BigSkyDiamond

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no. that is not what substance abuse is. Substance abuse and addiction are not determined by religion or society or geography or culture or ethnicity or government or laws or acclimation. It is determined by medical and healthcare profession. That's why research and findings from medical community are more credible than personal opinion or groups that favor and promote the use of psychotropics. it is relevant to the thread topic which is marijuana, hinduism, india. There is a correlation between the substance abuse problem in India and the use of psychotropic substances as part of the culture and religious practice in India. They are very much related and on topic for the opening post.

maybe a good place to start is to actually know what substance abuse and addiction actually are. so they are not conflated or confused with "worship" or "what the government says to do" addiction and substance abuse are the same whether they occur in India or somewhere else in the world. Just like the flu is the same or cancer is the same anywhere in the world. Because human antatomy and physiology and disease and illness appear in and affect human bodies regardless of the country where those human bodies happen to be residing.

What am I listening too? Dr. Ming Pang discusses qi in Chinese, with English subtitles. He is the founder of Zhineng qigong which is the qigong form I currently practice. He is a medical doctor in Western medicine and also a Doctor of Oriental Medicine who founded clinics in China that were "medicine-less hospital" treating patients with a variety of different diseases and illness. The Zhineng form of qigong was taught to the patients, it activates the self-healing inherent in each of us, the clinics treated over 400,000 people with a 95% success rate, across 180 different diseases treated. In addition to the hospital section where patients were treated, there was also a teaching section (the people who healed often wanted to be trained to become teachers), and a research section documenting the scientific clinical results of treatment. The Huaxia center opened in 1988 and was closed by the government in 2001. Thousands of teachers trained while it was open, and now Zhineng is taught and practiced all over the world. www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4NvN1htYhU&list=PLrasN-9zgUGuvpb763-GNcteP0izjUstv&index=4

"Cannabis, heroin, and Indian-produced pharmaceutical drugs are the most frequently abused drugs in India. Cannabis products, often called charas, bhang, or ganja, are abused throughout the country because it has attained some amount of religious sanctity because of its association with some Hindu deities. The epidemic of substance abuse in young generation has assumed alarming dimensions in India." ---from this article, Substance Abuse in India Pravara Medical Review, published by the Pravar Institute of Medical Sciences in India

Divinity and magic are not the same. They differ in mindset, intention, that which is accessed, and that which is attracted. when i read "low" my understanding is that it may be referring to vibration or resonance. that might make an interesting thread topic, to provide further clarification on how magic and Divinity are not the same. just as there is a difference between God and gods, there is a difference between Divinity (God) and magic, between prayer and casting spells.

EXACTLY. just plain no discussion of politics. Period. Full stop. easy peasy.

The obvious solution seems to be for this relgion-and-spirituality-focused forum, to simply have a "no politics" rule. No discussion of politics period. full stop. no political rants. of any variety either Left or Right. flip side same coin.

my experience has been that for practices such as Zen, the use of psychoactive substances is (a) advised against, and (b) an obstacle and barrier to spiritual development. my experience has also been that the behavior of those seeking to justify use of psychoactives are often times seeking to justify their own addictions. it's along the lines of someone saying "my uncle Fergus lived to be 85 and he smoked a pack a day and drank whiskey every night and worked on the farm his whole life" therefore tobacco and alcohol are not harmful. walk into any bar and ask who here has a problem with alcohol, and no hands go up. same for those who claim psychoactive substances are not only "not a danger" but as post above claims, they are even GOOD for you they are medicine for healing. Typically, those seeking to justify the use of psychoactive substances and justify their own addiction, are not under the care and treatment of a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Tying this into TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and the Tao Te Ching and the thread topic, the underlying purpose and practice and prescription is to restore balance and harmony. Psychoactive substances disrupt rather than restore balance.

what a great topic. And source of future reading material, too. Books i read over and over: The fifteen volumes of Likutei Moharan (about 450 pages each book). Have read through six times, currently on seventh reading. Includes Hebrew and English. I read the English and refer to the Hebrew. The core five volumes in the Althar the Crystal Dragon set (slim paperbacks), and the associated seven volumes on putting it into practice. These are books i read straight through and then read straight through again, this is continuous. I am on the seventh time reading through them all. Sometimes i read them in reverse order. Human author Joachim Wolffram, material provided by various beings in non-physical form, primarily by Althar. if we are going to include books of prayer then these also. They fall in the category of read 100+ times and stopped counting. Book of Tehillim Fiftieth Gate, seven volumes of prayer by Rav Noson Sternhartz. Based on the lessons of Likutei Moharan Current favorite authors, in the category of "i will read anything they write" so currently reading my way through their complete works Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn (books include Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake, Ten Steps, Compass of Zen, Only Don't Know and others) Chinese Qi Gong Master Luke Chan, practices and teaches Zhineng qigong (that is one of the forms of qigong I practice with him as teacher), his books on the Tao Te Ching and Zhineng qigong include 101 Miracles of Natural Healing, 101 Lessons of Tao, Zhineng Chilel Qigong, Secrets of the Tai Chi Circle, Eight Secrets of Tao Te Ching, Dao of Chinese.

Welcome! Let us know some of the areas or topics you are interested in.

thank you Lairg, it is always a treat to hear your insights on, well just about anything.

nought else is found there before thinking, before thought the not-place to be

yes. absolutely. this makes perfect sense. As all my incarnations (all my different past and future lifetimes) are "joined" then yes information is shared and flows freely between all of them. It becomes available to them, but each of those individual lifetimes has its own free will whether to acess the information, act on it or try and use it. They may get a flash of inspiration, or an inkling of an intuition, or an idea pops into their head. But just like in the here and now we can ignore it or not. We could in those other lifetimes be so distracted by wealth or so consumed with trauma or so desperately clinging to the search for a romantic partner or so engrossed as a workaholic running a successful business, that the idea or flash or intuition is dismissed. But it remains as a resource for any of my lifetimes to pick up and use. Just as various paths and traditions of religion and spirituality have left us maps. My personal contribution assistance to my other lifetimes is lighting the sign above the exit door so it is visible. That too is a "service to humanity." But since we are in a plane of free will, i can't won't don't try to push or drag or rescue or coax anyone else.