Seeing on the Mountain

This is the story of my first deep journey with a power plant. I was with my fiancé (S), my best friend (O), and his roommate (tripsitter) at a cabin on Palomar Mountain. I was very eager to find out what this plant was going to show me. I was anxious and excited to go on a journey. The adrenaline from the excitement created a nice little buzz. After we took our dosage, we walked around the cabinto get familiar with our surroundings and see the mountain. I started to feel really good. I didn’t have any feeling of anxiety or guilt I sometimes get in other situations. Everything was so beautiful. The trail we were on was incredibly stunning. The group split up in the woods. S and I sat in some leaves, surrounded by trees, and took everything in. We were really appreciating our surroundings, thinking about how great and alive everything in nature is. It was a distinctly motherly presence that was watching over us in those woods. I can still feel the maternity from Mother Nature that I felt in those woods. I could have lived simply in that forest for the rest of my life. I was content. I wanted to be one with Mother Nature. I hoped my love would somehow relieve some of the disappointment and hurt she must feel.

 

We regrouped and started telling each other what we were seeing. I was both present in the conversation but also observing aspects of the conversation from the outside. I noticed that I was in a social communication mindset. I saw that trying to communicate prevented me from completely letting my mind go because I was focusing on things that were usual, things I could share; look at the colors, smell the aromas, hear the forest. In another part of my head I got a spark of positive indication that there was another place to go. The unusual was there. And then it was gone. We were walking back toward the cabin and the joy inside me bubbled over into laughter. Back to the usual. It felt so great, but reminded me of somewhere I had been before. That positive indication of the unusual sparked a thirst for exploration outside of the usual. There was a hint of let down because I wanted to go further or feel something different.

 

On the walk back to the cabin I found a patch of grass under a tree to lie under. The sun warmed my body as my back nestled into the grass, my hands cradled my head, and one ankle rested on the other. I looked up and saw the deepest blue sky I have ever seen contrasted by the brightest yellow, orange, and red leaves I had ever seen. The black tree branches took everything to another level.  After lying there for a while, I realized how much I loved the beauty and intrigue of nature's contrasts. The tree looked as if it was on fire against an ocean blue backdrop. It was beautiful. Breathtaking.

 

I had lost track of the others while on the patch of grass and went back to the cabinto get with the group. We moved to the back patio and started talking again. We were making connections, bringing up childhood memories, and laughing a lot. I was feeling the love and connection from everybody. As I was walking around on the patio I remembered the love for pacing I had as a child. I used to pace in circles like Scrooge McDuck all the time. I would check my progress to see if I was wearing down a circle shaped rut in the floor. I mentioned some of health benefits of pacing to the group. I was so excited to have found this again.

 

The group left the cabin for further exploration. I stayed back to use the restroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, thinking I was so happy and this was so cool. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was so unusually awesome. I could not believe I had that hint of let down before. I was on levels I didn’t know existed. Looking at myself in the mirror, I suddenly got the feeling that I was observing myself from a third person perspective. I started thinking and talking to myself intensely in my head. As I was there, I could feel an aura that was distinct and separate from myself. It felt like the plant was a separate passenger in my body. I thought I was going insane because I felt so comfortable with this unusual scenario. I will refer to the plant as "the Shaman" for the remainder of the story in order to emphasize that it was really as if there was a separate entity in my body.

 

I recall one of the instant realizations I had when I was staring at myself in the mirror. As a kid, I had my core and my facade. I had what I thought and believed in one hand and what others thought or expected of me (or what I thought they expected of me) in the other. I remembered having a center back then. I would put on my act, but I could always come home to my core. It was never a great distance away. As I grew older, problems arose because my characters were becoming too different. I had to go further and further away to maintain my façade and wouldn’t be able to make it home to my core. My persona was completely shifting. Eventually, I was so far away from my core for so long I had completely forgotten that I had a beautiful home there. In the mirror, I saw that this was an explanation for the nagging despair I had felt for the past several years. I knew something was seriously wrong but could never figure it out. I was lost for so long that I couldn’t remember the feeling of being not lost. It was slowly eating at me and spinning me into despair.

 

The light of my core was within me; I just had to find my way home again. In the bathroom, all of the layers of me were peeled back and I was looking at my core. It felt so beautiful. It contrasted so much with the distorted caricature that was my facade I had a good laugh over how ridiculous I had become. I went back to looking at my core in the mirror. This is where I was supposed to be. This was my home. My center and core were realigned. Inner peace filled me up from the inside out. I felt completely balanced and centered. I knew exactly who I was for the first time in a long time. I was getting over some depression at the time and this journey played an important role in getting passed it.

 

During the rest of the trip I spent a lot of time searching my new found home, remembering what I knew about myself, what I believed in, what drives me, what makes me happy. Since then, I have been trying to stay as close to home as possible and have never felt happier.

 

Related Tangent: In the weeks following the trip I kept exploring my mind. One thing I was doing was going over old memories. I could see events in my head from a previously unavailable third person perspective. Before, all of my memories were from thoughts that were going on in my head. I was completely disconnected from what my body was doing. I was literally hiding behind my eyes. Now, I had memories of what my outward expressions were. The memories between what was going on inside and what was going on outside contrasted quite a bit.  Through seeing the events in this new perspective, I was getting a new understanding of who I was, or rather, who I appeared to be.

 

I have been trying to connect the apparent disconnect between my inner and outward expressions. I try to be more conscious of my actions and their possible effects on others. I also try my best to be true to myself so I can stay close to my core. I explained my inner battle to manifest my true self into outward actions to S and it made perfect sense to her. She told me she actually saw a moment when my face changed:

 

It was such a striking change. Like I saw your real face, only I didn't know I was missing it until I saw it.  Now I only see that face, but for a while after I saw it for the first time, I didn't see it often.  That happened over time.  

…

The best way I can describe it is that your face went from masked to relaxed.  I have used that same mask before. It's the "happy" face.  Everything is slightly lifted/tensed - forehead, eyebrows, cheeks, canned smile.  With a natural smile, everything is relaxed except the corners of the mouth.  Your face relaxed and the shape of it changed.  I knew once I saw it that that was your real face. It is a peaceful, handsome face.

           

After leaving the bathroom I was so happy with my realizations and realignment. I felt so comfortable and confident. I found the group again and went to S and told her what she was in for, that I was really “crazy.” She had the perfect answer; she was so happy and relieved because she was crazy also.  It was as if she was waiting and hoping for me to tell her. I have never felt more connected to anyone than I did looking into her eyes when we had this conversation.

 

We made our way back to the cabin. I was on cloud nine with the experience. S and I spent some time in the cabin together. It felt like we shared so much of each other just by looking at each other. It was our deepest communication and we didn’t say a word. The connection was so powerful and great and beautiful. We kept laughing in excitement and dumbfoundedness.  We had actually found our soul’s mate. Then, talking about how we really were, it was an openness that neither of us has shown many people. I felt safe sharing and being open with her. This openness strengthened our bond to incredible levels. I was so energized. I could not believe I had truly found my soul mate, admiring how wonderful and perfect she was. In addition to this connection, I kept having epiphanies about other things. My mind was going a million miles a minute. It was opening up and I realized that there is so much more. The possibilities of the universe and consciousness are endless and I wanted to explore further. I would look into S’ eyes and immediately recognize she knew everything already. She looked like an angel. I felt like she was my spiritual guide. As if she was waiting for me to have these realizations so we could move on to the next step.

 

We went to the kitchen and met up with O. I still have the picture in my mind of how perfect he looked. He had on a leather jacket, was lounging at the kitchen table, and looked like the most baddest ass angel I could ever imagine. I remember feeling like I was on a spiritual journey and S and O were there as my guides. I literally thought that they were going to take me into some sort of spirit world. The moment in the bathroom, finding my home and realigning my core, was the prologue. I had to make peace with my self before I went on to what was next. They were waiting for me as my guides, they already knew all of the realizations I was having, and they were waiting to take me to the next step. I kept saying, “You knew!” to both of them, and “How could you not tell me?” It was so significant but I knew they couldn’t have told me because it was something I had to realize myself. There was this huge unexplored world of the unusual that needed to be investigated. This was the perfect situation for me to explore further because I was not sure I could have initiated the journey alone. I felt like they were waiting to accompany me and it gave me confidence so I was excited and determined to pursue it further. I was journeying into the unknown.

 

I remember waiting in the kitchen for my guides to take me to the next level. I was confident that my two angels would be able to guide me and keep me safe in this unknown world I was about to visit. I felt so great because I had such a great connection with both of them. I’ve already spoken about my connection with S, she has had an unimaginably positive effect on my life. As for O, I have, unbeknownst to him, leaned on him to get through a lot of tough times. I was completely and utterly ready to go to what was next, just waiting for some sort of instruction. I thought maybe a portal was going to open up or something. After waiting a while longer, I realized they were not tripping as hard as I was. They were not my guides. They were not there with me. I went down hard after these realizations. I felt shattered, like a glass falling and breaking into pieces on the kitchen floor. I took it very badly. I felt incredibly lonely. The emotions I was feeling were very powerful, several times the pain and sadness I have felt, or even conceived of, before. I went from the most connected I have ever felt to the most alone I have ever felt. The contrast of these extremes was too much to bear. I felt absolutely crushed by emotion. It was suffocating.

 

I retreated to a bedroom in the cabin to lie on a bed. I felt very depressed and alone so I just thought to myself, staring at the light fixture in the bedroom as it spun and danced around like a ballerina. I was slowly trying to collect the pieces of me and put something back together. It was devastating to realize that I was alone and they weren’t my guides. Reflecting, it was perfect because it made me open up to myself and go further into my mind. I started searching within. I realized the mushrooms had taken control; the Shaman was my guide. Everything shown to me on the trip was deliberate. The Shaman was purposefully opening my mind and getting me in the correct state to go further. For me, the emotional state was one of extreme sadness and loneliness. After my connection to S and O was severed I began to feel like there was nothing I could ever do to remedy how I felt. The ground was let out from under me and I was falling down a dark hole to nowhere. If I was happy I would have been content with where I was and what I knew. No. I had to feel this sadness to motivate me to search for something and break down the barriers in my mind. If I was going to feel like this, I did not want to be here anymore. I wanted to end my human experience. This was a very frightening place to be. I was driven by emotion to see what was next and never turn back.

 

 

 

THE REALIZATION  

 

I started thinking about things very deeply. What did I need to do to get to the next level? I lost vision of the bedroom and was now in my head, at the edge of my brain. I remember being there with the Shaman but can’t recall any physical characteristics. It was a more pronounced presence of the aura that was with me in the bathroom. I got the feeling that I was about to go through a rite of passage. Before I could move forward I had to show I had the proper abilities. That is where my understanding was. My mind shot off on several different tracks. I will do my best to explain an abstract picture of what I was going through and the fundamental pieces of knowledge I was getting.

 

My journey began with the Shaman showing me an array of different events and concepts from the universe. I saw people, societies, religions, laws of nature, social situations, events in history, etc. I was awed by these images. They seemed completely unrelated at first. As more images kept playing, I realized there was something I was supposed to see. From time to time I would understand a connection and get hit with this intense feeling of fulfillment. I have never felt anything like the beauty of this feeling. Experiencing it gave me a deeper understanding of life. I kept searching for these connections, gaining knowledge and getting hit with shots of fulfillment.

 

I was gaining so much knowledge that I remember thinking I solved the universe. I solved humanity. I had the answer to every question regarding anything. I got it and was urging the Shaman to let me leave. I didn’t understand why I was being held back. I knew everything as a human. I was ready to explore what was next. After a few moments of humoring my pleadings, the Shaman dropped an idea into my mind that raised huge questions and turned my solution to the universe on its head. I realized that I did not know anything. I was so embarrassed for thinking I solved the universe. That is until I thought I solved it again. Once again the Shaman shed light on an idea that destroyed my answer. How could I think I solved the universe again?  I admit I said that to myself more than a few times more. Guided by the Shaman, I went deeper into my mind and further into the universe.

 

I was driven by emotion to escape. It was so important to me that I left. My lust was blinding me. Then, something clicked, I understood, and my mind was quiet. The Circus of the Endless Possibilities of the Universe had paraded right through my brain, and then vanished. It was gone and I was alone to reflect on the anarchic perfection I just witnessed. I peaked behind the curtain and saw a glimpse of how it was all magically orchestrated and connected. I witnessed the intention. There was intention. It is that big. I felt the warmth of finding that it does exist.

This recognition proved my vision of the world completely off. I had to start over and had only the experience of this trip to build from. I started thinking very deeply about the emotions I experienced earlier. There was no way I could qualify or quantify them to myself. I had never felt anything like them before. I did not think emotions of that magnitude could exist. The moment I was hit with them I was suffocating under their pressure. They were very different from human emotions. They were something much more powerful. Since I was on this progression, I reasoned that they were a taste of the emotions that we are able to feel “next.” I was not sure what “next” was, but I felt like I was in a place between where I was before (a place where I could only sense things through my human experience) and what was next (a place where I could sense things completely different and beyond the human experience).

 

I now firmly believed there was a “next.” It wasn’t a question for me anymore. I believed there was a next simply because that is where I was headed. It wasn’t the generic or traditional next, but simply the knowledge that there is something different to experience after the human experience. I could feel my spirit awakening from its dormancy.

 

I felt invigorated by these recognitions. I was somewhere I had never been before. I was on the wild frontier of the human experience. I remember thinking that I was feeling emotions few other humans have.  I went back into my memories to look for answers to the questions I was asking myself. What happened in my life to get me to this incredible place? How was I so lucky to be here? I realized that not only was the universe flawless, my whole life had been flawless. I am not saying that I had all great moments or that I acted perfectly in every situation. Instead, I realized that just like everything in the universe had intention behind it, everything in my life had intention behind it. It was built with purpose. I was going through the events in my life and saw how and why every single one of them had to happen in the way they happened in order for me to have this awakening.  There was intent behind every facet of my life. I was completely taken back by the brilliance. Everything was perfect. Every person I’ve met. Every thing I’ve sensed. Every decision I’ve made. It had the same inexpressibly intricate yet seemingly effortless perfection the universe had. I felt like I was in a perfectly crafted computer program. I definitely had a Matrix moment.

 

I wrapped my mind around the thought that I was in a program. My mind shot off in several directions as I processed this life as software. I came to several surprising conclusions examining life from an it-being-like-a-program perspective. It actually made a lot of sense and gave more credence to the idea of a spirit. I felt like it was my spirit that was loaded into my human vessel to play through my life in this program. Also, it wasn’t just my sprit going through this program. Every vessel of life in the program had a spirit in it, playing the same program through their own eyes, their own lives, having their own individual experiences.

 

As I reflected on my life I recognized that opportunities and clues for an awakening were there. In fact, they were everywhere. Everything was so incredibly simple once I realized it. Things were so obvious that I felt like this program was specifically made to offer opportunities to be awakened. My life was specifically made for my spirit to go through. It had opportunities and clues that spoke explicitly to my spirit. I felt like all of the other spirits were in the same position. Every individual had his or her own personal program. They were playing through lives that were filled with clues and opportunities that were intentionally crafted for their individual selves. I am not saying our lives are preordained or our futures set. We play an active role in our lives and it is up to the individual to recognize and take advantage of clues and opportunities.

 

My idea of “next” progressed. I had come to the conclusion that there was intent behind everything and now saw the intent behind humanity, the meaning behind our lives. The ultimate goal is to progress to the next experience after the human experience. My scattered thoughts were slowly coming together. I thought about the notion that our lives were built to prepare our spirits for the next level. I remember feeling incredible because I recognized we could all experience this same feeling. The clues to help us find and navigate our paths abound. The journey forward is delayed only by decisions we can make for ourselves. It doesn’t depend on anyone else and we can all succeed together. This idea gave me a strong feeling of unity and love.

 

I reflected on the fact that I had just come to the conclusion that this life is basically like a game, and when you pass it, there is a different game you get to load your spirit into and play through. I started feeling a really intense excitement as I realized there could be other games. How many different features and experiences could the other games have? There could be incredible things to smell, to see, to touch, to eat, to hear. Even those examples are limited to our human experience. There could be different senses that open us up to completely new and unusual experiences. The possibilities of the other games are limitless. I was so excited by this prospect. I was really pushing the Shaman to let me go through. I wanted to leave and create my own game. I assumed for some reason that I was ready to create this sort of universe for other spirits to play through. I was urging the Shaman to no avail. I was going to create an amazing game with awesome emotions. I was so excited. It was going to be way better than this current game we are in. People were going to be able to fly and have superpowers. I remember thinking I was going to make such cool experiences, and after spirits went through them they were going to be like, “Damn. That was awesome. What a good idea.”

 

As I was designing my program I realized that everything I was thinking of would be an addition or modification of this life. I wasn’t going to make it from scratch. That thought made me think that at some point this program had to be built from scratch. I kept thinking of it as a computer programmer making a program. It all had to be coded. It had to be created from nothing. It wasn’t just tomatoes that had to be coded, it was the sun, water, soil, the color red, the idea of colors, vision, nutrition, vitamins, taste, life, to name a few, the list is huge. That is just the material world; imagine the world beyond. I gained a new perspective on appreciating this creation. At some point there was nothing. I realized I was just beginning to understand the potential of this experience. I stopped to appreciate our program. I was now in a field, experiencing everything around me; the warm wind with its floral aroma, the vast blue sky with its fluffy white clouds, the energy and warmth from the Sun, the feeling of calm as I heard the tall grass rustle in the wind, the deep breaths of life that brought peace. The program we are in, this life, is truly incredible.

 

It became clear to me that humans were not capable of creating a program that comes close to being as incredible as the one we are in. I didn’t believe our human experience would ever include the development of the understanding needed to create something like this. I started feeling really good as I realized the possibility that arises with this idea. There is something higher. There was a creator of this program that was much greater than me. Which raises the ideas that there is a greater than this and that there is some distance in between. Our progression doesn’t include a quantum leap from human experience to creating universes. It is gradual. Our spirits have progressed to this level, they are going to progress to the next step after the human experience, and there is a step after that, all the way up to the creator of the step that we are on. That does not mean that it is the last step, there may be a step for the creator of the creator that was responsible for our current step. Again, the possibilities are limitless. The moment I made these realizations a wave of energy from this higher power came over me.

 

I had my anxieties and apprehensions regarding the traditional creator: the ultimate judge believes the correct sentence for those who have broken his rules is an eternity of torture, but who is also all compassionate and forgiving. Given the characteristics that are bestowed on this being I wasn’t sure what sort of relationship we were supposed to have. This entity was supposedly the all knowing, all merciful, and all loving but also the ultimate disciplinarian who was always watching, always judging, and keeping everything on record. Consequently, I felt that this was a creator who was supposed to be inspirationally divine but also disappointingly petty, tremendously mature but absurdly childish, rational but psychotic, respected but feared. Part of the reason I turned away from this entity was because I was unable to reconcile these inconsistencies.

 

All of my previous notions and misunderstandings were washed away the moment this energy came over me. I don’t know if I was in the actual presence of a creator, but I felt the direct energy of some higher power. Again, language is limiting and I cannot describe exactly how this energy felt, but I will try. This energy almost immediately remedied me on every level. My spirit was completely revived and overflowing. I didn’t feel one hint of judgment or condemnation coming from the creator of this energy. There was an immense feeling of love and what was most pleasantly surprising was the enormous feeling of pride that accompanied it. The entity behind this energy was genuinely proud of me. The feeling of pride was like an assurance that I was doing okay in my life, that I was doing well. I felt a lot better about myself and that is exactly what I needed at the moment. At the time I was a very anxious person, I always had that pain in my stomach. It was a feeling of inferiority because I was never going to be able to live up to my expectations, always drilling holes into myself. The positive energy I was receiving was passing through my body and clearing out all of this negativity. I could literally feel the energy flowing through my body and taking little bits of negativity till every single atom was gone and I felt the pure positive energy flowing freely through my body. I would like to point out that while this was one of the most significant events in my life, it was clear that it seemed like nothing to the energy. It was done clearing out the negativity with such an insignificant effort it made me realize that the negativity had no foundation to begin with. The message I was getting, without the actual use of language, was, “This negativity has played an unnecessarily significant roll in causing you a lot of pain and holding you back in your life. There is so much more and it is so insignificant to reality. You don’t have to be that way anymore.” I will hold this moment in my heart forever.

 

 

 

Tangent: I don’t want to put anybody off the path of spiritual revival because I have used the word “creator.” I think the spirit has become erroneously fused with a belief in a god. In the past, I have mistakenly confused being spiritual with believing in a god or following a religion. It seemed that the more enthusiastically you believed in god or followed a religion the more spiritual you must have been. I have come to realize that spirituality and a belief in a god are two completely different things. It can be important for some people, but it is far from necessary for the recovery of our spirits.  I am the most spiritual I have ever felt and it has not been contingent on a belief in a god or finding the correct book. I wanted to mention this because I think many others have thought the same way and have unnecessarily and unfortunately turned away from their spirits because they don’t believe in a god or religion.

 

After a moment in that complete bliss, I was off to explore more and my mind went into full processing mode. I believed that I was on a progression forward; that I was a spirit in this human vessel, going through this life with the aim of getting to a next experience. Then I thought, if there is this experience and a next experience, there could have been an experience before this experience. I started thinking about other living things and my focus came to animals. Animals are not just mechanical objects programmed into the program. They are not robots. I was thinking that a cow in the slaughterhouse does not scream out because it is programmed to do so. It screams out of pain and fear. It is a spirit that has a minimum competence to at least understand what pain and fear is. Putting myself in that position, I couldn’t even imagine what an unnecessarily horrible experience that would be. Looking into the eyes of an abused animal, it is too easy to see the pain, fear, and sadness they have experienced to doubt that they have felt them. I couldn’t come to terms with that. They are spirits playing through the program in vessels that are equipped differently than our own.

 

I couldn’t justify causing this unnecessary harm to their spirits. I did not want to be involved with putting spirits through such a horrible existence. It seems that animals can very easily live a happy and fulfilled existence if we do not interfere with them. We spend enough time with pets to witness their personalities and have mutually fulfilling relationships with them. People often have better connections with their pets than they do with other people. These experiences should not be discounted in considering animals. They clearly have a lot of the same characteristics and emotions humans have and if it were a computer program they would have a lot of the same code as us. I assume that they are also on a progression, aiming for a next experience. I don’t know whether their experience is above, below, or equal to ours in the progression. It is simply another experiences within this program. I wanted to facilitate whatever awakening they must have just like I wanted to facilitate the process for any other spirit. I at least wanted to give them the same courtesy that I would want another spirit to give me, to be left alone.

 

My third eye was getting squeegeed quite cleanly. I suddenly had a spirit again, believed in something much greater, understood the purpose of this life, answered the questions I had regarding what happens after this life, and became vegan. I felt incredible, healed on every level and in every dimension. The path I took to arrive to this vista was easy but I started to feel anxious because the view was so incredible, so quick to reach, and like nothing I had ever imagined possible. I was in such extremely new territory compared to my previous thinking and understanding that I became very worried over whether I was going crazy or on the right path. It was so easy, so obvious, and so right, but why wasn’t everybody else here? Why wasn’t anyone else here? What the hell was going on?  I started to question everything I had just realized. If it were so easy and so right there would be other people here. In fact, I felt that the spirit of humanity was in a really poor condition, and if the love I was feeling from this higher power was real, if this higher power was as great as I felt, more would be done to get people’s spirits here. At the time, I believed that humanity had lost its spirit and had fallen into a depressed fear. Everybody is hiding. We have lost our freedom and emotion and have turned obedient and distant. This is simply not what humanity is here for. Our spirits are supposed to take so much more from this human experience. I had a great revitalization of my spirit, but it means little if the world is sick. I felt the deep hurt and wanted to know what was being done to help.

 

The Shaman gave me exactly what I needed and showed me the intent, inspiration, and connection between a vast array of religions and human expression. (This is a perfect example highlighting the great rapport I had with this entity. I had a concern and received an actual answer to remedy it, or at least further my understanding.) Every prophet and message I had ever contemplated made perfect sense and cohesion.  I saw the message that was trying to be sent to humanity and how it has been distorted. Where and why it went wrong. I saw the intent. I saw incredible clues that alluded and proved and provided a path for the awareness I was getting. These weren’t just your typical prophets in religious texts; a prophet is anyone who helps with a path. This includes painters, photographers, sculptors, composers, directors, musicians, poets, scientists, philosophers, writers, etc. I saw cohesion in the message. I felt like I had complete unity with all of the prophets. I will not attempt to put this feeling into words.

 

Selfishly, I wanted to leave now more than ever. I saw no hope for humanity after seeing all of the clues that were left behind. I saw a lot of the help that has been sent to humanity and felt like it had been a miserable failure for the most part. We have proven unable to help ourselves. It was hopeless and I wanted out. If the incredible clues that were left behind didn’t work, there was surely nothing that I could do, and any effort was clearly not worth it. These prophets were very incredible men and women, far exceeding me in talent and drive, and they failed. What could I possibly bring to the table? My emotion was no longer driving me to leave; it was replaced with an urgency to extract myself from the situation. Basically, I wanted to sell out. While not my most courageous moment, I felt like I was on the cusp of leaving.

 

 

Act III

 

I had been pacing around the cabin intermittently throughout the previous episode with the Shaman and now returned to the bed to lie down. The Shaman set the situation out before me. I was basically asking for a separation of my spirit from my body. The Shaman was not going to be an active part of that separation. Separation was a skill that I needed to exhibit. This was the key to next. The prospect to leave was real and right in front of me. First, I had to intentionally separate my spirit from my body. I understood the ends but was lost on the means. I contemplated it. I felt that the only way to do it would be to transfer my spirit to another body. The thought of simply releasing, rather than transferring, my spirit did not occur to me. Instead I felt like my spirit needed to be housed somewhere. I had been gazing at a table that was next to the bed. This was the next body my spirit would be housed in. 

 

 

Although this was a very dramatic moment for me, my entire mind was not occupied with trying to get into the table. Part of my mind stood back and tried to understand the big picture. My spirit was to leave my body and go into the table. Initially, I thought the big lesson was learning to separate my spirit from my body. From this distance I saw the true lesson came from the fact that I had no idea how I was going to go into the table. I was learning how to create from scratch. I was learning how to code. I learned that I needed to actively expand my openness if I wanted to be able to process the kind of information that needed processing in the future. I had to let my mind be free and open enough to fully attempt and accurately understand new things. I needed to avoid writing things off without exploration, no matter how unusual or unlikely it may seem to my current understanding. As I realized earlier, my knowledge was changing dramatically and had an infinite number of places to go. This was the true lesson.

 

I understood the reasoning behind this lesson. The higher power wanted to make sure my spirit had the ability to undertake the journey after the human experience. The severe loneliness I felt earlier in the day was a preview of the possible emotion I could feel next. It was an emotion I could not deal with because I could not contemplate feeling that lonely and, more importantly, what I could do to remedy that feeling feeling. I felt like that feeling was only a taste of things to come and it had literally suffocated me. I saw the danger of leaving without greater openness. I was certain that if I were rushed with all of the super and unknown emotions and feelings after only my limited experience with human emotions and feelings my spirit would have extinguished and fallen into nothingness. If I left without being prepared I could have ceased to exist entirely.

 

I heard S and O talking in the other room. The realization of other beings brought me back on the bed and with the table. I would have to say goodbye to them before I left. I started to get emotional as I thought of making peace with them before leaving. I felt the first raindrops of the hurricane of emotion that was on the horizon and tried to run away as far as I could. This was not a storm I wanted to confront at the moment. I tried to escape by changing the subject and shifting my attention away from the weight of what I was considering. My relief came after I told the Shaman I wasn’t ready to endure the storm. The Shaman effortlessly shifted the lesson plan and took me away in a flash. I understood a direct communication with the Shaman that sheds light on its personality and our rapport, “You are not ready, let’s do something else,” with the most pure and perfect inflection. This communication guided the adjustment toward a productive direction and didn’t give me a chance to pity myself with negative feelings.

 

I started thinking about humanity again. I started thinking about my brothers and sisters. I wanted to understand what was happening. This was the most significant event in my life. The blindfold was removed and I saw reality. But there was nobody here with me. Not only that, I felt severely ill prepared for the moment. These were issues that I needed to investigate further. I turned to my personal experiences and thoughts and tried to figure it out. My spirit was here now but why wasn’t it here earlier and why was I not better prepared? I started thinking about religion and revisited my earlier revelation that there is reason behind everything. I tried to look back and understand the reason behind religion. As mentioned above, I was shown the intent, inspiration, and connection between a vast array of prophets. I saw that the purpose of religion was to be a sanctuary where any individual could find help discovering, developing, and understanding their spirit, i.e., their self. Religion is meant to help illuminate the vast and limitless potential of our spirits and this universe. It has nothing to do with pleasing a god or a book. A religious teacher is the equivalent of a doctor and guide for our spirits. They should be here to help remedy our spirits when they are injured and help us find our individual paths when we are lost. Religion has failed humanity because it has gone away from this purpose. Personally, it not only failed my spirit, it actually had more of an effect preventing and interfering with my progression and attempts to find my path. I know this is true for countless numbers of other people. I think we turn away from our spirits because organized religion has taken control of them. I felt like I had a spirit earlier in my life but it was killed by organized religion. There are so many leaps of faith, absences of reason, and inconsistencies with organized religion I felt religion, and by association the spirit, was for the unintelligent, uninformed, and uninquisitive.

 

Religion has turned into nothing more than groups of people that feel they have some divine authority to act as gatekeepers and stand between us and our spiritual lives. Spirituality is the ultimate inclusive experience but organized religion has mutated and polluted the purpose of religion so badly that it has actually become very exclusive. These gatekeepers, the people controlling the guest list to what is supposedly after this life, are selfish, unjust, and fit my definition of evil more than anything else. What was next, who got to go, and what they had to do to get there is about power and control. Organized religion has completely ruined the spirit by attaching all of these conditions onto it. You must take our path if you want to be in our club and have your soul saved. They even try to scare us and tell us that if we stray from their path their god will condemn our spirits to an eternal hell. The people that are putting all of these conditions on our souls are just human and have no divine authority to create these arbitrary rules. This is psychotic and has become incredibly dangerous because it is the status quo. It is dangerous because we see these people as the keepers of the soul, we see the inconsistencies, and we turn away. Intellectual, rational people have had little choice but to abandon their spirits. I think that the destruction of the spirit is one of the greatest crimes of humanity.

 

Throughout my experience with this power plant the message that was the most unequivocal and uncompromising was that our spirits are the most important things. Naturally, the bulk of the activities that we engage in should fulfill our spirits. More than anything else we can do as humans, it is most important that we explore and discover things that cultivate and expand our spiritual selves. I will be forever grateful to the Shaman because it provided me the final push of confidence in myself to take my spirit back. 

 

I left this train of thought and was back on the bed. As much as I was ready to leave, I was absolutely terrified to face the storm of emotion I had to go through. I laid there for a long time, staring at the table, a lamp on top, slowly spinning. I had no idea how I was going to get into the table. In the scenario I created I only knew that once I left, there was no coming back. I was frightened and anxious. The level of emotion was superior to the sadness and loneliness I felt earlier. The feeling like I am at the edge of what my brain can handle without going insane or somehow being crushed by the universe. The emotion left me physically drained. The feeling starts in your stomach, moves slowly into your chest, up your esophagus, to the very base of where your throat begins, making it constrict from the pressure, cutting off the air supply. The pressure in my throat kept growing and growing and it became more and more difficult to breathe.

 

I left the bed and boarded another train of thought. I revisited my thoughts about religion and started thinking about humanity’s progress. I asked myself, “What is the motivation for people to join these religions? What is the power that organized religions have?” I think a large part is avoiding hell and the promise of heaven. That is the prize at the end of the game. People follow the arbitrary rules and conditions put on the soul so they can get their ticket to heaven. I tried to deconstruct and take a deeper look at heaven. I imagined what I expected heaven to be like based on what I have heard and read: I am there with my friends and family, everybody is happy, there is no suffering, there is no war, there is no starvation, there is no fear. It is completely saturated with love. I spend my time immersed in fulfilling activities: reading books, playing sports and games, watching movies, creating artwork, holding interesting conversations with interesting people, exploring the unknown, etc.  I have the power to do what I want when I want. I am completely free. After I have these thoughts I immediately have a realization. Currently, on this Earth, we have every single thing that would be necessary to achieve this heaven for every human being on the planet. Pain, suffering, starvation, war, fear, we are advanced enough as humans to not have these problems. It is not even a question. There is no debate. It is a fact that humanity could achieve heaven on Earth if it wanted to.

 

Next, I tried to understand why it wasn’t happening. Why is humanity stalling?  We are advanced enough as humans to achieve this goal, but we aren’t doing it. I began to think about evil. I wondered if there was some sort of evil force that was preventing this utopia from coming to fruition. I looked back but I couldn’t recollect one instance where Satan and his minions were actually to blame for any pain, suffering, starvation, or war. There were no demons running amok, stealing everybody’s food and murdering people. The pain and suffering can be traced back to humanity very easily. We are told there is an unseen evil, but there isn’t. There is only us. There will be hardships in life, I believe that is an important part of life and I am not talking about eliminating the hardships. I am speaking about the needless pain and suffering that billions of people go through everyday: the famine, the war, the depression, etc. It is a sad fact that humanity could very easily end this needless pain and suffering if we put in an honest effort. Ending pain and suffering is not out of our hands, therefore the responsibility is in our hands.

 

It is in my hands. I came back to the bed with a feeling that I had a responsibility to my brothers and sisters. I remembered the prophets that left clues to assist people in gaining awareness. They didn’t fail. I am forever grateful for the clues I have found because they helped me take my spirit back. Earlier, I felt incredibly lonely and wanted to leave at all costs. With the prospect of leaving before me, I wasn’t just looking forward to the next step anymore; I was looking back at what I was going to leave behind. It was a lot. I have wonderful friends and family whom I love very much. I also had just recently connected with not only the love of my life, but my soul mate. I didn’t want to leave anymore. I felt like everything was perfect for me and I was given this knowledge, these realizations. I wanted to share these realizations because of the possibility they would speak to someone else and help them move forward in their progression and gain their own realizations. I had a lot to do still, living in this world with this awareness. There was so much to learn and do and think about. I wanted to stay. I wanted to help. I wanted to leave clues and shed light on clues left by other people. I wanted to take the spirit away from the selfish that have infected it. I wanted to help people illuminate their spirits. I wanted to bring the spirit back. There was something here for me. I left the trip having found a purpose in my life.

 

I had a rough landing coming down from the trip. Maybe it was because I didn’t have the Shaman with me anymore, but feelings of anxiety and desperation came over me. I felt like the higher power hated me or that I failed because I wasn’t open enough to succeed with a separation. I felt like I copped out by talking myself into staying. I was anxious over whether I had made the correct decision and felt like I should have put more effort in trying to leave. In addition, I felt like I had a huge task before me. I felt like I had a lot of pressure to try to get this message across. I failed the separation and I was going to fail at the task I stayed for. I felt alone again. I recognized these feelings as my old façade trying to bring fear back into my life in an attempt to take over my experience again. My core didn’t let that happen, it reminded me of the community of people that have received this awareness and left clues. There are many others and I was not alone. I remembered the prophet that made me pursue my path and try something different, Bill Hicks. I remembered something he said about one of his mushroom experiences and it completely energized my core and demolished any hopes my old façade had of trying to come back into my life. I listened to the quote:

 

You know what happened when I took’em? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours, going, “my God, I love everything.” The heavens parted, God looked down and rained gifts of forgiveness, onto my being, healing me on every level: psychically, physically, emotionally, and I realized our true nature is spirit not body, that we are eternal beings, and God’s love is unconditional and there is nothing we can ever do to change that. It is only our illusion that we are separate from God or that we are alone. In fact, the reality is that we are one with God and he loves us.

 

The feelings of anxiety, desperation, and failure were replaced with feelings of warmth and love.