Perhaps the single most important thing I try to teach to guests beginning the dieta, or even before a single ceremony, is about unconditional relationship with the plant that should be different from a business transaction. Of course we offer here certain service, a transaction, but that is more about providing food, accommodation, all the hospitality – and less about the inner experience. This is hard to understand in the modern world that is highly transactional – but it is wise to seek inspiration in old Sufi quote :
” A Sufi is a guest of God in this world and he must behave as is becoming to a guest. He has a right to be served but no right to demand” says Maruf Karkhi of Khorassan.
So to go a bit further, beyond the dieta, it is essential to understand the distinction above is illusory : although it is more practical for our guests to expect that they get a fresh towel when they demand it, as opposed to going Karen mode towards ayahuasca when it does not deliver what, or as fast as we expected, one should remember that when Sufis speak of us being in this life rather as guests at home, than clients in the restaurant, we know all too well the frustration of clients of fanciest restaurants, not being able to appreciate abundance of their plate, and rather frustrated, in their “ i pay – i demand mode”.
Why is that important then, to create this unconditional relationship with life itself, not tainted by “i deserve more”, and so going against the whole current of unhappy transactional culture? Because we poison everything with our expectations, and create hell on daily basis, rejecting what is. Whether it is about relationship with the place you inhabit, the work you do, or, last but not least the partner you are with, if rather than making a choice without attachment to outcomes, you constantly expect your choice to be validated by its fruits, you will never be satisfied. There will always be some reason to re-negotiate, to feel underpaid, short changed by life, by the partner who again did not take trash out, when I did dishes so many times this week.
The secret is so simple to understand and to explain, yet it takes lifetime of practice – giving without any expectation of return. That is the definition of love to be applied to everything, that is the cure for scarcity, for wanting, for longing, and dieta is precisely to train for that and then translate it into daily situations. But that approach of acceptance and gratitude should also be directed towards ourselves, towards the work and progress itself, with kind, light, even amused acknowledgement of our failures in becoming less of a client of God/reality and more of a friend.
“The way to make it happen in your life is to not transcend desire but to transmute it so that what you really want is what you actually have.”, says Terence Mc Kenna, who failed many times.