BOBVLOG #9: Drumming
4I hasten to say before you watch this that I have no musical training, no musical intentions, and no musical talent. The point of my drumming is to alter my state of mind, not to make music per se. It takes me several minutes to warm up, so probably I don't start cooking until maybe 7 minutes into the video.
I also hasten to add that no mind altering drugs were involved (however stoned I might look by the end of the video). I don't smoke pot, I haven't taken hallucinogens in decades, the only drug that I do use regularly is tobacco which is actually a pretty strong drug in its own way. I don't need drugs to enter a trance state, I do it with a frightening regularity without them. ;)
Entheogens (hallucinogens) have their uses as sort of "altered states on training wheels," but sooner or later you need to take the wheels off, or I do need to anyway. And entheogens unfortunately dovetail too nicely with our Western preconception that if you want a change, you need to use some tool or device or pill to fix it, and so it become something that exists in a distanced chemically-separated space rather than part of your life. Entheogens are also not a quick ticket to living right or establishing benevolent respectful relations with the Earth and the spirits within it, literally all they are good for IMHO is that if you are locked up tight in your own head, they can shake things loose a bit. They WILL do that. ;)
On the other hand, I don't want to dismiss the uses of such things for people who genuinely can't get started with altered states otherwise, as something to start out with if you must, but they have risks and issues. Entheogens are very strong stuff, it's no game, it's a hard way of getting there. I honestly believe that on the whole, hallucinogens are something that it is best to leave behind you as soon as you are able. I would quickly trade every drug trip I have ever taken for the relationships I have now with various beings and the vision states in which I touch ever so lightly on something real and very deeply mysterious.
The world isn't in your head, it's out there. Even your mind isn't as much "in your head" as you might think, as though your mind was some sort of klein bottle totally cut off from the rest of the world. Don't get INlightened, get OUTlightened. :) Mystics throughout time have said that the path is inward, but it is only so that you can actually come OUT in some sense for the first time. The path to the REAL "out" is to get out through going in first. Or, if you will, realizing that you never properly understood that you were "out" to begin with.
Most people live as if hiding in their skulls, looking at it all as if through the viewscreen of their eyes, never realizing that they are already outside. ;) It's like the question, "where does outer space begin?" But you ARE in outer space, you are already there. ;)
And all that was probably way more trippy than you really bargained for. ;) Enjoy the video. :)