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The more we learn about psychical and psychonic phenomena, the stranger and more impressive seems mystical phenomena, which is apparently quite different and unrelated. Unlike the case with religious visions, the core of the mystical experience seems to be the same in all religious traditions, although the interpretations of it may vary. The most fundamental of mystical experiences is that of Samadhi, which is sometimes described as a union with THAT, or a union with the INFINITE, or a union with the ONE. But if we look at the descriptions of the ONE or THAT we see that this certainly not the wholly-other, personal god of Christianity. Let me quote from William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 321.
"That art thou," say the Upanishads. And the Vedantists add, "Not a part, not a mode of THAT, but identically THAT, that absolute spirit of the world." "As pure water remains the same, thus, Oh Gautama, is the self of a thinker who knows. Water in water. Fire in fire. Ether in ether. No one can distinguish them. Likewise a man whose mind has entered into the SELF."
The mystics agree that there are no revelatory messages or commands in the mystic union with the ONE. Nor is there any sense of personality, neither one's own nor Brahman's, for the ONE has none.
Not only does the I-thou dichotomy disappear in Samadhi, but so do all other dichotomies or polarities. All differences, regrets, wants are reconciled or atoned into a unity. It is this feature which sometimes leads mystics to say the experience is ineffable and indescribable which in turn has led the sophists to dismiss it as untestable, and mere metaphysical utterance. It isn't of course. We've just succeeded in describing it, and mystics are perfectly able to distinguish Samadhi from other kinds of experiences. Indeed, the Yogis distinguish various sub-varieties of Samadhi.
True Samadhi occurs in all religious traditions and is described in exactly the same way, by Christians, Moslems, Hindus, and so forth. As William James says:
In mystic states we become one with the absolute and become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances and eternal unanimity...and which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native land. (p. 327)
Another remarkable thing is that the mystic union is always ecstatic and usually causes an irrevocable change in a person's life. It is ecstatic partly because mystics claim it is a direct experience of the immortality of the innermost seat of awareness and also because it is an escape from oneself, from the petty concerns of an ego, and the perennial and restless strivings of life on earth.
Union of THAT with the innermost SELF is not the only mystical experience. There is also a communion or identification with nature. One mystic describes it thus, in James, p. 303.
I felt myself one with the grass, the trees, birds, insects, everything in nature. I exulted in the drizzling rain, the shadows of the clouds, the tree trunks, and so on.
Many people have had some inkling of this experience, alone in the country on a starry night or even while listening to glorious music in church.
Two things are clear: the mystical experiences are stable, repeatable, valuable parts of the human experience and thus must form part of our world-view. The second thing is that no property of physical or psychonic matter accounts for the features of the mystical states. It is the Brahman/Atman theory which explains mystical experience, along with our experience of time, the unconsciousness of the unconscious, and the sole creativity of the present moment.
We must suppose the thing which experiences is not the mind after all, but the Atman, a droplet of Brahman. Brahman and Atman have none of the properties of physical and psychonic matter: no parts, no evolution, no internal structure. Atman merely takes on the states of other things, whether physical or psychonic matter. Since the incarnated Atman remains potentially identical to the non-incarnated Brahman, we must suppose that association with matter has no permanent effect on Brahman/Atman, which is thus unchangeable and thus immortal.
The mystical states have traditionally been extremely rare....which makes it easier for establishment theologians and pseudo-scientists or sophists to pass the whole thing off as pathological or metaphysical. Thus, the extreme importance of LSD. With LSD, one can virtually guarantee that persons over 40, who are mature, stable and evolved, who have practiced meditation for years will be able to experience Samadhi.
How is it possible for a chemical to produce a spiritual state? It doesn't. Neither do the starvation techniques of the early Christian anchorites, nor the physical and psychic exercises of ascetics. All these things, LSD included, can at most partially release the mind and Atman from the physical body, thus opening up the doors of perception, the other psychonic and mystical channels of experience. LSD accomplishes this physiologically by reducing the supply of blood sugar to the brain. But the content of the experience depends on what is in your mind and soul, not what is in the chemical, nor even what is in your brain.
The most open-minded work on the subject is that of Masters and Houston, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience, based on work with 206 volunteers in a non-clinical environment, done before the present religious persecution by the establishment. Every sort of known psychonic and mystical state can occur in the psychedelic state, and some previously unknown. Some of the experiences are symbolic rather than 'photographic' but all of it is reality-revealing and veridical if you know enough to recognize the category of each experience.
Masters and Houston divide the psychedelic experience along purely psychological grounds into four categories. Category one is the sensory level, which is the shallowest, earliest, or first level. This includes changes of body-image, synesthesia, various kinds of distortions of perception, and various vivid geometric shapes, seen especially with the eyes closed. The second stage is recollective-analytic and produces symbolic experiences serving the purpose of instant Freudian analysis (if one is not too dogmatic about Freud). The third stage is symbolic. Reincarnationist experiences are common at this level. It is also common to symbolically relive the great archetypes and myths of mankind, including those of ancient or oriental religions completely unknown to the conscious ego.
The fourth stage is integral, and leads still deeper into the collective unconscious to cosmic experiences (figs. 1, 18), such as being a galaxy and re-living its evolution or actively participating in the evolution of life. Other experiences on this level are ego-dissolution (the great void), the supernal light, and Samadhi.
ESP, HSP, and OOBEs, super-ESP, and reincarnationist memories occur on level two and three. How do we know these and other psychedelic experiences are not mere hallucinations? Masters and Houston are convinced at least of the veridical quality of the instant analysis that people received on the second level. And they give one instance of a verified and veridical OOBE, where the subject saw the France stuck in some ice floes in the North Atlantic. Really rigorous work on the veridicality of LSD experiences has not been done, and cannot be done as long as the present persecution persists. Still, these experiences are so remarkable and vivid and useful (when properly guided) that we must tentatively incorporate them into our world-view. Nothing in the LSD experience is totally new. Its main value is in making very rare experiences common property.
The other great spiritual study of psychedelic use is that of Carlos Castaneda, a UCLA anthropology student, who discipled himself to a Yaqui Brujo, Don Juan. Not only were his spiritual doors of perception opened, but so were his spiritual means of power and control. For instance, Don Juan taught Castaneda to apport and levitate with the aid of Jimson weed. This quote is from The teachings of Don Juan, pp. 127-8.
My legs were rubbery and long, extremely long. I took another step....and from there I soared. I remember coming down once; then I pushed up...and glided on my back. I saw the dark sky above me, and the clouds going by me. I jerked my body so I could look down. I saw the dark mass of the mountains. My speed was extraordinary....suddenly I knew it was time to come down...and I began descending like a feather with lateral motions....the next thing I remember is the feeling of waking up. I was in my bed in my own room. I sat up. And the image of my room dissolved. I stood up. I was naked! The motion of standing made me sick again. I recognized some of the landmarks. I was about half a mile from don Juan's house, near the place of his Datura plants.
Don Juan also taught Castaneda how to become a crow under the influence of a hallucinogenic mushroom mixture. Castaneda's description of the process of becoming a crow and flying and meeting some other crows is absolutely believable because it is so unexpected. It is not al all what one would invent. But how can one literally become a crow? It seems so impossible and unprecedented. Yet it is the psychonic body which gives structure to the body, not vice versa, and the world of psychonics responds to wish and magic symbol, providing ones spiritual doors of control are opened. The 8th Century Tibetan avatar Padma-Sambhava is alleged to have been able to change his shape. So perhaps it is not impossible, and as usual the psychedelic substance does not cause the result, it merely opens the doors that make it possible (if you know how).
The Brujos themselves could accomplish their incredible feats without the use of psychedelics. Like the psychic adepts of China and Tibet, they know the occult uses of the chakras. Don Juan and his fellow Brujo, Don Genaro, kept claiming that Castaneda was only using two of his chakras or 'points,' the one for feeling and the one for understanding (heart chakra and between-the-eyes chakra, perhaps), whereas they work out of the navel chakra, which the Golden Flower adepts call the place of power. Don Juan and Don Genaro tried to shock him out of his narrow confinement to understanding by presenting him with facts he couldn't rationally assimilate, such as a leaf falling three times in succession in exactly the same way, hitting exactly the same leaves. When that didn't work they tried more drastic methods. This quote is from A Separate Reality, p. 313.
'Look, little Carlos,' he said. 'Look! Look!' He made an extraordinarily sharp, swishing sound. It was the sound of something ripping. At the precise instant the sound happened, I felt a sensation of vacuity in my lower abdomen. It was the terribly anguishing sensation of falling, not painful, but rather unpleasant and consuming....But while the sensation lasted I experienced another unbelievable phenomenon. I saw don Genaro on top of some mountains that were perhaps ten miles away.
This 'ripping' was the opening of a gap in his place of power....something also described in THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. Karagulla's Diane describes 9 chakras, the Yaqui Brujos make use of 8 (calling them points or places), while the Oriental adepts of India, China and Tibet only make use of 7. From all three sources of information (and from Steiner), we learn that each chakra has its own specific forms of perception and control. If Western man has a cramped view of reality, it may be because we have for thousands of years confined ourselves to one or two of the 9 chakras.
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