1. Death is an illusion.

2. The idea that causes produce effects is illusion.

3. Time is non-ens: nonexistent, a creation of mind.

4. Every individual lives alone in a universe of one.

5. Universes are created from beginning to end and destroyed from beginning to end instantaneously, in every moment of consciousness.

6. Multiple moments of consciousness (and thus universes) arise and pass away in each second of perceived time.

7. Each individual perceives the apparent passage of time differently. (Einstein, 1915.)

8. Observer is neither identical to, nor other than, that which is observed. Example: I see a tree. I am neither the same as, nor other than, the tree. If I were the same as the tree, how could I see it? If I were other than the tree, how could it arise?

There is a thought experiment which describes Mary, a scientist, who exists in a completely black-and-white world. However, she has devoted her entire life to studying the physical and scientific descriptions of color. Indeed she knows everything that can possibly be known about color. She knows all about photons, the spectrum of light, the different receptors of the eye, the optic nerve, the neural processes in the brain that generate imagery, etc. Yet she has no actual perceptual experience of color.

Then one day someone opens the door to Mary’s black and white world and she steps through to the other side, where the world is vibrant and rich with color.

Up until that moment, she was certain that she knew everything there was to know about color and would learn nothing new upon stepping through the door.

Did she?

I am my shaman’s legal advisor. He lives in Oregon with his partner on a compound where they perform ceremonies with the sacred tribal plant medicine 5 MEO DMT.

They travel around the country “carrying the medicine”—which is to say, being invited to someone’s home for the purpose of dosing a group of people with the medicine in a ceremonial setting.

They charge for this. The way it works is, someone (usually the owner of a piece of property that is fairly remote) organizes a ceremony and invites a handful—I’ve seen anywhere from ten to over 40–of like-minded people to take part.

We camp out, interact, break bread together and socialize. Mostly it’s a bunch of hippies, various social outcasts and dropouts, and the occasional converted square wannabe-hippie like me. The medicines offered are Bufo and Kambo. “Bufo” is 5 MEO DMT. Kambo is a purging agent, and participants are asked to provide their own vomit buckets. The use of cannabis is general at these gatherings.

My shaman was given the name Ramadasa by his teacher. Ramadasa means “worshipper of God” in Sanskrit. It’s a slightly different elucidation of the moniker Richard Alpert’s guru gave him in India in 1967: Ram Das.

Ramadasa charges a per person fee and specifies a minimum number of participants in order to cover his and his partner Kumari Kandam’s travel expenses from Oregon.

On this particular occasion, Ramadasa and Kumari flew into Chicago’s O’Hare International airport with a suitcase full of crystallized 5 MEO DMT, a natural extract of the venomous skin secretions of the Sonoran Desert Toad. It’s one of the most powerful psychedelics known to exist.

On this trip, the trouble started almost immediately when the minimum number of participants was not met and the organizer, Joe, had not been honest about it. Things got worse after Ramadasa learned that Joe had also padded the ceremony fees by a couple hundred bucks and pocketed the difference. (Editor’s note: This type of manipulation involving money completely taints a ceremony.)

Finally, to top everything off, Joe found a reason to stiff Ramadasa and Kumari out of an additional $400 worth of ceremony fees.

By the time I was consulted, this whole thing had gone as far as Ramadasa sending a message to Joe then immediately blocking him. Followed by Joe sending Ramadasa messages from a burner phone number. In the latest of Joe’s messages, he threatened to report Ramadasa and Kumari to the FAA for smuggling 5 MEO DMT aboard commercial flights.

Ramadasa wanted me to put my lawyer hat on and write a cease and desist letter signed by me, Mr. Esq., on a fancy letterhead, sent via Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested and all that sort of jazz. Which I can easily do and often did do back when I was still practicing law.

Okay, so what is really going on here? Could it possibly be a pissing contest between two men, neither of which wants to allow the other to have the last word? How best to proceed from the perspective of the law and the right thing to do?

This guy Joe had also reminded Ramadasa of several people he had hurt, as in put in the hospital. Ramadasa sent me a screen shot of a message in which Joe had texted, “I never told you how bad I am, but if you want to find out….”

[I’m thinking the medicine seems wasted on people like this, locked—hopelessly it seems—in mind states predominated by anger and ego: reactive, vindictive, and rage-filled.]

I needed to tell Ramadasa and Kumari that such a letter should not be sent. From a legal standpoint, whatever the guy may have already done is done. And frankly I don’t think FAA and TSA are all that concerned about people carrying stuff on planes unless it’s fentanyl or meth or something. Plus, hopefully they are way more concerned about terrorists than Toad Medicines.

But anyway, I got to thinking that Ramadasa wanted me to send that letter so that he could have the absolute final last word. And goddamnit my last word comes from my fucking lawyer! So fuck you! Or something like that in his mind.

That’s sort of the emotion. It needs to be noticed and laughed at and let go of immediately. Otherwise it will hook you.

I needed to help Ramadasa stay unhooked.

I told him the legal reason why no letter should be sent: because some people get riled up if they get a certified letter from a lawyer and start doing even crazier things. Let the sleeping dog lie. Let him have the last word.

What is the spiritual or psychological answer, which I did not share, mainly because he perceives himself to be my shaman and therefore on a higher spiritual level of understanding than I, and because of this he has no ears to hear anything I might say if he perceives it in any way as a spiritual teaching from me to him.

Pride. 🤷

But alas, even the truth should not be spoken unless it will bring some benefit to a being.

Ultimately what is seen is that these situations keep arising in our lives to give us yet another chance to learn spiritual lessons. In this case the lesson is about turning the other cheek and letting go of all that ego bullshit which is in the nature of anger and a desire to lash out and hurt or psychologically dominate another human being whom one perceives has wronged one.

The solution, again, is non-reactivity: don’t send a lawyer letter. Instead, send waves of love and joy.

This is the spiritual rationale.

Peace

P.S. Rewind to two weeks ago, before they ever left for Michigan. He told me they were about to leave, and two or three times I heard the voice of my mind telling me to help them with their travel expenses. So then I spontaneously Venmoed him $500. That was God, in her beauty and power and grace, shuffling Her money around and making him whole, plus a little bit.

Maybe that’s the way this whole thing is supposed to work.

P/o

An awakened being has gone beyond the Reality Limit—

And returned.

Upon returning, the awakened being may experience strong and frequently uncomfortable feelings of having become irretrievably lost in an infinite number of dimensions.

Irretrievably lost relative to what—relative to a world which never existed?

If all of this can be successfully navigated by a human mind, eventually the world returns in a new way, appearing as if illumined by a different, less harsh and all-pervading light.

First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is.

-Donovan, at https://youtu.be/lkLp9d7HKuA?si=XwOHAvuY76UzL8C-

In terms of spiritual evolution, the mass of humanity is still locked firmly into the age of personality—the desire realm. Thus, all manner of self-aggrandizement is sought. The acquisition of wealth is placed above every holy thing. Underlying the craving to acquire wealth is a desire to move higher in one’s perceived social status. Ultimately it is social status, rather than a desire for money in and of itself—that drives much of human behavior.

It just so happens that in this age of materialism social status and money are inextricably intertwined.

Truth is the best tool available to the human mind trapped in dualistic existence to get a glimpse in the general direction of “ultimate reality,” which is non-dual.

I’m using the term “Reality Limit” as a convenient method of discourse. But to name is to confine, to circumscribe, to define and limit. Reality Limit is unconfined, un-circumscribed, un-defined, and unlimited.

Reality Límit is not a creator-type God; it is something which is not some thing. It is so far removed from anything a human mind could possibly conceive, comprehend, or understand that it cannot even be said to share the same reality as human minds. Moreover, Reality Limit cannot be said to share the same reality as a “God” which could be conceived in or by a human mind.

Human beings communicate by thought converted to language. Reality Limit is beyond and prior to thought and language.

Any “God” which is perceived as an entity or a person possessing the will and power to create, destroy, judge, punish, love, etc. is a “God that is conceivable in or by a human mind.”

At the highest stages of samadhi where the human mind becomes absorbed completely and absolutely in or with or as this Super-reality—when that human mind is then re-seeded back into the world, the entire world will be perceived as false.

It can be a bit disconcerting. This may be why, at a certain point on a spiritual path, a guru or a teacher is recommended.

Why is the idea of a “truth” which is comprehensible to a human mind so close to the non-dual Reality Limit which is not able to be comprehended by the human mind?

It’s simple: Truth is one; lies are many.

An overlooked yet extremely profound spiritual practice is to stop lying about anything, under any circumstances, ever. Stop justifying dishonesty. Understand that there is no justification.

A commitment to stop all forms of dishonesty will go a long way toward creating the conditions for mental and emotional stability and peace. It is also a great complement to a meditation practice.

Peace

Story about trying to help a homeless guy on a trip to Denver a couple years ago: