What is the spiritual path?

[Bushpig]

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

Booshpig

[laughingwillow]

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

lw

[senorsalvia]

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

[laughingwillow]

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

[Bushpig]

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

[laughingwillow]

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

[JRL]

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.

[space]

Hey, JR--long time no interlocute

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.

[JRL]

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.

[laughingwillow]

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

[JRL]

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.

[laughingwillow]

Your set was different than what?

Everyone's set is unique, imo.

lw

[laughingwillow]

..... 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

[JRL]

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.

[JRL]

"Your set was different than what? "

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