kill thyself

Hamlet said the question is: "To be or not to be." My teacher says the question is whether you will, “Kill yourself in order to live." That is the real question Horatio. The master teacher suggested this course of action to me. At this stage in my consciousness journey, I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t take it literally as I might have when I first embraced divine knowledge on this strange voyage; instead, I knew it was metaphor. In order to be free, I need to lose my identity. I cling to my identity, and it drives my behaviour, which in turn allows culture and those close to me to influence my actions because I do not want to let down or deviate from the expectations of my persona that have been created. The teacher stresses to me all the time that if it is liberation I truly seek, I have to let go of the self I have jointly created.

I think we have it wrong. Having a fixed identity is what I’m talking about as identity is the backbone of culture. During a Huachuma ceremony a few years back, I experienced a dissociation with this fixed identity of self, and I was shown a closet full of different suits I could wear. In other words, the vision was revealing I could become or play the part of several different roles available but I, as well as everyone else, always get up in the morning and put on the same damn suit! That was six years ago. My shadow has presented this scenario a number of times; I am not dense so I do get it, but the teaching can get lost in the confusion of life. By this assertion I mean I do finally understand that if I want to be totally free, as in liberated, I have to let go of my identity and in essence kill myself to live. I’ve tasted the fruits of liberation and it’s bliss but I’m hesitant to go all the way because projecting into the future a world without my fixed identity looks like hardship and more suffering. No one said being free is glamorous and it’s undeniably true. I’ve mentioned this before, but I walked past a homeless man and the voice inside me whispered, “He’s free.” Yeah, he is. I’m not sure I’d make that trade though.

What I have come to realize after seeking answers is that you don’t have to identify with identity. Identity is a noun and nouns are dead things. This universe is a verb; it is constantly transforming and defined by motion. The Tao Te Ching teaches us of the watercourse way and to be in harmony with the Tao is to just let things flow. Applying this teaching to the problem of identity and liberation is stunning. In essence, identity is not intended to be fixed but left to transform with the watercourse. When a certain behaviour or predicament no longer serves you, just let it go and have it fall away. Transform like the butterfly. Looking at it from the long game we already do this to a degree. What identified me as a child no longer interests me. My collection of hockey and baseball cards has been gathering dust for about 25 years now! Day to day we can’t see that we do naturally evolve identity, just as we grow our hair, and if we could see it this act would give us permission to just let it go. For sure, it upsets those around you who depend on you being stable in order to add stability to their lives but like a noxious weed this behaviour chokes out your growth. Your evolving identity will eventually be used against you, and you will be labelled an old person and sent to an internment camp or should I say seniors' residence to wait your turn to die.

There’s a line in the movie Fight Club that reminds us, "It’s only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything." This speaks towards becoming liberated and being told by my teacher to "kill yourself in order to live." Everything you lay claim to, as in attachments, will weigh you down and enslave you to a life dictated by culture. Therefore, you must give it all up and face the destruction of self and the subsequent pain and suffering in order to struggle and create something new. This obviously brings up another question in as men we seem to be locked into this endless struggle to create and destroy but are we not just spinning the hamster wheel? If I destroy the self not of my own making and become liberated, why would I want to create something new that will just devolve into another edifice of control and enslavement? Is what we always return to is the need for autonomy and freedom? If I don’t try to organize my life and to a greater degree society what is the natural flow of things?

Having an identity is playing it small. You become an actor in the play on the grand stage of life but in truth you are much more. To lose your identity is to be that much closer to a realization of who you really are. With plant medicines and psychedelic drugs, the experience sometimes takes you to a mind state called ego death where you find this unity and realize we are all one and this one has many roles to play. Granted ego death isn’t fun and the subsequent paranoia might put a damper upon this realization of bliss but if you do it multiple times, you’ll get used to it. The takeaway from this experience is you are it and knowing all is one means you are that one. You made it happen. This is the road the master teacher is pointing you towards which involves discarding identity to find freedom. To stick a knife in your identity is a major leap of faith. He’s telling me if I give up my ego self, I’ll reclaim knowledge of who I truly am and will in essence become once again the writer and director of the play. I entered my drama and fulfilled my part. I also created a hidden and shady character I now call the master teacher and put him off-limits to all and then spent a lifetime seeking him out. A mythical dragon of sorts. He is an oracle used to confirm my folly and grant me the light to see the doorway out of this story. It’s been quite the ride and a pretty good novel that is reaching its climax.

metaphor

The visionary and dream states often convey information as metaphor. Despite knowing better, humans are very literal beings, and at first, we tend to go in the direction of believing things to be tangibly real. We have lost the idea behind myth and now treat myth as generally falsehood since it can't be true in a physical sense. This too pertains to ancient scripture as it is held up against the science of today and derided as childish. Yes, the story of Noah's Ark is a scientific impossibility, the pushers of biblical narrative want you to literally believe it, and those of reason denounce such folly. And that becomes the choice.

I know the above exposition also pertains to the individual visionary states I have been able to enter. I constantly remind myself to not take the visions and conversations I have had with entities so literally. but instead search for the meaning behind what has been presented. In the last year, I have been cognizant of this when recalling dreams as well as some symbols I have seen in conscious waking life. To give some examples, about a year ago after a particularly trying time I stepped out of the house and witnessed a snake devouring a frog. I knew from my studies of ancient Egypt that their primordial representation of creation had the snake representing the feminine creative principle that gave impetus to the masculine striving spirit symbolized as a frog. I deduced the meaning behind this scene I was witnessing as being the passions, represented by the feminine snake, could devour the masculine spirit, played by the frog, and to take heed. Prior to embarking on a second trip to the Amazon, in which I knew I was going to face my fears, I witnessed an owl flying up out of the bush, which I had never seen before in this setting and regard. I knew of the owl's symbolism of death and the connection was not to my physical death but to the process and path I had embarked upon that would lead to the annihilation of self. The third time ever drinking Ayahuasca, after a harrowing second experience, this dark entity I had encountered said to continue following my current path, if not he'd make me walk in front of a train. The path he directed me to follow consisted of not changing the course of my life and thus continuing destructive patterns of behaviour I could not shake. In subsequent visionary ceremonies with the plant medicines Huachuma and Vilca, I have experienced an eery feeling of death and sacrifice. The first time I experienced this unnerving sense I chalked it up to having an unfamiliar experience. A year later I was confident participating in the same ceremony however at the appointed time the feeling of imminent death returned. After dealing with a great deal of anxiety and psychic disturbance, I vomited out these bad vibes and carried on though I could not let go of self. The feelings of dread abated to the point where I could continue and from this event, I eventually realized the feeling of death I had experienced twice now was coming from deep within. In an Ayahuasca ceremony on this last trip I had finally been able to advance past this darkness who had been plaguing me and, in my vision, this male actor drove up in a car on train tracks which I took as being a completion of the level and an end to the scene leading to a transition into the next phase. It wasn't until much later I realized this actor in a car on train tracks was the higher self appearing due to being able to silence the ego mind. I never clued into the significance of the car driving up to me on train tracks until much later when I was able to connect it to the walking in front of a train threat and see that a car on train tracks could easily stop as it approached me. I realized from these metaphors the significance behind all these events and their connection. My intentions last year in my work with the plant medicines were primarily ego based, feeling a need to subdue the sense of self. I am quite aware now the greatest and final attachment we cling to is the sense of a separate self. To give up the ego is the last cord remaining that binds you to the Middle World. Once the last chain is cut you are free, yet no one can take this ultimate step and abandon a lifelong building project. At physical death, if this eventuality is not reconciled, it is forcefully ripped away and is the subject of much grief leading up to the event in the case of a terminal illness situation.

I have been wondering about this dark entity who is hidden deep within my psyche and its origin. I subscribe to the all is one philosophy with the caveat that the one is the ecstatic sexual embrace of the all-encompassing feminine creative and masculine consciousness powers - a figure that could be described as a hermaphrodite. So, from this line of thinking it stands to reason that the masculine dark entity I have encountered is divine masculine consciousness masquerading as a puppeteer intent on controlling deluded individuated conscious beings as puppets to see how far he could keep this game going before it is unmasked. And for the fool in his foolishness to see through the game they/you must take a leap of courage and faith based on wisdom so that you can discard the false self and recover the knowledge of who you are as the higher self. This thinking will lead to an intellectual recognition that yes, the father and the son are one in the same as the Christians unwittingly claim, except that it is you who are both Christ and God. I come from divine parents and I'm one of them. But do you take the discarding of self as something you need to do literally or is it metaphor?

This leads to the idea of sacrifice and sacrificial offerings to the gods. There are rituals in which objects of possession and material wealth are offered as symbolic of devotion to a deity, as greedy humans are normally loathed to freely offer tangible goods. To us this is a demonstrable sacrifice that can be quantified with an expectation of reward or blessing. Going further into the idea of sacrifice is the psychic reality of the gods and demons within that are aroused by behaviours and passions inherent to the human condition. A sacrifice to a god in this case would be changing behaviour to bring oneself closer to a god or stopping destructive behaviours that would arouse another god/demon. Examples would be the use of a substance such as alcohol which brings out the inner asshole in some, or the love of money which stimulates greed, or excessive sexual needs which progresses from pleasure seeking to pathology. In these cases, the sacrifice of these behaviours demonstrates a willingness to change and invoke the approval and help of these forces we call gods. In the case I am demonstrating here, it seems to be clear the changing path in which I was headed on, that was such a concern to a shadowy part of my constituent being, involved the death of the self and so it was related to me that if I chose that path I would walk in front of a train. It's a blunt metaphor for the death of the self. In order to discover the ultimate truth of who you really are you need to sacrifice the self, or at least that is what I am inferring here. When I next stand in front of the Mesa faced with the very real prospect of imminent death, now I understand the reasons behind why I sense an extraordinarily strong feeling of death and sacrifice. If I can muster the courage to take the last step and free myself of ego, then the presentation of the ultimate discovery awaits.

I have had episodes of dissociation while on mind manifesting substances where in one instance I was in a clothes closet presented with suits to wear as different identities. I was not to be burdened with just one identity, instead I could assume a different self at will. This ties in with the thought that we are all just aspects of the one common higher self that takes on separate roles in this great universal drama. Looking at this phenomenon further, it can be ascertained that culture and society demands we assume a fixed identity to operate. The law and monetary systems collapse without this surety. As well in this past year I have felt an intense desire to free myself of my identity and assume another. I have to believe these visions and behaviours are linked to the eventual dissolution of self that is playing out right now in my psychic sphere. The constant pushing of feelings designed to scuttle my resolve to continue this path come from the area of the darkness that lay within the depths of my being. It's all coming to a head. I will need to call upon courage, strength, will, trust, surrender, and a little protection offered by Athena to accomplish this last step into the unknown stratosphere of the no self.

teach me one of those harder lessons

The ego is greatly concerned with identity and as a culture we play into this neurosis by constantly assigning and reaffirming one's identity. Governments are keen on documenting all citizens and stamping a trail of discernible identifiable clues to confirm whom you are. Birth Certificates start off the lifelong attachment to identity reinforcing the conception of self as a separate causality. The explosion of online tools such as Facebook and Twitter are embraced for their ability to craft and showcase how we wish to be perceived and burying the faults, while a game like Second Life allows us some freedom from the conformist requirements of modern society. The machinations of the establishment run on confidence of a singular identity for all members of the system. Without this structure in place the world schema would be thrown into chaos. The bank is comfortable lending me money for a home and credit cards for purchases because there is a system in place that ties me to my identity and makes me responsible for what I do in accordance with the identity that has been crafted for me partly of my own volition and also in accordance with society's wishes. It would be hard for our society to function in a paradigm of fluid identity. Law enforcement would be thrown into shambles and the concept of personal responsibility, which guides polite behaviour, becomes null and void.

The idea of a separate self this line of thinking promulgates is highly questionable. Take for example a city that has been built up into a fairly large metropolitan centre. The borders of the city are arbitrary and artificial and in accordance with this the incorporated entity doesn't actually exist though it probably has discernible landmarks and structures as well as prominent citizens that give it a (his) story that allows us to comprehend it as really existing. Except it doesn't. It's just something we have given form and identity to but upon dissolution, and all things are ravished by time to the point of destruction, it becomes just a memory; just a story we can either remember or easily forget. Now project the above onto your form and you can see how we are playing a part in this drama but to think we really are something is folly. It's a game foisted upon us since birth promulgated by a conspiracy of fellow players who also have no idea they are contributing to the charade. To deny a fixed identity is a step towards quitting the madness.

To be clear, the extreme left and right wings of the political spectrum that are both essentially domineering modes of state control do appear to downplay the role of the individual and thus identity. However, though the individual is expected to conform to a position that best benefits the state, there is no fluidity of identity in these systems, just an inherent way to frustrate the individual so we all become dull and drab comrades or hypnotized followers of a demagogue.

However, I return to the difficulty of constructing our society upon a bedrock that does not contain a modicum of personal responsibility. It is impossible to imagine humans running around in personal and societal anarchy. The difficulties seem insurmountable, but wait, what is the result of how we have structured the human condition here on earth? Our past is a gruesome and violent history of constant strife, suffering, and warfare interspersed with periods of peace and progress. The game we have chosen to play, buttressed by a strong dose of ego, has led to conflict and separation from each other as forces released into the world such as tribalism and its big brother nationalism convinced us to do cruel and horrible things to others because they are perceived as different and outsiders. On a personal level, the need for and accumulation of wealth so we can buy material goods that give us identity and status to further establish our bona fides that declare us as having made it in this wicked game we play, is frankly delusional and sickening. Is there a better way? Do we look towards what Buddha described as the middle way? I would tend to say the answer does reveal a solution to this problem somewhere in the centre. Less emphasis on the individual and more on the sisterhood and brotherhood of all humankind would eventually through successive generations lead to more cooperation as a species and help deal with the escalating problems of racism and the polarization of national identities and religion that we face today. The eventual long term conclusion of this change in behaviour would hopefully lead to a profound realization that we all come from the same source and along the same line of reasoning the notion to treat someone any differently than you would treat yourself would be unfathomable because they are essentially a reflection of self.

The catalyst that has led me down this road of exploration of identity are events where my sense of self has been altered through the use of the teacher plants Ayahuasca and Huachuma. It was first off through my second experience with Ayahuasca, which perturbed my well established ego and sent me for a loop. I did not respond well to this challenge, rebelled, and tried to run from the medicine's attempt at knocking down the edifice of self. I remember being an hour's walk into the jungle in the middle of the night paranoid that the tangible paper and plastic establishment of my identity, my passport and credit cards, had been confiscated and I was no longer who I said I was. This was very frightening and it took almost a year to recover from that experience and I masochistically in time went back into the jungle for more of the same. I put my trust in the plant teachers and during this recent trip Huachuma presented to me a dissociative experience where I knew where I was at the time but my sense of self had vanished and in its place was a closet full of different identities I was free to choose from. Due to conditioning, I instinctively chose the one society has assigned to me but I realized there were so many more to choose from, with the caveat that society would then collectively label me as crazy should I indeed assume an identity that had not been approved to wear.

And that is what led to this essay.