Psychedelics affected Ram Dass brain making his full awakening more difficult

[Wind]

My friend shared this video with me yesterday which made me wonder.

In this segment, Ram Dass shares that he tried psychedelic path for 5 years and he mentions that he noticed that it affected his brain (building psychic toxicity in his medula) making his full awakening slower and harder at the advanced level.

"They don't allow you to become a possibility. They only show you the possibility"

What's your thoughts in this?

And any psychedelic neuroscientists here who could explain the function of medula and the potential relationship it has with the use of psychedelics?

[Consilience]

He used psychedelics exclusively during that time before traveling to India. I personally use psychedelics and meditate, A LOT. What Ive observed in my experience is that when I use both holistically, they feed off one another. Meditation has allowed me to go much deeper on psychedelics over time (sensitivity is increasing) while psychedelics have shown me how to take meditation to deeper levels. It’s been total synergy.

Perhaps when Im more “advanced” Ill walk away from psychedelics or realize they’ve been damaging me, but for now that’s not the case at all. If you’re literally only using psychedelics and that’s it (like Ram Dass) and you don’t have practices to ground and process the energy such as meditation or yoga, I could see how it could create issues.

As much as I love Ram Dass, I personally think he misunderstood where psychedelics holistically fit into the framework of awakening. It’s not binary. Use the practices to build off the other practices and don’t think of them as having to be black and white. 

[James123]

@Consilience@Wind  I believe, after the realization, taking psychedelics increase the ego, “ because of the idea that i exist within the body”. Psychedelics helps to improve you before awakening and after awakening, it is the ego that holds you back for further realizations or being in the moment. Because we are the moment. Nothing else.

Edited June 12, 2020 by James123

[WHO IS]

James123 Brosky, You think we are eternal? 

[Javfly33]

Or maybe it was precisely those trips which made possible his Awakening

[James123]

@WHO IS we are brother, and nothing or formless. Right in front of you in the moment. Because we are the moment,  which has no beginning and no end. Close your eyes, look down, up, right and left, it is you. Formless but aware.

Edited June 12, 2020 by James123

[Forestluv]

The medulla is a primordial brain stem involved in involuntary functions such as sneezing, vomiting, swallowing and cardiac function. I have not heard of any negative impact of psychedelics on the medulla and I have a hard time imagining how medulla function would interfere with having awakenings. 

My impression of Ram Dass is that he had extensive experience with psychedelics and he sincerely used psychedelics to expand his consciousness. However, I think Ram only explored one area of psychedelics and extrapolated his experience beyond his experience. For example, I have read Ram Dass explain how psychedelics induce a blissful state and how people who use psychedelics chase that blissful state. . . Those blissful states are certainly a realm of psychedelics and seeking those blissful states through psychedelics is certainly a dynamic. That’s not the problem. The problem is that Ram over-generalizes. He extrapolates his experience to be a greater-arching truth. He is not aware of what he never experienced with psychedelics. I think Ram makes a good point, yet it is one point. The problem is taking one point and extrapolating it to all points. 

Imagine living for five years deep in Peru. You explore all sorts of Peruvian aspects. Cuisine in Lima, Ayahuasca ceremonies, music, Incan culture, Macchu Picchu, Quechua culture, language dialects etc. You would have a good idea what Peru is like. The problem is if you believe that Peru is South America and extrapolating your experience in Peru as being true for all of S. America. A meta view would realize that Peru is within South America and is one aspect of South America. As well, a meta view would allow realization that my experience is limited to within Peru and there are aspects of South America that I did not explore. Without this meta view, the mind will be delusional that Peru is South America, make silly claims like South American music is centered around pan flutes and arguing about how Peru is South American with people that actually live in other countries of South America. 

Now imagine someone did psychedelics for years and were immersed in a dynamic of chasing blissful psychedelic experiences that became distractive to awakening. They may extrapolate that personal experience to be true of psychedelics. A meta view would see that they only explored a subset of psychedelic “territory”. This would most likely come from someone that has deeply explored another “territory” of psychedelics. Reaching this meta view requires holding one’s own view lightly, being open and curious - as well as having intuition and empathy for another. I’m curious what it would be like if I had a long conversation with Ram. We developed a strong connection regarding how psychedelics can lead to blissful state chasing and be a distraction (I have experience with this myself and I’m confident I could have connected with Ram on this). Yet then I start fluently describing psychedelic aspects outside of Ram’s experiential range. I’m curious if he would have been be open to it. 

[Display_Name]

I’d say it’s a possibility, and i’d say it’s possible a lasting sober awakening requires a sober breakthrough.

on the other hand, who’s he to say he would have fully awakened without those original psychedelics? i see a few guys who awakened dismiss their previous psychedelic use, but what if those early psychedelic breakthroughs laid the groundwork?

[Consilience]

Id like to point out that the distinction between sober vs tripping is imaginary. All form is awakening so... as long as one is separating and classifying some forms of reality as “ego” “not ego” “awake” “asleep” “tripping” “sober” you will be in delusion. Psychedelics are you. You are a trip. You are sobriety. You are reality in all its manifestations. Awakening is sober. Awakening is tripping. 

[Forestluv]

9 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Id like to point out that the distinction between sober vs tripping is imaginary. 

Yes. This is one of the areas Ram didn’t explore, realize or embody. 

One of my realizations on my first trip was that a “psychedelic mindset” is as real as a “sober mindset”. This allows viewing the “realness” and “imagination” in both. And allows the dissolution of distinctions between “psychedelic state” and “sober state”. . . Yet I commonly see people perceive a psychedelic-induced mindset as being hallucination, imaginary or not real like a sober mindset. This can be a conscious or subconscious belief. Even people that have tripped dozens of times still have it. And I can tell by reading Ram’s essays on psychedelics that he too still had the view that psychedelic-induced spaces are somehow “altered”,  “less real” or “not it” relative to sober spaces. 

[Nak Khid]

In my opinion psychedelics are a visionary trance state 
They are an additive state like rituals involving repetitive music and dancing , it has a physical dimension a sensory/perceptive stimulus. In this case a chemical stimulus 
The chemical has a physical effect on the brain which triggers a mental state (this is not to diminish the value of the experience) 
it's an additive state and that can be additive with sound (drums etc) and body movements, sensory  trance inducers

But it is antithetical to some forms of mediation (not all) which are a very reductive. removing stimulation  
to approach stillness, nothingness,  focusing on one point , or observing our distracting thoughts in removed way in order to not become attached to them and let them pass.  These forms of meditation are clearly not a visionary trance state although that occasionally may be experienced. 

there are additive states and subtractive states.

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Nak Khid

[Display_Name]

51 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Id like to point out that the distinction between sober vs tripping is imaginary. All form is awakening so... as long as one is separating and classifying some forms of reality as “ego” “not ego” “awake” “asleep” “tripping” “sober” you will be in delusion. Psychedelics are you. You are a trip. You are sobriety. You are reality in all its manifestations. Awakening is sober. Awakening is tripping. 

Of course. And yet from the accounts I've read the aftermath in daily life tends to be different. 

[Lyubov]

55 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Yes. This is one of the areas Ram didn’t explore, realize or embody. 

One of my realizations on my first trip was that a “psychedelic mindset” is as real as a “sober mindset”. This allows viewing the “realness” and “imagination” in both. And allows the dissolution of distinctions between “psychedelic state” and “sober state”. . . Yet I commonly see people perceive a psychedelic-induced mindset as being hallucination, imaginary or not real like a sober mindset. This can be a conscious or subconscious belief. Even people that have tripped dozens of times still have it. And I can tell by reading Ram’s essays on psychedelics that he too still had the view that psychedelic-induced spaces are somehow “altered”,  “less real” or “not it” relative to sober spaces. 

following this logic I don't see how one can not follow up and say there is no difference then between being awake vs unawake and thus there is no point in even seeking. Fundamentally what you saying there is truth to it... they all have the same foundation but you're overlooking the hierarchal necessity of discernment... so yes it is helpful and necessary to discern the psychedelic space from the sober/actualized state which we are trying to integrate these experiences into. from our relative normal grounded lives the psychedelic space is "more" hallucination and imaginary.

[Consilience]

@Lyubov After enough seeking this relativity dissolves. At least that’s been my experience. 

[Forestluv]

5 hours ago, Lyubov said:

following this logic I don't see how one can not follow up and say there is no difference then between being awake vs unawake and thus there is no point in even seeking.

It’s much more expansive than logic (yet includes logic). 

This is a great example in examine various states of consciousness. Notice how this discussion is dictated by a sober mind. Notice how a sober mind is creating constructs of logic, differences, awake, unaware and points of seeking. It gets super subtle, yet there is an assumption that this is “more real” or carries more weight than post-logical psychedelic spaces. The sober mind is creating “things” and definitions and subtly believing they are more real than psychedelic spaces.

Imagine the reverse. Imagine everyone’s “normal” mindset was psychedelic and post logical. Then someone created a substance that allowed for a temporary glimpse of a sober mind state and logic. Then it flipped back to a psychedelic mindset. The entire contextualization would be different. The context of your question would have no relevance and carry no weight. It would be extremely difficult to understand the logical concept you present. One would need to “sober trip” hundreds of times to begin to understand and embody what the sober minds assumes to be evident, relevant, logical and real. . . For me, I inadvertently took a monster dose my first trip and it shattered the foundation of sober realness. I can re-assemble aspects of it to function in life and communicate to others, yet the immersion into subconsciously believing sober is real was never fully re-established.

Another way of looking at it. Imagine that I am tripping balls right now and you just communicated what you wrote above to me. In this psychedelic state, it is received as “nonsense” (although there is no nonsense in this space). I then respond in a weird way that you perceive as psychedelic-induced nonsense. Why does your sober frame count as the real one? Why does your sober mindset get to set the framing and narrative? Why doesn’t the psychedelic mindset get to set the framing and narrative? . . . There is a bias here. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, right or wrong. There is just a bias toward a sober mindstate. If humans lived 99% of their life in a psychedelic mindset, there would be a psychedelic mindset. Yet again, even saying “bias” is a sober frame. The concept of bias wouldn’t even be relevant.

From a human perspective trying to imagine a trans-human psychedelic perspective, what you say is true. Not only is there no difference between being awake and unaware, the concepts of “awake” and “unawake” don’t have any relevance. It would be like saying there is no difference between creflit  and yeqbuv. . . .  “Awake” and “unawake” are human constructs. Humans have created it. At a human level, it has a lot of value since we live in a human-constructed reality. Yet utility and value of normal sober mind constructs does not mean they carry more weight or relevance, in spite of how much a self mind would like to claim so. 

Yes, there is no difference between “awake” and “unawake” and there is no point seeking “awake”, no more than there is a point to seeking “yeqbuv”. Further, there is no “seeker”, “seeking” or any thing to be “sought”. . . Yet there is a difference between awake and unawake and there is a point to seeking awake. . . Taken together, if you take a step toward awakening you fail. And if you don’t take a step toward awakening, you also fail. The good news is that you win either way as well. And this whole game only exists in which it exists. Without it’s creation, it’s all irrelevant. There is a dynamic between gredtoks and wuvbens regarding the attainment of clezfer. It is extremely important in this zone of consciousness. Yet it’s been a non-issue your entire life. It’s had zero relevance to you and it doesn’t matter wether you agree with the gredtoks or wuvbens. It doesn’t matter if you ever attain clezfer. For all you know, it’s something you should avoid. None of it matters, because you haven’t created it as mattering. 

5 hours ago, Lyubov said:

they all have the same foundation but you're overlooking the hierarchal necessity of discernment... so yes it is helpful and necessary to discern the psychedelic space from the sober/actualized state which we are trying to integrate these experiences into.

And who gets to create a “hierarchy necessity of discernment” and who decides that it has value? A “sober” mindset does. That is biased. This is part of narrative control for a sober mind. Ime, this is very difficulty to surrender and transcend, yet I was very fortunate that it was smashed to pieces my first trip - although I’ve had to work through the smashed pierces in all sorts of contexts.

And who gets to decide what is “helpful” or that there is even a thing called “helpful”? Who decides that there is value in integrating these psychedelic experiences into a sober mindset? This is simply one mindset that is controlling the narrative. Why isn’t it of higher value to integrate sober space experiences into a psychedelic mindset?

Before my first Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, I sat next to a guy who had done 50+ Ayahuasca ceremonies. I was feeling anxious and asked him all sorts of questions what “it” was like. What the Ayahuasca “reality out there” was like and how I can capture insights and integrate it into my life. At one point he said “The two worlds first appear as two worlds, yet they gradually move closer together until there is One world”. . . I sorta got what he was saying, but not really. This is a very advanced transcendent view expressed through a “sober state” mind. A common sober mindset is that there are two worlds: the psychedelic world and the sober world. And the mission is to enter the psychedelic world to get some goodies that will help us in the real sober world. This has relevance and importance at a personal/human level, yet not at a transcendent level. Yet to see this one must unconditionally surrender their personhood / human-ness and not try to later reclaim it. I have gone through this surrender many times, yet there is still the reclaiming of personhood / human-ness for several reasons.

5 hours ago, Lyubov said:

from our relative normal grounded lives the psychedelic space is "more" hallucination and imaginary.

Yes. And to venture where I’m pointing to, this must be let go of and surrendered. When one reaches the gate, they cannot enter carrying this bag. 

[Lyubov]

16 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

I have gone through this surrender many times, yet there is still the reclaiming of personhood / human-ness for several reasons.

I recall tripping hard once and it was maybe my third time having participated in an Ayahuasca ceremony. I remember the person next to me saw me freaking out and I remember telling them I thought I was trapped in this state forever and they said "you will come back, we always come back." These words touched me deeply at the time and gave me an insight which went beyond just the context of my body fulling metabolizing the DMT for the duration of the ceremony and allowed me to see the importance of letting go and the cycle of returning. Let's not forget human life is a balance of the physical and spiritual and the discernment of these states is often times a key tool in actually fully realizing truth is a joining them. 

[Inliytened1]

3 hours ago, James123 said:

@WHO IS we are brother, and nothing or formless. Right in front of you in the moment. Because we are the moment,  which has no beginning and no end. Close your eyes, look down, up, right and left, it is you. Formless but aware.

@James123 Indeed.  Infinity.

 

@WHO IS he has become it  - or that which he really is.  It is not a belief.  Becoming it and becoming conscious of it are identical because all there is is Consciousness.  Becoming conscious of it is becoming pure Consciousness.

[Forestluv]

I’m not directing these comments at you. It’s more like after reading your comments, these are the thoughts arising in my mind that I am processing. I appreciate your thoughts as they have provided grounding for me to explore thoughts and, in doing so, gain clarity.

4 hours ago, Lyubov said:

I recall tripping hard once and it was maybe my third time having participated in an Ayahuasca ceremony. I remember the person next to me saw me freaking out and I remember telling them I thought I was trapped in this state forever and they said "you will come back, we always come back." 

I can relate to this space. The space of not knowing if I will ever come back this time. Being trapped in that space is what I would describe as an insanity zone.

4 hours ago, Lyubov said:

and allowed me to see the importance of letting go and the cycle of returning. Let's not forget human life is a balance of the physical and spiritual and the discernment of these states is often times a key tool in actually fully realizing truth is a joining them. 

I’m not saying this is wrong, yet notice how the mind creates and controls the narrative. In this case, “There is importance in letting go and a cycle of returning”. Who/what is this important to? Who/what finds it important to ‘return’. . . 

4 hours ago, Lyubov said:

Let's not forget human life is a balance of the physical and spiritual and the discernment of these states is often times a key tool in actually fully realizing truth is a joining them. 

To me, this is a nice poetic creation that has spiritual value. 

This is just what comes up for me: I try to be mindful if the energetic orientation is from a transcendent source or if it’s coming from a well-intentioned self trying to control the Internal narrative of what IS (or a combination). I’m not saying it is wrong or lacks value. . . . I’ve been in spaces in which my mind thinks in terms of “discernment” as a way to maintain control. A question I ask is “Who wants to do the discerning and why does it want to discern?”. The deeper answer for me is not intellectual. There are many sneaky intellectual tricks my mind plays. 

I see a lot of value in discernment as you describe and I’ve tried to grow in the area and I speak of it’s importance. There is also a space free of all ideas, experiences and discernments of which, and in which, all ideas, experiences and discernments are created. 

[Dodo]

Those who take psychedelics will all deny this. Because it has been said it's like a magic pill for enlightenment. If you say it's actually hurting their progress, now they would feel they are at ground zero and no progress has been made towards Enlightenment  

If you take the magic pill away, then they have to be a beginner again, just like everybody else... 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Dodo

[Consilience]

@Serotoninluv

Amazing analysis, thank you for taking the time to write your posts up. Seems like a true stage yellow/turquoise perspective!