| | In Shamanism, Techniques of Ecstasy, Eliade comments on shamanistic prcatice that basically (in my mind) take on 3 separate paths, if you comapare the to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra and the Tibetan book - dreaming, entering trance or meditation, and injestion of certain substances that cross the blood/brain barrier. His take on it is that in Shamanism in general, the drug path is looked down on as inferior. But then again he did not know North or South American Shamanism, nor did he know Australian aboriginal mythology and practice either. Basically, in any of these Bardos, the path can manifest, things become mutable. I'm advising against drug using, but I also recognize that there is a need for guides for those who are going through it, and those who are coming out of it.
One of the interesting things about the chakra system is that it is also a model similar to the open chapter in the Book of Genesis, in a way the chakras are the real book of genesis. First the void, then the clear light, then the vibration or sound, then the air or gas phase of matter, then as matter condenses, it undergoes nuclear thermal combustion, then precipitates liquid, and finally becomes solid matter. Those are the elements symbolizing the 7 chakras top down. There is a tie-in to the endocrine system, which as any advanced kundalini mediator or psychedelic explorer will tell you, the endocrine system especially the sexual, begins to somehow transmute energy and feed the higher states of consciousness. When the third eye absorbs it it takes on the form of light, where it precipitates it as "The Milk of Shiva" I don't know what the appropriate Buddhist term would be for this. When the crown chakra opens, one feels what seems to be the infinite and eternal, but you know what? They couldn't have any characterstics, what is really happening out outside the time space continuum altogether. Vast, empty space, boundlessness, and timelessness.
I find that much yoga is trying to force this energy upwards, through something like locks in a canal or river. What I like abut Buddhist meditation is that it is working more effortlessly from the top down.
The 8 circuit model has some of these elements, but I find it too obscure. It doesn't have a corollary with researchers who aren't using and selling, so I look at it as a kind of sales pitch. If meditators reconstructed it based on more reliable and objective experiences it would be a lot more interesting.
Like I said, it starts out as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, then it begins to journey form the body to the tissues to the cells to the molecules, and then to subatomic and levels that weren't even known of when Lilly and Leary wrote. That is another reason for revision. With each corresponding micro level there is a macro level state of consciousness. "As above so below" as the alchemists say. That is why the are labeled circuits is because the cycle is micro as well as macro.
The Jeremy Narby book was interesting too, in fact that is why I got into the Eliade. However, he either did not understand the Eliade or got it confused with something else, because the main source that he cites does not support his thesis. The role he ascribes to DNA is incorrect. How DNA works and the role it plays is very interesting. DNA responds to certain programs, it still works the same way as it does as it selects traits suitable for the environment and challenges the individual faces on say, the first circuit. It does this at all circuits. This parallels what Gopi Krishna says, that "evolution" (Darwin never used the term) proceeds toward the highest expression of consciousness. I hated to bring that into the discussion because I have a lot of problems with the Gopi Krishna too. I don't agree with many of his thoughts. It's not semen that transmutes into prana, for example, because in men and women the same developments in consciousness are reported. That is just myth, much of his observations come out of the fact that he is just living out a myth. Not that something didn't happen there, but since it only caused him suffering, it could not have been enlightenment. That is the real acid test. If it causes you to suffer, that isn't it.
I could go on and on on this topic, but I am having Dharma Overload right now
p e a c e
h a n s e n |