So the next quest on my journey has been all about self discovery, learning about who I am, what my life is all about, what is the purpose of it all. Having never studied philosophy or anthropology at college or university, I had to start this voyage with some basic research into the unknown. I took steps ages ago when one of my friends from New Zealand introduced me to a book called ‘The Celestine Prophecy’ by James Redfield.
This book is a fiction novel but it is on a topic about a unified world, a collective harmonised mind and about how people hide within themselves, never allowing all the wonders of the world, the universe and life to enter them.
To say I wasn’t a little overwhelmed would be lying. I thought that this book offered a perspective I had never ventured to look at before, a way of life that was new, fresh, enticing. Having read this book, I tried to put into practise the ideology of it, to explore the avenues it had presented to me into self exploration and understanding.
I carried on reading works by James Redfield, a further 2 fictional books in this series and then a couple of side supporting books, all of which reflected upon the possibility of a collective mind within the world.
This had given me the opening to explore further, to see who else was looking in to this sort of world. And hence forth my introduction to spirituality and metaphysics had begun. I read more and more books, not just on these aspects but about honing ones mind, applying it to everyday current living. Looking on ancient texts from masters of old, Sun Tze’s ‘The Art of War’, Miyamoto Musashi’s ‘Book of Five Rings’ and most recently, the Confucian Analects. Trying to understand how people of a by gone era had seen the world, what the symbols and signs were that had pushed them to expand their minds. I guess my influence to read these more noted Military texts came from my recent joining of a Viking re-enactment society, but this is another story!
My mind was wondering, trying to grasp what the reasons were, why I had been given this opportunity to live life, was this my first time on the planet, how small I was in comparison to any object in the universe. The darkness of my own mind started to descend upon me. Question after question traversed my brain, synaptic ending firing off in all kinds of tangents, trying to think of everything and yet answering nothing!
So I took a step back. I decided to see how my mind would cope with just learning from one source, tackling one subject at a time. In the books by James Redfield it had said that if you are open to new experiences, if you allow the world to assist you in your path, things will come to you when you need them and pretty much just that happened. Standing in a book shop one day, one book in particular jumped out at me, not literally, but something about this book enticed me, something drew me to it! Whether I was looking for this link and my mind took more from it then was there, is beyond me, but either way, I picked it up and decided to give it a go. The title of this book: 2012 – The Year of the Mayan Prophecy by Daniel Pinchbeck.
This book was one man’s investigation in to the 2012, as predicted by the Mayan long count calendar. The end of one circle, one age and the ascension into another. It contained his own investigation into crop circles, extra sensory perception and the Mesoamerican prophecies of the Mayan and Quetzalcoatl’s return. Although at times I found this novel difficult to follow, his often random tangents of self discovery which included much about his past, family and friends, I found this book exciting and eye opening. His use of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca to explore his own mind deep in the Brazilian rainforest intrigued me, the state where the mind was taking a different perspective on things, warping its own set ways, opening to new possibilities, is this not allowing your mind to expand. I have however never tried this drug so my understanding of it stops there. But his ideas and perspective on what has been written for nearly 5000 years gives an interesting opportunity for one person to look at more than just texts and films, to think that maybe there is more discover within the mind of yourself.
That to understand that which you do not know, you must first understand that which tries to understand it!
My journey of self discovery continues, although I took a step back to understand more of one subject before moving on, the questions still plague my mind. I crave knowledge, understanding and answers. I know that for now, this search is kind of in vein. But this does not stop my thirst for it!
