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How to Self Realize and be naturally Present

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This is the fifth blog in the series “Meditation & Magic Mushrooms,” and provides a variation of the Meditation & Magic Mushroom method to help you self realize. That is to realize, and live in that realization, that you are pure awareness. This method is called Transcendental Self Inquiry.

This blog also shares a perspective on the structure of human consciousness and the ego, their collective role in spiritual awakening and healing, and how self realization takes place. With self realization comes profound spiritual healing and presence happens naturally thereafter (without meditation).

The blog series “Meditation & Magic Mushrooms” provides essential knowledge and methods to spiritually awaken, spiritually heal, and to self realize.

  1. Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview
  2. How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals
  3. How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms
  4. My Expanded Consciousness Experiences
  5. How to Self Realize and be naturally Present
  6. The Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms
  7. Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing
  8. The Archeology of Meditation & Magic Mushrooms
  9. The Birds & Bees of Psychedelics

Consciousness as Expandable & Movable Awareness

Who am I…? I am pure awareness is all I am.

Our real awareness, in the earthly realm, arises from presence. This awareness is both individuated and identity-less, and attentive to everything that arises through the body-mind in space-time. That is, I am aware of my body’s senses associated with the internal-external arisings, my feelings and thoughts, and my deep arising intuitions. However, none of these arisings or my physical body or my ego-mind is I, only the awareness of these arisings is who I am.

When I die, that awareness retracts from presence and I return as awareness, beyond objective reality, to our infinite-eternal loving creator via the death process. Here/there I will undergo a life review where my karmic imprint will be assessed.

We know we are present when we are the awareness of our breath and one, ideally two, of our senses—sight, sound, feel of breeze, smell of flowers, etc.—all melt-merge into a singular awareness. Silence naturally arises in the space of presence. In presence I am aware of the arisings of thoughts, feelings (including emotions), my five senses, and the body my awareness is housed within. All my life and interpersonal experiences come to my awareness through these mind-body arisings.

Through numerous profound ritual experiences and on three occasions by spontaneous grace, via head trauma and a near-death experience, I have come to understand that my awareness can expand, move, and contract within and beyond objective reality. This provides awareness of other “hologram experiences” beyond the confines of my body-mind in space-time (Earth’s realm). I have described some of my experiences in my last blog [Meditation & Magic Mushrooms (Blog #4): Expanded Consciousness Experiences].

Depending upon the experience of expanded consciousness, we can be the awareness of ourselves as “individuated pure consciousness,” or “Unity awareness or pure Consciousness”. Each expanded perspective of awareness is associated with certain attributes or qualities. For example, as Unity awareness I have profound feelings of being the sum totality of everything, like the metacosmic void or the universe. It feels intensely-profoundly that “I am everything, and everything is I” and I feel this deep in my core beyond words. Dimensions of eternity and infinity imbue my awareness, as that awareness is literally stretched to those perspectives-feelings—I am the entire universe and it is I (the whole show) and I am (as awareness) beyond time—eternal.

During Unity experiences my awareness is typically imbued with heart-mind blowing feelings of infinite, indescribable bliss-love felt deep in my core. From Unity I am aware that everything I am is love (beyond words), and that I emanate from that love. Everything in the universe is created from this love in its purest form. This Unity perspective on awareness is heart-mind blowing—and utterly indescribable.

In experiences of the higher self the perspective is individuated awareness, but with a strong sense of connection to/as Unity. In such experiences I have most commonly been awareness inhabiting a Buddha-like apparition/entity beyond objective reality. In this plane of awareness I am this Buddha-like entity, and it is I. I feel incredibly profound things as that awareness. This higher self experience has always been associated with the awareness of my heart chakra and other chakras being opened—imbuing my awareness with mind-shatteringly intense-profound feelings of indescribable love, of being healed, and of being forgiven or being the forgiveness of myself and others.

In other higher self experiences I have simply been my body’s “energy field/network” with the opening of one or more chakra(s), without any recognizable form.

These higher self perspectives can oscillate/interchange with the awareness of Unity. This oscillation in awareness during expanded consciousness is where my sense of connection with love, infinity, and eternity seeps into my higher self awareness. But it is not felt to the same degree as pure Unity awareness. In presence I know intuitively I am eternal, infinite, and I am love—but it is not the same as in Unity or higher self awareness beyond objective reality.

Another interpretation is there is an obscuration of pure Consciousness’ infinite love from my awareness in presence. In addition to pure consciousness spanning a space-time vortex, then by me personally and collectively, as a human and male. I’m skirting on the fringes of subjects like karma, dualities, archetypes, and patriarchy, as I try to understand other aspects of who I am. Those ancient sun god religion priesthood ritual methods came in rather handy I think!

Our Ego Is the Cause of Suffering

Moving back to our earthly existence, we have two windows or perspectives on earthly awareness: awareness emanating presence and the ego mind in fictional time. The difference between presence and ego represents a vast yet subtle divide in awareness. The ego—counterfeit awareness synthesized in fictional time, meaning in past and future thoughts—forms while we are young infants. Think back on your life and ask yourself, “What are my first memories and how old was I?” This is when the ego began to hijack our awareness on life. Life after life this happens until we awaken to this ego-karmic trap. This is what self realization is all about.

Simplistically speaking, the ego filters all internal-external arisings through our memory/emotion regulation brain centers. The ego obscures presence by promoting incessant thinking, feeling-emotions, speaking, doing, attaching, etc., and promoting its sense of identity. Before long we do not “consciously” know we are awareness in presence anymore. Instead, we become the identity and the external curiosity created by our ego, our learned dualistic-archetypally propelled behaviors, all the while acting out our conditioning (linked to our childhood). Guy Finley in his book The Secret of Letting Go gives a great account of the ego and how it works to hijack our consciousness and keep us from awakening. This was the last book I read before self realization.

I wondered for some time about the evolutionary advantage of the ego—because we’ve all got one. In historic-evolutionary times child mortality rates were very high, and children were subject to all manner of abuse, cruelty, and suffering within families, extended families, tribes, and by external causes, like disease, famine, war, the fate of their parents and siblings, etc. The child’s biological remit is to survive. The ego soaks up these early-life traumas and develops a memory and emotional judgment associated with these and other traumatic life events. Future similar traumatic/abusive events trigger a survival, fight-flight, strong emotional response that likely improves the child’s odds of survival or helps the child deal with the trauma until they can escape it.

Without some kind of education about proper emotional responses, an education that can happen from good parenting, a wide family network, socializing, or tribal upbringing, we retain those child-like emotional responses into our adulthood. This includes the underlying unconscious beliefs/assumptions formed in infancy and their triggers. I don’t think any adult is immune from this, and you’ll always see adult-infantile emotional responses when a person endures a strong emotional triggering. In this regard the ego is the root cause of, or synonymous with, our suffering and that which we cause.

During the post-childhood life we tend to unconsciously attract similar experiences or relationships (as in early life) that mirror the things we need to see, and which need to be healed or transformed. These effectively replicate the childhood trauma/context/emotion, so we can see it again. In this regard the ego creates a future opportunity for healing through traumatic life/relationship experiences—if we dare to look inside and ask—What does My difficult emotion teach Me about Me? (as opposed to examining the difficult event itself or the other person and excluding any self-examination).

Fortunately, the child, whose species prime directive is to survive, was gifted an inbuilt, self-healing capability triggered by transcendental self inquiry. Our species’ biological need to survive and our self-healing capabilities are all linked to promote the evolution of human consciousness to our higher self. The ego is our doorway to spiritual awakening and spiritual healing.

With self realization we jettison all the negative emotions associated with life’s important traumas. We find instant forgiveness toward all those who have hurt us and ourselves (for co-creating this), and let go of the negative charge we associate with those people, situations, or ourselves.

However, self realization does not remove our underlying emotional responses or their underlying beliefs, assumptions, or triggers. That, I’m afraid, is our work after self realization (with awareness in presence)! Perhaps during the profound experience of ego death/rebirth we can annihilate this old conditioning, or our attachment to it. Intuitively I sense this is what happens, but I have not yet experienced this annihilating spiritual process.

I remind you of these perspectives on awareness (pure consciousness) and their shared traits, so you know there is more to your sense of self, or your perceived self-identity. It is only through separating our real self-awareness in presence from the dominating synthetic ego-mind awareness in fictional time that we can ultimately see and know who we really are.

You can’t create this separation with the cognitive mind from presence (with great effect) because the moment you self-inquire you break presence. This is why we have to “get out of our minds” and force that separation in our awareness, and then conduct self inquiry.

What Is Self Realization?

Self realization is coming to the heartfelt realization that “I am” awareness.

This awareness is identity-less and witnessed from a number of perspectives. That is as awareness in presence, or as the higher self and/or Unity awareness beyond body-mind in space-time, within and beyond objective reality. Higher self and/or Unity awareness occurs via grace (i.e., a miracle) or during sacred rituals (i.e., supplemented meditation). All of these perspectives of awareness have the same origin—pure Consciousness—and are interconnected as Unity and its individuated forms or perspectives (presence, higher self).

Therefore, pure Consciousness imbues and is immanent in all life, is interconnected with and transcendent of all things, and is the non-physical out of which the physical arises.

Conceptually we can present the different perspectives on pure awareness or pure Consciousness as: Presence, Higher Self, Unity, which i believe is synonymous with Christianity’s “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”, which is synonymous with Hindu’s Atman / Brahman. (ignore the order of the words).

This “real self-awareness” is without identity other than “I am.” This “I am-ness” is felt profoundly in our core and is impressed into our consciousness during the self realization experience. You then know who you really are! For me, upon this self realization I was rapture for an eternity beyond objective reality!

The consequence or gift of self realization is innate presence—and living in that awareness thereafter. But the ego still exists—albeit in a different/subordinate role (mostly!). In presence silence naturally arises, so we need not contrive to be silent. In the silence of presence there is no ego, just the awareness of silence and all arisings. Ego-mind arisings may happen during presence, like invisible phantoms coming up in front of our awareness, but we understand these are not us and that we have been distracted from presence. When this happens, we simply return to breath, merge back into presence, and maybe smile!

Conducting Transcendental Self Inquiry

The single most important question we can ever ask ourselves on this multi-karmic life adventure is “Who am I . . . ?”
A simple question with a paradoxical answer.

This is best asked when we’re out of our ‘ego minds’—as the higher self beyond objective reality.

At some stage in our innumerable incarnations as our spirit we all have to come to understand who we really are as pure Consciousness—through the gift of life(s). This paradoxical question underpins the very meaning of life and is answered and comprehended as our higher self, soul, Holy Ghost, Atman, etc.!

I call this method “Transcendental Self Inquiry (TSI).

IN SUMMARY

  1. Set ritual intentions to self inquire in the months and weeks beforehand.
  2. Practice mantra meditation (I am; “I” on inspiration, “am” on expiration)
  3. Conduct a fire ceremony before your Meditation & Magic Mushroom ritual.
  4. Reaffirm your ritual intentions before the transmuting flames in deep presence.
  5. Use the Meditation & Magic Mushrooms method to expand your awareness, beyond the ego mind.
  6. During your Ritual Meditation use your “I am” mantra—until you break on through to the other side!

Seriously—it’s that simple—everything is placed on autopilot, and the experience naturally arises. Pure Consciousness awaits us all (before death).

KNOW THE MEDITATION & MAGIC MUSHROOM METHOD: Before reading this section I refer you to Blog #3 in the Meditation & Magic Mushroom series. This blog describes the base Meditation & Magic Mushrooms method and, most importantly, the health, safety, and legal cautions, which you must thoroughly review and adhere to please (see section “Taking Responsibility for Your Practice”).

SETTING RITUAL INTENTIONS: The following ritual intention is similar to that which I used for my self inquiry ritual. Rehearse this intention, in your own words, in the weeks and months beforehand. Finally affirm this intention at your fire ceremony before your Meditation & Magic Mushroom ritual.

Dear pure Consciousness, the love in my life,

Please help me come to you so that I may heal in your presence and witness your bliss-love in Unity awareness.

Please help me understand Who am I as pure Consciousness.

Please help me ask, “Who am I?” and answer, “I am,” in your presence—and feel this deeply within.

Please help me return to earthly life afterwards so that I may be innately present and live in that awareness forevermore.

Please help me then transform my old conditioning, so I no longer cause suffering.

Please help me be of service to other people, to all life, and to our beloved Mother Earth.

Thank you.

MEDITATION MANTRA: Our ritual intention “informs” pure Consciousness of our wish/intent to self realize and heal. The question “Who am I?” naturally arose in my awareness once I had exited out of space-time and entered “beyond objective reality.” I was using the mantra “I am” for this meditation because it represented the answer to the question. “I am” was embedded in my consciousness in Unity awareness six months previously on the winter solstice 2014—when I witnessed the birth of the universe from the metacosmic void. Whilst the question naturally arose, I as my higher self “consciously and silently” replied, “I am.” Everything was automatically choreographed by pure Consciousness for me. You can read the section; “Transcendental Self Realization” in Blog #4 for my self realization experience.

Whilst I don’t normally promote the use of a mantra during meditation, I recommend you start practicing mantra meditation in the final two weeks before conducting TSI—“I” upon inspiration, “am” upon expiration slowly and deliberately. After each of these mantra practice meditations say an offering prayer to pure Consciousness and communicate your wish and intent to self realize. For example, your prayer could address those who suffer or cause suffering of all kinds (a different kind of suffering each day) and your desire that this suffering may end. Communicate your wish to self realize and dedicate your efforts to the evolution of the collective human consciousness.

If you wish to do anything for humanity—self realize—and you will profoundly impact the collective consciousness for all.

IMPORTANT REALITY CHECK: You can’t just jump into conducting transcendental self inquiry as your first transcendental experience. We must all work up to this experience, prepare our being, through consciousness awakening, opening chakras, healing, engaging in learning/reeducation relating to our emotional responses, etc., and creating grace. Only then may we receive this self realization.

It took me two and half years, or ten times of conducting Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Ritual Meditations to experience self realization. I meditated every day, read many important books en route, wrote a book (Discovering Ritual Meditation), and gave up my old life.

I communicated with single-minded intent my wish to pure Consciousness for spiritual healing, and with each experience pure Consciousness revealed a little bit more. I came to know I was loved, was love, and emanated from love, and I knew there were obstructions to the flow of my feminine energy (and still are). During this time I loved and lost (and used the mirror it afforded me as an opportunity to evolve), and i rejoined with my mother, sister, and a brother after many decades of absence from each others lives. I am now reconnected with all of my dispersed family, and I know we love each other. I went an adult lifetime without knowing that.

In the last few years I have experienced some of the best (indigenous) and worst (gringo) of humanity – providing a yin & yang or sweet & sour experience. I live in a lush and sacred valley inhabited for eons by locals, who have been robbed slowly over recent times. It is rich in magnetic energies and overlooks the ancient capital of the Mayan highland priesthood capital across the lake, which is why i came here. This “disconnected” gringo community, or i should say enclave, owns most of the best growing land, and complains about more than they ever do for the locals. Jaibalito is one of the most impoverished (yet culturally rich) and its children amongst the most malnourished in Guatemala, and few gringos do anything to collaborate to help that situation. Yet they are quite happy to attack and criticize those who try to help and integrate.

This context ensured furtive experiences rich in important things i needed to see about me.  I had strong emotional responses to extreme provocations, and saw how i responded to violent people. I’ve witnessed people blatantly lying and manipulating, slandering me professionally and personally, and I’ve witnessed different forms of violence used against me. Mostly done from their coward-like vantage point of behind my back. In response i  was able to see me as a man, as my conditioning, as masculine energy, as the collective male (culturally, consciousness), and see the role of patriarchy in me, in others, and in the world more generally. I witnessed my consciousness beyond objective reality over/within/connected to an infinite abyss of human suffering – and I was it, and it was I – and with that came important self-realizations and a path to change. Consciousness showed(shows) me that which i need to see and transform. You escape nothing after self-realization!

This journey also had good consequences, and ensured i connected with our local indigenous community. In twelve months we have planted 4,000 treelings (cypress, pine, aliso) to help reforest our valley and prepare for climate change. We’ve also planted 200 fruit trees and set up a vivero to grow new fruit trees (without purchasing) from seeds, branches, tubers, and through grafting (my garden). I/we connected with the local police and a newly opened school with the teenagers from our village to help reforest Jaibalito, and work to improve food security in the village. We will connect the river 1km up the valley with the village and improve water supply during the rainy season. My focus is in helping the village to prepare for climate change by ensuring/improving water, food, and energy supply and security (cheaply, using natural sustainable resources).

 

During these last five years I’ve had to look closely at myself, trying to understand who am I and why do things happen for me in life the way they do – across life. This for me wasn’t an easy time, but it was an incredibly rich experience of revelation, healing, transformation, and awakening. I’m eternally grateful for what has transpired, but be under no illusion this was an easy journey. Far from it, it’s the most arduous journey I ever undertook. Here I am five years on from being initiated in the Mankind Project (as “Fierydragon”) where I bore witness to many good men whose lives had been ripped apart by early-life abuse and trauma—I had no idea the journey this warrior initiation would spark!

When the time was right, the play of consciousness saw fit to place Guy Finley (through his book), Mooji (through a YouTube video), and a plant medicine mystic on my metaphorical doorstep. During the final three months before the summer solstice 2015 things began to crystallize, in no short thanks to my mystic friend.

To be honest until I watched Mooji I had not known of Advaita’s self inquiry/self realization method! I watched the vacant looks of Mooji’s followers and realized they hadn’t a clue either, and that Mooji’s method was trying to achieve awareness separation and self inquiry from presence. In that moment I realized this separation would be best experienced as the higher self beyond objective reality. Setting appropriate ritual intentions (set in presence) was the key to directing this experience/outcome. Somehow I knew that.

Within six hours of watching Mooji for the first time I self realized using my Transcendental Self Inquiry method.

Presence & Transformation

The key message I wish to impart here is that self realization isn’t the end of spiritual endeavor—it’s a new beginning, after which the real work of transformation begins.

The consequence of the self realization experience is our brains are remapped to support innate presence as we live out our daily life. For me, with presence comes a peaceful-serene inner silence, and I am simply aware of my sensory-body-mind arisings, intuitions, and breath. My body’s crown chakra/third eye buzzes 24/7. My mind is no longer incessantly active and thinking, scheming, planning, or involved in its obsessions, the way it once was. For the first three months I bathed in a blissful and serene state, soaking up the simple joy of being present in a beautiful garden in front of a captivating volcanic-lake vista. After this I began to more actively engage life, people, and work—but I did not return to the Western world treadmill of benevolent enslavement (at least not yet!).

One and a half years later innate presence is my reality. My chakras still buzz 24/7, with my ego-mind intermittently and temporarily superimposing itself in front of my silent awareness. This is happening as I work, do other activities, and when I am strongly emotionally triggered. When I realize I have lost presence, I simply return to breath and my sensory arisings, like the sounds of birds or the breeze, and I am immediately present—often accompanied by an inner smile.

I do things while present, like reading, researching, writing, gardening—in silence. In fact I came to realize the reasons I’ve always enjoyed so-called dangerous activities, like motorbike riding and racing, snowboarding, diving, whitewater kayaking, is because I am present when doing these activities. They demand it.

The post self realization experience is going to be different for every one of us because we all have different early-life experiences, which we have carried forward into life. This carrying forward manifests as our behaviors, the big decisions we’ve taken or failed to take, the relationships we find ourselves in or out of, and the suffering we have caused others and ourselves en route.

In essence with our newfound awareness in presence together with the “play-of-consciousness” we come to see and know our old conditioning. This conditioning is mirrored or triggered for us via our interactions, friendships, relationships, life-context, and situations. We literally have a light shone on our lives moment-by-moment, interaction-by-interaction, situation-by-situation, and we come to see who we are. Do you like what or who you see? We then have a choice—consciously transform old conditioning or keep repeating the causes of our suffering (and that which we cause) until we transform. Given what I have observed in my life I think these repetitions subsequently escalate until we learn, heal, and transform those aspects of our manifest being, which need to be transformed. So, in the end we really have no choice—we have to do the work.

The post self realization experience feels like an adult puberty witnessed from presence, rather than from within emotions, severe triggering aside. Assisting us is a newfound repertoire of benevolent spiritual qualities, which become naturally available to us or manifest from presence. These include loving-kindness, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, equanimity, and inner peace and joy. These come via the rays of loving light emanating pure Consciousness into our being and mind (if not obscured) from beyond it all.

Before or after conducting self inquiry and asking, “Who am I?” the next best question we can ask ourselves on this transformation journey is;

What does this difficult situation or relationship and its triggered emotion(s) teach me about me?

Invariably, we have to revisit our childhood, understand how we took on beliefs and assumptions, and comprehend how these no longer serve us. This is done with loving kindness, compassion, and forgiveness/acceptance of the dualities that we manifest and those who trigger those for us. While I really don’t have all the answers here, I do understand that we transform the negative aspects of our dualistic behaviors by marrying them with their positive counterparts, for example, anger with love for the self and the other person. We get there by understanding that we all suffer, we are all consciousness behind our conditioning, and we forgive, accept and let go of our judgment about the other person and ourselves. We learn to cultivate empathy and compassion for both parties and try to understand how we came to be in a much broader sense.

Educating/reeducating myself about my emotional responses, understanding the influence of dualistic and archetypal behaviors on me, and of the collective influences like karma and patriarchy are the frontiers I’m staring at. How we transform our conditioning using spiritual principles is a door I’m knocking on right now.

Life is a hallway of mirrors and emotional triggers for us to see ourselves—and sooner or later we all have to look inside. Self realization helps us do this along with the realization that we must do the work—or a little more Shiva comes our way!

Over the next two blogs we’re going to explore the Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms and then Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing. Sign up for my blog and have these delivered direct to your inbox.

Please ask if you have a question, provide a comment if so invoked, and i hope this is of use to you in refinding presence. If you’d like to discuss Coaching then contact me via the contact form. Thank you.

Carlton Brown
Author of: Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization
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Meditation & Magic Mushrooms (Blog #4): Expanded Consciousness Experiences

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The purpose of this blog is to share some of my more profound Meditation & Magic Mushroom experiences, which were critical to my spiritual awakening and healing journey. These expanded consciousness experiences included Unity awareness, all chakra/kundalini activations, witnessing the metacosmic void/birth of the universe (as Unity/eternity/infinity/Satcitananda), Satcitananda, and undergoing transcendental self realization, heart realization, and collective self realization.

These experiences left me innately present and profoundly healed. My emotions are now routed through my heart (recently)—whereas before they went through my mouth. Practically, it is like undergoing an “adult puberty” from presence rather than getting lost within emotions (mostly).

I’m seeing what I was once blind to—and that is transformational.

This blog, the fourth in this series, Meditation & Magic Mushrooms, shares the most significant transcendental experiences in my journey to spiritually awaken, spiritually heal, and to achieve self realization (which is where the real work begins).

  1. Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview
  2. How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals
  3. How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms
  4. My Expanded Consciousness Experiences
  5. Self Realization & Presence
  6. The Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms
  7. Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing
  8. The Archeology of Meditation & Magic Mushrooms
  9. The Birds & Bees of Psychedelics

From Spiritual Healing to Self realization

My approach to spiritual healing and learning about myself as consciousness has been rather free-spirited, adventurous, and serendipitous. I took Buddha’s advice very seriously—“If you want to know what enlightenment is, then go find out for yourself.” When we enter this awakening and healing path, we need to do a few things well, and Mother Consciousness will take care of the healing in detail; trust in her. Humility and honesty, with a heartfelt intent to heal, were at the foundation of all these experiences.

Each of these experiences provided healing in different ways. Of all the experiences, I found transcendental self realization the most profound because it erased my perceived need to heal (all was profoundly forgiven). Witnessing myself as the metacosmic void transition into the birth and expansion of the universe imbued with Satcitananda (bliss-love-consciousness) for an eternity confirmed, beyond doubt, that love is the very fabric of consciousness and the universe. If ever you doubted you were loved—then you will know, beyond doubt, that you are loved and always have been. That sets you straight, once and for all, and is crucial for healing!

During one of my experiences, I was gifted permanent (I hope) heart awareness with my triggered emotions now routed through the heart—and away from my mouth! I simply breath with heart-breath-awareness and I feel these initial strong emotions rapidly fade and be replaced with acceptance and silence. I am now more able to find kind-loving-compassionate ways forward when I am triggered.

Comprehending the Experience of Consciousness

The words of Stanislav Grof,[1],[2] Ron Krumpos,[3] and those of the ancient mystics fully resonate with me in terms of describing my experienced expanded states of consciousness. Their teachings and my expended consciousness trips have taught me a language to describe these experiences. During self realization I was “shown” the structure of Consciousness, and how I as consciousness in presence relate to that. It gives meaning to The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or Atman and Brahman concepts.

To help you understand more logically I’ve condensed three main points of view on consciousness: Stanislav Grof’s, science’s, and my own. A fundamental starting point is we humans possess at least four different states of consciousness: (1) being asleep, (2) dreaming, (3) being awake, and (4) expanded or altered states of consciousness.

In experiencing in the awakened state of consciousness we are both ego-consciousness and presence. Until self realization we will only really know presence through meditation. Under special situations, for example, in a state of grace or during rituals, we can expand our awareness from presence to become aware of ourselves as the higher self and Unity/pure consciousness, both within and beyond objective reality, thus ‘transcending’ the ego consciousness. We can be one of those perspectives, we can progress and oscillate from one to the other, or we can be all perspectives simultaneously.

Another way of seeing this is that we can transcend the normal boundaries of body-mind in space-time—and go on a trip with just our awareness to experience the weird stuff. These experiences are associated with an array of transcendental phenomena and experiences, and also with profound spiritual and psychoemotional healing.[4]

My Doorway to Consciousness and Healing

I found my doorway to spiritual awakening and healing when I stepped down as CEO of the biotech company I had cofounded in the UK. My final board meeting/departure was on the summer solstice 2012. Three days later I made a life-changing decision. I put everything I owned in a storage container, left the UK, and moved to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I needed to heal from the consequences of an abusive childhood and the toll it had taken on my life.

Three months later, on the autumn equinox 2012, in front of my village on Lake Atitlan I had a drowning accident. Madre Jaguar (Goddess of Water and Healing) took me for a moment, and, as I drowned, I had a near-death experience. After recovering from the drowning, I went home to sit in presence for hours and I lost time again. This incident offered me a big reality check, and I felt a deep sadness that motivated me to look within.

My Spiritual Awakening

My first Meditation & Magic Mushrooms experience was the winter solstice sunrise 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar. Two weeks previously I had come face to face with a black jaguar on the jungle road north of Tikal, and there was something familiar about that stare (nahual). I took it as a sign.

During this solstice ritual experience my awareness expanded to that of the valley I was in, but the visuals were markedly different with my eyes closed. The wind was strongly blowing up and around the valley that day, and this created an energy flow through my body that I could perpetuate with my breath. The valley was lined in kaleidoscoping grey snakeskin, and apertures-portals would open and close, all of which associated with my breathing. I felt a hesitance in letting my awareness follow those openings even though it was pulling my awareness—I felt they could consume me.

With myself as the entire valley and as a meditating Buddha-like entity with all-in-One awareness, my heart chakra then opened. A warm, bright white light with an intense feeling of bliss-love filled my awareness, and I felt it deep within my core. I was simply the awareness of it all, outside of time.

Kundalini Awakening & Chakra Activations

It was the spring equinox 2014. I began this ritual by eating magic mushroom truffles and commencing eyes-closed meditation before sunrise. As my meditation progressed I experienced a complete dissolution of body-mind and space-time boundaries, and I became the awareness of my breath, sinking deeper inwards toward a faint pulsing light-energy. As I closed toward the light my awareness accelerated and then merged into Unity awareness—where I was the sum totality of everything, to infinity—imbued with a feeling of indescribable bliss-love-awareness (Satcitananda).

Small pinpoints of white light, peripheral to a larger central pulsing white light (my opened heart chakra), were joined by strings of light. I understood this as my material body had been dialed out of my awareness to reveal my energy body and its network into my being. These pulsed and expanded and contracted with my breath. I became aware of an unblocking of energy flow (an unusual warmness was felt), and through my heart I was filled with an indescribable feeling of bliss-love-awareness. As I exhaled I experienced this as color-energy-waveforms emanating into an infinite expanse of space. This kaleidoscoping vista would clear from time to time, and I became the awareness of the universe—I was suspended awareness as, and amongst, the stars. It felt timeless, infinite, and yet paradoxically—I was nothing (but the awareness of it all).

I could feel a discomfort from a need to pee, and, as the discomfort began to break through my body detachment, a silent voice stated, “Just relax, and let go.” I peed myself, and, as I did, the whole region down there just lit up in a warm glow of blue-white warm light. It imbued and suffused my entire awareness for god knows how long. I melted into it and felt a sense of connection and wonderment with Earth and the giant volcanic rock I was but a speck on. It felt grounding—profoundly peaceful.

Silent words then entered my consciousness, “Put your head back,” and when I did, a pure white warm light bathed my throat region. As I sat back, I could see my throat, heart, abdomen, and the base of my spine all lit up in bright chakra lights. I was aware of these from within and outside my body at the same time.

That was four or five chakras in one experience, as well as Unity awareness of me as the Universe, imbued with bliss-love-consciousness. Grace bestowed this right at a very interesting time—two weeks into a new personal relationship between two people in need of profound spiritual healing.

You can read the full test-pilot report of this experience on my blog.

Unity Awareness as the Universe

In another of these ritual experiences (winter solstice) I was the awareness of a meditating Buddha-like entity bathed in a kaleidoscoping sea of color-energy-waveforms. My heart chakra opened, imbuing me with the most indescribable awareness of bliss-love, and, as I exhaled, black streams of ‘dark’ energy dissipated.

After what felt like an eternity as this meditating entity, my awareness dissipated into the black expanse of infinite nothingness (the metacosmic void). I witnessed this as Unity awareness, and I felt infinite, everything, and yet—nothing, but pregnant with potential. I was that suspended awareness for an eternity.

During this eternity an explosion of infinite bright white light pulsed my awareness, literally tearing it apart in all directions, and it felt like I was giving birth to something. My awareness became light and clouds of gas, expanding outwards at infinite speeds. Stars began forming, then clusters of stars as I passed them all in awareness. Then I could see galaxies and then clusters of galaxies moving outwards in all directions. Then my awareness ceased expanding, and I became the entire star-studded universe in Unity awareness stretched to infinity. I was imbued with a sense of bliss-love and a sense of ‘I am’—this is who I am—deep in my core.

Upon returning to this reality, all my unresolved anger from an abusive childhood and from life’s accumulated emotional traumas and their negative impressions simply vanished. That very day I reconnected by phone with my mother after decades of her being absent from my life. I reconnected in a very compassionate and loving way, and two days later she visited me in Guatemala. I similarly mentally reconnected with my father, who had died in 2009, and with my other siblings. This experience opened a door and kindled a committed desire to heal and make progress with reconnecting with my family.

Transcendental Self Realization

During another of these experiences (summer solstice) my awareness emerged into an infinite and eternal space filled with kaleidoscoping color-energy waveforms. This partially cleared, and there I was, meditating with an awareness of my heart and outer meditating form. I was everything at the same time observing these happenings. As the meditator, I asked, “Who am I?” a question that arose automatically. Conducting self inquiry was my ritual intention.

A human body-like apparition appeared, standing before my awareness, and I emphatically answered, “I am” and “That is not I”. With “that” being the apparition of my human form, which had automatically appeared before me. That response was of my own volition, and the moment I said it the apparition dissolved before my awareness. My awareness then retracted from the meditating heart and merged into Unity awareness.

Silent words then arose, filling me with “This is the most profound experience a human can ever have, and it is the reason you’ve been born again and again—until you have this realization.” In that eternity I realized I was awareness—of everything as One and of my heart in this expanded form. I realized I was love first and foremost, emanating from pure love, and love is who I am. An infinite rapture ensued. Realizing you are eternal, and ego is not, shatters ego’s illusion.

A silent voice then spoke, “Move your head right back,” and as I did, I felt a very distant creaking (not quite connected) of my neck bones as they locked into place. I was observing myself as a meditating apparition with my head tilted backwards. Then a lotus flower moved out of my forehead/crown and opened, which I witnessed from inside my head, looking up above my third eye. A funny warm glow and tingle rushed through my awareness and all down my back. My head started to resonate a loud humming noise between my ears and off my forehead. I opened my eyes, yet nothing changed. My crown chakra/third eye was buzzing, and the visuals were still present.

This was the most life-transformative experience I have had to date. Nearly 18 months later presence is where my awareness rests, and I am mostly silent and in peace (emotional triggering aside). My crown chakra/third eye continues to buzz 24/7, especially around volcanoes. I witness how the play of consciousness shows me the things I need to see (old conditioning), so I may transform them. It feels like a second puberty, only this time experienced in presence (mainly) rather than from emotions. I’ll write about this in more detail in a future blog.

Spiritual Warriors Work to Heal the Collective Consciousness

This ritual took place on the full moon at the spring equinox. As my meditation progressed the kaleidoscoping color-energy waveforms began to intensify, and my awareness moved through them, or they through me. I entered an infinite space of waveforms, and there I was again—I had merged into Unity awareness. I became the awareness of my partially opened heart chakra, from within, all around, and at a distance, imbued with an indescribable feeling of bliss-love-consciousness. I was suspended in that awareness when my ritual purpose entered my consciousness. I came to ask pure Consciousness something, and out it popped.

“Is there something I can do to help heal the collective human consciousness of its karmic debt of suffering?”

Immediately an answer came, “Yes there is, but only after you have forgiven everyone and everything in your own life.” Wow, that was emphatic as it gets!

Then my breathing deepened and quickened automatically, expanding more love into my awareness along with a feeling of forgiveness. I was able to consciously project apparitions of people (as energies) with whom I had co-created emotional suffering with since 2014. This was a horrendous chapter in my life, and I wanted to forgive everyone involved and let go. Our fields of light-energy merged in this kaleidoscoping sea of loving forgiveness, and all was replaced by a profound sense of forgiveness and understanding—we’re all here to learn.

I then refocused my awareness back on my heart chakra, and my breathing deepened and quickened again. The chakra’s glow increased, imbuing me with bliss-love, and I exhaled loving forgiveness into my exhaled waveforms. I then automatically re-asked pure Consciousness the same question.

Things then began to rapidly change—the colors darkened intensely with blues, reds, and purples, all blending into surging blacks. I then felt the bottom of my awareness vanish out from under me, and I became suspended awareness over an infinite abyss. I was filled with a paralyzed despair, utter sadness, and a horror at what we have done to each other. I felt a part of this, and it a part of me—a part of its death, its cruelty, and all its suffering. My love was nothing in its presence, and my heart was but an ember of a glow. Everything I exhaled vanished immediately into its oblivion.

As suspended awareness outside of time I accepted this for what it was. I let it touch me without panic. I knew I had caused suffering before, and others had inflicted suffering on me, as is true for everyone. In realizing my connection with the suffering I knew it could be transformed with love—my love. I would need to summon an explosion of infinite love-forgiveness for an eternity from my opened heart chakra, from within the abyss—pure Consciousness permitting.

I opened my eyes at some stage, yet nothing changed—the visuals and core-like feeling remained. This was my first real journey as an intentional spiritual warrior—and I knew that this was just a reconnaissance. This experience made me realize there were blockages in my feminine energy channel and overlays (collective male, patriarchy) thwarting a fully opened heart chakra, and that I had work to do. You can read more about the spiritual warrior in my blog.

My Heart Awakening

As my meditation progressed visuals began to intensify, and it felt like my awareness was rowing through a kaleidoscopic color-energy-waveform tunnel with each breath. My awareness then emerged into an ‘infinite’ space of waveforms, and then suddenly everything froze.

My awareness changed, now fully emanating from my heart, and it jolted me—how did that happen? I was aware of myself looking down on/over my heart from above, yet, at the same time, I was within and was my heart. It felt like awareness had plugged into my heart. With this I felt a pain around my heart region. A surge of warm love coursed my awareness, and I could see-feel a bright white light pulsing with each beat. My heart radiated a low, audible buzzing, just like my 24/7 buzzing crown chakra/third eye.

As the meditation progressed my awareness equilibrated between my heart and head. The buzzing of my heart and crown chakras became intense. My awareness was simply in resonance and connected with this underground steel-concrete, magnetically-aligned cage and the earth beyond it. I had a profound sense of being inside of a resonant Earth who was concentrating her energies through me. At some stage I opened my eyes, but the visuals and resonance remained. Just over four hours disappeared as though it were nothing.

*          *          *

What about you? Have you had any experiences like these? Would you like to also experience such life-changing profound spiritual awakening and healing experiences? Would you like to know how to self realize? By reading and carefully following the step-by-step instructions in my book (Discovering Ritual Meditation) and this blog for guidance, it is my view that you can. Every one of us can! Alternatively you can contact me for personal one-on-one coaching via the contact form and I can help you.

*          *          *

Next month we’re going to have a closer look at how to conduct transcendental self inquiry as a means of attaining self realization. Self realization leads to innate presence, and in presence we begin the real work of personal transformation (of old conditioning).

Have a great month, and please let me know your thoughts or questions.

Thank you.

My best wishes to you.

Carlton Brown

Author of Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self realization
Amazon: http://amzn.to/29EdrS0
Book preview: http://amzn.to/29ADnPA
Website: http://ritualmeditation.com

Copyright © 2008 Carlton Brown of http://ritualmeditation.com, All Rights Reserved.

[1] Stanislav Grof. LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious. M.D. Park Street Press; 4 edition (12 Feb 2009). ASIN: B003GDFROM.

[2] Stanislav Grof. Healing Our Deepest Wounds: The Holotropic Paradigm Shift. Stream of Experience Productions (28 Jun 2012).

[3] R.D. Krumpos. “The greatest achievement in life: Five traditions of mysticism, Mystical approaches to life.” http://www.suprarational.org/.

[4] Stanislav Grof. LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious. M.D. Park Street Press; 4 edition (12 Feb 2009). ASIN: B003GDFROM.

How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms (Blog 3)

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[Goodreads Readers please click this link for original formatting http://bit.ly/2g09JHb]

If you wish to access expanded states of consciousness for the purpose of spiritually awakening, profoundly healing, and self-realizing, then you are going to need to supplement your meditation.

In my experience, meditation—supplemented with psilocybin magic mushrooms, conducted at sacred times, whilst aligning your body to Earth’s magnetic axis—provides a greater certainty of transcending your body-mind in space-time and expanding your awareness within and beyond objective reality, than just meditation alone.

You can know more about this fascinating journey toward understanding yourself as consciousness by following this blog series or getting a copy of Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization (Click to book).

This blog, the third in a series, Meditation & Magic Mushrooms, aims to share the Ritual Meditation method for expanding your consciousness.

  1. Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview
  2. How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals
  3. How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms
  4. My Expanded Consciousness Experiences
  5. Self Realization & Presence
  6. Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing
  7. The Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms
  8. The Archeology of Meditation & Magic Mushrooms
  9. The Birds & Bees of Psychedelics

Taking Responsibility for Your Practice

You should NOT attempt to conduct Ritual Meditation or use Meditation & Magic Mushrooms without first gaining a thorough understanding of the practice and taking full responsibility for your practice.

There are serious health, safety, and legal considerations that you must fully understand and respect beforehand. You must accept full responsibility and legal, civil, and moral liabilities for using this blog’s information. Use of this blog’s information is at your full discretion and is provided with strict caveats.

You must be made aware that permanent changes to the mind and your awareness will take place, and you may make big life decisions based on these experiences that could affect your partner, family, professional, and life circumstances. My view is if Meditation & Magic Mushrooms is conducted with real humility, prepared for in a sacred manner, and integrated into a broader consciousness, healing, and life plan then good things will manifest.

Ritual Meditation is provided on an as-is basis. It is an ancient ritual method I discovered, reverse engineered, and test-piloted. I share my findings and experiences with the best of intentions. Because you are not under my supervisory or associated medical care in a legal jurisdiction and you have not signed necessary waivers of liability beforehand, I cannot accept any liability from your practice of these ritual methods. You must accept full responsibility for your practice if you use the Ritual Meditation method as described in this blog series and in my book Discovering Ritual Meditation.

An A–Z Guide on Conducting Ritual Meditation

At its simplest level, Ritual Meditation—Meditation & Magic Mushrooms—involves an eyes-closed, focused-attention meditation method, conducted in sensory silence at sacred time (solstices, equinoxes[1]) under the influence of psilocybin magic mushrooms. Preparation and the setting of appropriate ritual intentions are important determinants of ritual outcome—echoing louder the more experience I gather.

I conduct Meditation & Magic Mushrooms up to four times yearly at sacred times—winter solstice sunrise, summer solstice sunset, and the equinoxes (new moon/sunrise, full moon/sunset). Because special environmental energies peak around these times of the year, they were revered by the Sun god religions of ancient Egypt, India, and Central and South America as their most important sacred ritual times.

Enhanced alpha brainwave voltages over the frontal brain are one of the key electrical signatures of the brain during deep meditation and in self-realized states (chapters 6–8 DRM). Science shows that we can enhance naturally-produced alpha brainwave voltages at these particular times of the day and year through a process called “brainwave entrainment.” This is possible because these sacred times correspond with peaks in Earth’s electromagnetic (solstices, sunrises/sets) and magnetic fields (equinoxes, moon phase), respectively. What this means is that when we meditate during these sacred times, this timing naturally “supplements” our alpha brainwave voltages, which helps us change our state of consciousness, or to attain a stronger presence (silent, time flies).[2]

Before engaging in Ritual Meditation for the first time, it is best to take it easy and become acquainted with low doses of psilocybin magic mushrooms while in nature or during regular meditation practice. This permits you to make a connection with the magic mushrooms, know your real self in presence, and learn to practice meditation under their influence. Low doses of magic mushrooms are great for inducing presence and silencing the mind. This prepares you for awareness in presence, which can then be expanded during Ritual Meditation without an uncomfortable shock or surprise!

Quick Reference Guide

  • Fully accept responsibility for your health and safety, and abide by the law.
  • Early Preparation: start a mushroom grow kit in time, increase your meditation (different types), eat healthily, minimize toxic consumptions, consider your ritual intentions.
  • Final 3 Days Preparation: increase your meditation in your sacred space, be in nature, fast, do daily sweat lodges, make offerings-prayers-intentions in presence, conduct a ceremonial fire.
  • Ritual Meditation: eyes-closed meditation, dark-silent, sacredly timed (solstices, equinoxes) with magic mushrooms, and magnetically align your meditating body.
  • Integration: be in nature and quiet, take time to integrate experience, write notes. Integrate into broader consciousness and life plan. Who are you…?

Preparing to Expand Your Consciousness

The most important part of planning is considering our ritual intentions well in advance and ensuring we create grace. We create grace the more in presence and in gratitude we are, the more we innately help others, and by our thoughts and actions between rituals.

Secondly, preparation entails securing a supply of magic mushrooms in good time, deciding where to conduct the ritual, and ensuring that we can clear the decks beforehand with regards to all our obligations—this is “me time.”

Being in nature for the final three days is essential. Having a day or two after the ritual for quiet reflection in nature is really beneficial too.

Acquiring Magic Mushrooms

For readily accessing magic mushrooms you essentially have two options: using a magic mushroom grow kit or purchasing ready-to-consume magic mushroom truffles. I prefer psilocybin magic mushrooms from grow kits, like the McKenna or Golden Teacher varieties. Grow kits give me some form of control over quality and in creating a special connection with the mushrooms during their growth.

I also like a back-up plan, and magic truffles are useful for that.

Magic mushrooms are simple to grow. Instructions are usually available from retailers online. I’ve stored grow kits, based on retailer advice, in the fridge for two months before successfully cultivating them. Check the legal status in your country beforehand and understand any risks.

Final Week Ritual Meditation Preparation

My ritual preparation follows some basic principles over the final week before the Ritual Meditation takes place. Namely, I spend a lot of time in nature, meditating, being present, and making frequent prayers and offerings from dawn to bedtime.

Three days before, I completely disconnect from everything and everyone, strictly fast each of those three days, and I do daily sweat lodges.

It is important to set purposeful and realistic ritual intentions beforehand, as these direct our experience. Holding a fire ceremony is where I formally set my ritual intentions (in presence).

  • Eat healthy food and minimize toxic/intoxicating consumptions:
    1. In the month beforehand—eat a healthy diet with as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible. Avoid killed animal protein. Ideal foods include fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, beans, rice, whole grains, popcorn, vegetable soups, salads, herbs, eggs, cheese, herbal teas, and water.
    2. In the final week—stop consumption of all alcohol, drugs, caffeine-containing drinks, cigarettes, and other brain stimulants.
    3. In the final week—avoid any type of sexual expression.
  • Increase daily meditation:

One to two weeks beforehand—increase your eyes-closed meditation to two one-hour sessions each day. My Ritual Meditation trips can last 3–5 hours, so longer and more focused meditations in the final two weeks prepares me for the extended Ritual Meditation experience. Please refer to a previous blog for tips on improving your meditation focus and concentration (see M&M Blog 2).

  • Fast for three days:

Three days beforehand—fast each day. This means strictly no food or calorific liquids, only teas, broths, and water. Fasting is not easy, but it does get easier the more you do it. If a full three days of fasting is not possible, then aim to fast for the final day beforehand.

Above all—be sensible and safe. If it doesn’t feel right—eat some food.

Prayers, Offerings & Intentions

There is a common denominator underpinning the effectiveness of prayers, and in setting ritual intentions, all of which are crucially important to the ritual’s outcome and effectiveness—to be effective we must be present when we do these things.

In presence, as earth-bound, individuated consciousness, we commune with our individuated consciousness (higher self) beyond space-time and objective reality, which is directly connected with pure Consciousness (God) as Unity awareness.

Setting Ritual Intentions

Ritual intentions are like a special form of prayer that communicates directly with our expanded Consciousness from presence. This lets pure Consciousness know we are consciously aware of our need for help to heal, awaken, self-realize, or do spiritual warrior work. We literally shape the ritual experience with our intention-setting.

I start to consider my ritual intentions in the months to weeks leading up to my next Ritual Meditation by listening to my inner silent voice. I focus solely on healing, personal transformation (emotion transformation, and heart and feminine channel opening), and spiritual warrior (collective healing) intentions. I avoid being specific in my intentions or requests—because only pure Consciousness knows what we need.

For example, I do not ask to experience ego death/rebirth, or chakra and Kundalini activation etc. I used a more general prayer-intention in my early test-pilot experiences, as the following prayer-intention demonstrates:

Pure consciousness, please look after me during my ritual and deliver me back safely and with more innate love, compassion, acceptance and kindness in all my feelings, thoughts, words, and actions. I trust you know what I need and I, therefore, submit myself fully to your realm and care. Please bring me to you and help me heal, awaken me to the real nature of who I am and permanently open my heart. Lets these spiritual qualities be innately present, so that I may be of benefit to other people, life, and our planet. Thank you.

This sort of general healing intention led to five of my chakra activations, including Kundalini and multiple heart chakra activations, along with numerous Unity/Satcitananda experiences, and profound psychoemotional healing.

You can read some of my trip report blogs to get other ritual intention ideas for healing, awakening, and self-realization.

The Ceremonial Fire

Conduct a fire ceremony the evening before your winter solstice sunrise and equinox sunrise/new moon ritual, or just before the ritual at the summer solstice sunset or sunset/full moon/equinox ritual. Please refer to a previous blog on conducting ceremonial fires, including an invocation, for a detailed description.

Conducting Ritual Meditation

In addition to sacred preparation Ritual Meditation has three main elements: 1) Sacred Space, 2) Sacred Time, and 3) Sacred Ritual.

One—Sacred Space

Sacred space encompasses the space where you will conduct your Ritual Meditation. Because we’re trying to replicate the silence of the pyramid and temple tunnels, chambers, and sanctums used by our ancestors for conducting their rituals, make your place sacred silent, dark, and comfortable. Sensory isolation permits you to significantly lower brain activity, thus helping you attain presence.

In the days prior to the Ritual Meditation I create a sacred circle around, or close to, the space where I meditate. This sacred circle symbolizes our collective, earthbound consciousness and honors all elements of creation and sacred time. The circle demarcates earth bound by the cardinal and solstice directions acting as pillars between heaven & earth, and the five elements constituting all earth’s life—earth, air, water, fire, and love-ether. It honors our ancestors and all human and non-human spirits. All of this under the heavens and subject to the One that is all (i.e., God, Allah, Unity etc.).

I place freshly picked flowers around the various directions. Inside the circle you can lay sacred objects, like a Buddha, Maitreya, Lao Tzu, Jesus statue, a cross, ankh etc., or special rocks and stones. I place the growing magic mushrooms inside the circle too.

Ritual Offering

Figure 1: This is my indoor fire circle maintained in my house 24/7. I sit around this each morning or whenever I feel like connecting more closely with my emptiness.

During the Ritual Meditation I align my meditating body with magnetic north (for those in the Northern Hemisphere; vice versa for the Southern Hemisphere). If you are sitting in front of a big volcano (preferable!), then sit facing that, instead.

Two—Sacred Time

The idea behind conducting sacred rituals at sacred time is based on bringing as many sacred time elements together to increase the impact on the ritual meditator’s brain via the enhancement of alpha brainwave voltages. This assists the brain’s process for “switching” the state of consciousness and with its brain mapping.

I start my Ritual Meditation 60–90 minutes before sunrise or sunset on those designated four sacred days each year. These sacred dates and times vary by year and region, so click on the meditation calendar (http://ritualmeditation.com/meditation-calendar/) for location-specific sun and moon rises/sets. Dates for the solstices and equinoxes (until 2020) are also provided. This way you can identify the sacred times for your location and time things just right.

Three—Sacred Ritual

Conducting Your Meditation & Magic Mushrooms

My preference is to conduct Ritual Meditation by myself in sensory silence in my sacred space—no noise or interruptions. I prefer not to conduct it with other people in close proximity because being solitary permits me to focus on myself-as-consciousness without distractions.

For those new to Ritual Meditation, I recommend you have a spotter silently in your meditation vicinity. A spotter be would someone you deeply trust and can communicate with at an intimate level of connection, and someone who understands you well. This person should not participate in using psychedelics with you, and they should keep their distance during the ritual unless you need them. You should also ensure your spotter has the contact details for your physician, psychologist, or a spiritual crisis/emergence network just in case.

I consume 50 grams of fresh psilocybin magic mushrooms (5 gram dried) just before I’m about to start my eyes-closed meditation. I blend these with a relatively strong cold passionflower tea and some fresh lime juice. Before drinking, I thank the magic mushrooms and ask them to help me on my healing journey with my specific ritual intention and to protect me and give me a safe return.

You should “peak in presence, connectivity, humility, intention, gratitude” in that moment! Just as you’re about to take that magic elixir of immortality!

Gently relax into your meditation and presence. Mild visuals will arise within 15–20 minutes of starting your meditation and will grow in intensity, color, form, and feelings as the ritual progresses. Sometimes as the meditation progresses there can be intense distractions, like automatic weird non-sensical thoughts and apparitions, or feelings of horniness intruding, so this is where you see the real value of your meditation practice kick in to keep you focused to get your awareness through the tunnel i.e., a moving ‘space-time discontinuum’.

Reemergence and Integration

In general, you’ll know when your Ritual Meditation is finished. There’s usually an urge to “come back” even though you will still be witnessing an expanded state of consciousness.

I like to sit and be silent in this immediate post-ritual phase because much insight and recall arises in this silence. For this reason, I’ve named the post-ritual phase “reemergence and integration.” I tend to do this outside in silence, in marvel of, and in love with nature. I tend to hug trees, kiss the plants, cry, and things like that. It’s very easy to find gratitude in everything at this time, and it’s a great time to express this to pure Consciousness, Mother Nature, and to who ever else you feel like.

Initially you don’t have a language for the transcendental realm, so finding the words can be very challenging. If you can think straight (J), it’s helpful to record insights and revelations as soon as you practically can. It’s a bit like recalling dreams: the further you are from it, the harder to recall what happened and its significance.

In the context of healing, a lot of memories, thoughts, feelings, and emotions can surface. My advice is just let this naturally flow and avoid trying to block it or judge yourself or others. It is all good material for learning about yourself, even if it isn’t pleasant.

Once the Ritual Meditation is over, you will be hungry, so be prepared with fresh and healthy foods at your disposal. I tend to eat fresh fruit to reawaken my digestive system. Avoid eating heavy or processed foods, and too much too soon.

You will also benefit from a day or two of staying at home and being isolated from other people after your ritual. In the days, weeks, and months following your Ritual Meditation, reflect and explore the insights that you came upon. I like to sit on my findings for weeks or months before acting. I try to remain flexible, so my understanding of the experience and insights can evolve and deepen. Act positively upon the insights, as your heart tells you. Saying sorry with humility is not so hard.

To give you greater motivation and insight in your journey and Ritual Meditation practice, in next month’s blog you’ll find the more profound experiences that constitute my journey toward and beyond self-realization. This will then be followed by how to integrate Ritual Meditation into a comprehensive yearly plan to help you on your awakening and healing journey.

Have a great month and let me know your thoughts or questions—I’ll be happy to help if I can. Contact me if you wish.

Thank you.

My best wishes to you.

Carlton Brown

Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization
Amazon: http://amzn.to/29EdrS0 
Book preview: http://amzn.to/29ADnPA
Website: http://ritualmeditation.com

Copyright © 2008 Carlton Brown of http://ritualmeditation.com, All Rights Reserved.

 

  1. Start your meditation 60–90 minutes before the winter solstice sunrise, summer solstice sunset, an at/around the equinoxes (full or new moon).
  2. http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Ritual-Meditation-Transcendental-Self-Realization-ebook/dp/B00HWIJ8EW/ or http://ritualmeditation.com/resource-library/
  3. Avalon Magic Plants, Zamnesia, Magic Truffles, and Shayanashop

Meditation & Magic Mushrooms (Blog #2): How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals

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If you wish to know yourself as consciousness in presence and periodically access expanded states of consciousness, then meditation is required. This blog contains everything you need to know to be proficient at meditation.

If we said self-realization, and then living in that realization (and being transformed by it) afterwards, was the ultimate purpose in life, then meditation is an incredibly important foundational building block for that journey. Meditation enables presence, develops emotional intelligence, and is the core method (which rituals supplement) for accessing an expanded consciousness and self-realization.

This blog, the second in the series, Meditation & Magic Mushrooms, aims to simplify your journey in using meditation to bring you to presence.

Meditation & Magic Mushrooms—A Blog Series

  1. Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview
  2. How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals
  3. How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms
  4. My Expanded Consciousness Experiences
  5. Self Realization & Presence
  6. Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing
  7. The Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms
  8. The Archeology of Meditation & Magic Mushrooms
  9. The Birds & Bees of Psychedelics

Understanding Consciousness Helps Our Meditation

Meditation is simply a means of bringing our awareness into presence.

We are in presence when we have a merged awareness of our breath and a minimum of one, ideally two, senses, such as sight, sound, the feel of a gentle airflow on skin, etc. Silence naturally arises in presence, so we should simply relax and let it be. Different types of meditation are used to develop different aspects of awareness (see below).

I have two big secrets that I discovered for understanding meditation better.

Firstly, humans are graced with two ‘eyes of consciousness’ for being aware—consciousness in presence and ego consciousness in fictional time (the busy projecting mind). They’re fundamentally different in experience—one is real, the other is imposturous and counterfeit. Humans were born biologically gifted with presence, but when our ego developed in early infancy, around 2–3 years of age when our memories developed, the ego insidiously hijacked our awareness. This moved the eye of consciousness from presence into fictional time, where we (likely) remain entrapped for the rest of our lives.

This consciousness hijacking happens life after life until we self-realize. After we self-realize we regain the infant’s brain mapping (coordinated by the thalamus) for presence, which then innately arises. After self-realization we witness the play of consciousness in our lives as she helps us transform our consciousness through our day-to-day lives. This could be described as an adult puberty witnessed from presence instead of from within emotions!

Secondly, until we self-realize we cannot fully comprehend or readily make happen Eckhart Tolle (ET) or Mooji’s reality: self-realization by grace. Grace is not a method, it can only be experienced then described. Before self-realization, meditation is like moving from ego to presence on a bungee chord. Afterwards we automatically spring back to the busy mind in fictional time. After self-realization our awareness naturally arises in presence, and after meditation we remain present.

How to Meditate

For meditation I use both eyes-closed and eyes-open techniques. I conduct meditation in relative silence, in nature (pre-sunset/rise), and I meditate at least once daily. This base method will help you readily attain presence and will also be used for Ritual Meditation (Meditation & Magic Mushrooms). Some important considerations when bringing your awareness into presence, in silence and peace, are:

PLACE OF MEDITATION Identify a comfortable, quiet sitting spot, ideally facing magnetic north (Northern Hemisphere) or magnetic south (Southern Hemisphere), inside or outside in nature. Whatever your preferred seating, the key is to be relaxed and comfortable so that you may melt into presence whilst remaining aware of your senses, body, and mind (feelings, emotions, and thoughts).

Seated: Place your feet shoulder width apart, with bare feet flat on the ground and relaxed (relaxed calf muscles, hamstrings, buttocks, and coccyx gently planted in your seat). Place your hands on your thighs and your elbows in a relaxed position at your sides, or cross your hands with interlinked fingers and rest them between your upper thighs. Maintain a straight back and let your head find a relaxed neutral position in front with the chin slightly dropped.

Cushion: You can sit on a meditation cushion with legs crossed or in the lotus position (or partial lotus). If you’re unpracticed at sitting down low like this, then it might take time to adjust to because, for the unaccustomed, it can impact leg circulation and create discomfort in the hips, knees, and lower back—especially as you get older. Sitting on a cushion can alleviate this discomfort and extend your meditation time.

abu-simbel-lord-shiva

Figure 1: The two main types of seated meditation i use. (A) Chair: seated meditation (eyes closed) as inspired by Pharaoh Rameses II at Abu Simbel (Egypt)[1]. The Pharaohs inspired me to use seated meditation—and their other methods for expanding/moving awareness (the all seeing eye), (B) Seated meditation Lord Shiva style (from simple crossed legged to the lotus position; as you wish). Use of a meditation cushion adds comfort and extends your duration of presence. Check out some of the seated meditation images and a range of meditation cushions for inspiration. Most of all – be comfortable.

CLOSE YOUR EYES, and gently breathe via your nose (inspiration and expiration). Relax your abdominal muscles and feel your belly drop forward while gently breathing using your abdomen (not chest). Feel your abdomen gently rise and fall. Avoid over-filling your lungs, and gently slow your breathing down. Be aware of your breath and how it feels in the throat region. Your inspiration will generally be longer than your expiration when learning, but as you become more proficient, the length of these breath phases tends to equalize. My breathing rate is six breaths per minute, and my inspiration and expiration phases are broadly equal in duration.

DURING MEDITATION While you are the awareness of breath (inspiration and expiration), your mind’s eye is effortlessly aware of the general region of your heart (the heart chakra region) and solar plexus, and behind the mid-forehead to the central brain region (the crown chakra and third eye).

When I was learning, I practiced focusing my awareness on one region at a time, binding that awareness with my breath, switching halfway through the meditation to the other chakra region. Fusing that awareness on both regions then happens automatically, after a few times. Once you are present, you can spread your awareness more generally as you melt into a relaxed, merged awareness (merging of the breath, senses, and body awareness). Everything merged into a singular point of awareness. A further refinement while being the awareness of breath is to focus your awareness on the gap between the end of your expiration and the start of your inspiration. By focusing on this gap with your ‘bound awareness,’ you can more rapidly relax into presence.

Automatic thinking is a natural part of the human mind and ego consciousness. The more present you are, the less mind noise arises. During meditation, if (when) thoughts arise, that’s OK. It’s not that thoughts arise that’s the issue, but rather that you are aware that thoughts are arising—and then you return to presence (sometimes with a silent smile). Don’t be hard on yourself, just keep at breathing and being the awareness of that, and return to presence.

In presence, with eyes closed, we can witness our thoughts arise in front of our observing silent awareness—its like a deep seated ‘eye of awareness’ through which we silently witness everything arise. That merged composite awareness is who we really are, and after death it departs life and continues its journey in eternity. Get to know yourself in presence. You will then have the opportunity later to consider conducting Transcendental Self-Inquiry so that you may self-realize. With self-realization we undergo physiological changes that support innate presence – you will then know ET/Moojis’ world.

MEDITATION & TIMINGS You can use a meditation app to provide a soft and gentle alarm. Upon completing the meditation, open your eyes and gently relax while maintaining presence. Rest for a few moments—and say your prayers.

Start out by meditating for 5 minutes and then increase by 5 minutes every few days until you’re doing a minimum of 30 minutes.

The secret to persisting with meditation is in realizing how relaxed, calm, peaceful, tranquil, and aware you feel during and afterwards. When you’re ready, work up to an hour daily or two shorter sessions. The more in presence you spend, the more in consciousness you live, and the more it reflects in your mind and life.

Ideally it’s best to start a meditation 30–60 minutes before sunrise (from autumn to spring equinox) or sunset (from spring to autumn equinox), in order to benefit from the enhanced Schumann resonances at these times. Meditation drives enhanced alpha brainwaves over the frontal brain, and these enhanced Schumann resonances can be used to increase meditation’s alpha brainwave voltages (see brainwave entrainment). This voltage increase helps the process of attaining presence and in expanding consciousness (i.e., voltage thresholds/gateways[2]). That said, if time is short, just focus on the meditation.

You can use an online meditation calendar (http://ritualmeditation.com/meditation-calendar/) to find location-specific sun- and moonrises/sets and moon phases—useful for timing your meditation and Ritual Meditation.

screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-11-45-35

Figure 2: Meditation calendar screen interface (Click here). This provides you with sun and moon rises and sets and phase of moon for any location on the planet, and set of instructions on use, and timing your meditation and Ritual Meditation.

DIFFERENT MEDITATION METHODS HELP DEVELOP AWARENESS It’s useful to learn various meditation techniques. Each type of meditation develops different aspects of awareness to help you attain and maintain presence, and for expanding your awareness beyond objective reality i.e., Ritual Meditation. Meditation can be categorized into focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) techniques, done with eyes open or closed.

In FA meditation we focus our eyes in a relaxed manner on a non-distracting object, image, or candle flame in front of us (meters), as well as focus on our breath. This helps us focus our attention and makes it easy to return to presence if we drift from presence. The head/neck should also be relaxed and facing forward, chin pointing slightly downward.

Another valuable FA meditation technique is what I call ‘awareness dissection’. Here we become aware of our breath and a single sense (sight, sound, or wind-touch), or our feelings, or body awareness and arisings, and do this for a full session or the first 5–10 minutes of the meditation. Sometimes I start a meditation and ask, “How am I feeling?” (then listen)—particularly if things don’t feel right. We should always be aware of any arising thoughts in all meditations from start to finish, as with our breath! If we’re present, there will be mainly silence.

During OM meditation (eyes open) we simply relax and melt into a single awareness of all senses and body and mind arisings. We avoid focusing on any one thing, instead taking in everything as one. Our aim is to bind the awareness of breath with all senses and body-mind arisings into a single merged awareness—without effort. I do my OM meditation in the garden. I may start with my eyes closed and slowly start opening them once present.

Practicing FA meditation, focused on breath, senses, thoughts, feelings, and body arisings, enables OM meditation. We start by observing our breath, recognizing that we are seeing (if eyes open), hearing (birds, river, wind), and feeling (airflow on skin). We relax with each successive breath. We witness all but hold onto nothing (let it go). Between the solstices/equinoxes I do two FA meditations (eyes closed) to one OM meditation, and add in other types of meditations to mix it up.

In the weeks running up to the solstice/equinoxes, I use an FA method with a candle, two meters or so in front me, right in front of a mirror, placing the flame mid-forehead (eyes open!). Doing this can greatly assist us in developing a central focus of awareness with concentration (for prolonged periods). This also binds our awareness into the same region that the visuals arise during eyes-closed Ritual Meditation. This concentration booster is also naturally transferred to our routine meditation (the next time). Start doing 5 minutes, and work up the duration to 30–60 minutes. While learning meditation, do this once weekly. Ramp up your candle meditation to an hour daily in the fortnight running up to doing Ritual Meditation.

PRAYING & CONSCIOUSNESS As you progress with meditation it’s beneficial to start saying prayers and communicating any healing, awakening, or self-realization intentions. Prayers and intentions set in presence communicate conscious awareness (meaning the spirit and ego ‘align’) to the source of your consciousness in Unity (God, pure Consciousness, Brahman) and the higher self (Higher self, Soul, Atman) – our other eyes of consciousness – beyond body-mind in space-time, within and beyond objective reality. After meditation while in presence is a good time to pray. Sincerely praying also creates grace, which is crucial for Ritual Meditation.

The Dalai Lama inspired me to pray and what I should pray for. When I pray, I talk of gratitude for all that I have, all that is, for life’s beauty and richness, and all its lessons. I pray to different aspects of human suffering, which bare down on humanity. I pray for children, their parents, the elderly and frail—for abusive parents, war zones, famine and drought, disease, oppressive patriarchal regimes, all forms of violence and abuse. I pray for women who suffer from male violence, inequality, and control in a global culture dominated by patriarchy.

I pray to Mother Earth and all her life forms, elements of creation, the sun, moon, and stars, our ancestors and spirit world for all of creation, and that we humans collectively awaken, rapidly learn to minimize our ‘human footprint,’ and live in peace. This helps me consciously connect with my humanity with an open heart in presence, and consciously connects me (i feel it) with the source of all things.

In next month’s blog I will share my more profound Ritual Meditation (transcendental) experiences, which in composite constitute my awakening, healing, and self-realization journey.

Have a great month and let me know your thoughts or questions—I’m happy to help if I can. Thank you.

My best wishes to you.

Carlton Brown

Book: Discovering Ritual Meditation, Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization.
Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/29EdrS0
Download free book preview: http://bit.ly/2cNkx8k
Free website resources: http://ritualmeditation.com
Copyright © 2008 Carlton Brown of http://ritualmeditation.com. All Rights Reserved.

[1] See image of Pharaoh Rameses II in seated meditation http://bit.ly/2cN19Iu facing the winter solstice sunrise, and with the midday sun directly overhead.

[2] See Chapter 7 & 8 of Discovering Ritual Meditation http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Ritual-Meditation-Transcendental-Self-Realization-ebook/dp/B00HWIJ8EW/, or website for scientific publications http://ritualmeditation.com/resource-library/

Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview (Blog #1)

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The purpose for this blog is to share with you what Ritual Meditation is about and how it relates to spiritually awakening, profound psychological and emotional healing, self-realization, and innately emanating your awareness from presence.

This blog is the first in a series, Meditation & Magic Mushrooms, and will be complemented with blogs on:

  1. Meditation & Magic Mushrooms Overview
  2. How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals
  3. How to Safely Meditate with Magic Mushrooms
  4. My Expanded Consciousness Experiences
  5. Self Realization & Presence
  6. Spiritual Awakening & Spiritual Healing
  7. The Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Magic Mushrooms
  8. The Archeology of Meditation & Magic Mushrooms
  9. The Birds & Bees of Psychedelics

My Journey

My journey of discovery was born initially in my mind as a young child and later in the sands of modern day Egypt. Since my early childhood, I was not only fascinated by Giza’s Great Pyramid, but also I felt a distinct connection and draw to it. As an adult, I got the opportunity to meditate in Pharaoh Khufu’s sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber.

Figure 1: Meditating in the sarcophagus inside the Kings Chamber (The Great Pyramid, Giza) in 2009.

During this meditation a heartfelt change occurred inside of me. An awareness or confirmation of my purpose, arose from deep within. It felt like i was meant to be there, and always knew that. The year before I had discovered the ancient Sun god religion priesthoods’ ritual methods for accessing an expanded consciousness, with the religion of Ra and Giza my primary inspirations.

In developing Ritual Meditation from these findings, and in becoming the ritual method’s test-pilot, pure Consciousness showed me the structure of consciousness—how as awareness I relate to God, and God to me—and how to use these ritual methods to spiritually awaken, profoundly heal, and to self-realize.

I came to realize the only knowledge worth having is methods for expanding our awareness—to reveal that sense of ‘I am’—within and beyond objective reality. Everything spiritually possible and profoundly healing stems from innately living in presence and periodically moving one’s awareness within and beyond objective reality. Healing has its natural ways of happening when we move or expand our awareness beyond objective reality i.e., Unity/Satcitananda, energy fields and meridians unblocking, chakra/kundalini activations (all 7, heart multiple times is possible, 3rd eye/crown 24/7 activation), and self-realization (vanishing one’s perceived need to heal). In the post-self-realized life living with awareness innately emanating from presence we witness the play of consciousness helping us transform our emotions and conditioning i.e., you see them with awareness and get to transform them. Kind of like an adult puberty! All of the above happened to me, and all i ever did was humbly intend to heal, request that for others, and trust in my journey as consciousness.

Who Will Benefit from This Blog and Blog Series…?

This blog series may be beneficial to you if:

  • you want a method for sacredly (safely) using magic mushrooms for self-exploration;
  • you already meditate and know profound spiritual experiences are possible—but don’t know how;
  • you already understand that magic mushrooms can dramatically improve the symptoms (see Medical Benefits of Psychedelics) and quality of life for people with an array of psychoemotional issues relating to death anxiety, depression, anxiety, chemical addictions, post-traumatic stress, and childhood and sexual abuse—but don’t know how to use them; and/or
  • you might also wish to make Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now your reality—and innately emanate your awareness from presence.

The Sun God Religions’ Priestly Ritual Methods

Through my lifelong interests in pyramid archaeology and my curiosity for who God is, I discovered the ancient Sun god religion priesthoods’ ritual methods for accessing expanded states of consciousness and self-realizing. I found these ritual methods symbolically embedded in the deity art and icons of the Sun god religions of ancient Egypt, India, and Central and South America. This shared archaeological fingerprint spans more than five millennia of human history and provides a rich validation for the use of meditation and magic mushrooms (and other entheogens) in human consciousness endeavors.[1]

Figure 2: Visual similarities between a young magic mushroom (Psilocybe cubensis) and Egyptian crowns containing the Hedjet (mushroom primordium shape) [2]. Ancient Egyptian deity and pharaoh art and icons were used to symbolically depict ‘heads or minds under the influence of sacred time and entheogens’. This is elaborated on in Discovering Ritual Meditation. (A) Osiris wearing his Atef on the wall of Nefertari´s tomb (1295-1255 BCE), personifying a magic mushroom incorporating V47 degree solstice symbolizing angle. He was also patron deity of the barley adorning his V47 degree solstice angled crook & staff. This depiction of Osiris is rich in ritual symbolism to my eyes. (B) A Psilocybe cubensis primordium with its hedjet-shaped, bulbous base and demarcated brown top with a zone of transition in the primordium´s neck—these grow naturally on sterilized barley (i.e. after lightning strikes). (C) A pschent crown, containing a mushroom primordium shaped object, worn by Horus on a wall of the Kom Ombo Temple, also depicts an electromagnetic coil (solstice) and serpent (Uraeus; goddess Wadjet as equinox) as sacred time symbols.[3]

Ritual Meditation and Transcendental Self-Inquiry methods were derived from these discoveries.

Ritual Meditation is a supplemented form of meditation, where entheogens are used to provide ‘meditation related’ brain chemicals, and by conducting rituals at sacred time (solstices, equinoxes) we are able to naturally enhance our alpha brainwave voltages. Sacred time’s alpha brainwave voltage supplementation (brainwave entrainment) ensures minimum voltage thresholds are attained within the brain’s meditation / consciousness related brain circuits. By supplementing meditation we ensure our awareness has a greater opportunity to move beyond presence and the confines of the body-mind in space and time. I am beginning to learn that we can direct these experiences by setting appropriate ritual intentions before our rituals i.e., healing, awakening, self-realizing, spiritual warrior and our collective healing. Consciousness then works with us during these experiences to guide these personal revelations in our awareness.

An infinite array of transcendental and mystic experiences are possible. Stanislav Grof[4],[5] and Ron Krumpos (free)[6] respectively provide a great understanding of consciousness and the types of experiences to which I’m referring from the perspectives of transpersonal psychology and the mystics of our great religions. They provide a consciousness-navigating language, which enhances our ability to comprehend the kinds of experiences resulting from the practice of Ritual Meditation and Transcendental Self-Inquiry.

Conducting Ritual Meditation

What: Ritual Meditation involves the following essential elements:

  • eyes-closed meditation method (Click here to learn how.)
  • sensory silence (dark and silent)
  • sacred timing (when)
  • the careful ingestion of psilocybin cubensis magic mushrooms.

How: The meditator aligns their meditating body with Earth’s north-south magnetic axis to enhance connectivity to cosmic energies (see Magnetosphere, and Heliospheric current sheet).

When: Ritual Meditation is practiced four times annually:

  • at the winter solstice sunrise,
  • at the summer solstice sunset, and
  • at the spring and autumn equinoxes: new moon at sunrise or full moon at sunset.

Sacred time means conducting rituals 60–90 minutes before sunrise or sunset at the four designated times each year. This timing of day and year ensures the meditator’s alpha brainwave voltages are maximally supplemented. This voltage supplementation augments the brain process engaged by meditation, which moves one’s awareness beyond objective reality i.e. altered states of consciousness.

Please note: Sacred (safe) preparation is essential for Ritual Meditation, including:

  • generating healing and/or awakening intentions (months to weeks beforehand)
  • fasting and cleansing (3 days prior)
  • being barefoot and be in nature (3 days prior)
  • conducting ceremonial fires and offerings (3 days prior),
  • carefully setting ritual intentions (weeks beforehand, 3 days prior), and
  • switching your life completely off; all work, electronics, social media, phone, books, movies, people.

This sacred (safe) preparation helps positively direct your experiences to better enable healing, spiritual awakening, and self-realization. A definitive version of Ritual Meditation, including health and safety, and your legal obligations, is provided in my book Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization.

Learning to Meditate the Easy Way

Learning to meditate can be short-circuited by understanding that meditation is simply a method of bringing our awareness into presence.

You will know you’re present when you are aware of your breath and one or two senses simultaneously, i.e., sight, sound, air flow over the skin, smell etc. Silence then naturally arises, without you forcing it, and from here we simply witness the emergence of body, feelings, senses, and thoughts from silence. As we progress with time the spaces of silence increase and a deep inner peace arises. Meditation is naturally enhanced at sunrise and sunset (enhances alpha brainwave voltages), and the sounds of birds and insects at these times greatly facilitate our awareness of presence, and sense of joy.

You can Learn How to Meditate on my website.

How to Conduct Self-Inquiry and Self-Realize

What is self-inquiry and self-realization?

Self-inquiry is simply a means of asking “Who am I?” from a different perspective or different locus of awareness than the busy thinking-ego mind projecting itself in fictional time, i.e., not in presence.

Why do we need to ask, “Who am I?”

Because it’s the most important question humans can ever ask themselves. A great paradoxical riddle of self-identity is posed to every member of the human species. The reality is we are eternal consciousness witnessed in presence, and beyond the confines of body-mind in space and time. As young infants a counterfeit ego develops and hijacks our awareness, moving that awareness from presence into fictional time—where we get lost life after life. Self-inquiry helps us plug back into our true sense of self-identity—consciousness in presence. Living in the awareness of presence transforms the human mind and its experience of life.

Put another way, unless you’ve self-realized, who you think you are is not who you really are! Life’s grand purpose contains a paradoxical riddle of self-identity that we must all eventually solve—this lifetime or another. Conducting self-inquiry beyond objective reality makes it easier to create the separation in our awareness. Self-realization is the most profound experience a human can ever have and is the reason we’re born again and again—until we have that experience.

Transcendental Self-Inquiry is a method to self-realize conducted while you are awareness beyond body-mind in space and time. This method was created by fusing Ritual Meditation with Mooji/Hindu-Advaita’s ‘s imperative for self-inquiry. We will review this much more in a future blog.

What are the results of attaining self-realization?

The consequences for self-realization are we become aware that we are eternal consciousness, within and beyond objective reality, and that we will live on after death. Witnessing this experience beyond objective reality is literally mind-blowing. With self-realization the brain is “remapped,” so our awareness innately emanates from presence in both heart and mind. I think Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now explains very well how living in presence then transforms your mind and life.

In my case, my perceived need to heal from childhood abuse simply vanished, and I then experienced rapture in eternity as Unity consciousness. During this experience my 3rd eye / crown chakra opened, completing the activation of all 7 chakras/kundalini. My crown chakra opening was witnessed as a lotus flower opening on my forehead whilst a Buddha like entity beyond objective reality. Fourteen months later it still buzzes 24/7, especially around volcanoes. I found forgiveness and opened a door to my family after decades of absence. I now live in presence, and witness the play of consciousness helping me transform my old conditioning. There is love and kindness innately in my heart now, where I only really knew that for animals before. Life changed for the better, but it’s really just a new beginning. In the post-self-realized world we simply clean our acts up, with awareness coming from presence. The right things then happen. It feels like an adult puberty!

Words like spiritual warrior and revolution now have meaning.

The Mind Transformation Plan

Ritual Meditation and Transcendental Self-Inquiry are integrated into a broader plan for spiritual awakening, healing, and self-realization (Mind Transformation Plan). The Mind Transformation Plan is designed to create a more connected, sacred, mind-nurturing, healthy context in which to undertake self-inquiry, spiritual awakening, and healing.

The Mind Transformation Plan involves conducting quarterly Ritual Meditation, daily meditation(s), regular self-inquiry (who are you as a person? i.e., our relationships and our conditioning), daily new learning (psychology, spiritual media), a healthy diet and way of life, and culminating in conducting Transcendental Self-Inquiry to self-realize. Thereafter, it’s really just a new beginning!

Health, Safety & Legal

Specific instructions for using Ritual Meditation and Transcendental Self-Inquiry methods, and their legal, health and safety guidance are provided in my book (Discovering Ritual Meditation). This is the only definitive source for these ritual methods, and no other source will suffice.

It is your responsibility to thoroughly comprehend the legal, health, and safety implications of using entheogens, and in using the methods contained in my book. These sacraments are illegal in many countries, so you are fully responsible for ascertaining your country’s legal status for magic mushrooms, and you must take full responsibility for any risks you take. Above all else realize these sacraments have real potential for side effects (nausea, vomiting, psychosis, anxiety, panic, etc.), unpleasant experiences (psychosis, insanity and terror, symbolically witnessing your death, etc.), bad side effects when combined with other medications (brain, heart, and cardiovascular), and, in rare cases, death—so please treat your consciousness and its connection with Unity with respect. Otherwise, bad stuff happens.

Be sacred, be safe, and inform your consciousness you’re ready to fly! Honesty, humility, and healing &/or awakening intentions are your greatest friends. That’s how we create grace.

Remember too—you also have to do the deep personal work, and this takes time. The good news is that after self-realization we become aware of the play of consciousness in our momentary life as she shows us the things we need to see to help bring us to our love-transformed perfection.

My best wishes to you.

Love.

Carlton Brown

 

Author of Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization

Amazon: http://amzn.to/29EdrS0

Book preview: http://amzn.to/29ADnPA

Website: http://ritualmeditation.com

 

[1] Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Inquiry. http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Ritual-Meditation-Transcendental-Self-Realization-ebook/dp/B00HWIJ8EW/ or https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26367834-discovering-ritual-meditation

[2] Stephen R. Berlant. The entheomycological origin of Egyptian crowns and the esoteric underpinnings of Egyptian religion,. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 102 (2005) 275–288.

[3] Composite image created by Carlton Brown of ancient Egyptian temple art comprising modified original works (annotations, cropping; by the author); (A) Osiris: a modified image created by Carlton Brown / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain. original work by mursal / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osiris-tomb-of-Nefertari.jpg. (B) Carlton Brown / Public Domain. (C) original work by Rémih / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_relief_Kom_Ombo13.JPG.

[4] Stanislav Grof. LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious. M.D. Park Street Press; 4th edition (12 Feb 2009). ASIN: B003GDFROM.

[5] Stanislav Grof. Healing Our Deepest Wounds: The Holotropic Paradigm Shift. Stream of Experience Productions (28 June 2012).

[6] R.D. Krumpos. The Greatest Achievement in Life: Five Traditions of Mysticism, Mystical Approaches to Life. http://www.suprarational.org/.

Copyright © 2008 Carlton Brown of http://ritualmeditation.com, All Rights Reserved.

Creating Sacred Space, Invocation, & Conducting a Ceremonial Circle (Fire)

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Creating Sacred Space

Opening a circle and conducting a ceremonial fire (small/inside) or large/outside) is a way to create sacred space in your mind, within which to undertake healing and spiritual work. Creating a sacred circle, invocation, and conducting a ceremonial fire transact this intent. What follows is a framework, or suggestion, giving you scope to adapt to your situation or cultural context (spiritual faith or religion). Better to conduct one than not at all, and then learn and adapt as you go. Print this out for each participant and study/visualize its conduct beforehand. Use it on-site until you no longer need it.

The Steps to Opening a Circle and Conducting a Ceremonial Fire

  1. Organize ceremonial fire materials around the place of fire. Incense blocks, small ceremonial candles (yellow, red, black, white, green, blue), flower petals (same colors; replace black with a dark color), and offerings (sugar, candies, cigars, aromatic incenses).
  2. Ritual Cleansing: Each participant should anoint him/herself, or each other, before the ritual with cleansing water (essential oils).
  3. Stand at the edge of an imaginary circle around the ceremonial fire place. If you are a group, then hold hands. Close your eyes and visualize the energy flowing anti-clockwise (the Earth’s direction of rotation and orbit) for a minute or so, saying, “Only love may enter and love may leave” (silently or aloud). Become present in the Now, clearing your mind of thoughts.
  4. Smudging: Before entering the sacred space (imaginary or bounded circle that contains the fire), smudge yourself, or each other (smoldering dried sage, sweet grass, etc.), all the while visualizing all negativity drifting away with the smoke. You have now entered sacred space and should remain inside the circle until the fire becomes embers. If you must leave, ask permission within yourself, cut an imaginary door at one of the cardinal points, step outside, and then immediately close it. Do the same upon your return, thanking yourself within and smiling.
  5. Invocation (see below): Call for the presence and blessing of the immanent, transcendent, and eternal source of all life (your god) by invoking the cardinal and solstice directions, elements of life, animal signs, ancestors, and spirits that have collectively created the building blocks of all life.
  6. Assemble the ceremonial fire collectively or by assigning someone for this task. Assemble the blocks of incense in an anti-clockwise manner at each cardinal point (North, South, East, West (NWSE) and solstices midway between SE-NW, NE-SW). Then place colored candles on top of the incense (South is red; East is yellow; North is white; West is black/dark-colored; inter-SE (winter solstice sunrise) is blue; inter-NW (summer solstice sunset) is green). Progress each point toward the fire’s center. Light the candles on the fire when you are ready.
  7. During the fire: Offer prayers of gratitude and love to (as you see fit)—the immanent, transcendent, and eternal source of all life (your God), our ancestors (close, ancient, and evolutionary), Earth, Sun, Moon, planets and stars, cardinal and solstice directions, the elements (Earth, Air, Water, and Fire), animal signs, ancestors, and spirits. Then make any requests and/or state clearly your Ritual Meditation intentions. This can be done silently or aloud. In between, maintain silence, pray, and cast your ritual intention(s) while focusing on the fire. The flames will carry these intentions between the realms, ensuring your higher self (consciousness) knows you know. Most of all—respect the space and others’ silence; collectively agree on any norms for this time upfront. This typically lasts 90–120 minutes.
  8. Close the circle: You should remain inside the sacred space until the fire becomes embers, whereupon you should close the circle (click link below).

Equinox ceremony & offerings 2

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Invocation

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The Archeology, Art & Science of Altered States of Consciousness: A Shared Global Archaeological Fingerprint

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A Shared Global Archaeological Fingerprint

Some Background Context

I would like to share with you some unique and ground-breaking archeological discoveries underpinning my newly published book, Discovering Ritual Meditation: Transcendental Healing and Self-Realization. This thoroughly referenced (not duplicated herein) and graphically rich book presents data-driven research from four different Sun god religion’s and their most important archaeological sites. These religions left us important information regarding their sacred ritual processes in symbolic form—arguably humankind’s best-kept and most profound secret. These ritual processes embodied the Sun god religions of ancient Egypt, pre-Colombia Meso and South America, and Southern India, three of which were made extinct via religious assimilation.

An exciting two-minute video book trailer gives you a rapid overview for a broader context, and a free KMZ file containing 450 pyramid and temple sites brings this story to life in Google Earth. Instructions for its use are included in the download.

Introduction

Four hundred and fifty (450) sacred sites and the deity art and icons from four different Sun god religions were researched using a common framework. This framework identified symbolic information embedded in temple alignments, art, icons, and other information pertaining to altered states of consciousness (ASC). These archaeological sites were once the epicenters of their religions. As such, priesthoods once resided at each, holding domain and leaving a collective fingerprint—ensured by their teaching and time-keeping needs—of their symbolically veiled ritual processes.

Site specifications captured within the research framework include:

1)  Sacred space included a site’s geographical location, i.e., proximity to a lightning center, fault line, and/or volcano; its alignments relative to the overhead, moving day-night boundary (solar terminator) and the Earth’s magnetic axis (geomancy); and the place where ritual took place in some form of sensory isolation, i.e., temple sanctum, pyramid chamber, or cave/underground tunnel.

2)  Sacred time included pyramid and temple alignments both locally, i.e., the equinox sunrises/sets, winter solstice sunrise (WSSR), and summer solstice sunset (SSSS), and regionally, relative to the overhead solar terminator (on the WSSR/SSSS; seen by satellite); temple-pyramid superstructure features, i.e,. 47-degree angles as solstice symbols seen with some pyramid outlines, Hindu temple gates and spires; and in their deity art and icons as sacred time symbols, i.e., V47 solstice, equinox serpents.

3)  Sacred ritual involved activities undertaken to catalyze the switch in their state of consciousness, i.e., the consumption of entheogens (hallucinogens or neurochemicals from nature detailed in symbolic form in temple art as hallucinogenic flowers, fruit, and fauna), and meditation, drumming, and/or pipe music.

Sacred ritual at its essence involved sacredly timed meditation conducted in sensory isolation (silence or acoustic resonances) under the influence of hallucinogens, while potentially aligning the meditator’s body to the Earth’s magnetic fields (equinoxes, geomagnetic activity). Sacred time for the Sun god religions implied the winter solstice sunrise, summer solstice sunset, and equinox sunrises or sunsets (dependent on the phase of the moon, i.e., new or full moon).

Sacred time coincided(s) with peaks in the Earth’s electromagnetic and magnetic fields. This offered four times a year when alpha brainwaves could be maximally enhanced via entrainment processes. Alpha brainwaves are the most important brainwave signature of people in deep meditative and transcendental states of consciousness. This is where the fanciful transcendental phenomena arise, and deities, spirits, epic journeys, unity states of consciousness, god union, spiritual death/ rebirth/ resurrection (healing), and other transcendental phenomena all play out.

The research framework filtered important information from the priesthood archaeological domains, identifying two separate and related archaeological fingerprints: site alignments recorded sacred time, and their sacred ritual processes were embedded in temple art and icons in symbolic form, which included sacred time symbols. You can read more about the second fingerprint and the science and esoteric subjects involved in humans attaining and experiencing altered states of consciousness in Discovering Ritual Meditation.

A Priesthood’s Need to Accurately Tell Time Left Its Mark

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Why Do We Meditate?

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The simple answer is we meditate to bring our awareness into presence, or the Now. We know we are present when we are simultaneously aware of our breath and one to two senses (i.e. sight, sound, feel of breeze on skin etc.).

We meditate because we feel a deep inner peace, tranquility and it quiets the mind. Over time, and the more present we are, we develop mindfulness or emotional intelligence, and slowly this transform our minds and lives. The more present we are the more spiritual qualities begin to naturally manifest i.e., loving-kindness, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, non-judging, equanimity, generosity etc.

From presence we are able to observe our physical senses (i.e., sight, sound etc.), the arisings of feelings, thoughts, and our body. This helps us create separation in our awareness. We come to realize we are not any of these arisings, but merely the awareness of them. Without self realization once we finish our meditation we move back to our busy minds, or ego consciousness. Meditation after self realization becomes an even greater joy, and we simply melt into a deeper presence. The hallmarks of this deep presence include a disruption of time i.e., time flies by, a deep effortless silence, the awareness of our physical bodies partially disappears, and mild visuals can arise.

Meditation is a natural biological process gifted to humans enabling us to move our awareness, or consciousness, from ego to presence, and from presence to the perspectives of the higher self or Unity consciousness (beyond objective reality). Thus meditation enables us to expand or move our awareness (consciousness) beyond the confines of the body-mind in space-time—if we know how.

Most humans, meditation and mystic adepts aside, will need to “supplement” their meditation to achieve this consciousness expansion within or beyond objective reality. This supplementation is achieved using entheogens (i.e., magic mushrooms), combined with conducting meditation at “sacred times” i.e., on the solstices and equinoxes 60-90 minutes before sunrise or sunset (click Meditation Calendar).

This supplementation can be achieved using the Meditation & Magic Mushroom method detailed in my blog (click link). Supplementation effectively provides support of natural biological processes taking place in the brain during meditation by supplying additional brain chemicals (5-hydroxytryptamine-2a serotonin, and/or dopamine), and by boosting our alpha-brainwave voltages (entrainment). You can read more about this physiological supplementation in my book (Discovering Ritual Meditation; see chapters 7 & 8) or via scientific references on this website (click the link).

Meditation supplementation greatly increases the chances of transcending body-mind in space-time, helping us move our awareness beyond objective reality—where we witness profound consciousness experiences (see blog).

Meditation is the means by which we spiritually awaken, spiritually heal, and self realize, and this absolutely transforms our mind and life beyond belief. Do it every day, even without rituals, and watch the transformation unfold.

Without doubt meditation is the single most important thing we can ever learn. I have so much gratitude for our ancient ancestors (i.e., the sun god religion priesthoods) for leaving us their knowledge of consciousness and its movement/expansion (see Discovering Ritual Meditation).

If you’d like to know how to meditate, then please read my blog “How to Meditate for Presence and Rituals”. This is a no frills approach to learning how to meditate from someone who has witnessed Unity consciousness and the higher self beyond objective reality numerous times. I also developed the Transcendental Self Inquiry method then used it to self realize six hours later. Presence is now my natural state of consciousness. Don’t worry we still have an ego afterwards, but its no longer the only show in town!

Thank you and my best wishes to you.

Carlton Brown

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