What Did the Maharishi Really Say About Psychedelics?

[Please Note: The following is an excerpt from my book, "Yoga & Psychedelics"]

What Did the Maharishi Really Say About Psychedelics?

A Writerly Synchronicity…While in the midst of writing this section of the book, I received a call from a man who we’ll call Christopher, wanting to talk to me about the book. He had received my name and # from Randolph at MAPS who had just gotten my information a few weeks ago when I had signed up to be a MAPS member online, leaving a short note about what I’ve been working on. Randolph obviously had seen my note and mentioned to Christopher (who had also just become a member!), that we seemed to be interested in the same subject, and thus the reason for Christopher’s call.

After speaking with Christopher a bit, it became clear that we are very much on the same quest here… Christopher’s story is that after four decades of being in the TM movement, and even one of the higher ups for awhile who helped run meditation retreats in the U.S. and India for years, he gradually came to the realization that it all hadn’t panned out the way Maharishi said it would. He had stopped taking LSD in the late Sixties because all TMers were required to be off all intoxicants, and Christopher was told, as everyone was, that meditation would provide a more consistent and ecstatic high than LSD. It finally dawning upon Christopher that it wasn’t all that for him, he in recent years left the movement, and just a few months ago had his first LSD experience in 40 years (!)

Since our first phone conversation, Christopher and I have been emailing almost every day, sending each other things we’ve written, suggesting books, websites, etc. Just the other day, Christopher emailed me a very fascinating artifact, one that only came to light late last year (December, 2008) after gathering dust in someone’s archives: An audio file of a question and answer session at the 1966 Kumbha Mela festival in Allahabad, India, wherein Maharishi was seriously queried as to the value of psychedelics in regard to “transcendental consciousness.”

The question and answer period begins with queries from the mainly British audience about meditation and the meaning of the Sanskrit word “tapas.” After some discussion about this, one woman in the audience (apparently the only American) finally gathers the courage to ask:

“Would this be a good time to talk about how psychedelic drugs work?”

The woman goes on to explain why she’s asking:

“The fact is that you don't have this problem in Germany, but we have it in Canada and the United States…

“Strait-laced students are taking LSD and mescaline drugs and enjoying the dreams and hallucinations they have, and I know from and I know from what Maharishi has said, that it's only a dream or hallucination, but I'm interested in going into what part of the nervous system is triggered that it produces this dream or hallucination?”

It’s clear from Maharishi’s reply to this that he doesn’t really have much more knowledge of this subject than his listeners, who all seem to be very well educated, and his early response is that because such drugs as LSD and mescaline (Aldous Huxley’s work, particularly “The Doors of Perception” based upon Huxley’s experience with mescaline, is referenced a great deal by the audience) do not produce “transcendental consciousness” to any lasting degree, they are not “acceptable” substitutes for yogic discipline. At one point in the discussion, Maharishi even goes so far as to say that these drugs cause a “retardation of perception...and that can only be the closing of the gates of perception.”

Yet some audience members are persistent: Wait, Huxley’s experience on mescaline was certainly trasncendental, and there’s a London pediatric physician who has been successfully using a potentized homeopathic form of mescaline with wonderful results…

This leads Maharishi to ultimately make the following concession:

“We could accept that there could be some
drugs which could influence the nervous system to reflect real transcendental consciousness. It could be possible...the possibility exists. Only we say that from the effect that we hear -- from these mescalines and such things as are known today -- they don't seem to meet the requirement… Otherwise there
could be medicines which could set up the nervous system to that level….And when that consciousness is achieved, it would be real transcendental consciousness which will transform the life of a man, as is done through meditation.

An objection is raised: “But if transcendental consciousness is produced by a drug – an external influence – would that have the same culturing effect as yogic discipline?”

Maharishi thinks this a good question, and he agrees, but interestingly, he holds fast to his new view, expanding it as follows:

“…there could be that gradual application of the medicine, so that as the mind keeps on retiring from the gross and becoming more subtle and more subtle, naturally all those intermediary steps are naturally fulfilled...The use of that could also be to that value. There could be that manner of taking that drug could such like that like that like that...So if it is done in this way, then we could accept the possibility of transcendental consciousness through drugs.”

Q: Could meditation produce from inside something similar to what the drug does from outside?

Maharishi: Right. It may be that always changing self and this this this...always changing...it gets surcharged with such an element being produced in that state, that the decay stops. In order to stop the decay, there must be some chemical change in the body -- has to be. So when that consciousness is gained, simultaneously some element must be produced, some chemical must be produced all over the body which will disallow decay…

Q: Yes, and that's why Soma is called the drinking of eternal life…

M: Mmm, if Soma is that, then we could accept that -- then that Soma Rasa is produced in every stroke
of transcendental consciousness. Then the saying that they used to drink Soma Rasa means that they used to meditate and gain the Samadhi.

Q: Or it could also be thought that they really found something to drink as chemical also…

M: Yes, as chemical also, as a drug also.

Q: Isn't that the next logical step, when this meditation is lost and this Kali Yuga goes deeper and deeper, that there will be something still simpler, still more mechanical than this meditation and that will be the next thing: The drug ...

M: But then... the knowledge to use the drug properly would be by far greater difficulty than learning this meditation [laughter]. [i]

So essentially, just to translate and interpret this somewhat, Maharishi is saying that at least in theory there could be a drug that could produce lasting “transcendental consciousness,” even if that means it has to be taken on a regular basis to produce that effect. Because after all, meditation also is not a one-shot deal – it must be practiced regularly to receive its fullest flowering.

That said, this drug does not seem to be LSD or mescaline for Maharishi, but some hypothetical substance. When asked if it could be Soma, which is what the Vedic rishis (seers – “Maharishi” means “great seer”) quaffed to “see” and hear the Vedic hymns, Maharishi answers in the affirmative. Yet this Soma is something which the body would produce in response to activation by an external substance or discipline like meditation. In other words, a drug could theoretically produce the same biochemical changes in the body as meditation does, but again, for Maharishi such a drug is merely hypothetical.

Now, please keep in mind this was in 1966, before LSD was made illegal in the U.S. and therefore before the war on drugs officially began and paranoia began to strike deep. At some point after this, Christopher noted, Maharishi began requiring that anyone taking his meditation programs be off drugs for at least 2 weeks prior. So far from being an endorsement of psychedelics, I think the theoretical nature of this discussion needs to be emphasized, at least on the part of the Maharishi. Because after all, he was pushing meditation, not drugs. While I for one certainly appreciate the Maharishi’s openness to the possibility of a transcendent consciousness that would be produced by a drug, it’s clearly not a path that he was promoting or even recommending.

For us, though, we can take what Maharishi says here and apply it to the whole discussion of plant medicine, particularly to ayahuasca and DMT, which is a substance produced in the body and which may also be the common denominator in psychoactive plants such as ayahuasca, and spiritual practices such as meditation. This is an idea we’ll be considering in a later chapter.

[i] From a question and answer session at the 1966 Kumbha Mela,
HYPERLINK "http://www.spiritualregeneration.org/audios/19660207_KumbhaMela_2of3_Kali_yuga_psychedelics_S.mp3" http://www.spiritualregeneration.org/audios/19660207_KumbhaMela_2of3_Kal...