WillSpirit

This is another addition to the ongoing conversation between me and Marian at Different Thoughts.

Believe me when I say that it pleases me to the core to know that you have attained a place of peace, and connection with the central currents of creation. I am very happy that you have found your suffering to be a path to such a healthy and profound axis. I do know of St. John of the Cross, and believe wholeheartedly in the concept of suffering leading to wisdom. At my best, I have found myself in such a state of grace.

Unfortunately, I am not there right now. It has been an impossible condition to maintain, as you said. Right now, the suffering just feels tiresome. I experience the world as a place that doesn’t fit my psyche, like I should have been born on a different planet. I’ve been trying meditation, retreats, groups, reading spiritual books, attending spiritual events, hanging around people with values I respect, who believe in deeper realities. Yet that state of grace is outside my reach, for now. I don’t mind that, because I don’t expect life to always be bliss. But I do get very exhausted having no energy and no enjoyment. That is the feeling the pills reduce.

I don’t like the medications. I think they are my enemy. But one way or the other, my brain is now adapted to them, and the pain (withdrawal symptoms?) I feel when I cut back too quickly gets to be too much if it goes on for more than a month or so. That’s when I raise the dose again, in order to catch my breath before the next attempt at reduction.

But for my part the drugs do not feel deadening. The antipsychotics did, but not the antidepressants or the mood stabilizers. They just don’t have an effect on my sense of reality that I can detect, except that they take away the experience of my days as exercises in pointless pain. I am not talking here about existential suffering, awareness of the aching heart of human tragedy, or connection with the streams of sorrow that run like lifeblood through the history of humanity. I am talking about dull, meaningless pain that I get sick of and can reduce with a chemical. Am I happy about needing to do that? NO. Do I feel weak for resorting to the pills? Sometimes. But I do what seems like the right thing for me, for now.

At the same time, I don’t believe the medications block me from spiritual awakening, or connection with divine consciousness. Our brains are biological. I suspect there is a non-material spirit too, but the organic matrices of our brain play at least a large role in our experience. If you add a foreign chemical you alter the biology, but you do not change the brain into something entirely new. I don’t think every chemical has the effect of blocking spiritual growth, though some might. I have not found the drugs to be a barrier to spiritual connection. In fact, my peak spiritual experience in life, which far transcended anything else that’s ever happened to me, and was very similar to what the saints describe, actually occurred while I was on Effexor and Depakote. I don’t think those drugs did anything to cause my epiphany, of course, but they did not prevent it either.

It is also important to remember that some spiritual traditions actually employ chemicals to favor spiritual enlightenment. Even the Roman Catholic church incorporates wine in its services. I know, at present the little sip of wine at communion is purely symbolic. I strongly suspect, however, that the early church founders did some actual drinking as part of their rites.

My point is still the same: each person is unique, and every path is different. I am relying on chemicals right now because I am trying to make my transition off the drugs without killing myself or making my wife miserable. And yet, I have had many days (not really recently, but not all that long ago, either) when my spiritual state was such that everything made sense, and suffering became irrelevant: I was on a higher plane. I know that condition exists, but I can’t be there all the time, and as long as I’m living an ordinary existence, I want to try to enjoy it.

I am glad that you have found your way to union with the grand consciousness. I fully respect that for you that has meant clearing your brain of pharmaceuticals.

Not everyone can reach union, whether they take medications or stop them. And for those that do, not everyone will do so the same way. There are many paths to God. For some, drugs may slam the door. For others, they may open it. For me, they do neither. My path to the heart of creation is open sometimes, and closed others, without regard to how much medication I’m on. It may have to do with lunar cycles, or simply with some variable rhythms in my body. Or perhaps I just try harder sometimes than others. But I am absolutely convinced that it is possible to get there now, or at least sometime not too long from now, and I don’t need to wait until every last psychiatric medication is out of my system.

Please understand that my ultimate goal is to be drug-free. So I embrace your philosophy on its basic level. However, I am not sure if I will ever achieve total freedom from psychoactive agents. It would be very discouraging if I thought that I would never experience God as a result. Fortunately, I know that to be false. I have in the past, and will again experience the divine touch, and understand the purpose, beauty, and power of suffering. In the meantime, I choose to live my life with a little less of the dreary kind of pain that is about as enlightening as pounding my thumb with a hammer.

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