The spirit is that which lies beneath, sits below but surrounds; it underlines, and underpins the truth, and lays the foundation thereof; the fundamental which sets the overtones. The driving force, the intention, the motivation, the sentiment, the principle, the theorem; why. The thing that remains when you strip away the physical, mental, emotional - these are only manifestations and expressions of the spirit.
The spiritual is that which relates to the spirit, and thus the process of spiritual exploration and investigation is the act of peeling away the visible and tangible, the factual, the noticeable to look beyond and beneath, of tearing away the layers to hopefully reveal Truth. It is therefore a means of understanding the universe, ourselves and reality itself. I propose that the spiritual, by means of stripping away the corporeal and therefore temporal, reveals the true nature of a thing. Thus a spiritual experience is one which provides insight into the spiritual aspect of a thing. This can be taken to mean the progressive discovery of the self, although I very much mean also the discovery of the true nature of things in general, especially other people, and people in general. The spiritual side of a person is thus the Self - the intangible and abstract thing which is you, truly you.
Self can be described as your handle on your spirit.
But where self gives us a place, the ego holds us prisoner there; the ego is something we construct in order for us to have a grip on reality, to build the walls that define the boundaries of self in order to provide a sense of identity, for our protection. But the ego, like a nanny, may try to prevent us from facing unpleasant things; thus true learning can only be accompanied by a fundamental dissolution of the ego. The willingness to face things without thought to personal implications. I believe that it is the ego that needs to be overcome in order that we can truly discover ourselves, without fear or prejudice. We need the ability to see ourselves in the third person, as the Detached Observer.
When faced with emotionally intensive or outright traumatic and stressful situations before, I've often felt a part of myself split off, so that I can almost look at myself as a third person, and I become the detached observer; one who is somehow objective, and almost untouchable in the sense that I lose all attachment to worldly effects and things. The Detached Observer is calm to the point of indifference, feels no desire; views the worldly other half with a kind of tolerant and dispassionate amusement.
I find that this is the kind of effect that lsd produces in myself, the detachment from the world as we know it, and I become free to believe what I choose to believe, or not as the case may be. I can almost believe that I am free from all conditioning, all pre-programmed beliefs, and I am given another chance to reevaluate the world. This freedom is essential in removing the blind spots that inhibit learning. This view of ourselves together with that kind of freedom is a step towards spiritual discovery. It allows for a balanced view of the mind, body and heart, because we are sort of looking from the "outside".
The visual effects of lsd seem to affect me little, because even in my normal state of mind I am not given to believing what I see anyway. I am more inclined to ignore the visible artefacts of intoxication.
The strangest thing I found with lsd was that when I first tried it, I found the effects it produced very, very familiar, as though I'd felt it before - in a dream, another world, another life? It was all I anticipated it to be, and I felt that somehow, this was the state of mind in which I belonged, the state of mind that I am meant to have or at least enjoy having. I'd found a spiritual and mental homebase, for the time being at least. The odd thing is that unlike the ecstasy experience, I don't actually *feel* anything, neither happy nor sad; emotions become irrelevant. There is no longing, no needs, no wants, just me, not that the concept of 'me' has any important whatsoever. Everything just is, I attach no importance to anything, certainly not myself.
Why does it scare people?
It never fails to amaze me how little a lot of people are in touch with themselves. Most people I've met regard having conversations with yourself the first sign of madness, whereas it's something I've been doing ever since I can remember. A lot of people do not have any kind of inner reality beyond one in the most minimalistic form - one whose perceptions do not extend beyond the five known senses. For such a person the opening of the other senses, especially if they're not expecting it, can be frightening; for the first time in their lives they meet themselves and find that they are now obliged to spend their lives with someone who is for all intents and purposes a stranger. Also these newly-discovered inner senses have an annoying habit of perceiving things beyond the five senses, and as a result the person in question finds that they have a whole new load of information coming at them the whole time, and they may not actually know what to make of this kind of information, nor how to process it. As it turns out, there are many who do not enjoy having this inner world, this inner reality, they feel that their time is better spent extending the physical, rather than spiritual or psychological boundaries of experience. I feel the exact opposite way - I find purely physical experiences boring.
The process of spiritual discovery can often be traumatic, or can result from a traumatic experience. I believe that the use and consumption of mind-altering chemical substances somehow have the ability to provoke precisely such an experience, although the way it paves may not be an entirely pleasant experience. On the one hand, it allows the conscious mind to settle (in a way not unlike the process of sleeping) and on the other hand it brings the subconscious mind to the fore - the subconscious which contains the jumble of things which make us, and perhaps can break us. I believe the process to be necessary, because only when I know myself can others know me and can I ever know others and for me, knowing others, really knowing others, is an integral part of my life, and my existence.
I can't really explain why it's important, I cannot justify to anyone else why spirituality is an essential part of consciousness - it *is* consciousness; all I do know is that I feel that all my life I have been on a kind of voyage of discovery, that all I experience is only a means to an end, the end being an awareness and understanding of the world on a purely spiritual level. If we are to live, and then only to die, there can be no meaning to all this thirst and hunger for coherence and understanding, yet I also feel that the answer is to that question is irrelevant.
Angeline
Council on Spiritual Practices Home Page