A few years ago I was chatting with a cousin of mine who has accompanied me in part of my journey down the spiritual path. At the time I was completely immersed in my mystical and shamanic topics, and we frequently talked about other dimensions, guide spirits, working with energy, and healing ancestral burdens, among other things. On that occasion my cousin told me she didn't know what to think about those topics, that sometimes she believed in them completely but other times she thought all of it was pure imagination and that the only thing that really exists is matter and the physical laws that govern it.
The truth is I felt identified with that reflection, because although at that moment I was already an aspiring sage (sabedor) of the Muisca spiritual-ancestral community and I led a small community called the Solar Clan, deep down I had the same dilemma. I had already been spending several years learning about and practicing, with great interest, metaphysical and spiritual topics. My personal experience with ancestrality, and particularly with the handling of sacred plants, was beyond question, and it had served me to radically change my life. In a way, I had to thank my spiritual path for almost everything positive in my life, including my wife, my work, and an excellent relationship with my family.
However, Carl Sagan had left a seed of skepticism planted in me with the spectacular series Cosmos, which I have already mentioned several times on this channel, and especially with his excellent book "The Demon-Haunted World," which I read during my university years. My experience with spirituality had been far more vivid than that of most of the people I know: I have never had to blindly believe in something in order to benefit from its fruits; on the contrary, my entire spiritual path had been almost totally experimental and empirical. Of course, many of the beliefs I adopted along the way came from books or from the teachings of masters that I did not attempt, or did not manage, to verify myself, but the vast majority of my beliefs came from phenomena I experienced firsthand, revelations I received consciously, and the positive results I obtained through practices such as ceremonies, rituals, and word circles.
Despite the foregoing, none of those experiences could have been experimentally corroborated by an impartial external observer. Sure, many people who practiced the same beliefs and customs frequently validated my testimonies and theories, but they did so from their personal experience, from what they had lived, from what they believed beforehand, or from what they wanted to believe.
Most of the paranormal phenomena I experienced during those years had occurred while I was under the influence of some psychoactive substance such as ayahuasca or tobacco, while I was meditating, or as they say "in the hypnagogic state," that is, that interval in which one is not completely asleep but not entirely awake either. Therefore, there was always the possibility that those experiences could be explained exclusively by different altered states of consciousness or of brain chemistry. There was one exceptional case, which I will narrate in the story of my spiritual path, and that is the regression therapy. This experience, which in fact happened twice, in my personal opinion at the time went beyond the terrain of the "normal," but even in that case, the effect of suggestion cannot be ruled out.
Other phenomena that might be considered spiritual but not necessarily supernatural could also be explained as the result of discipline, or of greater emotional intelligence or assertiveness. In other words, the inner work I was doing was gradually leading me to become a better person, to be more responsible with myself and with others, and to project myself with more security, and all those things, of course, increase the odds of success in many of the things a person undertakes in life.
Finally, there are the phenomena that can be explained by the habits and biases of the human mind, such as the tendency to find patterns where none exist, the misperception of risk, and the placebo effect. I have planned to talk about those topics in a future episode, so don't miss it.
Well, returning to the conversation with my cousin, all the supernatural phenomena I had lived up to that point, the experiences that to me had felt more real than the physical world, and all those "logical" or skeptical explanations I mentioned, came to mind.
Without yet having managed to reconcile these two visions of reality, the only thing I managed to answer was, "Maybe you're right in both cases. Perhaps if you decide that the world is only energy in the form of matter reacting to the physical laws that govern it, well, then all your experience will coincide with that reality. Likewise, if you decide that what we see is only a facade of a much more mysterious and magical Universe, then that is your reality."
The response, which could be considered "lukewarm" in Colombian political terms, seemed to me appropriate at the moment, but the truth is it didn't satisfy me, and I think it didn't convince my cousin much either. We didn't talk about the matter any more that day, but the unease stayed with me the whole time. Technically it is true that personal reality, the one we perceive and experience, is nothing but the mental construction that our brain forms based on what we receive through the senses, the structure of our mind, and the results of its internal processes. In other words, what reality is for each of us is something only each one can define: a rainy afternoon is a gift from the sky for some people, but for others it is a cause of sadness and even depression. For some people life is predestined and nothing they do will be able to change what is arranged for their future, while for others fate is not written and we have the power to build anything we want. It is clear that from this point of view, my argument makes sense: a person who believes in magic and in his or her inner power to transform everything around them undoubtedly has a higher probability of achieving what they set out to do in life than someone who fervently believes that only an external God can change the circumstances around them.
However, this does not change the fact that beyond human experience there is a reality that does not depend on our beliefs. We know that as a species, Homo Sapiens appeared only about 320,000 years ago, whereas the Earth is already almost 4.5 billion years old and the Universe, according to science, almost 13.8 billion years old. This means, unless Bertrand Russell was right and the world appeared out of nothing, just as it is now, 5 minutes ago, that reality already existed long before there were human beings capable of seeing this reality one way or another.
For the indigenous communities I have walked with, the religions I have known, and the spiritual systems I have studied, the physical world is only a part of reality, human beings do not exist only in the physical form we inhabit, and the Universe is populated by all kinds of beings of superior and inferior consciousness who do not live in human form. The details do vary from one creed to another, but the constant in the spiritual realm is that we are part of something much larger and eternal, whether it is called God, Cosmic Consciousness, Father-Mother, or the Totality.
But on the other hand, the science I so much admire seems to close the door to this possibility, and while few scientists venture to flatly dismiss the existence of a God or life after death, the truth is that most scientists consider these possibilities to be at best remote, and frequently highly improbable from the standpoint of the already verified discoveries about the nature of reality, such as quantum physics, natural selection, genetics, biochemistry, and so on.
Little by little I came to realize that this conflict in my beliefs was causing a kind of "system failure" in my head. Every time I spoke in a circle of knowledges about the fact that we are spiritual beings living a human experience, that we come from the stars, that we are remembering our cosmic essence in order to continue our journey after death and one day be reunited with the Creator, I felt somewhat uncomfortable. Do I truly believe in all that, or would I simply like to believe it? Many of these beliefs were not learned anywhere but received as revelation in yagé rituals in which beings from other dimensions showed me all these things in astral temples. So how could I doubt?
The limit of this failure in my belief system arrived about three years ago, when I was preparing to start a new life in Canada and I went through one of the most difficult experiences I have ever had: an anxiety crisis. Of course I will narrate the details of this experience in a later account of my spiritual path, but for now it suffices to say that at that moment, the prospect of being only mortal beings, subject to the coldness of chance and destined to suffering and oblivion, terrified me. Literally, just thinking that one day I will not be alive, that the people I love too will one day disappear and never again smile, feel, or love, triggered panic attacks. I looked at my youngest daughter, who was only a couple of years old, at my daughter Anita, and at my wife Paula, and I could not conceive that one day we would no longer be together, and from that moment on we would never be together again, and it drove me crazy.
I'll make a parenthesis to offer my apologies if what I've just said has caused you some anxiety, but the good news is that the outcome was very positive. I eventually managed to reconcile those two positions and find a middle path to overcome that anxiety without having to turn off my skepticism and deny science. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
At that moment, while going through my anxiety crisis, I was already seriously considering checking into a psychiatric clinic, because I didn't feel capable of going on with that constant panic and such a dark view of life. But in a way I saw resolving my existential crisis with medication as a defeat for my spiritual belief system, so I decided to give spirituality one more chance and go to a liberation therapy session with a therapist who uses the methodology of "A Course in Miracles."
During the therapy, María Eugenia, which is what the therapist's name was, listened attentively as I talked about my inner conflicts and the inexplicable fear I felt. As I spoke, I began to feel the emptiness in my chest that preceded my worst crises, and then María Eugenia asked me, "Why do you keep carrying that weight? You don't have to keep bearing it on your shoulders. Right here is Jesus Christ, by your side, waiting for you to hand that burden over to him. Do you want to do that?"
When she asked me that, I felt she had hit the core of my anguish, because the truth is I wanted to believe that Jesus was right there, ready to help me, but on the other hand I knew it was also very probable that this Being did not exist and that it was simply a strategy of the mind to let go of those worries. But I didn't want to end up admitted to a psychiatric clinic either, so I decided to take the leap of faith and visualized myself handing my worries over to that unconditional friend I had turned to so many times before. I imagined him taking me by the hand and telling me, "Calm down, I'm with you, everything is fine," and in that moment I couldn't hold back the tears and I cried like a little child for a good while, until I felt that the emptiness in my chest was gone and I felt much peace.
Later I will narrate that entire episode in greater detail, but this bit was relevant to tell at this point, because it was there, on that couch, that I felt a revelation: I was able to recognize that the Jesus of Nazareth most likely does not exist, and yet still feel him with great strength and receive his healing.
All of a sudden I understood that I had no obligation whatsoever to choose between believing in the spiritual and accepting science's description of reality. The concepts may be contradictory, but that's what human beings are: contradictory and complex, skeptical and credulous. Many scientists criticize religions for their evidence-free beliefs, and yet they accept the existence of human rights and democratic constitutions, as if those were not also human inventions. Money is another thing that exists only because we say it exists, and one does not hear anyone doubting its existence.
Not long after getting through that crisis, I watched the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan again, and I was surprised to see that beyond a series of scientific facts, what Carl really transmitted to me was his love for nature, his admiration for the laws of nature, and a very sublime sense of connection with the Cosmos. Some of the most beautiful phrases I remember from that documentary series are:
"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, and the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff."
"What a wonderful thing a book is. It is a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which dark scribblings are printed. But take one look and you're inside another person's mind, perhaps someone who died thousands of years ago. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and quietly, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of the human inventions, linking people who never knew each other, citizens of distant eras. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that human beings are capable of magic."
And my favorite: "We are the way the universe knows itself."
I realized that many scientists actually have a strong spiritual, and sometimes even mystical, motivation. A devotion for the laws of nature that causes an awe similar to what I have experienced many times in having mystical experiences.
Another phrase that struck me deeply for its beauty and depth, I heard from Neil DeGrasse Tyson, when a student, probably a Christian, asked him at a lecture what he would do if he were to be executed and had the option of believing in God at the last moment, to console himself against the prospect of being on the verge of disappearing forever because of an injustice. Neil thought for a moment and answered: "I would ask that my body, in death, be buried, not cremated, so that the energy stored inside it returns to the earth, so that the flora and the fauna can feed on it, just as I fed on the flora and the fauna during my life."
It's that, if we think about it for a moment, the human need to believe in life beyond death is eminently selfish: I want to live forever because my life is the most important thing I have. Neil's phrase, who knows if it reflects reality, because in such an extreme situation who knows if one would have time for so much altruism, but at least it is inspiring, because it gives death a dimension that we often forget, which is that it is a return to the origin, a grateful giving back of what we had borrowed.
So it is clear then that true spirituality is not necessarily related to groundless beliefs, but that, as we defined it in the episode on the Science of Spirituality, it is based on a sense of transcendence and connection with something higher.
I understood this much better recently when I read about Sean Carroll's poetic naturalism, because I think it describes this cosmovision in a very clear way.
What Poetic Naturalism tells us is that only one reality exists: nature, which is governed by natural laws and in which there are no gods, no spirits, and no supernatural phenomena. That would be the "naturalist" part. The poetic part comes from the fact that there are many ways to understand, describe, and talk about that reality. However, Carroll says that these ways of speaking should not be underestimated, and that if a particular way of speaking turns out to be sufficiently precise and useful, the elements of that vocabulary deserve to be called "real."
In other words, for a poetic naturalist, nature can only be studied through objective, verifiable natural phenomena. However, once we have understood those phenomena, we can create stories that give them meaning and order.
In an earlier episode I talked about the relationship between physics, chemistry, and biology, where I explained that chemistry emerges from physics when physics becomes sufficiently complex, and when chemistry becomes complex, biology emerges. In reality nothing new has been born. Biology is simply an easier and more logical way for us to understand chemistry in living beings, and chemistry is a simplified way to understand the physics of interacting atoms and molecules.
We had also used, in another episode, the example of a computer, or rather computer networks, to assimilate it to the brain, and we said that in that case the human mind is the software, the operating system running on the brain system.
Well, today we are adding another stitch to that fabric. The mind's operating system runs a software called spirituality, and that software gives us an entirely new language to understand the world. It's like how in the past computers were handled with keyboard commands and the screen was black with green or orange letters: everything was there: the files, the spreadsheets, the documents, even some games. But everything was dark, difficult to understand, and for many, boring. Then graphical interfaces like Macintosh and Windows were created, and everything became colorful, intuitive, and pleasant.
So it is with science-based spirituality: we can choose to see God not as a bearded gentleman who demands sacrifices and worship, but as the origin of the consciousness of everything that exists in the Universe, the set of cosmic laws that govern everything that exists and that maintain the balance of reality so that we are something rather than nothing.
We can also choose to see the Sun and the Earth not as a ball of fire and a giant rock covered in water, but as what they are: the origin of life on Earth and the source of energy of all living things that fertilizes the Earth so that it allows us to be born, feeds us, sustains us, and receives us back at the hour of our death. We can, if we want, call them Father and Mother.
And that is why I declare myself a Son of the Sun and the Earth, son of the stars and inhabitant of the Cosmos. Connected through my atoms to the origin of the Universe and through my DNA, but also through my ideas and my legacy, to the future of humanity, perhaps colonizing the galaxies and carrying life and consciousness to every corner of the Universe.
This is the Neil DeGrasse Tyson video to which I refer in the audio: