"Every ascending energy must offer itself for something greater. What is offered is what matters most."

Ever since the seventies Don Juan Matus has been a well known character in 'new age' and shamanic circles. Through the books of Carlos Casteneda the world and words of this medicine man, this sorcerer touched the lives of millions and reached an audience far beyond the halls and lecture rooms of anthropologists and social scientists. Over thirty years later he's still often quoted by contemporary luminaries in the personal and spiritual development arena. Basically I couldn't resist a little pondering on one of his lesser known quotes (see the above) and decided that, although mentioning his name nowadays can make an audience sigh with an unspoken "that is SO NOT of this day and age", I'd brave the possible critics.

Why we hog everything
Letting go, giving up, making sacrifices, making offerings etc. are practices that we in the west often have difficulty with. We are raised (generalization) by the previous, post World War II generation with the notion that there's not enough to go round: not enough money, not enough love, not enough time, not enough space, not enough of anything, or at its best just enough to survive.

In our effort to break this pattern and create a sense of well being based on the knowledge that there actually is more than enough for every living being on this planet, we tend to hold on to everything we've acquired over time, unable to transform our restrictive, choking, clingy-ness into a free flowing tide of abundance that reaches every living soul.

We do this in pretty much every area of our lives: relationships, work, family and also, funnily enough, in our spiritual practice. Now for me the last one is of vital importance because in my life that is at the base of its creation.

Where I come from (where do I come from?)
I started out exploring various spiritual paths since my childhood and in my early twenties I 'adopted' Buddhism, or Buddhism adopted me, I'm not quite sure.

My friends and I now joke about my experiments from back then. For one I became this hard core vegetarian, sworn off alcohol, nicotine and other substances, and tipping the scales dangerously towards evangelizing my, of course, superior morals based on the 2500 year old philosophy and practice. It all became rather black and white, right or wrong, in or out. It took me a decade to get that the Buddha walked a path between extremes and opposites: the middle way. I must have been, no, I know I was impossible for a while.

The Middle Way taught me to love myself more

Later I picked up smoking again (a crutch in heavy emotional times that I'm pleased to say I was able to toss away a year ago), had the occasional drink, started to eat fish whenever my body graved it and generally loosened my energetic system enough so the tide of well being could actually start to flow inside of me.

It was not so much the changes that I made in my diet that allowed for it to shift. It was the changes in my perception of reality, it was my perspective of myself, others and life; the changes in my belief system that made all the difference. I've learned that loving myself is more about applying consciousness to choices, accepting my current state of being - realizing it's ever changing, and giving myself the space to REALLY feel that I am a good, kind and loving human being.  I'm now able to embrace my mistakes and perceived shortcomings as part of the totality that is me and it's GOOD. I am truly happy being who I am and can extend the same level of compassion towards myself as I do to others nowadays.

Anyway, life has battered me hard to get me to this place and that's why this quote strikes a chord within me. My holding on to lovers, to beliefs, to perceived truths has brought me such intense pain up until the point where I was ready to end my life. My attachments to certain dreams and a certain life brought me agony. But on this journey of unweaving, unraveling the energetic strands that bound me I finally was able to tip the happiness scale over.

You know how you generally feel OK and you have ups and downs, right? I went from that base being depression, to it being OK, to a saturated sense of well-being where I can feel ecstatically happy for no apparent reason at all. But I had to make some major offerings. I've had to live an unusual life and make unusual choices in order to get to where I am today. And along the way I've learned that 'what is offered' is indeed what matters most and also that 'what is offered' is eventually granted in a greater way than I could ever have dreamed.

Don Juan was on to something here and I suspect that if we all are able to offer up just a tiny bit more of our personal attachments we can make enough space in the collective psyche for true happiness to flow more strongly into the world. I'd love that. Call me retro but I'd say Don Juan is far out!