Philosophy of Life

How to Have a Spiritual Experience with Weed?

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One of the reasons it seems that people like to take drugs, is to escape from the norm of your everyday mind, problems, society, etc. Sometimes, it shuts the constant chatter of your brain down or you feel more creative or other times, you do just feel like a complete idiot while high. Drugs have also been used for centuries in all sorts of religious and spiritual ceremonies, in order to achieve a certain experience, feel closer to ‘God’, or a variety of other reasons (both positive and negative). Now, the question begs, can you have a spiritual experience spurred on by drugs? Specifically, can marijuana generate an enlightened state?

Let me start out by stating that I do believe that certain psychedelic drugs can can take you into a space, that allows you to question, realize, and get a peak into a different interpretation of reality.

People have commented, that through drugs such as LSD, mushrooms, DMT, and the like; that they had life-altering experiences. Indeed, these trips could be classified as ‘spiritual’ in nature.

I too, have had amazing and really blissful states, that I got to through meditation and readings on philosophy/non-duality.

I’ve never done the aforementioned drugs, but I have smoked marijuana probably a dozen or more times in my life, and I never had a really profound experience while on it.

Not that it particularly matters, as if you read my other post, “How to Have a Spiritual Experience”…you will see that I don’t put much stock into these experiences, as they aren’t the end game and are often short-lived.

What about Weed?

Different drugs I’ve taken in my life, have obviously given me different experiences:

Ecstasy, made me feel a lot of joy for a night, during a time in my life when I was in a really depressed state and not yet ‘awakened’. It was more of a group experience, overall, with that drug.

Though, later in life, I really did achieve the same feeling of bliss/oneness, with only meditation and inquiry. This is without having to ingest, whatever extra chemicals, the drug dealers decided to add to the base MDMA.

Even my trials with 5-HTP, produced a lower level of this upbeat and positive flood of emotions.

Cocaine, was just awful. I did it once and never felt so supremely paranoid and egoic in my entire existence…not something the depressed version of myself needed. I don’t get the appeal of this drug at all. Maybe I’m not wired for it? However, I for one, think it sucks.

 

Marijuana Early Experiences vs. Present Useage

Marijuana, on the other hand, I enjoyed smoking. It didn’t give me a spiritual experience but what it did do was to allow me to feel de-personalization. These were some of my initial experiences with the ‘illusion of the self’, so to speak.

Like, for some of the first times in my life, I had experienced no thoughts rushing through my head. I felt like, I was nothing more than an observer in my own body. Just pure awareness.

Of course, that was only when I was sitting by myself after smoking. Once I started talking to other people, I felt much more of my normal experience of reality, at that time.


However, it wasn’t enough to have a spiritual breakthrough or anything like that…I didn’t have the tools at the time to make anything come from it.

Anyways, experiencing ‘no-mind’ is really more of a symptom (or a clue) of awakening, and lots of people would find that depersonalized state scary or confusing. Some folks, freak out on pot.

Recent Experiences…

Now that I’ve gone pretty deep with the meditation, non-duality, and have had the intense ‘spiritual’ experiences; being ‘awake’ is just sort of my default existence.

This state isn’t a perpetual bliss. There are days where that occurs, but most days are pretty mundane. Sorry to disappoint. We still have to exist within the context of the society we live in, with our biological needs/limitations, while being a part of the ‘universal’ perspective. This balancing act, really confuses a lot of people.

Anyway, my more recent experiences, have come in the form of edibles. When I have visited the states where it is legal, in the Western US, I always buy some marijuana gummies.

These gummies, along with the awakening to non-duality, do tend to produce a very close approximation to the more intense ‘spiritual experiences, I’ve had. They supply the physical/mental stimulation component, while I just sit back as pure awareness.

It’s cool. Definitely a fun thing to do on vacation. Book a tour, get taken to see nature, while in a completely blissed out state? Yes, sir.

Keep in mind, this is small doses of 5-10 mg, and not being blazed out of my mind.

Still, it doesn’t ‘reveal’ anything that I already don’t already fundamentally experience daily. Just adds an enjoyable physical component.

 

Final Thoughts…Will Weed Give One a Spiritual Awakening?

Weed definitely isn’t a requirement for any of these experiences and trying to chase a spiritual high, again isn’t an end goal…you will end up just chasing those experiences more and more, instead of just being content with what is.

No-mind can also happen, on a more biological level through sex. This is one of its appeals for people, even for those who are seeking anything. For a time, it’s forgetting all the rest of what is happening in one’s life.

Also, I’ve noticed it when I’ve been really sick, and the disorientation of nausea and vomiting creates an interesting (if physically unpleasant) state; where I’m just operating on pure biological reaction without thought. Same thing, just on the perceived negative side.

So, all in all, I wouldn’t say that marijuana is a good way to have a ‘spiritual experience’ or reach ‘enlightenment’. Those sorts of states just seem to happen at random for me, and any time that I used to make a concerted effort to get there, it would fail.

That kind of experience is really just like having your awareness be more open. Like, if normally the door of experience was only open a crack, and then it became wide open for a full glimpse. It’s certainly cool but it isn’t practical (or maybe even possible) to stay that way forever.

 

 

Can You Become Enlightened without Meditation?

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The concept of enlightenment has become so bogged down in so many different theories, practices, and ideas that it’s almost become pointless to use. It can conjure up images of some peaceful man from the far east who has transcended all of the world’s problems, who meditates for hours a day, and generally never suffers from the usual things that people have problems with. Then, people begin to think, “Well, he is meditating, that must be the secret to become enlightened.” When in fact, the awakening or seeing through the illusion of the separate self, has nothing really to do with meditation as such. Meditation is merely a tool to help one along the path.

 

Do You Need to Meditate to Become Awakened?

Theoretically, no. However, meditation is a very useful tool that can be used to quiet the mind just enough to start to question the concept of the ‘I’. You don’t need to meditate to start to see through the illusion of the separate self, but it certainly can help.

I meditate almost everyday, as it helps me to shrug off any conditioning that may be starting to creep up from having to interact with society as a whole. In the early stages of my change, I found it more necessary to meditate everyday, and sometimes multiple times each day.

The reason for this was that I had a difficult time quieting the mind enough so that I could do inquiry into figuring out what was ‘real’ and what wasn’t. Also, I had several really amazing feeling experiences through meditation. These blissful experiences that would last for a week or so, acted sort of like a drug or an end result, that I would continually chase. If I got there through meditation, I wanted to do more and more, to get back to feeling that way. Hence, I was resisting the moment as it is, and trying to get somewhere (blissful state), when I should have just let go and allowed whatever was arising to arise on its own (whether it felt good, bad, or neutral…which are also just judgments).

 

Should You Still Meditate, Then?

That’s up to each individual. It’s still good for the stress of interacting with the modern world, which is definitely controlled more by the egoic mind. Like reading books or listening to talks, meditation can help point you in the right direction but it will ultimately come down to the individual surrendering to each moment as it arises. Meditation is a very good way to get in touch with the now and as such will be a good idea for most people to use, at least for a while. I have noticed that I can slip into the now or a state of no thought, almost automatically at this point. I can also choose to play ‘my character’ and go through each day within society, as that role requires of me, and like a costume I can slip it off without any real identification of it as ‘who I am’.

I certainly stay away from meditation as a religious pursuit or in order to become more spiritual, whatever that means. Lighting candles or going through some ceremony, just seems pointless and like a lot of window dressing for nothing. I don’t need to become a monk, buy power crystals, follow a guru, or anything else along those lines. That path leads to too much doctrine and its own cottage industry to keep you chasing some vague notion of enlightenment. Everything is right here in this moment, as it needs to be, your job is to simply recognize it.

 

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How to Read More Books

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I used to read a lot of books back when I was an elementary school student. Almost every weekend, my mother would take me to the local library and I’d pick out a new stack of random stuff to read. However, this habit began to tail off towards middle school and completely evaporated until my senior year of high school, when I started reading again on a regular basis. In the ensuing 11 years or so, I have probably read something everyday, whether it be at least a few pages of a book or some lengthy article and in the process made my way through hundreds (if not, over a thousand) of books. Whenever I divulge my reading habits to people in my personal life, I usually get asked not only what I read but how I manage to find the time to read…and how they can, “Read more books” or even, “read a book a day”. Well, with that in mind let’s see if we can’t tackle this issue for all you current non-readers out there.

 

Decide What You Want to Read

The simple advice is to just grab a book and get to it. The problem with that method is that most people don’t have the patience or mental muscles developed in order to just hop right into a regular reading program. People get bored, they get lazy, and they don’t know how to counteract these effects. In a very real sense, boredom arises when you’d rather be somewhere else than in the present moment. If you don’t want to be reading because you’re bored while reading, how are you going to make it a habit that sticks?

As such, I would recommend that you start by choosing a topic that you actually are interested in and reading about that. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, this phase is simply about establishing the habit of reading on a daily basis. You can read books on sports, sex, humor…whatever it may be that can keep your attention for at least a while. Once you’ve developed the reading habit, you can move on to more academic works.

OK, once you have your topic selected, go to Amazon.com and open an account if you don’t already have one (it’s free). Then search in the books category for your topic. Find popular books, one’s that look interesting, or have lots of positive reviews…use the button at the top of the page to add books to your wish list…there will be a big button that says ‘add to list’. Find 10 books to put on your list, that look interesting enough to read.

There you go, now you know exactly what to read. We still need to solve the how aspect of the equation but at least we have a list to work from. The beauty of creating lists on Amazon, is that it not only gives you a clear path of what to read but also suggests books for you to read in the future, thus creating a self-fulfilling cycle.

Find the Books

Obviously, the easiest way to get started is to order the books off of Amazon, especially in Kindle format as you can get started right away. Not only that, the Kindle app can be downloaded on any mobile device which will allow you to steal more reading time, wherever you might be…you can always carry a book with you.

Now, money might be a concern for some people reading this. I don’t really give myself a budget for reading, like I do with other expenditures in my life, as I consider it an ongoing investment. If I never started my reading habit, I wouldn’t have anything in my life that I currently have…from my life’s perspective to my income. BUT since you might not have the means or the same philosophy, we can either finds used copies on Amazon for cheap or hit up your local library.

One cool method is that if you live close to a university, you can usually donate a small fee to them each year and check out as many books as you like, just as if you were a student there. University libraries are generally the best since they will usually have a better selection than some local city or county branch.

Forming the Habit

Once you’ve gotten at least one of these books in your possession, let’s get crackin’. Developing a habit is like weight lifting, in that, if you overburden yourself right off the bat, you’ll probably stop doing it. Don’t go for volume right off the bat, just get over the hurdle of stringing together consecutive days.

How much time you spending reading each day at first, depends on your schedule and attention span obviously. Break things down as far as you need to take them…if you can only do 10 minutes, then do those 10 minutes to the best of your ability. Shut off everything else and pour your focus onto the book for 10 minutes and then be done for the day. Do this for a week, then the next week, bump things up to 20 minutes…break it up into two 10 minutes sessions if you must.

Yes, if you’re at this very low level of attention span currently, you aren’t going to read very much in terms of volume those first weeks. However, you are making this daily reading time quite routine and easily expandable. Each week bump it up to more time, splitting it into one longer session or multiple reading times, until you hit your key number for the week.

If you can read 50 pages on average in an hour (depends wholly on the book, some books require lots of attention and may only get through 30 pages in an hour) and you read an hour each day, then you should average roughly a 350 page book per week. That’s a pretty damn good number to hit.

Remember when I wrote that you can download the Kindle app on any device? Yeah, well, do that. If the book you’re reading is a physical copy, then try to take that with you where ever you go each day. It’s just much more convenient to pick up your phone or other device and read, then carrying around an actual book. Now, whenever you get a moment throughout the day, pick up a book and start reading. Lunch break? Read some pages. Standing in line? Read some pages!

I used to download free audio books from librivox.org (they only have books that are in the public domain and no longer in copyright) and listen to these books while walking to class, sitting at my desk at work and while on the treadmill. Audio books like these are a great way to get through a ton of books fast, as you can speed up the playback to 1.5-1.7x and still absorb all of the information. When I was doing this, I could sometimes add up to 3-4 audio books a week to the two or three I’d still read each week. Yes, I was at a book a day for months, years back…that was a crazy growth period.

These little moments you can read 1-2 pages start to add up and can add multiple books a year to your total and instill the reading habit within you.

Reading 100 books each year

To read 100 books per year, you will have to read 2 books per week, which is doable. Last week, I read a book on Financial Statements and Waking Up by Sam Harris and The Empty Boat by Osho. Now, those aren’t the only three books that I read from, just the three that I finished completely. All told those three were probably 700-800 pages total in length. I probably was reading 2-3 hours each day on average.

Continuing that pace, 100 books each year should be no problem for many people. Keep in mind though, that the total number doesn’t matter. You can probably fly through tons of short novels or get bogged down in a philosophy or history text for a longer period of time. Either option may be a worthwhile endeavor but may produce huge differences in the ‘number of books read’ and the usefulness of the information obtained. Reading for education is a different animal than reading for pleasure.

So, how you read 100 books in a year is to simply ratchet up the reading to somewhere between 2-4 hours a day. If you can stay on the same topic for an entire year, you’ll be one well educated mofo. Also, try utilizing the audio book habit I’ve already described, it’s an easy way to get through the classics of the world while going about your day.

How to Read More than One Book at Once

Reading more than one book at the same time isn’t really all that difficult. In fact, it’s my preferred method for getting through my list. My mind can jump all over the place in terms of its interests, so reading only one book straight through doesn’t conform to how my brain works. If your brain can focus straight through, then it might be optimal for you to take it one by one and ignore trying to read multiple books.

Now, what I do, is to always have multiple books on different subjects to choose from. This keeps me from getting confused and mixing concepts up. For instance, as I mentioned above, I read a book on financial statements last week. This is a part of my effort to learn in depth about accounting, finance, real estate, etc. BUT of course, my brain is all over the place and would get extensively bored/drained reading about that stuff one after another without any counterweight.

So, each week I am reading at least one book on finance (sometimes two) and at least one book on any other topic that may interest me. So far, it’s been meditation/philosophy, novels, history. I read from two separate books each day and actually do still manage to get plenty of reading done. Since the finance can be really number intensive and I’m terrible with math, the other topic I’m reading gives my brain a break, and actually feels much more refreshing than having to study.

OK, so this has given you a simple overview of how to read more books each year. I find that it’s best if you have some kind of list to work from and then just slowly add more reading time each day or other random books. Once you’ve gotten the habit of reading down, you can add as much intensity as you want to. There have been times, I was reading a book each day with the supplement of audio books while at work or the gym.There was also a time (when I was unemployed and in school) where I’d read 6-8+ hours each day. These times were very beneficial but I always needed to cycle off of that schedule after a few months. Your brain will need a break and it is actually more beneficial to just pull things way back and not try to have an insane pace…plus, you might want to have an actual life at some point too.

 

 

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How to Have a Spiritual Experience

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There is this popular idea within culture that sometimes people must undergo some sort of enlightening experience or a so called spiritual awakening. Some people seek to do this with drugs while others want to discover a process that can be followed without drugs to reach some ultimate enlightenment. In either case, they want to fully encounter all of the blissful symptoms and keen awareness that is supposed to come along with such an experience. So the question begs, how does one have a spiritual awakening? How do we reach enlightenment? I want to use this post to touch a bit on this topic using my own experiences and ideas.

 

Why Do You Need a Spiritual Awakening?

We have all undoubtedly heard stories of those who have had some sort of awakening experience or have reached an enlightened state of being, suddenly. However, what we also tend not to hear about is that a sudden and overwhelming experience is not necessary to go through, and often times it can be short lived.

I, personally, have felt short term experiences which allowed me to feel as if I was in a state of bliss (that’s the best word to describe it). All of them lasted a week or less and were ‘achieved’ without drugs. While these experiences felt important at the time, and allowed me to dig deeper into trying to crack the code of making that feeling permanent, they weren’t necessary to experience the truth of each moment.

What do we need to awaken to? This is the question I want to ask to you. If we assume that we need to experience profound and almost drug-like experience, in order to become enlightened or feel at peace or whatever. Then, we have set a goal that we must work to reach. We have to undergo a process of becoming something or learning how to trigger the experience that we wish to feel. As spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Nirmala are fond of asking in their own ways, “Is there something wrong with this moment?”

Why are we chasing the experience itself instead of becoming centered with the moment and allowing it to be as it is? Are we simply in love with the process of working towards it? Do we just want to experience the symptoms of an awakening and escape the seemingly mundane tasks of everyday life?

When we put forth the goal of achieving spiritual enlightenment, it immediately sends this achievement off into the future. Who knows whether or not we can ever reach this lofty ideal BUT it does take our awareness off of the present moment. This creates the thought that we cannot achieve some inner peace or stillness until that unknown date in the future. The reality of our experiences is set in this moment and this is how you get to some understanding of what is true.

Seems boring, right? What if you’re looking around and you don’t see anything going on around you? Or what if you’re looking around at a busy street and seeing everyone moving rapidly and lost in their own thoughts? Our mental conditioning wants something to happen, we want to be stimulated, and have some completely divine experience. It doesn’t always work out that way, and it is more of an allowing of things to be, rather than trying to force something memorable to occur.

Besides, in wanting a memorable experience, what are we really after? An actual transformation or something that is more ethereal and overwhelming? Do we want a memory of our spiritual transformation, which we can play back again and again in our minds as if it were a favorite film? Memories are highly edited versions of what has occurred (or what we think has occurred) in the past and each time that you play back the memory, it may get further and further from the truth of the experience.

Each successive moment is another opportunity to get sucked back into our conditioning and lose touch with awareness. That isn’t to say that our awareness or our being ever disappears, but we can become almost unconscious to its presence at times.  As such, each moment is also an opportunity to increase our awareness and get in touch with the truth.

Getting in touch doesn’t need to be going into some deep meditative trance, rather, it can simply be an awareness of any sensory inputs, emotions, thoughts, or any other feelings one may be having in the moment. The goal isn’t to become free of thought or free of emotions but instead allow them to be, observe and bring awareness to them, and ultimately let them go.

For example, if a feeling of anger arises do not become identified with that feeling as if it is you. Allow the anger to be, feel it, and question what that feeling is? Why did it arise? Is what triggered this feeling, actually a big deal? Is it simply a reaction of the ego? Does this rage ultimately matter? It does not, it is just passing through, and the anger can only set up camp in your mind/body if you let it.

Living in the Ether versus the Real World

Just because we have an awakening, doesn’t mean we can neglect the reality of our life situation. Could you imagine what would happen if everyone went and lived the life of a monk? What would get done? How would society function? Would people have to abstain from sex, in order to meet some ascetic ideal? Would that be the end of the species?

It is simply not practical for our survival, to sit around meditating and chanting all day, in order to reach some enlightened realm. I also feel, that this  scenario or something equally nonsensical like people expecting to become awakened and have some super powers as a result, just isn’t realistic. Food still has to be grown, life still has to be created, and jobs still need to be done in order to keep everything running in our society. Enlightenment isn’t some woo-woo esoteric type of thing, which requires you to purchase endless training and ‘power crystals’.

The ‘truth’ as so far as it lies in each moment is gained by bringing our awareness to each moment. Sometimes, this process is effortless, it just happens while you’re in sort of a flow state. Other times, your senses are overwhelmed with the massive information influx of your day to day life and it takes a concerted effort to peel back the layers of noise and allowing your awareness of each moment to take over. We can get caught up in the extremes of life but becoming aware and present is the way to snap back towards the center of experience.

 

Emptiness, Being, and Nihilism

Also note that, this process can be scary for some people because it rids them of their identity and makes them recognize that they are not truly their bodies, their job titles, their family names, etc. and instead are fundamentally an awareness. Delving into each moment in this way, can make it seem as if the world/your mind is truly empty, which can lead some down the path of nihilism or avoidance of experiencing these moments all together.

That’s a short-sighted approach to take, I’ve learned. Just because you search for the ‘truth’ or some meaning you can prescribe to human experience and all you find instead is an empty ‘awareness’ doesn’t mean that it was a fruitless journey. That emptiness contains nothing yet it is still something, its a space that is fundamental to the universe as a whole, which is rather beautiful in a way and speaks to a oneness that connects everything.

If this direct sensory experience is all we currently have, then why not make it as fun and enjoyable as possible? Accepting the moment doesn’t mean you have to accept life as it currently is…life is always fundamentally changing, so it never is the same in the first place. Things may not be ideal and the ideal is never what we expect it to be but we can still bring our awareness to the moment, give it space to be, even when the moment isn’t what we currently want to be doing.

How to Become Present

Allowing yourself to become present to the moment is a matter of allowing your awareness to be focused upon the moment. An easy way to begin is through the use of your physical senses first, before moving on to thoughts. The world around you is processed as information through your various nerve endings and into your brain. Pay attention to this information. Thought can often get muddled together with this information because of our past interpretations of the information which our senses brought in. A thought or memory can then be replayed, and seem as if it is real, even though it is simply a concoction of old data we’ve collected about the world.

What do you see around you? You don’t need to label it or make any judgments about it, just observe the visual sensations that your eyes are taking in.  Recognize that even when the room appears to be stagnant, things are constantly changing on a molecular level and in each passing moment, the room is fundamentally not the same as it previously was. Our eyes aren’t so finely tuned as to be able to pick up changes on the molecular or atomic levels or even with certain changes in the light.

Sound is another experience which we can bring our attention to next. It can be one of the most distracting of the senses and for that reason is why so many like to meditate in a silent room or with some background music, so that they are able to focus and not be constantly distracted by jarring noises. Becoming aware and present to the moment doesn’t require specialized auditory conditions. In fact, simply surrendering to the various sounds and noises of your environment is often enough to become present to the moment.

Through the use of tools such as meditation, we can simply allow the moment to be as it is, and develop a greater and greater skill at allowing this to happen until it becomes almost effortless. The mind is full of chatter and beginning meditation practitioners may notice that it takes them a long time into their session to stop getting sucked into each thought as it comes about. That’s okay, it still happens to me too, the key is to stick with it and allow that silent awareness to come into focus.

 

 

Shifting awareness levels

A favorite thought experiment of mine has been to view my experience with the world as being sort of like a microscope. I can magnify my attention and awareness on certain things or I can zoom out or indeed even back away from the microscope completely. Being in a highly magnified state, so to speak, can be great for working on an individual project but it can also easily become a negative when we begin to identify with our thoughts or become completely egoic or lose ourselves from the bigger picture of our lives.

On the flip side, stepping away from the microscope and taking on a ‘universal’ perspective can be great for becoming aware of the ‘oneness’ of life and how small we are as individuals compared to the larger configuration BUT it isn’t so good for tackling practical day to day matters…which are a fact of our modern lives. The ‘spiritual awakening’ which many people have experienced occurs on this level of thought and like so many other things can become addicting to want to stay on this level constantly. However, time still marches forward and as a practical matter, it isn’t always beneficial to stay at this level of awareness.

We still have biological and societal needs that are required for keeping the human experience going. One doesn’t have to take our daily tasks as a super serious affair, rather, we can allow ourselves to experience each successive moment without labeling it our creating an overall narrative about it. Whether a man works in an office or on an oil rig, he can do the physical and mental tasks which his life circumstances currently require, without creating an identity around it and putting it all aside when the tasks are complete.

I have found that in my own life, there needs to be some sort of balance between the interplay of my societal tasks/duties, my biological underpinnings, and having the conscious awareness to recognize the shortness of it all. It’s this balancing act that has made my life so much more enjoyable over the past 5-6 years. I’m not stuck in the pure societal mindset that had me feeling lost, depressed, unable to enjoy my work, etc. I’m not falling into the pure biological either, though I still enjoy sex, food, and the like…it doesn’t keep me in a never ending cycle of more and more. At the same time, I haven’t had to follow the teaching of some yogi, attend seminars, go meditate in the mountains in some pursuit of truth…it’s right here, whenever I’m ready to face it. Wouldn’t it be a sad fact for humanity if this so-called enlightenment was only available to the rich and leisured classes? I don’t want to be pulled to far into either direction and spend my life chasing something that isn’t really there. I want to enjoy this life for whatever it is and for however long I am allowed to. That’s it and that’s my truth of a spiritual experience.

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