Grof is known in particular for his early studies of LSD and its effects on the psyche—the field of psychedelic psychotherapy.
He used these drugs on his patients, which brought them vivid transpersonal experiences in which they felt their consciousness expanding from their body onto the whole universe. They also experienced perinatal experiences. Most of his research not only undermines the basic psychology but also the basic paradigms of the mechanistic view of Newtonian science.
On the basis of his experiences and reading Hindu scriptures he reached the conclusion that many of these LSD experiences are experienced by the practitioners of Yoga and Tantric meditation in India and in the Eastern countries.
Here is a beautiful metaphor through which he describes the nature of consciousness. I have seldom read a more beautiful explanation of Vedanta. These excerpts are taken from the book ‘Uncommon Wisdom’, by Fritjof Capra.
The question of conventional Western science – Where is the moment at which consciousness originates? When does matter become conscious of itself? – is turned upside down. The question now becomes: How does consciousness produce the illusion of matter? You see, consciousness is seen as something primordial, which cannot be explained on the basis of anything else; something that is just there and which, ultimately, is the only reality; something that is manifest in you and me, and in everything around us.
One of the most frequent metaphors that you find in psychedelic reports is that of the circulation of water in nature. The universal consciousness is likened to the ocean – a fluid, undifferentiated mass – and the first stage of creation to the formation of waves. A wave can be viewed as an individual entity, and yet it is obvious that the ‘wave is the ocean and the ocean is the wave’. There is no ultimate separation.’
The next stage of creation would be a wave breaking on the rocks and spraying droplets of water into the air, which will exist as individual entities for a short time before they are swallowed again by the ocean. So, there you have fleeting moments of separate existence.
The next state in this metaphoric thinking would be a wave that hits the rocky shore and withdraws again but leaves a small pool of tidal water. It may take a long time until the next wave comes and reclaims the water that was left there. During that time, the tidal pool is a separate entity, and yet it is an extension of the ocean, which eventually, will return to its source.
The next stage is evaporation. Imagine water evaporating and forming a cloud. Now the original unity is obscured and concealed by an actual transformation, and it takes some knowledge of physics to realize that 'the cloud is the ocean and the ocean is the cloud'. Yet the water in the cloud will eventually reunite with the ocean in the form of rain.
The final separation where the link with the original source appears to be completely forgotten, is often illustrated by a snowflake that has crystallized from the water in the cloud, which had originally evaporated from the ocean. Here you have a highly structured, highly individual, separate entity which bears, seemingly, no resemblance to its source. Now you really need some sophisticated knowledge about water to recognize that ‘the snowflake is the ocean and the ocean is the snowflake’. And in order to reunite with the ocean, the snowflake has to give up its structure and individuality; it has to go through and ego death, as it were, to return to its source.’
