kuwoobie wrote:
I feel that psychedelic drugs are a sloppy and reckless way of entering alternate states of consciousness, even the so called "safe" ones. I've never tried them, personally, and I don't ever intend to. I have had a bit of success with audio assistance though. There are downloadable audio files, usually in .mp3 format, which are essentially rhythmic beats similar to what the Inuit people do with drums to the same effect
Yeah.. the drug reference was a failed attempt to be funny on my part.. in comparing LSD to a boring movie..yeah. meh.
With what you (and other 'seekers') are trying to accomplish here, I would say that the main drawback of using drugs is that it would seem to illicit a dependency on something that is material... although perhaps the same could be said for other stimuli such as audio tapes.. although I'd rather meditate to music than acid (these days).
LSD is particularly dangerous because of how fickle the elements are. In things such as psilosibin the results are quite predictable from the drugs standpoint but (as in all cases) the mind of the individual plays a large part of the reaction.. and minds can be quite unpredictable.
kuwoobie wrote:
The first time I tried it I had to stop about halfway through when I began to experience the sensation that my body had become paralyzed (which is normal and expected). Now that I'm here writing about it all again I feel like I might be interested in investing some time back into that territory again. I just need to stop making excuses and find the time to do it.
A pertinent question here is what you are planning to achieve with all of this? What exactly is the goal and how are you going about it?
I have been stricken by sleep-paralysis since childhood.. and perhaps this is why back when I was about 12 I happened upon a TIME LIFE book about Out Of Body experiences which even had step by step instructions on how to do this... which I promptly practiced at nightly..
Years later I did enter into practices that I labeled 'shamanic' and indeed experienced entities which I felt were external to my psyche and in which I felt that an actual exchange of information was achieved.. at least on my end. This was seen as possible due to the perception that there really is no internet/external as we understand it.
This is seen as possible because of the notion of a hub of all of time/space that exists at the lowest level of particle physics.. (as I understand it). At a certain level time and space are meaningless and therefore IF we have any kind of link with that we are able to somehow reach.... something...
kuwoobie wrote:
The other most interesting thing is the random entities people encounter-- which can be anything at all. People using certain psychedelic drugs all seem to experience something they call "machine elves." Under normal circumstances you tend to find people you know, or people you've never seen or met before. A lot of times I have heard of something they call "negs" which are essentially forum trolls in dream format. They can't actually hurt you, but they will try to make you believe they can-- or they will weird/gross you out or scare you for not apparent reason.
Do keep in mind that anything can hurt you that you allow yourself to experience. Even if these random entities are self-created.. if we actually allow ourselves to believe that there is some hidden locked truth within these subconscious avatars (or I call them demons) and if we give these things undue credibility then it can lead down many roads of destruction.
The truth is that there is no way to know what we are doing and what we are actually in control of in the "Aether" because if this thing exists and things are actually interconnected then there certainly would be entities out there with far greater power than the a flesh-dwelling human. We really are operating in the dark in that regard..
Plato's Cave is apropos as well as that ancient and popular notion that despite all that we can do to steer the chariot.. that we ultimately have no control over the nature of the horses that are drawing it.. In that case what can we do? In Plato's case he admitted that he was ultimately powerless to swim in that Aether regardless of how much we think that we can understand about it..
The fact is that we still are limited by our nature and any determination that we make about these things is always going to be flawed beyond question.
IF there truly interconnectedness between all things then this would make all of this the most dangerous practice that a spiritual seeker to make.. in my view and in my experience. Surely there is something out there... and if it does not try to resemble something from Lovecraft and even if it is just the darkness of our human nature.. or it may be our distance from the Light of Creation.. Either way we have no way of really knowing anything.
Until we can admit that.. we are children.
and until we apply that fact to our spiritual development we are fools.
kuwoobie wrote:
I kind of think that deep down, every person knows what is really happening, but we are all sort of hyper-distracted.
The question is what is it that we are distracted from? If it is 'things of the spirit' that is to say.. matter of the eternal soul.. or our personal link to the 'divine' then the hyper-distractedness would be caused by our very nature of living in the universe that we live in which I have always views as a sort of coagulation of the spiritual world.. that is to say that true world..(outside the cave).
This doesn't mean that the physical world is separate than the meta-physical world at all but merely an extension of it therefore our physical bodies are not merely a husk but an actual extension of our essential spirit.
This fact is where the problem lay. This state of existence is the chain that keeps us from the truth. Then the question lays of how to be free of that fleshly nature and to truly 'walk in the spirit'.
Another question is of the ramifications of such things. What is the purpose of all of this? If we agree that there is a state of being from which it is necessary to be set free from.. then how did this state of being come to pass to begin with?
If many people would say that this is a self-inflicted limitation then this would assume that we have the ability to free ourselves. Clearly we cannot free ourselves because people have tried for thousands and thousands of years.
Also if we conclude that there is a purpose then there must be a conscious force that had to have that purpose. If we conclude that we have awareness and that there may be other levels of awareness that are non-local to the universe and beyond Newtonian physics then this implies a higher consciousness and a higher purpose.. and it also means that this Highest of all consciousnesses and prime mover that has a purpose would be the only thing truly in control of anything.
All of this leaves us completely at its mercy. I conclude that we were put here in this state to know this.. to understand it.. and to want to be free from it.. but that our need to want to do this in our own power only means clinging onto the very chains that bind us. It can only be from mercy that we are set free from this.. as well as a willingness to let go of the chain.. then we understand we have been willingly holding onto the chain all along.. but because it is our very will that is deceived it does require external intervention. It is the only way.
I'm tempted to put a metaphor about Frodo having to give up The Ring.. but I think this wall of text is sufficient enough