Psychedelic drugs

[AllQuestionsNow]

Thanks to whoever reads/remarks upon this posting. I am very new to Krishna Consciousness and have a lot of questions which pertain to my previous life of desires and how i got to where i am now. I have regrettably indulged into psychedelics and other intoxicants in which i am struggling to overcome and cease usage. According to the wisdom of Krishna Consciousness, where do psychedelic drugs such as shrooms, mescaline and LSD fit into this world? Why would they be here? Does it have anything to do with the human desire to explore other realms of consciousness? Are these drugs a "gift" of Krishna to humans, showing Krishna's endless mercy or are they more of a curse that humans have imposed upon themselves to travell further down the path of illusion? Would there be a proper, dedicated way of intaking such drugs such as spiritual ceremonies that the Native Americans performed before they took peyote? Could the insight one attain from taking pysechedelics lead us back to Krishna, or if one were to chant the holy names for Krishna while under the influence of such drugs, would that be a sin? I apologize for my ignorance and disobedience to Krishna for me to be in such a position to inquire about these (perhaps) trivial matters, but it has been on my mind lately, and i know if i turn to Krishna and continue to chant and offer my actions up to Krishna all my questions and desires will be fulfilled and i will live in the loving service of the Lord Krishna.

[Guest guest]

drugs are drugs. they are delutions usally. shrooms are natural but if you could understand them why would you ask here? keep your experiances to your self and chalk them up to fun; dangerous fun.

shrooms got me into KC but on this forum they will insult you about them so dont discuse them on this site.

most of the people here will tell you what ever they form in their little opinions that is not valid scripturaly or they just go by what they were told by thier guru. it is like any faith some do and some dont. but does that make any of them right. drugs are not mentioned in the scriptures and if some one says they are laugh liek i do. but the greater truth is between you and krishna. i would take what they say with a grain of salt.

krishna came to you in a vision good take it from there knowing that the bulk of KC message is drug free even though back in in the day hash amd MJ smoking was not against the dharma or against the lords teachings. there are books in our linage that have light referances to smoking MJ, but it is rare. when the anti-drug movment started KC jumped on the band wagon. but in the 60's smoking out and chanting was typical to see.

personally i think it makes you stupid.

drugs are no good in general. modern science even knows better then to play games with your psyche. mixing drugs and religion is even worse.

[Guest guest]

lsd was created from bread mold, shrooms are mold grown from cow dung. peyote destroys your liver and they indians that eat it are crazy in general.

albert hoffman invented lsd to help brainwash the nazis the nazis invented methampetamines also to do the same and make soldiers that need less food.

hitler was example of a drug addict that got religious, so think about that.

[Guest guest]

drugs and false religions go together. most modern cults in the last 2500 years are based off drugs, especially bible cults. mulsims have hash, christians have mushrooms as do the hebrews. they are great examples of fanatics on dope.

[Guest guest]

You absolutely should stay off drugs. They are in no way religious. They are dangerous, the high they induce can lead you into dependency, this is the total opposite of religion, real religion leads you to freedom. Depending on your level of addiction you should either stop cold or if this is too hard for you progressively decrease taking it till you are completely off. Maybe get some professional help if it is serious. The high these things induce are due to ignorance (forgetfullness) they cause you to forget your problems and warp your perception etc.. When the effect is over your problems are there again, not only that they are worse now. Religion enables you to cope with your problems and eventually helps you to overcome them and to be free from them. Anything that drags you into dependency is stiffling and limiting. When trying to overcome these things you must strive to keep a constant awareness of mind. Always think to yourself "Why am I feeling this wayWhat is the basis of this emotion" Look at the thoughts that run through your mind when you are happy and when you are not, see the differences, and the similarities. This will help you to break the habit faster.

 

When you feel like you need to take some drug ask yourself why. In terms of what emotions, what situations make you feel that you want to take them. Work on strengthening your emotional stability as well.

 

Sir you don't have to apologise to anyone, sometimes these things happen and to have the strength to realise your situation and decide to do something about it is rare. Proceed with this strength. Whatever your religion, it doesn't matter, just try your best and leave the rest to God. But remember the path to God is not a circus, don't expect that you are going to do some meditation and experience the same psychadelic effects, it is deep, profound boundless peace, and it attainable to anyone who wants it. Expect it to be hard, as Krsna says, happiness in the mode of goodness is like poison in the beginning and like nectar in the END. Happiness in the mode of passion is like nectar in the beginning and poison in the end. It is only goodness, that opens the doors to God.

 

 

[Guest guest]

cold turkey and a strange bit of advice.

there is a cult called santeria they have herbal medicine that can actually make you think as you did before you did drugs. it is a common herb found in florida that is not a drug but it makes you brain revert to its normal and natural mental patterns. i am not sujesting following them but they posess knowlage of natural medicine that can make it like you never did drugs ever in you life. ask a priest about this leaf that brewed in to a sweet tea and it is a godsend.

if you can find it , it is worth it, imagine thinking normally? it can happen and i know it works for a fact.

[Nrsinghadev]

Hare Krishna,

 

There are four regulative principles:

 

1. No eating of meat,fish,eggs, onion & garlic.

2. No illicit sex

3. No intoxication

4. No Gambling

 

Whatever drugs you can name is intoxication, be it caffeine, tobacco, cannabis, lsd, mushrooms etc.etc.

So what is this intoxication? A chemical process in the body. That's all. Nothing spiritual ever comes from it, what you experience is merely an illusion within an illusion. Even in the case of native Americans it is simply a case of begetting a different perception of the material world, not of the spiritual world. So the shamans can have visions, but they are all on the material plane. Krishna is beyond the material plane, so to obtain Him, transcendental activities are required. What are these transcendental activities? Krishna describes them. Krishna is not obtained cheaply. Krishna provides for your wants and needs. If you want to forget about Him, He will give you the means to do so. This is why we are here. Hope this clears things up!

 

Haribol!

[Guest guest]

great posts folks.

fanatics, fools, decivers take religious experiance from drugs and delution comes from drugs.

 

taking one oxycodone pill for my neck pain messes up my life for a week. the smell for MJ makes me want to puke. booze makes me just feel mean for days. why would anyone want to do dope? life is a mess why make it worse.

i have to take xanax that is a pain in it self. i have P.T.S.D. from the military. xanax; with it is misery without it is hell.

[AllQuestionsNow]

Thank you to all who responded...it helped me out a lot with some mental uncertainties. I have always found the followers of Krishna Conciousness to be very wise and have adored His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his teachings ever since i came into contact with them. Your posts have strengthened my belief in being drug free...the only reason i posted the question was to have reassurance of my beliefs when I am hanging out with my friends who use such drugs. I am still uncertain as to whether it is a sin to hang out with people who do drugs or support such a lifestyle...it is cause much tension between me and my friends. I cannot thank you enough.

[Guest guest]

If you are around them when they are actually using drugs and there is smoke etc that you can inhale do not. Otherwise remember they are also people, try to subtly influecne them to stop, don't be overbearing otherwise they will just ignore you

[Guest guest]

find new friends its alot easyer.

[Guest guest]

It would be a lot easier for him, but what about the others, that is basically abandonment

[Guest guest]

Say you have found the ultimate drug, costfree and purely spiritual with no ill side effects.

[Guest guest]

they will most likely be annoyed at his quiting dope so he will lose the friend ships anyways

[jagatpurush]

when i was younger. it was fun and all, but it's sort of a 'been there, done that' type of situation.

 

if i were to take LSD today, my first thought would probably be 'why did i take LSD?' i am more interested nowadays in trying to make my life more spiritual, as i find that to be more substantial. taking LSD may open up your understanding of consciousness, but it does not give you the tools for how to deal with what you see. for that, i turn to religion and culture.

[Guest guest]

Any drug will not open up your understanding of consciousness. It will distort and totally corrupt and destroy your mind and what is perceived is still material. Just very distorted.

 

As to the perfect drug, there will never be no sideeffects. Even if there was no physical side effects there will still be addiction, just like some people are addicted to fast food. This will just induce a dependency syndrome which is the oppposite of the spiritual goal

[Guest guest]

This is for those who are still stuck in religion and think that all the answers to life will be found in the scriptures.

 

I was a born a Hindu, not a very staunch devotee but I was a loyal devotee. I was a vegetarian and still am. At the age of 20 I came across Sai Baba and became a devotee but did not get involved with any satsang activities. During my time here I did witness vibhuti come flying out of a photo, a number of us saw this strange event and this confirmed to me that something existed outside our realms of perception. After a while I discovered the Swaminarayan faith and became very interested in their concepts, especially the purity, and shortly I became a satsangi and was a very active member of this organisation, performing seva in every department and even supervising on many occasions. To cut a very long story short, I had a few difficulties and disagreements with the way the temple was run, some of these things were as follows, vip’s always seemed to get access to places other people couldn’t, why was this? Why should vip’s and those people who gave more money get special rights that other people didn’t, like the people who had worked blindly in the temple for years and never asked for anything, anyone who thinks that jealousy may be the cause here is greatly mistaken. Then there was the weekly satsang where after everyone had gone home there would be abundant amounts of food thrown in the bin, so that’s where all those donations go! These are just a speckle of the faults I found, not to mention that everytime the mahant of the temple went away the other sadhu’s would do things, which they wouldn’t normally do, like the mice when the cat went away. There were many other issues I had like the sadhu’s trying to break up my relationship with my fiancé by spreading rumours, and sadhu’s using the mahant’s name to carry out their own agendas, these are just a few of the issues I faced and I wont say more.

 

After a very hard time in satsang I decided to leave at which point I decided to carry out my own research on the origins of religion, and in doing so I have run into subjects like anthropology, archaeology, theology, and especially psychology.

 

In carrying out this research I ran into the following video;

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/ 3 hrs long.

 

This opened up a whole new can of worms and soon I was researching the use of plant-based drugs in ancient times. I suggest that people start doing their own OBJECTIVE research and for those that are interested in Hinduism only I suggest that you look up the word “SOMA”, and especially the references in the Rig Veda Chapter 9, all 112 versus. After finding this information I thought it was time for me to do the final step and actually try one of these substances, I chose the mushrooms, and I can truly say that these plant based substances open the consciousness up to other dimensions, its like someone upgrading your neurological system, I cant believe that more people don’t know anything about this. This is no joke or a light hearted matter and anyone finding themselves in a similar position who wishes to experiment with any one of these plant-based substances should inform themselves correctly of the procedures and dangers of these substances.

 

If the idea of using a plant-based substance sounds wacky to you then that will be your conditioning kicking in. Remember when Laxman fell ill, Ram ordered Hanuman to go to the mountain and find the special herbs that would cure him. The facts are that all, yes ALL the ancient religions had some kind of substance use associated with it, the Christian’s and the Hebrew’s had Manna, the Hindu’s had Soma, the Persians had Haoma, possibly an offshoot of Soma, the Greek’s had their festivals at Elusis, the Roman’s were known for their wine which was more stronger than the wines today and some speculate that this wine had resin mixed with it to account for the strength, the Aztecs and Incas both were known for their mushroom use as well as other plants. Here is a painting from the Canterbury Psalter dated 1150ad showing Jesus as the Lord of the Magical Plants, The third picture on the top right shows four plants which have been identified as Opium, Amanita Muscaria, Psilocybe Cubensis, and Syrian Rue, all of these are potent so called drugs.

http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.eadwine.psalter.html

 

DMT, this chemical is known as a psychedelic drug, it is abundant in many plants and animals, we create DMT in our bodies by the pineal gland, the release of this chemical coincides with the same time as the time we dream! Dr Rick Strassman has done one of the only studies on this compound and you can read his book called “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” for more info on the spiritual aspects of this chemical. Did you know that when you meditate, you are releasing endorphins and serotonin in your body, in other words you are getting a fix. Studies have proved that meditation is not good for everyone and people with psychological problems should avoid it.

 

One of the things that mislead us to turn to religion is our of minds, when I joined satsang, one of the things I was taught is never to have abhav about anybody, never talk bad or look at the faults of others, especially in satsang, tell me, how many of you, if you had gone to see a new car for sale, would have ignored the fact that the car had an engine missing, this is the same principle we are talking about here. Just because thousands of people believe something does not make it right, if hundreds of people believe something, they call it a cult, if millions of people believe something they call it a religion, think about that!

 

There is sufficient evidence to prove that what we perceive with our eyes is not what we are actually seeing, the mind alters what we see through our eyes according to our belief systems and edits the footage for the brain. Watch the film/Documentary “What the Bleep Do We Know?” for more info (http://www.whatthebleep.com/). In other words the play of life only takes place in the domain of the mind!

 

There have been many studies in miracles and one of the most famous is the miracle of stigmata, where people develop bleeding hands and show the same symptoms as Jesus did on the cross, Jesus has also been depicted in art over the last 600 years as being crucified with nails through the hands and a crown of thorns on his head which cut him and made him bleed, as did the spear that pierced the side of him and the nails in his feet. The people developing the stigmata have resembled the very same injuries. Now here comes the catch, during the roman times there wasn’t one person who was crucified with nails through the hands, they used to drive the nails through the wrist because the hands were too weak to support the body, archaeological evidence has proved this, this clearly proves that these incidents were subjective, that they were self induced through the powers of the mind, don’t believe it, do your own research! Just look at the power of placebos and then tell me that the mind cannot do this.

 

Now some of you are now probably thinking, “but religion is good, it’s the right thing to do”, let me state that there is no such thing as right and wrong, it all depends on the perception of the observer and your perception depends on your conditioning. Its just like asking what is normal and abnormal, if there were 100 people in a room, and 99 of them wore red hats, and 1 wore a blue hat then that one person would be considered abnormal by the others even though he may be perfectly normal. As for good and bad, well again it depends on the perception and conditioning of the observer. There is no right and wrong as long as you do not infringe on the rights of others. For too long we have relied on religion to install morals, that nowadays if you are not religious then you are considered as without having any morals and that you must be a baaaaad person.

 

Its time for people to wake up and know the truth, these religions be it Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or whatever, are nothing more than large multinational cooperation’s stealing your money. The truth about how great we are and what we are capable of has been suppressed and hidden from us by these very religious organisations.

 

Question authority, Question Religion, Question all that you see, and do it OBJECTIVELY. If these gurus really have something special that can give you that ‘something’, then why can’t they show me? I am talking about the felt presence of immediate experience as the late “Terence McKenna” used to say, what you feel, what you truly feel. If they have something special then why does one need to learn to feel that something, why does one need to learn & read thousands of scriptures to attain that feeling? If that feeling is real then you should be able to feel it without having to learn to feel it. If alcohol, coffee, tobacco, sugar, marijuana, mushrooms, and even sports like cardiovascular workouts can make immediate impact on my feeling than why cant the power of these so called gods, it seems to me that you need to learn to feel good to be ahead in religion, in other words you need to be conditioned to understand not understand without being conditioned.

[Guest guest]

"Question authority, Question Religion, Question all that you see, and do it OBJECTIVELY."

 

This was the motto of the Buddha also,who said accept nothing because some old man in orange robes tell you to, and he came to the same truth revealed in the Upanishads and the Geeta, Definitely people should not get stuck in religion, religion is just the vehicle, when it is job is done it should be left behind, the religion itself says this.

 

When you talk about consciousness, in relation to drugs, you are talking about a material chemical effect. This is not the consciousness commonly referred to by modern vedantic exponents when they talk about cosmic consciousness or god consciousness. The Siddhis, from materialization to the so called expanded consciousness induced by drugs are all material phenomena. Paramhansa Yogananda talks about the INNER astral worlds, the conscious centres of the brain that these worlds manifest in and says all these are MATERIAL and not the ultimate. Ramana Maharishi also says the same thing. http://www.hinduism.co.za/miracles.htm

 

You should also understand that nothing is in reality objective. Everything is subjective. Even physicists have now started taking into account the effect of the perceiver. We can only understand things objectively if we do a very superficial analysis.

 

Too often people in searching, think they have come to the end of the search when they find a different scenario has evolved than what they had originally thought. The example I like to give in realtion to this is water looking from a hose looking for its source. It sees itself now in the hose then when it reaches the tap since circumstances change it thinks Oh this must be my beginning. If it ends its search there it THINKS that it has come to the correct conclusion because of a change from the norm.

 

Not seeing faults in others etc, have deep philosophical and scientific bases. They are not just about basic morality, they are natural behaviour for those who have understood the truth. Krishna says that a man of self realization well act good without thinking of morality or merit and will refrain from evil naturally and not because he is thinking in terms of good and evil.

 

 

Why does one have to read scriptures etc to attain a feeling.. So you have analysed everything else as chemistry but neglected to do the same for knowledge. Knowledge is also a chemical effect. The mind, the intellect are all chemical. Just as taking a drug can influence your mood, because of the chemical change it has brought about, knowledge, learning also influence your mood because of the chemical effects involved. The brain is a complex neural network. Changing the information can condition these networks physically and these result in the difference of reaction to circumstances.

 

You have mixed up concepts somewhere. The consciousness expounded in Vedanta, is not what is perceieved. This consciousness can NEVER NEVER be described, the material consciousness which is affected by drugs can. Terms, words, descriptions are only given to the transcendental consciousness only for the purpose of communication. This transcendental consciousness you do not have to do anything to "ATTAIN" it. It is not something to be "experienced", It is self evident. All these words are used just for the sake of communication.

 

[Guest guest]

Ok... So you talked about miracles being subjective and dependent on the person which may be true to an extent, adn talked about placebos etc, but you also said that you saw vibhuti fly out of a photo. There are also things like the milk miracle which happened a while back.. What about these things?

 

If then these things prove to you that there is something more which is what you said, do you know of the laws pertaining to this other world or parallel system. Do you know if our morality here has an influence in that realm?

 

Since there seems to be an interaction between that realm and this realm, how do we OBJECTIVELY go about an analysis if we do not know the laws of that realm? How then can we write off religion based ONLY on this realm?

 

 

[Guest guest]

Some mysteries still remain unsolved! Who said that bipedal primates should know the nature of all things. Godel even proved using higher mathematics that there is no closure to anything.

 

With regards to reality, there are some who say that everyones reality seems to co exist with everyone elses, if this is the case then at some point we must either be in comunication or be one conciousness experiencing itself in many different forms, have you ever stared at someone and then they turn around and look at you!.

Can thoughts really change reality, you bet you can, see the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto http://www.whatthebleep.com/crystals/ , but this takes such a radical change in our thinking, that we have to peel back all those layers of conditioning that we have had stuffed down our throats since birth.

 

Tell me has there ever been a religion that never wanted anything of you?

 

 

[Guest guest]

All religions were derived from shamanic practices, these practices involved the use of plant based substances, the feelings that one has are follows;

 

Loss of ego

Access to other dimensions

Contact with other entities

Access to a reality more real than the one we experience

Increase in visual accuity

Reflection on ones life

Feeling of one with nature and everything

Ability to literate

 

These all depend on dosage, setting etc These are not for everyone to try and are DANGEROUS, and one should do propper research before trying anything. I have not and will not continue in taking these substances. They freed me from my religious thinking and set me off to research this stuff. I dont have all the answers. I or anybody else may not even find out in this lifetime. Somebody once said that the world is not stranger than you imagine, the world is stranger than you possibly can imagine.

 

I agree that all reality is subjective and I still question how a chemical can have effects on me that I have not tried before and then find out the effects were the same as many others have experienced!

 

 

[Guest guest]

"Reality" is an experience. It is unique to each person. These are seemingly linked by commonality of experience. I have stared at someone and they turned around and looked at me and I have also stared at people and they did not. Don't read too much into things. I never did say bipedal primates should know the nature of all things. I also don't think that they were as primitive as a lot of people believe.

 

Can thoughts change reality? Thoughts ARE the perceived reality. When you see something, you are seeing it inside.. The light enters the eye, the image is converted to thought. It is the thought we "see" not the object.

 

OH I started to look at the gnosticmedia video. I have to question their accuracy though after they said that Krishna was crucified.

 

Has there ever been a religion that wanted anything of me? There never has been a religion that has wanted anything of me. Maybe I am not quite understanding your question. Religion is a way of life, philosophies, teachings what could they want??? Please elaborate

[Guest guest]

you cannot experience loss of the ego, Who would be experiencing this? The subject still remains, There has to be an experiencer. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Geeta that when one attains to his abode one never returns. The high induced from these chemicals are temporary, in other words, you do return therefore it is not the supreme state. The state of realization is not DUE to knowledge, it is not brought about BY knowledge, it is not due to chemicals, it is not brought about BY chemicals. It exists self evident, existing in its own glory.

 

This is the danger when you go about reading these things without proper instruction. We are dealing with the inadequacy of words. Unfortunately the word meaning relationship is not a 1-1 mapping it is a 1-many mapping. Even though you read the words you may not understand the full import or inner meaning of the scripture because you are not privy to a proper explanation. The sruti were transmitted as threads and this is why they have to be taught through authorized means. It is not a conspiracy against the student as people would have you believe, it is not so that the teacher can be fat and rich. This is why the gurus had to live in abject poverty in most cases to show that there was no material motivation.

 

Someone may read the Veda and see Pasuvali, animal sacrifice, on the surface it looks like it means you should sacrifice an animal, and at one point it had degenerated into this. But the real meaning of Pasu is he who sees and never thinks. The animal is one who sees and does not think, instinctual. and THAT must be sacrificed in you. That animal nature, the one driven by senses. You are misunderstanding the vedic concepts. You are mixing up the material consciousness and the transcedental consciousness. They do admit that you can get visions etc by drugs, but you can also do it by concentration and other methods. ALL of these they say, you can check out Ramana Maharishi, or Patanjali Yoga sutras are PHYSICAL aspects. They are NOT The absolute truth nor the goal of religion and should NEVER NEVER be mistaken to be such.

 

Ps. I just saw the part where they are saying that the Aradanishwara is really a symbol of a mushroom.. First Krishna was crucified now The aradanishwara was really a mushroom. I guess that just goes to show you can relate anything if you really try hard enough.

 

If you want to understand how is it that Chemicals can affect YOU then you should first find out who YOU are. This is the focus of the entire upanishads, this is the first thing to be understood. Without knowledge of yourself how can you know anything else, in a subjective universe isn't the subject the most important thing. Yet today we take THAT for granted and analyse everything else.

 

I hope in liberating yourself from the jail of religion you did not run into the jail of anything else.

[Guest guest]

If people want to quote the scriptures thats fine with me if you belive it, the problem I find with them is this, that if I quote the word "Love" to someone, they will have a completely different understanding of it than I do, Love basically means affection, I will have a different way of showing affection than someone else, therefore a single word may mean something completely different to what I meant it to be. Now if a person is translating something like sanskrit to hindi, they will translate it according to their perception of the meaning of that word. Now if somethings been translated from sanskrit to hindi to gujarati to english and by not only tens but possibly hundreds of scholars, I believe that the true essence of what those original scriptures meant is lost.

 

However if you take the felt presence of immediate experience and apply it to religion, it fails. I cant tell you how many times during darshan I would question if the lord was really looking/listening to me. They say its a question of faith, that alone should tell people that religion is subjective.

 

We are also told that god x is suppreme, do you believe??? if god x is mainly worshiped in india and you try and apply its dharma to the indegenous people of south america, it doesnt work, therefore how can god x be suppreme if their dharma is not universal???

 

Please understand that my comments on this board are not an attack any individual and I am simply sharing my understanding of these religious matters as I see them now, if you see it as an attack on you, fine.

 

To elaborate the question, Has any religion not wanted your money, time (worship, reading, testing for exams, seva, etc), patience, and even your love and faith?

 

A recent study carried out in universities in the states has confirmed that people know when they are being looked at, certain women felt that they were being looked at more than others, lol, certain detective training schools even teach their students not to look at their targets when following them incase the targets become aware, look at the work of Rupert Sheldrake for for info. Also, Just because something strange occurs does not mean it was attributed to God, like the vibhuti, could be a collective manisfestation of the image from our subconscious, because we all so much desired to see such a thing, who knows.

 

[Guest guest]

Mushrooms are widely regarded to be Rajasic food, it is not advised for the spiritual path.