by Alberto Villoldo Ph.D: Daily Life Practices in the World of the Shaman…
The shamans of the Andes know and serve a sacred dream, one that guides planets across the heavens and our human destiny here on Earth. You find your sacred dream by transforming three common dreams many of us are convinced are true and cannot seem to wake up from.
They are the dream of security, the dream of permanence, and the dream of love that is unconditional.
This is what you’ll find in my book, The Heart of the Shaman. The practices of the shaman will help you to forge a sacred dream for yourself. They will help you craft a destiny infused with courage, and driven by vision.
By choosing the three practices of the luminous warrior into your life, you will be able to weave your life with the threads that hold your highest destiny.
As you transform your personal dream, you participate in choosing a new vision for the world.
As you wake up, you can help others wake up.
TRUTH – THE FIRST GIVEAWAY
- Speak your truth. This the first practice because hardly anyone is willing to speak the truth anymore.
Do not be afraid that anything bad will happen to you if you speak your truth and live your truth.
You begin to whither when you do not live truthfully. Share your truth freely.
Your truth is in your heart. Do not look into the hearts of others for the truth.
Your truth is mysterious, hard to articulate, subtle. It insists that you perform acts of courage and deeds of valor that are sometimes scary.
Your truth encourages you to lead from vulnerability, to expose your soft underbelly, to take off the emotional armor.
It does not try to hide the unpolished faces of your crystal, or to put on Superman or Superwoman outfits. It is yielding yet courageous; soft yet unstoppable.
Your truth allows you to be who you are, take it or leave it.
It is refreshing.
When you speak your truth, recognize the power of the words. Remember that in the beginning was the word, and words hold enchantment.
Words become things.
The words you use to describe your reality become your reality.
Your truth is when your head, your heart, and your soul speak in a single voice.
The ultimate practice of truth is to dream of the possibilities before you weigh the odds against it succeeding.
This is what it means to live fearlessly within the sacred dream.
BEAUTY – THE SECOND GIVEAWAY
- See beauty everywhere. This is the second giveaway because hardly anyone sees the beauty for more than a fleeting instant.
Point out beauty to everyone. Let someone else explain why it will not last, why it is sure to fade away with age, why it’s not as important as that mess over there.
When you practice beauty, you have time in your life because beauty takes you into the timeless.
Beauty requires stillness, pausing, stopping in your track at the sight of the new blossom in the almond tree or by the cactus flower that only blossoms for one night.
Seeing beauty is not a passive act.
It is one of the most active and empowering deeds. By perceiving only beauty you are dreaming beauty into your creation.
When you see beauty above all else, you are transforming the map you carry of reality.
When your internal maps are filled with beauty, so is your outer world also infused with splendor.
As you practice beauty you get to taste infinity and touch your own mortality. You will have time to laugh, time to meditate, time to help others.
Bring beauty to every moment by smiling sincerely.
Give others your joy.
Give others the gift of seeing the beauty within them and within every situation.
The power of beauty is the ability to co-create with the Primordial Light. Beauty is the colors, the reality is the canvas, and you are the brush with which you splash the light of many shades and dream the world into being.
This is your sacred task, to complete creation with beauty, in beauty, from beauty.
Give your beauty freely unto others, and beauty will surround you until the end of your days.
LOVE – THE THIRD GIVEAWAY
- Love is the most powerful force in the universe. The only way to have more of everything you need is to give your love freely.
The universe always mirrors back to you everything that you offer it.
Once you transition the dream of love that is unconditional, you will be able to practice love without conditions, without a scoreboard.
Unconditional love is wild and fierce, still and tempestuous. It demands nothing yet requires everything.
It is easy to love those who love us. When you are able to love one who will never love you back, you will discover true power.
Who is that person who does not deserve your love?
Who is that loathsome human being you know or have heard of?
Can you find something to love about them? Simply as an exercise.
Love does not excuse the atrocities committed by a tyrant – just the opposite.
It allows us to heal that part of us that despises ourselves for being just like the villain.
Love is a state of being. You can be in love, and it is fun while it lasts. Or, you can become love.
When you become love, you immediately heal you’re your separation from the source of all things visible and invisible.
Love is the practice of paying it forward, without expecting anything in return.
PAYING IT FORWARD – THE FOURTH GIVEAWAY
- The true giveaway is when you practice paying it forward without expecting anything in return.
You can do anything if you give up your need to take credit for it. Even the slightest expectation of any kind of reward will ruin the act of love you are performing, of being absolutely grateful for no reason whatsoever.
Give freely, without attachment to whether you will receive your reward on Earth or in heaven.
Andean masters believe that once we understand that everything in the universe is made of light, including ourselves, then we can have an experience of luminosity.
And if you happen to have this experience toward the end of life, you not only take your consciousness with you beyond death., but you are able to combust the physical body and turn it into fuel for your journey to the highest realms.
Achieving this phoenix-like act requires the most profound understanding of the nature of energy.
Energy is who you are at your core. Your essence is pure energy, and the purest energy form of energy is light.
Yet as long as you believe that the energy you experience is your energy, that the light you feel is your light, you will continue to be trapped within your dream.
When you realize that there is no difference between your light and the Primordial Light, then you can move freely between the visible and the invisible world.
Our work as luminous warriors is to craft a new dream that will transform our world so we can birth a sustainable destiny for ourselves and for the Earth.
Do this by transforming the old dreams so you may live within the sacred one, dreaming a new world into being each moment.
