We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget

Awesome article on Nietzsche, death and rebirth, and tripping, check it out.

We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget

We're in Heaven

The only thing not there yet is your mind. Which has yet to realize that the struggle it is making towards a goal or goals and the progress that it experiences are all happening outside the mind.  Once the mind doesn't involve itself in trying to figure out where we are it becomes obvious.

Ketamine and Imprinting Zen

The art of Zen is ancient and derives from mainstream Buddhism.  It focuses less on doctrine and practice and puts the focuses directly in the present on normal actions and through increased consciousness of one's normal actions one's self begins to see reality for what it really is.  The stages of Zen are well communicated in this Zen haiku.

First there is a mountain
Then there is no mountain
Then there is

One first becomes conscious of their interior verbalization and categorization of the outside world.  Then one slowly comes to realize that they are in control of their interior response to the outside world and may reduce it to nothing if they wish.  Finally one realizes the inherent intercourse between these two perspectives then, the objective outside world and reality can then be seen as an alchemical union between the inner creative subjective experience and the objective material experience.

Ketamine is a dissociative analgesic that has long been used in surgery yet in the last few decades has gained prominence as a meta-programming chemical.  Meta-programming refers to the self-directed programming of mind that occurs when one is able to abstract their thinking processes above their normal consciousness in order to re-arrange and streamline one's conscious train of thought.  Ketamine numbs the self from the signals sent from the body and in doing this stretches out time as the mind attempts to fill in the holes of sensory information that the body is numb to.  In relation to the dose of Ketamine administered one may enter a reality that is more their own mind coupled with reality or they may experience a "K-Hole" where they are completely physically incapacitated yet their mind remains active within their own imagination.  These peak K-hole experiences feel as is they last for an eternity as time breaks within the subjective inner realm.  In reality the experience rarely lasts more than 45minutes to an hour.
In order for Ketamine to aid in Zen practice one must have a working Zen practice before dosing Ketamine.  During the experience the mind will not be able to control the body.  The mind and body will operate independently yet autonomously.  Any attempt to use top-down control of mind over body will result in a comical OCD-like repetitive physical action.  A friend of mine on his first Ketamine experience attempted to climb over the railing on his porch, an action he performs several times each day.  Because he had no knowledge of Zen and still operates from a mind controlling body perspective he hilariously attempted to move his leg over the railing a dozen times before he was aided by nearby onlookers.
My first experiences of K I was paralyzed but as I became acclimated to my mind and body operating independently I realized the body's inherent knowledge in navigating the environment only needed directions from the mind, not constant guidance.  The dissociative properties of K also aid in one realizing the Is-ness of the world without relation to thought patterns or preconceived notions.  When one returns from the hour long sojourn into the imagination they find that the world is more beautiful and complete than when they left it.  Goes to show that one cannot appreciate something until they lose it.  In this vein Ketamine is an aid to die before you die so that upon your return you may appreciate the world for what it is in all its glory without covering it in ideas.  Ketamine also gives one time to organize information from more conventional mushroom or acid trips because when removed from the body and embedded in the mind absorption of this information is more easily performed.  A truly interesting chemical.  The most famous K-head ever was an extremely interesting man, John C. Lilly. 

Chasing the Self

Once one finds oneself firmly embedded in the present either through self-work, exercise(body-work), or as a natural state of being, the next spiritual pinnacle to reach becomes the experience of self.  The self is a slippery thing to get ahold of because when one believes they have attained it it slips right through their fingers and they find they are actually more or less than they  previously believed.  This slippery aspect of the self originates from the fact that the self can never be complete in of itself at any one time.  The self we were yesterday is not the same as today and the same is true of even twenty minutes ago.  One continuously creates the self through experience which arises from the ever-changing self interacting with the ever-changing outside world.  This synthesis of variables coalesces into a state of being where one is experiencing every unique moment through a unique self.  This paradox underlies spiritual living and the growth inherent in it.  The self is continuously created through a lifetime, not achieved all at once.

I believe the true-will is the influence our future self (from the end of our life) has upon the present moment.  The self that has already experienced our life paradoxically influences the path our present life goes through.  This "ultimate" self may not just have experienced our current life path, but, all possible life paths we could have chosen based on any conscious decision we made throughout our life.  So this "ultimate" self which influences us through intuition or conscience knows us better than any present self could.

Struggle Between Spirit and Matter

Within man is the feeling that he exists as something more than the body and the encompassing reality the body resides in.  Glimpses of this "other" self appear at times of increased stress such as near death experiences or intense hallucinogenic episodes.  The enlightened men of the ages were people who could sustain contact with this alien, spiritual, and infinite self.  The contact with this other self inside oneself leads man to rebel against his nature or the current energy waveform we find ourselves in.  Man senses he is more than he perceives and exists as, so, he tries to escape what he feels is a prison of his true being.  This feeling led man away from his hunter-gatherer origins into agriculture and civilization.  As capitalist ego-driven global society breaks down we are beginning to see that we were wrong to deny our origins and that we'd be better off embracing our current state of being and all that it entails while still serving the outside perspective of witnessing buried deep within our being.  Organized religion has always suppressed the body and nature in favor of a moral, ego-driven, and abstracted service to what it believes is the only source of our being, our contact with the transcendent.  What the major organized religions missed was the fact that our nature exists to act in tandem with our spiritual connection so we may spiritualize the matter outside us while materializing the spiritual within us.  Our transcendent spiritual connection to infinity and our limited bodies are both divine in origin and operate best in tandem.