“When all are one and one is all.” ~ Robert Plant, “Stairway to Heaven”
Because Netflix documentaries Aaron Rodgers: Conundrum came out, I had patients asking me if they should try herbal remedies to help them heal injuries. And some patients have asked me to help them integrate what they have experienced after working with plant medicines such as ayahuasca and ibogaine. If you haven’t seen it, the Netflix series follows New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers. spirituality travel, including his participation in plant medicine ceremonies in Costa Rica.
The first thing I recommend is to read the Upanishads and literature on Advaita Vedanta. Personally, I recommend Christopher Isherwood’s translation of the Crest-Jewel of Shankara. Discrimination“along with lectures and books by Alan Watts. Although the Hindu tradition is far from Central and South America, the Hindu concept of Brahman helps people to understand what they experience when working with herbal medicines. Brahman is beyond our imagination and also beyond any language: the word “Brahman” is only a symbol of something.
What is Maya and what does it have to do with human perception?
In Hinduism as well as Buddhism, everything that we perceive through our five senses and divide into narratives is “maya” – imaginary and ephemeral. However, human consciousness requires certainty and permanence and seems unable to grasp reality as it may actually be happening “out there” in the universe. Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing argued controversially that people with schizophrenia have a correct perception of reality, but it is usually very difficult for a schizophrenic to surrender to this amorphous expanse. Our minds are looking for reliable bases; when the ground beneath our feet shifts, we tend to get very anxious.
We do not understand the limitations of human consciousness, what it can perceive and what it cannot, which is the problem of mastering the effects of plant medicine. For example, it is impossible to imagine infinity. You may remember what the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called “place,” like a picture you once saw of space or a skyscraper, but a finite mind cannot imagine the infinite; it is limited to categories of consciousness such as space, time, causality, etc. But what if these categories don’t exist “out there”? What if they are just our creations?
Why does the concept of non-dualism help integrate herbal medicine practices?
The Chandogya Upanishad phrase that best describes what I am describing is “Tat tvam asi” which is often translated as “Thou art that”, “Thou art that”, “Thou art Gd” or “Thou art the universe”. This is how the understanding of “non-dualism” (Advaita) helps people to integrate the experience of working with herbal medicine: the truth of our perception is that the “self” (capital “S”, the higher self, Atman) or “soul” is identical and united with the higher reality. Essentially, Atman is equal to Brahman; However, humans are trapped in maya, what we perceive through our five senses, and divided into narratives. Herbal medicine can free us from those traps in no time.
The inability of our minds to understand that the concept of the individual self is “maya” and that we are actually all interconnected in an infinite matrix is why many people have difficulty integrating what they have experienced when they return to their quotidian, individual, ego-based existence. In our bodily incarnations, after we experience trauma, our mind creates defense mechanisms in order to prevent future injury. This is how herbal medicine has helped people like Aaron Rogers overcome these traumas – because if we realize that we play a role in creating the desires of life, then we can release the defenses that hold us back from living life to the fullest.
