The act of breaking free is called "stopping the world." While we partake of surface-only existence, we define reality, ourselves and what is possible for us as individuals according to human consensus reality, accepting the limitations and definitions imposed on us by family, cultural and religious conditioning (among other factors.) The experience of "stopping the world," of freeing ourselves, even momentarily, from all limiting definitions of self and world in a sense destroys both ? the self and world we once knew and believed all-encompassing fall away, never to return. Once we have experientially sampled those deeper layers of reality, verifying their existence for ourselves and putting the lie to our previously cherished illusions, we can never again accept limitation. We can never return to who we once were; that person has died. In his place stands a newly initiated shaman...
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