PSYCHEDELICS : JOURNEY OF A HARVARD PROFESSOR

By His Grace and Blessings I Write…..

Psychedelic Journey of a Harvard Professor

This blog is in continuation of my last blog on Remission from cancer, ego and fear. Here I will take you on the psychedelic journey of a Harvard professor who egotistical state dissolved in the course of this journey.

Illness; Not specific but emptiness inside

Subject;  Famous Harvard professor of psychology in his 40’s. A teacher, philosopher and a great master who visited India in search of Spiritualism in 1960’s and met the greatest teacher and master in the history of mankind. The professor expired in 2019. He has transformed the entire world through his talks on different aspects of life and is a cult figure to those who know him.

Psychedelic; Psilocybin Mushroom

The following are the profoundest words I have ever come across in my life. For me this experience of the subject is comparable to a glimpse of Buddha’s mind , it is the glimpse  of what might be happening  to a being when his ego di built on false identities dissolves. I am mesmerized by these soul awakening words and would insist the reader to must and must feel them for they can’t be understood,they can only be realized with an open heart…Here is what happened on that cold night in a suburb in America to the subject in his own words after the subject ingested psilocybin mushroom (at the home of his close friend Dr Timothy Leary  about  whom  you can read  in my earlier blog in “ A brief history of psychedelics”)….

“ A deep calm pervaded my being. The rug crawled , and the pictures smiled, all of which delighted me. Then I saw a figure standing about 8 feet away where a moment before there had been no one. I peered into the semi darkness and recognized none other than myself in cap and gown and hood as a professor. It was as if that part of me which was Harvard professor has separated or disconnected itself from me. Well, I thought, I worked hard to get that status, but I don’t really need it. So it’s over there and I am over here, so I will give it up. I will not get frightened. It’s okay.

Again I settled back into the cushions but at that moment the figure changed. Again I leaned forward straining to see. Ah, me again! But now it was that aspect of me which was a social cosmopolitan.“Okay, so that it goes too,” I thought. Again and again the figure changed and I recognized over there all the different aspects I knew to be me…Cellist, Pilot etc. With each new presentation I again and again reassured myself that I didn’t need that anyway. Then I saw the figure over there become that in me which was Richard Alpertness, that is the basic social identity by which I had always acknowledged my existence. Sweat broke out of my forehead. I wasn’t at all sure I could do without being Richard Alpert. Did that mean that I had amnesia? Was that what this drug that this mad man had given me was going to do? Would it be permanent? Shall I call Tim?

What the hell. I will give up being Richard Alpert. I can always get a new social identity. At least I have my body. But I spoke too soon. As I looked down my at my body for reassurance, I could see nothing below the kneecaps, and slowly, to my horror with my eyes wide open, I saw the progressive disappearance of limbs and then torso, until all there was was the couch on which I had sat. A scream formed in my throat. I felt that I was dying since there was nothing in my universe that led me to believe in life after leaving the body.

Doing without professorness or loverness , or even Richard Alpertness was okay. But I certainly needed my body. Panic mounted, adrenaline shot through my system, my mouth became dry. But along with this, a voice sounded inside, what I don’t know, but inside , an intimate voice asked very quietly and rather jocularly it seemed to me, considering how distraught I was….

“But who is minding the store?”

When I could finally focus on the question, which takes a while, I realized that though everything by which I knew myself, even my body and thus life itself as I knew it was gone, still I was fully aware. Not only that, but this aware “I” was watching the entire drama, including the panic, with calm compassion, instantly with the recognition, I felt a new kind of calmness, one of profoundity never experienced before. I had just found “I”.

A place where I existed independent of social and physical identity. That which was “I” was beyond life and death. And something else, that “I’ knew. It really knew, it was wise rather than just knowledgeable. It was the voice inside that spoke the truth. I recognized it; was one with it; and felt as if my entire life of looking to the outside world for reassurance was over. Now I need only look within to that place where I knew. Fear turned into exaltation. I ran out into snow laughing. In a moment in the house was lost from view, but it was all right because inside I knew. At about 5.30a.m I walked through the silent land a few blocks, my heart full to overflowing with the joy of my new FOUND SELF. At my parents home I felt the urge to clear the walk, as any good young tribal buck might. Happily I set about the task. Then the upstairs window flew open and there were my parents. “ Come to bed you idiot, nobody shovels snow in the middle of the night.” Ah ! that was that external voice to which I had always listened. But what did the voice inside say? It said; “ it’s okay to shovel snow, and its okay to be happy.” I laughed up at them, danced a bit of jig and returned to shoveling. When I looked again they had closed the window and behind it they too were laughing.

Now this is the experience of a person who had a Phd. from Stanford, Professor at Harvard and taught at CAL, Stanford and Harvard. A person who had 40 research assistants and 2 private secretaries and who owned a Cessna Plane, a Merc Benz, a Triumph Motorcycle and who sits at various important committees of the Academia. A person who had accumulated everything that is the highest benchmark of success in the society. But a person who felt empty from inside and whose life changed after he first underwent a psychedelic experience and then when met his Guru in the Himalayas.

For me this experience of the subject is akin to the story of 2 birds from Mundaka Upanishad. It’s a profound experience of a soul nearing realization. I will discuss about the subject in my future blogs on him and will take you on his journey onward, from psychedelic experience to his final attainment of a permanent meditative state with the blessings and unconditional love of his Guru. I promise it will be a very interesting read.

Conclusion; End of egotistical state leads to complete awareness and to what one calls as Samadhi, Nirvana or a state of perfect loving kindness….

Image; The image represents two birds as described in Mundaka Upanishad or Vedant where one bird is the observer and indifferent while the other enjoys sweet and bitter fruits of life.It is the I and the “I”………

By His Grace and Blessings I write.

Dr. Seema Chaudhary