Drugs for awareness?

Having just had a recent Facebook discussion about drugs, I'm a bit surprised by peoples willingness to take drugs and seeing it as a way to expand their awareness.

Questioning why they would distort reality in a process we know very little about, some people answered "isn't reality much more than what we see with our eyes?" Which is true of course, but does that really mean that drugs are a useful way to increase one's understanding of reality?

Andreas 21-10-2104

~2000 years ago a wise man said "If what can be seen is obscure to you, how can you comprehend what cannot be seen?" (Book of Thomas 2:3)

This statement captures the essence of "perception": the main function of perception is to increase Understanding of what you perceive.

Those who cannot appreciate and comprehend what is in front of their noses - they have no chance understanding anything else. No chance....

I heard about a Russian physicist who decided to die clinicallly and come back to life because he wanted to explore a structure of atom - something you cannot perceive when you are in your physical body and/or have instruments made of atoms. When he came back to life after his ~20hour "trip" he admitted that what he "perceived" about atom did not make any sense to him. He said that it was unlike any theory that exists on Earth.

He did not use drugs to induce clinical death (he used dry fasting, an ancient technique used by Tibetan lamas in the advanced stages of their training) but the advice of the wise man ~2000 years ago still holds: "If what can be seen is obscure to you, how can you comprehend what cannot be seen?"

We all have eyes, but do we see ???

Tom 21-10-2014