DOSE:

250 ug

oral

LSD

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

A Mystical Experience

Prelude

Concerned about a planned high dose (250 mic) LSD session with Malcolm (who had never taken a high dose of a psychedelic before), I threw the I Ching. The hexagram that came up was:

LU TREADING, CONFLICT

TEXT Though he treads upon the tiger's tail, it does not bite him. Success!

COMMENTARY The tiger does not bite the man who has trodden upon its tail because it is joyous and responds to heaven's will. The man enjoys success. Blamelessly setting foot in the place of the Supreme Ruler denotes glory.

SYMBOL This hexagram symbolizes a body of water lying open to the sky. In hexagram 6, water in a pit beneath heaven symbolized conflict; it was as though the watery pit was trying to emulate heaven's dome (NOTE: hexagram 6 was the very hexagram I received before an earlier high dose psilocybin trip - K'an the Abyss - with corresponding results*). But here the flat stretch of water lying open to the sky was a favourable meaning, all the more so as the lower trigram has the secondary meaning of joy. Whereas K'an, the watery pit, always has an unpropitious significance, Tui is a favourable omen. The superior man consults both high and low and thereby steadies the people's will. (*I should note that the the K'an the Abyss mushroom trip had a deeply profound resolution, in which my resistance was revealed to be nothing but curling emanations from the Void.)

LINES 9 for the top place: If they watch their step and heed the omens, sublime good fortune will be theirs. Immense felicity!

6 for the third place: Though a man has but one eye, he can still see; though he be lame, he can still walk; but he who treads upon the tiger's tail will get bitten - disaster! The warrior undertakes things for his lord; this is a time for obedience - no time to stand up to our superiors. The one-eyed man does see, but not clearly; the lame man can walk, but not keep up with the others. Disaster suffered by the man who gets bitten. The superior man undertakes his lord's affairs because the latter is strong of will. (Interpretation: the ego, though substantially diminished, will still have some power and must be surrendered totally.)

THE MOVED HEXAGRAM: KUAI RESOLUTION

TEXT Resolution. When a proclamation is made at the court of the King, frankness in revealing the true state of affairs is dangerous. In making announcements to the people of his own city, it is not fitting for the ruler to carry arms. It is favourable to have in view some goal. (Interpretation: Do not go around telling others of your psychedelic insights. The purpose is your own and no one else's.)

August 5, 1984 - 15 hours after ingesting 250 mic of pure LSD-25

Today I gave myself up completely, entered into the blinding light of absolute, complete Identity: At-one-ment, from which infinite bliss radiates inexhaustibly, forever, sat-chit-ananda (being-awareness-bliss). All God required of me was one thing: to let go of myself and my life totally, absolute surrender. With that act I saw that I am Gaia, the one will a trillion eyes and mouths, penetrating and permeating the entire universe, everywhere forming stars, galaxies, planets, life. How silly of us to get caught up in our trivial ego games. For today's eternity was the One and Only, the Everlasting, God, Brahman, Vishnu, Atman, Buddha, Tathagatha, Tat Tvam Asi! (That art thou!) The True Self of blinding Light, the radiant core from which the entire Cosmos arises in all its glory, infinite source of bliss never-ending. I saw the True Self for the very first time. The I Ching was right on: there is God, there is Truth, today was of inexhaustible merit.

LSD exploded with thermonuclear fury in my brain, and now the past is forever behind me. My past life is lost, gone, left behind in Infinity. What to do now? Where to go? Trust, faith, acceptance: we'll see. Something cracked wide open under LSD's intensity, and through every pore, every sensory channel, came gushing a torrential flood of LIGHT which wiped the mind-slate clean, opening the gate to that Absolute Self of before birth, after death, and within life. I foolishly attempted to grasp the ecstasy as something that had been experienced - but of course this led, unaccustomed as I am to acknowledging the True Self, back down into ever lower states of clinging and grasping, confusion and pain, only to release myself once again to Gaia's Bliss never-ending. Indeed, no other choice was possible. Ego emerged from Gaia as an attempt to hold on to the ecstasy - a mistake soon rectified by further surrender. There never was, is, nor shall there ever be, a separation from God. Such is only imagination, the way of ego. We were never parted to begin with.

A billion years and a billion pages would not begin to describe one second of what I experienced for Eternity today. But words are man's slavemaster. Thus I felt I must set down some as markers in this territory of the True Self.

August 5, 1984 - morning after

Gaia Day for me was August 4, 1984. Today, August 5, everything expresses Gaia; or, as the Buddhists say, even the most mundane event expounds the Dharma.

The LSD mystic (re)union was more akin to Hindu conceptions than Buddhist ones, the latter so firmly rooted in everyday life (Zen in particular). Thus Indian music (Ravi Shankar) provided an added propulsive thrust at the beginning, with its insistent rhythms and religious chants turning into the very dance of Shiva himself, propelling us into the very heart of Reality, the radiant core around which all life, all matter, all form, all planets, all suns and galaxies dance endlessly, all pouring forth from the Source of inexhaustible merit, the glowing fire, God himself. And somehow, though it does not make any sense, He is me! I am but one of His innumerable eyes and mouths. Chapter 11 of the Bhagavadgita manages to put it into words; I cannot. The revelatory power of LSD is the power of the whole Universe: Awesome, immense, thunderous, unimaginable.

After the Indian music record finished we lay in the womb of the Cosmos for about 5 hours (earthtime) without being able to speak or move. By 8 hours a few words were expressed, but both Malcolm and I realized how absurd words really are in our fumbling, futile attempts to express the Ineffable. Indeed, I despised words that evening, after 12 hours still being unable to say anything that reflected even a fragment of the 'experience' - except to say 'I saw God,' which both of us did, and we both understood what this meant in all its implications. After 15 hours it was very late, the trip having begun at 10:20 a.m. August 4. But I still managed to write a little, despite the fact that LSD was not entirely finished with us yet.

All God required of me was one thing: To give myself up completely. When I did, there poured forth a bliss of such extravagant, indeed Infinite proportions that it seemed I would be burned to ashes by the fiery radiance which poured in through every sensory channel, blinding me, destroying me completely with an inner Thunderclap - yet simultaneously the entire Cosmos screamed out its eternal, one Identity with myself! There was never any separation to begin with! Every sound, every image, every sensation from around me - including sounds of hive-activity coming from the other apartments -were all interconnected, were all expressions of the one titanic world-organism, my own True Being. Death is no longer feared; there are no beings who suffer, only suffering. All my fellow creatures are but extensions of myself - or rather of the True Self whom I met yesterday. We must strive to eliminate suffering; Gaia demands this of us.

This experience was the culmination of intense meditative preparation and absolute openness. Without the ability to die consciously, the power of such a large dose of LSD could send a fragile ego straight to Hell. Psychedelics cannot be used to further ego-games. The past is annihilated, left behind forever, and all thought-activity must cease its arising for the Pure Self to bestow infinite bliss. As the I Ching had warned, if you tread upon the tiger's tail, you will get bitten! But if you are like a stretch of water lying open to the sky, you can be led to the Supreme Ruler, the source of immense felicity. The I Ching's advice was God's advice to me. Every creature's selfless love is Gaia's love, every caress of another is a caress of Gaia, every love for another is love for Gaia. Truth is truth and stands supreme. Swirling, radiant fire! Monumental, inexhaustible, ineffable core! Love and bliss never-ending. Let it never be forgotten! Every wonder, every glittering sun-speckled afternoon ocean, everything Beautiful, all emanating from Gaia's Heart of Love. This world is Infinite, as it should be, as it always was, but only now do I see. Yesterday was the culmination of the Quest for me. I am full of wonder, awe and gratitude. At one with the Highest; everything revealed as God, there never was any separation; yet He plays with himself by losing himself and finding himself. The former is the pull of the world, the latter is the pull of God; yet they are one and the same. On August 4, 1984, God saw himself in two mortal beings.

But what now?

Zen master Seccho wrote: 'You may exert all your efforts to fetch him, but he will never show himself again! We are left alone for ages to come, vainly thinking of the irrevocable past. But stop! Let us not think of the past. The cool refreshing breeze sweeps all over the earth, never knowing when to suspend its work.'

Exp Year: 1984	ExpID: 18994
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 27, 2018	Views: 1,223
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LSD (2), Meditation (128) : Personal Preparation (45), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)