Meeting the Toad

Bufo alvarius is the only animal that is known to produce 5-MeO-DMT. It is a super-potent entheogenic molecule which, when consumed, possesses an unparalleled ability to consistently induce a state of pure nonduality. It sheds all the layers of the material onion and takes one straight to the heart of existence. It even sheds the ‘I’ layer, so though you experience absolute reality in its most distilled form, there is no you to experience it. This makes recounting it hard, after all — the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. As part of my integration I thought it good to articulate the insights I received as they revealed themselves in the days and weeks that followed. I hope that among these jumbled nuggets are some pearls of wisdom that may be of value to you.

The Toad found me.
My guide holds the Erlenmeyer flask filled with vaporized venom and instructs me to fully exhale. He brings the pipe close to my mouth and says: “Remember, all this is, is love.”

I am immersed in a golden fractal orb experiencing pure love. My partner, who was a witness, said I was repeating in a soft voice: “Of course, it’s love, it’s love, it’s all love.” I experience a surreal hyperdimensional speed to everything — thoughts, images, and ideas whir bye. I am overwhelmed by a sense of bliss. Yet it only takes a short while for my mind to get in the way. I am still aware of being tethered to the material realm and I notice my mind imposing concepts on the experience — it labels everything so as to make sense of it, at least as much as it can.

I run my fingers through the shaggy carpet and become aware of a tightness in my bad shoulder. I turn towards it and place my opposite hand on top of it. My guide comes over and sits next to me. In a gentle and composed manner he says: “There are no expectations, but I would like to offer you some more. Would you like that?” I instantly nod yes. The response is natural, there is no more fear — I’ve dipped my toes and now I want to take the plunge.

As I suck on the pipe everything dissolves. For another short moment I can sense my mind again attempting to label and categorize the experience as it starts to flood my being, but to no avail — this time it’s akin to an ant sinking its heels into the ground and attempting to stop the flow of the Amazon with a blade of grass. Any residual resistance melts away, there is nothing to do but fully relax and surrender absolutely.

Ineffable.
I can’t explain what happens, I cannot grasp it. There is no I to observe it. There is no “me” saying to itself: “Wow, I am experiencing so and so, and there is such and such, and it reminds me of this and that.”

“Were the visuals powerful?” No, there were none.
“Oh, so it was dark?” No, it was not dark.
“So, it was light?” No it was not light either.

Omnipotent.
Geometry, colours, light, and dark are all concepts. Concepts result from taking the whole and dividing it into finite parts which the mind can then perceive. But if there is no division, there are no concepts, and if there is no I, then there is no witness. No subject, no object, no sights, sounds, smells, or feelings. Just all of it, everywhere, all the time, here and there, it and me. What you experience is the whole, what you experience is that you are the whole.

Familiarity.
It’s all so familiar — the droplet merging back with the Ocean. It feels like coming home, to where I came from, to where I am going. Don’t ask me how I know this, how I am so sure, but I am. I learn that dying is not to be feared, in fact I experience the process of dying to be beautiful. Instead, I learn that what is to be feared is not being fully alive when living. To not be true to oneself, to not listen to one’s heart. To not fully use this precious opportunity to play your role in the Great Cosmic Dream. Though this is all a drama, play your role like it truly matters without any attachment — be in the world, but not of the world.

I start becoming aware of my analytical mind — the part of me that thinks. It’s no longer me, but a part of me, a tool I use, a mask I wear to operate in the world. I can sense what the hell is water. I feel great love and even appreciation for this mind. I feel compassion for it, and I intuit all it is truly capable of if I maintain this relationship to it. After all, the sharper the knife, the closer the cut.

I feel my body. Ah yes, this monkey suit, that’s part of me too. This creature as a body operating in a distinct place in a specific point in time — my Dasein thrown into the world. Then the thought: if what I just experienced is my true nature, if I am everything, then there must be a reason for me assuming this form. If we are divinity, then there is purpose behind us assuming these limited organic vehicles that get hungry and tired, that need to pay bills and shit and become moody when we don’t get what we want. Is it to experience something? To learn something? To do something? Or is it to be something, or simply, to be?

Though I have gleamed all these insights in different shapes and forms from my work with other sacred medicines, what makes this experience unique is that it is the “We are all God” experience distilled to its most condensed form. All the fat is trimmed and you bungy jump from this material world straight into divine unity and back in minutes. There is not, as I have experienced with other entheogens, this sense of myself having an experience. There are no beings, or places, or experiences. It’s beyond that — it’s the ultimate reality in which all of that is grounded.