is there a proper place for psychedelics in spiritual practice?
Igor Kungurtsev, M.D.
IT MAY SEEM THAT NOTHING NEW
can be said on this topic after Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner. Yet the theme is
vast and has many pros and contras as reflected in one of the recent issues
of "Gnosis" magazine. (Winter 93, No 26.)This article is an attempt to look at
psychedelics from the point of view of somebody who measures everything by
one criteria: will this bring me permanent and stable peace and happiness? Or
is it interesting and fascinating but has nothing to do with liberation from
suffering? (This attitude might seem narrow but regarding other aspects I
refer the reader to a significant body of literature.) I believe that longing
for permanent contentment is an unconscious motivation behind all human
actions; however, it's amazing how difficult it is to really accept that
nothing external can bring us lasting happiness.
Limitations
Maybe it's useful
first to point out what psychedelics can not give. Just by taking sacred
substances and surrendering to their action, no matter how many times and in
what doses, we can not acquire permanent, unshakable in any circumstances
wisdom, serenity and inner freedom. You might have profound mystical or
religious experience but in the next day or two it's gone. What remains is
simply memory of bliss and insights you have had but your actual state of
consciousness returns to usual with it's implicit inner conflicts.
There is a
big difference between actually experiencing that everything is One and
intellectually reminding yourself of this truth. If your present state is
that of anxiety due to some stress, recalling a profound psychedelic
experience you have had won't bring you back in bliss. It seems like certain
qualities such as transcendental insight or unconditional love are state
specific, meaning you naturally have them when you are in expanded state of
consciousness, and you inevitably lose them when you return to an ordinary
state. From this point of view, the goal of traditional spiritual practice is
not only achieving the altered state but stabilizing or better to say abiding
in it.
Of course, all this does not in any way contradict or deny the role of
psychedelics as "door - openers" or initial catalysts for many people. It
rather calls for realization that chasing after another and another beautiful
psychedelic experience leads nowhere, because these experiences are
impermanent just as everything else.
Possibilities
So, is there a place for
psychedelics in a day-to-day meditation practice of the serious spiritual
seeker? Yes, indeed. The first aspect of the purposeful use of sacred
substances has to do with the experiential realization that you are not the
body. Our materialistic culture, obsessed with the body, gave birth to
peculiar phenomena: body-oriented spirituality. Its amazing how many people
overlook the simple truth that almost all our suffering originates from
identification with the body. For whom are disease, hunger, poverty, fatigue,
wars, natural disasters and death? For the body only. However, it's impossible
to give up this habitual identification just by reading or hearing the truth,
because the ordinary state of consciousness is characterized exactly by "I am
body" experience.
Many people may say "Of course", I know that I am not the
body!, but this is only intellectual; unless one had a direct experience, the
unconscious self-representation is indeed of "I" to be the body, which lives at
this address, works on this job, married to this person, etc. The real degree
of identification with the body is revealed only through the intensity of
fear people have when the body is threatened in disease, physical trauma, or
sudden bankruptcy. Of course, all this does not mean that the body itself is
the cause of problems. The body should be taken care of. These notions of
Advaita Vedanta rather point out that there is no end to suffering unless one
experientially realizes that s/he is the boundless ocean of pure
consciousness, and the body is just an object equal to all other objects
inside this ocean. Psychedelics are invaluable in this matter because in
significant doses they can give a direct experience
of conscious existence without the body. Mushrooms, DMT and ketamine in large
doses are especially helpful. Repeated out-of-body experiences lead to
loosening this deep conscious and unconscious identification with the body.
One of the spiritual masters said that genuine spiritual practice has no
other goal than experiential discovery of something in us that can not be
taken by death.
Self-inquiry
Another aspect where psychedelics can be
intentionally used has to do with the practice which Ramana Maharshi proposed
as the most direct path: investigating "Who am I?" Sometimes this method is
grossly misunderstood as merely intellectual questioning or usual
introspection. In fact, it's very intensive practice where the meditator
withdraws attention from all objects, external (the world) and internal
(thoughts), and reverses awareness on it's source. Usually people taking
psychedelics learn that the most appropriate mental set and attitude is
surrender to the action of the substance. If you don't give up control you are
likely to have difficult experience. But again, there is a world of
difference between preliminary intellectual set and ability to actually
surrender in the process moment-to-moment.
Ramana Maharshi pointed out that
another direct path (besides self-inquiry) is total surrender of ones life
and world to God. From the meditators perspective, unreserved surrender
places ones mind in the position of detached observer of not only the world
but of ones own body, emotions and thoughts, since they also belong to God.
But as it is difficult to be totally detached in everyday life, so in
psychedelic experience there is always a certain degree of habitual repulsion
from the unpleasant and attachment to the pleasant. In many cases what people
call surrender to the action of the psychedelic is, in fact, emotional
involvement in experience with clinging to bliss and aversion to fear. What
matters is not what we experience (because all experiences are impermanent)
but how we react to it. From this perspective, psychedelics offer a unique
possibility and a chance. When usually solid reality melts and begins to
move, when irresistible flow of energies dissolves perception of the body,
when emotions fluctuate from bliss to unbearable fear, when every moment
gives birth to the new world of images, it's a chance to realize that all this
is happening by itself, beyond your control. So what can you possibly do?
Nothing. Just relax and observe, witness.
Attaining the stable inner position
of a detached witness of your own emotions and thoughts is in itself a
difficult and high achievement. However, there is a stage beyond that. If I
can disidentify and observe all these fleeting manifestations, then, who am
I? In the ordinary state of consciousness, attention is usually fixed on this
or that object (including thoughts); in psychedelic experience, when
everything is changing so fast, it's easier to relax minds habitual grasping
and turn awareness on itself. The problem is that we are usually so
fascinated or terrified by the experience itself, that we never ask ourselves
"Who is that who is aware of all this?"
Challenges
For the determined spiritual
practitioner, taking a psychedelic must be a test, a challenge and a
possibility. A test: how much of deeply rooted fear, insecurity, negativity
do I still have in my subconscious? ( For some people sure of their
meditative achievements but who had never taken psychedelics it might be
rather unpleasant discovery that all these years they were just soothing the
surface). Also a test with large doses of mushrooms, DMT or ketamine as a
model of death: when death comes, will I be able to surrender painlessly and
let go of the body? And when without a body, will I be comfortable facing the
unknown in those strange bardo worlds? A challenge: am I able to stay as a
detached witness in the midst of the outermost intensity of fear or bliss?
And a possibility: to use the fluidity of psychedelic reality to free the
attention from the trap of objects and turn awareness on it's source. Reversed
awareness allows us to realize, at least for a moment, the truth of who we
really are: pure formless Consciousness, Existence, Untouched Peace,
Emptiness and Fullness... In fact , it's impossible to describe It in words;
just try the next time you are tripping to find out who is tripping...
The above text was downloaded from Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
MAPS Inc.
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