Moving Toward Wholeness through Yoga & Plant Medicine
By: Chad Woodford
Tags: Plant Medicine, Yoga, Ayahuasca, Integration, Community

The state of yoga may be attained through dharmic birth, the use of sacred plants, mantra, tapaha, or samadhi. — Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 4.1

Entheogens — ayahuasca, San Pedro, psilocybin, DMT in various forms — are having their moment right now. A lot of my friends are either working with plant medicine or wanting to work with it. Michael Pollan has even written a bestseller about psychedelics and their transformative benefits.

Another healing and growth modality that’s continuing to gain popularity despite its seeming ubiquity is, of course, yoga; there’s no denying the explosive popularity of Western postural yoga. But even more traditional yogic practices are growing in popularity around the world now.

In the twentieth century, psychedelic drugs were the entry point into yoga and spirituality for many. Perhaps most famously, Ram Dass, who credited psychedelic mushrooms with his discovery of, and passion for, yoga.

In my experience, yoga and plant medicine are complementary modalities. They are both aimed at helping people to identify more with the heart and soul, to feel and integrate all of their emotions, and ultimately to experience true freedom and joy. Furthermore, they are both essential practices for helping humanity transition gracefully into the dawning wisdom or consciousness revolution that Peter Russell, Stanislaw Grof, and others talk about.

In this post, I will talk about how sacred plants and yoga can be complementary practices (providing access ultimately to the same experience of Unity Consciousness) and how yoga can also be a viable alternative to working with plant medicine, especially the holistic, transformational style of yoga that I teach. I offer Elemental Yoga as both an integrative complement to working with plant medicines and a viable alternative for those who are not able or not inclined to work with plant medicine. I describe specific integrative practices below, and will be offering plant medicine integration practices through a private online yoga group starting in January 2021.

The Perennial Philosophy

As Aldous Huxley chronicled beautifully in his book by the same name, every one of the world’s spiritual and religious traditions share a single, metaphysical truth. This Perennial Philosophy is most succinctly expressed in the Sanskrit formulation, tat tvam asi, or hari om, or so hum. This is that, in other words. Another way to state it is that there is a subtle, unitary, underlying reality to everything that connects everything, and that it is possible for us to know it experientially. That’s what we learn in yoga. And that thing, that spiritual substrate in the world is a part of all of us and we are all a part of it. The explicit purpose of yoga is to access that state and experience of unity directly, experientially, through the practice of yoga.

In my experience, working with plant medicine offers the same experience. I had the direct experience of what I had been trying to achieve for a long time (through yoga) and had only managed to catch the briefest of glimpses here and there. My experiences with plant medicine in the past made the state of yoga seem like more of a real possibility.

It turns out there has long been a symbiotic relationship between sacred plants and yoga.

The Longstanding Symbiosis between Yoga and Sacred Plants

Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor. — Terence McKenna

The mythical Patanjali, in yoga sutra 4.1 circa 400 BCE–400 CE (the dates of The Yoga Sutras are disputed), lists the five means to become accomplished in yoga, or to experience the state of yoga: sacred plants (oshadhi), mantra, tapaha, meditation, and being born with ready access to that state because of spiritual work performed in past lives.

The mythical Patanjali

As any yoga teacher will tell you, no commentator really tackles the final two padas (chapters 3 and 4) of The Yoga Sutras, except for B.K.S. Iyengar, whose commentary on them is the most in-depth I have encountered, (although Edwin Bryant offers his characteristic depth of scholarly research in his lengthy commentaries). This is because, in general, those last two padas of The Yoga Sutras are primarily concerned with the siddhis (yogic powers) that arise from a consistent, dedicated yoga practice. And most teachers will tell you that, for yogis aspiring to evolve toward samadhi and the state of yoga, siddhis are primarily a distraction, an ego trap. With this admonition to avoid talk of siddhis, perhaps there is also a hint of skepticism among western teachers that siddhis exist at all. In any case, that question is irrelevant to this discussion. I am focused in this post on ways to achieve the state of yoga (unity) and practices that facilitate that. Patanjali’s sutra referencing sacred plants appears in the fourth pada because, for Patanjali, not only are they means to the state of yoga but also to certain siddhis. And there are worthwhile, modest siddhis. But this is a topic for another post.

Many yogis and yoga teachers may be surprised to encounter this reference to sacred plants in The Yoga Sutras. As Patanjali does with ‘asana’ and ‘kriya’ in other sutras, he (she?) introduces a term and then says nothing more about it (probably because asana, kriya, and even oshadhi were all well-known practices in Patanjali’s time). Nevertheless, let us tease out what we can from this mention of sacred plants alongside mantra, tapaha, meditation, and dharma.

The etymology of the Sanskrit word oshadhi is “to make known, to reveal something surprising.” And ‘osha’ means “light bearing.” So here we have an herb or plant that brings clarity, or fosters increasingly greater values of light (the simplest definition of the word ‘enlightenment’). And the etymology tells us that what these plants reveal is surprising. What is surprising about it? That the direct experience of unity is available to us here and now? That our true nature is bliss and infinite love? All of the above and more I am sure.

Again, few commentators have been willing to explore the significance of this sutra. Part of the reason might be the relative lack of popularity of use of plant medicine at the time of those writings. Iyengar (1993) tells us in his commentary to The Yoga Sutras that Sage Mandavya and King Yayati were two historical yogis who attained the state of yoga and great siddhis through use of this mysterious “elixir of life.” Edwin Bryant (2009) merely mentions in passing that the substance Patanjali references here was likely soma. And Swami Satchidananda (1978) tells us that Patanjali “also gives us some clues about the people who get some experiences through their LSD and marijuana,” a sentiment effervescing out of the mid-1970s.

So nobody knows with certainty what sacred plants or herbs Patanjali was referring to in Sutra 4.1. Commentators like Bryant suggest it was soma, a plant mentioned in early Vedic texts thousands of years prior as a brew that yogis extracted from the juice of a plant. In fact, there is an entire mandala devoted to this mysterious soma in the Vedas: the ninth Mandala of the Rigveda, also called the Soma Mandala, has 114 hymns devoted to Sóma Pávamāna, “purifying Soma”, the sacred potion of the Vedic tradition. Those hymns attest rapturously that “half of us is on earth, the other half in Heaven, we have drunk soma” and “we have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.”

In that Vedic mandala the author describes the preparation of soma as mashing the stalk of a plant with stones, similar to how ayahuasca is prepared by pounding the ayahuasca vine in advance of brewing it with the chakruna plant.

There is much debate about what this mysterious soma from the Vedas was. Some scholars think it may have been a mixture of poppy, Chinese ephedra, and cannabis. Others propose one of several psychedelic mushrooms, or wild rue. Although we may never know what psychoactive substance ancient yogis were working with, it appears to be something psychoactive that required mashing and brewing, like ayahuasca.

The important point here is that ancient yogis and the great Patanjali himself (herself?) acknowledged the use of certain plants as a valid path to the direct experience of yoga (and the obtaining of siddhis). In other words, there is scriptural precedent for use of plants as one of several paths, perhaps one to be woven with the others in a holistic practice. In short, use of sacred plants has been a complementary practice to other yogic practices for thousands of years. It’s not new; it was just forgotten.

Not that we need scriptural authority to work with plants. Given how effective plants are at getting us out of our linear, rational minds, that would be the highest of irony. My only point in exploring this sutra and this lesser known tributary of yoga history is to offer a justification to those who need it that the practices have been complementary for thousands of years. Ultimately, you use the intellectual knowing to get you over your resistance and then throw it away once you begin your ascent. After all, advanced yoga and meditation practices grant us access to the pituitary gland, and then the pineal gland, where DMT resides.

Using plants to aid one’s evolution will appeal to some, especially those who prefer to take Terence McKenna’s advice to “avoid gurus, follow plants.” Yoga and meditation alone will appeal to others. Different practices for different folks. Reliance on plants probably falls away naturally as one progresses. However, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with asking for a little boost along the way. The ancient yogis tell us that nature is infinitely intelligent, a self-organizing consciousness far beyond our wildest imaginations. So there can be no harm in communing directly with nature through its various expressions, including plants.

And this brings us to the advantages and disadvantages of relying on sacred plants.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Working with Plant Medicine

“These medicines will allow you to come and visit Christ, but you can only stay two hours. Then you have to leave again. This is not the true samadhi. It’s better to become Christ than to visit him — but even the visit of a saint for a moment is useful. . . . But love is the most powerful medicine.” For love slowly transforms you into what the psychedelics only let you glimpse. — Ram Dass, quoting his guru Neem Karoli Baba

There are advantages and disadvantages to relying on plant medicine to do the hard work of self inquiry and shadow work, living the life of ashes, as Robert Bly calls it. It can be a great jump-start for people, opening them up to parts of themselves they had previously had no contact with, getting them out of their heads and into their hearts, and shifting from analysis to intuition. Plant medicine, like yoga, can help us to feel intense emotions in a safe container, and then integrate those experiences. In the beginning of spiritual growth, most people do not want to change, they simply want to want to change — hence the prevalence of spiritual bypass. Plant medicine can get you over that hurdle of resistance to true inner change.

In my experience, working with plants also turns up the volume on one’s intuition, the small, quiet voice that whispers deep truths to you but you refuse to listen because the roar of your conditioned mind and your fears is too loud. Plant medicine can be a sacred pause or reset button that most people would never otherwise have access to. It doesn’t require years on a yoga mat or surrender to a guru. In addition, yoga and plant medicines like ayahuasca are both heart-opening modalities, moving one from the head toward heart intelligence.

“Gringos are easy to work with because their problem is simple. They read too much. They talk too much. They think too much. They live too much in their heads, not enough in their hearts.” — Brian James quoting a curandero

Krishna shows his true form to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita

However, as Ram Dass points out in his commentary on The Bhagavad Gita, those who start their journey (like he did) with psychedelics before yoga are like Arjuna starting with Krishna’s showing Arjuna the entire universe as it is in Chapter 11 of the Gita before receiving all the preparatory wisdom and yogic practices of earlier chapters. So there’s another benefit to yoga: It prepares the body, heart, mind, and soul for higher experiences of consciousness, greater experiences of truth.

Of course, as with the eight limbs of Patanjali’s yoga, there is no prescribed order or set of practices for spiritual growth. Maybe some people are the jump-right-in-and-work-backwards types. You start where you are. And sometimes you need the inspiration of the grand visions to set you on the dedicated and steady path of regular yoga practice, like Ram Dass. There are no mistakes or “correct” paths. Only grace and love and practice. Like everything in life, there is no absolute right or wrong. Find your own right proportion, through intuition or trial and error.

The Advantages of Yoga Over Plant Medicine

As much as I support and have personally benefited from plant medicine, holistic yoga like Elemental Yoga is ultimately a more sustainable, long-term practice of transformation. Working with sacred plants is an extremely powerful practice and perhaps even necessary for some people. But working with the powerfully transformational practices of yoga is something that everyone can do. It is a practice that can reliably and sustainably be woven into the fabric of one’s daily and weekly existence.

First, not everyone has the luxury of traveling to South America to partake in plant medicine ceremonies, or even spending two or three days in ceremony in their own country, where the substance is often illegal. Plant medicine requires financial resources, large chunks of time, and a certain tolerance for intense physical and emotional experiences far outside the norm. Plant medicine ceremonies also require a lot of concentrated time and energy — days, weeks, sometimes months of dedicated ceremony and integration time.

Second, not everyone is ready for or wants to dive deeply into their trauma and darkest emotional states. Different modalities for different people. Many want a practice that lets them feel their feelings gradually, in more “manageable” bite-sized chunks. Yoga is that practice. Elemental Yoga can be intense like an ayahuasca ceremony but also gentle or graduated. Yoga is accessible, adaptable, and available in small or large portions. Everyone has time for, and access to, affordable yoga, especially now with so much online.

Finally, yoga is adaptable and manageable. With yoga, you can practice for fifteen minutes a day, an hour a day, or two hours a day. It is completely within your control. If you enter a transcendental or Unity Consciousness state, you can take yourself out of it, if necessary, to deal with mundane reality. And, over time, you begin to normalize and ground those elevated states, thereby becoming more capable and adaptable in ground-level reality. The deep inner journeys prompted by plant medicine are not conducive to functioning in the world while you are having the experience. Again, working with plant medicine is powerful and effective but also requires a serious time and energy commitment. And usually lots of integration.

Even though Patanjali talks about working with psychoactive plants in The Yoga Sutras, I think at some point you leave the plants behind, and I surmise that Patanjali would have agreed, given how little he talks about sacred plants in the Yoga Sutras. Everything you need to access your inherent bliss nature is inside of you. Yoga provides all the tools.

Elemental Yoga is a way to realize the same benefits you realize in an ayahuasca ceremony by working with the prana and kundalini that naturally arise within the human body and soul in order to experience unity, to bypass spiritual bypass, to install deep inside your heart and soul the unshakable knowing that you are softly, quietly invincible, that you can truly do whatever you want in this life. Elemental Yoga helps you to more consistently enter that state at will. It gives you the tools to become more yourself.

Both yoga and plant medicine are heart-centered practices

Weaving Yoga and Sacred Plants Together

Loving your own being; fully accepting yourself; accepting what Life wants to do through you; releasing your ambition to transform yourself into someone or something else, some imagined ideal; and, at the same time, fully allowing and making space for your natural process of transformation to unfold — this is the heart of the spiritual life. — Christopher Wallis, Recognition Sutras

You could say that yoga is integration. Integration of atman with Brahman. Integration of self and other. It is a process of making one whole at every level. It is also the perfect practice to help one integrate the deeply transformative experiences of working with plant medicine.

As I discussed above, plant medicine is great for jump-starting spiritual growth, for purging trauma and samskaras quickly. But the quicker the purge the deeper the integration that commences afterward. Yoga is perfect for that. It addresses the whole person—physical, energetic, emotional, mental—and can purify and move things at each level of being.

For those who feel called to work with plant medicine in some form, yoga is an invaluable bookend to the practice. Personally, I have found that having a solid yoga practice allowed me to have both a more grounded and a deeper experience with plant medicines, for several reasons:

At a basic, physical level, I was able to sit comfortably on a mat on the floor for longer periods of time. Yoga has instilled in me a deep certainty that no experience is too big for my soul to handle, as it did for Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. This inner knowing can come in handy during intense ceremonies. During more intense phases of ayahuasca journeys, I was able to draw on specific yogic energetic practices, like pranayama and mantra, to help ground, stabilize and sooth me. I have even used asana several times to help ground me during particularly emotional purges with ayahuasca.

In short, yoga is perfect for preparing one to work with the plants, for serving as a helpful tool, during the process, and for integrating the experience afterward.

I offer a specific set of practices that help those working with plant medicine to integrate the experience through grounding practices, devotional practices, and healing practices that address the energetic and emotional bodies. These include restorative and yin yogasana, breathwork / pranayama, healing kriyas, grounding kriyas, centering kriyas, blissful kriyas, devotional kriyas, and sacred rituals like puja. Through the use of movement, mudra, breath, and mantra, we balance the lower chakras and help awaken the upper chakras, and restore and strengthen your aura.

Sacred Rituals

Sacred rituals are an essential component of both traditional plant medicine work and yoga. In fact, when you work with plant medicines like ayahuasca in a traditional ceremony, the whole thing becomes a sacred ritual.

A traditional yogic fire ceremony (yagya)

Sacred rituals are essential to tuning into the intelligence of nature, and developing a powerful vulnerability and devotional bhava. These rituals also help to replace mindless rituals (unhealthy habits and addictions). And the more we can cultivate a sense of the sacred in life the more we can become our true selves.

Most of us live in an abstracted, mental world of concepts disconnected from the sensual world. These rituals help us to reconnect with ground level reality and meet it fully, like in a Japanese tea ceremony. After all, plant medicine and yoga are only ever putting us in more direct contact with the unity of existence. This is done through the heart, not the head, and through surrender, not force.

In yoga there are sacred rituals like puja, yagya, and bhuta shuddhi that help us to access our higher and deeper selves. Through the five elements of nature we can access these qualities within ourselves.

So, in the integration practices we will incorporate sacred rituals.

The Importance of Meditation

Having a consistent meditation practice can be immensely helpful in both entering plant medicine ceremonies and in integrating plant medicine experiences. Meditation is a practice in growing quiet. Meditation allows you to listen deeply and enter a state of total self-acceptance. I am offering a separate, 4-week meditation course starting in January 2021, which will be discounted for plant medicine integrators.

About My Online Plant Medicine Integration Group

As I said above, I have personally found yoga to be the most effective in integrating plant medicine experiences, especially the blend of movement, breathwork, and kriya that make up Elemental Yoga. This is why I am offering plant medicine integration services, online for now; in-person hopefully some time in 2021.

As part of the private plant medicine group membership, you get access to:

an initial private consultation with Chad

weekly plant medicine integration sessions using breathwork, kriya, and some gentle asana to ground and stabilize

advice and discussion around creating sacred rituals

regular live community check-ins and discussions focused on holistic integration

the premium weekly practice videos offered to the wider Cosmic Collective community

a supportive, private online community, dedicated to healing, transformation, and increasing values of spiritual truth.

In this private group we will not only help you integrate powerful experiences but give you the tools to continue your journey of expansion and celebration in a way that fits your lifestyle, to learn to access unity states within yourself on a more consistent basis.

Those who are already working with plant medicine will find the practice of Elemental Yoga very familiar. As I have said elsewhere, I first fell in love with these powerful Himalayan energetic practices because of their ability to offer the same experiences I had previously had with plant medicine, and ayahuasca in particular.

Me with two curanderos in Peru

Conclusion

People are looking for deep transformation and healing, especially now. In my experience, a full-spectrum yoga practice like Elemental Yoga can help with that as much as plant medicine, and the two modalities can work side-by-side in an integrative spiral of change and returning home to one’s self. In fact, the name Elemental Yoga was inspired in part by my primal experiences of unity through working with plants, the ways in which the interplay of the fundamental elements offer a direct means of experiencing that unity, inviting in the infinite intelligence of nature. My yoga offerings are heavily influenced by these ancient elemental shamanic practices. I like to bring a sense of ceremony to them, and to work with certain rhythms that support the inner journey we take in a given class.

Yoga and plant medicine are both ultimately paths of love. All of these healing modalities for helping us to open our hearts and have the direct experience of unity are crucial at this moment, riven with so much strife and pregnant with so much possibility. We need all the help we can get.