By the beginning of the 1970s, word was slowly spreading about meditation and yoga as alternatives to drugs. Within the counterculture a new group of people emerged who identified strongly with spirituality and had given up drugs in search of the "permanent high." They became the early explorers of the spiritual world, the vanguard which would start the mass exodus out of drugs and into mysticism. People began to discard their blue jeans for yoga pants in order to find a social niche in the newly developing spiritual community. As Tina so honestly admitted, it was a "hip thing" to find a guru and to join a spiritual movement. Spiritual movements were regarded as higher, purer callings, and there was condemnation for those who were still dealing or using drugs.
Before the appearance of these spiritual movements, there were few acceptable ways out of the counterculture. Returning to standard careers was regarded as a "cop out" and thus taboo. The spiritual movements had a unique set of attributes which made them good avenues of escape from the counterculture. They were the offspring of psychedelic experience, not a trap laid by the establishment to lure people back into middle-class life. They were also being publicized as more substantial and meaningful than anything the counterculture life had to offer.
Most importantly, the bizarre features of the new spiritual movements, with their strange rituals and unorthodox beliefs, made them seem sufficiently foreign to middle-class life to he palatable to the disaffected. These movements offered the convenient possibility of rejoining society while still remaining separate from it. Thomas Robbins' study of the Meher Baba movement offers a similar conclusion. He argues that the new spiritual cults functioned as resocialization agencies by providing continuity between counterculture and conventional values and by allowing members to express their hostility against the dominant mores while being slowly socialized to accept them.1
Premies who had been terrified by their drug experiences, but who had caught a glimpse of the spiritual, welcomed the shift to spiritual practices. For example, Helen stopped taking drugs soon after she was told that yoga and meditation went beyond drugs. Given the frightening experiences she had had tripping, she was ready to trust those in the spiritual vanguard who were urging people to give up drugs.
Others had to experiment with spiritual practices first in order to find out for themselves whether that was the direction they wanted to take. "Drugs make one want to relax and flow with life, and lots of people told me yoga could do that without the use of drugs. So I tried it and discovered that to be true, and slowly drugs faded out for me. Drugs only point to something beyond this material world. Drugs can he the beginning, but they are far from the end." One premie came to me and asked this question, "Why do you want us to leave these drugs?" I said, "Well, now you have to realize this Knowledge, haven't you?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Well, suppose you come to my home and you bring an automobile. Do you bring the automobile right to my room?" He said, "No, I leave it outside." And I said, "Same thing here. You used to take drugs, and you say apparently these drugs brought you to a point. But then you took Knowledge and that was beyond them. So now leave the drugs and proceed purely, proceed naturally" (Guru Maharaja Ji, 1972).2
Religious books played a surprisingly important role in the spiritual awakening of these premies, as nearly all of them had become acquainted with spiritual literature through their friends and relatives. The appearance of spiritual books on the counterculture scene set the direction for what was to come. Timothy Leary, who had helped people to understand their psychedelic experiences, was losing popularity to his former Harvard colleague, Richard Alpert, who had pushed the potential of psychedelics to their limit, had gone to India looking for something beyond drugs, and found his guru. He returned to the United States with a glimmer in his eye and a new name, Baba Ram Dass. Be Here Now was the story of his transformation from drug user to devotee.
His book came at an opportune time, for disillusioned hippies were already looking for something better to do than take drugs. With such a receptive audience, his book achieved widespread popularity and had electrifying effect. Soon, Baba Ram Dass was the folk hero of the emerging spiritual community, because his experiences provided inspiration to those who had left psychedelics and were turning to a spiritual solution.
Spiritual books gave coherence to psychedelic experience, helped point to what lay beyond drugs, and offered a whole range of new ideas and spiritual practices to try. Terms like "karma, "reincarnation," "yoga," and "Godhead" were part of a new language whose power was measured by the large number of people who were soon using it. And of course there was social status for those who first spoke the new language.
Venturing into the spiritual world was partly a result of personal aspiration. As Matthew says, "My drug experiences, the books I encountered, and the innate yearning toward spiritual experience were all interwoven. But the inner drive was the crucial factor. The immense power of this yearning gave me the feeling that the results of past lives spent in spiritual pursuit were coming to bear on this life. I know that drugs themselves do not necessarily lead to spiritual aspiration. It is the inner tendency of the person taking the drugs that determines the direction drugs will take. It is the same with books. I had lived many years totally unaware of the spiritual section of bookstores, even when they were right before my eyes. It was my inner tendency that led me to notice them and grasp their meaning."
Social Influences
Social ties, even more than psychedelics, had the most compelling impact on the development of spiritual aspiration and commitment for premies. In fact, Benjamin Weininger argues that conversions are brought about through the intervention and acceptance of another person who acts as a catalyst when an individual has reached a point of great inner conflict.3 Certainly the vast majority of premies were introduced to spiritual practices and beliefs through social influences, as we see in John's case. "I moved into a new house with some new roommates. One of them was doing hatha yoga. He was going to yoga classes every Sunday night, and I went to one of the classes with him and really got off on it. So I started getting into that. I didn't know too much then and I wasn't desperate enough to start searching on my own. I was like that up until the time I received the Knowledge. I wasn't really desperate to start a spiritual search. I was generally happy. I was getting high doing hatha yoga and was pretty contented with that."
None of the premies, except one, were attracted to Christian movements or were tempted to return to the churches of their youth. An explanation for this reluctance may be found in the fact that none were in close personal contact with a Christian during the critical period when they had developed spiritual aspiration and were looking for a spiritual direction to take. Had John moved into a house where a loving Christian lived, he might be a devout Christian today.
Putting Out Effort
Whereas John took up yoga with only very weak spiritual aspirations, Mary Anne developed a strong desire to search for God. Nothing could hold her back once she had been introduced to yoga by her close friends. "I did a lot of asanas. As far as meditating, I really didn't know what it meant. I just sat down and tried to wipe all thoughts from my mind. I learned to relax more than anything else in Yoga. During that time I read The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was about a year after I had had that white light trip on the bus. It told about the experience I'd had. I thought 'Wow! Somebody else knows about this too.' The Tibetan Book of the Dead just laid out what had happened to me, so I got a very much deeper understanding. I was even more determined to do whatever I could to get there again." There is a glorious sun, not the sun you see in the sky but a sun which is within ourselves, which is much brighter, much, much, much brighter than the sun you see in the sky. When the sun you see in the sky comes out it only dispels the darkness, but when this sun comes out it dispels the darkness and the ignorance both. It is much brighter than the sun that shines out. It is all within us, it is just within us (Guru Maharaj Ji, 1971 ).4
Early spiritual experiences provided Mary Anne with a taste of the benefits of spiritual practice, but did not show her how to attain enlightenment. Instead, she felt overwhelmed and lost. "Asanas relaxed me, pranayama gave me a rush, and chanting got me high, but the more I did those things, the more I could see the illusion of the physical and mental planes, yet I was not able to see what was real. So they put me into a spiritual void, a state of consciousness which increased my desire to he filled up. I really prayed a lot 'cause I figured I needed a teacher to show me how to get back into the white light."
Lost Between Two Worlds
Walt experienced a great deal of frustration vacillating between drugs and spirituality. He had "burned out" on psychedelics to the point where, when he took acid, very little happened to him. His spiritual awareness had expanded as a result of his drug experiences, but the going was rough. "I spent most of one summer in the mountains in spiritual darkness. I tried to read a book about yoga, but I couldn't get into it. I was in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, but I was bummed out most of the time. I was keeping a diary then. I'd sit down and write about how I couldn't find happiness, how my mind was crazy and I couldn't find any peace. At that time I couldn't get off on psychedelic drugs any more. So I'd play my guitar and it would give me pleasure for ten minutes, then I'd get bored with it. I could read a book for thirty minutes, until I got bored with that. I just figured I was lost, because I was trying all these things to find peace and I couldn't find it. Not being able to score drugs bummed me out, so I got to the point where I could get drugs easily, and that didn't bring me peace. College bummed me out, so I quit 'cause I thought it would make me happy, but it didn't. Working a job fulltime bummed me out, so I quit and did odd jobs, but I still was unhappy. I was bummed out because I wasn't living in the mountains, so I moved to the mountains and I couldn't even find peace there. I just got to the point where I couldn't fool myself into thinking that external things were causing ii unhappiness and that, if I changed external conditions, I would find peace. I knew that the answer lay within and that nothing on the outside would bring me happiness." Many people think that by creating an external atmosphere, a special environment, that we will be able to get that peace. But no. External atmospheres are limited to external things, to external organs. You can get something externally, but when we want to experience that internal Knowledge, we have to create a completely peaceful atmosphere inside us (Guru Maharaj Ji, 1972).5
Walt eventually returned to Boulder from his mountain retreat and found a job. Although he was coming to the end of his interest in drugs, the spiritual path was not vet a viable one for him. "I'd come home from my job and just sit staring into space because I had nothing to do. I had no friends and I couldn't even read books. So I'd just spend my evenings walking to the store, where I'd buy a few donuts, and then I'd walk home again. I was still trying to squeeze some realization out of drugs every time I could. I'd take some psychedelic drug and then walk into the mountains and try to experience something but it just didn't happen because I was burned out on drugs. I lived for the weekend, hoping I could score some good acid and go to the mountains where I might experience a little inner peace. That's what I was living for, nothing else interested me at all." The world has only learned one thing, how to demand and obtain gratification for its sensual desires. Everybody is blind to the important things. Everybody is concentrating on their stomachs. So how am I going to be able to give them the Truth, which is good for the heart? People are completely relying on their brains to get what they want, even if it is something beyond the brain's capacity to obtain. But the brain is not pure, and can never obtain the pure thing, the thing for which we are really searching. That is why we are so restless (Guru Maharaj Ji, 1971).6
Spiritually Lost
Tina grew away from drugs into spirituality, was caught between those two worlds for a time, then, feeling lost, she came to feel a need for a teacher. She was one of the eighteen who definitely started a spiritual search as a result of hallucinogens. When she flashed on the thought that the only reason she was alive was to realize God, she did not hesitate to seek out a friend to help her get started. "I had been friends with this guy named Peter. He was a very spiritual person and he was always telling me to get my trip together and I never knew what he was talking about. The night I had that God experience, I just had to talk to someone, so I went over to Peter's house. I told him I finally knew what he had been talking about and that I wanted to know where to start on the spiritual path. He handed me The Aquarian Gospel and told me to read spiritual books because he didn't know much either. So, I started reading books about Buddha and Krishna because he had told me to find out how the saints lived. I really loved reading about them."
Although Tina's religious insight on drugs made her want to go higher and higher on psychedelics, she was taking acid less frequently but continued to smoke marijuana regularly. At that time, she was still tied to her close group of hippie friends, although she was no longer living with them. Her bond to them was slowly dissolving, freeing her to start a new direction. "That summer Peter and I got an apartment. It was not a sexual relationship, but a spiritual one. He was teaching me some spiritual things, and I was teaching too. I didn't spend much time with my other friends. I'd left them in the dust because they couldn't relate to what I was doing and I couldn't relate to them. We were still very close, but we weren't together much."
About that time, a spiritual fair came to town and Tina and Peter went. "Peter and I woke up really early each morning and we went to the fair and got home late and talked. I tried to understand what he was saying because he was a little bit further along on the spiritual path and could explain things to me."
When the fair was over, Tina felt herself slipping back into the mundane and routine, but her spiritual interests were getting a stronger hold on her. "I'd never been so anxious to get into a trip before, so excited to see myself grow spiritually. I read the Bible and The Aquarian Gospel. Most books were too Heavy for me but The Aquarian Gospel explained everything so clearly I ended up reading it four times. At that point, I didn't know you were supposed to have a spiritual master. I didn't know that was a necessary thing at all. I just thought you learned about the spirit on your own. When I read The Aquarian Gospel for the fourth time it really hit me, that it was talking about the Word of God. It said the Word could not be spoken. Jesus kept saying this throughout the book. He healed people with the Word and He said that the Word was inside, that it could not he spoken by carnal lips. I kept wondering what the Word was. I really started wondering what Jesus meant when he said the Word could not be spoken." At night in my room, air comes and passes sieves and it makes that noise, it tries to whistle. The primordial Word. Take a brick - a brick has this primordial vibration in it. Take air - air has this primordial vibration in it. Take sun rays - sun rays have the primordial vibration in them. And as soon as this vibration is taken out, they are done; nothing is left. The whole world is based upon this Word, because this is the first source of the world to be created. This was the fundamental basis for the whole world to be created out of - this Word. From this Word came the whole process of creation. Because of this Word, God was able to create the whole universe. If this Word was missing, God wouldn't have been able to create any of it. The Word is such a powerful thing that when a little bit of it comes into a thing, the thing becomes alive. So this Word has to be deeply realized (Guru Maharaj ji, 1972).7
Tina took acid for the last time during the summer before she received the Knowledge. "I dropped some acid, sat back, and didn't dig it. I saw how messed up I was and how my mind was really in control. My soul really wanted to come out but my mind just kept going and going, and I got to a point where I wanted my mind to shut up. I didn't want to hear it any more. I knew I had to get my mind under control. So that was my last trip. I knew drugs weren't the way any more. I knew there had to be something else." Ignorance is only created by the mind, and the mind keeps the secret that you are something divine away from you. That is why you have to tame the mind first_ The mind is a snake and the treasure is behind it. The snake lives over the treasure, so it you want that treasure, you will have to kill the snake. And killing the snake is not an easy job (Guru Maharaj ji, 1972).8
Exodus From the Drug World
Among the members of Divine Light Mission it was widely believed in 1972 that those who received the Knowledge and became involved in the movement were quick to give up psychedelic and harder drugs, such as heroin. This was the case for the group of eighteen premies, for most had stopped taking drugs before they received the Knowledge. In fact, 65 percent of the larger premie group and 68 percent of the Krishna followers had quit using drugs before their entry into their respective movements. These findings, supported by other research on the Hare Krishna movement, suggest that drugs were losing their vitality before the new spiritual movements had gained much momentum.
The stories reveal no single explanation for this loss of interest in drugs, as individuals were influenced to quit using them in different ways. Some premies stopped taking them when, through a mystical experience while tripping, they realized the urgency of taking a turn toward spirituality. Others, such as Helen, were eager to quit after unhappy encounters with their unconscious. There were also a few who had "burned out" on psychedelics; the drugs had simply lost their capacity to get them high or to teach them new things about themselves and the world. Tripping, therefore, lost its sharp contrast with normal consciousness, and thus much of its appeal.
The loss of interest in drugs experienced by premies and Krishna followers was in sharp contrast to the group of nonfollower college students who had used psychedelics. While premies had given up drugs on the whole, 66 percent of the college student drug users who said they had tried psychedelics were still using them. This difference may he explained by the fact that premies tended to have many more mystical experiences on drugs, to have taken a greater quantity of them, and over a longer period of time. Through their more extensive use of psychedelics, they seem to have discovered that drugs could not supply the answers to the many profound questions which had surfaced while tripping. This leads to the ironic possibility that the greater the individual's involvement with hallucinogenic drugs, the more likely he or she will abandon them entirely. Dabbling in psychedelics, as the college students were prone to do, just seemed to prolong their use.
It would be a mistake to think that the use of psychedelics is a necessary step in spiritual transformation. More important are social influences and the individual's need for meaning. In fact, what many of these premies acquired through their psychedelic experiences could have been learned directly through spiritual practices, but these people had learned earlier to mistrust religion. It took mind-altering drugs to make them aware that religion was not synonymous with "church," that there was a spiritual world waiting to be explored outside of conventional religion.
While active in the counterculture, these young people had been heavily exposed to cooperative living, so their values were changing in a direction which was compatible with eastern mysticism. Their spiritual awakening made them receptive to the values and practices advocated by the new spiritual vanguard, which they tried and found more rewarding than drugs.
It was not long before most had embraced the belief that spirituality was the key to the resolution of personal and social problems, a factor John Lofland regarded as a determinant of conversion in his work, Doomsday Cult.9
Disillusioned with politics and the counterculture as vehicles for change, this belief in the potential of the inner revolution gave them hope, an ingredient quite indispensable to the individual embarking on a fundamental change of outlook. For hope encourages risk-taking, while it gives meaning to the pain and turmoil of change.
With this faith in the power of spirituality to change the world, soon they were discarding the hippie self-image for a spiritual one. This new image was bound up with a spiritual ideal, which was loftier than that of their counterculture days, although they were similar in some respects. Love was still central, but purity and service to God and humanity replaced the antiestablishment mentality of the hippies. Where, before, they had felt free to indulge their desires, now they were beginning to see desire as something they needed to control.
This new ideal created an inner conflict, for it was further removed from their personal capabilities than their hippie ideal had been. The increasing gulf between their new spiritual ideal and their abilities spawned feelings of personal inadequacy, which premies characterized as being lost. Feeling lost, they were more receptive to the idea of finding a guru.