New Article by José Stevens - Stopping the World-Not Doing

The world is racing, spinning at great speed, flying through space around the sun, and traveling with the sun at breakneck speed through the galaxy. Life on earth is moving fast as well with societal change and technological breakthroughs occurring daily. All this serves to speed up our minds trying to get a grip on the long list of challenges from handling e-mails to texting to keeping up on facebook and myriad other demands that require responses. The potential for becoming upset and reacting with irritation and impatience is very high and staying neutral has never been more challenging. Clearly these are not neutral times that we are living in. In addition everyday there is news that is almost sure to set us off emotionally in some manner or form. Syria, Egypt, climate change, the national debt, wall street, the unemployment rate, gun control or the lack thereof, and political stalemate are a few of the themes that are likely to cause us to react with despair, anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, or sadness. Every time we react in these ways we subtly contribute to a bad dream that we don’t believe we will wake up from. Any and all forms of resistance tend to reinforce the status quo. Sometimes when I point this out listeners (often warriors) react with frustration and anger. “Well what am I supposed to do, not care about anything?” they reply sarcastically. “If I don’t care, nothing will change. You have to fight for what you want, not be uninvolved or passive.” Since many people are built for action, this is a natural area of confusion. Being neutral does not mean being passive and withdrawn or uninvolved, it means you do nothing to contribute further to the problem. So this is a big area of misunderstanding and here perhaps I can help to clear up the confusion so you can understand the mechanics of transformation and go about ending the old bad dream more effectively.

Let us begin with an area that is certainly counter intuitive. As human beings we naturally look for explanations and reasons for how we feel. Here are some examples: “You make me happy.” “He made me angry.” “She made me sad.” “The news depressed me.” “That place scares me.” “That guy at work is making me crazy.” At first site these phrases seem natural and correct. Things happen to us and we react to them and that is the way it is. That’s life. The only thing is it is totally inaccurate according to a shamanic way of seeing things. The truth is that nothing can make us feel a certain way unless we already feel that way somewhere inside of us. “That guy makes me angry because I have anger in me. That woman made me sad because I have sadness in me. That place scares me because I have fear in me.” Like attracts like so we attract circumstances that match what we are carrying inside of us. The reason that annoying guy showed up in my life is a consequence of the fact that I carry annoyance in me. The reason that event happened that seemed to make me sad is because I had sadness in me. I attracted it to me through resonance. Therefore the first order of business is to see that and stop the process of blaming and instead take responsibility for everything that happens. This is the royal road to power. The alternative is the royal road to victimization. You can complain about this all you want, rant and rave and argue but it is all to no avail. This is the way it works for us humans and there is only one way out: Taking responsibility. So that nasty spouse that has driven you crazy. Better look again. Why did she arrive into your life? And that terrible job that is so frustrating to you. Your friend doesn’t have that job but you do. How did you end up with it and not your friend? And what about those global events that you seem to have no control over like a bunch of children being gassed in another country? Surely that is an outrage committed not by you. But it was in your dream of reality. Therefore we are all murderers, all abandoners, all betrayers, and all complete idiots. Yes, if we are human we are every one of these things, like it or not. On the other hand we are all heroes, heroines, courageous, brilliant, loving, extraordinary and more. Now you could fairly ask, “If my sister makes me angry and it was already in me, then how did it get in me in the first place?” Ah, now that is a good question.

The Worthy Opponent

In the shamanic understanding, life is a game developed by us for a number of purposes. If the source of the universe is a perfect being and this perfect being created us then we too are made in perfection. Then what are we doing in human bodies on an obscure planet struggling with disease, poverty, war, social problems, death, and a bunch of negative emotions. It does not make sense unless you buy into the theory that we are fallen sinners paying the piper for being bad. In the shamanic understanding that makes no sense because there is no power in that story, just a patriarchal god figure sending lightening bolts at us bad boys and girls and a devil chasing us around. No, that is a child’s explanation for this life, and not a very good one at that. The other explanation is that in the infinity of the grand mystery we have chosen to play a game of power and loss. This game teaches us many things and is so real appearing that it is totally believable. Like all good games it has ways to win and ways to lose and the fact that we can seem to lose big makes the game all the more compelling. We developed a parallel personality, a false one, an opponent that tries to keep us from winning at all costs. This opponent knows us from the inside out. It knows every weakness, every point of vulnerability, every trick in the book to seduce us and distract us from our goal of remembering who we are. It is an expert on every aspect of each one of us. This is what shamans call a worthy opponent, something powerful enough to give us a run for our money, an opponent that demands our respect. This is what shamans call the parasite, also known as ego and as the false personality. It was constructed by, who else, us. This is why the classic story of Frankenstein creating his monster is so compelling. The scientist Frankenstein making his monster is each one of us.

The worthy opponent that we created is a masterfully built robot with artificial intelligence. It borrows its intelligence from us. In fact it borrows everything from us including our chi, our life energy, our intent, and our motivation and it uses all this against us. It is the perfect opponent and it does not want the game we are playing to end because when it ends it’s role is finished and it disappears and that is exactly what is going to happen to it one day. So you could say it is highly motivated to defeat you over and over and over again. So successful is this false parasitical personality that most people do not have a clue how destructive it is to awareness. It is a world-class hypnotist and it will coopt anything and everything to maintain its dominance of the physical universe. It does so by introducing the sadness, the anger, the fear, and the long list of reactive emotions that then causes us to draw more of these things to us.

For centuries, this parasite has been able to convince people that the universe is an accident of nature conforming to real, fixed laws that cannot be transcended, even though the evidence is everywhere—according to quantum physicists as well as shamans—that this is simply not so. Although miraculous events happen every day, proving beyond doubt that these laws can be suspended, skeptics have managed to convince most of the scientific community that they are not valid. Physicians regularly ignore miracles of healing, while the media ignores one of the biggest anomalies of our time—crop circles. Scientists, especially historians and geologists, ignore the anomalies that do not fit into their theories. Religious organizations are dedicated to ignoring whatever does not fit their dogma.

The false personality convinces people of the existence of enemies, makes them believe that they must protect themselves against one another and must destroy the planet to save themselves from their greatest fears. Thus the false personality spreads its poisonous doctrine of paradox, pain, suffering, and death while trying to hide clues to the truth that all is one. No wonder so many people cannot find their goal. The false personality is busy creating distractions. What a worthy opponent it is!

Distraction as the Bait

Remote Healing

Each month, around the new and full moons, Jose, Lena or Anna leads a remote shamanic healing session. These approximately 30 minute sessions are designed to be experienced in a quiet, safe place free from distraction. Even if you cannot join live they can be very powerful, and always include a good clearing and beautiful icaros. Recording access is included for a short time afterwards. See the product description for dates and times.

Shop now

The false personality is the ego consciousness spoken of in Buddhism and alluded to as Satan by Christians, though it has never been a living entity, a devil. It is just a machine following a fixed set of laws governing machinery. The false personality is programmed to provide distraction. Everyone who has reared young children knows how successful distraction is when trying to get a child to stop crying or screaming. The favorite tool of the false personality for creating distraction is thought: endless thoughts explaining, comparing, judging, processing, analyzing, figuring, considering, denying, agreeing, arguing, blaming, identifying, and on and on. Humans have elevated thought to the golden throne and proclaimed it king. Yet thought can be a huge troublemaker when it is separated from its source, the higher mind that resides in the heart. When thought is divorced from the higher mind, it falls prey to fear.

The parasite wants to stay alive so it feeds on emotion and especially turbulent emotions associated with rage, sadness, terror, guilt, shame, jealousy, and so on. Therefore it is in its highest interest to provoke these emotional states in each one of us. The parasite wants us to react so it lobs grenades at us with regularity hoping we will react in one of the above named emotions. If we react the grenade goes off. If we do not react the grenade remains dormant and might go off later to try again or not. If we react the parasite is reinforced by the meal of emotion that it consumes and it becomes more powerful, we become weaker. If we do not react then it has nothing to eat and it starves and we eat its energy instead and become more powerful. At its root the game is very simple, eat or be eaten, but the ways it can be played are varied and limitless so it makes for a very compelling game.

Most lifetimes we end up losing the game and are eaten up. We are trying to score points by reaching our goal of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment, even joy and bliss. We hope to have happy and satisfying work, have abundance, marry well to our most desired partner and live happily ever after raising a beautiful family and earning respect from our communities, colleagues, and friends. The parasite continually lobs grenades at us in the forms of worries, concerns, fears, annoyances, irritations, obstacles and so on trying to deter us from our goals and usually succeeding very well. The game it is playing is bait and consume. Mostly we take the bait and veer off into conflicts, lawsuits, divorce, vendettas, entrapment, betrayals, losses, diseases, and addictions providing ample food for the parasite to consume. As we live we are weakened by this constant barrage until exhausted we die some miserable death from cancer, accident, murder, starvation, or suicide. Not a very pretty picture is it? Now if we just lived one lifetime like a gambler with one dollar to spend it is not a very interesting game because we would be out in a flash. Fortunately we designed the game to have multiple tries and each time we lose we learn a little bit about how to win. Eventually we learn enough to give the parasitical robot a run for its money. We learn to defeat our own monster and experience the joy of mastery having learned freshly the value of what we had before but may not have appreciated.

Stopping the World-Not Doing

So what is this strategy that we learn to defeat the false personality. To begin with it is the strategy of not reacting. The false personality attacks us in the middle of the night by throwing grenades of trouble at us. Here are some examples: 1. “That big bill is due and you don’t have the money to pay it. You will lose everything. You are such a loser.” 2. “That employee is stealing from you. He is going to wreck your business and you are too weak and wimpy to do anything about it.” 3. “That lump on your body is worrisome. Maybe it’s cancer. Uncle George died of cancer at your age. You should worry big time.” 4. That weird knock in the car’s engine is probably a huge problem. It’s going to cost you thousands of dollars you don’t have. You are in deep trouble.” 5. “Martha is probably having an affair. She came home late last night and she is ignoring you. She looked really guilty. She is a total bitch and you should hate her. Your marriage is over. You could never hold on to anybody anyway. You suck.”

You get the idea. These thoughts come unbidden. They just appear and your mind seizes on them and goes off on a series of concerns that leave you feeling anxious, depressed, and helpless or hopeless. They are grenades tossed at you so the parasite can eat your reactive emotions. The key is not to react. Instead you adopt a strategy of simple observing and responding with, “Oh. Is that so?” You do not judge the statement as right or wrong, good or bad. You do not respond by trying to fix the problem or change what is happening. You adopt a demeanor of neutrality like a marriage counselor who is listening to the couple’s complaints but not taking sides. You closely scrutinize your bodily sensations and notice the slightest tendency to react somewhere in your body. You observe with ruthless honesty any unnecessary thoughts, inappropriate emotion, habits, unnecessary tension. You relax your belly and then relax any area of the body that is tightening up. You are now practicing a shamanic technique called “Not Doing.” You are undoing anything that the parasite is trying to do to you. Yes, this is doing something but it is a minimum of action. If you succeed in not getting caught in reactivity you have successfully used a powerful shamanic practice call “Stopping the World.” You declare time out, no business as usual. You have stopped the ordinary world and are simply experiencing your essence presence in the face of this onslaught. The parasite quickly becomes bored and will leave since there is obviously going to be nothing to eat. It will be back. It will be back 10,000 times, but eventually it will not be back ever. That day is a day worth working toward. It was the day the Buddha declared victory under the Bodhi Tree. He sat and he sat and practiced Not Doing. He stopped the world again and again. He was ultimately able to declare his psyche a no parasite zone for good. Each one of us must do that eventually and the game ends.

There is ample opportunity to practice Not Doing and Stopping the World in your daily life. However if you want to practice more specifically you can so this several ways. You can deliberately watch a disturbing movie and practice Not Doing as you watch various scenes designed to get you to react. A second practice is to select a thrilling video game where you have to navigate an obstacle course and if you collide with something you die. My personal favorite is the popular Temple Run game that you can play on your smart phone. The challenge is to not tense up, relax the belly, and to make all your quick moves neutrally and in a calm way. You will go off the cliff, hit the embankment, get eaten by the gorilla chasing you, or hit the flame throwers with regularity and you get to watch the feelings of outrage or dismay and so on that rise up with each mistake. Little by little you will be able to play without any energy leak, without any feeding the parasite, without any drama. Does that mean it is no fun anymore? No. There is a great pleasure in being totally effective and navigating a course masterfully without tension. The same is true for the totality of our lives. Just because one is the Buddha doesn’t mean life is no fun anymore.

Tags:

José Stevens

José Luis Stevens, PhD is the president and co-founder (with wife Lena) of Power Path Seminars, an international school and consulting firm dedicated to the study and application of shamanism and indigenous wisdom to business and everyday life. José completed a ten-year apprenticeship with a Huichol (Wixarika) Maracame (Huichol shaman) in the Sierras of Central Mexico. In addition, he is studying with Shipibo shamans in the Peruvian Amazon and with Paqos (shamans) in the Andes in Peru. In 1983 he completed his doctoral dissertation at the California Institute of Integral Studies focusing on the interface between shamanism and western psychological counseling. Since then, he has studied cross-cultural shamanism around the world to distill the core elements of shamanic healing and practice. He is the author of twenty books and numerous articles including Encounters With Power, Awaken The Inner Shaman, The Power Path, Secrets of Shamanism, Transforming Your Dragons and How To Pray The Shaman’s Way.