Big call right? I’ll clarify. It probably won’t cure gonorrhoea or male pattern baldness, but in terms of less concrete problems, it will help. It gives life perspective, you realise what matters (nothing) and what you should be upset about (nothing.)
The fractal tree of meditation. Take a picture like a snowflake or a spiral... The closer you get to the centre, the closer everything comes to being one. There is no difference between the outside and the inside... they are different parts of the same reality, it's just a lot simpler at the centre.
This is why you get all these really cliche sounding sayings from hippies, talking about oneness or duality.
Everything is love
There’s no good without bad
Everything is just BASS MAAAAN
We’re all one
And the closer you get to the centre the more simple it becomes with less parts and manifestations! Depending on just how much psychedelics they have ingested they might be somewhere between feeling slightly more loving to people around them, to sensing consciousness and life not only in animals, but also in plants, to the feeling that the senses are no longer separate (all the world is bass) to the feeling that the earth is a mother and you are merely a child in its womb to a feeling of complete oneness… the lack of separation or of identity. If you’ve ever taken laughing gas, you get the sense that time is indeed quite subjective and not at all linear.
The rabbit hole is extremely deep and complex. there are endless manifestations that can happen. I don’t mean manifestations in a new-agey way, I just mean possibilities for pain, pleasure, conflict resolution. The reality is however, that it is far easier to deal on a level closer to the centre than further. It is far more satisfying to create a happiness from the centre of the spiral, and far harder to solve the thousands of problems that can arise on the outside of the circle. The closer you get to the centre, the more they disappear.
Near the centre, but not quite at the point of complete oneness, you find duality. Of good and bad, Yin and Yang, masculinity and femininity; extremely powerful forces/tendencies that exist in our world. This is very close to the centre, and an understanding of these forces goes a long way toward a fulfilling understanding of the world. Ultimate understanding and fulfilment comes, however, from understanding oneness- a transcendence of duality.
Now often the truth which you find closer to the centre is not necessarily all that pleasant. The same ‘good’ and ‘bad’ still exists, and at times reality is still hell, however there is a beauty, or a perfection in the hell. I think this realisation is subconsciously obvious in much human behaviour, hence why a great deal of art focusses on the beauty within evil, darkness, etc. So it’s not always fun and roses but you can walk through reality and understand the rules behind it, the reasons it happens, the laws of nature, the dharma in Sanskrit. And thus it doesn’t phase you. Every situation is perfect… not through the framework with which we normally define perfect, but because the world follows rules, and when you see those rules or causes, the results cease to surprise you.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
-Blake
And this understanding is achievable through various manners: faith, meditation, drug use, and just existing in general. Meditation, however seems to be the most surefire and speedy way to get the job done however. So off ya go… focus on the breath on the nose.
Peace and love xoxo