Dissolution of Self, of Ego: More Common Than You Think

I’ve been a “devout” Buddhist practitioner for over 16 years, and there’s no shortage of Dharma/Dhamma Teachers and Teachings on the Buddha-Dharma.
One day, ~ 2 years ago, I experienced the “Arising of Insight into the True Nature of Reality,” and with this, the Dissolution of Self, and Other.
Breaking the First 3-Fetters, Absolute Bodhicitta, or Stream-Winning/Stream-Entry (various Buddhist terms from various Schools of buddhism) describe that experience perfectly. But what happened after that experience is something that is Not discussed much at all in most Buddhist Teachings. It’s somewhat “Taboo” to even share about this experience for several reasons. One is that it doesn’t happen often. Another reason is that with the dissolution of ego, there’s no need or desire to have the experience “validated” by anyone or anything. Also, there are people who make false claims about their Awakening experience, and that is what makes it a “taboo” subject.
But what about those that practice, and experience it, or those that practice, and wonder if the Buddhahood & Bodhisattvahood are actually true and attainable to Everyone. In 12-Step recovery work, people share their Anniversaries, not to self-promote, but to show others that It Does Really Happen. It was, and is, in this spirit of Sharing the message of Hope and Real, Potential, Attainable to Everyone (in THIS lifetime) that led me to begin to share with other Practitioners that it really does happen, and it’s not what most people think it is. No earthquakes, or flowers springing up in my footsteps…. In fact, it’s closer to “ordinary” than people imagine, and when it does occur, it is both the most Perfect, Ineffable experience, ever, AND it’s Shocking at just how profoundly “simple” and close to you it has always been.
Adyashanti was the first person I heard/read that describes the experience so well, eloquently and precisely, I was relieved when I first read and listened to “The End of Your World” that I’ve since become a great admirer of his approach and openness.
Jack Kornfield and Eckhart Tolle are two other living teachers that i have found great usefulness in navigating the world of Spiritual Teaching, and the Path that continues once one Experiences Emptiness and Insight. Bodhisattvas are not mythical creatures, or just archetypal manifestations of the Buddha-Dharma, or simply Dharma, Tao, Reality, Non-Duality, etc.

Rick Strassman: LSD as a Gateway Drug to Buddhism: My Experience of finding the Dharma

This is very much my own Experience:
Psychedelics researcher Rick Strassman discusses LSD as a gateway drug to all sorts of dastardly behaviour, like…Buddhism and the search for enlightenment.

One of the things that got me interested in doing research with these psychedelics is because of how much overlap or similarity seem to exist between the stories that you hear from experienced meditators within the Eastern meditative traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, and those reports that you hear from people who take these psychedelic drugs. And it always seemed to me there must be some sort of way of combining the two fields, that perhaps you can maybe be inspired to become a Buddhist or a Hindu through the psychedelic experience. And there are a handful of papers that have described that, that quite a few people got their start as Buddhists or Hindus from a big LSD flash.

I went to a Zen temple in my early 20s, and, ever the scientist, every chance I got to speak to a monk one on one, I asked every one of them if they had tripped on psychedelics and how important their trips were in their decision to become a monk. And I’d say 99% of these junior monks in their 20s all got their start on LSD.