At the center they had a testimonial book that had recently been started. Two out of the five testimonials that had been written so far described that the person had come to take ayahuasca to have some type of spiritual awakening, but they found healing instead. For me, things happened the complete opposite. I came down to the Amazon seeking only healing, and I received a spiritual awakening.

I remember the ceremony when it happened well, it was my first time drinking ayahuasca in over a month as my dieta with Manchinga had closed and the Shaman decided I was physically strong enough now to take ayahuasca. I was over half-way into my stay and getting a bit frustrated with the lack of progress I had made with my intention, I felt at times I was only getting worse. As I sat down in ceremony I decided I was going to focus completely on my intention no matter what happened, even if I was vomiting, shitting my pants, or frothing at the mouth, I was determined not to let my thoughts stray from my intention the whole night.

When it was my turn to go up the the Shaman to drink, I determinedly marched over and without my usual hesitation, gulped the cup down immediately as it was handed to me. For once the brew actually tasted palatable, tasting almost like molasses. I returned to my mat, firmly placing my ass, determined to sit upright for the entire ceremony. I placed the rocks that the Shaman had given me previously beside me within arms reach, and focused on my intention to be healed as I waited for the effects of the ayahuasca to come on.

The effects came on like many of my prior ceremonies, with strong feelings of naseua but no vomiting. I remember thinking, how is this healing me, and for the first time in all of my ayahuasca ceremonies I actually heard the voice of another consciousness than my own replying and it said that I was asking the wrong question. As the ceremony progressed I continued to hold onto my intention, repeating it over and over in my head like a mantra. I could feel something was happening within my brain, though it was at a level beyond the part of my brain focused on my intention, my consciousness had two parts. The part of my consciousness focused on my intention seemed small and incapable, almost like a child compared to this other part. I could sense the presence of the consciousness of ayahuasca as well, it and my larger consciousness were working on something, something that was beyond my linguistic comprehension.

I’m not sure how long this went on for, but all of a sudden I had the feeling that my higher consciousness had just passed some sort of test, a really important test. I was transported to a file room where this important test I had just passed was stored, the file cabinent was massive and only two previous passed tests from this lifetime were there, and I had remembered that I had accessed this room before though at the time was not able to remember it once I left. After this I saw our infinite universe, as well as the infinite number of universes out there. Within the universe I saw everything, and understood everything at the same time. I knew that everything that had happened, was happening, and was going to happen in my life and the collective population was absolutely perfect.

This understanding of life and the universe was so simple and perfect it was laughable. So simple yet impossible to describe as the human vocabulary lacks the words to do so. It’s like trying to explain sight to a blind person or sound to a deaf person. We can describe it using words for lifetimes, and still the person will not fully understand what it is. But having only a moment of experience and they will go, ooooohhhhh that’s sight! Or that’s sound! Then only after experiencing it, will all the descriptions we used finally make sense. The instant I had this experience I knew it was a profound moment in my life, though it would not be until a couple months later in India that I would learn that this state of knowledge that couldn’t be explained or taught, only understood through experiencing it was well documented in yogic philosophy and was called samadhi, though was a state rarely reached even by those who meditated religiously, and required what they described as divine grace, or more simply plain luck.

I could try to describe this state of understanding for paragraphs upon paragraphs, and those reading this will still not have a 1% idea of what experiencing that state is like and why it is so profound. Simply, my perception of everything was completely changed in that instant, even though nothing in my healing situation or in the world had changed, I just understood that everything was and will be exactly as it needs to be, and it is completely my choice to perceive situations as positive or negative. There is an old Buddhist saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water,” which very accurately described the experience. Many people are waiting for their situation to change thinking that then they will be happy and fulfilled, but the universal truth is that you will experience happiness, sadness, anger, joy, etc. throughout life, and being able experience every one of these emotions is a blessing. They are there for us to learn from, not to try to avoid or deny.

After having this profound ceremony, some might think that the rest of my time at the center would be full of flowers, butterflies, rainbows, unicorns, and all fun and enjoyable things and my healing would be complete. It was not, but now I knew that everything that was happening was perfect. It’s one thing to reach this state of universal knowledge, but it’s another thing to be able to use any of that knowledge productively in life, and I knew I faced never ending self work, healing, and learning to be able to do so. I no longer saw my experiences as something just to suffer through to reach my end goal of being healed, but could now see how each experience good or bad was an important opportunity to learn and grow from. Many people put all the importance on reaching an end goal, meanwhile not being present in the process and learning from the experience. These experiences are crucial to reaching that end goal, and if we don’t learn from them ultimately we won’t have the tools to reach our goal. As Steve Jobs said, things aren’t meant to make sense looking forward, but one day looking back all the dots will connect. He had no idea that taking a calligraphy class in college would provide a baseline for Apple’s text design, but  he learned the most he could from the experience while he was doing it regardless of any end goal. Ayahuasca would challenge me right until my last ceremony at the center, with nausea, vomiting, and tears right till the bitter end. Though I couldn’t make sense of how this process helped me towards my healing intention, I knew that the experience somehow, someday would make sense and it was an important process to go through.