August 18, 1996
Dear Dr. Harner:
I am now reading The Way of the Shaman which I obtained from Prof. Roberto Baruzzi, who you met at the meeting in Brazil. I find your work stimulating and fascinating. I am an anthropologist as well and did my fieldwork in Java about kebatinan (Java's mysticism) with my dissertation being Sumarah: A Study of the Art of Living. My adviser was Jim Peacock. While I was in Java, I became a leader, a pamong or guru, in Sumarah, which honestly involves a set of responsibilities that I take more seriously than my Ph.D. In Sumarah, we practice gradual opening to Reality which is both the problem and the divine essence of existence itself. As in shamanism, we do healing and work with the spirit realm as well. The opening process goes through many well-understood stages until we reach what we call sumarah or surrender, at which point we cease to describe the experiences involved very much in that they are a part of divine being and constitute no confusion to us in Java. However, I have been out of Java for sixteen years now and in the last five years I have been through many experiences that enter into the higher and undiscussed areas of our practice which have become something of a burden in this social environment. As a result, I have been pleased and surprised to see so many things paralleled in your shamanic approach. When we enter full surrender to Tuhan Yang Maha Esa or Open Being in the jinem level following entry into sumarah, we begin to openly:Mamayu hayuning bawanaAt this point our experience gradually joins with the Divine Being and we essentially lose any distinguished sense relative to our experience, i.e., the ego disappears and we serve and work the being that arises out of our open reception of existence. The maturation process in going from jinem through junun to suhul depends on the accumulation of experience involving service and suffering. In the process we develop open links within our being in a kind of mutual presence involving "inner communication" in the Natural and Spiritual realms. As I said, in Sumarah we also do healing but the primary thrust of our practice is more a confrontation of existence itself and "serving the harmony of the universe" as best we can, though in suhul we enter into a relationship with existence which looks more like: "I didn't make this mess, but I sure am going to clean it up" which is called the Divine Resolve (Tekading Ingsun).
Mamayu hayuning jagad
Serve the harmony of the world
Serve the harmony of the universe
Be that as it may, your discussion of your experiences and those of other shamans is similar to my own during the past few years. In particular, the description of Power Animals is much like my own experience with my Masters who are also long-term associations from animal beings many of whom go back to my childhood as well. Evidently, your discussion of these similar experiences has released a fair amount of pent-up energy and eased the burden involved in protecting these sacred associations from misrepresentation. I am grateful to you and Sandra Ingerman for your candor in depicting your experiences.
My reconnection with these old friends came after I got to know the Furies who provided sufficient open definition in my being so that the Masters could come out of where they had been placed by our love. The bond that unites me to the Furies and to my Masters is our service of True Justice (Sejatining Keadilan) for all beings now and forever. But, in fact, the phase of articulating and openly expressing all of this material all sort of started with a misbegotten love affair with a woman here in São Paulo, who seduced, enthralled, mugged, mauled, emasculated and left me for dead for a few years after having been my student, friend and then a patient using our technique of bearing (nggendong), which is the open association of ones presence with another who is in need of help, generally due to some emotional trauma (her marriage had ended badly and she was complaining of depression). Previous to her arrival in my life, I had been contentedly married and present in jinem in what I would term the confused and irresponsible ambiance of Brasil. I had started a Sumarah group but the practice doesn't fit very well in this social environment in that people do not characteristically give satisfaction in Brazil, as I found out in much more detail from Magali, and as a result the opening process is much more difficult using our essentially cooperative method.
It's interesting, when she got to work on seducing me (my God the inner pledges she made to lift my being) I kept remembering a saying from Zorba the Greek that had always seemed to capture much concerning relational responsibilities:God has a very big heart, but there is one thing he will not forgive: when a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go. I know because a very wise old Turk told me.So I went and what a disaster. I think next time I would rather face God's anger than go through something like this again. After she had control of the relationship, I was subjected to what Ms. Ingerman describes as soul theft or what we term criminal sense and energy deprivation and criminal ab disposition. In the terms of the ayahuasca experience you relate at the start of The Way of the Shaman, in Magali I have found the "dragon-like creatures" who "had created life on the planet in order to hide within the multitudinous forms and thus disguise their presence" openly expressed in all their evil. Phew. The only positive aspect I have found to the experience was that the pain involved propelled me through to the open statement of suhul in a hostile social environment in a kind of force-fed maturation process.
At the meeting you spoke to Roberto about being interested in the experiences of other shamans. I guess I qualify and would like to share mine with you. Along these same lines, I have recently read Sandra Ingerman's Soul Retrieval, in which she argues that we should:Imagine joining hands with others like you who are seeking wholeness and healing for their own selves and others. Feel the power that comes from joining hands with like-minded people. . . Please take from the power of the circle when you need to, and give back to it when you have some extra to give. Know that circles don't end--they continue. This book doesn't end either; the work here continues.This is our perspective in Sumarah as well. We are all together in one place, one Reality; let's work on being here together as best we can and learn about our relationships and responsibilities by knowing them in the communion of shared being.
Yours truly,
David Gordon Howe (Elok)
Originally Posted by Elok
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