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The Mystical Side of Life |
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Written by Jeffrey Fritts
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Every spiritual path reaches a point where the individual questions
whether there is something beyond the mundane life we experience on a
daily basis. Is there a God? Are the visions we receive in meditation
simply random images that well up from our subconscious mind? Can we, as
simple human beings, consciously interact with a mystical side of life
we aren't always sure if we should even dare to believe is real?
At issue isn't a question of whether we believe, but rather, what we
believe. Most of us who were raised in a civilized western culture are
taught, from a very early age, that nothing is real beyond what we can
see, hear, smell, touch or taste. We're instructed to ignore our
intuition. Messages rich with personal symbolism that come to us in our
sleep are written off as nothing more than a dream, as if dreams were
trivial things.
Perhaps, as we become adults and submerge ourselves in a technology-rich
culture, in a world where life is prepackaged and handed to us in a way
that requires no thought or introspection on our part, we forget how to
sense the subtle side of life. Could it be that if we learn to ignore
something long enough, we will truly convince ourselves that it can't be
real?
Even In America
Every person I have talked with throughout my life has a story of the
unexplained. It might be a dream that came true, a moment of intense
déjà vu or even a ghost story. Endless evenings have been spent after a
friendly dinner, swapping tales between well-grounded individuals who
not only do not have an interest in the mystical, but have very little
interest in any type of spiritual path. What's more, countless friends
have shared with me that when they have spoken to their families about a
dream that came true, they were surprised to be met with, "Your
grandmother used to do that."
This would suggest that the mystical is capable of permeating our lives,
even in a culture where ritual is ignored, where there is no attempt
made to connect to the spirituality inherent in life. One of the
problems in embracing the subtle side of life is that our modern culture
demands proof. We want to be able to take an experience and analyze it
in the laboratory, dissect it and understand it and see if the moment
holds up under the harsh light of science. The problem with this
approach is that we're using a system of tools that demands repeated
testing and control groups to explore a moment that most of us are
incapable of recreating or even initiating on our own. Science is
prepared to analyze moments on its own timetable while the mystical
typically sneaks in without warning and slips away before we have time
to catch our breath.
Déjà vu
One of the current theories on déjà vu is that the phenomena is a
time-lapse between what the eyes see and the brain processes. The idea
is that the system gets out of synch and that our brain tells us that
we've already seen what our eyes are currently showing us.
Earlier this year I was leaving our public library with my wife and two
children when I had an experience that would lead to a slightly
different interpretation of the phenomena. My daughter, Moira, was in
our jogging stroller and I had only connected one of the foot brakes
that are attached to each of the stroller's rear tires. I was planning
to drop the books we had checked-out on the front seat of our car, turn
around, unstrap her from the stroller and place her in her carseat in
the backseat of the car. As I reached for the handle of the front door,
I suddenly had a moment of déjà vu, as if I had been through this entire
moment before.
The difference between what I do and what science does is that I don't
try to analyze the process that is causing the event. Instead, I
intuitively understand that the phenomena happens for a reason and I
allow myself to slip deeper into it. The process is much the same as
that used in meditation. I simply allow my focus to shift to the
sensation rather than stay locked on my physical senses. It's much like
when you close your eyes to remember something and allow the memory to
come to the forefront of your mind.
In that memory, I watched as Moira playfully kicked her feet against the
footplate of the stroller, as the single brake I had locked disengaged.
I watched as the stroller slowly rolled backward, invisible to the
on-coming traffic in the parking garage as the stroller was below the
level of our car and the car was between her and the on-coming truck I
saw in my mind. It was a large red pickup with a chrome grill and the
driver didn't even have time to brake before he ran over my daughter.
Accepting what I saw as real, I immediately dropped our book bag and
lunged for the stroller, only now aware that Moira was kicking her feet.
The gentle vibration had nudged the brake out of place and the stroller
began to move just as I grabbed it. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, I
moved around to engage both brakes firmly (one clips on each of the
stroller's rear tires). My logical mind began the process of telling me
that my subconscious was responsible for the incident, much as any good
scientist would believe. I must have been aware, on some level, that the
brake wasn't fully engaged. Somehow, I must have taken in the fact that
Moira was kicking her feet and processed that her movements were enough
to disengage the brake.
And then the large red truck with the chrome grill came over the rise in
the parking garage.
I hadn't been able to see it. We were essentially on the downslope of a
small hill and the vehicle had been on the other side, hidden behind the
rise of the parking garage. There wasn't any understood process that
would have allowed me to register that the truck was coming toward me,
let alone that a truck was even there. There was no process that would
adequately explain how I knew the exact description of the vehicle,
moments before it appeared. It couldn't simply be an issue of my eyes
and brain being slightly out of synch. It had to be something more.
Dreaming
In his book, "Conscious Dreaming," Robert Moss writes, "I learned that
through dreams, we approach our deepest creative source. That in dreams,
we receive messages from the dead, messages that may be vital to our own
health and well-being. That in dreaming, we can journey outside our
bodies; we can travel into the future as well as the past and encounter
spiritual guides in other dimensions of reality."
This is one of the essential differences between a technological culture
and one that embraces indigenous beliefs. In our modern society, the
words of Robert Moss seem ludicrous and fanciful; in a tribal society,
they are the description of a valid resource and an active and important
part of life.
We are so often taught that sleep is merely a time for us to recover
from daily life. In our modern culture, dreams are presented as our
mind's way of processing the images, memories and stimuli that we
absorbed throughout the day. This is certainly true, but from a tribal
point of view, this understanding is extraordinarily limited. From a
shamanic perspective, such limitations would be considered dangerously
ignorant.
Tribal Dreaming
The easiest way to understand tribal dreaming is to consider it as a
process of dreaming which deepens our understanding of our personal
lives and personal culture. In my early twenties, I spent a significant
amount of time studying life from a tribal perspective, both under the
guidance of a Native American medicine woman as well as through my own
continuing studies. To be honest, it wasn't a process of acquiring
skills and memorizing knowledge; it was a process of allowing myself to
see and accept all that life has to offer.
Part of this process was learning to value dreams. For years, I have
dreamt about the friends and family who are most important to me long
before I meet them. I knew that our firstborn child was going to be a
girl, spoke to my son before he was even conceived and met two of my
best friends long before they stepped into my daily life. I've found
answers to questions, directions to pursue studies and previews to daily
events in those moments beyond the realm of simple sleep. Considering
our non-traditional spiritual backgrounds, my wife and I were faced with
the daunting task of finding a minister to marry us. We wanted to create
a ceremony that would not only speak to the expectations of our family
members, but also be intimate and meaningful to us as a couple. As we
discussed what we wanted to have in the rite, I dreamt of the woman that
would marry us. She was tall, had lots of dark curly hair, a wonderful
smile and a gentle spirit.
Days later, I found myself job hunting and slipped into a little
bookstore that I had never visited to drop off my resume. There, behind
the counter, was the woman I dreamt of. She smiled, accepted my resume,
and wished me the best of luck. Within days I was hired and we became
fast friends.
Work was slow one day and we began to talk and discovered that we had
many interests in common. The conversation shifted to spirituality and
she revealed that she went to the local Unitarian church in town.
Confident that she was open-minded enough to share my dream, I told her
that I dreamt that she married my wife and I. Marianne looked at me,
smiled, and said, "I'm studying to become a minister. And the only
reason I'm doing it is so I can perform weddings."
She was ordained the weekend before we were married and smiled the
entire time she conducted our ceremony.
Shamanic Dreaming
In many indigenous cultures, shamans are simply described as "one who
dreams." The Native American Mohawk people use the term ratetshents,
which means "dreamer" to describe a shaman.
We all dream. The Amazonian Kagwahive people state that "anyone who
dreams is a little bit shaman." But a shaman does more that just dream;
they have developed the skills to purposely enter the dream world as
necessary to retrieve specific information.
In our modern culture, this process is often achieved through a
combination of visualization and spoken intent. Those of us who use
dreaming as a tool are taught to utilize many of the same techniques we
use in meditation to "go places" in our dreams and to fall asleep with
the specific intent of reaching a certain dreaming goal.
Indigenous cultures will often use special herbs, some of which have
hallucinogenic properties, to reach this level of dreaming while awake.
While we may seek insight to a personal obstacle, a new perspective on a
relationship, or direction on an upcoming decision, indigenous cultures
use dreaming to access an even wider array of information.
In his book, "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice," ethnobotanist Mark J.
Plotkin, Ph.D. reports on the Amazonian Tirios people's use of a
specific substance called ku-pe-de-yuh, a hallucinogenic derivative of
Brunfelsia. He was told by one of the Tirios, "You must take the bark
and the root of ku-pe-de-yuh and soak it in cold water. The next day,
you must wash with some and drink most of the rest. You will vomit. Soon
you will see the evil spirit. He wears a red breechcloth. In on hand he
carries a war club; in the other, plants. You must drink more of the
ku-pe-de-yuh until the demon begins to speak. He will teach you how to
cure by singing and by using healing plants. That is all."
This could be written off simply as a hallucination built upon a
specific suggestion. After all, the person imbibing the ku-pe-de-yuh is
instructed to seek a certain end and there is the expectation that the
specific result will be achieved. However, "Tales of a Shaman's
Apprentice" isn't a book about shamanic practices. It's the report of an
ethnobotanist's search for new medicines in the Amazon rain forest. Dr.
Plotkin is a researcher, not an anthropologist and the book focuses on
the extensive medicinal cures that the Amazonian people have developed
and their knowledge of biochemistry which is opening up new avenues of
study and exploration for modern science.
The fact that a seemingly primitive culture has cures to ailments that
western medicine can't currently cure (deep fungal infections, diabetes)
is in itself amazing. When we consider that these cures weren't
developed through trial and error, but by accessing the information
directly from the spirit realm, we find that this discovery leads to an
endless array of questions regarding life, spirituality and our own
perceptions of reality.
It's these questions that continually shift our spiritual paths from a
process of self-improvement to an exploration of the very nature of life
and our role in that intricate tapestry. However, they are questions
that we never need to solve. Because of our limited perspective, the
answers we find will be based only on the dreams, insight and
inspiration we have access to interact with. Each culture, whether it
embraces an entire people or only a single individual's path, will
develop different traditions which will direct us in our quest for the
infinite. Each tradition, will provide the seeds for a unique approach
and perspective, which will hopefully inspire an individual to develop
their own beliefs that intimately speak to that individual. We'll
discover that a single approach doesn't have all the answers, that even
science is limited as the traditions that govern it demand verifiable
results, not experiences that can't be measured but which change lives.
If we can learn to balance both the mystical and mundane, the scientific
with the spiritual, we will be stronger, not only as individuals or as
individual cultures, but as a species intricately involved in the web of
life we know as home.
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