Probably a psychedelic trip needs ego stuff - as some kind of a fuel - to burn, and this particular guru didn't have any. So nothing happened.

Which is kinda boring.

No, I haven't done that, but I'm also not preaching that you shouldn't do it and that it's a waste of your time or not a valid way of getting profoundly in touch with the spiritual. These yogis in question can't say the same for the converse. Denouncing psychedelics is definitively judgmental, and it's quite hypocritical for someone who has "become Jesus" to start judging blankets of people for how they choose to pursue their spirituality.

Unless of course they are right. I mean isn't it possible that the states achieved by these yogis is nothing like the psychedelic experience? Isn't it possible that the psychedelic experience is just a delusional trap?

I'm not saying I agree with that, but unless a person has experienced with both the profound depth of life long meditation and psychedelics it seems unwise to assume that psychedelics are like meditation. In fact in my experience as a meditator for over a decade is that the experiences share very little in common at all.

Just food for thought.

Psychedelics have helped me make what I believe to be great positive changes in my life. They've helped me become more aware & pay more attention, helped me bring attention to some problems I didn't even know I had to overcome, they've shown me glimpses of a reality that is timeless and so beautiful that consensus reality looks prettier because I've seen the "other" reality.

It is an ongoing struggle. Like others said, these powerful tools won't automatically do the work for someone. Sometimes for me it's hard to cope with this, because some of the tasks seem impossible to complete - and after "seeing" certain stuff, I just know that things can never go back to what they were - I cannot unlearn what I learned, cannot unsee what was seen.

This causes some stress and even depression at times, but I know that these obstacles must be overcome in order for me to grow.


I hope to look back one day and laugh at all of it from a vantage point. I begin to get the feeling that these things are only "impossible" to solve because at some point I convinced myself that it was so.




I'd be very interested if you elaborated on this.

Thought I'd add one more tid bit to this discussion.

The yoga sutras of Patanjali discuss herbs.



I'm not sure how that is specifically to be interpreted, but one explanation found here is http://swamij.com/yoga-sutras-40103.htm



Personally I think that anything and everything a person does to find the truth is probably ok. But it is a fine line of seeking the truth and escaping reality. IHMO.

Sure.

Meditation typically leads to a deep inner calm. I have reached a point were I do see visions at times during meditation, but they are typically fleeting or static images. My breath becomes very long and slow to the tune of about 1-2 breaths per minute. My heart rate slows down and my whole body sort of just cools.

With psychedelics it's almost the exact opposite. My heart rate increases, my breathing becomes more shallow and faster. My whole body sort of heats up...for lack of a better analogy.

Now what I find most helpful is to meditate or use a technique like pranayama to keep my heart rate and breath in check while under the influence of a psychedelic. This has been my magic spot for some time. But the individual experiences are not really very similar at all. Could this be because I haven't learned to meditate deeply enough? Sure it could. It could also be because the experiences don't lead to the same place. At this time I have to honestly say I'm not sure.

There may be other factors at play - for me, LSD is clearly a stimulant and at medium doses it will raise my heartrate. At lower doses, it will only when there's something emerging that I have trouble dealing with (so more as a result of anxiety and less due to the stimulating effect).

That said, from my experience, it tends to raise heartrate at higher doses because the onslaught of.. stuff is so fast that I can't help but feel a little anxious. It's too much at times.


Mushrooms (low doses) don't appear to raise my heartrate and I reach a state of deep calm, not as deep as with MDMA (which does raise my heartrate, due to it's nature I suppose - I don't really ever feel anxious or anything close with it) usually by that time in complete awe of whatever is around (nature, usually).

As for the body heating up, I don't notice it - doesn't mean that it doesn't happen of course - on shrooms or acid. On MDMA I can't really say.



I've been dabbling with meditation for some time. No habit is formed, but I've read about it, tried it sometimes even. I too employ it during psychedelic experiences, gently reminding myself to just observe and make no judgement, just breathe and pay attention to what's happening.

It may be my growing familiarity with psychedelics, it may be that meditation allows one to go even deeper in the psychedelic state, or it may be a combination of both - I'm going deeper and deeper each time. The beginning was marked by very rough trips, I'd always generate anxiety from anxiety because I couldn't not follow some darker thoughts.

Meditation is at least partially responsible for helping me overcome that - and the rewards have been great thus far.

Taking the time to integrate and having other interests and things going also helps, no doubt. I dunno how to explain it.. usually I just know when the time for a trip is right.

From the little experience I have and the knowledge I gathered about meditation, I agree with you. Only the initial stages of meditation seem to share similarities with the psychedelic experience (i.e. unveiling the psychological unconscious). Said this, I wonder if anyone ever experienced or attained "the higher states" of meditation (i.e. no-mind-ness, self-nature, prajna, ...) while under the effect of psychedelics?

This phrase right here sounds like it could be talking specifically about DMT. It may be taken as an elixir (with beta-carbolines) or likewise, it may be accessed within with endogenous DMT and perhaps the aid of endogenous pinoline or the like.

Through meditation alone I've experienced the same sort of experiences with plant medicines i.e. crossing some sort of threshold and experiencing "non-ordinary" reality. Although the specifics of each individual experience are not easily comparable, the process and feelings associated with each change of perception feel, for me, practically the same when experienced.

I agree somewhat... in that, for me, psychedelics will never take the place of meditation or my other spiritual practices. I have heard yogis and wise men say the same thing and I agree that spiritual effort cannot be supplanted by the use of psychedelics.

Psychedelics have however, reinforced my spiritual behaviors, given me some extra motivation to be my best and live correctly (as far as my opinion of how I should be living), helped me to be more tolerant, and aided me in keeping my mind open when I may not have before. Non of these things are exactly spiritual, but they are tools to improve for spiritualizing. So I would say that psychedelics keep my spiritualizing tools sharper and cleaner.

Having just read McKenna's Food of the Gods - there's a phrase he mentions from Aldous Huxley (who borrowed it)...

Aldous Huxley in "The Doors of Perception", suggested that substances such as mescaline might be used as "gratuitous graces" -- a term borrowed from medieval Christian theologians: a "gratuitous grace" being something that is neither necessary nor sufficient for salvation, but often helpful.

I thought this exactly nailed how I felt about it. If all psychedelics disappeared I would still be on the spiritual path... but they seem to make the path a little easier to follow.

Some very good points made here.

I just wanted to add a bit about the fact that these yogis are actually denouncing psychedelics. I think it might be some sort of a group elitism, that is exhibited in alot of group-based structures, whether it's conscious or subconscious. The reaction to the popularization and simplification of the thing that you've dedicated your whole life to, is often this kind of denouncing. Probably even in here, I mean if in 10-20 years there's gonna be a soft drink called "Deemz" that has a sort of pharmahuasca in it, and everyone's always talking about how deemzd they got last weekend, I think alot of people here would denounce that.

But isn't that the whole point of evolution? I mean whatever happens, it's completely natural, because it did just happen. And if these plant spirits are coming out of the jungles into the western societies and slowly shifting the global level of consciousness into being more open and loving, isn't that always a good thing?

IMO denouncing things that have a potential for positive change is just silly, no matter how "easy-access" they happen to be compared to your own experiences.

Taking psychedelics is not a quick method.
You possibly have to take them for years to learn, apply, learn, apply...

Psychedelics do not offer shortcuts.
They're just more extreme, more reliable.

The're is no exclusive method.
Take psychedelics and meditate, practice yoga, eat healthy, dream & interpret - do everything you can!

The idea that psychedelics are not as valuable as what yogis are doing is preposterous.
It's ego Insanity. There is no "best way", just ways. Take one, take twice, turn back, move foreward - your call.

As long as it moves you, you're alive. A definition of success!

^ this

Using whatever works seems to make sense.

It's a bit like the argument "Psychedelic X is the ONLY one you need" or "Plant Teacher A is better than Plant Teacher B".

When someone has invested in an construct/idea of themselves through something "external" and when this idea is perceived to be threatened, the apparent need arises to defend whatever "it" happens to be; the "it" forms part of the person's constructed self-image, and any supposed challenge will likely provoke a defensive response of some kind.

Every so often I catch myself doing this, and have to give myself a quick reminder

The fact is though joedirt that the traditions we see today in the east are most likely a somewhat degraded form due to religion and ego taking over. There is alot of evidence to suggest early psychedelic use combined with a shamanic tradition. You can still observe all of this going on in the mountains of nepal and those people will flat out tell people that their practices predate the religions of the area. They have the same gods but they are seen as more early shamanic dieties(like indra, shiva etc), some associated with cannabis, other with datura, soma etc..there have been many psychoactive plants reported to be used in the area. IMO the Tibetan book of the dead reads much more like a mapping of shamanic worlds than it does anything else.

Not saying that meditation is not worth while..just that it is likely that at one point this sort of seperation between the use of psychedelics and a meditive path was probly not an issue.

I doubt that the true meditional paths are unlike psychedelics at some points as well..alot of these traditions when adhered to stricly involve darkrooming. Now from experiences I have had in the middle of the night I can attest to the fact that something very DMT or ayahuasca like does occasionally go on, and that is only a few hours in the dark..some people go for 3 weeks or more in darkrooms and what they describe sounds far more like a heavy and sustained psychedelic experience than it does just a state of mindfullness meditation..

Everyone is going to have different views here anyway..and if some people think meditation is the way to go and eating psychedelic plants is a delusion than that is fine it is their choice. I cant help but feel that is sort of similar to breatharians saying that breathing prana is better than eating food. I think eating healthy foods and psychoactive plants is one of the most natural things we can do on this planet and in a way the system as a whole has evolved for this to take place. I think it is much more of a delusion for a person to assume engaging the biosphere in that way is a delusion.

In reality meditation is in part a chemical experience. This has been proven many times over...neurochemistry changes with meditation..melatonin levels rise..pinoline levels will rise..it is an endogenous drug experience.

For me I think meditation, dream work and psychedelics are all complimentary.

I think what is misunderstood here is that yogis make their spiritual quest a work of their lifetime. For them it is more important to take their time along their spiritual journey of rising hills, acclimatising and taking things in slowly as they go along the way. This means that they are always growing and learning with their medititive practices, etc.

To a yogi, "easy access" with psychs may have been used in the past in order for them to realise what their final destination was likely to look like, and this may have been used by some or may not have. It does seem strange for a yogi to denounce the use of say mushrooms along with their journey, because they usually ate a vegetarian diet, and if they drank cows milk, the cow ate from the grass. I mean we can't say we are not linked to nature and plants cos we are.

I guess what they are trying to say is that there is no quick way to reach the big picture. Sure psychs like dmt will take you to the end in an instant, but what about the journey where all the learning was...where is that??

That's why they say meditation is the way. BUT i bet that some took a few shroomies, etc to help keep them interested along the way...yes, Buddha, i mean YOU!

Total agreement with Jamie's post.

Now this may sound like a bit of an oversimplification, but could that yogi perhaps be speaking from a position of feeling threatened? He needs us to need his help. Too much self empowerment and he's out of a job.

daedeloops wrote: ..yeah, exactly..most of these yogic gurus have big money/power structures around them..their traditions have made psychedelics taboo (e.g. 'soma' ) in the interests of holding onto power and controlling ideas..for me the modern entheogen movement is a lot about ending these corrupt, archaic ways that have not accelerated humanity to new heights, only given certain egoists fame..

jamie wrote: ..i have heard that the guru in question later admitted to not actually ingesting the LSD..i think the Ram Dass story should be treated as bogus, like many of these Indian showmen..

joedirt wrote: ..yeah, usually for most, but if one can stay calm and centered (& meditative) through a psychedelic..is that not a deep attainment to work towards..Bhuddists had to acknowledge Bon-Po shamanism to be accepted by Tibetans..
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It's not the drug, it's YOU. Some people use psychedelics and are still total idiots, reckless, bitter, close minded. Some take them and are inspired to change for the better.