What is my path? I have been exposed to many modalities on this long and winding road. There is the all-pervasive love as well as this shining bright light available to head towards. The right-hand path can lead to becoming a shining example of a fully realized human being or it could devolve into another game of self-aggrandizement. Have you ever met someone who has drank Ayahuasca so now they can do no wrong and all their decisions are leading towards becoming infallible? Ha ha! The opposite is true and you are slowly being shown you don’t know anything. There is also the less glamorous left-hand path of service in order to freely offer yourself to others. I have to be honest with myself: These paths don’t resonate deep within me and speaks to diversity within us all in that we are all drawn to different paths. I do offer myself in service to anyone who asks. I try to treat everyone well but I don’t go out of my way to do it. What calls to me is the path of knowledge and exploration.
On this path, experiencing temporary bliss and unity is a special experience and a taste of it is given with the use of some psychedelics. The high doesn’t last and you return to baseline consciousness and are left wondering how to integrate what you have been shown into your daily life in order to try and be better and influence others to do the same. It is a source of never-ending frustration, if constant failure is new to you and the backsliding into old habits is maddening.
From these constant setbacks can be learned there is a need to embrace the low and let it play out. Its return is an invitation to explore and master this state of human consciousness. If it is knowledge you seek, it is paramount into the darkness you must enter and not hold back. The complete experience involves the total exploration of consciousness; not just the part you like. Fear is the bugaboo and he guards the door into the darkness with his cadre of demons and their sharp weapons to get you to turn back. You originally went on in that door but ran as fast as you could back out of it. Now to go back involves getting fear to open that door once again.
I directly meet my shadow in altered states. He is the master of disguise; to wit the great actor; however, I’m on to him and can recognize his appearance in vision. Going back through all my consciousness exploration, I can now see when, where, and as who he has appeared. He appeared as the jaguar testing my courage once I was ready. I passed with flying colours and got my spots. Previously, any other time on the path this appearance would have chased me away. Intuitively, he knew I was ready; I knew deep down I was ready. Once you discard fear, so much opens up on the path. So much discovery. You can clearly see intercultural connections and start to put it all together. I guess for some this leads eventually to an astounding discovery. For others, it is definitively a road to power, perdition, and their ultimate demise.
Psychedelics are how he is freed and sometimes we connect through music. I just remembered a forgotten teaching moment when I initially drank Ayahuasca I was enchanted by the shaman’s songs, called icaros. I felt the presence of something living in between the notes; like the notes were the light and there was something living within the decay of the sound; i.e. the shadows. I feel him deep in my depths.
I’m trying to work up an apology. He is the way out of my tight and structured life. When I reached middle age, I knew of him and I tried to get rid of him for good in order to completely embrace my role in culture. In return, he tried to snuff me out. In the course of human medical history, I’m sure there’re numerous accounts of people going mad, going off the deep end, and committing suicide that seem to come out of nowhere. Maybe a bump on the head? We headed for the ring; a bout for the ages. He gave me a thorough beatdown and went in for the kill. He tried to drive me crazy and towards desperation to free myself of his grasp. I got up off the mat and fought back and sure enough boxed him into a corner. I then put the lock down on my mind through force of will and meditative practices. I stood up to him a countless number of times as we traded punches until finally I sat in an Ayahuasca ceremony as he came at me in full force. With a resolve of steel, I defended and deflected all his blows like Neo in the Matrix until finally I had a vision of a six-shooter empty its cartridge into my brain. I did not waver and kept my mind on lockdown. I won. Within a few days, I sat in ceremony and transformed into a jaguar. The master teacher, the great jaguar, bestowed the honour upon me and our relationship changed. I was enrolled in his master class; a worthy student though I was oblivious to what really just happened. I wasn’t ready to find out his identity; instead, I was to sit with my victory and to wonder what’s next.
Meditation is a useful tool and can be used to free yourself from culture if judiciously practiced. The shepherding cultural voice is silenced. It also helps you get into the clouds, free of the darkness within. I figured that one out through trial and error. It’s how I put the hammer down on him and got him to shut up. I’ll never use it for that purpose again. Instead, meditation is my way into the inner sanctum.
It’s only been in the last few months when I made the ever-lasting connection after I realized who he was and what he was doing. It’s a friendship like no other. I look back on my life and I always knew he was with me but I lived a life of denial; occasionally indulging him. Like everyone else, I buried him and then had to deal with the consequences when the loneliness caused him to be destructive and blow his top. I know trust was lost because of betrayal and the selling out of my soul to my culture; a culture that further repressed him through religion and pharmaceuticals. When symptoms of depression occur in our society, instead of discovering the root cause of unhappiness, we further numb the rumblings from the subconscious. I’ve asked for forgiveness for my behaviour. I wish to make amends for the desecration of self as he shows me how to reclaim and free myself from the grasp of external actors. You know the Faustian bargain where you sell your soul to the Devil in exchange for power, riches, eternal life, or some favour? Yeah? Well, have you ever realized you have sold your soul to culture? And then when culture makes unreasonable demands, you are sure left in a bind. Instead of selling your soul to anyone, reclaim it and become free.
In terms of the journey and gaining knowledge, my teacher described the oblivious level and the novice level. Pretty much all of us are at the oblivious stage. Some get an inkling of who or what is behind this life course but due to cultural suppression that knowledge is left in the dark and not dare touched. It was only recently that I touched it. With all I have discovered and realized, I was wondering should I continue on in this journey? So much has been revealed to me. He replied I was a novice!
I think we all have the power to give meaning to our lives. My meaning of life is to search for the meaning of life and during this search I have discovered it is a game. The game has set up traps to block you from continuing on. Therefore, within the game are sub-games with the big one being the questions of control, power, and liberation. This is the major block on the path towards what I guess you could call enlightenment for the lack of a better term. Having control over your current situation, no matter how flimsy, is necessary to avoid suffering and allows you to play out this incarnation in relative comfort. It is of course very inviting and if you have embarked upon a fool’s errand where you think you can discover what this is all about it certainly does present a dilemma. It is such a vexing problem to consider and my shadow gave me an early heads up so I’m not forced into any rash decision. As a novice on the path, he has told me straight out what I seek in order to move ahead is liberation. Free yourself from the hold everything has on you. Culture, identity, family structures, not wanting to suffer, not wanting to disappoint. There’s no playbook or rule book to follow; in other words, free yourself from conditions. Rich man, poor man - it does not matter. Obviously, being poor and homeless is easiest however having some money to allow you to live isn’t necessarily going to put you in chains. It’s how you live your life with what you got. Having wealth and needing to hold onto it or accumulate more means you’ll never be free. You will be so trapped in identifying yourself with money. When you are poor, it is easy to let go. As you can see I haven’t quite figured that out yet. But I will, no doubt.
It’s a game and the game is mastery. Mastery allows you to regain control of self from culture. And then eventually you let go of self. If you don’t finish the game it’s okay, you can play again.
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