To: K-list
Recieved: 2000/08/30 11:59
Subject: [K-list] Drug poll results
From: Druout
On 2000/08/30 11:59, Druout posted thus to the K-list:
/7872/6/_/680797/_/967662003/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
Dear List,
33 people responded to the drug poll --14 at the gateway site, and 19 on the
list or privately to me.
To the question: Have you ever taken "mind altering" drugs?
3 replied No. Five others tried pot or mushrooms but had little or no
reaction.
25 replied Yes. (13 list and 12 at the poll site where types of drugs weren't
tabulated).
Q: What kinds?
12 people used Marijuana (4 with minimal effect)
10 mentioned mushrooms
9 people took LSD
3 people took Mescaline
3 people mentioned cocaine
2 people mentioned Ecstasy
2 mentioned heroin
1 mentioned peyote
1 spoke of an accidental use of crack
3 people simply said they took a variety of drugs
Others drugs mentioned were qualudes, methadrine, uppers/downers, diet pills
and various pharmaceuticals
Q: Did you take these drugs before or after you became Kundalini active?
5 people answered before
1 replied after
2 replied before and after
1 replied in between
2 replied not applicable because not K active
Q: Do you think your drug experience(s) had any influence on your becoming K
active?
9 said Yes
7 said no
2 replied N/A because not K awake
Q: Do you think your drug experience(s) caused you to further explore
metaphysical and or religious questions?
7 replied yes to this question
Comments:
That's difficult to say, because the cultural milieu in which I began taking
drugs was also strong in breaking free of the Fertile Crescent Crew
(Jewish/Christian/Muslim) religious viewpoints and exploring other
metaphysical philosophies and systems. Just as we were interested in breaking
free of the dominant political system. So it's difficult to attribute my
breaking free of the Fertile Crescent Crew solely to drugs. Definitely, my
early experiences with LSD made more exotic (exotic to my cultural
upbringing) metaphysical systems appealing.
**************
I was using acid for shamanic purposes
******
Drugs are tools. Everything we touch to assist us in life, are simply tools.
Where one man may use an ax to chop down a tree, another might use a small
knife. It would be easy to say that the man with the ax, knows how to get the
job done quickly. And,the man with the knife is a fool, and will be cutting
for years... he may never even be able to chop down the tree, for his life
may run out before the knife will get all the way through.
************
I went thru the drug culture of the 60's without taking drugs. I was in the
Air Force at the time. My mind set was and still is, only stupid people
take drugs. And that taking drugs makes a person stupid. Drugs are for
weak minds or small minds. See Ram Dass's book where he gives LSD to his
guru in India(twice) expecting to teach the Guru a thing or two about
Enlightenment the American Way. Point, the Guru takes the LSD AND NOTHING
HAPPENS AT ALL.
****************
Hallucinogens, entheogens, empathegens, drugs, religion and other
catalysts, external and otherwise, have there dangers, blessings, there
places and there times. But they only go so far.
There's a huge difference between *feeling* spiritual and actually
becoming a part of a greater eternal spiritual process.
> I went thru the drug culture of the 60's without taking drugs.
You didn't go through the drug culture, you just happened to be alive at
the same time it was going on.
**************
When I was about 19, glowing after a Zen retreat in India, I landed up at
home to find my freinds were going mushroom hunting. I joined them and had
the mushies. All I can say is that my life has never been the same since: And
that was 20 years ago.
I experienced every sublime feeling I could imagine, heart-aching love for
everything including the trees around me, the sky and the hills. All the
stuff i had only read in Spirituality books were happening to me. Since then
I have been trying out various kinds of mind-altering substances, all of
which have been excellent, if not outright ecstatic.
And as for the Indian Guru and Ram Dass; I can only say, that i have lived in
India all my life and seen many Gurus. There are those who use psychedelics
and those who don't. Ganja is the principal offering to Lord Shiva.
*****************
> Likewise, when people take drugs and see stars,
> it does not mean that the stars are really there.
When god's children believe in a world apart from Him
does it mean that this world is really there?
******************
I experimented a little with drugs in the '60s. Marijuana made me paranoid
so alcohol remained my drug of choice. The shining exception to my
indifference to illegal drugs was mushrooms -- took them 3 times. I knew
immediately that the intoxication mimicked spiritual bliss and that it would
be possible to know this state without drugs. So, yes, drugs didn't initiate
my spiritual search, but they sure gave me encouragement!
***************
I rather think it depends on the intention with
which you do anything that dictates your experience of it. I know
people who smoke pot daily and are useless. I know people who smoke
pot daily and are very functional. I know people who take LSD to run
from their lives. I know people who take LSD to break down their
barriers. I know people who go to church to assauge their guilt. I
know people who go to church to be celebrate spirit.
One fool's Cheap Thrills can be another's Sacred Journey, no?
Party On!
***************
Yes, drugs have certainly affected my life philosophy. When I first took
acid, I had visions that I was living in a world, within the atom of another
world, which made up the atom of another world, which were also universes
etc (that one!). Before that it never crossed my mind. I thought that this
was all there was. ...
As far as drugs influencing my spirtual journey - I am on a path, and drugs
have crossed it in the past and they will in the future, no doubt. I have
also come across k on my path, and I am sure to cross death on my path. They
are all on my path, therefore they all represent a choice for me at the time
they cross my path. The choices that I make are all interelated, therefore
yes I believe that the way I experience K now is in a way reflective of my
drug experiences in the past. But it is also reflective of a great many
others things I have encountered on my path, not to mention a horoscope
which I recently had done that predicted I would have k experiences!
**************
Before. My last acid experience triggered a response that lives with me.
A form of guardian (internal/external) came and rescued me. A few months
later, I was reading about ritual magick and got a solid definition of
Raphael, and a few seconds later, realized I was on my knees crying. It
wasn't him I experienced, but something relating to what he represents.
*************
not much, but some. so long ago...my consciousness tripped me out at the
time. things like paranoia. Like finding out the psychedelio drug was a
4 way hit, not just one dose (afterwards of course). Lessee - I was in
my bedroom with a very attractive guy, but I "realized" that I was also
downstairs on the couch, like a carcass in my mind, surrounded by
psychiatrists in suits, presumably trying to coax my mind back into my
body.
oh yes, absolutely! I have always been hyper-aware, & seeing those
paradigm shifts & like turning a channel in my brain served to convince
me of the way to those "other dimensions". I believe it played a part in
helping me access those "other 90%" of my thoughtforms &
brain/consciousness shifts.
****************
I too have experimented and *used* them all , well, allot of them, lol but
nothing compared to this new energy and exhilarating feeling of *knowing* the
divine is alive and running through *me* attuned thought out my body. It's
like being reborn. Every day! I feel like the great big huge serpent is
looking out of my eyes and standing out looking *in* at times too. Did you
have dreams of a big yellow eyed snake? Am I at the right place? I have so
much I do not even know where to begin...so I will let this be it!
****************
Comments from a previous discussion about a year ago:
A close friend who was in the throes of a profound K experience 20 years ago
or so was talked into taking LSD. He said the LSD threw him out of paradise
for years.
************
Mind altering drugs do not *cause* visions.
They facilitate access to them. Much like a microscope does not cause the
world of micro organisms.
*************
I think both K and drug causes
some kind of chemical changes to the brains, refering to the "internal
demon" that I mentioned in my previous posts. It probably releases the
unconcious mind, (fear, anger, love, sex, devine consscience or God,
demon)to the conscious level. That's why when I read "Serpent of the Night"
, all I could see was a person roaming in his unconscious mind. Not God,
not devine, but a fantasy of the dream-like realm of a person's mind.
*************
I used drugs for several
years in SEARCH of what I experienced during and after shaktipat. It was,
in fact, at that point that I completely lost interest in LSD (and mind
you, in those days we used to get the very pure stuff in San Francisco). I
reasoned, nothing can top THIS, because certainly nothing up to that time
had topped it. And I did have some very beautiful acid experiences up
until that time, but none were...fishing for words here to express the
unexpressable--authentic, all encompassing, oh shoot, it's just too hard to
explain. Words just won't cut it. Remember what acid-freaks used to say
when someone asked what it was like? "You just have to try it, you won't
know until you do" was the usual reply--well, I have to say the same about
shaktipat.
***********
maybe I wouldn't have got so heavily into meditation if not for these
infantile drug experiences. They do seem to start the process, shaking us
loose from the conventional reality many of us are firmly cemented into at a
young age.
**********
I've tried various drugs at various times to experiment, both before and
after my k energy was activated what I found was that where my mind was
focused, is what I'd get out of it if I was focused on philosophical things,
then that would be made extreme by MDMA where I was focused on spiritual
states, I was able to attain amazing states of awareness I believe that these
states were real, however they didn't last and had no permanent effect on me
nor had any transforming effects in my meditations I've experienced similar
states and similar effects, and they have transformed my Permanent awareness,
and has had a long term effect on me, as well as purification.
**********
he HBWR trip gave me my Samadhi, but my K awakened through meditation (if I
had never had any drug experiences I would never had started meditating,
though).
END
Thanks very much, everyone!
Love, Hillary
##########################
In a message dated 8/17/00 3:53:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, BestPoetATnospamaol.com
writes:
<< Now I'm
not opposed to drugs per se. I've seen fire and I've seen rain and I've seen
sun and balmy too, and I do think drugs used carefully can have interesting
results. >>
Dear List,
We did a drug poll some time ago, but the results were never posted.
Question: Have you ever taken "mind altering" drugs?
What kinds?
Did you take these drugs before or after you became Kundalini active?
Before
After
Not applicable because not K active
Do you think your drug experience(s) had any influence on your becoming K
active?
Yes
No
N/A
Do you think your drug experience(s) caused you to further explore
metaphysical and or religious questions?
Thanks in advance! As usual, you can reply to the list or privately to me.
If you are *really* shy, you can reply to a shortened poll at the Gateway
site.
Love, Hillary
http://www.onelist.com/community/Kundalini-Gateway
http://www.kundalini-gateway.org
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