PUSHTI: August 2024, Drunk & Stoned – Love is the Drug

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Serenity Prayer

“You’re always re-attaching yourself to what is going to get you free.” – Ram Dass

“The great Way is easy, but people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered in the Tao.”
– Lao Tzu, Ch 53, Tao Te Ching

Drugs and alcohol are a part of our human experience. As long as there is pain, there will be substances used to alleviate it. We live in a time where using drugs (prescribed or otherwise) is so alluring and commonplace, that what is uncommon is to find someone who doesn’t. There is no shortage of drug use in popular spiritual and therapeutic pursuits and practice. There are always modern expressions which seem to normalize their usage. Beyond social drinking, marijuana has shed its counterculture shade and is as common as candy. We can microdose mushrooms, engage in ayahuasca ceremonies, ketamine therapy, and it seems like everyone is on Adderall (41.4 million people prescribed in 2021), to name a few.

We have spiritual heavyweights that tell tantalizing tales of psychedelic awakenings and some even have reputations as the iconic drunken master. The great meditation teacher and Tibetan Buddhist master, Chögyam Trungpa, was renowned for often being drunk on sake. One of my most beloved teachers referred to another one of my revered teachers as a pothead. Many yoga festivals have become convenient excuses for debauchery behavior. Master Patanjali, in the fourth book of the Yoga Sutra, the Kaivalya Padah, which is a detailed discourse on the nature of Samadhi or enlightenment, says in the very first sutra (4.1) that drugs are one of the means to open the door to powerful psychic powers.

But the reality is the nature of attachment is so insidious that for most of us it is not too long before we confuse their usage with the very freedom and wholeness we desire. That’s called prison – or addiction. An erroneous causal relationship between our happiness and their usage is reinforced, amplifying the lie that happiness is found in an external condition. This is commonly referred to as a spiritual bypass – fulfillment in a device – that would bypass good ol’ fashion yoga sadhana (practice), which fosters the basic understanding that happiness is a garden that needs consistent loving attention and tending. There is no shortcut to nirvana – or at the very least, no shortcut to residing in the blissful nature of our own being-ness. As drugs may break down barriers, the gain quickly becomes pain. We cannot circumvent the skill of exercising our muscle of awareness.

In my experience, drugs can be aids, providing seductive flashes of insight, brilliance, and relief. But what they gave me was scant compared to the confusion, paranoia, isolation, and destruction, sending me adrift in an ocean of shame and unrealized potential from their continual and habitual use. Their siren song has caused too many shipwrecks. Moreover, they dangerously veil the truth of my disconnect from love because of their numbing effect – looking for love in all the wrong places. But I’m not of the mind that any of that is inherently bad. The rift of despair only created a space for yoga to arise. Do I want to get high? Yes, most definitely. But if I am to be honest, the times I have felt the most fearless, clear, and aligned came from my connection to the divine – as created by an earnest pursuit of ripening myself to the Self. High on my own supply. And for me, regular drug use inevitably shrouds that.

And that’s what this month’s Pushti is about: an honest discourse via the yogic arts. Conscious, continuous spiritual practice allows us to explore the sting of our shortcuts and opens us to the subtle, albeit powerful, vibration of genuine unconditional love. In satsang, we allow ourselves to be seen without judgment. Our desire for genuine fulfillment is held accountable just by showing up. And if there are any “shoulds” – that’s the best one – to show up. Show up hungover, stoned, drunk, sober, happy, sore, sad, beaten down, puffed up – whatever. The inevitability of your realization is in direct proportion to your regularity. Yoga is so powerful, its imprint is eternal, and eventually something will shift because what you are practicing is developing an authentic relationship with your Self. This is the very definition of recovery. The subject matter is always an exploration of and attachment to unconditional love. And because of the indescribable and mysterious nature of love, this exploration is a joyous lifelong pursuit that gets better and better as we adventure.

In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
August 2024