Martin W. Ball - Being Infinite: An Entheogenic Odyssey into the Limitless Eternal: A Memoir from Ayahuasca to Zen

Being Infinite

An Entheogenic Odyssey

into the Limitless Eternal

A Memoir from Ayahuasca to Zen

By

Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.

Being Infinite:

An Entheogenic Odyssey

into the Limitless Eternal

A Memoir from Ayahuasca to Zen

Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.

Kyandara Publishing

Ashland, Oregon

2014

ISBN-13:

978-1500108342

ISBN-10:

1500108340

Authors Note:

The names of some individuals have been changed to protect anonymity. Otherwise, this is a true story.

Cover and art by Martin Ball 2014

Table of Contents:

Preface 1

Chapter One, The Early Years

Chapter Two, The Zen of College

Chapter Three, The Trials of Graduate School

Chapter Four, Life Among the Mescaleros

Chapter Five, From the Abyss to Burning Man

Chapter Six, The Blue-Eyed Woman

Chapter Seven, As Everything Falls Apart

Chapter Eight, From Finite to Infinite

Chapter Nine, God, with no Remainder

Epilogue - 319

About the Author - 325

Preface:

I want to tell you the story of how I accepted the truth that God is the only reality, including you, and including me. I want to tell you the story of how I learned that everything that exists is one, universal, all-embracing, loving being, and how all sense of separation or distinction from this one being is an illusion created by the mind and human ego. I want to tell you how I learned this truth within myself, and have subsequently learned to live with this reality as an individual who has been profoundly and permanently transformed by this truth.

Perhaps despite appearances, this is not a tale of spirituality, religion, or anything of the kind if anything, it is a tale of overcoming and moving beyond the inherent limitations of religion and spirituality as constructs of the human ego. It is a tale of truth, personal discovery, and liberation and transformation. It is a very personal story with universal ramifications, and as such, it is timeless.

I want to tell you of how I discovered myself, and in doing so, also discovered you.

Ive told bits and pieces of this story in books that Ive published, interviews Ive given, articles Ive written, and through my podcast, The Entheogenic Evolution and have shared the story with countless people who have come to visit me, curious about how Ive learned the things I share publically. Ever since my personal liberation and transformation in early 2009, Ive been intending to write the complete story down, and in some respects, have been putting it off, especially over the past year (the first year in a decade that I have not undertaken a large writing project), but the time feels right, and thus here I am, typing these words, preparing to bare all for those who desire to know what I went through, what I learned, how it has changed me, and how I now understand myself, the world, and everything in it.

Readers will, no doubt, find much of what I write here challenging, perhaps even unbelievable. I can sympathize. I doubt that I would accept a great deal of what is in these pages as true if it hadnt happened to me. It did, however, and my aim is to tell it as it happened, and I leave it to readers to make up their own minds about what I have to share and what conclusions they may draw from it. Regardless, it is my story, and at the very least, I hope you find it intriguing, and perhaps, it just might help you find your own clarity, your own center, and the truth of your being, and as such, serve in your own awakening and ultimate liberation. I hope so, for I love you as myself, for that is what you are we are all each other, in the most profound and intimate way.

Who could you be
Other than God
Wrapped in flesh
Nestled into human form
Holding so many possibilities
In these two hands
Seeing with these two eyes
The infinite
Looking out upon infinity
With a quickened pulse
The heart of the fractal of universal being
Informing and birthing the individual that you are
Unique
Yet merely part of the pattern
The spiraling into matter
Of consciousness rendered perspectival
Giving you every right
To proclaim
I Am Here
So be the fractal that you are
Experience yourself as the timeless
Enraptured by time
By choice
By will
By love
Attachments and projections
These are the only illusions
Trust the Real
And know the infinite
As yourself
What you have always been
And what you will always be
It is you, my Love
It is you

In the Hall of Infinite Mirrors

With no beginning

And no end

Which one

Is the Real You?

Chapter One

The Early Years

In my 2008 book, The Entheogenic Evolution: Psychedelics, Consciousness, and Awakening the Human Spirit , I concluded with a final chapter entitled, My Journey. At the time, I was in the middle of a profound process of personal transformation and awakening, largely facilitated by my use of 5-MeO-DMT (and also augmented by ayahuasca in the form of Daime, and also Saliva divinorum, psilocybin mushrooms, and n,n-DMT). When I wrote that book, I didnt know where the process was taking me, or what the end results would be. That process was to come to a dramatic climax in the spring of 2009, some months after I published The Entheogenic Evolution. This book is intended as a completion of what was written in that earlier book, revealing both what led up to that profound process (the details of which were scant in that publication), as well as what has transpired in the time since. This is my first attempt at putting all of this down in written form, and as such, it is something that I am currently very much looking forward to. So, let the process begin!

To reveal the punch line of my story, so to speak, in the spring of 2009, I found that I could no longer convince myself that this one fundamental truth was not genuine and real: I accepted the fact that I was God. It sounds grandiose, I know, but it was the conclusion that resonated with every aspect of my being. Try as my ego might to convince me that this could not possibly be true, reality won out, in the end, because for me to accept anything less would require that I lie to myself, and I decided that I was no longer going to engage in such practices of self-deception, no matter what the truth might be. So I accepted the truth that I was God, and that changed everything for me though ironically, it also changed nothing, for I was merely accepting what had always been the case. What changed was my personal clarity on the matter, and subsequently, my experience of living in the world changed dramatically, as well as my personal sense of identity. The world, however, is still the same, for it has always been what it is. It is my perspective, and sense of being, that has been altered. Living in truth has a profound effect on ones experience of being, but in many important respects, it changes nothing, for it is only a revealing of that which has always been and always will be.

Lest the reader assume that I am making a unique claim for myself in the person of Martin W. Ball, let me clarify from the start that my acceptance of the truth of my being God is not limited to this individual here, this particular human being. This is a truth that applies to all, equally, without any exception. God is the only reality, and we are all expressions and embodiments of this one universal being. As I like to describe it, there are countless characters that fill the mirrored funhouse and ongoing drama of reality, but there is only one actor, and that actor is God, playing all the various parts simultaneously.