My recent Shamanic Workshop

chi_solas wrote:salman, as I read your response
to Andy and read what Andy had
written. I was seeing how the
alternative of visualize came
into the image. My thought was
that for me the image needs to
be a positive image. One that I
had with my parents spirit. was
a full image. The other image was
seeing myself healed as I moved
through my journey. I had a friend
tell me that those were shamanic
experiences. At that time I was
searching for healing and looking
at different styles. I always felt
the fear of entering the shamanic
world and not being in control

What I find truly remarkable Bridget, is that even with your fear, you were able to release your control, at least long enough, to let the healing happen.

In the path of shamanism that I follow, before one can fully realize their power as a shaman, they must give up control. The need for control, I feel, is purely a mechanism of Ego.

Thaak wrote:

chi_solas wrote:salman, as I read your response
to Andy and read what Andy had
written. I was seeing how the
alternative of visualize came
into the image. My thought was
that for me the image needs to
be a positive image. One that I
had with my parents spirit. was
a full image. The other image was
seeing myself healed as I moved
through my journey. I had a friend
tell me that those were shamanic
experiences. At that time I was
searching for healing and looking
at different styles. I always felt
the fear of entering the shamanic
world and not being in control

What I find truly remarkable Bridget, is that even with your fear, you were able to release your control, at least long enough, to let the healing happen.

In the path of shamanism that I follow, before one can fully realize their power as a shaman, they must give up control. The need for control, I feel, is purely a mechanism of Ego.

I later read Rosemary Altea's The Eagle and the Rose
I was fasinated by her story. She now lives in the New
England area where I believe she was left a rather large
estate form a client. Fear is one of life's enemies

chi_solas wrote:salman, as I read your response
to Andy and read what Andy had
written. I was seeing how the
alternative of visualize came
into the image. My thought was
that for me the image needs to
be a positive image. One that I
had with my parents spirit. was
a full image.

image, in the continued corollary of metaphor discussed by Andy, is a metaphor of vision, and futher a metaphor of our knowledge otbtained from our faculty of seeing the things...

you would agree that during meditation we normally start with repeating the same mind process that was earlier used by our mind in obtaining the knowledge of the object of meditation... if we are meditating on a physical object, the meditation process will start by 'visualizing' that object... but why? probably since our doorway of knowledge about that ojbect had been the sense of sight...

arguably, if we are going to meditate on a smell, or on some sound, we will not 'visualize' that smell or sound, rather will try to create a pesudo-halo of that feeling by triggering our mind process attached with sensing smell or hearing sound....

what i want to say here, is that this is only the start of meditation... as we go along, and our process deepens, we gradually disasscoiate ourselves with the metaphors of visualizing, of smelling, of hearing, etc. and try to land direct on the 'substance' of the object we were meditating upon, without inviting the (now-)psuedo senses involved with that object....


as the mediation goes along, and deepens, we acquire perception of the object we were meditating, and that perception is not just limited to the knowledge we had obtained earlier through our physical senses....

when we visualize, going forward on this thread, we recall the image into our meditation, and when the meditation deepens, we achieve enhanced perception that is not limited to visual or image, rather extends to the 'existence' of our ojbect of meditation.... here we strike at a very strange conclusion... that things do exist even otherwise than our daily knowledge permits us to feel about their existence...

it might be a big statement, but honestly speaking, i find it working...

chi_solas wrote:
The other image was
seeing myself healed as I moved
through my journey. I had a friend
tell me that those were shamanic
experiences. At that time I was
searching for healing and looking
at different styles. I always felt
the fear of entering the shamanic
world and not being in control

interesting!

once i sought advice from Wayne that when i meditate i feel the 'fear' of losing my existence (better saying, my identity)... this was springing from my experience those days that meditating gives me a feeling of being 'dissolved'... and what Wayne advised he said, let go yourself off this fear, and let happen what happens, and very aptly, the fear vanished on its own....

i completely second Andy when he says that when we try to be in control, we are again applying our mind process, and in a way we are coming in our own way of losing the grips of physical/rational mind....

fear is a smart play of our mind its a patch up our mind applies to fill in the blanks when we are deficient of knowledge about something mysterious...

we all remember "just for today, dont fear" !!


it would be a good thing if we discuss 'fear' in a separate topic.... it would be a service to all on-board...


take care



salman