The Shamanic and Ecological Association of Colombia has emerged
as a group over twenty years from the time when its founding members went to
live in the Amazon region of Southern Colombia. Initially they went to live
in the department of Putamayo where they lived for about 8 years. The community
began to develop little by little as the wisdom and understanding grew and they
began to understand the necessity to make a different type of society.
One of the chief factors that lead to the group developing was an interest in
finding direct knowledge of the spiritual realms and the sacred plants used
in Amazonian Shamanism are very beneficial in this respect.
Each of the members of the community has arrived for their own reasons and experiences
in life which gave them an impulse to awaken more to the reality of the Divine
creative forces.
The group is made up of people from many different places, some are Indigenous,
others are Latin Americans of Spanish descent and others are from other countries
such as Britain.
The community has been based over the past ten years in the department of Caqueta,
which is also an Amazonian area and has a number of houses for the different
families, areas of communal cultivation, areas of jungle in which medicinal
plants are preserved, orchards, a school and a temple in which shamanic rituals
and meditation practices are made.
Really the community represents an attempt to recuperate the
ancient values of the indigenous people of South America but it is also a community
that recognises the universal spiritual values echoed at the core of all religions
and in this sense it is community that is very much of this age and that has
the virtue of integrating people from many backgrounds.
The group has studied the gnostic wisdom and puts into action principles that
lead to a harmonising relationship between people and the nature that surrounds
them.
The community is trying to live in accord with the wisdom given by the great
spiritual masters such as Jesus Christ and Krishna and also the natural wisdom
of Pachamama (Mother nature).
The sacred plants are an important aspect and they help the people to gain spiritual
understanding.
The community operates in a very practical manner learning from
the different situations that continuously arise always with the aim of gaining
self knowledge and based upon each persons internal work.
For community to work the people need common goals and common understandings
as to how to resolve difficulties.
This is achieved with the principle of each person taking responsibility for
his or her actions, feelings, and psychology.
The community has come to understand the importance of having order and direction
and, again, this is arrived at through the interior work of the group and its
individuals as well as through understanding and experience of Indigenous traditions
and cultures. Authority is recognised as being something that a person receives
as a result of sacrifice and work and thus a person that has authority in the
group is someone that understands and has arrived at wisdom little by little
knowing the responsibility that they must have if they are to give guidance.
The ancient Indigenous societies were always governed by the elders that had
the most wisdom and training and such people were very humble. In order to arrive
at wisdom we need to be humble and when we have wisdom we need to be even more
humble and that means to have the maturity to recognise our errors.
The group always works to make decisions together through collective experience
and learning from the successes and failiures of different projects. A new society
that is based in true equality must work for the common good and everybody works
for each other as a opposed to the selfish and individualistic values of modern
society.
This community has been born hearing the call that is being
made by Mother Nature for her children to return to her side and to live with
her. It is a return to nature that many centuries ago we began to leave, forgetting
that it was through nature that humanity discovered and knew about God and all
the wonders of creation. Through the Mother we arrive at the Father, this is
true both internally and externally.
It is through living in community that we can regenerate this humanity and work
together to understand about our common human condition and so begin the long
journey to the realisation of our intimate being.
It has been recognised by many peoples that in community we have the opportunity
to transcend the selfishness into which we have fallen and understand the error
into which modern man has fallen.
The objective of the community is to integrate to the point
of holding land and all the necessities of life in common, this is something
that has to be developed with great care because the selfishness of our species
has become so ingrained that it is a gradual process to let go of this and transform
the way we think and feel about life in this material realm. It is a process
of gradual maturing.
In the final analysis we can say that the Shamanic and Ecological Association
wants to return to live by the Original Law, the Divine Law, to live by the
will of God.
The understanding of the will of God is something that is arrived at by developing
intuition and the receiving of revelation. This necessitates that we work to
finish with the despotic rule of the ego.
Currently society is organised around and in service of the ego and authority
is taken by those that have the most weapons and money. This kind of authority
is materialistic and based on the power to govern and manipulate resources,
people and even the building blocks of life as can be seen in the development
of atomic and genetic technology. This is mankind's error and it is all rooted
in the ego.
The Shamanic and Ecological Association proposes a different
focus and a different model based on the principles outlined here. To make this
kind of change is not something that occurs overnight, it must be worked for
with great sacrifice and the people must be careful never to lose sight of the
spiritual ideals that have been given to us by the great beings who have sacrificed
their whole lives to reach a new understanding.
For this reason the new society must be revolutionary. We need to make a revolution
against the regressive and degenerative currents that are present on our planet,
we must reject the values of consumerism and materialism, selfishness and greed
and make a new life founded in Love… but CONSCIOUS LOVE.
Our community wants to develop itself to serve as a seed for a new society,
a new spiritual culture. This culture will also be devotional and based upon
service for the good of all beings. Devotion or Bakti is a great force of change
because it recentres the human being putting us in orbit around the Divine consciousness,
adoring and praising God above all. God is mystery and no man can know God without
going through many fundamental changes inside.
Modern man has not worshipped God, but an image of himself that he calls God.
This is a great mistake that can only lead to disaster.
A new society must also be founded in direct experience of that which it talks
of and for this reason the community always experiments and experiences in practical
life that which it talks about… it is through experience that we arrive
at gnosis.
This spiritual movement is
THE REVOLUTIONARY GNOSTICISM OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF KRISHNA
and its motto is:
LOVE, LIFE, LIBERTY, WILL AND TRIUMPH.