The 'not-doing' of Shadows

My story begins 17 years ago when due to difficulties I was experiencing to put it mildly, I was sectioned and taken into mental hospital. I had been living in Manchester in the early 90's but had moved back to my home town where I was hospitalised. I was in a pretty bad way. I remember sitting in a chair of the hospital smoking room - they had just put me on new medication that was having an adverse affect on me. I felt as if I was being 'chemically tortured', the medical term is 'Oculogyric crisis'. The medical staff had all gone off duty for the night and so I was unable to speak to a doctor. I thought I was going into a catatonic state sat in this chair, feeling reality slipping away from me. But I managed to get out of the chair and made it to the nurses station where a kind nurse took pity on me and gave me a massive dose of a behavioural drug that took away the effects of the drugs I was on. I now felt stoned, quite out of my head to be honest. I had gone from feeling as if I was about to die to feeling really quite good in a matter of moments. At this point I went and sat on my bed in the dormitory and for some reason decided to practice 'the not doing of staring into shadows' that Castaneda described in his books (prescribed by Don Juan). The idea that Don Juan proposes to Castaneda is that the shadows of this world act like the glue that keeps it all together and by focusing on these shadows it is possible to see the world from an entirely different view point namely that of seeing the world of 'not-doing' rather than ordinary world of 'doing'.

Don Juan is quoted as saying: "To not-do what you know how to do is the key to power. In the case of looking at a tree or bush, what you know how to do is to focus immediately on the foliage. The shadows of the leaves or the spaces in between the leaves are never your concern. Start focusing on the shadows of the leaves on one single branch and then eventually work your way to the whole tree, and don't let your eyes go back to the leaves, because the first deliberate step to storing personal power is to allow the body to not-do. The body likes things like this. You can stop the world using this technique. Once you have succeeded, you must work as if nothing has happened to you and don't mention or even be concerned with any of the events you have experienced."

I was in a very tenuous position, just having been through an ordeal that was enforced upon me by supposedly well intentioned people who were responsible for my care. It had been a nightmare but with the clarity I gained from this sudden release, I knew I had nothing else to lose. So I took it upon myself to find a fixed spot on the skirting board that was in the shadows and allowed my attention to gaze at this point. I was staring for only a moment then to my utter amazement, I saw the shadows start to morph into a strange shape - seeming to come alive, the darkness itself started to gather together and began to form the shape of what can only be described as a humanoid figure, a little over a foot tall. The little man constructed of darkness then started to make his way out of shadow toward me, walking slowly across the floor. I was terrified at this point - this was the most terrifying experience of my life, as you can imagine and yet the most exhilarating at the same time. Suddenly to my right what seemed like a portal opened up at least two feet from the floor. It was literally a hole in the fabric of space and time. A luminous cat leapt through the hole, ran across the floor and jump again through another portal which opened up not too far from the humanoid that had formed, this seemed to dispel the whole scene.

Some time later - I forget the time scale, it could have been hours or even days later. I went into the smoking room where other patients were smoking dope. They offered me some but I refused, however a nurse came in the room smelt the pot smoke and I was accused of taking drugs. For the purposes of testing my system - I was place into a padded cell with a bucket to piss in and nothing else. I was in this room for 24 hours and then for no apparent reason I was moved to a closed down wing of the hospital, where I was placed in isolation.

I remember walking around the empty wing of the hospital, feeling "why is this happening to me?" Eventually I went to the room I was given and lay on the bed, curled up foetal like, in a desperate state, I lay on the bed with the intention of trying to get to sleep. I felt as if I was in a nether-world somewhere between living and dying. I could not get to sleep and yet could not stay awake in this condition. I went beyond hope and despair at that point. So I decided on 'giving up' - "Surrender to the void" is what I remembered thinking - but it was a thought that seemed to arise from somewhere deep within myself and yet from far away.

At this moment I lost consciousness....The next I had the experience of seeing myself rising through the ceiling of the room off the bed. I was then somewhere entirely different. I found myself rising through earth into another place. The first thought I had was to try and establish where I was. I looked down at my feet and in amazement - I was a luminous green colour but somehow darkened - 'shadows I thought'. I looked to my left and was astonished to see ferns.

But not ordinary ferns these were enormous perhaps the size of a small tree, having been just allowed to grow. I then followed the foliage with my gaze upwards. I saw trees like giant Redwoods...Immediately I was taken by their size. These were like no other trees I had ever seen. I followed them upward with my eyes. I had no longer a sense of self.

I looked up higher and higher into the tree line following the trunks of the trees upwards until I suddenly realised these trees were no ordinary affair - they were thousands of feet tall, the size of a mountain.

Eventually I got to where the foliage started and saw a glimmer of light. I realise that it was the light flickering through the trees like this that caused the darkened effect on my body. I gazed into the light which was coming through the branches more and more powerfully. I was rising with my vision into it the light the higher I focused..Then eventually after what seemed like an eternity I was beyond the tree line and...My vision opened up I staring at a vast expanse of sky....

And I saw the light!

Woooooooooooooooooooow.....was the scream I let out, so loud I remember thinking that it might even have been heard in the hospital I had left behind.

I find it hard to describe this part of the experience to be honest but it was so bright - brighter than any light I had ever seen - brighter than a thousand suns. I had never seen or imagined anything like this before. But it was not in the least damaging to my eyes yet so strong I could not believe I was staring into it. I ascended into the light as I screamed...

As suddenly as I had arrived I was back in my hospital bed actually witnessing myself falling into the empty space of the bed - from the ceiling. I had been away...

I woke with the thought: "I have seen God!". I sat up and suddenly realising, corrected myself and said quite definitively to myself: "no I have not" (for reasons unknown to myself at that time).

I remember nothing after this, apart from the sense of peace it gave me from then on. I was moved back to the normal wing of the hospital the next day and carried on as if nothing else had happened.

"Dreamers can gaze in order to do dreaming and then they can look for their dreams in their gazing. For example you can gaze at the shadows of rocks and then, in your dreaming , you might find out that those shadows have light. You can then, while gazing, look for the light in the shadows until you find it. Gazing and dreaming go together." Don Juan Matus