My Spiritual Journey Begins...

Dear ATS members, I salute you all in your endeavors and I wanted to say how influential this site has been in my life. I will turn 22 on Sept.2nd and this will mark the beginning of my spiritual journey. I have been brought up in an Islamic environment where I my parents have given me a Shia Islamic upbringing. I have stopped reading prayers not because I don't believe in the Creator but because I am compelled to follow a spiritual journey. In all honesty I have no problems in following the true Islam which is a peace loving religion but deep in my heart I feel like I have many questions about my own existence and I want to discover the existential spiritual truths that lay infront of me, only to be hidden behind the red curtains which I want to remove but I don't know how. I remember doing meditation last year and it really helped me become a more spiritual person but I haven't done it in a while (using school as an excuse).

Cool story:
Last year i had this huge urge of getting out of the north american continent and go somewhere. I saw the world map with a blank slate in my mind and somehow peru just stuck out. The feeling of going there visiting the andes and machu pichu felt like a long awaited return and also partaking in an ayahuascan ritual to discover the trip of my life. I was very close to going there and involved in a volunteering project but my destiny had different plans. I ended going for pilgrimmage in Meccah with my parents which was also a very deep and enlightening experience. My return to peru still awaits. Heres a story which gave me some beautiful synchronicities about Peru:

I did a past life regression last year and it was quite an experience. I remember using kijiji.ca to find a past life regression therapist because something told me to do so. And the person I found in those ads was this lady who lived not too far away from me. The first time we talked it seemed like we knew each other and we were so comfortable with one another. Even after meeting the woman she told me she felt my presence and we felt like we had a connection. She put me on a hypnotic state and asked me how many previous lives I had, I said 4. So in one of those lives I saw myself as a hunter at a young age in an amazonian environment with my other tribesman. She asked me to fastforward in my life and I saw myself in a hut with various medicinal paraphernalia and helping a little girl. She asked me what the problem was with the girl and I said I saw her hand which was inflammated and i was taking care of it, she asked which hand I said the left one. Afterwords she told me that she went to Peru last year and her shaman told her of a story when he was young he had an inflammed hand which his shaman took care of. My thoughts on the experience were so strong I still remember them to this day. The lady afterwords told me I was a shaman. And to me it felt natural, I've always been fascinated with indigenous tribes and people always ask me for natural cures for various things since i was a child.

All in all, this was 2 years ago, the year after that I lived with a roommate who started smoking marijuana from the age of 7. Knowing my culture of arabia cannibus is a no no but i only smoke for the sake of thinking. Marijuana has really changed the way I see things and it has really been an influential piece in my life. Now here I am faced with the question of spirituality and i honestly don't know where else to write something like this because only ats members can help me, i have confidence in that. Maybe theres no clear cut answer about what i should do in seeking my answer to my spirituality but can any of you guys help shed a light on your lives and what i should look forward to in my journey and what are some things i can do....thank you

lol half way through your first paragraph the first word that came to mind was ayahuasca.good luck my friend.

if im reading you post correctly your starting to look outside you religion for a deeper truth.

one thing i have found on my endevours is that their are great truths in organized religion. Another would be prayer even outside of religion is VERY VERY important, meditation imo is just another form of prayer.

Good luck to you on your journey i hope you find what you are looking for and more.

and yes cannabis can help as well as lsd and the like, but imo you would have to be in a certain place with your thinking before trying any of those things, if not they will consume you and you will have distorted images of truth.