Once again though, we're just fiddling with words here where we must interpret meaning and further deconstruct what it means to us as compared to our beliefs and lens we're currently wearing. This is why discussions on spirituality can go on in an endless loop for eternity. The only way to truly experience the concepts we're discussing is to have faith and break free from the loop. Face your fears and release all need and desire to actually intellectually understand any of this. To understand it, one must face their fears and recognize that no amount of discussion, great books or teachers or even their own mind can ever conceive what it all means. One must face their fears and experience it first hand.

I liked both of your comments guys. Very profound stuff. I will say that I do pretend to be loving even if I don't feel like it initially, because in that moment that's really the best thing that I can do. Not referring to suppression of emotion btw. I'm talking about tuning in to a different frequency and shifting gears.

Maybe it's not even pretending, it's more like just acting as if and letting my attitude fall in line with that. It's the old "fake it till you make it" trick. Even if I'm feeling lazy or annoyed, the more I focus on and channel love, the more it becomes my reality. I have to believe it myself though internally. It's not just a front and my attitude stays the same.

Anyway I don't know if that's similar to what you're talking about Billy. But I do think faking it has its place at least until you can become congruent with it.

I also think that if you are enlightened you can break the rules and be a total jerk if you wanted. Many zen masters do just that. In his lectures Hawkins typically expresses through his personality what seems to me like the 400s so that he can verbalize everything clearly. He talks about coming down through the levels and finding it hard to talk about the higher states without getting pulled into them and being unable to continue the lecture. So his personality expression isn't indicative of the love path.

The way Hawkins talks about the high 500's is one of positive affirmation, gentleness, forgiveness, love for all, constantly. I think only once you pass through the barrier of the mind that you can think unloving thoughts and your energy won't be impacted. Before then, if you start having thought loops that aren't loving, your energy will probably begin to drop.

The stuff I'm saying seems kind of superficial relative to the deeper nonduality teachings. It's all about thoughts and attitudes and such which isn't the true Self. If nonduality were easier I would drop it. I just noticed I wasn't making any progress until I started the path of love. Seems like as much as I tried to go straight to the finish line, I have to walk step by step through the 500s to get there.

Hi Taylor, why do you have so much faith in Hawkins' number system? My hunch is that whenever you measure, contrast and compare, you can't be there. I honestly always cringe when I hear about this number system, it reminds me of the discussions that teenager have when they discuss whether their girlfriends are a 7, 8 or 10. I read Hawkins once and what I liked about it was his idea that spiritual evolution is geometric - wouldn't surprise me if this idea was right.

Chris, I finally got your point, sorry that I was so dense before. Makes all perfect sense!

I understand that it seems weird and I think it's probably a healthy instinct to not want to quantify spirituality. I only think of these numbers when in a spiritual discussion. I've just internalized these numbers very deeply from when I was more intellectual so the categories seem self evident to me. Obviously there are different levels of love or hate or reason or oneness that you can tune into. I don't mean to make it more complicated than it already is, I just know Billy already knows the numbers.

I'm trying to use the word love or hate itself though so thanks zeitgeist for reminding me that not everyone is so comfortable with these numbers.