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I've never practiced eastern philosophy, but it's not surprising that people arrive at the same conclusions on psychedelics. See, psychedelic plants/fungi have

I've never practiced eastern philosophy, but it's not surprising that people arrive at the same conclusions on psychedelics. See, psychedelic plants/fungi have been around since before humans and people who took them, say, 3000 years ago had the same trips and the same realisations that we have today. Then they came back and wrote about their conclusions, which has sometimes led to the creations of new philosophies or religions. This is one other realisation that you have while tripping - "I have been in this state before, many times before, but not in this body, I was a yogi in India or a shaman in South America or a philosopher in ancient Greece and I've always remembered: I am. It's always been me."

avodonosov 12y ago
I thought maybe you was influenced by people accompanying you. But I also did some reading and see that loss of self-identity is an often symptom caused by psychedelics, so I don't know. BTW, eastern practitioners explicitly advice against drug use, they employ other methods to achieve and retain this state of mind: bhakti (love), jnana (knowledge - means analysing the difference between thoughts and thinking process and Atman - the Self who perceives them), karma yoga, raja yoga, etc. Some people fall into this state spontaneously, Ramana Maharishi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi) got this "enlightenment" at 16, and didn't speak several years after that. I enjoy reading eastern texts, as artifacts of brilliant thought, also interesting in context of our development towards AI, where we still don't have satisfying theory for consciousness (that Vedanta calls atman). They have also accumulated interesting theories and terminology about mind mechanics. But I think it's worth to remain skeptical. After all, those strange states of mind may be just dysfunctions. For example, anoxaemia, inhaling vapors of glues and varnishes, sensory and motor deprivation induce "special effects" on cognition and mind too.

avodonosov 12y ago

I thought maybe you was influenced by people accompanying you. But I also did some reading and see that loss of self-identity is an often symptom caused by psychedelics, so I don't know. BTW, eastern practitioners explicitly advice against drug use, they employ other methods to achieve and retain this state of mind: bhakti (love), jnana (knowledge - means analysing the difference between thoughts and thinking process and Atman - the Self who perceives them), karma yoga, raja yoga, etc. Some people fall into this state spontaneously, Ramana Maharishi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi) got this "enlightenment" at 16, and didn't speak several years after that. I enjoy reading eastern texts, as artifacts of brilliant thought, also interesting in context of our development towards AI, where we still don't have satisfying theory for consciousness (that Vedanta calls atman). They have also accumulated interesting theories and terminology about mind mechanics. But I think it's worth to remain skeptical. After all, those strange states of mind may be just dysfunctions. For example, anoxaemia, inhaling vapors of glues and varnishes, sensory and motor deprivation induce "special effects" on cognition and mind too.