About Truth
26/01/16 08:32 Filed in: Psychedelia; Mysticism; Truth
Seeking the truth—how do you know when you arrive?
It has been my experience that when we use powerful psychedelics, such as LSD-25, Psilocybin, or DMT, we often have experiences that are similar to classic mystical encounters as recorded over time from many cultures. During these experiences, whether chemically induced or not, there is an overpowering conviction that we have now seen the ‘truth’—we finally have found the ontological bottom-line and truly know reality for the first time. With that conviction comes the belief that we were previously in a deluded state and the veil has now been lifted and we can finally truly ‘see’ what is. This may be true—or it may not. How do we know?
The conviction that we have found ‘it’ is almost unshakeable and often becomes a ‘truth’ on which we now base our life directions and values. This happened to me, as recorded in my most recent book, The Way of a Seer.
However, after years of maintaining this belief I asked myself a simple question: How do I know I’ve arrived at the ‘final truth’ and that there won’t be another moment in which I see a new ‘final truth’ and have to confess to myself that my previous ‘final truth’ was merely a single stop on a journey of many stops. Of course, I can’t know, because I have no way of knowing whether I’ve reached the final stop other than from the power of my conviction. That conviction may partly be the result of seeing a whole new level of reality never known before, but there is no way of determining whether or not there is more to come.
So, we must remain open and fluid. We can carry forward what we’ve gathered but we shouldn’t close the ‘book’ and decide the journey is over and that this truth or that guru is the end of the unfolding of knowing. When we do this, our attention fixates and consciousness contracts, even though we believe it has expanded. The task of learning to move our attention fluidly, opening our consciousness to new awareness is ongoing. As we’ve always heard, it’s the journey, not the goal.
The conviction that we have found ‘it’ is almost unshakeable and often becomes a ‘truth’ on which we now base our life directions and values. This happened to me, as recorded in my most recent book, The Way of a Seer.
However, after years of maintaining this belief I asked myself a simple question: How do I know I’ve arrived at the ‘final truth’ and that there won’t be another moment in which I see a new ‘final truth’ and have to confess to myself that my previous ‘final truth’ was merely a single stop on a journey of many stops. Of course, I can’t know, because I have no way of knowing whether I’ve reached the final stop other than from the power of my conviction. That conviction may partly be the result of seeing a whole new level of reality never known before, but there is no way of determining whether or not there is more to come.
So, we must remain open and fluid. We can carry forward what we’ve gathered but we shouldn’t close the ‘book’ and decide the journey is over and that this truth or that guru is the end of the unfolding of knowing. When we do this, our attention fixates and consciousness contracts, even though we believe it has expanded. The task of learning to move our attention fluidly, opening our consciousness to new awareness is ongoing. As we’ve always heard, it’s the journey, not the goal.