Exploring the inner and outer reaches of myself and my life

Testimonial

My husband and I recently completed 10 Skype sessions with Lujan over six months. This was about seven months after we met Lujan in Cambodia to learn the Golden Lotus Series, our first Lo Ban Pai movement (separate testimonial). We’ve also been on a herbal detox protocol which Lujan’s amazing wife, Mizpah, has closely supervised over the last several months. This testimonial is about what it’s like working with both Lujan and Mizpah, because working with each of these awake, powerful, gentle beings has had a very powerful combined impact on my life and my practice.

The Skype sessions with Lujan went for an hour each, sometimes a bit longer, and Lujan usually started with a hearty “How Ya Doin’, What’s Up Guys?”. My husband and I would take turns to fill him in on what was going on, what we’d noticed, where we thought we might be stuck or confused. No topics were off-limits, from our work, personal, spiritual lives. Lujan seemed to travel along what each of us said, and receive a complete spectrum of information about what was actually unfolding in the dynamic we were describing. I never knew where we would arrive, and what revelations would come. I felt like a cosmonaut exploring the inner and outer reaches of myself, and my life, in ways that had not been accessible to me before. Some of it wasn’t pretty.

The process went something like this: Lujan’s method includes a mirroring technique (as I understand it) where I received the same pressure back on myself that I was surreptitiously applying. As an example, I made a joke at one point, and in it Lujan could see a depth of resentment and unkindness towards him and towards my husband that I was hiding. Having Lujan describe exactly what I was doing was excruciating because I didn’t want it to be true, or to be revealed, and I resisted. He knew it, and stayed with me in it for a long time until what I was doing fully landed in my heart. It was a painful and necessary revelation, and it changed me and is still changing me. I can see how much softer I am in my treatment of others, and how subtle undermining behaviors I thought were ok, even humorous, are in fact unkind and deeply wounding. I can also see much more readily when others are engaging in such behaviors with me, and am becoming faster, and more accurate in my communicating what I see and feel, to protect my personal integrity and power.

I wrote to Lujan after a particularly grueling session and thanked him for the sacred parenting he was doing. The experience of being loved so completely while being absolutely held accountable for my own behavior and patterning was unlike anything I had known before meeting Lujan. My husband tears up sometimes when he talks about Lujan, and credits him with saving our marriage. It got pretty serious there for a while and I learnt from Lujan that great love requires great accountability. I also learnt the skills to hold myself and my husband to the standard that love requires. Lujan taught me to be powerful by trusting and speaking the feelings arising on my body. He also gave me the vocabulary, and modeled a level of personal power and authority, that allowed no deviation from what was arising. I’d say that my husband and I saved our relationship, and that Lujan showed us how to create and nurture a relationship worth saving.

The sessions were also often incredibly enjoyable – just hanging out with Lujan is inspiring and funny because he laughs readily and often, and the insight he brings is so unburdening. There are no sacred cows and he is just so goddamn kind and loving. He is also a force that cannot be reckoned with (though I tried, at times). His aim is absolutely true.

About half way through the sessions with Lujan I started working with Mizpah too. Mostly I told myself initially I should follow the diet and detox protocols to support my husband in his health journey. I also have a chronic health challenge that I wanted to address, with pain levels that have led me to two bouts of surgery and the consumption of thousands of ibuprofen tablets over decades. It is still early days – I am about 4 months into it – but I can say that the detox experiences I am having are unique (in my experience) to this cleansing method. There are moments of clarity that feel psychedelic, especially during fasting, and the urge to purge the rest of my life has followed. The chronic illness seems at least in abeyance, and I know the cleansing process is a deep one that needs discipline and commitment. I am seeing a life take shape before my eyes – one of physical ease and confidence.

My Lo Ban Pai practice progresses slowly after about 16 months of first learning it and doing it daily (though sometimes we take Saturday off). Recently after doing the Golden Lotus Series, and then sitting and visualising a ball of energy in my hands on my lap, I had my first experience of seeing something in front of me (other than the odd spark of light), and about the size of a softball or smaller. I don’t know if it was holographic. The background darkened almost as though someone had dimmed the lights, and also became pixelated. I saw translucent balls of white light floating from above and beside me into my direct visual field and then dropping slowly and deliberately into what must be my energy field. I saw a couple of dark ones too, but mostly they were clear white. They were about 30 cm in front of my face as they arrived.

My inner state was not extraordinarily calm or present that this should happen. I was tending to my practice diligently, that is true. We had Lujan’s playlist on, and I was wearing forearm warmers. The experience was one of being nourished in ways I cannot explain. It was so gentle, they moved so gently, in the manner of the sign from Eowah in the movie Avatar. I sense that being on a raw detox with Mizpah’s herbs (and guidance) over the last 4-5 months has been a critical part in allowing me to be sensitive enough to receive such a gift. I wondered if it was just bacteria over my eyeballs floating around – but let this go because the emotional experience was deeply healing, and the movements of these light balls were so deliberate. I felt exquisitely, quietly, cared for and nourished. I am so hungry for more! Tending to this hunger is as much a part of my practice right now as being present with the practice itself.

Lujan wanted us to be able to continue the heart-felt communication he taught us, even when he wasn’t with us on Skype. We are doing so, while making mistakes and learning. Mizpah has offered us very carefully tailored advice about detoxing our bodies, and has been incredibly generous with her time and expertise. We have several local health practitioner friends who were concerned about the diet changes we were making, and are now intrigued at our very obvious results.

Since I started working with Lujan and then Mizpah I’ve lost about ten kilos, and have a level of strength, agility and fitness that I had been subtly allowing to weaken (believing that getting fatter was just a natural part of aging). I look and feel great – a common reaction from friends is “you look amazing, are you still on that raw diet?”. I only wash my clothes because they start to look a bit grungy, rather than because my diet makes them stink. The ripple effect in my life is enormous, and could be the subject of a whole other post: a new job, a new city, new living arrangements, deepening friendships. Suffice to say that I now feel I will continue to get stronger, clearer, kinder and more authentically myself as I deepen in this practice and approach.

To Lujan and Mizpah, you are shining lights in this dark age – I thank you both with all my heart for helping me come alive.

Marianne
Australia