Places on the mountain

Moments along the Way

 

 

  There are moments in our lives that define who we are and the nature of the journey we will embark upon as our lives in this place unfold. For most of us, these moments arise out of the falling away of an intense desire when that desire is actually attained. A moment in which we experience the absence of the need for anything to be different than it is. And the journey we embark upon is the search for more of these moments that we perceive as connected to getting what it is that we desire.

  But for some of us, these moments are not connected in this way. They come upon us unexpectedly and expose us to realities that are discontinuous with the normal realities with which we are familiar. They transcend these realities and the journey we find ourselves on is a search for where these moments can be found and a search for some clues as to why they are showing themselves to us and not to others. Because they are powerful and transcendent, we come away from them a different person than we were before they entered our lives.

  My own journey made use of entheogens primarily in the form of mushrooms. These allies allow us access to that part of our brain where esoteric concepts can be known and questions answered that transcend the thinking mind. The process is easy to understand but difficult to put into practice. Before entering this place of unfiltered sensation, we have to live with an idea or question until it resonates with our entire being and our thinking mind has given up any hope of resolving the issue. Prepared in this way, we can enter this space and experience the pieces coming together. And having experienced this new reality, we are changed and find ourselves at the next level on the journey up the mountain where new concepts and questions await us. Until we are at the highest level where there is only one question left that needs to be answered — Who is it that wants answers to these questions?

  There is no need to debate the pros and cons of different methods by which we access that part of our brain where unfiltered sensation exists. If we are serious about this journey, then we will search out and use whatever works and discard what does not work. To be concerned with right or wrong ways to climb the mountain is what we do instead of actually making the journey. As with all things in life, we will not enter unknown territory until the fear of becoming stuck where we are is greater than the fear of the unknown with which we are faced.

  Whatever form our journey takes, our ticket out of the North and into the East on the Medicine Wheel is the experience of who we really are. This experience can actually be talked about and it is useful to do so because thinking about it is part of the preparation needed to bring us to this realization. The experience can best be described as death of the ego. But it is misleading to suggest that something has died that never actually existed. It would be more accurate to say that in becoming who we really are, the sense of being separate from everything not you is seen for the illusion it actually is and, in light of this known truth, the ego simply falls away. What cannot be described is the true nature of this experience. Bliss is the only word we have that approaches this experience. If you wish to think about it then imagine the best experience you have ever had in your life as a drop in the ocean and the ocean as that experience. It is the view from the top of the mountain where you come to know everything that is or was or ever will be. It is the end of this journey we call self realization. 

  The moments recorded here are offered as real life examples of how this process of moving around the Wheel can unfold. There are many paths leading to the top of the mountain and each one is specific to the individual making the journey. In that sense they are all different, but the plateaus they reach are the same for all who experience them because we are all humans dealing with self-awareness. These places along the way represent moments when parts of the illusion fall away and we are confronted with a vision of how this all works that is a bit closer to the reality for which we are searching. How I reached these plateaus is peculiar to me and I can only speak to my own experience, but it is offered in light of how useful what others have left behind has been to my own journey.

 

A Perfect Vision

 

  I am twelve years old and living in a house on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. The land between this house and the Wasatch Mountains to the east has not yet been developed so there is a clear view of these mountains from my yard. It is the weekend and I have made plans with a friend who lives across the street to spend the night outside on his lawn. It is summer and hot so this seems like a good idea, and after laying out our bags, we fell asleep in the cool of the evening.

  I would not have described myself as an unusual child although I was a loner and cannot remember having another friend other than the one sleeping in the bag next to mine. Unlike my sisters and brother, I had been spared having to attend any Catholic schools in favor of the public schools. My parents were not religious and had problems living in a Mormon culture and not being Mormon and I suspect the Catholic schools were seen as a preferable option when the other three children showed up. In the twelve years I lived there, I cannot recall being exposed to any religious dogma in any form and the only odd experience I can recall from this time was waking up one night and having no idea where I was. I had to get out of bed, walk to the front door, open the front door and walk up the sidewalk until I could see the whole house at which point I knew where I was. I have no idea if this was connected to a dream I may have been having but it was real and powerful enough to remain with me after all these years. The point I am trying to make here is that there was nothing in who I was at the time or the place in which I found myself to account for the experience I was about to encounter on the lawn that night.

  The sleeping bags are oriented in an east west direction which allows for an unobstructed view of the mountains. I fell asleep under the stars with no moon in the sky expecting my next experience to be the morning sun upon awakening. Instead, I found myself abruptly waking up at about midnight and, after sitting up in the bag, starring at a full moon rising just over the mountains and finding myself in a completely altered state of consciousness. It is a place very difficult to talk about because it transcends duality and therefore language. We can talk about colors being ultra vibrant and objects vibrating and seeming to blend into one another, but how it feels cannot be put into words. As a moment of perfect vision, it is there to alert you to a new possibility that you did not know even existed before this moment. I was drawn to this place as somehow being about who I was and would describe the feeling as one of coming home. I do not remember how long it lasted, but when it was over I simply went back to sleep and never mentioned it to my friend or anybody else. I was only twelve years old and had no way of knowing that it was the beginning of a journey that would consume my life and no way of describing the indescribable.

  I would not encounter this place again until I was almost done with college and experienced my first encounter with a new entheogen called LSD. I knew this place and, once again, it felt like home and this time the journey began in earnest. I needed to learn more about this place and why I felt so drawn to it and how it was possible that it was hidden from me in my normal state of awareness. And I could not even begin to pretend that anything else in my life, including being a student at UC Berkeley, was as interesting or as compelling as this altered state to which I had been exposed. I now understand that this was simply my being taken, with the aid of the entheogen, into that part of my brain where the experience of unfiltered sensation is to be found but at the time all I knew was that this was something I had to investigate.

  Unlike so many around me who had the same encounter, it was the beginning of a spiritual journey and not just a recreational drug to be used to enhance desirable experiences until the inevitable encounter with an undesirable experience while under the influence rears its ugly head. When this happens, the entheogen goes from desirable to undesirable out of the fear of ever again encountering this experience. This difference in response can only be attributable to a difference in the mental attributes with which we were born. For reasons having to do with our evolution as a species, I was born with a brain wired in such a way that it would spontaneously, given the right circumstances, allow me access to this altered state and, once accessed, put me on a journey that would not end until self realization was attained. There is no credit to be had anywhere, we can only be who we are and who we are was never of our choosing.

 

Suffering

 

  I have graduated from college and am still living in Berkeley and have become very enmeshed in this journey I am on to try and make sense of the experiences I have been having with the help of the entheogens available to me. This has mostly involved reading the literature available and becoming familiar with the teachings of the Buddha as my primary focus. As part of this process, I have decided to go with two friends to San Francisco where we would ingest some capsules that were supposed to be DMT. Had we known that there was no DMT actually being produced at the time, we would never have made this decision. But, of course, there are no mistakes and this was exactly what I needed for the next transcendent moment in my life to arrive.

  We have taken the capsules and are walking down a street in the city when they begin to take affect. It soon becomes obvious that this was not the normal entheogen I was expecting. I would later discover that what we ingested was actually a combination of LSD and speed which was, for me, a very bad combination. I have always been very sensitive to speed and my experience on this drug is one of not wanting to be in my body. This is what I began to feel, and because the LSD was also in my system, there was no escape from the incredible discomfort I was experiencing. As we continued to walk, I continued to sink ever deeper into this misery of wanting it to be different than it was and just when it seemed to be approaching intolerable, something the Buddha had said came to the forefront of my mind. Desire is the cause of all suffering. It had just been an idea when I was studying the ‘Eight Fold Path’ but it was the primary idea  and I was in a perfect place to test this hypotheses. I was suffering and, if what the Buddha said was true, it was traceable to some strong desire I was having and so I began thinking about what that could be. It did not take long to see that the desire was to not have to experience  the effects of the amphetamine on my body. But I could do nothing to change that and could only wait for the chemicals to be eliminated over time. Thanks to the clarity the entheogen had given me, I could see that I had two choices. I could either hold onto wanting it to be different than it was and continue suffering or let go of wanting it to be different than it was and be done with the suffering. Of course there is no real choice at this point because when you can see that these are real choices, you cannot choose the suffering. And when I could see that this was in fact where the suffering was coming from, it just fell away. The discomfort was still there but my wanting it not to be there was gone.

  This was not the end of wanting things to be different than they were in my life, but the experience did completely alter my perception of suffering. In this journey, suffering plays a very important role in our awakening. If we are not suffering, then there is just living our lives and enjoying the absence of wanting it to be different, until that changes. And there is no need to understand what it is that is happening or how it is we arrived at this place. Suffering changes everything because we find ourselves in a place we do not want to be and, if we are caught up in the world, then we try to fix what is wrong, and if it is not fixable then we just continue to suffer until our circumstances change. But if we know about the connection between desire and suffering, then a third option presents itself; we can, instead of wallowing in our suffering, try to identify the desire being thwarted. And once identified, begin the journey toward an understanding of the true nature of this experience we believe is connected to this desire being fulfilled. Eventually, if we preserver in the process, we will come to the realization that the experience we are looking for is not making things conform to a way we think they need to be, but rather no longer wanting them to be different than they are.

  Knowing that desire is the cause of all suffering does not rid us of desire. But it does allow us to transform an experience that we would normally just wallow in until our circumstances changed into an opportunity to better understand the true nature of this world in which we find ourselves. This journey is, after all, about coming to the realization that we are not the real and separate beings we thought we were and coming to understand, through being witness to the lives we lead, the cosmic laws governing this place.

 

Experiencing Perfection

 

  I have moved to Oregon with a woman I married soon after graduating from college. For most of one summer we had lived in a tipi located on some land that housed a free school that we, along with my sister, were trying to establish. When the weather changed, a woman with a farm south of town agreed to let us put up our tipi on her land so that others could experience this unique environment. Once erected, we made a plan to get together one afternoon with our roommate and the owner of the farm to try some LSD we had recently acquired.

  At this point in my life, I was totally immersed in studying the maps and reading the teachings relevant to my understanding of the altered states of consciousness I had experienced. Buddhism and the I Ching were my prime focus at this time but the pool I was immersed in was very wide and deep. While this one-pointedness on my part was an unavoidable consequence of the journey I was on, it had consequences in terms of the relationships with those around me. The very esoteric questions I was constantly dealing with could not be shared with anyone including my wife who was quickly coming to the realization that I could not be the partner she had hoped I could be. Becoming a couple and living a normal life was never an option for me.

  The four of us got together in the early afternoon in the tipi and, after removing our clothing, sat across from each other waiting for the entheogen to take effect. One of the things I have discovered along the way in this journey is that the more enmeshed you become, the more desirable the idea of intimacy becomes as an experience of even just a moment of this transcendence of the separateness  you are caught in. It is, of course, just a mere image of the place you are searching for which is the merging of you and everything not you but, when you are in the desert, even a drop water is hard to pass up. Which partly explained what happened next in this story. I do not remember the specifics of the event but this is alright because they are not important. What I do remember was, as the entheogen was coming on, feeling powerfully drawn to the woman whose farm we were on and then finding myself embracing her. She, of course, not actually even knowing me very well, did not know what to do with any of this and left the tipi for the farmhouse. I also did not know what to do with any of this since I was just a witness to something happening that was not of my doing. I had not planned or intended for any of it to happen and yet it had and I was left with the consequences. The next thing I remember was leaving the tipi and finding a spot on top of a ridge overlooking the farm and sitting with these feelings.

  What I was feeling in the beginning was incredible guilt for what had happened. In my mind, there was no way to justify what had happened. I was to blame for an event that should not have happened and, if not for the work I had been doing, I might have gotten lost in this dark realm in which I found myself. But along with the guilt and blame, there were the teachings I had been working with and the one that came to mind was that it is all perfect. What this means is that nothing can ever happen that is not supposed to happen because all events are connected and karmically determined. This is why believing in good and evil requires that you also believe in a devil to whom all evil can be attributed. And if you get caught up in this illusion, then you have to spend all of your time identifying the evil and punishing the devils responsible for its existing. But, if it is all perfect then everything that happened in the tipi was as it should be and a part of this perfection. I had to choose between holding on to the suffering brought on by thinking it is all imperfect and being the devil who has done wrong or accepting that it is, in fact, all perfect and the only wrong thing we can ever do is to forget that all experiences have the potential to awaken us from the illusion into which we are born, if we can come to see them as transformative. And, thanks to being in a place of clarity to which the entheogen had allowed me access, I did choose and at that moment experienced the world in a way I had not known before. As I looked out on the landscape in front of me, my experience was of a single living breathing entity.

  We all know from basic science that the world around us is just the play of atoms and molecules as they energetically react with each other in this dance we call life. But this does not stop us from seeing any given object as distinct and separate from all other objects around it because we are one of those objects. Our own existence is brought into question if all things are just images on a screen with the only reality being the screen itself. Even the illusion of free will is dependent on our being separate from those things upon which we attempt to exert that will. In a reality where all things are connected to and determined by all other things, the idea of imperfect or mistaken or wrong have no meaning. Everything is simply unfolding in the only way it can unfold. My admittance into this aspect of reality was the result of choosing perfection over imperfection and left me with the realization that the only way to know if something is meant to happen or not is if it actually happens. I could never again look at something that actually happened as something that should not have happened which leaves me free to look for the perfection that is hidden there.

  We left that evening to head back to town and I remember just looking out the car window and feeling incredibly thankful for the experience I had just gone through. Once again, I did not tell anyone what had happened because I was still processing it all and there are no words to describe the indescribable. I have known others who have had a similar experience under the influence of an entheogen and while they  were profoundly affected by the experience, it was seen by them as the ultimate and final experience. There were no profound changes to how they perceived their lives and wondering to whom the experience had occurred did not happen. For them, there was no mountain to climb, just a very cool experience to be treasured.

 

Unconditional Love

 

  I am still living in my friends house in Oregon but my wife is no longer there. We have split up due to my having become attracted to another woman who had become a roommate in the house. My wife had finally come to the realization that I was never going to be the partner she felt she needed and the resulting lack of connection was creating a situation that was not working for me. And I could not resist being drawn into another situation where a connection did exist. What was most striking to me about this occurrence in my life was that at no time did I feel like I had any say in what was happening. I was literally just a witness to what was unfolding and what this experience was teaching me was that it was possible for the universe to conspire in such a way that there would be no thought on my part to do anything other than go along for the ride. And that was indeed what I did and was thereby taken to a place where the following experience presented itself.

  It could not be said that we were in a relationship but we were headed in that direction, and I could not help wanting this part of my life to continue to evolve and our interactions to become more intimate. Then one day she decided she wanted to go to a party at some friends house and wanted to go by herself. At that time, she was dealing with having been the third party in what had happened with my wife and this was causing her to try and push against what was happening between us. But for me, there was a very strong desire for this not to happen because it was pushing against the connection I was hoping would continue to grow. And so, in accordance with immutable cosmic laws, when she left that evening, I found myself in an empty house experiencing what happens when a really strong desire is thwarted. I was suffering.

  But suffering for me was no longer a hell realm from which there was no escape. It was an opportunity to try and figure out how it was I had managed to get myself in this undesirable predicament. And because I had come to understand that my use of entheogens was just a tool for putting myself in a more productive place for dealing with these esoteric questions, my reaction to the dilemma was to go to the refrigerator to procure said entheogen. I then sat and waited for a space to open up that would allow me to begin to connect the dots.

  The simple answer to why I found myself suffering was because she was behaving in a way I did not want her to behave but that is just the surface level. The real question was why did it matter that she was behaving this way. How is it that suddenly my life is not alright because she has chosen to be somewhere else besides here with me? After sitting with this for awhile, it came to me that the situation was not alright because I was being denied an experience I strongly desired and was afraid of loosing. This experience that we like to call being in love was simply how it felt when we were together and there was no wanting it to be different than it was. I could see that the suffering and frustration I was experiencing, that was causing me to me to feel out of love with this person, was not connected to her but rather with my wanting it to be different than it was. She was simply who she was and if I actually cared for her then this should not be a problem.

  Upon seeing the truth of all this, the suffering just fell away and was replaced with the love for her that I had thought could only exist if she was being who I wanted her to be. The experience was of unconditional love. How I felt about her was no longer dependent on her being anybody other than who she needed to be. Desire is indeed the cause of all suffering and when she came home, having consumed too much alcohol, she found me not at all concerned with what had happened and just happy to have the opportunity to spend more time with her. I would have liked to have been able to share with her how fortuitous the circumstances had been for me but, as always seems to be the case, she was not in a place where any of it would have made any sense.

 

Surrender

 

  I am back in the Bay Area living with a woman I met in Oregon who knew who I was and choose to be around that despite not being as devoted to the journey as I was and having to deal with knowing that the journey would always be the most important thing in my life. She was trying very hard and was even taking courses at a local school that was created to teach students about these more esoteric subjects, but it was not enough. Schooling and differing work schedules were conspiring to limit time spent together and I was quickly becoming consumed with my own journey and an ever increasing need to reach the top and be done. One of the things I had discovered as my journey progressed was that the closer you get to the top of the mountain, the stronger the desire was to be there already. And, as is true of all desire, there is suffering connected to this wanting it to be different than it is but letting go of this final question on this journey was not an option.

  I had studied all the maps, read the teachings and sat in altered states with the more esoteric questions until whatever block was between me and the answer would fall away and I would find myself higher up on the mountain confronting a whole new view and new questions to be pondered. Until finally I was left with only one question — who is it that thinks they are on this journey and having all these experiences? And the longer I sat with this question, the more painful it became to not know the answer. I had done the work and knew I was not any of the things we normally identify with including a doer, which left whoever I was with no power to change anything. I was stuck needing to find the exit but not seeing it anywhere and becoming more and more unpleasant to be around. And then the universe decided I had suffered enough and created the means by which I could end this suffering and be done with the journey.

  Throughout my life, I have always been more attracted to female energy than male energy. Part of this, of course, is just hormones at work since I am male, but a larger part of it is about intimacy. The coming together of male and female in a ritual sense as representing the two becoming one. Having a partner allowed me the opportunity to work on taking this Tantric concept and trying to make it real and I was not ready to let go of this opportunity. So, confronted with the possibility of losing this part of my life, I fell into wanting it to be different than it is and found myself, once again, in the place of suffering.

  The details are not important. The woman I was living with was attractive both physically and energetically and had caught the eye of another man and wanted to explore this situation. Finding herself the center of attention was something she could not have with me, and while I understood her need for this, I was not ready to let her go. She let me know one day that she was going to spend the evening with this person and we both knew what her intentions were and what this coming together would entail. And then she was gone and I was left with the familiar predicament of an intense wanting it to be different than it is.

  I knew the suffering was self inflicted but I was still working on who it was that knew these things, and I also I knew I had no power to change any of it. As far as I could see, there was no exit from this place and I knew a change in perspective was needed. And so I did what has always worked for me in these situations and proceeded to brew some tea using psilocybin mushrooms. When the tea was ready, I added some honey, drank it down and waited for the surrendering to begin.

  One of the things I had learned about using entheogens was that the journey would unfold in stages and these stages were defined by moments where you were required to let go of whatever you were holding onto, that was between you and the next stage. The first stage is always letting go of needing to be in control as the ego pushes against being shut down thinking that control is needed to make sure things go according to plan. Fear is always the motivator at these moments and surrendering is the realization that not getting to the next level is scarier than whatever is between you and that level. The pull of what may await you around the corner has to be stronger than the fear of letting go of what is in the way.

  After sitting with my predicament for a period of time, I found myself at the edge of a cliff confronting a whole new level of letting go than I had ever experienced before, and the fear I was dealing with was not just letting go of one thing, it was letting go of all things. I knew that getting to the next level or crossing the great ocean or whatever metaphor you choose to use, would require letting go of my existence as a separate being in this universe. In other words, I had to be willing to die, let go of everything, if I wanted to reach this final goal. And, for this to actually work, this letting go has to be real. Wanting very badly for it to be real or just thinking it is will not trigger the transformation and you will be left frustrated and knowing there is more work to be done before you are ready to revisit this place. But I had done the work, was at the end of my journey and was ready to, if necessary, make this ultimate sacrifice. My final thought was that if I make this leap, I could actually end my life followed by, if that is the price I must pay, then I am willing to pay it. And then I let go and in that moment the illusion of separateness fell away leaving only the reality that had always been there.

  How to talk about what is beyond words. In India they call it Sat Chit Ananda. Absolute truth, consciousness and bliss and the Buddhists call it enlightenment but these are just words. It is an experience that who you think you are does not survive. The illusion of being real and separate has died but the physical body and the personality associated with it persists and, on that superficial level, you appear unchanged to those around you. On a deeper energetic level, the change is obvious and the lack of any real interest in the affairs of the world is a dead giveaway. That part of us that wants things to be different than they are is no longer there and we only find ourselves truly engaged in life when it is about the awakening process. And this experience is not one of wanting to dispense wisdom but rather one of being a witness to what is being pulled out of you by this interaction. And while these interactions will always take precedent over all others,there is no searching them out because there is nobody home who might think they know how it needs to be. There is just being the guide on the mountain side waiting for climbers in search of information about possible paths to the top and noticing the perfection that is all around but only seen by a select few.

 

The Hanged Man

 

  The final place I will talk about happened a few years after my moment at the top and I am including it because it speaks to the predicament you are in following this moment. I had recently separated from a woman I had been living with as a result of her deciding that I would never be the partner she needed to accompany her in the more worldly endeavors she desired. Spiritual adepts make lousy partners because worldly affairs have no hold on them and the only times the energy is flowing through them is when the possibility of transcending these worldly affairs presents itself. One would think, given this reality, that the obvious choice would be to avoid these situations but this is not an option for two reasons. First, you have become a conduit through which the universe can dispense what is needed for the journey toward awakening to proceed in those around you. And this requires you to interact in some way with these individuals as they present themselves. Because there are no longer desires needing to be fulfilled, without these interactions there is no point to continue being in a body and the energy would simply dissipate until there is nothing left.

  The second reason has to do with the consequences of having transcended the separateness one moment and then having to fall back into this separateness in order to re-inhabit the body as the seat of this new consciousness. The separateness is no longer real but there is a tension felt that manifests itself as feeling drawn to situations that allow you to be of service to this beloved that wants to be known and not at all to situations that are about worldly endeavors. And since you are surrounded by those seeking worldly pleasures, the opportunities for being of service are few and far in between. So you are always on the lookout for any opportunities that might present themselves, using them to bring about as much awakening as possible given the existing limitations in those around you.

  Finding myself alone, the tension was particularly intense and I found myself lying on my bed one evening starring at the ceiling wanting the separation to end. Being back in a body, my imaginings took a more tantric direction and the vision I had was one of a coming together of male and female to create this transcendence but I was missing half of this equation. And then I was suddenly aware of an energy present in the air above me and the separateness vanished leaving me connected and in a state of bliss. This ‘energy’ that I was experiencing as outside of this body did not have any shape and I can only define it as the source of the bliss that I was experiencing. In its presence, the tension was gone even though I could not become one with it and still remain in a body.

  This experience lasted only a few minutes but when it was over I was fundamentally changed by what had happened. I now understood that what I had been in the presence of was simply that level of awareness where all distinctions are gone and the true nature of this place is known. And I was left with the realization that my only purpose in still being in a body was to do whatever I could to bring about this level of awareness in the world so that this ‘energy’ could be experienced and be known. I would be living amongst others in a world full of possible experiences that would have no hold on me, always awaiting the arrival of a moment where my participation could be in service of the awakening that wants to manifest itself. Trying to shine a light on the darkness that most of those around you do not even experience leaves one with a lot of waiting for these moments to arrive, but this is no longer my game and I cannot pretend that there can ever be an individual born into this place that is not me. It would be great if more of us were at a place where this awakening could happen but evolution is a slow process and the unfolding will happen at whatever pace it needs to happen.