Journeys into the bright world

How indeed are we to know that there can be no such thing as "samadhi for the millions," or "instant ecstasy?" Can it be that the so-called common man is as deserving of a mystical experience as he is of the opportunity to take a plane trip, dial a program on TV or play a symphony on his stereo set? He neither helped build the plane, designed the TV nor composed the symphony, yet they are given for his pleasure. In this age there is no doubt that a great deal comes to us that in a personal sense we have not earned. These benefits have been bestowed because of our common humanity and in order to upgrade the quality of life on this planet. If an individual chooses to take advantage of them the very fact that he has made this choice betokens his worthiness to receive. What is it, after all, that gives one the right to savor a good meal, a lovely view or a mystical revelation? As one friend put it: "I feel that it was my karma to have met you two just at the time when I really needed the uplift produced by Howard's magic needle. If I hadn't in some way deserved my samadhi session the opportunity wouldn't have come my way."

There is no doubt but that ketamine is the democrat of drugs. In this dawning Aquarian Age it might well blur the distinctions between the aristocrats of holiness and the common crowd of seekers who simply wish to expand their conceptual horizons, to feel more deeply and to put a little more love into their relationships. If we can enjoy the mass miracle of listening to music over the radio, why should we not enjoy the second miracle of being able to hear it better by means of a medicine that enhances our sensibilities-as ketamine definitely does? Is it intrinsically more permissible to spend fifty dollars improving a sound system than to spend the same fifty improving our capacity to appreciate these sounds?

Is the unearned necessarily the undeserved? If so, we should penalize children who do not earn their daily bread. We should also refuse to heal the sick, since illness can be construed as a karmic comeuppance. But are we not all children of a benevolent Creator? And are we not all to some extent sick, since we share or planet's malaise? Can we not just feed and heal our fellow men as best we can, leaving it up to karmic law to determine the use each recipient will make of the opportunities given. If we think of ketamine as food and medicine for the soul then the same rules should apply.

To clarify these issues it is also necessary to ask, "Can ketamine take a person as high as the traditional forms of samadhi? Since samadhi is a multi-splendored "jewel within the lotus" of cosmic consciousness this question is hard to answer. Also, it must be admitted that not everyone derives maximum benefit from the ketamine experience. Some just feel vaguely anesthesized or disconcertingly "whacked out." Our own feeling is that even at best the drug cannot replicate the more exalted states of being which require an adequately trained sensory apparatus through which to manifest. There are many kinds of "highs," and these may not even be all in the same continuum. The point is, however, that unassisted hardly one person in a million can habitually attain the universal bliss that awaits at the top of the seven-staged ladder of yoga. In the meanwhile, those less favored can at least be enabled to attain levels which otherwise would have remained far beyond their grasp and thereby to see that there are still loftier elevations to be scaled when the time is right.

Speaking personally, I must admit that my ketamine trips have taken me farther than years of yogic disciplines. At the same time, the physical and mental conditioning previously undergone undoubtedly did maximize the benefits of the drug. This seemed like my reward for having tried so hard with so few visible results. Certainly ketamine's jet-propelled mode of transport has no more weakened my resolve to walk the path of yoga than have my many airplane trips spoiled my love of hiking. Rather, the heights revealed have strengthened my determination to progress to the point where it will be possible to fly without artificial wings.

It has also become all the more evident that the goal of our evolutionary progress is not to escape from this world to the next. With ketamine I can do that already, but that other world also has its limitations. Rather, the soul's purpose is to bring our many worlds together into an effectively functioning synthesis.