Some relevant questions to Arutam Ruymán after ceremony. June 30th of 2018. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.

Some relevant questions to Arutam Ruymán after ceremony. June 30th of 2018, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.

A QUESTION ON INTERPRETATION: Last night I had many visions, and I think I understood the meaning of my dreams. But in the last one I didn’t understand very well. In my dream I was on a shore...

RUYMÁN: in a river or at sea?

QUESTION: On the seashore. There were two very beautiful men; They were calling me. Then I saw four men -also very beautiful- on a boat. They called me. I was walking, and they asked me to get on the ship. Everything was fine, until I began to wonder what that vision meant: at that precise moment, the vision vanished.

RUYMÁN: Well, so you started wrong. You tried to reason, you used the perspective (the space-time lock) of that monster who looks back and responds to your name. That's why you lost the vision. The magical chance, when Arutam whispers to you through the instincts, faded away. You have to learn to prevent that from happening again. This is how we block everything that our spirit uses to clarify, indicate and guide us throughout life. Even in our dreams. We coerce everything with the mind, with the resistance of our self, with control.

QUESTION: how can we prevent the mind from interrupting those visions? How can we keep the mind at bay, how can we stop using it and even stop thinking?

RUYMÁN: we cannot achieve that at the precise moment of having those visions. That work must already be done in daily life, on a daily basis, before arriving at the ceremony. But basically it's fine. You were devoted to the vision, you were part of the event and suddenly you returned to the habit of seeking an understanding - and controlling - from a sick point of view: that of the shadow of resistance, of that entity called the self. That is to say: you know how to do it. You were doing it, the problem is that you interrupted it. But naturally you know how to do it. And so it is: we are born from the Great Spirit. We are born from that intelligence which allows us, simply, to exist. We can do without a controlling mind, which is calculating and organizing everything. There is no need to ask questions or have answers that explain the vague perceptions of our gaze, alien to the world and to the union with our feelings. We were born of that intelligence. Both the body and its organs can flow in the perfect harmony of that intelligence. You were flowing. You were captivated with the sacred enchantment, and you were heading towards a vision, you were heading towards a feeling. You were letting freedom to be drawn, with the strokes of light from Tabaco, and some unique touches from Arutam. The thing is that you remembered your identity, you felt that you were forgetting about it, and this time it hit you hard, and that monster came back. Logically you lost the vision. But now I ask you: what did you like most? To flow in the miracle through which Arutam draws his art and speaks to us, or to be interrupted by your mind, that once again clouded your vision and lost everything? This is how you learn in shamanism! Through feeling. Through mistakes. Mistakes that you have to commit again and again until you say: Enough! I'm fed up! Please! I don’t want it anymore! How many times will the same thing happen to me? And then we ask ourselves: How many times in our lives do we make a mistake after another, and we get sick, and say "enough is enough, I cannot continue like this"? Many times, when we make a mistake, we must follow that trend until it becomes a total failure. That is when we realize that it was a mistake. The only thing your inner Spirit can do is to be like a mirror. And reflect what you’re doing with that inner self, with that monster. And yes: it’s the most painful way to learn. But we were the ones who chose that painful path: from the moment we separated from Arutam. And you must have a lot of courage to see it. You have to stand up and really feel in yourself what you’re doing, and make the decision to do it differently. To go towards the Spirit. Towards Arutam. So rejoice. Be glad about that experience, and about all the necessary ones, so that you feel disgusted and you feel sick about the whole issue. And say a good time: out! We have to do it in another way!

QUESTION: yesterday I had a major headache. And when I set course for the ceremony I thought maybe I didn’t have to take medicine. One or two minutes after taking it, I vomited. I took it, again, and the experience was very hard...

Ruymán: before continuing I want to say that headaches, most of the time, are caused by an excess of tension, which occurs because the resistance of the "self", symbolized by the liver, tenses too much. It causes a stiff neck, and then increases the pain in the sides of the head and in the vertex. With much thought, it would also affect the forehead. We cannot attribute this pain to Natem, but rather that you must slow down a little. For instance, if you are already in that state, avoid mate for a couple of days, until you calm down. And take not very stimulating infusions, but rather relaxing ones, until the pain stops. The best medicinal remedies would be: the white peony root, the cat's claw, the oyster shell and valerian. It's only after this that you can go back to Ayahuasca (you should be very careful with San Pedro). If you are in an excess, if you are facing an overflowed tension, that is to say that the resistance of the self is tightening too much, the monster is biting, the head is hurting, because all that fire is up - the fire tends to go up, like heat- and burn. You take the Natem and everything goes up and at some point it comes out through your mouth. Like a bomb that causes tensions to explode everywhere. But I ask you a question: When you threw up forcefully and then you calmed down: Did you notice any relief? Because that swelling -that excess of tension-, must have gone out to calm you down. And you could calm down to take it again. I would’ve done this and wait at least an hour, to calm down a bit more, and I would have used tobacco -which is very hypotensive, very calming- to balance myself a little more in the sacred touch, so I can take Natem just an hour later, not so immediately, just to relieve anxiety. Surely the Natem was still a bit strong when you took it, because you didn’t carry out this recommendation. And surely it was a bit violent for you. But, to be more precise, we have to emphasize that Natem is not violent at all. Natem is Natem: it’s neither violent nor relaxing. What Natem does is to show you that inner resistance, which was still a bit high. And you didn’t like to see what you were carrying with yourself, and feeding up, so often. You didn’t like Robert. What was that thing you saw, for which you were not ready?

QUESTION: I saw important moments of my life. And a lot of what I still cannot accept inside me. And also came the memories of people who had a difficult time during the ceremony.

Ruymán: Yesterday I talked a lot about pain. And how big is the pain that we can bear and carry with us. That pain is stopped, in a space-time block, in a person who believes it’s real, and stores it, and carries it with him. And sometimes that pain has been hard and true, but it has already been too painful at some time in the past: it cannot be our life sentence. We should let it go. And for it to come out of us, the "Robert" concept has to disappear. The person who carries that pain -who believes that it exists and who closes space and time and, in that tension, moves on, in a kind of direction-, has to dissolve. And that's what Natem tries to achieve, by making it explode. But sometimes we don’t want to, and the Natem leads us to that liberation, but we don’t want to. And it expands in us; it continues to lead us to that liberation with all its luminous or dark enchantments, because that darkness is our shadow, and we don’t want it to be true! There comes a time when we say: My God, this will drive me crazy! Then a dilemma arises: or I take this road, once and for all, or I’ll continue as I am until the day I die. But of course: it's like diving into the void. And you have to love it with all your might, cause otherwise, What point would there be to press with Natem? If there are specific moments of your life, whose resistance and pain makes it difficult for you to let go, you can tell me in private, and we can talk about it. But you have to let go. You have to release that resistance in space and time. There must be no way to return to a memory or pain. Even to remember some trauma should make us say: what a useless effort. I pass! You reach something like a tiredness born out of maturity. Like an old wise man. That is to be a healthy man. There is no right: you were born to life, from the Great Spirit, from Arutam, from that crystal of peace and perfection, from which emanates even the slightest whisper of the smallest cricket, How can you ignore all that to form a dark and resistant structure just to forget everything, and you live in perpetual suffering just to consume that vital force but getting less and less of it, till you finally let yourself die? ! You don’t deserve that, nor does the Great Being who gave you life. The one who is giving it to you now. And he keeps giving it to you. So think about it: if you want to tell me something, tell me and we'll talk so I can help you focus. On the other hand, if we see something very difficult to solve in this search, it is always possible to resort to the enchantments proper to medicine. So that the Spirit can speak to you, through the art of the Natem, to help you to understand and to give you the perspective throughout its enchantments - be they luminous or dark. And Robert: you are our friend, like the rest of our brothers here present. If at some point your head hurts, tell us, if it's not me, Sami or Nunkui will deflate the balloon with a couple of needles (laughs). We put one in the nose, another under the tongue and the third in ... hum. On second thought, maybe we do not need that (laughs). Any other question?

QUESTION: I had the vision of a ship, that the sea pull ashore. Then I felt that I could not sail anymore, and I started thinking about how to save myself. Suddenly the ship fell apart in a thousand pieces. And each part was subdivided into even smaller parts. And then I felt that from the remains of that ship, some leaves were beginning to grow. There were leaves of grass: life seemed to start again. And I felt that life had found another way to grow, another way to follow its course. And I felt that this was another way to save that ship from destruction.

Ruymán: in what you say there are several connotations that can help us explain this vision. Let's see a couple of them, although I think you got it pretty good. That vision made the right impact. In fact, the vision is impressive: very good. I am impressed by the relationship between the ship and reality, human reality, the affective level, the past, what we were - that human reality, in short -. The ship reaches the coast, brought from the sea, and that is like death and, at the same time, a break from all that human reality, from that human construction. I'm also impressed by how, from the past, we arrived at this present where that human reality completely undid it, in each of its cells and atoms, and from the old structure, it returned to the very nucleus of each cell, and from the most deep of itself, could find life again. And life could sprout again, from its old condition, which had already reached the shore. It could sprout again. It impresses me how that old ship, which reached the shore, could be undone by the Natem, just to find the source of life in that old wood, so that a jungle, a forest, would sprout from there. It is peculiar that in this way life has sprung from something inert. It is a truly wonderful vision. And I, meanwhile, was asking him, Did you really feel the medicine? (laughs) Very good! Thanks for sharing it to us. Any other question?

QUESTION: Well, the truth is that since this morning and throughout the day, after the experience, I felt very well; I was immersed in a very deep feeling of love, happiness and well-being. And let's say that the same feeling of well-being caused me to wonder: this I mentioned to Jordi and Sami today. They gave me their advice and I received it very willingly. And this is what made me ask myself: how far should I take medicine now? Because I really felt that medicine gave me what I needed. I felt quite full and very happy. And I felt that doing it again could trigger something bad or, I do not know. Maybe I did not need more. And I was presented with that doubt and, commenting with them, they told me that many times the injured ego plays tricks on you, makes small tricks to you and makes you find the excuse not to continue.

Ruymán: I can give you my opinion if you want. You had a very good experience. Rest is also an excellent option. That is to say, there is no hurry. You can come next time, and treasure, in the meantime, that feeling that you have found -and that you did not find long ago-, and limit yourself to taking care of it for a while. I really think that is the best option. It's worth it for my experience and for what I felt you can do right now. Because that feeling, as you told us, has not happened for you for a long time. Maybe since your childhood, who knows. Then, as I respect that feeling, I would leave it in that place, and I would take care of it for a couple of months. And then I would revisit the visions. I even see it as something sacred and respectful of you. And I like it: it implies your good heart and your sincerity, which always seemed real to me. Since I met you, in our first talk. You had just done things a little badly. But it's good: we're on an island, at first you do not know, who knows, you were just starting. Now you have been able to meet me, I know this quite well. But hey: it usually starts little by little until you get to another level. You were lucky that those mistakes did not make you pay. A lot of people do. The Spirit has no particular affections, but somehow it wants to teach you a lesson, so that you will not go down that path again. And this time it did not happen. Why? Because it was innocent. It was a sincere wish. And that's why you came here. And it reached deep into your heart: it gave you joy. I think it's very respectable that you also do not feel anxious (and do not let yourself be overcome by the greed of living psychoactive experiences or visions). It seems to me really something like a sample of your good feeling and your nobility towards the honorable Arutam. It seems to me the best thing, really, and for some reason you felt it too. So trust your feelings: you do not have to go around asking people. Trust, because the truth is that your feeling is noble. So, as your path goes, and how you take it, the decision seems right to me. If you stay today, the Natem would flow through you. Maybe here it's not going to find anything. Or maybe you will find the right space in your heart, in your feeling, so that the anaconda can keep raising its head towards the eyes, towards the crown. And in that case you will have a very visionary, a very strong experience. But it's going to hit here very hard, with considerable intensity. Yes, you're probably going to hallucinate, but I don’t want you to be clouded, I don’t want you to forget what you’ve achieved yesterday due to the impact of that force. I’d like you to take yesterday's experience as a treasure, to feed it for a while and take care of it in your heart; then you can go back, from that level, to take that jump again.

Talk with Arutam Ruymán in El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, June 30th, 2018

A QUESTION ABOUT THE LESSONS LEARNED THROUGHOUT THE WAY: Does Natem take us into our darkness?

RUYMÁN: I wouldn’t say that Natem leads us into our darkness: I’d rather say that Natem immerses us into the Spirit’s depths, and as we reach the Spirit, we see those dark tendencies, the ones that we feed daily; we can feel their misery and their dark veil. We see them as they are, and how they grows within us. But if we didn’t do that, Natem's trance would be just the sheer radiance of the Spirit: pure light and beauty, just as Life itself.

QUESTION: Well, when Natem shows me those dark parts of myself, I start to feel nauseous. I feel like I need to flee from that darkness, I don’t want to go to that place.

RUYMÁN: H on the contrary: you have to look very curiously, with no fear. When the light comes on, when everything is clear and you can see all the misery that you feed regularly, all the misery that you let it grow inside yourself and let it rot, you really have to look at it with curiosity, and ask yourself: Let's see… What’s that? Why do I have that thing inside me? What part of my mind is so sick that it was able to feed that crap? So you start to investigate and understand, and of course you’ll feel nauseous. And what really happens is that you don’t want to see it. You don’t want that to be discovered. You don’t want it to be seen. The shadow that rots your flesh is so horrifying that you feel a total rejection for it. And many times that happens because you want to free yourself from it, but it can also happen just because you want to stop the intensity of that vision, so you don’t have to go deeper into that. But, nevertheless, you have to look! You have to look at that wision, and arrive to it, and try hard until you can really see it in front of you, and then find an explanation to it: "ah, that's why I do it ... this is what I do". And then you say to yourself: "God, why didn’t I notice it before?" And that's why so many people are afraid to look. Shamanism is not a pleasant way. It’s a true act of healing. It’s a true awakening of consciousness. When you turn on the light, in a room, you often say: "I'd better turn it off." You are before the truth: that’s why this is one of the most arduous jobs that a human being must face in his lifetime. You might get that awakening… or maybe not. Maybe you should assume that you're a coward and that you should run away.

When I was studying at the university, I knew that if I wrote down what was written in the books, I would probably pass the exam. If you study the book that’s been recommended by the teacher, you’ll read it completely and answer the test appropriately. You know that you’ll probably pass the examination. Even if many times you don’t even understand what you are reading. When I was young, as I was learning the path of shamanism, I asked myself: will I learn, one day, what my elders are teaching me? Will I reach that peace, that depth, that union with existence they have? Because I see it today and I’m not so sure about it. I want to achieve that knowledge, but I don’t know if I can! Anyway: I want to get it! But I can’t! Am I wasting my time? Will I die in the same state of mind they had? Fear, uncertainty and the question: what do I do? It’s the torture caused by the self. By encouraging myself to do it, and to look, I’ll probably feel nauseous: because I see those shadows, I see what I have inside me, I see those mistakes I’ve made. But I also feel the strength of wounded pride, and to be compelled to modify those mistakes makes me angry. Then I get defensive and react badly. It’s always the same vortex of self-destruction.

But do you know what? I’ve lived a normal life for many years. I've seen enough the way my elders, and the people around me, threw away their lives. I knew I didn’t want to end up like that. I knew that real happiness was not there. I also knew that if I closed my eyes, I couldn’t feel the peace that I saw in my teachers, because they were healthy and strong, and they knew what they taught. And they knew how to heal their disciples. And then I said to myself: I want this. So with a little bit of will, with a bit of faith - I don’t like that word very much, although sometimes it has a beautiful connotation -, I could see that everything that’d been transmitted from old to young, so many times, in Shuar Shamanism , was true. And that for some good reason this knowledge had survived hundreds or thousands of years. And I could check it personally. I could apply it to myself.

QUESTION ABOUT INTERPRETATION: There were clock hands in my visions, what meaning can that have? As I was navigating the cosmos, I saw a cosmic ship, a spaceship. I was approaching the entrance door of that ship, so I entered through the window –it was very clean-and there I started to see the clock hands, which looked large at first, and then they went smaller. They went from a greater to a lesser size.

RUYMÁN: Let's see. He was in the cosmos, with his solid identity, and he was entering a machine that was made to navigate the cosmos. Then he began to see the mechanics of that rigid machine. Through the crystal of Life he saw the clock that began to dissolve in smaller pieces, showing its mechanical nature, until he reached the engine, the very soul of that machine. As if he was going towards its essence. From something of a bit rigid start, from that ego that travels in a machine through the universe -without the total freedom of light, which shines with its brilliance towards the stars, among all that blackness of space that gives consciousness to the galaxies-, he began to dissolve that machine in its small parts. It was a decomposition process, typical of the Yaji leaves, within the strong intensity of the deep Natem. So, then it was a process of decomposition, until everything disappears, and you get to the parts of the machine.

A QUESTION ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISIONS: I have attended several ceremonies, and I feel that in my first ceremony I started to see a story, and that story was developed, more and more in detail, in the subsequent ceremonies. For example, in the first ceremony there was a very beautiful puma. In later ceremonies I saw that puma again, with more and more detail. Is it a story which is evolving in parts?

RUYMÁN: no, no. The ceremony is a way to let go in an eternal marriage with Arutam. It's a way to stay melted with the whole existence, without making any effort, in the dark taste of enlightening enchantments of the Ayahuasca. It is a way of knowing when we are wrong in our lives, when we are hurting ourselves. Your mind is still mechanical, linear, ordinary. A mind that enslaves time in its resistance, to conceal, painfully, the reality of its eternity. Maybe you are understanding some things, little by little. Anyway, I see a positive evolution in you. And I think you're going to continue. Better and better all the time. You have to start to make an effort, to let go a little more, and forget about the references. Look from an identity, to find more spaces of ease and light in your life. I'm sure you're going to get it.

QUESTION: I have also had other experiences to which I have been completely delivered. What can that mean?

RUYMÁN: the time will come when experience is a total relationship with existence. As long as the ordinary mind is abandoned and you lose the desire - and the faith in that desire - to keep it alive. One also gets bored, and decides to stay in the light of Life, just to shine indefinitely, like animals in the jungle.

Well, let's rest for a little while. Let's check the tobacco leaves.