Spirit Plants - Discussion of sacred plants and other entheogens

What is the spiritual path? Is the spiritual path the moral path ?  How do we define 'spirituality ?

Booshpig

The spiritual path is one that facilitates personal growth and understanding, imo.

lw

What LW sez.........

Thanks, mang.

Btw, just what IS the meaning of moral?

Sometimes moral is in the eye of the beholder. Often judging other's actions is a moral sport. I believe personal growth can lead to behavior that is perceived as "moral" by some and "immoral" by others.

But in the long run, a deeper understanding of oneself leads to a better grasp on the motivations and actions of others. What a person does with that knowledge might depend on personal nature.

lw

Well, I'd have to concur LW, or that for me is how I relate to it.  I raise the point for 2 reasons, firslty the term is used widely but I feel to most quite unspecified or without close inspection as to what it entails and what it does not.  
     Secondly, recently I was listening to a McKenna audio in which he was asked about psychedelics, spirituality and morality.  His rap was on psychedelics being a neutral tool that if anything bends towards what could be deemed good.  This bending is more to do with the boundary dissolution and loss of ego that gives dominator types a harder time with the experience.  I was also surprised at first to to hear McKenna associated he spiritual path with the moral one.  Saying that the spiritual path involves living a life of others first and acts of kindness etc (clothing the poor, feeding the hungry etc).  Though in growing and developing spiritualiy these acts may indeed become more apparent as there is a move away from the constraints of the ego.  

Was just throwing it on the table..

Bushpig

Hey, thanks for throwing this one on da table, bro.

I think psychedelics are a neutral tool. I'm not sure if its humans or the sacrament with a bent toward good. But I do think psychedelics facilitate a deeper understanding of the world than most get out of our daily experiences.

Ego still comes into play with the introduction of psychedelic substance into the equation, imo. For example, a person who gains insight into the human condition on levels not normally accessed by the majority can begin to feel superior to others in general. That is one of the potential pitfalls of psychedelic exploration, imo. However, there are ways to assist assuring that doesn't happen. I'm guessing for every teacher there is a different method, but the results should be the same.

On the other hand, its not difficult for me to imagine a person who becomes totally consumed by their ego once they reach points not normally accessed by the masses. I'm guessing it would be difficult not to feel and act superior than others if a person was inclined toward self-absorption before being introduced to psychedelics and had no teacher to guide him/her.

lw

Indeed lw. Back in the 60s a lot of not so nice people were on the acid scene. A lot of people used the power in service of their egos. A lot of people were on serious power trips, the most extreme being guys like Manson. A lot of people were into "parlor games", messing up peoples heads for the hell of it. Gaskin's book Haight Ashbury Flashbacks talks about this a lot.

Hey, JR--long time no interlocute :D

Seems to me, from my 60s recollections, that dominators and manipulators had way more trouble with acid than weed and wine.

In general, on average, I'd say acid was a force for moral good, given its tendency to sensitization and empathization (syllabic whew!).  Those, like Manson, who perverted its nature, depended on either dosage differentials (I witnessed that kind of attempt in multiple communes) or differing tolerances (trip every night for a week, and you hardly trip at all).

I'd say acid, in the organic frame of a community, is a (not force, but potentiating agent) for good.

Like way more people have been beaten up by drunks than acid heads.

I would have to agree about it being more of a force for good, but it was misused, Herman Kahn (sp) right wng genius guy took acid and pondered H bomb bombing paterns.

A lot more people were taking acid then because it was the fashion and the fad. A lot more random cross section. Some were enlightend, some freaked, some it made little impression on. I didn't understand why for many it was a trip to the fun house, while I was having full on religous illuminations.

Who knows who I would have been had I never tripped. It's part of the fabric of my being.

jrl: We both appear to have had a certain sensitivity to the sacraments from early on.

Imo, psychedelics can aid in the evolution of consciousness and that can't be all bad. Individual experiences may vary, due to the wide range of human nature but that might be a factor that has assisted our survival as well.

lw

Might have been biochemical but also my set was different. The stuff my parents turned me on too, reading lots of SF, my love of music, plus my older brother, who started tripping in 1966 kinda stressed the seriousness of it all. He knew some real old school trippers, like the first guy in the area to get busted for LSD sales. They taught him some stuff that he passed on to me, ways to go deeper into the trip and stuff.

Your set was different than what?

Everyone's set is unique, imo.

lw

Quote from: "JRL"..... They taught him some stuff that he passed on to me, ways to go deeper into the trip and stuff.

That one has my curiosity up.

Den and I were discussing old-school methods of experience enhancement when we visited da beeg eyelan last winter. He mentioned something about holding one's breath when coming on to the most serious of sacraments back in da day.

scotty low-tech/no-tech aka lw

One thing I remember bro telling me was that the dude had a big sheet of graph paper up on the wall, to bring the flow out. Then focus on the patterns and bring them to you till you melted into the light. He said as you did this at each jump of the patterns toward you would confront various aspects of your incarnation,till you left it all behind.

I have experimented with this over the years, with good results.

"Your set was different than what? "

Well it was skewed towards the philosophical and artistic direction, compared to many.

Interesting.... I like that exercise.

You have focused on set vs biochemical above, but I'm not sure those are the only two factors to consider in this conversation. I believe its possible to have deeply spiritual experiences while under the influence of the sacrament  without going into the event primed for that possibility. For me, listening to the spirit has become key.  

lw

Speaking of listening.....

For me, song lyrics have been the catalyst that sends me deeper into a trip. The music itself has acted as a PHYSICAL tool for forging psychological connections. And most lessons have flowed through that medium without the verbal assistance of any teacher in the traditional sense.

Btw, I've come to consider visual stimulus while under the influence of a sacrament to be counterproductive to the exercise above.

On the other hand, I could watch a flowing river for hours while under the influence......

lw

Quote from: "laughingwillow"For me, song lyrics have been the catalyst that sends me deeper into a trip.
lw

Me too. Certain ones seem to reverberate for ever. "Did it matter does it now........" "Clothed in tatters always will be time where did you go"

"The deeper you go the higher you fly, the higher you fly the deeper you go, so come on. Your inside is out when your outside is in, you r outside is in when your inside is out so come on"

Dylan has a lot of lines that throw a shiver down me spine. Delivery has something to do with it as well. And for some reason, many times I feel I'm gleaning a certain type of knowledge from a dead related show, that very instant, there will be a roar of approval from the crowd as if I'm being welcomed to that page in general and and thought in particular...

There must be some
way out of here
cried the joker
to the thief....

lw

and my favorite.....

We might be stuck here
- forever -
if you can't make that turn....

lw

this one got me once...


I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream.
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream.
Ah, child of countless trees.
Ah, child of boundless seas.
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me,
Born to me,
Cassidy...

So, I'm not sure there is a particular path that can be called spiritual or moral. But I do think we can gain spiritual insight and practice a lifestyle that could be called "moral" along our individual journey.

And while there are as many paths as pairs of sandals to the promised land, as jrl said, I'm also a practicing  psychedelian so my views will have that skew..

lw

So, I was just doing dishes and came to a realization....

Many of the A-ha! moments at shows for me have occurred in the context of reincarnation.

lw

Indeed. Reincarnation as linear fact or metaphore?

Well, what started out as metaphor soon became linear conjecture....

And that particular notion just BAKED my noodle on more than one occasion.

That said, there were no specific "memories" if you will, of past incarnations. Rather vague recollections dredged up by the music, lyrics and sacrament that at times has hit me hard enough to provide quite a jolt.

However, on at least one occasion I found the lyrics of a show to be the catalyst sending me over the cosmic edge. (It was a David Lindley set in 1988 when he was opening for the dead at laguna seca.)  Due to the intense nature of that particular sacramental day, I was short on details until I scored a copy of the set a few years back. Upon further scrutiny, it  makes more sense to me now, but I believe it is the unexpected jolt that might be just what we need for some deep space exploration expeditions.

lw

Same here, I have had vague memory type stuff, like seeing me and my former archnemesis as rival Merlinesqe wizaeds, or seeing a western bar room brawl during Me and My Uncle. Or Siamese dancers during Born Cross Eyed.

You ever hear Procul Harum's second record, Shine On Brightly? Side one(remember sides?) is an epic called In Held Twas In I, and its a full of cryptic Zen lines of great power.

Words are powerful, while its true that the Tao can't be expressed by word or whistled, words and/or music can point you right at it.  some good words of power are found in Leary's Tao Te Ching adaptation, Psychedelic Prayers. Pushed me right to the cosmic connection more than once. Rumi, too.

bush: Thanks for starting the thread that let us go deep into jrl's head, bro.

The most intense experiences for me have all come at moments that I feel my psychedelic past is being shown to me as innuendo. Always vague. Always dealing with the dead scene. At times I feel like I'm the odd man out and that the rest of the audience is privy to the cosmic joke that I'm viewing as a lesson.

We often talk about keeping ego's in check and the above method of transferring knowledge or methods of cosmic communication is pretty effective in that regard, imo.

lw

"At times I feel like I'm the odd man out and that the rest of the audience is privy to the cosmic joke that I'm viewing as a lesson"

Well In Held Twas In I has a part about tea time at the circus: "Althougb the crowd clapped furiously they could not see the joke"

I wonder what percentage feels that when you are feeling it. I know I have many times, I've gotten stuck there, carried it around with me seems like forever.

But when "I" am confronted with the infinity that is "us" "my" limitations are become clear..

ahimsa...

Ooh, thanks, gnermy. A quick google and we're on the same page...

I, too, see the value and even equality in most life forms. But its tough to decide just how far to take the non-violence thing. I lived a vegetarian lifestyle back in the day. And the only insects I'll kill consciously are mosquitos.

But in this world, life consumes life for energy. And billions of insects are killed every day by the simple act of walking to the river or the store. Even drinking the most natural water or the process of water purification certainly kills microscopic life forms in the name of human sustenance.

It pains me to kill most any plant. I don't even like to dispose of jade leaves that fall, knowing they all contain a tree within. All life is sacred, imo.  

SO where do we draw the line?

lw

Azure blue
Can you float through the universe of your body and not lose your way?
Breathing
Breathing
Can you drift into free air?
Breathing
Breath of life
Aetherial bliss
Inspiration
Can you rise on the trembling vibration
of inhale.....exhale?

Breathing.....breathing
Breath of life
Can you ascend the fragile thread of life
into cloud-blue bliss?

Can you spiral up through soft atmosphere
Breathing.....breathing
Catch that exact second between in-breath and out-breath
Just there.....
Can you float beyond life and death?
Azure blue
At that exact second
Now


JRL mentioned Dr. Leary's prayers, and LW mentioned breath, so I thot I'd add the breath cakra prayer.

This prayer was important to the Brotherhood when I took sacrament with them. Breath was the key to shedding the bonds of ego. In another part of the prayers, the saying was, do not drag your ego thru the life process. To have a happy journey, float on the inbreath, or outbreath. Death, rebirth. Then with thoughts stilled, experience.

One way to voyage. One might say, the shamanic yoga way.

In my experience, if the lessons of morality, as shown in the yamas and niyamas, are not internalized and practiced, then the light withdraws.

Up from da depths comes den. Glad you could join us brudda.....

I was fascinated by the breathing lessons you shared with me when we visited your little corner of paradise last winter. And I was hoping you would share a little fo that here at spr.

jrl: All the beating around the burning bush and I finally realize its the concept of reincarnation that wraps me tightest around the freak pole.

But I'm now doing a better job at grasping the fact that the past and future mean less  the more we are able to focus on being here, now.....

lw

well, particularly no-harm to the other sentient beings with whom we are sharing this world (these worlds?)...
as for "lesser beings", well, that's part of the puzzle... but the infliction of needless pain & suffering (upon any being) is just, well, bad karma, innit?
the vows of a bodhisattva? well, working towards the liberation of all sentient beings can cetainly be used as a wonderful model for treading the path...
(heh, when some o' me mates accuse me of being a saint, i tell 'em that some of us prefer the term bodhisattva...)  :wink:

I remember reading this article in the Oracle in 1967:

//http://www.luminist.org/archives/psychedelic.htm

That's a fine essay, JRL. I wish I had seen that back in the day, it would have helped me along. I didn't see it until internet, but it helped me understand.

To me the spiritual path is a very personal issue. No one has the answers, but we can share some experiences and then make informed choices over the direction we would like our life to go.
I do not believe that there is any correct or uncorrect answers, just personal preferences.

Here is a piece I wrote about ego and stuff. I think this piece can relate to spiritual questions, because, to me anyhows, the spiritual issues are very close to the questions of "I" versus the "other".
How does the "I" percieve the world, and how does it fit in it?
Goals, things to achieve, what are our options?

=========
« Modern man develops like an earth worm : a tube that swallows and leaves little piles behind it. If one day Earth disappears because man ate everything, he should not be surprised.”

 

I don't want to save the world.

I find those that want to save the world to be selfish beings. To want to save the world, we first have to create an idea of how the world should be like. To want to change the world, it is wanting it to match my ideas about how it should and should not be.
Me, I have no idea of which world I’d like to live in. Imagination, human memory being without limits, I can imagine an infinity of worlds in which I could live.
I would even go as far as to say that I like the world we live in, just as it is, just as I live it. For now, I live in this world, so I must make the best out of it.

Of course, I see things that can make me sad. I would be a monster if there wasn’t. Kids that have no childhood, hungry families, war on tv. I am a modern kid, I see the wars and horrors on tv. I know the world comes with it’s problems.
”The world is full of suffering” says the budhist mantra, “we all seek happiness” it keeps on chanting.

Too often, this suffering makes us incapable of dealing with things when faced with what we see as problems. We like to think of happiness, but we rarely live it. Happiness remains like a far away land, in which we only take refuge in our dreams, instead of living it right here and right now.
A simple truth is that the more we seek happiness, the more we go away from it.
Each continent of the world comes with it’s own set of problems. Wheter the continent is in development stage, or whether it is full on technological, nobody seems to fully escape this human suffering.

Each lives this suffering very personaly.

I do not want to change the world, I just want to live in it.

Me, I do not know anything. I travel the world barely touching the world under my feet. In the world, staying slightly detached from it. Every day discovery of the outside world helps me to relate better to my inner world. Every day, the both become more and more indistinguishable.

Me, I know nothing, and I like the world just as it is. I will keep on my little way, quietly and in music. I will keep on helping others when I can, not because of some sense of moral code, just because I feel like it.

 

I do not have any hope that my actions will give such and such result, for the simple reason that I can not tell the future. I do not have any hope that my acts could help or not, I do not have any hope that tomorrow things will be better. Hope is also a projection of things as we would like them to be. It is better to all together give up this selfish hope.
If I paint an orphanage, it is because I feel like it, if I give some rupee to a person that has less than me, it is because I feel like it.

Maybe I am just a selfish person, but really I think we all are selfish beings. Too bad ego has been rolled in the mud by most if not all religious systems. Ego became a dirty word, it became something we are supposed to get rid of.
Yet, this ego I have, is all I have, all I can hold on to. I can not seem to see it as something that I should get rid of. I can make an infinity of experiences with this ego, I can transform it, but never can I fully get rid of it.


This Atman of the Hindus, it is me, it is you, it is everything.  
And Atman whispers: “I am nothing. I know everything. I am everything, I know nothing.”


So, let’s enjoy the moments that pass, me and my ego. We watch things pass by, we fully experience things, all while knowing that really, we do not know anything at all. We are alive, and it’s already a lot.


Fuzz and joy from the city of flags.

You can find the full article here.
http://www.fuzzytravel.com/manue/5968-save-world.html (http://www.fuzzytravel.com/manue/5968-save-world.html)

Thanks fuzz, excellent essay.  8)  

fuzz said:

"Maybe I am just a selfish person, but really I think we all are selfish beings. Too bad ego has been rolled in the mud by most if not all religious systems. Ego became a dirty word, it became something we are supposed to get rid of.
Yet, this ego I have, is all I have, all I can hold on to. I can not seem to see it as something that I should get rid of. I can make an infinity of experiences with this ego, I can transform it, but never can I fully get rid of it. "

I agree.

which is why in my post above I mentioned shedding "the bonds of ego", not destroying it. As far as ego bonds (misperceptions, delusions) cause suffering, they can be abandoned.

I wish to identify with atman in all things. This is my study, and my spiritual life.

morning sun rises
on my personal ego
and sets on yours..... - bol -

lw

Glad this could resonate a bit with someone.

Also, i had forgotten this part of the text:

"I do not want to change the world, I just want to live in it.

Those that want to save the world often have gods to which they can dedicate their acts. Me, I do not have such thing, seing God in everything, even in this suffering that ties us together. Those that want to change the world have reasons, morales, they know how things should be done.
Me, I do not know anything.

I do not dream of better days, because these days are already the best. I do not dream of perfect humans, of super men or super powers, because all of this, man already has. In my eyes, man is already perfect. A magical creature capable of the most amazing creations as well as of the crulest of monstruosities.

This is man. A creature in constant formation, a creature which discovers itself day by day, learning with each step."

have a nice end of week end:)

What I don't understand is everything

heh...
i know very little about everything, and a great deal about nothing at all...

 :lol:

TAO.

duh-ow!

gnmry: Life is suffering
as It subsists on life;
rejoicing as It's fueled further.

lw

life is suffering
yeah, sure, that's what we've been told
but i think differently
life is learning
the deeper we get into an experience, the more amazing it all is

jrl - thanks for the luminosity.org site - lots of good stuff there. it amazed me that Louisa May Alcott was on the list beside Crowley and Leary.

the chakra meditation is certainly an energizer - revving up morning motor, opening doors to wider perceptions. Sometimes it's a shame i have to deal with the flatter emanations of various sentient beings (bless em) instead of tripping through a day with radar blasting wide-open sorts.

But in the light of opening up myself, perhaps there can be a little energy to spare.
Is it ego? Probably. But noticing ego is still preferable to not noticing.

Is it ego / noticing is better than not.........  Great concise line there sistah!!! 8) ------------

judih: It seems you only read the first line of my last post concerning suffering. Or maybe not. hehe

As far as ego is concerned, it appears there are as many definitions as definers.

further....

lw

yeah, lw. i read it all, just free associating. you know how it is!
one thing's for sure - getting in the habit of meditating every morning would be the best addiction i could pick up these days.

for me, getting centred in the morning - including physical warm-ups, mental warm-ups and aligning the chakras - is the best way to experience a day.

now i have a question.
what to do with someone who 'suffers' consistently? How to be with someone who attracts x-treme situations and then has to disentangle themselves?

How to watch that person live their chosen path? Do i interfere? Can i interfere? i suspect i can't do a thing. What do you think?

Do you believe that everyone has their life lessons to learn?

I have known many like that. They seem to be addicited to stress. Most of the time  have found that while they want your energy and attention, they don't want to change.

Good question, sistah. What to do?

I usually tell that person what (I feel) they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. While the person prolly won't change their destructive behavioral patterns because of another's advice, they might stop bringing their pity to that party. And beyond that, there isn't much one can do beyond modeling better behavior, imo.

lw

yeah, jrl -
it's a kind of adrenalin IV for some. i think in the case of someone i'm thinking of it's a distraction mechanism - to avoid the real business of simply being.

lw - saying what i feel needs to be said -yeah, that's about it. If the 'listener' protests too much, i know i've hit a chord. Chord hitting is probably the most i can hope for.

Sometimes an honest comment made from the 'soul' , as opposed to personal ego agenda, can make an impression and one day re-birth in a more accomodating time.

ripple, ripple effect.

judih: On top of the day to day grind, I'm guessing the psychology of living in a virtual war zone can get tricky at times.

lw

it's tricky, lw, but like most of living daily life, one gets 'used to' it. Not impervious, but used to accepting reality as it happens.  We all have our bizarre situations, our strange circumstances, in any number of guises.

but that's an aside.

the path? the path is a series of present moments. Being in the present as much as possible is the best i can hope for.