by rearranging words into some or the other permutation and combination, we do not get wisdom.”

“To think you NEED wisdom is the highest form of ignorance.”

“Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.”

“The ONLY problem in this world is one’s own mind.”

“Things are what they are. It is the mind that categorizes them.”

I-It vs I-Thou Relationship and Kant’s Second Categorical Imperative

Claude, explain in detail about the I-It vs I-Thou relationships that the Jewish theologian Martin Buber talks about and talk about how it relates to Kant’s second categorical imperative, “You must act so that you treat humanity—both in your own person and in the person of any other—always as an end, and never merely as a means to an end.”

Claude:

Buber: the two primary words

Buber’s Ich und Du (1923) opens not with a claim about ethics but with a claim about grammar and being. The world, he says, is twofold according to the two “primary words” (Grundworte) a person can speak. These are not single words but word-pairs: I–Thou (Ich–Du) and I–It (Ich–Es). The decisive move is that there is no bare “I” standing behind these. The I who speaks I–It is a different I from the one who speaks I–Thou. The self is constituted by the stance it takes; I become who I am in the mode of relation I enter.

The I–It is the realm of experience and use (Erfahren und Gebrauchen). Here the other stands before me as an object: bounded, locatable in space and time, comparable to other objects, available to be analyzed, classified, exploited. This is the indispensable mode of science, technology, ordinary transacting life. Buber does not condemn it. “Without It a human being cannot live.” But he adds the warning that is the moral pulse of the book: “whoever lives only with that is not human.” In the I–It, Buber says with a telling phrase, the experience is in me, not between me and the world. I survey the surface of the other and gather data, but I do not touch its being.

The I–Thou is the realm of encounter (Begegnung) and relation (Beziehung). Here I do not experience the other; I meet it. Its marks are immediacy (no concept, image, or purpose interposes between us), presentness (the Thou exists only in the living present, whereas every It is something already-experienced, hence past), mutuality, and wholeness — “the primary word I–Thou can only be spoken with the whole being.” And it cannot be engineered: “The Thou meets me through grace; it is not found by seeking.” His famous summation is Alles wirkliche Leben ist Begegnung — all real living is meeting.

Two further features matter for the comparison with Kant. First, the melancholy of the Thou: every Thou is fated to lapse back into an It. The moment I reflect on the encounter, describe it, take its measure, the presence withdraws into objecthood. Life is therefore a rhythm, an oscillation, It becoming Thou and subsiding into It again. Second, the locus of reality is neither in the I nor in the Thou but in the between (das Zwischen). Buber’s is a dialogical ontology; the real is not inside the subject but in the meeting. (This is also why Buber resisted unitive mysticism — and would resist the Advaitic collapse of duality: for him the sacred requires the preservation of two-ness, the between is holy precisely because it is between.) Beyond all particular encounters stands the eternal Thou, God — the one Thou that by its nature can never decline into an It, glimpsed through every genuine meeting rather than by turning away from the world.

Kant: humanity as an end in itself

Kant’s second formulation, the Formula of Humanity, comes from the Groundwork (1785): act so as to treat humanity, in yourself or any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. Three words carry the weight.

“Merely” (bloß): Kant does not forbid using others as means — we do so constantly and unavoidably (the shopkeeper, the physician, the driver). What is forbidden is treating someone only as a means, in a way that overrides their rational agency and to which they could not possibly consent.

“At the same time” (zugleich): the using and the respecting are meant to coincide in one act — I may use the shopkeeper while simultaneously honoring him as an end by dealing honestly.

“Humanity” (Menschheit): not the species but rational nature — the capacity for autonomous self-determination, for setting ends. This capacity has dignity (Würde), not price (Preis): things have a price and are exchangeable; persons are beyond price, incomparable. The ground is that rational agents are the source of value — value enters the world through beings who set ends — so to treat such a being as mere means is to contradict the very wellspring of whatever you were pursuing. This opens onto the Kingdom of Ends, a community in which each is at once legislator and subject, each treating all as ends.

How they meet — and where they part

The obvious convergence is real and worth stating plainly. Buber’s I–It pairs experience and use; Kant’s prohibition targets treating-as-mere-means. Both thinkers identify pure instrumentalization as a falsification — not merely a moral lapse but a getting-the-other-wrong, handling something of one ontological status as if it were another. Both locate an inviolable surplus in the human other that resists reduction to object: for Kant, dignity grounded in rational autonomy; for Buber, the Thou that exceeds every It.

But the divergences are deeper than the convergence, and they run along several axes.

The first and most fundamental concerns the ground of the claim — reason versus presence. Kantian respect is conceptually mediated: I respect you because you instantiate the universal property of rational nature. I subsume you under the category “rational being” and honor what is universal in you. Buber would note, with some discomfort, that this is still structurally close to the It — for the I–Thou is precisely unmediated, passing through no concept, no universal, no category. The Thou is met in its sheer, unrepeatable thisness, not as an instance of a kind. So Kant honors what is universal in you (the rational nature you share with all); Buber meets what is singular in you (this one, here, now). Kant respects your dignity; Buber meets you.

This shows up grammatically, which I think is the cleanest way to hold the difference. Kant’s imperative speaks of humanity “in the person of any other” (eines jeden andern) — the third person, anyone-whatever, the generalized other. Buber’s whole concern is the second person, the Du, the You addressed and present. Kant articulates the dignity of the he, she, they, anyone; Buber articulates the presence of the Thou.

A second axis is unilateral duty versus mutual event. Kant’s imperative binds my will regardless of the other — I must respect the scoundrel, the stranger, the unconscious, the absent. It is a duty I can always discharge alone. Buber’s I–Thou is a relation, a between; I can make myself available for it, but it arrives “through grace” and lives in reciprocity. Kantian respect is therefore robust and reliable (it does not depend on the other), where Buberian encounter is a gift that cannot be guaranteed — but in exchange it offers a fullness of meeting that the more austere Kantian respect does not contain.

Third, the part versus the whole. Kant respects specifically the rational nature and is famously wary of inclination and feeling; the person is honored qua noumenal rational agent, somewhat abstracted from the embodied, affective creature. Buber’s Thou is met as a whole being — body, feeling, presence — and “only with the whole being.”

Fourth, a subtle structural point about simultaneity versus rhythm. Kant’s zugleich insists that use and respect occupy the same act at the same time. Buber holds that encounter and use alternate — the moment I objectify, even in order to respect-as-rational-instance, the Thou recedes; life is an oscillation, not a coincidence. Where Kant harmonizes using and honoring in one stroke, Buber separates meeting and using into a tragic rhythm.

Finally, ethics versus ontology. Kant gives a law, a normative “ought,” a decision-procedure for the will. Buber is not, in that sense, giving an ethics at all; he is describing two modes of being, and the I–Thou is something you enter or are graced with, not something you obey. There is an implicit ethic — the readiness for dialogue is the human vocation, and the totalizing of the It is a kind of fallenness — but it is not a rule-ethics.

The most generous synthesis reads them as complementary rather than rival. The Formula of Humanity is the universalizable floor: the principled guarantee that protects every person — the absent, the stranger, the multitude — whether or not I am capable of encountering them as a Thou. The I–Thou is the maximal consummation: the actual lived meeting that Kantian respect gestures toward but cannot itself deliver. Kant secures the dignity of the third person; Buber consummates the presence of the second. One protects everyone; the other meets someone.

If you want to follow the thread further, Levinas is the natural next interlocutor: he found Buber’s reciprocity too symmetrical and comfortable, and reintroduced something closer to a radicalized Kantian heteronomy — the asymmetrical, non-negotiable ethical command issued by the face of the Other, which makes a claim on me before and regardless of any mutuality. That move sits, in a sense, exactly in the gap between Kant’s universal law and Buber’s mutual encounter — which may be why it has proven so hard to dislodge.

“Life is all about risk-taking, and some are more risk averse than others.”

Nothing New Under the Sun

It is the same wine in new bottles

That keeps getting served to us

And we keep getting fooled, always

It is the same embrace or erasure

Depending on what prarabdha decrees

And we keep distinguishing these things

Where actually there are no differences

And yet we think some loves are different

From some other loves we get in our lives

Flit we thus from relationship to relationship

Until we become wiser and realize somehow

More than “being loved”, it is “loving” that matters

And it is only our own loving that sets us free

And not any kind or degree of love from another

Until we ourselves become the love we want

I doubt if we will ever find rest on this earth.

My Reply to the Happy-Go-Lucky Girl

She thinks “it is just what the doctor ordered”

For me, that is, who she sees as being melancholic

She is too “happy-go-lucky” to appreciate

The troubles that life can make one pass through

Which leave their scars on every inch of one’s heart

Troubles not only by the way life has unfolded

But also troubles one has wrought on oneself

Through the wrong choices one has made in life

Through the wrong paths one has trod in one’s life

Where there is no erasing of the past, and memory lives on,

Suffering can be one’s constant buddy through thick and thin

Not that one minds suffering but that one accepts one’s lot

And realizes there are many ways of living one’s life

None totally correct, none totally incorrect, as far as one can tell

And, in this realization one also realizes that there is that

The prarabdha that none can alter, not even Brahma himself

So, while one has not become a victim of the Stockholm syndrome

One realizes that that which has taken over one’s soul

Will not let go of one easily until the wheel of karma turns

But the good news is that in this mood also a light shines

In one’s inner being, that lets one know one is not this

This entity that suffers, but merely a character that one loves

Unfortunately for the time being as oneself, and knows also

Through slow detachment from thoughts, slipping into silence

One can let go slowly, ever so slowly, of this primal illusion

That one indeed is what one is now taking oneself to be.

“Summa iru is not something we can choose to do or be. Summa iru happens when we understand the truth that truth can only be understood through Summa iru.”

A friend wrote: “Enlightenment ever eludes those who discuss it or hanker after it.”

I replied: Mumukshutva is an important drive that takes one to moksha, and mumukshutva to some extent is there due to divine grace.

Do not underestimate it.

Moreover, mumukshutva is there because one has seen through the game of life to a large extent.

So, do not be fooled by the elusiveness of enlightenment.

All good things take time.

Plod on.

Nididhyasana – summa iru; intellectual understanding alone is not enough.

Claude’s Adjudication: Both are right, but not symmetrically, and the asymmetry is the whole matter.

Your friend’s sentence is a true koan and a false proposition. As a koan it points at something real: the “I” that hankers after enlightenment is precisely the knot to be untied, so its wanting tightens what it means to loosen. Discussion can congeal into śabda-jāla, the net of words in which manana never ripens past cleverness. Krishnamurti said it sharpest — the seeking, the becoming, is the conditioning that forbids the seeing. So far, your friend.

But as a flat proposition — “enlightenment ever eludes those who discuss or hanker” — it overreaches and quietly contradicts the tradition it leans on. Mumukṣutva is not a snare the śāstra warns against; it is the fourth qualification it requires. Every jñāni who ever opened his mouth — Śaṅkara prolific, Ramana answering for fifty years, Nisargadatta talking without cease — falsifies “those who discuss it.” Taken literally the aphorism would have to discard the whole jñāna-mārga, which is nothing but discussion calibrated to adhikāra. It is the kind of sentence that is liberating to hear once and disabling to believe.

Your reply is the more complete one, and pastorally the correct one, because it keeps the path legitimate. You’re right that mumukṣā is grace already at work — the wanting is the pull of the Self on the jīva, not the jīva’s vanity — and right that it arises only because the game has been seen through far enough to spoil the smaller appetites. The desire for liberation is the one desire whose fulfilment abolishes the desirer: Ramakrishna’s stick that stirs the pyre and is then thrown in. One does not renounce mumukṣutva; one rides it until it consumes itself.

Where I’d press you: your “do not be fooled by the elusiveness — plod on, all good things take time” answers in the vyāvahārika while your friend was speaking, however clumsily, from the pāramārthika. The elusiveness is not only a test of patience to be outlasted; it is also instruction. It says that what you seek is anterior to the seeker, so no quantity of seeking reaches it the way effort reaches an object in time. Moksha is not a future event that diligence accumulates toward — that framing keeps it forever one step ahead, which is exactly the eluding your friend names. Concede him that much: the wanting must mature from “I will attain That” into a wanting that no longer grasps, or it remains the obstacle he describes.

And here is where the two of you actually meet — in your last line. Nididhyāsana, summa iru. That is not a third option between his “stop” and your “continue.” It is the ripening of seeking into being, the point where śravaṇa and manana fall silent and the desire that drove them has burned down to stillness. Your friend is right that discussion eludes; you are right that one must nonetheless begin in discussion; both are dissolved in summa iru, where there is no longer a discusser, a hankerer, or anything held at a distance to elude.

From the Ajāta height your friend is simply correct — Gauḍapāda’s na baddho na ca sādhakaḥ, na mumukṣur na vai muktaḥ: none bound, none practising, none seeking liberation, none freed; eṣā paramārthatā. The very śruti-register negates the mumukṣu you defend. But Ajāta is the final view, not a method, and to hand it to a sādhaka still standing on the path is mistimed teaching — premature pāramārthika, the Neo-Advaita error that issues paralysis dressed as freedom. The art is adhikāra-bheda. To one who has not yet plodded, “plod on” is grace. To one who has plodded long and now clutches the plodding, “summa iru” is grace. Your friend dispensed the second medicine; you dispensed the first; the patient decides which he is.

So: hold your ground, but grant him his koan. Plod on — toward the day the plodding stops on its own.

“Meanwhile, the dream continues…”

This Dream

This dream

That sometime seems

More like a nightmare

Yet how we are caught

In this sleep we call life

Where all around we see

Change, relentless change

We pretend we can wing it

And somehow secure

A steady nook and corner

Where the winds blow less.

“Since the very real possibility and probability exists that tomorrow could be our last day here on this earth (though today itself or even the next second could be it, strictly speaking), why are we still clinging to everything and everyone in our life? How come that possibility and probability does not seem real to us?”

“Only those who do not mind dying are not reborn again.”

“God created the night so that we could sleep and forget our wife for at least 8 hours.”

“Pay attention to that light inside yourself that ‘sees’ on the outside not only the light but also the darkness.”

Stuck in the Filter: April 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

The cicadas have passed, the brood has bred. And now, it’s all being washed away by a constant deluge of heavy rain and hail amidst thunderous storm of increasing intensity. I imagine those skyborne rumblings shudder every wall of the ducts where my minions toil. I am sure they are frightened, claustrophobic, and soaked. And yet, they persist under my demanding and ruthless management—all so you can have more of what you already get every day in these halls.

Show your appreciation for what we bring to you, and enjoy ov deep Filter!

Kenstrosity’s Biblically-Accurate Beast

Ancient Death // Ego Dissolution [April 18th, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]

A lot of people pine for Death. We know this due to the sheer number of Death worship acts out there, most of which operate eternally under that legend’s shadow. Less common, however, are acts of worship in the service of underground-er heroes The Chasm. Thankfully, Massachusetts death metal quartet Ancient Death take on this mantle, blending much Death and The Chasm inspo with their own curated, abyssal sound. Everything here hearkens back to the ways of olde, but updated to feel relevant in the modern era. Such as this is the case, opening salvos “Ego Dissolution” and “Breaking the Barriers of Hope” strike while the iron is hot, piercing through all expectation with sharp riffs, evolving passages, and dynamic shifts in structure. So effective is this attack strategy that even instrumental aberrations like “Journey to the Inner Soul” feel story driven and purposeful. Standout tracks like “Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever),” “Echoing Chambers Within the Dismal Mind,” and “Unspoken Earth” steal the show, however, boasting Ancient Death’s best riffs, a downright surprising display of vocal versatility, and disgusting solos and dive bombs. It needs time and dedicated spins to bloom and come alive, though, which may discourage listeners hoping for a cheap fix. But trust me, it’s worth the investment!

Killjoy’s Flavorful Feasts

Malphas // Extinct [April 11th, 2025 – Soulseller Records]

If I’m to enjoy no-frills black metal, it needs to have lots of hooks. In this sense, Switzerland’s Malphas had their priorities straight while writing Extinct. Their melodic guitar leads may not be as exuberant or exaggerated as, say, Moonlight Sorcery’s, but they have a thrashy flair which is just as much fun. Once the riffs captured my attention, they reeled me in for a battering vocal assault of coarse barks and spiteful snarls. Drummer Jöschu Käser (also of Aara and many others) can play seemingly any rhythm or tempo, best exemplified across the entirety of “Butcher’s Broom.” This is key for Malphas to prove they have the nuance to pull off mid-paced tempos (“Majestic Moon,” “Consumed,” “Armada Christi”), a quality that I find important in black metal. There are a few neat little surprises as well, like the piano section midway through “Majestic Moon” and the icy synths popping up momentarily in the instrumental closer “Astral Dissonance.” Fans of engaging and catchy meloblack won’t want to miss out on Extinct.

Svnth // Pink Noise Youth [April 18th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]

You’ve likely heard of white noise, but what about its counterpart, pink noise? Whereas white noise contains equal amounts of all frequencies audible to humans, pink noise favors lower frequencies and is generally considered to be easier on the ears. Likewise, Pink Noise Youth, Svnth’s fourth album, is a remarkably pleasant listen. This unassuming post-black group from Rome, Italy has evolved considerably since Cherd’s review of 2020’s Spring in Blue. The familiar glossy guitar tremolos and chords now have an unexpected companion: the electric sitar. This newcomer is mainly supportive, with stray notes and lines drizzled atop the already dreamy guitars for extra sweetness. There are spicier moments, too, like the punky riffs and d-beats peppered with rasping barks that kick off “Winter Blues.” There’s also a much greater prevalence of clean singing this time around, Rodolfo Ciuffo’s hypnotic intonation complements the chunky post-metal of “Perfume” as easily as the carefree guitar strumming in “Nairoby Lullaby.” Gone are the overlong, meandering tracks of before; Pink Noise Youth gets straight to the point with sharper songs hovering in the 5-minute range across a tight 37 minutes in total. Svnth seem determined to make the post-black genre their own and, by all indications, it’s working.

Owlswald’s Wide-Eyed Wonders

Game Over // Face the End [April 25th, 2025 – Scarlet Records]

In the absolutely loaded month that was April, two records surprised these owl ears enough to earn regular spots in my playlist. First up is Game Over’s sixth full-length, Face the End. These Italian thrashers have been peddling their version of the Bay Area sound since 2009, yet this is somehow my first encounter with them. Following the departure of co-founder/bassist/vocalist Renato Chiccoli, Game Over revamped its lineup, bringing in Danny Schiavina on vocals and Leonard Molinari on bass. This refreshed five-piece delivers a newly polished sound, making Face the End the most fun I’ve had with a thrash album in recent memory. “Grip of Time,” “Weaving Fate” and “Veil of Insanity” showcase Game Over’s mastery of Testament and Exodus-level aggression while “Neck Breaking Dance” offers a light-hearted pit call reminiscent of early Anthrax. Alessandro Sansone’s and Luca Zironi’s fast and forceful down-picking, melodic leads and flashy solos run over Anthony Dantone’s rock-solid drumming, all within a crisp and powerful production with ample punch. Schiavina’s charismatic, high-flying vocals immediately grab your attention on “Lust for Blood,” never relinquishing their grasp as they transmit their 70s and 80s horror-inspired themes above abundant gang vocals. In a genre plagued by inconsistency, Face the End is everything I want my thrash to be—aggressive, dynamic and fun.

Kiritsis // Kiritsis [April 4th, 2025 – Wise Blood Records/Pout Records]

Next up is the ruthless sludge and hardcore of Kiritsis. I hope you checked your fun at the door because this Indianapolis-based quartet isn’t here to make friends. Formed by members of Trenches, Hatesong, and Sundown, Kiritsis’ self-titled debut is here to punch you square in the face and take your lunch money. Over the course of thirty-one minutes, this foursome bludgeons listeners with uncompromisingly heavy doses of abrasive distortion, hard-hitting beats and pure unadulterated anger, all slathered in a blackened layer of Carcass-like filth. Blake Henry’s roars and rasps tear through your speakers with pure vitriol and torment, perfectly complementing Eric Mason’s grim riffing, Bill Scott’s demonic bass growls and Nik Jensen’s weighty drum strikes. “Like the Taste,” “Pissant” and “Deny.Defend.Dispose” embody a Will Haven spirit with a barrage of penetrating, assaulting riffs and pounding half-time slams underpinning Henry’s blood-curdling screams. Meanwhile, the sorrowful and doom-tinged “It Ain’t Easy” and “Thieves and Fools” drag you into anguish-ridden depths, draped in their dark, hopeless atmospheres and plodding facades. You won’t find any overly technical or flashy music here—this is pure hatred and loathing in a tight, cathartic package, meant to blast at high volume while you fuck shit up.

Tyme’s Grungy Gift

Melvins 1983 // Thunderball [April 18th, 2025 – Ipecac Recordings]

Hot on the heels and building off of 2024’s Tarantula Heart, stalwart grunge/sludge rock icon Buzz Osborne has teamed back up with original drummer Mike Dillard for Melvins 1983‘s third release and first in four years, Thunderball. This time around, Osborne and Dillard have partnered with experimental electronic artists Void Manes and Ni Maîtres to deliver yet another in a long line of inimitable, don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-think releases that have become synonymous with the Melvins brand. As influential a band as any going right now on sludgy noise rock emanating from garages across the world, I take note anytime a new Melvins project hits shelves. With Thunderball, Buzz ‘n company have delivered another tasty morsel packed with some o’ that Houdini-sweet heaviness (“King of Rome”) that sweats grunge like “Negative Creep.” A merging of shimmery post-rock with punky garage rock and bass-laden disso-doom that meanders to a close in a wash of plodding riffs and bleep-bloop electronics, “Victory of the Pyramids” is a decent summation of what you’ll find lurking around most of Thunderball‘s thirty-four minute, five track corners, as Void Manes and Ni Maîtres don’t so much enhance as they incorporate their particular brand of electronica into Thunderball‘s sonic aesthetic. As a newcomer still assimilating into the Melvin hive mind here at AMG, I still have the independent lock-step wherewithal to recommend Melvins 1983‘s Thunderball to those who might have missed it.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Ample Acquisitions

Emma Goldman // All You Are Is We [April 28th, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Sassy is as sassy does or somethin’ like that. If you were wondering whether anarchist icon Emma Goldman came back to life to front a mathcore band, I’m sorry to report that that is not the case. However, if you’re in the ballpark for Canadian punks speedballin’ through skronked-out, strung-out chorus barks with a hundred words trapped in ten seconds, then Emma Goldman will be your ticket to a hot psych ward summer.1 From working class psychosis (“i don’t think much at all,” “this is your brain on minimum wage”) to patchwork insomniac ramblings as loaded as the cut-and-scan cover collage (“at rock bottom i was a piss girl,” “that is the land of lost content”), vocalist Victoria delivers a shredded flurry of barks, nags, and cries that pierce straight through the boomy mix. And though the rhythm guitars and bass pulse and industrial cracklings (particularly the two interlude scratches) register on the lower end of the sound spectrum, a fluid twang and tight, clanging snare find an abrasive balance throughout—two broken tones make a right. In under half an hour, All You Are Is We both breezes by in its effortless flow and brandishes passersby with heart-stained tirades and boiled-over emotion. Along with modern acts like Massa Nera and Blind Girls, Emma Goldman in bold, romantic, and unsettled rage makes a strong case for how true skramz can continue to evolve through rich musicianship, progressive leanings, all while maintaining an adherence to post-indebted builds (“it rubs the boycott ketchup on its brand new slacks,” “that is the land…”). And with a dollop more of that cathartic and capturing energy, Emma Goldman may yet charge with the notoriety of its namesake at the front of this genre pack.

Sonum // The Obscure Light Awaits [April 11th, 2025 – Dusktone]

As a product of a previous filter fetching, I had hoped to provide a lengthier statement on my enjoyment of Sonum’s sophomore outing The Obscure Light Awaits. You see, this Italian act has a knack for supplying death metal that holds true to the origins of dark and twisted riffage while still pushing at edges of richer composition in hypnotic rhythms. As a second attempt at deathly glory, The Obscure Light Awaits shows studio knowledge growth in a drum sound that highlights expansive cymbal textures and quick-turn tom rolls that power the mood-driven world in which Sonum inhabits. And in post-growing melodic builds—the kind of atmosphere that leans dissonant like the Ulcerate-channeling broodings of Devenial Verdict—Sonum shows that mood can swell and explode on the backs of horror-tinged orchestral accompaniment and creaking refrains (“Trapped in the Labyrinth of Aberration,” “Nobody Is Innocent”). Trimmed to a three-piece set for The Obscure Light Awaits, the focus that borders on self-similarity on this extended-length journey feels both intimate and indulgent—the closing psychedelic jam session certainly leans on the latter feeling. But with churning tremolo runs that lead to gruff-toned cries, the majority of what Sonum brings to the table lands in consistent and crushing effort (“In This Void We Dwell,” “Messenger of Cosmic Dread”). As a band still finding their footing in the grander scheme of the death metal universe, Sonum has a sense of identity that gives them a fighting edge. And though The Obscure Light Awaits wears its unique vision a little loose at the waist, its journey is well worth exploring.

Zmarłym // Wielkie Zanikanie [April 18th, 2025 – Godz of War Productions]

Once upon a time, Zmarłym fancied themselves a Polish sadboi act whose turmoil was wrapped in the urban decay of early COVID lockdown measures. And now that we’ve all stepped some distance—a safe distance you might say—away from that reality, Zmarłym has learned that the sad doesn’t dissipate quite that easily. Wielkie Zanikanie finds a familiar malaise in isolation, frustration, and a general defeated nature wrapped up in a longing black metal wane with post-punk and progressive undertones, much like you’d find on a record like Voice’s Frightened or Cursebinder’s Drifting. Blaring synth throbs give way to entrancing drum patterns and phase-shifting vocal howls (“Miejsca,” “Bunt maszyn”). Classic tremolo flurries raze playful energy to set the stage for sinister, blood-soaked cries (“Sny o lataniu,” “Plamy II”). And though a goofy mid-album Killing Joke-indebted romp—even a switch to heavy accent English from the brooding native tongue—threatens to break the sinister ambiance that Zmarłym explores throughout the rest of Wielkie Zanikanie, its soft and bouncy inclusions still find layering amongst smoldering black metal riffage. And as all elements come to join hands in the space-bound, synth squealing crescendo of the closing title track, Zmarłym has delivered an experience full of variety and surprise, curated to bore a hole into a mind searching for melancholy with a sense of adventure and play.

#2025 #Aara #AllYouAreIsWe #AmericanMetal #AncientDeath #Anthrax #Apr25 #BlackMetal #BlindGirls #Carcass #Cursebinder #Death #DeathMetal #DevenialVerdict #Dusktone #EgoDissolution #EmmaGoldman #Exodus #Extinct #FaceTheEnd #GameOver #GodzOfWarProductions #Grunge #Hardcore #Hatesong #IpecacRecordings #ItalianMetal #KillingJoke #Kirtisis #Malphas #MassaNera #Mathcore #MelodicBlackMetal #Melvins #Melvins1983 #Metal #MoonlightSorcery #NiMaîtres #PinkNoiseYouth #PolishMetal #PostBlackMetal #postPunk #PoutRecords #ProfoundLoreRecords #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #Screamo #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SludgeRock #Sonum #SoulsellerRecords #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #Sundown #Svnth #Swiss #Testament #TheChasm #TheObscureLightAwaits #TheseHandsMelt #ThrashMetal #Thunderball #Trenches #Ulcerate #Voices #VoidManes #WielkieZanikanie #WillHaven #WiseBloodRecords #ZegemaBeachRecords #Zmarłym

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07624-5

#Psilocybin #Neuroplasticity #BrainConnectivity #Psychedelics #Serotonin #MentalHealth #Therapeutics #fMRI #Neuroscience #FunctionalMapping #Hippocampus #ClinicalTrials #Depression #Addiction #Anxiety #Synaptogenesis #Glutamate #BrainResearch #Cortex #Subcortex #EgoDissolution #SpaceTimePerception #Neurobiology #TherapeuticMechanisms #BrainNetworks #PrecisionMapping #BrainChanges #PsychedelicResearch #BrainFunction

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07624-5

#Psilocybin #Neuroplasticity #BrainConnectivity #Psychedelics #Serotonin #MentalHealth #Therapeutics #fMRI #Neuroscience #FunctionalMapping #Hippocampus #ClinicalTrials #Depression #Addiction #Anxiety #Synaptogenesis #Glutamate #BrainResearch #Cortex #Subcortex #EgoDissolution #SpaceTimePerception #Neurobiology #TherapeuticMechanisms #BrainNetworks #PrecisionMapping #BrainChanges #PsychedelicResearch #BrainFunction

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763424002331 Exploring the transformative potential of out-of-body experiences: A pathway to enhanced empathy (Weiler, et al, 2024) #ketamine #psychedelic #obe #outofbodyexperience #emergencephenomena #empathy #egodeath #egodissolution #psychedelics #NeuroScience

#ketamine #nde #psychedelic #psychedelics #psychedelicresearch #neardeathexperience #thepsychedelicexperience #egodeath #egodissolution #deathanxiety #ketaminetherapy #ketamineassistedpsychotherapy

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2018.00172/full Unifying Theories of Psychedelic Drug Effects (Swanson, 2018) (#mescaline-assisted therapy from 1927!!!) #egodeath #egodissolution #psychedelics #thepsychedelicexperience #psychedelicresearch

https://lemmy.world/post/12618715 #psychedelicexperience #psychedelics #egodissolution #egodeath #psychedelicassistedtherapies #ketamine

Linkages between #psychedelics and #meditation in a Population-Based Sample in the United States (Simonsson, et al 2021) #psychedelic #research #egodissolution #psychedelicexperience
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02791072.2021.2022816

Ego dissolution through psychedelics can be a powerful experience, opening our minds to new perspectives and possibilities. #Psychedelics #EgoDissolution #ego

Ego dissolution through psychedelics can be a powerful experience, opening our minds to new perspectives and possibilities. #Psychedelics #EgoDissolution #ego