Highway to Heaven and Hell

A Buddhist monk was once asked how he can live without sex. He thought about it briefly and then said, ' Well, when you experience an orgasm all day long in whatever you do, you don't miss it that much at night!' There is a lot of wisdom in this statement. Sex gives you a taste for the orgasmic heights we can achieve. All addictions are the attempt to get this state of well-being with artificial means instead. A spiritual path is the journey in the opposite direction, that will teach you how to experience bliss all the time.

Addiction is an escape from freedom. Once you think of whatever it is that makes you high, you already feel the blood rushing through your brain. As you get access to your substance, a strange trance takes over and you give in and let that force run its course. The longer you stay on this highway to hell, the harder it gets to turn your car around. It is a joy ride, no doubt, as handing over the reigns to this force lightens up your pleasure center in your brain. But alas, life becomes unbearable without your fix afterwards and the fix needs to get ever more intensive if you want to experience a similar high next time around.

Walking the Tao is the opposite experience. You interact with life in ever more subtle ways as you understand that life communicates with you always. The joys you experience  day in, day out, become more frequent until you experience bliss wherever you are. The Tao sets you free in the way that life dances with you constantly and you have to stay way too alert for the 'robot' inside of you ever having a chance to take over. The Tao gives you increasing freedom from the  subconscious thought processes. Along this journey, there is mental clarity, a feeling of joy, peace and bliss that you have never experienced before.