Thanks to the D.A.R.E. program indoctrination during my youth, for most of my adult life I remained convinced that psychedelics were dangerous drugs that made people hallucinate and become paranoid schizophrenics.

When I learned what psychedelics really were, I told myself, “I don’t need an external substance to experience the true nature of God and the Universe. I can do it naturally with breathing exercises and yoga!”

I realized I was wrong when I actually experienced DMT and Psilocybin mushrooms. There’s no way I was going to create that level of experience with pranayama or even the most complex asana.

The Ayahuasca ceremonies I participated in transformed the core of my being, and revealed that there are no external substances, and waking life is the true hallucination. I’ll get to that later. For now, I’ll dive straight into the experience.

I participated in two Ayahuasca ceremonies, and although it was in the US it was guided by an authentic shaman and his apprentice. It was one of the most beautiful, healing, and enriching experiences of my life.

I’ll be editing this post for clarity, consider this a rough draft for now 🙂

Entering The Sacred Space
With No Expectations

As I entered into the sacred space where the ceremony would be held, I had no idea what to expect. Despite having conducted a decade of research on the medicine and having experience with psilocybin, I had been told by many people that experiencing Ayahuasca is incomparable to everything else and you really have to experience it to know what it’s like. At the time I couldn’t see how that was possible. The effects people described seemed to be the same. Now I know better.

As I was introduced to the host, I felt an immediate recognition, as if I had known her for many lifetimes. I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out where I knew her from. Walking into her house was like walking into a home I grew up in. I felt comfortable at that point, and was more curious than nervous.

I brought my sleeping bag and a warm blanket along with a pillow, and found a place to set up my space. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be spending the next 10 hours on the floor with about 30 people, but I knew it was for the best. My sleeping bag provided a little more padding than I thought it would. And being next to friends helped immensely. It was after 9pm so it was extremely dark and I was getting sleepy.

The shaman, carrying a loving, quiet energy, sat in the back of the room with his apprentice and prepared us for the journey we were about to embark on. In Spanish, he explained what the medicine does and how to set our intentions prior to drinking it.

When the explanation was complete, we were given the option of receiving rapé – a traditional shamanic medicine made of pulverized plants and various tobaccos. Kneeling before someone else, the rapé is blown up one nostril and deeply inhaled. I chose not to participate in this aspect of the ceremony.

Once people were done receiving the rapé it was time for the ceremony to begin.

The journey begins

The lights were turned out and candles were lit. Sacred tobacco and palo santo were burned as we all sat quietly in our own spaces. And one by one, each person walked to the back of the room and knelt on a small pillow, as the shaman measured the medicine into a small glass. He poured a half dose for those of us who were experiencing the medicine for the first time.

After silently setting intentions holding the small vessel of medicine, each person said, “por la vida!” (Translation: “To Life!”) To which the rest of us echoed, “por la vida!” Then they drank and returned to their seat.

When it was my turn, I took a deep breath and knelt on the small, square pillow. Just being in the shaman’s presence flooded my body with a sense of peace and tranquility. He poured the medicine into the small glass and handed it to me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and contemplated my intention: “I want to experience Christ/Shiva Consciousness.”

Down the hatch

From what I had read, the medicine was supposed to taste incredibly foul and intolerable. However, I only experienced mild displeasure at the taste. The medicine was bitter and thick, but not too bad. It definitely had a distinct taste, though. Nothing I’ve ever tasted is remotely comparable to the flavor of Ayahuasca.

I walked back to my sleeping bag and sat up against the wall while the rest of the group took turns receiving their medicine. We sat in silence for about a half hour. Soon, the shaman and his apprentice began to whistle and shake some bundled leaves in a deeply familiar, sacred rhythm. I felt like I was being prepped for a journey into unknown territory. A few minutes later they began playing beautiful ceremonial songs (traditionally called Icaros) on their guitars, singing melodies with soothing voices.

Almost immediately when the music began, as if on queue, the people who took the medicine first began to purge (vomit). I took that as a cue to make sure my purge bucket was in my hands.

Purging is not “vomiting”

At first glance, the vomiting that occurs during an Ayahuasca ceremony seems terrible. It’s an aspect of the ceremony that keeps many people from participating. Some people feel guilt or shame around vomiting in front of others, or vomiting at all. But that’s primarily a Western perspective. In many cultures, vomiting is as normal as those liver and colon cleanses we love in the West.

Purging during an Ayahuasca ceremony is not the same as vomiting from an illness. It doesn’t feel the same at all. As strange as it sounds, it’s comforting, freeing, and a huge release. You can literally feel your body expelling traumas that were trapped inside of your body.

Some people don’t purge by vomiting and purge in other ways through sweat or tears. Some people don’t vomit at all, and based on the people I’ve met who don’t vomit, it seems like those people are more “clear” of traumas. That doesn’t mean they don’t have work to do. If I had to guess (and this is just a guess), vomiting seems to be the body’s way of releasing traumas that have somehow fused into the physical body, and it’s as if the medicine dissolves these traumas and it all has to come out somehow… it may be too much to release energetically since the nervous system may not be able to handle re-experiencing that trauma. Perhaps vomiting is a way of bypassing the re-experiencing of traumas. Those who don’t vomit are likely purging energetically. (Again, I’m just guessing).

After what seemed like a long time, I closed my eyes and I saw the space in front of my eyes vibrate in rhythm to the guitar chords being played. Then I saw an ultraviolet blue eye. The eyelid opened, revealing a pupil and I knew that meant the medicine was opening my third eye. And sure enough as I felt my third eye opening, I saw through it but have no memory of what it was I saw.

That was the only visual I had during this ceremony. While many people have grand visions, I didn’t. Not even after taking additional doses as we were called up. I wasn’t interested in a visual experience, and I intentionally wore a blindfold for most of the ceremony so I wouldn’t be distracted by my physical eyes.

At that point I was lying down, warm under my blanket, when more people started purging. I was wondering if I would ever purge. Then, as if she heard me, the medicine made it known to me that she was in my body and fully aware of me. This wasn’t just some random substance making its way through my blood stream. This was pure consciousness interacting with me telepathically. She was on a mission to release stuck traumas and restore love. And she was willing to do it as intensely as I would allow.

She was very slowly and gently working her way up through the energy centers in my body. She was being extremely gentle with me, and carried with her the intelligence of the entire cosmos.

Not too long after that I felt my entire body become chilled to the bone. I was shivering, and clearly my body temperature had dropped significantly. This is also normal to experience.

I felt the intelligence of the medicine as she moved through me. She explored each energy center with intelligence that I was fully aware of. If she went too fast, she slowed down. The more I let go, the faster she moved.

The “Seven Seals of Solomon”
Are Frequency Filters

Before I describe my experience further, I want to share an important point about energy centers as I’ve come to understand them through various experiences.

The human body is essentially a liquid crystal prism, projecting The One pure frequency through through 7 main energy centers most people call chakras. Each energy center has a filter called a “seal” that distorts the original frequency into a lower frequency. These seals are known as the 7 Seals of Solomon. Like a prism splitting light, our bodies project these filtered frequencies “onto the world” and we, in our human bodies, experience what we project in 3D. 

Life is a reflection because it’s a projection and our physical body is the projector.

Each seal collects the energetic imprints of our traumas related to each energy center. When a filter is cleared, the experience of life is no longer filtered by that center’s associated traumas.

The collective traumas in each of our centers are dissolved layer by layer as kundalini energy rises in the body. Kundalini doesn’t just “rise” – it has a purpose, and it’s always clearing trauma. Ayahuasca clears those traumas rapidly, bringing them to the surface and purging them from the body both emotionally and physically.

Experiencing ayahuasca feels like pure kundalini at full opacity and power… it feels like ayahuasca activates kundalini at it’s full potential without being filtered to a lower intensity… like the medicine removes some kind of filter that normally tones down the way we experience kundalini, even during the most intense kundalini experiences. In other words, I don’t think ayahuasca is the substance that moves through the nervous system – I think ayahuasca is the substance that frees kundalini to move through the nervous system unrestricted and unfiltered on full blast.

How We Experience Life
Is Based On How We
Filter The Frequency Of God

Clearing the centers of their collected traumas allows the pure frequency of God to pour through all of the body’s energy centers. When all seven centers are clear, the result is the experience of what is called, “Christ Consciousness.” To be in this world but not of it; to see the barren field and instead of saying, “we must plant,” to look again and behold the harvest.

Madre Ayahuasca – The Purge

A while into the ceremony I felt her move through my first two centers effortlessly. When she encountered my third center – the solar plexus – I felt slightly nauseous, which was actually a relief.

This was not the usual nausea that comes with being sick. This was lighter in nature. Not gut-wrenching pain. Just very prominent and deep, yet quick. The nausea was uncomfortable yet at the same time familiar.

The nausea intensified and I felt kundalini shoot straight up into the third eye where it anchored itself firmly. I felt something trickle slowly back down to the throat center, where it did some serious clearing. I found it intriguing that kundalini anchors itself one center above where it wants to do the work.

I’m used to the feeling of kundalini rising in this body so I know the feeling well. But this was beyond what I had ever experienced on my own. And when the kundalini anchored in the third eye, I felt it spiral energy down into my throat center that turned into an intense cleanse, flushing energy out the bottoms of my feet, while source energy was pouring into my crown from the Void.

As I was lying there I was still very much aware of my surroundings and people and what was going on but I was detached from the experience. It felt like pure observation, not as an individual with a personality but as an objective observer. I was observing with something that was not my identity. I could see people standing and moving and making noises but I, as my personality, was not there. I had no thoughts, no opinions, no questions, and no ideas. My whole existence as I knew it was silent.

I kept my blindfold on as much as possible. Occasionally I would remove it to use the bathroom, or when I felt the need to look at my surroundings which was rare. I was intentionally limiting the external stimuli and maintaining my focus inward on the experience.

I experienced being breathed

Toward the middle part of the ceremony, I experienced the familiar sensation of kundalini filling my head. The only difference was the intensity of the experience.

I knew that level of clear focus was an opportunity for me to create something effortlessly, so I sat up, took a deep breath, and focused on what I wanted to create. Half a song later I realized I was still holding my breath and had been focusing with laser sharp unwavering attention, but didn’t feel like I was holding my breath. I put my attention on the kundalini and noticed it was surging through the body in a circular pattern that moved in every direction at once. My lungs were not being used to supply oxygen throughout the body. It was being sustained purely by kundalini.

The energy in my head intensified the longer I held my breath. It surged and swirled, gaining an increased tangible electric charge that sent tingles throughout my whole body. What I focused on manifested rapidly, as I knew it would. I retained my breath for a little more than one full song.

Some might say that was not a real experience, and that it was just the medicine that made me believe I was holding my breath for so long. This is not so. Although I can’t do it consistently all the time, I’ve been able to hold my breath indefinitely (5+ minutes), feeling breathed from the inside out in exactly the same manner, while doing breathwork. For someone with breathing difficulties from lungs that didn’t develop properly, that’s a profound experience.

I’ve also experienced not needing to eat food for long periods of time. I’m not a “breatharian,” but not needing to eat is a real thing.

You get what you ask for

Everyone says you should be careful what you ask for when setting your intentions with the medicine because you will get it. I was gifted the experience of my intention. (Christ Consciousness). I had no grand visions, and was not transported to another dimension. I didn’t meet any beings or become an animal. I experienced Christ Consciousness. I was in this world, but not of it. I remained fully present in this world while the medicine did her work. And I experienced some powerful shaktis both during and after the ceremony. I’ll describe these soon.

After a few hours of cleansing in the solar plexus, I felt kundalini shoot up to my heart center and open into the familiar feeling of bursting at the seams with joy and unconditional love for all that is, was and ever will be. This is a hard feeling to explain in words because there is no physical equivalent to this feeling. I’ve had bursts of this experience, but this was more intense than anything I had ever felt.

I then felt the energy rise to the throat center, which is where it remained for the rest of the ceremony. All the while it was anchored in the throat, it was doing some heavy work in the heart center. At this point I purged pretty hard. I had observed other people struggling, and at this point I experienced my own struggle. I remember feeling horrible and at that exact moment I opened my eyes and the shaman was standing in front of me, blowing tobacco smoke in my face and rose water over my head to ground me. I was instantly relieved.

Although I was observing what was happening inside of my body, I had no thoughts about it, and was just allowing it to happen. In fact, during the entire ceremony I had no conversational thoughts, fears, or concerns. I was completely clear. I spent roughly five hours focusing on a drawing I wanted to manifest and I saw it as clearly as if I were staring at it in 3D. My attention didn’t waver for a moment. Of course, a week later, it manifested. But the power of ayahuasca isn’t about manifesting.

Ayahuasca works in waves

Ayahuasca works in waves and it’s hard to imagine what that’s like until you experience it. There are distinct segments to her work, and these segments are guided by the Icaros played by the shaman. Although all of the music is enchanting, each “segment” of experience is accompanied by music that evokes a specific feeling. For example, a immediately prior to the purging segment, the music evokes a serious, intentional feeling. And, prior to the bliss/euphoria segment, the music becomes lighthearted, open, and free.

Some songs traditionally played during a ceremony:
Madre Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca Ayni, and variations like this.

About the segments, or “waves.” During the first segment, the energy centers are opened, the body temperature drops, and there’s a slight descent into emotional and physical darkness. This experience is driven by intense tribal drumming.

Kundalini rises from the base of the spine to its intended destination, which is a different center for everyone, and goes to work clearing traumas. During this phase, experiences occur like seeing geometrical shapes or vibrations, colors, and synesthesia. Once this begins to occur you know you’re under her love and care.

Next, there’s a purge, a period of bliss/euphoria, and finally, a period of rest before the cycle begins again. Everyone experiences these segments at roughly the same time, and the segments repeat throughout the entire ceremony.

These cycles are guided by Icaros. These enchanting songs are like the pied piper, guiding the medicine on her journey. The music provides an anchor back to the physical world so you don’t get lost in the experience. If you experience fear, focus on the music and you’ll be okay.

There was a moment during my second ceremony when I was about to be annihilated and darkness started closing in on me from all directions and I was speeding toward a light that was getting larger in the middle the faster I moved. My head was spinning. I saw a vortex in front of me and I felt like I was spinning in every direction at once. She knew it was too intense, and she backed off.

This was profound because it was another familiar experience. I have seen that vortex and spirals during deep focus. I’ve left this time and space through creating that spinning sensation, which seems to be what people call “activating the merkaba” for lack of a better description. I just close my eyes, breathe a certain way, and engage energetic senses in a kind of convulsion that propels the light body to spin faster, and soon I’m gone. But the experience I had in the ceremony? It was beyond what I had ever experienced on my own.

I was transported to the Amazon

In the early portion of one ceremony, while blindfolded, I noticed jungle sounds closing in on me from the corner of the room behind me. I heard animals and plants and somehow knew it was the Amazon.

I heard at least four shamans shaking leaves and chanting and dancing in front of me. I saw their outlines with my inner sight. I also heard Icaros in the background. I became curious and wondered if my shaman had danced his way down to my spot, so I peeked out from my blindfold and he was all the way across the room playing his guitar. The experience of the Amazon vanished.

There is nobody else

During a period of rest, I wondered how it was possible for all 30 people in the room to follow the same waves I was experiencing, and I became acutely aware that the entire ceremony was actually just for me and that I was the whole ceremony and everyone in the room. Of course the music and everyone else would follow my experience, the concept of “everything else” is illusion.

I realized that it’s not that everyone else is experiencing the same waves as I am, it’s all my journey and they’re the background of this incarnation’s individual experience of consciousness. There’s nobody else out there. I am alone in this world. Yet not really alone because I’m everything, and that actually cancels out the idea of being alone because you can’t be alone unless you’re separate, which I knew I wasn’t, so… yeah.

The ceremony came to a close

Logic would tell you that being in a room for 10 hours with 30 people and only two bathrooms wouldn’t work out, but somehow, it did.

The time had passed so fast that by the end of the ceremony I didn’t realize it had been 10 hours. It felt like three. When I took off my blindfold, I was seeing what I thought were trails of energy when people were walking, but I realized it wasn’t really trailing. I was seeing the individual movie frames of life, as I was coming back into the dense physical consciousness. Because there is no movement, not really. Just frames of NOW moments, strung together that create the illusion of movement. It was all so clear.

In reality, nothing actually “moves” through space. There is no movement at all. Movement is only an appearance born from space, time and distance. And time is just a measurement of multiple subtle changes in state. Exactly like a motion picture is comprised of multiple still images captured on film.

We live in a world that essentially functions as a flip-book, and our conscious awareness moves from one frame to the next, and there is absolutely no movement at all. Movement is pure illusion. There are only individual frames that pass through our awareness. The implications of this are HUGE. I’ll save that for another article.

Seeing while blindfolded

Perhaps the coolest experience happened after the ceremony, when I got in the car for the ride home and I was able to see with my eyes closed, in infrared. Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving! I wasn’t surprised at seeing through my blindfold. I had experienced seeing with my eyes closed multiple times before, but never in infrared.

If I stared at a solid colored wall, random numbers and words would appear. They were only random until I realized they weren’t.

Vibration isn’t the true
nature of all that is

If something vibrates, it’s an illusion. Stillness is the Void is the truth. That’s all.

I once thought vibration is the ultimate state of reality, but now I’ve come to realize that if it vibrates, it’s not real (and all sense perceptions are of vibration – sound, taste, touch, smell and sight are all interpretations of vibration). This isn’t to say that what we sense is not meaningful. It just means that you must lose your Self in order to experience ultimate reality or truth. “You” can never experience reality as it is, because as long as there is a “you” to experience it, you’re just interpreting vibration. For example, if there is a visual or sound present, your personality/identity is experiencing it, which means it’s not ultimate reality.

This is why it is said that you cannot see the face of God and live. It’s your identity that can’t survive. “You” can’t see the face of God and live because seeing the face of God requires the death of your Self.

Forgiveness for unconscious pain

At one point, I felt my heart center burst wide open and I felt intense love for both of my parents. I forgave my dad for everything I didn’t know I was holding against him. My parents divorced when I was four, and my dad died when I was nineteen. I didn’t grow up with him in my life much, and when he died I hadn’t seen him in seven years.

I saw that nothing in my life was their fault and I cried really hard. That was the only trauma I purged through tears. I was unaware that I was holding onto anger toward my dad. All of that released during the ceremony.

Insights and revelations

Through the two ceremonies I participated in, I understood that I will never experience the true nature of consciousness as a human being with an identity. A personality can never experience consciousness directly – it’s always experienced through the filter of identity.

The only way to experience it is to become it, which isn’t hard considering I AM that. It was more about allowing identities to drop away. With Aya, I was stripped naked.

During the ceremonies, I was shown the source of all that is, yet have no memory of it. I was given the understanding that this is because “I” cannot remember something “I” didn’t experience. My personality didn’t experience becoming the source. The experience was actually one of subtraction. My layers of identity were removed and suddenly I was what I’ve always been. Then, the layers were given back and I knew something happened, but didn’t know what.

What kind of movie
do you want to watch?

I had a revelation that stating your intention to the medicine prior to drinking is like answering the question, “what kind of movie would your personality like to watch while the energy is awakened in this body?” And I did not request a movie. I wanted to be present for the experience, and so I was.

I am certain that Ayahuasca is not the same type of psychedelic that psilocybin is. Once you consume psilocybin, you’re in for a ride you don’t get a break until it’s over. Psilocybin will not throttle its effects if you change your mind or can’t handle the intensity – Ayahuasca will. You can set intentions with psilocybin, but there’s no guarantee that’s what you’ll experience.

With Aya, you will experience what you request to experience, so specifically that you need to be careful what you ask for. And if your intentions are less than good, she will not have any effect on you. Some people have taken the medicine only to be told by her that they aren’t ready and so they don’t experience anything.

Another main difference between Aya and psilocybin is that while you’ve got psilocybin in your system, you aren’t really consciously aware of everything around you in terms of physical reality. With Aya, you are. You can always open your eyes and come back to the physical world. And if the experience is too intense, she knows, and she will back off.

There is an entirely different intelligence behind Ayahuasca that knows exactly what experience to give you, and if you’re not ready for her, or you’re drinking her for the wrong reasons, she won’t work on you. With psilocybin, it will give you an experience even if you have the most detrimental of intentions.

Never drink Ayahuasca
without a true shaman

Many people attempt to drink Ayahuasca without a shaman and proper ceremony, and I would never recommend that. The Icaros played by the shaman guides the medicine through the body like the pied piper. The shaman partakes as well, but has nothing to purge. Instead, the medicine gives him the ability to see what’s going on for everyone else so he can take care of people energetically.