There are young souls in this world, and there are old souls. The young soul shows you how you can't do something. The old soul shows you how you can. But a young soul can evolve in this very life in the same way that a weak, skinny man can go to a gym and become a husky bundle of muscle.
Spiritual unfoldment and the growth and development of the subtle nerve system are the same thing. Most of us are familiar with the structure of the body's muscles, but how many of you are familiar with your nerve fibers? The life force flows through you along these nerve channels in a degree directly proportionate to the condition of your mind. We call this actinic force or cosmic force. This actinic force flowing out into the muscle and skin structure produces prana, or magnetism. The magnetic force in nature we call odic force. Have you ever had somebody suddenly call you up and say, "Come on, let's go to a party," when you feel tired and lacking in energy, and suddenly your nervous system floods a new force through you, rejuvenating your magnetic response? This is an involuntary response, a subsuperconscious release of actinic force.
The nervous system in a young soul is, shall we say, immature. The many, many incarnational experiences of the old soul have instilled in the subtle nervous system a strength of fiber, a spiritual maturation. Therefore, the older soul entering into meditation can sustain the force and unfoldment that one meditation carries over into another. This process is a steady building, an opening up, until finally, in a contemplative moment of cosmic consciousness, one opens to Self Realization, beyond the experience of the mind, and is able to sustain it because the nerve structure is very powerful.
So, this is the unfortunate aspect of psychedelic experience as I see it. It is especially damaging to the young soul and leads the older soul off track. If the individual taking LSD or some other psychotropic drug is an old soul, it has perhaps awakened him so that he is able to face the new situation of his consciousness with intelligence. But the reaction inhibits further spiritual unfoldments because lower chakras are wrenched open, causing severe mood swings. In the case of the young soul, he has not yet developed the nerve fiber to adjust to the awakening, to the intensity of the psychedelic experience, and his mind very often "turns off."
I have interviewed seekers who have had a few psychedelic experiences and have come through them more vibrant, more alive, and more ready to face the challenges of a new world. I have met others who only stand and look at you blankly, who have lost their desire, even their self-respect. They have lost, shall we say, the structure through which their mind force previously flowed, and it has not been replaced.
What happens to a Hindu yogi when he enters a superconscious state of bliss in which his mind opens up, turns to light, and he sees the world revolving below the state of his suspended consciousness? He has arrived at this state through many years of practice in concentration, meditation and contemplation, many years of building strong nerve fiber. But in a momentary high on LSD or any other powerful psychedelic, such as mushrooms, peyote, ecstasy or DMT, the nerve structure is strained, in a sense which we can best describe as abnormal, to allow the individual to reach this exalted consciousness. Coming out of it, the result is often a kind of shock in which the person has a great difficulty in readjusting to any kind of normal routine. Because these drugs are illegal, the consciousness of fear also has been awakened within the seeker. Fear is the first step down into the lower worlds of darkness. The next is anger.
-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_79.shtml
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