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Healing presupposes a motivation and in that motivation is hope of a resolve. Whatever, methodology is sought the rules of this matrix remain-- motivation presupposes the result. The resolve is liberation and liberation is peace—a truth that is not a construct of the mind. The motivation is of the mind, and the mind is the unreal. Awareness is not of the mind. The mind conditions, divides, and creates one whom is observing that which is observed. In awareness, the mind is dissolved and identification with things, is no longer. This is awareness. Your healing journey, your interest, your seeking, your motivations, have always been of the mind, of identity with conditions. What is divided which is the quality of the mind denies the truth - which is freedom and oneness.
Therefore, IBIOGA must be included within that which is motivated, a quality of the mind. In the modern western world, it is near impossible for people to arrive at something like IBOGA without a motivation- As educators of IBOGA and the BWETE tradition Manga and I had arrived without motivation. This renders the experience of something like IBOGA beyond that of the mind and resembling something of the ancient past. Whilst we remain unmotivated, the entirety of those coming to us for IBOGA were motivated and therefore encased in their minds expectancy of resolve, which was always going to be more questions and therefor removed from realization. For the questions continue to divide and destabilize the recognition of Oneness.
The awareness dialogues are discussions and sharing moving towards non-identification - which is to be free of conflict and conditions, and enable a learning and realization of our true identity. The unmotivated, the eternal, the timeless one. This is you. There remains no higher learning, no other method, technique or practice for these are mind creations. In Oneness, we are the inseparable, the observance of our birth, our lives, and the entire history of the Universe and all that is known and unknown. Only from here, may we be free and liberated from the Minds' illusions of those things that were motivated. You were never born, you were never the person that was traumatized, you have always been and remain as God's Thinking Mind not the Mind of Man. Through the dialogues, we share ourselves into truth and become that which we always have been.
Come and share in learning.
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We once were an IBOGA center but anyone that came here, and shared time with us knew that we were offering more than just simply IBOGA. It is the end of the chapter and the beginning of another 7 year period of great personal growth. All That Is decided and the timing was immaculate, doors were slammed shut while others swung open hiding behind them a tornado of energy ready for expression, to keep the Universe in balance. We floated on an inflatable ring way out in the ocean of possibility and we let GOD decide. In doing so, we are swamped with ideas and knowledge to share to those who are ready.
"Man does not realize that what he considers new idea brought into the appearance of existence, is but old idea stored within him projected upon the outer plane of his thinking." . Walter Russel
During our time offering IBOGA retreats, we met many individuals that became friends, that remain in contact with us for guidance and to share. We are offering these new retreats with them in mind, so that they may continue to grow and evolve in a new environment. If you have not been to IKARA you may apply to attend the Awareness Retreats and there will be a screening process as we did with the IBOGA retreats.
Our renaissance has begun.
If you are still looking to experience IBOGA, there is the option to visit the village for MOSUSU A NDZAMBE. Our guests who have been thinking about it all these years, now is the time. Unfortunately, if you are from the US, you will have to wait until the VISA ban for US Passport Holders is reversed. Last week during the Council of Ministers, the Gabonese government formally banned the export of Iboga. The Economic, Social and Environmental Council of Gabon also wants to ban spiritual tourism where seekers are offered fake initiations. All these moves further ensure the protection of the Sacred Wood and that those who are truly committed to the process will be brought to Gabon to experience it within its original context.
#IBOGA #awareness #spiritualretreats
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Matchéma first visited the village of MBOKA A NDZAMBE in May 2025. He went through the the spiritual rebirth process MOSUSU A NDZAMBE and became an active community member upon returning home to Australia He supported the NGO projects when he could and continued his spiritual mentorship with Kuma Bwenze.
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In August this year, Matchéma returned to MBOKA A NDZAMBE and was initiated as MIOBE NGANGA alongside 8 other Gabonese Bandzis. We congratulate him for his courage and acceptance because it is not an easy task. Matchéma´s primary role will be to act as a guide for those westerners that wish to visit the village for MOSUSU A NDZAMBE with a western guide. He will use these visits to continue his own spiritual learning. You can keep an eye on the MOSUSU A NDZAMBE webpage where will list the specific dates he will be acting as guide.
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"This may have been the most profound, positive, and transformative experience of my life.
If I had to rank the most meaningful experiences I’ve ever had, this would likely be number one. And Ikara is an exponentially deeper and more therapeutic experience than the other options. But I will explain why later.
I didn’t come to iboga casually. I came because I was dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and depression that had slowly taken on a life of their own. What began as something manageable gradually intensified over time. My psychology was getting worse, not better. I would wake up in the middle of the night, convinced someone was breaking into my house, heart racing. Small stressors felt overwhelming. My nervous system never truly felt safe.
I was not in a good place when I found Ikara. I was scared that things were going to spiral further out of control. This wasn’t something I chose from a position of comfort. It was out of desperation. I knew I needed something that would fundamentally change the trajectory I was on.
Kuma called me and said, “We have a space that opened up. Do you want to come a month early?” I was like, “Yes!” I worried that waiting even a month would have made things worse. Strangely, I am smiling as I am writing this now.
I had worked with other therapies and psychedelics, including ayahuasca and ketamine, which only scratched the surface. I had known about ibogaine for over a decade through my background in the addiction field and had seen how it can interrupt addiction and save lives. But what I was dealing with wasn’t addiction. It was trauma, anxiety, and depression.
Through research, reflection, and conversations, I came to feel that iboga, not ibogaine, was the right medicine for me. There isn’t a large body of formal comparative research, but based on tradition, lived experience, and the current science currently available, iboga was far more suited to deep trauma, depression, and anxiety work.
With at least 12 alkaloids, Iboga lasts much longer than ibogaine. In herbology, it’s called the “entourage effect.” At Ikara, we worked with Iboga twice. My friend, two weeks prior, had only done ibogaine once, a single alkaloid, and spent twice as much. So by going with Ikara, I got an exponentially more effective experience.
So once I decided on iboga, I searched locally in Costa Rica. Several places felt corporate and procedural. What stood out about Ikara was that when I called, I spoke directly with the medicine man himself. The work felt relational and customized rather than standardized.
Kuma has fully devoted his life to this path. He lives this spirituality. This is not a business model for him. It’s a calling. It reminded me of me when I was working in mental health, which was that I worked my ass off to make sure that this person was going to live.
I later learned that before I even arrived, rituals and sacred rites were being done on my behalf, not just by Kuma, but also his wife, Manga, and his mentor, High Nima, in Gabon. I wasn’t aware of it until the shaman in Gabon asked how I was doing.
The experience itself lasted longer than I expected. Plus, there is time dilation. But long did not mean chaotic or terrifying. Years
ago, I had a bad mushroom experience that was overwhelming and frightening. Iboga never felt unmanageable. It was grounded, contained, and precise.
Now, since doing iboga, I see PTSD everywhere.
Traumas are like pearls of a necklace.
Trauma feels like a string of pearls, each pearl representing a significant life event, all chained together in chronological order, each one influencing the next.
What does trauma feel like as it's lifted? My iboga experience felt like those pearls were being detached one by one, starting with the earliest and most foundational experiences. Each was examined gently and objectively. My memories appeared visually, often like sepia-toned photographs, usually cryptic. It wasn’t overwhelming. It was observational. It felt like my brain was rewiring as it moved through each one.
Fear did come up, especially around multiple deaths in my family, and I had experienced a deep fear of death I didn’t realize I was carrying. But iboga brings up fear softly. It invites you to look directly at what you’ve avoided without retraumatizing you.
What I realized is that I didn’t need more biohacks, therapists, supplements, gym work, or external optimization. I needed a spiritual awakening.
My entire life, I had suppressed suffering, which only made it worse. Suffering isn’t something you ignore. It must be handled. You have to confront it in a nuanced way and feel into it.
Many traditions, like Buddhism, teach that overcoming life’s suffering is the most important thing a person can do in their life. It’s done through discipline, mindfulness, and wisdom. Suffering is not something you are required to carry forever, but it requires awareness to dissolve it.
I was never able to effectively confront suffering on my own. Iboga allowed me to confront suffering directly. Once I did, I could see my ego clearly for the first time. As longstanding suffering dissolved, my identity reorganized around something steadier.
Most of the problems in the world are suffering, not pain. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is often our response to pain. For the first time in my life, I was able to release myself from the suffering.
Suffering in life is optional.
Two months later, I feel fantastic. Weeks after finishing, my PTSD symptoms were gone. My depression and anxiety lifted. I also feel physically healthier. It wasn’t just psychological. Something shifted systemically for me.
Kuma and his wife, Manga, are a strong, complementary team. She is deeply kind and generous. The other two staff members assisting had recovered from their own very severe child abuse. One of them arrived at iboga in extremely poor health, having been told by doctors that he was dying. Lyme disease was killing him. His recovery story deeply impacted me. Seeing someone come back from that kind of state gave me confidence that profound change is possible.
Similarly, I was diagnosed with a fairly undetectable autoimmune disorder called CIRS, where, among other things, the blood-brain barrier begins to leak (when exposed to substances like high MMP9, C4A, TNF-Alpha, and low VIP), and I had lots of anxiety and insomnia as a result. (Sorry, lots of info there.)
Many people who come through Ikara have experienced profound trauma, depression, and anxiety. Kuma and Manga are prepared for that and function like midwives during the experience. This is not something you do alone. Knowing someone truly has your back while you process deep emotions in a compressed period of time makes all the difference.
In my group of six, I likely had the most active PTSD symptoms going in. That’s okay. Some people carry more. And if that is you, well, you, my friend, are going to get so much more out of it!
What matters is having a steady, experienced team holding the container.
I live in the beautiful jungle of Costa Rica, yet Ikara is set in an incredibly beautiful place.
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU GO: As you go through the iboga experience, you become deeply aware of the glorious world around you. The crickets, the frogs, the nocturnal sounds of the jungle, the air, the trees. The psychedelic creates a sort ASMR of the jungle whispering in your ears. It’s divinity.
And while there, sober, there is still a profound reconnection you begin to feel between yourself and nature and the universe. You’ll remember this. Even now, as I hear it in my backyard, life feels more beautiful and blessed. There is a deeper sense of sacredness around than simply being alive on this thin blue skin of a rocky planet.
Today, Kuma, Manga, and I are friends. I ran into them in town today. I told him I owed him a review. We laughed. He asked how I was doing. I had lost weight. I looked and felt different. My energy was different. He could see that I was genuinely well.
I haven’t felt this good in a long time.
Since doing this, I’ve reached out to friends who are suffering, many with anxiety and trauma, to tell them this exists. Not to sell anyone on it, but because I wish I had known sooner.
This is not a casual experience, and it is not for everyone. But if you feel called to do iboga, to put the past behind you, and to directly confront suffering, to confront depression, anxiety, PTSD, or illness, I cannot imagine a better place or guide."
Photo: Sunset over the Islands of Manuel Antonio as viewed from the deck at Ikara Retreat Center,
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Our next retreats with availability are as follows::
- 13th to 17th Apr
- 4th to 8th May
- 25th to 29th May
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But is that mechanistic?
No, because if the order is not there in your daily life, the deeper order of the Universe cannot show. It's like trying to drive your vehicle in fog - all the interesting places are inaccessible, you cannot see them.
Clarity allows us to unfold and shows us the processes that exist deeper.
You must become aware of the disorder. You could say that the disorder exists outside of you but in reality, the disorder is actually a reflection of that which originally came from the inside. The disorder inside is projected outwards and reflected back at you. It is the unfoldment of our internal disorder out into the external world. This is the implicate order. Everything is interconnected. All Consciousness is One.
Your failure to understand or to see the disorder inside your thought driven universe, is the cause of all your problems. When you consume IBOGA, you will see the disorder you experience is all your own creation. you will be able to observe your malpatterned thinking and bring it into balance, into order. From this point of clarity, you begin to discover the deeper processes underlying this reality.
This is the first step towards changing the world.
Begin where you are.
You are part of the whole.
Only you can find it for yourself..
#iboga #krishnamurti #consciousness #ibogaretreat #spiritualawakening
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There are many different ways to charge our biological battery...we may ground our feet to the earth, reconnect to nature, we receive energy from the Sun and the food that we eat. But if the circuitry is obstructed, our battery continues to discharge despite our efforts.
The alkaloids in IBOGA come in and harmonize the Units of Consciousness that compose your cells and form your physical body. IBOGA plugs you into the Unknown Universe, the Still Void from which everything is born. When you consume IBOGA it carries that connection electrically through the body. ALL circuits, everything that carries a current, a movement, in the body, is cleaned, all connections are brushed & reconnected and then the circuits are flushed, on all energetic levels.
You will feel the electrical nature of IBOGA in your body and hear the frequency at which it works. IBOGA being a tool of the Unknown Universe detects anything within the body that has been brought out of balance from your thinking mind and reharmonizes it through a balanced interchange bringing you back in alignment with your still centre.
Your battery is fully recharged. You can start again from there.
Ikararetreat.com/iboga
#iboga #ibogaretreat #biologicalbattery #consciousness #universalknowledge
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Comparisons, of any sort, are limiting. Do not compare your position with anyone. It is unique..... especially so with IBOGA. Because of this, the possibilities, for each individual, are endless. If you magnify your limitations you create your own prisons. If you enjoy those freedoms that are yours now, you automatically increase them.
But you can not expect a blissful time innocent of problems. That is not the nature of life or of existence.
The solidity of your own unique problems will convince you that they are real. In fact, they are simply creative in nature and designed with great potentials in mind. If you creatively use your problems great things can emerge, but you must learn from them. Do not concentrate upon them or allow them to close your eyes to the great joys and freedoms that are also PRESENT,
You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule.
Do not dwell anywhere, especially in your emotions.
If you seek good health, you must focus on the parts of you that are healthy.
If you focus on your illness, you will become just that.
Awareness is the tool that opens up the application of this to your life now.
From this starting point the unchangeable changes, always without fail, but with patience.
#iboga #ibogaretreat #selfhealing #awareness #krishnamurti #nisargadattamaharaj #robertadams #terencemckenna #awakening
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it belongs to the earth. It returns there but the Self lives on, contained within the inert gases of the universe ready for your next incarnation. With each new existence in this physical world, you will understand this more until you live a life full of joy, devoid of pain and suffering, where everything happens just as you desire within your Soul, not your thinking mind.
Quieten the mind and you might just hear the whispering of that voice within you that is waiting for you to awaken to this "Le Don de Vie" (Gift of Life).
No amount of integration, life coaching or online therapy sessions can bring you to these realizations. You have to discover it.
The sacred plant IBOGA is here on this earthly plane, for you to consume, it becomes one with you, the Greater you, it provides the electrical connection from Spirit to flesh.
No greater gift can be received.
#iboga #ibogaretreat #spirit #awakening #lovelife #livelife
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