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Peak Experiences: Seeking Higher Consciousness with Ayahuasca

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 16:41

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(Before It's News)

By Silvia Polivoy Ph.D

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Why do thousands of people go every year to Brazil or Peru to experience ayahuasca?

Can this magical potion of the Amazon forest help you visit other dimensions? Or help you communicate with other forms of life?

Sound too fantastic to be true? Must be dangerous! Could it drive me crazy?

Seeking Higher Consciousness with Ayahuasca

The human being shows a remarkable disposition to seek spiritual transcendence. Our spiritual experiences are associated with the occurrence of modified states of consciousness.

Since the irrational cannot be erased from the human mind, the harder we try to deny it, the greater the power it will exert upon us. Yet the society we live in considers modified states of consciousness (as opposed to shamanic knowledge) to be onanistic and vicious.

Shamans argue that to satisfy our religious drive we have to experience the divine, and in order to achieve that, they use sacred plants. Abraham Maslow called these types of experiences, “peak experiences”. But they are not limited to the altered states achieved through drugs or sacred plants. They can take place during meditation, hyperventilation, the practice of yoga, hypnosis, fasting, physical suffering (such as the self-inflicted pain some saints underwent or the postures certain yogis kept for months, etc). In short, it is a state that can be reached in many ways and, once there, we can explore aspects of reality which are different from those perceived in an ordinary state of consciousness. These different aspects of reality are well studied.

Some psychoactive substances resemble (and sometimes are identical to) substances normally produced by the human brain like DMT active ingredient of the ayahuasca brew. Therefore, the individual has a built-in capacity to experiment psychedelic states, which are inherent to certain aspects of the human mind inaccessible during wakefulness mostly. So, under the appropriate circumstances, these substances allow the individual (for a limited period of time) to gain access to deeper parts of his psyche.

Transpersonal Psychology blends science with the study of the spiritual capabilities of man using methods to modify these states of consciousness, because the spiritual phenomena associated with them seem to be incomprehensible in an ordinary state of consciousness. A mental set and physical setting play an important role in the overall ayahuasca experience. It is vital to be in a safe environment and with experienced facilitator. The diet is essential because many foods and medicines are contraindicated with ayahuasca.