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April 20, 2024

What’s So Bad About Drugs?

What's So Bad About Drugs?

Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: I would like to touch on the topic of drugs. This is also a kind of game in a sense because through drugs a person enters a new state and changes. So what’s so bad about drugs?

Dr. Michael Laitman: The fact that a person becomes detached from reality, nothing else is bad about it. A person becomes detached from society and from life. He doesn’t do anything bad to anyone, and he is peacefully walking down the street with a glassy gaze, not seeing anyone. He cannot be considered a socially harmful element, but he causes harm by going against Nature, and we do not agree with this.

In general, drugs are very cheap. It’s possible to constantly feed them to 3 or 4 billion of the “extra” people on earth so that the rest can live in peace. We can shut them off from all the problems that way. We could hand out drugs to the masses and the crime rate would immediately drop. We could house them on reservations and let them sit there peacefully, getting high and having a ball.

However, the fact is that we inherently oppose this kind of attitude to life. Humanity cannot agree to this despite the fact that these actions are harmless to society and even useful in a sense. Nature has prescribed the goal of our existence so powerfully within us that we cannot passively observe a person who voluntarily detaches himself from a sober, adult life.

Therefore, we don’t agree to it. We don’t want to take this opportunity to be in nirvana for the rest of our lives and then to peacefully die. On the surface it might seem that nothing could be better. After all, life is full of disappointments, searches, troubles, and depression. But still, we don’t agree to this.

And we can defeat this evil by giving a person satisfaction with what he does, the sensation of a fulfilled life. Then he won’t need to cut himself off from life. But if his entire life consists of endless suffering and emptiness, then we cannot blame him for opting for drugs.

I read a speech by the chief of Russia’s health ministry where he says that in the next decade, up to half of the country’s population will be depressed, and today the rate is already 25%. And this is a declaration by the chief of the health ministry; these are the numbers he makes public! And how many more people are there who are not counted? What can be done with such a mass?

It is the same situation throughout the world. There are countries with even higher rates. Divorce, violence on a massive scale, terrorism—it is all part of the common problem of enormous inner emptiness. And it has to be filled by something. Otherwise…
We shouldn’t be fighting the drugs, but rather the reason that makes people want them. And that reason is the emptiness within us, which can only be filled by what Nature has prepared for us.

Why does the sensation of emptiness arise? And what can it be filled with? In our time we have to rise to the level of integral unification with everyone, and fill ourselves with that. That is how we will come to feel the common nature, its eternity and perfection, and will become included in it, identify ourselves with it. We will flow in that eternity.

We will still live the life on earth—where we will realize our integration with others—while sensing ourselves on an order above this world, on the level of a human being rather than an animal or a partially successful social element.

By making a person part of the global, integral society, we will tear him away from drugs and he won’t need them anymore. He will experience states of attainment, the search for perfection, and he will acquire harmony that is thousands of times more powerful than when he is under the influence of any chemical substance.

The Psychology Of The Integral Society

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).

  

6 Comments »

  Lisa wrote @ March 5th, 2012 at 8:47 am

I am also a recovering drug addict, who has been clean and sober for 13 years. I am also an adult child of alcoholics and one of my children is in recovery from addiction. Many of my family members also suffer from addiction. I also feel as David does, “If it were only that benign. We hurt those that love us because we are blind…” Also, as addiction is progressive, as the addiction increases so does the fallout. People steal, lie, cheat, manipulate, and even kill for their drug. Familys suffer greatly, and the emotional damage done to others is immense. If people were simply walking around “high” and not hurting others from their use and abuse of drugs, people would not be seeking treatment and entering recovery.

I do agree with Rav, however, on the statement, “We shouldn’t be fighting the drugs, but rather the reason that makes people want them.” Attend an AA or NA meeting and you will find a room full of people who have tried to fill their emptiness with drugs and alchohol and also who have huge egos! The 12-step program works with the help of the group, approved literature, and inner work to scrutinze character defects and motivations. People who work within the group, do recover and begin to find happiness through their connections with others. It’s only when they stop doing the work that they relapse.

Actually, my time spent working in an NA group, made the idea of working in the group of Kabbalah seem quite natural and made total sense. I am looking forward to the time that working within the global, integral society “will tear him away from drugs and he won’t need them anymore. He will experience states of attainment, the search for perfection, and he will acquire harmony that is thousands of times more powerful than when he is under the influence of any chemical substance.” May this happen soon!

  Regina wrote @ March 4th, 2012 at 11:58 pm

Congratulations, David Jacob!

  wela wrote @ February 29th, 2012 at 3:07 am

Bravo, David! Keep it up.

  Rodrigo Ferreira wrote @ February 28th, 2012 at 10:34 pm

Great article! For me, Rav put more clear than anybody else why as a society we cannot accept drugs, and why we must look after each other. The main point (and the most difficult one) is that we need to attack the source of emptiness, instead of focussing just on the drugs themselves.

Hi David! Your testimony is strong. Thanks for sharing it! And congrats!

  Andrea wrote @ February 28th, 2012 at 2:14 pm

David! Nice! Very good!
Andrea.

  David Jacob wrote @ February 28th, 2012 at 11:34 am

As a recovering drug addict I found the above comments interesting and even validating. However, “He doesnt do any harm to anyone, and is peacefully walking down the street…..”
If it was only that benign. We hurt those that love us because we are blind and are “…walking around not seeing anyone”

I celebrate 12 months clean and sober this Feb. and I can finally see clearly now…the rain has gone!

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