Entry 2,388 - Quotes from Transcending the Levels of Consciousness by David R. Hawkins

Entry 2,384 - December 22, 2024

Quotes from Transcending the Levels of Consciousness by David R. Hawkins

The allegory of "Adam and Eve" calibrates at 70, and the idea that man was "born in sin" calibrates at a level of truth of only 30.

Divinity was perceived as oppressive and frightening.

An alternate view that stems from consciousness research is that humans emerged as basically innocent but ignorant, which calibrates at 200.

In contrast, there is the view of man as expressed by Socrates that all men are intrinsically innocent because they can only choose to do what they perceive as the good, but they are unable to discern the true good from the false illusions of the world.

(Socrates’ statement calibrates at 540.)

To make allowance for human error is indicative of a more benign, realistic conscience.

Grief

The universality of the experience is due to the structure and nature of the ego, which misperceives the source of happiness as external or emotional and imbues it with specialness.

In reality, the only source of happiness is from within, and its mechanism is intrapsychic and internal.

Therefore, grief is linked to desire as well as ownership.

All these positions are illusory, for there is never a time other than the present moment, and no one experiences either the past or the future, except in their imaginings and memories.

The only source of happiness that is realistically based is in the present, and that which is in the present is not subject to loss.

The source of pain is not the belief system itself but one’s attachment to it and the inflation of its imaginary value.

The emotional pain of loss arises from the attachment itself and not from the "what" that has been lost.

With loss, the spiritual process of nonresistance and surrendering is effective (however, it is not a suitable process for those emotional states that calibrate lower than 75, such as depression, guilt, and apathy).

1. Stay with the feeling and stay focused on it unswervingly.
   Realize that all pain is due to resistance.
   The suffering of loss stems from the attachment and specialness.

2. Be willing to become immersed in and surrender to the feelings without avoiding them.
   Notice that they come in waves and that surrendering to the most intense waves tends to decrease their emotional severity.

3. Ask God’s help and surrender the personal will to God.
   (It is helpful to read the Ninety-first Psalm or other favorite spiritual passages.)

4. Be willing to endure and suffer out the process.
   If not resisted, it will process itself out and come to an end.

A helpful source of strength during the processing out of painful emotions is to identify with all of humanity and realize that suffering is universal. It is innate to the phenomenon of being human and the evolution of the ego.

This is an important distinction, and failure to understand it can lead to important spiritual error.
"Detachment" is an ongoing process that, unfortunately, can lead to apathy and emotional flatness, noninvolvement, and indifference.

It can also result in passivity and loss of interest in life. There are misunderstandings of spirituality that teach that even love is an attachment, which is a misconception.

Love is an aspect of God; possessiveness is an aspect of ego. An incorrect understanding of the pathway of negation can result in the sterility of the "Void" or "Nothingness."

While the Void is an impressive spiritual experience (cal. 850), it is not the Ultimate State, which, correctly, is that of Allness.

This arises from a misunderstanding of the teachings of the Buddha.
"Void" means nonlinear and the absence of "thingness," or linearity.

Beyond Voidness is the ultimate, all-inclusive nonlinear reality of Allness.
The subjective experience of the Void, although very impressive, is considerably different from the 

Reality of the state of the Presence of God as Allness. This includes the very major quality of Infinite Love itself.

Regret is also a consequence of giving reality to the hypothetical, e.g., "I should have," "I could have," or "If only I had chosen differently," etc.
These also include the illusion that the hypothetically "better" decision would have brought benefit or greater happiness.

These suppositions ignore that evolution is on a learning curve and that there are negative as well as positive unknown karmic influences on choices. 

There is an inherent fallacy in the proposition that "I could have" or "should have" because, in reality, if one really "could have," they obviously "would have" if all conditions were favorable to a better choice.

If unimpeded, the human psyche is creative and inventive. Each level of consciousness has its own innate problems but also its concordant solutions. The desire to undo the past is understandable but futile and blinds one to the opportunities of the present.

A limitation in one area of life is simultaneously the opening of opportunities and options in other areas.
Loss often turns a person from looking without for happiness to turning within for reevaluation of assets and previously bypassed choices. Thus, loss can be turned to profit as a spur to spiritual growth and evolution.

That a loss can be a "blessing in disguise" takes time to ripen into a discovery. In this process, fears are allowed to arise without resistance, and their emotional energy is surrendered as it arises.

A simple technique is called "And then what?" In this process, one starts with a fearfulness and then surrenders to a consequence if such a fear should actually happen. For example: "I'm afraid I'll lose my job." "And then what?"

Almost all social, psychological, and physical fears are unconsciously just elaborations of the fear of death, from which they all arise. It may take only a short time, or it could take hours, days, or even longer to go through the whole list of horrors. Finally, when death is accepted and surrendered to God, the core of the fears drops away.

Thus, consciousness itself can be accepted as an obvious reality, without the elaboration of being Divine (as recommended by the Buddha). To "be" is one thing; to know that one "is" obviously requires a more transcendent quality.

Adults enjoy horror films because they get to process fears from the safe distance of the spectator.
This imaginative capacity of the human mind, however, can be used therapeutically in desensitization programs via "virtual" techniques.

Jesus Christ said that fear is the last hindrance to be overcome. From the viewpoint of consciousness research and its evolution, all fear is a product of the persistence of the ego and its failure to relinquish its sovereignty to the will of God.

Consciousness research confirms that death is not a possibility. Life itself is supported by its eternal Source from which it cannot be separated. That which is linear, circumscribed, and limited in time comes into existence because of that which is eternal and nonlinear (calibrates at 1,000).

The higher the level of consciousness, the lower the fear of God. Divine Justice is innate and autonomous as a consequence of Creation itself. In addition, the overall omnipresence of Allness includes ever-present options for salvation.

The Justice of God is thus perfect in that it also affords perfect freedom as well as the opportunity for the evolution of consciousness and spiritual awareness. (The above calibrates at 945; in contrast, anthropomorphic depictions of God calibrate at 75.) Thus, wantingness and desire can be replaced by choice and decision.

In classic esoteric terminology, the wantingness and desire are energetically located in the chakra of the solar plexus. This results in the parlance that a person "is driven by their solar plexus."

In and of itself, the ego is incapable of transcending its own coils. It is the circuitous trap of the house of mirrors of illusion. Of its own, the ego would never seek salvation.

It is only by the awakening of spiritual energy that the levels of consciousness can be transcended. The mechanism for salvation is via the will, which invites the intervention of Divinity. Each level of consciousness is associated with presumptions that reinforce the perceptions of that level and result in resistances.These characteristically take the form of dualistic pairs of attractions and aversions.

 The ego structure is dualistic and splits the unity of Reality into contrasting pairs and seeming opposites that are therefore the product and content of perception, which consists of projections.
This is a basic defect of the mind, as noted by Descartes, who clarified that the mind confuses its own mentations (res interna, res cogitans) with the external reality of nature as it is (res extensa/externa).

The personal self is therefore operationally a victim of its own projected dualistic perceptions.
Below calibration level 200, this is a prevailing limitation in which the mind is unable to differentiate between its emotionalized perceptions (opinions) and the external world as it actually is.
This impairment affects seventy-eight percent of the world’s population and forty-nine percent of America’s population.

The positionalized ego fears admitting a mistake and avoids responsibility to forestall the anger’s turning inward. A major defense of the ego is to project a punitive conscience (its "superego") onto the outer world and then live in fear of it in the form of fears of vengeance.

This self-propagating mechanism is further strengthened by clinging to the past to justify and nurture grudges and vitiate the guilt that would otherwise result from self-honesty about one’s true motives.
The fallacy of milking the past is indicated by its low calibration level, which is due to the fact that in actuality, the past no longer exists.
One can actually only "know" the present, and at best, that is only a fleeting perception because truth is a consequence of not only linear content but also of context.

A consequence of self-importance based on pride is its need to be constantly fed and propped up to offset the inner doubt and deficiency of wholeness and completeness that ensue from fulfilling the requirements of integrity. Pride is "sensitive," competitive, feels threatened, and becomes enflamed by hostile jealousy that accrues to social status or attention to others.

Pridefulness is therefore the motivation of the self-appointed critic’s use of sarcasm, ridicule, supposed satire, and the whole industry of attacking public figures and the reputations of acknowledged leaders.
The Internet has become very visibly the domain of contentious vilifiers of integrity.
These represent inflation of narcissism expressed as "opinion."

Because the narcissistic ego is not aligned with integrous truth, its forms of expression become strident and fallacious and therefore calibrate extremely low. It is not the possessions themselves but the importance attached to them.

Thus, one can be wealthy but unattached to the wealth itself, which is a matter of indifference, e.g., "to wear the world like a loose garment," as suggested by St. Francis of Assisi.

The mind is unaware of multiple aspects of the psyche and the influence of multiple unseen energies of the interacting attractor fields of consciousness. Thus, the mind, unaided, is unable to really know if that which is desired will turn out to be a blessing or a hindrance.

Spiritual practices accompanied by devotion provide additional strength and enlist unseen support.
Thus, faith and trust plus willingness and intention are time-honored guides.

A self-honest person is not prone to having their feelings hurt or "having a bone to pick" with others.
Honest insight has an immediate benefit in the reduction of actual as well as potential emotional pain.
A person is vulnerable to emotional pain in exact relationship to the degree of self-awareness and self-acceptance.

When people admit their downside, others cannot attack them there. As a consequence, one feels emotionally less vulnerable and more safe and secure. The key to painless growth is humility, which amounts to merely dropping pridefulness and pretense and accepting fallibility as a normal human characteristic of self and others. 

Lower mind sees relationships as competitive; higher mind sees them as cooperative. Lower mind gets involved with others; higher mind becomes aligned with others. The simple words "I'm sorry" put out most fires painlessly. To win in life means to give up the obsession of "who's at fault."

Graciousness is far more powerful than belligerence. It is better to succeed than to "win." The entreaty of Divinity for assistance results in a transformative process that becomes more powerful with practice because the personality is now aligning with a strong, positive attractor field rather than with the weak linear ego.

In practice at the beginning, what may seem false or artificial becomes surprisingly natural and easy because it is aligned with and supported by Reality. The linear ego/self struggles to survive but the power of the spiritual Self is supported by the infinite field by which life evolves and survives.

Love summons support; anger repels it. With the throwing off of the lead weights of resistance, a cork automatically rises to the surface of the ocean as a consequence of its own buoyancy.

From consciousness research, it is learned that adopting a positive attitude immediately invites in the attractor field of an entire field of consciousness. That then unwittingly begins to alter the personality and bring benefits to one’s own life as well as those of others.

The ego/mind presumes and is convinced that its perceptions and interpretations of life experiences are the "real" thing and therefore "true." It also believes by projection that other people see, think, and feel the same way, and if they do not, they are mistaken and therefore wrong.

Thus, perception reinforces its hold by reification and presumptions. As has been described, each level of consciousness is in accord with and a reflection of a dominant attractor field of consciousness by which meaning and value are contextualized. 

Each person therefore lives in a world of their own making, reinforced by seeking agreement and a variety of rationalizations. The disparity is compensated for positively by empathy, compassion, acceptance, and the wisdom of maturity.

A negative attitude, in contrast, sees differences as sources for anger, resentment, and other negative feelings. By clinical observation, people not only perceive wide variation in accordance with their levels of consciousness but actually experience quite different events.

To those who are unfriendly, other people actually are often cold and unfriendly, and to a warm, loving person, the exact same environment is cordial and supportive. Thus, by virtue of what we are, we subtly influence events around us. Because of a benign attitude, loving people attract positive events, and the opposite is equally true.

The skeptic is dubious about the validity of spiritual realities because they do not have experiences such as the miraculous and therefore negate the reality of higher dimensions within which they are common occurrences.

The literal mechanistic mind sees all such phenomena (the siddhis, etc.) as "woo-woo" at best or even delusional, and it cannot understand the capacity to comprehend essence. Each level of consciousness thus tends to be self-ratifying, which elucidates why the evolution of consciousness appears to be slow.

Obstacles that defeat people whose consciousness level is below 200 act as stimulants to those who have evolved into the first level of true power.

This also indicates a shift from being dominated by primitive emotions, which become attenuated by intelligence and verifiable validity rather than the self-serving emotionality that results in fallacious and distorted reasoning.

The critical key to moving into the strength of courage is the acceptance of personal responsibility and accountability. This major move requires relinquishment of a victim/perpetrator dualistic fallacy that socially undermines integrity via blame and excuses based on dualistic, moral, and social relativistic fallacies and theories.

Thus, courage also includes rising above identification with the rationalizations that characterize social belief systems that calibrate below 200 and are based on presumptions of blame and excuses.

The function of the psychological ego, as seen by psychoanalysis, is to align the personality with the social reality of the external world.
It simultaneously balances the personality component of the conscience (Freud’s superego) with the "ego-ideal" (internalized standards) against the primitive instinctual animal drives (the "Id").

The function of the psychological ego, as seen by psychoanalysis, is to align the personality with the social reality of the external world and to simultaneously balance the personality component of the conscience (Freud’s superego) with the ‘ego-ideal’ (internalized standards) against the primitive instinctual animal drives (the ‘Id’).

While below 200 there is the capacity to process ‘facts’ (linear), there is not yet the capacity to discern truth, which is nonlinear and depends on the capacity for abstract thought. Lower Mind uses facts to support positionality, whereas Higher Mind respects balance, meaning, and concordance of levels of abstraction.

At level 200, religion is respected and seen to be an option rather than a threat. Primary principles are to avoid sin, accept spiritual responsibility, and reject temptation (e.g., as in the Lord’s Prayer). Prayer is seen as both worshipful and confirmatory of God’s will, and to ask for guidance is natural as a consequence of humility and acceptance of character defects. Thus, morality tends to be a major focus that often reflects itself in socially responsible attitudes and respect for traditional values. Although there is still fear of Divine Judgment, it is ameliorated by faith in God’s fairness, mercy, and forgiveness in response to contrition and the promise of salvation.

As in the martial arts, a rigid position becomes a point of vulnerability—that which does not bend is liable to break. Rising above barriers or oppositions that dissipate one’s energies, the Neutral condition allows for flexibility and a nonjudgmental, realistic appraisal of problems. To be neutral means to be relatively unattached to outcomes. Not getting one’s way is no longer experienced as defeating, frightening, or frustrating.

The social expressions of this level of consciousness are those of easygoing coexistence. Neutrality is not interested in conflict or participation in revolutionary movements, protests, or conflict. This may be misperceived as passivity, whereas, in actuality, it is stability that neither promotes nor resists change. The equanimity of Neutrality thus offers a counterbalance to the excesses of social change and a refuge from emotionality that allows for reflection and calm evaluation.

Maybe this is what I was experiencing while in Croatia! I hadn’t yet integrated from the detachment of my emotions, so I was so detached that I found myself on the opposite end in the Void, which was scary:

It is important to differentiate nonattachment from detachment. Detachment indicates withdrawal as well as negation, leading to indifference, which in itself is a defense against the fear of attachment. Progressive detachment leads to ennui, flatness, and a decrease in aliveness and the joy of existence.

If followed consistently, detachment as the pathway of negation leads eventually to the Void, which is often misunderstood to represent Enlightenment or the described Buddha state of anatta, from the Sanskrit. While the Void is a very impressive state, in contrast, Allness is the ultimate state. The Void is nonlinear, which is impressive, but void of Divine Love, which is also nonlinear. The true conditions of Allness versus nothingness are experientially very, very different.

The pathway to the state of Enlightenment is via nonattachment rather than negation. In understanding this, it is important to realize that the nonlinear energy of consciousness itself is intrinsic within the linear, and that nonattachment means nondependence on form. Nonattachment means neither attraction nor aversion. In contrast, detachment often leads to aversion and avoidance, as well as devaluation.

Nonattachment allows for the freedom from the attraction of projected values and anticipations such as gain. Without fear of either attraction or aversion, Neutrality allows for participation and the enjoyment of life because, experientially, life becomes more like play than a high-stakes involvement. This is consistent with the teachings of the Tao, in that the flow of life is neither sought nor resisted. Thus, life becomes effortless and existence itself is pleasurable, without conditions, and easygoing like a cork in the sea. It is “wearing the world like a loose garment,” as St. Francis of Assisi recommended.

Experientially, daily life is an amusement in which nothing of any great significance or importance rests on outcomes. With no stakes involved, there is no fear of loss or ego-inflation of seeming gain.

350

Acceptance applies to the inner as well as the outer world. With spiritual education, it becomes apparent that the ego, by virtue of its innate structure, is prone to perceptual error, and that by the willingness to surrender a positionality, these distortions of perception are transcended.

The maturity of Acceptance includes the ability to tranquilly accept both personal and human limitations without loss of self-esteem because value judgments have lost their validity and are now seen to be primarily arbitrary, personalized choices. Thereby, personal opinions become dethroned and lose their tendency to dominate by sheer emotional pressure.

The conscience (superego) then becomes benign as it has been ‘defanged,’ and therefore it is no longer necessary to deny it, fear it, or project it onto the world. By acceptance instead of moralized denial as repression, animal drives are accepted as just being part of nature to be counterbalanced by positive human characteristics.

By transcending judgmentalism, the most primitive instinctual drives do not have to be compartmentalized or otherwise distorted and attributed to others. At the same time, primitive drives still exist and are acknowledged but not acted upon. Acceptance precludes pretense and allows for realistic objectivity.

At this level, unemotional discernment replaces judgmentalism, which itself is usually highly emotionalized by anger, indignation, or vituperative denunciation and attack. While it is obvious that there are many elements and forces in the world that are deleterious to human life and happiness, it is not necessary to hate or demonize them but instead to merely make appropriate allowances and avoid them. 

Thus, what was formerly demonized now appears to be more like bad weather, a tidal wave, or a force of nature to be reckoned with but not hated. Life survives not by hating lightning but by avoiding where it is likely to strike.

The narcissistic ego is humorless and reveals its true nature by its ‘sensitivity’ and other neurotic traits. It lacks the capacity to laugh at oneself and the foibles and paradoxes of human life. Thus, developing a sense of humor assists the evolution of consciousness through deflating the ego’s puffed-up self-image by which it imbues its emotionalized opinionating and vanity. 

Humility precludes making a fool or spectacle of oneself to gain attention or control others by bombastic shouting and gesticulation. Acceptance declines drama and allows calm plurality without getting marginalized by the inflation of pumped-up positionalities that, by their very inflation, attract argument and attack. Acceptance brings peace by inclusion rather than by rejection or denunciation, thus offering the security necessary for the development of rationality and the intellect.

Although Reason is highly effective in a technical world where the methodologies of logic dominate, Reason itself, paradoxically, is the major block to reaching higher levels of consciousness because it attracts identification of the self as mind.

The consciousness levels of the 400s represent the emergence of the capacity to synthesize and utilize linear abstractions and symbols of great complexity and to extract significance and meaning as well as predictive verification. Intelligence comprehends hierarchical fields of organizational rank and discerns value as to reliability, implied worth, or significance. 

It stratifies prioritization via sequence to classification systems that are analogous to paradigm, domain, category, class, species, subspecies, genus, and then finally, a specific example. This complex function is analogous to a rapid sorting system that is simultaneously capable of integration and selection. Although the content is linear, its overall direction and source of functioning are nonlinear, and its overall domination is in accord with the power of the consciousness level of the field itself.

With the evolution of consciousness, reason, logic, and the intellect are energized by alignment with commitment to truth, which is actually an aspect of Divinity and the invisible source of the power of the field of mind itself. The gift of the alignment with truth results in comprehension and the accumulation of wisdom and sagacity in the exercise and application of the function of reason.

An enemy of rationality is the self-servingness of narcissism itself, which warps and distorts reason to facilitate its own ends. At lower levels of consciousness, the mind is merely used as another weapon to enforce positionalities, control others, and allow for the acting out of rationalized animal instincts.

Lower Mind is less evolved and characteristic of children, immaturity, and lack of education. In its more primitive condition, mentalization subserves emotionalities and personalized needs and wants. Thus, Lower Mind subserves communication of subjective states or opinions, which are not in the same category as the mental constructions of Higher Mind that are intended to represent more objective, verifiable statements that thereby require higher standards of validity or proof. Thus, Lower Mind is ruled by ‘wants,’ and Higher Mind is disciplined by accountability that requires adherence to standards of truth, with concomitant requirements of ethics and responsibility.

As becomes obvious, violation of truth can also be a consequence of purposeful distortion of the meaning of words by virtue of politicalization and social theories that calibrate below 200 (e.g., ‘new think,’ language police, political elitism, etc.). Disciplined reason and logic adhere to the dictionary definitions of words.

Mentalization is the processing of symbols at random. Linear thought is prone to error as it deals with content. The content is known by virtue of the quality of awareness, which is the attractor field of consciousness by which contextualization occurs. Content thinks; the field knows. In contrast, Self is.

By spiritual intention, the intellect can be sanctified so that it becomes a springboard and roadway to understanding spiritual reality instead of a dead end or a roadblock. Spiritual study utilizes the intellect to reveal that the intellect itself has to be transcended from ‘knowing about’ to ‘becoming,’ which it accomplishes by spiritual practice, discipline, and devotion.

It is usually fruitless to try to block thought or force the mind to be still without removing its motivation and pay-off. Its motivational roots can be identified and surrendered. It is then surprisingly possible to make a decision: just do not think about anything. This is made possible by aligning with the Infinite Silence out of which thinkingness arises. It is located not between but just before the emergence of thoughts.

The advance of paradigm is characterized by a shift from reliance on perception and mentalization to the discernment of essence. This transition is a consequence of and in concordance with what has been classically termed the ‘opening of the third eye of the Buddhic body,’ which represents the emergence of spiritual vision.

My commentary: There is a verse in the Bible that says Jesus said, “If the eye is single, the whole body is.”

The periodic fluctuations of emotions, like choppy waves at sea, call only for correction and do not mean that the destination has been affected or changed, which is only accomplished by the will. Periods of unanticipated difficulty are to be expected that may seem like ‘setbacks’ but merely mean that some trend (often primarily unconscious) has surfaced for recognition in order to be processed.

500s

As a result, love becomes not a quantitative emotion but an expression of essence whereby loving becomes lovingness and, by identification, eventually becomes what one ‘is.’ Love as a mode of existence requires no ‘others’ as objects for fulfillment or expression. It is an independent quality with no subject, object, verb, or adjective and thus is nonlinear and unlimited.

500s

Pleasure is no longer something one acquires but is innate, consequent to the power of the field rather than via some agency or personal decision. It is also progressively discovered that there is actually no ‘doer’ of actions, and one witnesses the autonomous unfoldment of karmic potentiality from a new paradigm of reality that is beyond the presumptive dualistic principle of causation. Thus, life becomes an endless series of revelations of intrinsic charm and delight that initially seem amazing.

Then comes the realization that what appears to be miraculous is merely the constant unfolding of the potentiality of the evolution of Creation by which the subjective experience of time dissolves and is replaced by the knowingness of all Is-ness. Likewise, the perception of ‘change’ is replaced by the progressive emergence of the ongoingness of Creation as becoming the fulfillment of potentiality’s actualizing into manifestation.

In Reality, ‘existence’ is its meaning and identical with it. There is no subject, predicate, or verb, and the understanding is beyond languaging. As can be best stated, the ‘meaning’ of a thing is what it ‘is.’ Identity is its meaning. It becomes apparent that all delineation and definition are dualistic abstractions and mentations that circuitously reify their original definition.

Truth is autonomously self-evident by virtue of its existence as Allness. Without the artifact of the dualistic separation of presumed subject and object, the all-encompassing Oneness of Existence is its own definition and meaning. Thus, a cat ‘knows’ it is a cat by virtue of being a cat and therefore is not dualistically separated from its own reality. The knower and the known are one and the same identity.

The transcendence of spiritual ecstasy and joy depends on the willingness to surrender all to God, no matter what, including even the exquisite state of ecstasy, which is of a dimension beyond description. The state itself is now a temptation and can delay the evolution to the state of Enlightenment. At first, there is a reluctance and dismay to surrendering such a glorious condition to God, and yet, there arises a knowingness that even this wonderment, too, must be released.

600s

Creation does not move from imperfection to perfection, as is witnessed by the ego, but instead moves from perfection to perfection. The illusion of moving from imperfection to perfection is a mentalization. For example, a rosebud is not an imperfect rose but is a perfect rosebud. When half open, it is a perfect unfolding flower, and when completely opened, it is a perfect open flower.

As it fades, it is a perfect faded flower and then becomes a perfect withered plant, which then becomes perfectly dormant. Each is therefore perfect at each expansion of its expression as the emergence and unfoldment of the evolution of Creation. Thus, the illusion of ‘change’ is replaced by the witnessing of the process of the manifestation of actuality from potentiality (transition, emergence, unfoldment, metamorphosis).

All is an expression of Divinity as Creation—all is equally sacred and holy.

With cessation of the experience of time, sequence disappears; thus, there is no ‘before’ or ‘after.’ The harmony of the Unity of Concordance is evolutionary as potentiality expresses itself as manifestation but is void of intentionality. The best analogy would be the movements of the universe that are harmoniously concordant with the totality.

Thus, gravity is intrinsic to Creation, and its field is ‘concomitant’ rather than ‘causal’ or ‘consequential,’ which are terms that represent mental exploratory hypothetical constructs. Concordance is an expression of Divine Unity and Harmony, which becomes apparent with the transcendence of Descartes’ dualistic split of res interna (cogitans) and res externa/extensa (the world as it is). In the Unity of Oneness, there is no separate ‘this’ causing a separate ‘that.’

To transcend level 600 requires dropping identification with the witnessing/observing qualities, which are actually autonomous qualities inherent to consciousness itself. With deep meditation, it is discovered that these qualities have unconsciously been identified with, which requires the surrender of the illusion or pay-off of being the witness or the observer.

700s

The consciousness levels of the 700s are historically classified as the levels of Self-Realization or of advanced mystics, such as those represented in recent times as Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, and Patanjali. Familiar writings at these levels are the Zen teachings of Bodhidharma; The Cloud of Unknowing; the Diamond, Heart, and Lotus Sutras; the Koran; the New Testament (without Revelations); and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as well as the Rig Veda. (For convenience, a representative list is included at the end of the chapter.)

As the famous Zen ox-herding pictures, originating in the 1500s, depict, the progression is to first locate and identify the ego (the ox), then tame it, then transcend it, then leave the world, then the world disappears, and then, as a seasoned sage, return to the world. At this point, the world is depicted as merely a reflection on the water (of consciousness itself).

850

The Knowingness that is needed to transcend this level is that Divine Love is also nonlinear and without subject, object, form, conditionality, or location. The limitation (incompleteness) of the Void is reached as a consequence of intense dedication to the pathway of negation; however, missing is the realization that Love is a primary quality of Divinity and is also nonlinear, and that spiritual love is not an attachment. The error of the pathway of negation is to misidentify and refuse Love because, in its general, ordinary human experience, it is a limitation and an attachment (between a ‘me’ and a ‘you’ or an ‘it’).

In contrast, Divine Love is predominant, powerful, overwhelming, and the primary quality or essence of the Presence. It is profound and unconditional, with no subject or object. It is not an emotionality but a condition or a state that is liberating rather than limiting. The Void (cal. 850) is comparable to infinite, empty, conscious space. In contrast, the Presence of Divinity is like the heart of the sun. There is no mistaking it, for the Love is realized as the very core and Source of one’s primary Self.

As can be seen from the above, calibration level 850 denotes identification with attributes, qualities, or characteristics of Divinity but not Divinity itself. Thus, Allness, Omnipresence, Nonlinearity, Oneness, etc., are qualities of Divinity but still lack the core identity, which is conscious awareness of God as Divinity and thus the Creator of the seen and unseen (the linear and the nonlinear) and the Source of Love and consciousness/awareness.

Spiritual progress does not follow in convenient, definable, progressive steps, as a description such as this on transcending the levels of consciousness might seem to imply. On the contrary, unexpected great leaps may very well occur at any time, and all students should be advantaged by having the necessary information of what to know at certain points along the way. The knowledge that is needed at ‘the end’ is essential right from the ‘beginning.’

This awareness is reinforced by understanding that, contrary to the dualistic Newtonian paradigm of reality, one is not just the consequence of the past. On the contrary, the present position is due to the attraction of potentiality, because both the past and the future are illusions. Therefore, commitment to Enlightenment now becomes like a magnet pulling one towards it, and the rate of evolution is up to the individual’s willingness to surrender resistances.

Scientific objectivity calibrates in the 400s, whereas spiritual intention is far more powerful and calibrates from 500 on up. For instance, at highly evolved levels of consciousness, merely holding an optimal resolution in mind tends to bring it into manifestation, as do affirmations (e.g., “My life is ruled by order and harmony.”).

Surrendering the control of outcomes is also beneficial in that it precludes either self-blame or pride about them. Whether a conclusion is seen as desirable or undesirable depends on the level of consciousness of the observer (i.e., positionalities).

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Spiritual evolution is a process of unfoldment, emergence, and purification as a consequence of what one has become rather than as a result of what one is doing or has been.

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Thus, to locate the source of conflict, it is not fruitful to look at one’s personal consciousness but instead to look at the overall levels of consciousness of mankind in its major movements throughout time. For example, there can be the arising of judgmentalism, indignation, or even rage at the sufferings of mankind, even though one has personally overcome this duality. Although the personal self may have transcended right versus wrong, good versus bad, and lovable versus unlovable, these perceptions and positionalities are not resolved in the deeper layers of the collective unconscious.

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In the meantime, the body goes about spontaneous action in accord with its karmic propensities wherever it is apparently serviceable to Divinity, and its whereabouts is not really a matter of concern.

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The adjustment encountered from level 600 on up occurs because the mind is silent and no longer processes data in a sequential, linear style. Thus, the customary data bank of memory is not processed according to sequential logic and prioritized compartmentalization.

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The most powerful tool that is in the province of the will is devotion. Thus, it is not just spiritual truth but the degree of one’s devotion to it that empowers it to become transformative. A great classic that demonstrates the efficacy of simplicity and devotion is that of Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God (1692), which emphasizes the importance of constancy.

By this process, it eventually becomes quite clear that everything ‘just is as it is’, and what it is, is its ‘meaning’, which reveals acceptance that requires no comment, content, or the staking out of a linguistic dualistic position, such as opinion. This style is akin to the time-honored ‘Wu Wei’ of the way of the Tao, whereby one effortlessly flows with life and abandons willfulness and judgment to God. Nonresistance leads to nonattachment rather than detachment, which can be a form of avoidance.

Nonresistance does not mean to ignore or deny but instead to witness, observe, and be aware, which, as an experiential style, moves one from being the imaginary actor in the movie of life to being the witness/observer who is thereby emotionally uninvolved yet capable of participation. This attitude diminishes the temptation to invest in positionalities or outcomes. Thereby, personal will surrenders and Divine Will takes its place where Creation is continuous, evolutionary, and sub-serves the unfolding of awareness.

—

When analyzed, the mind is seen to be a complexity of the presumption of ‘my’ thoughts plus a collection of observed factual data. Data is useful; in contrast, thoughts and views about that data are unreliable and, of necessity, distorted by the supposition of their being ‘mine’, with all the attendant positionalities.

Thus, the mind is at its best when it operates as science, which does not allow for emotionality or the violation of logic. A friend once said, “I just realized that I don’t have to have an opinion about everything—what a relief!” This discovery led to the enjoyment of greater freedom because opinions are imprisoning and restrictive, as well as routinely contentious and argumentative.

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If thoughts or ideas are not really ‘mine’, then whence do they arise and who is their author? Actually, they don’t have a ‘who’ of origin at all but instead merely arise from a ‘what’. The content of a calibratable field of consciousness is like a thought bank regimented by a specific energy field of a level of the collective consciousness of mankind.

Similar thoughts, concepts, and ideas congregate at various levels and are orchestrated under the influence of the attention of the central ‘attractor field’ that, like gravity, attracts ideas of similar gravity or density. The phenomenon is similar to the stratification of fishes and life forms at different depths of the sea. In human life, there are bottom feeders as well as those who leap above the surface of the water.

—

The spirit is uplifted as the consequence of the quality of that which it has become by the consent of its own free will. Compassion for the self is an attribute of the Self. Thus, the last great resistance to be surrendered is the resistance to the ever-present Love of God.

By this process, it eventually becomes quite clear that everything ‘just is as it is’, and what it is, is its ‘meaning’, which reveals acceptance that requires no comment, content, or the staking out of a linguistic dualistic position, such as opinion. This style is akin to the time-honored ‘Wu Wei’ of the way of the Tao, whereby one effortlessly flows with life and abandons willfulness and judgment to God. Nonresistance leads to nonattachment rather than detachment, which can be a form of avoidance.

Nonresistance does not mean to ignore or deny but instead to witness, observe, and be aware, which, as an experiential style, moves one from being the imaginary actor in the movie of life to being the witness/observer who is thereby emotionally uninvolved yet capable of participation. This attitude diminishes the temptation to invest in positionalities or outcomes. Thereby, personal will surrenders and Divine Will takes its place where Creation is continuous, evolutionary, and sub-serves the unfolding of awareness.

—

When analyzed, the mind is seen to be a complexity of the presumption of ‘my’ thoughts plus a collection of observed factual data. Data is useful; in contrast, thoughts and views about that data are unreliable and, of necessity, distorted by the supposition of their being ‘mine’, with all the attendant positionalities.

Thus, the mind is at its best when it operates as science, which does not allow for emotionality or the violation of logic. A friend once said, “I just realized that I don’t have to have an opinion about everything—what a relief!” This discovery led to the enjoyment of greater freedom because opinions are imprisoning and restrictive, as well as routinely contentious and argumentative.

—

If thoughts or ideas are not really ‘mine’, then whence do they arise and who is their author? Actually, they don’t have a ‘who’ of origin at all but instead merely arise from a ‘what’. The content of a calibratable field of consciousness is like a thought bank regimented by a specific energy field of a level of the collective consciousness of mankind.

Similar thoughts, concepts, and ideas congregate at various levels and are orchestrated under the influence of the attention of the central ‘attractor field’ that, like gravity, attracts ideas of similar gravity or density. The phenomenon is similar to the stratification of fishes and life forms at different depths of the sea. In human life, there are bottom feeders as well as those who leap above the surface of the water.

—

The spirit is uplifted as the consequence of the quality of that which it has become by the consent of its own free will. Compassion for the self is an attribute of the Self. Thus, the last great resistance to be surrendered is the resistance to the ever-present Love of God.

—

By observation, one will see that the good/bad dichotomy is merely the reflection of an overall contextualization based on unexamined presumptions. With deep humility, one will soon realize that unaided, the mind is really unauthorized, unequipped, and incapable of making such judgmental discernment. It can make this discovery by just beginning to ask for whom is it good, for whom is it bad, when, and under what circumstances. This eventually leads to examining one’s overall contextualization of the significance and meaning of human life itself as a transitional learning experience.

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Although conflicts may appear to be impossible to resolve, their resolution can actually be surprisingly simple through strict adherence to the proven tools of spiritual processing, i.e., the willingness to surrender to God at great depth and to let go of resistances by invoking the power of the Spiritual Will (cal. 850) subsequent to asking for Divine assistance. One can request help from the Holy Spirit, along with admission of the truth that “I, myself,” (the ego) “am unable to accomplish this step alone.” Operationally, this is actually a request to comprehend and contextualize the situation differently and thus dissolve apparent paradoxes.

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To repeat, Creation is evolution by virtue of the emergence of potentiality into actuality.

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Humor arises from abundance of goodwill. It offsets and precludes emotional pain and anxiety, and it transcends the negative by exposing unspoken fallacies that would otherwise be unapproachable.

By owning a fallacy as a hidden aspect of one’s own personality, its absurdity is revealed. That is the mechanism of hyperbole that exposes invalid belief systems that are offered by rationalized distortions of truth. Humor bridges the gap between res interna (cogitans) and res externa (the world the way it is). Therefore, it forms a striking contrast between what the mind perceives or believes and the essence of the underlying reality. Humor thus exposes the ego’s self-serving deceptions.

The Presence within is to be welcomed, loved, and not feared, for it is ultimately benign and reveals the transformative power of Love. The concept of God as fearful is actually the ultimate joke of the ego’s theatre of the absurd.