To read about my ayahuasca journeys #1 and #2, click HERE. To download the PDF of my entire ayahuasca post series (eight journeys, 20 pages) click here.
Note: This account is written in the wise, booming, authoritative voice of Mother Ayahuasca. I find it easier to share these intense experiences in this way, and I hope Aya will also reveal some of herself to you through my words.
Another Note: As you can probably tell by now, these are personal stories that are very close to my heart (it’s not always easy to hit that Publish button). So…I guess I what I want to say is thank you so much for your love and support. Connecting with people in this way is new to me, and it fills me with happiness.
You were scared. Before the ceremony even began your eyes welled up with fear and dread. You knew what was coming.
As I worked my way through your systems, you no longer purged dense liquid. Mostly air. Yawning, spitting, nose blowing.
Slowly, gradually, I revealed to you your most recent past life. It came through in choppy thoughts, not visions. Claircognizance.
You were a child in Africa. A small girl. Parents dead. AIDS. Little food. You sat outside, the heat of the sun on your back. (Your partner would later tell you that when he looked over at you from across the room, “you were burning.”) No one cared for you. No one came to save you. Helpless, hopeless. You died young. You kept shaking your head. No, no… You wept for the girl. For you.
You began to understand why you cried so much as a child. Each time you were placed in the bathtub when you were naughty, memories of your past life would emerge. Nobody cares about me. Nobody likes me. You would feel so sad for yourself. You would cry in the same uncontrollable way you cried in Africa.
You started to see why you feel so deeply for helpless people and animals in cages. So many thought-images flashed through your mind. The dogs who live under your apartment that barely see the light of day. The hog you saw in the countryside. The girl in the Chinese movie, The Sent Down Girl. The Holocaust. The World Wars.
At one point you attempted to summon up anger for the men in Africa that created the conditions for your painful and short-lived life. Their greed, their hatred, their hunger for power. But you knew you couldn’t really be mad at them…because they suffered too. What room for blame?
You cried and cried, for everyone. You witnessed your (formerly) subconscious belief that you should not feel good while others around you are suffering. You believe you have to take on their pain in some way.
Finally you declared to me that you had finished grieving. You asked to know what to do with the suffering of the world. Deep breath, and you drank down the second cup.
Your love click, click, clicked on the computer, and your shaman friend with the fan appeared on the screen. He was surrounded by a staticky, pixel-infused aura of light. You felt he was speaking directly to you in that moment, knowing exactly what you were experiencing. He began to whistle.
You saw the multi-colored blanket you lay on become soft, pillow-like waves. Each color was a wave, they were in motion. They were beautiful. You heard my message: There is beauty. You have to remember the beauty.
You stayed reclining on your side, captivated by the shaman, your savior, for what seemed like a long while, but in fact was only minutes. He sang to you: It is going to be ok. I know….. I know….. It is going to be ok. This is the way it is now. Yes. And then he disappeared.
Now came the pulsing energy of Gaia, her collective memories, her collective experiences, running like currents through your body. You began to writhe in a depth of pain unlike any you had experienced before. You felt like you were giving birth. Birthing the suffering of the Earth. Why? Why?
It’s ok to feel good. I’m allowed to feel good. Rainbows. Butterflies. Love. God.
You repeated these words like mantras, over and over. It was so hard for you to remember these things and bring their vibration into your being. What I was doing was magnifying the way you live your life: not fully appreciating the good things because you feel that you must take on the suffering of the world.
The processing went on for hours. At times you lost consciousness.
You awoke early the next morning, plagued by confusion, heart as heavy as lead. You grabbed your iPad and recorded your experience in vivid detail, trying to understand. Finally you looked up, frustrated, and begged the Universe to answer this question:
What was the medicine telling to do in spite of my past suffering and the suffering of the world?
You began to type out the answer. The words that flowed through you were wise and gentle. You had never thought much of angels before, but you knew that beings of light were speaking to you.
When your love woke up, you told him, “I think I channeled my angels.”
And this is part of what they shared with you:
It’s going to get better. There’s 2012 and 2013 remember? We’re not even going count human history before that. It’s going to get better. I promise. So help it get better.
Your gift is feeling the suffering of others. Try not to absorb the suffering of others. See, witness, honor, but don’t take it inside your body. That is compassion. In order to serve, you need to learn to rise above the pain and remember the wonderful things and beauty in life. You have to remind people of this.
There are people who are suffering who see beauty and goodness in you, and they like to listen to you. Choose to connect with those who like to listen to you. You are gentle with suffering souls. You know how to speak to them. Trust that. And be happy. In order to help others, you must. Smile.
Don’t be scared. You’re always scared. Now you know more about why. Plant the seeds. Live a good life.
We know it’s confusing. Just remember our words and know it’s going to get better. We love you. Keep going. Keep going. Trust. You have more fear than most.
Trust.
This is great. I came to similar conclusions about myself in the course of some holotropic breathwork sessions.
Really? Very cool. I don’t know much about holotropic breathwork, but I always hesitate to do breathing practices because there is something a bit abnormal about my breathing patterns, haven’t quite figured it out yet. I really appreciate your presence, Pavel!
And I appreciate your presence – in the world – the former makes the latter a more beautiful place.
There is one things I can’t fully understand: you write that your heightened sensitivity to the suffering of the world is due to the fact that you share responsibility for it. This is something that I’m trying to figure out about myself. How do you mean that? Do you mean that in your past life you perpetrated repression against the underpriviledged? Or is there another line of reasoning?
Thank you. 🙂
Are you especially referring to what I wrote in the Clowns and Sopranos post? That scene where all these sad and horrific things flashed through my mind and I knew that I was directly involved/responsible is really hard to explain in words…and I believe it’s not easy to access this particular insight unless you are in an altered state of consciousness (which doesn’t necessarily have to be induced through drugs or plants), because it is just so incredibly intricate, like a web. I feel that the matrix of connections that makes this true is too complex for the ordinary waking mind to fathom. I certainly can’t replicate that sense of knowing/seeing the connections right now as I type.
It’s not that I saw myself in different lifetimes doing these things but rather, I felt and knew in the deepest part of my being (I was shown) that I am intricately involved in everything that has happened here so long as I have walked the earth. We all are. Including the darkest moments in human history. I may very well have killed many people with my own hands. But even if not (truly doubtful), I am still not separate from it. It’s just an impossibility. I don’t know quite how to explain that in words, though.
For instance, the same truth holds now. I can’t condemn or judge (which I believe requires belief in “other”) any atrocity that happens in this time and place because we are all connected, literally. Energetically. We just can’t see it with our eyes right now. I think this is why you never hear truly awakened beings talk about darkness in a way that places it only within certain people, and not others. They only express love and acceptance. It’s like, to do anything else simply doesn’t make sense, given their understanding of our interconnectedness. To judge or hate others would be to judge or hate ourselves. I know this language and logic is so familiar/mainstream by now that most people don’t even try to FEEL its deep meaning and many brush it off as religious fluff. I personally always felt its truth, but I was never able to truly understand WHY it was so until that particular ayahuasca experience. It was honestly one of the most painful knowings I have ever taken upon my being. It kept saying, “It hurts. It hurts.” And then I would whisper to myself, “Yes” and “I can do this,” because I did not want to give in and reject this truth because of how unbearable it was. I think most of us are way too afraid and ashamed to face this truth. That’s why we have monsters, and why we call people “evil”, and why we actually KILL people for doing terrible things. It’s so strange. We KILL someone because he KILLED. We reject so many people purely by putting a label on them: murderer, criminal, addict, traitor, child molester, tyrant. We are terrified to know the darkness we are both capable of and involved in. But until we acknowledge it, this cycle of inner and outer war and violence will continue. I am hopeful, though, because I see more and more people yearning to see the truth of themselves, and once they can accept all of themselves it will extend outward.
Sorry, I know this may not be very helpful in terms of answering your questions. The best I can do is just describe my own experience. I’m so curious to hear what you learn for yourself as you explore this idea of shared responsibility. It really is huge and takes so much courage to really consider.