Friends, there’s a subtle danger on the spiritual path. Yes, danger. It can look like fluency, sound like insight, and feel like awakening. 

Psychology calls this pattern the Dunning-Kruger effect: friends with limited competence in a domain often overestimate their ability, and friends with deep competence tend to see how much they don’t know. 

Sant Maskeen Ji, often referred to as the Panth Rattan or “Jewel of the Nation”, draws a sharp distinction in the spiritual context. Observing this same tendency, he contrasts those who merely recite sacred texts with those who truly experience them, describing the difference with devastating accuracy as a tongue reciting text from a soul tasting nectar. I was shook the first time I heard this. 

There’s a difference between speaking about sweetness and dissolving into it. One can recite, quote, facilitate circles, and even lead meditations. One can even build a reputation as a “healer”. But, the question remains – has the soul tasted?

A little knowledge can feel like a revelation. Especially when learning concepts for the first time like: 

• ego dissolution
• trauma theory
• nervous system regulation
• Hukum
• Maya
• Non-attachment

Suddenly, everything feels mapped out. This initial knowledge you’ve acquired becomes the early peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve – the place of inflated certainty. 

In “spiritual” communities, it looks like:

• claiming enlightenment-adjacent experiences
• speaking in cryptic absolutes
• branding oneself as awakened
• dismissing discipline as “lower consciousness”

But real depth, friends, doesn’t inflate. It humbles. 

A rising phenomenon in modern healing culture, especially amongst Sikhs, is the reliance on intoxicants like ayahuasca, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, bufo, ketamine, and marijuana, to “access deeper states”. For clarity, the following critique is not directed at the use of these substances in other contexts, but specifically at the claim that they are a reliable path to genuine spiritual depth or awakening.

Some healers, and those seeking healing, frame the use of intoxicants in terms like

• expanding consciousness
• opening the third eye
• accessing non-dual awareness
• easier meditation
• faster trauma release

But, speaking bluntly, when reliance on a substance becomes the gateway to stillness, the nervous system hasn’t learned stillness. When meditation only feels profound under chemical alteration, the soul hasn’t tasted nectar – the brain’s just been stimulated. Hallucinations of “god” while intoxicated are just that; hallucinations.  

Applying the Dunning-Kruger effect, early, seemingly powerful experiences can create a convincing illusion of depth. Altered states are easily mistaken for awakened states. Some describe these experiences with intense tears, euphoria, dissociation, or chemical silence. But, none of these surface feelings are true surrender, liberation, transcendence, or stillness. Intensity isn’t transformation. Transformation is quiet. It’s embodied. It shows up in character, not in peak experiences. And when someone remains attached to those early peaks, they risk mistaking recitation for realization, describing the path without ever truly walking it. 

Most of those stuck at these early peaks don’t reach what Dunning-Kruger calls the Valley of Despair, or that moment that you realize how little you truly understand. Spiritually, this is grace. Where you stop performing wisdom, branding awakening, seeking shortcuts, and accept discipline. Attempting true connection through meditation isn’t dramatic, but rather repetitive, ordinary, and often uncomfortable. It’s sitting with a craving without feeding it. It’s sitting with anxiety without escaping it. It’s sitting with the ego without inflating it. 

No chemical assistance. No spiritual theatrics. Just presence. 

This matters especially for those who see themselves as healers or guides, because the real danger isn’t ignorance but premature authority. Rather than focussing on humility and stillness, some mistake status or intoxicant-induced insights for depth. 

Both Sant Maskeen Ji and Dunning-Kruger caution us against shallow knowing and hollow recitation. When seeking deeper spiritual connection, the path is difficult and demands a sober ego, discipline, mental clarity, and a softened heart. 

Nectar must be cultivated. It cannot be forced, manufactured, inhaled, swallowed, or smoked into permanence. 

And perhaps the first sign that the nectar has truly touched the soul is this: You stop trying to prove that it has. 

You bow. 

With love, 

Gurmukh