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SpiritualitySpiritual pathsCelts, Druids, native traditions & shamanismILLUMINATION: THE SHAMAN'S WAY OF HEALING Alberto Villoldo
ILLUMINATION: THE SHAMAN'S WAY OF HEALING Alberto Villoldo
Illumination, Alberto Villoldo tells us, is not a distant achievement attained after years of sitting on a meditation cushion: for shamans it is a series of awakenings and realizations that we pass through again and again. According to shamanic belief, all disease has spiritual origins, and illness is manifested through subtle bodies - the energy body, our emotions, our thoughts - and lastly the physical body. In this book you will discover that the most powerful way to resolve any physical and emotional problems is to undergo a sacred initiation; a true initiation occurs when we face personal challenges and experience the spiritual rebirth - or illumination - that follows. Illumination guides the reader on a healing journey, inspired by the timeless wisdom of indigenous cultures and the latest theories of neurobiology, and shows you how to bid a joyful goodbye to your past, discover a sacred space of spirit and joy, and unite both body and soul.
256pp, 135mm x 216mm, softback, 2010
[Extract]
ALBERTO VILLOLDO
Life invites us to be initiated through many means: through the possibility of love, the death of a parent or friend, the birth of a child, or a serious health crisis. When we succeed in our initiation, we become illumined with the light of wisdom and understanding.
In Illumination, you’ll learn the shaman’s tools for identifying and healing the emotions that are draining you, so that even the most challenging times don’t plunge you into despair. You’ll learn how to find the opportunities hidden in crisis, discover the flow of pure water from the source upstream, and explore with the wonder and curiosity of a creator. You’ll recognize that however overwhelming your life may seem at any given moment, you’ll make it through the dark woods and find your Holy Grail, that place of grace, wisdom, and power you’ve sought.
To change your emotional patterns, you must start by recognizing that you are living in a world of your own creation. You are the author of the dream or nightmare you are living. Only by recognizing this false reality, invented and perpetuated by your primitive brain, can you begin to break free of the spider’s web and awaken the higher qualities of purity, love, compassion, and charity. Otherwise, these deadly demons will settle in your cells and tissue, creating physical and psychic disease, and blinding you to your path.
Discover your power
You have the power to release yourself from the primitive brain programming that makes you think it rains to make you wet, that the reason you’re so angry is that someone took your parking spot, or that your childhood is the source of your problems. The only person who can serve as your programmer is you. But first you must change your notion of God as the ultimate rescuer who can be wooed, appeased, and coaxed into saving you from suffering. In fact, you must drop the notion of God altogether, because it is a uniquely human creation. Would humans be so privileged as to be the only creatures capable of perceiving God? We’re as capable of comprehending Creation as a group of baboons are capable of understanding quantum theory. You are the only one who can lift yourself out of this bleak reality.
The shaman recognizes that, like everyone, she has a spark of the Divine but is not the fire itself. Still, she realises that the vast beauty of the universe can be understood through direct experience, which both humbles her and makes her able to correct the harsh reality perceived by the limbic brain. She willingly participates in crafting a reality of trust rather than fear, of joy rather than anger and sorrow.
Most of us were raised to believe in a supernatural force and taught that faith without evidence was particularly noble. We learn that those who believe without seeing are blessed.
The first and most difficult of the shaman is to break the spell of believing without seeing. She opens her eyes and sees that the palace is a prison, or the prison a palace. This is the stage of awakening. Then she must seek her own initiation. The shaman does away with notions of a supernatural god and then takes up residence in the world of creators, while recognizing the presence of Spirit all about.
As a shaman, you have the potential to bring about your own everyday miracles and draw on your reservoir of personal power, which will sustain you through unexpected challenges in life. A job loss, bankruptcy, or any other crisis is an opportunity for you to reconnect with your passion and purpose, to be surprised and even delighted by what you find. Surrendering to the possibilities lying on the other side of the passage, you may even use the opportunity to realise that this hardscrabble life is only one reality – and a pretty sorry one at that.
Recognizing that we can dwell in the world of innovators, we live daringly. Illness is no longer an enemy but an opportunity. We can let go of the primitive instinct that causes us to imagine that every situation that startles of upsets us is a sign of danger. If we can do this, we’ll find that we have taken the route of initiation and surrendered to the vast, dark abyss of the unknown. Our reservoir of power allows us to open ourselves to whatever will be, take a deep gulp from the canteen, and say to ourselves, ‘Well, I’m not sure where I’m going, but it should be an interesting trip.’
The woods we walk through on our journey to initiation may appear to be dark and dangerous, and the tales of feral cats and poisonous snakes will ring in our ears. But when we recall that we’re the one who spun those scary stories around the campfire, we can stop running in fear and remember that we are brave, powerful, and inventive.
Finding your way
When I was in the Amazon, one day I strayed off the trail, only to discover I could not find my way back to camp. We were many hours from the nearest village, in a beautiful yet desolate region of the rainforest. After a couple of hours following animal trails, I realised I was lost and started getting afraid, as night was about to fall. But then I stopped and told myself, ‘You are not lost. Lost is a state of mind. You simply do not know where you are.’ By rephrasing the facts of my situation, I was able to avoid panicking and perhaps avoided doing something foolish. Instead, I found a small stream and followed that to where it merged into the Amazon, and I caught a ride home on a passing indigenous canoe with a powerful outboard motor.
The discipline of discernment allows you to stop thinking about what you could have been, or what you’ll be someday when you find the time, and become exactly who you are today. You recognize that you’re a part of Creation unfolding and that this Creation is perfect in this very moment.
It can be very difficult to feel that your life is perfect. Even if your life is going smoothly and you’re not feeling any great suffering, you’re likely to look around at the world and think it’s incredibly troubled and in need of immediate, major repair. To actually play your part in the healing of the world, is to witness the complexity of the situation and observe how history unfolds. It repeats itself when no one’s been paying close attention, but eventually – if there are concerned people involved – problems sort themselves out.
Your need to fix it all, right now, is rooted in an inability to experience the perfection in how things are. Pining for a huge canvas when you have several small ones in front of you at any time is no excuse for not painting. Wishing for world peace is no excuse for being inconsiderate to your neighbours. Discernment allows you to stop personalizing problems and setting yourself up to be a noble saviour.
As Lord Krishna told the reluctant warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, we cannot succeed in life or the spiritual path by avoiding challenges and being inactive. We must play our part in life, according to our given nature, but with detachment, knowing that something greater than ourselves acts through us.
From Illumination, ©2010 by Alberto Villoldo, published by Hay House.
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