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Psychedelics Provide Wisdom for Personal Growth

Psychedelics Provide Wisdom for Personal Growth | Third Monk image 2

The following selected excerpts are from Tripping as a Tool for Self-Realization, originally published on The Psychedelic Frontier.
psychedelic-wisdom-shroomingPsychedelics have a variety of uses, dependent on the user’s attitude. If you use them as intoxicants, you will become intoxicated. If you want to see pretty shapes and colors and “trip out” to music, then they will act as sensory enhancers. If you want a new mode of consciousness that leads you to experience life in a novel way, they will satisfy that urge.

These psychedelics can go much deeper than recreation. Those who never choose to explore psychedelics more seriously than as intoxicants or sense-enhancers will miss out on their greatest potential. Why stop at pretty sounds and colors when these medicines can catalyze deep epiphanies and lasting change?

 

Psychedelics Breaks Down Mental Conditioning to Reveal the Self

psychedelic-wisdom-shrooming-selfPsychedelics can show you your true self, dragging your insecurities and internal conflicts into the light for examination. Or mediate a conversation, even a partnership, with the subconscious. They unseat your deepest assumptions and lead you to question the most rigid of habits and biases.

Psychedelics are molecular battering rams, crumbling the castle called Ego and raising from the rubble a profound feeling of pure love and unity. Your real self is revealed, defenses down, moat drained, drawbridge lowered. A trip may be the first time you have a free reign in your own mental kingdom. A molecule may be the truest mirror you ever held up to yourself.

 

Going Beyond Recreational Use of Psychedelics

psychedelic-wisdom-shrooming-campMyron Stolaroff, a researcher and advocate of psychedelic psychotherapy, describes how recreational use tends to taper off naturally:

The use of psychedelics is self-regulating in most cases. Their true purpose is to enhance growth and interior development. Used only for pleasure, or abused, the Inner Self is thwarted, which leads to unpleasant experiences and depression. Though everyone who pursues the use of psychedelics for personal growth must be prepared for the “dark night of the soul” experiences, those who seek only entertainment will lose interest in these substances.

“Tripping with intent” is not an alternative method so much as a complementary one. People use psychedelics for all sorts of reasons—to improve sex, deepen their connection with nature and other people, explore their internal emotional landscape, and so on. A focus on self-improvement, with proper preparation, method, and post-trip integration, will help bring more meaning to all of these activities.

For the whole article “Tripping as a Tool for Self-Realization”, please visit The Psychedelic Frontier.

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Exploring Consciousness with Psychedelics – Graham Hancock Ted Talk (Video)

Exploring Consciousness with Psychedelics - Graham Hancock Ted Talk (Video) | Third Monk

Graham Hancock explores the shamanistic use of psychedelics that create a state of being which brings us a greater understanding of our true nature and the nature of consciousness; in order to harmoniously balance our Earthly existence within the universe.

The War on Consciousness – Graham Hancock Notable Excerpts

…Another universal experience of Ayahuasca is the encounter with seemingly intelligent entities which communicate with us telepathically, now I’m making no claim one way or another as to the reality status of these entities we encounter. Simply that phenomenologically in the Ayahuasca experience they are encountered by people all over the world and most frequently of all, the spirit of Ayahuasca herself; Mother Ayahuasca, who is a healer. And although she’s kinda the mother goddess of the planet. She seems to take a direct personal interest in us as individuals. To heal our ills, to want us to be the best we can possibly be, to correct errors and mistakes in our behaviors that may be leading us down the wrong path.

Ayahuasca has been fantastically successful at getting people off harmful addictions to hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Jacques Mabbit at the Takiwasi Clinic a in Peru brings heroin and cocaine addicts out there for a month. Gives them 12 Ayahuasca sessions and they have encounters with Mother Ayahuasca during those sessions that lead them not to wish to take heroin up again anymore and more than half of them leave completely free of their addiction never return to it and don’t even have withdrawal symptoms. And the same incredible healing work was being done in Canada by Dr. Gabor Maté until the Canadian government stopped and intervened his healing practice on the grounds that Ayahuasca itself was an illegal drug.

What is death? Our materialist science reduces everything to matter. Materialist science in the West says that we are just meat. We’re just our bodies. When the brain is dead that’s the end of consciousness there is no life after death, there is no soul, we just rot and are gone. But actually many honest scientists should admit that consciousness is the greatest mystery of science.

…This is the paradigm of all spiritual traditions; that we are immortal souls, temporarily incarnated in these physical forms to learn and to grow and to develop.

Let’s not forget that Ayahuasca is not alone. That it’s part of an ancient worldwide system of the targeted, careful, responsible alteration of consciousness. It’s recently been shown by scholars that the Kykeon used in the Eleusian Mysteries in Ancient Greece was almost certainly a psychedelic brew. The Soma of the Vedas may have been a brew based off of the amanita muscaria mushroom. We have the DMT in The ancient Egyptian Tree of Life. We have the whole global cultures of surviving shamanism and what it’s all about is a state of consciousness that’s designed to help us find balance harmony, the Ancient Egyptians would have called it Ma’at, with the universe and to remain mindful that what we’re here to undertake on Earth while immersed in matter is fundamentally a spiritual journey aimed at the growth and perfection of the soul. A journey that may go back to the very origin to what made us human in the first place.

If we as adults are not allowed to make sovereign decisions about what to experience with our own consciousness, while doing no harm to others. Including the decision to use, responsibly, ancient and sacred visionary plants then we cannot claim to be free in any way.

Graham-Hancock-Reconnect-With-Spirit

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Neuroplasticity, Meditation and Happiness – Willoughby Britton Ted Talk (Video)

Neuroplasticity, Meditation and Happiness - Willoughby Britton Ted Talk (Video) | Third Monk image 2

Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment.

In this Ted Talk, Willoughby Britton focuses on  neuroplasticity and mindful meditation through the scope of happiness.

The practice of meditation builds stronger and healthier neural pathways that lead to better habits.

Willoughby Britton – Neuroplasticity, Meditation and Happiness Notable Excerpts

If we get everything we want and get rid of everything we don’t want; we’ll be happy. It makes sense. Totally logical. Totally wrong. That’s just not the way the data has turned out to be. We’re one of the richest countries on the planet but we’re not really one of the happiest. And the people that are the richest in our country are not necessarily happier than the poorest people in our country.

Getting what we want doesn’t necessarily equal happiness.

Another thing that we know about happiness…it seems to be inextricably linked to the faculty of attention, or more specifically; our pervasive tendency or habit to not pay attention.

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

Our brain changes with experience and we get good at what we practice…if you exercise your physical body certain muscle groups get stronger, certain movements get easier and they become effortless and automatic. The brain is no different. The neural networks that you exercise becomes stronger and the thought patterns and mental habits that are represented by those neural networks get stronger and become effortless and automatic…

The most powerful way to change your brain is not medication, it is behavior.

neuroplasticity

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Homer and Lisa Simpson Visit the Isolation Tank (Video)

Homer and Lisa Simpson Visit the Isolation Tank (Video) | Third Monk

Each person enjoys a different experience when they float in an isolation tank for the first time. The Simpsons offers a satirical take on isolation tanks when Homer Simpson gets to experience being in one for the first time in the episode “Make Room For Lisa.”

The experiences of Lisa and Homer in their respective isolation tanks are as different as night and day.

Lisa undergoes a spiritual and mystical journey typical of what some people who float regularly report when they come out of a floatation tank. She sees an assortment of images and experiences life from the point of view of her cat Snowball and then Homer. Lisa learns to forgive his behavior and appreciate his efforts to bond with her by doing activities he doesn’t always enjoy.

Homer, however, seems only concerned on whether he can pee in the tank before starting his floating session. Once inside, his isolation tank is seized by repo men and falls out of the back of their truck on a sharp turn. It is found on the road by Ned Flanders and he mistakes it for a coffin. Ned buries the isolation tank and it breaks through the top of an underground water pipe. The isolation tank washes ashore on a local beach and is returned to the new age store. Homer leaves the tank feeling impressed by his “journey.”

Both experiences — one spiritual and the other comical — have positive effects on the relationship between Homer and Lisa. The same is true with others who float. They feel better about themselves and their loved ones.

homer-isolation-tank

> The Simpsons and Isolation Tanks | Isolation Tank Plans

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Alan Watts – The Connection Between Dreams and Consciousness (Video)

Alan Watts - The Connection Between Dreams and Consciousness (Video) | Third Monk image 2

Alan Watts describes the nature of consciousness through a series of dream analogies.

Reality is a dream we share as one.

Alan Watts – The Connection Between Dreams and Consciousness Transcript

If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death; or shall I say, death implies life. You can feel yourself not as a stranger in the world. Not as something here on probation. Not as something that has arrived here by fluke. But you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.

I’m not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it; I want you to play with it, I want you to think of its possibilities. I’m not trying to prove it. I’m just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about.

So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes, you would have every kind of pleasure you could perceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say, “Well that was pretty great, but now let’s have a surprise! Lets have a dream which isn’t under control! Where something is going to happen to me that I don’t know what it’s gonna be”. And you would dig that and come out of that and say, “Wow that was a close shave wasn’t it!”.

Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today; that would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have, of playing that you weren’t god. Because the whole nature of the god head, according to this idea, is to play that he’s not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not god in a politically kingly sense but god in the sense of being the self; the deep down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that! Only you’re pretending you’re not.

Alan-Watts-dreams-consciousness

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Methods of Meditation for the Busy or Impatient (Guide)

Methods of Meditation for the Busy or Impatient (Guide) | Third Monk image 2

If you are struggling with fitting meditation into your daily routine, this guide will help you ease into the practice.

Change Your Mindset About Meditation

meditation-mindset

Lower your expectations of meditation. Often the reason we are impatient about meditation is we want instant gratification. Replace that expectation with a desire to experience a “slow melt” of your stress.

Be open to non-traditional meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to be done in a seated position. Any activity in which you can slow down your mind, become more inwardly focused and more rooted in the present moment will pass the test for meditation.

Be kind to yourself. Don’t berate yourself for not being “good” at meditating. If you make the effort to meditate, then by default, you are good at it. It’s more a “do or not do” thing versus a “good or bad.”

Commit to slow down your mind for 10 minutes each day. You can obviously do this for longer if you want, but just take your time in building this habit by starting with 10 minutes per day.

How to easily incorporate meditation into your day. Transform some of the things you are already doing each day into mindful meditation:

Exercise Meditation

meditation-exercise-running-joggingAny continuous physical activity over a period of time can work. Some great choices are walking, jogging, or yoga. Chores can work too such as sweeping, folding laundry, stacking wood, and washing windows.

The way to transform any of these activities into meditation is to first focus on your breath. Observe it. Modify it. Try long inhalations, holding periods, and slow exhalations if you can. Observe how each part of your body feels. When you start to feel the exercise endorphins kick in, you might also want to express those good feelings with a big smile, a raising of the arms and/or a deep “Ahhhh” sound. Silly? Maybe. Feels good? Definitely.

Bathing Meditation

meditation-shower-bath-waterfallThe next time you shower or take a bath, create your own spa experience simply by flipping the switch in your mind. Let go of any limits. No time limits, no temperature limits. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Feel the water. Feel the sensations it gives your body. Allow the water to heal you by transforming your bathing time into a meditation. Focus on your breath and how your body feels. If thoughts involving the past or future come into your mind, observe them and send them packing by returning to your observations of your breath and body. What do you see, feel, smell, and hear?

Let go of words and labels by expressing your good feelings through meaningless sounds such as “aum,” “mmmm,” or “ahhhhh.”

Music Meditation

meditation-music-weedListening to music naturally brings us into the present moment. It can also bring us to good memories or daydreams of the future. You can bring more meditative elements to your music experience by noticing how you feel while you listen, play or sing. Add full diaphragmatic breathing and some cannabis too.

Some other music ideas are to pick up that instrument you haven’t played in a while. Don’t worry if you play well or not. The point is simply to become immersed in it and to enjoy it. You also may want to try singing or playing percussion along with your favorite music. Don’t have a drum? Make one. Any object can be a percussion instrument. Just start tapping! Lastly, consider going to a music based event and enjoy. You will be engaged in meditation without any effort at all. No wonder we like music so much!

Hobby Meditation

meditation-hobby-photographySimilar to the exercise, bathing, and music, immerse yourself in any project that you enjoy such as model building, knitting, car restoration, drawing, painting, crafts, etc. As you enjoy your hobby, add the elements of deep breathing, awareness of sensation, and focus on the current moment and you’ll be meditating. And in the end you’ll have a physical manifestation of that mediation.

Massage Meditation

meditation-massage-comboSchedule a massage for yourself. As you enjoy the physical sensation, be aware of your breath. You may want to focus on one word such as Peace, Calm, Love, Ease, or perhaps a sound with no meaning such as Aum. As everyday thoughts enter your mind, pour them out with the simple mantra “empty the mind.”

> Meditation Techniques for the Busy or Impatient | Dumb Little Man

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The Science of Lucid Dreaming Methods Used by Richard Feynman (Video)

The Science of Lucid Dreaming Methods Used by Richard Feynman (Video) | Third Monk

Here are the video’s lucid dreaming pointers in list form:

  • -Maintain a dream journal: this improves recall and lucidity.
  • -Reality checks: Remember to check the time often, even when you think you’re awake.
  • -MILD: Put that dream journal to use! Think of a recent dream as you fall asleep, while focusing on having a lucid dream. Try waking in the middle of the night for half an hour and then heading back to sleep.
  • -WILD: Keep your mind awake as your body slips into sleep.

Richard Feynman on the Fear of Sleep Paralysis

During the time of making observation in my dreams, the process of waking up was a rather fearful one. As you’re beginning to wake up there’s a moment when you feel rigid and tied down, or underneath many layers of cotton batting. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a moment when you get the feeling you can’t get out; you’re not sure you can wake up.

So I would have to tell myself — after I was awake — that that’s ridiculous. There’s no disease I know of where a person falls asleep naturally and can’t wake up. You can always wake up. And after talking to myself many times like that, I became less and less afraid, and in fact I found the process of waking up rather thrilling — something like a roller coaster. After a while you’re not so scared, and you begging to enjoy it a little bit. – Richard Feynman, Theoretical Physicist

richard-feynman-lucid-dreaming-sleep-paralysis

> A handy guide to lucid dreaming, with additional tips from Richard Feynman | io9

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A Visit to the Largest Floatation, Isolation Tank Center (Video)

A Visit to the Largest Floatation, Isolation Tank Center (Video) | Third Monk

Brian Rose & Nic Gabriel of London Real go Floating in an isolation tank for one hour @Floatworks, the largest floatation tank centre in the world. Watch as we enter into a weightless, soundproof, and completely dark chamber to induce theta brainwaves and a meditative state.

A very informative introduction to Floating for newbies. The video covers all the prep before going into the tank and the awesome benefits you get after your session is done.

floatworks-london-visit-london-real

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Chief Tecumseh – The Fear of Death Poem

Chief Tecumseh - The Fear of Death Poem | Third Monk image 3

Chief-Tecumseh-poemChief Tecumseh (Crouching Tiger) of the Shawnee Nation bestows ancient wisdom which is lined with an understanding that the reality around us is shaped by the way we choose to be, the way you interpret yourself and your outlook on life.

Chief Tecumseh – The Fear of Death Poem

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Maynard James Keenan (Lead Singer, Tool) Recites Tecumseh Poem on the Joe Rogan Podcast

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Magic Mushrooms Mimics Effects of Meditation – Dr. Roland Griffiths (Video)

Magic Mushrooms Mimics Effects of Meditation - Dr. Roland Griffiths (Video) | Third Monk

Dr. Roland R. Griffiths, Professor of Behavioral Biology Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins, discusses how psilocybin mushrooms can mirror and enhance the effects of meditation.

Meditation has similar affects physiologically in various humans who practice. But the actual practice of meditation is best left to each practitioner so they may construct a method that is best suited for the individual.

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Three Ways to Combine Marijuana and Meditation

Three Ways to Combine Marijuana and Meditation | Third Monk image 3

Cannabis and other psychedelics are wonderful tools to use in conjunction with meditation. The key is to know how you wish to incorporate these tools within your practice and methods. The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination. Marijuana and meditation both bring states of relaxation, clarity and euphoria, combining them seems natural in this world.

1. Wake, Bake, Meditate

meditation and marijuana

Lots of stoners wake and bake as a ritual to start their day. Pour a glass of water along with your morning toke then when you feel the relaxation of being high come over your body and mind find a comfortable place to rest outside on your porch, by a tree or in the morning sun and set your mind free for a couple of minutes.

The timing works well because you don’t have a full day of happenings to contemplate yet. Often times my days go smoother because I visualize how my day will go during this meditation and I set priorities without stress or tension clouding my judgment. Make sure you set aside a good chunk of time so you don’t feel rushed.

Marijuana’s ability to “distort” time makes it easier to sit for longer stretches of time, so light up on your path to enlightenment and enjoy the moment.

2. For The People Who Get Paranoia, Flip The Script


If marijuana makes you paranoid and brings up the doubting/judgmental voice in your head then this is the perfect time to sit and meditate. Many times when we meditate we have to go through the swirling thoughts that arise before we can reach that tranquil state full of knowing, love and acceptance.

If cannabis brings a certain paranoia or thought patterns, sit and listen. Your own consciousnesses is communicating with you giving you insights into who you are, who you believe you are and who you want to be. Embrace yourself, you are the sum of all your thoughts, feelings and actions.

3. End The Silence With A Bong Rip


Sometimes after a workout or a stretching routine I’ll sit comfortably for a meditation session. I enjoy meditation after physical activity because when you close your eyes or fix your gaze on a spot the blood flow within your body is apparent and it brings the feeling of being inside of yourself.

When I feel my consciousness return to this earthly experience and away from my meditative state I leisurely grind herb and pack my bong. I make sure to have all my utensils around me so I don’t have to go far from where I meditate. I inhale deeply and allow the weightlessness to come over my tired body, soothing my previously active muscles.

This bong rip to the dome brings, an at ease state of mind, into an euphoric existence. This helps extend and ground the meditative state I feel beyond the time of the session into my next activities and tasks.

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Meditation Basics – Breathing and Focus Points (Guide)

Meditation Basics - Breathing and Focus Points (Guide) | Third Monk image 2

Meditation will help you realize just how far, and how fast, your mind can wander from what you’re supposed to be doing at the moment. In an age of multitasking, hyper-scheduling, and instant internet distraction, that alone can be a huge help.

Beyond just anecdotes, it’s also been suggested that meditation can actually exercise your brain’s “muscles” to increase focus, and has been shown to lower stress and increase forgiveness among college students who take up the practice.

Following Your Breath

Following and steadying the breath is the most universal of meditation techniques.

In The Miracle of Mindfulness, a classic text that introduces the thinking and practice behind meditation, Thich Nhat Hanh lays out a thoughtful case for how the breath is connected to the mind, which controls the body. By actively watching one’s breath, and evening it out, one can bring their entire being to what some call the still point.

The instant you sit down to meditate, begin watching your breath. At first breathe normally, gradually letting your breathing slow down until it is quiet, even, and the lengths of the breaths are fairly long. From the moment you sit down to the moment your breathing has become deep and silent, be conscious of everything that is happening in yourself. – Thich Nhat Hanh

For some of us, that’s easier said than done. You start focusing on your breath, and after a brief victory, in comes the growing wave of random brain chatter—What should I eat for lunch today? Did Marissa say she would drop the bike off this weekend or the next?.

Hanh offers the simple, straight-ahead counter to distractions of the mind:

If following the breath seems hard at first, you can substitute the method of counting your breath.

As you breathe in, count 1 in your mind, and as you breathe out, count 1.

Breathe in, count 2. Breathe out, count 2.

Continue through 10, then return to 1 again.

This counting is like a string which attaches your mindfulness to your breath. This exercise is the beginning point in the process of becoming continuously conscious of your breath.

Without mindfulness, however, you will quickly lose count. When the count is lost, simply return to 1 and keep trying until you can keep the count correctly.

Hanh goes on to suggest that controlling the breath is useful in many situations beyond the quiet moments of meditation.

 

Focus Points for Meditation

Seek inspiration: If you are inspired by Eastern spiritual traditions, you might reflect upon an image or icon of the Buddha. You can also use the flower of life, a crystal, or other object that has meaning for you. Lightly allow your attention to sit there, quietly and peacefully.

Recite a mantra: A mantra literally means “that which protects the mind.” So reciting a mantra protects you with spiritual power. It is also said that when you chant a mantra, you are charging your breath and energy with the energy of the mantra. Again, choose something with meaning for you within your spiritual tradition. Tibetan Buddhists use a mantra for peace, healing, transformation and healing.

Do a Guided Meditation: Guided meditation is akin to guided imagery, a powerful technique that focuses and directs the imagination toward a conscious goal. (Think of a diver imagining a “perfect dive” before he leaves the platform.)

> A Guide to Meditation for the Rest of Us | LifeHacker