Stanislav Grof Quotes

Each of us can manifest the properties of a field of consciousness that transcends space, time, and linear causality.

Consciousness does not just passively reflect the objective material world; it plays an active role in creating reality itself.

He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being.

This sense of perfection has a built-in contradiction, one that Ram Dass once captured very succinctly by a statement he had heard from his Himalayan guru: "The world is absolutely perfect, including your own dissatisfaction with it, and everything you are trying to do to change it.

Dying before dying has two important consequences: It liberates the individual from the fear of death and influences the actual experience of dying at the time of biological demise.

In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival.

I believe it is essential for our planetary future to develop tools that can change the consciousness which has created the crisis that we are in.

It is possible to spend one's entire lifetime without ever experiencing the mystical realms or even without being aware of their existence.

We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.

Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.

Individuals approaching death often experience encounters with their dead relatives, who seem to welcome them to the next world. These deathbed visions are authentic and convincing; they are often followed by a state of euphoria and seem to ease the transition.

A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.

The new formula in physics describes humans as paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: They can show properties of Newtonian objects and also infinite fields of consciousness.

According to materialistic science, any memory requires a material substrate, such as the neuronal network in the brain or the DNA molecules of the genes.

Dying people in pre-industrial cultures typically died in the context of an extended family, clan, or tribe.

I believe that used responsibly and in a mature way, the entheogens mediate access to the numinous dimensions of existence, have a great healing and transformative potential, and represent a very important tool for spiritual development.

These substances function as unspecific amplifiers that increase the energetic niveau in the psyche and make the deep unconscious dynamics available for conscious processing. This unique property of psychedelics makes it possible to study psychological undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviors to a depth that cannot be matched by any other methods and tools available in modern mainstream science. In emotional and psychosomatic disorders, for positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.

The human psyche shows that each individual is an extension of all of existence.

LSD was not a pharmacological agent generating exotic experiences by its interaction with the neurophysiological processes in the brain. This remarkable substance was clearly an unspecific catalyst of the deep dynamics of the human psyche. The experiences induced by it were not neurochemical artifacts, symptoms of a toxic psychosis as mainstream psychiatrists called it, but genuine manifestations of the human psyche itself.

Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experience during systematic spiritual pursuit.

Ancient eschatological texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche that seem to transcend race and culture and originate in the collective unconscious.

The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual's way of being in the world.

It is essential that we raise the image of sex, which is currently seen as a purely biological affair and often portrayed in its worst manifestations, to that of a spiritually based activity.

Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.

Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body.

We have to recognize that spirituality is a legitimate dimension in the psyche. It's a legitimate dimension in the universal scheme of things. It doesn't mean that you are superstitious, that you are in to magical, primitive thinking, if you take spirituality seriously.

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.

Coming to terms with the fear of death is conducive to healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.

As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions.

If consciousness can function independently of the body during one's lifetime, it could be able to do the same after death.

An important consequence of freeing oneself from the fear of death is a radical opening to spirituality of a universal and non-denominational type.

The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death.

LSD is a catalyst or amplifier of mental processes. If properly used it could become something like the microscope or telescope of psychiatry.

Western science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism.

The problems that stand in the way are not of economical or technological nature. The deepest sources of the global crisis lie inside the human personality and reflect the level of consciousness evolution of our species.

It became much more complicated politically to work with psychedelics because of the unsupervised experimentation with psychedelics, particularly among young people.

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world.

I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very, very involved and interested in art, and particularly in animated movies.

I have taken part in ceremonies with North American and Mexican shamans, as well as Brazilian ceremonies.

In some instances, the accuracy of past-life memories can be objectively verified, sometimes with remarkable detail.

I have to say I regretted giving up animated movies.

Traditional academic science describes human beings as highly developed animals and biological thinking machines. We appear to be Newtonian objects made of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.

Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.

At a time when unbridled greed, malignant aggression, and existence of weapons of mass destruction threatens the survival of humanity, we should seriously consider any avenue that offers some hope.

There is an urgent need for a radical revision of our current concepts of the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter and the brain.

LSD is a unique and powerful tool for the exploration of the human mind and human nature. Psychedelic experiences mediate access to deep realms of the psyche that have not yet been discovered and acknowledged by mainstream psychology and psychiatry. They also reveal new possibilities and mechanisms of therapeutic change and personality transformation.

When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced.

The motif of death plays an important role the human psyche in connection with archetypal and karmic material.