Our Lives Are Not Our Own

This application for the 2017 Parallel Perception Scholarship was submitted by Anna.  If you would like to offer your support for Anna please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

“Our lives are not our own.” It’s a cliche from a Hollywood film, but also a cipher pointing toward an inescapable truth. In a more profound sense than simply affirming that we’re all interconnected – once we let go of the individualized self and its personal dramas, and allow a higher will (or the indescribable force) to flow through us, life unfolds as the cosmic game it is meant to be.

Six years ago, an old grandmother started appearing in my waking dreams. She had grayish-white braided hair, rough like the straw of autumn. I felt her words when she spoke, not with my ears but with my fingertips and the hair that stood in sparks on the back of my neck. She seemed indigenous in some way I couldn’t clearly discern, but I sensed she was older than our history, perhaps older than time. She has been my companion, along with three other guides, during these past years. All their messages revolve around the same axis because they evoke that silent knowing that resides in the heart.

When the visions first came to me, I resisted them – they didn’t conform to my self-image and my sense of self-importance. I was an unlikely aspirant for a mystic. I had been trained to be a serious intellectual, and considered myself an anarchist and activist. After a long journey of peeling back the layers of social domestication that had shaped me, I was left with very little of myself except the certainty of my visions. They resonated with that primal urge that had first called me to become an anarchist, but on a deeper level – of knowing that liberation isn’t won by removing external fetters but those of the mind, and that the goal of life’s adventure is self-determination and coming into one’s own power. But also that no one can truly be free as an island, as long as the rest of the world remains in chains.

On my journey of self-discovery, I was sometimes guided toward external teachings that amplified the insights I received in inner visions. The Toltec tradition became very dear to my heart, precisely because it’s a non-tradition revealed through the gnosis of dreaming, and because it denies masters, gurus, scriptures and rituals. The voice of Don Juan inspired me the most (despite the personal history of Castaneda); the purity of his message confirmed the most profound paradox I grappled with – the only authority is the sovereign individual, but true sovereignty is the disappearance of the individual, which summons eternity as a field of equanimity and openness.

The teachings of Lujan Matus came into my life through synchronicities that toppled like a line of dominoes. I was gifted with The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception and Whisperings of the Dragon, and I felt an instant affinity upon reading them.

I had been practicing, intuitively, some of the eight gates of dreaming awake, but skipping steps and going directly from the arteries to the energetic field of the heart; reading the process described by Lujan opened up a new perspective for me. I was also working with techniques for transmuting the cloaked inner child and corrupt witness… though I was not using these names. When reading Lujan, I had the feeling of an uncanny familiarity coupled with direct revelation – as if I’d been looking in an eye-test-machine through a lens that was blurry and doubled, and by a slight turn of a knob, suddenly everything aligned and came into clear focus.

The invitation to apply for the 2017 scholarship landed in my news-feed unexpectedly since I’m not subscribed. I decided to take the sign as a challenge thrown to me by an intent above my individual will. It comes at a point in my life when I am increasingly surrendering to the roll of the cosmic dice and trusting that what unfolds is for my own benefit even if I don’t know how. I see the gamble to come to this workshop as a challenge because I’ve been on a mostly internal journey, deliberately avoiding guidance from the outside. As a challenge, it’s also a provocation to leave behind what has become a comfort zone and a habit, and to make a leap into the unknown.

I am not applying to come to this workshop because I want to experience what I already know of Lujan Matus from the books. I expect it to be an adventure into the unknown, an encounter that has the possibility to transmit more than words and concepts, a direct communion with the essence of another being. I’m applying because I chose to follow a call that came as an external sign and a silent vibration I heard within myself. The call is to say yes to the indescribable force of intent, and to know that what it summons us toward always remains a mystery.

Anna
USA