The two senses I'm referrig to are:
Ecstasy, the
drug, and
Ecstasy, the state. The former induces the latter, but the latter does not require the former. What is the connection?
I've never done ecstacy, but I've been meditating regularly for almost three years now. My roommate has never done meditation, but used to do "E" every week. We've been comparing notes for weeks now, and we've noticed some similarities.
It first came up when we were talking about sex. (we're both male) He said that when he was on E, he could go for much longer: "sometimes, like, half an hour!" I tried to hide my pity, and explained that some people could go for quite a bit longer, even without drugs. I explained that since I started meditating, I'd been able to enjoy sex more and for longer periods of time.
There were some other things on his list: Ecstacy gives you more awareness and sensation of your body. Meditation: Check. A feeling of peace and happiness: Check. A feeling that a weight has been lifted from your shoulders: Check. Empathy: Check.
From our discussions, it seems like they are the same thing. This is one of the things that led me to my Game Genie theory of drugs: Drugs allow us to experience states that would normally only occur much later in our spiritual development, or after years of practice. But every state that a drug can induce is a state that a human can acheive without drugs.