...

[theurgy]

Wisdom comes from experience. The amount of naive and ignorant oldies I've come across!

Ah yes, but the Wisdom that comes from freeing the mind of duality is not to be secured through engaging in the us/them mentality that one learns from the supposedly liberated "counter culture," which seems to know a great deal more about getting high and enjoying a "far out bassline" and significantly less about how to effectively deal with a crisis or for that matter, how to escape Samsara.

 

As a side-note, in my experience, Psychedelics do more to inflate the ego than to liberate it. So many users develop a very impulsive-reactive psychology that becomes very reflexively hostile towards any ideology which doesn't promote the drugs that they are so very fond of. Psychedelic culture has it's own dogmatic belief system entrenched within it while proposing that it is beyond such things. Poppycock! Look at how similar these "non-conformists" are to one another and how much they are in agreement with one another just like any other cult or set.. Most of it's adherents are anything but enlightened and self-serving to the extreme. For evidence of this, simply observe the behaviour of every hippie/burner/raver you've ever encountered. Not much enlightenment going on. Glorified drug addiction is more like it.

 

Of course there are exceptions to what I just wrote. But it needs to be said that the promotion of Psychedelic drugs as some sort of "quick-fix" towards enlightenment has done more harm than good in our culture. Few people are responsible enough to administer them properly. In short: the Psychedelic paradigm has failed to produce the number of enlightened beings that it so enthusiastically predicted it would. Instead psychedelics have produced far more delusional flakes, serious burnouts, ego-maniacs, etc. Those relatively unharmed usually move on to more productive things or take refuge in a Tradition that has a better track record.

[silent thunder]

I was going to leave this alone, but I feel like it's a disservice to my fellows if I do. Anything that takes you away from the true essence of being (your natural state) is farther away from OK, then we are from the Sun. Do what you will, but don't try to convince others that it's right, good or even acceptable. There may be young kids reading this. If you are truely honest with yourself, then you know the truth, so why even bother trying to convince yourselves otherwise. If you are not here for some sort of spiritual growth or understanding, then why are you here? If you weren't born with a pill or a shroom in your hand, then you don't need it to experience Tao/life and it can do nothing, but divert you from the path. Being in denial is already evidence of this.

While I certainly get where you're coming from, I very respectfully disagree.

In one, very focused three hour conversation while on psilocybens, I dropped years of conditioning bullshit that was no longer useful to my path.

 

All things have a place in Tao, even that which makes you uncomfortable, or you do not understand.

 

peace

[Jetsun]

There were all the psychonauts in the 1960's and 70's like Timothy Leary who thought they could achieve profound spiritual development with psychedelics, where are they now, are they advanced spiritual teachers? As far as I know they achieved very little except deluding themselves. It would be good if we can learn from their mistakes.

 

I remember the years I used to smoke weed I thought that I got some profound perspectives on reality, but looking back all I was doing was deluding myself and wasting my time, using the drug as just another way to try avoid or improve reality.

 

 

 

 

[konchog uma]

 

As a side-note, in my experience, Psychedelics do more to inflate the ego than to liberate it. So many users develop a very impulsive-reactive psychology that becomes very reflexively hostile towards any ideology which doesn't promote the drugs that they are so very fond of. Psychedelic culture has it's own dogmatic belief system entrenched within it while proposing that it is beyond such things. Poppycock! Look at how similar these "non-conformists" are to one another and how much they are in agreement with one another just like any other cult or set.. Most of it's adherents are anything but enlightened and self-serving to the extreme. For evidence of this, simply observe the behaviour of every hippie/burner/raver you've ever encountered. Not much enlightenment going on. Glorified drug addiction is more like it.

 

Of course there are exceptions to what I just wrote. But it needs to be said that the promotion of Psychedelic drugs as some sort of "quick-fix" towards enlightenment has done more harm than good in our culture. Few people are responsible enough to administer them properly. In short: the Psychedelic paradigm has failed to produce the number of enlightened beings that it so enthusiastically predicted it would. Instead psychedelics have produced far more delusional flakes, serious burnouts, ego-maniacs, etc. Those relatively unharmed usually move on to more productive things or take refuge in a Tradition that has a better track record.

 

Well put

[theurgy]

just wanted to quote my original post in this thread. seems as if people new to the topic don't realize that the entire reason this thread was created was because anti drug people flooded the last one with "its not real enlightenment" stuff. We get the point. No amount of people coming in to this thread just to add their personal wording of "drugs are bad m'kay" is going to stop people from doing drugs, or make them see them like you do. You are not changing anything. Please go hijack someone elses thread.

 

I suppose this was directed at myself or the others who have offered well-reasoned feedback on this topic which disagrees with your basic premiss. If intelligent discussion is not what you want and those who disagree with using drugs to achieve "spiritual" ends are merely hi-jacking "your" thread, then why not go over to erowid and bask in the glorious pro-drug discussions surely taking place there? But you didn't do that. You opened a thread on Taobums and so a discussion has ensued. If you can't deal with that, then why not ingest the drug of your choice and surely you will regain the necessary composure to deal with this harsh reality.

 

"Drugs are always good m'kay"

[hydrogen]

I suppose this was directed at myself or the others who have offered well-reasoned feedback on this topic which disagrees with your basic premiss. If intelligent discussion is not what you want and those who disagree with using drugs to achieve "spiritual" ends are merely hi-jacking "your" thread, then why not go over to erowid and bask in the glorious pro-drug discussions surely taking place there? But you didn't do that. You opened a thread on Taobums and so a discussion has ensued. If you can't deal with that, then why not ingest the drug of your choice and surely you will regain the necessary composure to deal with this harsh reality.

 

"Drugs are always good m'kay"

 

It seems that you have plenty of experience with drugs. Could you post your personal experiences please? Thanks

[Jetsun]

I think most of the people here who are advising against trying to use drugs for self development have a lot experience with them, we aren't just saying "drugs are bad m'kay", we are saying we have tried to use them and they didn't help. It's passing on personal experience rather than pushing the blind fear based message many anti drug campaigners try to ram down peoples throats.

[i am]

Anybody read Be Here Now? Ram Dass has a good take on it, albeit his own which may or may not (and doesn't need to) jive with your experience. He is absolutely a spiritual teacher who got his start with heavy psychedelic drug use.

 

Anyway, his was that yeah, these drugs are expanding your consciousness and are perhaps helpful to an extent, but at some point, they are a hindrance and you should be "getting high" without the use of drugs.

 

That's my interpretation of his take on things.

 

Like when his guru takes a couple pills of high grade LSD and nothing happens to him. Basically saying "I'm already there, this drug shows me nothing, you don't need it". Whether he just palmed the acid or whether he really ate it isn't something we'll ever know.

 

My take, if it matters to anyone but me, is that these drugs absolutely open things up and show you things. Doing qigong stoned has allowed me to realize deeper states, grasp things my mind was too uptight to realize otherwise. Hallucinogenics have opened up new and more free ways of thinking.

 

BUT...these realizations would have also come from disciplined meditation, I believe. So drugs are a shortcut. Shortcuts are dangerous things when it comes to playing around with your mind and energy. If you aren't grounded enough to handle, experienced and wise enough to interpret things that happen, you could quickly go down the wrong path.

 

But lumping people who use drugs with cultivation in mind into some category of acid heads following Phish and saying non conformist drug users are as conformist as everyone else is kinda silly. Lets not over generalize based on biases and judgemental tendencies.

 

It's a discussion and nobody "controls" the topic. But the idea with the thread wasn't to debate if its ok to use drugs, as I understand it. It was more of a "yeah, we know not everyone agrees, we've been over that. For those who do use drugs in their practice, let's talk".

Edited June 3, 2013 by i am

[gj551]

[gj551]

it will ruin your life

[i am]

That's a funny clip. Was it supposed to prove anything other than the fact that people involved in the war on drugs have been making things up and using ridiculous scare tactics for decades?

 

Until society gets a hold of themselves and stops treating drug users (other than alcohol and prescription drug users, which is apparently fine..) like they're murderers and rapists (actually worse in some situations), using drugs may actually ruin your life. Only because of narrow minds and misguided laws, though.

[theurgy]

If one were conducting an experiment, one would endeavor to keep the materials, vessels, environment, etc. as clean and free from contamination as possible. To introduce drugs into ones practice is to contaminate one's "laboratory" with a variable that affects the results. Since the imagination is so strongly affected by drugs, one can never be sure what the results will be. Even if one believes one has achieved a favorable result how can one know what the results would be without drugs unless one attempts the experiment without the drugs? So many make a fale equivalency between things they have read about and drug experiences they have had. "I smoked pot and felt chi for the first time." How can one be sure?

 

Further, the notion of drugs as a "short-cut" was mentioned--a short-cut to what exactly? They seem to be a shortcut to realizing how much baggage one carries around in one's subconscious--to that I agree--but so many believe that this is a destination on the path rather than a "rest-stop." Also, I have not met (or read) any champion of psychedelics who seemed to have any practical knowledge of anything spiritual but the lower astral realm and I believe that's as far as theses substances can take one. Sure, at the time the insights seem staggering but those will invariably plateau and ultimately cease.

 

Lastly, it's worth noting that these drugs open one up to being vampirized by the denizens of the lower astral planes (hungry ghosts of buddhism). Without the proper knowledge of how to identify what's happening or what to do about it, the user can be duped into thinking they are meeting "higher intelligences" or making incredible discoveries about the nature of reality as their mundane reality continues to stagnate further and further. These entities have a vested interest in ensuring the person continues with these substances. Someone earlier mentioned that they get free weed every time they think about quitting. Well of course! The hungry ghosts need to eat. Do drugs open up the lower spiritual worlds? Absolutely. I am merely pointing out that it's not all sunshine and lollipops--but quite the contrary. Be guided accordingly.

[Rara]

Ah yes, but the Wisdom that comes from freeing the mind of duality is not to be secured through engaging in the us/them mentality that one learns from the supposedly liberated "counter culture," which seems to know a great deal more about getting high and enjoying a "far out bassline" and significantly less about how to effectively deal with a crisis or for that matter, how to escape Samsara.

 

As a side-note, in my experience, Psychedelics do more to inflate the ego than to liberate it. So many users develop a very impulsive-reactive psychology that becomes very reflexively hostile towards any ideology which doesn't promote the drugs that they are so very fond of. Psychedelic culture has it's own dogmatic belief system entrenched within it while proposing that it is beyond such things. Poppycock! Look at how similar these "non-conformists" are to one another and how much they are in agreement with one another just like any other cult or set.. Most of it's adherents are anything but enlightened and self-serving to the extreme. For evidence of this, simply observe the behaviour of every hippie/burner/raver you've ever encountered. Not much enlightenment going on. Glorified drug addiction is more like it.

 

Of course there are exceptions to what I just wrote. But it needs to be said that the promotion of Psychedelic drugs as some sort of "quick-fix" towards enlightenment has done more harm than good in our culture. Few people are responsible enough to administer them properly. In short: the Psychedelic paradigm has failed to produce the number of enlightened beings that it so enthusiastically predicted it would. Instead psychedelics have produced far more delusional flakes, serious burnouts, ego-maniacs, etc. Those relatively unharmed usually move on to more productive things or take refuge in a Tradition that has a better track record.

 

 

The two paragraphs here appear as a sweeping generalisation. Yes, I do understand where your perspective is coming from, but that's not really to say that, despite the stereotypical dopers, that this is absolute proof that psychedelics can't be used in conjunction.

 

Furthermore, I was merely saying that I've met younger people with more wisdom than some older people. And vice versa of course! Younger sober people too, for that matter.

 

In regard to your last paragraph, you did say there are some exceptions...thankfully In fact, I invite you to suggest some examples of those few you speak of that have gone from a drug-taking base to these more "traditional" methods/evolution....

[Harmonious Emptiness]

One thing I do wonder about with drugs and alcohol on the path, is that if they make it more difficult, couldn't that be sort of an advantage to make us search harder and stronger, like putting weights around your body when practicing, or training in water?

 

Could the resistance make you realize where your weaknesses are, or force you to use or discover proper technique to overcome the added difficulty?

[Rara]

One thing I do wonder about with drugs and alcohol on the path, is that if they make it more difficult, couldn't that be sort of an advantage to make us search harder and stronger, like putting weights around your body when practicing, or training in water?

 

Could the resistance make you realize where your weaknesses are, or force you to use or discover proper technique to overcome the added difficulty?

 

And what about caffeine, cigarettes, ibuprofen etc.? I had 3 coffees today (I quit for a while) so this sent me wild. On consecutive nights of 5 hours of sleep, lots of coffee and sugar, I noticed radical differences in my experiences during my days. Dream like, if you will.

 

Surely this observation in itself is successful and meditative?

 

Let's not forget that it's extremely hard to find ANY pure air these days too...

[silent thunder]

by far my biggest addictions are air and thought...

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 6, 2015 by Flolfolil

[theurgy]

that is a very interesting connection you make there. normally i just wonder if i am using up energy by subconsciously still wanting to smoke. i never considered ghosts to be an issue, because i have never met with any reasonable theory or evidence that would make me believe they exist. really got me thinking here

 

now the question in my head has become is it ghosts that cause me pain or is it just my personal learned patterns of behavior getting the better of me

I don't want to muddy the waters with too much metaphysics. But according to the ancients, we are surrounded by a vast array of spiritual entities--both good, bad and indifferent. Some of these beings of lower vibrations are purely chaotic forces and others are parasitic in nature. They feed off of human energy. This is something one can experience directly as one's awareness becomes subtler. As an experiment, go into a trendy bar when it is totally empty and note the response in your energy. There's a good chance you may feel quite drained. Some would posit that this is due to the disproportionate number of hungry low-level spirits to patrons. When the club is hopping, this effect is seldom noticed.

 

To answer your question, the bulk of our suffering is caused by ignorance of our defective patterns that no longer serve us and some of our pain is indeed caused by malevolent entities who sabotage us on our path--these entities are spoken about in most traditions and even propitiated in certain schools so that they help rather than hinder the practitioner. There are countless stories of Christian or Buddhist Saints subduing the spirits around certain places; Padmasambhava being a good example.

[niveQ]

The time I took aMT at a concert and smoked some pot was one of the best experiences of my life. It was truly inspirational to see a person so in the moment and putting aside what others think and all expectations. It was a person, just like you or I, doing what they wanted. I hugged this person afterwards and told them how beautiful it was.

 

Also, I have smoked marijuana with my love before. When we cuddle, I can feel energy run through our bodies. I can feel it run through my body to the point of my focus and into her body. We both twitch almost simultaneously at this point. I twitch a split second before she does. During this phenomenon, I can send energy to her pelvic area (in a playful/sexual way) without even speaking and get her to twitch in that area and moan in short spurts. I told her about this, but I feel like she already knew I was doing it. It kind of feels telepathic.

[niveQ]

that is a very interesting connection you make there. normally i just wonder if i am using up energy by subconsciously still wanting to smoke. i never considered ghosts to be an issue, because i have never met with any reasonable theory or evidence that would make me believe they exist. really got me thinking here

 

now the question in my head has become is it ghosts that cause me pain or is it just my personal learned patterns of behavior getting the better of me

I have similar thoughts. I don't know if they are the exact same as yours. But, I have similar thoughts when it comes to negativity and self-doubt.

[niveQ]

I think it takes an effort to benefit from psychedelics.

 

the time that I referred to a couple of posts up took an efffort to realize certain things and really participate in the music. This was much more than just a social event. Music is very special. Those who can produce it with pure intentions are doing something very special. It is inspirational on so many levels.

[hydrogen]

This story happened before I started meditation.

 

When I started smoking weed, I was in denial. In order to make myself feel better, I didn't get a proper smoking equipment for years. I made my own bong with soft drink bottles, tubes and hardwares from home depot. It was kind of silly since I hid them anyway. Nobody else could see them.

 

Being an engineer, I constantly improved the design. The lastest version was a double chamber double filter design.

 

Finally I broke down and said "who am I kidding?". I ordered a big killer glass bong with six percolator and ice catcher online for well over $100. The hit was soomth and strong with any sucking effort.

 

However, I needed twice amount of weed to get the same high than my home made bong.

 

Why? It took me a while to figure out that the way I inhaled the smoke with my home made bong increase the "high". Effectively I was doing a type of Qi Gong breathing. I was also very tentative with inhaling flow since the burn wasn't even. I had to adjust my inhaling according to the buring rate. My crappy home made bong forced me into the "zone".

 

That's how I started my meditation training.

 

The drug and self deceiving started my journey to Tao. It's my story and I stick to it.

[ChiForce]

One thing I do wonder about with drugs and alcohol on the path, is that if they make it more difficult, couldn't that be sort of an advantage to make us search harder and stronger, like putting weights around your body when practicing, or training in water?

 

Could the resistance make you realize where your weaknesses are, or force you to use or discover proper technique to overcome the added difficulty?

I can see this discussion would be interesting. I don't believe in drug use, especially in sports. Drugs and spiritual cultivation? That's really the new age stuff. As a local amateur racer (cycling) for 4 years with sufficient knowledge in training in general to optimize my genetic potential, the only way to get faster on the bike or swimming is to do them faster, repeatedly, at shorter intervals. In cycling, you ride faster with a bigger gear. You don't strap yourself with 50lb weights. Hahahaha... And hoping once the weight is off, you become faster. No way..... See, to go faster in cycling or swimming or even running, you need to train your muscle to move faster at a higher power output.

 

And with spiritual cultivation, you aren't talking about efforts here but just letting your mind and body be, "naturally." If your bodily system is all pumped with drugs and other "chemicals," it is almost impossible to allow your body just be, in a state of emptiness.

[hydrogen]

And with spiritual cultivation, you aren't talking about efforts here but just letting your mind and body be, "naturally." If your bodily system is all pumped with drugs and other "chemicals," it is almost impossible to allow your body just be, in a state of emptiness.

 

Speaking of chemicals, do you know why Taoist yoga is also called internal Alchemy?

[ChiForce]

Speaking of chemicals, do you know why Taoist yoga is also called internal Alchemy?

That's the English translation. I haven't read anything relating to the practice dealing with drug use. In fact, Taoists would often go into retreats and spending months in the mountain consuming minimal of food and water, and fasting. So, you are relying on drug use in your cultivation, how can you even undergo these fasting? From my personal experiences, every morning I feel more chi flowing in my body than at night because my stomach is empty as well as my mind is well rested.