EP 111 Can Drugs Elevate Consciousness? Exploring Higher Awareness

0:00 Are we cheating ourselves when we take drugs and hallucinogens to experience higher Higher states of awareness. Well, some people think yes, and some people think no. So today we're going to be talking about the relationship between our addiction to artificial stimulants and higher states of consciousness. Yep. We're going to be talking about levels of consciousness again, and we're going to be talking about drugs. You're listening to the new age human podcast, where we explore metaphysical insights and practical tools to help you unlock your potential and thrive In a changing world. My name is John Astacio and I've been in the health and wellness industry for over 10 years, helping professionals and change makers like you improve your mental and physical wellbeing.

0:43 So stick around to the very end because we actually uncover some surprising details on our relationship with Hallucinogens in our level of consciousness and what we're truly addicted to. Now, with that said, let's get to the show. All right, everybody. Today, we're going to flip the script on drugs and alcohol and what we think happens when we are quote unquote addicted to the substance, and I took a chapter out of power versus force. One of my favorite books. David R Hawkins is the author and to give you an idea, if you're not familiar with this book, essentially what he does is he He maps out the human consciousness in levels from zero to a thousand.

1:28 And as you get closer to a thousand, you are essentially enlightened. And people that calibrate at a thousand are essentially the avatars of our past that are responsible for a lot of the religions that we have. Right? So. That in itself is a heavy statement, but I chose this chapter because it really just blew my mind as far as thinking about yourself and thinking about substances, whether it be for psychedelics, whether it be just to kind of get the edge off. So let me just continue. And just so you know, I'm going to be reading and skipping around in this chapter because I'm trying not to be boring.

2:10 But at the same time, I want to highlight what this guy says in his own words. So. Let's start with here. I got my, uh, my highlighted parts. Let's see how this goes. This is going to be a first for me to literally be reading out of this book. So, uh, you know, on, on the mic. So let's start with this. He says alcohol or drugs do not in and of themselves have the power to create a high at all. That's a heavy statement. They're not making the high. So then what is, what's going on? Let's dig deeper. So they calibrate at only 100, which is the same level as vegetables. So wait, so alcohol and drugs are pretty much like eating vegetables according to him, which is, is kind of funny.

2:58 And if you wanna know what 100 is, a hundred is. I'm reading my notes here. 100 is punitive, frightening, fear, downward spiral, anxiety, and withdrawal. These are the, um, the emotions, like your God view, your view of God is punitive. Your view of life is frightening. Your view Let's say the label is fear and your emotion that rules is anxiety. So that is what it calibrates as interesting. And, of course, the process is withdrawal.

3:39 So I can totally see that making sense with specifically alcohol. Now, back to the book. The so called high that the drug or alcohol user experiences, however, can calibrate from 350 to 600. So, the high, the experience, calibrates as higher. Now, what is 350 to 600? I'll tell you. So, 350, God view is merciful. Life view is hope, hopeful, I'm sorry, harmonious. Um, you're living in acceptance. Most of the time you're in a positive spiral.

4:22 So most of your actions and thoughts are more positive than negative. Life giving your emotion is forgiveness and your process is transcendence. Ooh, that's pretty cool. Uh, I will give you the brief of the ones above that. So, because you know, it's three 50 to 600, uh, 400 is the Level of reason and the emotion of understanding 500 is the level of love and the emotion of reverence 540 is the level of joy and emotionally serenity and 600 is peace and bliss.

5:07 Which is I like that. I'll tell you the process of 600 illumination. Keep it at that. All right. So those, that is what you're getting when you get high. The actual, I want to, I don't think we're going to get into it, but, um, it's interesting because I remember reading and I probably didn't highlight it here, but if you personally before the drugs calibrate at, let's say a level 400, right? The level of reason and understanding, right?

5:47 And you take a drug, it will boost you to the next level. Like it will more likely boost you to a level 600 than a per, than a person taking the same drug at a level calibrated at 200. That person will probably get to like a 400. So 400 might go to a 600 and a 200 might go to a 400, which makes sense because in my experience, I've had different experiences than most of my peers. When, um, participating in certain narcotics. Um, I will tell you right off the bat. I, I am not, um. That curious, so I, so my, my spectrum of narcotics or just experiences is very slim and I do have friends that have a list of things that they want me to try.

6:36 Um, like mushrooms and everything. So I think that's very interesting. So I'm sure if you, you, you have a friend that or yourself. You were probably wondering, why do I have a different experience than other people? And this is an answer. Okay, cool. So let's continue. So, yeah, the experience gives you a 350 to 600. The actual effect of drugs is merely to suppress the lower energy fields, thereby allowing the user to experience exclusively only the higher ones, which Makes sense. It kind of reminds me of, um, coffee and technically coffee is a stimulant and technically it's a drug, right?

7:21 It's an external thing. You're taking to get an experience. Um, coffee doesn't give you energy. What it does is it stimulates your body to force feed you. And I'm sorry, it stimulates the body and forces the body to use its energy. Own reserved energy. Like it's just pushing the button and forcing you to work harder. It's, it's like really releasing the, uh, the limitations that the body has put on itself to maintain health, right? Okay. So I think that's pretty cool. It releases. I'll say again, it surprises the lower energy fields.

8:03 So maybe if you were to think about, we have our highs and our lows during our day. And sometimes you, whether, whether you stub your toe, I did the other day and I was really pissed off. I dropped into a lower frequency. And then I got back as the, my mind got back to normal. Realizing that I'm not dying and as things happen throughout our day, we go up, we go down. And so it looks like these, what he's trying to say here is when you're doing drugs or taking a stimuli or whatever, you're essentially, um, eliminating. That experience so it does make sense that people have more patience when they are high because you know Their body is just ignoring the negativity.

8:53 Um, I will say stick around because we do get into It's the fact that this is artificially getting to there and That is not the best way to go about it. So, let's continue. As it is, as I can read. It is as though a filter screened out all the lower tones coming from an orchestra so that all That could be heard where the high tones or the high notes, which is another way of saying it. Uh, he puts it more elegantly. The suppression of the low notes does not create the high ones. It merely reveals their presence.

9:35 So we have it in ourselves to experience these high level and high states of mind. They exist within us, which I like the idea of that. Instead of feeling like you have to go outside of yourself to get experience. Um, why not train yourself? To access those levels of consciousness. Now within the levels of consciousness, the higher frequencies are extremely powerful, and few people routinely experience these as pure states because they are masked by the lower energy fields of anxiety, fear, anger, and resentment, and so on. And when he says masks, it's, they're pulling you down.

10:16 Rarely does the average person get to experience For instance, love without fear or pure joy, much less ecstasy. But these higher states are so powerful that one's experience, they are never forgotten and are sought ever after. And there lies the addiction and it is true, right? It's kind of like they say night and day, you can't have night without day. You can't have light without dark, right? You know, darkness, because it's, it's, It's without light and we live our experience. We experience our world. Majority of us in a binary way, right?

10:58 And what he's saying here. It made me think about how the idea of it's it's easier to be happy when you know what sadness feels like. Right. When you leave sadness, then you move into happiness and it's easier to appreciate happiness when you go through the tough times. So the tough times are always lessons, right? And that's why we have people that may have not had any tough times. And so their spectrum of, well, I have deja vu their spectrum of patients, their spectrum of handling the world is, is amazing.

11:42 It's just much less. I think that deja vu came from a previous episode. I think I said the exact same thing. So sorry, um, needed to be said again. All right, so continue. It is to this experience of higher states that people become addicted. There you go. I said it. I jumped the gun. A good illustration is presented in the classic movie. The last, the lost horizon. Okay, hopefully I don't butcher this name. Shangri La, the movie's metaphor. For unconditional love and beauty calibrates at 600. And as a reminder, 600 is bliss, illumination, peace, all being perfect.

12:26 Okay. And once experienced, it reprograms the experiencer so that he is never content again with ordinary consciousness. That's an addiction. The hero of the movie discovers this fact when he is unable to find happiness again. In the ordinary world after returning from Shangri La. I now want to watch this movie. He, he then gives up everything in order to seek out and return to that state of consciousness, spending years in a struggle, which almost cost him his life to regain and find Shangri La again.

13:10 And it's, I think what they're saying is like, this guy had a love experience and he just had such a blissful moment with Shangri La. That experience that he wanted to go back to it. And it's kind of like, um, you know how they joke around where you meet somebody new and it's like the quote unquote, um, ah, the honeymoon experience, the honeymoon phase, and then, um, the negative thought is it's just downhill from there, but that honeymoon phase keeps us with the idea of like, The relationship has the possibility to be great again. And I urge you, if you are in that process, whether it be a relationship with a spouse, a loved one, your work, um, a friend, a family member, whatever, um, that honeymoon state, that blissful state that you have with them.

14:04 Hold on to that because there's a reason why you have that experience. And maybe when you are pissed off at somebody, you know, have that in your back pocket. As a reminder of the best times not to always give them a pass, but to have patience and be in a place where you can dialogue with that person in a better way with more understanding and less emotionally driven language and more logically driven language. And so that you can just not screaming out the person and lose your shit. Okay.

14:45 So moving on. This same reprogramming process occurs in people who have reached high states of consciousness by other means such as the experience of Samadhi, Samadhi, through meditation or near death experiences. Such individuals are frequently observed to have changed forever. It is not uncommon for them to leave all that the material world, material world represents and become seekers after truth. Many who had Transcendent experiences with LSD in the 1960s did that very same thing. Such higher states are also attained through experiences of love and religion, classical music or art, or through the practice of spiritual discipline.

15:33 You know what, what I'm stressed? Um, classic music is really good. Find some really good classic music in your, uh, your streaming platform, or You know, saved in the car, um, on your CD or your tape. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we're using those anymore. Um, uh, classic music is really relaxing. The strings, the orchestra. If you're in traffic, pop that puppy in the, I don't know. Turn that, turn that song on. I was going to say, pop that puppy in the, in the cassette player. Oh my God. I'm dating myself. Okay. And we're good. Going forward, the high states that people seek by whatever means is in fact the experience field of their own consciousness self.

16:22 Ooh, so getting high on getting to know yourself. I'm not sure how to feel about that because that's just like, are you considered egotistical? And you know, I'm feeling myself, I'm feeling myself. You know, I think that's a healthy way to get high on your own consciousness. Self let's continue. I think I'm just anyways, uh, if they are spiritually unsophisticated and lack a context, which with which to comprehend the experience, they believe it is created from something out there. It makes sense. Self explanatory such as a guru, music, drugs, lover, and so forth.

17:03 All that is actually happened is that under special circumstances, they have experienced their own inner reality. The majority of people. Are so divorced from their own states of pure consciousness that they do not recognize them when they experience them because they identify with their lower ego states. A negative self image blots out the joyous brilliance that is the true essence of their identities. That's a big one. We got a pause right there. I want to make sure you digest that. I'm going to say that again. Let's talk about it. The majority of people are so divorced from their own states of pure consciousness, from their own true self, without any interference of other stimulants.

17:53 I lost my place because I'm elaborating here. Um, that they don't recognize themselves. When they experience it, when you meditate, right? And you get to a state of just nothingness and maybe you get to a place where the language, the chatter in the mind starts to become a whisper. And now it's in the background. Um. Do you feel like that's yourself? That's speaking. That's feeling. Um, for instance, that inner voice of knowingness that you connect with when you're meditating, right?

18:37 Um, if you have meditated and if you're listening, I'm sure you have that knowingness of, of just the obvious decision to make, right? Um, came from you. And what he's saying here is we don't give ourselves enough credit. We identify ourselves. I say we, but let's say many people identify themselves as their lower versions of themselves. I can, I, I, I see that with myself when I run into a situation that I, it's like, Oh, I knew better than that. And like, why do I always do this? Right? Watch yourself talk.

19:18 Uh, why do I always do this? Right? That's me identifying myself as the lower version of myself when I had plenty of times where I knew better. So let's not kick ourselves. Now that joyous, I'm going to come back to reading here that this joyous, peaceful, fulfilling state is in reality one's own inner essence. And it has been the basic tenants of every great spiritual leader and teacher. For example, the kingdom of God is within you. I like that quote or that message. So a high is any state of consciousness above one's customary level of awareness.

19:59 Remember I told you, I think we're going to get into the part where like your levels, um, change your experiences. Therefore to a person who lives in fear, moving up to courage is a high, right? Yeah. Someone's finally stands up to themselves. That's a high moment. And now they want to take more risk. Which is pretty cool. Go for it. So people who live in hopeless apathy, anger is a high, which is very interesting because normally I remember I, I associate anger with a low, right? But I do know that there are times where. I am angry and I'm like, yes, powerful now because I'm not taking your shit anymore.

20:45 I, you know, denounce negativity from here and there. I don't have patience for nonsense. Well, let's go. So that's myself high on anger. Um, so people who live in hopeless. Okay. I said that already. Oh, for example, um, people that. Anger is a high are writers in the third world ghettos, right? You feel that you're empowered to revolt and take to the streets because you can't, you're not taking it anymore. You're empowered by your decision to just say something and do something. I'm not saying to do that.

21:27 I'm just saying that's how they feel. Uh, fear. Least feels better than despair and pride feels better than fear. Acceptance is much more comfortable than courage and love makes any lower state seem comparatively unattractive while joy surpasses all lesser humane emotions. Ecstasy is a rarely felt emotion in a class by itself. The most sublime experience of all is the state of infinite peace at level 600. So, so exquisite that it bellies Oh, sorry. So exquisite that it belies all attempts at description.

22:11 Okay. Ooh, so great. The higher the level of these states, the greater its power to reprogram the subject's entire life. Whoa. And now this is, um, I think what we're getting into is when you go on these ayahuasca trips, right? That high was so high that it changed your entire outlook on your life. Yeah. Not uncommonly, just one instance in a very high state can completely change a person's orientation to life, as well as his goals, his or her goals and values. It can be said that the individual who was Is no more and a new person is born out of the experience through hard one progress on a dedicated spiritual path.

22:58 This is the very mechanism of spiritual evolution. Now that path, think of it like the hero's journey, that spiritual path. Think of Luke Skywalker having to leave home, uh, and learn about his true potential and talking and hanging out with Yoda and Yoda is like, just. You know, be one with the force. It's in you the entire time. And then he grows and then he, he battles, um, more and more. Evil and, uh, he just he's growing. He's growing. So he, he, he slays the beast, which is his ego. And at the same time, um, you have his father, Darth Vader and all that being the, um, the, the, uh, I forgot what the word is, but I'm going way deep into this, but, uh, essentially just think of if you want to think of that journey, think of the, um.

23:58 The hero's journey, which is virtually every hero movie out there. They use that same playbook. Okay. So the permanent high state experience. So permanent, which may be legitimately attained only through a lifetime of dedicated inner work can be reached temporarily by artificial means. There we go. So now we're talking about when you're starting to take, um, hallucinogens, there are temporary, it's not going to change you. And so if you want to. Keep your high state of experience. If you want to really move up in your consciousness and really keep the enlightened state there as a permanent thing, it's, it's a lifetime dedication.

24:44 It is how you live day in, day out, not, and it's not, and, and, um, it's not going to be attained. In one day by taking a drug. So let's say, let's see what, uh, David Hawkins has to say about that. So I'll read that part again. The permanent state, that high state experience, which may be legitimately attained only through a lifetime of dedicated inner work can be reached temporarily by artificial means. But the balance of nature dictates that. No, I'm sorry, but the balance of nature dictates that to artificially acquire that state without having earned it creates debt and the negative imbalance results in negative consequences.

25:38 The cost of such stolen pleasure is the desperation of addiction. And finally, both the addict and society pay the price. Whoa. So if you try to acquire that state, that blissful state, without having earned it, it creates debt, which it does look like the negative consequences are addiction, like he said, because you're going to want access to it without doing the work. Because it's easy. You just take the pill, take the drug. Um, and that's why I tell people, uh, my friends that go on these retreats and take the ayahuasca trips and the mushrooms and the frog venom and all that, and be careful because, um, it can be addicting.

26:29 Um, and. When you use substances that are not that, yeah. When you use substances, anything right? Too much of anything is not a good thing because the body then starts to adapt to it. And then it makes it harder for you to achieve that experience on your own. So now you're making your hero's journey very difficult because the body is so used to you taking the shortcut. So what he says here is ours Ours is a society that Idealizes the pleasureless, hard work, stoicism, self sacrifice, restraint, and tends to condemn pleasure in the most, in most of its simpler forms, frequently even declaring them to be illegal.

27:25 And it's given it ahead here. For example, in our society, unfulfilled promises and enticement are legitimized, but satisfaction is denied. So interesting example he gives here commercialized sexual allure, for instance, where you have like a lot of cleavage on the commercials and ads, and it's just overly sexualized, right? It's used to sell many products out there. Endlessly, especially in the United States. I don't know about other countries. You could tell me Uh, uh, yeah, let me know. Um, but the enjoyment of actual commercial sex is forbidden as immoral.

28:06 So it's almost like, because it's in our face all the time, you would think that commercial commercially sex is, is acceptable to just paying for it. Right. But it's forbidden. So it's like. Annoying, you know, being sexually aroused all the time and then saying, but it's bad if you want to do it right here, right now, uh, and pay for it, but you can pay for something that's going to arouse you. So it's, it's very confusing to somebody who is still trying to understand how this world works. Historically, all ruling classes have achieved status and wealth by controlling society through some form of puritanical ethic.

28:50 The harder the underlings work and the more meager their pleasures, the richer the ruler system for the ruling system will be, whether it be a theocracy, aristocracy, or. oligarchy or corporate industrial barony. Such power is built upon the fortified pleasure of workers. Experientially, as we have seen, pleasure is merely high energy. The energies of the masses have been co opted over the centuries to produce for the old, sorry, for the over classes of workers. The very wealth of pleasures denied the underclasses.

29:30 I'll say that again. I think I butchered it. The energies of the masses have been co opted over the centuries to produce for the overclasses the very wealth of pleasures denied the underclasses. Honestly, my brain didn't even process that. So hopefully you did. In truth, the pleasure of life Energy is mankind's best capital. Robbing man of this has resulted in the wide division between the haves and the multitudes of the have nots. What working classes envy in the lives of the upper classes are their pleasures from the pleasures of the upper class. Exercising power in its varied forms to the beautiful trophies of self indulgence.

30:16 And this is where we're going to come to a close for this episode as we pretty much went away from the drugs and alcohol and the stimulants to more of like society using, um, pleasure. As something to be addicted to and to fight for so that you, you, you, as, as, like, as like, um, the worm at the end of the, like the worm is the bait and the pleasure is the bait. So that if you work hard and you become successful, you'll have access to unlimited pleasures when you don't really need to make a lot of money, um, to live in abundance because you could.

31:04 Live off the land, you could live in a more self sufficient way. And I feel like a lot of people nowadays are thinking in those terms where it's like, I'm chasing the bait and it's getting harder and harder and obnoxious and all this work for what, right? Um, the, the cost of living is going up and, um, it does it more people nowadays are rethinking. What success means, what wealth means, um, branding, and, uh, a symbol of wealth. Is it your clothes? Is it your car?

31:44 Or is it how you're feeling? Or is it how your, your relationship is with yourself or with your family, right? So I implore you to think about that and contemplate on that and I'm curious about your thoughts on that. Please, um, whether we email me or comments on, on the video, if you're watching on YouTube or, um, listening on Spotify and whatnot, I want to know your thoughts on this. Do you, or do you think I'm, um, onto something or am I just. Completely crazy. I'm open to your thoughts. So, um, it, it does continue, but it's very interesting.

32:26 What I do want to highlight is I, we dropped a lot of like statements here in this episode, in this chapter, and I want to read, uh, yeah, and you might be thinking, okay, so who is this guy to know, to say all these things, to think this way, because not everybody's going to agree with what he says. So, using the same method to calibrate ultimate truth and falsehood, what this guy did was he calibrated this book. And let me tell you, the level of the book that he calibrated it at, he could have said a thousand, he could have said nine hundred.

33:06 But, The level of truth of this book is approximately 850. And if I go to my map here, 850 is above 700 from 700 to a thousand. It's just one category. God view is self life view is the level is considered enlightenment. The emotion is an Feable and the process is pure consciousness. So this book calibrates very high. Um, in, in, in, Ultimate truth, really. So interesting how you can, he can do that. Right.

33:48 Um, I think, yeah, I think that's it, man. I, I, we can keep going, but, uh, I don't know how you're going to like an episode with me reading. Summarize what we spoke about today, actually have my little bookmark here for the section and it's titled social problems, drugs, suppress low energy fields to reveal your innate higher ones and negative self image blocks the reality of your actual higher self and true essence. So, if you were to get anything from today's episode, just remember that, um, The experience of elevating your consciousness and achieving these high states of awareness can be addicting.

34:32 And if you take a supplement to do it, know that it's going to allow you to experience it. But don't, I urge you to not solely rely on that sub, that substance. Go and do the work. And at the same time, remember that most of us out there tend to Or we have a, it's easier, and we're likelier, more likely to associate ourselves, our self image, on average, is lower than what it actually is. So whatever you think of right now, like I am this, just know that you are Several levels above that in other people's eyes in reality, which is actually a good feeling.

35:22 So I hope you feel good about that. And another thing is the negative self image, right? It blocks the reality of who you truly are. So, that's For the most part, saying the same thing. So just be mindful, right? Be mindful of your, of, of the, the, the self talk on how you think or see yourself, especially on those really rough days. Um, know that you're better than what you think you are. You will always be better than what you think you are, and you always have the capacity to be better than what you were before. So I hope you enjoyed that. Um, No, no, in all seriousness.

36:04 Um, apparently, uh, alcohol is, uh, calibrates just like a carrot. I'll leave you at that. Um, so, yes, thank you again for joining me today. Um, I, I'm going to give you a sneak peek into another episode. I want to, another chapter I want to go over is where this guy talks about religion and how different religions calibrate from a scale of zero to a thousand. It gets pretty interesting. I'm going to give you four warning. I'm sure some of you are going to be triggered and say, no, no, no, it's more than that. Blah, blah, blah.

36:44 Um, and some of you are going to say spot on John spot on John. I'm just here to convey conveying the information that this guy said. So be on the lookout for that in upcoming episodes of me and you here hanging out. Uh, again, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and thanks for joining me today. Have a great day.