This is Greg Lawrence, a psychedelic integration specialist based in LA, California.
He works with his clients to prepare them and integrate them with plant medicines, experienced extensively with: Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Bufo/5-MeO-DMT, NN-DMT, Kambo, Iboga, Sananga and Psilocybin/magic mushrooms.
Listen to our conversation to hear about psychedelic care and a professional perspective on psychedelics and the mind.
Visit Greg at www.psychedelicintegrationspecialist.com
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A word about the mind…
The mind
is the most fascinating place to pay attention to — because it’s the only real reliable tool we have on experiencing “the world”. The fact is, the world “out there” is really the world “in here”. How do you know you exist, right here, right now and that all that you’ve been through, as a human being, up until this point, is genuine and reliable? Because you’ve experienced it, and you’re sure about it!
That’s why it’s positive to be healthily skeptical when others, whether that be friends or authority figures, tell you what they think is true. Why is this? Because most people never deeply explore their own minds or pay enough attention to what the mind is doing or is capable of and thus pick up all their information and beliefs/preferences/paths/notions of the world from others by copying, mimicking, and blindly trusting the status quo of the society that one is in. For example: our western society believes in material science at the moment, based on the progression of the people we admire from our recent past and the European Renaissance: Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Benjamin Franklin, Niels Bohr, and so on. They have made the “big list”, and so the information they present is the most accessible to our consciousness. Our societies contain hundreds of thousands of scientists, many of them unrecognised but still working away — so what makes these guys right and correct? Science is just another game to interpret reality, just like modern spirituality (and every other major category of pursuits, by the way) because it creates experts that rise and fall, giving information away to societies, when new discoveries are made. Life is constantly being updated. Why? Because of the inevitable human experience of the mind! So, if you experience that the sun comes up everyday and you see/know that — trust it. But there’s a point where you have to say “I don’t know” if there are other solar systems, or that the Milky Way is actually this-sort-of-shape, because “I don’t have access to a telescope” and “I certainly haven’t been there!”. Overall, your experience will let you know what is true, and over time, your mind’s projections, outsourcing, and all the second-hand-truth you accumulate from other people will become obvious to you.
Consider this:
All your ups and the downs….
And your good and bad moods…
And your beautiful material items, like flowers, incense, and food…
And opinions, values, and emotions…
Every idea and interpretation…
Each bodily movement and sensation…
Every dream at night…
Aspiration, goal, intuition…
Thought, emotion…
Unfortunate or fortunate event…
Spiritual connection with God…
And even the weather, other people, rooms, natural landscapes and nature…
Is all an aspects and projections of your mind! You created this. Literally. Every other mind in the world also helped create this. The entire world is just made up of mind(s). The world could not exist without you. Or me. Or Joe who helped build the Eiffel Tower. Or Nancy the nurse who helped save Joe at the hospital when he fell off the Eiffel Tower.
So, it’s up to you from here to decide whether or not there is any separation between anything or anybody and if the world is really “out there” or “in here”.
Even more, when you realise that the mind/consciousness is the greatest mystery of all time and that all the things you have assumed were “out there” (such as your friends, family, boss, animals, and even the roof over your head) are actually of your own creation, then you begin to appreciate and value the way you see and experience the world to a greater degree. Thus, a lack of separation between yourself, people, and objects begins to form and you can say, “yes, this is all me!” So, hatred, anger, and delusion can be overcome, eventually, because there are no other people and no external circumstances. They are all you.
There comes a time in human evolution, with maturity, that we can choose to take psychedelics and entheogenic plants to have a look at our own consciousness and its experiential power and capabilities. This can be for many reasons, some of which include:
❆ Healing or getting unstuck
❆ Seeing new perspectives in the material and non-material world
❆ Self-discovery and playful fun
❆ Career advancement for creativity/inspiration
Psychedelics can answer questions like:
⚛ What emotions have been covered up, due to trauma and past experiences?
⚛ What new shapes, colours, or ideas have been hiding from our baseline awareness?
⚛ What is spirituality and what is God?
⚛ What is consciousness itself?
⚛ Are there different dimensions, beings, and worlds than we are used to?
Working with a small group of trusted people or a guide is advised when taking psychedelics/plant medicines. Your judgment and discretion must always come first when engaging with such substances, because they alter awareness and consciousness and are ultimately life-changing and can have lasting effects for weeks to years in duration.
Om namah Shivaya, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free, and may all beings lose their relative selves and become one with consciousness. Om.
