Part 1 of 2 : Is it time to let go of some of your beliefs? (Read Part 2 of 2 here)
As I slowly come out of two weeks in the jungle experiencing powerful Plant Medicine with a Shaman, the medicine Man of the Shipibo tribe at the heart of the Amazonian Forest in Peru, I realized I wanted to share this incredible experience with the largest possible crowd given the profound benefit anyone would get to connect to that knowledge.
I can feel also deeply that humanity will only heal itself if each individual does that work. If each individual stops pointing fingers at what’s wrong in the world but start healing itself to be then able to heal humanity as a consequence of an individual healing. War, Crime, Depression, Aggressiveness, Anxiety, Fear, Terrorism, Racism, and many other dark sides of our world, are not the fact of “the others”. What I mean by that is that often when a terrible thing happens in the world we immediately disconnect from those other humans “who did this”, and qualify them as being “bad” and therefor us as being “right”. There are definitely right & wrong things in the world, but my point is more about taking a higher view to those issues, to be able to see the individual's suffering at the root of all problems, and that this suffering is somehow universal at different degrees. We might not be as violent as someone committing a crime but we have to recognize the root of violence in us which might express itself in a different way (from being upset at a colleague or a relative, to not loving ourselves fully).
So yes I could just say that I witnessed these past two weeks incredible transformation of people around me (I mentioned what is happening here in my latest post). And that this transformation is indeed the result of a very intense and courageous work I saw, but also the fruit of the actions of the plant medicine and the plant Spirit. But I realize I might “lose” some of you here who might think that plant spirit (or the spirits / spiritual) does not exist or is a just a mind/brain construct, a dream. And here comes the issue of our belief system…
"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying." Joan of Arc
Trying to put words on feelings, emotions, sensations, internal transformation, awakening experiences, perception of the Divine, is often if not always very hard and feels like a distortion of the Truth that happens. How to translate the infinite boundless into a limited alphabet of 26 letters? In the root of the word "translate" there is the act of treason... It reminds us that any action of translation is a vain & lost battle. A war we cannot win.
"What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best." Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
So my goal here is to translate to you my experience these past years with plant medicine (I started my first ceremonies in 2008), knowing before even starting that I will fail to touch it’s Truth, yet I will hopefully give you a sense of what it looked like, or at least it’s benefits, in the same way as I would describe a high peak mountain I just climbed to you, but with you looking at this mountain from many miles away. You will hopefully get the desire today or one day to go climb it and see it for yourself to realize that your experience will be well beyond what I told you, way more vivid, way more real, way more extraordinary.
In all matters of spirituality, we can be “believer” or “non-believer”. Yet I do believe, as a scientist and phD doctor, that one must try to verify by itself everything that is said to him, before drawing any conclusions on what is right or wrong. Often our limited views by society and belief systems, makes us decide in a very different way. We think in fact is this “acceptable” or “not-acceptable” in my belief system? And we then may decide “the divine is an illusion” or “God does not exist” or “There is no alien in the Universe” or “The Earth is Flat” just because it’s the commonly accepted belief (that we call fact…) for the time being in the society we live in. Commonly? Well may be just in your family, in your circles, in your tribe, in your village, in your country, or on your planet. Often those belief systems are so limited in space and time that any close look at them would not resist a true scientific examination.
"If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself." Martin Luther
So what I am asking from you here is to take “those beliefs” of you (wherever they come from, however “true” you think they are, however “verified” you think you had them) and open your mind, and your Heart, to new possibilities. Possibilities that myself would have too quickly qualified of “unbelievable” or “crazy” many years ago when I started on my spiritual path. Possibilities that please keep in mind you could and should verify by yourself.
"Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live." Charles Bukowski
Let me give you an example of why it’s crucial to challenge our belief system. The Buddha we all know was a real human being who walked this Earth 2,500 years ago. He was a prince, a rich son of a king, in a kingdom located in what is today southern Nepal / Northern India. One day he left everything, the wealth, the fame, the extravagant life, on a quest for Truth, the ultimate Truth of what is reality and the root of suffering (I am not a Buddhist scholar so please my dear Buddhist friends pardon any incorrect statement, like I said, verify all what is told to you). The Buddha, spent over 10 years trying lot of different methods of Yoga, Acetism, Spiritual practices, with various highly recognized masters. He never felt any practices answered fully his (BIG) questions. So one day he turned inward. He sat for close to a month under a tree and went into a deep meditation. When he came out of it, he was enlightened, what we call an awakened human being. He knew the ultimate truth of reality. Beyond all the teaching he brought back (see my older post here) he described the nature of the physical world (atoms, electrons, the particles inside the atoms, up to the smallest details, the quantum wave of energy, the pulsating light we are ultimately made of). This was 500BC, way before our scientist (Article about latest LHC discovery) confirmed by another type of observation (machines & computer model) that what he saw was true.
There is NOTHING truly physical in the world, the light, your body, the planet, all is just made of energy which is vibrating, pulsating at different wave, and our own computer and senses are making an image, a shape, a physical “reality” of what is not. If you were to use a very powerful microscope and watch your body, your hand you would see 90% of empty space and a pulsating light of what is left… There are hundreds of other evidences that what was described by those awakened beings would be only proven 1000s of years later, or is not yet proven.
So yes I was there many years ago. Trapped into a certain belief system, due to my scientific & what I called “rational” mind. I unconsciously closed the doors to possibilities that would have been a tremendous support in my life and also my work.
If you read that blog you might have already decided which “side” you have taken, which belief you believe is the Truth, Despite you probably never explored fully especially the things you believed are not true. We like to dwell in our “truth” because its comforting, self-reinforcing, what we call “Ego fuel” in psychological & spiritual terms. Getting away from our belief is at first very scary, unsettling & uncomfortable, as it hold the possibilities that we might have been wrong for many years if not a life time… So we hold our ground, we defend fiercely our camp, we let our Ego win the battle whatever the consequences on our health, relationships or life purpose could be.
“Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.” José Saramago
The belief in God for example is a big one. Do I believe in God, in a world that is not always visible with our so limited eyes? Or do I only believe in what I can see, what my society has accepted, what science has proven “right” for the time being?
If you are in that last “camp”, the one that needs “hard core proof”, I am sure you can already see how those beliefs, your beliefs, don’t hold strongly in the face of time or place. If you were born 500 years ago you would have bet your life that the Earth was flat and that the sun turns around it. Or that animal don’t think. Or that plants don’t feel. Or that we are the only life in the whole universe. Or that people of a different color are not part of the human race. Those few historical examples (all proven wrong by science today) remind us how crucial it is to keep our mind & heart open to new possibilities, as the ultimate Truth is not hold by any nation, any civilization, any individuals and that believing we hold any truth is often the path towards different forms of violence and extremism.
In fact anyone could quickly argue that even if you are a hard core “I need fact & proof” person, you still believe in things that you cannot see or that science has not yet been able to fully or partially explain… The feeling of Love, the reality of Consciousness or how animals know about Earthquake way before the Earth start shaking, are only few of hundreds of examples. And you might even also believe in things that science has proven are not real “This table in front of me is really here” (it’s not there all the time, nor it is as you see it at all), “Time exists and there is a past / present / and future happening right after each other” (no it’s proven in fact that past is not before future as we believe it is), “Plants can’t talk to each other” (yes they can and they do). You hold your beliefs strongly, safely protecting what you believe you are defined by.
In fact let’s keep in mind that many of our greatest scientists were men who were able to hold an open mind & heart, to see Truth that no one could see at the time. Those same men were for a large part believers in the unbelievable, and highly spiritual individuals.
This is how I see often the difficulty for people around me, sometimes people I really love and care for like members of my family or close friends, to be able to explore the spirit world, the way medicinal plants works inside us, and why & how spirits are the greatest teachers & doctors we can have access to. What compelled me to share this message is when I see on one side the suffering and the resistance of those same people who would be liberated & healed by opening their minds & their hearts to new possibilities, to a more universal and un-temporal belief.
So I will talk to you in Part II to the Shaman I met in Peru, my experience there, and why this essential act of letting go of my belief was the key to understand a deeper Truth about the whole world around me, and allow the healing process to happen.
Love & Light,
Guillaume
JULY 18, 2015 0 COMMENTS
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