What happens when LSD is used in meditation?

Question: can lsd be used as a help in meditation?

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…

In experimenting with lsd I have experienced states which seem to be similar to descriptions I have read of samadhi. I could feel my kundalini rising and my chakras opening up. I felt a oneness with the whole cosmos. Were these genuine experiences of samadhi? Is permanent self-realization possible through the use of lsd? Is there any harm in using lsd as an aid to meditation?

I am not saying that there is no such thing as kundalini or chakras. I am not saying that no experiences happen; there are experiences but you must not know about them beforehand, otherwise you will project them. You must be completely unknowing, you must be ignorant: that is the basic condition to proceed further. Each thing must be known and experienced directly; it must not be taken for granted. Information should not be confused with knowledge. So throw away all information. Cease to know things and proceed as if in a vacuum, proceed in ignorance. You don't know, so everything will be a surprise. Everything must be a surprise. If it is not a surprise, if you say, "Yes, I have known this before, it has happened before," then you have not moved into the unknown, you have not moved into meditation. There is a great possibility of self-delusion.…

So in LSD the thing is sudden. It is so sudden that it overwhelms you. It shatters your total memory. All the tensions are non-existential for the moment. You are relaxed and the cosmic harmony is felt. The barriers are not there. You don't exist as an I; and the world and you have become one. This is so sudden and blissful that you will have a cherished memory of it afterwards. You must reach the door of Samadhi completely empty handed, naked, vacant, only then the authentic thing happens. Otherwise, you are meditating with the projections. You have been projecting in meditation, and you have been projecting in your LSD experiences. Both are projections. In LSD you go nowhere, you are just where you were. Something happens to you because of chemical changes; because your ordinary mind is not functioning. It has been defunctioned.

These are deceptions. But still I say, one experience can be good, but never become an addict. So if you have had a good experience you are blessed -- now forget about it. You had a glimpse -- now try to change your whole life in such a way that this glimpse becomes an ordinary thing, that each moment without any drug, you can live and you can live in it. Meditation is hard work, but real work. LSD is a deception. It is cheating with nature. It is forcing your body chemistry to have certain experiences, but it is violent and ultimately very very frustrating. So if you had good experiences, thank God. Don t bother about it. Now work! Now you know that there is something like that and you can work for it.

Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, HAKUIN SAID: THE STUDY OF ZEN IS LIKE DRILLING WOOD TO GET FIRE. THE WISEST COURSE IS TO FORGE STRAIGHT AHEAD WITHOUT STOPPING. IF YOU REST AT THE FIRST SIGN OF HEAT, AND THEN AGAIN AS SOON AS THE FIRST WISP OF SMOKE ARISES, EVEN THOUGH YOU DRILL FOR THREE ASAMKHYEYE KALPAS, YOU WILL NEVER SEE A SPARK OF FIRE. MY NATIVE PLACE IS CLOSE TO THE SEASHORE, BARELY A FEW HUNDRED PACES FROM THE BEACH. SUPPOSE A MAN OF MY VILLAGE IS CONCERNED BECAUSE HE DOES NOT KNOW THE FLAVOR OF SEA WATER, AND WANTS TO GO AND TASTE IT FOR HIMSELF. IF HE TURNS BACK AFTER HAVING TAKEN ONLY A FEW STEPS, OR EVEN IF HE RETURNS AFTER HAVING TAKEN A HUNDRED STEPS, IN EITHER CASE WHEN WILL HE EVER KNOW THE OCEAN'S BITTER, SALTY TASTE?