“There are channels of communication, ways of seeing, for which our very limited idea of reality has no vocabulary, and there is nothing ‘supernatural’ about these channels; they are natural attributes of mind that can be reopened through yoga or zen meditation training, or by the Eskimo technique of carving big circles of soft stone, or by the dances of the Bushman and the Dervish and the Pueblo, which oblitirates the structures of the intellect, allowing what an Indian has called ‘the big heart powers’ to rush in.”
“To perceive the true nature of existence was one reason for performing a vision quest: after four days of fasting alone on a high rock, in great silence and solitude of earth, one is bound to discover that what was thought as a separate self is not separate from the trees, the rocks, the hawk, the insect peoples, that beyond the senses lies a different plane of consciousness in which all is related, simultaneous, and one.”
“There are many paths or ‘ways’ to this awareness; one need not be an Indian to arrive there.”
~Peter Matthiessen from The Inner Journey: Views from Native Traditions
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