More and more people in this generation are resorting to drugs to fulfil their pleasures, or are they running away from reality? Why do movie stars like Lindsay Lohan get involve in drugs at such a young age? Is there really a connection between drugs and spirituality.
According to this Q&A (http://www.laitman.com/2008/07/drugs-have-no-connection-with-the-attainment-of-the-upper-world/) which I read, it says taking drugs and getting a high have nothing to do with achieving a higher standing of the world (spirituality). And I agree with him. Taking drugs is indeed running away from current corporeal problems. Some turn to drugs when they could not find an easy solution to their problems. But what help can drugs give them, besides getting high on it? The only way to solving life’s problems is to face it. To face it does not mean to just face it, it means to strive for a higher level of understanding of nature, why are we here? Once we know the purpose of our existence, we will surely know the reasons for all the problems that we face, most certainly we will understand the problems humanity face. That higher understanding will be infinitely better than getting high on drugs!
So he says it and you agree. I guess that makes it fact. Have you ever taken a handfull of LSD and gotten lost in your own house for 3 days? That shit will bring you closer to the lord.
I’ve not used any drug, including alcohol, in about a year; but I will in maybe two weeks time (if God wills it). I certainly can not be accused of “running away from current corporeal problems.” I intend to render down/vomit up/toss in the air and look at again afresh a whole year’s worth of thinking and conviction. This is to me the most magical/horrible thing about this sort of drug, to see things with some kind of detachment. A few years ago on using drugs, sitting on a balcony, the first time using drugs in about two years, I reflected on the past year deeply and could not believe it was I who did all those things. I can’t or don’t care to put this to you more exactly now, but I’d say a person almost has a responsibility to melt down their existence at least once to know what it is all about, and then decide. No one knows who has not been there. Sir, have you used the drug?
I agree with both i did mushrooms around 15 times and acid 1, after that i realized i was abusing it and doing it just for the wrong reasons, jean puts it wonderfully, everyone should do it once (if there ready) and reflect in that state of altered conciousness, I have lost my ego and identity completely before, and that changed my life from superficial and shallow, to deep and meaningful, i wouldnt change if i could.
all drugs are not the same my friend and lumping them all together ruins any argument about them. can drugs be used to escape life’s problems? yes, alcohol, opiates, definetly and most of the people who have “drug problems” are using them this way. if you use a drug to try to solve problems in your life then you also have a drug problem.
but there are other drugs that can be used to in more helpful ways. i see marijuana as a medicine and gift from nature. it can’t be used to escape your problems, but can put you in a better state of mind to help deal with them. I
psychelics (LSD, mushrooms, etc.) are a whole different story. they can, as you say, bring one to a higher understanding of life, although I don’t really like that wording. i would say that then can give you a different and possibly enlightening perspective on life that could also be achieved by more natual ways such as meditation or spiritual practice (although personally I find the drugs to be much better tools) they can also cause you to lose your mind. that’s the gamble you know going in, not for everybody.
I’ve done about all the standard drugs. Extensivley. I can’t even get to that point you’re describing anymore. It’s more like I live in that state all the time, and there’s nothing special or enlightening about it. I just do what I do, and as long as I’m happy and not feeding off others then I don’t see the problem.
I’ve used and abused about every “recreational drug” there is and i find that drugs in general cloud judgment, impair motor function, suppress ones sense of self, inhibit ambition and foster a detached almost instinctual auto-pilot like response to most situations. Drugs hinder your ability to think clearly and as such to say that one attains a higher understanding of life when on drugs is just plain wrong. Most apparantly significant or enlightening musings that people come to on drugs are merely misunderstandings and i would assume they are partly a product of the decreased capacity for engaging critical enquirey and focus that follows drug use.
There is an exception though. In becoming aware of the negative and positiive aspects of drug use, you can get a sense of how frail your consciousness is and how easily it can be suppressed.Of course that awareness has little utility other than supporting a decision to not use the drugs.
I had alot of experiance with weed and find that stimulating conversation, even more so, the will to converse tends to dissapear about 5-10 minutes after a joint. It turns people into sleepwalkers, they’re there but they are not there.
Hallucinagenics have less dramatic effects in terms of limiting the capacity to think clearly but can still produce a sort of overwhelming feeling of euphoria and also fosters a detached or suppressed psyche.
All in all drugs are bad um kay, when you need to think clearly .
screw the nay-sayers. drugs = an experience, whether good or bad an experience nonetheless, and if the individual is of sufficient mental capabilities then all expereinces are worthwhile. And mushrooms are certainly a worthwhile experience.
Fact: I know a thousand times more about the Self thanks to taking drugs. What does that mean? Well for starters, I can now understand much of Thus Spoke Zarathustra completely in-depth. If that’s not a sign of enlightenment then I don’t know what is.
Taking drugs are fine if you choose but, it is a temporary enlightenment for those that abuse it. If you do it correctly you might retain some insight. Otherwise just overcome the blocks using your own clean self.
to be honest I’d take superficial and shallow any time.
In fact my view is that life is a simply series of shifting shapes and shadows with a search for deeper or higher meanings one of the most banal of them! I think Nietzsche was dead to rights on that one!
[i]
Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us–or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem?[/i]
If we begin with the thesis that being is fundamentally pure multiplicity, including infinite chains of multiplicities, and if we consider that the most formalized, most complete framework of axioms of the multiple today is set theory, then why not examine set theory, axiom by axiom? What do those axioms say about being qua being? The mathematician doesn’t need to ask himself this kind of question. He can be an ontologist without knowing it.
(unfortunately Badiou immediately ruins things for me with his arbitrary introduction of four classes of big irruptions from this basic multiple being that he classes as events! i don’t see why these are needed aside from him being a sentimental old Maoist…)
As for drugs they can certainly reveal new and interesting shapes and shadows and they have their place in the scheme of things. I kinda have a preference for ones that work well in the context of communal celebration - e.g. “E” at raves as opposed to the drugs of miserable individualists (higher/deeper truth seekers no doubt) - cocaine being the obvious one!
I agree with pretty much all of that, i’d add two points… the detatchment is from mind and emotion hence the ‘numbness’ you experience. The second point is, if you spend all of your time thinking, then you have no time doing…
I thought there were certain American Indians that used to, perhaps still do, take mescaline as part of a religious ritual intended precisely to bring enlightenment.
Recreational drugs are currently not popular. IMHO, I think we’re going through a relatively anti-drug, including alcohol and tobacco, period. I don’t think there’s anything ‘profound’ about the sentiments being expressed in our current anti-drug times.
Personally, I don’t see anything written in the sky about this stuff. I think allot of it is cultural fluctuations in attitudes over time.
I think the meaning of anything we do is largely prescribed. Some speak of running a marathon almost as a religious experience… perhaps it is. Certainly it can be if they make it one.
Read Aldous Huxley’s two small books, usually printed together, on this matter–“The Doors of Perception” (A quote from Blake) and “Heaven and Hell” These describe first-hand mecaline experiences. As for me, my brain can get to those heavens and hells on its own chemistry.
Does drugs bring us to a higher understanding of life or does it just make us really fucked up in the head confusing a rock in the woods as purple marmalade for instance. What a brilliant discussion we have going on here…
