Frank: After I sit in the mornings I then often open up “randomly” a Shiningworld satsang knowing it is Isvara doing the selection. It always is appropriate.
This morning it was your satsang “A Dog With a Bone” which again was Isvara providing me exactly what my sitting required. Interesting too was that it was signed by Isvara. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
As an aside, Isvara directed me to magic mushrooms recently which I found most curious. I have never taken them but have had LSD years ago. I haven’t even taken cannabis more than twice in the past 50 years. Anyway, after reading Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence” I decided to take 4 grams to see what “the experience” would be with Vedanta in mind.
It was rather underwhelming but after a few days of processing the event, one takeaway was that because of the reading of the book I had set myself up for “an experience” of something special. Vedanta has taught me what needs to be known and expecting “discrete experiences” is not it.
When I set out to write this email I had no intention to mention magic mushrooms but I have had the thought since taking them to ask James or yourself what had been your experience with a “high” dose of the plant, AV.(after Vedanta) I find it interesting that Isvara has provided such plants that have the potential to reveal knowledge. However, it seems those who have had mystical experiences could still benefit from “the gift of Vedanta”.
I’d appreciate yours or James’s insights.
Sundari: Nothing in Isvara’s world is essentially good or bad, it just depends on the context and the motivation. Any experience is capable of delivering knowledge, if you know what it is, which is that you are the knower of the experience. That is the Vedanta perspective in a nutshell. If applied, all experiences are underwhelming because you do not need any special experience to experience the Self because that is what you are always experiencing.
Plant medicine has been useful to humans since forever. Most medicines come from plants to this day. Most medicines are poisons and most poisons are medicines, all can heal and harm in equal measure. Used for mind altering purposes, plant medicine can be powerful in managing the gunas, if used wisely, ‘before’ or ‘after’ Vedanta. It can ‘open the doors’ of perception, as Aldous Huxley wrote about.
Plant medicine does have the power to alter and expand our perceptions about reality. It breaks down our very narrow and biased cognitive networks, which are designed by Isvara to protect the mind from too much information coming in from the Causal body. This can be terrifying or very liberating, which is why some people have very positive or very negative experiences. It depends on what is hanging around in the unconscious because that is what will be amplified.
There is much positive research being done on the uses of these kinds of mind altering drugs, especially for people with PTSD and intractable depression. It does seem that there are very positive benefits to be had for many, and it does not require many treatments. As with all things in mithya though, it’s a mixed bag. Hard to say definitively if it’s a panacea for all, because nothing is in Maya.
James used LSD and other drugs many years ago to identify vasanas (work out psychological issues), but he knew the inherent dangers. As soon as he realized he was the knower of the one high on LSD, he stopped. He had outgrown the positive effects, and if he had continued, he would have had the negative karma next. It’s a matter of discrimination, as always.
Because life in the ‘real’ world, meaning in duality, is hard, it is natural for humans to seek relief from the mind, from the world. It is understandable. But the sattva or knowledge that plant medicine seems to provide is often confused with, and quickly becomes tamas. On top of that, if used without discrimination, the desire for relief in the form of rajas takes hold, and you have dependence, and bondage. Then you start to think that the plant medicine holds special powers, and you need them to figure out your mind, or to escape it. It’s a slippery slope.
James still occasionally micro doses with psilocybin when he is tired as it offers temporary sattva, but the downside is the tamas that always comes with it down the line. He manages it well, but to me, it’s not worth it. Maya can be a bitch, but it is best faced straight up – as the saying goes! The human tendency to seek the easy route does not bode well for mental strength. Life requires resilience, and for that to develop, we need to grow through adversity. There is no escaping this.
People who cannot do that become weak minded, as can be seen in the normalizing of mental health issues today, especially in the US. The whole culture got seduced by ‘easy ‘. The allure of convenience. James calls it the affluenza virus. It comes with a high price, and that is a mind that cannot cope with the harshness of life. It fragments. Whatever your drug of choice is, whether it is addiction to convenience, entertainment, chemical or liquid, we cannot dodge the consequences if we become reliant on anything other than Self-knowledge. This is bondage, the very opposite of freedom.
If you are using the plant drugs occasionally and are not becoming dependent on them, there is no problem. If not, you have a problem.
Much love
Sundari
