Member Polls and Surveys.

33 people responded to the drug Poll --14 at the gateway site, and 19 on the list or privately to me.

To the question: Have you ever taken "mind altering" drugs?

3 replied No. Five others tried pot or mushrooms but had little or no reaction.

25 replied Yes. (13 list and 12 at the poll site where types of drugs weren't tabulated).

Q: What kinds?

12 people used Marijuana (4 with minimal effect)
10 mentioned mushrooms
9 people took LSD
3 people took Mescaline
3 people mentioned cocaine
2 people mentioned Ecstasy
2 mentioned heroin
1 mentioned peyote
1 spoke of an accidental use of crack
3 people simply said they took a variety of drugs
Others drugs mentioned were qualudes, methadrine, uppers/downers, diet pills and various pharmaceuticals

Q: Did you take these drugs before or after you became Kundalini active?

5 people answered before
1 replied after
2 replied before and after
1 replied in between
2 replied not applicable because not K active

Q: Do you think your drug experience(s) had any influence on your becoming K active?
9 said Yes
7 said no
2 replied N/A because not K awake

Q: Do you think your drug experience(s) caused you to further explore
metaphysical and or religious questions?

7 replied yes to this question

Comments:

That's difficult to say, because the cultural milieu in which I began taking drugs was also strong in breaking free of the Fertile Crescent Crew (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) religious viewpoints and exploring other metaphysical philosophies and systems. Just as we were interested in breaking free of the dominant political system. So it's difficult to attribute my breaking free of the Fertile Crescent Crew solely to drugs. Definitely, my early experiences with LSD made more exotic (exotic to my cultural upbringing) metaphysical systems appealing.

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I was using acid for shamanic purposes

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Drugs are tools. Everything we touch to assist us in life, are simply tools.
Where one man may use an ax to chop down a tree, another might use a small knife. It would be easy to say that the man with the ax, knows how to get the job done quickly. And,the man with the knife is a fool, and will be cutting for years... he may never even be able to chop down the tree, for his life may run out before the knife will get all the way through.

************
I went thru the drug culture of the 60's without taking drugs. I was in the Air Force at the time. My mind set was and still is, only stupid people take drugs. And that taking drugs makes a person stupid. Drugs are for weak minds or small minds. See Ram Dass's book where he gives LSD to his guru in India(twice) expecting to teach the Guru a thing or two about Enlightenment the American Way. Point, the Guru takes the LSD AND NOTHING HAPPENS AT ALL.

****************
Hallucinogens, entheogens, empathegens, drugs, religion and other catalysts, external and otherwise, have there dangers, blessings, there places and there times. But they only go so far.
There's a huge difference between *feeling* spiritual and actually becoming a part of a greater eternal spiritual process.

> I went thru the drug culture of the 60's without taking drugs.

You didn't go through the drug culture, you just happened to be alive at the same time it was going on.

**************
When I was about 19, glowing after a Zen retreat in India, I landed up at home to find my freinds were going mushroom hunting. I joined them and had the mushies. All I can say is that my life has never been the same since: And that was 20 years ago.
I experienced every sublime feeling I could imagine, heart-aching love for everything including the trees around me, the sky and the hills. All the stuff i had only read in Spirituality books were happening to me. Since then I have been trying out various kinds of mind-altering substances, all of which have been excellent, if not outright ecstatic.
And as for the Indian Guru and Ram Dass; I can only say, that i have lived in India all my life and seen many Gurus. There are those who use psychedelics and those who don't. Ganja is the principal offering to Lord Shiva.

*****************

> Likewise, when people take drugs and see stars,
> it does not mean that the stars are really there.

When god's children believe in a world apart from Him
does it mean that this world is really there?

******************
I experimented a little with drugs in the '60s. Marijuana made me paranoid so alcohol remained my drug of choice. The shining exception to my indifference to illegal drugs was mushrooms -- took them 3 times. I knew immediately that the intoxication mimicked spiritual bliss and that it would be possible to know this state without drugs. So, yes, drugs didn't initiate my spiritual search, but they sure gave me encouragement!

***************
I rather think it depends on the intention with which you do anything that dictates your experience of it. I know people who smoke pot daily and are useless. I know people who smoke pot daily and are very functional. I know people who take LSD to run from their lives. I know people who take LSD to break down their barriers. I know people who go to church to assauge their guilt. I know people who go to church to be celebrate spirit. One fool's Cheap Thrills can be another's Sacred Journey, no?
Party On!

***************

Yes, drugs have certainly affected my life philosophy. When I first took acid, I had visions that I was living in a world, within the atom of another world, which made up the atom of another world, which were also universes etc (that one!). Before that it never crossed my mind. I thought that this was all there was. ...
As far as drugs influencing my spirtual journey - I am on a path, and drugs have crossed it in the past and they will in the future, no doubt. I have also come across k on my path, and I am sure to cross death on my path. They are all on my path, therefore they all represent a choice for me at the time they cross my path. The choices that I make are all interelated, therefore yes I believe that the way I experience K now is in a way reflective of my drug experiences in the past. But it is also reflective of a great many others things I have encountered on my path, not to mention a horoscope which I recently had done that predicted I would have k experiences!

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Before. My last acid experience triggered a response that lives with me. A form of guardian (internal/external) came and rescued me. A few months later, I was reading about ritual magick and got a solid definition of Raphael, and a few seconds later, realized I was on my knees crying. It wasn't him I experienced, but something relating to what he represents.

*************
not much, but some. so long ago...my consciousness tripped me out at the time. things like paranoia. Like finding out the psychedelio drug was a 4 way hit, not just one dose (afterwards of course). Lessee - I was in my bedroom with a very attractive guy, but I "realized" that I was also downstairs on the couch, like a carcass in my mind, surrounded by psychiatrists in suits, presumably trying to coax my mind back into my body.
oh yes, absolutely! I have always been hyper-aware, & seeing those paradigm shifts & like turning a channel in my brain served to convince me of the way to those "other dimensions". I believe it played a part in helping me access those "other 90%" of my thoughtforms & brain/consciousness shifts.

****************
I too have experimented and *used* them all , well, allot of them, lol but nothing compared to this new energy and exhilarating feeling of *knowing* the divine is alive and running through *me* attuned thought out my body.
It's like being reborn. Every day! I feel like the great big huge serpent is looking out of my eyes and standing out looking *in* at times too. Did you have dreams of a big yellow eyed snake? Am I at the right place? I have so much I do not even know where to begin...so I will let this be it!

****************
Comments from a previous discussion about a year ago:

A close friend who was in the throes of a profound K experience 20 years ago or so was talked into taking LSD. He said the LSD threw him out of paradise for years.

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Mind altering drugs do not *cause* visions. They facilitate access to them. Much like a microscope does not cause the world of micro organisms.

*************
I think both K and drug causes some kind of chemical changes to the brains, refering to the "internal demon" that I mentioned in my previous posts. It probably releases the unconcious mind, (fear, anger, love, sex, devine consscience or God, demon)to the conscious level. That's why when I read "Serpent of the Night" , all I could see was a person roaming in his unconscious mind. Not God, not devine, but a fantasy of the dream-like realm of a person's mind.

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I used drugs for several years in SEARCH of what I experienced during and after shaktipat. It was, in fact, at that point that I completely lost interest in LSD (and mind you, in those days we used to get the very pure stuff in San Francisco). I reasoned, nothing can top THIS, because certainly nothing up to that time had topped it. And I did have some very beautiful acid experiences up until that time, but none were...fishing for words here to express the unexpressable--authentic, all encompassing, oh shoot, it's just too hard to explain. Words just won't cut it. Remember what acid-freaks used to say when someone asked what it was like? "You just have to try it, you won't know until you do" was the usual reply--well, I have to say the same about shaktipat.

***********
maybe I wouldn't have got so heavily into meditation if not for these infantile drug experiences. They do seem to start the process, shaking us loose from the conventional reality many of us are firmly cemented into at a young age.

**********

I've tried various drugs at various times to experiment, both before and after my k energy was activated what I found was that where my mind was focused, is what I'd get out of it if I was focused on philosophical things, then that would be made extreme by MDMA where I was focused on spiritual states, I was able to attain amazing states of awareness I believe that these states were real, however they didn't last and had no permanent effect on me nor had any transforming effects in my meditations I've experienced similar states and similar effects, and they have transformed my Permanent awareness, and has had a long term effect on me, as well as purification.

**********

he HBWR trip gave me my Samadhi, but my K awakened through meditation (if I had never had any drug experiences I would never had started meditating, though).

END

Thanks very much, everyone!

Love, Hillary

##########################



In a message dated 8/17/00 3:53:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
BestPoet-at-aol.com
writes:

<< Now I'm
not opposed to drugs per se. I've seen fire and I've seen rain and I've seen sun and balmy too, and I do think drugs used carefully can have interesting results. >>

Dear List,

We did a drug Poll some time ago, but the results were never posted.

Question: Have you ever taken "mind altering" drugs?

What kinds?

Did you take these drugs before or after you became Kundalini active?
Before
After
Not applicable because not K active

Do you think your drug experience(s) had any influence on your becoming K active?
Yes
No
N/A

Do you think your drug experience(s) caused you to further explore metaphysical and or religious questions?

Thanks in advance! As usual, you can reply to the list or privately to me. If you are *really* shy, you can reply to a shortened Poll at the Gateway site.

Love, Hillary


http://www.onelist.com/community/Kundalini-Gateway
http://www.kundalini-gateway.org

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