Ayahuasca Journey 3: The Observer and Observed are One

🕒 7 MINUTE READ 

Friday August 18th, 2017
Having just died on journey one and getting a glimpse of the divine light. Then came journey two, where I experienced a flash of GOD. I had to come back for this third journey to validate what I went through was legit. I wanted to confirm that my experience was not a mistake and that I could consistently reproduce it with Ayahuasca. So that I could be certain of what I had felt. This would be the journey where I'd discover, becoming one with the cosmos. The Shiva Being.

Participants: Jarvis (the shaman), John (the assistant), May, Shiv (Indian in his early 30s), Carlos (Hispanic in his late 30s), and Flor (Hispanic woman in her late 30s).

First Dose
I don't really recollect the initial onset of this first dose. I do recall that this was the first time I got into half lotus meditative posture while waiting for Ayahuasca to kick in. At some point, it kicked in, I went ahead and laid down on my stomach. From what I vaguely recall, the initial visuals were similar to journey one and two. One very interesting feeling I recall in this trip was the experience of what I call mini "time-gaps". These time-gaps were a very a strange feeling and phenomenon. Each time one of these gaps occurred, I would feel life and time would pause for two to three seconds. I'd hear a strange squiggly noise in the center of my brain and feel a strange sensation at the bottom of my spine. Every time I heard the squiggly noise, time would stop, then resume. It was weird as fuck, and it happened a couple of times. Forgetting how long I was in this state, at some point I got up to purge in the restroom.

Being in the restroom, it felt very strange, very fake. Like some strange gimmick out of place in the middle of the universe. Anyway, I puked my guts out into to the toilet and remembered looking into the bowl, feeling a strange presence of GOD. But this was not it. This was more subtle and not as pronounced as my flash in journey two. I then proceeded with purging out the other end. Sitting there on the toilet with the lights on seeing sparkles in space and the floor moving, I started to notice the light got brighter and brighter. As I sat there taking a shit, dumping my innards out, suddenly that bright light started swelling up within me and began to expand. It was the divine light again, and this time it was expanding alongside with my awareness. I was completely dumbfounded and awestruck as this light energy surged and exploded in my mind completely overtaking my ego and becoming pure awareness. I had found GOD again with my pants down taking a shit! Confident that this was indeed the experience of the divine again, I was in sheer bliss and awe. Sitting there, suddenly I recalled to be mindful of others who need to use the restroom. I had lost track of how long I was in there.

As I walked out, I noticed something was very different about my being. Something I've never felt before. My body felt extremely light and also quite big. I was a larger expansive version of my self, with the dead weight of my body completely being lifted. I looked at my hands, they were like massive holographic hands, way longer than usual. The very perception of my being has been scaled up.

Everything felt like an illusion. So this is what the Buddhist call Samsara, or the Hindus call Maya. That our reality is in fact an illusion. As I walked, I felt like an immense being, some sort of walking spirit. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but it felt good and confident, as if this was the real me, standing tall and proud. Our true nature, to abide as the essence of spirit.

In this state I decided to sit down in front of the centerpiece of the studio to meditate. I sat in full lotus with relative ease, there was no pain or discomfort as there normally is when sober. As I sat there and meditated, I started to achieve single pointed concentration. At the peak of my meditation, there was perfect stillness and I became "the witness". I was the witness, watching my body and all happenings occur within me. It was like I was frozen time, yet I could still see people walking around my body. I had become the observer, watching myself in 3rd person. This was definitely some state of Samadhi. As I shifted my attention back to that which was being observed, at that moment, the observer and observed became one. Oneness, the non-dual state. There were no thoughts or feelings, just pure perception and pure awareness. Everything was complete.

As I sat there, another interesting phenomenon began to occur. Since I was abiding as the observer, I watched my body get up, grab my keys, go to my car, get a jacket, put it on, and stand outside the parking lot. I realized, what I had just perceived was that fact that I am no longer the actor. That free will is really an illusion. When you are in the state of the observer, all happenings and phenomenon continue to occur without your conscious initiative to take action. This was truly a profound realization. After this understanding, I slowly began to regain conscious control of my body. However, reflecting back on this, it almost seemed as if Ayahuasca took control of my body and that it was moving on its own. However, that was not the case. Ayahuasca simply allowed me to identify as the observer and it showed me, that a higher power continues to animate our very beings. This is true surrender. This is the natural unfolding of cause and effect, our karmas. If we are not who we take our selves to be as a body, then abiding as the observer, there lies the imperishable timeless being, that which is never born and can never die. This is where true peace lies, in the eye of the storm.

From my various Ayahuasca trips, there seems to be various stages of consciousness that can be described. From lowest to highest:

1. Unconsciousness, deep or dreamless sleep
2. Unawareness, not self aware, like some lower animal forms
3. Self aware, but in the deluded state, mistaken to be the ego, thoughts, feelings, and the body
4. Awake or aware, deep understanding that you are not the ego nor the body, but instead always mindful and abiding in the present, the current moment
5. Observer or the witness, identification with pure awareness, that which perceives the body, thought, and all waking phenomenon. A clear demarcation from all happenings. That you, abiding as the witness is not affected, cannot be touched
6. Being state, oneness with the universe, to become the totality, the observed and observer become one, there's no longer a separation of the observer (the subject) and the observed (the object). Non duality. That demarcation is merged. Yoga, union with the divine
7. And finally the non being state, emptiness, unmanifest, turiya, nirvana, pure consciousness, the source

This was a deep and profound trip. More of my third journey experience could also be found in Journey 9. There were a lot of similarities between the two.

https://www.meetup.com/AyahuascaDTLA/events/242525631/