In-TOXIC-ation

In this blog we have talked about religious communities who use drugs in conjunction with religion in order to open pathways to spiritual realms or to help the being disconnect from the material world and connect to the spiritual world. This lead to my own personal meditation upon the words and sentiments of Karl Marx which have been repeated at various points throughout history...

“Religion... is the opium of the people.”

This must be THE most famous quote of Marx and I find it intriguing. In order to understand the context which Marx wrote this statement in you would be well advised to take a peek at Marx’s introduction to ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’.

To be honest it’s not the original context of this quote which intrigues me, rather it’s the recognition which this quote has received worldwide.

Opium is a highly addictive and hallucinogenic drug and is accredited with inspiring Coleridge to write one of his most widely read poems ‘Kubla Khan’.

From my own experience religion can be addictive the experiences of praying, meditating and chanting all carry a certain sense of ease and quiet. As far as hallucinogenic goes we often hear the story of religious people having visions of religious figureheads such as Christ and Krishna.  

If we define drug as anything which alters your consciousness then I suppose religion must be a drug. The idea of being intoxicated suggests to me something negative, it suggests that the object being imbibed is destructive. Yet from what I have researched of the Sikh and Sufi understandings of intoxication I would say that religion is a drug which takes away the intoxication and infatuation which human beings have with material gain.

But this leads us on to the question of the ‘the people’. Marx uses this term to talk of the masses but I would say that the people who truly feel the intoxication of religion are few and far between... In the words of Guru Arjun,

“Prays Nanak, they alone know this, who drink in the subtle essence of the Lord”. (GGS p.846)

 

There’s nothing toxic about the intoxication of love for God... is there?