Awareness
All pleasures are present and nothing save complete awareness of the present can even
begin to guarantee future happiness.
Almost always, the subject is introduced to such increased awareness that this experience
remains one of the outstanding events of his life.
Although out of the safe harbor of his own identity anchored in this time and this place,
the traveler may still be clearly aware of this time and place as well.
An extreme in the experience of changed time and space is the awareness of infinity and
eternity.
An interesting dialog occurs between pure transcendence and the awareness that this
ecstatic vision is happening to oneself.
Are they outlawed because we fear drugs or because we fear the social effects of altered
states of awareness, religious intensity, and mysticism?
As the gates of the unconscious mind open, a wide variety of repressed emotions and
recollections can be released into conscious awareness.
Authoritarianism preys on an unaware populous and democracy requires a self-aware,
self-determined populous.
By polar awareness, awareness of polarity, one sees that things which are explicitly
different are implicitly one.
“Drug” means positive things, possible growth, opening up the mind, beauty, sensual
awareness, religious revelation.
Drugs open awareness to messages from the autonomous nervous system, signals from
the great organ and tissue centers within the body.
Education has focused almost entirely on developing the cognitive skills of our ordinary
state. We should be aware that this is a policy decision, not a necessary “given.”
Ego death is not permanent, but the break-through to a broader awareness generally
begins the process of transformation of the personality.
Every enhancement of the separate personal self produces a corresponding diminuation
of that self’s awareness of divine reality.
Grof describes transpersonal experiences as those in which ego boundaries are dissolved
and awareness is extended beyond the ordinary confines of time and space.
Human beings have so brutalized themselves, have become so banal and stultified, that
they are unaware of their own debasement.
Humor is nothing other than perfect self-awareness. It is the delightful recognition of
one’s absurdity.
In the Tibetan tradition, dying, no less than living, is to be performed in complete
conscious awareness.
In this special state of consciousness, the subject becomes aware of certain intrapsychic
processes ordinarily excluded or beyond the scope of awareness.
Inhibition and anxiety narrow perception, reduce the breadth of conscious-unconscious
awareness.
It is a cosmic consciousness into which we enter as our normal consciousness expands,
and we become aware of the transcendent dimension of humanity beyond space and time.
It is possible that a person is aware of more perceptions in a given amount of time as a
result of the enhancement of sensory data.
It makes sense to experience and study altered states of awareness to learn about the
nature of our world by directing attention to aspects of it that usually remain peripheral.
It offers one the chance to experience a true expansion of consciousness, an increase in
awareness, a general improvement and heightening of perception of all kinds.
It offers unparalleled opportunity to catalyze awareness of otherwise unconscious psychic
processes, to widen the area of human consciousness.
It seemed like the whole world was excited and aware of impending changes. It’s
growing. People are tired of the plastic bullshit conspiracy. They’re starting to think.
Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and
dangerous hallucination.
Liberation might be defined as the process of waking up out of the nonsense, nightmares
and illusory pleasures of what is ordinarily called real life, into the awareness of eternity.
Live here and now; do not be a slave of emotional memories of the past; be aware of
what is going on now.
Man as ego does not see nature at all. For man as ego is man identifying himself or his
mind, his total awareness, with the narrowed and exclusive style of attention.
Man is only dimly aware of the powers, energies, plannings and wisdom that surround
him and radiate through him.
Mescaline and LSD take you beyond the senses into a world of cellular awareness. (eyes
closed)
Mescaline raises all colors to a higher power and makes the percipient aware of
innumerable fine shades of difference, to which, at ordinary times, he is completely blind.
Moral and spiritual idealism, with all their efforts and disciplines aimed at the future, are
forms of the very mode of awareness which is giving us trouble.
“Normal” ordinary consciousness and/or awareness is a state in which one is at least half
blind, deaf, and alive.
Once a person has been emotionally stirred to such depths, he can never completely lose
his new sense of awareness.
Our ordinary state of awareness is merely a fragment of what is possible. The human
psyche is capable of extraordinary states that are accessible under certain conditions.
People may feel keener awareness of their bodies or sense changes in the appearance and
feeling of body parts.
Psychedelics bring normally unconscious, subliminal under-the-threshold experiences
into awareness.
That which in the language of religion is called “this world” is the universe of reduced
awareness.
The average person may pass through new dimensions of awareness and self-knowledge
to a “transforming experience.”
The cosmological awareness and awareness of every other natural process is there in the
cortex.
The deep contents of the psyche that we are ordinarily unaware of erupt into
consciousness in the form of images, powerful emotions, and strange physical feelings.
The end of human life is not action but contemplation or the direct and unitive awareness
of God.
The experience is capable of giving intense visions and intense new awareness and
conviction of awareness of one’s own place in the universe.
The fullness of awareness increases to an intensity that may seem almost too great to be
borne.
The increased sensitivity and awareness enhances the pleasurable aspects of sexual
experience.
The individual is almost universally unaware that he has learned to confuse himself with
a political and legal fiction.
The mind comes to rest and notices the rhythm, becoming aware that the timeless intent
of the process is fulfilled at each instant.
The most important scientific insights or intuitions come precisely through the somewhat
reluctant use of a nonthinking mode of awareness.
The mystical view of consciousness is based on the experience of reality in non-ordinary
modes of awareness.
The “normal” modes of awareness are suspended. (During an LSD trip, awareness
expands far beyond the “normal,” to the real.)
The richer our picture of man and of the world becomes, the more we are aware of its
relativity and of the interconnection of all its patterns in an undivided whole.
The universe is a many-dimensioned pattern, infinite in extent, infinite in duration,
infinite in significance and infinitely aware, we may surmise, of its own infinities.
There exist societies that make liberal use of drugs to alter awareness, but do not appear
to have problems with them.
There has always been this center of pure and unmoved awareness which never at any
time departed from present reality.
These drugs have the unique effect on the human psyche of bringing into awareness
forms of consciousness that are usually hidden or unconscious.
This expansion of consciousness can be used to increase our awareness of and sensitivity
toward mankind.
This increased awareness has been eagerly sought by many people who have devoted
their lives to spiritual development.
Through music, I am aware of an occasional surge of inspiration and insight that has
become a dynamic element in whatever creativity I may possess.
To clear awareness there is neither past not future, but just this one moment which
Western mystics have called the Eternal Now.
We have become aware of the undiscovered universe within, of the uncharted regions of
consciousness.
What education does is put a series of filters over your awareness and you experience less
and less.
When inner vision is ignored or obscured, one may be caught by illusions that constrict
awareness of reality.
Who controls your cortex? Who decides the range and limit of your awareness? (internal
freedom issue)
Wisdom becomes available when we see things as they are. Our task is to remove the
obstacles to awareness that limit and distort perception.
With unusual intensity, the field of awareness is flooded with material from the
individual’s unconscious and from the sensory organs, particularly the optical system.
You become aware deep within you of ultimate communion, experiential awareness of
communion.
Action without wisdom, without clear awareness of the world as it really is, can never
improve anything. It could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are
making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.
All living organisms are throbbing together. One is joyfully aware of the 2 billion year
old electric sexual dance. One is at last divested of robot clothes and limbs and undulates
in the endless chain of living forms.
Awareness of all normal sense impressions and the empirical ego seems to die or fade
away while pure consciousness of what is being experienced paradoxically remains and
seems to expand as a vast inner world is encountered.
clear consciousness, seeing the world just as it is—Such awareness is a lively attention to
one’s direct experience, to the world as immediately sensed, so an not to be misled by
names and labels.
Common sense is not based on total awareness; it is a product of convention, or
organized memories of other people’s words, of personal experiences limited by passion
and value judgments, of hallowed notions and naked self-interest.
During the next few hundred years, the major activity of man will be scientific
exploration of and education in the many new universes of awareness which have been
opened up by psychedelic drugs.
Even in our sophisticated society, the dream and the hallucination retain a vestige of their
magical powers. Many surmise that somehow they contain a more important message, a
final truth of which waking consciousness is incapable.
For millennia, man has been involved in the ritual ingestion of substances reputed to
produce an awareness of a sacramental reality and has come to incorporate these
substances into the myth and ritual pattern of the culture in which they occur.
I have used the symbolic expression “awakening” because it clearly suggests the
becoming aware of a new area of experience, the opening of hitherto closed eyes to an
inner reality previously unknown.
In contrast to the incredible potentialities of the brain is the fact that we are aware of only
the millionth fraction of our own cortical signaling. (The awareness of the ego is almost
zero.)
In such states, the subject has a revelation of the significance and interrelationships of
many dimensions of life; he becomes aware of many levels of meaning simultaneously
and “understands” the totality of existence.
Internal unity occurs when consciousness merges with this “ground of being,” beyond all
empirical distinctions. Although awareness of one’s empirical ego has ceased, one does
not become unconscious.
It is a direct and immediate awareness that we are dealing with something that has a
divine nature and is radically different from our ordinary perception of the everyday
world.
It is possible to cut beyond ego-consciousness, to tune in on neurological processes which
flash by at the speed of light, and to become aware of the enormous treasury of ancient
racial knowledge welded into the nucleus of every cell in your body.
Occasionally, the subjects can lose awareness of the actual physical setting altogether and
their consciousness moves into experiential realms and subjective realities that appear to
be entirely independent of the material world.
On the verbal level, the “psychedelic” conversation may include a mutual awareness of
nuances rarely encountered in ordinary conversation, multiple meanings and shades of
meanings, all attached to a single word or brief phrase.
Our general failure to notice the inseparability of things and to be aware of our own basic
unity with the external world is the result of specializing in a particular kind of
consciousness. (Normal waking consciousness is just to narrow and limited.)
Perhaps they reveal the “normal” state. To many people, the states of awareness that are
experienced are not “abnormal,” but rather, familiar territory that had been lost in some
primal amnesia. These states are the human heritage.
Rocks are aware. Inorganic matter is involved in energy changes, structural excitements,
evolvings, pressured sculptings. Inorganic matter—rocks, cliffs, valleys, mountains are
alive and wise.
The conventional wakeful state in which awareness is hooked to conditioned symbols,
flags, dollar signs, job titles, brand names, party affiliations and the like, is the level that
most people, including psychiatrists regard as reality; they don’t know the half of it.
The experiential insights from unusual states of consciousness suggest the existence of
intangible and unfathomable creative intelligence aware of itself that permeates all realms
of reality.
The foundation or “ground” of our existence and awareness can’t be understood in terms
of things that are known. We have of speak of it through myth, metaphors, analogies,
what it’s LIKE, not what it IS.
The individual sees the world as incredibly beautiful, radiant, safe, and nourishing. This
is associated with a deep awareness of the spiritual and mystical dimensions in the
universal scheme of things and with a sense of oneness and belonging.
The mystical experience is essentially the being aware of and being identified with a form
of pure consciousness, of unstructured transpersonal consciousness which lies, so to
speak, upstream from the ordinary discursive consciousness of everyday.
The overcoming of the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great
mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we
become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition.
The realization that nature is ordered organically rather than politically, that it is a field of
relationships rather than a collection of things, requires an appropriate mode of human
awareness.
The root of mental disorder is that the ego-feeling as such is an error of perception. To
placate it is only to enable it to go on confusing the mind with a mode of awareness
which clashes with the natural order.
The spiritual dimension is a key factor in the human psyche and in the universal scheme
of things. Becoming aware of this dimension of our lives and cultivating it is an essential
and desirable part of our existence.
The subject may observe or feel himself to be a part of evolutionary process, seemingly
aware of the whole or a part of the pattern of emerging life on this earth and its
progression towards the present point in time.
The vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of education, all the openness to
inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than those enumerated in the
Sears-Roebuck catalogue which constitutes the conventionally “real” world.
The veil which made you see duality drops away and you experience the world as a
blissful sport of God’s energy. You see the universe as supremely blissful light,
undifferentiated from yourself and you remain unshakable in this awareness.
the Western discovery of the creative power of “no-thought” and contemplation without
strained attention—Such a mode of awareness is essential when research is expected to
bring forth new concepts.
There exists a range of energies and awarenesses beyond the imprinted symbols of
rational thought which can work with a rapidity and efficiency beyond the workaday
conceptual processes.
They induce “levels of consciousness which are vast extensions and enlargements of
normal experience” and thus “open to conscious awareness of a wider, clearer, more
complete view of the world.”
Those aspects of the psychedelic experience which subjects report to be ineffable and
ecstatically religious involve a direct awareness of the energy processes which scientists
measure.
Those who uphold the impoverished sense of reality sanctioned by official psychiatry
describe this type of awareness as “depersonalization,” “loss of ego-boundary” or
“regression to the oceanic feeling,” all of which are derogatory terms.
Total awareness opens the way to understanding and when any given situation is
understood, the nature of all reality is made manifest and the nonsensical utterances of
the mystics are seen to be true.
Total awareness starts with the realization of my ignorance and my impotence. (It is
absurd to say that I, meaning ego, is master of my fate or captain of my soul because the
ego doesn’t know how food is digested, blood is circulated or anything else.)
Unlike Freud, Jung was aware that his findings were incompatible with the existing
philosophy of science and required an entirely new paradigm. (Jung was a friend of
Albert Einstein.)
We cannot make intuitions happen; we can only let them enter our awareness. In fact, if
we disengage our awareness from ego consciousness and intellect, we cannot stop
intuitive knowledge from bubbling up out of the unconscious depths.
We do not know what we want because we are only dimly aware of anything wantable.
We have taught ourselves to pursue goals but we have more words than experience for
what we mean.
We have been taught to narrow our awareness to a fantasy world of symbol solids. But
that’s not how it really is. All matter is energy—everything is whirling change, even you!
Look at your baby pictures. Look in the mirror. You are a dramatically changing process.
When you sit across the room from a woman during an LSD session, you’re aware of
thousands of penetrating messages floating from her through the air into your sensory
center, grenades of eroticism exploding.
William James was well aware that a deep religious conversion is the best therapy for
alcoholism. The importance of deep spiritual experiences for overcoming alcoholism was
also well known to Carl Gustav Jung.
I am not merely spinning senseless paradoxes when I say that we, the sane ones, are out
of our minds. The mind is what the ego is unconscious of. The mind of which we are
unaware is aware of us. It is we who are out of our minds. We need not be unaware of the
inner world.
In the course of my research, I found that in the mythology of every religions tradition I
am aware of, there’s some magic plant that talks, heals, mystifies, intoxicates, or turns
into fire, that either brings you to God, or gets you in a whole lot of trouble, or both,
depending on the context.
It is significant that those who have been surprised by a mystical experience seldom fail
to feel that their experience is religious. Intuitively they become aware—at least
subjectively— that their state of mind somehow links them with the saints and prophets
of the ages. This is the case even with atheists.
It should be one of the chief tasks of the guide to help the subject select out of the wealth
of phenomena among which he finds himself, some of the more promising opportunities
for heightened insight, awareness and integral understanding that the guide knows to be
available in the psychedelic experience.
It shouldn’t be this difficult to accept logically that there are many realities and that the
most exciting things that happen are not at the level of our routine perception and, for that
matter, that the most complex communications, the most creative processes, exist at
levels of which we are not ordinarily aware.
Jesus was aware of himself as a finished specimen of the new humanity which is to
come—the new humanity which is to inherit the earth, establish the Kingdom, usher in
the New Age. His mission and his teaching have at their heart the development of a new
and higher state of consciousness on a species-wide basis.
Most of the awe and reverent wonder stems from this confrontation with an unsuspected
range of consciousness, the tremendous acceleration of images, the shattering insight into
the narrowness of the learned as opposed to the potentiality of awareness, the humbling
sense of where one’s ego is in relationship to the total energy field.
One can experience himself in a specific situation in his childhood, in the birth canal
and/or ancient Egypt. While aware of his everyday identity, he can identify experientially
with another person, another life form or a mythological being. He can also experience
himself in a different location in the world or in a mythical reality. (eyes closed)
Our true nature is an aspect of a universal consciousness, Self, Being, Mind, of God. The
awakening to this true nature is the direct awareness that you are more than this puny
body or limited mind. It is the realization that the universe is not external to you. It is
experiencing the universe as yourself.
Psychedelic subjects regularly report experiencing events that seem to harmonize with
quantum mechanics. They speak of participating in and emerging with pure energy; of
witnessing the breakdown of macroscopic objects into vibratory patterns, the awareness
that everything is a dance of particles.
Psychedelics induce alterations of perception which make the nervous system aware of
itself. (It’s not that the nervous system becomes aware of itself. It’s always aware of
itself. The alterations of perception allow the person to become consciously aware of
what’s going on with the nervous system.)
Some candidates, resisting the effects of the drug out of fear that their personalities or
their “selves” are being destroyed, are inclined to put up defensive barriers to nullify the
drug’s action. The subject should be aware that what is being destroyed is not his true
“self”, but the abstract formulation of values and concepts society has imposed upon him.
The Christian message is essentially a call to be universal— a call to become cosmically
conscious. It is a call to place God at the center of ourselves, not through blind faith but
through insightful awareness, not through rigid adherence to ritual and dogma but
through graceful expression of cosmic principles. It is a call to “be as gods.”
The formless, dimensionless and intangible cosmic consciousness can best be described
as Infinite Existence, Infinite Awareness and Knowledge, and Infinite Bliss. However,
any words refer primarily to phenomena and processes of the natural reality and are,
therefore, only pitiful attempts to convey the essence of this transcendental principle.
The greatest obstacle to awareness is neurosis. Neurosis can be defined in one of its
aspects as a fixation upon a single aspect of life, a looking at the world through one
particular set of distorting lenses and hence as the inability to see a wider angle of life
and to perceive realistically what is going on around us.
The individual has become relaxed, has begun to enjoy the increased sense perceptions
and has become fascinated with the world of awareness that is beginning to open to him.
The deep and profound experiences released by the LSD then flow uninterrupted in an
ever widening scope.
The individual in this state becomes deeply aware of his or her unity with other people,
nature and the entire universe and with the ultimate creative principle or God. This is
accompanied by an overwhelming positive affect that can range from peace, serenity and
bliss to an ecstatic rapture.
The person is at one with the universe. In his mystic selflessness he awakens with a
feeling of rebirth, often physically felt and he is provided with a new beginning, a new
sense of values. He becomes aware of the richness of the unconscious at his disposal; the
energies bound up in and by repression become available to him.
The reason psychedelic experiences are important and valuable is that people live their
lives by their own “chess-boards,” playing the lawyer-game, the merchant-game or some
rule-ridden ego-game, rarely if ever expanding their consciousness to the point of true
awareness and understanding of man and nature, including themselves.
The remarkable thing about the LSD experience is that you see the broad range of the
underconsciousness without losing consciousness, a state wherein you are aware of all
things in the conscious mind and at the same time aware of all things in the
underconscious mind.
The various “other worlds” with which human beings erratically make contact are so
many elements in the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people,
most of the time, know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as
genuinely real by the local language.
Under appropriate conditions the psychedelics could considerably speed and facilitate the
process of working through psychological blocks. Material inaccessible in an ordinary
state could be brought into awareness, sometimes producing dramatic transformations
including death/rebirth experiences and alleviation of symptoms.
Under the current dispensation, the vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of
education, all the openness to inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than
those enumerated in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue which constitutes the conventionally
“real” world.
Each human being is equipped with a 120-billion-cell brain, but we haven’t learned how
to use it. Few of us are aware of our neural ineptness. The organized religions have
comforted us by providing infantile fairy tales about God and promises of discarnate
immortality. Pray and obey, keep your legs crossed, avoid orgasms, and you’ll get the
one-way ticket to heaven.
Leary believed that the human race is presently evolving to a higher level of
consciousness and a greater spiritual awareness. His research with LSD seemed to bear
out the fact that our nervous systems are equipped to receive a vastly greater spectrum of
reality than we realized; and once the veils of perception are cleansed, wars, racism,
competitiveness and violence will be seen as old, outgrown, pre-human traits.
The formless, dimensionless and intangible principle that an individual can perceive as
the Universal Mind is characterized by infinite existence, infinite awareness and
knowledge and infinite bliss. Any descriptions and definitions, however, necessarily use
words that we associate with the phenomena of the three-dimensional world; they are
therefore incapable of conveying the essence of this ultimate transcendental principle.
The intensification and “deepening” of color, sound and texture lends them a peculiar
transparency. One seems to be aware of them more than ever as vibration, electronic and
luminous. As this feeling develops it appears that these vibrations are continuous with
one’s own consciousness and that the external world is in some way inside the mind-
brain.
There is a limitless range of awareness for which we now have no words. That awareness
can expand beyond the range of your ego, your self, your familiar identity, beyond
everything you have learned, beyond your notions of space and time, beyond the
differences which usually separate people from each other and from the world around
them.
There is no form of energy on this planet that isn’t recorded somewhere in your body.
Built within every cell are molecular strands of memory and awareness called the DNA
code, the genetic blueprint that has designed and executed the construction of your body.
This is an ancient strand of molecules that possesses memories of every previous
organism that has contributed to your present existence.
What we ordinarily take in and respond to is a curious mixture of immediate experience
with culturally conditioned symbol, of sense impressions with preconceived ideas about
the nature of things. And by most people the symbolic elements in this cocktail of
awareness are felt to be more important than the elements contributed by immediate
experience.
In ordinary seeing, we are hardly ever directly aware of our immediate impressions. For
these immediate impressions are more or less profoundly modified by a mind that does
most of its thinking in terms of words. Every perception is promptly conceptualized and
generalized, so that we do not see the particular thing or event in its naked immediacy;
we see only the objective illustration of some generic notion, only the concretion of an
abstract word.
Perhaps the most effective stratagram of the intellect is to convince the owner that it is
equivalent to the mind; if one accepts this notion, abandoning the intellect becomes
equivalent to losing one’s mind. For this reason, intellectuals tend to look upon persons
who have gone beyond the intellect as unfortunates who have suffered a mental
catastrophe, even though those persons may have greater awareness than any intellectual
can have.
A new awareness of one’s relatedness to others and to the universe is strengthened.
A person may be brought out of his unconscious obsession to a full awareness.
Altered awareness of the body may involve the whole body or a part or parts of the body.
Awareness becomes vivid.
Awareness has more levels, is many-dimensioned.
Awareness is a view of reality free from ideas and judgments.
Beyond the falsifications of egocentric consciousness lies the world of awareness.
Consciousness of this moment is pure awareness, the pure awareness of the Self.
Expanded awareness extends beyond the limits of the verbal and conceptual.
Greater knowledge brings with it an awareness of ignorance.
If reality is to be understood in its fullness, there must be total awareness.
Increasing intelligence and awareness is a team sport.
Insights flash into awareness.
It is a question of being aware of what is truly valuable and to be prized.
Man’s brain is capable of limitless new dimensions of awareness and knowledge.
Mood changes abruptly, often in response to awareness of some perceptual stimulus.
Once “normal” modes of awareness are suspended, consciousness changes occur.
One can discard all traces of ego awareness and be more than one was before.
Peculiar boundary shifts enter into men’s awareness.
Ritual is anything done with loving awareness and reverence.
The essence of mystic awareness is a sense of ultimate belonging.
The highest mystical awareness comes only when there is freedom from the known.
The ocean is an environment in which the awareness of our roots can awaken.
The subject becomes acutely aware of a powerful emotional “atmosphere” or “climate”.
Their general effect is to sharpen the senses to a supernormal degree of awareness.
There is a need of unsleeping awareness.
There is an energetic aspect to awareness.
There is no language for describing states of awareness.
These substances dramatically alter consciousness and expand awareness.
Thoughts dart quickly in and out of awareness and associations become freer.
To live means to be aware, joyously, serenely, divinely aware.
Understanding comes through awareness.
Understanding is primarily direct awareness, an immediate experience.
Unitive awareness of external stimuli can set off revelatory imagery.
We are not aware of how we are conditioned to think and act as we do.
We become aware that consciousness is quite separate from our bodies.
We can become aware of God manifest within us.
You become aware of processes you were never tuned into before.
You’re much more aware of things you’re seeing.
He transcends his ordinary self and his ordinary mode of awareness.
I am aware that each man on the street has some spark of the divine.
He became aware of a powerful message flowing through him, through nonverbal
channels that seemed to permeate his entire being.
He was not aware of any of the occupants of the room or even of the room itself, but his
mind was far from inactive.
I became aware of a brilliant sun rising from the center of my being, a new dawn and a
ripening of my soul.
I became vividly aware of the fact that what I call shapes, colors and textures in the
outside world are also states of my nervous system, that is, of me.
I discovered emotionally that the essence of reality is self-awareness, selfhood, not
egohood.
I thought that I was near death; when suddenly, my soul became aware of God, in an
intense present reality. I felt him. I cannot describe the ecstasy I felt.
I was aware of a gentle, deep connection with a new spirituality, an unfamiliar source
inside one that was expansive, joyful and peaceful.
I was aware that my thinking processes were working more rapidly and clearly than ever
before.
I was definitely aware of several levels of consciousness going on among the people
present.
I was keenly aware that every little sparrow that flew had a beautiful song to sing that
meant something.
Now that he was aware of “countless realities,” routine existence had been revealed to
him as “illusory”.
The awareness that God is in every nook and cranny of the universe was now so
tremendously increased and so richly fulfilling that a great reverence enfolded me.
The radiant colors flooded the room, folding over the top of one another in rhythm with
the music. Suddenly, I was aware that the colors were the music, the colored music.
There was awareness of unutterable bliss coupled with the conviction that this was the
only real and eternal state of being.
There was full conscious awareness of biochemical processes, cellular divisions and
tissue growth.
They had transcendent experiences that have made them aware of previously hidden
areas of existence.
All identity with self dissolved. There was no sense of time-space, only an awareness of
Being. At no time was there a sense of the individualized self. I never knew when “I”
entered the stream, only the emergence out of it.
Awareness was not referred to as ego; it was so to speak on its own. For the moment, that
interfering neurotic who, in waking hours tries to run the show, was blessedly out of the
way. (That was Aldous Huxley referring to his first trip, free of the ego.)
He was directly aware of “all the operations of vitality which, in our ordinary state, go on
unconsciously” and he could “trace the circulation of the blood along each inch of its
progress”.
I was no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined in a body,
but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed
in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness impossible to describe.
My exponentially heightened awareness saw through the static, one-dimensional ego-
contracted false front which is the consciousness-contracted reality of the everyday
world.
My identity and awareness seemed to spread throughout the room and even beyond into
the forest outside. This meant when somebody came into the room, as they did, it was as
if they were walking into “me.”
The nonordinary state of consciousness had the remarkable capacity to select and bring
into conscious awareness contents that have a strong emotional charge and are thus
psychologically important.
A different quality of consciousness came with a rush. Nothing was definitely changed,
but the room was suddenly transfigured. All objects stood out in space in an amazing way
and seemed luminous. I was aware of the space between objects, which was pure
vibrating crystal.
I could feel deeply about other people. We felt connected. The side which had been
suppressing emotions did not seem to be the real one. I was in a higher and higher state of
exhilaration and awareness. Things people said had hidden meaning. They said things
that applied to life. Everything that was real seemed to make sense.
I had a great awareness of life, truth, and God. I went to church and suddenly all parts of
the service made sense. My senses were sharpened. I became fascinated by the little
insignificant things around me. There was an additional awareness of the world that
would do artists, architects, and painters good.
I suddenly became aware of the creaking of frogs and then of the chirping of crickets.
The former came from a stream about a block or so away from the house but sounded
very close and I fancied that the frogs had come down to stand before the door and
serenade me.
I suddenly felt that everything was so much more real than it had been before. The grass
was greener, the sun was shining brighter, and people were more alive, I could see them
clearer. I could see the bad things and the good things and all that. I was much more
aware.
My understanding of mystical teachings, both Eastern and Western, Hindu, Buddhist,
Christian, and Sufi alike, took on a quantum leap. I became aware of the transcendental
unity at the core of all great religions, and understood for the first time the meaning of
esoteric states.
There was unity and life and the exquisite love that filled my being was unbounded. My
awareness was acute and complete. I saw God and all the saints and I knew the truth. I
felt myself flowing into the cosmos, levitated beyond all restraint, liberated to swim in
the blissful radiance of the heavenly visions.
I experienced a wave of extraordinary bliss, like a full-body orgasm, and the sense I was
in the presence of something absolutely awesome. Sex is nothing compared to the ecstasy
I felt at that moment. I had no awareness of my body or ego or time, only a profound
sensation of illumination and the feeling I was in the presence of ALL That Is, eternity,
God, whatever you might call something all-encompassing.
I thought about the things I had studied in religion, and about how much more of it
seemed to make sense now. I had somehow touched what Jesus, Buddha, and others had
been talking about. Formerly confusing phrases out of various scriptures came to me and
each seemed perfectly beautifully clear. I became aware of a harmony and wholeness to
life that had previously eluded me. Disconnectedness was very clearly illusory….
My soul, I learned, is most “into” joy and beauty, i.e., experiences of joy and beauty most
occupied me on acid. Joy and beauty do not dominate my awareness in general—and
never with a comparable intensity—so I treasure these experiences on the grounds of
their rarity alone. They were also profoundly educational. I think I understand the human
race a little better.
She lay down on the grass in a field beneath a bright sun and soon was living out an epic
of creation in which she identified with “the Great Goddess—Mother Earth.” Her
experience of this identification began when she first became aware that “for some time”
her body had “no longer existed in its usual limited form” and that now she was “one
with the earth.”
The city was bathed in the first pink rays of the morning sun and was truly breath-taking
to behold. The soft greens of the trees and grass of Central Park were beyond belief. The
buildings and streets had a warmth and charm hitherto reserved for memories of bygone
days…That evening I was back in my old familiar world but with an awareness of and
appreciation for colors, hues and textures that I had never had before.
The night was all joyous discoveries, many of which brought me almost to the point of
tears, to laughter and astonished wows regularly. Whole new horizons. I felt humbled and
honored to be in a room with and listening to such enlighted powers. I felt in flash after
flash that I’d never been so high before, never so aware and never—at least not since a
long, long half-remembered time ago—so hopeful and happy.
All patients, said Grof, apparently moved through similar levels during their sessions.
They passed first through aspects of their own life experiences—birth, childhood,
adulthood—and then into experiential realms described in mystical traditions,
experiences of ego-death and rebirth followed by “satori”—the dissolution of ego-
boundaries and the loss of duality, an unfolding awareness of cosmic unity, a sense of
Oneness.
That first experience with psilocybin had an immeasurable effect on my life. It was
radically and totally different, yet during the course of the experience I felt closer to my
true self than I had ever been and more aware of my innermost feelings and thoughts. I
had also been fully and intensely aware of people and things around me and did not lose
the reality perceptions that govern our ordinary world. Rather, ordinary perception was
enriched and enlivened beyond comparison.
For the first time, his awareness of a piece of music was completely unobstructed.
He felt that he was achieving both openness and self-awareness.
I became aware of almost electrical surroundings.
I became aware that life for me had acquired an added zest.
I began to become aware of a growing euphoria; I was flooded with feelings of goodwill.
I felt profound empathy with life, strong ecological awareness.
I was aware of a higher sphere.
I was ever aware that beauty was God.
I was more aware of the exuberance of nature.
LSD gave access to aesthetic, poetic, transcendental or mystical awareness.
My awareness had moved far beyond our ordinary so-called real world.
One became acutely aware of facial details.
There was a clear awareness.
They became aware of the nature of the unconscious.
They experienced a deep inward change in their spiritual awareness.
They stepped beyond the restrictions of their usual state of awareness.
This awareness was sudden but timeless.
a deep awareness of the fact that such profound transpersonal states reveal authentic
dimensions of existence
a direct awareness of the processes which physicists and biochemists and neurologists
measure
a fresh look that would teach us to tap the enormous reservoir of potentialities buried
beneath the threshold of awareness
a more acute awareness of color, a wonderful awareness of the almost infinite detail that
objects will yield up if only one will give them one’s attention
a new type of consciousness, an expanded awareness stressing man’s commitment to
love, beauty, joy and truth
a radical conversion experience, a transformation of self based on a new state of
awareness, a new state of consciousness—higher consciousness
an acute awareness of symbolic dimensions in every object of perception and a
heightened significance
an altered state of consciousness that focuses our awareness on something other than our
ego and intellect
an awareness of and participation in the processes involved on the level of tissue
physiology, cellular exchange and biochemical reactions
an immediate awareness of things as they live and move, as distinct from the mere grasp
of ideas and feelings about things which are the dead symbols of a living reality
an increasing awareness of the spiritual dimension in one’s life and in the universal
scheme of things
aware of this other dimension of existence, an existence that we have long since relegated
to oblivion
aware that you’re part of and surrounded by a charged field of energy which seems
almost electrical
awareness of new dimensions of the total stimulus array—a process of “perceptual
expansion”
awareness of the process of photosynthesis in the leaves, the mysterious process that is
the basis of all life on our planet
awareness of the special quality and purity of plants that make them important examples
for human spiritual life
awareness that I, the others, are only collections of clusters of molecules which are all
part of the same stream
aware that I was not myself, but a selfless, egoless, joyous representative of all humanity,
loving, searching and soaring into the infinite
awareness that our bodies are momentary clusters of energy and that we are capable of
tuning in on patterns
awe, bliss, a sense of certainty, feelings of extraordinary creative awareness or spiritual
breakthrough
became aware of fantastic dimensions of being, all of which possessed a profound sense
of reality
become more perceptive, more intensely aware of inward and outward reality, more open
to the spirit
becomes aware of physiological and biochemical processes, rhythmic pulsating activity
within the body
“cosmic consciousness” the shift from egocentric awareness to the feeling that one’s
identity is the whole field of the organism in its environment
deep awareness of the critical importance of the spiritual dimension in the universal
scheme of things
drugs—part of the search for the meaning of life, as tools to reach new levels of
awareness, for revelation
encountered surpassing states of awareness and returned with the conviction that they had
attained the truth
enlightenment, full awareness of that blissful Reality whose attributes include
inconceivable wisdom, compassion, light, beauty, energy and gaiety
intellectual and emotional adventure, sensory pleasure, enhanced awareness, self-
exploration, religious and mystical insight
introduced to unfathomable realms within, new awarenesses and undiscovered
possibilities
isn’t sitting with a blank mind, but simply a quiet awareness, without comment, of
whatever happens to be here and now
knock out inhibitory processes in the nervous system which select, discriminate, censor,
evaluate, and they thus release an enormous flow of previously screened-out awareness
knowledge of ourselves brought back from the subterranean regions of our psyche—our
phylogenetic awareness
making people aware of their religious potentialities, linking them consciously with a
great tradition of prophets, saints and martyrs
maximum awareness of the inner process and its full emotional, perceptual and physical
expression
moments of vivid awareness, of intense realization of and absorption in the immediacy of
life
my awareness of my connection to the whole, a knowledge more valuable than status or
being some so-called important individual
out of the everyday world of common, conceptualized experience into the magical Other
World of nonverbal visionary awareness
propel awareness out beyond normal modes of consciousness, propel us into new
dimensions of awareness
rebinding or re-tieing ourselves to the divine source of our being—the source we have
lost awareness of
release of fixed perceptual patterns and the temporary opening up of fluid, boundaryless
awareness
reveal extraordinary capacities of the human psyche and important aspects of reality
normally hidden from our awareness
reveals a rich spectrum of dimensions of reality that are ordinarily hidden from human
awareness and are not available in the everyday state of consciousness
self-realization, freedom from inhibition, communal ecstasy, expanded awareness,
cleansed perception
spiritual consciousness—a strange and almost always hitherto unexperienced awareness
carrying with it a “flavor of eternity”
the concentration on the present movement that psychedelic drugs produce by crowding
so much into immediate awareness
the direct total awareness, from the inside, so to say, of Love as the primary and
fundamental cosmic fact
the divine source of our being—the source we have lost awareness of, what religion is all
about
the fulfilling and lasting feelings of reverence and spirituality, the awareness of the
continuous presence of God
the keenest possible awareness of beauty in everything my glance fell upon, together with
the deepest imaginable appreciation
the release of fixed perceptual patterns and the opening up of fluid, boundaryless
awareness
the subject becoming aware of himself as continuous with the energy of the universe,
feels himself to be filled by divinity
the tremendous opportunity such experiences may offer for personal growth and the
development of new levels of awareness
the undifferentiated awareness characteristic of man’s precivilized mentality (“Civilized”
man is very much a savage.)
these gleams and flashes of the highest awareness and hence, also of the “highest mode of
existence”
to be aware of life, of experience as it is at this moment, without any judgments or ideas
about it
to become aware of feelings of love and unity with nature of which he could never have
dreamed
to become aware of the transpersonal dimensions of their being and their spiritual core or
self
to become directly aware of energy exchanges and biological processes for which we
have no language and no perceptual training
transcendence—becoming aware of a reality which lies outside of time and space and the
ego
“wave energy flow”—aware that you’re part of and surrounded by a charged field of
energy which seems almost electrical
will restore awareness of this ignored aspect of life, for consciousness is thereby led back
to its organic roots
would intensify your visual awareness and would make you aware of colors—some of
which you may never have seen before
a sense of merging with another person into a state of unity and oneness, retaining
awareness of his or her own identity (One can also experience being another person, even
someone from ancient history.)
a state of which, because there are no longer any God-eclipsing obstacles between
themselves and Reality, they are able to be aware continuously of the divine Ground of
their own and all other beings
activities of those circuits of the brain that lead to philosophic inquiry, scientific
curiosity, somatic awareness, hedonistic lifestyle, humorous detachment, high-altitude
tolerant perceptions, chaotic erotics, ecological sensitivity, utopian communality
an internal awareness of the bodily functions, like the flow of blood through the veins, or
the receiving and transmitting operations of the nervous system and the activities of the
brain
being aware throughout most of this experience that I was not myself, but a selfless,
egoless, joyous representative of all humanity, loving, searching and soaring into the
infinite
confronts us with the undefined nature of our cosmic existence, leads us backstage to
make us aware of the artificiality of our cultural values, and then shows us a world
without limit
opens to conscious awareness a wider, clearer, more complete view of the world—an
unhabitual, unified and undistorted “new look” which is the basis of the creative capacity
and problem-solving ability
prepare the individual for eventual biological death by establishing a deep, almost
cellular awareness that periods of destruction are those of transition rather than
termination
the 5 senses disembodied, all of them keyed to the height of sensitivity and awareness, all
of them blending into one another most strangely, until the person, utterly passive,
becomes a pure receptor, infinitely delicate of sensations
to go outside routine modes of experiencing, beyond learned or familiar concepts so that
one was no longer aware of oneself as a social figure, but as another entity, outside
parochial worlds of experience
a broadening of awareness
a broadening of awareness and an increase in individual insight
a deeper spiritual awareness
a direct awareness of the energy process
a free undirected awareness
a fuller awareness of our unconscious minds
a heightened intensity of awareness
a heightened state of awareness
a mood of unhurried awareness
a new awareness
a new dimension of human possibility, a new order of human awareness and potentiality
a new self-awareness
a new sense of awareness
a positive breakthrough to a new level of awareness
a profound awareness of the mystical dimension of existence
a revelation of dimensions that one is not aware of in everyday life
a sense of pure being with sensory awareness of the present moment
a sense of sacredness
a state of cosmic expanded awareness
a state of profound peace in which truths were revealed to him in immediate awareness
a timeless awareness
a unique intensification of the awareness of human beings
a vast journey of growing self-awareness and a return to our true identity
a vivid awareness
all the way to the far reaches of awareness
altered states of awareness
an acute awareness
an acute awareness of the energy in the world
an awareness of another layer of existence
an awareness of energy transactions with no imposition of mental categories
an entirely new awareness
an incredible enhancement of sensory awareness
an intense stimulation of the imagination and an altered awareness of the world
an intensification of the present, an increased awareness of the here-and-now
ascent towards the unknown higher awareness
aware of himself as the Spectator of the spectacle
aware of his real, organic relationship with God
aware of our natural interdependence and “oneness”
aware of the limitless realities in the nervous system
aware of the play of light, the tone of voice
aware of the wave structure of the world
awareness of a not-self superior to the disintegrating ego
awareness of action happening in a unified field
awareness of being part of a dimension vaster and greater than oneself
awareness of energy transactions within the cell
awareness of internal organs and processes of the body
awareness of more shades of meaning contained in words and ideas
awareness of selfhood as distinct from ego-awareness
awareness of the aesthetic aspects of the world
awareness of the divine Suchness
awareness of universal spirituality
awareness of what was truly important
awareness that everything is a dance of particles
awareness which extends beyond the personal goals of ego
awareness which is beyond body, mind and ego
became aware of the “sacred unconscious”
become aware of the undeveloped potentials within themselves
become more intensely aware of the living vibrations of the real world
become more perceptive, more intensely aware of inward and outward reality
becoming aware of her goddess nature
becoming aware of the great primordial facts
being aware and not attaching to a single thing
blissful intelligent awareness
breaking through to ego-loss understanding and awareness
brings each person to the awareness of man’s divinity and essence
can become acutely and exquisitely aware of the feelings of others
can push someone over the edge of his consciousness into a greater awareness
clarity of awareness
clear awareness
clearly aware
concentrating the energies of consciousness in a state of acuteness, of total awareness
conscious awareness of unconscious events (or previously unconscious events)
cosmic awareness
deep ecological consciousness and awareness
developing a new sensibility, a new awareness
dimensions of awareness
direct awareness of the eternally complete consciousness
direct awareness of the inner world
direct body awareness of their own tissues and cellular processes
direct total awareness
dramatically altering and expanding human awareness and potentialities
drugs that have triggered a firsthand awareness of the religious consciousness
enhanced awareness of linguistic nuances
enlarged awareness and heightened sensitivities
expand awareness, open up the mind
expand psychic awareness
experienced an intense awareness of God’s presence, a conversation with God
extended awareness
extended awareness of the mystical state of mind
extensions of his awareness of beauty
exuding a confidence that comes from a humorous cosmic awareness
flashes of inspired awareness
flood awareness
forays across the border of ordinary waking awareness
full awareness
fully aware
gleams and flashes of the highest awareness and the highest mode of existence
greater awareness of ultimate reality
greatly heightened awareness of color
had arrived at awareness of everything
heightened awareness
heightened awareness of the world around him
heightened perception and aesthetic awareness
immediate awareness
immediate unverbalized awareness
increased awareness of surroundings and bodily processes
increased insight, extended awareness
increased sensory awareness
intense, clear awareness of shifting realities, all within
intense dawnings of awareness
intense, relaxed awareness of the present moment
intense self-awareness, free from preconceptions, comparisons, condemnations
intensifies the field of awareness
joyfully aware
levels of awareness
LSD which can activate the awareness of the divinity within
making possible direct awareness at higher-than-normal levels of intensity
metaphysical awareness
multilevel awareness
my first awareness of my real self
my heightened awareness of objects
mystic awareness
mystical awareness
mystical awareness of God
new insights, new levels of awareness
new levels of awareness
new levels of complexity and awareness
new modes of awareness, new modes of experiencing and perceiving
nonordianry awareness, altered awareness
nonverbal awareness
open up consciousness and accelerate awareness
opened up my sensory awareness
opening new realms of awareness
opportunities for heightened insight, awareness and integral understanding
other, more interesting dimensions of awareness
pass beyond personal awareness into a universal awareness unlimited by time and space
profound states of altered awareness
pure awareness and ecstatic freedom from all game involvements (of the ego)
pure content-free awareness
pure experience, pure awareness
raising consciousness to a sharper awareness
realities that modern man, for the most part, has not the slightest direct awareness of
realms of pure awareness
religious and mystical awareness
rising to a new level of awareness
Self-awareness (That’s not to be confused with ego.)
simultaneous awareness of unity, diversity and interconnecting relationships
spiritual awareness
spiritual awareness of a greater sense of reality
states of expanded awareness
states of psychological awareness
states of rapture, expanded awareness and light
states of unstructured awareness, direct awareness
superior awareness, religious enlightenment
that freedom of mind and heart which is the essence of awareness
the awareness and fullness of the adventure
the awareness of energy transformations with no imposition of mental categories
the awareness of feelings which surpass your normal experience
the awareness of living interpenetrating light
the awareness of the Self, Self-realization
the changes in sensation and awareness that LSD can call forth
the dream world of visions, mind-expansion, self-awareness and mystical ecstasy
the enhanced awareness and extended consciousness of the transcendent experience
the enlargement of vision, the acute awareness of vaster potentials
the evolution of a new stage of human awareness and history (That’s what’s needed.)
the extended awareness of time in LSD, can get outside the time context
the eye of awareness
the far galactic outposts of awareness
the field of awareness
the forgotten realm of awareness
the gap between theoretical description and direct awareness among scientists
the great beauty and power of a free awareness
the healed vision of life which comes with full awareness
the heightened sensory awareness
the higher level of awareness
the immediate awareness of Reality
the intense enraptment of heightened awareness
the light of awareness
the lost awareness
the magical Other World of nonverbal visionary awareness
the mystical awareness of God
the newly acquired tool of awareness
the potentiality of awareness
the potentials of expanded awareness
the pure, spontaneous awareness
the ritual enjoyment of that basic awareness of what is happening now
the self-validating certainty of direct awareness
the static condition of life before we are aware
the tranquil state of non-game awareness
the transcendental state of awareness
the tremendously expanded awareness that I was brought to by LSD
the user aware of sounds he otherwise might not have noticed
their new self-awareness
thinking more clearly and deeper awareness of the meaning of things
this awareness of a deeper and universal self
this God-like awareness
this new tool for expanding awareness
this open and ungrasping mode of awareness
this supreme awareness
this total awareness, “the now moment”
three people, a trinity of awareness, one mind in 3 bodies, 3 minds in one body
to become more aware spiritually, ecologically, and creatively
to bring mythological and archetypal structures into conscious awareness (eyes closed)
to enhance mental awareness
to have an intenser awareness
to integrate on a higher-than-usual level of awareness
to make us aware of the artificiality of our cultural values
to reach new levels of awareness
to see and hear and live more fully and completely in a higher state of awareness
to see more, to be more conscious, more creative, more compassionate, more aware
to sharpen the senses to a supernormal degree of awareness
transcendent awareness
unclouded awareness
undifferentiated awareness
unitve awareness of external stimuli, can set off revelatory imagery
very much aware of being temporary inhabitors of a human form on this planet
Thank you for writing this piece.