An Expression of Connection

Saturday, June 8th, 2013

In Peruvian shamanism, “the heart” – as an expression of connection with pacha mama– is the hub of connectivity in the body and the vehicle through which connection and relatedness with others is experienced. Peruvian shamans say that the heart is where we experience munay energetically, the universal feeling state of love connecting us to the land and every living thing around us. The experience of munay refers to a state of union or an experience of a major conjunctio. It is collective state of love, different from personal love directed specifically towards another person.

Von Franz and Jung both referred to an aspect of this experience as “union through the Self.” Von Franz has written, “Whereas relations based merely on projection are characterized by fascination and magical dependence, this kind of relationship by way of the Self has something strictly objective, strangely transpersonal about it. It gives rise to a feeling of immediate, timelessness, “being together” (p.177). 

Von Franz’s statement about relationships via the Self corresponds to the Q’ero description of munay. Both, are ecstatic spiritual experiences of connecting with the numinous that transcend time and space. Jung stated, “Objective cognition lies behind the attraction of emotional relationship; it seems to be the central secret. In this world created by the Self, we meet all those many to whom we belong, whose hearts we touch; here “there is no distance but immediate presence.”

Lionel Corbett has written about a glutinum mundi, or glue of the world, a “life force, uniting body and soul (Jung, 1968, 12, par 209). According to Corbett, this glue is the bonding material or prima materia of the conjunctio – a “secretion of the Self.”  The power of a group in creating an energetic field is well-known and practiced in meditation circles and monasteries around the world.In Egypt, I had the opportunity to watch whirling dervishes perform and enter a state of ecstasy. Sitting in the room during a ceremony, I witnessed a vibration shift in the entire energetic field of over 100 people! Chanting and drumming rituals and tribal dancing are illustrations of similar phenomena. Pentecostal churches with members of a congregation who speak in tongues, the emotional charge present created by a group of gospel singers.  Modern raves are another example seen in current Western culture of people collectively becoming mesmerized.

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