Because in the end Shamanism is about asking questions often when you are alone in the wilderness the last 100,000 years or more for humankind.
For example, if you study the History of Religion and how all religions started, they all evolved out of local shamanistic traditions. People might want to tell you something different but if you make a real study of it at a university or even a graduate student level literally every religion sprang up through shamanism. And if you are also serious literally all sciences had their roots in the questions asked by shamans then priests and then ministers for over 100,000 years.
So, what was this all about and what is it all about today? It is about survival on all levels: Physical, mental, spiritual and psychological.
However, I think after studying both religions and Native American Shamanism and Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism and East India Swami religious ideas and practices I can share what is still useful about a shamanic attitude towards life.
The word (Self Unfoldment) comes to mind. Though a shamanistic path can be very wild and for some and dangerous (especially for people who try to use hallucinogens in regard to shamanism), basically being a responsible person who is compassionate towards oneself and others is the most useful and least likely to result in your death or the deaths of others (just like in any other religious practices) worldwide.
If you watch movies like "Castaway" with Tom Hanks:
Cast Away (2000) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/
Rating: 7.6/10 - 262,168 votes
Directed
by Robert Zemeckis. With Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Paul Sanchez, Lari
White. A FedEx executive must transform himself physically and
emotionally to ...
You see a modern day man forced to become a shamanistic thinker in order to survive his ordeal. By the time he rescues himself and almost dies trying he has become everything that a shaman naturally becomes to survive. And he is changed by this experience permanently in ways he might not expect to have been even after rescuing himself enough to be rescued by a cargo ship back to the U.S.
Little Big Man (1970) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt0065988/
Rating: 7.6/10 - 21,685 votes
Directed by Arthur Penn. With Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George
"Little Big man" demonstrates how an American Pioneer comes into contact with Native American Tribes who practice shamanistic religions on the great plains during the mid to late 1800s. I met people even in the 1950s when I was a little child who had come across the U.S. in a covered wagon before there were gasoline or diesel engines yet as well as people who came across the U.S. to Washington, Oregon and California by Train in the late 1800s.
Avatar (2009) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/Rating: 7.9/10 - 623,028 votesDirected by James Cameron. With Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez. A paraplegic Marine dispatched to the moon ...
Avatar (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction action film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, ...
Avatar" even though it is a science fiction film also depicts theoretical shamanism quite effectively on another planet.Brother Bear (2003) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt0328880/Rating: 6.6/10 - 42,178 votesDirected by Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker. With Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, Jason Raize. When a young Inuit hunter needlessly kills a bear, ...
Brother Bear - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_BearBrother Bear is a 2003 American animated adventure drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 44th ...
Brother Bear even though it is a cartoon depicts this kind of consciousness as well even though it is a Disney Cartoon.Pocahontas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocahontasPocahontas (born Matoaka, and later known as Rebecca Rolfe, c. 1595 – March 1617) was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial ...
Pocahontas (1995) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/Rating: 6.3/10 - 69,595 votesDirected by Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg. With Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt, Christian Bale, Irene Bedard. An English soldier and the daughter of an Algonquin chief ...Pocahontas also demonstrates this kind of consciousness in a young woman who is a princess of a Native American Tribe on the East Coast of the U.S.There are many other good movies and books to see or read that could be helpful to you in better understanding all this if you want to.
My connection to native american Shamanism came for me later in life than for some. Though I had seen a lot of movies about stuff like this with Robert Redford and others I don't remember actually starting to meet native American Medicine men or women until my early thirties in the Mt. Shasta and Northern California and Southern Oregon area.
My second wife who I met in 1980 had been to a Native American Spiritual encampment and had been reasonable well accepted as a white person. (Some native Americans believe if you aren't of their tribe or religion you shouldn't be accepted much like if you aren't born into Hinduism you aren't accepted in India either.
However, just like with white and all other people there are many different groups within Native Americans who believe various different things. So, the most likely people to accept you are what I might call those who practice Christianity alongside of Native American Spirituality. In otherwords the Native Americans most likely to accept white people into their religious practices (or any race) likely see themselves as Christians too in addition to their Native American Spiritual traditions.
Then there are the wild shamans who go out without any tradition and practice something for themselves that they just make up as they go along. Sometimes this works and sometimes people just get crazy just like in any spiritual or religious practice. Basically, if someone goes into this as an unbalanced person they might still be unbalanced coming out of it. However, for some people who are very confused are completely saved by this experience of self unfoldment and become a blessing to themselves and all others who know or see them.
It mostly depends upon motivation. If your motivation is to survive whatever comes and to be helpful to yourselves and others a good outcome can result. But, if your intentions are too self centered beyond just finding a way to survive then it is debatable as to the outcome long term or short term will be.
For me personally, it became a major part of my spiritual unfoldment process that started in 1980 when I was 32 and led to meeting many many Native American Medicine men and Before and after that many Tibetan Lamas in the U.S. India and Nepal. This moved me forwards spontaneously to where God wanted me to be and to here to be writing this for you now. So, for me, this has been a very good thing in my life along with Tibetan Buddhism since I was 32.
No comments:
Post a Comment