hi. stumbled across this forum and found it very interesting...
and i guess i just wanted to put my two pennith worth in there...
ive been studying parts of the vedas and other ancient scriptures under the guidance of my spiritual master for nearly 10 years now...
yes im just a beginner in that field but the conclusions i have come to by faith and experience so far as regarding the thoughts and ideas presented in this thread are as follows...
this material world is eternal because it is one Gods many energies and as God is eternal so are all His energies...
however all manifestions in this world experienced by our senses are temporary.
that includes all hellish and heavenly dimensions...
in other words there is no place where a soul can be put in where he/she will experience eternal pain and suffering. God wouldn't be that cruel...
(One name for God in sanskrit is Krsna so for now on i will use the word Krsna when refering to God or the Absolute, the Creator, All That Is or whatever is a persons prefered words for the Supreme Absolute...)
the soul is eternal and its nature is spiritual where as the body and mind are both temporary and material...
we have all had many lifetimes in different species of life and undoubtley we have all committed many sinful activities...
a sinful activity is considered to be an action which is performed solely for ones own pleasure as apposed to an activity which is done for the pleasure of the Absolute and for the good of the whole...
there is a world beyond these senses of ours which cannot be reached by our worldly senses (subtle or not) even when we are having a psychedelic experience...
so many different dimensions of existence can be reached by using psychedelics but they are all contained within this material universe...
the world beyond the mundane sense can be called the spiritual world and it is a place of pure unadulterated love, beauty and harmony...
it is a place that it exists where the soul feels no pain or suffering and is constantly experiencing higher and higher states of bliss...
an overall name for the spiritual world is Vaikuntha but different regions are known by different names such as Goloka, Vrindavan and so on...
this plane of existence can only be reached through love and devotion...
for love to exist there has to be a lover and the beloved...
the lover is considered to be our soul (the actual living entity which is truly us) and the beloved is deemed to be Krsna, the Absolute...
all psychedelic experiences and other states of mind are temporary...the mind and body are separate from the soul...it is likend to be like the body is a car (vehicle), the mind is the driver and the soul is the passenger...
to experince this higher state of love and consciousnes there is a process...
this process is called yoga but not the kind of yoga which is very popular today such as bending stetching yoga in gyms and yoga clubs...
the actual name of this yoga is Bhakti....
bhakti means love and devotion...
the key process in bhakti yoga to reach higher states of consciousness is chanting sacred mantras....
one such mantra is called the maha mantra...
it goes like this...
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare...
this mantra can be repeated anywhere at any time and by anyone...
it contains within it all other mantras known to mankind, and so the goal of all mantras can be obtained just by chanting this mantra...
for the mantra to have the fullest effect it should be heard first by a bonafide spiritual master...if anyone is interested here is a link to such a spiritual master...
www.purebhakti.com ...
however even without a spiritual guide or master the mantra can still have amazing affects on the consciousness of the practioner...
being vegitarion helps too..
and if anybody is still reading this then ill offer a little of my own background...
i used to do lots of psychedelics...traveled a lot to India in my twenties...my experiences in those times left me with a deep yearning for spiritual knowledge and fulfillment...i searched alot and alot and tryed various paths and diferent mediation techniques...once i met my spiritual guide in 2001 i stopped searching and now only have to follow the practice...
sometimes iam tempted to do psychedelics again and once i did in 2006 in the mountains of california and had a profound and beautiful experince but my conclusion was that everything can be gained from purely chanting the maha mantra...its free for everybody...
anyway thats my two pennith worth...the subject is actually very vast and unending but i felt like writing especially after beening touched by somethings that both Psychedelic Gleam and Phoenixrain88 had said and so felt like sharing these things with you guys....peace.