The Shaman Within: A Physicist’s Guide to the Deeper Dimensions of Your Life, the Universe, and Everything

by Claude Poncelet

Much of our anxiety about our own death and death in general, as well as about impending catastrophes in our personal lives and in the world at large, results from not accepting that everything in our physical world comes and goes—everything ends. The personal ego likes to grasp, and grasping is a major source of our problems throughout life. What we grasp, in fact, cannot be held because nothing in the physical world is permanent. What is permanent is the Source. The physical world’s impermanence is central to many spiritual traditions and their teachings about death. If we are at peace with impermanence, accepting that things come and go, the death of the cosmos is perfectly acceptable, just as is our own death. This does not mean that we should not take action when confronted by a dangerous situation; it means that we are at peace while undertaking the effort.1 As we gain through shamanic and psycho-spiritual practices an awareness of impermanence, we learn how to live a full, vibrant life as authentic being. A