Drugs role in religion?

Anyone had religious experience off drugs? do you think drugs hold weight in the future of religion? Just wondering I myself have had a few religous experiences from drugs and think it is definetly a spiritual oulet.

 

Thanks it always seems better with the naturals and definetly when there is intent behind it.

 

I sincerely doubt your [pulled out of the ass] 99% figure. Many religious experiences follow epeliptic fits, trance dancing, extreme exertion or pain, deep meditation, long fasts, and just random out of the blue ones.

I do believe drugs have played a role in religious development, it's obvious. Many shamans today and in the past have used mushrooms and countless other drugs (really everything you can call a drug has probably been used) to induce an experience. But it's not the only tool they used, which is why I contest your statement as you put it. To put it the way you did, one might believe that you need drugs to have a religious experience, which is not true. Drugs were a tool, not the one and only way to spirituality.

I do think drugs could help get us into a more honestly religious frame of mind, and away from blind adherence to some written word, an idea, or whatever. We need to start having authentic experiences, because without that, all religion is empty. And empty religion is dangerous, as the Islamic and Christian fundamentalists have shown us in recent years.

 

I have not had any religious experiences with any drugs, except for one.

That one was salvinorin-A, the active ingredient in the plant salvia divinorum.

And this experience has caused me to go from a full-fledged agnostic to a theist (more descriptively, a Gaian-panentheist). And I whole-heartedly believe in Gaia, the spirit of the Earth/universe, as I experienced her presence on numerous occasions, as have many other people experienced her.

She punishes some people, and rewards others. And often does both for the same person, including myself. Yet, it is always her, the same presence, in a different form. And most salvia divinorum users agree that salvia divinorum is a holy plant, and if nothing else, teaches truth and respect. =)

 

Seems like you met the Green Goddess! I myself have been aquainted.

 

LSD opened me up to the spiritual path, before I took my first trip, I was cynical, angry, radical that believed in nothing but his own ego, and thought life was a meaningless random combination of accidents... Yet on the LSD, I opened up to something I couldn't put into words at all, something that shined in all that is, and was inside me, I was childlike in the eternal moment, playful and dancing and blissful... It was the first time since I was a very little kid that I had transended my ego, and when I was coming down I didn't want it to end.



That began my spiritual path, which had included many powerful mystical experiences on all kinds of psychedelics, including ganja...



Yet I found my sadhana (spiritual practice) came the most effective when I made meditation, and devotion to the universal guru, my primary practice... All the experience and experimentations and so on.... lead me to understand the cosmic joke, the struggle to get where we already are, the eternal moment, deep within us yet so close, our divinity, our buddha nature, unconditional love and compassion for all passing things, christ consciousness, whatever what have you!



So here's my trip, my sadhana, which as you will see includes certain drugs at times.

I do one hour daily raja yoga techniques of meditation, also known as kriya yoga taught by yogananda's line of gurus, prem rawat's knowledge techniques, and it has other names, but basically the techniques orginate from the yoga sutras. Raja yoga means royal yoga.

I also smoke the sacred ganja in praise of Shiva, chanting the mantra; OM SHIVA SHANKARA HARE HARE GANGA, a mantra for smoking dope as approved in blessing by Neem Karoli Baba, most likely aimed at westerners. I often listen to krishna das's album, in which is included a beautiful chant that shiva lovers do while smoking hash in thier chillums do on the banks of the river ganges until the early morning light, I feel very connected to the same spirit, even though I do not follow thier rules, such a celibacy and what not.

I have a altar where I meditate, to which I practice bhakti yoga to the universal guru and/or god, i have various pictures of realized beings, gods teachers and plants to represent this guru... in no particular order after all they are all one; Amma, Ananda Mayee Ma, Neem Karoli Baba, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Shiva, Durga, Divine Mother, Kali, Babaji, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, and many more. There i say prayers, usually do my meditation, do pranams, chants, just chat with god about my issues, and I have various holy books; Remember; Be Here Now, Autobiography of a Yogi, Miracle of love, and others... which i page through for wisdom and study. I even made love in front of my alter once.

I occassionaly use psychedelics which is like medicine for my practice. I usually go out in nature (I tend to see this as sort of a native american kind of ritual, connection with nature, like the peyote cults of certain tribes) or sit by my altar... listen to music, and stare at neem karoli baba, he keeps my trip going really really great! I consider psychedelics as my teachers, like one would go visit a teacher, get satsang, or whatever... psychedelics are like that, they help me in my practice... Lately I have been tripping with others, and spreading the good vibes and awareness... moving through the mushroom, not getting caught. Just had a really good mushroom trip, two days ago. It's SHIVA's DANCE!

First you BE then you SEE

You be who you are!



Note: Psychedelics are not for everyone... For many people they can open one up, and become a catalyst for a wide variety of mystical experiences... Neem Karoli Baba called it yogi medicine.

I have gotten into singing to god, kirtan, which falls under Bhakti Yoga, in which I sing, various songs, from rock n roll, to hindu mantras like Krishna Das's stuff! Krishna Das's stuff is the more formal, but I love rock, and love to sing it, the beatle's wrote love songs to god, didn't ya know?

Probably the most misunderstood and controversial of what i do, i practice tantra, with myself, worshipping beautiful porn stars as forms of the divine mother and other beings... Currently I also have a friend, a beautiful form of the divine mother, her earthly name is Aimiee, we like to play and merge and have a great time with our tantric practice... our practice has provided healing in both our lives, even though it isn't always earth shattering and cosmic, most of the time it is though. It helps me move the sexual energy into higher chakras, and tranform it in order to come closer to god... Once eating out her sacred yoni, while she bathed me in the enegy of her orgasms, I had a visions of Ananda Mayee Ma, she smiled at me, as a tumbled into this void of light. Sex to me, is an expression of my love for the divine mother, and a way to heal myself.


Karma Yoga, when I go out into the world, I do what I do, work, volunteer for enviromental clean-ups, school, relationships, chores, and so on, but my acts are dedicated to krishna, to god, to christ and so on! As krishna said, do what you do but dedicate it to me!

"when you know how to listen, everyone is the guru" - Baba Ram Dass


Here is how i view sadhana, from a page in Remember Be Here Now...

"Sadhana is a full time thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether you're teaching, or sitting in a monastery, whether you're lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating, EVERYTHING is a part of waking up!" - Baba Ram Dass

Remember it's light, it is playful, it's a cosmic joke. embrace the paradox as you would your mother's open arms!

Yes god is playful and hilarious!










Ram Dass

"Before the path of mushrooms, I was pretty much on the Western track, but then those experiences with mushrooms pointed to the home inside, which all my Western psychology didn't cover," Dass recalls. "And so we were studying, going down into our psyches, until we said, 'Who has got the map for this domain?' Aldous Huxley gave us the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and it was a map for consciousness, and everybody, all the gang, had gone to India--Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Alan Watts--they all did, long before me. But in the end, we found that we couldn't get through our egos with drugs, that our egos controlled the drugs."




Hikky Z writes, "And this experience has caused me to go from a full-fledged agnostic to a theist (more descriptively, a Gaian-panentheist). And I whole-heartedly believe in Gaia, the spirit of the Earth/universe, as I experienced her presence on numerous occasions, as have many other people experienced her."

Yes I have experienced her presence whenever I go out in nature, sometimes she is more playful then other times... When I am really in a high vibe state, she will send the crows to circle me, or other birds, and do all kinds of mystical magical things... she will communicate with me and anyone that is open with her, but she doesn't (as far as I know) communicate in words, she talks in energy, through the animals, trees, the wind, the weather, all that sort of stuff... It is a collective intelligence far supirior then the human machine. Yet her love is always there in each breathe of precious oxygen we take. She is our mother earth, praise be her! It's always great when you hear about someone else tuning into her.

Bless you!