HE ALTH & HE ALIN G
HE ALING
Last instalment of the Rebel’s Guide to Recovery
The chi-cycle lifestyle is a bridge from the mundane to the mystical. Do a daily chi practice, follow the cycle and make finding your cosmic self your priority, and you can cross that bridge at will.
by Jost Sauer
Unreal reality If you were drawn to repeat a drug experience it was because that unreal version of reality was not enough for you. It is not supposed to be enough. I wish I’d known this. I’d never felt satisfied with ordinary reality, even as a child. I dreamt of having special powers and of travelling to other dimensions, but I was regularly told I was a dreamer, and I should ‘grow up’ or ‘get real’. Everyone else seemed fine with
ordinary reality, so I started thinking that there was something wrong with me. Valium numbed that sensation, which is why I took to it so quickly, but a few years later, when LSD and other mind- altering substances made everything I had dreamt of real, I saw that I had been right; the universe truly was a mystical, magical place. Drugs were my escape route, and
drug-altered states fast became my preferred reality. This is where I felt at home. But this was not because anything went wrong for me, but rather because 1970s suburban Germany, with its emphasis on material wealth, social status, external appearances and its obsession with what the neighbours thought, did not feel like home to me. The Daoists flagged this issue centuries
back. They saw how believing that the material or acquired world is all there is, leads to misery and to ‘not feeling at home on earth.’ Every drug user I treat these days can relate to this. It is the same fundamental longing
for something more than ordinary that makes them resonate with drug states. All it takes is a line of coke, a happy pill or a joint and the most boring chore in the most mundane place becomes an amazing multidimensional experience. You’re still ‘here’ interacting in the normal world, but it doesn’t look or feel normal any more. This feels right because essentially, it is. But keep using drugs, and you drift
from Dao; your acquired self becomes stronger, as does the feeling of not being at home on earth. The acquired response is to find someone or something to blame for your alienation and pain. I ended up with the anarchists fighting street battles against the police and what we called ‘the establishment.’ But what I was really protesting against was the loss of my access to the mystical. The chi-cycle lifestyle is a bridge from
the mundane to the mystical. Resist the urge to give in, to live an acquired life and to take what seems to be the easy path. Do a daily chi practice,
follow the cycle and make finding your cosmic self your priority, and you can cross that bridge at will. Then you will always know who you are and where you really belong. You will feel at home everywhere: in your body, your home and community, on the planet and in the cosmos. This is how reality should feel. The material world is temporary, the mystical is eternal
Soul evolution Finding your cosmic self is every drug users’ responsibility. We usually see the words drugs and irresponsibility paired, but if you’ve taken drugs you have set something significant in train and I believe you have a responsibility to see it through. None of us are here on earth just for entertainment. Recreational drugs are powerful transformational substances, not a DIY fun-kit. Those of us that said ‘yes’ did not do so just to have fun. We initiated a transformational process and now it’s time to follow through. The Daoists believe that we are here
to evolve our souls. This process begins with awakening to the fact that there is something beyond the physical, followed by the desire to feel the connection to this. You have this underway because you already know that there is more than
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 43
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