Vision Walk
B Y   B R A N D T   M O R G A N

Preface

THE VISION WALK CAME TO ME one afternoon on a dusty ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It was all so simple. I was teaching a class in Toltec wisdom, much as it had been passed on to me by my own teacher, don Miguel Ruiz. Essentially, the Toltec path has to do with dropping the busy mind with all its judgments and expectations and social conditioning in order to expose the truth of who we really are. That truth is contained mainly in the heart, but after two hours I sensed that most of my students were still "up in their heads." What I was teaching seemed to be just mental concepts for them. I needed to do something different, but what?

"Send them on a vision quest," said my inner voice, reminding me of my love for the Native American path and the ritual of fasting and praying that is so important to many tribes.

"But that takes four days and nights," I protested, recalling my own experience with the ritual.

"Don't argue, just do it," the voice insisted.

"OK, do what?" I asked.

In a flash I had it all, just like downloading a computer program. I would ask my students to meditate for five minutes on a question of supreme importance, then send them out to walk in nature for 20 minutes. I would instruct them to turn off their minds and to glide over the landscape as though in a dream, constantly following their hearts and staying open to whatever might come in.

And that's what they did. When they returned from their walks, every one of those 17 students had received their answers. In fact, many of them had life-changing experiences. One student, feeling blocked and a bit depressed, was led into a ranch building, where her heart told her to sit down at a piano and play; and as she played, the notes re-awakened her dormant passion for life. A man who wanted to know how to let go of an old relationship was drawn to pick up the carcass of a cicada and realized that the life in it had already departed. As he dropped the husk back into the sand, with a smile of deep joy he also dropped his old relationship and opened up to his love for himself and all life. A third student was led to put her arms around a tree, where she felt her own heartbeat. "Give it to me," the tree urged, and in a flood of tears she released an old trauma that had haunted her for years. On the surface, all of these things were very ordinary - the piano, the insect, the tree - but they became extraordinary because these people had opened themselves to everyday things as mirrors for the deeper truths within them.

For sheer drama, though, one of that day's Vision Walks topped them all: As the students were returning from their walks, the ranch cook came out to the patio with a three-gallon aluminum pot and invited us to look inside. Inside the pot was a large, hairy tarantula that had been captured in the kitchen. One by one, the students peered inside. Each had a different reaction. Some found it beautiful, others ugly. Still others recoiled in fear.

The last woman to return, however, looked into the pot, screamed in terror, and ran back into the woods. When she returned, still shaking, she said in amazement, "My question was, 'Why am I always so afraid of spiders?' "

Why am I always so afraid of spiders? This might seem like a trivial question, but it was the most important thing that woman could have asked. In Native American mythology, Spiderwoman is the one who weaves the web of life and everything in it. We helped that woman see that the spider was herself - a symbol of the feminine power and creativity she had been running from all her life. In the spider she had seen her own reflection.

Was the appearance of the tarantula a coincidence? No. Nor was the beetle carcass, the piano, or the countless other symbols that spoke to these Vision Walkers. There are no coincidences. All these people had drawn these symbols to themselves through the force of their own focused intent. Just as it says in the Bible: "Ask, and ye shall receive. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." What was profoundly meaningful to one person in the group would probably not have affected another person, but in each case something specific to each person's life and question appeared in his or her path.

Since that first Vision Walk, I have facilitated countless others, both in small groups and in workshops of more than 200 people. I have even held them indoors, having people walk from room to room in search of their answers. Indoors or out, everyone has received answers, and many have been changed forever.

Today, whenever I lead a Vision Walk or read a letter describing someone's experience, I give thanks to the great mystery of life for having offered it. I knew right away that the Vision Walk was a gift, and I knew it was meant to be shared. In it I hear echoes of our collective call for freedom from the tyranny of our own minds, for another tool to help us know ourselves.

This is not a long book. I could have written more - much more - about the Vision Walk, but what would be the point? Why complicate something so simple? The same could be said about life. Why complicate it? Instead, why not just live it?

Simple, of course, doesn't necessarily mean shallow. On the surface, this book is about answering questions and solving problems, but that is only the beginning. If you allow yourself to be pulled into deeper water, the Vision Walk can take you to places beyond questions, beyond problems, beyond your wildest imaginings. It can even lead you into the ocean of your true self. All you need is the curiosity to try something new, the willingness to leave old habits behind, and the courage to be yourself.

It is my hope that, when you get a glimpse of the ocean of truth behind your questions and answers - when you immerse yourself in the wisdom, love, joy, and peace inherent in this blissful state of consciousness - you will want to visit more often, or even live there all the time. And so you can.

As you begin this journey, I am tempted to say good luck; but, with curiosity and courage, you won't be needing it.

Chapter 1
What's It All About?

As Henry David Thoreau wrote nearly a century and a half ago, most people lead lives of quiet desperation. Our lives are so busy. We rush to and fro in cars and planes, chatter on cell phones, clack out emails, scarf down snacks, and schedule appointments. Even our leisure time is carefully calculated and sandwiched into our busy days. Sometimes it seems as if all the things that were meant to make life easier have only complicated it, cutting us off from our source of wisdom and inspiration. It's true: So many of us go from birth to death hardly knowing who we are or why we are here.

Who we are and why we're here is far grander and more exciting than most of us can imagine. Over the course of our lives, we've been conditioned to believe we are small and insignificant; that we don't deserve success and abundance; that we can't realize our most cherished dreams; that fear and anxiety are normal; and that we are unworthy of love and joy.

The truth is that beneath the masks we wear and the roles we play to protect ourselves, our true self is shining like a bright sun. It is always there. It never goes out. It is an endless source of joy and creativity. In fact, it is life itself. We are life itself. Every one of us, without exception, is intimately connected to the Creator and to all living things. Through this connection anything is possible, including the innate ability to answer almost any question imaginable.

Questions, Questions
Life is full of questions. Hardly a day goes by when we aren't faced with nagging problems and important choices. Our questions range from the profound to the mundane: "Why am I here? What do I really want? What is the highest expression of my talents and abilities? Should I stay in this relationship? How can I make more money? How can I improve my health? Can I trust my stockbroker? Shall I go to the party this weekend? What shall we do for dinner tonight? Shall I buy an SUV or an economy car? And, oh yeah, where did I leave the car keys?"

We look almost anywhere for the answers. We ask friends for advice on our love lives. We consult the I Ching about whether we should take a vacation to Bali or the Bahamas. We ask astrologers to tell us how to align ourselves with the stars. We ask Tarot readers to tell us whether we're on track to fulfill our life's purpose. And every day we're bombarded by advertisements telling us who we are, who we should be, and what we need in order to be happy and fulfilled, prettier, or more popular.

Useful and entertaining as these things are, most of the time they aren't necessary. Why? Because you already have the answers. They're inside you. No confidant, counselor, or divination system can tell you much more than you already know. You don't need a friend to tell you how to live your life. You don't need a sage or a psychology book to tell you how to find true love. And you don't need to listen to all those advertisements that tell you what products to buy - not toothpaste or beer or baloney. In most cases, all you need to do is consult yourself - or perhaps I should say the self beyond the self. I like to call this self the real you.

The Real You
I want to clarify what I mean by the real you because it is the most important term you will encounter in this book. From time to time I also call it your true self or your authentic self. Sometimes I even refer to it as awareness or life. I don't capitalize any of these terms because we tend to think capitalized words represent something separate, special, and unattainable - for example, the term God as it is used in most religions. Ordinary lowercase terms like awareness and life are still wonderful and mysterious, but they don't seem like such a big deal. In the end, though, all these terms - including God - are little more than signposts pointing to a reality that is beyond words.

Most of us think we are our bodies, minds, emotions, and personalities. The real you has nothing to do with who you think you are. It has nothing to do with thinking at all. The real you exists only in the absence of thought.

The real you permeates your mind and body, but it is neither. It contains all creation, but it is no thing. The real you is vast, formless, and forever. Yet at the same time, it is not void or empty; it is full of light, love, and joy. It is a great, living mystery. It is the very source of life and all creation. The real you is the no-thing that gives rise to everything. It is pure awareness beyond form.

The real you sees, hears, and feels through your body, but it is not your body. Your body is contained within it, and so is everything else. To the real you, your body is mainly a tool of perception, like a pair of 3-D glasses you put on at the movies. Through our human senses, forms appear separate from each other, but we are not separate from anything. At the level of the real you, you are one with all creation. In fact, the entire universe and everything in it is only one thing - one grand, omniscient being that has magically and magnificently projected itself into trillions of different forms.

Your personal body-mind is one of those forms. You are a human, but you are also the universe. Using a common metaphor, you are a drop of water, but you are also the ocean.

Let me explain what I mean by that: One night I dreamed I was sitting in a boat no bigger than a bathtub, being tossed about in an ocean storm with mountainous waves swelling and foaming all around me. I thought to myself, Boy, it's lucky I have this boat, or I'd really be in a fix!

In that moment the boat disappeared, and I was left treading water, a speck of life adrift in a hostile sea. I'm going to be crushed by the next wave and drown! I thought. But then I felt something strange. It was as though the water around me suddenly became loving arms buoying me up. With an answering rush of love I welcomed their embrace. I am not separate from the ocean! I realized. It is a part of me!

Just as this thought crossed my mind, a killer whale exploded upwards and arced gracefully back into the water, trailing a magnificent rainbow of spray. Oh joy! I thought, The whale is a part of me, too!

Yet no sooner did the whale disappear than I began thinking, Where did he go? Maybe he's coming to eat me! Then the whale leaped from the water again, and I knew he was part of me and we were both part of the ocean. When the whale disappeared from my sight once more, I became the drop again, separate and fearful. This rapid and radical shift in consciousness went on for quite a while, back and forth, before I woke up and realized what the dream was trying to tell me: "You see, you are the ocean and the drop. But most of the time you think you're just the drop. That's why you live in fear. The trick is to wake up and be the drop while knowing you're the ocean. Believing is not enough. Faith is not enough. You have to know it. Then the truth will set you free."

That is the magic of the real you. The ocean of consciousness is waiting for us to wake up. When we do, it comes alive inside and all around us, and it stretches to the depths and ends of the universe. There is a part of the real you in every galaxy, every teacup, every blade of grass. The real you is always and everywhere, one with the one and only One. At the deepest level, we are life experiencing itself through human thought and emotion, life dancing and playing and creating dramas and crying and laughing and smiling at the myriad faces of itself, life delighting in its own reflection.

Your personal ego self wants you to think you are separate from the Creator so that it can continue to control your life. Your ego wants you to think you are your mind with its heady collection of thoughts, beliefs, regrets, fears and dramas so that it can continue suffering and creating problems. In comparison to the real you, the mind is hardly more than an inflatable toy or a stuffed rag doll.

Just imagine for a moment that your perception suddenly turned inside-out; that instead of seeing the universe through the eyes of a human, you were now seeing a human through the eyes of the universe. Imagine that you are the universal life force itself. Imagine that you are pure, vibrant awareness; that with your love you created all things; that you have seen galaxies come and go; and that over the eons your greatest joy has been to express and experience yourself through all your varied creations. This is not ego; this is just a different point of view, a shift in consciousness. Far from being a selfish point of view, this is the most selfless viewpoint imaginable - no self at all!

Now imagine you are formless, but that for the fun of it you decided to project yourself into all the forms you created. Imagine you are inside the body of a human being (and everything else) but that you see it more as a costume to slip into each day so that you can interact with other humans - all of whom are also you in disguise. Imagine you are life itself watching a movie that you wrote, directed, and are starring in yourself.

Do you notice what happens when you do this? How can you get worried or anxious when you know it's just a movie? How can you take anything personally if you know you're not really a separate person? How can you be afraid of dying when you know you're immortal? How can you get worked up about life when you are life?

If you want to go deeper into this perspective, turn to The Real You Meditation in Chapter 10. That will give you more to ponder. Yet no matter how much you learn about your authentic self, it will always remain a great mystery.

Ultimately, the real you is beyond words. Call it intuition. Call it universal consciousness. Call it life. Call it awareness. Call it God or Being or your Buddha nature. Whatever you call it, this infinitely wise presence waits patiently and peacefully in the recesses of your heart, trying to get through to you. It has always been there, always will be there, shining like a beacon beneath all the social masks, all the musts and shoulds, all the have-to's and not-good-enoughs that have kept you from knowing it.

The real you is the part of you that speaks in your dreams, wakes you up in the middle of the night with a new idea, nudges you gently in a new direction, and sometimes screams at you when you're about to do something stupid. It is a fountain of truth, the source of anything you could ever want to know. All the wisdom of past, present, and future is contained in the real you. But ah - how to get in touch with it? Now, that is the question!

© 2006 Brandt Morgan, All Rights Reserved

Excerpted with permission from Vision Walk by Brandt Morgan, published by St. Lynn's Press, (ISBN 0976763141). Available from St. Lynn's Press, Amazon.com, and www.BrandtMorgan.com.