Visions and experiences and chemical imbalances

[Guest guest]

I've read somewhere that people who tend to have visions of someone just have a chemical imbalance and nothing more. They're not observing the person's atma or soul or anything like that, it's just a matter of brain chemistry gone wrong. I know that many people who meditate see visions and many wondrous experiences, and some even get to see God Himself. Are these necessarily due to chemical imbalance as well? If not, why not? How do we know that these visions and mystical encounters and such aren't due to chemical imbalance?

[Guest guest]

Many of them may be due to chemical stimulation, it would be interesting to do an obective, honest census of just how many people that have spiritual visions have experimented with chemical stimulants, my intuition tells me the vast majority would have tacken some kind of mind altering drug at some time, but they would never addmit it.

Even some of the writers in the scriptures of most religious doctrine seem to have strikingly similar experiences to opium, LSD, psylicibin, mescalin, mushroom, peyote, and ecstasy users.

[theist]

There are many many so-called visions that are result of chemical imbalances through faulty brain wiring orchemically induced. But these are more correctly classified as hallucinations and sometimes delusions. These exist no doubt.

 

But visions of heavenly beings, the Lord Himself or His devotees, are true visions and are just as real as the hallucinations, or even more so.

 

We have to be aware that these researchers into brain chemistry start with the premise that there is no such thing as the soul or the spiritual world or God and are convinced from day one that such visions have to be the result of imbalances in the brain chemistry. Their efforts are geared toward finding exactly which part of the brain malfunctions during such events.

 

They are not genuine truth seekers but are themselves agenda driven.

[Guest guest]

 

Many of them may be due to chemical stimulation, it would be interesting to do an obective, honest census of just how many people that have spiritual visions have experimented with chemical stimulants, my intuition tells me the vast majority would have tacken some kind of mind altering drug at some time, but they would never addmit it.

Even some of the writers in the scriptures of most religious doctrine seem to have strikingly similar experiences to opium, LSD, psylicibin, mescalin, mushroom, peyote, and ecstasy users.

 

Well, before I start my list of endless queries I'd like to say this: Even if scriptures indicate experiences similar to those induced by drugs, that doesn't necessarily make those scriptural experiences a product of drug use or a product of chemical imbalance.

 

I know my aunt has never done any drugs and has had mystical visions, and so has my cousin but that was coming out of a coma, and he doesn't really remember the vision after fully waking just that my aunt remembered him muttering something about God coming to him to tell him he won't die or something like that. I know my uncle has never done any drugs and he had a mystical vision as well while sitting in a temple and seeing movement in the idol. 6 others who went to the same yoga class he went to corroborated this as they saw the same thing.

 

Now back to my questions:

 

so what's the point then?

 

What about kundalini? Is that necessarily simply due to chemical imbalance as well? If a person becomes a genius due to an aroused kundalini, or a mystic, or a prophet are they necessarily deluded, or insane? Who is to say that the chemical "imbalance" is not really the way the brain should be working to begin with?

 

However, if all scriptural experiences, and all mystical visions are just delusions:

 

These experiences can hardly be considered genuine if they are due to mere chemical alteration of the brain.

 

Why should anyone believe in God if these mystical experiences are delusions? I know some people will offer the statistical improbability of our own existence as proof but that's not PROOF, it's just circumstantial evidence, nothing more. If seeing isn't necessarily believing, then what is? How does one believe? How does one get comforted with the idea God is there? or that there is a purpose to our lives that we can't see? That we're part of something bigger than us? Sorry, but I'm not going to be satisfied with someone offering a "practical" outlook on life. That just doesn't work for me, as I'm very frustrated with life to begin with, and I just see no real point to any of this.

 

And I just can't consider God to be compassionate or merciful if He hasn't given anyone any reason to believe in Him, or any way to know Him or have a glimpse of Him truly. In fact, I condemn such a God and I'm not afraid to say it. Even if He does exist, and that is the way He works, I'm not afraid to lash out at Him even if He does send me to hell. I know this seems rather immature for me to say all this, but I can't get the idea of God out of my mind, and I have been meditating and chanting the Hare Krishna mantra for a while now, and I still have not found any peace, just more reason for doubt and nothing else. I'm almost at the nadir of my life, and I have almost no hope left that there is any God out there that I can seek to know or even understand a little or even help show the way for me.

[Guest guest]

"But visions of heavenly beings, the Lord Himself or His devotees, are true visions and are just as real as the hallucinations, or even more so."

 

I find your post to be inspirational theist to some extent, so thank you.

 

But I still have questions: What determines whether the vision is due to a chemical balance or not? Even the Lord can appear in a dream or some devas, but that doesn't make them real at all. How does one determine whether these visions are real at all? As far as I can tell, unless they tell of something that will happen that you find there is no way you could have known beforehand, or they give you something tangible that nobody else could have given you and you could not have gotten either from around you, there really is no way to know.

 

I've heard a lot of people say faith is believing without seeing, but to me that is just ignorance masked as spirituality. I've also heard people say trust what your heart tells you, but it's often your heart that shows you the wrong path because it is dominated by emotions, and emotions lead you to become deluded.

[theist]

 

"But visions of heavenly beings, the Lord Himself or His devotees, are true visions and are just as real as the hallucinations, or even more so."

 

I find your post to be inspirational theist to some extent, so thank you.

 

But I still have questions: What determines whether the vision is due to a chemical balance or not? Even the Lord can appear in a dream or some devas, but that doesn't make them real at all. How does one determine whether these visions are real at all? As far as I can tell, unless they tell of something that will happen that you find there is no way you could have known beforehand, or they give you something tangible that nobody else could have given you and you could not have gotten either from around you, there really is no way to know.

 

Intelligent questions. The determination of if the vision was chemically induced or not exists as an objective fact. Either it was or wasn't so induced. The problem of course is that the one having visions brought about by schizophrenia(sp?) will accept his visions as real. This is the nature of delusions. The only way we can see if the vision of the Lord is real is if the Lord Himself directly confirms it. A man who has lived his life in total darkness and has never seen the sun rise may be fooled into thinking a simple torch held by someone is the sun. But once the real sun arises in the morning sky there cannot be any doubt as to the fact that this sun is real and what came before was unreal. The Lord, like the sun, is self-revealing.

 

Premonitions of future wordly events that eventually come true proves the premonition was real. But I make a distinction between pyschic premonitions and a vision of the Lord or His devotees.

 

 

I've heard a lot of people say faith is believing without seeing, but to me that is just ignorance masked as spirituality. I've also heard people say trust what your heart tells you, but it's often your heart that shows you the wrong path because it is dominated by emotions, and emotions lead you to become deluded.

 

I agree with you. Srila Prabhupada wrote in a Gita purport that "blind faith is condemned." Faith should grow by acquired knowledge of Krsna, blind faith is just a combination of ignorance and sentimentality. Krsna consciousness is about coming to understand things as they are and not just blindly believing that they are a certain way or another. People do that and then have blind faith in their own mental concoctions even against all reason. The best example is a lot of these people who call themselves Christians. Somehow they have taken hold of the concoction that God will eternally punish souls in a lake of fire and torment for failing to surrender to Him in one paltry earth lifetime. They will even often admit that it doesn't make sense but then they will say, "God's ways are mysterious. It is not for us to understand but to just believe." There is no way of getting through that wall of stubburn ignorance.

 

I also agree with your point on "Just follow your heart brother." My heart is filled with so much junk and filthy desires so why in the hell should I just follow my heart. If I do then I am sure to end up in some hellish condition.

 

We must come to follow what the Lord tells us from the transcendental region of our hearts. That region exists but we need to reestablish the connection. During the process of trying to reconnect within, the Lord kindly appears to us externally in the form of the spiritual master and preceptor on the path to God consciousness. That is who we should follow and not our conditioned minds and hearts.

 

It is a fight, a life and death struggle, to break the pattern of having faith in our own concocted dreams of how to be happy and instead learn to trust in the Lord and His representative. And fight we must.

[krishnadasa]

 

I've read somewhere that people who tend to have visions of someone just have a chemical imbalance and nothing more. They're not observing the person's atma or soul or anything like that, it's just a matter of brain chemistry gone wrong. I know that many people who meditate see visions and many wondrous experiences, and some even get to see God Himself. Are these necessarily due to chemical imbalance as well? If not, why not? How do we know that these visions and mystical encounters and such aren't due to chemical imbalance?

 

see whether he or she has got a authorised guru or a guru in that lineage, if not better not to believe.........

hari hari bol

[Avinash]

 

I've read somewhere that people who tend to have visions of someone just have a chemical imbalance and nothing more. They're not observing the person's atma or soul or anything like that, it's just a matter of brain chemistry gone wrong. I know that many people who meditate see visions and many wondrous experiences, and some even get to see God Himself. Are these necessarily due to chemical imbalance as well? If not, why not? How do we know that these visions and mystical encounters and such aren't due to chemical imbalance?

 

Do those visions come true? If yes, this means that visions are correct and not illusions. If visions are not illusions, is it still possible that there is some chemical imbalance behind these? The answer is yes, it is possible. But even there is some chemical imbalance, it is immaterial if visions prove correct. To take an analogy, I may prepare some food for you. Lots of chemical reactions are involved when food is prepared. But it does not mean that food is not real.

[Guest guest]

I'm an old acid head from the early 70's.

I have plenty of experience with hallucinations.

 

I think I could distinguish between a psychedelic hallucination and a "vision".

 

I have had plenty of hallucinations on LSD, but I have never had a "vision".

 

LSD was a lot of fun when I got a handle on this hallucination process.

 

Initially, it was a nightmare and I hated it.

[Guest guest]

So what would you call it if you thought you saw Krsna in your minds eye on LSD, like some devotees believe.