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).

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