What is an "entheogenic" drug? (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (Wiki edit); Enlightening Channel; Samadhi Meditation

The Buddha in psychedelic colors DMT (and substances or practices that bring it out of the pineal gland) allow one to see the world as it really is undistorted by our mental defilements we accept as "normal" reality (progressivebuddhism). It's not a recreational activity.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule. See full documentary at the Enlightening Channel.

Buddha is beautiful (lilminx16/deviantart)

An entheogen ("generating the divine within") is a substance or practice used in a spiritual, religious, shamanic, or sacred context that may be natural or human made.

Some natural chemicals can induce expanded states of consciousness, whether psychological or physiological, for example, plants, toad or bullet ant venom used by the Satere-Mawe people.

Dope is not reinvention.

Entheogens can supplement many diverse practices for transcendence and revelation (unveiling of a hidden truth), including meditation, yoga, some forms of prayer, psychedelic, chanting, and visionary art, traditional medicine, psychedelic therapy (such as the careful, controlled use of minute amounts of a "magic mushroom" like psilocybin), and music including peyote song and psytrance, even witchcraft (witch comes from the word wise), magic, and psychonautics.

 

Entheogens have been used in a ritualized context for thousands of years. Their spiritual/religious significance is well established in anthropological and modern studies.

Deep in the mind during meditative absorption (jhana) a counterpart sign (nimitta) forms colored by mental defilements. This learning sign becomes the patibhaga sign. Exogenous drugs, even DMT, are not likely to help in this purification of consciousness.

 

Buddha at Thiksey (Ragg Burns Imaging)

Meditation leads to mindfulness and concentration, to sati and samadhi. A nimitta is a mental representation, a sign of concentration. If one focuses on the breath as the object of meditation, eventually a light will form in the mind as the sign of the breath; this is what one concentrates on to gain absorption. Middle Length discourse (MN) 44 tells us that one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is the nimitta, which serves as the cause for the eventual elimination of the Five Hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, restlessness, sloth, skeptical doubt) and, beyond that, the arising of the five concomitant mental factors (cetasikas) of the first absorption (jhāna).

Himalayan novice must focus (Dietmar Temps)

And according to AN 9.35, the nimitta as the mental representation of the first absorption is the presence of these same five concomitant jhāna factors. AN 9.35 states that this nimitta is to be developed, pursued, and established. When properly engaged, these five factors work in concert to refine and maintain what DN 9 calls a "truly refined perception of joy and pleasure born of seclusion" (viveka-ja-pīti-sukha-sukhu-ma-sacca-saññā). More

The American Book of the Dead?

Examples of traditional entheogens include psychedelics like peyote, psychedelic-dissociatives like ayahuasca (daime, natema, spirit vine), and Tabernanthe iboga (synthesized as ibogaine), atypical psychedelics like Salvia divinorum, quasi-psychedelics like [CDB-rich] cannabis and Ipomoea tricolor, deliriants like Amanita muscaria (biblical fly agaric or "manna from heaven").

Traditionally a tea, admixture, or potion like ayahuasca (a blend of an Amazonian vine, bark, and leafy plant) or bhang (a cannabis drink) have been compounded through the work of a skilled shaman or apothecary.

 

With the advent of organic chemistry, there now exist many questionable synthesized pharmaceutical drugs with similar psychoactive properties. Many were originally derived from these plants but stripped of supporting elements to presumably get at the most "active" ingredient without the help of other ingredients nature combined as limiters, enhancers, and so on.

Many isolated active compounds with psychoactive properties have been refined from these respective organisms and chemically synthesized, including mescaline, psilocybin, DMT, salvinorin A, ibogaine, ergine, and muscimol. More

(Samadhi Meditation) Isochronic tones for the natural release of DMT, the spirit molecule in the center of the brain (pineal gland), the third eye (dibba cakkhu).

Through the Rabbit Hole with Krystle Cole

Urban Shamans Amber Larson, Xochitl, Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Bela, Wisdom Quarterly; Hamilton Pharmacopeia (VICE/HBO, 2012); Krystle A. Cole (NeuroSoup)

"You should get out more," people may say. Maybe people should get in more, like Alice.

TOPEKA, Kansas - Former goth stripper, author of Lysergic, and producer of numerous YouTube videos Krsytle A. Cole talks about her time spent living in an "Underground Acid Palace," a subterranean missile silo converted into a luxurious LSD-manufacturing facility.

She take Hamilton and VICE's cameras on a tour into the rabbit hole. We're not in Kansas any... well, apparently, we still are. And this time it's underground just like Alice in Wyrd (another word for Wonderland).
 
Krystle Cole spent three years of her life running from the DEA, being held partially against her will and used as a guinea pig for strange new psychedelic chemicals.
 

Lysergic, 2nd ed. (goodreads.com)

Eventually her friends-turned-captors were arrested, whereas Krystle herself barely escaped incarceration.

She now makes her living as a writer, sharing her experiences in books and on the Web in her firsthand and Erowid.org-style accounts of experimenting with entheogens and other forbidden substances on NeuroSoup.
 

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what's down in there! (Alice at the gate of the Rabbit Hole)

 
We can't help but observe how much she looks like someone we knew, both in terms of her features and her mannerisms, who eventually became an expert Buddhist meditator and stream enterer. Of course, people do not believe anyone get enlightened nowadays. They do. How do we know? we'll be asked. That was courtesy of a strange set of circumstances too hard for others to believe. We believe it. We were there. We saw and understood.

DRUG DISCUSSION
Wisdom Quarterly (URBAN SHAMANISM)

The lights, the lights, painting with light (DigitalTurkey-Graph/flickr.com)

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The devas still descend from space.

Is there anything good to be said about any "drug"? Yes, the entheogens, the ones that bring out the "divine" (theos, deus, devas, the "godly") within. So, Xochitl, which drug? Native Americans have "plant helpers," not "drugs." To say that word tosses our minds to grim concrete ghettos and dreary suburbs painted neon. We're leaving that; we're back in nature; we're going to Wyrd or the Spirit World. An entheogen, a sacred plant, root, vine, mushroom, or combination -- whatever -- is all about getting to one thing: DMT (dimethyltryptamine).

(Gnosis) "DMT: The Spirit Molecule," which explores human consciousness, weaves an account of Dr. Rick Strassman's groundbreaking DMT research through a multifaceted approach to this intriguing entheogen/hallucinogen found in the body, brain, and hundreds of plants.

And this DMT is not out there. It's in here, in the center of our brains, behind the third eye, where the pineal gland is enclosed in gray matter with active rods and cones and its own inner-retina.
 
There are many ways to awaken it. "Drugs" are the worst way. People are not ready to see it. Amber, does Buddhism have anything good to say about drugs? I think we all agree with Dr. Gabor Mate that the problem of "drug use and abuse" is that almost no one in the U.S. who sets out to get high is actually trying to get high. They're just trying to get wasted.

 

Befriending Faeries

They are trying to obtund (dull) rather than enhance consciousness, trying to get blotto, blitzed, full of toxins or intoxicated. Right, Seven? That's right! We use the same word to mean exact opposite things -- doped up or wasted versus opened up and trying to see things as they really are.

Whatever there is of substances to get "high" on, that exists within for us to access. Crystal? There are Tibetan lamas who do dream yoga. But look at the yogis of olde, not the ganja-obtunded waste-cases sitting around growing great dreadlocks and clutching hash pipes. Maybe they would have taken or produce Soma and Amrita, the "nectar of the devas."

Yogis sometimes veer off the path (D. Earlotti)

What we call chocolate was something like that, Theobroma cacao, "cocoa the food of the devas." Which extraterrestrial-gods was it who pointed out the pits of that fruit was edible?

 

The subtle little fairies/devis in art (1909)

Serenity-meditation that leads to the absorptions leads to bliss in the first two jhanas, independent of the senses and sensuality. It comes from within. It makes possible the concentration and mental-collectedness needed for successful insight-practice called vipassana. Anyone smoking high-THC/low-CBD cannabis to get lost or wasted will get lost and waste her/his time.

Devas watch as liberator is born.

But if one pursues awakening the pineal gland, the third eye, the seat of consciousness, the "mind door" around the heart may get something else, awakening and liberation. But real liberation is not transient. It does not fall away. Drug experiences, absorptions (jhanas), hallucinations, and delusions do. The Five Precepts warn us away from intoxicants. This is very wise. Mere "knowledge" (ñāna), study (suta), and experience cannot substitute for actual wisdom (Sanskrit prajñā, Pali paññā).

Embodying DMT as "Soma"?

Stephen T. Naylor, Encyclopedia Mythica (pantheon.org)

The devas depicted in Western/Greco-Roman forms (Ilias Flaxman, Gestochen/Wiki)

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Where earthbound devas dwell, Plitvice

Soma is a very difficult deity [deva] for many outside of India to comprehend. He works on numerous levels, all of which are tied together rather strangely. Soma is firstly a plant. 

 

He is also an intoxicating drink which was brewed from that plant [which plant or mushroom, root or vine is disputed]....Though he is never depicted in human form, Soma obviously did not want for lovers [i.e., people who loved it]; poets rarely do.

In one episode, his desires caused a war. He had grown arrogant due to the glory that was offered him. Because of this, he let his lust overcome him; he kidnapped and carried off Tara, the wife of the [deva] Brihaspati. After refusing to give her up, the devas made war on him to force her release, and Soma called on the [titans] asuras to aid him.

Finally, Brahma interceded and compelled Soma to let Tara go. But she was with child, and it ended up that this child was Soma's. The child was born and named Budha (not to be confused with the Buddha). More

There is a "road" (path) to a weird "land" (place) somewhere outside of this illusion.

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Is it Amrita, the endogenous nectar of our divine nature?

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry

Mohini, female-Vishnu with Amrita pot (W)

Amrita is repeatedly referred to as "the drink of the devas, the "gods," which grants them "immortality."

• Immortality? Perhaps that timeless vision or realization of who we really are, which does not end at death; our personality ends, and self falls away, but something, some whole, some connection to everything else, remains or is reborn, taking and clinging to a new form it immediately mistakes for "self" again. We are not so limited as any expression or manifestation would suggest.

Amrita features in the "ocean-churning" Samudra manthan legend, which describes how the devas, because of a curse from the sage Durvasa, begin to lose their immortality (divine vision of themselves?

 

Assisted by their mortal enemies, the asuras (Buddhist "titans"), they churn the ocean (cosmos, world-system, Milky Way, samsara) and create -- among other wonderful (Wyrd) things -- Amrita, the nectar of immortality.

 

In yogic philosophy (as it found its way from Hindu philosophy into its cognate Mahayana-Buddhism), Amrita is a fluid that can flow from the pituitary gland down the throat in deep states of meditation. It is considered quite a boon: Some yogic texts say that one drop is enough to conquer death and achieve immortality. More

Why the forehead chakra? (Buddhist tantra)

Ashley Wells and Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Wikipedia edit

The crown, brow (agni), and throat chakras, Rajasthan, India, 18th century (wiki)

 

Om or aum (Themeplus/flickr.com)

Chakras (subtle energy centers of the body) play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism.

They play a pivotal role in completion stage practices, where an attempt is made to bring the subtle airs or winds of the body into the central channel, to realize the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain buddhahood (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear Light of Bliss: A Tantric Meditation Manual).
  

The Vajrayana system states that the central channel (avadhūtī) begins at the point of the third eye like the of Lord Shiva, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down to the lower body. 

There are two side channels, the rasanā and lalanā, which start at their respective nostrils and then travel down to the lower body. The apāna vāyu (down-moving wind, where "wind" means the invisible power to move) governs the lower terminations of the three channels. The lower end of the central channel ends at the rectum. The lower end of the lalanā ends in the urinary tract. The lower end of the rasanā channel emits semen.

Chakra picture produced by AuraStar2000TM bio-energy sensor (William Vroman/wiki)

  

Buddha aum (BrookeMontes/flickr)

The side channels run parallel to the center channel, except at locations such as the navel, heart, throat, and crown (i.e., the chakras) where the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat, and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. 

At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.

 

Within the chakras exist the "subtle drops." The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death.
 

Sanskrit characters (sriaurobindoashram.com)

In addition, each chakra has a number of "spokes" or "petals," which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable.

By focusing on a specific chakra (while often holding the breath) the subtle winds enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realize specific practices.

For example, focusing on the subnavel area is important for the practice of tummo, or inner-fire. Meditating on the heart chakra is important for realizing clear light. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world or into another body.

 

A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. It leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary. They are interpreters of mental images in a feedback loop to the individual.

Bon protectors of Tibet (viewzone.com)

When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mentations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart, a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the illusory-separate-self reaching out for experience. When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings (Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Relaxation: The Illustrated Guide to Kum Nye Massage and Movement - A Yoga from the Tibetan Tradition, pp. 31, 33).

Bön

Chakras, according to the Himalayan pre-Buddhist shamanic Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of vayu cannot be separated from experience. Each of the six major chakras is linked to experiential qualities of one of the six major realms of existence. More