Quote. Terry Riley. The function of drugs

“I think the function of drugs is to remove certain filters that we have in our brain to make our lives more ordinary. These filters filter out the extra perceptions of angels and all the other things that would make our lives a little bit wild. If we could see everything around us that really exists, we might not be able to take it. That’s why people crack up when they take LSD. The person that takes a drug shouldn’t be dependent on it, but should take it once and see that there’s another reality, and work towards that. You can’t take a drug again and again and improve yourself towards that reality, I feel. Once you’ve done it, once that reality is in your mind, then I think the drug has served his purpose. Our problem with drugs now, in our society is people become dependent on them because this reality is too brutal for them. They can’t accept it, so the drug takes them to another place. But since they are not ready for it physically or spiritually, that another place is too fragile and their physical body can’t take it. There is a balance between all your psychic needs, your spiritual needs and this corporal body that has to be maintained while you are alive. And even though you’ve got this spiritual body inside you, you’ve got to take care of the psychical one too. Great mystics, you know, can’t even eat because they are so much into the spiritual selves. They don’t take care of their needs, and their disciples or their friends have to do it. But if you are a drug addict, you might not have any friends to take care of you. So you end up on the street and you die. A person has to recognize that he has a responsibility as a human being. And if he’s been awakened, then it’s just work. It’s just trying to remember, and to have patience, and to know that, eventually, through many, many births, you will probably arrive at the state that that drug brought you to.” [Taking Music, William Duckworth, 1999]

Posted in academia on August 27th, 2009 by fresh good minimal | 12 Comments