teachers

Access altered states by changing your vibration. The plant teacher Ayahuasca explained that to me the first time I ever drank that potent brew. The plant teacher Huachuma then physically showed me how this works the second and third time I drank with grandfather. The second time it was vibration overload and a coursing of energy surging throughout my body. The third time I remember sitting in a boat on the Amazon River and my frequency had tuned into the great cosmic love spectrum band. Wow! And then I looked up in the sky and saw this patch of rainbow. It was phenomenal. Huachuma then a few years later gave me an advanced course in the Andes mountains in Ecuador. Grandfather challenged me to do the homework afterwards and figure it out. As I sit here writing, the preparation stage of my upcoming journeys two years later with Ayahuasca and Huachuma have those lessons coming back into my perception and thoughts.

Ram Dass passed away shortly before Christmas. I knew who he was, read his book “Be Here Now,” but that was about it. I haven’t listened to any of his lectures or followed his life until the news that he had died. I guess I lumped him in with Timothy Leary and then Terence McKenna in that he was probably entertaining but ultimately not what I was looking for. I’m at the point in my life now where all the elders I looked up to have passed away. I really wish I had a chance to meet Alan Watts; in fact if I could sit down to dinner with anyone past or present it would be Alan. He passed away when I was a toddler and I didn’t discover him until forty years later but am thankful for the profound impact he has had on my life. I did get to meet don Howard and spend a good deal of time with him. The world also lost his physical presence this year; his voice and gentle teachings live on through media and his family, both immediate and the SpiritQuest family. Just after New Years I happened upon a lecture of Ram Dass in which he talked about the journey of his life, changing consciousness, realizing the power of love, and how changing consciousness is a matter of accessing different levels of vibration and not getting locked into the same one we naturally all tune in to. Bingo. It’s like the homework I was instructed to investigate by grandfather had reached a point where he had to help me because I wasn’t getting very far with it. I now spend the day arranging my schedule so I’ll have an hour or so free to listen to Ram Dass. Of course he just passed away and I have to realize the time is now. Life is a journey and the teachers eventually move on in their spiritual destiny. Who becomes the new teachers? Is this why I have a mirror in my house?

Ram Dass talks about at first getting high and wanting to stay there. He investigated and pursued this goal, finally realizing through his pilgrimage and meeting of his guru Maharajji, that it is a state of consciousness and by trying to access it through LSD or whatever would always result in him coming down. He realized that to live in a state of being high, in other words bliss, meant to cultivate within his life, through love and service, this state of consciousness. Alan Watts would say about the use of consciousness changing substances that once you get the message, hang up the phone. Read into that what you will but one of the messages you may be blessed with receiving is this unconditional love for all. You may have to repeatedly get that message much like Ram Dass did but once you finally grok the message then hang up the phone and go do the work. If you have any knowledge of the plant medicine scene you will know what I mean. People fall in love with ceremony and with getting high. Of course we do! Ceremony and ritual give you a peek at the profundity of life and a glimpse of the mystery. Getting high and feeling the universal sisterhood and brotherhood is awesome. However continually coming back to ceremony without integrating what it is you have been shown or not having made any attempt to try and figure out the message will lead to triviality. Compounding ceremony after ceremony where you get the message over and over but don’t try to understand or put into practice eventually leads to either you tuning it out or the messenger stops giving you the message and the whole experience becomes chasing visions and trafficking in storytelling.

There’s more than one message but I think you get the point. Changing your consciousness through a substance can show you bliss and reveal eternal truths but the homework and integration becomes exploring those truths and cultivating a natural state of consciousness that allows you to remain in bliss as much as possible.