In November of 2013, I took a journey to the Peruvian Andes for an unforgettable experience with the renowned plant medicine, ayahuasca. Brewed as a tea from plants that originate in the jungles of Peru, ayahuasca is used in ceremony with a Shaman as a way to connect to our source of creation and inner truth, and to help us heal ailments of the body and mind.
The experience was completely mind-blowing and paradigm shifting. My experience with ayahuasca became the catalyst toward many changes in my life, both minute and significant.
Here are some of the lessons I learned firsthand via the grace of ‘La Madre Ayahuasca’:
1. The mind creates suffering through aversion and attachment.
There is a potent quote by a Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, which really speaks to me on this subject: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
We may already have an intellectual understanding of this key principle through many Buddhist writings we have come across, however, it is only through direct experience that we can witness this great truth and come to see it as a game-changer in the way we live our lives.
Life will always be filled with inconveniences, upsets, and pains. But the more we push them away, the deeper the experiences cut into us, leading to prolonged pain and suffering.
When vividly reflecting on painful memories during my ayahuasca ceremonies, I was able to perceive how my life became much more difficult when I resisted life’s unpleasant experiences. On the other hand, I saw that when I became attached to pleasurable experiences and refused to let them go when they reached the end of their cycle, this also caused me a great amount of sorrow.
I was exhibiting the same kind of patterned responses (aversion and attachment) while experiencing the effects of ayahuasca. At certain times I’d be confronted by the image of a terrifying demon, sitting in the peripheral of my line of vision, just waiting to get into my space to ‘attack’ me. The more I reacted with an aversion to these entities, the more unpleasant the whole experience got, with them essentially gaining the upper hand and succeeding to pull me away from my center of peacefulness and joy.
I soon caught on to this pattern and learned to stop reacting this way, which drastically changed my whole experience for the better. More importantly, I continued applying the same principle to my every-day life.
Stay grounded in the middle-way, neither averting unpleasant experiences nor clinging to pleasant ones. It will lead to the cessation of all unnecessary suffering. This is what ayahuasca showed me during the ceremony.
Artwork by Anna Dittmann
2. If you cannot be yourself and be true to who you are, then you will never be happy.
Ayahuasca revealed to me that I was most afflicted in life when I tried hard to be someone or something I was not. I was endeavouring to please others instead of letting go and accepting who I was in that instance; swayed by people’s opinions and fearful of their outcries if I acted in a way that conflicted with their way of seeing and doing things. Grasping to an idea of who I thought I should be only caused me more anguish.
During my very first ceremony, I remember being extremely anxious and self-conscious about vomiting in the presence of other people. I tried my best to hold it in as long as I could but eventually realized that the very act of preventing something so natural was causing me to suffer and was making the experience far more difficult than it had to be. Being true to oneself and living with integrity, I learned, also means letting your body be just as it is. It means honouring it without struggling to change any part of it, despite its vulgarity and vulnerability at times – especially during an Ayahuasca ceremony (there’s no better place to practice self-acceptance!)
This experience showed me that my resistance toward appearing vulnerable and unattractive in the eyes of others, for fear of losing their respect and admiration, was controlling my life. I saw just how connected my thought and behaviour patterns were to this fear.
At present, I am who I am; I speak my truth in every moment and I invite integrity into everything I do. If the truth of who I am does not resonate with others in my life, they are free to take the exit door out of it. Such a shift has had a profound impact on my state of mind, allowing me to live a much more harmonious and joyful life.
Artwork by Dela
3. The Universe is a conscious, living thing, responding to the vibration we put out. But it needs our permission (and surrender) to really work its magic.
On ayahuasca, it became clear that an intelligent Universal Consciousness was present with me along my trip, and was aware of my thought process.
I remember when it was my turn to go up and receive my dose of ayahuasca from the Shaman, I had to set an intention before consuming it. Part of my intention was, quite literally, “Please go easy on me!” This was followed by a feeling of doubt. I wondered whether I was actually being heard, or whether this intention really made a difference to the experience.
20 minutes later I was seeing a faint montage of kaleidoscope-like imagery wherever I set my eyes, but none of it possessed any kind of inherent meaning or depth. I didn’t feel that I was on the verge of any spiritual epiphanies, as is commonly experienced with ayahuasca, and this bothered me.
My next thought was something on the lines of, “Is this what I came all the way here to Peru to witness – a bunch of faint imagery that’s nice to look at but lacks depth and meaning to me?”
This thought was immediately followed by what I would describe as a ‘voiceless voice’ that seemed to echo from inside and all around me at the same time.
“You asked me to go easy on you,” it replied.
I was taken aback. Something had acknowledged the intention I had set. Something had responded. And it was actually giving me the choice to move forward in this whole experience. But it did give me an ultimatum.
“Put your ego baggage aside, dear. Only then can you step through this threshold and witness the ineffable.”
And so I did. I put down that heavy suitcase; the one I’d taken years to fill with my expectations, stories, attachments and resistances. As soon as I accepted the invitation to surrender, I was catapulted into a very intense experience of powerful visuals, memories, encounters with higher entities, and entrances into higher dimensions of existence.
We may live our ordinary lives behind an ignorant veil, hiding from ourselves and refusing to go inward to look at the real intention behind our beliefs and actions, but when taking an entheogen like ayahuasca, all of this is brought to the foreground of our mind, where it is impossible to deny any longer or to shut away in some remote region of our subconscious brain. It forces us to take responsibility for every patch stitched into the quilt of our reality.
There it is, out in the open; our subconscious mind flipped inside out. We can make the trip much more difficult by resisting it, or we can go with the flow and keep an open mind and heart to whatever comes our way.
On ayahuasca, it became startlingly obvious that every single feeling or thought we have is being projected into the matrix of the Universe, and the Universe is responding to those feelings and thoughts by constructing an equivalent reality, moment-to-moment. If we are fortunate enough to connect with this Universal Consciousness we will see we are never separate from it, nor it from us. But we have to open ourselves up to Divine Intervention.
Grace sends us invitation after invitation; an invitation to wake up, that is. Most go unnoticed by us or get sent back with the “will not attend” option checked off, but thankfully some make it through into the parameters of our awareness. In order to shift into a reality where Divinity is there at the forefront of everything we see and experience, we have only to willingly accept that experience into our reality. Only then can we witness the Universe as a conscious, living entity, responding to our every vibration, moment-to-moment.
Artwork by Alex Grey
4. Prana/Chi/Lifeforce energy really does exist and can be controlled by breath.
Consciously controlled breath has an effect on the body and mind and can be directly observed in altered states of consciousness, beyond the limitation of our 5 senses.
In our every-day autopilot mode of perception, we are not in tune with this life force energy and cannot directly observe the way it behaves within and all around us. With the ‘reducing-valve’ effect of the brain turned on in our every-day cognizance, we have become disjointed from our true energetic framework, and we lack the direct perception of our intricate connection with nature all around us.
We forget that we are not just in the universe, but that very same universe is inside of us. Each breath we take is not merely an exchange of oxygen with carbon dioxide. It is the cultivation and control of Prana – life force energy.
Through the breath, we are connecting the higher and lower realms of consciousness. Through the breath, we have access to unlimited potential and growth. Breath is the subtle cord that connects the infinite soul to the finite body. Learning how to use it accordingly can result in an increase of vitality, as well as improved cognitive functioning. Each breath is truly a blessing, and we can either take it senselessly or with utmost awareness and gratitude.
I saw with such clarity the way it looked to breathe. As I sat with a long spine in a meditative stance, I could see the life energy moving within me via the breath. With more concentration, I could guide that life force energy anywhere I desired, and I remember willing it in the direction of my heart.
Artwork by Elaine Clayton
5. Dying is completely safe.
I recall having a few panic attacks here and there over the question of my mortality. Was I going to die that night in the ceremony? Or the next night? Was this my time? Was I going to have a heart attack? A stroke? So many fears. But I recognized quickly that this was a long-standing fear of mine that had shown up previously in various other ways in my life, without the use of any mind-altering substances. Death is a pretty big topic on an ayahuasca trip. That is because we are standing at the threshold of human consciousness and universal consciousness. A big door is being opened up and we are ever so clear that something is definitely dying: the small self.
I know it is counter-intuitive to think of death as being safe, and it takes a deep-rooted trust in All-That-Is to sincerely accept this one. This translates into an unshakable trust in the universe’s ways, in its ebb and flow and ultimately what is referred to as the Grand Master Plan – accepting all the events of life, ‘good and bad,’ including death. When our perception has expanded beyond the capacity of day-to-day human perception, and we can see the so-called bigger picture, fear of death is vanquished. We only fear what we do not understand. One of the most powerful lessons learned on Ayahuasca involves directly witnessing death as an illusion. This idea of an absolute end to something with nothing following does not prove true as you witness the realm of the mind with so much clarity and certainty.
In conclusion
Nothing is more certain than what you will learn on ayahuasca. It is analogous to how one feels when they just wake up from a dream and then realize they are in their waking reality. One wakes up to their higher self on ayahuasca, and immediately distinguishes the experience as the ultimate reality. Ayahuasca teaches that surrender proves itself to be the most powerful practice we can adopt in our life. What we learn in ceremony will directly apply to every experience we later face in life. I feel there was a prophetic nature to my whole ayahuasca trip; it spoke of challenges I would later face, shared the wisdom I would need to tap into to overcome them, and reminded me that Grace is everywhere. Inside and out.
I’m so thankful for these 5 lessons I have learned and I’ve been deploying them in my everyday life ever since. If you are interested in knowing more about ayahuasca, feel free to reach out! Namaste. <3
