I did ayahuasca earlier this year and I had a revelation. There was a voice at the back of my head, it sounded like me so I assumed it was a more enlighted version of me. It spoke to me and called me out on all my BS. The voice revealed to me how judgemental I was, how rigid I was in my thinking, and how stunted I was actually in my spiritual growth.
I was floating on a cloud for a week and then promptly I crashed into reality. Many of the revelations faded away, like silver that has been left out, it lost its shine. Doubts, like rust that eats away insidiously, marred all my insights. Soon the whole experience was relegated to a psychedelic never to repeat exploit of a confused soul.
Fortunately for me spiritual endeavors are like the pandora’s box. Once opened you cannot return the contents. What ensued however was not favorable. Everything began to fall apart in my life. I lost my job, friendships including the one who had cornered me into doing ayahuasca fell apart, job interviews that looked promising failed to materialize, business ventures that I started bombed, everything I touched seemed to burn away into ashes.
Surprisingly I did not spiral into negativity, I have always been an overly optimistic person but the incidents in my life were enough to break the most positive soul. I had this strong intuition deep down that everything was working out for me. Jobless, lonely, and yet things were working out for me? I woke up every day laughing at the thought. The few friends and family I still had were worried for me. Was I suppressing a terrible pain? Would I eventually crash?
I smiled and often laughed at it all. Relax, it’s not as bad as it sounds, I’m really happy. There were days I’d repeat that so many times to different people that I said it with a laugh. That did not pacify anyone, obviously. What did get people to realize I was really ok was my ability to soothe them through their pains and struggles. Often people, even strangers who managed to get me to talk would leave remarking, I needed to hear that, never thought of it that way, thank you.
A deep knowing was unfolding inside me. Tears of gratitude would often well up for the simplest of acts, like a sunset, a sunrise, a bird singing, a floating feather…. I wish it was a sudden change so I would have noticed it but it was a slow inconspicuous shift in my personality. Like a thief who in the dead of the night steals simple modest items over the span of months. You suddenly wake up and realize your entire home has been emptied and you hadn’t noticed.
Then begins the worst nightmare of every true seeker, the gnawing questions. If you didn’t miss it, did you really ever need it? If you didn’t need it then why did you keep it? When did you get it? Was it given, gifted, or gotten as a staple? What other aspects of my life have I cluttered with baggage that isn’t mine or unwanted? Am I living my life as I truly want to or am I just fulfilling a role and a standard that society expects me to?
Undeniably, I got no clear answers just more questions. To say I am more confused and lost before I started to unravel all the layers that covered me would be too simple. Confused and lost pertain to the fact that you were not all that before but I was. I was just too distracted by the noise of living a busy life, chasing dreams that were not mine, doing things to please others, trying to be worthy and respectable.
I won’t lie, it is a scary journey, the unknown always is. Lossing everything that helped you make sense of this world like your identity, your ideologies, your belief systems (BS), your theories, your principles, your dreams, your ambitions, your reasoning, your very sense of right and wrong, good and bad, evil and divine. I was ok, not really but at least I didn’t fight for it, losing my identity, the majority of my belief systems, my concept of right and wrong, but evil and divine, was a roadblock. Brought up in a staunch catholic family where everything boiled down to the eternal fight between the devil and angels was a hard one to swallow. So deep-rooted was this fundamental construct that it served as the basis for my existence.
The devil and angels did not exist? I understood that good and bad were mere reflections of each other, what is good for someone might be bad for another. Surely there was a devil that caused tragedies in one’s life? Stumbling blocks on your spiritual endeavor were undoubtedly the shenanigans of a deceptive evil deity. Or wasn’t it?
I was shown to understand that the universe is a dance of energy and vibration, we are mere translators of it. Our belief systems form the filter that encodes that flowing energy into what we call reality. There are various names given to this process, law of attraction, law of vibration, law of resonance, Karma, fate, destiny, luck,…
Don’t believe me? Look around. Same world, same reality but some thrive and some starve. In the same family, living in the same city, and sometimes working in the same organization, one flourishes and one stagnates. Happens with twins, siblings. It is a known fact that the people who succeed aren’t necessarily the smartest, talented, gifted, or better looking. It isn’t hard work because no one works harder than a laborer, it isn’t your degree because there are people with PhDs who are unemployed, it has to be your filter.
At this point friends and family point to me and say, OK then you change your filter and manifest an abundant life. To be honest this stumped me at first. I tried to envision this abundant life, visualization is a way to temporarily change your filter, but I soon realized it didn’t light me up. Money, success, fame is not what I crave. Enlightenment, truth, freedom, joy, and happiness are what my soul longs for. Of which, save for enlightenment is what I already have.
Surely, you can manifest money, and if you don’t want it give it to us. That sounded like a fair deal. So I began to change my filter to draw in abundance in finance. That’s when surprisingly all the skeletons in my closet began to fall out. Old memories, past traumas, childhood hurts all began to surface. There was so much backstory that was associated with money that my soul had decided to shut it out of my life. I began to heal that unintegrated part of me and that’s when the devil came out to play.
It’s funny how you can be on a spiritual journey and fool yourself into living an imaginary life that is so blissful. The famed Shangrila is not just a myth it’s what you craft for yourself to hide away from the real soul work. I realized that outside of my spiritual paradise was a barren world infested with demons and all things evil. I had very cautiously placed everything ugly, scary and unthinkable there.
Slowly I stepped out to meet the devil the one I knew could not exist but there it was seething mad at being ignored. The only place I could do that was in the dream world. That is the only place we can integrate our traumas and confront our shadow self. As I stood and screamed in horror I shut my eyes. When I opened my eyes I saw a friend, a fierce blood-thirsty wolf who would defend me to death and then it dawned on me.
The devil, evil is our animal/beast version of our soul. Even the bible talks of 666 as the mark of the beast or the devil. The devil is when we who are of the divine light have fallen from our spirituality and are consumed by the desire to survive at the cost of others, people, animals, the earth. The stumblings blocks that our unenlightened self puts in our way stem from our desire to be safe, to possess, control, hoard, consume, manipulate. We need to overcome them in our quest to be united with the divine love that is God.
This whole journey on earth is to find our way back to the Divine Love, the cosmic vibration of peace and joy. So why do we “see” or experience the devil, evil eye, bad times? It’s the universe telling us to resolve and integrate the shadow self that we are choosing to disown or suppress. Own the devil? Embrace evil? Yes. The universal language of God is love. Do good to those who hurt you, bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek, resist not evil. Forgive, pray and bless.
The last chapter of spirituality is always integration. Many fail this lesson. I am struggling. The truth is we are all in this together. This is why highly spiritual civilizations fell to barbarians and warmongers. This is why there is a global spiritual movement. We cannot evolve alone, it has to be together. If there is an angel then there is a devil wreaking havoc somewhere. Only when the angel and devil embrace will true peace reign. Divided we fall, united we stand.
When there is a light that is a result of an action either fuel burning, electricity, stars, etc. it will die out and there will be darkness, eventually. However, when there is the light that is emanated from Divine energy it never extinguishes and there is no shadow that is cast. They say the devil and vampires cast no shadows as they are made of darkness themselves. We all have a devil inside us who believes that everything can be gained only by stealing from others. We need to embrace that darkness and find the root of that destructive trait, it usually stems from a strong need to be protected, loved, and happy.
If we work on that basic need to be safe, loved, and joyful we will find that the darkness merges into the light.
Musings of Antonia Rapheal 