I'm confused ((psychedelics))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oigtSg6ZFiw&mode=related&search=

 

I see you're speaking from a Hindu yoga background, which is different from the background I'm speaking from. Although I find the idea of the objective/subjective obliteration in Brahman interesting. I wouldn't say that the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity is obliterated in my view, but it is certainly taken down a notch - from mutually exclusive opposites to one (objectivity) being a subset of the other (subjectivity). I see objectivity (objective thought like mathematics and objective observations of the world) as a particular kind of mental experience. Like I said in my previous post, all experiences have a unique qualitative feel to them, and I think "objectivity" is the unique quality of these kinds of experiences. I don't think this obliterates objectivity outright - it just classifies it as a certain brand of subjectivity. Do you think this is what the Hindu doctrine is getting at when it says that the objectivity/subjectivity distinction is obliterated in Brahman, or at least, is it close?

 

Actually I'm not speaking from a hindu background so much as trying to state in a simplified form the doctrine of hindu vedanta philosophy according to my understanding.
It's not necessarily my own view - and in fact, other schools of Indian philosophy have different ideas.

My own view is that an experience is possible of what hindus calls the transcendent One. In that experience, which as far as I can tell, is the same thing the Buddhists mean by nirvana, the consciousness transcends the mind itself, and all distinction whatsoever. In that experience there is no thought as we understand the term. It is beyond symbolic understanding and symbol systems such as language or mathematics.
Consciousness becomes, according to some Buddhist accounts, self-reflective - it is not aware of anything but itself, yet within it, the seeds of all existences are contained. They sometimes call it sunyata - the great void.
Hindu vedanta says it can't be defined - we can only say what it is not. It has to be experienced directly.

This experience has given rise to the idea that the world of relative existence, the manifest universe, is actually an illusion, the play of Maya - a thing with no reality.

I think this is a mistaken view. In effect, it is just the other side of the coin - both the transcendent absolute and the manifest world are real. Definite cosmic structures exist - although as I mentioned before, our consciousness of them, and our ideas about them may both be faulty.
A tree is a definite something seperate from me, and yet at the same time, the tree and I are one in the oneness of everything... Even our language is often very inadequate. Mathematics is more precise, but can only cover certain areas of description - it's no good for example for describing how I feel about the tree, although we can use it to map the physical strucure with great accuracy.

So part of the path as I see it is to learn to see from new and wider and more integrated perspectives. In the experience of oneness, everything seems to be integrated, but still incredibly diverse and complex.

 

powerful stuff dmt.

the mechanical elves singing objects into existence reminded me of 'The Silmarillion' by J.R.R.Tokien

 

Yes, this is my view exactly. I see the universe (in it's true form) as equivalent to God (or Nirvana or the transcendent One). It is a mind unlike that of humans (and so consisting of higher experiences than thought or symbolic representation (but not excluding thought)), and contains all forms of existence/experience within itself, and maintains their existence (and thus its own existence) by constantly being self-aware.

I agree with this part. My view is not an anti-realist view. It says that the reality of things is found in the experience/perception of them. In a way, it reverse the rolls of reality and perception.

 

thank you!!! i have to put the files on my mp3 player before i can listen to them, but i think you just done made my night.

 

that was just about THE coolest way i have ever spent a few hours sitting motionless in the dark.

those mp3s and everyone's replies here have helped me so much.

basically i've decided that it is not a cop out to say that anything can be spiritualized. it's a cop out, for me, to pretend there are things that can't, or that the only way is through authorized rituals laid out in scripture. i'm only pretending to earn brownie points by "renouncing" certain things, which is counterproductive. and there is so much outside that contradicts so much else, all i can trust is my own experience. my experience says that psychedelics can help A LOT in spiritual advancement.

 

Good for you for coming to your conclusion. I'm just curious: what is it about psychedelics that makes you think it's truly a spiritual experience? Also, what kind of spiritual gains do you find yourself getting out of it?

I don't know how much you'd value it, but I'd like to offer some of my own advice. You should be aware of the difference between gaining genuine spiritual experiences through psychedelics and enjoying the psychedelic experience for its hedonic properties. An alcoholic could justify his habits by thinking of his drunken states as "spiritual enlightenment" because of the good mood it puts him in. This is not to say that any kind of guilt or moral imperative should be brought to bare on your decision. Whether it's right or wrong to be doing drugs for more mundane reasons is a decision that's completely up to you to make. But being honest with yourself about your motives for taking psychedelics is the surest way of making on informed decision about it.

 

with all due respect, I geuss what depends is who you accept as an authority. The basic teaching of Krishna Consciousness is that we are imperfect. being imperfect its hard to really come to a conclusion without the help of someone who knows better.
Granted, most people at the temple dont know better. Thats why theres so much unneccessary disturbance over seperating men and women.
But Srila Prabhupada does know better. He is what keeps me going. He didn't let serious devotees take LSD.
What is interesting is that if you talk to individual devotees, young and old, it is very rare to find one who hasn't taken hollucinegenic drugs.
But what qualifies them as devotees is that they made a decision at one point or another that: Srila Prabhupada knows better than me.
In other words, saying that all you can trust is your own experience is just an excuse.
We should trust our experience but only to a certain degree. After all, is god just a hollucination? some image in the mind?
The vedas say that on our own experience we can make it all the way to realizing brahman. brahman is krishnas impersonal aspect. most people havent a clue of brahman, but it is possible to get there on our own. If you want to go further however you have to have a guru.

 

Psychedelics alter your mind in the same way that meditation does, just through chemical means. How can this be considered wrong? Secondly, psychedelics destroy filters reaching your innner mind according to some theories, so if anything you may get an extra dose of reality. Hallucinations are just your imagination on steroids and you should learn to control it.

Marijuana and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years by Hindus. Things may have changed a bit in modern times........this is only because of the government taboo.

 

i'm going to use an example prabhupada used a few times. there's a frog living in a well. he's lived there his whole life. someone comes along and tells him, "i just saw the ocean."
the frog says, "oh, really? what's it like?"
and the person says, "it's big. really big."
"how big? is it as big as my well?"
"bigger."
"then, is it twice as big?"
"no, bigger."
"ten times?" and so on.

i feel like psychedelics take you out of the well and throw you into a swimming pool or a lake, then back into the well. get it?

everything is a true spiritual experience. to say that some things aren't, to me, just seems like denying the omnipresence of god. everything is krishna's energy. what's the evidence to say that a psychedelic experience ISN'T "real"?

what spiritual gains do i get out of it... that depends on which substance you're talking about. the biggest spiritual benefits i got were from ecstasy and salvia. ecstasy showed me that what is magic and beautiful is more real than what is mundane, that love will always work in any situation. that everything happens perfectly, there are no accidents, magic (or krishna) reveals itself to you by the degree that you surrender to it. it helped me actually see krishna in everyone, and know that everyone is doing the very best they can. there's only love and fear, and fear is love covered up. and i really don't think it would have been possible for me to have the realizations i had in any state of sobriety. it changed me so much and i am so happy that it did.

sorry but i have to go so i'll finish later . thank you.

 

I think we're on the same page with this one. Just being alive is a spiritual experience - we just get so used to it that it ends up seeming mundane. I like the frog analogy too.

So we agree on what a spiritual experience is, and there's no doubt that you're having them on drugs. But I still think it would be good for you to ask yourself - and be honest - why you're seeking these spiritual experiences, at least through the use of drugs. There's nothing wrong with having a little fun, getting intoxicated for recreational purposes (that's half the reason I do it), but if one realizes that he/she is doing just 'cause it feels good (and that feeling can be based on a "spiritual uplifting"), it goes a long way in realizing what a healthy level of moderation should be.

Especially if you're practice involved drugs like extacy. Extacy is highly addictive and has the potential for overdoses (but I'm sure you're aware of that). Funny that you also mentioned salvia 'cause salvia is sorta' on the opposite end of the spectrum insofar as its addictive properties go. It's a great drug for psychedelic experiences and is not really addictive at all. If you classify this among the "spiritual" drugs, then I think you have a good measure for what counts as a purely spiritual experience without the hedonic side effects.

Experiment with caution. Respect the drugs and respect yourself. Self-honesty is key.

 

thank you so much, you're really stimulating my brain and making me rethink things, which is amazing. i'm not even gonna say whatever i was gonna say before because i know you get it.

ecstacy is dangerous, but i have the least addictive personality of anyone i've ever known. i can't really understand addiction because i've never felt addiction to anything. i can even go without sleeping or eating if i decide to just see if i can do it. and i actually have a half pill rule... i'm small, that's all i need, and if i ever need more than that then i don't need any.

i think we agree on a lot of levels. it is important to be honest with yourself about your intentions, and it's okay just to have fun. my general attitude is (i try to keep it this way, at least), anything i'm doing to myself now is in order to improve myself forever. which is why i place salvia equally alongside ecstasy. they're so different while the experience is actually happening, but a month afterwards the outcome is the same. hopefully, afterwards, i see reality differently and have a little better idea of what's up. my paradigm has permanently shifted or expanded. maybe i have a deeper understanding of something i already felt to be conceptually true. to me, if something's true, it's true. i can't say, "oh, i was just high". it's a truth just like anything is a truth and it sticks, so if i can knock my consciousness up from a 3 to a 3 2/3, i did what i hoped i would do.

"any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. and he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den."
- flowers for algernon


and in the words of another *very* wise man;

"Well, I'd like to visit the moon
On a rocket ship high in the air
Yes, I'd like to visit the moon
But I don't think I'd like to live there
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I might like it for one afternoon
I don't want to live on the moon

I'd like to travel under the sea
I could meet all the fish everywhere
Yes, I'd travel under the sea
But I don't think I'd like to live there
I might stay for a day there if I had my wish
But there's not much to do when your friends are all fish
And an oyster and clam aren't real family
So I don't want to live in the sea

I'd like to visit the jungle, hear the lions roar
Go back in time and meet a dinosaur
There's so many strange places I'd like to be
But none of them permanently

So if I should visit the moon
Well, I'll dance on a moonbeam and then
I will make a wish on a star
And I'll wish I was home once again
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I may go I'll be coming home soon
'Cause I don't want to live on the moon
No, I don't want to live on the moon"
- Ernie (Jim Henson)

 

But Bhagavad Gita has taught for thousands of years that you dont have to add anything to the body. The soul is already full of bliss and knowledge. So how does adding things to the body and the mind benefit the soul?

TRANSLATION
One whose happiness is within, who is active and rejoices within, and whose aim is inward is actually the perfect mystic. He is liberated in the Supreme, and ultimately he attains the Supreme.
PURPORT
Unless one is able to relish happiness from within, how can one retire from the external engagements meant for deriving superficial happiness? A liberated person enjoys happiness by factual experience. He can, therefore, sit silently at any place and enjoy the activities of life from within. Such a liberated person no longer desires external material happiness.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Bg 5.24

An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery, which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kunti, such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them.
PURPORT
Material sense pleasures are due to the contact of the material senses, which are all temporary because the body itself is temporary. A liberated soul is not interested in anything which is temporary. Knowing well the joys of transcendental pleasures, how can a liberated soul agree to enjoy false pleasure?
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Bg 5.22

 

Ernie is very wise indeed

 

Prabhupada: No, we... "It is voluntary. In our society we find so many brahmacaris, [celibate students] so many grhasthas [regulated householders] And if you cannot stop this itching sensation, all right, marry one girl and live peacefully like a gentle... What is this nonsense, every three weeks divorce? We are not so rascal. If we accept one girl as my wife, I take full responsibility. Because I require a girl or woman, so this woman, that one... We are not so rascal that at home I have got woman, I am searching after another woman, another naked woman. We are not so madman. The sex pleasure is there at home, and I am seeking after sex pleasure in here, here, in the club, in the... What is that? Is that vagina is different? You are so fool. You require vagina; take one vagina. Be satisfied. And lick it. Why you are going here and there, here and there, here and there? Even old man is going to the nightclub to lick another vagina. Is that civilization? You are proud of your civilization."...................."All right, take one wife. Be satisfied. Lick up one. This is our... Is that wrong?
Satsvarupa: It's good.
Hari-sauri: It's great.
[S.P. Room Conversation, February 19, 1977, Mayapura]

 

what does that have to do with ANYTHING? x___X

 

How does adding the words printed in your copy of Bhagavad Gita to your mind help the soul?

 

As an interpreter of CCP's posts, I assume he's contrasting this conversation which seems to say that oral sex with women is ok as long as you stick to just one, with the remarks in Totally Disappointed's post that
' A liberated soul is not interested in anything which is temporary. Knowing well the joys of transcendental pleasures, how can a liberated soul agree to enjoy false pleasure? '

Of course, I could be wrong......

Looks like Prabhupada knew some sleazy clubs....

 

Please forgive me, im sorry, i didnt want to offend anyone, i just wanted to help katie. :leaving:


"Actually the spiritual spark living entities have no material names or forms. But in order to fulfill their desire to lord it over the material energy of material forms and names, they are given a chance for such false enjoyment, and at the same time they are given a chance to understand the real position through the revealed scriptures. .... The scriptures supply the clue for understanding the real position, but men are reluctant to take lessons from the scriptures created by the Lord for different places and times. For example, the Bhagavad-gita is the guiding principle for every human being, but by the spell of material energy they do not take care to carry out the programs of life in terms of the Bhagavad-gita. Srimad-Bhagavatam is the post-graduate study of knowledge for one who has thoroughly understood the principles of the Bhagavad-gita. Unfortunately people have no taste for them, and therefore they are under the clutches of maya for repetition of birth and death."
>>> Ref. VedaBase => SB 1.10.22

From seventh canto:
"Demons always think that the God of the devotees is fictitious. They think that there is no God and that the so-called religious feeling of devotion to God is but an opiate, a kind of illusion, like the illusions derived from LSD and opium."
>>> Ref. VedaBase => SB 7.8.13