What are the Benefits of Sananga

Discover the powerful benefits of Sananga eye drops in our Ayahuasca retreat Sananga experience and sacred Sananga healing ceremony. 🌿✨

The Gateway Through the Eye, benefits of sananga

Sananga is not for the faint of heart — nor is the path of real transformation. At Master Plan Retreats, we’ve witnessed how Sananga eyedrops, though small in dose, can pierce through layers of illusion faster than hours of talk therapy. In a world obsessed with comfort and control, Sananga demands something radical: surrender through the eye. The eyes are more than windows to the soul — they are gates of perception, often clouded by emotional residue and inherited belief systems. When the drops hit, they don’t just burn — they reveal. They remind us that healing isn’t always gentle, and that clarity sometimes arrives wrapped in discomfort. For those walking the path of plant medicine not as tourists but as true seekers, Sananga becomes a sacred ally — helping us to see, not just better, but deeper.

About the healing properties of a sananga ceremony

Understanding The Sananga Eye drops

Sananga is often misunderstood as just a painful eyedrop — a brief, burning challenge that precedes the deeper work of Ayahuasca. But to reduce it to a physical experience is to overlook its rich cultural, spiritual, and energetic depth. Sananga is prepared from the roots and bark of Tabernaemontana undulata, a shrub native to the Amazon rainforest and part of the Apocynaceae family, known for its psychoactive alkaloids and healing properties. Traditionally used by tribes like the Yawanawá and Kaxinawá, Sananga is far more than a remedy for eye infections or hunting tool for sharper vision — it is a plant teacher in its own right.

Few in the West consider that Sananga belongs to a broader system of indigenous spiritual hygiene — a practice of daily energetic cleansing to remove panema, the dense energetic fog believed to cause misfortune, apathy, or illness. In the same way we cleanse our bodies, Sananga is used to “cleanse the perception,” energetically recalibrating the lens through which we see reality. It is both medicine and mirror.

What is rarely discussed is how Sananga subtly initiates us into a different paradigm — one where discomfort is not avoided but honored, where pain is not pathology but a portal. In this way, Sananga doesn’t just treat the eyes — it challenges how we see ourselves.

Why We Use Sananga in Our Ayahuasca Retreats

At Master Plan Retreats, we work with Sananga just once during the retreat — but that single moment is profound and intentional. We administer Sananga right before the Ayahuasca ceremony, not as a casual ritual, but as a sacred gateway. It is used to cleanse the energetic field, sharpen the inner vision, and prepare the participant to meet the medicine with clarity and presence.

This pre-ceremony Sananga moment creates a distinct energetic shift. The burning sensation in the eyes quickly quiets the mind and anchors awareness in the body. It’s as if the noise of the outside world — and the internal chatter — is wiped away, leaving a clean slate. The sting becomes a teacher, inviting surrender and focus before entering the deeper realms of Ayahuasca.

Sananga helps us see beyond the physical. It opens a kind of “vision behind the vision” — a more refined perception that isn’t limited to sight but to the truth of what is. It helps remove layers of illusion so the ceremony can begin from a place of alignment, integrity, and openness. That’s why, even used only once, Sananga plays an essential role in the architecture of the retreat

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The Sananga Experience: What to Expect

The Sananga experience is short, intense, and deeply symbolic. As the drops touch the eyes, a sharp burn surges through the body — not as punishment, but as purification. This moment is often the first true initiation of the retreat. It invites participants to meet pain not with resistance, but with presence. Unlike Western approaches that seek to numb or avoid discomfort, Sananga asks: Can you stay open while it burns?

During the Sananga ceremony, as with other plant medicines, we guide our participants to breathe deeply, stay calm, and observe. This conscious approach trains more than the nervous system — it strengthens the spirit. Embracing pain, rather than fleeing from it, becomes a sacred act of discipline. And in that, something shifts: pain transforms into power, discomfort into clarity.

What few discuss is how this moment prepares us for life far beyond the retreat. Sananga becomes a mirror — showing us that we are stronger than we think, capable of enduring discomfort with grace. And this strength doesn’t end when the sting fades; it carries into daily life, reminding us that attitude shapes experience. Sananga, in its brief fire, awakens the warrior within.

Sananga’s Holistic Benefits

Sananga is often introduced to retreat participants as a strong physical experience, but its benefits are far more layered and holistic than most realize. Traditionally used by Amazonian tribes like the Yawanawá and Matsés before hunting, Sananga was believed to sharpen eyesight — not just in the literal sense, but also to enhance intuition, focus, and energetic clarity. In the jungle, clear vision isn’t just about survival — it’s about presence. And in the context of modern spiritual work, that clarity becomes a key to transformation.

Physically, Sananga is known for its antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. It helps clear the eyes, sinuses, and energetic meridians — acting as a detoxifier for both body and spirit. But its deeper power lies in the subtle realms. Sananga cleanses what indigenous wisdom calls panema — the heavy emotional and energetic cloud that leads to confusion, stagnation, bad luck, or disconnection from one’s purpose.

Participants often report increased mental sharpness, emotional lightness, and a renewed sense of vitality after the Sananga experience. It’s not uncommon for someone to gain sudden clarity about a life decision or feel a release of emotional blockages they didn’t even know they were holding. This isn’t placebo — it’s the intelligence of a plant spirit that has been used for centuries not only to survive, but to see with precision and purpose.

Sananga reminds us that healing isn’t always gentle — but it is honest. Its benefits extend far beyond the eyes, reaching into the very core of how we perceive, decide, and align with our truth.

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Sananga as a Standalone Ceremony

While Sananga is most commonly used in combination with other plant medicines, it holds deep value as a standalone ceremony — one that is often underestimated. Without the influence of Ayahuasca or Kambó, the Sananga experience becomes even more intimate and revealing. It invites the participant into stillness, into presence, and into a direct relationship with the plant spirit itself.

In this space, Sananga works like a laser through layers of energetic clutter. It can surface insights, emotions, or ancestral memories that are ready to be seen — not with psychedelic visions, but with embodied clarity. What’s unique here is the simplicity. No visuals, no altered states — just you, your breath, and the medicine.

This stripped-back ceremony teaches a valuable lesson: that deep healing doesn’t always require fireworks. Sometimes, it’s in the quiet discipline of facing discomfort and listening inward that the most powerful shifts occur. Sananga, on its own, has the capacity to do exactly that.

Challenging Western Comfort Zones

In a culture obsessed with instant relief and sanitized healing, The benefits of Sananga and it’s experience are radically disruptive. It doesn’t numb — it awakens. It doesn’t comfort — it confronts. And that’s precisely why it’s such a potent teacher for those walking the path of spiritual growth. Sananga forces us to step outside the Western paradigm of “healing without pain” and into a more ancient understanding: that discomfort is not the enemy of transformation — it’s the door.

We often remind our retreat guests that healing is not always beautiful or blissful. Sometimes, it’s about learning to breathe through fire, to sit with sensation, and to meet pain with curiosity rather than fear. Sananga humbles the ego. It breaks the illusion that growth should always feel good — and in doing so, it births a new kind of resilience. This is medicine for the soul that dares to evolve, not escape. And that alone makes it sacred.

Conclusion: Seeing with New Eyes

Sananga is far more than just an intense moment before an Ayahuasca ceremony — it is a gateway to deeper vision, both literal and spiritual. At Master Plan Retreats, we honor it as a plant teacher in its own right, one that doesn’t need visions to shift reality. Its medicine is clarity — the kind that strips away illusion, purifies intention, and calls forth a higher version of the self.

What makes Sananga truly unique is its demand for presence. It doesn’t transport you elsewhere — it brings you here, into the body, into the breath, into the now. And in a world that constantly pulls us outward, that might be the most radical healing of all.

To see with new eyes is not to escape what is — it’s to perceive it with truth, with courage, and with love. Sananga offers this gift to those brave enough to receive it.

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