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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
Hi. Welcome to the Smoke Trail. This is a q and a session. I'm gonna answer some questions about navigating the spiritual landscape, sorting truth from noise. I think one of the big challenges in a spiritual journey is figuring out what to believe.
Smoke:One of the great things about the modern era is we have access to unlimited information. We have literally at our fingertips all the great teachings, all the ancient wisdom, tons of new thought, and it's all available to us. And if you anyone who's using AI can go on Grok or Gemini or one of the others, and you can ask all kinds of great questions, and it's powerful. It's amazing. But it's also bewildering in many ways.
Smoke:I think it's overwhelming in information overload. And there's a lot of noise out there, which I'm calling it nicely. There's truth and there's a lot of noise that that I think gets in the way of the truth. And so, you know, one of the one of the things that I love about David Hawkins is, you know, we can calibrate all of these things in power versus force and his subsequent books. He demonstrated that ability and I use it all the time.
Smoke:So you can do it with muscle testing. You can do it with a pendulum if you get good at using it. I use that quite a bit just because it's fast and I've come to rely on it. I get the same answers regardless, but you can test if something is truthful and how truthful it is. And so, know, there's so much stuff packaged up out there that is literally pieces of truth mixed in with untruths, mixed in with marketing, mixed in with sizzle, that it's easy to to go down a false path.
Smoke:So one of the simplest ways to know is to simply test it. You know, you can test it with pendulum. You can test it with muscle testing and you can say, you know, is this teaching truthful? Is this teaching calibrate above 200 on the Hawkins scale? It goes to a thousand in terms of spiritual truthfulness.
Smoke:And if it's over 200, then it's integris. And the higher it is, the more integris it is. If it's below 200, don't touch it, don't mess with it. So that can save everyone a lot of time and effort and going down wrong paths and you know wrong paths can be quite costly. Know if you get if you absorb the teachings that are not integris or from a teacher who is not integris then you can you can waste a lot of time and time is is very precious in this lifetime, it can cause a lot of problems.
Smoke:I know people who have gone down the path of following someone who may have calibrated quite high at some point and in so doing had a lot of great insights, perhaps influenced a lot of people, had things that unlocked things with with their followers, but then they took a wrong turn. And that happens quite often in awakening and consciousness, right? People who are following up a spiritual journey because there are lots of energetic forces out there that don't want people to wake up. So the as you raise up, you're going to be tested. We're all tested at different times with different energies and those energies are very can be quite sophisticated.
Smoke:A lot of the fallen gurus of over time have been just those examples. People who have calibrated quite high, as you calibrate higher, you have a much higher energy level. That energy level is palpable. People feel it. And they may be somewhat charismatic.
Smoke:Anyway, they develop a following and the following can grow. And then the forces that end up coming at that person are typically what we would call Luciferic forces. So I will differentiate Luciferic from satanic forces. So it's satanic forces are, you know, the killing, raping, violence, stealing the low level negative energies that persist throughout the world. This the luciferic forces are a little bit harder to recognize, and these would be power, sex, money, not being truthful.
Smoke:They're they're subtler, they come packaged in things like, oh, well, we're on a spiritual journey together. Everything we're doing is integris and holy. God made us, God made the world, God made sex, let's have holy sex. That's one of the most common examples is the guru gets twisted in their mind around or tempted by non integris relations and start sleeping with their students or and making it part of the of the following and you know that that is a pernicious thing because it's obviously you know all of us in human form have desires and human needs and sex is is certainly one of the strongest drivers of that and that's important because it's how the species continues and it's an important part of life. That said, that force can be twisted, right?
Smoke:And so any teaching or any leader who is bringing that into the mix, could pretty, pretty clearly see has fallen. And there's lots and lots of examples of those that have done that, who have gotten waylaid. Another example, and I guess this is kind of related, but I had an experience not long ago where we were invited into a really beautiful setting. We didn't really know what we're getting into, but it was a group of friends and everyone got together and we it it was very ceremonial in nature. There was blessings everywhere.
Smoke:There was all kinds of symbols of divinity. Everyone was Palo Santo being burned and clearing the energy as people came in. And then there was a circle where there was a lot of lovely things said. There was a beautiful poem read. Everyone went around kind of in a in a circle and contributed but you know one word or what they what they what they you know wanted to bring to the event.
Smoke:I said love someone said unconditional love there was all kinds of beautiful things said and so it went around the circle it was it was beautiful. Then there was a cacao ceremony which was also quite lovely and cacao is a heart opening natural, you know, occurring plant and everyone you know took that and with intention and to your heart and and it was it was all lovely and it was and it was it was parallel to some of the other spiritual events I have participated in. Then it made a subtle or not so subtle twist and there was various plant and other medicines made available to people and various people were partaking, which I've only, well, I wouldn't say only, but I would say since my spiritual journey, it's been all about that spiritual journey, and so my my plant medicine experiences have all been very contained, very safe container in a very intentional way to either uncover shadows that I needed to clear or to meditate to get closer to source, to divinity, to higher levels of consciousness. So this was kind of a weird setting with a big group that was more of a it was It felt like a ceremony, but it was, you know, billed as a social gathering.
Smoke:So medicine was was given out and then. It took a really a really different twist and there was a. A person there who. I feel infiltrated the group in some way brought a dark energy to the group and went down a path of kind of a. You know, under the guise of tantra, but it was more of a S and M kind of, you know, display.
Smoke:And at at which point, we left the the event. But I also know people who stuck around and it went down a path that you could predict. Now that is a great example of a spiritual setting, very lovely setting with all the setup that you would want to have for a lovely experience, but with a darker either intention or a darker energy that was present and nothing good can come of that. And it was really kind of an eye opener because it was a surprise and a great example of these luciferic forces infiltrating the spiritual community. You can test any of this stuff independently and it would show up.
Smoke:Think tantric practices for the most part, you know, if done properly in the traditional way, frankly, don't involve necessarily, you know, sexual activity. There's a lot of energy work. Generally speaking, our, our calibrate positive, not super high, but they calibrate above 200. But used in a setting like that, used with a different intention, clearly calibrate negatively. It's a really simple way to stay on the straight and narrow, and I'm happy to share methods or approaches to that if you have questions.
Smoke:One of the things that I also think in terms of navigating the spiritual landscape, sorting truth from noise is all of the ancient teachings, know, so you've got ancient teachings around Christianity, around Buddhism, around Hinduism, around Judaism, you know, and I'll I'll stick with those for now because I'm most familiar with those which all have different twists and turns in terms of their approach, their. Nomenclature, the way they talk about different things, but I would say that you know as a as a as a rule. A lot of those texts if you read, you know the Buddha's writing the Dammapada. If you read the. You read some of the ancient can read the Bible, but read other spiritual texts around Christianity, read the Zohar, and the Kabbalah, and a lot of the Vedic writings.
Smoke:They all have a very cultural bent to them. Many of these were written thousands of years ago. Many of them were translated or they were notes taken by disciples of the spiritual being, whether it be the Buddha or Christ or others. Then they were translated many times to get to, say, English, you know, where we could read it. And, you know, you you we've all played the the the the whisper game where you whisper to someone and it goes around the room, and by the time it gets back to the the end of the line, whatever was said is typically quite different than what was started, and it can be can be very different in meaning and context.
Smoke:And so the context of these of these works all have a cultural and timing setting to them, which make it hard. But if you study them, and I have, and I'm certainly no expert scholarly expert on any of them compared to people who do that for their life. But I have dug deep into lots of these teachings and you can start to discern the things that are in common across all of them, which don't have anything to do with the cultural and timing, age setting that they took place. And those teachings are integris. Those teachings are and they're frankly the same.
Smoke:The people that reached the high levels in Buddhism and you know Buddha mind. What Christ saw, Christ consciousness, and the saints and sages of that of that tradition, the many sages and and enlightened beings that came out of the Vedic tradition all saw the same thing, all saw divinity, all saw source, all saw one, the nondual teaching is common across them with different, again, different words, different cultural meanings, but there's commonality. So when I when I see that and I and I read things like Meister Eckhart, who I've talked about a number of times, but I'm a huge fan of, you know, who was in the late twelve hundred to early thirteen hundreds, you know, German lineage was a, you know, very high up in the Catholic church, but he became enlightened and he was a person who was teaching those teachings and the Catholic church didn't like it much. Right? So he was but he was so powerful and had such a following and such a high level of energy.
Smoke:He was able to kind of survive during the Inquisition, which was, you know, really hot and heavy in the twelfth and thirteenth century, the Inquisition was the Catholic church clamping down on anyone who had any direct experience with God, with divinity, and it was deemed blasphemous. So lots of people were burned at the stake. Lots of people who were quite integris in their teachings were were persecuted, and and Meister Gerhardt was able to withstand that inquisition. Some of his works were banned, but he had he had reached a certain level. Teresa of Avila is a good example where you know the reason we even have her works are because she had to document her experiences in order to avoid you know being being persecuted by the church.
Smoke:So her writings gave us this you know beautiful set of works of what an enlightened being experienced. Works throughout history, have to use a little bit of understanding of the context of when they were written and the language they're written in, but the things that are in common across all of them are absolutely integris. And I think the same goes for the Zohar and what the Kabbalah teaches, and it really is a common teaching across across these works. How could intuition help navigate conflicting spiritual advice? You know, look at the end of the day, as we gain in our ability to.
Smoke:Understand these things, discernment comes with it. So spiritual discernment comes with it and the ability to know what is truthful and what is not truthful, I think grows over time. The muscle testing or checking is a great validator, and it's a very valuable tool to all of us as we go through this journey and gain our ability to just intuitively know things. Some people are better at that than others, but if you're in doubt, it's a good fallback. Why is it easy to fall to get lost in the spiritual marketplace?
Smoke:Well, look, there's lots of teachings that are built around integris ideas, and then they're subverted. I mentioned the one example. Another, know, frankly example is in the Catholic church is obviously, you know, dark energies have infiltrated aspects of it, and they're exemplified by the pedophilia and and you know that whole scandal, which is not a single scandal. It's something that obviously become known now That was a very, very big thing of infiltration. So you know these things have happened over time.
Smoke:They happen today. I think if you see someone who is gains a big following and they turn that into a big commercial enterprise. I'm not I'm a look, I'm a entrepreneur, a business person. I have no no issue with, you know, people charging for things and making money and that's I'm not I'm fully okay with capitalism. But when you start tying, when you start combining it with spiritual teachings, you I think there's a fine line that gets crossed easily.
Smoke:You start building up, say you have a following and you have teachings that are integris, you start to get followers and then you start promoting it. You, you know, with whatever it is, programs, retreats, books, and that's all fine. And then if it becomes an enterprise and then it and you have a staff and you've got marketing people and you've got a machine to feed, the temptation to feed it starts to grow significantly. And so that I think is a, I'm not going to draw the line like Hawkins did, where she's like nobody can make money at this stuff, which is I I think that's extreme, but I think the reason he drew that line is because it is easy to fall prey to, you know. A very commercialized approach to it and look, these teachings are.
Smoke:Available, they are available, you know to each of us and we have them available at our fingertips in today's day and age. They don't need to be secret. They're not, you know, these are not, you know, if you join my my secret society and make a pledge, make an make an oath of some kind, you get to review, you know, get these powers and and that exists, but that's not Integris. So, know, a lot of these secret or, you know, groups that make you make pledges. If if if you have to sign an oath or make an oath to join a group, then it's likely they've gone astray.
Smoke:I'm sure there was a reason in certain times that they had to keep things secret because things like the inquisition were happening. And so it was important to be careful about who you let into your group. So there's some of that that was probably, you know, was probably good reasons. But I think in today's day and age, those reasons don't exist. And so no one should have to, no one should.
Smoke:I'm shooting on you. No one ought to be making pledges or taking oaths that you may have to abide by beyond this lifetime. So I think those are those are some of the telltale signs. How can you blend teachings from different sources without confusion? I I kinda touched on that, and that was really about separating the cultural aspects from the the core teachings.
Smoke:God doesn't care if we wear a hat or if we eat a certain food. There, you know, there's there's a bunch of things that are in kind of intertwined in various religions that have nothing to do with divinity but they became embedded in it because of they were partly cultural. No one cares what you wear. No one cares what you who you decide to love. And, you know, there's all these, you know, basic core things that, you know, got tied up into religion that are probably not, you know, not pure in terms of the the core teachings from the original avatar.
Smoke:And you can kinda see that if you look across these different ones. What role does personal experience play in validating spiritual info? Well, all spiritual info information at the end of the day is verifiable within. So you hear that a lot, but in contemplation, in meditation, we begin to see the teachings, the truth, and you can feel it. Where you energetically feel excited is spirit saying, do that.
Smoke:Where you energetically feel contracted, it's spirit saying back away. There it's like there's some core things that I think are helpful in the process that are based on experience. You know, I've spent a lot of my time trying to internalize the teachings in a way that they gave me an understanding of what to look for, but then it was thing they they became things that I had to go experience myself. I think that's really important for for everyone on a spiritual journey. How do you stay grounded when exploring new spiritual ideas?
Smoke:Well, that's really important. Again, core teachings. They're really simple. We are in a universe of love. What does that entail?
Smoke:Treat everyone like you would treat yourself. And that means you're treating yourself really well, right? So treat everyone like it's your most prized possession. And drop judgment. You know, people are gonna come in different packages culturally and the way they look, the way they act, the way they are.
Smoke:And, you know, you can use discernment to decide where you want to put your time, who you want to spend time with, what groups you want to be in, and and therefore, which groups and people you don't want to be around. That's really important without necessarily passing judgment and engaging or fighting with people who are on a, let's say less integris path, which is just an earlier version, right? So we're all kind of at different levels of learning and experiencing consciousness. And most of humanity is at a negative level of consciousness. So they are living in a lack of free will.
Smoke:They're responding to circumstances and they're not able to kind of create separation between their human self and the situation and therefore just reacting, right? So they're using reacting emotionally to whatever's happening. And it's not a judgment that that's the case. It's a discernment. It's understanding that when people that are at a certain level, they are only going to respond at a certain level.
Smoke:And if you are at a different level and you're moving up in consciousness, it's just extremely important to recognize that and to disengage with the people who are operating at that level whenever possible. We can't do it all the time, and we have to live in the world if we aren't in a monastery or hanging out on a mountain. So you're you're gonna interact with people, but, you know, it's the circles you surround yourself, the people that you are your friend group, the people that are your relationships, where are they? And if they are on a much lower level, you know, they may not be right for you if you're on a spiritual journey. And so it's really important because the energetic level of the group that you are with has a huge impact on your own.
Smoke:And, you know, until you get up to a certain level of your own internal high level of understanding and the ability to maintain that high level of frequency, you do not have the ability to not be sucked into whatever group it is. And and frankly, even if you're at a high level, you can get sucked in. So that's super important. How do you cross check modern channeled info with ancient text? You know, that just goes back to muscle testing and you know we don't channeled information.
Smoke:I think there there's good information out there, but there's a lot of. Let's just say, less than wholesome entities in the astral who the reason they're messing with humans is they don't want humans to awaken and they're stuck in whatever realm they're in. And so I think we have to be very careful with channeled information. Just because it's channeled and it seems like it comes from a higher source doesn't mean it's spiritual, doesn't mean it's integris. And so it's really important to have discernment.
Smoke:So Hawkins teaches just stay away from it. We don't need it. We've got plenty of enlightened material that is available to us. It's integris and there's no reason to go there. I think there's valid teachings and there's good ones out there that are channeling things that are definitely positive.
Smoke:But again, it's important to test them and to have discernment of which things to listen to, which things to watch. And just because they're channeling something again, and maybe they're charismatic and they've got a show and they've got a lot of followers, it's not in your interest to absorb that material. Even if a lot of it might be integris, it's the things that you don't notice. It's the things that are kind of below the radar that are kind of embedded into it that can lead us down the wrong path. How do you stay open to new ideas without falling into dogma?
Smoke:Mean, that was part of my journey, really because I didn't grow up in a very religious or I didn't grow up in a religious family and the and the religion that I was exposed to was a cover for dark energies and bad behavior, let's just say in a nice way. I didn't have a lot of dogma that I had to deal with, which on the one hand was disadvantage because I didn't know a lot. I didn't didn't didn't go to, you know, my Anitra went to Catholic school, and so she learned a lot of the the Catholic teachings. So I didn't have a lot of that as background information. On the other hand, it was very beneficial in this process because I took a kind of an open mind to look at look at everything.
Smoke:And so, you know, instead of listening to what other people say about stuff, I just went to the sources and I read a lot of the material and made my own judgment on it. And I continue to do that. And so I've been open minded about it, but again, I I tend to try to calibrate and test the material before I spend time on it. It it saves me a lot of wasted time that would otherwise go down the wrong path. What role does community play in sorting spiritual noise?
Smoke:Again, that goes back to the energetic level of the people who you are around. It's very helpful to be in a positive spiritual community who are all working together, working on their own consciousness, and I think we can help each other. It's very unhelpful to be amongst people who are not interested in that. You know, who you spend your time with, where you spend your time is where you put your energy, And in many cases, it's who you become. So that's extremely important.
Smoke:And we can grow out of different groups. I mean, could be, there's different times in our journey that a group is very helpful. And then we may grow out of it and it makes sense to move on and find a different group or do work on your own for a while. I think that's clear to me that there's a time and a place for a lot of these teachings. You know, if you start out reading the Bhagavad Gita and you're, let's say, you're integrist but you're, you know, you're just open, you're trying to learn things and you're in the three hundreds or four hundreds in consciousness.
Smoke:It's going to be kind of hard going. It calibrates in the 900s. It doesn't mean don't read it, it just means it may not all sit. You may have to come back to it. I found that a lot of these spiritual teachings, when I come back to it a second, a third, a fourth, a tenth time, make a lot more sense.
Smoke:And so I continually go back to these core teachings and reread them, re listen to them, and I get new things out of them each time. Alright. The sun is setting on the Sedona Mountains, and, although I could keep going in this lit up spot, I'm gonna I'm gonna pause here, and, we'll come back to some of these topics. And happy to answer more questions if, if you've got them. So blessings to you and your family, and, thanks for spending some time here.