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Quote by Ralph Metzner

“(Male) I was somehow able to guide my body to a laying position, though I had very little body awareness. A deeper letting go seemed to occur by allowing the body to rest without muscular effort. All body awareness dissolved into awareness of soft, expansive currents of bliss. Even the sense of joy and amazement which this engendered dissolved as identity merged into formless Being. At that edge between Form and Formlessness, I felt the sense of being at a threshold which I had never before crossed. With both the joy and the difficulty of a birth, separate identity was relinquished, and all that remained was boundlessness. The relief and the sense that finally the ancient, primordial Search was over was utterly indescribable. There seemed to be an oscillation between pure undifferentiated Being and Observing Ego, because I had awareness of coming into Form, feeling profound ecstasy, joy, gratitude and love, and then dissolving back into That which from these feelings flowed. I became aware of a sense of arriving, of finally having found what felt like I had been looking for – for eons. I realized that where and who I am is self-evidently beyond life and death. A thought arose of my dying sister-in-law, and relief spread throughout at realizing the fallacy of death. A vague sound was associated with this relief, a wetness reminded me of bodily existence and I realized I was crying.”

Quote by Ralph Metzner

Work

The Toad and the Jaguar

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Author

Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner

Ralph Metzner is a renowned psychologist, born on May 18, 1936. He has conducted extensive research in the field of psychology, particularly in the areas of consciousness studies, psychopharmacology, and human potential development. Metzner completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Stanford University, where he began his academic career. more

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“(Female) I experienced what I can only describe as pure awareness, though not self-identified. An awareness that travels in search of more, ever increasing, ever expanding and unattached – free of any limit, binding or density. It was pure awareness moving through space, though not like a dark starry sky, rather like the intervals between everything all combined. The “I” or “me” was gone. It was an experience of no individuality yet I had very definite awareness and full existence. I said “I need help” – expressing a desire for the attention of others to enable me to focus, maneuver and navigate in such an unknown dimension. With the group attention, we journeyed to the “left-overs” of God, as Carlos Castaneda put it, or the outer limits of God. Then jointly we journeyed beyond, co-creating, co-realizing and traveling – exploring out into the very “nothing” beyond the universe, and then into the somethingness of form, like the energy of somethingness at the atomic or molecular level. We began recapitulating the evolution into form, rapidly entering all phases and kingdoms – the elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal…each with a new found awareness, understanding and capability. An experience of “Hey, look what I can do” of grand proportions. Each evolution finding itself, experiencing the opportunity of intention – particularly in the human form, and delighting in it, deliriously and hysterically. It literally cracked me up, through all the episodes of evolution.”

“(Male) At this point I was in an utterly empty place, where the only remaining thing was light itself. There were no features, not even a sense of energy flux. The place seemed as full as it could be, without containing a single object or pattern. Getting somewhere else, or waiting for a manifestation, simply did not occur to me. The guide later called this space the “plenum void”, a term from mysticism that means the empty space that contains everything, a kind of featureless fullness. The basic nature of the experience was an initiation into the radiant void.”

“(Male) This medicine hurled me deep into the fiery firmament, with instantaneous, absolute death of ego, no-self on the quantum level of consciousness-chaos, harmony and bliss. The deepest fullest release from the chains of illusion. This big bang of God-orgasm, creation overwhelming bliss, no choice but absolute surrender to the primal current. Flooding back to consciousness, still fully aware as the body was permeated and open to the infusion of the ultimate ground of being. Body fully open to assimilate throughout every atom of being blissful non-attached truth of the unlimited eternally fresh, fiery present. Left with a sense of unbounded joy and sensory delight beyond description.”

“Stanislav Grof, in his account, related receiving a whole series of death-and-rebirth visions of his past incarnations and witnessing the struggles of these past dyings with calm, even ecstatic detachment. Like Grof, I also found myself rapidly reviewing a series of past lives especially the deaths of these lives: Images of decapitation, dismemberment, disembowelment flashed by, in rapid succession, including an image of being run through the chest with a sword – yet there was no fear or horror associated with these images. The following thoughts occurred: “Death comes to all, now it’s your turn. This is it, the termination. Resistance is impossible and pointless besides. It’s too late, the annihilation has already happened.” As I gradually came back into my body, after ten minutes in real time, I felt bathed in pure joy and completely at peace with myself, the world and my death (RM).”

“(Female) Within seconds of inhaling, the room filled with an amber-gold veil which seemed to coat everything. My entire body and mind were filled with visual, vibrational sound, which appeared like millions of tiny, flashing points of light. An intense swirling feeling came over my body and mind, and I felt a rapid and complete loss of control as I swirled downward into a very deep, bottomless whirlpool. I experienced a very sensual, unitive state with my partner (also voyaging). I experienced our essences blending like the mixing of water colors while still feeling each of us as individuals – he later confirmed something similar at the same point. As I swirled and lost control, a deep pain within me expressed itself as a high-pitched moaning that came screeching out of the very depths of me. I witnessed and felt this happening without capacity, or desire, to stop it from happening. With this sound I twisted and twirled downward, not knowing if my body was actually doing this or if it was a very strong inward sensation. The next thing I knew, I was in a vast, dark space like a night sky, yet there was a slight whirling around me. I was no longer whirling, but the space around me was. My mind was fragmented into a million pieces which seemed to be floating around me in this space. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. When I noticed this I felt lost and afraid. While there were no sign posts indicating a direction, I spontaneously made a kind of mental intention to go towards something and as a result began to move in a direction in this inner space. I then heard a deep, loving, feminine voice slowly say “That’s right. You can do it.” It was a voice from within this space, the voice of the guide. Upon hearing it, I was deeply, utterly relieved – her voice so soothing and warm, reassuring and firm. She felt ancient and familiar to me. I felt I knew what to do now, yet was overwhelmed with the task – I felt I was in an insane state of mind. While it felt like the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, I knew I had to move within this space in a certain direction. There were no visual clues, only an internal sense that once I had moved that I was going in the right direction. I was going Home. I heard a noise in the room and recalled where I was, that I was travelling with the Jaguar. I brought conscious attention to my breathing and gradually re-collected myself. I sat up and as I looked around the room at everyone I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she awoke from her long dream – I recognized everyone as ancient friends. I asked the women to form a cocoon around me and when they did I burst into tears and sobbed very deeply, accompanied by a very deep feeling of relief and return. I felt ancient connection and experienced a grounding and inner contact with my spiritual nature. During the days following my journey, I alternated between anxiety and elation and experienced an amazingly broad range of levels of consciousness throughout my daily activities. I could easily perceive multiple levels of existence and experienced an increase in empathic and psychic ability. I also experienced a tremendous amount of sexual energy and greatly heightened orgasmic responses in my entire body. At quiet moments I felt very deeply relaxed and centered.”

“(Male) After moving into the space of formlessness, I felt directed toward my solar plexus area. It was very different than other experiences with healing body work – I was totally disidentified with my body, but somehow in it with a warmth of intention and orientation. I took a breath and a rippling of freedom passed through layers of mind out through the physical form. The pleasure of the experience brings waves of joy and a smiling feeling. Jaguar emerged when I asked to open to his fierceness within me, to have the courage to move through fear blocks. Jaguar, my power animal, appears as I focus on a tightness in my upper back. He is biting me there, where I am contracting with fear and holding back. His energy is filling me, I am becoming him, moving my face and arms as a jaguar. It feels very good, very strong, uninhibited. Then I feel the courage to let go of my job (which I had been too afraid to do) and move into creating my own livelihood.”

“(Female) I let go more fully than I ever have. I became the sounds and the movements – no controlling. That is the place where deep transformative healing takes place for me. It’s also the place where Spirits meet to help others to heal. I felt like my voice and movement were healing and clearing the fear that I didn’t need to hold anymore. It is the place where my seizures come from. The seizures are not an illness. They are an opening to other realms. My toning was multi-level. There was a woman’s voice with an overtone of my child’s voice and an undertone of my crone’s voice. I could feel the tones working in my body, opening and releasing. There was only pure sound…no holding back. I found my full voice…I was being born, reliving my physical birth… releasing fear and opening to a new way of being in the moment. Allowing myself to enter the flow of life and humanity and move with it, not against it.”

“Shortly after inhalation, I experienced warm flushing sensations, a sense of wonder and well-being, strong auditory hallucinations, which included an insect-cicada sound that ran across my mind and seemed to link my body to the earth. Though I was indoors, there was a sense of the feel of the earth, the dry desert soil passing through my fingers, the stars at midday, the scent of cactus and sage, the feel of dry leaves through hands. Strong visual hallucinations in orblike brilliance, diamond patterns that undulated across my visual field (Davis, Wade & Weil, Andrew T. “Identity of a New World Psychoactive Toad” in: Ancient Mesoamerica, 3 (1992), p. 56).”