Topic: Michael

[Michael]

This guy has a fabulous crusty voice - he belongs to the old world of Indian Classical:
http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/Mallikarjun_Mansur_Raga_Shivmat_Bhairav.wav

This is a very old recording of Mogubai Kurdikar, the mother of a now retired famous Indian singer, Kishori Amonkar:
http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/Mogubai_Kurdikar_Raga_Sampoorna_Malkuns.wav

[Michael]

Every man and his dog has written about Sacred Space, but rarely has it been written from the perspective of a practising shaman. Too often it comes under the religious category, which by the way, is extremely important, and I'm not going to negate any of the significant work put forth on this topic by such researchers. But once you actually employ a dedicated space to interact with the non-physical world, the concept of it becoming sacred takes on a critical practicality.

Practitioners of old (as well as many current ones) used to draw a circle. That can be using salt if your are up to some dangerous encounters, scraping on the ground in natural settings, a vision of light or fire projected, or quite simply a physical gesture made with sacred intent. The reason for this was predominantly protection. Now, after last weekend in which I took on far more than I could handle, I suggest you follow these old practitioners, and lay down a sacred space across which invoked forces beyond your control are moderated by a shield of energy.

But this applies mostly to pujas conducted in unfamiliar locations. Once you internalise this concept, you begin to construct your life within a delineated sacred space. This means many things, and you should allow your imagination to guide you. It begins with choosing a path with heart for your life's journey, to the selection of a place to live.

Your house in which you live should be securely established within the sacred space technology. That is a separate subject, but you get the idea of how important this concept is to the path you walk in this and other worlds - especially that to which we travel post-death. I so often feel distressed at the lack of preparation that people, who are dying, have made in projecting a sacred space beyond their physical life. Energetically, they face that road like an animal - filled with the naive emotions of a passive belief system.

Regardless of the extent of your preparations in deploying an aura of sacredness around your life and home, you should still make sure you securely establish a consistent place for meditation and regular pujas. This is typically within your house. If you live with others, then you need a spot removed from interruption. I have constructed mine with items I have found along the way that touched me in a transubstantial way.

But I have other locations outside the house, which I have discovered are natural intersections of energy. One, which I used to have specified with dedicated mowing, I named The Magical Aubergine. That area is now completely turned into a wider mowed paddock, yet I can walk into it and locate The Magical Aubergine simply by feel at any time. Now, this is a skill, or rather an awareness: how to see a naturally potent place within the countryside, be it natural or built-over by the modern world. It is outside this discussion, but I can tell you there was a time in my youth when the veils fell from my eyes, and I saw the world around me as a flow of energy. Within that flow, it became obvious which spots were intersections of potency. Thus on a puja pilgrimage I navigate from power points to power points, stopping temporarily to release at these spots.

All that aside, what does it mean, this 'sacred' tag?

Let me use music to help explain. All music is sacred space - that is the nature of this 'unseen' sense. But for shamanic purposes, only certain music can be utilised as sacred space. Why? Because it has to do with intent. Intent is another subject that is absolutely critical to shamanism, and I may speak of that in another post. Sufficient for now to say, some music has no intent of sacredness whatsoever, like commercial jingles or elevator music. Some music has the sacred element embedded purely by dint of the tradition, like all classical music from any tradition. Take western classical music - the audience settles in with the clear intent of entering into a kind of mystical experience. Listen to Richard Wagner or Sergei Rachmaninoff, and you'll get the idea. Indian classical music goes to great lengths to establish the sacred space of performances, and this extends to a long tradition of the science of sacred energy.

But other music leans closer to shamanic sacred space. It begins not with an intent to offer something of entertainment to other humans. No! Shamanic sacred intent music has no other audience than the world of spirit. This is absolutely critical and should never be forgotten. The musician is under no misconception that s/he is playing for an unseen audience (unseen to world-enchanted eyes). If by chance it becomes available to the ears of physical beings, it becomes a doorway to the world of spirit. Keep in mind, the spirit world is also invoked by the element of entertainment.

I recall playing such a musical puja on a high mountain escarpment overlooking the planes of Andhra Pradesh in India, over forty years ago, when there drifted in as audience a small number of local men and monkeys. We sat there sharing that sacred space together, created by the intent behind the music, then dispersed once the spirit passed on. All creatures know when a doorway is opened, and it binds us together as beings between worlds.

We come into this world from infinity, struggle, suffer and exalt for awhile, then leave into infinity. In this space inbetween infinities, we consciously plant a claim of awareness of this incredible reality, which we call sacred, as we celebrate our unbelievable appearance here, now, on this vast mystery of a journey.

Sacred means awakening.

[Michael]

Hey Michael, what had happened last weekend regarding you taking more than you can handle?

The phrase was 'took on' more than I could handle.

As shamans we always walk the edge. We are born into a world that seeks to fixate our perceptual view, for very good reasons of physical survival. When we arrive at the task of shamanism, we need to break that perceptual shield. There are many ways, but there always remains the problem that we overestimate, and go too deeply beyond our ability to balance. It is a well known problem - intrinsic to our calling - and one for which we need to be prepared.

The mind, the body and the psych can only take so much destructural impact, before it collapses. As a shaman, there will always be times when our destructural activities cause us to tip beyond our ability to maintain a stable core. What do we do then?

Let me clarify. As shamans, we repeatedly attempt to break down the calcifications of the world upon our perception. When we succeed, that is not sufficient, because as time passes, the shell within which we exist seals over, and the methods we used previously no longer work. We are constantly seeking the edge, and the edge keeps changing its position. Once we step across that edge, our entire focus changes. Where before we were dedicated to dismantling the 'known world' in order to reach the threshold of the known and the unknown, once we find ourselves at the mercy of forces on the other side of that threshold, we have to use all our strength and skill to resolidify and reclaim the very world we previously worked to undo.

Never forget this, as a shaman, that the power of cohesion, such a tyrant when under its spell, becomes an absolute necessity when we are cast adrift beyond its sphere. It becomes imperative as shamans that we know how to reclaim core stability, else we go insane or die - not an uncommon fate for shamans.

The techniques differ depending on the deconstructional process we have undertaken. What is common is that we should never overestimate our capability to handle anything that confronts us, meaning, we watch for the signs that we are drifting beyond our reach. Of course, that's all well and good, but I can assure you, there will always be times we miss the signs and find ourselves dangerously adrift under forces we cannot control. Then we have to desperately fight for our sanity and life!

Cold is useful - recall DJ dunking C in cold water. Water itself is questionable, but cold water is highly stabilising. Coldness can help, unless it causes an outbreak of uncontrollable shivering. I once used cold in the Himalayas to deconstruct my shell, but eventually the cold got into my bones and took a long time to recover from. Movement is also useful, as sitting still can make one a sitting target: move the body, keep it active. Then again, excessive activity like running and climbing are also deconstructional techniques in themselves, where silent stillness becomes the antidote.

Often any shell rupture creates stomach upsets, for which I highly recommend a desert spoon of honey - wonderful stuff, honey.

In the literature you will find many examples of people going too far in this work, and sometimes the person has serious mental breakdowns. When confronted by such an assault, you will find yourself besieged within your own mind, desperately struggling to hold claim to a small psychic sphere of control - keep up that effort in such situations, because it is critical.

As explained in The Last Barrier, the ability to deconstruct our familiar world is far easier than to rebuild it again once we are left among the ruins.

[runningstream]

I agree on the periods of attention trained to lengths of music.
I found personal preference/non, to sound first ,
Settling into vision , then preference of vision.

In post #30,  the first performance ,
I found roots of trees overhanging banks like creek banks. Dim light , sort of between world , natural setting which held my attention longer .
Interesting considering first impression was some kind of zombie moaning.
I do like tablas.

Second women , I found a developed setting , maybe stone road , more street like , busier.
A bit scattered and less appealing.

Those were my wanderings.

 She Did not hold my attention as long as the crusty old voice  guy you mentioned , the preference was for feel and landscape or energy of landscape in this case.

Floating awareness , carried by the rhythms, the drums have a propensity to snap back sharply, perhaps my headphones are too cheap and I'm listening from the phone.
Being drawn to their sound is from playing too so it captures the rhythm .

[Michael]

Runningstream, you are correct in applying vision to listening. I know some people have no capacity to visualise, but I don't get that myself. Shamans operate in the astral, which is all about visualisation. Most people with shamanic potential have the ability to allow their inner vision to flow forth independently of their volition. We see sounds as shapes and colours. When I'm mixing the sounds, I'm always telling myself - there's too much glare, or it's too cold, or I want more red, more blue or orange, and luckily my hands know which knob to turn for there requests. In the end though, the result is subjective aesthetics.

Then in listening, spontaneous landscapes arise, filled with actions and emotions. The music becomes an accompaniment to long journeys of vision, in which shamanic tasks can be performed.

[Michael]

In this forum, I can speak more directly on an energetic level than I can to a more public audience. For most of humanity, it is essential to exchange energy with the 'other', which can be other cultures or more importantly the untamed wilderness. This infuses our collective being with fresh air as a catalyst for creativity and prosperity. But for shamans, it is not enough to think about this in such a vague way, we must focus on the deeper principle: we need alien energy to accomplish our tasks in life.

By alien, firstly I mean the unfamiliar, but then we need to access the unknown. Lastly, if we are to store the seeds for quests laid down within our spirit before we were born, we who seek the doorway to infinity require the energetic impulse of the unknowable - that which is so alien, we can never acquire familiarity of any degree. It is totally outside all possibility of relationship. With this we set up an inner dissonance so profound that we live forthwith in the knowledge of an unbridgeable chasm within the core of our being. That is the secret quest of shamans, to awaken awareness of that inner crevasse without losing our marbles. To be capable of standing suspended above a chasm of endless space above and below us, without going insane or incapacitated by panic attack.

This task is so dangerous, that we must build our capacity gradually, by introducing alien energy in small and medium bits. To do this, we seek to immerse ourselves in all kinds of unfamiliar actions and places. But it's not just a matter of any form of unfamiliarity - the quality of the energy we contact has to be carefully anticipated and reviewed. Not everything out there is healthy for us.

To begin this training, we start with the practice of not-doing. This involves a multitude of activities, physical emotional and mental, which introduce newness into our life. As I grow older I watch the people I know strive to strengthen their shell by the selection of perceptions and actions for which they have what they believe to be an 'affinity', forgetting that affinity is one of arbitrary familiarity. They mistakenly think that vulnerability, insecurity and exposure to situations in which they lack learned skills of control, are detrimental to the security of their shell. And in fact, past a certain threshold, this is true - once their shell has become brittle, it is best to avoid destructive impacts, as once broken, such people have no way to rebuild their confidence and their life force drains away.

So it is best to begin this process of involving alien energy into our life from an early stage - typically from the point in our twenties when we awaken to the realisation that we belong to the trans-tribal clan of shamans. From that time forward, if we deny or allow our true identity to atrophy, we risk serious health problems later in life from dissonance of spirit, not dissonance of shell. Once repeated not-doings have created flexibility of our shell, we are in the best position to engage in accessing alien energy. Of course, we don't wait, and jump in unprepared, which can cause problems, but then, who am I to caution others since I've travelled the cliff-edge all my life. Just know, many shamans don't survive, so be warned - this is not a safe road, and cleverness with luck has always been an essential element for our clan.

The bigger elements of alien energy come from the natural wilderness and other cultures, just as I have advised in my more public addresses. But we engage on a deeper level. We open ourselves to the force of these elements to a degree in which we become repeatedly discombobulated. In short, visually, we prize back the walls of our being. We subject ourselves to experiences, that on returning to our accustomed harbour we suffer a profound dissonance of self, in which we have to psychically struggle to retain our stability. You see why this is dangerous - essentially we are entering into death and back, in many small, medium then finally large ways.

Along the way, our shell breaks, our soul dies, and we rebuild our subtle and physical entities anew. This is the path of shamanism, which has been practised by our clan over millennia. I'm sorry about that, but it is a devastating path to which we belong.

On the bright side, the kinds of alien energy we access can be absolutely fabulous! This path is with doubt one of astounding richness and fulfilment. The spirits of the natural wilderness are the most rewarding of all kinds of alien energy. The motif of all shamans from the ageless caverns of our species past has always been: "Go into the wilderness alone".

[Michael]

Some music that exemplifies the long-form style.

This piece is radical, I make no apologies - guaranteed to outrage your conventional neighbours and friends. It utilises the African 'village' style of playing, and belongs to the crescendo mode of long-form:
Fire and Water

Another long-form, but belongs to the timeless mode, where there is simply enjoyment of the dance with no rush to the end:
Dance of the Grey Crane

[Michael]

Monks and sorcerers are very similar - they have excused themselves from the world, and allow themselves the license to devote their efforts exclusively to their own experience. There is no law or morality that binds or restricts them from this apparent freedom, except the law of freedom itself. This law of the universe prescribes that no being can escape the gravity of reality without relinquishing all claims for self. That's just how the system works. And this 'relinquishing' is not a state of mind, but a store of energy, esoterically referred to as free will.

Free will is misunderstood by the world. It is not the ability to choose as one wishes, instead of as others demand of you. Free will for those who follow a spiritual path means the storage of gifts. The storage of free space, of emptiness left after you have given away something. The will to be free from investment.

This means we have to build up a capacity within us from repeated instances of when we do something for others - that which is 'out there' beyond our own sensory body. This is a critical practice which needs it own examination, but I don't want to go into that here - it can wait for another time. The point is that we achieve free will when we clear a space within our energetic field that is not conditional, or in any way dependent upon some outcome. Here we have a very clever catch (22).

To gain freedom, you must act for the sole benefit of others, not for oneself. But isn't this a way of acting for our own freedom? Aren't we storing this free will capacity because we desire an outcome - our own spiritual emancipation? Yes. And there lies the feedback loop into bondage.

The answer to this lies in the act itself. To know you are building free will is one thing, but the act of 'acting for its own sake' caries within it a realisation. It is that realisation we are seeking and is in fact, free will. We touch here upon the realm of sorcery, where the pure technicalities of how to achieve permanence resides. The monk, the sorcerer and the shaman are all of one clan, but it is the shaman who has realised the deeper secret - no exit is possible without relationship.

The monk retreats from the world and utilises that freed space and time to devote to spiritual development. This retreat need has been recognised for aeons as essential, because the task is so great and the time so limited. The sorcerer is simply a monk with spirit, who sees the institutions surrounding the monk present yet another layer of entrapment. To seek freedom, one must be free from all forms of enslavement.

The shaman however, works within relationship. He knows the path of freedom, as practised by the monk and the sorcerer, is only yet another form of enslavement to self - just as enslaving as that by others. Ultimately, we are trapped within the aspirations of self.

Sure, the monk and sorcerer can recognise this, and build free will through gratuitous action into the void - this is the purest form of free will, but it misses a crucial point: it fails to acknowledge our lineage. We are living beings, of a species - humanity, of a nation, of a family, of an intimate connection to close loved ones. The very thing which monks and sorcerers identify as our greatest entrapment, the shaman grasps as the path to free will. The path which acknowledges the world, often called tantra, as the very same path which leads to ultimate emancipation, and yet it is not known as the hero's path for nothing - it is the most dangerous.

The shamans path is the path of relationship, of love and obligation, of bondage and sacrifice. The shaman belongs to a tribe, no matter how small or large - she or he works for the benefit of that tribe. But don't be fooled! The shaman is working off his debt. To understand shamanism, you need to understand debt. If you think you owe nothing, you are a fool.

There is a secret core to the shaman that no being holds claim to, not even himself. That core belongs to the stem - the source of the seed which caused his arrival. Once that stem is identified, all else is thrown away, until the shaman realises the stem demands repayment. Thereafter, all deeds and thoughts are dedicated towards that repayment.

This is the enigma at the core of a shaman. He acts in relationship to that which surrounds his body, and yet he, in truth, acts only in relationship to that which dictates his fate. This realisation is the threshold of destiny, and for a shaman, that destiny is a covenant with the force of life itself.

[zig]

I read somewhere long ago that shaman actually means "child" of the Earth...

Ceratainly there are are roots for shaman that he/she honors. (And if you add the traditional part...

... it can feel as a complete original man or woman walking this earth.........

Worth the salt of him/her-self of their lives.

[Michael]

There are some who advocate against any form of purpose for shamans, because they see that as a bondage, which constrains the ability to fully explore the astral world. They are quite correct - it does dampen openness to the potentials and possibilities of astral experiences. What they don't realise, is that there is something in the core of what we call purpose, that belongs to the sphere beyond the astral. The astral is not a goal in itself - there is more to us than exploring the astral plane.

We progress through a series of layers in the matter of intent. To begin, we are of two primary points - the perceiver and the perceived. That is the essence of our being. Many forget that we are as much the perceived as the perceiver. But there is a third mysterious element to our essence: I call it the wind. No one knows where this originates from. While we are engaged in the dichotomous yet static life condition of observation and awareness, something springs forth from our solar plexus - a force of action.

At first, we experience this as desire. From desire we move to striving to fulfil that desire. Many of these desires are instinctive survival motivations, born from our vehicle, the human form. As we grow and evolve, we awaken within us more sophisticated desires - the desire for beauty and knowledge. Then we awaken to the desire to be loved, and if we have some wisdom, we discover the desire to love, not just be loved. That in itself is a huge battle within us to shift the locus of our energetic core from the solar plexus to the chest.

Those who have deeper inner maturity, begin to realise a more profound desire, to achieve something substantial within our life. To do this, we have to delay satisfaction, and work hard. Desire transforms into purpose, and yes, that purpose binds us - the stronger the sense of purpose, the stronger the binding.

There are many variations, but shamans develop another layer of this wind, they awaken to a promise buried within our very being. But to achieve the flowering of that promise, purpose is insufficient. They need to look more carefully at this wind force, and begin to transform it into something far more powerful: intent.

There is a huge difference between purpose and intent. Only magicians have the wind to plumb the secrets of intent. Purpose, you need to feed and match - it is a contest of will power, the ability to stick to something despite the pain and discomfort demanded. But intent is a force outside of us - it is utilises the wind from the other, the perceived, the world beyond. It is not easy to acquire the ability to call intent.

When you empower intent, you are not bound like with purpose, you are forever aligned to that intent. Only those who have built will power and practised purpose, have the ability to discover the secret of intent. Once you claim intent, it can't be changed - you set forth a wind that will reach its target no matter what happens, or appears to happen. It is a magical seal, from which you can step back from, knowing it will work through to its intended target no matter what you do, or what anyone else does. Intent is irrevocable - only the length of time to it's fulfilment is unknown.

So why is a shaman interested in intent? Intent is the vehicle, if you can call it that, of navigation into the third attention - it is an absolute essential to cross the astral swamp and enter into the sphere of pure energy. It is the ultimate command of energy. But the shaman has a job - he or she has to act as commander of the astral for an identified community. That means two things, firstly, it means s/he has to channel the astral flow to support the needs of that community, and secondly, s/he has to energetically shape the astral vehicle of that community. In both instances, s/he needs to employ intent for others. This is a quantum leap beyond intent for self, and is absolutely essential for the shaman's own path. We are back again to the dichotomy of the perceiver and the perceived - intent for both is a capacity that requires mastery. Intent for self is a real status of mastery, but the ability to intend for others is one of the most difficult accomplishments imaginable.

How you build will power and intent is beyond this discussion, but the reason why we submit to the binding to intent is a curious one. Bear in mind that intent is not just a binding, it is laying down a command of the universe. Freedom is not freedom. Once a spiritual warrior claims intent for his path, and knows how that is done, he is forever sealed within that stream of power - not something to be done lightly, and only possible for those who know the seriousness of the consequences. You can stand back, toss in the towel and join the masses, but it makes no difference - the covenant has been sealed, and only the question of cresting remains.

The third attention is the sphere of emptiness, and only those who have mastered intent can enter with impunity. It is not a matter of choice, but of the most profound current within your spirit. To attempt to step into absolute emptiness without a vehicle of intent is to self-destruct. And that begs the question of what is self? Precisely! Shamans are not stupid or naive, they embed themselves within a strategy that buffers them against the blasts of the unknown - it is an ancient tradition that has stood the test of thousands of years. Self must be forsaken, to discover self.

The ancient staff of succession in shamanism is the knowledge of 'that which remains'. Intent is the body of light.

[zig]

Maybe a matter of character, but intent doesn't have to be a force...

Something strong.

I like your 'wind' item.

[runningstream]

Some music that exemplifies the long-form style.

This piece is radical, I make no apologies - guaranteed to outrage your conventional neighbours and friends. It utilises the African 'village' style of playing, and belongs to the crescendo mode of long-form:
Fire and Water

Another long-form, but belongs to the timeless mode, where there is simply enjoyment of the dance with no rush to the end:
Dance of the Grey Crane

The first one I imagine good for a cartoon jungle movie something like Madagascar , psychedelic swirly plants and animals frolicking about their day.

The second starts out imagining  like a morning on still water ,
And goes about the day, the timing changing speeds at the ground reminds me of a days progression.

[Michael]

That's a good imagery runningstream.
I have more to put here, but I've been too busy with work to get my energy into the right space.

[Michael]

The Shaman’s Dilemma

The shaman has a foot in another world. You know if this resonates with you. You have premonitions, visions, intuitions, dreams and so forth. Shamans belong to a class of people who live with the knowledge that there is another reality, constantly interweaving with our pragmatic world. In the early part of their lives, they tend to feel separate from everyone else, as if other people know a secret which joins them, but they are excluded. They don’t understand why, but somehow, they sense they don’t belong. This applies within a family, extended family, neighbourhood, tribe, nation. Everyone else ‘gets’ something which hasn’t been revealed to them, they grow up with a powerful sense of exclusion.

Now, that is not sufficient in itself to make one a shaman – quite often it is the trait of pre-shamanic people, who simply are introverted, shy or lacking confidence for many reasons. Shamanic people have an extra quality. They ‘sense’ unseen influences. Often, they will see and hear these influences, but the important thing is that they ‘sense’ this within their being – it is a deep feeling. Not all such people go on to become shamans, because that requires long years of training and experience.

Those who do become shamans have no choice in the matter – as if the decision to follow that path was made before they were born, and the only choice remaining is whether they become a great or poor shaman. Those who accept their fate, begin their training in that other world. They seek out whatever is required to build experience and competence in the unseen universe. Finally, a new decision ferments within them: will they exclusively devote themselves to the path that opens before them, journeying forever away from their human roots into the unknown, or will they divert a part of their energy, their life-span, to the world which nurtured them? Contemplative monks and sorcerers choose the former while shamans choose the latter.

There is no morality to the rejection of the people and world which nurtured you – the decision to fly forever into the unknown is written in our destiny. And so it is for shamans, who spend their lives in service of the tribe or culture from which they emerged. The morality that says, 'everything we know about ourselves, everything we have become, comes from other people, thus we have an obligation to give back with our life’s energy', is only a thought. Paths are written deeper in our spirit than thoughts, and we either accept our destiny, or forever feel disillusioned.

I may argue that the shamanic path is superior in terms of the ultimate goal, but that is an intellectual argument – not without merit, but equally not in the realm where decisions are made. In the end, it makes little difference, because all those who have been born with the call of infinity in their bones, eventually seek the best path toward that promise. And each of those paths have their dilemmas. The shaman’s dilemma is what I am outlining here.

The shaman devotes much of their early life in exploring the unseen world. They seek proficiency in handling all the spirits and doorways implicit in this process. This is a well-trodden path through the portals of death and power – the ancient gates to shamanic proficiency. At some point, acknowledging their proficiency, they experience the realisation that they must return to the world and work off their spiritual debts in service, and the unique support they are able to offer a humanity thrashing around in the endless reflections of themselves. In this they have two tasks.

Firstly, to provide the pathway guidance for those fellow travellers who also seek the truth of their existence. And secondly, to strive within the illusion of reality that enchants those for whom the path of ultimate truth is not an option – this becomes service in the path of relative truth. But before they can do that, they must comprehend what that relative truth is. After devoting all their energies to the path ‘through the bush’, they have then to assess the various paths ‘into the bush’, to divine which are the best in a landscape of entrapment – not all prisons are equal. Only one born with the spirit of absolute freedom in their bones will recognise the prison walls. Others simply see the difference between pain and delight. Some prisons are beneficial to the lives of the prisoners, while others are oppressive. The shaman then enrols in the struggle alongside their fellow men and women, to bring about the most humanely enriching environment possible within the wheel of samsara.

All that is fine, so long as the shaman doesn’t forget their own deepest longing. But here arrives the dilemma: between two unsatisfactory endeavours. Alas, the shaman cannot satisfy either ambition sufficiently. Distracting one’s energies from the path into the unknown, naturally reduces the capacities and facilities of that path, while applying oneself to the service of the struggle of humanity can never be entirely effective for a shaman. Having a foot in both worlds means one is not fully committed nor effective to full capacity in either.

So, what happens? For the shaman, a natural process unfolds. As we become increasingly ensnared in the struggles of the world, we lose the superficial gifts of the unseen. The task of the shaman is to find a way to deepen the ultimate quest down to another layer, through the worldly struggle. That is the only solution to the shaman’s dilemma. How to do that?

Think of it this way. We are born into a material world. As a shaman, we retain the inner link to the world from which we were delivered into through birth: the word of spirit. As we fulfil our destiny in this material world, we shrink the aperture of second vision. But we must not forget there is a profound wisdom buried in the material world – that is why we came this way, to realise that wisdom! We can never lose that inner link to the longing of our spirit, but we can discover incomparable and essential wisdom through accepting the challenge of being born into this world of corporal hard-edgeness. There is a reason we came this road!

The dilemma hangs above the shaman like an albatross, and wherever their path leads, that crucifix dissects. The imperative for the shaman is to sustain as best as possible the energetic flow from both planes. On the material plane, we have to surrender the obsession with achieving successful outcomes, and on the spirit plane we have to divert our energy into ‘how’ we act, rather than into ‘what’ we do. Of course, what we do is critical – we are seeking the benefit of our founding world. But we need to realise the futility, the impossibility of that vision, and sustain our awareness on the quality we bring to the task. It is how we act in the world, not what we achieve, that draws up the water of shakti we so desperately need for our ultimate quest. That is the lesson.

Shakti, or personal power, is the missing element of those who seek the secret promise within all life forms. Too often we hear or see words and ideas of spiritual aspiration, but these are all tilting at windmills, for they lack that critical ingredient to transform vision into reality. Only through walking the dusty roads of hard worldly life, while retaining the vision of spirit, can we store the power to transmute earthly base experience. This is none other than the Promethean audacity of retaining the very essence of life beyond the dissolution of the body. Life has always held out this gift for those who had the daring and determination to take it, and the shaman’s dilemma is the crucible within which that intimacy is consummated.

http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/thomas.wav

[zig]

Fibre to the soul .! What comes to mind is that we have to exclude, if that's the right word, the crawling fear of... say the Earth!!!After that, comes impeccability and humbleness for the 'Power' that made us take the 'right' way in a gentle entanglement! ...