The fourth question:

Question 4

EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I HAVE HAD ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE USE OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS. I KNOW THAT LSD IS FALSE, BUT WHAT IS, IF ANY, THE TRUTH ABOUT MUSHROOMS?

The question is from Reese Guth.

LSD is not false, LSD is as real as anything else. But the experience that is created by LSD is a FALSE samadhi. Remember the distinction that I am making: LSD is not false, but the experience that is created under the impact of LSD is a false experience.

You say, "I HAVE HAD ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCES..."

They were not enlightening experiences. They may have been lightning experiences, but not enlightening -- flashes; you are not enlightened through them, you don't become a Buddha through them. In fact you become more of a mess out of them. The LSD changes your body chemistry, as mushrooms do. It changes your body chemistry. It does not change you, it changes your body -- just as food changes your body, air changes your body, climate changes your body, the moon, the full moon changes your body, but you are not being changed by it. All those changes happen in the body, all those changes are chemical changes -- not alchemical but only chemical. What is an alchemical change? -- when your consciousness changes. And the consciousness cannot be changed by ANYTHING that comes from the outside.

The consciousness cannot be changed by food, eating this food or that. The consciousness cannot be changed by non-eating, by fasting. Remember, there is not much difference between people who take LSD and the people who go on a long fast, no difference! Both are trying to change the body chemistry. The people who take mushrooms and other drugs are not doing anything different from the people who do yoga exercises, because in both ways the BODY is changed. The change is not happening in consciousness. Consciousness REMAINS BEYOND all chemicals.

If you fast long enough, naturally your body chemistry can't be the same. A few things disappear from your body chemistry and a few things accumulate too much. Your body has a different combination of chemicals.

After a one month long fast you will feel beautiful things, but those beautiful things are created by the chemical change. Start eating and those beautiful things will disappear. You do certain yoga postures continuously, for years, pressing your body structure at certain points, certain important points, pressing your body meridians at certain junctures continuously; it changes your body chemistry. Breathe in a certain way for years, always in a certain way -- it changes your body chemistry, because the oxygen and the carbon dioxide balance will be changed by your breathing.

Have you not noticed it? -- when you are angry you breathe in a different way? Why? That different way of breathing releases some chemicals in your body which are helpful to being angry. If you don't breathe in a different way you will not be able to be angry. Try it: breathe in the Buddhist way and you will not be able to go into anger, because the Buddhist way won't allow your body chemicals to be released which are needed for the anger.

You are afraid? You breathe in a different way. Different chemicals are needed, because a man who is frightened needs to escape fast, as fast as possible. He needs flight, certain chemicals are needed so he can flee fast. When you are in sexual passion your breathing changes. Continue to breathe normally and you will not be able to achieve orgasm. For the orgasm to be triggered a certain kind of breathing is needed.

But these changes are physical; these are not going to affect your consciousness. The consciousness is the witness to all changes. Just try to understand.

You are hungry, feeling hungry: the body is hungry, the consciousness simply notes the fact that the body is hungry. The consciousness is never hungry, cannot be hungry; it has no stomach. It can only be a witness. Consciousness is nothing but witnessing. Remember this formula: consciousness is witnessing. You are hungry? The consciousness reflects the hunger. It is like a mirror: it says "The body is hungry." When you have eaten and your body is satisfied, the consciousness says "The body is satisfied." The consciousness was not hungry and is not satisfied either. In both cases the consciousness was just witnessing -- hunger/satisfaction, sexual passion/sexual contentment, anger/release of anger.

You take LSD or some other drug, and there are lightning experiences. Consciousness is simply waiting and watching. It simply says, "Look, beautiful things are happening," but they are not happening to consciousness.

The spiritual growth is the growth of this witnessing! The spiritual growth has nothing to do with particular experiences. The spiritual growth is not a search for novel experiences. Spirituality has nothing to do with experiences as such. In fact to say any experience is 'spiritual experience' is utterly wrong, because all experiences are non-spiritual. THE EXPERIENCER IS THE SPIRIT. The witness is the only spiritual phenomenon. When all experiences have disappeared -- of hunger, of satiety, of anger, of release, of love, of hate, of kundalini arising in you, chakras opening in you, lotuses opening in you, lights showering in you; celestial music is heard, you feel great space, you feel joy, you feel bliss, but these are all experiences -- the real spiritual point is when there is NO experience, and the experiencer is left alone, utterly alone. There is no object to experience, but only this witness is there, silently witnessing nothing. Then you have arrived. This is SAMADHI. Witnessing nothing is SAMADHI. That's why Buddha calls it NIRVANA, nothingness, emptiness.

Your question is meaningful. And the question is not only concerned with psychedelic experiences, it is concerned with all kinds of experiences. Experiences AS SUCH are non-spiritual. When all experiences have gone and you don't feel ANYTHING AT ALL, and you have not fallen asleep either.... In sleep also those experiences disappear. In deep sleep, what Patanjali calls SUSHUPTI, where dreams are no more, all experiences disappear, but the experiencer is also absent. Patanjali says SUSHUPTI and SAMADHI are similar and yet very different, diametrically opposite. What is their similarity? The similarity is that in both, experiences are not found. And what is their difference? In SUSHUPTI, in deep sleep, the experiencer is also not found. In SAMADHI experiences are gone but the experiencer is sitting there silently watching nothing, witnessing nothing. This is enlightenment! Experiences can be lightning experiences, can be beautiful experiences, can give you great joy, but still they are not enlightenment.

Enlightenment is when the light is there and it falls on nothing. The light fills nothingness, no object is seen in that light -- this is liberation. To be liberated from experiences is to be liberated from the world. 'The world' means ALL kinds of experiences, what the Chinese call 'the ten thousand experiences' -- that's what the world consists of.

You say, "EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I HAVE HAD ENLIGHTENING EXPERIENCES THROUGH THE USE OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS. I KNOW THAT LSD IS FALSE BUT WHAT IS, IF ANY, THE TRUTH ABOUT MUSHROOMS?"

The truth is they can give you beautiful trips, and ugly trips too. They can give you golden dreams, and nightmares too. It all depends on you.

The drug only triggers a process. Whatsoever dream is ready to explode in you will be exploded, hence contradictory experiences have been reported.

Aldous Huxley reports that he experienced heaven, and Karl Rahner reports he experienced hell. Now Karl Rahner is against drugs and Aldous Huxley is all for the drugs. If you are all for the drugs your very prejudice will help you to create beautiful experiences. You will be waiting and hoping for something beautiful to happen, your belief will do the magic. If you are against from the very beginning, suspicious, doubtful, afraid, and you know that you are going to have some hellish experience through it, it will be created.

An ancient Sufi saying says: Hell is preserved for those who believe in it. And heaven is also preserved for those who believe in it. But it's all just make-believe. There is no hell, no heaven; you create your hell, you create your heaven. If you are in a kind of negative mood then take LSD and it will give you nightmares. If you are in a positive mood, flowing, loving, it will take you to paradise.

The ancient-most drug takers have been in India. India knows more about drugs than any other country. At least for ten thousand years ninety-nine percent of Indian sannyasins have been taking drugs, from the RIG-VEDAS till today, from SOMA to LSD. India knows much, India has created technologies, techniques, methodologies of how to take a drug. The drug trip should be a very guided trip; it needs a guide. The guide creates the atmosphere, he creates the idea. Slowly, slowly he goes on hypnotizing you about what is happening. And in a drug state a person becomes very suggestible, absolutely suggestible; all reason is lost. The dream faculty starts functioning, imagination is let loose. Now, imagination can do both -- either it can create hell or heaven. You need a guide. The guide slowly, slowly guides you towards heaven, heavenly experiences. He creates a beautiful dream, a poetic dream around you; and you are in a suggestible state, you simply fall a victim.

But guided or unguided, a drug experience or a fasting experience -- all are false. EXPERIENCE IS FALSE.

SAMADHI is when the witness has remained alone, witnessing nothing. That is the TRUE spiritual experience, if you will allow me to call it experience. It is not experience, because in experience you need three things: the experiencer, the experienced and the experience. There are not three things left at all. There is only one witness, witnessing utter nothingness, SHUNYA, emptiness. That is true experience.