The Shaman’s Dilemma II: the intimate elusiveShamans assent to a covenant with the authority which guides their path. In the ancient Indian Vedas this was called ‘the dying around the holy power’. They commit to serve and accept responsibility on behalf of whatever collective it is their destiny to align with, as their part in a contract with the only power that can vouchsafe their longing. The Native American Indians had a view that anyone who left the field of battle was a coward, except for the shaman. Consider this for a moment: it was not just because they understood the shaman had to fight in ways other than the physical – it was also because the shaman’s loyalty was beyond question.
They could not afford to think their shaman was a coward – as the guardian of the spirit of the community, the shaman had to be respected beyond comprehension, otherwise all was lost. Shamans throughout history have proven the trust of their lineage. Even today, when almost every other term – magician, witch, sorcerer, necromancer, conjurer, priest and so forth – have attributes of distrust, the term ‘shaman’ remains respected even in our scientific age. This is testament to the integrity of those who assented to the covenant of shamanism. But few understood the dilemma shamans experienced in order to uphold that trust.
Once a shaman binds to the obligation of service, serious questions must be confronted. They must decide at which point in the community’s endeavours they place their feet, and how far are they prepared to go in that service?
I have previously explained why they adopt the path of service, but I should emphasise how that covenant unfolds. There are two approaches to the path of spiritual development, and these are not only options, but also sequential. The first is that of the audacious spirit who grasps the chalice of knowledge with both hands and is dedicated to the unveiling of mysteries by sheer dint of personal force. If you haven’t experienced this approach, then you will never make it.
The second approach is to realise that the final aspiration of a spiritual being is beyond the capacity of one’s personal power, no matter how great. There is, what spiritual scientists call, the ‘final chasm’. All our efforts can only serve to reach that precipice – beyond which our power cannot bridge. This is a spiritual despair, not to be confused with any psychological issues that flawed soul-crystals confront. Only those who have triumphed through the minefield of life’s travails, those who reach the last threshold in fitness of form, are able to present themselves at this chasm and realise they could never achieve their quest by their own efforts alone. It is written in the blueprint of the universe, that no matter how powerful our spirit becomes, all we can ever achieve is the state of ‘perfect offering’.
Once this realisation has been grasped, we henceforth work in relationship with a power beyond our ken. From then on, we follow. To do that, we learn the language of spirit to read the signs of the trail. This is how we navigate the labyrinth of the world on the path of service.
Fine, that’s all very well said, but there are many gaps between signs and often they only appear as confirmations, post-decision. There remains a requirement for our own intelligence and wisdom. Although we have this foundation of alignment with ‘the dying around the holy power’, nonetheless, we must resolve those questions of where we stand and how far we go. How to manage being ‘in the world but not of the world’, and how far does our obligation stretch – to death?
To grasp the truth of a shaman, we must stand before death. The difference between a shaman and an ordinary man, is that an ordinary man confronts death in the moment death chooses. For a shaman, the same may be true, yet death stands back for a moment, to allow the shaman’s final dance. To appreciate this, one must comprehend the dance of death. “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.” [Pablo Neruda] Forget the games, the struggle, the strife, the ecstasy, the quiet joys – one yearning binds all beings: to reveal our spirit. The shaman’s death is a moment prepared for over a lifetime: this is who I am! Not even death can steal away that sacred moment, when the breast is torn apart, and one’s being is revealed for the universe to witness.
A shaman’s spirit cannot be held hostage by the fear of death. Keep that in mind, as we navigate the shaman’s bargain.
How to manage being ‘in the world but not of the world’?Shamans live continuously with a secret. The further they travel on the path of knowledge, the more poignant this secret becomes. It reveals as a persistent awareness that those for whom the shaman strives have no comprehension of the vast chasm that surrounds us. Humans, like all living beings, enclose themselves with layers of meaning to sustain their actions, their life. That may be family, ambition, tribal or national pride, brutal survival or the pursuit of status and possessions. These are protective mechanisms essential to deflect the pressure of a terrifying reality which causes, in the average person, an overwhelming sense of depression. Thus, these layers are critical for the wellbeing of individuals and communities. Shamans cannot avail themselves of such subterfuges. The personal transparency of their lives require recourse to far more reflective reasons to tread the paths of struggle and service.
Shamans breathe with the knowledge of that infinite chasm, and how its reality renders everything we hold dear, every belief – even the very existence of the world in which we live – as ultimately without substance or meaning. Therefore, shamans act for the service of a community knowing all the time it is futile in the long view. But it is not futile in the short term, within the struggle and lives of that community. This moment, this life, is the real treasure of all beings, so the effort to protect and enhance that experience is valid.
But should shamans align so completely with the relative reality of their community that the perennial path is jeopardised? Shamans’ very capacity resides in the fact that they exist between the worlds. If they become subsumed into the community’s emotional and material sphere, they sacrifice their ability to perceive and operate beyond that sphere.
Some of this is expected, and manageable. The act of shamanism itself, of engaging ‘in the world’, naturally severs some psychic power. That is an accepted exchange, because engagement offers deeper opportunities. But there is a balance, not easily controlled. Shamans are constantly demanded by those whom they serve, to belong fully to their world. People instinctively sense when a member of their group is not fully committed in their soul to the collective agreement. Shamans conduct the delicate posture of an undercover agent – but an agent of what? That is the key to how a shaman resolves this dilemma.
The task of shamanism is to divine the true spirit of the community. It is not just their job, but a unique intrinsic capacity. They can only avoid the demand to conform to the waves of attitudes and values that sweep through the community, by constantly drawing a line back to the source. Shamans have an enormous advantage here. The universe is constructed of spirals within spirals. The core remains the same, but a succession of spirals revolve around that core. At each segment of a revolution a new plumb-line must be drawn, or perceived, back to the core, through the intermediate spirals which are also revolving. Let me explain by example.
Let’s say a persuasive man holds forth with a passionate appeal about the direction the tribe should follow. He declaims to the people of who they are – he defines them to themselves by cleverly recasting what constitutes the essence of their identity. Then he places himself in the position of exemplifing that essence – the icon and leader of this redefined identity. Many members of the tribe become swayed and converted by his enthusiasm and confidence, and by a new-found pride in a selectively emphasised image of their collective spirit. Some concerned elders appeal to the shaman for help.
Always alert, the shaman has been quietly watching all this from a distance since its earliest beginnings and has already been investigating. She knows that time has passed since the last identity crisis, and thus has been seeking to comprehend the wider environmental changes, which have opened the opportunity this new leader exploits: that is the outer spiral revolution.
Then, with the assistance of her familiar spirits, she steps down into a deeper layer of awareness, examining the energetic changes that have affected the evolution of the tribe and the sphere within which it exists. This is the etheric spiral, where she seeks understanding of the metaphysical quality of the times.
Next, she steps down to another, deeper layer still, where she perceives the very spirit of the tribe itself, and not only ‘sees’ this spirit to discern its own revolving spiral, but also requests from it the inspirations necessary to resolve the tribe’s problems.
Lastly, she penetrates even further, beyond the spiral of the tribe into the core of existence itself and seeks there the relationship which has always determined her as a shaman – the covenant with eternity. She must redefine herself first, before she can summon the power that will finally pour effective authority into the answers she receives from the tribe’s spirit spiral.
But that’s not the end of it. The shaman returns to the world to negotiate the complexities of tribal factions along with the often violent, forcefulness of the new movement and its leader. This task requires considerable social skills. It’s not enough to have the alignment of the tribe’s spirit, and her own spirit – she has to be a leader in her own right, and risk the scorn of her community should she fail, to say nothing of being resigned to the role of observer only to be left with the subsequent task of salvaging what remains after the disasters that follow.
That is the recurring engagement of a shaman in this world. It is how shamans renew and revivify their position ‘in the world’, while not ‘of the world’. Let’s be clear, this isn’t for the faint hearted – shamans need to be made of indestructible metal, which is asking extreme depths of sobriety and resilience. This is why they retain the respect their lineage deserves. We are speaking of superb beings when we say the word ‘shaman’.
Also keep in mind, this whole cycle is not unfamiliar to the shaman, because that is the cycle of experience shamans follow in their own course of spiritual growth – elliptically travelling from inner silence out into worldly immersion, then back again.
How far is a shaman prepared to go in service? To death? Should shamans die for their tribe?To say that, historically, samans die in service, is no answer to this complex question. To say it depends on the situation, also avoids the kernel of this question. It is a question only each individual shaman can answer, so I’ll offer my personal view.
Fundamentally, a shaman is a spiritually aligned being. Meaning her life is dedicated to the vital force of the universe. Instinctively, the shaman knows there is a quintessential power within all things, which is alive and can be reached. This is the root of a shaman’s being: what that power demands, ‘is’ the shaman’s path. There is no place left for self. As in the battle when the shaman departs, the warriors know beyond question that the shaman acts without a shadow of self-interest. What a warrior doesn’t know is that the shaman’s ultimately priority is the greater spirit – not the tribal spirit. The heart of a shaman longs to be one with the supreme essence. It is not a desire of self, but a profound yearning to merge with that ultimate source.
Thus, we have a dilemma, which is not easily resolved. As I have explained, the shaman is committed to ‘the dying around the holy power’, which implies the covenant of accepting direction from that holy power. But premature death closes all opportunity for growth and knowledge remaining from one’s lifespan. The simple basic truth of life, is that we need all the time we can muster to unfold the embryonic reality within our being, into the flowering that alone can seed whatever future exists beyond. That task of living, which is only fully comprehended in its unique potential by the shaman, is not something to lightly cast aside. The pearls of wisdom do not fall to the young, regardless of popular belief. It takes many decades of struggle, pleasures and disappointments, all the while examining experience against the principles of wisdom received from those who have gone before us, to unearth the secrets of being.
The shaman does not see death as the end of being. But how one dies is of critical importance to a shaman, as she knows instinctively, that the final throw of breath weighs significantly in seeding the onward peregrinations of the spirit.
To die early, for the cause of the tribe, is to delay the priceless, developmental lessons embedded in a long lifespan. But to reject the demand of the holy power, which is channelling your path to a premature death in service of others, is to risk the only guiding star that exists within the universe, without which, an endlessly long life is next to useless. Of course, in principle the shaman has no choice – she must submit to the dictates of the greater spirit to whom she is committed.
But it’s not that simple. Rarely is it so black and white. In most cases, the shaman is intelligent enough to discern a way to avoid unnecessarily exposing herself to the inflammatory emergency of any single phase in the long journey of the tribe. It serves not the tribe for the shaman to become ensnared in the volatility of that tribal spirit’s changing topography. The shaman learns to stand back, knowing that the tribe will live on beyond these crises, and her role is in the long game even if her contemporaries cannot grasp that.
Just as in the shaman’s own life, where it is wisdom and action over long years, so too with the community the shaman serves, the benefit is over extended time. It is for this reason, the shaman rarely steps forth as a protagonist – she sits back and influences from a discrete distance. It is a posture which not only marks the true shaman, but also ensures she has the maximum facility to serve both her temporal and spiritual dedications, without compromising either. It goes without saying, this posture requires a spiritual craft – the skills of availability and unavailability, of salience and obscurity, of clarity and transparency: the intimate elusive.
Che
