|

If I totter along, O wielder of thunder, like a
puffed-up wineskin, forgive, Lord, have mercy! If by ill chance in the
dullness of my wits I went straying, O Holy One, forgive, Lord, have
mercy!
Rig Veda 7.89.2-3. VE, P. 517

Monday
LESSON 78
Chemical Consciousness
In the early '60s I became conscious that more and
more of the people who came to me for counseling wanted to talk over
aspects of their experience in higher states of the mind, states of the
mind that had been opened through psychedelic experience. Their
interest was in relating these experiences to yoga and the
consciousness attained through meditation. These people were highly
enthusiastic about their new world, for it seemed like sort of a canned
meditation, something they could get very quickly without entering into
the sometimes tedious yoga training that may take years to open
the individual to the within of himself. People all over the nation now
are becoming awakened to the world within.
Around the same
time, we had a seminar in San Diego attended by many seekers and LSD
users. It seemed to us that the LSD people are almost like a new race,
a race of people that have been reborn in bodies that already existed.
Those who use psychedelics are different in many respects from those
who have had no psychedelic experience. Their feelings are different.
Their relationships are different. They are closer to some people, but
at the same time they have created a gap between themselves and
society. It is a gap of loneliness, because the breach between the
inner consciousness and the external world has become so great that
they have only themselves to depend upon. The degree of success of this
dependence is another story, which brings us into the subject of yoga.
We cannot say that the psychedelic experience in itself is either good
or bad. It is enough to say that it is an experience that has occurred
to thousands of people.
These ideas I am sharing with you are
not so much for the psychedelic people as for those who have not had
the psychedelic experience. I do not encourage you to go through it.
Rather, I would encourage you to continue with the slower process of yoga.
But I want to awaken you to the fact that there is this new group of
people living with us. Their approach to life is entirely different
from the one which you may have. Their perception generally is entirely
different. Some of these people can look into your mind and even read
your thoughts. Those who have not had psychedelic experiences will have
to learn to adjust to the psychedelic consciousness. Likewise, those
who use these drugs, if they ever stop, will have to learn to adjust
their thinking again to the normal conscious-plane way of doing things.
I believe that the gap which has been created between "turned
on people" and "turned off people" can best be bridged through
meditation, gaining control of the mind so that the individual can
become master of himself. When you become master of yourself, you truly
stand alone in completeness, not in loneliness. In doing so, you are
able to bring forth knowledge and wisdom from yourself through the
process of meditation, through being able to sit down and think through
a problem, ultimately seeing it in full, superconscious perspective and
bring forth an answer, a workable answer filled with life. Meditation
is a dynamic process. It is much more than just sitting around and
waiting. It creates a highly individualistic type of mind.
Tuesday
LESSON 79
Young and Old Souls
There are young souls in this world, and there are
old souls. The young soul shows you how you can't do something. The old
soul shows you how you can. But a young soul can evolve in this very
life in the same way that a weak, skinny man can go to a gym and become
a husky bundle of muscle.
Spiritual unfoldment and the growth
and development of the subtle nerve system are the same thing. Most of
us are familiar with the structure of the body's muscles, but how many
of you are familiar with your nerve fibers? The life force flows
through you along these nerve channels in a degree directly
proportionate to the condition of your mind. We call this actinic force
or cosmic force. This actinic force flowing out into the muscle and
skin structure produces prana, or magnetism. The magnetic force
in nature we call odic force. Have you ever had somebody suddenly call
you up and say, "Come on, let's go to a party," when you feel tired and
lacking in energy, and suddenly your nervous system floods a new force
through you, rejuvenating your magnetic response? This is an
involuntary response, a subsuperconscious release of actinic force.
The
nervous system in a young soul is, shall we say, immature. The many,
many incarnational experiences of the old soul have instilled in the
subtle nervous system a strength of fiber, a spiritual maturation.
Therefore, the older soul entering into meditation can sustain the
force and unfoldment that one meditation carries over into another.
This process is a steady building, an opening up, until finally, in a
contemplative moment of cosmic consciousness, one opens to Self
Realization, beyond the experience of the mind, and is able to sustain
it because the nerve structure is very powerful.
So, this is
the unfortunate aspect of psychedelic experience as I see it. It is
especially damaging to the young soul and leads the older soul off
track. If the individual taking LSD or some other psychotropic drug is
an old soul, it has perhaps awakened him so that he is able to face the
new situation of his consciousness with intelligence. But the reaction
inhibits further spiritual unfoldments because lower chakras
are wrenched open, causing severe mood swings. In the case of the young
soul, he has not yet developed the nerve fiber to adjust to the
awakening, to the intensity of the psychedelic experience, and his mind
very often "turns off."
I have interviewed seekers who have
had a few psychedelic experiences and have come through them more
vibrant, more alive, and more ready to face the challenges of a new
world. I have met others who only stand and look at you blankly, who
have lost their desire, even their self-respect. They have lost, shall
we say, the structure through which their mind force previously flowed,
and it has not been replaced.
What happens to a Hindu yogi
when he enters a superconscious state of bliss in which his mind opens
up, turns to light, and he sees the world revolving below the state of
his suspended consciousness? He has arrived at this state through many
years of practice in concentration, meditation and contemplation, many
years of building strong nerve fiber. But in a momentary high on LSD or
any other powerful psychedelic, such as mushrooms, peyote, ecstasy or
DMT, the nerve structure is strained, in a sense which we can best
describe as abnormal, to allow the individual to reach this exalted
consciousness. Coming out of it, the result is often a kind of shock in
which the person has a great difficulty in readjusting to any kind of
normal routine. Because these drugs are illegal, the consciousness of
fear also has been awakened within the seeker. Fear is the first step
down into the lower worlds of darkness. The next is anger.
Wednesday
LESSON 80
Maintaining Control
I don't want to see a nationwide or worldwide
movement built around a little bit of "acid." I don't want to see this,
because of the young souls for whom this would be devastating. Some
young souls who have been opened up without preparation stumble into
psychic ability. They may read thought forms, see auras or travel
astrally. In yoga we would say that this path of psychism must
be avoided until you have attained Self Realization. This is because in
opening up the mind to higher forces and beautiful experiences, we also
open ourselves up to the unpleasant experiences of the shadow world of
the chakras below the muladhara center at the base of the spine, areas of consciousness which we cannot control without preparation and training. In yoga, the guru
knows how to protect his students in the opening-up process by closing
off the lower realms as the higher ones open. He knows how to do this,
but it is a steady training and does require time. I have met people
who have had the psychedelic experience who but cannot walk down the
street past certain houses because they have become so sensitive to the
contention, the negative force field, emitted from a certain home. Some
of these people are opened up to the more subtle forces of the lower
mind.
The old soul, in wisdom, enters into the experience of
meditation. Here he learns to control the lower forces even while he is
awakening the higher forces. Therefore he can sustain himself in a
higher state of consciousness. He has the strength of nerve fiber to do
it.
So, I am asking the leaders of the LSD movement, the
psychedelic movement, to stop it, for the sake of protecting souls on
the path against the too abrupt awakening, against being opened up to
obsession or possession. Most people who take drugs are followers.
They're not leaders, they're followers. A leader takes a stand. A
leader stands for what he believes and believes what he stands for. We
need to train our children to be leaders and to stand up against that
which they know is wrong and dangerous.
When a person is
opened up, in a somewhat defenseless position, as in an LSD experience,
he can be possessed or obsessed by an accumulation of thought power and
impelled to do things that he would otherwise have no intention of
doing, simply because his nervous system has become sensitive and open
to the lower mind forces of hate, greed, mistrust, fear and malice that
ooze out of some people who have no control.
If you have not
been opened up in this manner, if you are just going along in an
ordinary state of consciousness, you might feel, "I don't like
so-and-so and I won't see him anymore," and you place a mental barrier
between yourself and this person. You are able to shut your mental door
against people whose vibration does not blend with yours. But a
prematurely opened soul cannot do this. He remains open to all
influences. Therefore, I plead to the innate intelligence of the
intellectuals and the old souls who can appreciate what is happening,
to stop the indiscriminate use of dangerous drugs, to bring this
movement to a halt.
Thursday
LESSON 81
Tapping the Superconscious
The youngsters in their late teens and early twenties who are going into LSD and other drugs are going to meet their karma
in an unnatural sequence. The upset of their nervous system, if it
continues, will be drastic and will even affect others' personal lives,
whether they have had LSD or not. I have traveled through India and the
Orient where there are no laws against narcotics, and the people who
live on narcotics there are absolutely deplorable. They have no
spiritual impetus. They just sit and say, "Well, if I have food, that's
fine. If not, then I'll probably die. So, let's see, if I reincarnate,
where would I like to go?" Whereas when the spiritual force, the
actinic force, floods through your nervous system, permeating you with
magnetism, and you see the light of your mind, you don't have time for
rationalizations like that.
When we are dealing with the
nervous system, we are talking about three states of mind at the same
time. The conscious, subconscious and superconscious all exist, alive
and vibrant, within you at this moment. You could be "turned on"
superconsciously without drugs at any instant. It is all there waiting
for you. Your brain is basically an acid structure. When you learn to
concentrate your mind, to concentrate the thinking force, you are
turning on the "acid" of your brain. LSD is an acid, too, but it can do
nothing for you that you cannot do for yourself. When you learn the
subtle arts of meditation, you will learn how to tap into your
spiritual force, your always-existing actinic power which transmits its
energy through body and mind into the magnetic currents. This magnetic
force can be stimulated also through food, through breathing or through
the quality of thought.
Now is a marvelous time for people to
tap their latent potential to unfold these higher states of
consciousness. All of the activity and discussion of outer space
contributes to this unfoldment, too, because every time you mentally
project yourself with a rocket or a spaceship, your consciousness
touches back on the Earth again, having undergone a definite change.
What is going to be the reaction over a period of time to the psychedelic movement? Meditating yogis have found that even in the integrated process of meditation, one's karma
is intensified, and experiences come to you thick and fast to work
through. Under LSD and similar drugs, the wheels are spinning faster
and faster until some drug takers will be spinning in consciousness
completely away from any kind of stable living. I believe that with the
continued use of LSD, the forces will slip over to the other side, past
the point of no return. The spiritual unfoldment of the human soul can
no more profitably be forced than can the growth of a plant in a hot
house. Yoga is the path of control. If you go at it through yoga, you will be so much better off, and through your new radiant energy you will be able to help so many people.
Friday
LESSON 82
The Power Of Decision
Many are the karmic consequences of using,
selling and encouraging others to use illegal drugs, such as marijuana,
cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, barbiturates and psychedelics like
LSD and mushrooms. The karmic chain works like this. Suppose someone sold drugs to another and that person overdosed and killed himself. The karma would be murder. Maybe the law wouldn't call it murder, but the karma
would be murder. This means that the person who sold the drugs would be
killed in his next life. One act creates another act and that act comes
back on those who helped create it. Similarly, if movie actors cause
others to hurt themselves or kill another person, commit robbery,
anything like that, because of what they're acting out, that karma comes back on them, as well as the director, as well as the writer. It's pretty messy business to fool around with the law of karma.
I
tell young people who are tempted to use drugs that the power of
decision is a very great power. Very few people know how to use this
power, but everybody has the power of decision. It takes a little bit
of willpower, it takes a little bit of research, and we are going to
give you some ammunition to help you make the decision to be free from
drugs.
The consequences of illegal drug use are that the drug
user becomes a criminal. His home or car can be confiscated under drug
assets seizure laws. His parents' home or car can be seized. He can be
arrested for driving under the influence of controlled substances.
People may steal drugs from him, putting him and his family in danger.
Eventually, he can't earn enough to buy the drugs he needs. He can't
even steal enough. He has to deal, to sell drugs, to support the habit.
And to deal, he must recruit new users. Drugs make him meet people he
would never meet otherwise, not-so-good people -- sellers, dealers,
junkies. It puts him into a lower realm of life. He may become violent.
He has to get a gun to protect himself. More danger follows. The
government has to deal with him, as he has become a criminal. It's very
expensive for society. He can't behave normally. He does harm to his
body. He does harm to his mind. He becomes paranoid, always looking
over his shoulder, fearful that bad things are going to happen. As a
student, he can't study well anymore, and he probably won't graduate --
he gets no education, therefore no career and no steady job. He does
things he never thought he would do: rob, steal, lie, forge, pull away
from and humiliate his parents, pull away from his teachers, create
abnormal relationships with friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, ruin his
reputation, even go into prostitution.
I warn youths, you
might think it won't happen to you. Well, everybody who takes drugs
says, "That won't happen to me. I can handle it." Every junkie on the
street has said that at one time or another. Why do we have groups
talking about how to handle drugs and drug rehabilitation centers,
which are very expensive for states, counties and private organizations
to run? Because you cannot handle it. No one can handle it. It all
starts with that first puff of a joint, the first time you cross the
line into what's not legal. One drug leads to the next, which leads to
the next and the next. It's the Narakaloka, active every day in the
lives of the people on this planet who use illegal substances. So don't
get started.
Drugs may seem like an escape from the problems
of life, but it is not a solution to them. In Hindu, Jain and Buddhist
thinking, all this adds up to bad karma, then a bad birth. You can't escape from karma.
It will always catch up with you -- if not in this life then in the
next. But we can't just say no because somebody has told us to say no.
We need to meditate, we need to think upon the consequences, of what
will happen to us, of using these terribly dangerous, illegal
substances.
Talk to young people in your community. Tell them,
"Think about it. Only you can make the decision. No one else can make
it for you." You can't convince a young person here on the island of
Kauai to surf on a fifty foot wave. Youths also don't drive a hundred
miles an hour down the winding mountain road from Kokee. Why? Because
they know the consequence. They are well educated. They know the
consequence and, be they 12 years old, 16 years old, 20 years old, 24
years old, they make the proper decisions about such things.
The
issue is training people to make the proper decisions so that they are
law-abiding citizens because they have decided to be law-abiding
citizens, so that they do not take drugs, because they do not want to
alter their mind, because they do not want to lose their standing in
the community, because they do not want to lose the functioning of
their physical body. The power of decision is a great power to pass on
to the next generation.
Saturday
LESSON 83
Alcohol in Moderation
Alcohol is a very misunderstood substance. Its
original use in many cultures was limited to the priesthood, to enliven
consciousness by restricting the activities of the conscious mind, so
that the superconscious knowledge within the individual can flow
freely, uninhibited by daily thought and concerns. In Japan, sake,
a rice wine, is considered the potion of the poets and is served in
Buddhist and Shinto monasteries to enhance the spiritual nature and
diminish worldly attachments. The drinking of sake goes along with
certain other practices of controlling the mind, based on a
well-understood philosophy. In other cultures -- Aztec, Mayan, Hindu,
Christian and Jewish -- wine is considered a holy sacrament.
Beer
is a lesser potion, a drink for the common man, and does not fall into
this category. Both beer and wine are produced from natural ingredients
and through natural fermentation processes, whereas hard liquors are
distilled. Another important difference is the concentration of
alcohol. In beer the alcohol content is from 3 to 8 percent, and in
wine from 9 to 18 percent, compared to hard liquors which are from 25
to nearly 100 percent. The latter our scriptures admonish us to not
imbibe.
Man's religious traditions provide different answers
to the consumption of alcohol. The Muslim faith considers it the mother
of all evils, the most basic of human sins. The Jews, Christians and
others consider it acceptable in moderation, and, in fact, provide wine
as sacraments in their places of worship. In Asian societies,
propaganda against alcohol is severe, primarily directed toward hard
liquors, meaning those of high alcohol content, which tend to quickly
craze the mind, punish the body and let loose the lower emotions. These
include distilled home brews, such as arrack, bathtub gin, homemade rum
and vodka.
In Hinduism there are traditions that are strictly
abstemious, and there are traditions that are open to the use of
alcohol. Especially the Saivas and Shaktas are more lenient in this
matter and have no objection to the moderate, wise use of alcohol. In
North India, for example, it is traditional in certain orders for Saiva
sannyasins to drink alcohol. This is the tradition that our particular parampara
has adopted and it is the custom that we follow today. If you are in a
tradition which has a heritage of complete abstention, then you should
follow it. If you are in a tradition which does not look down on
drinking wines or beers, then you should feel free to follow that
tradition.
Hindus of the Jaffna community explain that hard liquor, known as kal in Tamil, are the intoxicants prohibited in the Tirukural and Tirumantiram and which are to be totally abstained from, and that beer and wine, including honey wine, are referred to in the Vedas and ayurveda texts as beneficial for spiritual and religious life under the restraint of mitahara.
Sunday
LESSON 84
Alcohol in Saiva Tradition
The time periods allotted for drinking wine and beer should be during a meal (lunch or dinner), or to relax after the day's dharmic duties are fulfilled. Obviously, one should not drink during the work day, in the office, during puja or in the early morning hours.
Of
course, this hardly need be said, but drinking and driving don't mix.
This extends also to other potentially dangerous activities. One would
never drink while on the job, especially using industrial equipment,
such as saws and drills, as alcohol slows down the reactions of the
physical body and the conscious mind. While enjoying a glass or two of
wine, one should be in good company. Drinking should bring up the
higher nature, of creativity, good ideas, conversation, philosophy,
intuitive solutions to the problems of the world, healthy encounters of
all kinds. One should not drink when depressed, troubled or with a
group that enters into confrontation, argument, contention and
criticism, personal, mental and emotional abuse. Therefore, we
emphasize good company, good conversation, creativity, relaxation,
toward the advancement of humanity and of spirituality. That is what
these two substances, wine and beer, have been created on Earth by Lord
Siva Himself to produce. Of course, imbibing even wine and beer falls
under the restraint of mitahara. To overindulge would be unacceptable.
One
should not drink alone, not even a glass of wine or beer at a solitary
dinner. All the social harnesses are absent when you drink in
isolation. Then it becomes a subconscious instead of a
subsuperconscious experience. Additionally, there are those who by
their constitution or genetics cannot drink even moderately without
catastrophic effects: physiological, psychological, sociological
difficulties. Even a single beer can provoke extreme responses. When
these reactions come, they suffer physically, their families suffer,
their professions suffer, their spiritual unfoldment suffers.
Therefore, these individuals must, under all circumstances, completely
avoid alcohol for a healthy, happy life. Statistically it is estimated
that some seven percent of people are in this category. A clear
indication that an individual falls into this category is that his
friends don't want to drink with him because it inevitably becomes an
unpleasant event for all. Friends and associates are duty-bound to
monitor and sanction him. In such cases insisting on moderation is not
sufficient. Total abstinence must be required.
In a similar
vein, I am often asked about tobacco. My answer is, do you want to live
a happy, healthy, productive and long life, or do you want to die early
and suffer all the diseases that have been documented that smoking, the
world's worst health hazard, can bring up in your body to destroy it?
If the answer is "I don't mind dying early and I'm looking forward to
all the diseases that are promised," then go ahead and smoke. I should
say here that not one of my sincere devotees smokes.
|