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tc33 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-19-2006, 01:02 AM

'Love' refers to the level of consciousness here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...consciousness/

I've been on the 'Reason' level of consciousness for a few years now, and am looking to progress to the 'Love' level of consciousness. I fully realize that a higher level of thinking is required in order to progress to the next level. This will likely require a change in my belief system, but the only answer that I have found thus far does not appeal to me.

The only logical path I currently know of towards achieving 'Love' is to adopt a subjective model of reality, where everyone is a projection of my own consciousness and we're all somehow consciously interconnected. I have read how Steve and Erin have benefited from adopting a subjective model of reality; namely how Steve described how he overcame fear in his aptly-named 'Overcoming Fear' podcast, as well as how interactions with other people have improved significantly by approaching others assuming said preexisting interconnection already exists.

My current judgement on this topic is that the ends don't justify the means. I would feel it a compromise of integrity to lie to myself that nobody and nothing else really exists except in my own mind; that I could not trust my senses; and that somehow everything is controlled by the unknowable. In short, I'd be lying to myself to achieve the outcome I desire. I believe that there must be another way.

Within an objective reality, how can one achieve the 'love' level of consciousness? What set of beliefs must I understand, analyze, and adopt before I can progress? Or is this something that cannot occur at the level of 'Reason', and I'll forever be stuck at 'Reason' until I logically decide that logic can only go so far?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Tom

taylor · #2 (**permalink**) 12-19-2006, 10:22 AM

Try to develop compassion, which is the understanding of the human heart. Buddha said to understand everything is to forgive everything. See the limitations of the human condition and always forgive whatever you personally experience or witness. People only do the best they can at any given moment. Let go of all judgments of others based on your own hypothetical ideal. Let go of all dogma and harsh edges in your worldview. Adopt a compassionate, forgiving mindset towards others and you begin to move into Love. Another tool for reaching Love is consistent kindness towards everything, including yourself.

Michael Chui · #3 (**permalink**) 12-19-2006, 10:39 AM

This is my definition of love.

Aqualgidus.org > The Definition of Love

I haven't thought about those levels of consciousness long enough for me to be able to agree with it fully, but I think my definition fits with it neatly. As taylor said, try to develop compassion. But instead the slightly more vaporous concept of it, try to consider the Compassion chapter in the definition I linked. It might be more useful.

taylor · #4 (**permalink**) 12-19-2006, 11:29 AM

Also, I wouldn't throw out Steve's ideas just yet. Here's how I can come to a similar view of the oneness of existence, and therefore Love. Sorry if it is a bit unfocused, I'm sleep deprived.

How do we determine that something exists? We can only know that something truly exists by our experience of it. If we determine that something exists because we read about it, then it is our experience of the words, and the thoughts, that makes us believe it exists.

The objective mind thinks that the world is out there and that it is real. If we stop perceiving it, it keeps right on going without us, and it is therefore separate from us. This brings up the fear of death and separation from reality.

But before the objective mind could think, there was an experience of the world. Nothing can possibly take place outside of the experience, otherwise how could it be said to exist? To truly be honest, ruthlessly honest, one must take into account the absolute reliance on subjectivity as the basis for all possible 'rational' conclusions or objective measurables. I don't see how you can say that adopting Steve's worldview is lying to oneself. If we truly want to understand the core of reality, we must look to our own subjectivity as the blank slate upon which all of existence is painted.

We can also see the limitation of the intellect in understanding reality. The intellect can only survive on a diet of dualities. You only understand something intellectually by reducing parts, or by splitting into categories. If you ever want to see the whole picture, the entire unity of existence, the intellect simply can not do the job. It can only think about it dualistically. Existence is a this, separate from a that. It is a concept, and therefore not the real thing. All thought is not reality, but only definitions about it. To truly see reality, we must go deeper, to subjectivity and consciousness. This is why the mystics who say they understand, repeat that they had to go beyond the mind.

I think there is a strong enough rational case for Steve's worldview. Even the most dogmatic materialist, if he is honest, must acknowledge the possibility that Steve could be right. Then there's nothing left to do but dive in experientially and see which worldview you like better.

Michael Chui · #5 (**permalink**) 12-19-2006, 06:43 PM

taylor, I feel I need to respond to that, because I don't believe love requires a subjective reality. I don't think consciousness requires it at all. However, I'm getting on a plane in a couple hours, so this is a placeholder and something to force myself to take another look at this tonight so that I can write my response.

I'll edit this post.

tc33 · #6 (**permalink**) 12-20-2006, 12:04 AM

Taylor, thanks for your responses, especially response #1 which was very brief and prescriptive. I believe you are correct in that developing compassion and kindness, both in my thoughts as well as my actions, are the keys to progression. We shall see!

With regards to your second response, I'm not interested in debating a topic that cannot be debated using logic, at least for now. Sure, it would be easy for me to adopt a subjective model of reality and achieve the results I'm looking for, but as I said originally, I do not believe the ends justify the means. I am not looking for shortcuts. Moreover, I aim to be consistent and congruent with my beliefs. Namely, I currently believe that my brain/my five senses are my sources of information about the outside world, and I do not wish to nullify their importance in any matter. To me, this is a proverbial crack in the foundation of my knowledge, thus compromising my integrity and consistency. In short, it can't be proven and it's all a matter of individual perspective, so why bother going through the mental exercise? To what end?

Michael, thanks for the link to your page. I look forward to your response to Taylor. I believe that you can debate this topic much more eloquently and intelligently than I could. The floor is yours!

Michael Chui · #7 (**permalink**) 12-20-2006, 03:40 AM

Subjectivity Vs. Objectivity

Once upon a time, a friend of mine asked me what I thought objectivity was. I said, "Having no perspective." He chided me and responded that very few things came down to zero, then prompted me for another answer. I thought about it for a second, and then replied, "Having all perspectives." To this, he agreed.

So, the way I see it, objectivity is something you approach by gaining more and more perspectives about something. Having all perspectives is no more possible than no perspective; indeed, it is probably harder. But I think it is far more enlightening, and thus, a more constructive way to look at the world.

The subjective perspective, therefore, is actually a person's default worldview. As a person grows in compassion through comprehension, in my terms, they gain new perspectives. They come closer to objectivity by leaving behind subjectivity.

Intellect Vs. Experience

You say, "The intellect can only survive on a diet of dualities." But, I haven't seen any proof of this. It seems to me that small minds prefer the simplicity of dualities to the complexity of reality. I consider myself a fairly strong intellect, and I know a number of others whose minds are powerful. None of them deride intelligence; they instead consider their intelligence to be an integral part of their humanity.

Experience is powerful and necessary. But experience is not the only way of learning. The human being may be an experiment in adding a neocortex and an opposable thumb to an ape, but humanity itself is an experiment in culture. And what is culture but a collection of memories that exist outside the human being, passed back and forth by language?

The intellect is the defining characteristic of human beings. Until another sapient species comes along, this is our unique attribute amongst all other species, as far as we know.

It's important not to underestimate the intellect. That is how we learn from each other. How else, after all, is one to learn that jumping off a bridge is likely to result in one's death?

As I move into the third and final section of this post, note what Steve says when he talks about reason: "At this level you transcend the emotional aspects of the lower levels and begin to think clearly and rationally."

Love without a Subjective Reality

Subjective reality differs from a subjective perspective in one crucial regard: it takes the next step and presumes that all things are manifestations of just you. I may be wrong about my interpretation; I don't claim to know much about it. Please correct if it's inaccurate.

Objective reality, as I see it, is not a cold, dark, dismal place peopled with lifeless things and stilled sounds; instead, it is a cacophony of experience. To take advantage of the notion of a subjective reality, objective reality says that all things are manifestations of all people. The world is complex, and it is made of people. People who are not you, who have their own intentions and manifest their own desires.

The illustration I love best is Ripples. Every action is like a stone dropped into the pond. The effects of this action ripple outwards. They bounce off the edge of the pond and reflect back, amplifying and cancelling the waves as they go. This is subjective reality; but you also have other stones. Lots of them. Hitting the surface in different ways, frequencies, places. And they each produce their own set of ripples, which amplify, reflect, cancel all the other waves in the pond (I guess it's a lake now). And now you have an objective reality. Cacophonous, unpredictable, amazing to watch, and a joy to participate in.

So we come to love.

I said, at the beginning, that as "a person grows in compassion through comprehension, in my terms, they gain new perspectives." If you read my definition (same link as above), you see that to love is really to reach for new perspectives. I think that my definition is a better write-up than Steve's description: it shows exactly why love is expansive and encompassing rather than invoking the conscience.

I would presume that, at the Reason level, one becomes capable of acknowledging the noisiness of an objective reality without shrinking from it. To see it and know how to deal with it without emotional torment. And at the Love level, one begins to actively participate in it, with a positive emotional investment, as opposed to a negative one. I don't know; I think I'd need to read Hawkins' book to really decide what is meant by each term without Steve as a filter of interpretation.

As always, I welcome a response.

taylor · #8 (**permalink**) 12-20-2006, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tc33

Taylor, thanks for your responses, especially response #1 which was very brief and prescriptive. I believe you are correct in that developing compassion and kindness, both in my thoughts as well as my actions, are the keys to progression. We shall see!

I tried to keep #1 brief because the path to Love is quite simple, it just requires consistency. And good luck to you!! Another useful tool might be finding a mentor who is already in Love or a group of like minded people.

And now on to the dreaded philosophy...

Michael, I really like your definition of love as reaching for new perspectives. It's interesting. I've never thought of it that way before. The way I understand what you mean by that is it is also an unbiased, open minded, innocent context.

Now one thing I didn't mean to do was put down the intellect. Intelligence has it's place, and without it, we'd all be dead most likely. My point is that it has limitations. What I mean by the mind surviving on dualities is that we think logically with language. Language needs a subject and an object. It needs categories of thought. Without division and particulars, language cannot work. And language, thought, and the intellect are very very useful. I hope this makes sense.

Another mistake the objective mind makes is this: a thought represents reality. In fact, a thought never represents reality. All language is a metaphor for what really is. The thought, 'a cup' is not the same thing as a real cup. 'A Cup' represents a creation of the mind, and not the creation of God. True honesty is letting go of the false world of your mind to reality. So while the mind is very useful especially in manipulation of physical form, (math, science, communication, etc) it is limited. It does not see reality. It cannot see the present, only the past, represented by concepts. And it cannot comprehend the unity of life. As Buddha said, "Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two."

When I first started looking into Steve's subjective reality, I was thinking objectively, and we had a brief discussion via email when I tried to challenge his views. The way I finally understood what he meant, was by reading David Hawkins, which I highly, highly recommend. You can't hold Steve as an objective entity in your mind and believe in subjective reality. You must look at this constant field of awareness that gives everything in your reality it's authenticity. When you realize that, you see that there are no other people, no separation between things, there is nothing, but this complete, silent, awareness. This awareness is the only you, that there really is. It's the only anything that really is. The ego, or the personal self is just a body and thought process that is contained within the awareness. Actually that's not true, but language breaks down quite quickly when discussing nonduality.

I was never able to come to these conclusions looking at it objectivley. Only when I turned to my own inward experience could I understand what Steve and David Hawkins and the mystics were talking about. It's funny because looking from an objective point of view, it seems so easy to call it delusional. But when you personally experience some of this, you realize that the objective world is a dream, and wonder how you never realized any of this before. Have you ever been reading for hours at a time and then all of a sudden something interrupts you, "Oh yeah. Life is going on." You were so caught up in concepts, that you forgot the real thing. Well enlightenment is like that, only a million times more intense.

So forgive me if I didn't directly discuss a lot of what you brought up. Just trying to be efficient.

And for your information let me quote what Hawkins says about Love taken from Transcending The Levels of Consciousness.

p246 "In terms of the evolution of consciousness, this level reflects transcendence of identification with the limiting linear domain and its positionalities to the awareness of subjectivity as the primary state that underlies all experience. Thus, the sense of reality moves from what is perceived to the condition or faculty by which it is experienced."

p245 "Love takes no position and thus is global, rising above the separation of positionality. It is then possible to be 'one with another' as there are no longer any barriers. Love is therefore inclusive and progressively expands the sense of self. Love focuses on the goodness of life in all its expressions and augments that which is positive. It dissolves negativity by recontextualizing it rather than by attacking it. As such, it is benign, supportive, and nurtures life; consequently, it is the level of true happiness."

Michael Chui · #9 (**permalink**) 12-21-2006, 07:19 AM

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