Mushrooms grow only seasonally...IF one was living a hermetic lifestyle, then they could be a serious tool for survival when God lets them rise seasonally. Not the same for you and I, just saying, in the wild you don'always get to choose..depending on location you may need to eat psilocybes to survive lol....and then also, n terms of their level of alteration, what if one was seeking to live a pure and unintoxicated life, and they scavange through the woods to survive. They obtain a handful of psilocybes, and ration them off as to avoid losing coherency....same fine line right...?
I just can see a situation using the model of 'natural living' wherein someone would use what god gives them to survive, and still be handed a psychedelic.
A missionary once gave me a bible quote about the message of God being written on the hearts of man. I was asking about what if someone had no contact with Christianity, would they still lose the chance for salvation. His answer was a quote, which I liked. The jist was, even if one never encounters the bible the 'truth' and 'right thing to do' is with him in his heart.
That being said, the main qualm i have with organizednreligion is the reliance on doctrine to determine right and wrong. I respect that many people can relate to diff holy books, and its awesome that books like that can turn people on to spirituality. But, I've always felt what is right for me to do, and while this is parallel to the ten commandments idea, I've never felt really compelled to 'sign the paperwork' regarding the "acceptance of Jesus christ as my lord and savior"...I would love for it to be that easy, but for me the answer is in the question. My understanding of what God wants of me, comes not through reading, but through silencing myself and listening for the answers that God has placed within me, and within the exps he gives me.
One of my primary tenants: I Accept My Own Fallability. I don't know that I will ever experience true perfection of understanding...for me to claim that I am confident and positive regarding the specifics of God and all these Divine energies which go so far beyond my scope of view seems disrespectful. I do believe, without a doubt....I can feel the presence of truth, of God, of love in my daily life...but am I positive as to the specifics of 'exactly what is right' ...? No. I know what is right for me right now, but I don't feel comfortable generalizing inherent right es and wrongness and overlaying that opinion over my world view. I am toooo Fallible...even if God showed me infinity personlly, even if i was given words directly from the creator, They Become Flawed when they enter my les-than-enlightened mind. I may exp raw and undifferentiated truth, but as soon as I associate and/or put words to the exp I accept that i will not completely portray it w/o flaw. Thus is the connundrum of human experience, we always see our own interpretation...even if the 'event' or 'vision' we're interpreting is handed directly from the divine.
I am shown things regularly, I meditate daily, I receive insight and visions when they are necessary. And they are highly pertainant to my life...I am in no way a doubter, I believe to the fullest, I just accept that my puny little mind will always misinterperet to a degree, and thus I cannot fully say that I 'understand god'. I believe God to be an essence so immense and all-encompassing that the human mind cannot even fathom...it is only true exp of the divine which is undifferentiated..... retrospective intillectual analysis or linguistic arrangements will always fall short i believe.
And since i question my own fallability...naturally (though acknowledging that others may be less fallible than myself) I have to assume that others will be less-than-perfect as well. So a book written by man, even if the visions and understandings that led to it were true exps of divinity, will never b a perfect view of that vision.....lol, and of course when i think of 2000+ years of fallible (and unfortunately some of which may be corrupt as well) humans passing around and re-interpereting, updating and translating into diff languages this info which was less than perfect after one non-perfect human, now I have to presume it is even more fallible than it was when it started in text form.
To each their own
I love that there are different religions, I feel no one message would relate to every-man. And I know my practice of 'listening to my heart' without having a holy book or a community of very like-,minded practicers, would also not be right for everyone. The beauty of Creation....! Truly a blessing, winding avenues and moments which bring us further toward truth. Couldn't ask for more
So maybe the answer to this threads question lies not in words, but in the silent assessment of one's own practice. Only you (and God
) know what your intentions are...and only you are at the vantage point capable of feeling how those intentions interact with the currents around you. Are you intoxicating and distracting yourself, or does the exp truly feel right?
