paralepsis

Circumstances of the Self ~ Michael Baca

I really expected this article to end in an ayahuasca ceremony where he saw the peak of the mountain and all it’s perfection, and had a life changing understanding. I think it was about 3/4 of the way through when I gave up on the idea.

That’s not to say I’m disappointed, in fact I’m in agreement about drug legalization, albeit I’m also in support of the use of hallucinogenics. I’ve worked in drug treatment centers and mental health all my life. The legality of drug use plays a serious role in it’s potential for abuse. With the drug war out of the way our focus can be better placed on not only assisting those with a current problem, but also help prevent a problem for those with a potential for abuse, I.e. sufferers of depression, survivors of sexual abuse, people who feel they have lost their hope.

Legalizing drugs does relieve quite a bit of crime, but does not remove the necessity of crime. Many people are still below the poverty line, they still desire things, they need food, shelter, a sense of well being. Without that some crime will just convert into something else. I believe funds need to go towards community progrograms designed to teach people to use the natural skills they possess, or to help foster a skill. This gives people a sense of personal empowerment, a sense of hope based on a foundation of self reliance.

I teach what I call, ‘self management through artistic expression’. My students are adults with developmental disabilities. Some of them can, and have taught classes of their own. We grow and learn together how to make life’s challenges tangible, how to express them in meaningful ways by exploring art in various and sometimes unusual ways. By doing so I’m teaching my students to stretch their limits. Our program is art based, but imagine a program driven by the community. Whereby people teach what they know in order to gain more knowledge from others. A community building a foundation upon itself and it’s members.

It’s the same answer I get when I ask myself what I’m stressing about. Is it just a habit, or is there something deeper that’s driving me? I used to think the later. To be honest I used to use the idea as an excuse. An excuse that made me feel like I was going to do something special. I turned it into a a bigger experience.

Yet underneath it, the reason for rushing around is nothing more than a phantom. It’s an empty room. Hallow inside just like my reasoning for it’s existence. It took me many years to get into this room let alone find it. I’m not ending my digging just yet, this isn’t the end of this feeling just a substantial perspective change.

When the ego is about to get unmasked it immediately identifies with the new perspective. The same goes for other bits of the ‘self’ as we explore. That I think has become rather obvious over the years. So what’s next? I seem to have hit a dead end. However, I’ve spend quite a bit of time down here, I’ve learned a trick or to in the rabbit hole. Perspective is a flexible tool, it can be changed at any time thus changing how the experienced is perceived.

I’m a very creative person, so perhaps this is just easier for creative types. But anyone can do it, it’s just a matter of considering an alternative. So it’s an empty room, so what? I know now more than I did before. From here my thinking has changed and the direction I take can begin anew. I’ve just killed a Buddha on the path is all. The illusion has been disrupted and I found myself standing here, barefoot and empty handed.

I can choose which direction to go from here and that means the room is not empty at all. The walls begin to fade around me and I am left with an unlimited number of choices. The less obvious choice being not making a choice, but I’m not quite ready to do that, or I would know how too. Instead I’ll take action while I’m still sensitive to the new found data.

It’s only wrong, because we feel selfish, we think being selfish is a bad thing, therefore it is. It’s human nature to be selfish, it’s culturally immoral to do so. Human culture puts itself at the center of everything. Even when we consider other beings sacred, they are a part of some greater experience just out of reach.

Religion tells us to give our problems up to the divine, that we are all created by some otherworldly being, and they will take care of all our problems for us if we just give them a little sacrifice, a moment of our time spent in prayer or time spent at the crossroads dropping pennies and coffee grounds for Legba.

Now I’m not saying whatever your method is, is right or wrong, obviously different things work for different people. But what if we instead spend a little time exploring why we feel selfish and turning responsibility onto ourselves and see where that takes us? Have you ever considered digging into yourself for answers before? Not many people have, but a number of people are becoming that they can.

If we spend even a few moments dwelling on the reason for our selfishness every day we start to open a door inside ourselves. It’s a bit of a radical process but of you put in your time you start to see things differently. You learn that selfishness is not what you think at all. It’s self love. Self love expressed through the perception of what we beleive about our experience.

  This morning I awoke to a deep sense of depression forming in the pit of my stomach, I decided that I was going use Miatri and feel around to see where it’s coming from, show it some compassion. This is a feeling that comes and goes, sometimes staying for months at a time. With my new found tools I’m beginning a new journey that begins today, right now. 

I was recently attuned to all three levels of Reiki (One, Two, and Master). It’s something I’ve been practicing for sometime for family and friends, but I had never received any formal education or attunement. I am certainly no master. (yet) My first instinct was to try some Reiki on myself, bring whatever this feeling is to the surface where I can deal with it head on. So I went in and found myself blocked, It felt wedged and jagged with worn edges holding it in place. I took that as I’m simply not ready to deal with it all at once, or even in large chunks which is my preferred method. The cause, I have a ‘feel’ is that I go back to work today. And it’s not that I dislike my job, I quite enjoy it. However I can’t help but feel it’s not what I’m supposed to be doing, not what I ‘feel’ I should be doing and it’s a constant. I’ve had a constant tug in an unfamiliar and unknown direction. It’s not been till recently that I began to pay attention to my inner workings. Using Maitri, to feel around within myself, to heal and understand myself on a deeper level. I’ve always felt, what my I’ve been told are called ‘Hinto’s’, sensations in the body that feel cosmic; pulses, vibrations, knocks and even rolling and rubbing from inside the body that also accompany a physical stimuli akin to a good or bad pain without the ‘hurting’ sensation. I don’t know any other way to explain them, but the cause is what I call ‘body thoughts’. For quite sometime now I’ve been practicing Qigong, an older form of Tai Chi that, for me at least, is more focused on healing, both mental, physical and spiritual. I sometimes use it to bring a better understanding of my personal nature, my thoughts, anxieties and worries. I’ve learned through this practice that thoughts and actions are energy, the result of those actions can be stored in the body creating blockages and sickness. For about 15 years now I’ve had anxiety about social interaction. I’ve never been social, but as I got older I grew more and more hermit like. Along with that a sense that I am somehow odd, strange and not as good as other people. That energy, those thoughts I had about myself became became a chronic back pain. The body speaks to us in metaphors, so in other words I was looking up, to everyone else while I slouched down in front of them with a feeling of inferiority as well as a strong sense of anxiety telling me not to be myself. After many trips to chiropractor over the years, I’ve learned to manage my back pain through stretches that keep my hips aligned. However, because I’ve not faced my inner demons the pain returns again and again. Scientists are exploring the idea that the brain inside our heads may not be the only ‘brain’ we have. Gut instincts are not always in the stomach area, at least not for me, by exploring around in my body and finding out where these sensations and feelings are arising, I’ve been able to sense feelings in my chest, solar plexus, legs, back, and especially my throat. These appear to be, to me at least thoughts arising from within my body. Things that have stowed away in my body (metaphors) that have happened, that I hold onto, that I care for while it eats away at what I could be experiencing and feeling; freedom.