Love Yourself

 April 5.

It was several years ago that my sister had introduced me to the idea of DMT (ayahuasca). I had never heard of it before, and she told me she thought it would be good therapy. We grew up together and had similar baggage so to speak. I made a half-assed effort to do some research on the internet, and I was still interested. Ever since then it has been a very loud blip on my radar.

Fast forward to the present day. I’m on my way to visit my sister and see her new apartment. Being somewhat fresh off my first experience and still full of questions and self-reflection, I was excited to share my experience with her.

Setting is important. In hindsight, my sister’s completely empty apartment was far from the perfect setting, but I love my sister and I know she loves me, maybe that was enough.

After a brief coaching session on what to expect and how long it lasts, I went in first just to show her it was safe. This experience was not very deep or complex but was not lacking its wonderful colors and warm feeling of love. Overall positive trip, and in minutes I was awake with a smile.

I watched as my sister started in. I remember seeing her lay back and felt happy for her that she was able to experience this. I was still a little euphoric after being showered with love, I just assumed her experience would be similar.

The irony is that she had the opposite experience. Apparently while I was sitting there all grins and congratulating myself for helping her with her first experience, she was in the middle of a near death experience.

No, she wasn’t really dying. But I hear it’s a fairly common experience to be faced with your own mortality. Even though it was frightening, she still came away feeling refreshed, and her first reaction was that maybe she has control issues.

After reflecting on both trips for some time I decided to go for another session. I remember going in I felt bad that my sister’s experience was somewhat negative. Once the euphoric rush had settled and I was seeing a bright golden white design that I couldn’t quite focus on. I realized I was focusing too hard, so I backed away as to allow the full picture to come into view (I did not back away in the physical sense, it was a thought and a reaction within the image I was seeing).

When everything came into focus, I saw what looked like (in my own words) a “golden buddha lady sitting cross legged”. Pardon my ignorance, I knew nothing of Buddhism before this experience, I’m just describing what I saw. The lady called me to follow her; she told me she was my true mother (the same mother from my first trip). I knew my trip would not last much longer, and she seemed to sense my thoughts and repeatedly urged me to follow her anyway. I was showered with an intense feeling of unconditional love, and her image faded away. She was replaced with some spiraling designs of golden light and a face that resembled my sister’s face. At that moment I thought that I couldn’t believe my sister was afraid of this. And as fast as I had completed my thought, the single face of my sister became millions of faces that were all laughing. They were laughing at her.

 

The following couple of weeks I was lost in thought and reflection about this experience. I had so much information to sort out. The main theme I felt was love. I felt so much love in a matter of minutes- Love for myself, love for my sister, and love for everyone else that was part of my life. It was a stark contrast to my mostly neglectful upbringing that I realized I had spent most of my life making decisions based on fear and anger, and that I have hated myself. I felt that my disregard for myself has hurt my ability to show my love for others. Moving forward I have to learn to love myself and try to make decisions based on love instead of fear or anger.

Sharing my experience with my cousin, he had pointed out the significance of the colors and Buddhist imagery. I decided to do a little research and found that a deity exists in Buddhism named Golden Tara.

Golden Tara is the life-giving female Buddha and is typically shown in radiant golden light. She fulfills your life energy and purpose. I encourage anyone to look her up.

My mind is blown. The exact parallels in my experiences with this Buddhist deity motivated me to seek advice from someone that I knew was more knowledgeable in this area in hopes to save me some time on the internet, and just seek out a sharing of knowledge and positive energy with a real person.

I haven’t converted to Buddhism, and I am not looking for religion. But I have started meditating, and I really like how it makes me feel. My wife and kids have noticed a positive change, that’s all the religion I need.