Gaias-Soma
Soma (Sanskrit) Soma In Hinduism, the moon astronomically; mystically, a sacred beverage of initiates, “made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans” (TG 304).
As the moon, Soma is an occult mystery, for the moon as a symbol stands for both good and evil, yet more often a symbol of evil than of good.
Astrologically, Soma is the regent of the invisible or occult moon, while Indu represents the physical moon.
“Soma is the mystery god and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe” (SD 2:45). Soma or lunar worship was once purely occult and its rites were based upon a minute and profound knowledge of nature.
According to Hindu tradition, Soma as a sacred juice gave mystic visions and trance-revelations, the result of which union was Budha (esoteric wisdom).
This sacred beverage was drunk by Brahmins and initiates during their mysteries and sacrificial rites.
“The ‘Soma’ plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, is made.
Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotri (the fire priests) of the great mysteries knew all its powers.
But the real property of the true Soma was (and is) to make a new man of the Initiate, after he is reborn, namely once that he begins to live in his astral body . . .; for, his spiritual nature overcoming the physical, he would soon snap it off and part even from that etherealized form. . . .
“The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yet away from it in his spiritual form.
The latter, freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, becoming virtually ‘as one of the gods,’ and yet preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he sees and learns.
Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or Yah-ve, ‘lest Man should become as one of us’ ” (SD 2:498-9&n).
“A ‘soma-drinker’ attains the power of placing himself in direct rapport with the bright side of the moon, thus deriving inspiration from the concentrated intellectual energy of the blessed ancestors. . . .
“This which seems one stream (to the ignorant) is of a dual nature — one giving life and wisdom, the other being lethal. He who can separate the former from the latter, as Kalahamsa separated the milk from the water, which was mixed with it, thus showing great wisdom — will have his reward” (BCW 12:203-4).
“This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek Ambrosia or nectar, drunk by the gods of Olympus.
A cup of kykeon was also quaffed by the mysta at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Brahma, or the place of splendor (Heaven).
The soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real soma; and even kings and rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. .
We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information.
The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants from the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the initiates of the great Mysteries.
The soma-drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma.
He who drinks of it is made to participate in the heavenly king, because he becomes filled with it, as the Christian apostles and their converts became filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins.
The soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it gives the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost.
According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but, at the same time it is an angel.
It forcibly connects the inner, highest ‘spirit’ of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical soma, with his ‘irrational soul,’ or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.
“Thus the Hindu soma is mystically, and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers — the mantras — this liquor is supposed to be transformed on the spot into real soma — or the angel, and even into Brahma himself” (IU 1:xl-xli).
The mystical drink has been known in all ages and among all peoples. The ancient Teutonic tribes, whether of the Germanic or Anglo-Saxons, spoke of their divine mead, the drink of the gods.
The Hindus spoke of Soma, the direct distillation from the moon and from the overseeing and guiding eye of the sun; the Greeks of the Homeric age spoke of ambrosia or nectar, a drink of the gods which renewed their understanding and gave them inspiration as well.
Another branch of the Greeks belonging to the Dionysian and Orphic branches of mystical thought, spoke equally mystically of the mystic wine, and also of the mystic cereal, partaken of during the Mysteries, and it is from this last that the mystical wine and cereal or bread of the Christians was taken over almost completely from the Dionysian Eucharist, only among Christians even from quite early times it became degraded into actual blood and flesh of Jesus.
The evident meaning must be connected with the old occult thought that wine, or the mead of the northern peoples where the grape and soma were unknown or uncultivated, all had the meaning of the inspiration of initiation,
a kind of ecstasy of vision and knowledge brought about through initiation, of which the physical intoxication of wine, mead, or the soma juice has all the lower and materialized aspect, every spiritual thing having its material counterpart, every right-hand thought or rule in occultism having its left-hand or sorcerer perversion or counterpart.
Thus in the highest initiation, even today and from immemorial time, the holy drink or potation was entirely mystical, and had a dozen of these significances, all bound up together;
yet despite this fact, for some of the lower initiations where a student found difficulty in throwing off the physical and astral influences,
a harmless — when administered rightly — drug or drink was given which temporarily stupefied the lower quaternary;
but it is to be noted that this substitute of the physical drink came about when neophytes began to find it very difficult to do what their more spiritual forerunners had done: raising themselves solely by inner aspiration up to inspiration, by inner insight up to the epopteia or vision.
Thus the question whether the mystical drink was an actual drink, or merely a mystical one, cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. Originally it was entirely mystical,
later it remained as mystical as ever, but the body with its grossness, and the astral influences with their terrible power over the men and women of the time,
were temporarily reduced to quiescence by a preparation known to initiates to have the power of bringing about the condition required, without any permanent or even long after-effect, very much as a sedative will be given by a physician today.
It is of course true that if this drink, however relatively innocent in a single instance, were to be constantly repeated, it would have developed into a drug habit.
Some of the later peoples in their initiations actually did use a kind of physical soma which had the effect of bringing about a dulling of the restless brain-mind for the time being, so that the inner powers were temporarily freed from the clogging influences of the astral light and the body.
The use of drugs in initiatory ceremonies of any kind, however, is a relatively late and degenerate practice, and has never at any time been, nor will it ever be, introduced by the Mother-Lodge coming down to us even from the middle of the third root-race.
With it the old tradition burns more brightly than ever that the true soma, the true mead of the gods or wine of the spirit, is the raising of the human into the spiritual by aspiration, training, and strict following of the traditional laws of discipleship, so that finally the neophyte feels the sunlight from above stealing through the moon of his mind.
So strongly is this the case, that even today in theosophical occult studies, drug taking of any kind is strictly forbidden, including alcohol,
for alcohol is a drug, a product of natural decay and decomposition, and while less spectacular and violent as a rule than drugs such as opium and its derivatives,
it is far more easily procurable and is therefore more specifically pointed to as objectionable. The idea of the occult student is to have the body absolutely normal, healthy,
clean, and functioning in the smoothness of health, so that even overeating is seen to be a harmful thing, because it clogs the body, dulls the mind, and could even actually lead to physical disability.
There is and has been a great deal of confusion, not only at present but throughout the ages, about these matters, and several mystical schools have even chosen the language of the tavern and drinking house as the cloak for conveying occult or semi-occult teaching.
A noted example is the Sufi school with its poems lauding the flowing bowl and the joys of the tavern and the bosom friends therein, and the beloved’s breast.
Here the tavern was the universe, the flowing cup or wine was the wine of the spirit bringing inner ecstasy, the bosom of the beloved was the raising oneself into inner communion with the god within, of which the Jewish bosom of Abraham is a feeble correspondence.
The friends of the tavern are those perfect human relations brought about by a community of spiritual and intellectual interests, and the associations of the tavern are the mysteries of the world around us with their marvels and arcana.
Nevertheless in various countries as the fourth root-race ran toward its evil culmination, the mystic became translated into the material, the spiritual degenerated into the teaching of matter,
so that indeed in later Atlantean times the drugging of initiates was common, and the results always disastrous, this being one of the sorceries for which the Atlanteans in occult history have remained infamous.
Yet even in the fifth root-race, due to the heavy Atlantean karma still weighing on us, many nations as late as historic times employed more or less harmless potations to bring about a temporary dulling or stupefying of the brain and nervous system — a procedure always vigorously opposed by the theosophic occult school which has never at any time allowed it.
it is important to mention, that nothing is either good or bad, but depends on the ability to transform energies.
Many People stopped drinking alcohol after Ayahuasca, and again others grew so strong, that alcohol felt like a lite Tea, without affecting the strong reopened Consciousness through Aya.
here further information on drug and alcohol use by osho:
Osho on LSD as an help in Meditation
QUESTION: Can LSD be used as a help in Meditation?
Osho - LSD can be used as a help, but the help is very dangerous; it is not so easy.
If you use a mantra, even that can become difficult to throw, but if you use acid, LSD it will be even more difficult to throw.
The moment you are on an LSD trip you are not in control. Chemistry takes control and you are not the master, and once you are not the master it is difficult to regain that position.
The chemical is not the slave now, you are the slave. Now how to control it is not going to be your choice.
Once you take LSD as a help you are making a slave of the master and your whole body chemistry will be affected by it. Your body will begin to crave LSD.
Now the craving will not just be of the mind as it is when you get attached to a mantra.
When you use acid as a help, the craving becomes part of the body; the LSD goes to the very cells of the body. It changes them. Your inner chemical structure becomes different.
Then all the body cells begin to crave acid and it will be difficult to drop it. LSD can be used to bring you to meditation only if your body has been prepared for it.
So if you ask if it can be used in the West, I will say that it is not for the West at all. It can be used only in the East – if the body is totally prepared for it. Yoga has used it, tantra has used it, there are schools of tantra and yoga that have used LSD as a help, but then they prepare your body first.
There is a long process of purification of the body. Your body becomes so pure and you become such a great master of it that even chemistry cannot become your master now.
So yoga allows it, but in a very specific way. First your body must be purified chemically. Then you will be in such control of the body that even your body chemistry can be controlled.
For example, there are certain yogic exercises: if you take poison, through a particular yogic exercise you can order your blood not to mix with it and the poison will pass through the body and come out in the urine without having mixed with the blood at all.
If you can do this, if you can control your body chemistry, then you can use anything, because you have remained the master. In tantra, particularly in ”leftist” tantra, they use alcohol to help meditation.
It looks absurd; it is not. The seeker will take alcohol in a particular quantity and then will try to be alert. Consciousness must not be lost. By and by the quantity of alcohol will be raised, but the consciousness must remain alert.
The person has taken alcohol, it has been absorbed in the body, but the mind remains above it; consciousness is not lost. Then the quantity of alcohol is raised higher and higher.
Through this practice a point comes when any amount of alcohol can be given and the mind remains alert. Only then can LSD be a help. In the West there are no practices to purify the body or to increase consciousness through changes in body chemistry. Acid is taken without any preparation in the West.
It is not going to help; rather, on the contrary, it may destroy the whole mind.
There are many problems. Once you have been on an LSD trip you have a glimpse of something you have never known, something you have never felt.
If you begin to practice meditation it is a long process, but LSD is not a process. You take it and the process is over; then the body begins to work.
Meditation is a long process – you have to do it for years, only then will the results be forthcoming. And when you have experienced a shortcut, it will be difficult to follow a long process.
The mind will crave to return to using the drugs. So it is difficult to meditate once you have known a glimpse through chemistry; to undertake something that is a long process will be difficult.
Meditation needs more stamina, more trust, more waiting, and it will be difficult because now you can compare.
Secondly, any method is bad if you are not in control all the time. When you are meditating you can stop at any moment. If you want to stop, you can stop this very moment; you can come out of it.
You cannot stop an LSD trip: once you have taken LSD you have to complete the circle. Now you are not the master.
Anything that makes a slave of you is ultimately not going to help spiritually, because spirituality basically means to be the master of oneself. So I wouldn’t suggest shortcuts.
I am not against LSD, I may sometimes be for it, but then a long preliminary preparation is necessary. Then you will be the master. But then LSD is not a shortcut.
It will take even longer than meditation. Hatha yoga takes years to prepare a body – twenty years, twenty-five years, then a body is ready; now you can use any chemical help and it will not be destructive to your being. But then the process is far longer.
Then LSD can be used; I am in favor of it then. If you are prepared to take twenty years to prepare the body in order to take LSD, then it is not destructive.
But the same thing can be done in two years with meditation. Because the body is more gross, mastery is more difficult.
The mind is more subtle so mastery is easier.
The body is further away from your being, so there is a greater gap; with the mind the gap is shorter.
In India the primitive method to prepare the body to be ready for meditation was hatha yoga.
It took so long a time to prepare the body that sometimes hatha yoga had to invent methods to prolong life so that hatha yoga could be continued. It was such a long process that sixty years might not be enough, seventy years might not be enough.
And there is a problem: if the mastery is not achieved in this life then in the next life you have to begin from abc because you have a new body.
The whole effort has been lost. You do not have a new mind in your next life, the old mind continues, so whatever is attained through the mind remains with you, but whatever is attained through the body is lost with every death.
So hatha yoga had to invent methods to prolong life for two hundred to three hundred years so that mastery could be attained.
If the mastery is of the mind then you can change the body, but the preparedness of the body belongs to the body alone.
Hatha yoga invented many methods so that the process could be completed, but then even greater methods were discovered: how to control the mind directly – raja yoga.
With these methods the body can be a little helpful, but there is no need to be too concerned with it.
So hatha yoga adepts have said that LSD can be used, but raja yoga cannot say LSD can be used, because raja yoga has no methodology to prepare the body. Direct meditation is used.
Sometimes it happens – only sometimes, rarely – that if you have a glimpse through LSD and do not become addicted to it, that glimpse may become a thirst in you to seek something further.
So to try it once is good, but it becomes difficult to know where to stop and how to stop.
The first trip is good, to be on it once is good; you become aware of a different world and then you begin to seek, you begin to search, because of it – but then it becomes difficult to stop.
This is the problem. If you can stop, then to take LSD once is good. But that ”if” is a great one.
Mulla Nasruddin used to say that he never took more than one glass of wine.
Many friends objected to his statement because they had seen him taking one glass after another. He said, ”The second glass is taken by the first; ’I’ take only one.
The second is taken by the first and the third by the second. Then I am not the master. I am master only for the first, so how can I say that I take more than one? ’I’ take only one – always only one!”
With the first you are the master; with the second you are not.
The first will try to take a second, and then it will go on continuously; then it is no longer in your hands. To begin anything is easy because you are the master, but to end anything is difficult because then you are not the master.
So I am not against LSD, and if I am against it, it is conditional. This is the condition: if you can remain the master, then okay. Use anything, but remain the master.
And if you cannot remain the master, then do not enter into a dangerous road at all. Do not enter at all; it will be better.
