Nicholas E. Brink

The Ecstatic Journey to Enlightenment
Though not intended, Peter Ralston’s book “The Book of Not Knowing” has deep implications for those of us who use ecstatic trance. Coming from a Zen perspective in seeking enlightenment, he describes not knowing as central in breaking away from all that we know that defines who we are. When someone asks, “Who are you?” your answers is most likely a list the characteristics and beliefs that define who you are, all the conceptions that you believe in that have not been proven through experience but learned from family, society, church, school, etc. They are limiting self-concepts, but that which is beyond these self-concepts can be considered the real you. Eventually in this lengthy book of nearly six hundred pages, he admits that the real self does not exist other than as broadening experiential events, shifts in consciousness that provide new experiences of the self. Much of the book describes how we have learned what we believe and how these beliefs snowball in layer after layer to defend ourselves for our own survival but provide us with a limiting definition of who we are. How we come to enlightenment, how we move beyond the limiting conceptual self is by facing our beliefs with a questioning attitude of “Not Knowing.”
From my limited experience and failure in attaining enlightenment through Zen meditation, I recognize that in this form of meditation an initial goal is to be aware of only what you experience in the moment, and what is experienced in the moment knows nothing other than the brief flash of the moment, i.e. a state of not knowing.
On the other hand, when in a state of ecstatic trance, the metaphoric and dream-like experiences are experiences clothed in mystery, a mystery of not knowing what they mean or where they come from, and facing these experiences over time brings about experiences of insight in understanding, “ah-ha” experiences, experiences of enlightenment. But most important is that these ecstatic experiences have many layers and need to be face with the belief that an initial insight is only an initial insight and further insights follow when returning to the ecstatic experience and each ecstatic experience that follows in our continued use of ecstatic trance. These ecstatic insights take us beyond our limiting narrow set of beliefs to see the world in a more open way.
Another way of considering what is the real self or who I am is to recognize that in ecstatic soul retrieval, what is retrieved is that which comes from before all the layer after layer of what I have learned, beliefs or concepts that I considered my self-concept, all of my beliefs, behaviors and feelings. The beliefs and self-concepts that we put upon ourselves hide the true self that brings about those moments of insight or enlightenment. These experiences of our soul exist beyond our present being and throughout time.

Many recognize that we are in a time of great turmoil. They recognize that change does not occur without such turmoil. It is important for us to recognize that the chaos that we see and experience around us is the death throes of the warrior world. Ervin Laszlo and Kingsley Dennis, authors of "Dawn of the Akashic Age" give us until the year 2020 for this period of turmoil to pass. If we survive the current time of transition, we will gain a new world of peace, a world that again can sustain us, a world that venerates the nurturing and compassionate Mother Earth. I have that hope.