Spirituality, Spiritual Nature of Shamans
All throughout the world mankind has been engaged in various spiritual beliefs and practices to give meaning to the universe at large. When we study our history, we come to find that, our ancestors started burying their passed loved one as early as 500 000 years ago. Also in our recorded history we come to see that ancient Egyptian cultures placed much emphasis around spirituality, and have built awe inspiring structures to please their spiritual masters.
The word spirituality is a matter that concerns the spirit. And spirituality has been part of everyday life for our ancestors, and still is for many cultures around the world, who still choose to live as their forefathers. Spirit world co exists with physical world, although in western cultures the focus has shifted to science where science does not take into account of spirit world. Nonetheless spirituality is still widely practiced throughout the world. In eastern parts of the world where spirituality is concerned the belief is, the world is profoundly alive, and all that is in it has vital energy essence, and everything that exists lives and has consciousness.
The consciousness of spirits can integrate into human consciousness, and the soul – spirit of a living human is believed to become spirit when it dies, people who have past over becoming ancestor spirits or part of larger elemental spirit. And those who take spiritual world seriously often turns to spirit world for spiritual guidance, help and advice in times of uncertainty or trouble. And many cultures around the world have their spiritually advanced psychics that they consult; these spiritually knowledgeable psychics are called shamans, who can make the journey between spirit world and physical world. From Mongolia to Amazonian cultures to Africa shamanism is still widely practiced. And discoveries of prehistoric cave painting around the world suggest that earliest practitioners of spirituality in fact were shamans. And when we study the word shaman, it means that man or a woman who journeys in a trance, in its simplest meaning the words shaman is someone who has the ability for communicating with spirit world through entering a trance or alternative state of consciousness, therefore we can conclude shamans can be called psychics, in English language where the word psychic, meaning of the soul is widely used today. Although we cannot fully compare the word psychic to shamans, as for shamans must be initiated, into the spirit world, by means of psycho-spiritual disintegration, which leads to abandoning of former self and rebirth into a shamanic life with the spirit world. Most cultures in the past have had some form of spiritual tradition that recognized shamanistic interconnectedness of spirits; this may have been long ago, as the establishments of major world religions, also some cultures in middle Asia such as Siberia Mongolia Kazakhstan India or Africa still retain the remnants of shamanistic rituals.
Spiritual connections to higher realms can be useful for the practitioner, regardless of spiritual belief everyone can give meaning to the cosmos accordingly to their spiritual teachings, when we take the journey on our own psychic path way, one point to remember is the answers one seeks in within each heart to find out for self, to reach higher on spiritual understanding, as wisdom is developed by degrees. After all our spiritual thoughts and ambitions are debated inwards for our growth, when minds are open then much can be evaluated, then self realization is discovered, thus, the door of your hearts spiritual garden flourishes, this resulting, inner strengths replaces outer show.
In everyone’s spiritual journey there is much to discover yet all roads will lead the seeker to one place, which is their own heart. With every beat there is movement towards spiritual skies.
tolga savas
http://www.articlesbase.com/spirituality-articles/spirituality-spiritual-nature-of-shamans-721667.html
Have you found the meaning of life?
S o I dropped out, In elementary school I was the peaceful nerdy one, I just liked to go home and play computer games, school was not bad though, and I had pretty good relations with everybody, but as I got older (like by 3rd grade) I didn’t really have any close friends, but everyone liked me, I figured I was like the halflings of dungeons and dragons, everybody’s second best friend and it was a role I took on proudly! I never really did work outside of school, because I could pass the tests and I understood the lessons so I didn’t really understand why we were doing it, it just seemed like busy work. It would always come up when report cards came around and I would say I just forgot, I forgot my homework. I hated the feeling of guilt but it was never enough to actually get me to do the work. Luckily I had a teacher, in elementary school who saw a poem I wrote and was dumbfounded by it, and by the end of the year he just let me sit in back of the class and write stories for most of the day, he was the best teacher I ever had, just for his sheer audacity, I mean, wow looking back he really taught me a powerful lesson, that things could change, and people out there do understand.
By the time I got to high school I was mostly the same, I realized life was just a joke and very much into spirituality taoism, zen, and the oneness of all things, as far as I was concerned school was just a time to meditate and practice kindness and be around interesting people, my grades were bad because I did no homework and even though I passed most tests and did well in class it brought my grades down a lot. I didn’t care though, I had gotten used to the cycle, i didn’t need praise. I just tried to live in the moment. I took a yoga class which I really enjoyed, and also began smoking weed, which I was convinced was the path to enlightenment. I first really understood meditation after I got high for the first time, and realized the world is not at all what we think of it in everyday reality, my concepts of life were shattered, I felt like I had seen God, and that all the spiritual ideas I had come across where making sense in a whole new light, it seemed like secretly everyone knew these things and that the universe was just a conspiracy to get back to this point, I was kind of suprised when I came down, I thought I would be there forever. But I certained gained a renewed since of confidence in my approach. Yoga also helped, I was lucky to have a school which offered this class, the teacher saw I was a good student and even taught some kundalini yoga to me, which I did later alone and ended up having an experience equal to when I first got high and even more so because no drugs were involved. I spent a lot of time walking around in nature, trying to clear my mind of thoughts, and just see things as they really are. Some amazing things happened and I learned to really be in the moment, I had no real worries then, it was the happiest time of my life, everything made sense to me.
Around this time I met a really good friend of mine, I began skipping school because I realized it just wasn’t for me, and wasnt neccesarily the only way and I would smoke weed with friends because we had a pretty big stoner community or go off alone and meditate, make art, play guitar or study zen koans. Zen always had a very big appeal to me, because the masters were so aloof and yet so alive seeming, they just seemed like great people in every aspect, I wanted to be like them. But yeah, the friend, he had very hippie-ish parents who smoked weed and used to trip, and we ended up spending a lot of time together, he showed me books about Don Juan and talked about shamanism and I decided maybe that was the way for me, it seemed to resonate in me ,even though I wasn’t exactly sure was a shaman was. The books were very interesting though.
Finally one day, another friend randomly gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to trip acid with him and I said YES. I had been smoking weed for about a year and I read so much about acid and the insights that it gave and the beautiful experiences people had I wanted to experience it for myself. So we took it and once again, my foundations were shattered. I lay in bed that night unable to sleep observing the world that I lived in, how it all was a reflection of me, I saw how the universe was created, and everything referenced back to a singular point. I realized that anything was possible then, and that I shouldn’t let fear hold me back. So the next day I arose with a totally new outlook. I felt as if reborn, I felt like I had reached enlightenment for real. I was ready to start living life in my own way, regardless of others opinions.
I told my parents I wanted to drop out but they said no, so I kept going to school. Finally there was a break, my parents were angry because of bad grades again, and they had caught me smoking weed and since they had no experience with it themselves over reacted hugely and were
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woah dude, calm down with that info, itll take years to read.
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y’know……
i don’t think any of us will ever be able to find the meaning of life on our own…..
we are only capable of little things……we can’t find something so great relying on ourselves….
YOU NEED GOD MY FRIEND.
He will make you see for the first time things you never thought existed…. Don’t use your own means in finding out why you still live to this day….OUR WAYS ARE FUTILE and they will always lead us to dead ends…..
please don’t give up on your life….
we only get to live once.
*hugs*
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