Shamanic Tuition in the Philippines

We are excited to announce a new venue for shamanic tuition in 2012:

Boracay Island in the Philippines.

Boracay is an island of the Philippines located approximately 315 km (196 mi) south of Manila and 2 km off the northwest tip of Panay Island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.

Boracay Island and its beaches have received awards numerous times. Boracay was awarded in the “Travelers’ Choice 2011″ by TripAdvisor as the second best beach (out of 25) in the world. Boracay made a debut appearance on the Top 10 Islands list in the Travel + Leisure travel magazine World’s Best Awards 2011, ranking fourth.

Weather

Daytime temperatures on Boracay generally range from 77-90°F (25-32°C) from October- March, and increase to the 82-100°F(28-38°C) range from April-September.

Activities

Leisure activities available on or near Boracay include scuba diving, snorkeling, windsurfing, kiteboarding, cliff diving, and beach relaxation.

Boracay is the site of a 18-hole par 72 golf course designed by Graham Marsh. In addition, as of 2010, Boracay has in excess of 350 beach resorts offering more than 2,000 rooms ranging in quality from five-star to budget accommodations, so tourists are sure to find whatever they are looking for.

Events

Dragon boat races are held annually on Boracay under the auspices of the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation, with teams coming from around the Philippines and from other Asian nations to compete. The races usually take place sometime in April or May.

Language

Many languages are spoken on the island, however most Filipinos speak English well.

Food

There is a wide variety of different restaurants specializing in a range of ethnic cuisines. Those on a budget should head for the local market where you can purchase fresh fruit and have local fresh seafood prepared to order.

A wide of variety of unique tropical fruits are available including custard apple, jackfruit, duhat, mangosteen, marang, papaya and mangoes.

Here are a few of the most popular restaurants on the island.

Prana Restaurant located in Mandala Spa is an organic vegetarian restaurant serving breakfast, salads and light vegetarian meals including tofu with peanut sauce. They also offer a variety of organic French wines.

Dos Mestizos is the Best Spanish Restaurant in the Island. Their specialties are tapas and paella.

Cyma’s original restaurant in d’Mall is the most popular Greek restaurant on the island. Menu offerings include Greek salad, seafood and lamb.

Lemon iCafe - This place is famous for its lemon desserts and other treats like chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, coconut pancakes and banana muffins. They serve breakfast and light meals including salads, sandwiches, seafood and pasta.

Manana Mexican Restaurant - known for its Mexican delicacies and cuisines. Traditional and modern recipes are available and favorites include nachos, enchiladas, burritos, salads and mango margaritas.

Boracay Crab House @ Escondido - Their specialties are a wide variety of dishes with crabs and other seafood.

True Food Indian Cuisine - The Best Indian Food in Boracay Island. Comfortable seating with low tables and big cushions. Features a good choice of vegetarian dishes.

Smoke Restaurant The best restaurant for Filipino food in Boracay. If you are on a budget, you can bring your own ingredients and ask the chef to prepare a dish for you. They also have ala carte Filipino food. Their specialties include Bicol Express, Bulalo, Chicken Curry, Lechon Kawali, Sinigang, and Stuffed Squid with Sizzled Vegetables.

Transportation

Boracay island is separated from Panay island by a narrow strait. The island is located opposite the barangay of Caticlan in the municipality of Malay, Aklan. Transportation across the strait is provided by boats operating from the Caticlan jetty port.

By air

Boracay is served by two airports in Aklan province: one in Kalibo and Godofredo P. Ramos Airport (commonly referred to as “Caticlan airport”) in Malay.

By sea

The western part of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH) passes through Caticlan, with car ferries from Roxas, Oriental Mindoro docking at the Caticlan jetty port. Several bus companies operate provincial bus routes from Manila which pass through Caticlan via the SRNH.

On the island

The two main modes of transport are via motor-tricycles along the main road or by walking along the beaches. Pedicabs are also available for transport along the Beachfront Path. Other means of transportation include mountain bikes, quadbikes and motorbikes, all of which can be rented.

Tuition Availability

April 9th-13th: Windlock Series
April 16th-20th: Three Treasures
April 23rd-27th: All programs available
April 30th-May 4th: All programs available
May 7th-11th: All programs available
May 14th-18th: All programs available
May 21st-25th: All programs available
May 28th-June 1st: All programs available

If you are interested in reserving a position please register on the Parallel Perception website: Program Registration

For more information about the programs visit this page: Shamanic Tuition Programs

Lujan Matus - Shamanic Tuition Scholarship

Thank you to everyone who submitted entries to the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program.

Voting closes on January 1st and you can vote for as many people as you like but only one vote per entry.

Here is a list of the entries.

Javier - You Have to Live Your Life Like a Warrior

Luma - Integrity, Freedom and the Heart Warrior's Path

Chris - They came and he pushed them and they flew

Dakota - Opening to My Full Potential

Angela - Thankful to Lujan for the Book and the Knowledge

Navi - A Call to Awaken

Lawrence - Beginning To See the Stars Again

Mariel - Dreaming Beyond This Reality

Charles - Of Nows and to Bes

Paul - The Beginning of Unity

Pom - A Path With Heart

Katherine - My Journey Is At Hand And I Am Responsible

Concha - The Challenge of GETTING ALIVE

Robert - Without Heart, Who or What Should Guide You?

Rugay - Fifty Years

Michael - Tree of Love

Ilian - The Nature of Man

Shally - Song to the Nagual

Charles - Of Nows and to Bes

Julio - Path Toward the Light

Firegazer - A Return to Heart

Kristina - Lujan Matus; Dissolve the Mind so the Spirit can Dance

Boyd - The Descent of the Spirit

Clara - The Path to Ultimate Transformation

Ivan - The TRUE Importance of our Integrity

Jerry - Shaping My Gifts Into a Magic Prayer

James - Resonance

Endre - Sensing the Personal Power of Lujan Matus through his Books

Douglas - Longing

Quihuara - Keeping Focussed Amidst Distractions

Madhuritta - The Fate of the Cow

Malvina - The Meeting in the Equator

Lujan is also contemplating a bonus for everyone who has entered and this will be announced on January 2nd.

Best of luck to everyone!


Photo courtesy of Ucumari

The meeting in the equator

This is the final application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program and it was submitted by Malvina. If you would like to vote for Malvina please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

The great forces of this universe is awakening at this moment.. The meeting of the male and the female energies..

I'm a bringer of light holding the key of the fifth dimension in my heart. I'm a manifesting of the Christ energy and the Maria Magdalena a child of the Christ // My souls knows what salvation is and I have the gift to liberate souls dead and alive.. My linage is from the star of David Star and all the angels of the Christ in by my side ready to assist me at any moment..

All of this messages I receive some weeks ago from a healer that goes into trance and the angel Michael Gabriel Uriel and Rhafael speaks true him in trance.. The most intense hour of my life and the most liberating healing season I got.. And all thanks to this healer being able to step aside and let the angels work true him..He removed a very dark lord who tried to posses my soul for years without managing..I will be forever grateful for this healer. And so becoming free I also want to give back to the universe the same gift/The angels also told me that I will work with them in the same ways to help others as he helped me.

That's is what healing is about for me being a pure channel of love and compassion.

My hole being is golden light . I need help to channel this in a proper ways/

I booked a ticket from Sweden to Peru to attend a yoga course in January some time ago and ticket home in costa Rica In June its opend one year ticket. I been feeling the call to write because there is no coincidence in life.

As a young woman as the angel called me princess. I'm calling out for my brothers and sister to help me channel this energy .. I need to learn and receive the teaching of Lujan. I been trying to meet with him several times after meeting a very dear brother of Mine called Michael Looko who gave me the book and told me about his incredible intense meeting with Lujan. And also I could see the transformation in his body. Remarkable and it came from hard work. Exactly what I'm looking for.


Since the age of 7 I cant remember my dreams // I lived in such an amazing world meeting angels and visiting the most amazing worlds/ Both talking to fairies and leprechauns. I can remember of flying like I can remember strange things like laying in the bath top and I went under the water and feel like a stay there for hours. I remember taking of and flying like It actually happened in real life.. Its a strange feeling

After reading the books of Lujan in Thailand I got this intense longing to awake my third eye completely so I can do lucid dreaming..

Lujan language in the book contains hidden secrets not available to the normal eyes.

As everything is completely black for me a I go to sleep and wake up I don't know anymore how It

Evan feels to dream/

So much practice in years I been devoted to spiritual life cause I feel the importance of this life mission. Been preparing meditating the mind clearing all and making the body very strong. Feel how I am ready to start this work and take it to another level to bring all this souls to the light with the help of the angels and the christ energies. Bring them home with Love..

The angels told me that I would be more clairvoyant.. I have a blockage somewhere and when this is removed by doing the course I will be able to help many brothers and sister when the world is at is darkest point. I know I can receive many messages from light world at the moment I have difficult to understand them at all. And the tools of Lujan is helping but I feel I need the push out of the nest .. There is a little bird that doesn't know how to fly properly and need that little push.

The master will return , the force of Christ;and we will feel when this happens.The earth will shake..

Lujan is the master of dreams that shows they way to the fifth demotions..

He ways of sharing is knowledge of the invisible world is practical and its essence is pure love

I'm looking for discipline and I promise to give my hole being to prepare for this mission.

This is the truth the pressure is very much on me ..Its not always easy to be a angel in this world and I'm asking for your blessing so I can grow to my fullest potential to bring this very sacred knowledge and light to this world.. I have the golden key in my heart I only need to find the doors that opens the gate.. Lujan can help me find it.

So be it.

Blessings to you all // My beloved sisters and brothers
Malvina

If you would like to vote for Malvina please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

The Fate of the Cow

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Madhuritta. If you would like to vote for Madhuritta please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

All naguales and nagual Lujan Matus express it and thanks for letting us participate in this perception scholarship program that will allow us to live parallel slow and safe roads.

My encounter with the book of parallel perception occurred a year ago, when the group heard about a book powerful, very strong, it would be better not to read it are not prepared and all very secret ... and I remembered that 4 years ago the same story, but this time I had the courage to ask and insist and my friend gave me the book in my language.

When I started reading made me very sad, depressed by the things we ignore and our lives is a constant mistake as I can not be alive (if I am)

Not as you reach this part of my life with so much manipulation from outside and as I'm not aware enrrumbe on a knowledge so deep, I hope to have access to an embodiment in this fully and life wisdom.

The book gave me a parallel perception relief to my body and my mind went missing that feeling of constant fear, had a chronic depression and soon as I change my melancholic state, I have more energy and humor this time. I feel I am closer to dissolve all attachments that bind us and to be ready to do the work of the warrior in this life. Before my last trip.

From a young age I was looking, I do not what I looking, my attention always strange things, the encounter with Don Juan happens in the worst situation of my life was like a balm at the time, spent many years to believe that all that history shamans was true, was true not only philosophy and good intentions.

I do not have had the honor of meeting the Nagual Lujan Matus or photo or personally consider very important to contact you and practice a new intent on my life.

I am participating in this scholarship because we are planning to go with my two children to participate in shamanic courses in Costa Rica and this grant we would come in very timely.

I give thanks to all Nagueles, all the warrior of light who continually support us in this journey.


Sincerely grateful
Madhuritta

If you would like to vote for Madhuritta please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Keeping focussed amidst distractions

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Quihuara. If you would like to vote for Quihuara please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

I recall as a small child sitting in different positions aligning myself with different countries -ones I knew destined I would go to. I would meditate and gaze long term at things in nature ; part of my life, which later, upon reading shaman & sorcerer books felt like recognising kindred spirits.

Australia has been one of the most challenging places. I always take responsibility for my health.. I eat and live very naturally. A couple of years ago I went to Manila to correct a displaced jaw and address serious issues directly caused by top dental specialists here.

Thereafter out of complete pain wearing a dental acrylic splint that needed one last adjustment to reposition the disc in my jaw, I was put with another specialist here after I returned. He bonded/glued my teeth to it 3x ,pulled apart ,broke a tooth in the root and he and other specialists did unspeakable things to me..continuing for two yrs. Inhumanity of their arrogance and callousness ... unbelievable. Hierarchical setup here made it impossible to get help.Thank god for green smoothies.I was still saving for my dentist in Manila going through severe pain. I had to bide my time.

My sleep attention became very strong.

Leaning half out of bed looking at my floor one night, I marvelled at how beautiful the wood was, smooth wide olive brown floorboards with exquisitely made small wooden nail heads of a lighter color, inches apart. I touched it's silken surface ,then quickly retracted my hand.I was wondering why I wasn't cold as it was freezing cold when I went to bed. I pulled myself back under the blankets ,then was urged to look at the floor again.I was confused as I knew my floorboards had metal nails and a darker hue to the wood. It was the same as before amazingly smooth..with wooden nails. I stayed there again for some time..standing on them this time. In the morning I expected to place my feet on floorboards.They were covered by my carpet! I've had dreaming in this attention before. With the pain I had, it gave me some kind of extended feeling to be able to keep going. I also over some years had experience of my bed shaking. First time ever was somewhat perplexing. I thought to be earth tremors. Then later I thought some spiritual presence from who knows what. I was ok with it. Maybe only twice over a long period of time.

Out of total desperation one night in serious pain and deciding I didn't want to end my life yet, I called on my Ally.

In a deep sleep some hours later, I thought I was dreaming again..the whole bed first had a ripple go through it,but then became really violently shaking. I was not dreaming. It went on several minutes.I then heard a barely perceptible whistle.. a nice little bird song. There are many trees with bird noises throughout the night here. I was then irritated by it as it was so repetitive. I just wanted to relax and sleep.

Suddenly, the same sound ensued but so close to me..exactly near to my right ear - a being was making it's awareness known to me! I knew it to be my Ally. I did not dare move for some time. I decided not be afraid and opened my eyes.To my right in front of my face was a green iridescent wavering form.. a form wavering within a squarish oblong ,not so big. I became elated but also apprehensive. I quickly closed my eyes.

The whistling continued. I tried to make out the frequencies numericals or patterns.Sometimes I did and then it would all change. I didn't move for ages, not until the sounds became further and further apart and then further away until I slept, really exhausted the next day.

Thereafter I would call my ally most nights.The bed only shook a little these times to let me know that presence was there. I would ask questions of it and affirmatives would come via the movement, or a slight fleeting glance of a shape.

It gave me solace after all the jibes ,sarcasm of the medical professionals and lack of or erroneous treatment to me..which put me in the position of not being properly able to eat or speak for so long/torturous pain unrelenting. I realised at one stage,which in fact I knew from the beginning,that it was not really a good reason to be calling on my Ally. Somehow though it became very reassuring.

This continued for some months, until another experience , altogether different jolted me into a different reality.

I have been pushed to the absolute limits from a human perspective,experienced so much. but to to be in a space with others of shamanic awareness and abilities is a thirst, something I gravitate to. Long ago I relinquished any need to have perpetual abuse of any kind in my life. I did a lot of recapitulating. I was told by a dream also that I have been a mirror to many of these people, which if so, is interesting but not what I'm about. My intention is to be aligned with this earth, nature in such a way to be %100 alive.

I am thankful to know Lujan Matus and of people on this path.

To do any course with him is to know many of the secrets in this world ...amazing,wondrous...for being and spirit. Why would anyone want to feel anything less.

Warmest regards,
Quihuara

If you would like to vote for Quihuara please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Stuck in Customs

Longing

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Douglas. If you would like to vote for Douglas please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

When I first saw the name 'Lujan Matus' my interest was instantly peaked. Who was this that had the audacity to use these names? Inside I hoped they were worthy.

Lujan, I knew was the name of that old Nagual. The one who was a seafarer from the orient. The one who received the gift of fifty positions of the assemblage point, and became fast friends with the tenant.

And of course, Matus. The name of my beloved Don Juan.

Skeptical and very curious I read through excerpts of The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception on amazon's site, and discovered to my delight the signature of infinity on this work.

I am delighted that this man received these Names! Is there a finer gift? Zakai was right, I am amongst those drawn to the Nagual Lujan because of these gifts. Am I an old soul? I wonder.
I am delighted that this communication has pierced through the veil between the sacred and the profane, to where I am.

When I read the e-mail about the scholarship program my immediate reaction was elation. I could actually be close to the new Nagual! Maybe it was that I could be closer to those whom I am indebted to for changing the course of my life. I am not a groupie. My assemblage point has moved already because of this line. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is more! How do you convey this to someone?

In reading The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception I have learned, or caught perhaps just a whisp of just how far away I am from being truly helpful. Part of the solution instead of perpetuating the problem for all of us. I am desperately caught between wanting to move forward and struggling against the weight of the anchor that i know could be easily thrown off with the correct something i cant yet define or become conscious of. Help!

Afraid to act, and afraid to not act. No one wants to be free.

This small literary work is a patchwork of threads taken from here and there that weave a raged burlap sack with frayed holes. I know that if i could spend time with Lujan I could learn to weave a beautiful tapestry with a single thread. Or perhaps to help others weave a powerful garment out of many opalecent threads as a gift to those to come.

I know this is not a bestowal, but a chance at a chance. Good luck to all those who seek this trophy!

In Love,
Douglas L.

If you would like to vote for Douglas please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Photo courtesy of Stevetookit

Sensing the Personal Power of Lujan Matus through his books

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Endre. If you would like to vote for Endre please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Hello!

I’m 20 years old, and I really like to do sports and I love to train. Bicycling is one of my passions, competing since age of thirteen. When I was 16 years old I got serious problems with my heart, it didn’t take long before I was totally depleted and exhausted. A year later I completed a successful heart surgery, but energetically I was not the same. My desperation for change brought me into Zen Buddhism and soon after Carlos Castanedas books. I was in heaven. I read a lot, learning and studying. I felt something empty in my heart being filled with purpose.

This autumn I came over Lujan Matus books and soon after buyed his two books. I think it’s beautiful that there exist a person with so much knowledge and wisdom. Think about what this man has done and can do for people. It’s truly admirable and he is very inspirational.

My experience with Lujan Matus wisdom is not much, but when reading his first book TAOSSP I often get a wondrous feeling. It must be his personal power reaching trough the book. Below I have tried to describe this feeling into words:

“I’m free. Free from personal history, agendas. I have nothing to prove, nothing to defend. I have no opinion on anything.

Every fear and worry dissipates. Nothing is more important than anything else. Nothing is either right of wrong. Free. I do not want to control anything. Everybody and everything is equal.

At the same time everything is filled to the brim and there exists only love and happiness.

Take aim and fly up in the sky. Buoyant and Free you can dance.”

This feeling is so good and strong. It must be beautiful to see and meet Lujan.

For me this is a path with heart. Hopefully one day I can meet him and learn from him. I deeply want this. Maybe this scholarship makes it possible.

Since I first saw the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program I have been thinking about whether or not I should participate. I refer to Paul aka Smalls sentence: “Who am I to judge whether I am worthy or not. Just as I cannot judge another, I can’t judge myself” This gave me a realization. Now, I’m very happy to get the opportunity to apply for this program.

I’m very impressed by all the others essays written, and it will be hard to win, but I hope that somebody out there would give me a vote.

I want you all to have a nice and good day.

Fly free towards love and light


Endre

If you would like to vote for Endre please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Resonance

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by James Douglas. If you would like to vote for James please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

With the intention of getting some work done (some clinical trials and this essay, respectively), my partner and I left the house and started walking; comparing the qualities of local coffee shops as we did so. Intuition told her we needed to turn around and head to the shop where, to our surprise, a friend of mine and student of Lujans arrived just after we did. The blatant synchronicity was not lost on us, and as we sat discussing the potential directions of the essay, he mentioned that one of the benefits of its writing was to instigate recall. I agreed, and began jotting down lessons and bits of memories. A dense interconnected web began to take shape on the flat plane of the page, serving to merge all these events into timeless relation.

I met this friend at an intentional gathering in a state of “walking between the worlds,” a state which relied heavily on bringing my dreaming awareness to this construct. He seemed to notice the same subtle cues from the environment and exhibited a similar care and precision around speaking. On the dance floor he skillfully made me aware of a moment of braggadocios movement which brought me quickly back to a state where I could just be danced. I see that some of the movements I have learned from spirit are aligned with those Lujan is teaching, and feel that a directed, specific practice would be much more effective than haphazardly stumbling into an energetic configuration here and there. Much like how reading small paragraph on Dragon's Breath uncovered a fundamental teaching received while pursuing the essence of existence, and buried under years of memories competing for relevance.

So it is that much of what I have learned from Lujan consists of situations which reflect meaningful similarities and resonate thematically with events that have unfolded in my vision or have otherwise made sense to me. Long before I encountered the parable of the crows I was taught through observation and participation the power of preconceived notions to blind people to each other; or rather, I was shown people who would let my gossip win over their personal experience. First hand I was made to witness the trouble words cause for one trying to escape their limitations. Though the lesson for me happened over 10 years ago, the parable is proving extremely potent in teaching others.

Another resonance occurred when I reached the practices of and concepts behind sexual energy and its cultivation. The techniques coming from Lujan gave me a tool set with which to address proactively that which the feminine essential aspect of life had commanded, and gave me much preparation for beings and situations that were to come.

One such situation occurred during what I recognized as an important and potentially transformational energetic process instigated by spirit in a new acquaintance. At a particularly difficult point the process was interrupted and that person shrank back from the awareness of herself, revealing for the first (recognizable) time an 'aspect' especially skilled at using gossip to create and maintain a relatively superior position. By calling attention to this behavior each time it occurred I made them face themselves, but soon a defensive 'mechanism' unfurled itself like a veil between their awareness and the escaping moment. I have met this before, and recognize it by its actions which center around shielding an individual from recognition of their actions or memories. In previous encounters I had deemed this a 'segment of the personality' which is just as smart as- and completely invisible to them, and invited by them for protection. In this case the intelligence I encountered seemed cunning beyond what I previously thought this person capable, leading me to believe they were in collusion with something else. Dreaming soon confirmed this when I witnessed myself from a perspective above and behind opening my home to this person and missing the dark shadow slipping in past our feet. It was upon recognition of this scene that the writings of Lujan began to connect in a perspective-enlarging way, giving me alternative descriptors and standpoints to consider when trying to remain fluid in the presence of such entities.

Over the course of a year or so interaction with this person, and from other situations where I recognized shadow and pursued it like a hunter, it became clear that beings (things which be) exist that I am perhaps not yet fully equipped to confront. It is painful to see it operating through people I know and love, diabolical in its intention to confound, divert, and generally turn us against each other in order to hide and perpetuate itself. Testimonials I have read from students of Lujan reflect powerful similarities to what I observe in people pressed with the truth of the moment. The deftness with which he seems to catalyze these processes seems orders of magnitude evolved beyond my own, and I feel that further refinement of the 'dancing', breathing, and witnessing techniques life has been trying to teach me all along will be beneficial either to myself or to others I touch. I do not presume to know how, I just know that something is happening here. Whether this path leads to direct contact with Lujan or to more contact with his concretized words is yet to be seen, and I am over my word limit.

James Douglas

If you would like to vote for James please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Shaping My Gifts Into A Magic Prayer

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Jerry Lee. If you would like to vote for Jerry please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Parallel Perception is like a smoking diamond that’s been dropped in my lap. To be sure, the complexity of its language and concept provides a singular challenge to the reader. In my case, other bits cultural affectation also clouded the mix. For example, Lujan’s voice is near void of humor; I miss the winsome joy and laughter of don Juan’s clowning with don Genaro, and even the bumbling charm of Castenada’s self-effacing accounts. Then there’s Jesus, who appears in a state of suffering from a physical trial that (if I remember correctly) is never portrayed in any of the gospels.

All of that said, when I finally began to understand what was happening, I realized that Lujan had not only presented a masterpiece of insight, but an actual instrument of profound implication. Reading the words of Jesus is like being invited into his final ruminations while hanging on the cross. His reflections on the ultimate fate of his earthly project depicted a character so real I could feel his breath on my neck. And after the plaintive hiatus since Castaneda’s haunting farewell revelations on the neighborhood of infinity, the first words of Zakai brought tears to my eyes. Zakai’s wry impeccability announced the presence of don Juan as clearly as a crystalline signature. I still get chills thinking about it. But what matters most, of course, is the hieroglyphs. I came to realize not only were they definitive maps of human praxis; but in the practical manner of all instruments, Lujan had opened the door to music itself. In this case the music of salvation.

The world is a complicated mess. If the first two hieroglyphs in Parallel Perception are not only understood but internalized into a reflexive vision, the final Completion Hieroglyph becomes activated and the mess can begin to unravel. It’s a tall order, no doubt. The prospect, however, is literally enchanting.

For my part, my intention is popularize these concepts. It’s perfectly possible to infuse them into the narrative and visual expressions of literature and art, in the exact fashion psychology and even Existential ontology have driven popular culture over the last fifty years. This is why I want to study with Lujan. To gather his energy and the means to cultivate my own so that I can best shape my gifts into a magic prayer.

Best of luck to the other contestants. Every one of you is a jewel in your own right. You all have my vote.

Jerry Lee

If you would like to vote for Jerry please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Frank Bonilla.tv

The TRUE Importance Of Our integrity

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Ivan David. If you would like to vote for Ivan please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Hello.

My name is Ivan. I am from Bogota Colombia. Curiosity led me to study Dimethyltryptamine...This is how it all began for me. The reason behind it was my mother. She has Rheumatoid Arthritis. At a given point in my youth, I looked into alternate remedies that could potentially alter the way her neurologic triggers responded to such illness. I had learned tales of people with similar illnesses visiting fellow Indians from the roots of my homeland in the Amazon and consuming this chemical in the form of a drink ....their recorded results sounded promising.

Many years passed since this curious thought crossed my mind... then...almost exactly 2 years ago to the date I came across DMT. How it went about crossing my path was...out of nowhere, that when looking back at the probabilities of the situation, coincidence can be ruled out.

This golden experience brought me to a reality far distant from the one I once stubbornly inhabited and defended. For an everlasting frame in existence " even though a short instant in time" a full spectrum of emotions rocked the very core of my being. Feeling everything and nothing, and to know I was truly alive. To have caught the glimpse of a glimmering silver 'feline' growling from the corner of my awareness ... to know that this truly was real...it forever changed my life. The experience that took place that night has been unraveling within my life to this very day. Lujan's works have unlocked the subconscious meaning of this breath-taking event. The occurrences and interactions of my every-day life have become puzzle-pieces that are slowly forming the grand colorful picture brought to my attention that night.

The number of unanswered questions only grew. The only difference is that the questions that arrived upon my awareness emphasized aspects about life...bits and pieces of information... truths and beliefs I once ridiculed. Coincidence became a thing of the past. It was time for the same old thing to no longer be... every experience in my life... hidden with true beauty... waiting for my TRUE attention to arrive. A chain of new lessons were knocking at my front door ....

And then here's when [ just like another piece of this beautiful puzzle ] Lujan's teachings came into my life. My life would never be the same again....not since I read Lujan's books. At first, like anyone in a state of confusion, I was a skeptic. But certain experiences manifested in my life that only Lujan's The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception would be able to walk me through... such harsh truths... Truths of a shadow and its impact on our perception... its manifestation changes the way life is approached... specially when witnessed through your loved ones. To know that we are so in sync with the celestial bodies that wonder our skies. To be able to truly stare at a living organism knowing that even though a plant, its presence interlaces with ours as if we're one....

Lujan's teachings share guidance in how to bring ourselves closer to this state of oneness. through the use of our heart...a state of stillness. of serenity. with ourselves. and with every bit of existence. via various techniques [such as moon gazing ] which energetically aid our being and directly aid those we come in contact with, for they are also affected by our actions and our various diverse states of awareness. The grand connection that beautifully began to unravel between people I've known, people I've come to meet (physically and through literature[ like Chris Boyce, David Wilcock, among many] ) & our shared experiences is proof that Lujan's words impact every aspect of ones awareness...like golden strings of color unseen by the naked eye but felt upon sense... connecting everything. Lessons and words perfectly designed to cross paths like clockwork. The truth behind every word encourages, emphasizes, and teaches the TRUE importance of our integrity. I would like to study and learn shamanic movement with Lujan Matus for this very reason. Not only to dig deeper within myself and resolve many aspects of my life but also to discover/reunite with a part of myself that is eager to resurface... to help me help others. I know I have a long way to go, and there's much more to learn... for my journey has just begun. My arms are wide open to embrace the opportunity; to be able to share these experiences and I thank Lujan for offering this chance since I had recently reached out for tuition aid myself.

I ask you to please vote for me and at the same time I'd like to wish everyone who shared their stories the best of luck.... From the bottom of my heart.

Thank you in advance for your time !

Ivan David

If you would like to vote for Ivan please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

The Path to Ultimate Transformation

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Clara. If you would like to vote for Clara please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

For as long as I can remember there has resided in me an urge to move away from everything that was known and familiar around me, to go to the end of this world and beyond, to answer to the 'pulling force leading back to the source of all' as I literally felt it and named it all these years ago.

An awareness of something real that either filled me with a longing almost painful in its intensity, or brought on a dread almost too much to bear because of its endless depth and emptiness.

Either my age or my daydreaming, philosophical tendencies rendered me quite incapable of dealing with this intense influx, and in later years this translated into wishing to leave my birthplace, travel the world to seek the farthest places and intending to never come back, to be swallowed up in this new place, become a different person, or maybe a person I had been before, feeling homesick for and familiar with places I didn't know in times I do not live in.

I was told this was mere escapism, that I could not escape my sadness and sorrows by simply moving away, that it would travel with me as far as I would go.

Little did they know that the explorer's intent of discovering the unknown, being at home in it without being lost, is nothing like hiding or denying, rather the opposite, but neither did I at the time, or if I did deep down, I had no words to describe this magnificent existential pull toward this wordless thing that created such turmoil for me.

Not being a natural 'go-getter' and overly contemplating everything, this nameless thing gave me the runaround for a couple of years, to go out in the world of growing up, get some life experience, always looking for this feel of realness in different things, but never quite finding it, only to come back to it in a very different way, after having acquired the baggage that to me may prove essential to its resolution.

Having rediscovered this sublime signature feel after several years, and experience that resonance that connects everything, there was a gaping trap trying to lure me into the darker side of this magical coin, the desire for power, for unknown worlds, for terrifying abilities, and in this wretched desire I was even quickly bypassing the earthy, natural, self-reliant life that I truly envisioned, until the problems that I had created for myself in the years before pulled me down harshly but poignantly to illustrate the point I was missing.

Lujan's teaching, as far as I have been able to so far, and his suggestion to take up martial arts training, are finally leading me to the very essence, connecting the floating dots, and that key is utter practicality and applicability; nothing is for nothing, the key to the simplest and most outrageous personal developments is in taking complete responsibility, to hold no one and no thing accountable, in being able to transform every single act into a meaningful one, in order to accumulate that very essential thing, it is in the most confronting honesty and openness, in truly having no points to defend.

It is bringing me love, so much love, ever increasing clarity, my impatience has actually transformed into steady determination, my actions and routines have acquired an effortlessness in effort that keep amazing me, I have realized my personal blocks on the road are not holding me back, overcoming them in this way is the path to ultimate transformation.

I may be nowhere yet, and yet I am there already. It is all here and all now. The magical and real are everywhere, in me and in you and in all things!

Thank you for this great opportunity!
Clara

If you would like to vote for Clara please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Alice Popkorn

The Descent of the Spirit

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Boyd Thompson. If you would like to vote for Boyd please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

One morning in 1984, at 6:00AM, I found myself in the presence of an amber globe and a voice that said "The Eagle". The globe, which shown from within, was wrapped in translucent, golden feathers or leaves; these orderly layers of soles adhered smoothly to its surface. Enclosing the globe, like the egg shell encloses it's yoke, was a transparent sphere. The sphere rolled on me with a crushing force and woke me and my nine month old daughter who had been sleeping between my wife and myself. I picked her small self up and we went into the living room to watch the sun come up over the river. This concluded four hours of being pulled by a vortex from this reality to others and back.

In the following years, I read, trying to understand that night that had become the reference point in my life. It was not until 2007, when a friend gave me "The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception", that I realized a contemporary had fallen down a similar rabbit-hole:

"They can enter our construct and appear here and they can take ones physical body and have it appear in their realm, without you having left your bed...What was to happen next took me by utter surprise, and this was the first time this had happened. Another type of luminous being approached me then and it was also composed of a golden hue. It was huge, half the size of my body. It pressed up against me as if my skin had a symbiotic relationship with its luminosity...At this point the voice appeared, pushed up against my left ear, but the pressing wasn't physical, it was auditory." p.267-Lujan Matus

To have that pivotal night resonate in the world was invaluable in ways that are impossible to describe. It was a gift beyond words. I wish to study with Lujan Matus, but closer to my heart is my wish to meet him.

The Eagle is our alpha and omega. It has revealed itself many times, in many tongues. It's luminosity shines through all of us and everything. But, like a snowflake staring into water, our source is alien to us. This is the task of remembering.

Boyd Thompson

If you would like to vote for Boyd please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Sergio One.

Lujan Matus; dissolve the mind so the spirit can dance....

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Kristina. If you would like to vote for Kristina please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Again, I awake from a restless sleep. This dream had me twisting and turning in bed, down bendy roads in my head in a small go-cart. Trying to drive with a shining piece of black-stone jewellery around my neck as the wheel was impossible; I was sliding and diving head first into the barriers, feeling more and more anxious as the clock ticked – and ultimately, in the dream, I missed my flight home.


Dreams of losing control or trying to control the situation come frequently. My subconscious ego has been trying to control the creative spirit inside for so long now; I recognise when it is scared and how it responds – yet I still haven’t been able to break free from its shadow, missing messages and dwelling on lower frequencies. Reading this website and the comments has reminded me that we are not alone and I wish all the luck to the other competitors. I am new here and other people probably deserve this more, but I had a dream a couple of nights ago where a group of elders told me to have more self-confidence and believe in myself. So here it is.


Three days ago I returned to my home in London (I felt relieved in the dark of this morning to know that I didn’t miss my flight!) after nearly 18months of travelling. I am an incredibly lucky young lady. I used to work for a British newspaper, which opened doors to some unbelievable opportunities and expanded my cultural and social awareness. But it also caged my energy. One day, daydreaming at my desk, I received a crucial email, and the opportunity to start living my dreams and release my nomad spirit, came true.


An adventurer named Ed Stafford was the first man to walk the full length of the Amazon. For his last few weeks in the jungle, he was seeking journalists to finish the walk with him and write about it for the press. Of course, my fears and those of my families bubbled, but this was it. So in a space of two weeks, I left everything and went to the jungle – living on absolute faith and counting my blessings, every day.


It was one of the most terrifyingly beautiful experiences of my life, the never-ending green, the sounds, the heat, the pressure, the bruises. Shortly, my time in the jungle was over and I didn’t want to return to England: I set forth around Brazil, into Argentina, where many weird and wonderful things happened. It was deep in the lush Patagonian mountains that my spirit really came alight; studying and living with a community that follows the 13moon/Mayan/José Argüelles calendar. In a nutshell, this way of life really hit home.


A lot of things changed internally while I was there, writing this now I realise I need to write more to fully understand it all. Living in a tent, washing in the river, meditating on the energies and cycles of the moon....we tapped into galactic time and it opened portals in my brain..... The chain of events led me to Peru, where I spent some 6months immersed in Andean culture, experimenting with ways to survive; selling food, busking, teaching piano, yoga, painting, working on farms in exchange for food and a bed – I was very lucky in meeting great people that helped me along the way.


For all the courage I discovered within and for the love I found of god whilst travelling, when I touched down on home-oil, I realised that my energy is still trapped within me, my hands and feet still cold. Several years ago I was bulimic and though I have long since been the skinny, exercise-obsessed girl – there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t look in the mirror and judge myself. I have travelled through some of the most beautiful parts of the world, yet I have not travelled through this very vessel I am within. I am blocking my full potential to heal myself and others. This wonderful feeling of belonging, of being at home right now is what I long to feel in my body, and I believe Lujan Matus’s truth will set me free. By implementing the tools and courage to take up my position as a warrior of light, I can finally and fully appreciate myself and all that is around with love and understanding, and harness that energy to become a fully conscious being.


As Roland Barthes said, ‘who speaks is not who writes, who writes is not who is;’ and so I find it difficult at times to really describe what it is I am seeking. For all the coincidences my spirit has been led here. Thank you for reading and for this fantastic opportunity.

Kristina

If you would like to vote for Kristina please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Kelsey LoveFusionPhoto

A Return To Heart

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Firegazer. If you would like to vote for Firegazer please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

When I started this journey, I swore to do whatever it took to free my heart. At one with expansiveness as a child I loved all things without thought or judgment. I saw my double when I was five and desperately wanted to pursue a different path than was laid out for me. From the time I was three I knew I would battle for my soul when I got older as I saw a being that wanted to claim me for itself. I tried to hide from forces I didn’t understand while at the same time confronting my fears and pursuing a level of peace and love I felt were absent in my upbringing.

Growing up I had many instances of déjà vu and expanded perception and wondered what was developing on my path. In my late teens and early twenties I began hearing my voice sometimes change to that of a Native American. The yearning for a different life grew and I often cried as I prayed to Spirit night after night. I had seen the beast in my dad’s eyes when I was six and was often preoccupied with analyzing him and watching for “its” return. At times those same eyes manifested in me and I was searching to resolve this acquisition when I encountered Castaneda’s books. These writings resonated with me, but I eventually latched onto struggling for power as I was still aligned with my fear and descended into dark focus.

After years of struggling for freedom, my personal challenges came to a head two years ago when I fell into a hell of heart-deceit and self-sabotage. I nearly lost the battle I had seen the prelude to years ago. Ironically I had come across Lujan’s first book several months earlier when searching “Matus” one last time on Amazon, trying to find anything in relation to the infinite wisdom of Don Juan. I was sure the haunted awareness Lujan wrote of did not apply to me as I was on the “spiritual path”. I knew I would meet Lujan and then my grandeur would be validated. As it turned out I set up Skype sessions trembling with fear and self-doubt but hoping to reclaim my heart. I had stopped my compromising behaviors that were destroying my marriage and myself, but I was barely hanging on. I was lost.

When I first spoke with Lujan I heard myself utter words I never thought I would say...“I don’t know who I am anymore.” He laughed and asked me, “That’s a good thing isn’t it?” I had to agree, it was a really good thing as now I had the chance to rebuild without distortion.

When Lujan and I met, I felt I’d known him before. He saw a Native American man present himself thru me and my life long feelings of being an Indian in my soul were confirmed. This would have validated me in the past but, being exposed to Lujan’s heart revitalizing knowledge, it gripped me in softness and has purposed me to keep letting go of illusion. Lujan is a blessing to me as he has been a major catalyst in helping me grow my love and rebuild my relationship with my soul mate. When I was six I drew a picture of Lujan and encountering him has been like returning home among the stars. Rising to the challenge of opening to the light has required clearing out dark places of secret denials, deception, and attachment to drama.

The last time we visited him, my deep resentment towards being loved was brought to the surface. My wife and I have spent the months since then recapitulating the ways I had learned to run from her love, hide from myself, and lie to cover it all up. As a child, my wife was identified to Lujan as someone that needed his protection. That she would need to be protected from me again brings me to my knees.

Lujan and my wife helped me see and thus sever my alignment with the shadow that distorts perception. Returning to love has been a process. Claiming freedom is an every moment choice of how to live: Open and honest, integral and free, empty and totally present in heart awareness. The path we are walking with Lujan is a formless journey of returning to the power of our true selves, embodying the light we are at our core, and returning to love.

Lujan’s shamanic movements have helped me empty myself and embrace gentleness. The exquisite beauty and purpose of these movements is beyond description and yet infinitely tangible. I am applying for the opportunity to receive the gift of gifts from the nagual so I may continue on this path with heart, further embrace love, and be of service.


Love and Harmony,
Firegazer

If you would like to vote for Firegazer please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Fran Tapia

Path Toward The Light

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Julio César Angel Gomez . Since Spanish is Julio's native language he asked to submit his essay in both English as well as Spanish.

If you would like to vote for Julio please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

PATH TOWARD THE LIGHT

I was born no thinking,
My mind was empty,
I was Light and I knew how to love
I was one with the world
I felt the World in my heart,
The World was me and I was the world,
And I was you and you were me,
And then my being in the void flowed with delightful

I did not have yesterday, I did not have tomorrow
I only live that present,
That endless instant….
Little by little I learned how to walk
And also HOW to say my first words,
And then that words saturated my mind and hidden
My heart and then the world began to be darkness
And then my shine of light and love to fade

Without realize myself I began to walk in a World
Under the shadows and I learned how to justify
My actions to live in it

How can I silence the truth reflected in
The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception book
How can I DeNY my mirror and our mirror
That cut with the dagger our inner truth

Once again motivated by a great human being,
The man who conduct us toward our inner child,
making us to see the truth that we hide in ourselves,
denying us our path toward the light,
silencing thus our heart

Jesus said
The truth is in our heart

Thanks to every reader and remember
I am your heart and you are my heart



CAMINO A LA LUZ

Nací sin pensamientos,
mi mente era vacía,
yo era luz y sabía amar,
era uno con el mundo,
sentí el mundo en mi corazón,
el mundo era yo y yo era el mundo,
y yo era tú y tu eras yo,
y así mi SER en el vacío fluía con deleite

No tenía ayer ni mañana,
solo vivía aquel presente,
aquel eterno instante….
Poco a poco aprendí a caminar y
a decir mis primeras palabras,
y esas palabras saturaron mi mente y ocultaron mi corazón
y el mundo comenzó a opacarse y a oscurecerse,
y mi brillo de luz y de amor a desvanecerse

Sin darme cuenta comencé a caminar en un
mundo bajo las sombras y aprendí como justificar
mis acciones para vivir en él.

Como puedo acallar la verdad reflejada en el libro
El Arte del Asecho de la Percepción Paralela,
como puedo no ver mi espejo y nuestro espejo
que corta con la daga nuestra verdad interior

una vez más Motivados por un gran ser que nos
conduce hacia nuestro niño interior
y nos hace ver la verdad de nosotros mismos,
la cual conocemos y ocultamos bajo pretextos,
negándonos así el camino a la luz que
enmudece nuestro corazón

Jesús dijo
la verdad se halla en nuestro corazón

Gracias a cada lector, y recuerda
yo soy tu corazón y tu eres mi corazón

Julio César Angel Gomez

If you would like to vote for Julio please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of V31S70

Song to the Nagual

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Shally Brady. If you would like to vote for Shally please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Well… I’m here after months or so of rumination and your last sweet invitation, so I will unfold now. Here’s my self-portrait, and a little text to go with it. My name is Shally Brady and I have had my chances to run… run away from what I am. But whenever I would and wherever it was, my path will always circle me back to this warrior place that I am. I was a natural stalker-hunter as a kid, catching all manner of wildlife with my hands… snakes, birds, lizards, fish, frogs, a hawk. So it seemed easy to begin to “stalk” myself and tenuously stay at it, ruthless, cunning, sweet, and patient. I’ve always felt the awesome in the earth, preferring the outdoors to the cold grey buildings, like surfing and biking to feel the breathing ride of the earth... I’m on a current path of energy conservation which is leading me to heightened awareness as often as not. I’ve seen the “Lujan” looking at me from the dream and calling me as this deadline encroaches.

So I am offering this song to the Nagual.

I am the crevices in the rain-starved clay. I am the eyes of the earth looking up through the cracks unblinking underneath your every footfall. I am the dark gold cluster coming up in your pressed eye sockets, yellow-vapoured, Andromeda-strained. I am the wind that takes your breath and closes your eyes as you turn THAT corner. I am that flutter banging around in your ribcage, the smell of the sweet pea flower startling you from your slumber. I am the burr that runs down your spine as you realize the sun is setting in the east in the moment it sets in the west. I am the here; I am the there. I am nothing.


I am the dreamer awake in the dream, there in the dream, pondering the dream from the dream, other. I am something; I am nothing. I am a light running the perimeters of a self. I know your thoughts and your lines, the name of your pet, the name of your boat, the name of your hope.

I am order; I am chaos; I am notorious and I am unnoticed. I am the edge of your days, green-pinked amber folding into and out of the bruise of the darkness. I am your fortune and I am your ruin. I am the path leading nowhere… your captor, your liberator… I am everything; I am nothing. I am the moment that triples eternity that’s all of nothing and everything that’s not left. I am Nagual.

I am humbled by my good fortune to be alive in this moment challenged by this noisy tonal infused with the silent nagual and the opportunity at this cubic centimeter of chance. Thank you for considering me.

Shally Brady

If you would like to vote for Shally please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

The Nature of Man

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Ilian. If you would like to vote for Ilian please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Lujan's books show something obvious by now. It is so obvious in the news, newspapers and Internet. What we do and say is somehow wrong, misplaced. I felt it for long, both outside and inside me. But everyone was in, so I never voiced what I felt. With Lujan I felt someone is out for the first time, who speaks for the individual's growth.

His books show clearly what is going on. What I have learned to do is expressed, and this supports me to see it myself. They also reveal an expansive awareness, so open and sharp that I can‘t but say "Oh, why can't I?"

Many dreams and transformations I experienced since I read his first book. The space here allows me to write only about the last.

I woke up early, it was still dusk outside. I could hardly read from the book I opened upon waking. I wanted to find one quote the previous night but forgot then. After some searching, I read:

“Can you see that there is a cycle of consequence that can be observed in the shadowʼs dream hieroglyph to be multiplicitous, whereas in the hieroglyph of inner light there are only two cycles. As soon as the chain of command is switched between the child and the adult witness, a new dimension of conceptualization appears: the Architect of observation. This is the field of unobstructed absorption of fluid construct, which puts you, the buoyant adult witness, in the twin position of the uninhibited observer.” (from Lujan‘s first book)

The day grew brighter under the cloudy sky. I realized that there are two elements behind what I have written so far on the forum, initiated by Lujan. One was that all my words were just smokescreen for what I didnʼt say explicitly; and this was imparted, as direction, to myself. The other was that they fail to express the dynamics that leads my life. I have tried hard to understand this dynamics and wrote quite many self-reflective posts, observing myself, and they all were but snapshots of something that in reality is never static. The real dynamics comes from outside source, it had moved me throughout life and burdened me with my life experiences. Then I came to the forum and something extraordinary happened, I dreamed myself as a child how I go out of the four walls that had kept me inside as a prisoner. Since that event another dynamics started in my life, inversions of experiences came to me, without my expecting them.

It was just as the book said it would happen to us, until we become composed of void like white light. I knew I wasnʼt there yet, but that was my direction.

Then I thought of something wonderful. Wasnʼt I the same as Lujan, only that he was kept clear and non-contaminated, thanks to his benefactor, outside this construct, yet he had to live here physically, burdened by life experiences as every one of us, until he found his inner child in a dream and then the inversion of his life occurred. It was just the other way around for me - I was kept intact as a prisoner behind four walls inside the construct, and when I read his book and participated in the forum I was freed from inside, let my inner child go and released the dynamics that will lead to completion in my life. As Lujan says on his blog “Your heart is my heart. My heart is yours. As we look within, we reflect what is without.”

I started to search for a notebook to write about the things I have to clear and accounts I have to close before leaving this house to return to my homeland. I was feeling so alone in these empty rooms without my wife next to me, yet when I took the pen to write the list of furniture and accounts, I started spontaneously to say goodbye to each and every corner. I felt, for the first time so strongly, how much I like it, how much I love this apartment, especially after we had reordered it so nicely, and now so soon I have to say goodbye. I knew it is time for parting, that it hurts and that everything ends, with a tear over the shoulder, as the old song goes.

And while I was fumbling in a drawer for a notebook, discarding away a red, almost empty one, with too dense lines in it, and many other full ones, I stumbled upon a light green notebook that had only one line written on its first page by my wife: “la natura dellʼuomo: The nature (essence) of man.” I thought it was empty and its lines were not dense so I flipped it over to the other side to check, and there on the first page were some more Italian words. She studied Italian for a brief time in the past because she was in love then with an Italian man; I think it was her first love, pure and innocent. On the next pages it was filled with formulas and definitions from physics, Maxwellʼs equations, refractive index and so on. This was the occupation she had all her life; she didnʼt like it much, but was pressed to take it. She never felt it to be her true calling but hardly had any other choice. My eyes fell upon her handwriting, her marks; upon the words and the shapes of the letters in those formulas and lines that she had put down; and I felt them so dear to me, I felt her entire being as if she was with me in the room and I wanted to stretch out my hand and caress her...

I could find only one empty notebook, a blue-red one with a mix of violet. I took it for my list, although it too had dense lines like the first one.


Ilian

If you would like to vote for Ilian please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Photo courtesy of Palojono

Tree Of Love

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Michael Armstrong. If you would like to vote for Michael please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Since as long as I can remember, I’ve structured my thoughts like a branching tree. One of my earliest memories is of lying in bed awake and coming to the conclusion that in order to figure out what ever this experience was that I was having as a human being, I had to organize each piece of the puzzle into its proper place. Starting with the most fundamental question I could ask (why is it worth it to be alive) I carried each trail of ideas that sprang forth down its own path, one by one, thoroughly addressing every new branch that arose. In this way, my understanding of the world became a fluid network of concepts and perceptions that my consciousness had a direct overview of. In the summer of 2008, I read a book, and I saw a movie, and the combination of facts and ideas that were outlined in these two works changed me forever. My mind was poised because of my conscious self construction, and when I got hit with this information, it was like a key that opened the dormant potential of every thought that I had ever had. And these thoughts not only changed my mental landscape, but rippled through my entire being. I suddenly understood on every level that the whole universe is a massively complex living organism made of love that we are simply expressions of. I was staying by the sea, and I ran out of the house, dove into the water and swam far out into the ocean, weeping with joy at being able to witness the sheer beauty of life. I had considered myself an atheist before this moment, and suddenly the lives of Jesus and Buddha and every other spiritual teacher of the past made perfect sense to me. I resonated with them, and I knew that from that day on my life was about one thing only: helping other people to see what I saw. If everyone were to perceive the world in this way, there could be no war or conflict of any kind, and humanity would be elevated into a new era in which the foundation of society was pure creation through unconditional love.

Since this first breakthrough, my simple dream has expanded into a complex quest that has many facets to it. The central question in everything I do is always how to most effectively activate a change when people have very nuanced and extensive resistance to breaking their preconceived notions of what the world is. Seeking the answer to this question has led me to discover a Pandora’s box that seems to have no bottom. By connecting to the world intuitively, I have been led down a path of books, art, people and experiences that have expanded my personal power and perception by many fold from what it was four years ago, and the current culmination of that journey is the Art of Stalking Parallel Perception. I have read many books that have had a transformative effect on me, but nothing even comes close to this. When I first read the Author’s note, the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and it felt like the words were directly altering my perception as they explained how that very process works. My personal evolution is always gaining momentum exponentially (in alignment with the rest of the world), and as I read this book it became so fast that the words on the pages were relating information to transform my at the same rate that I was able to read them. It has truly catapulted me to a new threshold of precise introspection and self-actualization.

Four years ago, I knew that humanity was at war. Not a physical war, but a war for our hearts and minds. I understood that people were trapped in a very deeply rooted way, and that it would take the force of powerful warriors to break the shackles. What I didn’t know then was that this was not a metaphorical war against our own inadequacies, but a literal war against an invisible, foreign enemy. It takes every ounce of strength, and every resource possible to win a war, especially one of such a covert nature, and as a warrior I want to accrue as much strength and as may allies as possible to help free humanity from it’s bonds. I sensed a deep resonance with Lujan Matus’ work before I even opened his books, and they had an effect on me that no words can describe. I felt a similar resonance when I learnt of the shamanic movements program, and I hope that you all will decide to send me on this journey. Good luck to all the other entrants, and blessings to everyone who reads this.
Michael Armstrong

If you would like to vote for Michael please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.


Photo courtesy of Esther

Fifty Years

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Rugay. If you would like to vote for Rugay please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

In late 1991 my Grandma died and left us (me and my Family) a fair amount of money which we equally shared between each other. For me it was enough to live from for at least a year and a half and as the bon vivant I had been that days, I decided to do so, instead of investing it into "my future" - 'cause "The Future" in the sense of becoming someone of importance with a "decent job" meant nothing to me.....while the idea of becoming a prominent musician always pleased me and during that time I played with several bands as a drummer on a semi-professional basis.

You know, the Legend of "Sex and Drugs and Rock'n Roll" while the reality of a real professional musician looks totally different...

It came to pass that my spiritual awakening took place in those years, caused by the fact that for a certain timeframe I had the priviledge to be free of any material need. Since I was around thirteen I had a strong interest in anything that has to do with scientific twillight zones, namely utopian visions, Sci-Fi and the undiscovered realms of consciousness, actually anything that can be read "between the lines" in this context. Over the years I randomly had experiences of heightened awareness and enhanced consciousness that simply happened without having any spiritual or esoteric practice at all - except for learning some martial arts when I was fifteen - and taking psychoactive drugs like LSD, Mushrooms and THC. And there always was that empathic talent I bear, which allowed me to come into deep contact with everything alive that surrounds me....

So in 1992 around springtime a "spiritual high" flodded me, so intense I couldn't believe it first.It was like something of my childhood returned to me, when all things around me seem to fall into place naturally, lighthearted and easy. I literally hovered a few inches above the ground when walking while I felt totally grounded the same time. I continously walked into the park nearby to listen to the wind beckoning the trees and I heard the trees' response like a beautiful simple melody - the melody of the universe itself. I felt how everything is connected with everything around us and how that tapestry of impersonal and unconditional love surrounds us as a guiding force that also keeps this whole universe together. I learned correct breathing (pranayama), meditation, visualisation and yoga literally out of nothing as if I had it done before all my life - of course I bought some books or attended courses to get started, but that wasn't the point because, the basic principles of this energetic exercises and movements were already there, as if they had been written into my body and energy body long before. I just had to remember.This unbelieveable condition lasted for about six month and I prayed every day it may not disappear the same way it came to me: all over sudden.

It did, due to my unresolved issues and imprints and all that implications that are orchestrated around our daily lifes in this Living Construct which I wasn't aware of that time. And after I spent all the money to sustain my independence, my life crashed heavily into what we call "Reality". This was the time when I decided to make a therapy and was introduced to my first true teacher who practised a very intuitive and effective form of bioenergetic, body-oriented therapy he named "The Art of Contact". I will always be deeply thankful for what he has done for me to break up and soften certain core imprints without I neither would have met the Nagual Lujan Matus nor would I have had the flexibility and energetical awareness to walk through the process of awakening, even without meeting Lujan Matus in person up to this day. Something I don't regret at all because he is with me every hour of my life. This whole series of events up to the mid-ninetees was one of the most joyful and intense periods of my life, full of laughter , pure life and creativity, followed by the darkest period of my life after I quit therapy. It took me 10 Years before that Awakening I experienced continued in 2005 - by reading a small sidenote somewhere in the internet where the name "Lujan Matus" was displayed and I instantly I stepped into the loving realm of the Parallel Perception Shamanism Forum, meeting a true gentlemen named Lujan Matus. The rest of the story you find in the countless posts and contributions at the Parallel Perception Forum that bear witness about the Way of the Warrior and the Path of Heart.

I participate here by writing my essay for a very simple reason: I love participating and I feel inspired by all this wonderful and sincere essays I have read so far. I expect nothing and I sit still and wonder....while I feel with all my fibres that a fifty-years journey (and odyssey) is coming to a true Happy End.

Love to you all from

Rugay

If you would like to vote for Rugay please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Without Heart, Who or What Should Guide You?

This application for the Parallel Perception Scholarship Program was submitted by Robert Andrew Wilkie. If you would like to vote for Robert please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Without Heart, Who or What Should Guide You?

Who Would? What Could? Without Heart…

(Reflections on Don Juan and a desire to study Shamanic Movement with Lujan Matus)

It was a friend of mine who, back in 2007, handed me a blue covered paperback book and said, "you'll need this." The book was titled The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception and immediately I felt connected to the work inside its covers. Exploring the book, for me, was a continuation of a transforming and revealing few years that was catalyzed by the contact of my reality with the words and teachings of Don Juan Matus in the Casteneda series.

Don Juan Matus cracked my skull open. This started in 2003 with Casteneda's The Teachings of Don Juan; I was 22. The repetition, the cackling laughter, the oceanic heart, the giving of direct experience, the revealing of, very literally, "how petty you are", were gifts to me that make me weep in gratitude. Don Juan's insistence on 'emphasis' and 'repetition', on 'shattering the mirror of self reflection', of 'stopping the world', of the immediacy of expanse, of using ‘death as advisor’, of vital energy and the body, the mind, of ‘collective agreements’, of HABIT, of the condition of today's human - as Gurdjieff said - "The Terror of the Situation", these insistences and lessons and transmissions have changed me whether I like it or not. They have induced transformations in my being that are for me both irrevocable and inspiring. Too many times I have not liked what I have seen – I have been left in shock – mostly because of how caught up I have been in reflections and immersions in failing, regret, remorse, habit, and desire for something other than what I am or what is here - sufferings of self-indulgence and a lack of light and the agreement to the continuation of this condition.

The writings of Casteneda performed a function for me approximated by this – the entering into awareness of the habitual nature of my life and relations, inner and outer, with everything that exists in my world – in other words: the realization of the current state of my being. What to do next was always going to be a problem for me, and has proven so over and over, but for this I say, and with deep gratitude to Don Juan Matus, that I will “walk a path that has heart.”

The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception took me to ‘the how’ that I couldn’t find with Casteneda. I explored it slowly, irregularly, carefully, and also forgetfully, not reading it at all and just staring at the glyphs and contemplating my then current condition - one that may best be described as ‘a caged bird, wild and heavily domesticated, depressed, requiring help.’ Here was a book that begins the realtime application of core aspects of the teachings of Don Juan, and sheds light on his encoded nuances and his proddings of 'how to get over oneself’ and ‘how to experience the totality of oneSelf’. Lujan took me to my ‘haunted awareness’ and my ‘cloaked inner child’, in a way that I could now see the wood in the trees – for this I am grateful and inspired.

I would dearly love the opportunity to study under Lujan directly – an opportunity that for me is very difficult to achieve being a student of Chinese Medicine in Australia – and I feel the profound impact this opportunity would deliver on my life. I am done with the internal sufferings and poisons of ego games and status warfare, of wanting ‘to-be-somebody’, of satisfying others, of wallowing in pity and doubt, of repeating the same-old-thing. And I am aware, as-much-as-I-can, of the current state of the planet, and could describe this collective moment as ‘teetering on the edge of God-Knows-What’. I know from experience many of the sufferings and disharmonies of human life today, particularly of Western flavor – the anxiety, depression, confusion, the illnesses and vanities, the ecological pillage and destruction, the disrespect – and I know too intimately why young men in my country take their own lives all too regularly – because their disharmony cannot find a resolution, nor a home in the consensus reality – the consensus reality that is threatening the survival of our kind. And my heart desires to contribute to the Change and Transformation of this planet Earth, in this life, in my body, in a way that is for the good of all. And for this I know I need good method, and a little help from my friends – because I also realize that the only thing I can do is work on is my own microcosm – my body, my relationships, my mind, my mistakes, the learning and practicing and honing of awareness – this is why I want to study under Lujan. This is why I am practicing the awakening of the third eye. Thank you for reading these words.

Robert Andrew Wilkie

If you would like to vote for Robert please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

Photo courtesy of Contemplicity.