Why psychedelics are not a substitute for meditation?

[An young being]

These are just my views, so feel free to shatter them.

1. Both psychedelics and years of meditation work by reducing activity in the brain and can produce the oneness experience. We are not producing any new experience here, instead we are just shutting down the veil created by the brain. Both psychedelics and years of meditation does this job perfectly.

2. Psychedelics do not produce all the beneficial effects as years of meditation. Imagine you are a rich guy and you are born with a Mercedes. Will he experience the same joy of attaining the Mercedes compared to a poor guy who worked hard for years and earned the same Mercedes ? In the first case, it was a gift, while in second case it was a reward for your hardwork.

3. Spirituality and meditation builds your character and makes you ready for that divine experience. The experience of oneness will shatter you into thousand pieces if you are not ready for it, especially if you are clinging strongly to your ego. Even extreme meditation alone is not enough to make you ready for it. It works the best only if you work from the lower chakras like survival and happiness to the middle chakras of unconditional love, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. Then only you can go to the higher chakras of enlightenment if you wish to attain all the benefits of it, even though you can skip those lower and middle parts.

4. Psychedelics are there for their therapeutical benefits, but not strictly for enlightenment. If you are not able to achieve the oneness experience with years of meditation ( atleast 5 to 10 years), don't straightaway jump into psychedelics. Strengthen your heart first by filling your mind with love, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness, weaken your ego ( by enlarging it's circle of inclusion) and then try meditation. Even if you didn't experience the so called enlightenment experience, you would have already reaped many benefits from the process. Still, if you are longing for that experience after doing the above, then you can try psychedelics where it is legal.

 

 

 

[Inliytened1]

@An young being personally i just don't think psychedelics will enlighten you.   It is completely independent of this.  Really self inquiring is the true way.  But no one wants to do that.

[inFlow]

Of course it isn't. But it surely helps A LOT.

[Inliytened1]

5 minutes ago, inFlow said:

Of course it isn't. But it surely helps A LOT.

It changes your state of consciousness but does it break you out of the dream?  It doesn't.  Because there is only one awakening.  Leo still thinks there are many.   This is because he has reached enlightened states of consciousness but he has not broken out of the dream.  This has to be a natural occurrence  

Edited August 28, 2023 by Inliytened1

[Juan]

10 minutes ago, inFlow said:

Of course it isn't. But it surely helps A LOT.

1+
INFINITELY A LOT!

7 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

but does it break you out of the dream?  It doesn't. 

Yes it COULD!

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Juan said:

1+
INFINITELY A LOT!

Yes it COULD!

No - it can't.   Why do you think Leo is on such an expedition?  Fine.  If you want to believe that.  But I would truly encourage you to sit in self inquiry.  

[Juan]

1 minute ago, Inliytened1 said:

No - it can't.

I said it COULD. 

2 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Why do you think Leo is on such an expedition? 

The process of awakening is not so flowering depending the levels of your traumas and such. Don’t expect to be a smooth and all happy process without some possible suffering.

Leo definitely has his awakenings, sure I think he had took it a bit too far, but at least he seems to being tuning down a bit recently. Each person process will be different and, I think the best way to really tell and FEEL how conscious truly somebody is, is by seeing them in person. 

10 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

But I would truly encourage you to sit in self inquiry.  

I already do it, sometimes while microdosing on mushrooms and let me tell ya, there is A LOT of stuff going on under our noses and we aren’t even aware of. Sometimes we act like “sure ok, I know what’s up with me.”, NO YOU DON’T! Is very counter intuitive at times. 

[An young being]

It might help a lot, especially for those people experiencing mental suffering, but for those people who have moderate to lots of free time, I suggest meditation and mindfulness while simultaneously developing a strong heart and a purpose. Once you have tried that with no results, maybe you can try other methods like psychedelics. Enlightenment is extremely beneficial, it can even cause permanent changes in your way of thinking, but it's better to make sure you are ready to take that all in at once.

 

[Breakingthewall]

I would say that what works best to open yourself up to reality and get out of the conceptual bubble is to want to do it, without reservations. then you find the way, which can be psychedelic or whatever. you are advancing millimeter by millimeter, if your will to do so is real, it never stops. If you want "awakening" to stop suffering, to evade yourself, to be the smartest in the class, to achieve something, etc., it doesn't work. It is wanting the reality, the truth, in an irremediable way, without a doubt, you are an arrow shot, while you are alive, you will open more and more the now. 

[Inliytened1]

5 hours ago, Juan said:

I said it COULD. 

 

Fair enough. 

5 hours ago, Juan said:

 

The process of awakening is not so flowering depending the levels of your traumas and such. Don’t expect to be a smooth and all happy process without some possible suffering.

 

You are complicating awakening.  Awakening is simple.  It is the realization of no self.   Life is what is not flowering- it is traumatic and there will be much suffering.  But awakening is not that.  It is very simple- without suffering- and right under your nose.  All you have to do is realize no self.  This will open the door to all the other realizations.  

 

5 hours ago, Juan said:

I Leo definitely has his awakenings, sure I think he had took it a bit too far, but at least he seems to being tuning down a bit recently.

 

I still have my doubts.   Somewhere along the way the drugs got to his brain.   But he will pull it together.  

 

5 hours ago, Juan said:

 

I already do it, sometimes while microdosing on mushrooms and let me tell ya, there is A LOT of stuff going on under our noses and we aren’t even aware of. Sometimes we act like “sure ok, I know what’s up with me.”, NO YOU DON’T! Is very counter intuitive at times. 

Damn.  Have you had the no self realization yet.  

Edited August 28, 2023 by Inliytened1

[Juan]

50 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

You are complicating awakening.  Awakening is simple.

No I’m not, maybe it was easy for you, but no one was born the same way as you. 

50 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

But awakening is not that.  It is very simple- without suffering- and right under your nose. 

I never talked about of what awakening was, I talked about THE PROCESS to get there, to some people it is smooth, to others it could be a hella of a path.

6 hours ago, Juan said:

The process of awakening is not so flowering depending the levels of your traumas and such.

 

51 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Have you had the no self realization yet.  

Yes I have, and you?

[Carl-Richard]

I just thought about an analogy that might work: imagine taking steroids for only one day and then working out really hard that day vs. not taking steroids and working out regularly. If you want a steady progression of gains, you should focus on working out regularly. Steroids on their own won't lead to much steady progression, but steroids in combination with working out regularly will certainly boost your progression. And of course, there are lots of other things you're missing out on if you don't take steroids for that one day and lifting your ass off, like the experience of being an absolute beast for one day, but again, you probably won't maintain that unless you're actually constantly taking the drugs or taking them in conjunction with regularly working out.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Schizophonia]

Psychedelics are useless, many people I have seen, including some famous ones, still have the same problems even after taking monstrous amounts of psychedelics, or even doing meditation and/or spiritual practices of some kind for years.

They can help on an ad hoc basis, especially if you're neurotic or something, but basically all they do is drive you delusional for several hours or tens of minutes, and that's actually the last thing you want if you are in a "serious" human development process.

The only path to wisdom is suffering, it is precisely the objective of asceticism and of any serious spiritual practice (fasting, religion of work...) in general.

If you really think that you are going to become a wise, humane, compassionate person by puffing on blotters between two glasses of vegetable milk, snug in an apartment in a big city in Western Europe or the USA, you you put your finger in the eye very, very, very deeply.

[Florian]

@An young being

9 hours ago, An young being said:

1. Both psychedelics and years of meditation work by reducing activity in the brain and can produce the oneness experience. We are not producing any new experience here, instead we are just shutting down the veil created by the brain. Both psychedelics and years of meditation does this job perfectly.

I think thats wrong. As far as I know at least LSD makes your brain more active and connects parts of your brain that usually don't work together.

[Jodistrict]

This forum tends to assume that awakening is the only purpose of psychedelics.  I attend ceremonies in Latin America where they are used primarily for mental and physical healing.  For example, I have met several people who are using them to control neurological disorders.    

[gettoefl]

the peek or the peak lemme think

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, Juan said:

No I’m not, maybe it was easy for you, but no one was born the same way as you. 

 

I guess everyone's path is unique and different.   But all roads to lead to Rome.  My path wasn't easy - but the suffering, the trials and tribulations- didn't come in the form of trying to awake.  They came from my own selfishness in life.   Actually waking up was not a process.  I don't believe it should be either.  It is not something you attain as the ego - because that is using the ego's will and it is using brute force.  Awakening doesn't happen like this.  It honestly has to happen naturally.   But again- that was my path.  Yes I did experience no self.  I died.   And I came back.  It was a ride that guaranteed no return trip.   I was not able to function in the world for days after - and how my sense of self returned at all is not known to me.  Perhaps because there was more to do here.  What that is, at my age, I do not know.  I can only assume it is the attachments which I still hold dear.   

[Inliytened1]

18 minutes ago, Jodistrict said:

This forum tends to assume that awakening is the only purpose of psychedelics.  I attend ceremonies in Latin America where they are used primarily for mental and physical healing.  For example, I have met several people who are using them to control neurological disorders.    

Absolutely.   I believe they can provide excellent healing for mental disorders.  Far beyond what SSRIs can do  They are only now becoming that in the US.  Decades from now I believe psychedelics will be much more mainstream for healing.   Honestly, I think that is where the value lies- not necessarily in awakening  

Edited August 28, 2023 by Inliytened1

[inFlow]

@Carl-Richard haha!! I remember a friend of mine consumed protein powder while not even going to the gym thinking it will grow muscles ? this analogy is great!

[An young being]

15 hours ago, Florian said:

@An young being

I think thats wrong. As far as I know at least LSD makes your brain more active and connects parts of your brain that usually don't work together.

@Florian You are right, but I was talking about the ego dissolution experience. It's true that psychedelics ( and also long term meditation) increase serotonin and dopamine levels, which I believe is the cause for the synchronicities and hallucinative experiences and also allows the universe to be more in control of you, and you to be more in control of the universe. But, I firmly believe ego dissolution is the result of switching off your brain parts that limits you and draws boundary to your body and ego. The brain has evolved to contain you to your ego ( for your survival, of course), but by switching off those parts, you realise that you have no boundaries.

Here is a research article that supports my view:

https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/we-now-know-what-a-spiritual-awakening-looks-like-inside-the-brain/

Edited August 29, 2023 by An young being