I've been pondering why fasting is essential to the process, whatever that process is. First thoughts - has to do with cleansing and just removing the body of unnecessary content.
After today's experience I think it is because as the body shuts down the digestive process also shuts down. Now ordinarily in normal sleep we don't need to be concerned about the digestive system and we are naturally in that deep kind of awareness that seems to not have anything to do with the body.
I'm thinking this is key to exploring the Salvia terrain deeper for longer durations even though time as we know it does not exist there. Something to do with linking ordinary waking consciousness with that other awareness.
I feel the purpose of fasting for Salvia excursions may be due to the body shutting down in order to hold an awareness of that state.
Or it could be that state causes or alters the physical body and physical as well as mental emptiness is required.
Fasting is something I've been experimenting with for the past two years and even before that. My main reason was for a cleansing as I've noticed my health improves and energy levels increase. I am bit of a health nut or at least I have become one over the years so I've cleaned up my eating habits.
In the salvia trips it is like my own stomach is communicating with me. For the most part the Salvia beings are telling me to be consistent with my fasting. Another thing is emotional hold over food, most people will actually eat because they are bored or they want to taste some kind of flavour and I've noticed this in myself.
I've also become aware that the body's sustenance does not come directly through food. Food is some kind of idea attached to the idea of the body, but the body being an idea visualized, materialized does not directly depend on the idea of food. Does this mean I should starve this body? To consider that would mean the idea that food provides sustenance to the body is still held in ones frame of mind. So to go without food (or at least for long periods) is really me swapping one idea for another idea, the body is sustained by some unknown source, no doubt the same source that sustains all other ideas.
I think I'm using or the body has changed or opened (like a machine getting fixed or programmed) in a way that would suggest that it is operating in a dynamic way. The other night I slept on my side with left ear pressing against the pillow and there was that familiar music, at first it sounds like a beating almost as though I'm directly hearing my heart beat pulsing into the ear drums and if I relax going deeper I can hear the music. It sounds like it is coming from inside the body.
I've been experimenting with fasting lately as well. It's been going well. I've 'dieted' the Salvia leaf for a full six days with only bland foods and distilled water. You really do begin to reach a deeper awareness of the plant by doing this. The shamans have obviously known this for centuries if not millennia.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about the idea of food as sustenance. Most of us think it's necessary for survival, that without it our bodies will not survive. But there have been many accounts of people going weeks or months without eating food and surviving. Not just surviving, truly living, without any ill effects afterwards. What kind of sustenance does our bodies truly crave? Some sort of biological energy which resides in some foods...and also the surrounding environment?
I plan on taking a six day fast without any mind altering substances. Just water, meditation, and yoga. The longest I've fasted for previously was only about four days, so this should be a challenge. I'm expecting this fast to reset some of my bad eating habits (although I have cleaned up my habits over the last several years much the same as you have) It's more about eating for emotional reasons than the type of food I'm choosing.
Also, the drumming/music you hear when you go to sleep. I've experienced that since early childhood :) I think you're one of the first people I've heard have the same thing happen with them.
Fasting is very challenging, the entire process will dredge up burried emotions. The same emotions that cause bad eating habits.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems important to rest during a fast. I hope your fasting goes well.
The music I hear is very similar to what I've heard in several experiences with salvia. I'm going to see if I could hear it tonight. With Salvia it would play just at the moment where I perceive reality coming to an end.