Jedi and Drugs

Calem wrote: You may think a hundred thoughts within seconds or linger on one idea for hours. There's a reason drugs throughout human history has been a part of spiritual journeys, rituals and rites of passage.

Calem wrote: If you have never tried mind expanding drugs I will venture the claim that you shouldn't bless or condemn them because it is in a very literal sense a realm which you know nothing about.

Maybe yes, maybe not. It could be argued that mind expanding and spiritual journeys are modifications of your thought process based on alterations on the perception of the information your brain does out of information provided by your senses, which inevitably leads us to a lack of focus in the present moment. You don't need to see pink unicorns to have your mind deceived.

joseaplaza wrote:

Calem wrote: You may think a hundred thoughts within seconds or linger on one idea for hours. There's a reason drugs throughout human history has been a part of spiritual journeys, rituals and rites of passage.

Calem wrote: If you have never tried mind expanding drugs I will venture the claim that you shouldn't bless or condemn them because it is in a very literal sense a realm which you know nothing about.

Maybe yes, maybe not. It could be argued that mind expanding and spiritual journeys are modifications of your thought process based on alterations on the perception of the information your brain does out of information provided by your senses, which inevitably leads us to a lack of focus in the present moment. You don't need to see pink unicorns to have your mind deceived.

Neither is your mind necessarily deceived because you do see them. Which you don't, at best you imagine them.
Psilocybin enabled me to reach a state I've only seen described as Nirvana. Never have I been more in a moment than I was then.

Alethea Thompson wrote: You can do a number of things that make you happy, and none of them have to impair your ability to make sound judgement.

Nonsense. There are a lots of non-drug things that impair judgement just as bad (or worse). Overconfidence, love, and a false sense of knowledge come to mind.

steamboat28 wrote: There are a lots of non-drug things that impair judgement just as bad (or worse). Overconfidence, love, and a false sense of knowledge come to mind.

You're absolutely right. And you can fight those through humility and insight meditation, the same way you can fight intoxicators through abstinence/not-usage.

joseaplaza wrote:

steamboat28 wrote: There are a lots of non-drug things that impair judgement just as bad (or worse). Overconfidence, love, and a false sense of knowledge come to mind.

You're absolutely right. And you can fight those through humility and insight meditation, the same way you can fight intoxicators through abstinence/not-usage.

Except that responsible use of drugs is not a flaw in personality but a deliberate choice one makes for himself.

Calem wrote: responsible use of drugs is not a flaw in personality but a deliberate choice one makes for himself.

And it's a valid and legitimate choice. However, if you ask me, i don't think a Jedi should do drugs (not even alcohol), for quite a lot of reasons.

joseaplaza wrote: And it's a valid and legitimate choice. However, if you ask me, i don't think a Jedi should do drugs (not even alcohol), for quite a lot of reasons.

Just like (while it is a valid and legitimate choice) I don't think Jedi should be in the business of telling people how to live. Simply helping them find their own way to do it.

joseaplaza wrote:

steamboat28 wrote: There are a lots of non-drug things that impair judgement just as bad (or worse). Overconfidence, love, and a false sense of knowledge come to mind.

You're absolutely right. And you can fight those through humility and insight meditation, the same way you can fight intoxicators through abstinence/not-usage.

"Fighting" them through humility and meditation ? Good luck with that ... :huh:

Overconfidence is just not getting enough proper doubt in the mix, humility would not have much an effect against the quality of confidence which is the foundation of the 'over-confidence' that one would consider a mind-altering vice ...

One can have a quite developed mastery of the meditative art - even to the extent wherein that framework can be abandoned, but when one 'loves' (either falling in love OR filial love) is aroused, one's 'present moment just as things are' is just as twisted as anyone else's.

And if one believes one's own knowledge of any of these things - ability, humility, love or meditation - is so vast and so refined that one can "fight" off quintessential aspects of the human condition it could be guessed that one is already on drugs ...

.... or in love.

joseaplaza wrote:

Calem wrote: responsible use of drugs is not a flaw in personality but a deliberate choice one makes for himself.

And it's a valid and legitimate choice. However, if you ask me, i don't think a Jedi should do drugs (not even alcohol), for quite a lot of reasons.

Then we walk different paths although we're going in the same direction

As an aside, in regards to the "Different paths, same destination" I never know how to take such a summation.

How do people reach this conclusion?

Certainly, we are all going somewhere, and if you mean death and the grave , then yes, the same destination.

Anything else and no, not eve afterlives line up in the same place for everyone.

As for the same direction? Well thats obviously not the case either.

Drugs will take you places that no one else will tread if they havent done them.

Not only within, but without.

I am of the mind that people who have never done them, but speak about what they do are also not really in a place to.

I also hold no real respect, nor put stock in D.A.R.E. and other such programs that use scare tactics and such.

There also usually not informed to the current research in regards to the medicinal value of drugs such as marijuana or psychedelics, or what exactly they do and dont do to the body.

Or like poor scientists/pseudo scientists, only post that which goes for there argument while ignoring the overwhelming evidence that goes against it.