Ulises

Another book about archetypal experiences is "Subtle Worlds: An Explorer's Field Notes" by David Spangler. Full of common sense, humour, and valuable insights (the synthesis of sixty plus years of a modern mystic's experience of the subtle worlds of spirit...) A gem,IMO http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0936878266/newheavenneweart here, in this splendid interview, you can get a taste of Spangler's "vibe": http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC34/Spangler.htm

I've read some extracts...Jung was a courageous pioneer. I hope to read it soon (a copy in the public library...) I'm in love with the books by post-Jungian Stephen Gallegos. I had the oportunity to meet him and the man is for real. Reading his archetypal experiences is a living lesson about respect and relationship with the deep imagery...resulting in a vibrant, spontaneous alchemical process. (I attended one of his workshops: amazing healing results, a cascade of sinchronicities related to the content of my healing, strongly recommended) I like especially his latest book http://www.moonbearpress.com/books/intow/index.html

great sharing, very inspiring! yeah, it's never too late...

never it's too late... it's my joy... ; ) "the child-like laughter of the Infinite..." Satprem

Joy and Magic... http://www.workingwithoneness.org/media/new-archetype http://archetypaljourneys.wordpress.com/

I'm learning the Wuji form from John P. Milton's DVD: excellent production, skillfully taught. (By the way, parts from the Wuji form came to me first through the Shaking Medicine: just open yourself - from the heart - to the life force and you'll be guided to your next step...)

Splendid text: towards a mature spirituality... "This work and all other schools of spiritual work, all religions, all methods and philosophies about enlightenment, liberation, God, spirit, true nature, and so on should not be necessary. I do not mean they are not necessary; I mean they should not be necessary. They are attempts to describe what a human being is actually supposed to be, and how to go about being that. They all ask the same questions: What is a human being? What is a real and complete human being? What is the real human life? What is the human life that has actualized the full human potential? What is it that we are all about and how do we go about being that? In actuality, the human being is much bigger than the vision of any of these teachings; no teaching can encompass the totality of what is possible for a human being. We ultimately do not need any of these teachings, which are nothing but ideas and concepts created by the mind. Although genuine teachings reflect and express reality, they are nevertheless in part cultural creations that have been developed throughout history. Many of them faithfully reflect real facets of reality and, as such, are good and helpful, but they remain excess baggage to reality. Reality is beyond any teachings that can be formulated and promulgated. Reality simply is. Everything we say about it is extra, a creation of the human mind. We cannot adhere to teachings as if they are reality. We use teachings, benefit from them, but then we discard them, we drop them. To carry teachings with us after we learn to live in reality is to carry an extra load. We need only reality, and the teachings are simply vehicles through which to reach and live in reality. Reality is beyond tools, methods, and helpful perspectives. Reality is innocent of it all. The point is not to be enlightened or to be God realized. Rather, we are to live the way we are supposed to live. That is all, and simply so. We are to live reality the way reality actually is. Teachings approximate, and at best express, what that means and suggest how to go about it. Ultimately, teachings have no objective validity but are conceptual tools created by well meaning individuals to help us live our life in the most natural and complete way possible. Once they have served their function, teachings are to be dropped. Otherwise, they will remain addendums to reality, a weight for us to carry. I am not saying that teachings are inaccurate, or are empty fabrications. The real ones are accurate and express reality faithfully, but they are still extra to simply living reality.(...) In the beginning of the work, we don't know what is real, we don’t know what is not real, and we have no idea how to find out the difference. We are scared, we are small, we feel as if we don't know. And if we did know how to go about it, we still wouldn’t actually be able to do it. So the teachings are necessary. But these teachings are boats to cross the river of ignorance; they are not the other shore. Their descriptions of some of the features of the other shore are not the same as the shore itself. In order to get to the other shore, we need to abandon our boats. If we stay in them we will never get to the shore. We need, at some point, to sink our boats. This point is as subtle as it is important, as tricky as it is necessary. We need to sink our boats exactly at the right time: if we do it too soon, we will drown in the deep waters of the river, but if we do not do it at all, we will never arrive. It took thirty years for the first of Buddha’s disciples to be enlightened. When the disciple finally saw and realized the truth, saw and understood true nature, he felt a little disconcerted. The disciple avoided Buddha because he was feeling ashamed and guilty. Finally, Buddha asked him what was going on with him. The disciple said it was hard to talk about but finally told the Buddha: “Now that I see the truth and I realize it, I see that all that you have been saying is bullshit. It is not necessary.” Buddha asked him not to tell anyone. He said: “I'm glad you know the truth, but people need to think that what I say is true so that they can find out what you found out.” In effect, Buddha was saying, “Don't tell anybody, they'll kill you and me and then they will have no chance of finding out what you found out.” The point is more frequently referred to in the Zen koan, “When you meet the Buddha on the road kill him.” (...) In actuality, all beliefs are in the same bag: whether they are about God and enlightenment, or about whether you are good or bad; whether about timelessness and eternity or about your being a person who was born at a certain date, the son or daughter of such and such parents. Beliefs are all in the same category. In your mind they are the same thing; they probably come physiologically from the same part of your brain. There is no difference, ultimately, between one belief and another. Of course, it is terrifying to think, let alone accept, that these beliefs exist only in our minds. They may not be true or completely true, or true the way we believe they are true. What if after all these years we find out that Buddha is wrong about emptiness? Or that Moses never spoke to God in the burning bush? We read the stories and we believe them. Maybe the stories are not true, or maybe they were true but things changed. Maybe reality does not stay static and changes even its nature and structure. How do we know that this is not the case? Who says that things don't change? Who says that what Buddha said then should be true now? Do we have any proof that it should be so? We don’t; nobody does. The stories we have been told may be true or not. We cannot be certain until we find out the truth for ourselves and, ultimately, until the truth is relevant for us. We have to be bold in order to ask these questions and to confront ourselves in this way. If we are to reach certainty and true autonomy of realization, we need to be willing to be heretics. What’s more, we need to become universal heretics, not believing anything that we do not know from direct experience, beyond stories, beyond hearsay, and even beyond the mind. To have a free mind is to be a universal heretic. You don’t believe in the ultimate reality of any concept. You can assume any belief you find useful and attractive, but you don’t need to hold on to any of it. Without being captured by your beliefs, you are strong enough and confident enough to throw away any and all beliefs and perspectives, each and every philosophy and story. You can stand totally alone, completely independent of all that comes through the mind, through time and space. This station of realization is difficult and rare. Most of us don’t have the nerve to lose our minds. Although terrifying, it is necessary for true freedom. We have to risk that we may be wrong. We have to risk the aloneness and the terror of being totally on our own. We have to risk cutting all of our supports, burning all of our bridges, destroying all of our boats. They are all ultimately and fundamentally concepts that come from hearsay or, at best, from our own past experiences. Even the concepts and knowledge that have come from our own immediate experiences cannot be relied on. That knowledge is like Buddha’s words—old, unless corroborated in this moment..." http://www.ahalmaas.com/Extracts/sinking_your_boats.html

"Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her..." Mahanirvana Tantra "dazzling darkness" Gnostics "black light" Sufis "dark sea of awareness" Castaneda "One day I become aware of a subtle contraction of the mobius center at the sternum. Being subtle, it does not affect my sense of presence or my capacity to function. Retaining this impression in my awareness in the course of the day’s activities, I realize at some point that it is part of a larger condition. I become aware of a small hole at the location of the solar plexus. My interest is stimulated; I have not experienced a hole in this location for a long time. An easy, spontaneous inquiry into this experience arises. The light-hearted inquiry intensifies the throbbing at the center of the forehead. The throbbing has a sense of quietness and peace, a radiating stillness. I see the essential nous, the discriminating intelligence or diamond guidance, mostly black. A black presence of stillness glimmers with faceted radiance, as it is activated by the curiosity and questioning. "The contraction at the mobius relaxes and dissolves, and sadness and emptiness arise. The sadness develops into deep black tears. The tears are deep and warm, and seem to drench the totality of my inner conscious field. The sense of teary sadness comes and goes; I realize there is some difficulty in staying with the experience. This intensifies my curiosity, and adds a silvery glimmer to the diamond blackness of the nous, expressing steadfastness in inquiry. The sadness deepens and becomes more definite. This increases my awareness of the depth and intimacy of blackness. My consciousness is pervaded by the blackness of the absolute, as I relax into its depth, enfolded by intimacy, soft and light, peaceful and exquisite. My center of awareness sinks deeper into the intimate depths, with a visual sense of receding away from the surface awareness of the environment. I am now centered in a depth from which all of existence appears as surface. It is similar to being in the depths of an ocean, perceiving the changing phenomena at its surface. As I recede into this depth, the issues related to the teary sadness are revealed..." http://www.ahalmaas.com/Extracts/lnj14_life_deathless.html

"Standing like a tree" remains as my favourite static qi gong, after these last twenty years: deeper layers of subtlety unfolding endlessly... "If I had to choose one qigong technique to practice, it would undoubtedly be this one. Many Chinese call standing meditation 'the million dollar secret of qigong.' Whether you are practicing qigong for self healing, for building healing ch'i, for massage or healing work on others, standing is an essential practice. Acupuncturists feel that by practicing standing meditation they can connect with the ch'i of the universe, and be able to send it through their bodies when they hold the acupuncture needle ... Standing is probably the single most important qigong exercise. One of the reasons that standing is such a powerful way to gather and accumulate fresh ch'i in the body is that during the practice of standing the body is in the optimal posture for ch'i gathering and flow." - Kenneth S. Cohen "Standing" is the crux technique of Antero Alli's ritual work http://www.paratheatrical.com/noform.html

Good, good..""There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" We have forgotten - in this soulless bardo called western culture - that, thousands of years ago, we were like this.... "Bushman knowing is inspired by feeling love rather than thinking ideas. The more they feed love – loving the loving in a recursively spun positive feedback loop - the more they amplify its presence and impact on their body. It causes them to tremble and shake, an indication to them that they are awake and in the only state worthy of trustworthy knowing. For them, thinking should serve authentically experienced love rather than the latter being an abstraction for intellectual word play. Bushmen seek to make their 'ropes' (a metaphor for relationship) strong. They do so by shooting 'arrows' of amplified love into one another. You might be tempted to say that they are 'cupid scholars' who hunt for 'n/om' (the soulful life force). They work to make themselves 'soft' through absurd play and open hearted expression so that the arrows and ropes that enhance relational connectivity may pierce and join. Bushman stories emphasize changes that surprise and trip you into being off guard with any convenient category of understanding. In effect, Bushman knowing is all about letting yourself out of any and all typological grids of abstraction so that the Heraclitean movement of spirited love can dance you into ever shifting relations with life. *** A group of elder women n/om kxaosi were asked what made them so strong in matters of n/om (Keeney 2010). They replied, 'we are this way because of the tears we have wept for the ancestors who have passed on.' The deepest longing human beings experience often comes from the loss of a loved one. Rather than trying to emotionally get over it, these Bushman elders keep the longing alive, feeding it until it breaks their hearts wide open in an awakened way, bringing them inside a more expansive and intimate relation with their ancestors. In this connection tears flow along a channel that keeps their relationships strong and permits a never-ending expression of love and soulful guidance."

You know how you might catch the eye of someone at a solemn religous service or a funeral and you both start laughing and pretty soon it becomes uncontrollable, and then others join in, and the laughter is more truthful than the solemnity... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UuaOye9VyI ?

Do you use a system...or are used by a system...? Beliefs, in the best of the cases, are comforting teddy bears for the mind....in the worse, weapons or armours, as Chogyam Trungpa said... Questions Our questions about why we are here and where we're going are uncomfortable, but they are real questions for every human being. If you do not ask them, and allow them to be ongoing questions, you will never know for yourself what it's all about. You will never know who you are, why you're here, and where you are going. Your mind is full of ideas and dreams and plans about what will fulfill you, what will make you happy, what will give you freedom. But these ideas silence the question, comfort your mind, and put out the flame. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 4) I am not trying to give you an answer; I'm just giving you a question. You need to let your being be ablaze like a flame, an aspiring flame, with no preconceived ideas about what it aspires to. To be just burning intensely, deeply wanting to know, wanting to see the truth without following any preconceptions, totally in the present with the question itself, and let it burn away all the ideas, all the beliefs, all the concepts, even the ones you learned from great teachings. If you don't allow that flame completely, will you ever rest in your life? Will you ever rest in your life as long as you're covering your question, answering it before it's really answered? Will you ever really be content with someone else's answer? (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 6) A. H. Almaas

.

Everybody mentions Leary and Ram Dass/Alpert, but Ralph Metzner is doing a great work since some decades ago... http://www.greenearthfound.org/ralph_metzner.html

Some personal experiences in the last years point in the direction of believing (very cautiously) that this author is after something... "In my personal search for the roots of our symbolic nature, and our cognitive heritage, I've consistently located my goals far beyond the domains of traditional and even esoteric traditions. In leaving all possible trails behind, (but using their tools liberally where I desire) and seeking with my heart, my human senses, and my emotional holism of self, I find endless possible systems that correlate well with my experience. And not a one contains a real rePresentation of that experience. I avoid the traps of other people's systems. I avoid the traps of my own systems. I use any of the tools, from either, which seem useful in the moment. Once I've gained the gold of understanding where systems of any possible sort arise from, then I can use any system to my utmost benefit, without being bound in it. Before I was able to notice and respond to this sense, I was, primarily, being used by systems — in a game where I'd get a weensy particle of reward for my effort, while the system grew itself explosively using my cognitive resources. This is at least an essential trap in the ways in which we are actively and socially cognitive, and may prove to be an opportunity as well — one we are continually missing in almost every possible domain. In my wanderings, the tools I discovered and am interacting with are far simpler than any science or mysticism implies. My bet? They can only be missed on worlds which have developed science and mysticism. And this is a seriously important clue as to where to begin seeking for your personal keys. Keys with features that, when activated, turn humans into heroes — and those heroes save worlds." http://www.organelle.org/organelle/cog5.html

more interesting books: Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics http://www.amazon.com/Zig-Zag-Zen-Buddhism-Psychedelics/dp/0811832864 Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers http://www.amazon.com/Plants-Gods-Sacred-Healing-Hallucinogenic/dp/0892819790/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297960071&sr=1-2 Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemical Huston Smith http://www.amazon.com/Cleansing-Doors-Perception-Significance-Entheogenic/dp/1591810086 Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, Ede Frecska http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Paths-Outer-Space-Psychedelics/dp/159477224X

OK, sorry. It hasn't to be that way, respecting the protocols of relationship. And if you research in internet - forums,etc. - the use of entheogens is becoming a widespread practice for the youngest urbanite generations...do we close our eyes...or do we share useful info to avoid innnecesay harm and harvesting the psichospiritual benefits... somebody as serious as writer Aldous Huxley wrote 50 years ago that entheogens - one of the oldest ways of spirituality - could be a hope against the quick race of auto-destruction of humankind. again, entheogens are means(integrated in a spiritul practice),not ends in themselves..medicines, not food: sacraments,if you like

I'm so glad for you! Heretics is just a word. just a reminder that the finger is not the moon: unfortunately that has not been the historic - and present reality - of ALL the traditions: all of them have a sad story of chasing (even killing) the "non-believers"...belief systems are useful (the finger) but are potentially as deadly as a knife when are not dissolved in the experience that are simple pointers of...

A fabulous contribution to the field of transpersonal studies ( more that twenty years of serious, systematic work - Stan Grof way - with entheogens & Vajrayana) "It is not hard to imagine that there may indeed be some form of great suffering ahead. I don't think that there necessarily *has to be* great collective suffering in order for the human species to be transformed (and it seems Bache doesn't either), although if we do experience great suffering this may very well trigger an enormous transformation especially if western society collapses in the process. A more hopeful view is that the transformation can be made slowly and gently. In practical terms, perhaps in the form of a psychedelic renaissance or archaic revival where modern man is integrated into the ancient shamanic worldview. It may be a race againt time. Will our society fuse with the archaic world of shamanism in time before we face total social, economic and ecological collapse followed by some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario where we kill one another for resources on a mass scale? That seems to be one of the most important questions explored in the book. If we do come to face this doomsday scenario then this book attempts to explore the causes and what might happen to us as a result. Transpersonal states of consciousness as a means of healing humanity has been mentioned by Terence McKenna among others. Bache takes this one step further in a deeper exploration into the dynamics of individual/collective death-rebirth. The result of his probing contributes to an understanding of how psychedelic states can heal us as a species in a way that goes beyond simply "one person at a time" http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Night-Early-Dawn-Transpersonal/dp/0791446069 The revolution in psychology after Freud and Jung: “Dr. Grof's studies of the mystical experience in LSD therapy represent an extremely valuable scientific approach to consciousness research from which many people can benefit.” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan lama and author of Born in Tibet, Spiritual Materialism, and Meditation in Action ) http://www.amazon.com/LSD-Numinous-Groundbreaking-Psychedelic-Unconscious/dp/1594772827/ref=pd_sim_b_1

more regular methods...? you mean that the huichol/wixarika, the pygmies (and many other tribes in Gabon and Africa), the Diné (navajo),the old school Taoists, the Nagas of India, and so forth and so on along the planet...are marginal and perhaps somewhat wrong..? Castaneda was a megalomaniac without any relationship with a real, living shamanic lineage. Tim Leary embodied precisely the unbalanced narcissism of our culture, so dissociated from the Earth: at least he was the first one spreading the word that one way of co-evolving with Gaia is through these allies... Dr. Albert Hofmann once asked why there are in Nature so many plants (entheogens) filled with tryptamines...exactly like the release of our endogenous DMT in the pineal gland (like a key in the lock): is it a coincidence...? I don't think so. Again, this cup of tea is not everyone. Again, the relationship with the plants is not recreational: there are protocols, rhythms...is a relationship,not abuse. We (the people interested) can learn from the ancestral lineages how to enter in that relationship....

Good guide. Recommended http://www.futureprimitive.org/2010/12/julieta-casimiro/

Before the patriarchal repression: The Primordial Androgynous... http://indiansplendors.org/Area%20pages/India/India%20south/Tamil%20Nadu/sculpture/chola%20bronzes/Ardh%201.html

[quote please trip responsibly. sacred plants should be treated sacredly and with respect. I don't think that could be another way. This cup of tea (pun intended) is not for everybody. But I think that in these times of massive disinformation is fair for the people interested to have good clean info. We have this knowledge for millenia and its a crying shame that, because of bunch of pharmacratic ayatollahs, some people are being harmed... "All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison…." Paracelsus (1493-1541) I've been witness to people - in the company of skillful psychotherapists - overcoming lifetime psychological problems in a few sessions and reconecting with their heart at a exquisite soul level, with the help of MDMDA... "Preliminary studies have shown that MDMA in conjunction with psychotherapy can help people overcome PTSD. MDMA has empathogenic effects, and it is also known as the popular drug Ecstasy (although "Ecstasy" does not always contain pure MDMA). In laboratory studies, MDMA has been proven sufficiently safe for human consumption when taken a limited number of times in moderate doses." http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/