The Radicalization of the Human Heart

The Radicalization Of The Human Heart

Banaras, India Looking down onto the bathing ghats from my tower room overlooking the Ganges I am reminded of ants; how we humans are like ants, programmed for feeding and fornicating, working as robots for a specified number of days, fitting into a mechanized existence that has been engineered to function smoothly with few exceptions, and then dying off to be replaced by another duplicate. In every ant colony though there are always a few exceptions, always a few that run around the outskirts crazily ignoring the norms of good ant conduct and exploring the parameters of their existence in their own fashion.
In the human world of men and women those few crazies would be the philosophers, shamans, artists, poets and others that have voyaged deep into their interior, often with the assistance of plant guides or teachers. This is very common in India, a country of over a billion people that is not only agricultural but one that values the interior life over any other and plant guides of every kind abound in this land of continual seeking after knowledge and questing for release or enlightenment.
On every corner, in every bazaar or small market place there are shops selling herbal remedies and magic elixirs. Some of these plants are for indigestion, intestinal worms, skin problems, colic, cancer, some for inducing sleep while others wake up the organism to new perceptions and dimensions. This new awareness evokes new kinds of thinking that some power structures believe to be detrimental to their existence. Like a deadly virus that must be destroyed before it destroys everything it touches, many governments institute draconian laws to prevent their subjects from exploring and cultivating their interior life for fear that it would change the status quo and thus make those in power obsolete.
In India lip service is paid to those governments that institute such laws since aid is given or withheld according to arrests and amount of contraband confiscated but when you get down to the heart of the matter little is accomplished by this policy since practically everyone uses something to alter their consciousness. Meditation is of course that system that teaches us to be alive and awake to the present moment as do many of these plants when used as teachers or guides but the period of apprenticeship is much longer and requires a discipline that most people in the world do not have and especially those in the West whose time and energy is consumed by meeting the demands of their high standard of living which once committed to is difficult to abandon.
The West has always believed that the battle can only be won by the swift and the daring and that meek natures are losers, taking refuge in submission or flight. Indeed it has often been said that those who use certain substances are running away from reality and are looked down upon as weak or contemptible or mentally ill.
In the West the emphasis is on the material ends of life and religion is often thought of and practiced as a means of procuring not only worldly prosperity but a place in heaven as well. It is dynamic, ambitious and adventurous, imbued with courage and a social consciousness that knows no bounds. The Hindus and the Chinese on the other hand are of a quietist nature, more interested in making the best of a painful life full of hardship and poverty. “All is suffering,” as the Buddha said and the primary goal of the Hindu is to be released from the world of samsara, the wheel of life and death, and not return again to painful mundane existence. For them the qualities of contentment, patience and endurance are those to be cultivated rather than ambition and the robust energy needed to conquer the social, political and economic worlds of samsara. Adhering to this path, this mood of detachment has enabled them to endure thousands of years of both man made and natural disasters. “To be gentle is to be invincible,” as Lao Tzu said. The West races into combat in the name of freedom while the East allows itself to be subjected in the name of peace. It seems that the West is of the head, the intellect, while the East is of the heart, the intuition. Might there be a way to bring these two divergent paths together?



These were my thoughts as the plane landed on the Big Island of Hawaii on my way to visit an old shaman friend that I had not seen for many years. Lowlands Everest, he was so called because he had lived for many years in the low lying tropical rain forests and jungles of South America, learning the ancient wisdom and medicinal preparations of the indigenous peoples. In his younger days he had climbed Mount Everest and rode with the nomadic tribesman of the Tibetan plateau learning their customs, their healing practices and remedies and now as a white haired old man he had retired to the Big Island to putter in his garden of exotic plants and offer his knowledge to those that took the time and trouble to seek him out.
As a psychotherapist and student of philosophy I had been interested since the early 1960s in the altered states of consciousness and subsequent transformation of personality and life focus that many of these plants produced. In my own experiments I had undergone such radical changes of lifestyle, perceptions and philosophy of life that my whole direction and model of reality did a complete about face and I had for all intents and purposes been “reborn.” This rebirth had prompted me to move to Asia where I could be in daily contact with those non-ordinary states of reality induced by a sacred or spiritual way of life. In Asia the spiritual is the ordinary for there is an ancient awareness that all of life is connected and there is something more than the world view of the western materialist who values only what he recognizes with the senses.
Science cannot satisfy the needs of the soul nor can dogma meet the needs of the intellect. Truth is opposed to dogma and tradition for both deny the mystic state, some even looking upon it as a psychopathic condition rather then a condition in which we are in contact with another dimension of eternal reality.
The Western Church looks upon the mystical experiences that have been induced by substances as false, of the devil, counterfeit, a questionable figment of the subjective mind. Then so would meditation, fasting, wearing a hair shirt as well as saying ten thousand hail Marys’ or chanting om mani padme hum a zillion times if we follow that line of reasoning. All of these are devices to flick the switch, and when the light is turned on we see clearly. Birth is coming out of the dark womb into light of day. Rebirth is coming out of the dark shadows of ignorance into light. Plato says that if we want a life of immortality then our lives must be centered on truth, goodness and beauty and our soul must be turned around if the light is going to shine upon it. And that can only happen with rebirth, with conversion, with a transformation of the heart and soul. A radical transformation and not just an extension or continuation of the same old self.
We strain for perfection like the flower strains toward the sunlight. The Upanisads say when the vision is attained all duality comes to an end. Then there is just God, love and light which is enlightenment. The Christians call it salvation, some call it moksha, I call it clarity. It can come by many means, it can come through grace… it is all grace anyway.
Lowlands, the Ancient One, met me at the small airport nestled in the shadow of the big volcano. He was dressed in old jeans and tee shirt and his long white hair fell all the way down his back. He drove an old beat-up pickup. His house was such a strange dwelling it would be difficult to describe but the interior was large and roomy with a picture window looking out onto the Pacific. Rare books on medicinal plants and remedies lined the walls and murtis, statues of various deities collected on his travels, filled the nooks and crannies. Rattles, drums and other shamanic paraphernalia were scattered about. A perfect place to flick the switch.
I drank a small cup of a vile tasting jungle concoction and laid on the floor. Why was I doing this? What was my intention? What did I want to explore? Waves of nausea pulsated through me, I retched, leaned over into the bowl threw up what seemed to be gallons of food and green bile. Looking into the bowl I saw nothing, empty, all my psychic garbage I had been holding onto for years. I laid back, clean, pure, refreshed, an electrical charge of incredible energy coursing through my cells, my body and brain. Soon wonderful visions appeared and I became aware of the antediluvian slime that I crawled out of millions of years ago. My hands had turned into amphibious claws and my body was covered with scales, and that was okay as I lay and pondered the deep things of life: love, God, relationships and death. Letting go was the message, loud and clear, let go of all emotional attachments, the rebellious ego, they are all excess baggage that blocks the light, clinging blocks the light, letting go lets it in. Illumination transforms everything; body, mind, heart and soul. Everybody’s birth right is to be clear and live in the light. And the shaman is the midwife, he assists us in our rebirth, guides us along the path so we don’t fall into the abyss, or if we do he’s there to help us climb out.
Low melodious chanting crept into my consciousness and the rattle of a gourd filled the night air and the heavy scent of jasmine wafted in from through the open window. The Ancient One and his assistant were leading me out of the primal ooz into another dimension and I followed the rhythms that took me over mountains and through jungles, roaring through the seasons, dropping me into bejeweled lakes that kaleidoscopically sparkled with the luminosity of pulsating diamonds, rubies and sapphires so brilliant in their multicolored illuminations I had to close my eyes for fear of being blinded, swimming with giant serpents and alligators with no fear for I too was strong and scaly and from the primeval depths and was one with them,
When I felt that I was losing my center the Ancient One was there with his hand on my head singing softly the songs of the spirits that have become his healing allies or chanting quietly into my ear, intention, intention, back to my intention, why was I here? To examine my body, to connect with my lungs on a cellular level, to swim in the black tar, the detritus of forty years of tobacco and marijuana smoke, let go, with crystal clear clarity I was being told to let go or death was soon to visit, let go, let go and move on. The women I had been with for fifteen years, a beautiful, tempestuous, self destructive woman filled with deceit, betrayal and violence. Let go and move on, it was over, you did your best, she was from another world, don’t hang on, the woman, the gold, the land, it had no meaning, no intrinsic value and all destined to disintegrate as all compounded things return to the stuff of the universe, atom, energy, to be reformed again, reshaped into new life. Rebirth.
That’s what had happened in that Hawaiian temple of transmutation. My cells were washed clean by the invisible hand of the Divine through the medium of the bitter medicine and my internal physician who knew exactly where the sickness was. I could see the process in my mind’s eye as the mitochondria, those microscopic structures that provide energy to the cells, were being cleansed of a lifetime of buildup just as the terminals on a car battery need cleaning when they become corroded. With clean terminals better communication that controls and regulates electrical charges for optimum function results, both in the car and in the body-brain complex. The receptors react to substances produced in the body as well as substances taken into the body, selectively allowing them to enter or leave the cells. The cells have a favorable response to this South American jungle juice as the reactions that take place in the receptors have altered their responses in a positive manner.. Within the cell’s cytoplasm there are structures that use and transform energy in carrying out the cells functions. Also contained within the cell is the nucleus which contains the DNA or genetic material. In the 60s during the LSD paranoia the government claimed that its use destroyed chromosomes. This was never proven and the claims were eventually shelved. It now appears that the chromosomal configurations were either rearranged to their original configuration, before they were corrupted by millions of years of conditioning, or mutated up the evolutionary ladder. Whatever way one looks at it a radical change in the organism has taken place that allows for a process of de-conditioning and thus rebirth.
This bitter potion, this vine of the soul, has been given us so we may heal that which no other physician is capable of. All of the learned doctors, all of the remedies, the thousands upon thousands of expensive pharmaceuticals that the multi-national drug companies churn out, none of these can heal that deep existential sickness that we all suffer from, the emptiness we run away from, the fear of our loneliness and of our impending death, the anger and frustration of our slavery to a way of life that is not beautiful or true
But the visionary vine changes all that. Suddenly there is a serenity that has never before been experienced, a feeling of fullness, of completion, of a richness that embraces us and everything around us totally. Suddenly there is no more a me, it is us that recognizes and accepts the oneness of all life, the inter-connectedness with all that lives and that knowledge gives us a freedom that allows a new life to start consciously growing within.
All of us are suffering with dissatisfaction, anxiety and any of a number of other afflictive emotions that the Buddhists call delusions. The beginning of life is suffering as we fight out way out of the birth canal and continues throughout our lives until the very end that is marked with sickness, old age and finally death. All of this suffering is rooted in the mind so if there is to be healing it must start with the mind. To journey into the mind is what meditation is about, of identifying and ridding ourselves of negative states of mind and enhancing the positive states of mind. Delusions are states of mind that separate us from each other and the causative factor of conflicts in relationships and society, the them and us duality that creates division and dissension not only in our own community but in the world at large.
Mind is not something that one can hold. Mind is the unfolding of thought and as such is material since it comes from the brain, that blob of grey matter from whence comes our thoughts, memories, beliefs, behaviors and moods and coordinates the abilities of the senses. Our nervous system contains at least 100 billion nerve cells that run throughout the whole body like strings making connections with the brain. The jungle medicine, the vine of the soul, allows us to cut through all of those delusions or states of mind, the duality of subject and object that separates us not just from one another but from all of nature; trees, birds, the oceans, mountains, the environment, all of which is a part of us as well. How it does this extraordinary manoeuvre we’re still not certain but the fact remains that it does.
The next morning after our session the Ancient One drove us to the beach on the other side of the island. It was a day of total serenity devoid even of the desire for a morning cup of coffee. I sat on the beach for about four hours while the maestro went body surfing. I sat as still as a stone reflecting on the existence of the multiple worlds that I had visited and the reality of the spirit beings that had led me though those fantastic realms of consciousness. I was in a state of total completion and a sense of rapture pervaded my whole being, something that I had never experienced before. Looking at the sea I could feel the tides within me, rising and falling, inhalation, exhalation, the bellows of life and death, flowing in and out, the cosmic waves of creation.
How grateful I was for this experience to visit those hidden worlds of consciousness. With humble gratitude I thanked the Ancient One for his wisdom and his guidance and his allies and for those plant teachers that opened the hidden door and showed me the way into the parallel forest of my mind and nervous system.
As the time approached for me to return to the world the question in my mind was not so much my capability of maintaining my rapture, my sense of completion, for I knew that would probably fade over time, but the ability to integrate what I learned into my everyday life.
“There is nothing to integrate,” the Ancient One said, “A transformation has already taken place and it will remain.”
Rapture, euphoria are words that cover a multitude of mental and emotional states from alcohol and drug intoxication, the pain inducing practices of the masochist, to demonic possession and the divine raptures of Plotinus and innumerable Christian and Hindu mystics. What I experienced after the wild excitement and intensely ecstatic ride through the antediluvian swamps of my unconscious netherworld and after the symbolic purge of my past and lower life was more akin to that “peace that passeth undestanding,” that state of contemplative rapture reminiscent of the mystics of old. I did not pass beyond my self but passed into a state that was more myself, into a cool, clear sighted reality that infused my with light and understanding. When the intensity of the light dies out, which I knew it would eventually, I would once again stand alone before the altar of the mystery of my own life. But now I had been washed clean and given a fresh start, a necessary prerequisite for a complete and permanent penetration of the light into my consciousness.

I returned to my home on the banks of the Ganges, to Banaras, the sacred city of the Hindus and repository of it’s five thousand year old culture and temple of Indian philosophic wisdom. Of its many systems of thought the one doctrine that runs through all of them, like a string though a necklace of beads, is the belief that the human soul is uncreated, deathless and absolutely real. Throughout it’s history this intangible mystery has haunted her thinkers in the never ceasing effort to understand and to put that understanding into practice. For them philosophy is sophistry if its function is not for the guidance of action and the ordering of life for when philosophy is alive and thriving it cannot be remote from the people and their deep concerns of birth and death and the constant suffering that continues thoughout. Philosophy, when carried to it’s logical conclusion, becomes religion when tested and tempered by the fires of life. Not dogma, or those creeds anxious to save the world, but the recognition of the one cosmic mind, the creative spirit whose dance was the dance of creation, whose dance sustains us and whose dance will eventually destroy us if the human heart is not radicalized by peace, love and light.