Envy: An Illness In Itself
by Ohky Simine
Forest
 One of the
fiercest and most hypocritical human emotions is envy. A wicked wish from
someone who cultivates jealousy and bad thoughts toward you is a great danger.
Each time the sender of envy thinks and emits this black emotional
thought-entity, he or she targets it toward the unprotected medicine field of a
person-receiver, thus creating serious diseases and emotional problems. These
bad feelings ally easily with obscure Underworld entities, attacking the person
who is the target of the envy. This often occurs within dreams. When the envy is
conscious and sent deliberately, the harm is even more terrible, appearing as a
sudden illness in the person's life, with no apparent cause.
In most traditions, natives
exercise careful demeanor in order to avoid being the target of people's envy.
Utmost discretion and true humility regarding one's material and spiritual
wealth, even with close friends, is the best guardian. People who constantly
show off are not prudent, exposing themselves unnecessarily to all sorts of
life's tragedies without knowing it. Obviously, many people are not aware of
this, for they continue their pretenses in an unconscious fashion. This seems to
be a cultural peculiarity of Western countries.
The majority of people on this
planet constantly emit and discharge their bad thoughts and bad words onto
anyone at hand. Unfortunately, this is a behavior that is never truly reproached
and that is, to a certain degree, accepted in many strata of the society. In
fact, this is nothing other than a complete lack of education in these
supposedly "cultivated" societies. In the end, everyone sends potential physical
and moral harm to everyone else, even through their most intimate feelings and
thoughts.
Most people are not even aware
that their envious thoughts may make someone sick. They constantly unload their
heavy temper and negative emotions onto others, instead of assuming and
transforming these in their own core. This is one of the ways that the dark
forces have filtered into us. By disposing our emotional garbage on others, by
getting angry at others, or blaming them, we assume we have freed ourselves of
it. However, energies do not operate this way. Not only do we harm others, but,
instead of freeing ourselves, we create a vicious circle. And one day our
negativity returns to us, at the end of the circle. It returns with more force
because it has accumulated all the negativity of others in this
process.
To metamorphose such endless
absurd attitudes, a warrior's self-control is required, as well as an immediate
aptitude for feeling another's moccasins. We must acquire, in our spiritual
learning, a discipline that redirects our negativity toward the natural
elements. For example, there are countless practices to release negative
emotions: by hugging a tree, breathing into the earth, swimming in water, or
burning the object of our suffering in the fire. Natural elements hold the power
to truly transmute the shaman's human emotional garbage, unlike other humans who
are easily entangled in their own negativity. The earth will transform our
negativity into inner power, the fire will transmute it into light, the tree
will absorb it into its own roots, and water will help us
forgive.
Sometimes envy or bad thoughts may
try to insidiously enter into our energy field, without piercing through if you
are strong. If this is the case, it immediately bounces back to the sender's
field, who may in turn become ill. At other times, the envy that took the form
of an obscure entity may well discharge itself onto a close familiar of the
targeted person. Unfortunately, children are often perfect victims because of
their greater openness. It is, therefore, important to bless and smudge your
entire family, asking for protection.
The native ceremony for healing
and protecting against envy involves three consecutive days of alternate fasting
and continence observed by all the members. This healing process also invariably
requires a physical sacrifice of some sort. The process ends with a sweat lodge
and prayer ceremony. Prayers are a continuous part of our life, for, through
them, we disclose a profound deference for such rituals of purity. Often
performed in a standing or squatting position, a native prayer, as a rule, says
what is essential. It may be repetitious, thus forming a chant and inducing a
slight trance state. Whatever form the prayer takes, it must always come from
the heart center, the seat of love and wisdom. When the heart and faith in
spirit are strong, our protection is inevitably powerful. We have prayers and
chants for everything that requires our true appreciation of life, even during
the hard storms, or even during the eclipse times of our lives.
Ceremonial altars can be erected
for various purposes. They provide a telepathic vinculum and a place of focus
for the shamans. Altars are the center of the universe for us. They are our
cosmic tree, the emergence hole through all the levels of consciousness that are
accessible to us. For these altars, any object can be transformed into a sacred
element and a power object. One stunning example is the use of Coca-Cola in the
Maya altars. The curanderos, or healers, believe that the gas expels bad spirits
of the stomach. Therefore Coke is very sacred to them! Knowing what Coca-Cola
represents, which has nothing to do with spirit, I can only say that this
example expresses the purest magical mind. I have also observed 100-year-old
women healers worshipping plastic containers on their altars, because the
durability and non-fading colors of the plastic stands in contrast to their aged
and cracked clay vessels! In a native mind, anything is good and can become
sacred and precious.
Despite their great humor, old
shamans are usually very serious when talking of their conception of illness and
the human transgressions that produce it. What they have taught me is primarily
that we cannot destroy energy, we can only transform it. In light of this
explicit principle, we are all recipients of the stupendous inner potential to
self-heal. A good warrior must unveil and reveal this inward capacity. To mature
into a powerful healer, however, there are rudimentary precepts of protection
that it is imperative to possess.
The daily practice of a
regenerative discipline to maintain the amount of energy made available to us by
the universe is the distinguishing characteristic of a strong warrior. We are
the perfect mirror of the energies into which we tap. We become undifferentiated
from the energies with which we merge, whether we use them properly or misuse
them through harmful activities. This should be our daily reflection and prayer.
Because we function in this way, as a mirror, we must be a perfect receptacle so
that we may teach others not to unload their negativity, but to positively
transform it through our heart. Our hearts must be, at all moments, the heart of
the universe.
The greatest recipe for happiness
for native shamans is as simple as breathing in the very early morning. It is a
way of living. It is a way to integrate these four daily precepts of wisdom to
ensure the perfection of our spiritual warrior within:
-
Purify the body and spirit through
fasting and the perpetual cleansing of the unbalanced passions, wanting, and
needing of your ego;
-
Pray to invoke beneficial morning
spirits to bless your home within and without;
-
Sacrifice to give of yourselves,
reciprocally, to the powers, for the magnanimity and abundance of the universe
in our lives; and
-
Appreciate the magnificence and
beauty of the encompassing world, in the same way that children glimpse it at
every moment.
This
article was reprinted with permission from:
 Dreaming The
Council Ways
by Ohky Simine Forest.
Published by Samuel Weiser
Inc., York Beach, Maine, USA. ©2000. http://www.weiserbooks.com.
Info/Order book.
About The
Author
OHKY SIMINE FOREST was born in Quebec, Canada to
Mohawk and French parents. In 1995, Ohky created the Medicine Center which
offers spiritual retreats, sweat lodges, medicine wheel ceremonies, vision
quests, and earth burial healings. She makes her home in Chiapas, Mexico, and
visits the United States several times a year, giving retreat seminars and
conferences. For a schedule or to contact the author, email
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