AYAHUASCA, VINE OF THE SOUL?

Please note that none of the “medicinal” substances described in the article are or ever will be used at Five Immortals Temple.

The use of Ayahuasca and other medicinal hallucinogenic plants, such as magic mushrooms or Peyote, is becoming increasingly popular across the world. More and more positive propaganda is spreading in spiritual circles, and more and more people proclaim themselves shamans and administer those plants to people seeking a path. However, the real benefits, limits, threats and potential injuries caused by those medicines are rarely identified properly.

Originating from ancient shamanic cultures, in the past those plants used to be administered to people facing intense life-crisis and sometimes life-threatening situations, by shamans who were trained over decades in a traditional manner of apprenticeship, and were experts at navigating the natural world as well as the spiritual world. Those shamanic practices were inter-woven in the cultural environment of the person, who would then receive support and guidance from the community through the process of integrating the healing.

Plant medicines can be extremely powerful. In Chinese Medicine, it has been known for thousands of years that poisonous herbs like Arsenic or Datura could be used as potent medicines, if they were used in the right dosage, after being processed in the right way, if they were prescribed according to the proper diagnosis, and administered in the right circumstances. Such a level of mastery in the use of poisonous medicine was acquired through years, or even decades, of dedicated training under the guidance of a skilled and experienced teacher. What is the power of the medicine? How to prepare it properly? What results can be obtained? How to administer and what dosage should be used to obtain a specific result? To whom, and in which life circumstances should these medicines be prescribed, and to whom should they not? What are the limits and threats caused by these medicines if they are not handled properly? What are their potential harmful effects, and how to prevent them?

Psychoactive plants have been called “medicines for the soul” in alternative spiritual medias, and appear more and more as attractive solutions to help the spiritual seeker “open his third eye”, “unify with his higher self” or “communicate with the spirit world”. This trend refers to Ayahuasca, or other medicines, as spiritual teachers embodied in plants. In the case of Ayahuasca, upon ingestion, the medicine will often first have a strong detoxifying effect on the body, causing intense purgation through vomiting. As the body is being cleansed of accumulated toxins, the medicine will release specific chemical components into the body of the consumers, which will activate the nervous system and the brain in ways that are not commonly active for most people. The veils around material reality as we commonly know it in the third dimension thin out, to reveal the inner layers of reality in higher and higher frequencies of vibration, from the energy world, to the spirit world, to the causal world, all the way to the quantum world. As the body cleanses, emotional obstructions and karmic afflictions churn out of the cellular memory, surface to the consciousness of the consumer, and are worked out through the purging process. The entire being of the consumer can be blown open, and the sensitivity to subtle frequencies is greatly heightened, with a new capacity to perceive sound waves, energies, and even causal thought-forms. Profound insights on the value and sacredness of Life, on the inter-dependence of birth and death, and on the multidimensionality of the Cosmos unfold as the chemical components of the plants are released. In the most successful stories, the consumer is then able to return to third-dimensional reality having gone through a profound experience that holds a powerful potential of spiritual transformation, yet to be integrated into his or her daily life.

Now, these are the results that can be obtained, granted that all the requirements to prepare and administer the poisonous medicine are thoroughly mastered by a skilled and experienced shaman who knows exactly how to navigate the spirit world. All these conditions, if they are not met, leave a large space for mishaps.

Unfortunately, as those medicines are being propagated across the world, the proper requirements to administer them are often disregarded or neglected. More and more individuals learn how to brew medicines in a week-end, or even online, learn to play some spiritual songs with friends, proclaim themselves shamans and open medicine circles, without having a proper understanding of what they are doing. This current development is exposing more and more individuals to threats that are generally not even identified by the self-proclaimed shamans.

When the medicine is ingested and becomes active in the body of the consumer, his or her energy body will be blown open. As a result, the consumer will have access to new perceptions of the spirit world, and in some cases travel to other dimensions. The danger here is that, once open, the energy body of the consumer can be invaded or influenced by any external energy field, unless the shaman is experienced and skilled enough to see them and neutralize them (which most modern self-proclaimed shamans are not). It is the same as if you were going for a walk in the woods and left the door and the windows of your house wide-open: you might find someone else sitting on your couch and eating your food when you come back home. In most cases, you won’t even realize that someone is there in your living room when you come back, as the extrasensory perceptions will slowly diminish and disappear when the medicine stops being active. You may thus come back to a body that is occupied by other entities, whose frequency of vibration and intentions are unknown to you, but who certainly would not be there if they had their own body to live in or a high enough frequency of vibration to know better. The result is that the consumer, after having attended a ceremony, may live for weeks or months with a slight feeling that something is off, but will be unable to tell exactly what it is, in the midst of all the intense information and experiences to be processed. Until the physical body starts to weaken and wither, and the mind gets more and more unstable. As a matter of fact, it is harder to sustain yourself properly if someone else is constantly eating your food in your living room without having been invited. This type of situation may lead to long-term chronic illnesses that won’t be cured by the hospital or the psychiatric institutions, or even alternative natural medicine, until the person finds a proper shaman who may be able to handle this type of situation and drive the unwanted guests away. What remains for the person to rebuild is a chaotic and torn apart house, a physical body and a psyche in a weak and unstable condition.

In some cases, the consumer’s psyche is so radically altered by the effect of the medicine, that the consumer does not come back to his previous normal state for a long time, if ever. Propelled into a multidimensional state of consciousness, the consumer is unable to ground and return to third-dimensional reality, and is exposed to internal and external dangers. Internally, the psyche might become unstable to the point of collapsing under the intensity of the energy and information being processed, which will in turn greatly affect their physical condition. Externally, his or her inability to return to normality according to the requirements of society may expose them to being taken in charge by the psychiatric institutions, even though those would not be able to provide the appropriate care for the person to recover without further injuring them by administering drugs.

Another type of danger lies within the consciousness of the consumer, if he or she lacks a firm direction and upright principles of spiritual cultivation. When the medicine is active in the body of the consumer, he or she will experience a world beyond the common scope of perception. Psychic abilities that were in a potential state might activate, and the consumer may experience clairvoyance, clairaudience, healing powers, etc. The experiential standpoint of the person in this world may radically change, to the point the consumer may want to keep those abilities active at all time, which in most cases won’t happen naturally once the effect of the medicine stops. As a result, there may be an increased difficulty to live in the third-dimensional world, and a tendency to ingest the medicine again and again to return to this enhanced state of being, until an addictive habit is formed in the neural pathways of the brain. It is the same as if a child would enter alone in a toy store, unsupervised by an adult, and started playing with all the toys around. No child having entered a toy store is ready to come out of it on its own. Once an addictive habit is formed, even if a responsible adult goes into the toy store to take the child out, the child won’t listen, and will want to stay in the toy store no matter what.

In Daoism, psychic abilities are considered as by-products on the path of elevation, that naturally manifest once the practitioner has reached a certain level of cultivation. The ancient masters always urged the practitioner not to be attached to the by-products, not to be curious or scared, as they would then become a big distraction that would prevent the practitioner from progressing onward. It is the same as going to school, and staying forever in primary school, missing the chance to graduate to high school and then to university. It is the same as if you were traveling to Beijing, and entered a supermarket at the train station, and decided to stay in the supermarket because there is so much good food to eat : you would miss your train and never reach Beijing.

Furthermore, once the consumer has formed a habit of ingesting the medicine to return to enhanced states of consciousness, a type a psychological and physiological addiction will be formed, ultimately leaving a deep imprint in the cellular memory of the consumer that would later on become obstructions on his or her path of cultivation. What is the difference then with being a regular drug user? The medicine will be used to escape one’s reality and the challenges of daily life in the third dimension, under the illusion that one is progressing on one’s spiritual path. Relying on an external medicine means that the type of elevation experienced under the effect of the medicine is not truly the consumer’s elevation. It is exactly thinking that something is yours when it is only borrowed from someone else, and taking the false for the truth. It is exactly like having a dream that you are flying, and thinking that you can fly for real – when you wake up, you can’t.

In Daoism, the principles of self-cultivation are formulated as the dual cultivation of Xing, Innate Nature, and Ming, Life-Destiny.

Cultivating Xing, Innate Nature, entails the refinement of one’s moral integrity, their cultivation of Virtue. By facing daily life and its many challenges, the practitioners will seek to elevate their heart of compassion, great love, inclusivity and forgiveness. It is similar as grinding a hard stone into a sharp needle, it may take decades of tempering oneself in the red dust, until the heart has been purified of attachments and selfishness, until wisdom has opened and the human heart can become the heart of the Dao. This type of refinement of the self does not happen because of external causes, such as ingesting external medicines. It happens through a constant process of perseverant self-rectification in the face of life challenges, and of purification of one’s own accumulated karmic debt by performing meritorious deeds without seeking results or rewards.

Cultivating Ming, Life-Destiny, means first nourishing health and longevity as a stepping-stone toward the ultimate sublimation of the physical body. The fundamental principles of Daoist spiritual cultivation state that the higher medicine is to be found within the body of the practitioner: Jing, Qi and Shen (Essence, Qi, and Spirit) are the Three Treasures to be cultivated into the Higher Medicine, the Elixir (Dan). The process of cultivation entails maintaining one’s consciousness within the physical body at all times, rather than letting the Yin body, or formless body, go out to astral travel – which is the same as leaving your house unattended to go wander in the woods. It is called unifying Hun and Po to accumulate Yuan Qi. Over time the accumulation will naturally generate sublimation through the Path of the Elixir (Dan Dao). It is also called unifying the Yin body and the physical body, so as to generate the true Yang body. This Yang body is the exact result of your own cultivation of the High Medicine within your own body, and only this Yang body can be said to be truly yours. Only once the Yang body is obtained, can one be said to have grasped his or her Life, to have attained the freedom to order birth and death, coming and going at will. The psychic abilities will naturally be obtained then, and at that stage one can put them to use, as one would have a complete understanding of the Laws of the Universe, and of what should be done and what should not, in the benefit of all living beings.

Now, with some discernment, it does not mean that external medicines such as Ayahuasca are not of use in specific circumstances. When someone is suicidal, has terminal stage cancer, is affected by long-term depression and has lost all will to live, is collapsing under the economic pressure of society, or drowning into sorrow after the loss of a loved one, then those medicines can help. By opening the consciousness of the person to catch a glimpse of the multidimensionality of the Cosmos, the effect of the medicine would allow the patient to restore a sense of awe and wonder for Life, a capacity to let go of burdening attachments. The medicine should be taken only once, and under the careful supervision of a skilled and experienced shaman, who would know precisely how to administer the proper dosage and how to guide the patient through the process of healing. The patient’s intention should be clearly set on using the medicine so as to open his or her thoughts, heal and begin anew. A process of integration of the experience afterwards, and of engaging in changing one’s lifestyle is crucial to the success of the healing. Receiving a reliable and solid guidance through that process of integration is of utmost importance, as the patient will need to make sense of all the information received with clear discernment, so as to be able to use  it to establish a positive direction for his or her life and spiritual practice, and not fall into confusion or generate attachment to the external medicine.

As for the individuals who already have experienced the medicine repeatedly, we can only urge them to put it down and set for themselves an upright path of spiritual cultivation, from within, without relying on an external product, so as not to lose the precious time of their life in illusion, forever taking the false for the true.

Author: Loan Guylaine Tran (Cheng Feng)
For Five Immortals Temple, China
www.fiveimmortals.com