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Peak Spiritual Experiences

Peak Spiritual Experiences are meant to open our minds, our hearts and our bodies to a new way of being. They can be found through shamanic journey, planned ceremony, fire walks, relationship with entheogens, meditation, fasting, exertion.. and sometimes we knocked over by them spontaneously. They are a flash in the pan of what life can be. They turn us inside out. They change us on a molecular level and give us the seeds we need to bring forth more positive realities into our everyday lives.

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Once we incorporate these experiences into our personal lives, we become rooted in a new reality filled with more comfort, or compassion, or creativity, or light and love, or simple honest communication and then we are able to reach again and go further. We are reaching, not always up, but sometimes down into the blessed divine of mother earth, or across, as we are able to extend our awareness to include more and more of the world that we live in.

For many of us, finding simple happiness as a baseline is the big trip. For others, finding our way out of our heads and into our hearts is the big trip. And then, expanding our embodied experience of compassion could be the lesson. There are many lessons. It may take many spiritual experiences over many years to incorporate these things, depending upon the amount of shadow in our lives that needs to be dissolved in order for us to interact with the world with clarity.

Unfortunately, many people use these experiences not to grow, but to avoid. When we are in a high level of life pain, our systems become consumed with survival. All we are literally able to focus is on is ourselves. We are blocked from being truly aware of those around. We are alone. And as is the Law of Energy, only alone can we find our way to the root of the pain, to understand it and learn to walk through it to the other side. Only alone do we find connection with the Compassionate Spirits and open ourselves to receive their love. Only alone can come to know ourselves, deep, to the bone. This is the journey we must go on to fulfill our spiritual destiny, if there is such a thing as destiny. It is called the Walk through the Valley of Death. It is the prerequisite to initiation on any serious spiritual path.

But for many, it is too hard, too scary, too shameful to walk the hard road. There is too much fear of what we would see in ourselves or what would need to change in order for us to return to integrity. There is too much pain and shame in our systems, so we run, looking for a way out. We run toward another spiritual peak experience, hoping it will take us away from our pain. We seek peak experience after peak experience, even creating sub-cultural memes around the benefits of such repeated experiences to encourage us to keep running. Underneath it all, we know that the real benefits will never come until we commit ourselves to the hard work it takes to digest and manifest what has already been shown to us in these experiences.

This phenomena is not any different than an addict clinging to the next high and honestly, is not any more fulfilling. Approaching peak spiritual experiences with a consumer attitude degrades the experience to being merely…mind-altering with the chance of something phenomenal happening, rather than being truly transcendent. Mind-altering does not necessarily mean good or even healing, just as “spiritual” does not necessarily mean safe or healing. I just means mind-altering.

This stepping out to avoid everything painful, it creates a form of soul loss and only makes the journey longer and more difficult. It not only removes us from the pain of the past but it also prevents us from being present with ourselves and those we love. In this way, it can actually create more destruction than we have already suffered. It takes away our traction on the road to finding life.

What needs to be present at these spiritual events in order for the experience to be healing is a component of honor between ourselves and the elements/spirits that are assisting us. There needs to be a trust in something greater, a giving over to guidance and a significant energy investment in intention, preparation and giving thanks and offerings. When the experience is over, we must do our homework. We go home, we process, we write, we do further meditations. We are honest with ourselves. We make changes in our lives. If we do not do this homework, we are not getting anywhere. We are dishonoring the gifts that have been given to us in our peak experience. We must take the spiritual insights we have received and manifest them here. Otherwise, what is the point? For some of us, if we repeatedly do not do our homework, we fail to have any more peak experiences because the spirits have nothing new to show us. We are not listening.

The big spiritual experiences are not the path. They are indicators on the path. Rather than using them to step out of ourselves, we need them to grow into ourselves. This is more thorough and complete, and it takes time. Most good things do. The prize we earn through the hard work is that we are able to find a true way out of our old pain. A permanent release and a building of character.

When we do this work, we become greater channels for love and healing. Peak spiritual experiences disorient us by rearranging our energy on many levels at once. Once we become acclimated, being in the presence of the same energies is not disorienting anymore, hence..our experiences are no longer what one might call peak. We turn around in a new role by becoming human channels for loving energy to reach the mundane world around us through our bodies, life’s choices, ways of being, listening skills and kindness.

The spiritual path is not an event. It is life’s walk. It is every step. It is not finding a life without obstacles. It is about learning how to dance with the obstacles. As we incorporate what we have experienced into our personal lives, the infinite small changes in our actions and awareness, like the petals on a lotus, entrance us and we become in love with our carnal existence, our human form, with all the struggles and the times in-between.

The spiritual path is nothing if not about love. We receive and we offer. These two together become a beautiful flow that nourishes self and others. We are here to grow, high and low, deep and wide, in a single point and all encompassing. There are no words. There are no words. There are no words but devotion.

by Tasara