Yoga Book Review: Beyond Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca could be the biggest trip to be had in the Amazon, but Roman Hanis wants to help us integrate spiritual insights into real life. Does he succeed?

Picking up Beyond Ayahuasca

Ok I'll begin by addressing the elephant in the room. Is this a yoga book and if not why on earth were you reading it for yoga book review?

My answer to that is twofold. No, it's not a book about yoga per se. Yes, it does address many issues that long time yogis and people who come to practice beyond pure physical asana may have faced, and much yoga wisdom may be reflected in its message (which actually was something that frustrated me a little, but more of that later). Also worth adding that I suspect a there are a small but significant number of people who practice yoga for the physical, mental and spiritual benefits who are also "plant medicine curious" so to speak or actively working with it.

Having heard about this book via a very out there witchcraft & spirituality resource, I suspect I had a more leftfield perspective on wanting to read it. I have no intention of taking ayahuasca or plant medicine and likely never will (no shade, I just don't think it's my path) but I was curious to learn more about the traditions and culture that sit behind something that's become a spiritual phenomenon. I have now met a good number of people who have experienced ayahuasca, and not just from yoga circles. It's good to know how these experiences are integrated - or at least supposed to be!

What Beyond Ayahuasca is all about

It's basically the story of Roman, who, for someone whose life has taken such a remarkable path, is surprisingly relatable, and the results of his journey to seek out plant medicine in the Amazon.

It is a big spiritual growth story, but it's told through a narrative of wonderful people and places who are made vivid in his retelling and feel like they do justice to the rainforest- even when they veer off into the esoteric or just plain nuts from our Western perspective, like psychic communion with Amazon dolphins or being protected by a big benevolent furry spirit as a child (which, thanks to my husband's curiosities, immediately twitched my 'bigfoot' radar...).

More of Roman's own life experiences from before ayahuasca come out as he weaves the tale of his plant medicine journey. Honestly, it's really familiar for many of us. Growing up in Europe, fairly privileged and with a lot of love around him in many ways, his young life was strongly affected by his parents' split and divorce and although growing up and entering adulthood he was outwardly fairly successful, he developed crippling Chron's disease (substitute anxiety/depression/self harm/eating disorders etc and this could be SO many people's story). He was very aware of innate alienation and dissatisfaction within what we take for granted as normal life.

Incredibly, perhaps due to the severe Chron's prognosis, Roman took a massive leap and travelled to the Amazon in search of healing. He had no real plan on how to find a true ayahuasca healing ceremony- and not end up with the "piranhas" who would perform a ceremony simply for the cash. With determination and luck, he found his way to a Yahua elder who saw his true wish for change and the plant medicine journey unfolds from there.

What I liked about Beyond Ayahuasca

As above, Roman's story is in many ways very relatable. It's a wonderful, inspiring story of overcoming difficulty in the physical, mental, relational and spiritual areas of life that many of us are no doubt aware our own life path would benefit from. As a yoga teacher, it certainly inspired me to keep doing 'the work' with my classes and what I offer, even though at times this can be really tough. People really do benefit from access to this knowledge, albeit that yoga is a different path and doesn't tend to involve mind altering substances.

I enjoyed Roman’s candidness but kindness about his difficulties and the issues facing, well, everyone really, in regards to nature, the environment and personal and spiritual growth. He doesn’t pull any punches about the challenges, but doesn’t come across as judgey.

Throughout the book you will also find little exercises. I tend to recoil from this sort of thing; even when I was doing yoga book club and KNEW I had to practice the meditations etc in order to later discuss them it could feel like a chore. Mostly the exercises or ‘tools’ in Beyond Ayahuasca are helpful reflections and things you can do easily in 5 minutes. And no, you don’t have to have taken ayahuasca to follow them! Some of them are longer and more complicated and I must admit I didn’t try them, but there are also reflective question sections at the end of each chapter which I found quite helpful to ponder for myself before moving on to the next part of the narrative.

If you've ever experienced deep meditation or plunged into shadow work you will likely find something familiar and or intriguing in these practices. I imagine the same for people who have experienced ayahuasca. Since this book is supposed to be a guide for integrating the ayahuasca experience into "real life" these exercises are where that work comes to the surface. If you read it, I'll leave it up to you to decide how well they function for you. Some of the prompts have certainly gone into my own spiritual journal.

I feel like this kind of book could easily fall into the hippy Mother Nature trope, and it’s true that there is a lot of communing with the rainforest and even a whole chapter called “Mother Nature personified”. However the author just manages to keep it from becoming trite. He takes time to describe the problems faced by himself and those around him. For example he gets horribly bitten by mosquitoes just before the episode with the psychic dolphins (in fact this contributes to his full experience). It’s not a depiction of some kind of naive Eden or of nature as wholly benevolent, which I found more real and enjoyable.

Last but not least, what I enjoyed probably the most about this book is the simplicity of the wisdom which shines through from the main teacher character, Don Sinchi, and the way it dovetails so beautifully with wisdom from the yoga tradition (when we’re not in the habit of making things too complicated for ourselves!):

“Yes, that’s how the plague of forgetfulness works- avoiding life, numbing out, and having lots of preconceived notions about how the world should revolve around you,” Don Sinchi said with a kind smile.

“However, the constantly changing nature of reality contradicts that mistaken view, which results in constant anxiety based on avoidance and clinging. The way out of that vicious cycle is to realise that true happiness is intertwined with the fearless wisdom of the heart.

“Lasting, timeless joy is only possible when we no longer depend on conditions that are nice and comfortable, but fully trust our capacity to consciously remain open and at ease in each moment, no matter what. The journey of remembrance starts with catching ourselves when we forget to remain open. The more we see our forgetfulness the more we can remember to keep opening to the endless diversity of life experience.

Now, don’t you start feeling bad about habitually disconnecting from being alive. Beating yourself up about not being open will only make you shut down more. Practice makes perfect!”

If this passage had come from a commentary on the yoga sutras or appeared from Ram Dass or Thich Nhat Hanh I would not have batted an eyelid, however here it is in a book about ayahuasca!

What I didn’t like about Beyond Ayahuasca

I was aware from perhaps the foreword of the book or from the other material I’d heard from the author that the main character “Don Sinchi” was not a depiction of a real Amazonian elder but a composite of several elders and teachers that Roman met on this journey through ayahuasca and the Amazon. Before picking up the book I wasn’t too concerned about this but having read it, I wondered how much the real details of his journey through finding different teachers influenced his development. Surely it wasn’t as easy as finding one teacher (which actually wasn’t easy at all) and having all the knowledge imparted to him from there. In reality it seems perhaps the ancestral wisdom and evolutionary science described is much more fragmented - even 20 years ago in the Amazon. As a non- ayahuasca experiencer, I felt like I was missing a bit of the real story there. However I understand that from the plant medicine journey point of view, it probably makes more sense to smooth out the narrative of the teachers.

I also wasn’t enthused by the explanation of ancient, ancestral wisdom having been lost to the world in the modern era. As someone who has studied yoga and the history of yoga, both its development in India and spread to the West, I don’t recognise that this ancestral wisdom in regards to healing, growth and enlightenment has ever been successfully forgotten or buried, in fact the people actively going out and spreading yoga knowledge through the ages are some of our most famous teachers (Swatmarama and Patanjali who gave us ancient yoga texts we still use today, Gautama Buddha who founded the Buddhist movement, Parahamsa Yogananada who ignited yoga as a spiritual movement in 19th century America, BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois who stimulated today’s yoga movement).

Maybe this is just for the yoga geeks and hasn’t reached the mainstream, but I think many of the ideas actually have. The incentive to take them up and make changes in life and in the world however, is a different matter. Like Roman, those of us who face severe life challenges may conclude that spiritual change, however difficult, is the only way to survive and thrive. Many people never face such a stark choice.

Finally, I didn’t really enjoy the section of the book on dream interpretation, mainly because it’s just not my thing and I think people can easily overanalyse half remembered dreams, sometimes to a dangerous extent (consider Freud!). Perhaps I just need to do some work on my own dream journal and I’m being grumpy about this one. I never really remember any dreams anyway.

Conclusion: Would I recommend Beyond Ayahuasca?

Overall it was a short, enjoyable and accessible read even for someone with no interest in taking the plant medicine. It was a great way to dip my toe into the Amazonian spiritual and wisdom tradition without it becoming too much of a cliche. I read this as an ebook on my phone and it was well laid out and easy to dip in and out of. Unlike many of my yoga books however, I’m not likely to buy its “real” book counterpart as I’m not sure I’ll be referencing it much in my teaching but I probably will come back to it from time to time.

If you’re interested in yoga and spirituality, especially with a view to expanding your cultural horizons, I would recommend picking this one up. You can even get it as an audiobook and I feel this format would suit it well.

If you’re curious about plant medicine I’d certainly suggest giving it a read as part of your research into whether and how you’d like to go about experiencing ayahuasca. Roman Hanis does provide a framework of reflection and self-practice throughout the book which would support integration of experiences on the spiritual path, particularly (I guess) the Ayahuasca experience and some of the more 'out there' episodes that can happen with deep meditation, intense physical or devotional yoga practice.

If you’ve read much yoga literature (think, Be Here Now or Autobiography of a Yogi) then you will be fairly up with descriptions of siddha or supernatural accomplishments like levitation, astral travel, bilocation, psychic wisdom etc. Roman’s rainforest experiences in Beyond Ayahuasca are probably less outlandish than some of these, but if this kind of thing really turns you off then you may may wish to skip this book. If you've personally touched something like these more mystical experiences (though ayahuasca or not) then you will at least find this book intriguing and perhaps even helpful.

I didn’t find the Mother Nature theme too smothering but I can understand it has become a bit of a caricature over the last 60 or so years in the West, so again of that kind of thing really makes you sick I wouldn’t recommend this book for you. If you enjoy vivid descriptions of the rainforest and insight into the way traditional culture harmonises with the environment however, then this is a great read.

To conclude, if you fancy an inspiring and relatable story with the chance to throw in your own self-reflection, vivid descriptions of nature, people and a bit of magic thrown in, you won’t be disappointed with Beyond Ayahuasca. You might even find some ancient truths and self-knowledge that you didn’t know you needed.

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