Taboos, Drugs and Consciousness. Narco Wars in Mexico

Dream states of consciousness are difficult to describe...

On the subjective plane, psychedelic experiences are difficult to relate or describe. An experienced practitioner will understand this point. But even those with no particular psychedelic experience can understand that it is difficult to remember and describe one's mental state during sleep and dreams, a theme well-explored both in Freudian and Jungian terms.

However, an experience shared by many familiar with peyote, mescalin, LSD, and other psycho-active agents is that of the consciousness of the Universal Mind or the Universal Void. Here, one identifies with the all-pervading reality of the universe. It may be a profound understanding that everything is conscious, or a kind of "merging" with the totality of being or non-being. This sense approaches that of the Buddha when it encompasses the void, or may be thought of as an opening of the Third Eye that allows one access to Sat Chit and Ananda, the essential characteristics of being, according to the Vedic wisdom traditions. http://www.amazon.com/Psychotherapy-Healing-Potential-Psychedelic-Medicine/dp/0979862205

There is a symbiotic relationship between these concepts of infinite and zero. Both are imaginary concepts: in real life, zero does not exist. Nature abhors a vacuum. Any number multiplied by zero returns a result which is null and void. The same is true of the infinite which is incalcuable. When we apply this concept to mind we encounter different philosophical schools which are remarkably similar.



Whereas the illusion of reality dissolves into the complete absence of reality, or the void, in the Buddhistic nirvana, the totality of mind, or infinite consciousness, results in the infinite spiritual Brahman of the Vedantic philosophers.

My own spiritual preceptor, Bhakti Rakshak Shridhar Dev Goswami was once offered LSD by one of his obtuse and sophomoric Western disciples, J. Swami The individual in question had quite a number of followers of his own yoga school. In fact J. Swami had begun his own search for spiritual truth as an acolyte of Timothy Leary at the Millbrook Community in Connecticut, where Leary first began his experiments in psycho-active agents.

Timothy Leary

J. Swami had a theory: If Yogis spend a long time practicing austerities to purify themselves, they must produce some chemical agent in the brain through their yogic practice. Why spend so much time practicing yoga when the same chemical agent is easily available. Obviously the "Soma" plant or drink referred to in the Vedas as amrita or immortal nectar is this same chemical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_identity_of_soma%E2%80%93haoma Wouldn't the chemical produced in the natural cactus provide us the same transcendental experience spoken of in the Vedas?

Shridhar Maharaja dismissed his question with a wave of his hand, "Your arguments will never convince me to take your drugs. No amount of finite can produce the infinite."  If consciousness is a product of the brain, then no "soul" exists. No chemical can produce it. No chemical can produce God or an experience of God consciousness since the whole thing is an illusion. On the other hand, if consciousness is real, then it exists beyond the chemical transactions of neurons. No prescription drug can bring us in contact with God in any meaningful way. My spiritual preceptor, in keeping with the wisdom of India's ancient traditions, rejected Timothy Leary as a materialist. Real spiritual consciousness can never be the result of a chemical process.

And yet, it may be considered that  psychedelic drugs could open some doors in the brain, causing a sense that one has reached some transrational understanding of basic ontological and cosmological problems. Still, these effects are temporary. They may afford one a glimpse into another reality, but the risk exists that one may take more and more drugs trying to look further beyond the doors to higher perception.

The poet William Blake wrote, "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

"He sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern..."

The 16th Century saw a new avatar in India: Shri Chaitanya. He said that through mantra meditation, when the mirror of the mind is cleansed one can overcome the misery of human life: "He will cross through the forest fire of material existence and know the ecstasy of spiritual reality." I believe that mantra meditation is a more effective technique than drugs to cleansing the mirror of the mind or the doors of perception.



The 20th Century stripped the world of meaning and lay bare the inner mechanisms of nature. In the last century the art of Picasso and Andy Warhol, the music of Edgar Varesz and Frank Zappa, the novels of James Joyce, Hemingway, Thomas Pynchon reflect the fragmentation of the human soul and the depersonalization of society. Where are the visionaries and saints that brought meaning to the world?

Where are the visionaries?

We live in an "instant world." Instant breakfast, instant coffee, instant information, instant sex. J. Swami wanted "instant enlightenment," and saw LSD and Mescaline as ways to achieve it. Today, of course, no one takes Alan Watts and Timothy Leary seriously. Or do they?



Illegal drugs are a multi-billion dollar industry.  Why?  We seek pain relief, freedom from anxiety, a chemical path to inner peace and even ecstasy. This world is so filled with pain that our survival toolbelt may include strong analgesics, valium, lorazepam, even oxycontin, oxycodone, powerful opiods. Our dyslexic, attention defcit and hyperactive children are given ritalin and adderall so they will be more productive well-adapted members of the education community. What happens when these children grow up and discover an affinity for methamphetamines?

https://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=2846, http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-speed-of-hypocrisy-how-america-got-hooked-on-legal-meth


 http://onpoint.wbur.org/2009/07/15/meth-in-america   What happens when pain relief patients find their prescriptions run out and turn from opiods to opiates?  http://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate-Epidemic/dp/1620402505

"Meth" crystals

Ecstasy or MDMA was the drug of choice at "Rave" parties during the 90s and early decades of the 21st century. Now Mexican drug gangs have revolutionized distribution methods of methamphetamines and black tar heroin. Anyone who has seen the popular TV series "Breaking Bad" knows what I'm talking about. Black tar heroin was made as easy to access as pizza by a gang known as "The Xalisco Boys" http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-opiate-boom-1433531938

While  experiments into the numinous experience revealed by psycho-active agents may have some validity, the reality for those who seek visionary understanding through chemical use may be much different.
Here are some before and after photos, supplied by local police agents in Multnomah County,  Washingont.  These are "mugshots," taken years apart of people arrested on drugs charges for crystal meth and show the deterioration caused by a constant use these dangerous drugs.  These photos are not for the faint-hearted.






For more on the use of this drug, see: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-worlds-most-dangerous-drug/  Of course not everyone begins using crystal meth. Some people only smoke marijuana. But the same local people who bring you marijuana often have access to other drugs. A drug ring supplying Ecstasy or MDMA can just as easily provide Meth or Black Tar heroin. In fact Black Tar heroin is the ideal product: customers need a lifetime supply and they want a daily dose. Of course some people can smoke marijuana all their life and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

Mexico's drug wars: murders, executions, narco-terrorism...

The insatiable demand for drugs in the United States has long driven an underground narco-economy in Mexico. Drugs are big money and organized crime families in Mexico control police, military, federal agents, even generals and politicians. Competition to control lucrative markets has led to a slew of murders, executions, and narco-terrorism.

Drug wars have claimed thousands of lives in Mexico...

Somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 deaths have been attributed to drug violence in Mexico in the last 7 years. http://www.amazon.com/Drug-War-Mexico-Neoliberalism-Narcoeconomy/dp/1848138865/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434729912&sr=8-1&keywords=mexico+drug+wars 

Here in San Miguel de Allende, my students tell me that you can acquire black tar heroin, methamphetamines, ecstasy, and marijuana very freely in any bar in town. Heroin is cheap and soon leads to addiction. The insidious aspect of the relief provided by drugs is that one becomes dependent on that relief. Addiction doesn't happen overnight. But dependence is a gateway to addiction. And many who access that "Door to perception," never return.

"La Virgen de Guadalupe" by Michel Gaspard