The Medicine Told Me

Q: In ceremony it felt like the medicine “told me” things. What should I make of that? 

A lot of people come to me and say, “Well, the medicine told me this. The medicine told me to do that.” I want to first point out that it is very rare that you will ever hear leaders saying, “The medicine told me to do this. The Daime told me that…” It’s naive to think that the medicine is speaking in a proclaiming, all-knowing voice directly to you, especially when its message is quite biased and pertains merely to your own unexpressed desires.

We should not think or assume that we always know what is manifesting in us or through us. It’s important to have the confirmation of people around us whom we can trust. We must have discernment and ask: Are we receiving that? Or are we making it up?

No one sits down and says, “I’m going to receive a divine message tonight,” or, “I’m going to sit down and write a good medicine song.” When these things hit, they arrive out of nowhere.

But when people are attached to the narrative, “Ayahuasca told me to do this,” they really need to question it. Why is it telling you that? And why do you feel the need to tell others that it told you that big secret about what you need to do in your life? Because if it told us something really deeply, would we need to go and profess it? Why? If the movement is moving, let it move you, but go slow. If it is truly wise, it will bow your head and stop you in your tracks.

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 people are quick to want to speak through that and say they have it all figured out. But it’s very, very rare that the message is so clear and so direct. And when it is clear and direct, the people around you will recognise that without you having to justify it by saying the medicine told you so.

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On the flip side, some people come to me rather disappointed after a ceremony and say they didn’t get any messages. A lot of people think that they’ve come to receive some kind of message, and that creates a trajectory. They’re looking for something. That’s why I like to offer the metaphor, instead, that we’re walking a path. If you’re walking a path, you don’t look to every flower for some kind of confirmation that you’re walking. You just walk. You take each step along the way, and you keep going. If a flower pops out and gives you some great colour, then you say, “Wow!” You smell it and say, “Thank you.” Then you keep walking.

But people don’t always come to ceremony like they’re going on a walk. They come, sit down, and think, “Where’s the escalator? How do I get there quickly? How do I get the data, the codes, the big download? What’s the message? Was that flower speaking to me?” In this case, you’re stuck in a loop of the egoic mind. The work is to keep walking, one step at a time, slowly in a good direction, and not get caught in the attitude of searching.

When we come looking for a message, that’s a problem. It’s the same thing in ordinary life. If we come continually looking for something, we never find it. If we’re always a seeker, it’s difficult to become a finder. And if we’re always searching for something on the horizon, the horizon always stays at arm’s length. But if we come just to walk, the horizon is always there. If we come to appreciate it, its colours light us up. 

The horizon is always right where it should be, and it’s always beautiful. And if a message comes, amazing—we take note of it. We receive it. We revel in it. But if we’re always waiting for the next thing to come, when the thing comes, we don’t see it. If we’re always waiting for the next thing, when the flower is there, we don’t smell it. But if we’re walking and paying attention, if we’re present, then when the flower comes, we smell it. When the message comes, we receive it, but the road doesn’t stop, it continues.

Some people who are looking for messages don’t receive them because they’re always in a place of looking, rather than being in a place of receiving.

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The practice of inquiry and discernment is really, really important. Because if we are so ready to believe that we’re so high and mighty that the medicine taught us and confirmed all these things we believe and really want to be true, then whose horn are we actually blowing? How good is that, how true is that, and how real is that now? Who does it most benefit? Is that the thing we’re really looking for—just to have a confirmation of our own biases? It’s not always the way it works. And thank God reality doesn’t conform to please our ego.

Yet, people can receive profound things. I’m not necessarily saying it’s wrong to think that the medicine told you to do something. Rather, I’m encouraging you to look at that voice before saying it, and see if you can humble yourself and use I-statements instead. 

Instead of saying, “The medicine told me that this is that,” you could say, “I had an experience, and right now I think this, and I think that.” Some people might say the medicine told them to do something because they’re afraid to share their own statement, opinion, or realisation. 

And, sometimes it is even more precarious in the sense that the voice has selected them as a special someone. Like that hymn says: A verdade é muito simples todos nós somos iguais, mas também é verdade que somos especiais. The truth is very simple: we are all equal, but it is also true that we are special.

We all have a mission to fulfil and a message to receive. We are each instruments in this orchestra. We are each soldiers of love in the army. We are each flowers opening in the garden. We are on the path and our destination is made. We are in the battle and our victory is secured. If you want to receive the instruction, then it is best to take Mestre’s advice and “speak less and listen more”. 

True wisdom does not seek to confirm what we already believe. It humbles us, challenges us, and breaks us to see what was there all along.