In the last 24 hours, I have encountered the word SOMA three times. It’s not an ordinary word. It sort of sounds like it might want to become SOMNAMBULIST. Or SOMNAMBULENT. Except for that pesky N in both words.
Before you run off to Google it, here’s how this cluster unfolded. The first instance was in an email from the retired veterinarian, Sandy, with whom we shared synchros over lunch. She was writing about her early life, when she was in vet school, and the people and events that led to her encounters:
He was a visiting researcher from the Swedish Herbal Institute and I was working in the lab as a technician in the neurobiology department of North Carolina State University when he arrived. As we worked together on projects, we would share deep conversations about the nature of thought.
He said he had two friends whose work I would appreciate; one was a man named J Krishnamurti (JK) and the other man was a physicist named David Bohm. He told me to buy a book called Freedom From the Known that was transcripts of one of JK’s talks. Again I was shocked…I had this very book at home but never read it. I received it when I was 17 and went into a small bookstore while at the ocean with my friends. A man in a Buddhist robe behind the counter came up to me and handed me a small orange book and told me I am suppose to read it. I didn’t have any money, so he gave it to me as a gift. I never got around to reading it, and it sat forgotten on my bookshelf for the next 10 years. It was JK’s book Freedom From the Known. This man also knew the physicist David Bohm and he happened to have a first draft of one of his papers that he was editing for Bohm titled Soma-significance, so he gave me a copy. This was a real turning point in my life.
The second SOMA in this cluster occurred while I was reading Stanislav Grof’s terrific book, When the Impossible Happens. I first read about this book on Daz’s blog, when he reviewed the book. I read Amazon’s free portion of the book, and was hooked and downloaded it.
Grof, a psychiatrist, is talking about his encounter with an Indian guru, Swami Muktananda: “In the course of our discussion, I asked Baba about soma, the sacred portion of ancient India that is mentioned more than a thousand times in the Rig Veda and that clearly played a critical role in the Vedic religion. This sacrament was prepared from a plant of the same name, the identity of which got lost over the centuries. I found the reports about soma fascinating and hoped that Swami Muktananda might know something that would lead to its botanical identification and, ultimately, to the isolation of its active principle. Discovering the secret of soma was at the time the dream of many of us who were involved in psychedelic research.”
The third instance involved Brave New World, the dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, where everyone takes the drug soma. It’s a drug that induces bliss, interconnectedness, a feeling that all is well even if it isn’t.
I Googled it.
According to medical sites, soma is a muscle relaxer and may be habit forming. t’s also a song, a fabled psychotropic, a weird mushroom induced story.
So from these various definitions of soma, there sees to be something looming on the horizon that promises a blissful state of interconnectedness that sounds a lot like some big synchro.
We’ll see.
Soma. A simple word but weird, and not a word I’m likely to forget. SO-MA. Almost like a mantra.
Synchro! I recommended Freedom from the Known on my daughters Facebook 2 days ago,not mentioned it before on FB. It was the first book that began my awakening & I once joked I wd clear my bookshelves & just put that book on them because it’s all you need to know! My daughter has become a huge fan & puts Krishnamurti posts on her FB often and they draw a lot of comments!
I have also read many of Stanioav Grov books,including the one you mention above.Be interesting to see how the Soma things pans out!
Good one, Jane!
Trish,
Rob,
Reading up on the background of Soma(haoma?) you begin to wonder if Rumi, Hafiz, and the whirling dervishes drank this. When you read of Rumi drinking or referencing wine in his poetry, Hafiz hearing god laughing. The ecstatic states that follows seems to be a DMT induced reverie, could they actually mean SOMA, not wine as we understand it?
Be well
Laurence
Interesting possibility… probably true!
My intuition was correct – I googled Nick Herbert and soma and found an article about it with a reference or two about him in it. https://www.bapera.com.br/revista/artigos_inter/soma_self_source.htm
On another note I was reading this book lately about psychic types and found out I am not psychic but I am Intuitive. It said it you know something but you do not know where or how you got the information then you are intuitive. If you can access unknown material at will then you are psychic. Just thought it was interesting.
That distinction is intriguing.
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out!
Today’s post reminded me of a gentleman (interested in both quantum entanglement and phychedlics) that I happened upon (internet) a few years ago. His name is Nick Herbert and he has written the book Quantum Reality. I can neither claim him as a friend or acquaintance but we did send a few email messages back and forth about some energy related experiences I had. He has a blog called “Quantum tantra” where he posts his erotic poetry , interesting news of his life and acquaintances (some quite famous) and the odd explanation re Quantum Physics. He has an alter ego whom I think is Dr. Jabir. If anyone knows about soma it is probably him.
We’ve got that Herbert book. I’ll have to check through it for the soma reference. Thanks, Sharon!
I did a search for soma: ‘Drinking Soma produces immortality’ and ‘We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.’
Interesting synchro – not a word to come across very often.
Oh, I like that! Immortality….