In the Santo Daime, what are we asking for?

In Portuguese, the phrase “dai-me” translates to “give me”. This makes Santo Daime the religion of the Holy Give-Me. The idea is that we must ask for what we want. Or as Christ taught, we must knock if we want the door to open.

In the Santo Daime, what we are asking for is a long list of divine qualities. Each is referenced often in the many hymns we sing:

• Health (saúde)
• Happiness (felicidade)
• Joy (alegria)
• Firmness (firmeza)
• Strength (força)
• Harmony (harmonia)
• Peace (paz)
• Union (união)
• Loyalty (lealdade)
• Purity (pureza)
• Love (amor)
• Humility (humildade)
• Gratitude (gratidão)
• Compassion (compaixão)
• Forgiveness (perdão)
• Salvation (salvação)
• Redemption (redenção)
• Truth (verdade)
• Honesty (honestidade)
• Freedom from illusion (liberdade da illusão)

Imagine if we all already had all these things! In fact, in some ways, we do.

These are all qualities of what the Pathwork Guide calls the Higher Self, which rests comfortably at the center of our beings. If our life is not a shining reflection of all this goodness, it’s because our inner light has gotten covered over by dark layers of Lower Self.

Having lost our connection with our own Higher Self, we now live with struggle.

The good news is that we can get our light back, if we ask.

Asking for purification, cleansing, strength

Although it is actually our birthright to live with all these divine qualities—in great abundance, no less—we can’t get any of them from outside ourselves. For if they come to us from the outside and are not a match for our current inner make-up, they won’t last.

Our work then is to purify ourselves, transforming our inner darkness back into its original light-filled condition.

So when we ask for purification, we are really asking for help in cleansing ourselves of our own darkness. This is essentially our negativity, which includes hate and withholding, destructiveness and faults, rebelliousness and resistance, and a desire to stay stuck. And all of these are pinned in place by hidden untruths.

In a Santo Daime work, such cleansing happens in a number of ways, some of which are generally considered unpleasant. Which is why we are also asking the Daime to give us strength.

Asking for humility, truth, love

Humility is a foundational divine quality that reorients pride. We naturally acquire humility by doing deep healing work. For the only way we can truly heal ourselves is by finding the places inside us where we are not aligned with God, and therefore not yet a humble servant of God.

When we ask the Daime to give us humility, we are really asking to be shown where and how we are in the wrong. And then we must become willing to correct ourselves.

Keep in mind, just as it is important to see the error of our ways, we must also come to see the truth of the matter. This is key for truly stepping into the light.

We will discover the truth as we develop a firm connection with our Higher Self, which is a fountain of infinite wisdom. But first we must have the courage to clear away the separating walls in our psyche. We do this by unraveling and releasing the old pain that caused us to build them.

Perseverence and a commitment to being in truth will be necessary. Then, when we realize the truth, we must pray to imprint it on our soul substance.

Once we are in truth and in connection with our Higher Self, love will also naturally flow. And, of course, love is a radiant quality we are always asking for in the Santo Daime.

Asking for freedom from illusion, salvation

The illusion of duality is created by the ways we have distorted various rays of light, turning them into separating fragments of darkness. To leave this illusion, we must go into the dark parts of our psyche and unwind all our misunderstandings. This is how we restore ourselves to wholeness.

So while we can certainly ask for freedom from illusion, the way out requires we enter the dark maze of our inner illusions. Paradoxically, we each must do the hard work of freeing ourselves from our inner self-created prison for ourselves…and we all need help to do this.

In other words, in the Santo Daime, when we ask for salvation, what we are really asking for is help in saving ourselves.

Asking for harmony, peace, redemption

The Pathwork guide teaches that when the Spirit World is involved, they accomplish more than one thing at a time. In the case of Christ coming to Earth in the form of a man called Jesus, there were essentially three things going on.

First, and the most important part of the mission, was that Christ made it possible for us to save ourselves. Christ did this by opening the doorway to heaven for us. Meaning, if we do our healing work and re-purify ourselves—making ourselves once again compatible with God—we can now return home.

It was never meant to be understood that Christ would do our work for us. Or that by believing in Jesus Christ, we could avoid our purification work altogether. For as long as we remain unclean—as long we still have layers of Lower Self covering our Higher Self—we’re not ready to reunite with Christ, and therefore with God.

We will know this is the case if there is disharmony in our lives, keeping us from knowing inner peace. Hence, our prayers for harmony and peace are really requests for help in cleansing ourselves of our inner distortions and the outer entanglements they cause.

Second, Christ left us beautiful teachings to help us navigate our way home. And third, we can look at Christ’s life as a teaching. For example, what is our cross that we must now carry? For our Lower Self has come about through misuse of our free will, and the consequences are now ours to bear.

Asking for joy, happiness, gratitude

To be human is to have a Lower Self. But by being here, in this illusion, we have the chance to change and grow, so that eventually we can leave this difficult dimension. And we can each choose to do this quickly or slowly.

By walking a conscious path of personal self-development, we are taking the faster way home.

But let’s face it, self-healing work is hard to do. Santo Daime works, in particular, can be very intense and at times, very difficult. But the joy and happiness we are seeking can only come about as a byproduct of walking through the difficult terrain of our inner landscape.

Since we’ve been given this chance to redeem ourselves, our hymns contain prayers of gratitude. In our healing ceremonies, we give thanks for the support we receive from the spiritual beings who come to help us heal. And we give thanks for the people who are supporting us and our work, making deep self-discovery and self-purification possible.

We also give thanks to Christ, who came to help us, and who continues to help us every step of the way.

The more we ask, the more we receive. For this, we say thank-you.

Most of all, we give praise to God, who exists in the heights and also in the depths of our soul. The more we align with our Higher Self, the more we truly become one with God. Whether we know it or not, this ultimate union with God is what we are all truly longing for.

It’s worth asking for.