People respond to this question in many ways. When I was growing up, there was no Internet and so there were no smart phones, email or Facebook. Since the proliferation of many information-based technologies, being connected to others is generally through electronic means. Being connected to others through these various information-based technologies means instant communication through Wi-Fi and other Internet-based communication systems. We’re even connected to satellites orbiting the Earth through our cell phones and our multi-media systems. Today in 2013, when somebody asks you how you are connected, it’s generally understood to be through some social media connection. Being able to participate in webinars and teleseminars with people from all over the country, or throughout the world is now done every day through our computers and smartphones. To me this is totally amazing and it’s through these electromagnetic fields of information and various frequencies that we are able to share all this information instantly. In the highly industrialized first world countries as well as emerging third world countries, this is becoming the social norm as accessibility to all of these various information-based technologies is spreading like wildfire. It is redefining the human experience and culture at large.
When I was in my 20s and 30s, “being connected” was a reference to one’s spiritual relationship to others and the universe. In the 60s, many spiritual teachers from India and Japan and even Tibet started coming to the United States to teach. Gurus, yogis and spiritual masters began to emerge onto the American cultural scene. Additionally, psychedelic drugs began making their way into the American lexicon and college campuses. Certainly not everyone was participating directly, but it was my good fortune to get involved in Kundalini yoga and meditation and experience the benefits of having my own spiritual teacher from India who I learned from for many years. My goal was to be connected in the larger spiritual sense of that expression. I benefited greatly from those years of practice and I still meditate. Since then, I have expanded my repertoire for being connected by learning qigong and energy psychology. But back in 1981 I began to learn the shamanic journey process from a friend of mine who was already a teacher of core shamanic practices. This is my most consistent spiritual practice.
I have discovered that of the many practices that I have learned and participated in over the years, it is the shamanic journey that allows me to move in and out of another dimension of reality in the most powerful ways. It is through this practice that I experience remarkable connection to the universe at large. This includes the beings of love and light and compassion that populate and inhabit this other dimension of reality. As I have learned how to shift my consciousness through the percussive drive of drumming and rattling, I am able to enter into this whole other dimension and connect to the spirits of nature in the most elemental ways. The compassionate spirits that inhabit these worlds of non-ordinary reality bestow upon me remarkable healing gifts and insights that I would otherwise never have access to. Through them, I am able to see and help remove dark and psychotoxic energies. I am also able to help repair wounds and deficiencies to our vital essence, and have insight into the nature of a person’s illness. It is a different way to connect that is not through electronic means and that is very ancient. Yet, it is undergoing a renaissance as people from all over the world are participating in workshops and seminars and are learning how to access and connect to this extraordinarily rich dimension of non-ordinary reality.
There is enormous power that we absorb and get to experience and share as we enter into this other realm of non-ordinary reality and connect to the beings that inhabit it. It is available to experience directly. Anyone can learn this. I encourage you to consider becoming connected in a new way.
Posted by Howard Brockman, LCSW
May 25, 2013
Howard Brockman
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