12-28-2010, 12:01 AM
serendipity wrote:
Good post, alien,
so, if someone were to start such a learning centre, how would it avoid all the usual pitfalls of human behaviour?
The only advantages I can think of, in calling it a church, would be, grudging acceptance by mainstream society, (in the manner of "The Spiritualist Church", who only sing a few hymns to maintain the facade,), and, that it would allow the use of entheogens to be labelled as a sacrament, and hence, permitted.
If I were involved in any naming, I would prefer to call such a learning centre, something along the lines of,......"Centre for the Exploration of Awareness."
It is,nt snappy, but it is, to the point, and does,nt give the impression that it is only for those who are into "nagualism".
Where would the "priests" for such a church, come from? Central American populations who still practice various aspects of nagaulism?
How would the surviving NA practitioners view the "aliens" starting such a church? ( bearing in mind that, many surviving forms of nagualism are unlike DJ's path, and more like religions, themselves,).
I don't think it's possible to avoid the usual pitfalls of human behaviour, but a learning center rooted in nagualism would hopefully teach folk that very thing. So there would be the typical **** one encounters in any structural organisation (church, school, work place, service organisation) but the overall goal would (hopefully) be to expand one's awareness to such an extent that one would be aware of those very pitfalls and avoid them - in other words, Stalking 101. If people were serious about their reasons for joining such an organisation, they would obviously be aware of their own **** and leave it at the door, so to speak. That's in an ideal world, of course, but in general I think people are capable of releasing their petty human dramas for the sake of pursuing a path toward freedom - the question is whether they will, or whether egos and false pride (byproducts of the foreign installation) will keep them at the lowest level of their humanform behaviours. Personally? I think that path will almost always be individual and solo for obvious reasons. After all, the only person we really get along with is usually our Self. Haha.
You asked where the 'priests' would come from? Right here. All around us. Within us. Its not a matter of anybody being more holy than anybody else, but it might be a matter of some people having more knowledge/experience in certain areas. For whatever reason, 'teacher' has become a dirty word in a lot of nagualist circles and that's unfortunate because no man is an island and there's no shame in admitting to yourself that somebody else might know more than you do in certain areas. There are people here who are better dreamers than me, but I have to decide whether I want to learn from them or let my ego/pride dismiss them because they might threaten me. By the same token, there are things I can offer about stalking, for example, but people have to decide if they want to learn or if their ego/pride won't allow it because it threatens what they think they already know. That's what self-stalking is all about - getting past the mental blocks (belief systems & programs, if you perfer) that trap us in our own stagnation out of fear/ego/pride.
And I do agree with you that many forms of nagualism as it's practiced today are nothing more than religions, or even anti-religions (which is just another religion when you think about it). As to how others might view starting such a center/church, nagualism doesn't belong to any group or single culture. At its core, it's not a series of beliefs, but a series of practices that can be proven and experienced by anyone with sufficient diligence. That's why I think a learning center could be of great value, but like anything else people would get out of it what they bring into it - which is why most religions are primarily comprised of followers instead of do-ers. The principles of nagualism are universal, at least that's how I've come to see it.
Good post, alien,
so, if someone were to start such a learning centre, how would it avoid all the usual pitfalls of human behaviour?
The only advantages I can think of, in calling it a church, would be, grudging acceptance by mainstream society, (in the manner of "The Spiritualist Church", who only sing a few hymns to maintain the facade,), and, that it would allow the use of entheogens to be labelled as a sacrament, and hence, permitted.
If I were involved in any naming, I would prefer to call such a learning centre, something along the lines of,......"Centre for the Exploration of Awareness."
It is,nt snappy, but it is, to the point, and does,nt give the impression that it is only for those who are into "nagualism".
Where would the "priests" for such a church, come from? Central American populations who still practice various aspects of nagaulism?
How would the surviving NA practitioners view the "aliens" starting such a church? ( bearing in mind that, many surviving forms of nagualism are unlike DJ's path, and more like religions, themselves,).
I don't think it's possible to avoid the usual pitfalls of human behaviour, but a learning center rooted in nagualism would hopefully teach folk that very thing. So there would be the typical **** one encounters in any structural organisation (church, school, work place, service organisation) but the overall goal would (hopefully) be to expand one's awareness to such an extent that one would be aware of those very pitfalls and avoid them - in other words, Stalking 101. If people were serious about their reasons for joining such an organisation, they would obviously be aware of their own **** and leave it at the door, so to speak. That's in an ideal world, of course, but in general I think people are capable of releasing their petty human dramas for the sake of pursuing a path toward freedom - the question is whether they will, or whether egos and false pride (byproducts of the foreign installation) will keep them at the lowest level of their humanform behaviours. Personally? I think that path will almost always be individual and solo for obvious reasons. After all, the only person we really get along with is usually our Self. Haha.
You asked where the 'priests' would come from? Right here. All around us. Within us. Its not a matter of anybody being more holy than anybody else, but it might be a matter of some people having more knowledge/experience in certain areas. For whatever reason, 'teacher' has become a dirty word in a lot of nagualist circles and that's unfortunate because no man is an island and there's no shame in admitting to yourself that somebody else might know more than you do in certain areas. There are people here who are better dreamers than me, but I have to decide whether I want to learn from them or let my ego/pride dismiss them because they might threaten me. By the same token, there are things I can offer about stalking, for example, but people have to decide if they want to learn or if their ego/pride won't allow it because it threatens what they think they already know. That's what self-stalking is all about - getting past the mental blocks (belief systems & programs, if you perfer) that trap us in our own stagnation out of fear/ego/pride.
And I do agree with you that many forms of nagualism as it's practiced today are nothing more than religions, or even anti-religions (which is just another religion when you think about it). As to how others might view starting such a center/church, nagualism doesn't belong to any group or single culture. At its core, it's not a series of beliefs, but a series of practices that can be proven and experienced by anyone with sufficient diligence. That's why I think a learning center could be of great value, but like anything else people would get out of it what they bring into it - which is why most religions are primarily comprised of followers instead of do-ers. The principles of nagualism are universal, at least that's how I've come to see it.