2012-07-19-Drugs
Lightline #365
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Drugs
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
3.1.1 Psychedelics
3.1.2 Stillness
o 3.2 Dialogue
3.2.1 Drugs
3.2.2 Freedom
3.2.3 Psychedelics
3.2.4 Synchronicity
3.2.5 Responsibility
3.2.6 Parenting
o 3.3 Closing
3.3.1 Gratitude
Topic: Drugs
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Let’s be still for a minute or so and kind-of settle down out of our own lives.
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, once again we gather together to figuratively sit at your feet with bright shining faces turned up towards you to feel the radiance of your being. And then what a delight it is to feel you inside as well–what a reassurance; what great company to have as we go through life; and what a thrill to look forward to meeting you face to face someday. So with all this we’ll say, “Amen,” and get going.
MICHAEL: Good evening, this is Michael. As always, Mother Spirit and I are delighted to be with you. We too are tickled to have this means of communication, and we encourage all of you to visit with us right inside yourselves. There’s no way you need be dependent upon someone else, anyone else, anyone else whatsoever. Whatever religion you might believe in, this is very intimate right between the two of us, with Mother Spirit doing all she can to augment your very abilities.
Psychedelics
Illicit drugs
MICHAEL: Tonight I would like to speak a little further on something that came up in the last meeting here with students, and that is the whole question of illicit drugs. Somebody related their recent experiences with LSD and, while there’s no way I would deny some of the good effects that folks have enjoyed with this kind of experience, I did feel it necessary to mention all of the risks that are involved. In that case I mentioned the fact that once you take such a powerful chemical into your system, you are stepping on a kind of unstoppable elevator. As you say, “You’re on your way; you’re in for a trip.” And that’s a very appropriate way of putting it. Your ticket is stamped. You’re on your way, come whatever may.
Even after the escalator kind-of peaks off and you step off into some other realm of consciousness, you’re being held there, sometimes for many, many hours. And as is often the case, quite a few days go by before you thoroughly come back down and achieve a kind of perfectly normal consciousness. And then, as I mentioned, that’s where the real work begins of comprehending and understanding what happened to you, and integrating it into your whole life.
So one of the greatest risks is being held in a certain state of consciousness; the greatest danger here being a loss of flexibility. Some of these drugs are so powerful there is no specific reaction. Think about that: no specific reaction. Once people tried to get a hold on this lack of specificity by saying what happens to you is partly your whole setting, in other words, the whole surrounding that you’re in, and the most critical of this is the other people, the other minds that you’re with. But there’s also your own relationship with reality, no less.
This is what you’re involved in, this lack of specificity. And that can render you very vulnerable to some accidental thing happening near you that you have no control over. As I say, you’re stuck for a while in an abnormal state of consciousness.
Today with your pharmacological cornucopia of illicit drugs coming on the market and being available, a far more critical thing is the question of quality and quantity. None of these under-the-counter, well, not under-the-counter but illicit, illegal drugs that are available on the black market, none of these are made by a well registered and recognized drug company which can produce things under extreme measures to ensure quality.
Some of these drugs are created in a soup of chemicals and so there are many, many processes to go through to purify them. In terms of quality, what could be worse than being on a drug so powerful it’s measured in millionths of a gram–micrograms, and yet here you are on this trip, this enormous trip, experiencing a poisoned body and mind because of a lack of purity. Then again with the more powerful psychedelic drugs that are measured in such minute quantities, there’s a whole question of quantity. Just exactly how much are you ingesting?
With all these factors in mind, in spite of the fact that some folks do have positive experiences that they can integrate into their lives, it’s nothing Mother Spirit and I can recommend. The risks are too great. The unknown quality is too great. And in terms of certain kinds of personality which are just barely able to cope with reality as it is day to day, this is the very last thing that such a person needs to be involved with. It can throw them into days and weeks, almost an indeterminate time of shear terror, of not being able to get a hold on the reality they find themselves in.
Keep these things in mind if you’re so tempted. It reminds me of a lot of other thrill seeking that is part of your culture now. You can find on your Internet people recording with their little cameras the most stupid type of endeavors, such as leaping off a roof into a tree. Or one I’m picking out of this T/R’s memory of folks zooming down a snow covered hillside and crossing a road, and then so ill-timing their event they go zooming down right into the side of a truck traveling along that very road. So: enough said. It’s something to consider very, very seriously. And for you parents, it’s something to definitely inform your children about–the enormous risks they would be taking.
Stillness
Changing consciousness through meditation
MICHAEL: Fortunately, wonderfully, for the purpose that a lot of serious people get into these experiments, a very similar and yet better quality of consciousness can be achieved by meditation. Here in your practice of stillness you can encounter, and take on, and strive to understand one by one, maybe some of the traumatic experiences of your past, rather than having all of them dumped higgly-piggly into your mind all at once.
This is a longer, a little bit more arduous journey, perhaps, than taking a pill. But the results are so much more qualitatively fine. You’re taking things only as they come up one at a time rather naturally. You’re not stuck in some state of consciousness, but rather your whole mind, your whole being can approach some difficulty you encounter with much more flexibility. You’re not literally being held in an extraordinary state of consciousness, but your consciousness has an intrinsic ability to move all around and look at things from all the different angles that would just naturally occur to you from your own wonderful curiosity.
Taking things one-at-a-time this way, there’s so much greater opportunity to understand all that you’ve experienced. The re-living an experience itself, that we encourage in all of our lessons–striving to be open-minded and encourage your soul to come forth and release those things that may be determining your whole present life, both positive and negative, both glorious and frightening–this is how you really come in contact with your soul. This is how you truly understand all those previous experiences that both color and enlighten your day to day life. This is how you get your consciousness to expand by itself. This is how you literally earn your enlightenment.
This is such a more flexible dynamic, present kind of thing. As I said in that lesson to my other students, it’s not in taking an elevator to the top of a mountain, anywhere near as much as it is in living down in the valley with all of your fellows. You might even come to see the miracle of what you call your everyday consciousness, because this is something that you have earned and learned your whole life. This is what is involved because those higher levels of consciousness are within you. One of the silliest things we’ve heard people referring to is that you use only ten percent of your mind in your everyday life. Nothing could be more ridiculous. You’re always using all of your mind you can. There’s always an inner striving within you to make the best of whatever situation in which you find yourself, unless, again, you’re deliberately numbing yourself out with those drugs that actually take you in the opposite direction, not the stimulants but the depressants.
There’s nothing more wonderful than coming to trust your everyday consciousness and working on it to keep expanding, keep your flexibility, keep your curiosity. This is where your soul really rejoices because this does lead to an ever new experience by staying in touch with an ever-changing reality both within yourself and all around you. This is experiencing by feeling truly that this moment has never happened before, and will never happen again. You’re experiential beings, my dears, and the great challenge of living your human lives is to keep experiencing.
It’s quite a challenge because your culture offers you so many ways of dodging this and “getting out of it”–as you say, “killing time”–getting lost in boredom. Yet by keeping yourself open to more experience you are putting your foot on the real path into the future and a whole universe out there to experience, with meeting all its hundreds of different kinds of personal beings that we love to tease you with. So keep that open mind, my dears. Really treasure your everyday consciousness and don’t foolishly risk what you have, what you’ve already learned, what you’ve already earned. Now if you have any questions or comments, let’s do that.
Dialogue
Drugs
Student: Hello, Michael.
MICHAEL: : Yes.
Student: Hello. This is J. in Texas. I just wanted to thank you for that wonderful lesson. Certainly, it spoke directly to me–absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much.
A pharmacological cornucopia
MICHAEL: : Well, you’re welcome, my son. As I said, there’s such a pharmacological cornucopia out there, dozens and dozens of so-called…it’s hard to say exactly what to call them. They are illegal, they are illicit; yet at the same time they do promise great adventures. But with every adventure you have to be very mindful of the risk, and very respectful of what you are risking, this marvelous gift that Mother Spirit is part of you in providing all her Adjutants, especially those of worship and wisdom. So if you have nothing else, my son. Be in my peace. I’m so glad you enjoyed the lesson.
Student: Thank you, Father.
Student: Hi, Michael, this is L. I also wanted to say thank you so much for that message. What really struck me about it was the way you spoke so matter-of-factly and gave such great advice without being the least bit judgmental about the student who had been involved in that. It’s such a wonderful example for the rest of us. Thank you.
Freedom
Greater freedom
MICHAEL: : Well, you too are welcome, my daughter. Yes, it would be silly to deny what is available, what is part of the choices you have. In one way this is an ever greater freedom that your modern society provides for you. Of course this means not the underground, illicit drugs I was referring to tonight, but all the good drugs, all the good chemicals you can take into your body to truly both prolong the extent and improve the quality of your life. And it keeps burgeoning; it keeps growing. It is good to see this as a freedom. These are choices you have now. It’s really good to inform your children of the world they will be living in once they get away from home a bit. These things are out there and every new, latest, little psychedelic drug has its proponents, so it’s definitely something they will encounter. But there’s the wonderful feeling of what your everyday consciousness is capable of, of how intrinsically flexible it can be. Like life itself, it’s one of those things you are so ordinarily unconscious of. It’s good to come around from time to time and, as you sit there meditating, feel yourself breathing and be thankful for life itself. So thank you, my daughter. Be in my peace.
Student: Thank you.
Student: If I may ask, do you have some words for those of us here this evening or, perhaps, reading these words later on–for those of us who, already in decades past, indulged in these shortcuts and have incorporated those experiences into our work and our growth?
Psychedelics
Incorporating extraordinary experiences
MICHAEL: : Yes, my dear, that’s why there’s no gainsaying, there’s no denying that many, many people have had wonderful life-changing experiences for the better, experiences they were able to incorporate, as I said, bringing some treasure down from that mountaintop and making it part of their everyday life. Consider the shear fact that people have shared these experiences with each other. That kind of intimacy of sharing an adventure cannot be gainsaid either. Tonight I wished to point out the risks you are running, and one of the largest ones is that these drugs, in being illegal, can run the whole gamut of purity and quantity. That’s what’s out there. That’s what you’re dealing with. I would never for a moment belittle the wonderful experiences that some folks have had and have shared with each other. That’s part of their soul. So thank you for bringing up that aspect of it too.
Student: Thank you.
Student: Michael, I’d like to ask a question. Was there a purpose in the timing, talking specifically about LSD? Back in the day–as they say, back in the 50’s when it was introduced, it wasn’t illegal at first. Just recently the so-called God-particle has been discovered–although as Monjoronson so humorously points out, it was never lost. But just as it’s been discovered now, it does not seem like coincidence. There seems to be purpose in such a thing. Was there purpose in the introduction of such a mind/consciousness-altering drug at that time in the 60’s when it seemed so much culture was going the other way? It seemed like so much of the culture never got out of World War II’s military-minded, corporate-minded mindset. Then along came this very colorful drug which opened up a pathway to a different view of life. My question is: was there a design in that from above, shall we say? Or are we applying that on our own? Does that make sense?
Synchronicity
Spiritual community involvement?
MICHAEL: : Oh yes, my son, I know very well what you mean. For those who had a very serendipitous kind of experience–just the very enormity of that experience gave a lot of them a kind of rebirth and re-evaluation of some of the social norms and values all around them; gave them a kind of new outlook on things. From the standpoint of those who had such positive experiences, it was pure serendipity. There was no spiritual timing. The spiritual community did not lead those chemists in the pharmacological companies to discover this. It was simply what came next. It was what they stumbled across, yet immediately saw some of the implications, both positive and negative, of their discoveries.
This is what happens on almost every world. If you look across a number of planets and their technological advancement, this is bound to happen at a certain time as people struggle to find ever greater relationships between psychology and pharmacology, to understand ever and ever deeper the relationship of mind and body, because that’s what we’re talking about. You take a few millionths of a gram of some substance into your body and go on a trip that might last for hours and hours on end. This is an empirical demonstration of just how delicate your consciousness is in terms of resting on a physical/biochemical basis.
This is going to happen as every society evolves in its study of pharmacology. This will occur and, as I pointed out, there’s a whole cornucopia now once you get on that trend. Now there’re dozen and dozens of drugs out there pretty much just for entertainment.
Student: Right, right.
MICHAEL: : But there’s no denying that at a certain time in your history, the ingestion by a lot of people of certain drugs did have a profound sociological effect.
Student: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
MICHAEL: : Be in my peace.
Responsibility
Student: Father and Mother, this is I. (name) Thank you very much. It’s been forty years since I’ve taken that particular trip. Now I get to go to conferences and mountaintops and get the same feeling. But my concern and my question is: our western medical profession proscribes a pill that hasn’t been tested–to control mood, to control thinking. I have a particular friend who just had a meltdown from all the medications that the doctors have thrown at her after a trauma to her psyche. So I don’t know what my question is. I know our physicians are to do no harm, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening on our planet today.
What each individual has to evaluate
MICHAEL: : Yes, my daughter, that’s why in any final analysis each individual has to evaluate and be responsible for what they are involved in. There’s no absolute knowledge in this realm. What you have at the very best are physicians who are simply dedicated and doing the best they can. But it’s all still in a very human kind of realm of: how to do something and then, as you know–the interpretation, how do you evaluate what you’ve just done?
You have all kinds of tests that work their way up through the animal level and then testing on human beings, realizing that people are such totally single-knit kinds of beings where if you tweak one little part of them, it has so many ramifications–what you call secondary effects–beside the ones that you might be desiring. Sometimes these so-called side effects do turn out to be worse than the original affliction.
But this is something that is in a process of evolution. Fortunately it will never stop, especially with your modern computers and the ability of so many people to be able to relate to and discuss and investigate, all at once, what’s happening in certain clinical studies. Just look back, my dear. Look back at the turn of the last century, around 1900, and all the drugs that were on the market at that time, and all the claims that were made for these drugs that you could go in to any drugstore and buy. I’m thinking of things like cocaine and heroin, and so forth.
You’ve come quite a ways and there are hundreds of millions of people living well beyond what they might have without certain drugs. So as your Urantia Book says, a hallmark of wisdom is a sense of proportion. This what you have to keep in mind, especially when you run into a tragic case such as your friend who is not being helped by all the drug tests she’s gone through. It may not be that there are some cynical, indifferent persons out there involved. It could very well be that everybody is doing the best they can with their still very imperfect knowledge and science. Do you get that sense of proportion I’m referring to?
Student: Yes, I do. I feel like they’re using her as a rat lab, like a lab rat, changing it every two weeks. And I just kind-of feel her slipping away.
MICHAEL: : It could be that they’re, as you say, using her as a guinea pig–I guess is the right term. There may be no other alternative. Both she and they might be doing the best they can. Some things are not amenable to drug intervention. Sometimes it’s a medical situation that’s simply gone past the point of no return. This is also part of the reality you are all faced with. But thank you for bringing it up. I can only encourage you to be ever more the good friend to her in these trying times. And be in my peace.
Student: Thank you Father and Mother.
Parenting
MICHAEL: : Isn’t it amazing what stillness we can achieve together?–just, as you might say, “on the natch”—naturally. Yet sometimes it is only by going to certain extremes. That is your human situation. Sometimes you only know what is good, or average–or not average so much as a moderate course of action–by going to extremes. Most of you in your youth did have some very far out adventures, and may have come close to risking not only your sanity but your life itself, just stumbling across those limits all of sudden, and feeling truly, deeply in your heart, “Thank you, God, that I survived that one.”
Touching something enormous
But this is the way you touch something enormous, and that very awareness of being a part of, and in touch with, something enormous is indeed the pearl of great price. It’s also part of the terror of being a parent, knowing you have these hostages to fortune going out into the world and sooner or later running into their own limits. It’s why we encourage all you parents to be as honest and open and, as you say, up front with your own children, as you can be. Really share your life with them. Give them the benefit of your wisdom. Send them out there with some caution, but above all, send them out there with a real love of life and a real treasuring of what they already are and what they have been given, so that in moments of temptation they have something to weigh in the balance. They’ll have some inner ability to say, “No, thank you,” when offered something that is truly risky, not only to their life but to their mind. This you do by your example, by letting your own spirit shine forth. Just be as honest within yourself and with them as you can be.
Closing
Now if there are no further questions, we can wrap up this particular unique session. We say good-bye to each other and hang up the phone and go our separate ways, but with a little glow inside, knowing that we have touched and been touched by spirit, by what we share with each other, even across these enormous distances. We thank your technology for these very instruments.
Gratitude
Appreciation—thankfulness–worship
MICHAEL: It’s all a matter of appreciation, of thankfulness. This itself is the key to worship, thanking our Father not only for what he’s given us so far, but laying out before us a road that has no end, that leads clear across the universe, back to what is truly our home base, both deep within us with his presence, and off into that far, far distant future. It’s all real. It’s all marvelous. So thank you, my dear ones, for being with me once again and giving me this opportunity. Go forward in my peace, and love one another. Good evening.
