The experience of a semblance of ‘freedom’ that these drugs may temporarily give to one is in actuality a millstone round the aspirant’s neck in his efforts toward emancipation from the rounds of birth and death! It is absolutely essential for a spiritual aspirant who genuinely longs for union with God – the Reality – to shun experiments with the effects of certain drugs. These things do not uplift the aspirant nor draw him out of the rut of Illusion. Experiences born of these practices wear off as soon as the aspirant withdraws from or is thrown out of the orbit of the effect produced by the technique employed.
In an age when individual liberty is prized above all achievements, the fast-increasing number of drug addicts forms an appalling chain of self-sought bondage! Even as these drugs hold out an invitation to a fleeting sense of ecstasy, freedom or escape, they enslave the individual in greater binding. LSD, a highly potent ‘mind changing’ drug differing from the opiate derivatives and being used in the research of mental science, is said to ‘expand consciousness and alter one’s personality for the better.’ In America it has become tragically popular among the young, used indiscriminately by any and many. They must be persuaded to desist from taking drugs, for they are harmful – physically, mentally and spiritually.
Many people in India smoke hashish and ganja [marijuana]. They see colors and forms and lights, and it makes them elated. But this elation is only temporary. It is a false experience. It gives only experience of illusion, and serves to take one farther away from reality… An individual may feel LSD has made a ‘better’ man of him socially and personally. But one will be a better man through love than one can ever be through drugs or any other artificial aid. And the best man is he who has surrendered himself to Perfect Master irrespective of his personal or social standing.