psychedelic enlightenment my experience

[neurotic]

anyone who DOES feel that psychs are 'enlightening' and 'teaching' care to explain with a reasonable amount of detail what do they teach and what exactly do you mean by feeling 'enlightened' or 'made you different'?

like something less vague than 'i started seeing things in a different way' and more specific like 'i realized that i dont get along with most people because i feel like i have nothing to learn from them due to my superiority complex etc etc'... because really, psychs are awesome but now that op mentions it, i don't think they taught me much

i mean, the psychedelic experience itself doesnt teach me anything, like induce great realizations or something, but over time with more and more trips on my back i realized a few stuff like the fragility of reality and sanity and the whole subjectiveness of experiences, but that was mostly because well, i got to see how shit can get warped up simply with some chemical on my brain, and how it affected my mind and triggered derealization, HPPD and overall feeling weird for some time.

 

[Doldrugs]

Mushrooms in particular have helped my girlfriend and me work through some specific issues. I don't really want to go into detail because it's quite personal, but things that we couldn't deal with sober came out and were resolved while under the influence. Additionally, all psychs have further developed my ability to be mindful, my resilience in the face of difficult mental states, and my fear of anxiety.

well, you didnt meditated using good methods if you meditated a lot without any results. If you meditate in the proper way, you will get results.

I tend to agree with this. Meditation isn't easy. You do need good instruction, and you need practice. Sometimes it takes while to get results, but if you're doing it right you will get them.

 

[Ismene]

I said mindfulness and psychedelics have similar potential as tools. Which has nothing to do with euphoria.

I gave you a long list of the things psychedelics can offer than mindfulness can't. You concentrated solely on euphoria for some reason. If you don't like euphoria lets go onto the tremendous emotional catharsis that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the experience of nature that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the spiritual epiphanies that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't.

It's silly to say they have the same potential.

 

[neurotic]

Mushrooms in particular have helped my girlfriend and me work through some specific issues. I don't really want to go into detail because it's quite personal, but things that we couldn't deal with sober came out and were resolved while under the influence. Additionally, all psychs have further developed my ability to be mindful, my resilience in the face of difficult mental states, and my fear of anxiety.

fair enough. how exactly do you know / why exactly do you think that psychs improved you mindfulness? was it that after a particular trip you noticed you were mindful more often or what?

not trying to prove you wrong i really just am trying to understand because i'd really would like to use psychedelics as tools for personal growth (stuff like you said - mindfulness, dealing better with emotions) and getting to know myself better but i never go much deeper than sober just thinking about stuff regularly.

 

[Ismene]

anyone who DOES feel that psychs are 'enlightening' and 'teaching' care to explain with a reasonable amount of detail what do they teach and what exactly do you mean by feeling 'enlightened' or 'made you different'?

like something less vague than 'i started seeing things in a different way' and more specific like 'i realized that i dont get along with most people because i feel like i have nothing to learn from them due to my superiority complex etc etc'... because really, psychs are awesome but now that op mentions it, i don't think they taught me much

i mean, the psychedelic experience itself doesnt teach me anything, like induce great realizations or something, but over time with more and more trips on my back i realized a few stuff like the fragility of reality and sanity and the whole subjectiveness of experiences, but that was mostly because well, i got to see how shit can get warped up simply with some chemical on my brain, and how it affected my mind and triggered derealization, HPPD and overall feeling weird for some time.

For me they simply made life worth living. I don't believe in any bollocks such as "enlightenment" or "what they taught me". I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding to think you take mushrooms and then become a different person and never have any problems anymore. You always have your inner self - no matter what happens to you. Mushrooms are fantastic but the day after you have to get up in the pissing rain and go to some shit job. I've never expected a peak experience to make life problem-free.

We all react to these things differently - as the old saying goes, you bring 50% to the experience and the mushroom brings the other 50%. We all arn't going to get the same thing from mushrooms.

 

[Ismene]

read about the Jhanas, which are the goal of any meditators. the jhanas are the way the buddha find enlightenment. its been very well documented that the Jhanas are the mean to liberation. and the jhanas are attainable with meditation only. first jhana is describe as bliss, upon bliss and one pointedness on the bliss: you cannot move, you cannot think, you cannot desire or even control the bliss: all you experience is the bliss.

What if you don't believe the buddha ever found enlightenment? What if you think it's just a story like all the other religious stories. Can you point me to anyone one earth you think has reached enlightenment through reading about the jhanas? A guy who is actually alive and I can read what he says that makes him different to anyone else? I'm very wary when the only guy who ever reached this alleged state has been dead for 2000 years.

 

[Doldrugs]

If you don't like euphoria lets go onto the tremendous emotional catharsis that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the experience of nature that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the spiritual epiphanies that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't.

I think meditation and mindfulness do offer those things.

fair enough. how exactly do you know / why exactly do you think that psychs improved you mindfulness? was it that after a particular trip you noticed you were mindful more often or what?

Mindfulness isn't passive. It's a technique that you need to practice. The best practice comes from very difficult or overwhelming mind states. I find psychedelics are one of the best consistent sources for that.

 

[murphythecat]

the first jhana is described as bliss upon bliss, and the bliss is all you experience. a bliss much more powerful and deep then any psychadelic.

yes its silly to even compare as psychadelic is very limiting in actual insights. but a good meditation will give you tons of insights. I mean, psychadelic is a experience that you cannot recreate, while a good meditation that brings you tons of calm and peace and hapiness, you can do over and over, and get better at it. the way meditation acts is it changes also the way you live your life when you dont meditate. Theres a osmosis you begin to understand between the meditative state and real life. meditation is taking over the way I also live and experience each moment.

I gave you a long list of the things psychedelics can offer than mindfulness can't. You concentrated solely on euphoria for some reason. If you don't like euphoria lets go onto the tremendous emotional catharsis that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the experience of nature that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't. Then go onto the spiritual epiphanies that psychedelics offer that mindfulness can't.

It's silly to say they have the same potential.

 

[murphythecat]

Doubt is totally understanable and even recommendable in buddhism: but there two type of doubt: ratinalo doubt and not rational doubt. make sure you have verified enough to a make a true opinion of buddhism. I recommend you to listen to a couple talks of ayya khema. its impossible to not know that what she teach is something you should integrate in your life.
theeres a lot of misinformation about the main definitions and you may be uninformed about what enlightenment even mean, or mindfulness or meditation.

however, buddhism never ask faith, they show you the way to practice: its the only way for you to answer your doubts. for me, its the only philosophical/religion that is indestructible intellectually as its based on experience. it only ask you to folow the footsteps and practice: read about the noble path, the noble efforts like loving kindness, ect. When I meditate on loving kindness, I cannot begin to express such powerful love I feel for myself and others. its very beneficial. Im a very logical person, and buddhism correlate totally my psychadelic trips and my breakthrough. I feel that we are all blessed to have this teaching as its exactly what psy showed me, but even further.

btw, the only monk I know that is enlightened is Ayya Khema. there also ajahn chan that was seen as likely a arahant. but ayya khema, I know she is.

What if you don't believe the buddha ever found enlightenment? What if you think it's just a story like all the other religious stories. Can you point me to anyone one earth you think has reached enlightenment through reading about the jhanas? A guy who is actually alive and I can read what he says that makes him different to anyone else? I'm very wary when the only guy who ever reached this alleged state has been dead for 2000 years.

 

[Ismene]

I think meditation and mindfulness do offer those things.

Each to his own.

Doubt is totally understanable and even recommendable in buddhism: but there two type of doubt: ratinalo doubt and not rational doubt. make sure you have verified enough to a make a true opinion of buddhism.

I happily went along with buddhist ideas for years until I lost a loved one suddenly and found it didn't help. The only thing that had the power to help were psychedelics. So that's when I started dropping the buddhism and moving onto the psychedelics. I think buddhism works while you're happily bumping along in life but when your nuts are on the railway tracks, psychedelics are the answer. For me anyway - obviously we're all individuals as monty python would say.

 

[max_freakout]

Psychedelics offer immediate reliable repeatable access to psychedelic altered-state experiencing
Meditating while sober does not offer immediate reliable repeatable access to psychedelic altered-state experiencing

That is pretty much all there is to it, anything else is just equivocation and word-games.

 

[murphythecat]

Psychedelics offer immediate reliable repeatable access to psychedelic altered-state experiencing
Meditating while sober does not offer immediate reliable repeatable access to psychedelic altered-state experiencing

That is pretty much all there is to it, anything else is just equivocation and word-games.

simply false and you clearly states things that you have no experience of.

when you are a good meditator, you can attain the jhana each and every time. its a fact, and its a much more reliable access to peace and hapiness and bliss then a psy trip. I mean, yes you can have bliss but theres much more to a psy trip.

I dont even see why people compare meditation (which most of you never really did in the proper way) and psychadelics. seriously, a good meditation sessions blast me off to a realm inside me, where I feel profundly content and calm and peaceful. I stop the thinking process completeley, and just am one with the meditation object to a point where I feel no bounderies between me and the room, I feel I go profundly into myself and get peace from all my thinking process. Its very beneficial!

Comparing stuff is useless in life and will raise problems.

Dont compare psy to meditation: both are real teachers and have been very beneficial in my life. however, I do experience that the more I meditate, the more hapiness in life I get, while the more I do psy, the less im happy. I can only trip maixmum once every week and anybody who do psychadelics 2-3 times a week are using psychadelics to replace or add something they are missing in their life, and thats just wrong.

 

[Ismene]

Go with what makes you happy murphy. We're all different and while you get something out of meditation it does absolutely piss-all for me. Psychedelics help me through, meditation doesn't.

 

[murphythecat]

please tell me your meditation method.
when people think they are meditating, they dont, they are merely doing relaxation practice.

meditation is very well a technique that you need to know to be able to do it properly. and im sure, most people who think they have tried to meditate simply didnt in the right sense.

Go with what makes you happy murphy. We're all different and while you get something out of meditation it does absolutely piss-all for me. Psychedelics help me through, meditation doesn't.

but yeah, im out of this thread. I guess you cannot ask fro people to stop their prejudice, but im curious on to how someone who had a breakthrough experience or a ego death not find startling similitude with buddhism and their experiences.

 

[jason7]

Personally, I think enlightenment is just a concept with no reality to it. There are certainly ecstatic states but what is the enlightenment? What do you realize that you didn't realize before? It always comes back to the fact that we are slaves to a human body and there's no way out but death. That's the enlightenment I got. I realized that fate has dictated that I be imprisoned in a human body for decades and for what? NDEs seem to suggest that we incarnated as a form of "school" to learn various lessons. Well, what are you going to learn by being a human aside from how to avoid negative results by tailoring your behavior toward others in such a way that they will react in a positive way. Those kind of lessons would be handy IF you were going to live as a human for eternity, but you're not. Supposedly we're spiritual beings after death so why would we need a bunch of lessons in human sociology to be happy as disembodied entities? Conflicts only arise on earth, because we're physical bodies and we fight for territory and resources or for desired mates. Once you eliminate those factors there isn't much you need earth lessons for.

I think the whole thing is a crock and that we are actually forced into human existence for the entertainment of some kind of entities, probably somehow connected to space aliens. Isn't it a little odd that spiritual entities, including "God" himself, communicate in the afterworld by telepathy AND so do space aliens when they abduct people. Aliens are very devious. I wouldn't put it past them to be active in the spiritual realm in addition to the physical. A lot of the "angels" or "guides" that people meet after death may very well have lived formerly as aliens on other planets and evolved to the point where they could exist without bodies at all. Let's just say that the universe is a very complicated place and we really don't know the true nature of ourselves or the afterworld. It looks like there's a "God" entity and he greets us at death but how do we know that everything we experience after death isn't a complex deception produced by the aliens for some nefarious purpose? They could read our minds and make themselves appear as our dead relatives. Why would we want to be with our relatives aftter death when we didn't even like em when they were alive? Then we're gonna get stuck with them for eternity? We have to listen to uncle Erny's boring stories forever?

 

[murphythecat]

buddhism is not about human mind, its about your mind. no matter what being you will be after your death, the underlining tendencies will remain and will be reproduce in your next life:

craving for sensual desires
need to judge, to hate, to critic
restlessness, being stressed or worry
suffering will happen no matter the form you are, you will suffer from: sorrow, old age, not having what one wants and having what one doesn't want, sickness, loosing people you love, ect

those will happen no matter the body you get after this life and this is what Buddhism is based on. What you crave right now like sensual desire (which lets be honest is utterly unsatisfying because we always want more and need more and no matter the blissful state on a psy, you will loose that state and will want it again), or every time you hate or critic or judge, ect will still be possible no matter the body. This is what actually even make you a human and this is why you will still be reborn, because your mind is still attached to the 5 hindrances, ect. Believe it or not, some monks have no sensual desire anymore, the roots of aversion fully destroyed and the sense of self abolished, those will not be reborn in a human life as the human life is based on the sensual realm. we are living in the sensual realm. ever wonder all the devas you see on a dmt breakthrough or whatever, well those are beings from all over the different realms ect

enlightenment is not a concept, but a state of being that is beyond the mind and beyond any concept your mind could imagine, as the whole point of enlightenment is cessation of the mind. Nirvana is cessation of the mind: to get rid of the illusion of the mind. nirvana is the states of no mind. It is to be able to destroy all the reasons why you even have a mind to begin with.

again, all you said is very logic Jason and I agree, but all you said is not what buddhism is.

 

[Bagseed]

For me they simply made life worth living. I don't believe in any bollocks such as "enlightenment" or "what they taught me". I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding to think you take mushrooms and then become a different person and never have any problems anymore. You always have your inner self - no matter what happens to you. Mushrooms are fantastic but the day after you have to get up in the pissing rain and go to some shit job. I've never expected a peak experience to make life problem-free.

well some people might have come to the realization that they'd better quit a job they hate and do something more fulfilling with their lives...

 

[perpetualdawn]

im curious on to how someone who had a breakthrough experience or a ego death not find startling similitude with buddhism and their experiences.

I've not had a specific breakthough/ego death experience (maybe I have in small bits and pieces, but not the classic type that you read about), and yet I find psychedelic experience to be startlingly similar to buddhism. But we all experience everything so differently right, so as convincing as this overlap is between buddhist experience and psychedelic experience to you and I, it is completely doubtful to people like Ismene and Jason7.

And then you get psychedelic fundamentalists like max_freakout. To these people, religions are merely aping or faking the One True "religion" of psychedelics.

It's pretty much impossible to talk about this stuff so I try not to bother.

 

[pupnik]

buddhism is not about human mind, its about your mind. no matter what being you will be after your death, the underlining tendencies will remain and will be reproduce in your next life:

craving for sensual desires
need to judge, to hate, to critic
restlessness, being stressed or worry
suffering will happen no matter the form you are, you will suffer from: sorrow, old age, not having what one wants and having what one doesn't want, sickness, loosing people you love, ect

those will happen no matter the body you get after this life and this is what Buddhism is based on. What you crave right now like sensual desire (which lets be honest is utterly unsatisfying because we always want more and need more and no matter the blissful state on a psy, you will loose that state and will want it again), or every time you hate or critic or judge, ect will still be possible no matter the body. This is what actually even make you a human and this is why you will still be reborn, because your mind is still attached to the 5 hindrances, ect. Believe it or not, some monks have no sensual desire anymore, the roots of aversion fully destroyed and the sense of self abolished, those will not be reborn in a human life as the human life is based on the sensual realm. we are living in the sensual realm. ever wonder all the devas you see on a dmt breakthrough or whatever, well those are beings from all over the different realms ect

enlightenment is not a concept, but a state of being that is beyond the mind and beyond any concept your mind could imagine, as the whole point of enlightenment is cessation of the mind. Nirvana is cessation of the mind: to get rid of the illusion of the mind. nirvana is the states of no mind. It is to be able to destroy all the reasons why you even have a mind to begin with.

again, all you said is very logic Jason and I agree, but all you said is not what Buddhism is.

Murphy, you sound a bit stiff in your description of enlightenment.

cessation of mind sounds wrong to me,
in all cases, including yours, enlightenment is a concept.

you might wish it were more magical than that, but the objectification and conceptualization is what screws many aspirants up.
on the other hand, I have met a few Bodhisattvas, and they were marvelously flawed in unexpected ways that make no difference, meanwhile they had all their candles lit.

perfection of any kind is a kind of trap.

 

[pupnik]

Personally, I think enlightenment is just a concept with no reality to it. ...

I think the whole thing is a crock ...

it's not a crock,
it is unfettered mind, illuminated, simple.