Yoga Is Psychedelic: Excerpts from 'Yoga and Plant Medicine'
The following excepts from Yoga & Plant Medicine: Integrating Yoga and Psychedelics For Your Healing, Growth and Transformation have been used with permission by the author.
Psychedelics in Yoga
My intention in writing Yoga & Plant Medicine is not to graft ayahuasca or psychedelics onto the tradition of yoga as another limb. Rather, I wish to illuminate and bring forward an aspect of yoga that’s been there from the beginning but has been largely suppressed due to cultural puritanism in both India and the West.
Plant medicines have always been considered a valid method for healing and self-realization within the yoga tradition, and because of this, I feel that yoga offers the perfect context for working with psychedelics like ayahuasca. Likewise, psychedelics can be utilized by the sincere yogi to gain insight and help move the healing process along.
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali (c. 500 BCE), the most definitive and arguably most important text on yoga, says that siddhis, which are deep insights into the nature of reality, can be obtained not only through meditation, austerities and chanting, but also through the use of medicinal plants, which Patanjali calls aushadhi. The term aushadhi (alt. oshadhi) refers to a plant or herb that is used to cure diseases of the body and mind, and maintain physical, mental and moral health.
Digging into the etymology reveals that another quality of aushadhi is “to make known, or reveal something that is surprising.” We could say that another word for aushadhi is “psychedelic,” a term coined by Dr. Humphry Osmond in the early 1950s to describe substances that reveal hidden aspects of the mind or psyche. So, while the term aushadhi is usually translated simply as “herbs,” it seems to point more specifically toward psychotropic plant medicines like ayahuasca.
The Sanskrit root of aushadhi is osha, which means “light bearing” — a term that draws another parallel to ayahuasca. The ayahuasca brew is traditionally made by combining two plants, the ayahuasca vine itself (banisteriopsis caapi), and the DMT-containing chacruna leaf (psychotria viridis), which the ayahuasqueros say brings light to the visions. The Santo Daime tradition says that the vine is the force and the leaf is the light.
Going back even further than the Yoga Sutra to the most ancient text of India, the Rig Veda (c. 1700 BCE), we find many descriptions of the use of Soma, a sacred drink concocted from plants that had curative and revelatory properties.
Interestingly, the preparation of Soma involves pounding or crushing the stalks of a plant, similar to the preparation of the ayahuasca brew in which the tough, woody vine must be pounded before boiling to help extract the active alkaloids. Furthermore, like ayahuasca, Soma was both a healing medicine and a spiritual sacrament. In the Rig Veda we also find references to Soma as a “light-bearer” which connects it to the aushadhi mentioned in the Yoga Sutra.
These passages from the Rig Veda describe the qualities of Soma as both a sacrament and a healing elixir:
“Pay reverence to King Soma born the sovereign Ruler of the plants. We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered. These glorious drops that give me freedom have I drunk. Let the drops I drink preserve me from disease. Make me shine bright like fire produced by friction, give us a clearer sight and make us better.”
“Bruised by the press-stones and extolled, Soma, thou goest to the sieve, giving the worshiper hero strength. This juice bruised by the pressing-stones and lauded passes through the sieve, slayer of demons, through the fleece.”
“He (Soma) covers the naked and heals all who are sick. The blind man sees; the lame man steps forth. Let those who seek find what they seek: let them receive the treasure. Let him find what was lost before; let him push forward the man of truth.”
There has been much debate about the identity of the plants used to concoct Soma, but as Ayurvedic doctor and scholar Robert Svoboda says:
“People used to ask (my teacher) Vimalananda: ‘Where can we find the Soma that’s mentioned in the Veda?’, and he used to say that you’re never going to find Soma, because you can only locate it if you are already immortal, because it’s immortal already. So forget it.
What you can do though is you can find something that is not Soma but will have a similar effect inside you. And then you can use that. It will not transform you the way that Soma does, so completely and totally, but if you work with that, it will progressively transform you as much as you can be transformed.
For him he used whiskey, for me I like very much ayahuasca, taken with some other things to alter the effect slightly. Different people have different things that they use. Some people will use cannabis; some people will use other substances.” (from an interview on wildyogi.info)
While at least one scholar has argued that Soma could have been ayahuasca (or at least an ayahuasca analogue), it is perhaps more accurate to say that ayahuasca can be Soma because, in the right context and with the right intent, it can fulfill all the promises of that mythical elixir: clearer insight, physical healing, divine knowledge, spiritual freedom and a taste of immortality. For the yogi, using Soma or another aushadhi is just one way to achieve these siddhis.
It’s worth noting that in the Yoga Sutra the use of sacred plants is seen as a less preferable method than meditation, because ultimately, the goal of yoga is total freedom and relying on a plant or other substance to achieve a state of wellbeing or gain spiritual insight is considered a hindrance. While a psychedelic can give us a temporary taste of the freedom that’s possible, it can easily become just another way to escape reality and avoid dealing with the psychological issues that keep us from experiencing greater freedom on an ongoing basis.
A Shipibo shaman’s pipe from the upper Amazon and a carving of yogic sage Patanjali, both depicted as half man, half serpent. The serpent is a symbol of creative life energy and transformation that is found in many cultures around the world. (Illustration by Debbie Stapleton.)
Yoga Is Psychedelic
The word psychedelic was coined by British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in the 1950s when he was using LSD as part of his therapy with patients in a mental hospital in Saskatchewan Canada. He found LSD especially effective in revealing the unconscious material that was at the root of his patients’ suffering, whether that was due to mental illness or addiction. So it was from a psychological perspective that he coined the term psychedelic and defined it as “mind manifesting.”
This aspect of psychedelics, the ability to step back and see our ego from a different perspective, is certainly beneficial if we hope to change our thinking or behavior. But if we look at the roots of the term, which combines the Greek words psyche and delos, it points to something much deeper.
The original meaning of psyche is soul, and delos means “to manifest or reveal.” Knowing this, we can also understand psychedelic to mean “soul revealing,” which is more of a spiritual perspective.
Yoga bridges the psychological and spiritual perspectives in that, initially, the practices of yoga teach us how to step back from the socially conditioned mind in order to observe it and understand how it is functioning (or dysfunctioning). In this respect, yoga manifests, or reveals the mind.
Ultimately though, the goal is not to change the mind, but to reveal what lies beyond the mind, the spiritual heart. When the path to the heart is open, the soul can speak and our direction in life is made clear. We can then, as Desikachar would say, “make the heart the boss and the mind its dutiful attendant.”
Whether we define psychedelic as “mind manifesting” or “soul revealing,” yoga encompasses both aspects, which makes it much more than just another form of physical or psychological therapy. Yoga is holistic medicine for the mind, body and soul. Because it is “psychedelic,” a sincere yoga sadhana provides an ideal context and support for working with ayahuasca (and other psychedelics), and will extend and enhance their benefits long after the ceremony is over.
Illustration by Debbie Stapleton.
Brian James is a yoga teacher, transformational coach and integration counselor who has been exploring the medicine paths of yoga and psychedelics for over twenty-five years.
He works with individuals in person or online and regularly teaches classes, workshops and trainings.
Brian is the host of the Medicine Path Podcast and author of Harmonic Movement, a vinyasa yoga manual.
When he’s not out sharing yoga medicine, he’s usually at home with his wife, astrologer and artist Debbie Stapleton, and their Boston Terrier Kingston.
To learn more, visit brianjames.ca
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