Meditation and Altered States

[Guest guest]

Rajinder Johal wrote:

<I have been following with some interest the thread on ecstasy and how

similar states can be experienced by those who have advanced meditation

skills.

Have people on those threads comparing the effects of drugs such as ecstasy,

and GBH with meditation, actually used the said drugs so that their

comparison between the two states can be said to come from experience? Or

are unjustifiable comparisons being made here?

I personally know many who have used the compounds in question and a few

people who have practised meditation. The experiences they relate verbally to

me seem entirely unalike.>

*** First of all, it is vital to appreciate that there are many different

types of " meditation " , some ranging from those which induce very tranquil

transcendental states and others which shamantistically can induce states of

frenetic arousal. I spent a great deal of time during my days in brain

research with some Eastern masters whose meditative states were so radically

different from the extremely hectic and cathartic meditative states induced

via dance by " sangoma " (shamans) in Africa that one would have wondered that

they had anything in common. Not once did I encounter any such masters or

sangoma suffer any detrimental side-effects from their types of " mind

bending " , though I cannot say the same of folk I had known to be regularly

using pharmacological means to " transcend " to whatever state that they were

trying to enter.

Some of these states can reduce one's response to sensory stimuli, while

others can do the opposite. EEG research has even shown that the brain

rhythms and brain stem evoked potentials (BSEP) are very different in Zen and

TM (transcendental meditation). Similarly, there are many different types of

psychoactive drugs, each of which produces its own different effects. Thus,

it is rather meaningless to make any blanket comparisons of the different

mind-altering means. You will have to be far more specific than to compare

" meditation " with " drugs. "

Regarding the effect of expectations, then I have little doubt that these

play can play a significant role in affecting the passage and outcome of any

altered state, be it induced by meditation or drugs. By the way, many years

ago, when we were examining the combined effects of meditation and marijuana,

we were most interested to note that, if we asked experienced meditators to

overcome the effects of marijuana with meditation (more raj yoga style), then

the marijuana produced little or no obvious effects. This sounds rather like

Baba Ram Das's guru who did much the same with a handful of LSD tablets, as

related here by Ken O'Neill.

Maybe it would be helpful now for anyone to suggest some websites and books

for those who would like to study meditation further. We have already

mentioned a few of these resources and I will be willing to list some more

from the hundreds of such books and article in my own collection (why did I

collect all of this material? Well, I was doing a Masters degree in brain

research and one thing led to another...!).

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/