Ayahuasca Ceremony #100: What is Ayahuasca Really?
UPDATED
What is Ayahuasca Really?
What is Ayahuasca? The eternal question with an ever-evolving answer. Here is as much as I understand it as of May 12, 2009. Ayahuasca, in its physical form, is a medicinal plant mixture cooked, strained, and drank in sacred ceremony by shamans in the Amazon rainforest for thousands, possibly tens of thousands of years.
One can find all kinds of research explaining the long-term benefits of working with the brew, including a potentially long-term increase in serotonin levels (leading to more happy, fulfilling lives), release of various physical ailments (some considered incurable in Western medicine), and release of certain psychological and mental-related illnesses.
Spiritually, this plant is in its own Universe, beyond comprehension levels of most and limited by mere language.
What Separates Us from the Spirit World?
The only thing that separates us from the Spirit World is our bodies. That's what gives our spirits voices, opposable thumbs, and the ability to take thought and turn it into physical action. The body is the vessel that we channel everything through in order to allow us to have this human experience. The Spirit World is not "better" than the physical.
I believe many spirits choose to come back into bodies purely to experience the full gamut of being human...the voice, the touch, the taste, the joy, the sex, the suffering, the soul-satisfaction when one helps another get closer to their true spirit selves.
The whole thing is like a big initiation...we are dropped in, memories erased, with a few tools to help us navigate this foreign land. For some, the environment nurtured the navigation tools, such as instincts (gut feelings, strong internal desires, creative ideas, psychic abilities, etc) and those doors remained open.
For others, the environment fed into the dense, dark energies of fear and doubt, revering intellect and logic as the highest form of understanding, while putting spiritual skepticism on a pedestal (mostly self-created due to manipulation by religious organizations) and the true medicine of the earth (plants) into a fru-fru "new age" category for vegan hippies.
For these folks, the challenge of uncovering the unknown blind spot is even more difficult.
What is Ayahuasca's Specialty? The Purge
What is not so obvious to most of us is the way the body creates our physical experience, our own world through our eyes. The more dense, heavy energies we knowingly or unknowingly have inside, the more we give up control to those energy in our life.
More so than that, trapped feelings we haven't allowed ourselves to feel build within the body, growing into a huge bubble ready to pop at the slightest trigger. How often have you "lost it" in anger, watching words fly out of your mouth specifically to hurt the ones you love the most? The feeling of guilt, fear of losing them, and sadness after you release what you have done can be unbearable.
That is a perfect example of an energy built up of rage taking over your body, exploding, and leaving you to clean up the mess. This doesn't mean we are not responsible for doing what we can to purge and manage these energies, but anything emotionally that does not align with our body's natural state (no emotional build up or belief systems filtering our worldview) is something that can be recognized, released, and healed.
Most of us walk around every day, thinking we are the ones running our lives. But like the anger, there are tons and tons of energy patterns, crossed energies and sometimes entities literally along for the ride, hidden inside like internal luggage.
Pay attention in your day to what thoughts, ideas, spoken words, and actions are aligned with the Higher Self (or true spirit - the part that knows). It is very easy to tell. Usually Higher Self is clear, wise and succinct and compassionate towards ourselves and others. Lower Self questions our (and others') worth, can be fearful, judgmental, etc.
Higher self often sits in the gut or heart, while Lower in the mind. While epiphanies also come through the mind (while aligned to the heart and intuition in the gut) they are much clearer than the Lower Self chatter and frankly, my Higher Self is much smarter than me on a regular day.)
I'd assume most people reading this are feeling called to, or already working to remove what's in the way of being in their natural state (on all the levels.) Coming back to who we really are. If we're unsatisfied, not living on life purpose, and flowing in our natural rhythms, there is more for us to come.
Whether person is new to the path or traveled for decades, there is always more to find, and new levels to reach. This is the big prize at the end (as well as a whole other beginning).
We can't let spiritual arrogance block us from the fruits of our labor. We simply don't know what kind of life we could missing since the baseline to the human happiness level is light years under par.
Everything we believe deep in our heart and soul to be possible, within ourselves and the Universe, is real. But it takes all that work to prepare to see it. When we are ready, willing, and truly desiring, we can enter the world we always knew was there, and watch ours physical world morph around it.
One of the unique aspects of the Medicine, is that it can expedite this process, purging the body of these low frequencies so we can get back to our true selves. As things purge, new levels of clarity and our true spirit is left in its place.
With each new level of clarity, another layer of wisdom resides. This process moves our minds out from under over-stimulation of the intellect, and into balance to receive Universal teachings.
Preparing the Body to Support Global Change?
As outlined in yogic tradition, the body must be prepared in a process to handle high levels of light, otherwise the energetic nerves would fry.
From what I understand (but not from personal experience) yogic tradition can also accomplish this same task, though it takes decades of intense discipline and study, and frankly most of the dark entities that plague the West will stop people before they start (based on logistics, time constraints, money, doubt, addictions, etc.)
This is theoretically a potential reason as to the Medicine has begun to bridge itself to the West...because we need help. Not everyone is prepared to accept this help (or is even a right energetic match for this path), but for those who are drawn, truly want to know and are willing to do the work, it has become available to them.
Out of those drawn to the Medicine path, some will be able to delve deeper into themselves, therefore understanding the world around them more clearly, and eventually be able to relax into our natural state of alignment with the true self, moving us into a space where we can used what we've learned to support others in their own evolution, leading to potential powerful positive change in the world.
Recognizing and breaking down the walls of ego, or releasing some of the beliefs keeping us trapped, or simply enduring the potential physical challenges of the purging process, this work is not for the faint of heart.
Some will slide back under the Western consciousness, full of fear and doubt, associating Ayahuasca with hallucinogenic drugs and witchdoctors. Done under the right circumstances, (where the integrity of those running the ceremony and the Medicine are where the need to be) Ayahuasca has been called the anti-drug.
The Medicine is renowned for releasing of addiction energy, applied wherever it applied, including drugs and alcohol. But it takes some serious willingness to look at our shit, and make changes.
Accelerated Spiritual Process in Times of Crisis
What is Ayahuascsa? For those who feel called, this may be the most efficient option we have available during our times. The pace is not right for everyone. But when the spiritually-matching person is willing to do the work, the potential is limitless.
The purge is what makes the Ayahuasca unique, inherently speeding up the process. It physically pushes the energy of things things out through the body. Learning about spirituality alone can't release these things.
Imagine those moments where something ready to heal viscerally shifts, a huge cry comes out, and a new level of clarity presents. It's those all the time.
Sometimes the purges can be challenging, make no mistake. Often (but not always) the person feels the energy or emotion as it is leaving the body.
Purging fear = extremely scary.
Purging doubt = thinking all these shamans are out of their minds and this is some kind of cult.
Purging ego = getting triggered by the guy with the bigger ego during the day of the ceremony.
Purging overactive mind chatter = exhausting thought spirals.
Physical purges (vomit, diarrhea, gas, hot/cold temperatures, yawning, sweating, vibrating/shaking, crying, abnormal breathing, fidgeting) are all catalysts that the dark energy attaches to (either the physical liquid, gas or breath) to get out.
It is the much more efficient than energy work alone (though most people feel extreme energies as well). Not only do challenging purges move out heavy energy fast, they train the body and mind to be able to endure the physical world.
The Big Picture Process
The big picture keeps stretching, allowing person's world to look more manageable. The body is strengthened, allowing for higher tolerance levels for life in general. And the dark energies are purged, giving the person a cleaner slate.
As the process works outside of ceremony, the body will present the most debilitating issue in our world that we are physically ready to purge, and continue in that order.
For some, they will need to see the light at the end of the tunnel before they even start. They may have a couple of amazing ceremonies before the purge begins.
Others won't feel the effects for several ceremonies, while the Medicine works to break through their walls.
Others will get their egos handed to them in full-on boot camp style (like with me!)
Others get the nurturing mother they always wanted.
Most get a combination of all of these, depending on what they need at the time.
Trapped emotional bubbles can be purged in one ceremony, but for more ingrained belief systems and, they tend to happen layer by layer. As mentioned before, the body can only handle so much stretching to new light levels in one night (and once the purge is out, the body moves closer to its natural state: happy, healthy, humble, wise, and bright.)
Epiphanies of Clarity
Once the purge is complete, often we are left with more clarity and access to wisdom, and can dig deeply in to the arenas of the subconscious that are not readily accessible to us during the day.
Having clear eyes on many problem can stretch the picture so big that we simply see it differently, and it disappears. It also increases our knowledge of the strength of our line in to our true selves/the Divine to keep check of our integrity and guidance.
Growing Strength and Divine Power
Naturally, as a person takes in the plant Medicine, the energy of the Medicine becomes part of the physical body to stay. Therefore the longer a person pursues the Ayahuasca path, the more Medicine they have in their body.
This Medicine can be used to channel, learn divination, heal, see, etc, all without the need to physically be in ceremony. Many have reported and increase in psychic and healing abilities the more Medicine they have. Divine wisdom is not something that needs only to be accessed during ceremony hours.
There are Always More Levels
Which brings me to the next point: understanding. The levels of Divine wisdom and understanding are simply beyond words. Often people have to stop reading books while in apprenticeship because they find it is tainting their direct learning. These may later become some of the people writing the books.
Sometimes the wisdom is clear and given, other times it is simply there when you need it (or we learn it for the first time as it's coming out of us from Higher Self.) Having access to these kinds of answers makes us relax into the flow of the path. It all comes clear in its due time.
Patience is the first rule of apprenticeship, while being prepared to hold on tight for the lightening-fast ride.
One of the Keys to the Doorway of Reality
So what is Ayahuasca? It is one of the keys to the doorway to the real reality. For people who want to walk the integrated balance between the physical and the spiritual worlds, enjoying and appreciating who they truly are, without judgment, without fear.
For those of us who want to experience life's full gamut, and are ready, willing, and able to accept the challenge.
We know who we are. And if we don't, but want to be, we just have set our sites on preparing ourselves to get to the doorway, and pay attention.
There is a physical world right here that is very different than we think, and it may be everything we ever thought it could be.
Whatever the challenges, for me anyway, it was so worth it.
