Psychedelic drugs and Enlightenment

I spoke a little about how psilocybin played a role in my first satori in a blog post about my "epic tale". This conversation was interesting too so I thought I would share it as well.

Ever done Ayahuasca? If so, what do you make out of that experience and the things percieved under its influence?


I smoke DMT very occasionally, which is like a condensed ayahuasca trip (it's the primary psychoactive in ayahuasca).

Psychedelic experiences can be really amazing. They have potential to teach or unteach you things, be incredibly profound, clean the slate, and/or give a fresh perspective. But only in that moment. What is experienced is true and real and valid, and can even have a lasting effect, but it wont necessarily be any kind of permanent reflection of ongoing reality.

Any idea, or any experience, that is held onto or carried forth from one moment to the next, will impinge on the purity of being open to, and experiencing, the here-and-now at hand.


Ayahuasca is like direct experience of another reality. Last time I did it, it really made me question the validity of this reality. Things seen there cant possibly be a projection, because the thing that projects is dumbfounded by the experience. So I guess my real question is......... how do we know we're done for sure?
Ayahuasca shows you things about this reality that you wouldn't otherwise see. Not only that (I know I'm gonna catch hell for this) there are "beings" there (Yes I know how completely ridiculous that sounds). I've seen through the conceptual self, how can one know with any certainty that we dont have 'further,' to go? I thought liberation would clear up these questions......... it hasn't.


Well yes, I get what you're saying. It's like what Aldous Huxley describes in the Doors of Perception (which he wrote while on mescaline). If I remember correctly, he theorises that there are filters over our perception of reality that certain psychoactives can remove, making us sensitive to things happening around us that we are usually unaware of, thus bringing us closer to the reality of what's "really" going on. This was my own conclusion too. Psychedelics open up the senses, making the body the predominant experiential organ over the mind, which usually filters and distorts pure experience through categorising, judging, making assumptions, telling narratives, etc. Thus it makes sense that the body, and sense, has a more direct contact with "reality", than the mind and it's contents. The body's voice is heard far more clearly.

On a personal level, about 90% of the time I will have a subtle - to full - blown kundalini awakening when taking most psychedelics.  

It IS another reality from the "usual" reality, certainly. But they're both equally as real. Whatever is currently happening, or being experienced, in this moment, is the real reality.

And since there IS no solid, permanent reality we can grab a hold of and proclaim, "THIS is the one and only definitive reality", it seems to imply there is certainly further to go, and there is no done. Done is when you die.

This is why, as I said earlier, I think it's really important not to hold on to any past experiences, thoughts of being done, or conclusive ideas about what constitutes reality,  in order to remain open to the present and what IS actually going on, right now.
This is what it means to be "awake".


I'm not holding onto anything, merely pondering the experiences. I used to know so much for sure. What a relief I don't know shit.


Haha, nice. Yes.
If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that I don't know anything.
Very liberating :)

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What is all this nonduality stuff anyway?

"Nondual" is simply the english term for the sanskrit "advaita", both meaning "not two."


It's an interesting and fun concept to roll around in the mind. On face value it looks like one of those endless zen-like paradoxes that come up when you look deep into these things. Everything is one and at the same time obviously separate. How can that be?


Carl Sagan said, "if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."


This implies, simply, that everything is interconnected. This moment right now and everything in it, exists the way it does because of the precision of the ever-changing conditions, factors and elements that have come into play and combined since the first moment of the universe. Pretty amazing, huh?


This seeming paradox of " everything is the same but separate" can be understood just by looking at the fingers on your hand. And if you look even closer at one of your fingers you will see that it's made up of separate molecules, together forming a finger. And those molecules are made up of atoms, those atoms of hadrons, those hadrons of quarks, et cetera... and not only this, but this is the recipe for all matter. Fundamentally, everything is made up of the same stuff. 

Everything in the universe is so perfectly interwoven and harmonic and conducive, because anything that wasn't entirely cohesive simply could not occur. And if it could, it wouldn't last long. Nothing can survive outside or independent of this perfect, well-oiled machine.


That is, more or less, a way to look at nonduality in a physical manner. We can approach this sensually too, which is important because our senses are the tools with which the universe is perceived.


Firstly, one should verify that everything that exists in reality, arises in direct phenomenological experience. And anything outside of that realm is purely conjecture, at best. In other words, whatever you can verify with your senses in the here and now, you can say exists. Anything that doesn't can only be speculation or hearsay, and must therefore be thrown out. Finding out what is real, is more often a process of negation than confirmation.


You can look at any of the senses, but let's start with hearing. I'm sure you've heard the old zen koan, "If a tree fell in the woods and no-one was around to hear it, would it make a sound?"


Hearing relies on sound to exist, and sound could not exist unless it was heard. You can even bring other elements into play here like the thing that hears, and the thing that makes the sound, like an eardrum and a voice box. You could then go on to say that it's the voice box of a bird and the eardrum of a human. These are all the elements that are separate (fingers), but are all crucial and necessary elements of the one phenomenon, hearing (the hand). They are not only necessary for the existence of hearing, but of each other. Look into any of the senses this way and see what you come up with.


Before the birth of the universe, and that which in the universe is contained, is the void. It's the only thing can can ever be outside of direct experience. I've heard it described as the "voidless void", because it can't really be much of a void if it contains everything, right?


The void. It can be a hard thing to get your head around and not just see it as empty space. Before the universe there wasn't empty space, there was literally nothing. Can you imagine nothing? I mean, really imagine it?


It has been spoken about the void replacing self upon enlightenment, the "no" in no-self. The self is seen as being the experiencer of reality, of the universe, looking in, outside of it. When the illusion is taken away, what is outside is nothing, the void. That in which everything arises. The nothing between thoughts. This is not to say self is the void, it's to say self is nothing.
I'll elaborate.


I've said before that advaita and anatta, nonduality and no-self, are in many ways the same revelation.
Direct, subjective, phenomenological experience. Nonduality says that everything that exists, exists here, and is interconnected. Nothing outside of direct, verifiable experience, can be said to be... 
nothing can abide, dependent/external to this perfect, well-oiled machine. This is what self is. It is separate. It separates. It removes internal from external. 


Self does not exist in subjectivity. It's core implication is that it is something that exists outside of experience, looking in. The idea of an experiencer means that it removes itself from experience, and nothing can be removed from experience. An experiencer cannot, itself, be experienced. It creates false objectivity where there can only be subjectivity. 


Self does not exist in phenomenology. It cannot be found here, anywhere. It cannot be perceived or verified by any of the senses. Don't take my word for it, try to locate it yourself. Seeing through the illusion of self is the same as seeing through the illusion of separation. It reunites internal and external. Can you locate a separate self? Do you exist? Or can you only see this one life, unfolding, in all it's harmony?

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