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sunyatisunya
05 May 2009, 03:06 PM
I have some friends who are psychologically addicted to smoking ganja.

I feel I have an emotionally damaging & draining relationship with them because of the constant tension between their drug use and my meditation.

I have used drugs in the same manner as they do but as soon as I learned about [sober] meditation I realized which was the Higher and which was the lower, so I put drugs behind me.

So, I can see where they're at in their spiritual lives and the drug is making them absolutely dead & dull in a spiritual sense.

They are old friends from school so I rarely see them, and each time I meet with them I leave vowing to avoid their company forever more due to how draining it is on me.

And yet, they seem unable to leave an old friendship to go out naturally, and continually show up at my place and the same thing happens again and again: my politeness and cheerfulness says "Why not?" and I spend time with them.

This happened last night and we smoked together and I immediately realized that my natural meditation practice had taken me much, much higher than any drug could ever do for me.

So, in smoking I went to a lower state of consciousness. That was highly unpleasant as the effect of the drug forced it - normally I feel I have a certain freedom of movement in my consciousness. For example, if I meet a child I can have a conversation on a level a child understands perfectly, and then if I meet a yogi I can rise to that level and discuss from there. With the effect of the drug, I was stuck on one level and had to resort to my knowledge of what it means to have that freedom of movement to understand others rather than willing myself to be there.

At the present moment my head still feels clouded. I feel dejected and lethargic, almost deadened and dulled from the experience. The drug has left its mark but I also feel a lot of emotional pain because this horrible situation keeps happening.

If I don't smoke with them I feel like I am hurting them because it is a direct rejection of their lifestyle. The difference between [and I am speaking objectively, not to boost my own self] my state of being and theirs is too apparent. It shows their drug use to be absurd and self-imprisoning and I worry that hurting them in that way is not a good way to lead them to independence from drugs. So I smoke with them, as they also feel it is a bonding experience since they are incapable of experiencing deeper emotion while sober due to their state of self-contractedness, and hope that while in that state they will believe me when I say: "Although I am now high like you are, I am telling you that my natural state as has developed through my lifestyle is much higher, deeper, clearer, meditative and still than this is".

They don't.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

I'm trying to release this emotional pain I feel - each time I feel I have been successful when I don't see them for some weeks. During that time my spiritual state and understanding sky rockets because I develop my disciplined way of living, but as soon as I smoke with them I come down to their level and have to rise back all over again. I wish I could cut the friendship away with scissors but it has old roots and they are unable to let it die. I am also worried that, in smoking with them, it reinforces their erroneous idea that nothing is attained or accomplished through meditation and that it is only through drugs that one attains something. My words, when I say that "this intoxication is enjoyable on a certain level of unawareness but it's not a spiritually advanced state, rather it's quite low" or "my meditation practice has risen me to a much higher state than what this drug can give", fall on deaf ears. It is upsetting, I feel as if I am continuously misunderstood when I talk to them because they think the drug experience is the spiritual experience when the two are worlds apart.

simex
05 May 2009, 04:29 PM
If they were truly your friends, they would respect your decision not to smoke anymore.

Eastern Mind
05 May 2009, 04:31 PM
Namaste:

Very similar things happened to me about 35 years ago. The psychology was the same. Where did you learn to meditate? Didn't this bring new friends? If so, then you can turn to them. Some of my drug (or other) friends eventually moved on themselves. Some didn't. You may just be the first of the group. It is similar to being the first of the group who gets married. In my case personally, I just knew I had to move on, but I got married as well, so the two of us were somewhat in the same boat. You just have to drop it. Besides, real friends would support you regardless. Peer pressure is still strong, even at 21. As a factor, it does wane. So the old adage 'time heals all wounds' may apply. You may also being entering a world of loneliness for a bit. But it seems by your post that you're definitely ready to move on. I wish you the best of luck in the evolution of your soul. Once the path is stepped on, its pretty hard to get off.

Aum Namasivaya

sunyatisunya
05 May 2009, 06:39 PM
Namaste:

Very similar things happened to me about 35 years ago. The psychology was the same. Where did you learn to meditate? Didn't this bring new friends? If so, then you can turn to them. Some of my drug (or other) friends eventually moved on themselves. Some didn't. You may just be the first of the group. It is similar to being the first of the group who gets married. In my case personally, I just knew I had to move on, but I got married as well, so the two of us were somewhat in the same boat. You just have to drop it. Besides, real friends would support you regardless. Peer pressure is still strong, even at 21. As a factor, it does wane. So the old adage 'time heals all wounds' may apply. You may also being entering a world of loneliness for a bit. But it seems by your post that you're definitely ready to move on. I wish you the best of luck in the evolution of your soul. Once the path is stepped on, its pretty hard to get off.

Aum Namasivaya

Thank you for the kind words, Eastern Mind.

I learned meditation entirely by myself through acquiring books and devoting myself to its practice. I've tried to introduce others to it too as I feel I have progressed past a basic interest in it and have made significant advances - but it's difficult to find people who give it more than a passing interest.

I agree about 'the path'. It's a sort of basic awakening.

sunyatisunya
05 May 2009, 08:54 PM
An interesting idea I have come across that pervades the drug culture is that through drugs one can experience traditionally celebrated spiritual states. My own experience has shown that meditation is nothing like drug states whatsoever. In fact, there has not been a single drug which has given me as much joy, understanding, and spiritual certainty as a single successful meditation. I feel that, through meditation, a thousand years of ignorance is burned away. One comes away from it reborn and filled with joy. One comes away from drugs wanting more drugs!

Explorer
20 March 2010, 11:14 PM
I feel I have an emotionally damaging & draining relationship with them because of the constant tension between their drug use and my meditation. Why is there 'constant tension' between their smoking some herbs and acting 'under the influence' and your meditation ?

Of course I don't know the situation exactly, but sounds to me a bit like intolerance towards their choices of lifestyle, and/or that their choices invalidate yours somehow. Can't you just be someone who meditates, and leave your friends be into weed ? It's not about weed being good or bad, it's just a matter of tolerance (as far as the friends go) and of.. I don't know what exactly, self control ? Independence ? As far as YOU smoking ganja with them.

It's not your friends' problem if YOU give in to their peer pressure.

Sorry if I sound a bit aggressive about this, but I have to deal with a LOT of intolerance towards psychoactive plants in general, like the plants are the bad guys, or like the smokers do so much damage to those around them, when all they do is peacefully sit and smoke :)

Now for my experience: I smoked ganja about 4-5 times, liked the high, bought some to have on me and smoke again. Then I tried Salvia Divinorum. The next day I gave away all the ganja I had, as a present to a smoker friend, as I knew I would never smoke it again. And have never looked back, weed is like tobacco to me now, simply not on the radar. It's just vastly inferior quality, compared to the Salvia experience. Not a matter of strength, they're completely different classes of herb and experience.

After a few more Salvia trips, I developed an aversion to alcohol. Raising the sensitivity within the skull, the high quality, healthy sensation of Salvia simply points out the contrast with low-end, poor psychoactives, like weed and alcohol. After getting to feel the good healthy vibes for even one good trip, drunkenness or weed high just feel like mud in the brain. They become irelevant, uninteresting, or at least that's what happened to me.

Generally hallucinogens are known to break all sorts of addictions (Heroin, Alcoholism) - both physical and psychological, both on animal tests and in humans. Therefore my advice is get some Salvia, pass it to your friends. Or just tell them about it. If this works for even one of your friends like it did to me, you have made a great contribution to their life. And rather than fight their lifestyle, you will provide a solution that's congruent with their values.

Feel free to ignore this advice completely, or to assume that all green herbs are similar between them, I've just made my suggestion and I honestly think it can help :)


An interesting idea I have come across that pervades the drug culture is that through drugs one can experience traditionally celebrated spiritual states. My own experience has shown that meditation is nothing like drug states whatsoever. In fact, there has not been a single drug which has given me as much joy, understanding, and spiritual certainty as a single successful meditation. I feel that, through meditation, a thousand years of ignorance is burned away. One comes away from it reborn and filled with joy. One comes away from drugs wanting more drugs! What exactly do you mean by 'drugs' ? What do you mean by 'drug states' ? Have you tried ALL of them to know ? Name some specific states and substances, there is no such thing as 'drugs' ;)

If you mean weed, then I agree. If you mean everything under the sun, then I do not :D

sanjaya
23 March 2010, 03:28 PM
Explorer, I would agree with you to the extent that we can't control the behavior of others, and it isn't one person's job to preach morality to others (unless those others happen to be family, students, etc.). I'd also agree that not all drugs can be classifed as absolutely horrible; i.e. marijuana is not the same as, say, heroin. However, I do have to point out that any "spiritual state" that one thinks he may be getting from smoking marijuana or any other drug is purely illusory. I know of no Hindu Scripture which advocates for the use of drugs to advance a person spiritually. Drugs do nothing but attach a person to this world, and some of them can even kill you. Many of these drugs can even be addictive and have very harmful health-related consequences. They will only enslave you to physical things. Even marijuana, though it is not addictive or particularly harmful, has no long-term benefit besides draining you of your money. I know of no spiritual benefit that a person can get from doing drugs.

smaranam
23 March 2010, 04:03 PM
Dear friends, Namaste

I shall leave you with this that i found somewhere :



A book by Swami Krishnapada titled Spiritual Warrior and subtitled Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomenon.

In chapter titled Psychic Intrusion Swamiji writes as follows:

Intoxication in all its forms and to any degree, makes us vulnerable to psychic intrusion. You have heard about alcoholics talk about pink elephants. That is not a hallucination. As you allow your body to degenerate under the effects of intoxication, the vibration of the body moves into lower planes of existence. As you tune into these lower planes you contact disembodied beings.

He goes on to say that whenever you take psychedelics you put a hole in your astral body. This way you are creating a certain mental atmosphere which makes you vulnerable to psychic intrusion, possessions and other malicious attacks.

Ashvati
23 March 2010, 05:03 PM
I have to agree about drugs tying you down into maya. As for the astral vulnerability thing, I'm not so sure, but whatever, there's a lot we don't know about and certainly more I don't know about. I've heard all the arguements for or against drugs, especially weed, and in the case of weed I say even though both sides fling around a lot of lies that complicate things, weed isn't worth it and just holds you back. If you've already tried to talk to them about all this, and can't get them to try meditation without drugs, I would suggest trying to move on and break it off.

sanjaya
23 March 2010, 05:45 PM
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've noticed that certain people in the West believe that Hinduism is some sort of a hippie religion in which the use of drugs is encouraged, "free love" (i.e. promiscuous sex) is embraced, and the idea of discipline is eschewed. I don't know where this belief comes from, but traditional Indian Hinduism has fairly strict guidelines for living, and I can't think of any orthodox Hindus who would use drugs to aid in meditation. Indeed, meditation requires a good deal of mental discipline and clarity, and this seems like precisely the opposite state as what drugs would induce. Where could Sunyatisunya's friends have possibly gotten the idea that drugs would aid in meditation?

Ashvati
23 March 2010, 06:02 PM
Possibly from imagery of Sadhus smoking ganja, or from books written by westerners filled with ideas left over from the sixties, when the hippies were looking eastward for religion, and took what they liked from hinduism and left everything else, regardless of its importance. Yeah, I have some issues with so-called "paganism" and "neo-paganism", but thats a discussion for another day and another thread.

Eastern Mind
23 March 2010, 06:34 PM
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've noticed that certain people in the West believe that Hinduism is some sort of a hippie religion in which the use of drugs is encouraged, "free love" (i.e. promiscuous sex) is embraced, and the idea of discipline is eschewed. I don't know where this belief comes from, but traditional Indian Hinduism has fairly strict guidelines for living, and I can't think of any orthodox Hindus who would use drugs to aid in meditation. Indeed, meditation requires a good deal of mental discipline and clarity, and this seems like precisely the opposite state as what drugs would induce. Where could Sunyatisunya's friends have possibly gotten the idea that drugs would aid in meditation?

Sanjaya: I believe that in some parts of northern India in the sadhu culture, hashish especially is tolerated if not promoted. I think that's where the western misconception came from. Of course the psychedelic 60s with Swami Satchitananda going to Woodstock, and the Beatles going to India to be with the Maharishi didn't help. But it is a definite misunderstanding that is prevalent in the west. I think we should do what we can to get rid of some of these misconceptions. But we have learned a lot since then.

Hindu temple aren't rock concerts for goodness sake!

I would even suggest to out dear moderator that the promotion of the drug culture is breaking the rules of this forum. Certainly its not promoting Hindu dharma in any positive way. But it really is to each his own. There is no point in stating our opinions much more than once. As you have seen, this usually ends in loggerheads, and can rise to emotions.

I would simply say that if you're into hallucinogens, there may be better places than here to discuss it.

Aum Namasivaya

Aum Namasivaya

sanjaya
24 March 2010, 12:43 AM
I would even suggest to out dear moderator that the promotion of the drug culture is breaking the rules of this forum. Certainly its not promoting Hindu dharma in any positive way. But it really is to each his own. There is no point in stating our opinions much more than once. As you have seen, this usually ends in loggerheads, and can rise to emotions.

I tend to agree on the rules issue. I'm all for free speech and open discussion of controversial topics. But there are children who come to this forum. Surely we wouldn't allow positive discussions of drugs in a temple or Hindu Sunday school. The faith community is supposed to be instilling proper values in people at this impressionable age. As such, I too don't think that we should be portraying drugs in any positive way on this forum.

Explorer
24 March 2010, 03:28 AM
Alright, point taken, I will say no more of this in the future.

Since I am finishing my involvement with this sort of talk, let me clarify a few points that were touched in this thread:
Ganja, or anything containing thc, is not what I meant by psychedelics. I for one have found this sort of substance as useless as alcohol, in accessing any sort of spiritual state. Indeed for me it did more harm than good, and was not too involved with it, for this very reason.
True psychedelics were likely not used in India (to my knowledge at least) because they don't occur naturally there, as much as they do in other parts of the world. I am however not clear on all the details, if some of you have been or are living in India, perhaps you can shed some light on whether or not mushrooms have been used in some sort of practice, or not (throughout history). They do grow there, as in most wet areas of this planet.
The best known substance used in spiritual practices is DMT, in the form of the Ayahuasca potion, in the Amazonian region. DMT is also produced naturally by the brain, during REM sleep, various meditation stages, and also during death or traumatic accidents. This leads to seeing that 'tunnel of light' that many report during surgery, coma and near-death experiences.So that's what I meant by psychedelics, not common street junk. I will however stop mentioning this sort of thing in my posts from now on, and if that's ok with anyone, I will inquire about meditation techniques that might develop the natural release of DMT from the Pineal gland. From what I understand, this is closely related to spiritual development, and 'opening the third eye', as we civilians call it :)

Is that ok with everyone? Surely some good can come from learning more about Prana and the Chakras :p

smaranam
24 March 2010, 07:53 AM
This leads to seeing that 'tunnel of light' that many report ....

That tunnel of light resides in the heart of Shri Hari (KRSNa) , not just to be seen at a distance, but also to be walked into. Appearantly, Ayahuasca is not required in this case, but another juice-drink called bhakti-ras , it seems.
[Shri Hari is the same as Shiva, or the Universal Self].

I just thought i'll mention another good drink in case anyone wants to try it, that's all - its called bhakti-ras (devotion).

Explorer
24 March 2010, 09:42 PM
That tunnel of light resides in the heart of Shri Hari (KRSNa) , not just to be seen at a distance, but also to be walked into. Appearantly, Ayahuasca is not required in this case, but another juice-drink called bhakti-ras , it seems.
[Shri Hari is the same as Shiva, or the Universal Self].

I just thought i'll mention another good drink in case anyone wants to try it, that's all - its called bhakti-ras (devotion).

I did some searches for bhakti-ras, and found only music online :)

Listening to it right now, I don't understand anything but it's got an uplifting, lively rythm, so I think I'll stick to it for a while. Are there some more bhakti-ras resources where I could find out more ? Does it go by other names perhaps ?

I'm interested in re-visiting the warmth and light of that eternal sun I saw, it was a truly warm, humbling yet welcoming experience.

I don't think one can just 'walk into' what I saw, it was a huge sun and the source of all life & all Creation, not the regular 'tunnel' described by near-death patients. Also it was infinitely high in the sky, and time slowed down as one got nearer to it, so I'm not quite sure how one could reach it, speed would slow down the nearer one got. Still I would like to spend some more time under its light if possible. If bhakti-ras helps, I am ready to learn :)

Namaste

smaranam
25 March 2010, 06:27 AM
I did some searches for bhakti-ras, and found only music online :)

Listening to it right now, I don't understand anything but it's got an uplifting, lively rythm, so I think I'll stick to it for a while. Are there some more bhakti-ras resources where I could find out more ? Does it go by other names perhaps ?

I'm interested in re-visiting the warmth and light of that eternal sun I saw, it was a truly warm, humbling yet welcoming experience.....

If bhakti-ras helps, I am ready to learn :)

Namaste Explorer

Alright , I shall not speak in riddles anymore. The music you found uplifting is the right thing - it is devotional music.

Looks like you have guessed it, but I am writing this for other readers:
I was talking about Bhakti Yoga ! :)

What you found uplifting in that music was the expression of devotion by the devotee singers/musicians.

The Bhagavad Geeta is sort of the central piece that summarizes Veda-Upanishads of Hinduism. Straight from BhagavAn Shri KRSNa - its the song of the Lord and sung by the Lord Himself.

From it , it can be easily understood what bhakti is. Lord takes several chapters to explain Karma - right action, Bhakti - devotion, DhyAna - meditation and Jn~Ana (pronounced Dnyaana) - knowledge of Self/AtmA Yogas.

So what one needs is KRSNa and His Bh. Geeta to begin with, or Bhakti any other way, rather than some external material liquids to steer brain chemicals - was my friendly humble suggestion.



I don't think one can just 'walk into' what I saw, it was a huge sun and the source of all life & all Creation, not the regular 'tunnel' described by near-death patients. Also it was infinitely high in the sky, and time slowed down as one got nearer to it, so I'm not quite sure how one could reach it, speed would slow down the nearer one got. Still I would like to spend some more time under its light if possible.

Namaste

Its wonderful and amazing what you saw. You will do well with Bhakti though. Those whom the Lord takes under His wing do not need to go anywhere else for any sights or insights.

Even if its a tunnel one sees, - with cloud and lightening streaks at a distance, dim light emitting from the other end - what's at the end of the tunnel is His infinite endless bright light - with no boundaries (tunnel walls).
The tunnel you mentioned earlier is symbolic of the path towards God from darkness(ignorance) to light(knowledge-enlightenment) - obviously.

Jai Shri KRSNa

Explorer
25 March 2010, 04:38 PM
Namaste smaranam, thank you for the info :)

Here is a rather brutish depiction of my sun, this drawing is about 1 year old now, from back in April 2009.
I'm not sure how to resize images in this forum...
http://i41.tinypic.com/6nqpsj.jpg

This was somewhere towards the top of my head, on the right side, out of the field of vision of my flesh eyes. Now that I think of it, I might take some time and meditate on exactly that image / energy / experience, because if it was in my awareness once, it might be reachable again.

Also I will read some more about Bhakti Yoga, and get some more devotional songs in my playlist. Starting to feel pretty good that I found and joined this forum, I feel like we're actually making some progress and sharing useful practical knowledge, not just talking theory :)

Namaste