Dark Shadows
by Ohky Simine Forest
 Usually,
a lack of proper spiritual education and moral guidance in a society is a
powerful factor that allows the dark shadows easy entrance into clouded human
hearts. Uneducated about these dangers, many people are induced with strong
compulsive desires, expressed as ego-grasping tendencies that can even lead them
to kill.
When you awaken to the
possibilities of the spirit, the dark widespread influence makes you feel as if
you are inadequate and misadapted in the society, to the point that you may
think you are losing your mind. Many go crazy, or may feel as if they are. If
they ever surrender in the struggle with the dark forces, they become lost in
despair, insanity, depression, and profound neurosis.
On the other hand, a lot of
people have an understanding of their influence, and may resist their induced
immorality, but will be unable to render these dark forces ineffectual. Due to
this, common people usually have a pretty confused spirituality, expressed as a
normal life of deep frustration.
Many people, from all
professions, are so cynical that they have given up the dream of a perfect
society, alleging that history always repeats itself, endlessly, in an
inevitable and irrevocable loop, that humanity is bound to wars and suffering
and that nothing can be done about it. These people have no true vision. There
are apparent liberals who never take real sides, forever arguing that concepts
of good and evil are just relative. This is a confused state of mind disguised
as open-mindedness.
The intellectual fairness of
liberals affirms that there can be no absolute laws, even positive ones. These
people may eventually become dangerous fools, with their double-talk and their
lack of a true sense of morality. For such people, total common sense does not
exist, and they may go far out of their way to rationalize and justify even the
worst transgression. This is an emotional imbalance and immaturity often seen in
the media.
Your original nature, your
essence, is genuinely good, for you are primarily a child of the universe. You
must, at every moment, affirm your forces of life with a knowledge of your
death. True awareness can only happen in listening, touching, dreaming, and
opening to the connection of your spirit.
Generally speaking, the problems
that face every society are bound to the dialectic of violence and liberty.
Wherever prosperity exists without a true sense of natural measure, we will find
all forms of violence, luxury, and a lack of true ethical, respectful behavior.
Wherever there are a few
individuals who control the economy, there will exist desperate people in the
lower classes. Wherever there is ideology at the root of a society, there will
be politics, and politics, per se, are tremendously limited, unless understood
as a spiritual incentive. Ideologies claim that they have an answer to human
suffering, but they do not. They only present a system of ideas disconnected
from true reality and promise theories bound to disintegration.
No ideology can make true
changes or true revolutions. Only the heart of the people can do that. Only the
internal courage and discernment of true warriors can accomplish this. Although
an ideology may apparently mend things for a while, this only lasts until the
rotten apple surfaces again from below, from the Earth, and the discontentment
of people.
The most "politicized"
people I have ever met are Indian people, anywhere on this great continent,
because of their innate communal sense. Politics is, for us, primarily
spiritual. For most natives, everything was and is already lost, so the only
thing left is, and has been for centuries, a deep communal sense, a relation to
our brothers and sisters. Therefore, our understanding of the Council ways is
straightforward, clear, and without double talk, for we know it is important to
always speak our truth. We also know it is stupid to try to coerce another to
our point of view. If politics has any meaning, it can only be based on a
spiritual perception of these principles.
Ideologies are not based on true
principles, because real principles are primarily rooted in the observation of
the great universal laws. When you carefully observe, you find the same common
factors, the same needs for a better life among everyone, whether in Asia,
Africa, or America. These common factors extend beyond political parties or
religious institutions; in this sense the shamanic ways, teaching true
knowledge, go beyond ideas.
Ideologies must not be confused
with ideals. Humanity does not need ideologies, but sound human principles
grounded on the deepest ideals. The return of the Earth consciousness goes
beyond ideologies. It is just a simple fact. Today, a regional problem or war is
no longer the problem of the local people. It becomes an international problem
for all to see.
To embrace the inward
responsibility of the world's problems within our womb, our being, is the only
way we will repel the dark forces
obtruding on humanity preventing freedom and the circles of people. It is a fine
line, however. This responsibility should not be an excuse to interfere in
foreign affairs without first being invited.
The way in which politics are
applied in the world's cultures denotes a definite competition of young souls
striving for places of superficial power. This is why most people are
definitively not interested in the politics of their country. The way in which
politics are practiced (and always have been) creates an accepted form of
violence and remains a way to divide the people into different classes or
parties, through distinct ideologies bound to structures and cultural modes that
alienate those within and without the society.
There have been approximately
28,000 wars in the last 7,000 years, all over the planet -- big wars and small
wars. This reflects only that the war is inside each one of us. Look inside your
own negativity. Everyone is fighting internally against someone else most of the
time, fighting for their ego interest and unfulfilled desires or beliefs. The
only worthwhile war, however, is the one that fights off the biggest enemies of
humankind: fear, terror, ignorance, and the stupidity that creates war.
To discern between ideologies
and communal, spiritual principles, a true people must have a lucid, precise,
and clear mind that sees and understands, without any distortion, the Medicine
Wheel of Revelation. To be free of distortion, one must be vulnerable and open,
willing to learn, empty of too much intellectual knowledge, without giving up
one's particular essence and experiences of life.
Today's actual societies still
admit and foment competition, ambition, greed, and violence, without true
consideration for the people. Such societies disguise themselves under false
morality and dishonest respectability. There is no real order in these
societies.
What we must understand about
human suffering, the hopes and the despairs of entire populations is that we are
all responsible for the global human chaos inflicted upon the very sacred being
of and on which we live. Whatever you do and think at the office, in your living
room, in your deepest thoughts, affects the rest of humanity for good or for
bad. Whatever fear you hold is translated as a contracting energy that
irremediably attracts the fears of other people in your surroundings and
contributes to the massive national and international entity of fear. This is
the main entrance for the dark forces.
When every mind on this planet
is psychically free from fear, we will see together the door to a perfect
society. A perfect society does not imply one that is free from problems.
Perfect means rather that there exist the spiritual means for every individual
and the community to confront and challenge what the society needs for its
growth.
If the universal principles of
the Council ways work in a smaller case, such as in a native tribal council of
various nations as the Iroquois League of Peace or in thousands of Zapatista
communities of the Maya jungle, if the universal principles of the Council ways
also work in the larger Council stars of our cosmos, there is no reason why they
could not be applied at the intermediary level of this global humanity. We must
strive conjointly for this aim.
We can talk on and on about the
New Age, the new order to come, and the inspiring prophecies I have shared (see
book Dreaming
the Council Ways). This can easily become just another bit of intellectual
information to add to our collection.
In the meanwhile, there are
still millions of people who have no chance to read books or to undertake
spiritual education of any sort, and who will never know anything of the wisdom
I have shared through these pages. These people (the "lower" classes),
with their own intelligence and means, try to survive and live on an everyday
basis. They are also bound to the great cosmic influences, however, just as
everyone of us is, if not more so. It is there, with them, that we must keep our
feet on a firm ground. We must keep our perceptions with those
"below," those who are closer to the Earth, who do not have access to
all this information that affects the majority of humans on this great
orb.
Even if we are at the edge of a
new dawn, expressed as an emerging awakening of the spiritual awareness of
humanity, we still have to take a look at the chaos and the garbage we produce
in such massive quantities. This is our shadow side as humans. We can see
ourselves as an autonomous humanity, taking responsibility for all aspects of
life, only if we incarnate here, in our human body and soul. For no one else
will take care of the garbage and the needs of everyone.
It is easier to place the
responsibility on the great incognito, disguised "other". To be
responsible for our thoughts is the first step in taking action for a true,
inward revolution. You must feel responsible for everything happening in the
world, without morose and pathetic mortification, but in full consciousness.
Your own struggling thought, confused
being, and competitive behavior create a dissonant energy that is, indirectly or
directly, responsible for the disharmony in the field of the Earth, for the wars
and the misery of millions of people. When each individual becomes aware of this
simple truth, all our educational systems will truly undergo a massive
transformation. If it is possible for someone to be spiritual, it can only be in
this sense.
The majority of people do not
care for this, because they do not love their children -- not really. They do
not love them for the sake of loving them, for who they are, beings of light,
children of the universe. If they truly loved them, they would be moving
mountains, effecting revolutions, internal and external, to create a new,
organized culture and a different education for the seven generations to come
and stop the violence on this great Mother Earth.
Generally speaking, most rich
people only want to watch over their own interests, while lower and upper middle
classes are essentially lethargic and disinterested, preferring to content
themselves with the comfort level they may have reached. Those "below"
are too busy trying to find something for their children to eat on a daily
basis, not knowing if tomorrow there will be enough. At least these last have a
true "excuse". Even in the midst of their great struggle, however, the
real claim against abuse will often come from the poorest and most severely
abandoned ones, for these are the ones that have "nothing" to lose.
Those below are those oppressed,
and oppressed people have always existed in every culture, every country,
everywhere around the globe, right now. When I talk of the pain of the Red
people or the struggle of the Maya Zapatistas, I am likewise seeing and
embracing the larger cultural memory of persecution and despotism of the dark
forces that many of you, independent of your origins, may still carry within, as
the same and unique voice that speaks into our human blood.
This
article was excerpted from:
 Dreaming
The Council Ways: True Native Teachings from the Red Lodge
by Ohky Simine Forest.
This
article was reprinted with permission from the publisher
Samuel Weiser Inc., York Beach, Maine, USA. ©2000. http://www.weiserbooks.com
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About The
Author
OHKY SIMINE FOREST was born in Quebec, Canada to Mohawk and French
parents. In 1995, Ohky created the first Medicine Center in this part
of the world. The center offers spiritual retreats, sweat lodges,
medicine wheel ceremonies, vision quests, and earth burial healings.
Ohky makes her home in Chiapas, Mexico, and visits the United States
several times a year, giving retreat seminars and conferences. For her
schedule, write to
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.
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