Drugs And Spiritual Experience

[Guest Xtech]

Just wanted to add to this very interesting thread that the Rig Vedas, the original spiritual texts of the Indian subcontinent celebrate and deify a hallucinogen called 'Soma' which is thought to be an amphetamine. The area of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan from where the Aryans came (those who authored the Vedas) is also rich in opium and cannabis.

 

Several Indian cultures and religions seemed to really like to mess around with consciousness.

[VacuumFlux]

I have never liked meditation. I have tried it, and I know that it helps a lot of people. But I've been lost in my own mind before, for a good two, if not three years. It's too scary to me. I do not feel as though I am gaining control, but rather losing it when I have attempted meditation in the past. I treasure reality above all else now. For the same reason I would never undergo hypnosis. Like a former psychiatrist used to say, my mind is "fragile". It must be handled with proper care. And it can go to very spiritual places all on it's own and without my bidding or desire, if I do not control it.

 

I currently meditate and find it quite useful. But a few years ago, I was at a stage where it was dangerous. I've always had what seems to be an unusual amount of power over my own mind; unfortunately, that power didn't come with any wisdom. One night, when I was stressed out, I thought I should try meditating to help me deal with it. Not any serious meditation; I was trying to fall asleep and laying in bed, so I just went inside my mind and started taking down barriers, intended to root out my problem and deal with it head on. But I missed, and I pulled down one of the wrong walls. I removed my innate self defense wall, the one that makes you pull your hand back when you touch a hot stove. I had also touched enough of my stress to know that I wanted to die. Luckily, it was a despairing/giving up sort of wanting to die, not a very active one, so I wasn't willing to put much effort into killing myself off. I lay there and became aware of the sheet, and considered using it to strangle myself. But I knew that as soon as I passed out, my muscles would relax and I'd not end up dead, just bruised in a very embarrassing way that would only make me more miserable. So I didn't bother, and just went to sleep. For a long time after that, I was afraid to meditate because that had obviously only made things worse.

 

My mind is different. I had to learn how to keep it focused and grounded in the "here and now", reign it in. And truth be told, I'm still learning how to do so. At least now, I get a suspicion when it's connecting dots where it shouldn't; there's a very definite feeling associated with it. At this stage, that is when I go and talk to my fiancee about whatever idea is in my head. He is very rational, stable, and logical, and brutally honest. He helps me to realise that I'm going off on tangents that aren't there. I hope, though, that in a few more years I will be able to do it myself. Sometimes I can; well, more than I give myself credit for. But sometimes I miss something early-on.

 

Bolding mine. For me, that awareness of "something isn't the way it's supposed to be" is one of the really awesome things I get out of meditation. It's very much like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) where you learned to catch negative thought patterns before they go to far, and hopefully be able to stop the negative spirals early on. I find meditation to be grounding in the sense that it helps me see my thoughts as they are, instead of getting distracted by panic about possible futures (some of which are quite unrealistic). But for meditation to be that useful, I first had to get rid of a lot of anxiety so that I could face my fears constructively instead of them overwhelming me every time I looked at them.

 

When I was younger, I put up walls inside my head against things I didn't like that are a rather necessary part of human experience, and when I got old enough to figure out that I'd done damage to myself, I had a lot of mess to clean up. I recently started reading something about lovingkindness meditation, which I used to avoid because it just fed into my unhealthy tendencies to make myself a victim, and discovered that in this particular path, the first step is loving and accepting yourself, and only after you get that part working do you extend it to others. I think that's one thing I was missing, was the ability to see bad things inside myself and not immediately work to destroy them.

 

I think its interesting that some people have come out to be a bit unhappy about the non spiritual use of drugs, and of course I may be generalizing, and its probably much more complex than just the word "unhappy". But it seems to me that drugs do many different things, they are tools. You can use them in whatever way you want. Is it wrong to partake in alcohol for pleasure? Or desert? Then why not LSD? You can take a drug hedonistically and then it turns spiritual, or the other way around, or just one or the other. I don't think any of these things are bad. The only way that a drug can be bad is if it harms, and there are thousands of more uses that drugs have, than to harm.

 

I think it's dangerous when people take drugs to just "feel good" or "get high" without understanding what all drugs do. It's sorta the difference between consent and informed consent. The mental states induced by drugs are more complex than just a positive mood/experience, and the uninformed impression I get is that many people take drugs without understanding what they're getting into, and by the time they've realized that, it's too late and they're addicted and their life is ruined. I also tend to avoid drugs because my brain does trippy enough things on its own and doesn't need any extra help.

 

To go along with the "Is it wrong to partake in alcohol for pleasure? Or desert? Then why not LSD?" question, I've got medical issues that make sugar (and alcohol, because it does similar things) much more dangerous for me than for other people. It is unethical for me to, say, eat a piece of cake on an empty stomach right before driving, because that may make my blood sugar go nuts and make me a danger to other myself and others. I have an aunt who has trouble with legal drugs prescribed by her doctor because her brain chemistry is unusual and drugs don't work the same way for her that they do for other people. Since our culture is so drug-phobic, people are unlikely to be educated about potential complications of whatever drug they are taking recreationally.

 

After all those negative things about drugs, I should also state that food itself is a drug. We ingest chemicals, and our body reacts. The triptophan in the Thanksgiving turkey is a drug. And with the blood sugar problems I've got, I am very aware of how my food affects my mental states. So in that sense, everyone is doing drugs every day. My concerns with the milder recreational drugs is that they cause dramatic physiological changes and potentially impaired thinking. Every try to do some serious thinking after too large of a meal? What you eat can make you dumb. And you can overdose; I get sick off caffeine too, not just sugar. Like racing pulse, trouble breathing, blurred vision. I drink black tea, unless my body doesn't feel up to even that, and never touch coffee. Low levels of caffeine make me feel good, though, and since it seems like that's what other people get from coffee, I can see why they like it. I guess it's all about indulging responsibly and knowing your particular body's limits, and not letting peer pressure make you pass those limits.

[Guest Xtech]

Amazing post, Vacuum Flux.

 

Years ago, I did ecstasy with my boyfriend. It made me excruciatingly sensitive, open and loving. When I say that the experience changed me, I really mean it, like a classic before and after conversion experience. Others commented on how I changed. I ceased being so judgmental, cynical, and depressed. Became much more accepting and joyful.

 

It's not like I am *always* accepting, optimistic and non-depressed, but I feel like it re-directed me from my self-involvement, and made me a much warmer, connected person.

 

From what i have heard, this is not an unusual experience for those who have taken ecstasy. In fact, it was developed, and is being tested again for use in psychotherapy, particularly for those suffering from PTSD, and apparently is giving good results.

 

Though I won't say my experience was a spiritual experience like others I have had (non-drug induced), it was a net improvement in my outlook, and my way of relating to people. And since I am quite convinced that our relationships with other people is where we find happiness, it was valuable and I would have missed out had I not had the experience.

[VacuumFlux]

I think I'm ingesting some legal drugs today. I've been having blood pressure/pulse issues, anxiety, and trouble sleeping, so I thought maybe I should avoid caffeine and see if that helps. I went to find some herbal tea to give me flavored water to drink instead. I skipped the ones that advertised their calming effects because I don't want to fall asleep at work. So I found some tea that claims to help with mental clarity, etc. I usually ignore those claims, though I admit that nice smells can have a mild effect on the way I feel. Well... they weren't joking about the mental effects of this stuff. I think I'm going to have to treat it more like the "herbal supplement" it claims to be than a nicely flavored drink. I think it works even better than black tea at keeping me awake, and I don't notice any jitters. I wonder if it has any side effects I should worry about? (This is a Yogi brand teasan called "Ginko Clarity" and it's got a huge list of ingredients, so I'm not sure which ones are doing what. The ingredients also include a few mints and citrus.)

[Noggy]

 

I think its interesting that some people have come out to be a bit unhappy about the non spiritual use of drugs, and of course I may be generalizing, and its probably much more complex than just the word "unhappy". But it seems to me that drugs do many different things, they are tools. You can use them in whatever way you want. Is it wrong to partake in alcohol for pleasure? Or desert? Then why not LSD? You can take a drug hedonistically and then it turns spiritual, or the other way around, or just one or the other. I don't think any of these things are bad. The only way that a drug can be bad is if it harms, and there are thousands of more uses that drugs have, than to harm.

 

I think it's dangerous when people take drugs to just "feel good" or "get high" without understanding what all drugs do. It's sorta the difference between consent and informed consent. The mental states induced by drugs are more complex than just a positive mood/experience, and the uninformed impression I get is that many people take drugs without understanding what they're getting into, and by the time they've realized that, it's too late and they're addicted and their life is ruined. I also tend to avoid drugs because my brain does trippy enough things on its own and doesn't need any extra help.

 

To go along with the "Is it wrong to partake in alcohol for pleasure? Or desert? Then why not LSD?" question, I've got medical issues that make sugar (and alcohol, because it does similar things) much more dangerous for me than for other people. It is unethical for me to, say, eat a piece of cake on an empty stomach right before driving, because that may make my blood sugar go nuts and make me a danger to other myself and others. I have an aunt who has trouble with legal drugs prescribed by her doctor because her brain chemistry is unusual and drugs don't work the same way for her that they do for other people. Since our culture is so drug-phobic, people are unlikely to be educated about potential complications of whatever drug they are taking recreationally.

 

After all those negative things about drugs, I should also state that food itself is a drug. We ingest chemicals, and our body reacts. The triptophan in the Thanksgiving turkey is a drug. And with the blood sugar problems I've got, I am very aware of how my food affects my mental states. So in that sense, everyone is doing drugs every day. My concerns with the milder recreational drugs is that they cause dramatic physiological changes and potentially impaired thinking. Every try to do some serious thinking after too large of a meal? What you eat can make you dumb. And you can overdose; I get sick off caffeine too, not just sugar. Like racing pulse, trouble breathing, blurred vision. I drink black tea, unless my body doesn't feel up to even that, and never touch coffee. Low levels of caffeine make me feel good, though, and since it seems like that's what other people get from coffee, I can see why they like it. I guess it's all about indulging responsibly and knowing your particular body's limits, and not letting peer pressure make you pass those limits.

 

Definitely. With proper education there is nothing wrong with "gettin super high to get super high". The only problems drugs cause are problems through their misuse.

[lunaticheathen]

I definitely agree with the need to be educated. I educate myself about anything I put in my body. Even then, it can still be a bit of a gamble. But I've done alright so far!

[blackpudd1n]

Wow, thank you for sharing this with me. That was very enlightening to hear this from your experiences with this. It is helping to expand my appreciation and understanding for what you have to deal with and process. You sound as if you have found a sort of balancing act, and I certainly appreciate why you have come to what you need to to find that for yourself. I'm going to have to process this some more, but to be sure it will be in my mind. I don't have exposure to hearing this firsthand as you have be so generous to share. I agree, for you meditation is not the right thing. I'll share some thoughts later with you, but for now thanks for sharing this.

 

You're welcome, A-man. Sorry I've taken so long to respond, I've been up at the in-laws working on getting everything ready to turn our balcony into a play-gym for my cats. It's beautiful up there- 170 acres of pristine bush and nothing but crisp, clean air.

 

I don't mind talking about my condition. And it's not all bad- bipolar does certainly have its uses, like an ability to see everything differently, and find creative solutions to problems. My mind just works differently now. The trick is in working out how to work with my new wiring. It is an indescribable feeling, knowing how your mind used to work, and knowing that it works differently now. For a long time I wondered what was me and what was 'it', until I realised that I am still me, but that 'it' was now a part of me, too.

 

I have come to realise that I am not so much different now, but my perception of the world is different. No drug could ever match the sometimes euphoric state of mania. But it can be so dangerous, it must be avoided. Not only for the behaviour and risk-taking that occurs on the climb up, but the depths to which one falls on the way down. And I fall brutally hard and fast, into the darkest depths of self-loathing and despair. But for the most part, I have learnt to tame my unruly mind.

[Noggy]

I think I've mentioned this before, but someone once said to me that the journey of enlightenment (they definitely didn't know a lot about what they were saying) is akin to climbing a long mountain. Psychedelics, used properly, is like a helicopter that shoots you up the mountain and gets you to almost the top, and then shoots you back down again. Almost a kensho-type experience. I definitely see this.

 

Noggy, have you ever talked to a fella named Brad Warner?

 

Now:

 

Yes.

[nebula]

Do you believe that some drugs can be helpful in a spiritual experience?

 

Yeah, very much so, especially DMT but I've never taken any due to low availability because of my country's stupid laws. I try to get into altered states of consciousness with my headphones and hemi-sync, binaural beats, isochronic tones etc. for brainwave entrainment but it's really hard; I suck at meditation and haven't had any success yet. I'm still working at it but if I could get my hands on some DMT that would be a great shortcut.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6JapEBLlZM&feature=related

[Noggy]

Do you believe that some drugs can be helpful in a spiritual experience?

 

Yeah, very much so, especially DMT but I've never taken any due to low availability because of my country's stupid laws. I try to get into altered states of consciousness with my headphones and hemi-sync, binaural beats, isochronic tones etc. for brainwave entrainment but it's really hard; I suck at meditation and haven't had any success yet. I'm still working at it but if I could get my hands on some DMT that would be a great shortcut.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6JapEBLlZM&feature=related

 

It's not too hard to make dude.

[Denyoz]

Do you believe that some drugs can be helpful in a spiritual experience?

 

Yeah, very much so, especially DMT but I've never taken any due to low availability because of my country's stupid laws. I try to get into altered states of consciousness with my headphones and hemi-sync, binaural beats, isochronic tones etc. for brainwave entrainment but it's really hard; I suck at meditation and haven't had any success yet. I'm still working at it but if I could get my hands on some DMT that would be a great shortcut.

 

[DMT - The Spirit Molecule (video)]

 

What an interesting video! Thank you, nebula.

 

What a great thread, I'm learning so much. Thanks Noggy for starting it.

 

What a great website!

 

What a great world we live in!

 

In your face, depression!

[Crow]

For me entheogens were very destructive initially. Had no clue what I was doing. Later on I learned about set and setting, and what I consider to be their proper repectful use.

 

For instance, with shrooms I would start fasting in the morning, maybe drink some fruit juice during the day. Fasting seemed to help keep the body noise down during the trip. Spend the day cleaning the house top to bottom and preparing. Sundown and I would dose. Keep everything very mellow and have paper and pencils/drawing supplies ready.

 

It's been several years since I've used any of them. But, I learned many things about myself and had realizations about things that I needed to fix. Later I spent a lot of time agonizing over how they could be fit into a christian life. Whatever.

 

Maybe I should try it again and get some of these cobwebs cleared out. Have no clue why people want to party while on some of these.

[nebula]

I'm good now. I don't need any DMT because I found out about salvia divinorum and went and got some, 10x. I haven't smoked any yet though because you really "trip balls" for about 2 to 5 minutes and I have to mentally prepare more first. The youtube videos of people smoking it are crazy. Most of the people who smoke it for the first time in a room full of loud people never smoke any again. I don't blame them because I wouldn't want to get into another state of consciousness with other people there laughing or asking if I'm OK over and over. That seems like it would be a bad experience. I don't even want a sitter. I'm just going to take one hit and then put on some salvia trip music or tribal drum beats and lay down and close my eyes.

[nebula]

I think I'm ingesting some legal drugs today. I've been having blood pressure/pulse issues, anxiety, and trouble sleeping, so I thought maybe I should avoid caffeine and see if that helps. I went to find some herbal tea to give me flavored water to drink instead. I skipped the ones that advertised their calming effects because I don't want to fall asleep at work. So I found some tea that claims to help with mental clarity, etc. I usually ignore those claims, though I admit that nice smells can have a mild effect on the way I feel. Well... they weren't joking about the mental effects of this stuff. I think I'm going to have to treat it more like the "herbal supplement" it claims to be than a nicely flavored drink. I think it works even better than black tea at keeping me awake, and I don't notice any jitters. I wonder if it has any side effects I should worry about? (This is a Yogi brand teasan called "Ginko Clarity" and it's got a huge list of ingredients, so I'm not sure which ones are doing what. The ingredients also include a few mints and citrus.)

 

Interesting, I'll have to try some mental clarity tea. Yerba mate may be good for you if you haven't tried that yet.

[VacuumFlux]

I think I'm ingesting some legal drugs today. I've been having blood pressure/pulse issues, anxiety, and trouble sleeping, so I thought maybe I should avoid caffeine and see if that helps. I went to find some herbal tea to give me flavored water to drink instead. I skipped the ones that advertised their calming effects because I don't want to fall asleep at work. So I found some tea that claims to help with mental clarity, etc. I usually ignore those claims, though I admit that nice smells can have a mild effect on the way I feel. Well... they weren't joking about the mental effects of this stuff. I think I'm going to have to treat it more like the "herbal supplement" it claims to be than a nicely flavored drink. I think it works even better than black tea at keeping me awake, and I don't notice any jitters. I wonder if it has any side effects I should worry about? (This is a Yogi brand teasan called "Ginko Clarity" and it's got a huge list of ingredients, so I'm not sure which ones are doing what. The ingredients also include a few mints and citrus.)

 

Interesting, I'll have to try some mental clarity tea. Yerba mate may be good for you if you haven't tried that yet.

 

Yerba mate is delicious and addictive, but my body handles some brands of it better than others. I've gotten the "my pulse is so fast that I feel like passing out" feeling from it before, so I have to be careful. I do have a traditional (-ish) cup and filtered straw that I need to try out some time.

[Noggy]

I'm good now. I don't need any DMT because I found out about salvia divinorum and went and got some, 10x. I haven't smoked any yet though because you really "trip balls" for about 2 to 5 minutes and I have to mentally prepare more first. The youtube videos of people smoking it are crazy. Most of the people who smoke it for the first time in a room full of loud people never smoke any again. I don't blame them because I wouldn't want to get into another state of consciousness with other people there laughing or asking if I'm OK over and over. That seems like it would be a bad experience. I don't even want a sitter. I'm just going to take one hit and then put on some salvia trip music or tribal drum beats and lay down and close my eyes.

 

Salvia is nuts. I was in a room and I thought gravity started coming at me from the side, and then the other people turned into game show hosts and a train started coming at me. Salvia is not the kind of drug that is really "spiritual". But I guess it could be... but you'll probably just trip balls and say words that aren't real.

[nebula]

[RintrahRoars]

I'm good now. I don't need any DMT because I found out about salvia divinorum and went and got some, 10x. I haven't smoked any yet though because you really "trip balls" for about 2 to 5 minutes and I have to mentally prepare more first. The youtube videos of people smoking it are crazy. Most of the people who smoke it for the first time in a room full of loud people never smoke any again. I don't blame them because I wouldn't want to get into another state of consciousness with other people there laughing or asking if I'm OK over and over. That seems like it would be a bad experience. I don't even want a sitter. I'm just going to take one hit and then put on some salvia trip music or tribal drum beats and lay down and close my eyes.

 

From everything I've read, DMT is absolutely nothing like salvia bro. Also I wouldn't recommend any music with salvia... any kind of sensual input becomes a distraction, imo. If you smoke pot, you might want to try smoking the salvia after you're high. In my experience it helps absorb the shock.

[nebula]

I watched this documentary last night and it's really good.

 

[Denyoz]

I watched this documentary last night and it's really good.

 

[Manifesting the Mind: Footprints of the Shaman (video)]

 

I just watched this video and also your previous one (Sacred Weeds - Salvia Divinorum).

 

The idea that psychedelic drugs are (probably) at the source of many religions (including Christianity) is very interesting.

[nebula]

I smoked some of the salvia. Now I know what if feels like to be embedded in wood! It wasn't a spiritual experience but I think it could be. At first I smoked some and closed my eyes and laid down but there was no effect because I didn't do enough. So I waited about 10 minutes and then smoked a larger amount but this time I was sitting up with my eyes open - bad idea.

 

My living room is mostly wood with a hardwood floor, no rug and wooden framework. After this second hit I was aware of a new curvy, wooden object that took up most of the room but I didn't know at the time that it was new. It had a curved wall part and curved floor part. The wall was a row of carved figures and the floor was a row of posts, and these figures and posts were oriented perpendicular to the way the planks in the real floor go. It was sort of the shape of the inside of the hull of a boat on it's side or a room sized, paperback book partially opened with both halves slightly bent.

 

The entire time I was embedded in the wood but I saw things from the perspective of where I was sitting on the couch, even though I didn't know I was sitting on the couch. I had a sitter and I thought that he was the only human being in the room and that I only existed as part of the room and this object. At first I was one of the carved figures on the wall and I looked like a hybrid between a human and a tiki idol. Then I saw that my location changed and I was embedded in the curved posts on the floor. After a couple minutes the room started to go back to normal and it was then that I remembered I had smoked the salvia and was not part of the decor but sitting on the couch.

 

So then I was reading this:

 

Level - 5 "I" stands for IMMATERIAL existence. At this level one may no longer be aware of having a body. Consciousness remains and some thought processes are still lucid, but one becomes completely involved in inner experience and looses all contact with consensual reality. Individuality may be lost; one experiences merging with God/dess, mind, universal consciousness, or bizarre fusions with other objects--real or imagined (e.g. experiences such as merging with a wall or piece of furniture).

 

http://www.sagewisdo...usersguide.html

 

I was definitely at level 5 and "merging with a wall or furniture" and it only goes up to level 6. So next time I'm going to smoke a little less and close my eyes - very important.

[Antlerman]

I try to get into altered states of consciousness with my headphones and hemi-sync, binaural beats, isochronic tones etc. for brainwave entrainment but it's really hard; I suck at meditation and haven't had any success yet. I'm still working at it but if I could get my hands on some DMT that would be a great shortcut.

Meditation is better because you are not controlled by a substance artificially put into your body where you are just along for the ride. You can go much further as well, and the impact/insight gained is of greater and more lasting clarity.

 

If anything I can offer as far as meditation goes is that you don't engage in it seeking an experience. From what you say above, you are trying to create the state. Very early on I learned that it is counter to what we normally do which is to seek to attain or possess it. The best way I can state it is you rather seek to be possessed by it. You abandon yourself into it. The only thing you seek to do is to quite the mind, to keep yourself free from anxiousness and anticipations, free from expectations. Just simply, gently with yourself, seek a quite mind. Within that space everything begins to open up, and in that place of calm and stillness, you abandon yourself into it, like falling into Ocean. It possess you, and all you do is seek to set aside yourself, your wants, your desires to attain and possess. If you are focused on yourself, that will draw away from it, back into you.

 

"Seek and you shall find" is quite true, but it's done so walking the opposite direction than with yourself as the object of that desire. You don't seek an experience for you. You seek it for its own sake. You abandon all desire to it. Once you learn that, incredible simple, yet incredible difficult shift, to be the reverse of who you are, then you find what is always there the whole time.

[nebula]

Great, thanks, that's really helpful. I wasn't thinking of it as letting myself be possessed by the experience but that sounds a lot easier than what I've been doing.

 

Lately I have stopped with the binaural beats and have just been observing whatever incidental sounds happen to be there, the refrigerator hum, cars on the street etc. and I've been having better results with that than with all the meditation soundtrack stuff actually. Another thing I've tried is to wear ear plugs and ear muffs at the same time, to really reduce any sound going into my ears. But I get bored just observing the feeling of my breath going in and out of my nose so letting some normally occurring sounds enter my ears gives me something else to observe.

 

The whole thing always becomes a matter of focus. If I'm trying to focus on observing my breath for example, my mind will form all these self coaching sentences even though I'm trying to not let any words enter. I will get these thoughts like "I'm focusing on my breath," "Bring your attention back to your breath," "Nope, that was a thought. Bring your attention back to your breath." "Feel the air going in and out."

 

But what you said about being possessed by the experience sounds like it would work a better. Sort of let something else control my mind rather than try to do it myself. Good stuff.

[Noggy]

Great, thanks, that's really helpful. I wasn't thinking of it as letting myself be possessed by the experience but that sounds a lot easier than what I've been doing.

 

Lately I have stopped with the binaural beats and have just been observing whatever incidental sounds happen to be there, the refrigerator hum, cars on the street etc. and I've been having better results with that than with all the meditation soundtrack stuff actually. Another thing I've tried is to wear ear plugs and ear muffs at the same time, to really reduce any sound going into my ears. But I get bored just observing the feeling of my breath going in and out of my nose so letting some normally occurring sounds enter my ears gives me something else to observe.

 

The whole thing always becomes a matter of focus. If I'm trying to focus on observing my breath for example, my mind will form all these self coaching sentences even though I'm trying to not let any words enter. I will get these thoughts like "I'm focusing on my breath," "Bring your attention back to your breath," "Nope, that was a thought. Bring your attention back to your breath." "Feel the air going in and out."

 

But what you said about being possessed by the experience sounds like it would work a better. Sort of let something else control my mind rather than try to do it myself. Good stuff.

 

I agree with antlerman. A spiritual experience can be induced by an external substance, such as binaural beats or drugs. However, the spiritual experience is within you. It is already there, sometimes the LSD or whatever can help open the door. But once you can find the door, you shouldn't need other things to open it for you.

 

As far as being bored by meditation, that means you're doing it right, think of the boredom as still searching frantically for the door. Your mind is looking for something to latch on to, because of overstimulation of being a person in the internet age. Let it scream. Just keep breathing, eventually (over many sessions) your mind will get tired of resisting and the door shall be opened to you.

 

Oftentimes when someone is starting to meditate they begin to meditate on an object. This is why so many Indian temples are so extravagant. They were looking for a darsanic type experience for the people that were meditating, and they needed SOMETHING to meditate on, so what better than Gods that stand for noble ideas? What you seem to be leaning toward is a mantric type experience, where you are meditating on certain sounds. Your binaural beats are similar to the "ommm" of the Hindu practitioner. I personally reccomend this as a starting point. Once one can silence the mind and settle it on a single object, begin to phase it out. Allow the object to disappear.

 

This transition from an object oriented meditation, to a nothingness is a very long one. But you'll never go back to darsan or mantra once you drop body and mind

[Antlerman]

Great, thanks, that's really helpful. I wasn't thinking of it as letting myself be possessed by the experience but that sounds a lot easier than what I've been doing.

It may sound easier. To find that within yourself will require learning about yourself and face that though the process. We don't realize how much our minds are focused on our self, which is what blocks us from so much in the world, our own selves included.

 

Lately I have stopped with the binaural beats and have just been observing whatever incidental sounds happen to be there, the refrigerator hum, cars on the street etc. and I've been having better results with that than with all the meditation soundtrack stuff actually.

Things like this are fine to use, chanting mantras, various types of music, ritual dance, etc. The key to it is about distracting the mind, putting it into a place of receptivity. I've gone beyond all these in meditation many times, where you are in a place of complete stillness of mind, perfect clarity, etc, but there is nothing wrong in using these all the time if it helps you in meditation to move into those states. Furthermore, it depends on the day, what all's going on with your mind/body that day. And again furthermore, it's not a linear line that now that I've learned how to go into meditative states, I can now just bypass them and go straight to clear mind. I've found I come back over the same spot many times, however each time is at a different altitude. Chanting Om, etc has different effects at different stages of meditation. I use Tibetan Singing Bowls, and striking them at first in the beginning of meditation helps in one way, and later and deeper in meditation they have an entirely different dimension.

 

Think of all of these things as aides to help yourself find that place. Find what works for you. Like Noggy says very well, once you've found that door in yourself, moving into meditation become much simpler than at first when you haven't learned what that looks like yet. I pretty much just sit down and within a few seconds I'm entering into it. Within five to ten minutes I'm entering into those deeper places - but it depends again on the day. Some days, try different things if it's not so easy. But again the key is to set yourself aside.

 

Last thing, it's not necessarily about stopping all mind activity, but quieting distracting thought.

 

Another thing I've tried is to wear ear plugs and ear muffs at the same time, to really reduce any sound going into my ears. But I get bored just observing the feeling of my breath going in and out of my nose so letting some normally occurring sounds enter my ears gives me something else to observe.

Again, find what works for you. If you don't know this there are two basic types of meditation, Concentrative and Insight meditation. What you are describing sounds like the former. I practice mainly the latter, but the former as well as part of that. You need to read more about these to help your understanding: http://integrallife....view-ken-wilber

 

The whole thing always becomes a matter of focus. If I'm trying to focus on observing my breath for example, my mind will form all these self coaching sentences even though I'm trying to not let any words enter. I will get these thoughts like "I'm focusing on my breath," "Bring your attention back to your breath," "Nope, that was a thought. Bring your attention back to your breath." "Feel the air going in and out."

Another key, be gentle with yourself. That's another major internal realization you begin to see, that how we beat ourselves up for 'not doing it right' actually defeats us from being able to experience that liberty in ourselves. Oh, the process is the learning. Once those are learned, more begins to open, more that was buried and hidden underneath all that crap we put up in front of ourselves as part of trying to navigate the world around us with our eyes focused on our separate self.

 

Again, in response to this, read the above link.

 

But what you said about being possessed by the experience sounds like it would work a better. Sort of let something else control my mind rather than try to do it myself. Good stuff.

One last thing, early on I read this from some monk who suggested that when we are trying to settle distracting thoughts in meditation, turn that away from you trying to control it to thinking about others like you in the world trying to meditate and having the same struggle. Turn your focus to them and extend gentle compassion towards them to help them be calm and set those thoughts gently down. This has two effects, it takes the focus of your mind off you and your anxieties, and two, it brings out that heart compassion that opens the quite mind to that voice in yourself that you want to hear, but have a hard time hearing through all that constant chatter.

 

Peace.