The Mystery of Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is a mystery. It opens the doors to the mysteries. Ask anyone who has been drinking for many years, and they will tell you that when you think you have it figured out, that is when you better watch out.
We can predict our environment, our compañeros, our training, the dosage; however, we are continuously unfolding that mystery. It is an active mysticism, an applied contemplation; it is a participatory presence, it is a living mystery school. Rather than define it, contain it, or control it, the thing to do is surrender to it. In the mystery, one leaves behind the known.
Ayahuasca reveals itself to us like a mirror. If you let go of the internal stances you hold, you too become like a mirror. When two mirrors meet, there is no one there. I once asked the Great Mystery to reveal itself to me and it held a mirror to me and said, “You are the Great Mystery, indeed.” And isn’t it true? This very stark and salient life that is appearing right before us, underneath us, inside of and as us. To see the mystery, we need not look anywhere particular, for eyes opened and eyes closed it is right here. To meet the mystery, we need only meet our own mind directly in all its majesty.
In meeting the mind directly, what is latent becomes salient. If we are afraid, there is fear; if we are compassionate, there is compassion; if we are twisted, it tightens us; if we are open, it opens us. When you give yourself over to this mystery, you relinquish knowing how it can be or where it comes from. You see it as it is: the heart essence that surrounds everything. That is your being. The mystery of your being is the Mystery of Being.
You can only know your being by being. That is pure awareness. Strip this medicine down to its essence and it is the medicine of presence: the primordial presence that reveals, the primordial presence that heals, the primordial presence that calls one to correct themselves.
If you carry presence in your mirror, then whatever arises and whatever appears, you are there for it, you are present. If you begin with fear, cowering under the covers of your prayers, then you set yourself up to be trampled.
This is where we have to understand that drinking this medicine, as with all spiritual pursuits, is not without its perils. If I were to say to you that all you have to do is trust and surrender, I would do you a disservice. One must know what that presence is to them, where it lives, how to find it, and how to call it. One must know what they are surrendering too and trusting in. It is what I call finding the ground.
To find the ground, you have to know where you stand. To know where you stand is to take the ancient road that all of the mystics and sages before us have walked. To drink consciousness is to be nourished by self knowledge.
