That reduces spirituality to the brain and further to various chemicals present in the brain.
I don't see it that way at all. A reductionist would see that all spiritual experience is "in the brain", as its cause or source. I on the other hand see a material correlate to every experience. That certain chemicals in the brain have a certain effect as part of a certain experience, does not mean the experience can be reduced to the chemical! That's like saying love is just your endorphins.
I see these Enlightenment experiences, of which I have experienced this, to be what happens during death, or some "near death experience". The Amygdala shunts and there is the experience of bliss and oneness. That does not mean that what is experienced is not real. But our experiences during it do have a material correlate, since we are in this body after all. Only those who are quick to disprove the primitive mythologies about God as invalid scientifically, call these experiences "not real" because there is a reaction in the brain. They conveniently forgot that means their experience of love would be "not real" either. Try telling that to their spouse, and see how far that gets them.
My personal experience with such drugs and otherwise is that there is a world of difference between the drug state and putting love into action.
That is exactly the same thing about any state brought about by things like meditation, exercise, yoga, tai chi, chi gong, Transformation is about
integration, not about states. States open us to something "higher" than what we normally experience. But in every case, it takes someone's willingness to put it into action that matters. Having state experiences is easy. Being Enlightened however takes full surrender. It takes an act of the will, not meditation, or drugs, or dancing, or chanting. Those are just tools, all of them.
At a minimum, that demonstrates that drugs are not a shortcut to anything except experiences which are not continuous.
Agreed. I once read a story in some book where the young monk proudly said to his master, "I practice mediation all day, every day!" To which the master replied, "That's wonderful. Soon you will be able to meditate and not need to practice doing it." That's the same thing. Transformation is not a state experience. But state experiences can help lead to transformation. Practice becomes actual experience.
Besides the wise words of Meher Baba on drugs quoted above, the
story of Ram Dass and his guru is instructive.
At the end of an hour it was obvious nothing had happened. His reactions had been a total put-on. And then he asked, “Have you got anything stronger?” I didn’t. Then he said, “These medicines were used in Kullu Valley long ago. But yogis have lost that knowledge. They were used with fasting. Nobody knows now. To take them with no effect, your mind must be firmly fixed on God. Others would be afraid to take. Many saints would not take this.” And he left it at that.
As a note to this interesting story, just merely taking some drug like that, or even just smoking pot for instance, if it is not done with the intention to use it to reach beyond into higher states of conscious awareness, it's just a distraction, an entertainment of sorts. But when combined with some form of spiritual practice, it can act as an "assist", sort of like jumpstarting the engine. It doesn't engage the clutch and the transmission by itself. That has to be the act of the driver in the seat. If used in the proper context, with proper intent, then it can aid and assist, not "produce it".
Obviously you saw him as an authority.
