The Beauty of Authenticity and Integrity

This application for the 2019 Parallel Perception Scholarship was submitted by Navid. This year the recipient will receive either attendance at the Gravity Series Workshop or participation in the Online Spiritual Guidance program. If you would like to offer your support for Navid please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

When I read Lujan’s book The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception for the first time I was struck by an energy that paralyzed me with joy and a sense of fear. I knew for sure that this was my life path and I wished that the book would never end.

The incidents that happened in my life caused me to see the world from a different perspective since I was a child. When I was eight years old I was encountered with a creature which later I found out it is called “Pan”. The creature cornered me with a deafening roar, standing right in front of me to devour my very being, to which I blacked out and came to my senses in my mother’s arms.

After that I started to have out of body experiences and lucid dreams, which enabled me to explore a different reality other than the one I was living in. I never could get any answer to the questions I had and I was exploring and experimenting with what I was faced on my own. Later on I started to read various books about meditation and different religions and sects to find answers.

At the age of 28, I was introduced to Carlos Castaneda’s books by a friend of mine. Reading those books and listening to the words of Don Juan was like a miracle to me. It was like Don Juan was answering my every question through those books. For the first time I was introduced to concepts that I could connect to and understand deeply. But it wasn’t enough. There was something missing. There were gaps and incompletions. So I started searching again and right when I was searching something about Don Juan, I came across Lujan’s works. It was like a fire started burning inside of me.

When I heard Lujan’s voice for the first time, his authenticity and integrity affected me so much and encouraged me to follow his teaching more deeply. Reading Lujan’s books, I started to understand the true meaning of the concepts such as Recapitulation and Not-doing. I understood that in order to come in contact with our true nature is it necessary to recognize and dissolve our social biases and connect more with our heart to be able to live truly in the present moment that is continually escaping us.

Lujan’s teachings are so alive that every time I go through them, they hit me with a new wave of understanding. On the other hand, they raise so many questions and I think it is necessary to dive deeper into them and being in contact with him directly, would help immensely to brings a whole different level of recognition to one’s understandings. Besides the intellectual level of understanding, I believe that participating in Lujan’s physical practices is so important for the well being of the physical and energy bodies because they give you the opportunity to be able to function as an integrated and whole being.

It would be a life-changing experience to learn these teaching from Lujan and incorporate them into our day-to-day lives to be able to be in service to those who are in need of them. I believe we are living in a time that it is needed for us to come it contact with the power of our hearts to bring us closer to each other as a species and to come out of the social biases and dogmas that are separating and controlling us more and more every day. I’m very grateful that I was blessed to know such a beautiful being and it would be an honor to embody his teachings to be able to help others as well as myself. Much love and respects Lujan.

Navid