| Answer
from Jesus:
First of all, let me thank
you for asking a question that is important to many spiritual seekers—given
that so many people in today’s world have taken drugs in some
form. Let me also compliment you for demonstrating that you are willing
to attain a higher understanding than what you believe based on your
experiences to this point. This is the attitude of a true spiritual
seeker. So let me give you some thoughts to ponder.
Thought 1
There is a large, and ever-growing, number of people who have had a
near-death experience. For many of them, the experience was life-changing.
While out of the body, these souls experienced a level of reality that
many of them had not known or had denied all their lives. They received
profound insights and visions that transformed their lives. Obviously,
for many people, having a near-death experience was beneficial to their
spiritual growth. The only problem is that they had to die to have the
experience.
Do you think I would recommend the creation of clinics where people
were put to death in such a way that there was a high chance of resuscitating
them? If you think so, watch the movie “Flatliners” and
you will see why I don’t recommend this.
Thought 2
My point for this somewhat melodramatic opening thought is to show you
that although I want all people to experience maximum spiritual growth,
I want them to have this growth in a way that is completely safe. So
you have to evaluate the risk versus the potential reward. If you have
cancer, chemotherapy might be – given the current, rather primitive,
level of medical science – your only chance of survival. Chemotherapy
is an attempt to kill the cancer—if it doesn’t kill your
body first. In other words, it is a very high-risk procedure, and if
there was a safer alternative, no sane person would use it.
It is true that certain drugs can help people have experiences beyond
their normal level of awareness. In some cases this can open a person
to the existence of something beyond the material world, and this awareness
can have a lasting effect. However, this recognition can be obtained
in many ways that are far safer than using drugs. My point being that
you have to evaluate the risks before you can asses the real value.
The problem is that in today’s world there is little teaching
about the spiritual risks associated with taking drugs. Therefore, most
people have been misled into taking drugs without knowing what can happen.
To me this is such an obvious violation of free will that spiritual
seekers should be able to see that the entire drug culture could only
have been inspired by dark forces seeking to steal people’s spiritual
light.
What are some of the risks? Let us consider the reason most people don’t
have spiritual experiences. As I explain throughout this website, the
basis for having a spiritual experience is that you turn the dial of
consciousness and tune in to a level of reality beyond the material
universe. What prevents many people from turning the dial is that they
identify so strongly with the material universe/physical body/outer
personality that they cannot let go of their normal sense of awareness
and identity. One might think this is in opposition to people’s
spiritual growth, but that is not necessarily the case.
Everything in this world revolves around people’s free will. Your
conscious mind is meant to be a guardian that protects your soul. One
aspect of this protection is that you can decide that there are certain
energies, ideas or forces that you do not want to allow into the energy
field of your soul. Yet when you take drugs, you suspend your ability
to make conscious choices, and thus your conscious mind – overpowered
by the hallucinations produced by the drugs – can no longer make
free choices.
In reality, free will is a gift that comes with responsibility—as
does every other true gift. One might say that you choose to take drugs,
so you are simply exercising your free will. However, the consequence
of your choice is that you give away your ability to make choices. And
according to the Law of Free Will, giving away the power to choose makes
you vulnerable to the forces that roam this world, seeking whom they
may devour. If you doubt that such forces exist, consider why most drug
users eventually have a “bad trip.”
The ugly fact is that while you are under the influence of drugs, your
energy field is no longer protected by your conscious will. So unless
you have a high degree of spiritual protection, you are likely to be
invaded by dark forces that steal your light. They can do this because
while you are under the influence of drugs, you cannot consciously hold
back your light and are much more likely to give it away. When you have
a genuine spiritual experience, you will feel filled with light. This
light might flush out unresolved wounds or even dark forces from your
subconscious mind. While you are processing or letting go of this darkness,
your body and mind can become tired, as when you are battling an illness.
Yet a genuine spiritual experience will not drain you of your basic
life energy, your life force. Therefore, such experiences put you in
an upward spiral. Taking drugs on an ongoing basis will drain your vital
energy, and this puts you in a downward spiral. That is why you see
so many of the “creative” people who use drugs looking older
than their actual age. That is also why people gradually slip deeper
and deeper into addiction—their resistance is eventually lowered
beyond the point of no return.
You mention that some people have received spiritual insights as a result
of using drugs, but how reliable were those insights? I can assure you
that many people have, by taking drugs, invited dark forces into their
energy fields. Such dark forces do not want to give you spiritual truth,
because they don't want to set you free, they want to control you for
their own selfish ends. Yet they will often give people some spiritual
insights in order to keep them coming back for more. Mixed in with the
truth are subtle lies, and unfortunately many sincere spiritual seekers
have, while under the influence of drugs, come to accept certain erroneous
ideas that prevent them from rising above a certain level of the path.
You see, the dark forces and your ego don't mind that you rise to a
certain level and feel like you are a very spiritual person—as
long as you keep feeding them energy and never rise high enough to escape
their control.
To evaluate the risk of using drugs, you need to carefully consider
the danger of addiction. The problem here is that when you force an
experience beyond ordinary consciousness, you might not be ready to
integrate that experience into your daily awareness. You will not be
able to handle the immense contrast between the “peak” experience
and your normal daily awareness. This can happen also when people have
spontaneous spiritual experiences or near-death experiences. However,
when people have an experience as a result of taking drugs, the situation
is different, because people produced that experience by their own will
and by mechanical means, so they can repeat it any time.
This sets up an immense temptation to take another dose of drugs, and
it can quickly develop into an attempt to run away from your daily state
of consciousness. This leads to an emotional addiction that can quickly
– depending on the drug used – develop into a chemical addiction.
In other words, the emotions become addicted before the body does.
The problem here is that when you repeat the experience, you are not
likely to integrate any insights you might have into your daily awareness.
So you are not actually growing spiritually, because the true definition
of spiritual growth is not the peak experiences you have (however they
come about). In reality, having peak experiences is not nearly as important
as many spiritual seekers make it out to be. The real driving force
of spiritual growth is the intuitive insights that help you integrate
spiritual ideas into your everyday awareness. The true measure of growth
is that you truly raise your “normal” state of consciousness
instead of just being spiritual while having peak experiences. It is
the goal of the Ascended Host to raise the consciousness of humankind.
To do that, we don’t need millions of people sitting in caves
in the Himalayas, experiencing constant bliss. We need millions of people
who participate in life with some degree of Christ consciousness, so
they can bring Christed solutions to everyday problems.
Thought 3
One might think that any experience beyond the ordinary, materialistic
awareness would be beneficial to spiritual growth. Unfortunately, that
is not the case. If a soul is not ready for the experience, the soul
can be so shocked that its sense of identity can be shattered. For many
souls, their sense of identity is very fragile. They need a solid, meaning
materialistic, foundation for their sense of identity or they will be
thrown into an identity crises. A forced spiritual experience –
whether it is forced through drugs or other means (such as unbalanced
use of spiritual exercises) – can have profoundly negative effects
that can take years or lifetimes to heal. That is why I continually
state that the spiritual path is a gradual process and that you need
to approach it in a balanced manner.
My point is that forcing a spiritual experience will not necessarily
lead to spiritual growth. It will often have the opposite effect, and
the deciding factor is the soul’s level of spiritual maturity—or
lack of it. As a general rule, I would say that if a soul is not ready,
forcing an experience will delay the soul’s progress. And when
the soul is ready, the spiritual experience will occur without forcing
it. That is why I said:
And from the days
of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)
That statement is still valid,
and one of the ways in which people seek to take a spiritual experience
before they are ready for it is by taking drugs. One might say that
I am contradicting myself by saying that everything revolves around
free will but that you should not willingly force a spiritual experience.
Yet this seems contradictory only when you are trapped in a dualistic
way of thinking, which makes you susceptible to the belief that the
ends can justify the means. When you think this way, you reason something
like this:
- The goal is a higher
state of consciousness and this is a very important goal.
- To attain this state
of awareness, I need spiritual experiences.
- I haven’t had any
so far. I have tried spiritual techniques but they didn’t work.
By taking a drug, I am guaranteed to have such experiences.
- Therefore, taking a drug
is a perfectly logical way to enhance my spiritual growth.
One could write a long philosophical
discourse on the problems with this line of reasoning, but let us stay
on target. The real problem here is that you are trying to use the dualistic
state of consciousness to overcome dualism, and that simply cannot be
done. You cannot fight force with force because doing so only drives
you even deeper into duality. It is a spiritual catch-22.
The essence of the spiritual path is that you are trapped in duality
and separation. The goal is to overcome duality and separation, yet
the reasoning above springs from duality. One might say you are attempting
to attain a worthy goal but using means that cannot get you to that
goal. One might also say you do not fully understand the goal and the
appropriate means to get there.
Thought 4
You ask whether taking drugs is an attempt to “cut out the middle
man of the chela/guru relationship,” and the answer is that it
depends on what kind of guru you are talking about. A true guru, one
who is working under the lineage of the Ascended Host, will NEVER recommend
drugs for any student. It simply isn’t done by us, period! The
reason is partly that the risks are too great, but the real reason is
that drugs do circumvent the guru-chela relationship. Why would you
need a guru when you can just take a pill?
In connection with the previous thought, here is the central dilemma
in human existence and on the spiritual path. Everything is subject
to your free will, yet most people are not exercising their free will.
They are letting their egos make most choices for them, as explained
by the Presence
of God’s Will. So to truly walk the spiritual path, you must
use your conscious will to decide that you will go beyond the outer
will of the ego and connect to the inner will of your soul and I AM
Presence.
This process can be difficult and confusing, especially for the beginning
student. That is why we offer the guru-chela, or master-disciple, relationship.
The basic principle here is that the student surrenders his outer, ego-based,
will to the master. This gives the student a temporary reprieve from
the confusion of having to battle his outer will or discerning between
the ego’s will and the higher will. The master is making decisions
for the student, the master is more spiritually mature than the student
and is outside the student’s mental box. Therefore, the master
can gradually guide the student to a greater discernment between the
lower will and the true will. The master knows how to guide each individual
student, and this might entail not allowing a student to have a spiritual
experience until the student is ready for it. For an excellent description
of this process, read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa
Yogananda.
Again, based on the previous thought, it should be possible to see that
when you take a drug, it is the outer will that decides to do so. So
you are making the essential error of thinking that you can use the
outer will, the will of the ego, to escape the ego. This simply cannot
be done. The only way is to transcend the ego, and to do that you must
make contact with something higher. However, that something is not really
a spiritual experience. The real escape is to contact your Christ self
and gradually merge with that self so you have a permanent transformation
of consciousness.
My point is that having a powerful spiritual experience will not necessarily
and automatically enhance your spiritual growth. If you are not ready
to integrate the experience, it can be a distraction or even a hindrance.
When you work with an outer guru (physical or ascended) or the inner
guru of your Christ self, you are essentially admitting that your ego
will never know when you are ready for a spiritual experience. Thus,
you are setting aside the will of the ego and submitting to a higher
will, trusting that when you are ready, you will have the experiences
you need. Instead of taking Heaven by force, you are following my call:
In your patience
possess ye your souls. (Luke 21:19)
The ego always thinks it
knows best, even better than a spiritual teacher or God. But if you
follow the ego, the ego becomes your guru, and how can it take you beyond
the duality from which it was born?
Thought 5
You know from medical science that when a person has open brain surgery,
it is possible to physically or electrically stimulate specific centers
of the brain and produce certain experiences in the patient’s
mind, including spiritual experiences. This fact has been used by some
scientists as “proof” that all religion and spirituality
is the product of brain chemistry. This is a flawed reasoning. In reality,
the brain is the interface between the soul and the body. When your
soul is in the body, it experiences everything through the brain, including
a spiritual experience. As I said, when you have a spiritual experience,
you turn the dial of consciousness and tune in to the spiritual realm.
This can be done through the brain because the brain has centers that
facilitate such an experience.
Because the brain has the physical machinery for a spiritual experience,
it is possible to stimulate the brain into producing what seems like
a genuine experience. This can be done through physical, electrical,
magnetic and chemical stimuli. The problem is that this is not a genuine
spiritual experience. It is an experience produced by the brain, and
while it may seem very authentic, it is not the real thing. It is like
the difference between watching a movie of a beautiful beach and actually
being physically present on that beach. My point being that the majority
of drug-induced “spiritual” experiences are not genuine.
In all fairness, it must be stated that a few people have actually had
out-of-body experiences as a result of taking drugs. In that case, it
is possible that a soul can travel to the spiritual realm and have a
genuine experience while the brain is under the influence of drugs.
In rare cases, the soul might actually have some memory of the genuine
experience. The problem here is that there is a great risk that a soul
can go to lower
realms instead of the spiritual realm—and this risk is much
higher for people who are willing to take Heaven by force. If a soul
has the spiritual maturity to go to the spiritual realm, that soul could
easily learn to have genuine spiritual experiences without drugs. It
would mainly take a correct understanding of the need to surrender the
outer will of the ego and connect to the higher will. Obviously, spiritual
techniques and studies can be a great help.
My point is that if a soul is mature enough to have genuine spiritual
experiences from drugs without being trapped in the risks, that soul
really doesn’t need the drugs. Unfortunately, there are examples
of many such souls who got caught up in the drug culture and ended up
in addiction instead of having the spiritual breakthrough for which
they were almost ready.
Thought 6
The fact that the brain’s machinery can handle the intense energies
of a spiritual experience brings up the most severe risk concerning
drug use. The circuitry in the brain that allows for a spiritual experience
is very complex, and thus rather delicate. You know very well that if
you take an appliance that is designed for 110 Volt and plug it into
a 220 Volt outlet, you will destroy the circuitry. Likewise, hallucinogenic
drugs can damage the circuitry that allow the brain to facilitate a
spiritual experience.
That is why most of the people who take drugs will need progressively
larger doses in order to get the same experience. The explanation is
that the circuitry gradually becomes damaged, so it takes more “power”
to get the “lights” to go on. This, of course, becomes a
vicious circle that often ends up in chemical addiction. Many people
have damaged their brains to such an extent that they can no longer
have a genuine spiritual experience. Yet they can still force the brain
to produce the look-a-like. Such people often think they are very spiritual,
but "its all in the brain."
Thought 7
What do you do if you have taken drugs? That depends on whether you
are still taking them. If you are still using drugs, even on an irregular
basis, I strongly urge you to STOP IMMEDIATELY. You might have heard
the saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. If you
are open to the teachings on this website, you are at a level where
drugs will do absolutely nothing for your spiritual growth. Even if
you thought you needed drugs in the past, you no longer need them.
Be aware that the go thinks it knows everything, so it will tell you
that you are one of the people who can take drugs and keep it under
control—you can do what other people can't do. This is the main
reason why some "creative" people have used drugs for a lifetime,
and it shows you they are controlled by the pride of their egos—which
truly is not very creative.
I know there are people who are firmly convinced that they have not
been harmed by taking drugs and that it has accelerated their spiritual
growth. Let us assume this is true. If so, there can be only one reason,
namely that you are an advanced soul and that you have great spiritual
protection. If that is the case, you should realize that a truly advanced
soul does not need drugs to have a spiritual experience, and it is time
to throw away the crutch. If you can't give up drugs, perhaps you are
not really as advanced as you think.
You should also consider that spiritual protection is a grace that can
be used up. If you have earned spiritual protection in past lives, you
can get away with many things in this life. Yet if you continue to tempt
God, your protection might run out and then I can assure you that drugs
will suddenly have a very different effect on you—as you see in
the lives of some "creative" people. Also, if you have protection,
be very careful about getting other people to use drugs. If they don't
have the same protection, they will be affected differently and you
will make karma by influencing them.
If you recognize truth on
this website, it is time to come up higher by heeding Paul’s advice:
When I was a child,
I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1Corinthians
13:11)
If you have already stopped
taking drugs, congratulations! Simply focus on making spiritual progress
and don’t blame yourself. However, be aware that you need to seriously
consider the need to surrender the anti-will of the ego to the higher
will of either an outer guru or the inner guru of your Christ self.
I recommend the Rosary
to God’s Will for this purpose, especially a 33-day vigil.
I would also highly recommend that you use spiritual techniques, such
as Mother Mary’s rosaries, to repair the brain’s machinery
by invoking spiritual energy. You can also use various methods to cleanse
the body from the chemical residue of the drugs, which can linger in
the brain for a long time and block spiritual experiences.
In conclusion, let me say that while a few people have become more open
to the spiritual side of life by using drugs, these souls could have
attained the same – and in many cases better – results by
following a genuine spiritual teaching. Therefore, I strongly recommend
that anyone who is open to this website avoids drugs or does whatever
it takes to escape their downward pull. You cannot serve two masters!
Thought 8
As far as the many creative people who have taken drugs, there is a
fundamental difference between being a creative person and being a genuine
spiritual teacher. You simply have to decide whom you will follow, whom
you will make your guru. If you select a guru or role-model, that guru
can take you no higher than his own state of consciousness. Do you really
want to go where these “creative” people are in consciousness,
or would you rather go where I am in consciousness?
To help you make that choice, I recommend you study my discourse, Follow
me, not Peter! and absorb its inner meaning. You cannot serve God
and mammon, and “mammon” is a symbol for the consciousness
of this world, the desire to glorify the ego, which is what causes people
to attempt to take Heaven by force.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
