The Voices that Guide Us
Deep inside a tunnel that 2000 years ago was cut through more than 400 feet of volcanic rock high in the Andes mountains of Ecuador, I thought about questions that humans have asked for millennia:
Can voices from other realms offer us advice?
Where do thoughts originate?
Are celestial beings counselling us?
Can Indigenous shamans help us listen?
What is the origin of wisdom?
The day before entering that tunnel, I’d flown out of the Amazon rain forest in a small plane. I lived in Ecuador in the late 1960s and have taken small groups to the Amazon and Andes just about every year for the past three decades. On this trip we’d visited the Shuar and Achuar – nations that are known as dream cultures.
When they reach adolescence, the Shuar and Achuar hike to places that are considered sacred – gigantic “grandfather” trees or “grandmother” waterfalls. They build lean-tos and, with the help of medicine plants, enter deep meditational dreams. During the next several days and nights they receive messages about their missions in life.
And it doesn’t stop there. Every day, before sunrise, children and adults sit together as a family or community and share their dreams of the night before. The interpretation of those dreams determines what each person will do for the rest of the day.
But back to that tunnel.
Although it has been explored for more than 200 years, archaeologists and anthropologists understand very little about the culture that created it. It penetrates deep into the mountain and includes hundreds of carved steps. Its ceiling is well above the head of the tallest member of our group – over 6 feet 3 inches. It appears not to connect to anything except spectacular views of the mountains and valleys. Topographical surveys indicate that the tunnel’s layout coincides with the stars in the constellation of the Big Dipper.
Was this tunnel a place for connecting with Pachamama, Mother Earth/Mother Universe – a place for receiving messages from the stars to help us understand our relationship to nature and the universe? Shamans around the world are listening to such voices and telling us that we must end the degenerative Death Economy and make the transition to a regenerative Life Economy.
Every major spiritual tradition – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism – includes teachings about people who were guided by voices that came to them through nature, divine mantras, dreams, cosmic vibrations, angels, and other sources.
The Greek poet, Homer, began his works by calling on his muse to send him the wisdom that would inspire his writings. The very word inspire comes from the notion of being “in spirit.”
Thomas Edison claimed that he did not invent the lightbulb; it was an idea, he said, that was “out there.” All he had to do was grab the idea – and then experiment with hundreds of filaments inside vacuum tubes to make it work.
Stephen King, Elizabeth Gilbert, JK Rowling, Eckhart Tolle, and countless other contemporary writers are inspired by voices they can’t explain.
Einstein relied heavily on “thought experiments.”
Stories from ancient cultures around the world inform us that humans faced extinction during the past, due to their greed and wanton destruction of nature. In the Americas, Mayan shamans today tell us that their ancestors were forced to abandon their magnificent cities because they ignored warnings from voices that came from the star system Pleiades.
I wrote in my last book, “Message from Pleiades,” about an experience while inside the courtyard of a Mayan temple:
As I study the wall, I notice something weird, something that strikes me as unnatural. A series of vertical stone columns protrude from the wall, like the ornamental columns that decorate 1920’s art deco buildings. They don’t support anything. They are merely decorative.
My eyes move up those columns to an array of complex stonework at the top. The design is different from anything I’ve seen before. Although constructed of rocks and mortar, the columns end in something that looks ethereal, like clouds.
I glance at the wispy white clouds that drift in the azure sky above, and I wonder: Could those columns represent a connection to other solar systems? Had the ancient Maya really heard voices from Pleiades, as the legends say? Was this temple built to honor that connection? Is this the building where those who studied science and spirituality lived – where they connected with aliens?
Many years ago, I was staying with a Shuar family in their lodge deep in the rainforest. After the family shared their dreams and determined the day’s activities, I turned on a transistor radio I carried, knowing that high in the Andes a radio station was broadcasting Quichua music. As soon as the panpipes and drums resounded through their home, the entire family raced out of the lodge and hid in the forest.
I sat there in front of the radio. After a while, the male head of the family, a shaman, returned. He cautiously approached the radio and tapped it with his spear. It kept playing. He knocked it over. It kept playing. Then, he sat down beside me. Together, we stared at that radio for a long time.
Finally, he leaned into me and whispered, “How did you get all those men and their instruments into that tiny box?”
I realized it was the only explanation he could come up with. “There’s a tower high in the mountains that emits energy waves,” I responded. “That little box catches them and plays the music.”
He gave me a look that suggested he thought I might be crazy. Then he called the family back into their home.
The next day he approached me. “I’ve been thinking about that box of yours, “he said. “It’s just like us shamans. We know that all the information we need is out there drifting around in the universe. All we need to do is catch it.”
It was a profound statement.
When you think about it, our modern cell phones are able to tune into almost every bit of music and literature that’s ever been played or written. Doesn’t that suggest that those voices and words – the energy of the people themselves – surround us all the time?
Where do thoughts come from? What messages are being sent our way through floods, fires, droughts, melting glaciers, and hurricanes? In that Andean tunnel I heard it clearly, as did others in our group: Pachamama is warning us that we must change our ways.
Spiritual leaders and shamans through the ages have known that the voices that come to us from mysterious sources are the origin of true wisdom. At a time in human history when we are inundated with information, we are well advised to honor the wisdom from the voices that brought our ancestors back from the brink of self-destruction.
In March, I’ll be lecturing and offering workshops that delve into the history, power, and modern relevance of the voices at beautiful Sivananda Ashram on the Caribbean coast of Paradise Island in the Bahamas. If you are so inclined, please join me there. Otherwise, let’s continue to connect through the magical web of modern communications.