Selected Literature Related to the Toad Meditation
last updated: Aug. 16, 2014
Page 1 of 61
Toad Document Summary
Title Author Description To Journey or Not? Lyn Thoughts about deciding if this & Recommended experience is right for you. & The basic minimum preparation. Preparation Preparation for the Rick Strassman A more in-depth discussion of a variety Journey of factors to consider in preparing for the journey: long-term, intermediate, and short term work, as well as intent, coming down, and integration. (4 pages) Practicing Death: The Tom Pinkson A short article on using Toad to assist Energy Medicine of the dying process in a relatively Letting Go mainstream publication by a Marin psychologist. (4 pages) Toad Experiences:::: Several write-ups on different 1. Gateway to the 1. Stanislav Grof individuals’ experiences using Toad. Absolute: The Secret of 2. James Oroc These experiences describe the “higher” the Toad of Light 3. Martin W. Ball options of Toad experiences. Oroc’s 2. The 5-MeO-DMT piece describes a range of experiences Experience he’s witness in supporting many others 3. Welcome to the journeys. (16 pages in total) Temple of Awakening Divinity Psychedelic Experience Jack Kornfield A popular Buddhist meditation teachers and Spiritual Practice: talks about the Buddhist perspective on A Buddhist using psychedelics and the various Perspective. levels of purification. (2 pages) Soma, Nectar of the Ganga White The founder of White Lotus Yoga Gods: Yoga and quotes Patanjali (4:1) advocating plant Psychedelics medicine as an aid to awakening, discusses how to determine the authenticity of spiritual experiences, and exposes some of the absurdity of commonly held beliefs. (4 pages) Entheogen Yoga: The Sri Brahmarishi Detailed, specific suggestions for using Application of Yoga Narad different meditation techniques to Meditation Techniques enhance an entheogenic journey. “. . . to the Use of when properly used, entheogens help to Psychoactive speed up the evolutionary process.” (8 Sacraments pages) Relating to Spiritual Pandit Vamadeva An article that is primarily focused on Experiences Shastri (Dr. David integrating spiritual experiences. Just Frawley) about all of this is directly related to deep entheogenic journeys. (7 pages)
Page 2 of 61
Voyager Checklist for The Guild of This is a general checklist for doing any Meeting the Divine Guides kind of journey work. Good ideas and Within checklists for set, setting and post session follow-up. This comes from a larger manual that is more focused on journeys that take a long time (like LSD), but it’s applicable to most any kind of journey. (2 pages) DMT – The Spirit Rick Strassman A description of some of Rick’s Molecule. federally funded research on N-N-DMT (a close cousin to Toad/5MeO DMT). Very thorough and objective. He includes a discussion of negative responses observed in the volunteers. (6 pages) Ego and Entheogens Martin Ball An excellent discuss of the egoic challenges we face when using entheogens on the spiritual path to wholeness
Page 3 of 61
To Journey or Not? There are several ways to evaluate the suitability of exploring this medicine. You could get a direct guidance from your higher self. A clear internal message of “Yes, this is right for me.” You could feel a type of hunger in the body for the medicine. A feeling like being thirsty on a hot day and feeling the desire for a cool glass of water. You could feel a resonance in your heart. A feeling of “Yes this would be good for me and my opening and expansion into a deeper connection with Spirit.” You could have a mental draw or curiosity about what this medicine would be like for you that feels very strong. Or the thought that “Yes” this would fit into and support the may my life is unfolding right now.
However it happens, it is important to get an internal “Yes” before diving into this experience. The experience itself is utterly indescribable and beyond words. At best anything that is said about the experience can point you in the direction of getting a vague feeling of what kind of experience might unfold. It is with the wish that you might get a general idea of the type of experience this medicine has produced that the following information is shared. If you would like to discuss or have any questions about anything, please be in contact with us.
In the excerpts from Rick Strassman’s book (see below), he discusses two individuals (Elena and Don), both had a direct experience of the vast, impenetrable source of all existence. Don believes in the Catholic faith. Elena was steeped in Eastern mysticism. Don felt shocked and betrayed by the absence of a personal God/Savior. Elena saw the love behind the “impersonal” void. A much stronger reaction to the medicine is described by Robert Augustus Masters, a psychotherapist and spiritual teacher. He wrote a whole book about his challenging experience called Darkness Shining Wild. An additional article commenting on this book comes from James Oroc who wrote Tryptamine Palace. Oroc and Masters seemed to have similar experiences, but Oroc felt liberated and Masters felt traumatized. Oroc’s article is pretty long (11 pages) and goes into some more philosophical and psychological points. If you would like a copy of this, please let us know. I found it useful in its discussion of the kinds of things that make for a challenging journey. The over simplified summary of Oroc’s commentary is that this medicine is not good for someone who feels compelled to control every aspect of their life and how they experience it. Rick Strassman would probably also add that having a world view or spiritual outlook that non-dual is very helpful.
Recommended Preparation Have a positive overall mindset and realize that the journey actually happens in three phases: 1) preparation, 2) the experience with the sacrament, and 3) integration.
Eat light and complete your last meal by no later than 3 hours prior to the journey.
Refrain from alcohol on the day of the journey, and refrain from smoking or herb for at least 3 hours prior to the journey.
Dress comfortably in non-restrictive clothing with minimum of jewelry.
If you like, bring a sacred item for the altar, a special item you want near you, or music you would like to have played during your journey. You are welcome to bring a light, healthy snack
Page 4 of 61 item to share with those attending after the ritual. Things that can be eaten with fingers work best.
Have not taken an antidepressant medication containing a SSRI or MAOI for at least 30 days, and have not had any recent issues that could effect the functioning of your heart, like high blood pressure or other heart diseases. And, have not been recently hospitalized for a psychological condition. This journey is also not appropriate for those with severely unstable personality or egoic structure.
Martin Ball says, “Feeling some fear and anxiety going into the experience is perfectly normal. Indeed, the experience is so huge, I would think that anyone who doesn't have some trepidation probably doesn't understand the gravity of what it is they are about to undertake. If this is an experience you desire to have, then you shouldn't let fear or reasonable caution dissuade you from making the journey.”
For more details regarding preparations read Rick Strassman’s “Preparation for the Journey” or the “Voyager Checklist for Meeting the Divine Within”. Both are included below.
Page 5 of 61
Preparation for the Journey by Rick Strassman (extracted from a forth coming book)
Long-Term Work If we know ourselves—our state and traits—as best as possible, we will be able to contend with any likely resistance to the letting go that is requisite for the optimal journey. The two most common ways of increasing self-knowledge and learning how we relate to ourselves and others—those enduring and deep-seated elements of our set—are psychotherapy and spiritual practice. Sustained concentration on our body and mind in a regular meditation practice can help make apparent several core issues: How do we experience anxiety—in our bodies or mentally? If we perceive anxiety in both the body and mind, which perception comes first? What of vulnerability, happiness, and fear? What are our fears? Is it our nature to share with others or keep to ourselves?
Intermediate Work The literature regarding near-death and out-of-body experiences, meditation, shamanism, and, of course, the taking of psychedelic drugs contains a wealth of information about others’ experiences. It can provide us with helpful background information as well as practical means of dealing with those states. Also recommended is speaking with others who have gone before, listening to talks, and getting involved in online discussion groups of the various communities that discuss highly altered states of consciousness—and not only those concerned with the effects of psychedelic drugs.
Some might object on the grounds that these educational activities may bias us toward particular expectations which can lead to certain specific types of experiences at the expense of others—yet these arguments are not especially persuasive. The truly psychedelic experience is totally unexpected. Nevertheless, knowing how unexpected it can be may help us to keep our bearings when confronted with it. We will be ready for the unexpected. Discuss the impending trip with your therapist or spiritual teacher if you have one.
At this point, however, it should not come as a surprise if the stigma attached to drug use causes spiritual teachers to discourage the taking of them. This may be the case even if he or she has had personally beneficial experiences with psychedelics. Faced with disapproval from someone in whom we have placed great faith and who has previously been very helpful to us, we may need to shelve the topic of psychedelic use with him or her.
Intent There are so many possible motivations to take a trip—and any of these may compete and blend with one another. We must be as honest as possible with ourselves when deciding what our intentions are, realizing that having a particular intention doesn’t necessarily guarantee the content of the session. We don’t always have the trip we want; instead, we seem to have the trip we need. If we tell ourselves that our motivation is, perhaps, to learn more about our relationships, but more honestly, that we want to have a good time, we may be unpleasantly
Page 6 of 61 surprised when we’re actually confronted by deeper, more painful psychological issues. Conversely, we may approach the experience with deep solemnity and expectations for a divine encounter, and may be similarly unprepared for the fun, light-hearted aspects of our session. Thus, it is important to understand the full range and complementary nature of our motivations. Ideally, this is accomplished through the use of the introspective skills we have obtained through our own inner work, either spiritual or psychotherapeutic.
It is worth noting that developing an intention to undergo a spiritual, otherworldly, near-death transcendent type of experience is, in some ways, the same as making the decision to subvert the dominant Western postindustrial worldview. That is, the total loss of self-control and our usual self-identity and the wish to interact with and be guided by spiritual entities whose mercy we count upon fly in the face of our materialistic, individualistic, and fear-based relationship to existence. It also runs contrary to a solely clergy-mediated relationship to the divine. If and when we do have this type of experience, we must realize that the mainstream, using the tools of ridicule and psychopathologizing, among others, will oppose our discussing and valuing it. . Short-Term Work How do we prepare ourselves in the day or two before the psychedelic journey? First, it is paramount that we understand our intentions. Then, by attending to certain concrete matters, we validate our intention to mark this experience as unique. The essence of making something holy or sacred is to separate or distinguish between the sacred and the profane. Though at the absolute level of reality, there are no such differences between what is sacred and what is profane, at the relative level in which most of us exist most of the time, the two do differ. Thus, it is important to manifest our inner intent through our physical reality. We want to perceive as clearly as possible our psychedelic experience without the muddying effects of other influences such as fatigue or an unsafe environment.
It’s important to approach the trip in good health and with a positive state of mind and to be well rested and have a clean body and clean clothes. Participants should be careful with what they eat, drink, and smoke several days before the trip. Further, are there loose ends requiring attention?
Before taking any psychedelics, it is recommended that you check in with those who are most important in your life. Are we on good terms with our partner, spouse, family, friends, and business associates? An extra prayer, meditation session, or psychotherapy appointment or two in the days before a trip can make clear some internal or external issues that might require special attention.
Art supplies, particularly during the “coming down,” resolution period of a trip can aid in giving form, shape, and color to otherwise nonverbal aspects of the experience. Writing materials also may be helpful.
The giving up of cherished self-concepts and identifications necessary to emerge anew into our reality is nearly always quite distressing at some point—and once we have had this type of experience, there is little social support for discussing its merits within the larger social mainstream. Social and spiritual support to help integrate such deep experiences is necessary, and must be part of the preparation for any planned breakthrough session.
Page 7 of 61
On the day of the session, we should be well rested and clear-eyed, feeling ready for whatever may come our way. Though it’s a good idea to have water or ice chips available during the session to address thirst and dehydration, a person should not plan on eating any food or drinking alcohol.
The fundamental task required for an optimal psychedelic experience is somewhat paradoxical: It consists of actively establishing the direction in which we decide to let go. We consciously choose the cliff from which we will jump and with what degree of clear-headedness we make that leap. This is especially the case in high-dose sessions during which we hope to encounter the most radical and unusual experiences. Resistance to high-dose, powerful trips, can be extraordinarily painful and confusing. An opened-eyed, level-headed surrendering of resistance is the most effective way to prevent being thrown into this maelstrom and is the best method for pulling ourselves out of it if we do find ourselves overboard. Prayers, mantras, mudras, visualization, music, bodywork, and other aids may be helpful at various points in our trip to redirect the flow of experience. At the deepest, most exposed, raw, and vulnerable moments of the psychedelic encounter, however, it is only through letting go that we find ourselves making the most progress.
From the five minutes of the DMT flash, to the twelve hours of an ibogaine ordeal, this surrender is the crux of a successful journey. The foundation laid by any previous inner work will hold us in good stead at such times by virtue of the attention skills we have developed. These skills make it easier to remain focused when confronted with the unexpected. In addition, effective psychotherapy or spiritual practice will have made us familiar with the skeletons in our closets and will have better equipped us to contend with them if and when they emerge. Thus, not only do we clearly perceive what is garnering our attention, but also we subsequently open up and drop our resistances to it.
Yet it is not only in negative aspects of a trip that we may become blocked. We also might be unable to move out of pleasant or neutral states. For example, we might find ourselves deeply blissful but also sense that we can go even deeper into what lies beneath and supports that bliss. Seemingly innocuous images or feelings, such as the curtain of psychedelic lights that is often a hallmark of the drug experience, may stand in our way. We want to see even more, but we cannot take the next step.
In my DMT work, I prepared volunteers by warning them that they might find themselves convinced that they had died. They could react in one of two ways: “Oh, my God, I’m dying— get me out of here!” or “I seem to have died. Very interesting. What’s next?” This approach creates the smallest space between being aware of an object (such as an emotion, thought, or perception) and having a relationship with it—in other words, just before we establish a relationship with it. The leverage exists in that microsecond gap; we become aware of the stuck or static, nature of the relationship. Then, taking a psychic deep breath, we can pull back from it ever so slightly, enough to work ourselves through or out of the block. For example, with respect to the curtain of psychedelic lights, we can look for space or cracks within it, and then pass through it.
Page 8 of 61
Coming Down and Reintegrating After a trip, we must be kind to ourselves. It’s best to allow for one or two days between a session and resumption of normal, everyday activities. It’s also important to rest, eat healthy food, drink plenty of liquids, and get several nights of good sleep. Rest. Most of all, we must consider what we just experienced. After a session, we should write, draw, or record in some way the images, feelings, ideas, body sensations, and perceptions we contacted. We should share and process our experience with others whom we trust: we may share with someone who either did or did not join us for our trip; with our sitter; or with a shaman, minister, or therapist. We must review the aspects of the trip that continue to draw our attention.
Integration We may ask ourselves if we plan to change anything about our life: our career, relationships, diet, drug use, or religious views or practices. Finally, we may ask whether we have begun a new phase of inner or outer work. It may take a while for a big trip to fully exert its effects—we need space and time for the ripples to reach the shore. We may have to live many years to fully digest and manifest the results of a big journey. It’s important to be patient with ourselves and not to become frustrated that more has not changed in our lives as a result of what appeared, at the outset, to be a life-changing experience. More drug trips may not be the answer; perhaps what’s necessary is a sober, concerted application in our everyday life of what we experienced.
Though we should not push ourselves, we also do ourselves a disservice by allowing a trip to be forgotten, filed away in some dusty recesses of our minds as just one more interesting experience. We must remember that in a psychedelic trip we’ve been given a tremendous gift, one that very few people ever have the opportunity to receive and experience.
Page 9 of 61
Practicing Death: The Energy Medicine of Letting Go Tom Pinkson, Ph.D. in Spirituality and Health, 2010 May/June
Marti was a bright, optimistic, attractive 40-year-old woman when she first entered a support group for cancer patients that I facilitated at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburon, California. It wasn’t until a few years later that her illness wrought its devastation on her body and her spirit. During that time we had become friends, and she became interested in my shamanic work outside the center.
When her death was imminent, she became quite frightened and anxious. I shared with her my experiences with a psychedelic agent, 5-Methoxy Dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), with which I had been working for a number of years, and which might be helpful to her in dealing with her concerns and the challenges to come.
I told her it was a “spiritual medicine” from the Amazon, used shamanically by indigenous peoples there to contact the spirit world. Indigenous cultures typically use 5-MeO-DMT as a snuff, although on some occasions they use it as an admixture to ayahuasca. Rather than making a snuff, contemporary users prefer to vaporize extracts of 5-MeO from plants and inhale the smoke.
She became especially interested in it when I mentioned that I called it “death practice energy medicine” because it helped people work with the letting-go process, something she would face in the all-too-near future, and opened them up to the reality underlying the physical world — the world, as William Blake put it, where “energy is total delight.”
My First Practice The first time I took 5-MeO-DMT, I was with Terence McKenna in his home in Occidental with two other friends in 1985. I went first; I inhaled the smoke. When the medicine came on, time, space, and ordinary consciousness were totally obliterated.
At warp speed I shot down a hyperspace energy tunnel in full panic that this time I had gone too
Page 10 of 61 far — I was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I knew I would never see my family again, never enjoy a sunrise, and never again walk in the mountains or forests that always filled me with joy. I tried to stretch my arms and legs out to the sides of the tunnel to slow down, but alas, I had no arms or legs. I had no body, just energy of what previously had been me, zooming toward infinity.
Realizing there was nothing I could do, I surrendered to my fate with the thought, I can’t stop this, so I might as well be totally present and get as much from it as I can, right up until the moment when I die. At that precise instant, I went into a state of total bliss.
A gentle explosion of white-gold light evaporated all notions of past, present, future, shape, form, identity, and space. There was only infinite, pulsating “all-ness” of ecstatic energy — a cosmic organism of joy that just kept exploding into a sea of infinite emptiness, devoid of materiality but filled with love. This was the cosmic consciousness state referred to by the mystics of all religions around the world as god/goddess/holy spirit/the mysterium tremendum.
After 10 immeasurable minutes, parts of my psyche that had been blasted into the far reaches of the cosmos gradually began floating back into awareness. I could see sections of my ego identity slowly appear from the vast distances of far-off space, heading toward what was my body, lying there on the rug, beginning to recompose itself. After another 10 minutes I was back to baseline here but with a new relationship to death, to dying, to letting go.
The Peace-Filled Channel I have been working with physical death in one way or another since my rude introduction into the teaching of impermanence, just months before my fourth birthday, when my father died. As an adult I received a Ph.D. in psychology and went on to help start the second hospice program in the United States. Then I helped start the Center for Attitudinal Healing, where I worked with children and adults with cancer for 32 years.
Over this time I sat bedside with numerous children and adults, witnessing their final moments. All too often I saw that anxiety and fear, along with a resistance to let go, created intense struggle for the departing person and increased anguish for attending family and friends. My job in being there, enlightened by my death-practice work with the energy medicine, was to serve as a labor coach, helping the natural letting-go process to happen as smoothly as possible, thereby birthing the person “back home” into the infinite cosmos from whence he came, an existence of pure consciousness, pure light, pure love.
My 5-MeO-DMT journey experience with letting go and entering cosmic bliss allowed me to remain peaceful no matter what was happening, as I knew that the key was surrendering into the underlying reality of oneness with all. Thus, I was able to be a peace-filled channel for the love and light that awaited each dying person when he finally did release. This function seemed to help the dying person, as well as others in the room, to feel more trustful of what was taking place and release into it with more peace and ease.
My experiences with other psychedelics (including peyote, psilocybin, and ayahuasca) and other life-threatened individuals over the years, and working with indigenous healers in Mexico and
Page 11 of 61 the Amazon, has repeatedly evidenced how the letting-go process with mind-altering substances — when used responsibly in supportive settings with experienced guides — allows the journeyer to exercise what I 63call the “surrender muscles.” It creates an opportunity to do vital preparation work for the ultimate letting-go journey when physically dying by strengthening the letting-go process.
The Dynamics of Letting Go A key dynamic for a fruitful and transformational psychedelic journey is releasing control and surrendering into mystery — and allowing the experience to unfold. In doing so, journeyers learn about the cartography of altered space; they learn about levels of consciousness and being beyond the physical self and the identity of ego. They experience an aspect of their being that is transcendent of whom and what they thought they were; they learn of the cosmic self. This experience not only brings more comfort and ease with the altered states that frequently accompany physical death, along with an ability to navigate within them, but it also provides a sense of inner peace and serenity.
The practice builds confidence that whatever is dying is okay, for they are about to enter a state of blissful oneness with all that has been, is now, and will forever be. Thus, they feel comforted that they will not be separated from the loved ones they seemingly are leaving behind. The practice suggests that the love they share does not die with their physical bodies, for they experience themselves as more than the physical containers that house their life spirit for the time of their life walk upon Mother Earth.
Marti, the cancer patient mentioned earlier, was eager to try the energy medicine after we talked about the experience and how it might prove helpful in defusing her fear and anxiety about death. We set up a time and safe setting, she arranged for a mutual friend to be there as an additional support person, and we went forward with our plan.
On the day of the journey, we met in her home. I first purified the site with sage smoke and invited Marti to set the stage for sacred space by placing her spiritual objects and pictures in a circle around her. I then invited her to speak her intentions for the journey and her gratitude, after which I said a prayer that used her spiritual notions of deity. Marti inhaled the smoke, held it for the required 45 seconds, and then collapsed backwards onto the pillows laid out for her journey.
Page 12 of 61
Her eyes rolled backward in her head; her body shook uncontrollably. A blood-curdling scream roared from her mouth. Then she was totally still. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” she mumbled. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” A gloriously serene smile appeared on her face, now softened in a way I had never seen before.
Marti lay peacefully on her back for another 20 minutes before she opened her eyes. Blinking, she looked at her friend and me, at the room, then back to me. “I saw God,” she said. “I really did. I saw God. It was unbelievable, but it happened. Death is okay now. I know I will be okay, that I will be with God, with everyone. It’s all love; it’s all light. We are all together! Thank you, Tom. Thank you so much. I can’t believe this medicine. What a gift. You have to share it with others!”
The Future of the Practice Marti died peacefully one week after her energy medicine journey. I have seen similar results with scores of others, helping them ease their fear of death and dying and what happens after death. I can’t help but believe how helpful this work could be with others who seek to exercise their surrender muscles in preparation for their physical death and/or for spiritually enhanced living.
The indigenous peoples with whom I have studied consider these agents as having a guiding and healing spirit, as being alive, a wisdom elder, a sacred sacramental gift from the spirit world. They must be approached only with the utmost respect, reverence, and humility. It is easy for our materially based, sensation-seeking culture to abuse these substances, and when that occurs, great harm can result. These substances are not for everyone. Most certainly they are contraindicated for people with high blood pressure, heart problems, seizure history, or those on any kind of psychoactive medications, as well as those suffering from any kind of mental illness. A trained guide who knows the territory also is necessary, along with a safe and secure setting, and creating sacred space in alignment with the journeyer’s belief system and intentions.
It is my hope that federal regulations will allow these substances to be used responsibly by qualified practitioners, who can conduct research to validate the potential of these substances to create a sustainable world; one that is peaceful, loving, and just and that is built on the recognition brought forth by the journeys — that all of creation is interwoven in an invisible web of love that is truly the essence of our being.
Tom Pinkson, Ph.D., is an international keynote speaker, psychologist, consultant, retreat and ceremonial leader, spiritual counselor, and author of such books as “Do They Celebrate Christmas in Heaven?”— Spiritual Rite of Passage Teachings from Children with Life- Threatening Illness and The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichols. He helps people discover their path of heart for sacred and harmonious living in balance with the web of life.
Page 13 of 61
Toad Experiences
Gateway to the Absolute: The Secret of the Toad of Light extracted from: When the Impossible Happens by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., 2006
The opportunity to get an insight into the secret of the Toad of Light came when my friend Paul appeared at our door with an impressive supply of 5-MeO-DMT. This substance was not listed in Schedule I—a group of substances considered to have high abuse potential and no therapeutic value—and was readily available for chemists as a starting point for synthesis of other compounds. My friend had already had earlier experiences with 5-MeO-DMT and offered to provide the necessary instructions and expert guidance.
Under Paul's supervision, I put a small amount of the white powder on a glass surface and worked on it for a while with a razor blade to make it as fine as possible. I then shaped the powder into two even piles and put the rest of the powder into a pipe filled with dried parsley. While Paul lit the pipe, I rolled a dollar bill into a narrow tube and snorted the two piles, each with a different nostril. When I finished, I took two or three deep drags from the pipe. Later, estimated the combined dose of 5-MeO-DMT I had taken and realized that was very high, probably about 25 milligrams.
The beginning of the experience was very sudden and dramatic. I was hit by a cosmic thunderbolt of immense power that instantly shattered and dissolve my everyday reality. I lost all contact with the surrounding world, which completely disappeared as if by magic. In the past, whenever I had taken a high dose of psychedelics, I liked to lie down and make myself comfortable. This time, any such concerns were irrelevant because I lost awareness of my body, as well as of the environment. After the session, I was told that after taking couple of drags, I sat there for several minutes like a sculpture, holding the pipe near my mouth. Christina and Paul had to take the pipe from my ham and put my body into a reclining position on the couch.
In all my previous sessions, I had always maintained basic orientation. I knew who I was, where I was, and why I was having unusual experiences. This time all this dissolved in a matter of seconds. The awareness of my everyday existence my name, my whereabouts, and my life disappeared as if by magic. Stan Grof ... California ... United States ... planet Earth ... these concepts faintly echoed for a few moments like dreamlike images on the far periphery of my consciousness and then faded away altogether. I tried hard to remind myself of the existence of the realities I used to know, but they suddenly did not make any sense.
In all my previous psychedelic sessions there always had been some rich specific content. The experiences were related to my present lifetime—the story of my childhood, infancy, birth, and embryonal life—or to various theme from the transpersonal domain—my past life experiences, images from human history, archetypal visions of deities and demons, or visits to various mythological domains. This time, none of these dimensions even seemed to exist, let alone manifest. My only reality was a mass of radiant swirling energy of immense proportions that seemed to contain all existence in a condensed and entirely abstract form. I became Consciousness facing the Absolute.
Page 14 of 61
It had the brightness of myriad suns, yet it was not on the same continuum with any light I knew from everyday life. It seemed to be pure consciousness, intelligence, and creative energy transcending all polarities. It was infinite and finite, divine and demonic, terrifying and ecstatic, creative and destructive—all that and much more. I had no concept, no categories for what I was witnessing. I could not maintain a sense of separate existence in the face of such a force. My ordinary identity was shattered and dissolved; I became one with the Source. In retrospect, I believe I must have experienced the Dharmakaya, the Primary Clear Light, which according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thodol, appears at the moment of our death. It bore some resemblance to what I encountered in my first LSD session, but it was much more overwhelming and completely extinguished any sense of my separate identity.
My encounter with the Absolute lasted approximately twenty minutes of clock-time, as measured by external observers. As far as I was concerned, during the entire duration of my experience, time ceased to exist and lost any meaning whatsoever. After what seemed like eternity, concrete dreamlike images and concepts began to form in my experiential field. I started intuiting fleeting images of a cosmos with galaxies, stars, and planets. Later, I gradually visualized a solar system and within it the Earth, with large continents.
Initially, these images were very distant and unreal, but as the experience continued, I started to feel that these realities might actually have objective existence. Gradually, this crystallized further into the images of the United States and California. The last to emerge was the sense of my everyday identity and awareness of my present life. At first, the contact with the ordinary reality was extremely faint. I recognized where I was and what the circumstances were. But I was sure that I had taken a dose that was excessive and that I was actually dying. For some time, I believed that I was experiencing the bardo, the intermediate state between my present life and my birth in the next incarnation, as it is described in the Tibetan texts.
As I was regaining more solid contact with ordinary reality, I reached a point where I knew that I was coming down from a psychedelic session and that I would survive this experiment. I was lying there, still experiencing myself as dying, but now without the sense that my present life was threatened. My dying seemed to be related to scenes from my previous incarnations. I found myself in many dramatic situations happening in different parts of the world throughout centuries, all of them dangerous and painful. Various groups of muscles in my body were twitching and shaking, as my body was hurting and dying in these different contexts. However, as my karmic history was being played out in my body, I was in a state of profound bliss, completely detached from these dramas, which persisted even after all the specific content disappeared from my experience.
When I worked at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, we used to have a term for the condition that many of our clients experienced for many days and sometimes weeks after a good and well-integrated psychedelic session. We called it "psychedelic afterglow." My afterglow after this experience was unusually intense, profound, and long-lasting. I was able to work on the galleys of my book with extraordinary precision and capacity to concentrate. And yet, when I decided to take a break and closed my eyes, I was within seconds in a state of ecstatic rapture
Page 15 of 61 and experienced a sense of oneness with everything. My meditations were unusually deep, and they seemed to be the most natural state I could imagine.
As time went by, everyday sober reality succeeded in regaining some of its ground and made this window to the Absolute more opaque. However, the session left me with deep respect and appreciation for the power of the tools used by shamans. I have often had to laugh at the arrogance of mainstream psychiatrists, who see shamanic techniques as products of primitive superstition and consider their own ploys, such as free associating on the couch or behaviorist deconditioning, to be superior and scientific approaches to the human psyche.
Since this experience I also have new appreciation for the tenet of various esoteric systems that the most noble truth is often found in the most lowly. According to the alchemists, "the Stone is hiding in the filth and dung." For me, it was the toad, an animal that is often seen as a symbol of ugliness, that showed me the shortest and fastest way to the Absolute. I am reminded of it every time I hear or read the famous passage from Shakespeare's As You Like It:
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. I would not change it.
Page 16 of 61
The 5-MeO-DMT Experience by James Oroc, from Chapter 1 of Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad, 2009
Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making which we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of reality. Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying, 2002
By attempting to describe the impossibly intense and paradoxically fleeting 5MDE (5-MeO- DMT experience), I am now moving onto purely subjective ground. I must stress that the chronology I provide here is only my personal interpretation of 5-MeO-DMT, gleaned from my own experimentation. Therefore while the following information is taken from "the front lines," so to speak, it cannot be overstated that every individual's experience is unique—what happens to me when I smoke 5-MeO-DMT will not necessarily happen to you, should you choose to smoke it.
For myself, after six years of fairly regular use of 5-MeO-DMT in both its natural and synthetic (lab-produced) forms, the following consistent patterns have emerged:
I fully inhale the smoke, generally holding it in until my vision of my physical surroundings has begun to break into fractals, and then I exhale. Virtually immediately upon exhalation, my vision experiences a field of light-fractals. My mind then dissolves into this white light, until the external vision of my eyes is no longer relevant (or at least no longer recognizes my physical environment). This white light—that blazes with the focused intensity of a laser and is both whiter-than-white, yet also sparkling with brilliant color—may be the crux of the experience. The first time I smoked 5-MeO-DMT, the only instruction I was given by the friend who provided it to me was to stay in this light for as long as possible. Next, a variety of inner phenomena can appear. Some people report seeing protector spirits (animals or angels), while others describe communicating directly with the light. In some of my early journeys, I walked across plains of stars and talked with a Goddess who appeared in a blend of changing forms, some familiar, some archetypical, and I remember she laughed and treated me like a child. Whoever is in charge in that dimension knows to keep it simple when we visit there; we are children compared to them, and they teach us things in the slow methodical way any good teacher does: one simple lesson at a time.
Stanislav Grof has described such encounters in his extensive road map of the transpersonal experience, The Cosmic Game.
Immediately following the experience of total annihilation—"hitting cosmic bottom"—we are overwhelmed by visions of light that has a supernatural radiance and beauty and is usually perceived as sacred. This divine epiphany can be associated with displays of beautiful rainbows, diaphanous peacock designs, and visions of celestial realms with angelic beings or deities
Page 17 of 61 appearing in light. This is also the time when we can experience a profound encounter with the archetypal figure of the Great Mother Goddess or one of her many culture-bound forms."1
Early on in my experimentations, when I was hyper-excited by some of the strange and wonderful ideas I had encountered in Terence McKenna's wild book The Archaic Revival, I meditated with serious resolve on the question, "What are you? Can you let me know?" before I made my journey to that other dimension. After reading McKenna's book I was intoxicated with the idea of gods, aliens, and other-dimensional beings, and I was certain that this was the correct way of attempting to communicate with them: surely they would respect my intent. Then, as soon as I exhaled, the answer from the other side blasted me like a million volts of pure electricity threatening to fry me to my core.
Love. That is all you need to know. I am Love.
This answer is one of the oldest known to humanity and the center of many great religions; but it was not one that I had expected, nor one that I had been looking for. In fact, I would probably have never considered it as an option at all. But as an answer to a child who is making his first frightful steps into the unknown, it could not be paralleled for its effect. "Do not fear" this other dimension declares, "There is an ocean of love over here”
After that experience, I stopped asking questions,
In this realm of light I relive all the experiences from my life in an instant. My whole life flashes before me like the wave of a hand—the passage of time is like a game here. All the people I have known and loved surround me as I become a part of them and they become a part of me as I expand out of my form toward realization.
Everyone seems very happy and excited at this point, with a keen sense of humor attached to the fact that we have had the great secret-and-answer contained within us all along. The multitude of faces around me keep laughing and silently shouting at me, "You knew it all along! We knew it all along! It's all right! We all knew it all the time! You exist! This is real! This is it! Now just relax! And just . . . Be."
Everything that has come before in my life seems to have led to this point, to this moment. There is no sense of time. I am somehow splitting, growing, spreading outward, and becoming a part of everything. I am pervading and connecting with the entire universe from within my very being. As I expand out and integrate into the happy multitudes and the universe beyond them, then my ego-identity begins to dissolve as the realization dawns that I am returning to the Source from where everything came. Looking around, in a dimension without time or space, I recognize everything and everyone as One, as the embodiment of all those beings I have managed to love the most unconditionally. There is a definite feeling that to go past this point, I have to relax, believe, and somehow let go. At this point I have also at times heard a sound—and this is another experience commonly reported by tryptamine smokers—that grows to become the most incredible, all-encompassing note, which somehow transcends all of creation and beyond. It is pure otherworldly angel music, which I can only describe with the word Aum (or Om): the
Page 18 of 61 primordial noise, the logos, or original sound of creation. This is a transcendental note into which I effortlessly dissolve.
As I let go I experience dissolution into an omniscient state of Oneness, a place where there is no difference between G/d, the physical universe, or me. We have ceased to exist as separate entities and now resonate as One. I resonate with the possession of a knowledge that radiates with the surest sense of Love—Love that is in everything and is everything, and is so much more. It is a conscious Love more intelligent than anything we have ever known, a Love so great that it defies the need for a physical form and yet paradoxically realizes itself in us and in all of creation. Aum. I become that Love and I know that everything is One, everything is: G/d
This infinite pulsating field of intelligent energy, from which all physical forms manifest and into which everything shall one day return, is the all-encompassing, brilliant bejeweled light of Love. The Godhead, the Supreme Mystery, the Conscious Infinity, the Pure Light, the Void that is a Plenum, Brahman, Yahweh—whatever you wish to call it. It is the Unnamable Name and the Creation Principle. I recognize It. I know that It is real, that I am a part of It, and that in this moment I am able to return to It, like the Sufi "moth to the flame."
Resonating as one with my G/d and now having ceased to exist other than as a part of that divinity, all I have to do is breathe to feel the waves of omniscient energy radiate in and out of my ocean of bliss. My friends, my lovers, my life, my species, my world—we are all One and we are all part of G/d. Atman (individual consciousness) and Brahman (universal consciousness) are One. There is no way to differentiate between anything: I am lost in waves of an awestruck ecstasy that cannot be described, an egoless bliss. What Rudolf Otto called the mysterium tremendum et fascinans—the overpowering sense of awe that envelopes one who comes face-to- face with the Divine—is revealed within the singular realization of the true nature of my G/d: that G/d paradoxically resides both without and within.
Physically, I believe this is when I go into the quietest part of my journey. Generally, I'm peacefully lying down and saying nothing. I am only in this indescribable cosmic resonance for a few short minutes, ten or fifteen at the most, but it makes no difference to me since I no longer have any concept of time, and its passage could just as easily be considered infinite. For some, this is the period of an intense singularity: the white-out (as it is sometimes called), a total dissolution. It is my belief that during this state my consciousness exists in resonance with a realm that is actually beyond ordinary human comprehension. Freed of the matter of my body, my consciousness is able to function in a manner that it can't understand, or barely even remember, once it has returned to the limitations of its corporeal form.
I believe that what I have experienced is the universal state of consciousness before the knowledge of ego and self, a state of undifferentiated cosmic consciousness that historically William James described as "Absolute Consciousness" (a term coined by the Theosophical Society's founder, Helena Blavatsky) and Aldous Huxley called "Mind (with a capital M)." This state is now commonly described among today's entheogenic community as "God consciousness." Me, I just call it G/d for short, which is a very clinical way of describing what has historically proven to be the most important and awe-inspiring force in the development of humankind: our ability to achieve some kind of mystical resonance with this G/d; the subsequent
Page 19 of 61 realization that the source of this G/d lies within; and the energy and inspiration that this realization has subsequently released into our human society.
"I" have now ceased to exist; there is no knowledge or recognition of "myself." And yet my consciousness remains, clearly still thinking and experiencing, while seemingly knowing everything, with all knowledge and information within my grasp.
Suddenly (probably as the 5-MeO-DMT first starts to wear off) there is the taste of fear: "This is all too much." At the apparent pinnacle of the experience, when time has ceased to exist and I have dissolved into this G/d consciousness and lost all sense of my own identity, then I find myself abruptly searching around wildly in this out-of-body dimension, surrounded by layers of information and understanding, struggling to remember how this has all been possible. I exist as pure formless consciousness without limitations, until "I" consciously realize this anomaly, asking myself: "How did this happen? How have I come so far?" And then finally the killer: "Who am I?”
"I" begin to think: "I have an identity, don't I? How long has this been going on? What is going on here? How is this possible? I must exist! Something really weird is happening here . . ." The moment that I start thinking about the experience instead of simply being in the experience, my ego-based identity begins to assert itself, and suddenly it is way, way, too much. I struggle to remember a beginning, a start to "my" own existence, and with this search comes the terror, followed by an abrupt departure from this indescribable state of grace.
"You have smoked 5-MeO-DMT," I usually hear a voice say. Then the remembering pours back in a tellurian wave as my being inexorably flows from a dimension without matter or time back into this physical one. My vision suddenly focuses—I can see bizarrely for a moment between the two worlds, seemingly vibrating in both of them at once—before I am suddenly dropped into an awestruck heap on the floor. The time between remembering that I exist and then reentering my body is terrifyingly quick and very disorientating. Now I am fully back in this reality and over-awed by the sheer POWER that I have just experienced, the remnants of which still pulsate through my trembling body. For the following ten or fifteen minutes I am technically still feeling the effects of the 5-MeO-DMT, but my descent to ground zero is quick. I am usually fairly ecstatic during this period, my eyes filled with wildfire, and I can laugh great whooping belly laughs, deeper than I have ever laughed before. It's a cosmic laughter at this on-going humor we call life and the unbelievable joke that I have been let in on. (When I heard the Dalai Lama laugh in person, I was reminded of the nature of my 5MDE laughter.) Although these days I prefer to smoke 5-MeO-DMT alone, in the past this period has been a good time for witnesses to ask what I saw and experienced. I then respond with great authority on a variety of subjects—as if channeling from some higher force—only to have no memory of my statements thirty to sixty minutes later. The overwhelming sensation that accompanies this phase, even now after years of use, is that I still have no clue of the depth and breadth of the power of the substance I am so blindly imbibing and that I should strive to treat the 5MDE with sacred respect.
Forty-five minutes to an hour later, I am completely "straight" (and usually looking for ice cream). All chemical traces of the tryptamine have disappeared from my brain, and I am
Page 20 of 61 physically free of its influence.1 Except now, having experienced a full out-of-body mystical experience, my world and my paradigm can never be the same again.
At this point let me recap my interpretation of the series of events that generally occur when I smoke 5-MeO-DMT:
Dissolution into fractals of white light upon exhalation of the 5-MeO-DMT. A sense of transportation via the brilliant white-light and the possible appearance of spirit guides and various manifestations. The recognition of the unity of all and that love is the principle that organizes the universe. The intuition that my entire life has come to this one moment in time, and the need to "let go" of my own identity Next is the complete disassociation with ego-identity and any concept of time, as I dissolve into resonance with the One, with G/d ("Absolute Consciousness"). The reassertion of identity causes a rapid and disorientating transition back into a restricted consciousness and the return of "my" ego. An abrupt repossession of my physical body as the last effects of the 5-MeO-DMT dissipate. A period of fading resonance between physical consciousness (consciousness with a small letter "c") and G/d consciousness (Mind with a capital "M"), as I return completely to my normal "baseline" state.
It is important to state once again that an infinite variety of experiences for any given individual are possible within the rudimentary framework that I have provided. The scenario I have described here is purely from my own voyages and the experience is open to other interpretations. It is possible that the order in which I have catalogued these events is completely incorrect, since no linear passage of time is evident within the experience. Rather, it is more like being "hard-wired" into another dimension, where you are somehow able to experience everything simultaneously while being channeled toward the "Core."
Some people remember great chunks and frequently report that they went to a dimension "outside of time," where they (paradoxically) felt as if they stayed for an immeasurably long period of time. Others recall nothing but a blinding white light and the extreme disorientation of their return to physicality, which is the least pleasant part of the experience. Those who
1 DMT is metabolized very quickly (and this is probably the case with 5-MeO-DMT as well). In a study conducted by Kaplan et al. in 1974, less than 1.8 percent of the DMT dose injected in human subjects could be found in the blood at any time after the dose had been given, and the maximum amount recovered from urine unchanged was 0.16 percent of the dose, with 0.069 percent of the dose as the mean for seven subjects. Kaplan's group opined that it would be unlikely that any DMT produced endogenously could be detected in the blood. However, a study proposed by the newly formed Cottonwood Research Foundation— the Endogenous Hallucinogen Assay project—has recently set the goal of developing novel ultra-sensitive technology in order to measure DMT, 5- MeO-DMT, and bufotenine, as well as their metabolites. For more information, see www.cottonwoodresearch.org.
Page 21 of 61 experience this "white-out" generally think their experience lasted only a few minutes, even though most out-of-body experiences are between fifteen and twenty-five minutes in duration once consciousness is "released." (A percentage of people have prolonged negative experiences or side effects, see appendix 6.)
I think that the specific period between remembering that they exist and then rapidly reentering their body is often what people remember. This is especially the case the first time or if they have smoked too much (which can be easy to do). There is a razor-fine line between smoking enough 5-MeO-DMT to fully experience its out-of-body wonders and smoking too much, which results in the participant remembering little or nothing of the experience other than an often bizarrely terrifying "white hole."
The length of time a person can stay in levels 2, 3, and 4 seems to be the main variable. Some people return to their physical body quickly (i.e., within ten minutes) and then can remain in an obviously "high" state for up to forty-five minutes, going in and out of the experience, but clinging as much as they can to physical "reality." The sign of a true enthusiast is his or her ability to completely let go, with maximum immersion in the resonant out-of-body experience. This is then usually followed by a quick, awe-struck return to normality.
It is my belief that many people only actually experience levels 1, and then levels 5, 6, and 7, since levels 2, 3, and 4, which are the metaphysical crux of the entire experience, can easily be forgotten during the intensity of the experience, or simply may not necessarily be experienced by all people. It may be that every individual has a varying ability to "filter" the white light through the lens of their own human experience, thus allowing some of us to perceive far more in this realm of light than others. There could be a plethora of reasons for this, but I think a combination of philosophical preparedness (accidental or not) and dosage has a lot to do with it.
Every person has his or her own minimum effective dose, which will allow the greatest memory of the experience to be retained. It takes some experimentation to determine an individual's ideal dosage. (This will require owning a gem scale capable of measuring within plus or minus 2 mg to do so accurately.)
If you are of the rare breed that has the desire to smoke 5-MeO-DMT regularly, then I recommend that you consistently reduce your dosage until you find the minimum required for release, as this will give you the best chance of remembering the largest amount of the experience. Too much happens in too short a time for it to be really possible to remember it all, but some people do emerge with remarkably coherent accounts of their experiences.
Page 22 of 61
Welcome to the Temple of Awakening Divinity by Martin W. Ball, Ph.D., from Chapter 1 in The Entheogenic Evolution Psychedelics, Consciousness and Awakening the HUMAN SPIRIT, December 2008, Kyandara Publishing
I’d like to begin this book by sharing with you what has inspired much that follows. I’d like to tell you about the first time I really experienced God. I’ve had a long-standing interest in religion and spiritual experience, which eventually led to an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies, where the investigation into the cultural and historical use of visionary plants was central to my studies. That is academic work, however, and my own personal experiences with psychedelics have undergone a long process of evolution and growth . . .
. . . [The] ceremony at the Temple of Awakening Divinity featured a somewhat different Eucharist. This time, rather than being solely toad venom, this was an admixture of toad venom, phalaris grass extract, and psychotria viridis extract, all of which contained 5-MeO-DMT. The device, or “lamp,” as my host preferred to call it, was different this time as well. We were to take the sacrament from an alchemical vessel of brass and glass in the form of a piston-based vaporizer. The chamber was first filled with argon gas, an inert noble gas, so that there would be no oxygen present and therefore nothing to burn. The mixture of 5-MeO-DMT extract was placed at the bottom of the chamber and then heated from beneath, filling the entire chamber with a white cloud of psychedelic vapor, rather like the genie (or genius) in the proverbial magic lamp. Before I took my turn, I stated my intentions and what I hoped to gain from this experience. I said something to the effect that I believed that everything happened for a reason. I found it very meaningful and significant that my host had been inspired to contact me after seeing the God Box/Mystic Toad on my web site. I related how I had received the challenge to “accept my own divinity” through the God Box – something I felt I had never achieved. God was still something foreign to me, as was my own ultimately divine nature as an incarnation of the Absolute. So here I was, willing to try this sacrament once again in the hopes that I might experience my own divinity, whatever that may be, and that I might know and experience something of the divine source of all of existence.
I didn’t finish the chamber of vaporized 5-MeO-DMT. There was perhaps still a third or fourth of the hit still left. I could tell, however, that whatever I had was enough. Whatever was about to unfold was clearly unstoppable. As my host would put it, I had definitely taken in a full “release” dose. With the hit still in my lungs, I lay back on the bed inside the consecrated temple of our ceremonial space. Initially upon taking the hit, I had closed my eyes. But as I was falling back, the hit slowly escaping from my lungs with the sweet smell of 5-MeO-DMT filling the room, my eyes popped open, unable to stay closed.
Within the space of a few heartbeats, I had completely expanded into God. Eyes open in absolute awe and wonder, the room dissolved, my ego dissolved, my entire world dissolved. Everything I had ever known or thought or felt dissolved away into absolute pure nothingness. There was nothing to see, nothing to experience, nothing to perceive. Absolutely pure nothingness. And this nothingness was pure consciousness. And it was love. Infinite love and infinite perfection. Everything was in a state of divine perfection. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was either good or bad. Nothing was right or wrong. Everything was simply perfect in this pure consciousness, this pure state of being. And this state was not a thing. It was not an object of
Page 23 of 61 perception. It was not a concept. It was not an emotion. It was not anything that I could describe in any way. In fact, when asked later, I vaguely described it as “living starlight,” but even that was not accurate, for in truth, it was nothing.
But that no-thing was everything.
It was God.
And it was my deepest nature.
I was one with God.
Not my ego self. That was pretty thoroughly obliterated through the impossibly fast 5-MeO- DMT expansion. It was not as though I identified my personal sense of self with God. Rather, it was that the deepest core of my being, not my ego-identity, was identical with God. As a finite being in a body with a sense of self and identity, I was an expression of God. At my core, at the very deepest level, my nature as an incarnated being was one with that pure consciousness, that infinite love, that infinite source of creative energy in which all things exist in absolute and unquestionable perfection. In those few heartbeats, this beautiful and sacred medicine had opened me up to the All. I had accepted my own divinity.
“Thank you, God!” I called out as my hands reached up towards that infinite expanse of nothingness, a few moments after the hit of psychedelic medicine flowed out of my lungs. Eyes wide open, gaping in sheer awe at the mysterium tremendum, I embraced God, and the embrace was returned. “Thank you,” I said, over and over and over again, lasting the better part of an hour as the medicine expanded me out into the farthest reaches of cosmic consciousness and then gently brought me back to myself. I was so overwhelmed that I began crying and laughing at the same time. It was, beyond any doubt, the most beautiful, profound, and total experience of my life.
Nothing in my psychedelic or spiritual history could have prepared me for this divine embrace. It was so total, so complete, so beyond any sense of doubt or wonder or skepticism. It was absolutely undeniable. I could hardly believe that it was true. I could hardly believe that I was saying that word: God.
I was one with God, and God was love, and I knew that I loved God with all my heart, and that I, as a small little insignificant person with my own very small sense of self and being, was embraced by the Love of All, and that all things were in absolute perfection. All that was, was God. God was the only true reality. All else was illusion – the effluence of God’s creative power, manifesting in space and time as a physical world with physical beings that felt so alone and cut off. But now I truly understood, for I experienced the truth with every aspect of my being. God was Real. God was Reality. And my nature, as a spiritual being, was One with that Absolute Reality.
Slowly, I came back from that infinite expansion into the nothingness that was everything. Like a space ship re-entering the atmosphere, I could feel the layers of my individual sense of self begin
Page 24 of 61 to reassert themselves. The ego and identity that had been completely obliterated in the instantaneous expansion brought on by the 5-MeO-DMT regained its foothold, and as I fell down out of that exalted state, I knew myself once more. I understood that I was “Martin,” this collection of patterns and habits, judgments and beliefs, choices, attitudes, and emotions. It was the “me” I had lived with all my life. But now I knew. Now I knew with all my heart that there truly was something more, and that something was more profound, more complete, and more truly holy and sacred than anything I had ever imagined or anything I had ever conceived. I knew that in the end, we, all of us, everything that we see, hear, taste, feel and experience, is really just the One Being. It is all God. God is the only true reality. And at the same time, God is absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing to grasp. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to behold. Nothing to name or force into the box of language and conceptuality. God is simply the “I AM,” and there is nothing more that can be said. God is, and that is enough.
That was my first truly divine mystical experience and I am generally in agreement with Oroc’s claims as to the unique nature of this medicine. I’ve now seen enough people journey with 5- MeO-DMT to know that my experience is not necessarily typical of the experiences of others, especially now that I’ve learned how to truly surrender into God and let go of anything that might prevent me from being absorbed fully and completely in that state. The key is surrender. Simple, really, but I’ve seen it be exceedingly difficult for some. Fear takes hold. One grasps onto the disintegrating ego. Fear of death becomes overwhelming. So many struggle and resist the call to fall back into the Divine Love of God. There is so much fear.
Many people are genuinely afraid of their own hearts, and the heart is the quickest path to God. As I’ve come to believe, the only thing that stands in the way of each individual fully experiencing God is one’s self. That’s all. But that can be a huge obstacle, especially if one is afraid of the contents of his or her heart, for one cannot get to God without passing through the heart. The Heart of the Universe is One, and only one who has confronted the darkness, the fear, the pain, the wounds, and the attachment in one’s own heart can truly dissolve into God.
For some, this fear, this attachment, this refusal to surrender and let go makes the 5-MeO-DMT experience a hellish one – one that they would not willingly repeat for anything. But that is the hell they make for themselves. This is not to judge them. It is only to recognize that we are the ones who judge, not God. There is no judgment in God’s heart for God is Pure Love. “Expect nothing from me except my love,” was how the message came through to me while communing with God on a recent ayahuasca journey. God, as the source of all that is, is pure love – nothing more, and nothing less. We are the ones who choose how we want to create our reality, and if we hold onto fear and judgment, then when confronted with the enormity that is God in the mystical rapture, we will get from it what we create. God is infinitely giving, and if we ask for hell, then that is exactly what we will get. From the divine perspective in God’s heart, all things are perfect. Heaven and hell are what we make of them and it matters little to God, for we are the ones creating them. God has given us that ability and that power. How we choose to use it is entirely up to us. God will support and love us no matter what we choose. God is infinitely giving and God’s generosity knows neither bounds nor limits.
Since that first full absorption into God, I’ve been blessed to return to that mystical union on many occasions, both with and without the use of visionary medicines. Now, my experience of
Page 25 of 61 any visionary medicine is decidedly different from what it might have been before this mystical union. Now that the path to God has been opened in my heart, there is an open channel and I have been blessed with experiencing God’s divine energy. It flows through me and causes me to vibrate, most often manifesting through my hands and feet, but it can manifest anywhere on my body – even places that I didn’t know could vibrate. When I surrender into God, when I truly set myself aside, I become a conduit for this divine energy and it moves through me in a flood that I can hardly contain. It is beautiful and it is holy, and though I do not yet really understand it, I am beyond grateful for it. For me, it is the tangible manifestation of God’s love and creative power moving through the many layers of my being, flooding out through vibrating hands that feel as though they touch the threads of infinite starlight energy that span space and time, the very fabric of God’s precious creation as manifest in living light and consciousness.
In the end, I am awakening to the reality that is God, and I am grateful beyond measure for my experiences with 5-MeO-DMT and the experiences that have followed subsequently. Truly, my visit to the Temple of Awakening Divinity was a holy encounter, and as a result, profound changes have cascaded through my life in a very short time, many of which I’m still coming to grips with and seeking a deeper understanding of.
Page 26 of 61
Psychedelic Experience and Spiritual Practice: A Buddhist Perspective. by Jack Kornfield.
(Notes from: Chap. 10 of Robert Forte (ed.), 1997. Entheogens and the Future of Religion. Council on Spiritual Practices, San Francisco.)
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. p. 120
Almost every system in the world that is assisted by substances, including the wide range of shamanism, it is in a context of purification.
The purifications are first of action, which we talked about, that is, sila. Then based on that, there are the purifications of the body through hatha yoga, exercise, or practices that allow your body to feel and to be open enough to touch these deeper levels and to integrate them. You can take a very powerful substance and even if you are physically a wreck, you can touch those places, but there will be a high physical price in the course of it. There will be the burning of the kundalini from the nadis opening much too quickly. When your body is in tune and open you can go to those places with much less of that burning and overwhelming physical disharmony that can come from it. Secondly, it allows the experience to be integrated. Without preparing the body one can not hold those understandings. These are physical purifications of the body through diet, yoga, breathing, etc.
Then there are the purifications of the heart and mind; that is, emotions and thoughts. The purifications at the beginning are to train oneself to have thoughts of loving kindness and compassion. To begin, in a systematic way, to open up places that are constricted and extend forgiveness. This is the purification of forgiveness. There is an emotional transformation which takes place by extending forgiveness and opening the heart, seeing the fears, angers, and memories that have been locked in and releasing them.
There is the purification of generosity, of actions, words, and thoughts of caring. There is the purification in the realm of thought: taking the crazed monkey mind and nonstop inner dialogue and beginning to train the element of samadhi, or stability of mind. In this way, the mind becomes steadier and can focus on light, visualization, the heart, or some other aspect of being, instead of wandering all the time, or being lost in the past and future.
It is necessary to begin to overcome the powerful conditioning of reacting with aversion to pain, and with greed to pleasure, therefore getting lost all the time in past and future. This involves
Page 27 of 61 working with mindfulness and concentration in a specific systematic way. Then comes the mind; but first you stabilize the mind through concentration. Most people find that happens with a long regular practice of sitting meditation, with mantra, visualization, or a hundred other ways. pp. 125-126
Healing with psychedelics is much the same. Healing comes when you have a suitable and careful situation, and one's unconscious is opened by the psychedelics. Maybe they will relive a past trauma, or experience the pain that is held in the physical body from an accident, or an operation, or the tension from all their stored up anger comes into consciousness and begins to release. The healing effects come through the power of bringing into consciousness that which has been below the threshold of consciousness. Part of the difficulty with psychedelics, and even with meditation at some points, is that it comes too quickly and people get overwhelmed. The danger is then they may shut down immediately afterward. They will touch a place that is too fearful or too difficult. But there are healings that take place in that way on all those levels of body, feelings, and mind. pp. 127-128
Page 28 of 61
Soma, Nectar of the Gods Yoga and Psychedelics by Ganga White (founder of White Lotus Yoga) [email protected] www.whitelotus.org
From: MAPS Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2011, Psychedelics & the Mind/Body Connection, edited by David Jay Brown.
[To follow is an excerpt from Ganga White’s book Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice (North Atlantic Books, 2007), followed by a commentary that he wrote especially for this Bulletin.]
NO exploration into yoga and meditation would be complete without a look at the ancient lineage of sacred plants and herbs that many assert are at the origins of religious experience and spirituality. We live in a time of drug hysteria that calls for a more intelligent understanding that doesn’t lump every psychoactive substance, plant, or herb into the same category called dark and dangerous. The Soma was an ancient brew or drink prepared by sages and yogis that was said to bestow health, strength, insight, spiritual visionary experience, and communion with divinity. This sacred drink, also called “Amrita” or “nectar of the gods,” opened the mind, heart, and inner landscape while purifying and healing the body. The word “Amrita” means nectar. It comes from the word “Mrita,” which means death and “A-mrita” means non-death or immortality. Soma use dates back to the ancient time of the Vedas and origins of yoga.
Researchers have suggested that the Soma was made from psychoactive mushrooms or possibly from a combination of plants, like the middle eastern Haoma or Syrian Rue, and various herbs. The formula and exact nature of this “nectar of immortality” has been lost, possibly forever, in the mists of antiquity. The Amazon region holds what is probably a similar sacred brew, called Ayahuasca, which means vine of the soul or vine of the dead. For centuries, and probably thousands of years, this plant admixture has played a primary role in indigenous people’s spirituality, healing, and discovery of a vast pharmacy of medicines and healing herbs. We owe much of our pharmacopeia to the legacy from indigenous peoples and the sacramental practices.
I touch on the topic of plant sacraments because it is a timely subject and something I am repeatedly asked about. I was very fortunate early in my studies of yoga and mysticism to have had the opportunity to meet and practice with researchers and explorers of the Soma and other entheogens. It is important to realize that there is a right place and proper use for everything. Plant intelligence has informed human consciousness since the beginning of time. We are dependent on plants and live in symbiotic relationship with them. To make certain plants illegal is ignorance. Rather, we need to learn their language, receive their gifts, and learn the right and intelligent use of all things. As Paracelsus, an alchemist and a founder of modern medicine, stated, “The difference between a poison and a medicine is dosage.”
Page 29 of 61
There are neural pathways in the brain that are more ancient than our beliefs, philosophies, and religious proscriptions. There are keys to the doorways of the rich interior landscape that open dimensions of beauty, order, intelligence, immense complexity, and sacredness beyond measure. These realities can be so powerful, brilliant, and intense that, while visiting them, our world seems like a distant hallucination in the way that these dimensions can seem hallucinatory from this one. Seeing and being touched by these mystical experiences can change one and help one in positive ways with insights into self-healing, enlightened living, and the wholeness of life. Our bodies and brains operate on chemical messengers and information exchange systems within nature. Evidence shows that medicinal plants were probably at the origin of religious and mystical experience. To say they are unnatural, and that practices, rituals and belief systems created by man are natural, is an absurdity. It is a shame that fear and conditioning can preclude the greatest journey…within.
Soma, Soma, devamritam, parama jyoti, namo, namah. “To Soma, nectar of the gods, who reveals the divine light, salutations, again salutations.” I quietly offered the ancient chant as we floated down the jungle river hanging in hammocks. The Amazon reflected the night as lightning bugs lit the sky opening up mysteries of the cosmos, revealing beatific sights in holographic worlds of light, intricacy, and geometric, oscillating wonder. We were drifting in and beholding the matrix of life. We floated into a void of darkness that took shape and form, turning into corridors of color, opening into the field of dreams. All my relations, the sweat lodge prayer of Native Americans, takes on new meaning as each relationship in your life parades before you, viewed with the lens of insight from the sacred vine.
There are keys to the doorways of mind and consciousness that are guarded by phantom demons of fear and uncertainty. They bring dread to the brittle minded and self-righteous, preventing their entry. These demons may guard the entrance but the reward inside, ironically, is the gift of responsibility that is the wisdom of uncertainty. •
THIS addendum to the piece from my book, Yoga Beyond Belief, is not written to advocate nor to proscribe the use of psychedelics, which is a deeply personal choice, but rather to stress the importance of considering the validity of experiences received by these means. Even seasoned psychonauts and neuronauts have sometimes opined that while it may be possible to have a spiritual experience, philosophical insight, or religious experience with entheogens, it’s important to be able to get to the same place “naturally.” The implication is that such experiences are analogs of genuine religious experience. We need to ask what, or who, is the arbiter of true religious experience? Furthermore is spiritual experience measurable at all? The arguments leveled against the validity of entheogens can be aimed equally in the other direction. We could also ask whether the experiences obtained by prayer, rosary, mantra recitation, or years of trying to quiet the mind, are more valid and “natural” or if they are merely mechanical repetition and hypnotic self projection?
Who or what can dictate the authenticity of religious experience and is it measurable? If there is an acceptable measure, it is usually centered around how that experience later expresses itself in daily life with compassion, love, kindness and care. With that metric so many who have been
Page 30 of 61 touched by psychedelic awakening report, or have friends and family reporting, obvious and significant transformation and flowering of these essential, evolved human attributes.
Psychotropic substances are powerful tools, and like all tools, they can cut both ways—helping or harming. Paracelsus offered a great guiding principle when he pointed out that the difference between a medicine and a poison is dosage, or usage. There are many examples of great emotional opening, creativity, insight and positive transformation from entheogenic experiences. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen the opposite. We must acknowledge that the same is true in the arena of traditional religion. In these epochal times of religious fervor and extremism, East and West, sometimes it seems riskier to experiment with religion than with drugs. Religion can trap a person for a lifetime in the confines of a myth, or worse, and people live their whole lives for a promise of reward in what lies beyond the ultimate mystery, death, while seeking an afterlife and neglecting or devaluing what may be the only life there is—the here and now.
I mainly want to suggest that many of the arguments against psychedelics have as much validity, or lack thereof, when aimed back toward organized religion. I heard a Zen master once lecture that if psychedelics provided authentic awakening or spiritual experience, one would not ever have to approach them again. This is a common point of view. I would ask why the same isn’t said of the Zen cushion or approaching the Zen master or guru? Is wisdom and realization a destination we arrive at, or a constant journey in ever unfolding possibility? If it is an ongoing process, a journey of constant vigilance, awakening and reawakening, then tune-ups, from life, from teachers, or plant friends are welcome along the way.
Due to the current level of drug hysteria that tries to demonize and marginalize those who work with psychedelics, many yogis and yoga teachers are hesitant to speak publicly of their experiences. However, I’ve had the opportunity to talk in depth with many scholars, teachers, and leaders about the benefits they’ve received through their use of entheogens and sacred plants. Some point out there are two different ways to use these allies--using psychonautical tools for the experience they offer in and of themselves and also the use of these tools to open, enhance and deepen the dimensions of traditional practices. In other words when potentiating the practice of meditation, pranayama, asana, dance, massage, tai chi, or other modalities with psychotropics, whole new worlds, depths, and perspectives can become possible.
Once, on a pilgrimage deep in the Amazon, I was invited to a Tea ceremony with a few elder maestros. At the peak of the session, with galaxies swirling around me, I was asked why, after years of meditation, self study, and yoga would I be interested in, or bother with, this strange brew. I replied that if a hundred people spent many years in yoga, prayer, chanting, and meditation there may only be a few who have a profound mystical experience of oneness, the connection of all things, the immensity of life, the immeasurable. However, if the same people, with good guidance and attitude, participated in some Ayahuasca sessions there may only be a few who don’t have such a visionary experience. I added that after observing hundreds of people partaking of this sacrament, I witnessed only positive effects. Ayahuasca seems to contain a beneficent, guiding and forgiving, wise presence.
Many modern yoga teachers look to the sutras of Patanjali as their most important foundational text for the practice of yoga. Patanjali’s first sutra of the fourth and last chapter (4:1), though not
Page 31 of 61 often quoted, asserts: “These spiritual attainments may be congenital in some, or they may be gained by the use of certain medicinal plants, by incantations, by fervor, or by meditation.” The sage Patanjali advocated plant medicine as an aid to awakening.
Anyone intent and serious about exploring life, consciousness, and his or her own mind would want to be open to all the avenues available. The disciplines of yoga and meditation offer powerful pathways. Entheogens contribute some of the most potent means we have and offer the possibility to open the deepest levels of human consciousness. Visionary realms, internal microcosms, external macrospheres, and other realities or dimensions can be accessible. Whether the plant potions are a medicine or poison depends on personal discernment, intelligent and careful use, set and setting, and wise counsel.
Page 32 of 61
Entheogen Yoga: The Application of Yoga Meditation Techniques to the Use of Psychoactive Sacraments by Sri Brahmarishi Narad
(downloaded from: http://csp.org/practices/entheogens/docs/narad-entheogenic_yoga.html on 1-4-10)
The following article originally appeared as an uncopyrighted set of mimeographed sheets sometime during the late 1960's, which was freely distributed on a limited basis, probably in San Francisco. Feel free to make copies of this article and to distribute them to those interested to keep this information alive, otherwise it will disappear into antiquity. [Originally titled "Psychedelic Yoga", edited to incorporate the words 'entheogen' and 'psychoactive''. Feb 99 – Council of Spiritual Practices]
The fact that entheogenic drugs induce a greater sensitivity to subtle spiritual and psychic energies, and speed up the influx of impressions from deeper levels of consciousness, raises the immediate question of how these energies can be properly understood and handled. Obviously, if these energies are not guided, they can do more harm than good. The application of traditional Yoga meditation techniques while under psychedelic experiences, provides a constructive solution to this problem.
According to Yoga philosophy, the most spiritual and powerful aspect of man's nature is the faculty of attention or consciousness. The most fundamental aspect of man's free will is the choice as to what he allows his attention to dwell upon. The attention always has to be on something, but we can choose what we allow it to dwell upon.
The goal of all Yoga practices is to discover and directly experience what the attention or faculty of consciousness in man is. The yogi seeks to know that principle by which all else is known. This goal is achieved by observing the observer or placing the attention on the attention itself. This may at first seem very abstract and hard to grasp in terms of practical application, but there are workable, time-proven methods for achieving this state of pure consciousness which when consistently applied and practiced are bound to yield results.
It should be constantly remembered during a psychedelic session that whatever perceptions, thoughts and even hallucinations occur, they are all the creations of one's own mind and consciousness, and are filtered through one's own instrument of perception. These perceptions are patternings of our own psychic energy. We give energy to whatever thoughts and feelings we allow the attention to dwell upon. Wherever the power of attention is focused, it generates mental and emotional energy in the form of its own lower overtones, thus feeding and energizing the thoughts and emotions which the attention dwells upon. It becomes clear that the key to remaining in control of a entheogenic experience is in controlling the flow of attention. Distractive experiences can be avoided in the first place, and the flow of attention can be properly directed by the use of Raja Yoga techniques of meditation. The following is a description of several such techniques which can all be applied while under the influence of LSD, marijuana, mescaline, DMT, hashish, psilocybin or other consciousness-expanding drugs.
At this point, let us consider a basic rule to apply in case of paranoia or other unpleasant or
Page 33 of 61 frightening experiences while under the influence of a psychedelic drug. Realize that whatever you may be thinking, feeling or experiencing is being experienced by the consciousness within you. Then place your undivided attention on that consciousness which is experiencing whatever is happening to you. This process returns your consciousness to its own pure nature and disengages mental and astral thought forms. These destructive thought forms then dissipate and are dissolved back into the homogeneous, vibrational energy of the plane of energy substance from which they were originally molded. The strong light released by consciousness observing itself, helps to quickly dissolve and dissipate destructive thought forms. This happens because the strong lower overtones of pure consciousness which are generated, cancel out the discordant, out of phase vibrations of destructive thought forms.
If the attention wanders while practicing any of these meditation techniques, immediately bring the attention back to the process of meditation, and do this as many times as is necessary until the attention remains centered on the particular form of meditation which you are practicing. Inexperienced meditators have a tendency to fight distractions, which in itself, becomes a distraction. The attention can only dwell on one thing at a time. Simply bring it back to the thing you are meditating on.
Another way of stopping distractions is simply to temporarily suspend the breathing process by neither breathing in or out. Since breathing is intimately tied to every biological process in the body, the instinct to survive (developed over billions of years of evolution) will interrupt the flow of attention into distractions and bring it to center on the awareness of the cessation of breathing. It is then an easy matter to resume normal breathing and to center the attention on the particular form of meditation being practiced.
Sound Current Meditation
Focus your full, undivided attention in the center of your brain where the pineal gland is located. Listen with your attention for whatever sounds present themselves. After awhile, you will hear sounds of various tones and pitches. At first, you may only hear the low hiss of random molecular noise in the ears, but in time, definite tones will present themselves like sustained notes on an organ. This sound is perceived directly by the brain and the subtle bodies themselves, and not through the outer physical organs of the ears. It is the sound of the vibration of conscious energy as it flows through the physical body and as it vibrates and circulates within the subtle bodies.
You should focus your entire undivided attention on the sound of highest pitch that you can hear, and let it draw you up into higher and higher states of consciousness; also let the sound reveal and intensify the spiritual light. The better your concentration is, the louder and more distinct the sound will become.
Experience the vibration of this sound expanding until it includes your whole head, your whole body, and ever-expanding volumes of space surrounding you. By this means, you will tune into the music of the spheres, and your whole being will become a receiver and transmitter of the harmonious rhythm of the universe. When you open your eyes after such a meditation, you may
Page 34 of 61 find your surroundings filled with blazing light.
In the beginning, the sound current may appear in one localized part of the head; most likely in one of the ears. You should not listen to the sound current in the left ear because this is psychically harmful. Listen to it in the right ear, and gradually try to move it to the center and top of the brain. From this vertex center, known as the Sahasraram Chakra (whose associated gland is the pineal body), allow the vibration of the sound current to fill the entire head and to then expand beyond the head into the surrounding space. This is one of the classical methods and can lead to the highest type of experience.
Meditation on the Light in the Head
To practice this form of meditation, close your eyes, and observe your inner field of vision by focusing the attention at the point in the center of the forehead, just slightly above the point between the eyebrows. This location is called the Third Eye Center or Agna Chakra. It is related to the faculty of clairvoyant vision. The physical manifestation or anchorage point for the Agna Chakra is the pituitary gland, which is located in a bony cradle in back of the root of the nose.
When you close your eyes, look steadily into your inner field of vision until light, color and patterns begin to appear. (This is looking with your attention and not with the physical eyes which should remain relaxed.) When most people close their eyes, initially they see a black void, but by looking steadily into this void, various colors and patterns will begin to appear. When this happens, simply observe them with your full, undivided attention as if you were intently watching a movie. Then periodically focus all of your attention within the smallest point that you can see in the center of your field of vision, and pierce through that point. After you have done this, the light will again blaze forth from the point in a new burst of energy, and you will find yourself at a higher rate of vibration or plane of energy. With continued practice of this form of meditation, you will become immersed in a blazing sea of light; and you will become a center from which that spiritual power is radiated.
By concentrating the attention in the Sahasraram Chakra or Thousand-Petalled Lotus, located at the top of the head, an experienced meditator can release an even more powerful radiation of light and spiritual energy. (It may take more work to activate this chakra; the beginner can get more immediate results by looking through the Agna Chakra or Third Eye Center.) The Sahasraram Wheel is the highest chakra; called the "Doorway to the Infinite" and the Brahmarandra or Hole of Brahma, it is the most powerful and spiritual of all the centers that can be awakened in man (with the possible exception of the Heart Chakra which is considered by some yogis to be of equal importance). When the Sahasraram Chakra is fully activated in a perfected yogi or saint, the white fire of Cosmic Kundalini descends upon him and blends with his own rising kundalini force, and the white light of spirituality radiates for miles around.
Meditation on the Chakras
By focusing the attention on various locations within the body, where the chakras are located, it
Page 35 of 61 is possible to activate these chakras and facilitate an increased flow of energy between the higher planes of energy and the subtle body, thus releasing an increased amount of spiritual energy. There are seven major chakras in the body which link together the physical body and the subtle energy bodies.
The chakras are revolving vortexes of energy which act as mechanisms for the absorption and radiation of spiritual energy. In the physical body, they relate to glands and major nerve centers. In the etheric body, they are like wheels with flower petals which are created by a sort of stroboscopic effect of the revolving energy. The etheric chakra flowers are connected by a sort of funnel-like stem to the gland or nerve plexus to which they belong. In the astral body, the chakras appear as whirlpools of energy, like the eddies in a stream of water or in a basin of water when the stopper is pulled out. In the mental body, they appear as converging lines of light.
The Muladora Chakra is at the base of the spine and is the seat of the Kundalini Fire Wheel when aroused, which in the advanced stages of yoga, rises up through the center of the spine and activates the highest chakra in the cerebral cortex called the Sahasraram Chakra.
The next chakra is called the Sacral Center or the Swadisthana Chakra. It relates to the adrenal glands and is related to the absorption of pranic vitality, which is in the air. The air absorbs this energy from solar radiation. There seems to be some differences of opinion between various texts as to whether the Muladora Chakra or Swadisthana Chakra relates most directly to the sexual functions.
After the Swadisthana Chakra, comes the Manipara or Solar Plexus Center which relates to the digestive functions and vitality of the astral desires and feeling emotions.
Next in ascending order is the Anahala or Heart Chakra, which relates to the source of spiritual energy and the higher emotions of love, altruism and benevolence.
The next chakra is the Vishudha or Throat Chakra, which is related to the thyroid gland and has to do with the power of speech and relates to mantra yoga and the capacity for artistic creativity. This center is activated by chanting and singing.
Next we have the Agna Chakra, which is located on the forehead, just slightly above and between the eyebrows. It is related to the pituitary gland and the subcortical areas of the brain. The Agna Chakra has to do with the higher mind faculties of clairvoyance, scientific reasoning, willing and philosophical thought. Development of the chakra awakens the ability to see and regulate astral and mental forces on the superphysical level.
Above the Agna is the Sahasraram Chakra or Thousand-Petalled Lotus, which is related to the pineal gland and the cerebral cortex. It's located at the top of the head. It relates to the sound current and the faculty of clairvoyant hearing, and is the most spiritual of all the chakras. When this chakra is fully developed, union with God-consciousness is possible, and Illumination takes place.
By focusing the attention in any one of the chakras, the lower overtones of the concentration of
Page 36 of 61 consciousness in that location activates that chakra and increases the energy flow in it, making possible a conscious entry into the superphysical planes of energy. Meditation on the first three chakras, namely the Muladora Chakra, the Sacral Chakra and the Solar Plexus Chakra is not recommended because this can arouse lower emotions and sexual passions. This can allow entry to undesirable astral influences and cause psychological unbalance. It is better to work with the Heart Center, the Agna Chakra, and the Sahasraram Chakra because these are the most directly related to the unfoldment of superconsciousness; and when awakened, will automatically develop the lower chakras by changing the glandular balance of the body and by circulating new pranic forces through the energy channels or nadis of the etheric body as well as purifying and strengthening the astral and mental bodies.
The hormones which the pituitary gland secretes, regulates the other glands in the body including the thymus gland, the thyroid gland, the adrenal gland and the sex glands as well as other glands. Once the pituitary gland is fully activated by the development of the Agna Chakra, all other glands are brought into proper chemical balance, thus helping to properly develop and raise the vibratory rate of all the lower chakras.
In Kundalini Yoga, an advanced yoga practice, concentration is done on the Muladora Chakra at the base of the spine in order to arouse the Kundalini Fire and bring it through the center of the spine to activate the highest chakra, the Sahasraram, at the top of the head. If however, the Kundalini Fire is prematurely aroused and not properly directed, great damage can be done to the nervous system and to the etheric body. If the Kundalini force is not properly directed upwards, it can revert downward causing abnormal sexual desire and perversion. Therefore, arousing the Kundalini should only be done in advanced stages of yoga when a great deal of purification of the subtle bodies has taken place and soul control over the personality is well established.
The Combination of Mantra Yoga and Meditation
When doing Om chanting or other mantras, it is possible to activate various chakras. By chanting at varying pitches, you will make different tissues in the body vibrate, thus stimulating the nerve centers and the glandular centers, and activating the chakras associated with them. With a bit of experimentation, you will find which tones or pitches vibrate which parts of the body and which chakras. When this has been ascertained, then chant with full force while meditating in the chakra you wish to activate.
The sound waves create vibration patterns in the etheric, astral and mental atmosphere, which you can develop the ability to see. They are multicolored and very intricate and beautiful, sometimes forming geometrical patterns and mandalas made out of threads of light. Music will have a similar effect. Just listen to the music during a psychedelic session while observing the inner light through the Agna Chakra or Third Eye Center. Then watch the color patterns change and develop with the music. Classical music and Indian ragas are especially good for this purpose.
Meditation on the I Am Principle
Page 37 of 61
In the practice of this form of meditation, consciousness is made to dwell upon itself. When properly and successfully practiced, this is the most powerful and highest form of meditation. While focusing in the Heart Chakra or in the Sahasraram Chakra at the crown of the head, place the attention on the attention itself. If any distractions come in the form of thoughts and perceptions of a specific nature, then immediately concentrate your attention upon that consciousness in you which is the experiencer of those thoughts and perceptions. Even the manifestation of spiritual light and sound current should be regarded in this way. The sound current and the light are merely the lower overtone manifestations of the pure consciousness upon which you are meditating. The more you hold your attention steady in concentration upon itself, the more the light, sound current, electrical sensations in the body, feelings of magnetic force, sensations of weightlessness, etc. will manifest automatically. If, however, you allow your attention to become distracted by any of these manifestations, then you will be subject to the limitations of the thing by which you have been distracted; and the focusing of pure consciousness will be interrupted so that all of the things which are the lower overtones and by- products of the focusing of pure consciousness, possibly including the psychic manifestation which distracted your attention, will also stop. Seek ye first the kingdom of pure consciousness and all of these other psychic manifestations will be added unto you.
Placing the attention on the attention itself can be done in any location in space since pure consciousness, which is the same as God, is an omnipresent principle. In the beginning, it will be found easiest to do this in one of the chakras, preferably the Heart Chakra or the Sahasraram or Head Center. The Agna Chakra or Third Eye Center located on the brow, can also be used with good results, but it is better to use the Sahasraram Chakra if you can activate it.
With practice of this form of meditation, your pure consciousness will experience itself as a blazing sea of white light extending infinitely in every direction. The pure consciousness itself is crystalline and colorless, but it generates the white light which is the simultaneous presence of all of the colors which are the specific lower overtone rates of vibration, which the pure consciousness generates.
The placing of the attention on the attention itself in a specific chakra, brings about a condition in that chakra, in which its vibration structure is harmonically and geometrically aligned in all of its planes of manifestation or rates of vibration. This creates common node points in the inner plane structure of the chakra. Vibrations of different frequencies and different wavelengths all begin and end together at these common node points. This is made possible by the fact that the wavelengths of the various vibrations and their frequencies all bear exact mathematical rates to each other, like the notes in a musical scale. Any vibrations which are out of phase in terms of their spatial distribution or vibratory rates are automatically canceled out by interfering with other waves at the common node points. Where several wavelengths, both short and long, begin and end their cycles together, it is possible to slip through the dimensions and to experience the higher spiritual rates of vibration and approach the Atman, which moves with infinite speed. At these common node points, the exchange of energy from one octave or plane to another, also becomes possible, allowing a flow of energy from the higher dimensions into the lower dimensions. Thus, a transmutation of those vibration patterns which exist on the lower dimensions into the higher ones becomes possible. The soul is then able to control the
Page 38 of 61 personality structure, making it a fit instrument of spiritual expression in the affairs of men. This form of meditation develops one-pointed concentration.
Since the use of entheogens stimulates the flow of a great amount of energy from higher planes into the lower planes, any thought and emotion patterns created during a psychedelic session are strongly imprinted and have a great deal of energy incorporated into their vibration structure. These thought and emotional patterns then act as powerful unconscious conditioning factors in our daily lives. It is therefore of the utmost importance that constructive imprints are made during a psychedelic session. Remaining in control of the attention can ensure this.
In this regard, I would like to give a few final points of advice. Try not to focus the attention from one thing to another too quickly. Stay with a thought or meditation process until it is complete. Don't panic if frightening visions or hallucinations occur. Fear will make you concentrate on them all the more and thus feed them with the power of your attention. Remain detached and place your attention on that consciousness within you which is experiencing the hallucinations. Remember at all times that God exists in you in the form of your own power of attention and that power when properly directed, will control all lesser forces.
It is believed by some researchers that entheogens stimulate the secretion process of the pineal and pituitary glands, which are known by yogis and occultists to be related to the Sahasraram and Agna chakras (which are also called the Thousand-Petalled Lotus and the Third Eye Center). This stimulation increases the flow of energy between the etheric body and the physical body. It may be that entheogens place the cells of the physical body under stress so that they must speed up their activity to overcome the stress. When the cells increase their activity, their vibratory rates increase, thus putting them harmonically in resonance with the higher rates of vibration on the subtle superphysical planes of energy. This process makes possible the expression of a higher level of consciousness through the glandular system, brain and nervous system.
The increased physical cellular activity requires more work and activity in the etheric body to sustain the stepped-up activity of the physical body. The vibratory rate of the etheric body is thus accelerated, requiring an increased activity in the astral body to sustain and remain harmonically in tune with the etheric body. The increased vibratory rate of the astral body requires a stepped- up activity and increased vibratory rate in the mental body. This in turn more fully tunes the mental body in to the power, love and wisdom of the soul. Thus an alignment of the whole being on all planes is facilitated, and a more rapid exchange of pattern imprints and energy between the various octaves or planes of energy takes place.
It may also be that entheogens have a chemical structure such that they are perfectly in resonance with the lower overtones of certain key frequencies in the higher planes and can therefore act as a point of entry for the reflection of these vibrations in the physical body. They would therefore help to create common node points in the vibration structure of several different dimensions.
Not only is the love, wisdom and power of the soul brought to bare in the life of the personality, but the fine organization of the physical body, the etheric, astral and mental bodies, which have been produced by the evolutionary process, are harmonically reflected and preserved in the soul. While the physical body is the least permanent, the densest and composed of the substance of the
Page 39 of 61 lowest plane, it is in terms of evolution, the newest and most highly organized in terms of structure. Therefore, a complete replica of it made out of the energy substance of the subtle planes, is an evolutionary gain for the soul and subtle bodies. When the physical body is sufficiently vivified by the influx of energy from the higher dimensions, it begins to create higher overtone reflections of itself in the akasha or energy substance of the higher planes, and thus its pattern is preserved and made immortal.
Therefore, when properly used, entheogens help to speed up the evolutionary process. When man has evolved to superman, he will, under the direction of the superconscious mind in accordance with God's will as it manifests in evolution, take an active part in the molding and directing of the evolution of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Even today, his vibrations intimately affect for good or bad, those kingdoms in nature.
Page 40 of 61
Relating to Spiritual Experiences
Pandit Vamadeva Shastri (Dr. David Frawley), 2010. “Relating to Spiritual Experiences” in Tathaastu, Vol. 4, No. 2, Mar – Apr, pp. 11-19.
If we take up any form of higher yoga practice, Pranayama, mantra or meditation, we are likely to have various experiences, some of which may be quite dramatic. These experiences may be spiritual, psychological or even physical in nature or some combination thereof. Most of these experiences are likely to be exhilarating and elevating, but some may prove disturbing or agitating. Sometimes an exhilarating experience may turn disturbing for us, or what began as a disturbing experience may end up providing us wisdom or peace.
Some of these experiences may change our lives forever. Others may fade away after a short period of time and leave no trace. Generally our first spiritual experiences, like our first romances, may be exaggerated. Later on as we have more spiritual experiences, we tend to take them more as a natural part of our lives.
The range of potential yogic experiences is vast and many-sided. It is important to have a sense of what it is, so that we learn how to handle our experiences properly. In addition, it is not enough to seek experiences. We must prepare ourselves to have them, so that when they do arise, we are ready to hold their energy. Developing a higher consciousness is not a mere casual matter, hobby or another outer pursuit. It requires discipline, dedication and an inner orientation of life. Let us examine the nature of spiritual experiences and how we can best relate with them.
The Beauty of Spiritual Experiences Spiritual experiences can deepen and enrich our lives in many ways. They are largely to be welcomed as part of the beauty and abundance of the spiritual life. Just as the cultivation of an artistic lifestyle will naturally result in the development of artistic skills and perceptions, thus unfolding the vast realm of art appreciation; similarly the cultivation of the spiritual life will unfold the vast realm of cosmic consciousness and an appreciation of the bliss that pervades all things in the universe. To develop a life enhanced by ongoing spiritual experiences, with an ability to relate to the universe as a whole at the level of the heart, is one of the main reasons why we take to such practices in the first place.
If we persist in our yogic practices, over time, our inner flow of spiritual experiences will become more vivid and important than our outer sensory and worldly experiences. We will develop our own vast inner life and inner world beyond the stress and sorrow, the ups and downs of our outer existence. We will gain a capacity to directly experience reality, the universe and the depths of consciousness spontaneously and immediately at every moment, without having to rely on any external equipment or outer mediators. We will no longer need any external forms of entertainment or stimulation to distract us. Even when there may be nothing happening around us, we will experience a fullness and a depth that will create contentment and peace within.
The Yoga Shakti and the Energy of Experience
Page 41 of 61
Spiritual experiences are not isolated events but the result of an inner energy. The energy, that sets the stream of inner experience in motion and sustains it, is the Yoga Shakti or "power of yoga." Once that inner electricity is turned on, we will be able to access higher forms of perception; stronger forms prana; and deep feeling and direct knowing that are otherwise hard to reach for the ordinary human mind.
In the long run, holding to a continuous flow of experience will become more important than the details of any single experience. We may eventually merge into that flow of the Yoga Shakti and let go of all experiences, like a flowing river that reaches the sea and no longer has any banks to recognize. Gaining the power of direct experience is the real goal of all the experiences that may happen to us. Such a capacity for direct experience is more than any particular experience and how it affects us.
Samadhi Yoga in the higher sense is the development of Samadhi or the "absorbed state of mind," in which the mind becomes one with its object of attention. If we practice yogic meditation, we will naturally develop some states of Samadhi. Most of what are called "spiritual experiences" is Samadhi experience, though not all are the result of a conscious practice or preparation.
Yet, there are many types of Samadhi. Samadhi is a function of the mind on all levels. We are all seeking some Samadhi or peak experience of the mind, heart and senses. In this regard, there are both yogic and non-yogic Samadhis. Even sleep or drug-induced trances are lower or non-yogic Samadhis. Mixed Samadhis are common among yoga aspirants, in which some inner vision gets mixed with the conditioning of the mind. Without the proper training, such Samadhi experiences, even when genuine, can disturb people or inflate their ego.
Traditional yoga classifies different types of Samadhis, some of which it regards as illusory, misleading or dangerous. It particularly warns us to avoid using any siddhis or powers that arise from Samadhi for our own personal ends, especially those that involve harming others. It asks us to pursue the Samadhis that involve control of the mind and the understanding of our deeper Self.
There is a tendency for those who first come into a Samadhi state to think that they have gained the highest state. We must remember that there are many levels of consciousness between the ordinary human state of physical and ego-based reality to the highest level of self-realization. The realm of spiritual experience contains a great range of illusions or fantasies that we can fall into, particularly if we are unaware of such possibilities.
There are many inner realms of experience, levels of the astral plane or higher formless realms, each with its own type of world, creature and perception that can be very different. One can move beyond our personal and socially conditioned consciousness to the greater consciousness in nature, our broader earth environment, the atmosphere and into the cosmic realms. This is a great adventure but can have its pitfalls or detours as well, just as seeking to climb a high mountain or explore a deep cave has its challenges.
Page 42 of 61
Not all of our imagined spiritual experiences may be truly spiritual. Some may be mixed up with mental, emotional or even physical urges, changes or imbalances. Some may be misleading or simply self-projected. All of us are likely to have such questionable experiences, just as we are likely to have those that are genuine, particularly in this age of media hype that predisposes us to fantasy.
Different Types of Experiences It is important to note the different types of experiences that we may have and how they affect us, starting at a physical level. We may experience different sensations or currents within the body itself. Spontaneous movements or yoga kriyas may arise that may cause us to perform a yoga posture or breathe in a certain manner. The body may feel light, clear or even filled with light or space. Sometimes we may experience tremors, feelings of ungroundedness, or loss of physical coordination for a time. Such physical experiences need to be gauged relative to the condition of our body and nervous system overall.
We may experience changes in our sensory functions. Our seeing or hearing, for example, may become more acute or our sense of touch may become particularly sensitive. Other times our senses may fade and our attention may draw us to supersensory experiences. Or we may relate to our senses differently, seeing forms or the space between objects that we did not notice before. We may become entranced with certain forms, colors, textures, leaves or flowers that others might not notice at all.
We may experience unusual or radical changes in our emotional nature. A wave of bliss may descend upon us making us feel ecstatic for no apparent reason. We may feel great compassion for the sufferings of other creatures. Powerful devotion to the deity or guru may arise. Yet less wholesome emotions can also occur. We may feel afraid of losing ourselves or our identity. A fear of death may arise as we contemplate eternity. Sometimes ordinary emotions like anger or desire may get heightened or we may uncharacteristically become impatient or intolerant.
The mind may have new and different experiences and perceptions. We may feel our minds expanding or ascending. Light or sound vibrations may come into the mind. New insights may arise or a new creativity may dawn. There may be hints of extrasensory perception or telepathy, or a sense of what will happen to us or to the world tomorrow.
We may experience changes in our sense of self. We may feel connections with past lives, that we were a great yogi or that we are a great teacher with an important mission in life. Our self- identity may change and we may want to look or dress differently than before. We may be able to let go of our past and gain a new sense of who we are. We may move beyond the human ego to the sense of the cosmic Self.
We may gain an inner experience of the various chakras or centers of yogic energy, particularly the Third Eye, the heart or the crown chakra. We may be able to feel the energy moving in the spine, along with various lights and sounds, colors or energy patterns. These are usually part of a broader range of what are called "Kundalini experiences" that many people have, though one should note that what is popularly called a Kundalini experience may not always be so!
Page 43 of 61
Experiences of the Astral Plane Our subtle or astral body may become activated. We may be able to travel with it to other beings, or travel to other realms of consciousness or higher worlds. We may have astral ability to visit teachers or deities may appear to our inner eye. New teachings or inspired revelations may come to us.
Many spiritual experiences occur in dreams or in dreamlike states of consciousness. Besides our ordinary dreams based upon memory and sensory experiences, there is a higher form of dreams that reflect a deeper vision and experience beyond the physical realm. We may be having such deeper visionary dreams but not remember them well. There are other dreams that are astral experiences, which can be either enlightening or confusing for us, depending upon their nature.
Some experiences involve a heightened state of imagination or vision. We may see a deity, guru, angel or spirit with our inner eye. Yet knowing if these visions are genuine or self-induced is not always easy. Higher spiritual experiences usually involve some heightened perception and have a distinct clarity and calm about them. They are not always dramatic visions or visitations.
We must learn to differentiate between higher spiritual experiences and those of the spirit or astral world, though these can overlap to some degree. Drawing in departed spirits or ghosts, or bringing in animal spirits can have side effects. Studying the occult or subtle worlds can be different than yogic practices aimed at self-realization. It is important to be able to distinguish between the two and not confuse them. Occult and astral experiences are not always higher yogic experiences and can confuse rather than enlighten us, if we are not careful.
Channeling also must be approached with caution. There are spirits that would like to enter into the human being, who may masquerade as higher beings to come into us. We should not offer our minds and hearts for other beings to dwell in, unless we are truly convinced of their spiritual nature. It is important that we do not give up our consciousness or witnessing capacity in the process of communicating with any spirit.
Preparing Ourselves for Experiences We should prepare ourselves for spiritual experiences before seeking them. True spiritual experiences are a kind of nectar that is coming to us. It is important that we have the proper container to hold that nectar and that the vessel be clean, pure and not contaminated in any way. That vessel is our own body, prana and mind. It is not just enough to have an experience. We must learn to imbibe its essence, just as a bee gathers pollen from a flower.
We should cultivate sattvic lifestyle as the basis for our experiences. This means avoiding aggression and emotional agitation within us. A sattvic lifestyle will help ground our experiences. A vegetarian diet is a good aid for a pure mind and clear experiences. Our experiences should center on offering our ego to the divine presence within, not on glorifying ourselves or gaining power over others.
We should develop a sacred space both within us and in our own home environment in which our spiritual experiences, the events in our spiritual life, can be honored, nurtured and cherished. If we have a good vessel, the experiences will come and we will be able to move through them.
Page 44 of 61
If our vessel is contaminated or broken, even the best experiences will not be able to really enter into us. If our vessel is prepared, we may experience a deepening peace and bliss without needing more dramatic experiences to keep us on the path.
Keeping Track of Our Experiences Probably the first thing to do is to take time to assimilate your experience. Let it settle in of its own accord. Keep it to yourself for a while, sharing it only with your guru or other practitioners. Give space for your experience to reveal what it is. Do not try to judge it or own it immediately.
We should cultivate a detached observation of our own experiences. In this regard, it is helpful to make a record of your experience in terms of time, place and details. Write it down. Try to note the factors which may induce or accompany your experience.
Note your physical and psychological condition at the time of your experience. Is your experience connected to fasting or low food intake, with lack of sleep or other abnormal physical patterns? Have you been taking any drugs, recreational or medical, that might be involved in the experience? What was your emotional state? Had you been experiencing any unusual stress or emotional disturbances that might color your experience? Note those practices that may have helped set your experience in motion. Is your experience arising from Pranayama, if so what type of Pranayama and practiced for how long? Is it the result of repeating a mantra? If so, what type of mantra and to what deity or guru? Has it occurred as part of a meditation practice? Have you done any intense or new practice prior to the experience or is it the result of long term steady practices? Experiences from long term practices are likely to be more wholesome than those from short term but irregular intensive efforts.
Spiritual experiences are more likely to occur in the presence of a guru, but even here we must be cautious. The mass energy around a teacher may cause us to have an experience around them, even if they are not our true teacher. Holy sites, temples and powerful places in nature are also more likely to give us experiences. Pilgrimages are well-known for giving experiences, particularly those like visiting Mt. Kailas in Tibet that require a good deal of exertion to get there.
A few other tips: Do not run after any experiences. The mind can induce whatever experience it likes. Let your experience arise out of the receptive and surrendered mind and heart. Do not try to repeat an experience; it only makes you live in the past. Once you have had a spiritual experience, there is a temptation to try to repeat it. It is best to let it settle down. True spiritual experience is ever new.
We should look into our spiritual experiences for what they are teaching us. Inner experiences usually have a message behind them. They may be offering us a taste of what we can gain in fuller form if we persist in our practices. They may be asking us to make some change in our lives or our practice. We must learn to read their language and their symbolism, not simply regard the experience as an end in itself.
Emotional highs are usually accompanied with or followed by emotional lows. One must be careful with confusing emotional highs even colored by spiritual forms or images with spiritual
Page 45 of 61 experiences. Yet even with genuine spiritual experiences, there can be a down side. In mystical literature, there is a talk of the dark night of the soul and of dry periods in one's practice. Don't expect to always be in state of deeper experiences or emotional highs. Learn to preserve your inner contentment even when you are facing adversity.
The Role of the Guru and Deity in Experiences If we have experiences, it is good to consult about them with a teacher or with friends and colleagues on the path. A true guru will help us understand our experiences. If the teacher is not physically accessible to us, we can call upon them inwardly to help deal with our experiences.
It helps on the yogic path to have an Ishta Devata or chosen form of the Divine to worship, usually some aspect of the Divine Father or Mother. We should seek to connect with them in our experiences. The path of Bhakti yoga or devotion often revolves around spiritual experiences of the deity through mantra, chanting, pilgrimage and meditation.
It is helpful to have special protective mantras that we can use to help us through any difficult experiences that we may have. Mantras to the Ishta Devata or to the guru are very important.
Ayurveda and Vedic Astrology If possible, consult a good Ayurvedic practitioner who is familiar with yogic experiences and can provide guidance if your experiences are troubling. Disturbances in the Doshas, particularly Vata or the air humor, can cause unusual experiences in the mind and nervous system that may be mistaken for spiritual experiences. These may involve nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, tremors or unusual pranic movements of an uncontrolled nature. An Ayurvedic practitioner can prescribe herbs, diet, massage and lifestyle changes that can help us ground our experiences better.
Vedic astrology can be very helpful in showing the nature of our experiences. There are certain planetary influences and planetary periods that promote inner experiences. Influences involving Rahu, the north node of the Moon, for example, are more likely to be illusory. Those involving the lords of the fifth and ninth house, particularly when Jupiter, are likely to be more wholesome. There is an entire set of Vedic astrological rules that can be helpful in understanding our spiritual experiences and where these are likely to take us. Vedic astrology can also recommend mantras, gems and rituals that can help make our spiritual experiences more wholesome, or even give us spiritual experiences of an astrological nature. A good Vedic astrologer can help you with these.
Besides Experience Experiences are not the only measure or manifestation of the spiritual life. Experiences, particularly of a dramatic form, are not always necessary on the yogic path, particularly when Jnana yoga or the yoga of meditation is emphasized. The type of experiences one is likely to get are a deeper perception, more powerful intuition, a sense of the expansion of consciousness or a greater power of focus and concentration.
Perhaps the best sign of real progress along the yogic path is equanimity, peace of mind and steadiness of awareness. Consistency in practice, even if we don't have any experiences is important. If we give up our practice after an experience, often that experience will not bear fruit.
Page 46 of 61
Experience and Detachment It is hard to be detached from any powerful life experience, much less a spiritual experience. Spiritual experiences also leave their rasa or effect upon the mind which can be valuable to sustain. Still we should not cling to them. We should learn to view them like the vistas that unfold when we are climbing a beautiful mountain and continue on with our journey until we reach the summit. Never let the experience be more than one's inner calm or peace.
If you are practicing yoga with a spiritual intent, experiences will occur as part of your daily life. Learn to embrace these as part of life like a beautiful sunset. Let these experiences be natural.
Actually our entire lives are a spiritual experience. Anything that we experience with grace, devotion or awareness is a spiritual experience, even our daily activities. We should make all our experiences into spiritual experiences by learning to see the divine delight in the entire play of creation, honoring the divine presence in our own hearts and in the hearts of all creatures.
Pandit Vamadeva Shastri (Dr. David Frawley) is one of the few westerners regarded as an authentic Vedacharya or Vedic teacher in India. Over the last thirty years, he has written thirty books and several courses on Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedic astrology, Vedanta and the Vedas, which have been translated into several languages worldwide and are regarded as authoritative texts in their fields. He also conducts training programs in the U.S., Europe, South America and India through a broad network of affiliated organizations. The goal of his work is to promote the main branches of Vedic knowledge in a comprehensive and integral manner for the planetary age.www.vedanet.com
Page 47 of 61
Voyager Checklist for Meeting the Divine Within Enhanced and adapted from Part One of a “Manual for Voyagers and Guides” by The Guild of Guides
1. General Preparation Feel good about your guide. Feel that you can trust one another. Clarify personal preconceptions about psychedelic / entheogen experiences in general. Consider and reflect on personal understanding of mystical experiences, cosmic consciousness, and God/Goddess or the Divine in general. Set intention clearly enough to be able to say it to your guide. Realize that there are three stages to the journey: preparation, the journey, and integration. Ideally, set aside 3 full days for the experience: a day to prepare, a day to have the session, and a day to integrate the session. At a minimum, allow some time for preparation and integration.
2. Set Feel reasonably well prepared for the coming session. Have a good understanding of the general flow of time and likely types of internal visions and external changes anticipated during a session Have a positive overall mindset with respect to the coming session. Have spent part of the day before the session quietly in preparation. Am in touch with thoughts and feelings, and have positive expectations. Am comfortable with Guide, physically and emotionally. Free from unusual or intense suicidal, dark, or otherwise troubling thoughts. Am prepared to have highly unusual experiences, including: meeting the divine within in a wide variety of possible forms, including gods and goddesses, divine beings, transcendent light, etc.; experiencing different realities or historical periods; being in a different body of either sex; becoming an animal, plant or microorganism; experiencing my own birth.
3. Setting A private, safe, comfortable indoor space for the session’s duration. Specifically comfortable spots — couches, beds, rugs — for Voyager to lie down, sit down and hang out in. Soft pillows and blankets available. Music capability: headphones, ear buds or speakers available in accordance with Voyager’s preference. Eyeshades, eye-pillows, a folded washcloth or scarf for eyes-closed music listening. Flowers and candles if desired. Water for Voyager and Guide. Adequate restroom facilities. Electronic devices (including phones) are silenced or turned off. Have otherwise minimized likelihood of external interruptions. Have art materials, journals, and other creative tools available for use, if desired. If desired, bring sacred objects, photographs, a mirror, artistic objects, flowers, and other beautiful natural or manmade objects. Agree on whether outdoors is safely accessible for latter part of session.
Page 48 of 61
Am adequately and comfortably dressed in non-restrictive clothing with minimum of jewelry and have warm layers available. Have eaten lightly and complete your last meal by no later than 3 hours prior to the journey. Have refrained from alcohol on the day of the journey, and refrain from smoking or herb for at least 3 hours prior to the journey. Have consulted with Guide on music, and if desired, have provided Guide with specific musical requests and selections.
4. Substance Understand likely overall effects from entheogen at chosen dose. Prepared to be quiet and perhaps lie down as entheogen takes affect (over the first 20 minutes to one hour with some entheogens that are ingested).
5. Session Am prepared, positive and overall am ready for duration of coming session. Have no sudden intense forebodings or misgivings about going forward with the session. Create intentional, sacred space. Agree to keep unnecessary conversation to a minimum. An appropriate sitter is available to care for the Voyager at the end of the session and after the session. Am feeling physically well (or well enough) to go forward with session. Am prepared to take guidance and receive assistance from the Guide during the session. Am prepared to lie down, listen to music, observe my breathing and pay attention to any sensations in my body. Am prepared to let go of expectations about session, let go of personal concerns about relationships, personal issues and habits. Am prepared to let go of each experience, feeling or visual event as it occurs. Am prepared to let go of my personal identity and allow physical boundaries to dissolve. Am prepared to experience and deepen my awareness of other dimensions of reality. Will ask for Guide’s help, assistance or feedback whenever desired. Will trust Guide’s directions. Am prepared re-integrate towards the end of the session.
6. Post-Session Situation and Sitter Post-session Sitter, ideally a friend or relative with psychedelic experience, identified ahead of time. Sitter understands his or her job is to fully support Voyager during his or her post-session re- integration period. In consultation with Sitter, plan is in place for post-session re-integration period and to assist Voyager back to his or her regular circumstances. Prepared to spend the day after the session integrating insights and experiences. Will not make any major life decisions – other than immediately stopping toxic behaviors — for at least the first few weeks. Have adequate post-session support available from friends and Guide if needed. If the journey was with others, have agreed to keep all information about who was there and what they did completely confidential.
Page 49 of 61
Notes from: Rick Strassman, 2001. DMT – The Spirit Molecule. Park Street Press, Vermont.
Chap. 2 “A spirit molecule [is one that] . . . elicit[s], with reasonable reliability, certain psychological states we consider ‘spiritual.’ These are feelings of extraordinary joy, timelessness, and a certainty that what we are experiencing is ‘more real than real.’ Such substance may lead us to an acceptance of the coexistence of opposites, such as life and death, good and evil; a knowledge that consciousness continues after death; a deep understanding of the basic unity of all phenomena; and a sense of wisdom or love pervading all existence.” -p. 54
Chap. 5 1 kg = 2.2 lbs. 80 kg = 176 lbs. @ 0.05 mg/kg = 4 mg @ 0.4 mg/kg = 32 mg @ 0.6 mg/kg = 48 mg
Chap. 9 “… blood levels of DMT reached their peak at 2 minutes and were nearly undetectable at 30.”
Nearly everyone remarked on the "vibrations" brought on by DMT, the sense of powerful energy pulsing through them at a very rapid and high frequency. Typical comments were: "I was worried that the vibration would blow my head up," "The colors and vibration were so intense I thought I would pop," "I didn't think I would stay in my skin."
This tidal wave of DMT effects quickly led to losing awareness of the body, causing some volunteers to think they had died. This dissociation of body and mind paralleled the development of peak visual effects. We typically heard phrases like: "I no longer had a body," "My body dissolved—I was pure awareness." There seemed to be a clearly identifiable sense of movement of consciousness away from the body, such as "falling," "lifting up," "flying," a feeling of weightlessness, or rapid movement.
Some male volunteers, but no females, experienced localized sensations in their genitals. While sometimes these were pleasurable, for others they were emotionally neutral or bland. No one ejaculated.
The rush of early effects almost inevitably caused some fear and anxiety. However, most volunteers quickly settled in to the experience within 15 to 30 seconds by deep breathing, physical relaxation, or whatever else j they knew would help them to deeply let go. Perhaps because of their previous psychedelic experience, they frequently could separate their emotions from their body's physical reaction without panicking.
Visual images were the predominant sensory effects of a full dose of DMT. Usually there was little difference between what volunteers "saw" with their eyes opened or closed. However, opening the eyes often caused the visions to overlay what was in the room. This had a
Page 50 of 61 disorienting effect, and it was less confusing to keep their eyes closed. That's one of the reasons we decided to place black silk eyeshades on all the volunteers before we gave any DMT.
Subjects saw all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable things. The least complex were kaleidoscopic geometric patterns, which sometimes partook of "Mayan," "Islamic," or "Aztec" qualities. For example, "beautiful, colorful pink cobwebs; an elongation of light," "tremendously intricate tiny geometric colors, like being one inch from a color television."
The colors of this imagery were brighter, more intense, and deeper than those of normal awareness or dreams: "It was like the blue of a desert sky, but on another planet. The colors were a hundred times deeper." Background and foreground distinctions might merge so that countless images would occupy a volunteer's visual field. It was impossible to tell what was "in front" and what was "behind." Many used the term "four-dimensional" or "beyond dimensionality" to describe this effect.
There were more formed, specific visual images, too. These included "a fantastic bird," "a tree of life and knowledge," and "a ballroom with crystal chandeliers." There were "tunnels," "stairways," "ducts," and "a spinning golden disc." Others saw the "inner workings" of machines or bodies: "inside a computer's boards," "DNA double helices," and "the pulsating diaphragm around my heart."
Even more impressive was the apprehension of human and "alien" figures that seemed to be aware of and interacting with the volunteers. Non-human entities might be recognizable: "spiders," "mantises," "reptiles," and "something like a saguaro cactus."
Visual effects lingered as volunteers' bodies rapidly metabolized the DMT. The room was uncomfortably bright when they removed the eyeshades or opened their eyes. Objects in the room took on a wavy, undulating motion, radiating with their own inner light. Subjects commented on an exaggerated depth perception, sometimes being mesmerized by the patterns in the wooden bathroom door.
A few participants told us of a peculiar breakdown in the normal fluidity of their vision: "Your movements were not your own, they were no longer smooth and coordinated," and "You guys looked robotic; moving jerkier, more mechanical, geometric."
About half the volunteers experienced auditory effects: sounds were different, or they heard things that we did not. These were most pronounced during the DMT rush. Sometimes this was little more than intensification of normal hearing. Others became functionally deaf and did not hear the grinding motor of the blood pressure machine or any other outside sounds.
However, it was quite rare for volunteers to hear formed voices or music. Rather, there were simply sounds, variously described as "high-pitched," "whining and whirring," "chattering," "crinkling and crunching." Many remarked on the similarity of DMT auditory effects to those of nitrous oxide, where there is a "wah-wah," oscillating, wavering distortion of sounds. Occasionally there were the sorts of things one hears in cartoons: comical "sproing, boing" noises.
Page 51 of 61
Sometimes volunteers did lose their bearings and forgot that they were in a hospital or involved in a research study. Bespeaking their mental strength and agility, some retained their perspective even in this condition: "My mind was definitely in a different place, but it was commenting on the state as it was going on." Nevertheless, there were sessions when the confusion of the initial rush stayed with the volunteer until drug effects began wearing off.
Most people found the high dose of DMT exciting, euphoric, and extraordinarily pleasurable. Sometimes this ecstasy related to the visions. The elation also might come from new insights gained during the session: "I feel great, like I had a revelation." Often, it was pure bliss without any particular object.
For others the fear and anxiety were nearly unbearable. Comments such as "I hated it. I've never been so frightened," "menacing," "incredible torture; I thought it would never end" refer to these feelings.
While many research subjects experienced powerful feelings on DMT, both negative and positive, some commented on how unemotional their high-dose sessions were: "I tried to get myself worked up over what I was seeing, but I just wasn't able to respond emotionally."
Once DMT effects established themselves, the drug had surprisingly little effect on volunteers' ability to think and reason. "My intellect wasn't altered at all. I was just alert to what was unfolding during the experience"; "As I started coming down a little, I got journalistic. I became an observer."
Others, however, sensed their thinking was abnormal and, in fact, even wondered if DMT might cause psychotic thought processes. "Everything looked right, but just a little off. It seemed as if the clock was just starting to move every time I looked at it. The colors in the room were malevolent." Another said, "You know how schizophrenics talk about different meanings to things? A leaf on the ground takes on great significance? That kind of thing."
One common effect was a loss of normal time perception. For example, nearly everyone was surprised at how late in the session it was by the time they found out the time, believing only a few minutes had passed. Nevertheless, there was a sense of timelessness in the peak DMT state: they experienced an enormous amount in those first few minutes.
Volunteers usually found the high dose caused an almost complete loss of control. They felt utterly helpless, incapacitated, unable to function or interact in the "real" world: "I felt like an infant, helpless, unable to do anything." DMT volunteers decided, at this point, they were happy to be in the hospital! Beyond their own loss of control, some volunteers felt another "intelligence" or "force" directing their minds in an interactive manner. This was especially common in cases of contact with "beings."
Almost every research subject believed their first non-blind high dose of DMT brought them "higher than they had ever been." However, this first session usually was more anxiety-ridden than any other high doses they received subsequently. Once volunteers were prepared to
Page 52 of 61 lose control, it was easier for them to do so. They understood that the drug experience was essentially safe, that they would live through it and not suffer any psychological or physical damage. What also helped was their growing confidence in our ability to support their regressed condition as our work together progressed. pp. 146-149
Chap. 10
Three major groupings capture nearly all the various experiences within these reports. While most people's actual drug sessions partook of at least two of these types, one particular category usually predominated.
These three categories are personal, invisible, and transpersonal experiences.
Personal DMT experiences were limited to the volunteer's own mental and physical processes. DMT helped open avenues to his or her personal psychology and relationship to the body. Chapter 11, "Feeling and Thinking," presents several examples of this type of response. Once volunteers began approaching the furthest boundaries of this category, near-death and spiritual themes began to emerge. The personal then became transpersonal.
The hallmark of the invisible category is an encounter with seemingly solid and freestanding realities coexisting with this one. When these planes of existence were inhabited, contact by our research subjects with these "beings" made for the most disturbing and unexpected type of DMT session. I cover these bizarre stories in chapters 13 and 14.
The most sought-after and highly prized sessions were the transpersonal ones. These involved near-death and spiritual-mystical experiences. I describe these in chapter 15, "Death and Dying," and chapter 16, "Mystical States," respectively.
The last chapter of case reports, "Pain and Fear," discusses the negative, frightening, and potentially damaging effects of DMT on our volunteers. Here we encounter the negative aspects of all three types of experiences: personal, invisible, and transpersonal. pp. 154-155
Chap. 16
In order to establish the close similarities between spiritual experience and what is possible with the spirit molecule, I will first review briefly the features of a mystical experience.
The three pillars of self, time, and space all undergo profound trans-figuration in a mystical experience.
There no longer is any separation between the self and what is not the self. Personal identity and all of existence become one and the same. In fact, there is no "personal" identity because we understand at the most basic level the underlying unity and interdependence of all existence.
Past, present, and future merge together into a timeless moment, the now of eternity. Time stops, inasmuch as it no longer "passes." There is existence, but it is not dependent upon time. Now and
Page 53 of 61 then, before and after, all combine into this exact point. On the relative level, short periods of time encompass enormous amounts of experience.
As our self and time lose their boundaries, space becomes vast. Like time, space is no longer here or there but everywhere, limitless, without edges. Here and there are the same. It is all here.
Extraordinarily powerful feelings surge through our consciousness. We are ecstatic, and the intensity of this joy is such that our body cannot contain it—it seems to need a temporarily disembodied state. While the bliss is pervasive, there's also an underlying peace and equanimity that's |affected by even this incredibly profound happiness.
There is a searing sense of the sacred and the holy. We contact an unchanging, unborn, undying, and uncreated reality. It is a personal encounter with the "Big Bang," God, Cosmic Consciousness, the source of all being. Whatever we call it, we know we have met the fundamental bedrock and fountainhead of existence, one that emanates love, wisdom, a power on an unimaginable scale.
We call it "enlightenment" because we encounter the white light of creation's majesty. We may meet guides, angels, or other disembodied spirits, but we pass them all as we merge with the light. Our eyes now, finally, are truly open, and we see things clearly in a "new light." pp. 234-235 Chap. 17
The research setting was ripe for the development of negative responses to the drug, and this may have contributed to the high frequency we saw. The clinical environment was quite unpleasant, even though it reassured some research subjects about our ability to respond to medical emergencies.
In addition to the actual physical environment of the Research Center, the research attitude also created a tension that does not normally exist in typical psychedelic settings. The blood drawing, questionnaire administration, and various other experimental manipulations impacted our relationship with the volunteers. We wanted something from them other than just their own psychedelic experience, and that expectation was impossible to ignore.
What made the effects adverse was not the experience itself, but the volunteers' reaction to it. The subjects' responses to the anxiety-provoking elements subsequently determined whether they'd continue the fearful descent or pull out of it into a more positive resolution. pp. 248-249
Chap. 18
As opposed to Elena, when Don met face-to-face the vast and impenetrable nature of the source of all existence, he despaired. Elena was steeped in Eastern mysticism, while Don was raised in, and continued believing in, the Catholic faith. Elena saw the love behind the "impersonal" void. Don, on the other hand, felt shocked, stunned, and betrayed by the absence of a personal God or
Page 54 of 61
Savior behind it all. DMT had knocked away his spiritual and philosophical underpinnings, and he found himself at a loss for something to replace them. p. 273
Let's summarize this small number of follow-up conversations and inter-views. Volunteers reported a stronger sense of self, less fear of death, and greater appreciation of life. Some found they were better able to relax, and they pushed themselves a little less. Several volunteers drank less alcohol or noted they were more sensitive to psychedelic drugs. Others believed with greater certainty that there are different levels of reality. We also have heard about powerfully felt validation and confirmation of previously held beliefs. In these cases, views and perspectives became broader and deeper, but not essentially different. p. 274 Another answer became clearer only as the study progressed. This was the deep and undeniable realization that DMT was not inherently therapeutic. Instead, we again had to face the crucial importance of set and setting. What the volunteers brought to their sessions, and the fuller context of their lives, was as important, if not more so, than the drug itself in determining how they dealt with their experiences. Without a suitable framework—spiritual, psychotherapeutic, or otherwise—in which to pro- cess their journeys with DMT, their sessions became just another series of intense psychedelic encounters. p. 276
Page 55 of 61
Ego and Entheogens by Martin Ball from the essay “Energy, Ego, and Entheogens” in The Entheological Paradigm, 2011.
Entheogens: Once the projected illusions, false beliefs, and ideational and behavioral constructs of the ego are understood to be energetic in nature, then seeking an energetic solution becomes a natural and effective choice for addressing the problems created by ego. And rest assured, ego creates all kinds of problems! How could it be otherwise, when, in principle, ego functions to create artificial constructs of the self and protect these constructs from anything that challenges them? That is an energetic recipe for drama, conflict, violence, hate, fear, judgment, jealousy, rage, victimization, self-pity, indulgence, and on and on. On the positive side of things, it also creates an energetic recipe for questioning, challenging boundaries, exploration, inquisitiveness, inventiveness, and all manner of ways of engaging the world to satisfy our ego's curiosity about the objects of its experience. However, as exceptionally able embodiments of the One, we are intelligent enough to pursue the benefits of our nature without the drawbacks. To do so, however, we've got to get beyond our egos and their reactionary and illusion-projecting nature.
The central key to such a liberation and unleashing of human potential is entheogens. The word, "entheogens," means, "generating the experience of God within," and is meant as a substitute for the more general term of "psychedelic." I prefer the term entheogen to psychedelic, personally, but perhaps, for my purposes, an even better term might be something along the lines of energen, to indicate the idea of "generating the experience of energy." This is what I have come to understand is the primary function of entheogens or psychedelics: they alter our ability to perceive and experience energy. At peak moments, especially of extraordinary medicines such as 5-MeO-DMT, they allow an individual to experience the immediate nature of infinity energetically. This is what might be called a "union with the Infinite," "being one with God," or "being pure consciousness/energy."
Rather than terms such as "enlightenment" or "awakening," the most powerful of entheogenic experiences can be more readily understood as being full energetic openings or expansions. Such experiences are what are traditionally labeled as being mystical in nature. Different mystical traditions have advocated different techniques for reaching such seemingly rarified states of consciousness, from years of meditation, to the traditional use of entheogens. Some traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, have developed sophisticated symbolic systems to describe and harness the energy of such experiences, and structured them into teachings of "subtle energy." These teachings are often combined with other aspects of the traditions' belief systems, and while practical, in some respects, are also made obsolete by a more grounded understanding based on the bio-energetics of the human body rather than ideational realities of a "subtle," yet, unseen body or realm.
Hinduism, for example, teaches that there is a kundalini serpent at the base of your spine that you can mentally coax along the axis of your subtle energy centers, which are specifically understood to be independent of your actual physiology. This is ultimately a mental energy trick - a way of playing with the mind to move energy. It can be effective. It is also unnecessary. Entheogens are far more effective in moving energy and hold open the reality of cutting out the "middle man" of
Page 56 of 61 mental tricks, symbols, and cultural systems. Entheogens go directly and immediately to the source: your actual energy that is present in your body.
Structurally, entheogens are actually crystalline compounds that function as neurotransmitters. Two very powerful entheogens, 5-meO-DMT and N,N DMT are endogenous compounds in the human nervous system. When we ingest entheogens, these crystalline compounds act at receptor sites in our nervous system and dramatically affect our ability to perceive and experience energy. Perhaps this effect is due to the simple reason that crystals work to focus and amplify energy as a physical property of their geometric structure.
Different entheogens alter our ability to perceive and experience energy in somewhat different ways, but underneath any unique presentation -s the universal presence of fundamental energy. Salvia divinorum presents very differently from DMT, for example, but both alter one's ability to experience energy. Some medicines are more visual in nature, whereas others are more somatic or kinesthetic. Some medicines can produce high levels of vibrations in the body as the energy works through the biological/energetic system, and others produce slow waves of energy that night feel as though they are pushing one over and smearing one out (a common experience with salvia).
Egoic Reactions to Energetic Opening and Expansion: Egos tend to experience themselves as existing in a state of paradox. On the one hand, egos are often terrified to let go, surrender, and just "go with the flow," and on the other, egos relish and crave the release that comes with complete surrender. At base is the issue of trust. When an ego is trusting, it can let go. When it feels a lack of trust, it holds on to fear, and refuses. It is always ultimately an individual choice.
Virtually any entheogenic experience will require the ego to let go, at least to some extent. Egos that refuse to let go at all tend have what is described as a "bad trip," as the individual is just fighting the energy the entire time and refusing to trust. However, different medicines have different abilities to truly open one up, energetically. Letting go all the way on a small dose of mushrooms, for example, is hardly comparable to letting go all the way on a high dose of 5- MeO-DMT. One can achieve different experiential results with the use of different tools.
The most effective tool for an immediate energetic expansion into one's full energetic state is 5- MeO-DMT, with DMT coming up as a somewhat distant second. Even with the infinite power of 5-MeO-DMT, ego still has a choice, however. The infinite expansion is so overwhelming, especially when one is new to the medicine, that ego can either quickly give up and completely let go, or react in absolute horror and terror at coming so quickly "face to face with God."
Even when ego lets go, however, that is not the end of how ego can affect the experience. If the individual has energetic holdings, in the ways of beliefs, ideas, fears, judgments, etc., these will start to work themselves out energetically within the experience. Ego may have let go, but it is still comprised of energetic patterns. As the infinite energy of one's true being continues to expand, it eventually pushes up against these energetic egoic constructs. At this point, the individual may start to have a deeply introspective experience that can take on the form of visionary awareness. Eventually these patterns will gain the upper hand and even though still
Page 57 of 61
"tripping" very hard, most individuals will feel the grip of their ego reassert well before the entheogenic event is over and the medicine ceases to have an effect.
Ego can also play off itself not necessarily in the form of introspective awareness, but of extrospective awareness in the sense of seeing and experiencing seemingly very real "exterior" realities. These realities can either be confusing realms of bizarre otherness, or can take on a more archetypal, educational quality where the ego experiences things as being revealed to it by guides and entities. These are all projections of the self, however, and are a method for the self to communicate with itself through simultaneous multiple role playing (similar to dreams in that the dreamer only egoically identifies with one perspective within a dream but is in fact all the characters and the total environment). It is a trick of the mind in an interior space: an energetic virtual reality, as it were. These realities too will eventually disappear as the ego beings to reassert itself and reconstitute its "normal" energetic and behavioral patterns.
When analyzed carefully, all "visions" can be comprehended as messages from the self, even when seemingly completely "other." This is especially the case when appreciated from the perspective that there is, in reality, only one being, and it is communicating between its unitary perspective and the perspective of one of its individuated selves/egos. Often the game-like nature of the communication also becomes apparent, as well as the intrusions of ego and the ways it attempts to overlay the experience with its own sense of meaning.
In other words, visionary experiences are you giving yourself what your ego is able to process at that time.
In the absence of specific visionary imagery, the most common perceptions with entheogens are simply perceptions of energy. This energy usually is of a highly complex geometric and fractal nature. This should come as no surprise, since all of the energy of reality is geometric and fractal in nature. It is from this geometric matrix of energy that visions and visionary content arises. People with clear egos tend to primarily see the energy and do not have "visions" for they are immediately experienced as self-evident projections. Clear egos don't provide any energetic constructs for the energy to "bounce off of and form pictures.
Of far more significance than any visionary content is the experience of energy in the body. Visions are an excellent means of communication from the self to the self, but they can also become an object of distraction and attachment. There are times when individuals can benefit from spending more time energetically "in their heads" in that visual space, but in order to ground into actual reality, individuals must, of necessity, get fully into the energy of their entire being, and that primarily means getting their awareness fully into their bodies. This is the difference between living in fantasyland and actual reality. The difference is crucial and real.
One of the great benefits to working with 5-MeO-DMT versus DMT is that, not only is it far more powerful of an energetic opener, but it is also less visual, though its visual nature can be pronounced. The primary nature of the 5-MeO-DMT experience, however, is the overwhelming feeling of fractal flows of energy throughout the body, and not only throughout the body, but throughout all of reality, as well. The feeling is centered in the body, however, and most especially the heart (the location of the largest electromagnetic field produced by the body).
Page 58 of 61
There is infinite balance and infinite perfection to this endless outpouring of this symmetrical energy. It is the pure energy of being. It is radiant. It is love. It is what is. It is the Self.
Most people can't maintain that perfect unified awareness of infinite energy for very long, however, and ego begins to collapse in on itself very quickly, even with 5-MeO-DMT. As this happens, energy flows shift and change in the body. The body is the ultimate vehicle for the expression of the full spectrum of your energy and holds the patterns of everything you ever think and do. Anywhere that your ego has created constrictions in your being, or holdings of fear or judgment or lack of trust, will be pushed and aggravated by the energy of one's infinite expansion. This can cause muscle trembles, vibrations, purging, coughing, crying, laughing: any manner of energetic release and letting go.
It is these energetic releases that we tend to call "healing" events within the use of entheogens. Often, entheogenic healing is performed in the context of shamanism where the language is that of spirits, possessions, purification, etc. Energetically, this language is unnecessary, confusing, and promotes lack of personal responsibility. Each individual is personally responsible for his or her energetic holdings, for they were the one who chose to create it in the first place, and only they can release it. There is no magic or mysticism involved. There are no spiritual energies involved. It is all personal energy in your body/being. The Entheological Paradigm promotes radical personal responsibility for all of one's energy. No one is a victim and there is no one to blame. Everyone is personally responsible for themselves and their energy.
Disassociating from one's energy is a pathway to trouble. The way that we relate to our energy inside our bodies and inside our minds is directly reflected in our exterior relationships with others, and indeed, the entire "exterior" world. Our subjective experience is mirrored by our objective experience and vice versa. Energetically, there is no real boundary. Disassociating from any aspect of ourselves, including supposed "others," is a recipe for energetic imbalance, disharmony, and withholding. It is only by taking responsibility for our energy on all levels that we can overcome our egoic energetic tendencies. And taking responsibility means owning our energy and not looking to others either for salvation or blame, in any way. Each individual is 100% responsible for him or herself.
Taking Responsibility: Using entheogens and having "mystical" experiences are fundamentally useless if one is not seeking to integrate their experience of energy into everyday, ordinary reality, and working to take responsibility for the self here and now. The truth of our being comes with both tremendous freedom and tremendous responsibility. Given that each individual is an embodiment of the One, right here and right now, how that individual chooses to be and act is completely a personal choice. All individuals can be true to themselves and their genuine energy, or not. It is always a personal choice. All choices come with consequences. That is reality. Each one of us is a fully autonomous version of the Unitary Energy Being. Everyone is God, and God is energy. That's pretty liberating.
This fundamental truth resolves all existential, spiritual, and metaphysical questions. Any system of belief or "knowledge" that claims that a human being is anything less than a full and complete embodiment of God is an ego-generated illusion, pure and simple. That means that virtually
Page 59 of 61 nothing of what any religion has to say has any real weight or value for humans - they are fantasy systems. It also means that no one has a soul to save, a mind stream to evolve, or some other perfected world or state to get to. Reality, as we experience it, here now, on planet Earth, is what God is doing. This is it. Any talk about "other realms" and "higher states of being" is pure nonsense and promotes ego-generated irresponsibility and illusion. This is it, so get real.
It also means that if you want to "wake up" or "be enlightened," all you have to do is relax your ego and let your energy open up, and then :earn how to take full responsibility for yourself and your ego. The most effective means for doing so is using entheogens, but this is a practice that applies to every moment of every day. We are continually presented with opportunities to either act from a place of genuine energy, or act from a place of egoic attachment, projection, fear, and desire. Since so many people have no idea what that difference is, it can be hard to begin. It comes down to something simple, however: the truth. When you chose to act from a place of energetic truth (not "truth" in the sense of what you think you know), you act with genuine energy.
Unfortunately, egos use all kinds of methods to avoid acting from genuine energy. It is very rare that people give themselves permission to "be themselves," and even if they do want to give themselves that permission, they probably have no idea who they actually are or what "being themselves" means. Egos are firmly attached to their sense of identity and don't want to give it up. Egos hold onto culture, religion, tradition, politics, the teachings of their beloved icons, and all manner of ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, proper and improper, to structure how they choose to identify and express energy. In an attempt to "fit in" to a society, culture, family, etc., an ego takes on the patterns and projections of the other egos around it. Children quickly learn how to mimic and master the ego games their parents and community members model for them. They learn how to identify and believe. They learn how to curb their natural energies to "fit in" and "be a good person," generally according to local, and ultimately relative, standards. Ego then gets attached to all of these ideas, practices, and patterns, as that's how it makes sense of itself and its world.
Genuine energy that is not released authentically will always find other ways to try and escape and discharge, or will force ego to create more and more elaborate energetic structures to try and hold it in and sublimate it. For example, humans are sexual creatures. Sexuality and all that comes with it is a natural part of our energetic make-up and is something that needs to be expressed in order to have healthy, balanced energy. Most religions place all kinds of bizarre restrictions and taboos on sex and sexual activity, often placing the strictest requirements on those who would get "close to God" or "be holy". This is highly distorting of natural human energy, however, and the consequences can be severe, such as with epidemics of celibate Catholic priests sexually abusing young boys. In the eastern tantric traditions (tantric traditions as currently practiced in the West have almost no actual relationship to traditional eastern tantric practices), sexual energy is recognized as a means of altering consciousness, but even there, sex has been turned into a largely symbolic and mental process. While tantric practitioners may have avoided the abuse problems of Catholics, by making sex a mental, as opposed to genuine physical, process, tantrics are not fully engaging with their full spectrum of energy and are operating more in their minds than their bodies. In other words, these practices are tending to
Page 60 of 61 push them into ratified and sublimated "mystical," ideational realities, rather than living in actual reality, here and now, in their bodies, in their lives, and with their genuine sexual energy.
So we are all free to choose how we think, what we "believe," and how we act. All of these choices bring consequences. Choices that are made with clarity and centeredness in regards to one's energy are choices that bring the best possible results for the individual because they are in alignment with reality, rather than what we choose to think or believe about reality. Genuine energy is often in complete disagreement with egoic energy, however, so making choices authentically can be difficult. Operating from genuine energy means not being concerned about what others think of one's choices or actions. Choices are made and actions are undertaken because the individual understands that such choices and actions are authentic for them at that time, and living true to oneself means being true to one's awareness of energy. When this is lived fully and completely, there is no one to blame and no one can claim to be a victim. Reality has its natural limits and consequences: this is the nature of energy. But within the possibilities presented to us, we are always free to choose. We can conform to what others expect of us, or what our ego expects of us, or what we know is true for ourselves because we are fully aware of the presence of our genuine energy in our body and what it is asking of us.
Trust and Liberation: It all comes down to trust; trust of the self, trust of one's life and one's energy. Its as simple as trusting your heart beat, or trusting your breath, and trusting that when you act in congruence with your heart, you know you've made the right decision for yourself, no matter what the consequences. In the end, what we're talking about is liberation from fear. Liberation from fear of being oneself. Liberation from the fear of reality. Liberation from the fear of life and the fear of death. Liberation from the fear of succeeding or failing. Liberation from trying and relaxing into infinite nature of being, right here, right now.
Only you can trust that you can be yourself and take the responsibility and courage to live your true energy.
Page 61 of 61