Excerpted
from Methadone: A Drug Counselor's Guide
By
George A. Boyd © 1990
Spiritual
Breakthrough is a fundamental insight into altered states of consciousness,
culminating in a glimpse of the Higher Self, or Soul. Spiritual breakthrough
has been sought for centuries using a variety of external methods. It
is my contention that internal methods are a superior path to lasting
spiritual growth.
External Methods for Spiritual Breakthrough
External
methods include:
Self
Denial - fasting, celibacy, physical austerity, purifying the body
Ritual
- performing ceremonies or sacramental rites
Sexuality
- prolonged sexual intercourse such as practiced in Tantric Sexual Yoga
Nutrition
- special diets, herbal and vitamin supplements
Alcohol
and drugs - intoxicants, psychotropics and psychedelics
"Electronic
meditation" or psychotronics - brain wave entrainment or biofeedback
technology
Hypnosis
- heterosuggestion by a hypnotherapist, and audible or subliminal taped
messages; cultic or political indoctrination by group suggestion; advertising
and television
Music
and dance - sound and movement powerfully affects the subconscious
mind
External
methods have many positive qualities. They can readily produce altered
states of consciousness, temporarily enhance human performance and sensory
enjoyment. Their major drawback is that they produce dependence on an
external source of stimulation.
External
methods can produce negative effects, as well. For example:
Prolonged
fasting, excessive vitamin intake or tampering with nutrition by special
diets can each compromise the health of the body.
Alcohol
and drugs produce temporary intoxication and altered states of mood
and awareness, but they can create strong states of psychological and
physiological addiction, cause negative personality and character changes,
and contribute to many other psychosocial problems affecting the individual,
the family, and the community.
Psychotronics
can rapidly affect brain wave states and produce profound states of
relaxation and trance, but can also lower susceptibility to epileptic
seizure or exacerbate psychotic conditions.
Continued
hypnotic suggestion by external means can weaken the will power and
decision making ability. This makes a person more outer-directed, dependent
on others for guidance and direction, and thus more readily manipulated
for other's ends.
Music
and its lyrics can strongly influence the subconscious mind; the cultic
groups that assemble around modern musicians testify to its powerful
hypnotic effect.
Internal Methods
The
internal methods for achieving spiritual breakthrough are prayer, meditation,
and auric reception. These methods do not require an external source to
produce an altering of consciousness, but rely on internal controls and
receptivity to inner sources of energy and inspiration.
Prayer
is an invocation and supplication of the Divine by the human heart and
spirit.
Meditation
includes a variety of inner techniques that engage the attention, the
spirit, and the energy of the mind (kundalini shakti) to directly alter
awareness.
Auric
reception is an inner receptivity to the forces of Spirit, (variously
called the descent of the Holy Spirit, Shaktipat, or Light Immersion)
that heals, instructs, and transforms the body, mind and spirit from
within.
Like
the external methods, there are both positive and negative repercussions
of using these internal technologies of consciousness.
Prayer
can invoke the forces of hope, inspiration, comfort and healing from
the Funs of Creation, and liberate miraculous, life-changing powers
from the Superconscious Mind.
But
prayer can also produce over-dependence upon the Divine or human representative
of the Divine (Master, Guru, Teacher), weakening the ability to make
independent efforts. It can also be misused as a subtle means of attempting
to force one's will or desires upon another.
Meditation
can enhance creativity, improve intuition, strengthen will power and
concentration, facilitate insight, reduce stress, and bring about
attunement with the Transpersonal Self and communion with the Divine.
Misunderstood
and misused, however, meditation can foster false beliefs (delusions),
bring about dissociative breaks with consensual reality and from one's
emotionality, and lead one more deeply into neurotic fixations and
psychotic disintegration.
Auric
reception can be an uplifting, exalting and transformative experience,
deeply comforting and nurturing to the Soul.
But
receptivity, if not used with discretion and caution, can be an open
doorway to less than benign spiritual influences. Practices such as
channeling, mediumship and possession states as are seen in certain
religious groups can precipitate terrifying experiences with an invasive
and hostile other invading one's psychic space.
To
fully appreciate this internal technology of meditation, prayer and auric
reception, it is important to receive expert instruction. You should understand
the purpose for using a technique of meditation, its expected effects,
how to use it properly, how long to use the technique, and how to terminate
the altered state of consciousness after practice.
You
should also learn to recognize the warning signs of overstimulation, delusional
thinking, the emergence of over-dependence, and excessive self-absorption
as guidelines to temporarily cease or modify your meditation routines.
Over-dependence
on the charismatic representatives of the DivineGurus, Masters,
meditation teachersshould also be eschewed.
Critical
thinking, independent thought and evaluation, and getting in touch with
your own intuitive sense of truth should not be supplanted by instant
enlightenment schemes or unquestionable doctrinal explanations of the
all and everything, and of the here and hereafter. Advice that is nectar
to another may be poison to you, and to blindly believe anything because
of authority or testimonial is an open doorway leading to trouble.
Genuine
inner progress leading to mastery does take time, attention, concentrated
and purposeful effort, and many hours of practice. Perhaps the seduction
of the external methods is that they seem to offer an instant and reliable,
albeit temporary, means of altering consciousness.
Inner
mastery, however, is a gradual accretion of insights leading to the stable
growth of wisdom, compassion, and understanding. It involves a rigorous
training of the mind, the attention, the spirit, and the will to progressively
integrate the unconscious and Superconscious realms. This in turn leads
to a re-integration of the entire personality around a new nucleus, the
Soul, effecting a true spiritual psychosynthesis.
For
many individuals, external methods have been undeniably catalytic in opening
them to the potentials of their consciousness. But in the long run, internal
methods produce lasting results and lead to an inner mastery that requires
no external medium to produce it.
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