When you reach the top of the mountain, you keep going. The path keeps unfolding—it is the path that never began, the path that has no end. Enlightenment—so what? The world still turns.

Ayahuasca does not bring enlightenment. If this assumption were true, many people who drink medicine would be liberated. They are not. Real enlightenment is free of seeking—it is the inward turning to realise that which does not turn, to see that which can not be seen.

Some people are constantly looking for answers, and they’ll find all sorts of ways to locate and justify them. But even when you “receive” something, it’s not like the entire universe is speaking to you through this one particular thing. Everything is mixed and blended with our personality, our own biases, afflictions, beliefs, experiences, upbringing, conditioning, and all of that.

Some come to the medicine with a list of demands, hoping to gain or improve—but what if there is no separate self to perfect? The path of realisation is not self-enhancement, but seeing through the illusion of self altogether. It begins by relaxing the tightness of identification and listening deeply to what presence reveals.

The first lesson in both spiritist and shamanic schools is discernment. Discernment is the sentinel that guards the door—it is the art of discrimination that allows us to distinguish this from that, truth from falsity, and light from darkness. Without it, one may be overcome by forces they do not yet understand.

Don’t just seek knowledge; look to know the unknown. Become intimate with the ineffable, make love to the mystery. This is where the teaching comes from—and when the student is ready, the teacher will appear everywhere and in everything.

When we look at the human tradition, we want to see spirituality as an indivisible whole and find an inherent and universal mysticism as the underlying movement of all the great religious leaders—whatever path they followed, whatever path they carved, whichever direction they led. And we want to appreciate the perennial, self-propagating wisdom that continues to sprout through pastures, forests, deserts, mountains, and cities all over the globe.

No belief is true, for truth is not a belief. This is why I say that no belief is true, because truth is what is left when all your beliefs are through.

At the end of the day, the book will close on the stories. At the end of the day, we won't take any of our belongings with us. And so, while most of the world looks outside for their happiness, for their salvation, for their peace, the right questions turn us around to say that there's only one place that we can look and that is in the direction of where the looking is coming from.

How can you “study” without “seeking”? How can you want to learn something, while also embracing the Great Mystery?

To know something is a great arrogance. To be in a relationship and say, “I know this person,” is a profound limitation. Where is the space for that person to grow? Where is their freedom to change? Everything changes. Everyone changes. To truly love someone is to be awed by their mystery and open to their evolution. Thinking you know someone is a prison.

When we think we know something, we reduce it to a little box—a theory, an idea that makes us feel comfortable. We forsake the mystery for a false sense of security. However, when we don’t know, we remove the box, the walls, and the limitations. It becomes illimitable, free from concepts and free from our tendency toward complacency—our laziness that tries to place the numinous in a knowable box.