My Spiritual Awakening Story, Part I
Guarding our right to love [Part 1/3]
“In order to bear that love and fulfill our life’s mission, we have to first defend our right to love.”
This is the extraordinary account of a profound journey back to my heart, my spiritual awakening. It is my personal tale of a two-year cycle of deep transmutation that I wish to call the Solar Revolution of the Soul. This is no other than a transformative odyssey from heart disconnection to complete unity with the essence of my being. My journey started with an Ayahuasca ceremony in the remote jungles of Peru, in December 2021, and unfolds over the course of two years filled with relentless inner struggle to rediscover my heart’s wisdom and embrace my ultimate life purpose. It presents a transition from an ordinary human existence to a profound cosmic reality. With a deep sense of purpose, I have resolved to recount this story as a labor of love, with the sincere hope of inspiring others to journey back to their hearts. In these spiritually unprecedented times, we are all called upon to wage our own battle for love and soul evolution.
(Part II and Part III are now available!)
Part I
For many years, I’ve been suffering from a strange ailment I knew nothing about. I have experienced the symptoms as a deep sorrow, a chronic disconnection. It is like you have lost something, but you just can’t remember what it is. Something is always ‘off’. Despite the countless efforts to live my life to the fullest, I kept failing at grasping the true spark of life. I couldn’t say to myself, “you know what, Rodrigo? We are fully happy.” And really meant that. For years, I couldn’t feel my heart, except for a few random moments of emotional chemistry. This was the saddest part of it all. To be honest, I don’t even think most of us know this as an actual disease, and yet, it is as real as the air we breathe. Its name is Soul Illness. It’s pretty self-explanatory and yet it’s the most complex thing I’ve ever had to face in my life. If you don’t pay mindful attention to it, it can certainly bring you down to your knees like it did with me. Soul Illness is not a physical, emotional, spiritual or mental-only condition, it’s a whole-being state of partial and dangerous disconnection from your heart’s wisdom, your soul, or your Higher Self.
[life lesson #1 = If you seek for a moment of silence and clarity, you may recognize whether you are suffering from this illness. This feels like a chronic disconnection from your heart, from the vital force you are. If that’s the case, ask yourself these questions: How can I gently heal my soul, my being? How can I connect to my heart in a way that honors my own well-being?]
[Higher Self = The Higher Mental Body, the Real Self or the Holy Christ Self. Also called Higher Consciousness, the “inner man/woman of the heart”. This is the Self that we are in a state of becoming through our evolution, through all our experiences in time and space. Many civilizations in East and West have used different names to identify the same being of high wisdom across cultural and spiritual times.]
It’s been seven years since I landed in Oslo, Norway. I used to move countries often before that. Somehow, feeling as my dissatisfaction would just disappear after each plane ride. As I’m sitting looking outside the window at the mountains and the greenery, I realize this is not the case. All these years, I’ve been battling with this systemic discontent about my life. At this point, I’m not fully conscious that I’m unplugged from my capacity to feel truly. So, I give it a shot at manufacturing my own emotions. That, of course, is not working. Deep down I know something is still “off”. I honestly don’t know how to tackle this displeasure towards the impossibility of the full experience of life. Without knowing, I’m looking for a way into my heart, but I don’t know how to make that move. I’m frustrated. I’m willing to try something new. After some thought and a bit of research, I’ve made my choice. I’m flying back to my homeland, Peru, to take part in an Ayahuasca ceremony. This will be my first time. It has also been my last in my 34 years. I remember thinking, “this gotta work”.
[Ayahuasca = Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brew, traditionally used by indigenous cultures and contemporary healers across the globe.]
It’s December 2021. I feel hopeful after some days in Lima sharing good moments with my family. But soon, I’m to start my journey up to Tarapoto — a city in the high jungle of Peru known for its shamanic centers. Even though our spiritual journey will be short-lived, I feel this spiritual ceremony has the potential to change the entire course of my life forever. Not even in my wildest dreams I could have foreseen what happened next. I can barely be inside the motokarro — the Peruvian version of a tuk-tuk. It’s so hot and the whole place gives you a hint as if time does not pass here. There is an invisible anchor to a different time-space dimension. I don’t know if I want to be here, and somehow I feel compelled to continue the journey into my heart. I’m sitting skeptical and yet keen, waiting for my purge and that of my other four companions to end. The sky is loaded and grey. The silence inundates the whole retreat. It’s like a preamble for what could be a night of heavy tropical rain. After the tobacco purge, my blood pressure drops and I’m cold as the winter nights back in Oslo. Suddenly, I got a mental note “it’s like witchery and shamanism merge in imperceptible ways here”, but I can’t grasp the entirety of that thought. So I keep moving forward with my healing.
[life lesson #2 = You may want to ask yourself, how do I want to heal? Am I ready for this? Can I commit to my healing despite the adversities that may come? Can I take serious ownership and responsibility for my healing process? What is available to me? Whether this person is a psychologist, a holistic healer, a therapist, a shaman, or a spiritual guide, is this person purehearted? Can this person holds enough integrity to provide a safe healing space for me? Can this person hold my hand and yet know when to let go so that I can learn the lessons I’m meant to learn on my own? Have I done a thorough research about this particular method and healer? Is this method gentle with my four bodies; mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual? Does this method has the potential to overstress out my soul, my nervous system and my life in very disruptive ways? Does this method feels more like a ‘shortcut’ to soul health or a step-by-step process for personal healing? There’s no such a thing as a quick death of the ego, or a short-term healing of the soul. It requires time, and ultimately it is both a self-directed and ever-unfolding life process.]
Back into the jungle retreat. It’s not pitch dark yet, but the night is slowly taking dominion over the whole jungle. As I’m sitting there, I’m asked by the shaman if I truly want to do this. I hesitate, but again, I’m not living without the key to my heart. That was my thought. I just can’t go back right now. This may be a real shot at finding the way to experience life whole-heartedly. I really need to understand for myself why I can seem to touch joy and yet feel so numbed at the same time. The months before the trip, I’ve reflected a lot about the intention that I wish to set for this journey back to my heart. One day it became so clear, “How can I be the best version of myself for the collective?”. That powerful intention would bring me to new heights of being, but only after the deepest lows would pass — if ever. It’s taken two years to be where I am today, narrating this story. My life math says it’s been one full decade to my heart.
[life lesson #3 = If you are hesitant about an important life decision, STOP. Make a pause, consult with your highest wisdom, your heart. After all, the heart is the seat of consciousness. HeartMath’s has developed the Heart-Focused Breathing™ Technique to help you enter a state of Coherence. It is a state when the heart, mind, and emotions are in energetic alignment and cooperation. Once you find that moment of silence and calm, you would be able to ask for guidance in your heart. Sooner or later, when the time is right, you will hear the unique advice that is meant for you. I have also recorded a short but powerful meditation to help you connect with your heart. You can find it here.]
I’m a few centimeters from the shaman as I’m drinking the ‘preparado’, I can’t help but to feel scared. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel I’m being taken care of. For a moment, I doubt my own steps. What am I doing? Is this the right thing? Is this the only way to find the road back to my heart? There’s almost no more liquid in that tiny ceremonial cup. As it enters my body, I’m feeling an uncomfortable burn, but I’m incapable of listening to my inner wisdom, so I continue. Either way, it is too late now. A short but intense electric shock hits the back of my neck. My brain is lighting up. I guess DMT is doing its neurochemical misbehaving. I can’t open my eyes. I’m a second voice to the shaman’s singing of the ‘icaros’, almost like I knew the notes and lyrics all my life. A few minutes later, I stop fighting and I give myself entirely to the power of the experience. My soul is singing and dancing, I’m breathing out in all four directions, and I’m feeling indescribable peace. As time passes, the mood in the room changes. I’m going from a joyful vertical mood into a horizontal position closer to the ground. I intuitively know it is time for deep healing.
[Icaros = Icaros are sacred songs to the different plant spirits and to all living beings.]
I’m journeying into the manifold pockets of my existence, going in and out of them and dealing with whatever I’m shown physically inside. I’m not seeing, even my mind is black, I’m only able to sense. As the realization of working on three planes of existence lands, I’m feeling how all five elements (water, air, earth, fire, and ether) are assisting my healing process. Even as my body is giving up and the craving for water is dearly, the working out wouldn’t stop. I want it to stop. I am hurting. I am going up and down and I have zero control. I feel I’m visiting heaven and hell countless times. This lasted for hours. Now the shaman is calling one by one to ingest the second take of the brew. I go third. I want to stand up, but my legs give up and I collapse to the floor at my four extremities. I’m now moving across the room towards the Shaman as a black panther. I feel powerful and mystical. I feel me, but I’m also something else other than myself. The Shaman snaps me out of it; I’m bewildered. I can’t seem to wake up to that reality. The brew goes again into my system, and the healing intensifies to levels that are difficult to recall.
[Arkan Lushwala, an Andean ceremonial leader from Peru, wrote a book titled The Time of the Black Jaguar**:** An Offering of Indigenous Wisdom for the Continuity of Life on Earth where he speaks about the times of change that we are now living in. Also, the Outkast musician André 3000 turned into a Panther during an Ayahuasca trip in Hawaii. He says “I was a changed person”.]
I have an intuition in the midst of all of it. I know this is no “regular” journey. I’m afraid. I have no idea what I’m dealing with here, as it starts to feel like a near-death experience. I can’t comprehend any of it. I don’t even have the energy to try. The singing of the jungle animals and the amazon cosmovision’s beings are accompanying my endless journeys within. I even seem to acquire some of their qualities, depending on the healing I have to undergo. I can feel both the beautiful dancing and the deep grief of my soul. I’m entering unknown territories here, deeper realms I know nothing about. I take my new avatar, the panther, and I move down into what it seems to be the underworld. Perhaps in a longing to find old lost ones. Walking these uncharted spiritual territories feels heavy, but I’m doing it cautiously at my own rhythm, for once. Out of nowhere, a dark shadow rehearse an attack on me. My Brazilian jiu-jitsu reflects are proven handy today. I’m pushing back the threat. Without a clear way out of there, my spirit is determined to fight the way out. I believe fragments of my soul stayed in that dimensional pocket for several weeks after, even months after, until I experienced a soul retrieval.
[Soul retrieval= The process that involves energetically retrieving soul parts, usually one at a time, and giving them the voice and healing they need to return.]
As I’m waking up from my healing journey at dawn, the last thing I remember seeing in my third eye are the many ATMs around the world exploding. The cash is flying around. I feel chaos. I’m trying, but I can’t walk to my room. My partner is carrying me to my bed. I feel like a thousand trains have driven over me. I died that night. Months later, the doctors run some tests and discover an unknown medical condition. I got to know that on the day of my Ayahuasca Ceremony, I was on the brink of a heart attack. My life was close to an end. It was a miracle that I made it out of there. I’m grateful that I’m still here, and that I’m able to share some of the life lessons I’ve learned in the past two years, as I’ve been traveling from human-only consciousness to a cosmic reality of being.
[Life lesson #4 = Make sure your life is in expert hands and that the right medical assistance is always available to you. If someone would ask me, do you recommend partaking in an Ayahuasca ceremony? I’d say that’s up to you. My experience is mine only. However, if you go for it, be aware that proper psychospiritual preparation, conscious participation and integration may take up to a year to be done properly. Some may say, integration of lessons learned during ayahuasca sessions is a lifelong process. I’d agree with that statement. If you are not truly willing to do that and don’t have the right guidance, I wouldn’t go there.]
I have no doubts now. My consciousness took a massive shift that night. Perhaps to a greater cost that I’d have liked. For months, the most primal part of my humanness couldn’t make any sense of what happened. As the next events connected to my healing began to unfold, I became increasingly aware of the great importance of working with purehearted and integral healers — whatever their titles. I believe it is essential to find soul-friendly ways to connect with our hearts and to achieve personal and spiritual progress. These are available to us in our time. Without the life experiences that were awaiting me six months down the line, I wouldn’t be able to share with you more tools for self-transformation and deep connection with the heart.
In Part II of this story, I’ll tell you what happened six months after my Ayahuasca Ceremony and how going through my Dark Night of the Soul became one of the most profound spiritual battles on the path back to my heart.
