There is awareness at all times.
There is awareness in all places.
There is awareness of the body.
There is awareness of the mind.
There is awareness of all states occurring to the Body/mind.
For instance:
- Awakeness
- Sleep
- Dreaming
- Feeling States: Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Passion, Rapture
- Sensing States: Pain, Pleasure, etc.
But what of entheogenic states?
Well, any entheogenic state is just another state of mind. All states alter the mind and it’s mode of operation, perception, capacities, etc. to one degree or another. But there is always awareness of this altered state. The awareness is never altered, but is at all times aware or conscious of the presently occurring state of mind. The entheogenic state arises in awareness and is beheld there. For the only state is the no-state, the natural state of Awareness or Beingness, the nondual stateless state.
The entheogenic state may in fact open up new states of phenomenal consciousness, alternate realities, various planes of apparent reality, encounters with other beings, previously inaccessible levels of perception, etc. However these all arise, have there being, and recede back into that ground of being which is awareness. They are all at the last merely relative realities or states of experience.
The promising field of research into the subjective effects of entheogens lies in studying their ability to remove the mechanism of mind and sense of self or ego to reveal the natural state of Being or Awareness. It would seem that they (along with other appearances: music, meditation, yoga, sleep, etc.) are anomalies built into the structure of phenomenal reality for the precise purpose of returning the supposed individual person to the natural state of Awareness or Being. Entheogens clean the ego dust, the ignorance, the delusion, the belief in the permanence of the apparent world from off the mirror of Aware-Beingness which is always transparent, present, Alive, here and now, and True.
Namaste!