Ny og stor religion hemmelighet og illuminati!

[Andrull]

Du skyter fullstendig over, og hverken svarer på noe av poenget eller rører noe av det jeg har skrevet. Jeg er litt usikker, men jeg tror ikke du fikk med deg bæret av hva jeg prøvde å få frem, da du er for opptatt med å forsvare forskjellige typer narkotika med nebb og klør. Og skryter vilt og hemningsløst av dens positive effekter.

 

Det er kun et bruksområde jeg har kommentert og foreløpig bare syre/LSD-narkotikum som jeg foreløpig avviser, så jeg forstår ikke hvordan du klarer å dra inn alle mulige annet bruksområder.

 

Jeg nevnte egentlig bare det selvsagte, og det hjelper at andre her med førstehånds erfaringbekrefter det. Du blir ikke smartere av å gå på syretripp, og du får ikke noe mer kunnskap og lærdom om universet eller annet ved å gå inn i deg selv, i stede for å faktisk tilegne deg kunnskap om emnet.

Endret 4. juni 2014 av Andrull

[Gjest bruker-45896]

Din mening. Uten å ha prøvd noen av dem(?)

Ikke vet jeg i hvilke sammenhenger f.eks. Awarewolf har prøvd forskjellige ting, men hvis en tar psykedelika som et sakrament, i et ritual eller som en "religiøs/spirituell" person vil man definitivt kunne få "lærdom om universet". Du virker å tro at jeg tror at man lærer konkrete fakta om universet? Jeg utelukker ikke at det er mulig, men det er faktisk fullstendig irrelevant her.

Det er snakk om de vanlige store spørsmålene, som man ikke får svar på ved at noen bare forteller det til en. Man trenger å bli vist det, det er heller en symfoni av følelser, bilder og tanker, enn en samtale eller forelesning. For all del, man kan også ha psykotiske opplevelser, både edru og på trip, hvor "gud" snakker til en, ala Smith, Moses, og mange andre, men da høres det fort ut for meg som en egotripp og jeg blir utrolig skeptisk.

Det er en veldig potent personlig spirituell opplevelse, hvis gjort på denne "alvorlige" nærmest målrettede måten. Vitenskapen viser, hvis du hadde giddet å sjekke ut forskingslitteraturen, bare bittelitt hadde vært nok, at opplevelser man har under tripper kan være like i innhold som en ofte spontan, og "ren" "gammeldags", religiøs opplevelse. At innholdet er det samme betyr ikke at "formen" er den samme, så man får Yahwe, Krishna, Odin, osv. etc.

Det er en stor synd at mennesker på grunn av deres begrensede natur ikke makter å la være å komprimere disse opplevelsene av tilsynelatende guddommelig opphav, men heller presser dem inn til å passe menneskelig kvasi-forståelse. Både svakheten og styrken ved slike opplevelser er at de er personlige, således kan man ikke enkelt anvende vitenskap på dem, annet enn å bl.a. studere dem ved å klassifisere og katalogisere omstendighetene rundt og innholdet i dem, som fortalt av dem som opplevde dem. Man kan også selvfølgelig studere den fysiske hjerne og dens relasjon til disse stoffene, noe det fortsetter å bli mer og mer åpnet for. Som selvfølgelig er veldig flott.

Jeg skyter over og drar inn hva jeg vil fordi jeg ikke føler for å la all slags mulig anti-narkotika vrøvl basert på fordommer og uvitenhet stå ubesvart. Du får tilgi meg for at jeg møter uvitenhet med en til tider noe spiss penn...



Jeg skriver dette i håp om at noen av de som leser dette kanskje ikke vil falle så lett for

"...ødelegge hjernen..."

"...Og med det skjønte vi ihvertfall at det ikke er noe "expand your mind" der altså, kun evnt moro/digg og sikkert skadelig for skallen i lengden..."

"...fucker med hjernen..."


At jeg fokuserer mye på det positive er tilfelle her, fordi jeg som sagt følte for å ikke la ting stå ubesvart, men jeg har allerede skrevet mye mer enn jeg hadde tenkt, og det fins uansett store mengder kritisk informasjon om dette. Det er tross alt dessverre forbudt. Derfor lar jeg i denne omgang andre, hvem og hvor enn de er, stå for den siden av saken.

[Gjest Bruker-95147]

Awarewolf:

 

Tviler sterkt på at noe jeg sier vil gi deg noe særlig lærdom!

 

Men jeg syns fortsatt det er interessant og litt overraskende at du sier at du ikke har fått noe som helst ut av drømming eller tripping.

 

Det er for lettvint fordi det ikke er meningen at man skal bli i den tilstanden. Det er en forholdsvis rask reise, ikke en plass man oppholder seg.

 

Kanskje du får mer ut av å lese mitt litt lengre svar til Andrull.

 

 

 

 

 

Joda, jeg har fått noe ut av drømmeriene mine, vær du trygg Det er bare det at jeg får mer ut av den langsomme måten å gjøre det på, men jeg avviser ikke at noen andre kan lykkes på den måten også - det er ganske enkelt usikkert, og da kan jeg ikke heller anbefale det for andre, spesielt hvis jeg ikke kjenner vedkommende. Man kan jo være den som forleder "forvirrede sjeler", og da har man plutselig kommet i den situasjonen at man lager lidelser for andre, og det er absolutt ikke ønskelig. Jeg gjør mitt, og tar ansvaret for akkurat det. Men når man praktiserer på den måten jeg gjør, så er det ett finmasket nett av ytre og indre faktorer som skal stemme, og for tiden er ikke hallusinogener en av faktorene. Jeg legger ved en oversikt fra en anerkjent lærer innenfor meditasjon, og som selv vokste opp på den tiden hvor lsd var noe nytt og spennede.

 

 

 

Psychedelic Experience and Spiritual Practice: A Buddhist Perspective An Interview with Jack Kornfieldby Robert Forte

"The goal, cannot be stressed too often, is not religious experiences: it is the religious life. And with respect to the latter, psychedelic

theophanies

can abhort a quest as readily as, perhaps more readily than, they further it."

-- Huston Smith Forgotten Truth

RF: Jack, thanks very much for sharing your perspective. With so much said about psychedelic experience and spirituality it may help to look at psychedelics from within an extant spiritual discipline. There is a great deal in Buddhism that can illuminate psychedelic phenomena and help us to understand the curative effect - when there is a curative effect. Maybe a Buddhist perspective can help us to maximize the positive effects of psychedelic experiences and improve or reduce the negative ones.

JK: There are a couple of things I want to start with, some thoughts I have had on the subject, and we can go on from there. The first is a statement in answer to your question which asks for a Buddhist point of view on psychedelics. It is important to say that there is no Buddhist point of view on psychedelics. They are rarely found in the Buddhist tradition, if at all, and generally would be lumped in the precepts under "intoxicants." In Zen, Vajrayana, and the Theravada traditions, the three largest living traditions, there is very little mention of them, very little written, and there is no traditional point of view about the use of them. It is important to understand that. What points of view we have come from our understanding of Buddhist masters and teachers based on contemporary experience. But there is not a traditional body of knowledge in relationship to these substances that I know of.

A second point to make is that, unlike in Hinduism, which at least in its modern form uses a variety of mind-altering substances - particularly things like hashish that some sadhus use sitting by the river Ganges smoking a chillum - the fundamental relationship to psychedelics in Buddhist practice and tradition is as intoxicants.

The precept in Theravadan Buddhism for dealing with intoxicants is one of the five basic training precepts: not to kill, not to steal, not to speak falsely, not to engage in sexual misconduct, and lastly, to refrain from using intoxicants to the point of heedlessness, loss of mindfulness, or loss of awareness. It does not say not to use them and it is very explicit. It is interesting that it is worded that way: to not use intoxicants to the point of loss of consciousness or awareness. There is another translation of it which says not to use intoxicants which remove that sense of attention or awareness. Then it is left up to the individual, as are all of the precepts, to use as a guideline to become more genuinely conscious.

A third thought I have to start the conversation, and I think I mention this in Living Buddhist Masters, is that practice in the West has taken a reverse direction from spiritual practice in the Asias; particularly Buddhist practice, but Hindu as well.

In Asia the tradition has three parts. You begin with sila or virtue. This is the foundation upon which any spiritual life is built. People take care with those precepts; they do not harm. There is a development of ahimsa; which is a respectful, caring, and nonviolent relationship to the people and beings around. This allows the heart to open and the mind to quiet. Out of sila comes the various spiritual practices. They are built on that as a foundation.

The second step comes after you are living a moral and a harmonious life - without which you can not really have a quiet mind or an open heart. When your actions are in harmony, then you begin to train yourself through yoga, through concentration practices, through all different ways to begin to tame the wild and untamed monkey mind, and to use that training to open up the inner realms. This is samadhi, or concentration.

The third domain is the domain of wisdom, prajna, from which arise the kinds of insights and understandings of the play of consciousness in the realm of human experience, based on the foundation of a moral life and the training in various disciplines. When those insights arise and wisdom comes they are established on a base so they become available to you easily. They already have become integrated in your life by your discipline and your prior training - and you have a context to understand them in. What has happened in the West seems to be a reverse of that.

Many people who took LSD, mushrooms, or whatever it was, along with a little spiritual reading of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or some Zen texts, had the gates of wisdom opened to a certain extent. They began to see that their limited consciousness was only one plane and one level and that there were a thousand new things to discover about the mind. There are many new realms, new perspectives on birth and death; on the nature of mind and consciousness as the field of creation, rather than the mechanical result of having a body, the biological result; and on the myth of separation and the truth of the oneness of things. Great kinds of wisdom opened up, and for some people, their hearts too. They began to see the dance in much greater perspective.

People's obvious experience was that in order to maintain this they had to keep taking the psychedelics over and over, generally speaking, that is what happened. Even though there were some transformations from these experiences, they tended to fade for a lot of people, at least aspects of them. We might want to discuss this further....

Anyway, this is a kind of simplistic analogy to the East and West but I think there might be some crucial points to it. Following that people said, "If we can't maintain the highs of consciousness that come through the psychedelics, let's see if there is some other way." And so people undertook various kinds of spiritual disciplines. They did kundalini yoga and bastrika breathing, or they did serious hatha yoga as a sadhana, raja yoga, light and concentration exercises, visualizations, or Buddhist practices as a way to get back to those profound and compelling states that had come through psychedelics.

RF: Are you saying that it instilled in people a thirst for experiences?

JK: A thirst, that is correct.

RF: Would you say this the same thirst considered to be the cause of suffering in terms of the Buddha's second noble truth? Buddha taught that we suffer because of our desire or thirst for sensual or mental experience. Suffering is inevitable because everything is transitory, yet the thirst goes on. Even the highest mystical experiences can lead to suffering because of our tendency to become attached to that which is transitory. In other words, I wonder if these experiences can actually inflate the ego or tempt it with the possibility that even "God" is within its grasp.

JK: Well, the thirst has two sides to it. There is a useful thirst as well. When it is involved with a lot of grasping and attachment - to the extent that there is grasping and attachment - there is suffering. But psychedelics awakened in people not just a thirst, but a sense of the possibilities in exploring the mind and body, and living in a different way. Then they began to have those sensitivities and those visions without repeatedly taking psychedelics, by undertaking some spiritual discipline, yoga, or meditation. People began to see what was necessary was to take care with their speech, with their relationships, with their family, with their actions in the social community and the political world, in a way that was non-harming and that was conscious. So we have gone backwards in a way to discover that the roots of fundamental change has to do with our physical body, with our behavior, and with all those things that are called "virtue," followed by a systematic discipline. Those are the supports for long lasting or genuine access to these transformative experiences.

I would not say this is true for everyone. There may be people who actually have used psychedelics as a sadhana, as a practice. But I have been around a lot and it is really rare.

RF: Stanley Krippner once said that LSD may be an important cause for the importation of Eastern spiritual practices into this country during the 1960s. Because of LSD, as you are saying, young people sought out those maps and practices which could enable them to understand their experiences.

JK: They certainly were powerful for me. I took LSD and other psychedelics at Dartmouth though I was studying Eastern thought even before then, but they came hand-in-hand as they did for many people. It is true for the majority of American Buddhist teachers that they had experience with psychedelics either right after they started their spiritual practice or prior to it.

I even know of cases where people were genuinely transformed by their experience in the way that one would be from an enlightenment experience. They are rare. Of the many hundreds of people I know who took psychedelics I know of a few cases where people had radically transformative experiences. These were as much as an "enlightenment" as any other kind of "initial enlightenment," using the terminology of a system that has a few major satoris and then finally full enlightenment. This is something you are welcome to print. However, along with it print that I am reluctant to say it because it may be misleading. It is like winning the lottery. There are not a lot of people that win. A lot of people play and not so many people win. But the potential is there. I am not sure if it is helpful for people to hear that.

RF: There is a story about a Buddhist master who was asked if you could use drugs to attain enlightenment. He said, "I sure hope so." And when Zen Master Soeng Sahn was asked what he thought about using drugs to help in the quest for self knowledge he said: "Yes, there there are special medicines, which, if taken with the proper attitude, can facilitate self-realization." Then he added: "But if you have the proper attitude, you can take anything - take a walk, or a bath. "

Could you say more about sadhana? What is the right attitude? What are those qualities of mind and action that are basic to the Buddhist path?

JK: Okay, I am thinking if there is some linking question that comes in between these two. There is really. I will mention it briefly and then I will go into the development of sadhana.

First of all, I have the utmost respect for the power of psychedelics. They are enormously powerful. They have inspired and opened and awakened possibilities in a lot of people in really deep ways. They have provided transformative experiences. In taking a tempered view of them it does not mean that I do not have a lot of respect for them, and for the work that researchers like Stan Grof and others have done.

My sense from my own Buddhist practice and from the tradition as a teacher for many years is that people underestimate the depth of change that is required to transform oneself in a spiritual practice. It requires a very great perspective called "a long enduring mind" by one Zen master - which means it can be days, weeks, months, years, and lifetimes. The propensities or conditioned habits which we have are so powerfully and deeply ingrained that even enormously compelling visions do not change them very much. Therefore, the system of liberation taught by the Buddha, and other great masters, draws on several different aspects or elements of life to help empower such a deep transformation. The Buddha said at one point, "Not good deeds, nor good karma, nor merit, nor rapture, nor visions, nor concentration, nor insight. None of these are the reasons I teach; but the sure heart's release, this and this alone." The possibility of human liberation is the center of his teachings. The liberation from greed, hatred, delusion, and the liberation from the sense of separateness and selfishness. This is a very compelling possibility for humans and it is quite profound.

To come to this level of illumination, first one has to discover the power of those forces in the heart and mind that bind us. In the beginning it may sound like the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion are a little dislike of this and wanting of that, and not being so clear about things, being confused, or not seeing so deeply. But when you have undertaken a deep spiritual practice of whatever kind, and I will include psychedelic experiences as part of that, you begin to realize that what is meant is Greed with a capital "G," the most primal kinds of grasping; and Hatred meaning Hitler and Attila the Hun in the mind; and Delusion meaning the deepest dark night. The forces are tremendously powerful. So then how does one encounter these forces and transform them in a way that leads to genuine liberation?

First, you have to have a lot of respect for them. And a lot of people use psychedelics in very misguided ways, with wrong understanding. Some modern researchers like Stan Grof have a much greater sense for set and setting and of the power of the forces that one can deal with. Similarly in spiritual practice one needs to respect the depth of these experiences. Secondly, one has to make a conscious commitment to the journey of spiritual change - through whatever inspiration - meeting an inspiring person, inspiring reading, faith, or through psychedelic experience.

Lama Chgyam Trungpa once spoke to a group in Berkeley and when he began he said: "My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path. It is too difficult, too long, and it is too demanding. What I would suggest, if you haven't already begun, is to go to the door, ask for your money back, and go home now." He said, "This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you and you should understand that from the beginning. So it is best not to begin. However," he said, "if you do begin, it is best to finish." He is such a lovely teacher.

For those who through some vision, faith, or reason have started, the next thing that is required, after seeing the power of these unconscious forces and of suffering in the world, is to make a commitment to the path of liberation, the path of the Bodhisattva, the path of the transformation of our being. To make that commitment wisely one has to realize that it encompasses every domain of life. This is the ground of spiritual discipline.

Spiritual discipline is based on our actions, our speech, and our relationship to people, animals and plants in the environment. It is related to our inner thoughts; to whether our minds are filled with hatred, jealousy, and greed, or of kindness, tenderness, and compassion. It has to do with our intimate relations to our families, lovers, friends, and to the people we work with. All of this is a fundamental part of spiritual practice.

So there is seeing the forces, making a commitment to transformation, and seeing that the path is really a deep and fundamental one. There is realizing that the work of transformation takes place on all the levels of body, speech, and mind. Then there is the beginning of a spiritual sadhana.

Now your question comes in: What are the kinds of disciplines, what are the parts to it? Again, this is a kind of elaboration of what I started on.

The ground for systematic spiritual practice is virtue. Virtue doesn't mean commandments and/or moralistic teachings, it is an understanding that one have the proper - John Lilly would call it the "launching pad," or to have the earth base covered. And so one begins here.

Sadhana means to keep the five basic precepts in mind: not killing or harming living beings; not stealing, not taking that which isn't given - not being piggy basically in a world of limited resources. To use proper speech, that is, words which are both true and helpful - not brutal honesty - but to see that one's speech is both true and useful. Speech is very powerful. Words can heal. Many people have been healed by a word from their estranged father, a great teacher, even from a stranger in certain circumstances. And words have the power to create tremendous harm and to start wars. To refrain from sexual misconduct means to take care with the great power of sexual energy. Sexual energy can be associated with greed, compulsion, lust, denigration, exploitation, or it can be associated with intimacy, care, communion, attention, and love. So make sure that energy is used in a non-harming way. Finally for intoxicants: not to use intoxicants to the point of heedlessness, which means not use them to escape, to cover over one's pain or difficulty, or in a regular or addicted way in which one has to use them. There has been tremendous suffering in the lives of many million alcoholics, drug abusers, and great suffering for their families. The unnecessary pain, misuse, and widespread addiction to substances generally has been a concern of legitimate spiritual traditions for thousands of years.

Even among the relatively conscious explorers of contemporary psychedelics, addiction and attachment has sometimes been a problem. Even more critical is the overly positive message about both the spiritual and the casual use of these drugs that has been adopted by quite a few people who could not handle them well at all. As many of us who have used psychedelics have discovered, it is not an easy path. What matters from the point of view of this precept is to make their use non-habitual (which probably means occasional). If one uses these substances, whether it is a glass of wine, a joint of marijuana, LSD, or mushrooms, this precept says to make that a conscious and careful part of your life. Without these precepts, if one even begins the journey, they will get lost or go off the track. You can not complete the journey until you get the basics right. This is really a very simple message...

[Gjest bruker-45896]

Og vips så kommer der noen som bidrar med et godt stykke tekst. Interessant lesing, og mer nyansert enn mine siste innlegg, selvfølgelig. Som er godt.

Jeg har intet annet å tilføye bortsett fra:

"When you get the message, hang up the phone..."

[Gjest Bruker-95147]

Og vips så kommer der noen som bidrar med et godt stykke tekst. Interessant lesing, og mer nyansert enn mine siste innlegg, selvfølgelig. Som er godt.

 

Jeg har intet annet å tilføye bortsett fra:

 

"When you get the message, hang up the phone..."

 

Jeg fant noe enda mer interessant, og håper du finner det verdt å lese (skrevet av en munk med 18 års erfaring med å forstå hva bevisstheten er og ikke er)

 

 

 

Trial by Ordeal: Buddhism Meets Ayahuasca

When I returned to the USA in 2011, I had never heard of ayahuasca. I think I had seen the word "yagé" (pronounced something like "yah-hey") before, but without the accent, so I thought it rhymed with "sage." Some kind of psychoactive plant, I figured. I had no idea that drinking ayahuasca, or yagé, had become a kind of New Age spiritual practice in the West.

It is usually consumed at religious ceremonies, either based on South American shamanism or on a Brazilian religious system somewhat similar to Voodoo, based on a combination of the African tribal religions of black slaves, Roman Catholicism, and the aforementioned South American shamanism. Since 2011 I have attended four of these ceremonies, all of them of the more shamanistic variety.

Before attending the last three ceremonies I signed an agreement that I wouldn't publicly divulge details of the ceremony, or of the words or actions of others attending it; I didn't sign such an agreement before the first one, however, so I will describe it in some detail.

In November of 2011 a person I dearly love asked if I wanted to attend such a ceremony, and largely since psychedelic drugs played an early, major role in my own spiritual development, I agreed without much hesitation. I figured it would be another ecstatic, consciousness-expanding experience like a trip on LSD. I was mistaken—although I'm getting ahead of the story.

The ceremony was in a nearby foreign country, in what appeared to be an old, empty office building in a somewhat run-down area of a large city. We arrived in the evening and met several quiet, serious people also waiting to begin. The shaman who conducted the ceremony was a majestic, lovely blonde woman who had trained in Peru and considered herself to be a Buddhist. A total of eleven people participated, eight women and three men. The rule was that we were not allowed to go outside, and were required to sit with our backs to the walls of the room, facing the center, in the dark. We were not allowed to lie down; our leader assured us that it wouldn't cause us to feel any better anyway. We were allowed to get up only to go to the toilet or to request another cup of medicine. (It is emphatically referred to as medicine by its advocates rather than as a drug.) We were not to speak or interact with each other, and were encouraged to keep our eyes closed most of the time. We were each provided with a small bucket, in case we needed to vomit, or purge (or, as some call it, to "get well").

Before the medicine was taken we were given two useful pieces of advice: First, that the medicine technically is not an emetic. Although many people purge during ceremony, the cause is psychological, not physical; thus there is a choice. And second, that we should not forget that the journey has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This second advice may seem inconsequential, but it is invaluable to one lost in a state of turning emotionally inside out. Then we were each given a cup of brown liquid which tasted somewhat like putrified steak sauce. I found out on later occasions that the stuff can taste much worse, indescribably foul even, depending on it ingredients. The putrified steak sauce wasn't so bad.

Within about half an hour I was experiencing psychedelic effects, mainly green geometric patterns that were brighter when my eyes were closed, plus a sense of exaltation. The person sitting to my left was quietly sobbing. It seemed not so different from an LSD experience, and after less than two hours it seemed to be leveling off, so I went up to the shaman for another cup.

But before the second cup had time to really start taking effect my mind surged into the beginning of one of the most intense experiences of my life. Before long I was sitting there in the dark propped up on one hand and using the other continually, nervously to rub my face and head; I sometimes would whisper, like a mantra, "This is too much…This is unnecessary…" It seemed as though my mind were not so much expanded as intensified to at least three times beyond the normal level. I felt as though I were surfing a tsunami of mental intensity, struggling to maintain balance and avoid crashing and going under into I had no idea what.

A few times I had the urge to "get well," but reminded myself of the shaman's first advice and chose not to. But after a while the fellow sitting to my right began having an obviously very harrowing experience. He was writhing, crying, whimpering, and moaning as though he were in some kind of purgatory, and at one point he had the shaman and two helpers around him trying to calm him down. Having someone sitting right next to me essentially freaking out was too much, partly because one effect of the medicine is heightened compassion and a feeling of interconnectedness with everyone else. My own feeling of the fellow's agony overwhelmed me rather quickly, and I grabbed the bucket and purged and purged, very loudly. (Amazingly, after the guy finally came through whatever hell he was in and calmed down, he shakily got to his feet and requested another cup of medicine! I'm pretty sure the wise shaman didn't give it to him though.)

Occasionally throughout the night our guide would play a guitar and sing, sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish, and sometimes she would recite poetry or guide us with other uplifting words. She had taken the medicine also, however, and on one occasion, in the middle of the night, she tried to recite something and suddenly had to stop, apparently too much under the influence of "The Grandmother" herself. I have found that, for me, a female guide is preferable to a male one, since the medicine, considered to be a goddess or female spirit, has such a feminine energy to it, and the soothing, gentle voice of a woman has a more steadying and helpful effect on my surging, distressed mind and feelings.

It is certainly not like LSD or psilocybin in that it is not primarily a head trip. It is much more visceral, much more chest-oriented. With LSD everything can be beautiful and perfect and God for several hours, and then one comes down and everything is fine—maybe one is a bit tired or run-down, but fine. But ayahuasca is not like this: It turns my thoughts and feelings into a rushing torrent, and usually not a blissful torrent. But more about that later.

The most memorable insight experience I had that night involved becoming hypersensitive to Samsara, so to speak. I was aware of the attachment even in firmly directing my attention to a mental state, so that everything I experienced seemed "sticky" in a way, almost requiring me to practice some rather advanced-level meditation, carefully steering clear of fixing my attention on any object.

Anyway, as the effects began to subside, in the early morning, everything became more like an LSD experience again, with the whole of experience being beautiful and perfect. I really like those parts, although the more painful intensity is invaluable in a very different way.

The next morning it seemed like everyone's heart was wide open. Mine certainly was. The shaman went around the room and conversed with each person in turn, discussing with us our experiences, and then we were free to leave. Afterwards I remember being very impressed by and respectful of those brave people who were willing to face their demons for the sake of greater understanding. I am always struck by the courage of people who go to these ceremonies. It really does take courage. That following day was one of the happiest and most sensitively wide-open days of my life, in some ways much preferable to being in the midst of the psychic maelstrom the night before. However, it was obviously the effect of the night before; the medicine had somehow purged me of negativity, temporarily.

Recently I attended my third and fourth ceremonies, two nights, back to back. Although I've promised not to describe the ceremonies, the experiences I had internally are still fresh in my mind, so I can describe the insights that resulted with better recall.

Both nights, under the effects of the medicine, I experienced the same phenomenon: Whenever I would think a negative or negatively limiting thought, even just remembering how awful the medicine tasted, I would start to "go under" into feelings of anguish and nausea. In order to avoid puking my guts out, and worse, I found myself practically required continuously to have positive thoughts and feelings—gratitude, blessings for all around me, love, "yes," "aum," and meditation on the breath kept me on top of things and in balance, and everything was very intense, but lovely. (I also found that the desperate prayer/mantra "Dear God please have mercy" was neutral, and neither helped nor hindered me.) I could see very plainly the dangerous effects of negative and limiting thoughts; and I realized that the same is true in ordinary life, except not so obviously so. The medicine really is not so different from ordinary consciousness, except much more intense, and it just doesn't let you be lazy and ignore it. Sloth and torpor are simply not an option. Your issues are shoved right into your face. It thrusts tapas, viriya, and samvega upon you, whether you want them or not. It's sink or swim; and maybe sometimes it's just sink. If it gets too overwhelming one gets sucked under; and there are some who say that sometimes it's best to be sucked under into desperation and uncontrollable puking.

I knew that my own mind was in control, whether it seemed so or not. Also, I realized that the same energy that produces negativity, pain, and nausea can just as easily produce gratitude, love and blessings. It's really our own energy, and our own choice; but gratitude and love tend not to be our favorite habits. We want to be lazy and not entirely awake, not entirely responsible for our thoughts, words, and actions, and so our negative habits run our lives for us. With ordinary life we can do this almost indefinitely, but the medicine makes us choose consciously, and if we choose unwisely, we pay. We pay in ordinary life too, but not so obviously and dramatically.

Another insight was with regard to how profoundly our beliefs condition and limit our reality. If you go outside or reach for the bucket just in case you may vomit, almost certainly you will (or I will anyway), because you have just opened the door for it; you have allowed it. Thinking "This is difficult" reinforces the difficulty of whatever it is; and thinking "I'm messed up" reinforces how messed up one is. If I would think "I'm fine," I would immediately feel better; and if I thought "Gawd this is awful" I'd immediately start spiraling downward. It occurred to me what a treasure hope can be, a feeling that I had never really appreciated before. Hope is an open door, the belief that something is still possible. Only when one gives up hope is a situation truly hopeless. Then the door is closed. At one point I associated this to the situation in America nowadays, with the economy teetering on the verge of national bankruptcy and all the other troubles that are prevalent: I felt like it was because most Americans are so conditioned by materialism that they have lost hope in miracles (except for the miracles of technology, which are not enough to save us). It is as though the door has been closed, and all that remains is mundane hopelessness.

Another insight: Once we love someone, it is our sacred duty always to love them no matter what; because that is true love. Besides, one of the greatest blessings there is, is for someone to know all about you, to know all your faults, and love you and consider you to be wonderful anyway. To deprive someone of that seems a tragic loss. It just doesn't feel right.

Still another: Largely because of the mandatory compassion, I felt that the only really enlightened thing worth living for is the reduction of overall suffering. For example, if this blog doesn't uplift people and help them somehow to wake up and be happier, then it is just that much more wallowing in samsara, and a waste of time and effort. It is much easier to be compassionate when one also has fresh experiences of deep pain to relate to. And there is so much hurting in this world.

It is also easier to be humble when one is a total mess, with snot and vomit dribbling down one's lips, like any number of other people around. That, plus having one's own shortcomings thrust into one's face. One realizes that, for example, if a majority is made more unhappy than happy by one's behavior (which seemed to be the case with me in America), then something should be radically changed. And it can be changed if we take responsibility for our own mental energy, and if we realize how easy it is, and how important.

Continuing with the story, the first of the two nights was probably the only really pleasant ceremony I've experienced; I went easy on myself, didn't drink too much, and didn't even puke—I mean, eh, "get well." But the second night I tried to push myself a bit: when I felt strong enough I went up for another cup of medicine…but the taste of it was so utterly, indescribably foul that it triggered the gag reflex, and I promptly "get welled" it right back up. It was such a shock to my system that I was pretty much derailed for the rest of the night. I felt too awful to maintain positive mental states, and went into an hours-long bout of crazy, seemingly uncontrollable negative thoughts that had me desperate and at the verge of nausea well into the next morning. Sometimes I reflected that many people in this world are in over their heads like this their whole lives, with no knowledge of a way out. At least I knew that the journey has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Several times people have told me that seeing me sit in meditation during a ceremony helped to strengthen and stabilize them in their own medicine-induced struggles, and often my own meditation has inspired others to meditate. When I was derailed and sick, I kept thinking that the best way I could serve the others was by sitting up and meditating; but often I would lie there thinking, "I'm too messed up. I can't do it." But then I considered that those who are really committed to helping others do it even when they are messed up. Besides, I'm only messed up because I believe I am. It's not too much unless I think it is. Being messed up seemed no valid excuse. I struggled with that idea a lot that night, sometimes forcing myself to meditate cross-legged even when I was so "out of it" that I could hardly manage to sit up or take a drink of water.

So ayahuasca ceremonies are usually painful, harrowing experiences for me, and while I'm in the midst of one I have absolutely zero intention of ever participating in another one, ever. Ever. But afterwards I have no choice but to recognize the obvious benefits, and that it is very good for a top-heavy person like me to have his heart blasted wide open, and effortlessly to feel deep compassion and blessings for everyone around me, just as they are feeling them for me. I'll probably do it again, if I ever get the chance. The last two nights especially seem to have done me a world of good.

These experiences reinforce my opinion, which I've expressed before, that head-oriented "masculine" wisdom certainly saves solitary individuals, but if the entire world is to be saved it will be through more heart-oriented "feminine" wisdom. That doesn't necessarily mean that women will save the world, though, since men can feel love and compassion also, even though it may come less "naturally" to us. So it is worth some hurting, even some desperate anguish, to cultivate it.

Also I should remind the good reader that the above are my own experiences. Different people respond differently to the medicine. In fact it's fascinating how radically different different people's experiences can be. The ones I don't get are the people who, when asked how their journey was, say "Oh, it was fine. It was lovely." Did they drink the same stuff that turned me inside out? I really don't get that. And one friend of mine has taken it three times without any significant effect.

Here I would like to make an observation. It seems to me that the radical positive effects of these ceremonies, painful as they may be, are about an order of magnitude beyond what I have observed going on at western Dharma centers and vipassana meditation retreats, except perhaps for beginners trying meditation for the first time. Ayahuasca simply slams the truth at you, and doesn't allow you to ignore it, no matter how uncomfortable or even agonizing it may be. It requires some courage and strength. But it gives us what, deep down, we need to receive.

Some may argue that ayahuasca is just a drug which distorts "reality," so the effects are thus demeaned, possibly even invalidated. But the brain itself distorts reality. I am reminded of a passage in Dostoevsky's great novel The Idiot, in which the epileptic, Christlike Prince Myshkin reflects upon a mystical state that he often experiences just before the onset of a seizure:

"He pondered, among other things, the fact that there was a stage in his epileptic condition just before the fit itself (if it occurred during waking hours) when all of a sudden, amid the sadness, spiritual darkness, and oppression, there were moments when his brain seemed to flare up momentarily and all his vital forces tense themselves at once in an extraordinary surge. The sensation of being alive and self-aware increased almost tenfold in those lightning-quick moments. His mind and heart were bathed in an extraordinary illumination. All his agitation, all his doubts and anxieties, seemed to be instantly reconciled and resolved into a lofty serenity, filled with pure, harmonious gladness and hope, filled too with the consciousness of the ultimate cause of all things. But these moments, these flashes, were merely the prelude to that final second (never more than a second) which marked the onset of the actual fit. That second was, of course, unendurable. Reflecting on that moment afterwards when he had recovered, he often used to tell himself that all these gleams and lightning-flashes of heightened self-awareness, and hence also of 'higher existence', were nothing more than the illness itself, violating the normal state of things as it did, and thus it was not a higher mode of existence at all—on the contrary, it should be regarded as the lowest. And yet he arrived at length at a paradoxical conclusion: 'What if it is the illness then?' he decided finally. 'What does it matter if it is some abnormal tension, if the end-result, the instant of apprehension, recalled and analysed during recovery, turns out to be the highest pitch of harmony and beauty, conferring a sense of some hitherto-unknown and unguessed completeness, proportion, reconciliation, an ecstatic, prayerful fusion with the supreme synthesis of life?' These nebulous expressions seemed perfectly comprehensible to him, though still inadequate. But that it really was 'beauty and prayer', that it really was 'the supreme synthesis of life', this he could not doubt, or even admit the possibility of doubt. These were no weird figments brought on by hashish, opium, or wine, degrading the intellect and distorting the soul. He could judge that soberly once the fit was over. These moments were purely and simply an intense heightening of self-awareness, if he had to express his state in a word, self-awareness and, at the same time, the most direct sense of one's own existence taken to the highest degree. If in that second, in the final conscious moment before the attack, he could have managed to tell himself clearly and deliberately: 'Yes, for this moment one could give one's whole life!' then of course, that moment on its own would be worth one's whole life. He did not insist on the dialectical part of his argument, however: stupor, spiritual darkness, and idiocy stood before him as the plain consequence of those 'supreme moments'. He would not have argued the point seriously. There was doubtless some flaw in his conclusion, that is, in his assessment of the moment, but the reality of the sensation troubled him, all the same. What could one do with this reality then? After all, the thing had happened before, he had managed to tell himself in that second that for the profound experience of infinite happiness, it might be worth his whole life." (translated by Alan Myers, published by Oxford University Press, 1992)

So what if it is drug induced, so long as it helps us to feel profound compassion, and deepens our self-knowledge besides? That is a priceless gift, and no mere dollar amount could do it justice.

[malmanomar]

 

 

Jeg fant noe enda mer interessant, og håper du finner det verdt å lese (skrevet av en munk med 18 års erfaring med å forstå hva bevisstheten er og ikke er)

 

 

 

Trial by Ordeal: Buddhism Meets Ayahuasca

...beskrivelsene minnet meg om denne....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH_V3-B_Zyo

 

[+orc]

Det kan eller kan ikke være noe bak illuminati greiene, men uansett om det er noe, så har vi bare et helt simpelt overfladisk bilde av det hele. Det jeg forsøker å si her er at uansett om vi er blitt klare over dette med illuminati, så er det ikke nok å bare være klar over det, det kan være enormt mye mer man må vite for å komme videre med det.

 

Det å bare være klar over at noe er sant er ikke nok. Det er faktisk langt ifra nok.

 

 

Om jeg oppdager at det fins en galakse der ute og bestemmer meg for å kalle galaksen for "Per". Vel, fint, jeg er klar over at Per eksisterer, men dette kan sammenliknes med det jeg sa ovenfor, det er ikke nok å vite at Per eksisterer. Det er trilliarder av detaljer ang. "Per" som jeg ikke vet, som er ekstremt relevant, som jeg antakeligvis aldri vil få vite mer om.

Endret 20. oktober 2014 av +orc