Female Sadhus? And Mushrooms?

Hang on - what is 'drugs'?

I ask because as far as I can see, this is a category created by the media etc to keep us in the dark.

On one hand we have substances like opiates,cocaine, amphetamine etc which are wholly negative - an attempt simply at an escape from reality.
On the opposite side are agents such as lsd and psilocybin, which far from being a busy signal to the soul, have been the initial portal through which many people, myself among them, have come to know that the soul even exists other then as a fuzzy concept spoken of by priests and pastrors in the sunday morning homilies.

By creating this false categorization, the media etc have led to an huge increase in the problem. They have crerated massive confusion, esp. in the minds of the young who probably often go along with the external programming and themselves are unable to discriminate between what is good and what is not good.
Worse, it is slamming the door in the face of a higher light, purely through stupidity, entrenched ignorance and fear.
If a realistic view were to be promulgated, it would have to be made clear that substances which change consciousness in a positive way, and which can in some cases lead to spiritual experiences, are in no way to be confused with things which harm the body and mind, and lead only to degradation.
It is a highly irresponsible position which is being foisted on people these days with regard to all of this. These things, ie psychedelics, could be of incalculable value to humanity, Intead we just have the nonsense that all 'drugs' are the same constantly pushed at us by an alcoholic media and establishment, who are quite happy to continue to pedal the old booze and baccy, and profit from taxation of these vile commoditites.
It may be 'good for business', but it certainly isn't good for the future of suffering ignorant humanity.

 

Well Cass you know me, magic mushrooms and LSD were also the cause of my spiritual awakening. But the problem, I think, is that if we continue to use them, we can only go so far, which to get there is pretty damn far in itself, but psychedelics will only teach you so much and eventually you have to move on beyond that level of consciousness. At least for me, and I am still someone who would love a good dose this summer haha. But really the more I use them, the more confusion they bring and they cause me such heavy reflection on the ego and the body that they tend to hold me back in that regard. Reflection on the soul is the most wonderful thing, but every time I take mushrooms Im looking at my hand going "Is that REALLY my hand?!" haha, and that kind of thing is like a road block for me.
However the light of creation is overwhelmingly beautiful and is brought into blossming on any trip, positive or negative. But I feel that it is the sober meditation after a trip that brings true awareness of God, while on the psychedelics it's more of an introduction, every time, on repeat. The dreamscape scenery is always different but the sensation is the same. For me at least.
God Bless ~

 

I agree - psychedelics are only a stepping stone. However, a very unique one.
What I'm saying here though is that a big part of the problem with their use comes from the totally wrong attitudes engendered in people by their identification with the whole 'drugs for kicks' type mentality.

Have you ever read Aldous Huxley's 'Island'?
In this novel, Huxley describes a society where the initiatory use of psychedelics is esablished, and has become part of the 'religion'. It is an example of how we could look at these things in whole other context than is presently the case, and how they could be used constructively to help society and individuals.
Instead of the ignorant, knee-jerk reaction we see at present in our 'leaders', we could actually use the small amount of intelligence the Lord gave us and look at things from the level of reality, in a balanced way, free from the fear and hysteria which currently surround this whole issue.

A big part of the reason that people seek solace in bad drugs is because they are not satisfied with their lives. They want 'something more' - and although they don't have any inkling of the fact, that something, I would argue, is actual experience and knowledge of a spiritual dimension to life. Flashy cars, big bank accounts, any amount of sex etc etc don't satisfy their real inner need. Nor does any amount of even the finest quality cocaine.

So if the psychedelic experience was available to people in a new and different context, you might actually hope to see a lessening of widespread problems with abuse of negative substances, whether illegal like heroin, or legal like alcohol.
Also, as in Huxley's island paradise, people could be properly prepared for the experience, and thus the potential could be maximized. The spiritual rather then old-time hedonistic agenda would be clear.

 

No I havent read this book you mention, but it sounds like something I would definitley devour with pleasure
I wonder though, has anyone ever stopped to think that perhaps what, at least magic mushrooms, are doing to us, is giving us nothing more than a good mental beating? I mean, what if everything we experience on them has nothing to do with GOD God, but rather entirely to do with Mother Nature? What if, instead of magic mushrooms coming into existance in order to lead us to Spirituality in the highest sense, they evolved through the Natural kingdom right along with us, in order to help us get in tune with our phsycial bodies and lower mind so that we might think twice about our evolutionary advances in technology and consider how we are harming Nature when we come up with certain lifestyles and the aids we use to live them?
Maybe they are made in the way that fruit is made for us to eat and enjoy the sweet taste of, and they actually can be a form of poison if we do not respect our planet? Just some thoughts here I could be way off, but if seems as if since vegetation and plany life are in some sense aware, even if only in a collective state, that they are pushing us in a certain direction, and magic mushrooms and the like are here to serve the purpose of getting us to be reminded of our roots and our sustainer and our destructor, only in the Earth sense and not the grand scheme?
God Bless ~

 

Well I'd agree with some of that and disagree with some.

I fully agree that under the influence of mushrooms the harm we are doing to the natural world seems absolutely terrible. Perhaps their discovery (or re-discovery) in places like America and Europe in recent times is linked to the need for us to become re-attuned to nature, to the fact that we are part of it and that it is something beautiful and wonderful beyond expression.
But the experience has different levels, and can be different at different times. Mushrooms are something I haven't used for some years now, but back in the old days, I had experiences on them some of which were very much 'nature trips' and others which were more purely and definitely spiritual. Ultimately of course, it is all linked. For example, I once had the experience of a kind of inner seeing of the life-spirit in a plant. I should say that this wasn't what I'd call a mental experience. It was known on a high spiritual level, and also at the same time in an incommunicable way by the body itself, which felt one with that particual plant, and all life. It was amazing, intensely beautiful and blissful. At one point I realized that the life in the plant is exactly the same life as is in me, and every living thing, and it all comes from the spirit, from God. Mother nature is only one aspect of His Shakti - the Divine Mother of all manifest existences on all planes.

To an extent, I think anyone who takes any kind of psychedelic on a spiritual quest these days is bound to have some experience of this thing of our harming nature. Before you can find the inner peace and the divine Light, you have to deal with karmic issues. And some of this karma is collective karma. We all use things which we know are actually harming the environment, few of us are fully in harmony with nature. It's part of what one has to face simply by dint of being born a human being in this current epoch.
We have to find a balance I think between the spiritual and the natural, and realize that they are intimately linked. God is All. All that exists - so if we harm nature we are harming God's manifestation.

 

Beautifuly put Cass! Thank you
God Bless ~

 

Thanks

It suddenly occured to me today that exactly 30 years ago, I was at Stonehenge Free Festival, along with my then girlfriend later wife (now ex) savouring the last of the english festie scene before punk came along and changed everything.

Back then it was still just a hippie scene, with a definite spiritual element in there, as well as a kind of emerging new feeling for nature and all of that.....Hare Krishnas chanted and gave out loads of free food, people wandering around naked, the scent of hashish and woodsmoke in the air. It was before they fenced off the stones, and you could walk right up to them, touch them. It was magic - but I fear, a scene that is gone forever, wiped out by the march of time and changing social forces. I was lucky to be a part of it in my small way.
To-days festivals in the UK are a kind of 'post-hippie' imitation. Part of the leisure industry. The Krishnas aren't allowed to give out prasada because the comercial food suppliers object it will damage their trade. A lot of the kids seem to go for things like booze and nitrous oxide to just get out of their heads.

I can't blame young people today for feeling that the world has not changed for the better since the 70's, or for taking whatever drugs they think will show them something better than what the great society projects for them. It's inevitable that this will happen, and it has escalated enourmously since 1978. Only difference is that then it was just cannabis and occaisional lsd/mushrooms - now there's just so many drugs out there, and a different agenda than was prevalent during the hippie era. Also society is more uptight and there seems to be less space for personal freedom to explore alternative ways of living.

The whole thing with the hippies, psychedelics etc was/is a kind of portal or doorway into new ways of looking at life, and for some, that will be a kind of spiritual awakening.
The new energies which emerged in the old counter culture days can be stamped on, as they have been, but they are certain to rise again in new forms.
The environmental issue is an absolutely classic example. In the 70's it was literally only a few hippies and cranks that were rasing the alarm over what we are doing - now it's getting to be absoultely mainstream.
The same may happen over other issues - even the case of psychedelics as potentiators for spiritual experience.

 

Why do people smoke and do drugs? To get away from personal problems, stress or for the hell of it? My so called ex bf used to smoke pot and other drugs almost every single day and guess what he got in trouble and was on probation and cant get a decent job....He wanted to go to a medical school but he cant even get a job so he stays home and has his own construction business.. what a looser...

 

You know, it sounds to me like the guy who started this thread is only grasping for an excuse to get high and have sex all day. In his entire post there is hardly anything about the spiritual quest, it is only questions about can Sadhus have sex or get high. None of that would matter if he truly wanted to reach out to the divine.
If that's what you want, then do it. Why hunt for excuses? Ordinary folk can also do drugs and have sex. The thing is he feels somewhat guilty about it or feels the need for social acceptance of his lifestyle.

 

Yep. Some people have this kind of fantastical conception of what sadhus get up to. Fantasy is I guess understandable though given the way things are in society, and I don't think we can judge people for indulging in it from time to time. Also the way in which people have been mis-educated by the system plays into this. There's probably an element of some kind of romanticized concept of the 'mysterious east' in this.
Life today in the west can seem extremely shallow and very bland. Also very controlled, so I think it's natural that people want something they see a bit more 'spicy'.

But it's also true that many people have desires mixed in with any aspiration for the divine they do have. Personally, on the sex issue, I think one can have sex and have a spiritual life. Some though seem to feel a need to label themselves 'tanrics' or something similar to justify it.

 

'Drugs' again.

 

Lol.
your funny jedi> Ive worked outside a ER for about the last 10 years and I have yet seen someone come in from smoking marijuana. Ive seen people who have mental illness that smoke marijuana come in the hospital. But theres a big difference.. Your no Jedi my freind. Your understanding of chemistry and drugs needs a reboot.
Or take your ass back to Dagobah for retraining...

 

An old pal of mine is a charge nurse, who virtually runs the A&E (accident and emergency) dept at the local hospital. He is always saying that one of the big problems they face nowadays is people who are drunk, and often aggressive towards the staff. Funnily enough he's never mentioned anyone coming in after a joint and acting in that way. Or psychedelics for that matter.

Hrere in the Uk the govt definitely seem to want everyone to drink as much as possible (the labour party get millions evidently from their chums the breweries). To further this end, they've now changed the law to allow bars to be open 24/7 if they want to.
What kind of message does that send out to the young?
That life is basically shit, and it comprises working hard on the converyor belt to pay the rent and the only relief you're allowed is to get pissed on a friday night.
And we all know the physical damage caused by booze, as well as the violence and wrecked lives etc.
And don't forget this filth is actually part of the 'sacrament' of their so-called religion.

Hardly surprising then if people ignore what they say about cannabis, esp since a lot of it is about as accurate as Jedi's idea that smoking a joint will land you in hospital, or even Mr.Blair's fantastical claims of WMD in Iraq.

It may, in the case of weak minded individuals cause mental problems, but I'd argue strongly that this is something wrong with the people and not cannabis. Most likely, if it wasn't pot, something else would trigger their latent problems.

Society has produced many extremely fucked up individuals - it's no use turning round and blaming a quite inncouous herb for this phenomenon.

 

I am sorry but merely working outside the ER does not enable you to diagnose the problem that causes a patient to rush to the ER. I doubt that you have a medical license and still claim such things as what you are claiming right now. If you are a doctor who has a license for diagnosing illness , I want you to present me with authentic research conducted by sources such as harvard or albert einstein yeshiva college regarding the non-seriousness of using various prescription drugs without a prescription or experimenting with questionable organics. If you cannot do this, there is really nothing to discuss here. I wish you a good day.

 

yes I agree BBB, one needs to blame the person who promotes the use of intoxicants and other things in that category.

 

lol, That goes to show that you dont know me...
Or my credentials, I assist patients and fill out intake assesment forms that otherwise professional or chemical dependency counselors would do. Which isnt very often I do that but still your post making pot into some Devil weed is unfounded..
During the last week a patient came in that swollowed a glass crack pipe. Week after week we have a violent alcoholic. Teens that come in for mental health evaluations may use marijuana, but that is not the underlining reason why they need treatment. Usually its for depression or social disorders, and not due to marijuana alone. 9 times out of 10 the teens are already under psychiatric care and are experimenting with other substances and not marijuana alone but its demographical.

The National Comorbidity Survey found that persons who had alcohol or drug dependence without a co-occurring mental illness were as likely or more likely to be seen in mental health service settings than in specialty substance treatment . A study of national expenditures made in 1996 for mental health and substance abuse treatment to treat people with a primary substance abuse diagnosis went to psychiatric hospitals, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals Persons with dual diagnoses have been similarly found to obtain mental health services two or three times as often as specialty substance care
This study used a nationally representative sample to examine the role of a variety of demographic and clinical variables in predicting treatment use among individuals whose self-reports indicate that they currently meet the criteria for substance dependence. Both factors that are predictive of treatment use in general and those that identify which subpopulations are most likely to obtain mental health services, in contrast with specialty substance care.

 

I understand, you have some exposure to a clinical setting and those who may come in with some sort of mental illness. I respect that, but you still do not have a medical license to diagnose an illness or to state that a [insert illness] is not the caused by a [certain drug] use unless you are resident or an attending.

You don't know that unless you are a doctor who can diagnose what the underlining reason really is.

This shows that those who "self claim" that they are substance dependent are treated by mental health professionals (maybe they trust mental health professionals more) than a speciality substance abuse treatment center. So what? how does this prove that it is somehow alright to use prescription drugs without a doctor's prescription?

 

The best bit, in my opinion, of this is, her name. Mirabai. You could take the bai to mean brother, well i could...

 

Bhai means brother. Bai means woman.

 

Well that clears that one up....