“I believe that we are all one. It is my attempt to describe what the heck is this all about?” He laughed. “Everything that can exist, exists. This here is just one permutation of existence, one expression of what is possible. There is an infinite number of universes, the universe playing it out. I don’t think there is necessarily a goal other than existing and trying out different things – not because there is a specific goal, but more so because it can, and we just happen to live in a random version of what’s possible. I believe that our consciousness is also part of that same universe, how can it not.”

“I think we have some consciousness of what is, but there might be different kinds of consciousness, animals, plants… rocks… I think there are other beings that might have higher consciousness than us, going beyond the physical realm to energetic, spiritual realms.”

“Did you have an experience when this all came together for you?”, I asked.

“I once was working for a really cool person, he and his partner were working in the field of psychology, attachment theories etc. He would always try out new things, one of which was a molecule called 5-MeO-DMT, it comes from the back of the bufo toad. It is not like DMT, more like a rocket ship that just beams you upwards – so you do not have the chance to grab onto any kind of meaning, no visions, no spiritual beings.

Technically, what’s happening with 5-MeO-DMT, your brain is flooded with serotonin. I got the feeling ‘oh, this is what it is about!’, this is the meaning of life. It was almost like a joke. A cosmic joke.

We worry so much about everything, but actually, there is nothing to worry about. There was some irony: It was an unbearable happiness. At that point, you are not aware of your body, your mind, or that you are an individual. You are just melting. It is an ego death, you cease to exist a little bit. There was this feeling like…duh. I was twisting on the ground with happiness!

When I came down, my mind slowly came back, and I realised that everything is meaningless, and then it become s little bit scary. What am I doing? What’s the point? You go very high, so you have to go down.

But it also purges out low vibes. I felt like throwing up, but I couldn’t. The days after, I felt like my heart and my brain were really connected, they were one.”

“When people say, we are living in a simulation, I think: What does that matter? It is real for us, what is real then?

Maybe there is realer than real, but we cannot know. This is as real as it gets. We can still enjoy it. It is the story of the universe and we experience it, the universe is experiencing itself, because it can. Suffering and ugliness are part of existence. My super optimistic point of view I that it is going to be better. You can focus on the good, but you have to integrate the ugliness, too.”

Cuau’s smallest came to my while we were still talking. A golden upward spiral connects heart and brain emerging from the back of a toad. In my mind, at the bottom of the spiral, there is Cuau lying on the ground twisting with happiness. The spiral represents his belief that A) all is one and connected, B) the heart-brain coherence, and C) that things get better – in a spiral. The smallest’s surface is inspired by the bufo toad’s back. One could argue it looks ugly, but it is all part of it.

When the smallest was finished, I looked at it and laughed.

Was it not a bit of a joke?