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Using Drugs For Spiritual Fulfillment
Is it ethical or necessary to use Drugs for Spiritual Fulfillment?
Is it ethical or necessary, no certainly not. However I have found using certain soft drugs can open you mind up to ways of thinking that are beneficial to spiritual advancement. I understand this is a controversial stance as the drug may be illegal, such as Marijuana. However I think because of the media and government hype this drug has been received unfairly.
For example native american indians used marijuana for spiritual things. Peoples in south America even use the cocoa plant in everyday situations without serious side effects. It is when you abuse the drug that problems arise.
Spiritual fulfilment no, if you are not spiritually fulfilled without any kind of drug then there is something wrong. I am simply saying drugs such as marijuana can open up certain doors within your understanding that you would not normally have found. While you are altering your reality to obtain some other understanding. So to are you stepping outside reality when you believe in anything without proof.
This said it is not for everyone. Many people when using a drug as this have a very different experience that others. Myself personally, I find it relaxing from time to time to smoke it. Again I am not saying it is for everyone and that it is a drug that should be used every day. However in my experience using it in the right context will open the mind to a part of reality that can be spiritually beneficial. Edited: Oliron on 12th May, 2010 - 8:25pm
I only had one experience with the substance mentioned above, in baked goods format, as I have a personal thing against smoking of any kind, and it "altered my state of consciousness" for over a full day, with me sleeping a full eight hours in between.
Although it was probably a good experience to have overall, as an individual so I have a grasp of the situation, I didn't find any fulfillment or spiritual epiphany or even ease of stress or escapism like people say.
Yes, I was so overwhelmed at "seeing" music come out of speakers I was distracted beyond feeling those things, but there was no "melting away" of cares or any of that sort of thing - it just made me think more, and had an even more eerie feel, and one which perturbed me when I woke up and realized I was STILL not back to normal the next day, when it wasn't making me extremely sleepy.
I definitely fall in the camp of the "everyone" that it is not for, because it just left me out of control of proper sensation, time and ability to order my thoughts as well as I can (which can already be a challenge), and no way to just drink three cups of coffee or walk it off for thirty minutes to snap out of it.
Not saying I would never ever do it again, but on any sort of regular basis, especially as part of any sort of religious or spiritual component, I don't see it as having any validity for me, considering my experience and the effects it had - I don't feel that any of that was in any way beneficial to "opening doorways" or any of that mystical hooha - it just made me feel really funky and then sleepy and I couldn't shake myself out of it - that's not my idea of useful, for personal development or growth, and if that's how other people react, I don't see what they're getting out of it. Hallucinations, exaggerated senses and inability to think rationally doesn't strike me as the best combination of features for unbiased, objective understanding of new ideas.
I've had more epiphanies and altered states of consciousness and realizations and sudden alternate viewpoints on obscure subjects from just talking to someone else about a subject for a couple of days, from a few different points of view, where things seem to tie themselves together, so I see this as actually less conducive to any sort of unusual insight.