But what draws people to ayahuasca again and again
To brace themselves for this experience
And you do have to brace yourself
Is it's extraordinary effect at the level of consciousness
And one of those effects has to do with creativity
And we can see the creative cosmogenic impulse of ayahuasca in the paintings of ayahuasca shamans
As these paintings show another universal experience of ayahuasca
The encounter with seemingly intelligent entities which communicate with us telepathically
I'm making no claim one way or another as to the reality state of these entities we encounter
Simply that phenomenologically in the ayahuasca experience they are encountered by people all over the world and most frequently of all
The spirit of ayahuasca herself
To brace themselves for this experience
And you do have to brace yourself
Is it's extraordinary effect at the level of consciousness
And one of those effects has to do with creativity
And we can see the creative cosmogenic impulse of ayahuasca in the paintings of ayahuasca shamans
As these paintings show another universal experience of ayahuasca
The encounter with seemingly intelligent entities which communicate with us telepathically
I'm making no claim one way or another as to the reality state of these entities we encounter
Simply that phenomenologically in the ayahuasca experience they are encountered by people all over the world and most frequently of all
The spirit of ayahuasca herself
When I got interested in this mystery I went down to the Amazon where there are still surviving shamanistic cultures today
And where they drink the powerful visionary brew
[Chorus]
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
And where they drink the powerful visionary brew
[Chorus]
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
After 6 million years of boredom
The evolutionary ascent of our species from the last common ancestor with the chimpanzee
Something extraordinary happened to us
Less than a 100,000 years ago which by the way is long after we'd become anatomically modern
It was a kind of emergence into consciousness
[Chorus]
We became fully symbolic creatures
Fully symbolic creatures
And we became fully symbolic creatures
Fully symbolic creatures
The evolutionary ascent of our species from the last common ancestor with the chimpanzee
Something extraordinary happened to us
Less than a 100,000 years ago which by the way is long after we'd become anatomically modern
It was a kind of emergence into consciousness
[Chorus]
We became fully symbolic creatures
Fully symbolic creatures
And we became fully symbolic creatures
Fully symbolic creatures
What's the answer to the meaning of life? Here's an answer
I was trying to solve this terrible puzzle about how it was that human beings got themselves in such a tangle about what they believe
Such a tangle that we were pointing
The ultimate weapons of destruction at one another which by the way, we are still doing
I thought, okay, well I understand that, we need our belief systems, they orient us and that means there will be conflict between belief systems and that can be a catastrophe and that's being played out everywhere again, in very many ways
What's the solution to that?
Well, one possibility is there's no solution, it's just mayhem all the way around
Could be the case
But it seemed to me as I delved into it that the proper solution to that was to live properly
As an individual
I was trying to solve this terrible puzzle about how it was that human beings got themselves in such a tangle about what they believe
Such a tangle that we were pointing
The ultimate weapons of destruction at one another which by the way, we are still doing
I thought, okay, well I understand that, we need our belief systems, they orient us and that means there will be conflict between belief systems and that can be a catastrophe and that's being played out everywhere again, in very many ways
What's the solution to that?
Well, one possibility is there's no solution, it's just mayhem all the way around
Could be the case
But it seemed to me as I delved into it that the proper solution to that was to live properly
As an individual
It isn't merely that your fate depends on whether or not you get your act together and to what degree you decide that you're going to live out your own genuine being
It isn't only your fate
It's the fate of everyone that you're networked with
There's 7 billion people in the world and who are you?
You're just one little dustmote among that 7 billion and so it really doesn't matter what you do or don't do but that's simply not the case
It's the wrong model
'Cause you're at the center of a network
You're a node in a network
You're a node in a network
You're a node in a network
Node, node in a network
You'll know a thousand people
At least over the course of your life
And they'll know a thousand people
And that puts you one person away from a million
And two persons away from a billion
And so that's how you're connected and the things you do
They're like dropping a stone in a pond, the ripples move outward and they affect things in ways that you can't fully comprehend and it means that
It isn't only your fate
It's the fate of everyone that you're networked with
There's 7 billion people in the world and who are you?
You're just one little dustmote among that 7 billion and so it really doesn't matter what you do or don't do but that's simply not the case
It's the wrong model
'Cause you're at the center of a network
You're a node in a network
You're a node in a network
You're a node in a network
Node, node in a network
You'll know a thousand people
At least over the course of your life
And they'll know a thousand people
And that puts you one person away from a million
And two persons away from a billion
And so that's how you're connected and the things you do
They're like dropping a stone in a pond, the ripples move outward and they affect things in ways that you can't fully comprehend and it means that