In order to create some context for my experience, let me explain some of the background to why I am referring to Shaktipat as “getting my head cracked open.” Bwiti is a West Central African religion that uses the root of the iboga plant in order to transcend “normal” consciousness. A practitioner of Bwiti is called, also, a Bwiti. The use of the tryptamine-based plant hallucinogen marks the coming of age of a Bwiti and is ingested in large quantities in order to communicate with the spirit world and begin the path of adulthood by inducing a spiritual enlightenment, stabilizing community and family structure, meeting religious requirements and solving problems of a spiritual and/or medical nature. This experience happens over three days and is never repeated as such in the Bwiti’s lifetime. They refer to this event as “having their head split open.”
The form of head cracking I experienced does not use intoxicants or hallucinogens in order to achieve the awakening. Instead, other spiritual tools are engaged for a more benign, yet profound transition to higher consciousness. This is all well and good, but how has it affected me in the past months?
After the initial head-cracking procedure, I felt unusual for about three days. I was advised that this would be the case and it was suggested that I lay low and not make any important decisions until 72 hours had passed. The following morning I felt an intense physical difference. I awoke with my hands throbbing and it felt (and this is as best I can describe it) as though my body were full of light. This is not unusual in the later stages of an acid trip, I was told by a brain specialist. The ergotamine in the hallucinogen causes vasodilation in the extremities, hence the throbbing. There was no LSD, so it had to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. When I arose from bed the following morning, my perception was quite abnormal, as though I were looking through a colorless kaleidoscopic lens. I had only had a few hours sleep but felt extremely well rested. I decided to go to an early morning Tai Qi class in Coldwater Canyon park. This added another dimension to my experience because with the progression of the Tai Qi form I started to feel simultaneously euphoric and somewhat dizzy as I attained an increase in qi flow. The trees began to melt together and bodies of what I can only describe as energy, blotted out the surrounding flora with a white, semi-opaque cloud that seemed to intensify as we very slowly continued in an almost trance-like meditative state, until, as we completed the form, the cloud slowly dissipated.
The next couple of days saw a decrease in the intensity of the perceptual jarring. I was given a mantra to help the settling of the energetic shift, and was informed that I should listen to it for about five minutes a day. At this point there was no going back, and the only control I had was to ease off the accelerator. This is not my way, and instead I jammed my foot down hard and started listening to the mantra up to three hours a day. I found myself to be perpetually thirsty and was drinking in excess of a gallon of water daily and it still wasn’t enough to stop my lips and throat from getting dry.
I used a yantra in meditation for 33 days in order to maintain a consistency over the procession of experiences. The one that I used was the one recommended to me: the Navgraha Yantra. I used the mantra with it for 30 minutes a day or more for the full duration, sometimes going to over an hour. The energetic sediment that was stirred up was simultaneously extremely interesting and very upsetting, but the Siddatech products, “Deep Sleep,” “Rescue,” and “Detox” (the latter of which I had been using for several months) helped to expedite me through this process to no end.
Upon entry into 2010, my perceptual experience had changed. There were more practices to undertake for the new year, and many different avenues to explore and revisit.