Before SWIM Smoked spice, he never realised the power of meditation. DMT has definately switched him on to that. He never thought he'd be the kind of far out hippy who would actually seek enligtenment and inner peace by meditating. Period! But after a dimethyltryptamine experience, it feels so good. Before an experience, it can really settle and calm you. Even on just a regular day, meditation allows you to reconnect with a sense of inner self, it calms you and has positive effects on the rest of your life. Because, it really breaks appart that whole rush, rush, rush kind of existance. The yin cannot exist without the yang, and meditation is definately one of those to your work or your study, which is the other.

DMT has directly showed him that the body is a temple. A temple to you! Therefor, you shouldn't smoke tobacco, sit for hours on your arse or eat nothing but pizzas and burgers all week. You should excersise as often as you can, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, be well and live healthy. Trust me, you will be 1000% Happier. If your body is healthy, your mind and spirit will be healthy! After all, You really don't want to be living in a dessicrated temple.
The Above was revealed to SWIM after a few trips when he literally re-entered his body through his crown chakra, and he saw and felt that the healthier the body temple is, The easier and nicer a place it is to be. And since you spend most of your time in your body (nay, all of it) at this level of density, you should definately keep it pristine.

So.... quit smoking cigarrettes and joints!! You can do it with a little willpower. If you must take cannabis, VAPORISE! and get some of that NiQuitin chewing gum, and use that to ween yourself off. It works great. Within a week, your sense of taste will come blasting back like you wouldn't beleive, and your lungs will gradually renew themselves Now isn't that worth putting in a little effort for??

Next time you think ahh, "im going to roll a joint and relax", you will automatically realise that if you do just one thing first, you are on your way to becoming a healthier, happier person.

Shoe

What a lovely thread I agree with your perspective, I have been in a deep transition state in my life for quite some time now. One of the most positive changes that i have incorporated in my life is positive thinking and self compassion. I don't smoke cigarettes, ganja (only some hash every few months for meditative purposes.) I don't drink alcohol as i feel it doesn't advance my journey that i am on in any way, I do meditation and practices as well as yoga in the mornings. I also am a vegetarian who eats really healthy and i always think about what i put into my body. Indeed I feel that a healthy and proactive lifestyle is the best way to strengthen a entheogen journey, its definitely a powerful combination to have and i do my best every day to achieve that perfect balance.


Much Peace and Compassion

wow, thankyou. you dont know how much i need this right now.

Im really, really glad you said that. you just made my day.

Sweet dude, I really need to hear this more often

Ive never seen myself as a meditative person, but I do feel a push in that direction.

Gammagore

Good to hear, compassion and meditation are some of the most powerful tools we have as human beings.


Much Peace and Happiness

yay for healthy existence

Im also all for everything you said! I try to eat as healthy and conscious as possible, always try to be active doing some or other kind of exercise and have for 6 months quit my decade-long habit of smoking cannabis/hash daily and changed to vaporizing-only, and not during the week when I have lessons/work.

I also feel that these psychedelics have definitely helped me becoming more conscious and can definitely second you when you said one becomes a much happier person this way

At some point I might have struggled for it but now, its the inverse.. Like when someone offers me some super sugar-filled sweet and are impressed how I can 'resist', I say how I really dont want it and dont like it.. I much rather have my couple of pieces of 85-90% chocolate.. Or back when I was running every day (should go back to it but so busy these last weeks), I would feel bad if I DIDNT do it, it was a pleasure doing it and not a problem/big effort

Endlessness

Good for you! Cacao beans are a really amazing sweet alternative for me as they make me so happy. :b


Much Peace and Compassion

gammagore: I was so surprised the other day to discover that your avatar, they are infact REAL caulliflours!! i'd never seen one in real life and then suddely there were a few sitting on some shelves with some other fruit and veg!!

Incredible detail. they really ARE fractal vegetables!!

Yes, +1 vote for healthy eating and exercise. Entheogenic experiences are multitudes better if you spent the week being healthy and chowing down on tofu than if you're hung over and craving some skag.

Just an update, I found that if I make a little sacrifice and meditate in the morning, around about 6 - 7 am... the rest of the day goes extremely well; because you're in the calm, happy mindset for the rest of the day; and I would highly reccomend it, extremely useful. There's something about capturing that morning 'chi' if you beleive in chi, and being disciplined which'll make your life easier, much better, and, hopefully, bring around the immanent change in consciousness that already has so much power behind it the world over!

I try to meditate around 5am every day for at least 30 minutes, but usually closer to an hour.

Sometimes on the weekend I'll get up at 4 am.
Take a small dose of shrooms.
Then I'll do yoga until I feel the shrooms start hitting.
Then I'll sit down and meditate for the rest of the morning.
This is my religion. Period.

Peace

I find this and an early morning walk make the days brighter and more centered. Personally, I can only keep it up during the summer though. It's not uncommon for me to be up at 5am in the summer, while in winter I may be going to bed around that time.


In general, I also agree that a healthy body is conductive to a healthy mind. I try to consciously appreciate being healthy - it is very rarely that I am sick at all, and yet I realize that one day this body will grow old and die. I guess it is one of those things you miss only when you don't have it anymore (health).

While I have no illusions about eternal life, I think it is a nice gift to myself to keep the machine running smoothly for as long as possible. I also find that I'm generally happier whenever I'm exercising, eating properly and being active instead of waiting for the motivation to do things to come.

Word.

If I miss my yoga or meditation (like I did with meditation this morning...) my whole day can seriously spiral quickly. I'm on here reading inspirational and useful posts like this BECAUSE I completely freaked out on a good friend for no good reason a couple hours ago, and am looking for guidance. After reading here, I recognized this as the first day I'd gone without meditation in weeks. I deal with the affects of ADHD daily, without traditional medicine such as Ritalin, and it's SERIOUSLY noticeable when I miss this "routine" (gotta keep it spontaneous but structured!), especially more than once in a row.

I currently wake up at 6-7am everyday and go straight to Yoga and Meditation for 30-60mins. Maybe I'll hit the john and take a flash shower first, but Yoga/Meditation comes before ANY human interactions or obligations of any sort. If not, then I'm often very uptight, difficult to talk to, unfocused, and generally just unpleasant. It's like a roller coaster "me" versus an enjoyable Sunday drive "me"(with meditation).

What I recently began incorporating is exercising and running for an additional 1-2 hours after yoga and meditation. It SERIOUSLY reduces the unpleasant body aches and pains that are associated with the illness's I'm currently using medicinal MJ for. It's my hope that I can leave MJ behind very soon, now that I'm starting to understand how pain and discomfort are processed, registered, and how to cope with it as a result.

I have trouble meditating so early. Right after I wake up I'm always so tired, my body aches, and my anxiety is at it's highest at this time. For those that can relate, how do you get motivated to do it right away in the morning?

SpartanII, I also had this issue initially. I started doing it BECAUSE when I wake up I'm always so tired, my body aches, and I have anxiety. It's the most effective self-healing I have at my disposal. To help waking up, I started removing an hour of sleep from each night by going to bed an hour earlier each day and then waking up an hour earlier. So, I started with going to bed at my normal time which was 2am, and before I'd close my eyes for sleep, I'd ask my sub-conscious to wake me up at 9am. Interestingly, it works every time--even better than an alarm clock. The next night I would go to sleep at 1am and wake at 8am, and so on. I continued this until I was going to sleep at 11pm and waking up around 6-7am.

I know that I have little time in the morning to practice my Yoga/Meditation before it becomes so busy in my living complex that I can no longer do it in peace, so this also motivates me to get up as SOON as I wake up (instead of rolling around in half-sleep). Yoga COMPLETELY relieves the tension, anxiety, and body aches which allows me to sit in a meditative state afterward for increasing lengths of time. It started at 5 minutes, and is up to an hour or more--depending on my schedule for that day.

What helped me was the understanding that while Yoga and Meditation were the last thing I wanted to do in the morning, it was also the only thing that could help me to leave the pain and mood that made me avoid wanting to do anything--like yoga or meditation ^_^

It's important to note that I often used a small dose of Cannabis Sativa in the morning to help the transition into yoga. However, after receiving a shipment of Kanna yesterday, I have ceased cannabis use and Yoga wasn't much more of a challenge. Just different. Sativa DEFINITELY helps at first though

Best of luck, friend I hope that helps.

So in a way your un-motivation IS your motivation. Brilliant.

Early morning body-aches and being married can make it tricky to balance my life out sometimes. Even though I've only just turned 31 and I'm skinny, I've never been very physically active or eaten a healthy diet, and now I'm starting to feel my years. I made a resolution to myself to take charge of my health- physically and spiritually, and to be a better husband, full of energy and love. You can't give away what you don't have.



I'm currently taking a long break from cannabis as I tend to over-indulge easily, using it too frequently and therefore becoming really lazy and unmotivated. I do plan on using it again in the near future for meditative purposes, but only once I have saved up enough emotional/spiritual energy and gotten my life into balance.



Thanks, Serenity, it has.