Читать книгу Reality Is Just an Illusion - Chuck Sr. Coburn - Страница 8

Spiritual leaders and philosophers point out that since each of us interprets individual events differently, based on personal past physical experiences, we often assume inconsistent viewpoints, seldom agreeing on the nature of what we have encountered or observed. However, when we dream or meditate, we touch higher-dimension reality, where lack and limitation do not exist and everything is exactly how we perceive or experience it.

Take a moment to reflect on what happens when we dream. All we need to do is focus on a specific thought and it immediately becomes our experience. There are fewer rules in this less limiting consciousness. We can fly, be a larger-than-life hero, eat an unlimited amount of fattening foods, and accomplish other tasks that are equally as impossible in three-dimensional physical reality, then blend that understanding with our individual awareness.

This higher spiritual dimension is the next step up in the progression of consciousness, and the only requirement to attain it is believing that it is possible. After all, doesn't the Bible tell us: "Seek and ye shall find?" If that is not sufficient authority, how about Peter Pan, who simply tells us to believe?

So here I was, sitting in what our Ecuadorian guide loosely referred to as a "lodge," waiting for my wife to return from a day­ hike in the jungle where she was forging rivers and climbing mountains, seeking her vision quest.

Our leader had described the physical requirements of the day's hike and it sounded a bit more dangerous than what had been presented in the brochure. The mere fact that I was in the jungle at all was evidence that I was confronting many of my basic fears, but I wasn't ready to take it that far. I decided to remain behind with others from our group of sixteen who had expressed similar variations on my theme.

What if I broke my leg or had a heart attack or something? How might I be able to survive, far removed from modern science and excessively expensive hospitals? Or worse, what if I was attacked by a giant anaconda? And how, in the first place, had I gotten talked into traveling on this scary venture into a foreign wilderness so many cultures removed from my own?

My vision quest had occurred several years prior when I—along with a group of equally out of shape, middle-aged male companions—spent three days alone in the California Sierra Nevada mountains. We were really "out there"—no refrigerator stocked with cold beer, no snack foods, no up-to-the-minute football scores. Following a communal sweat lodge ceremony during which we confessed our individual fears about being alone . . . in the wilds . . . in the dark . . . we created individual campsites at a distance of at least a half-hour journey from each other.

I insisted on sleeping in a tent rather than out in the open since I was operating under the assumption that if I couldn't see the scary things I knew were out to get me, they might not be there. Although we were fasting, we couldn't be sure that the collective wild kingdom had agreed to the same rules. So, even though we were each on our own, we agreed to create a designated clearing where we would leave daily evidence of our survival, assuring one another that no one had been devoured by some sort of man-eating forest creature.

The challenges of the Sierra trip paled by comparison to my current location in this remote part of the rain forest. We were visiting tribes who, until recently, settled their differences by removing their opponents' heads. John Perkins, the leader of our little expedition, repeatedly assured us that they don't do that anymore . . . or at least not often. In any case, I was more focused on potential encounters with snakes than the possibility of losing a portion of my body to the locals.

John had written a book, The World Is As You Dream It (Destiny Books, 1994), that had caught Shirl's eye six months before. Being a self-taught dream counselor, and always seeking a new adventure, she had somehow convinced me that this was the next exotic place we should visit in our pursuit of esoteric knowledge. Since John's credentials were impressive and his shaman contacts unique, I reluctantly agreed to go along.