Highest level of consciousness

[PerDev]

Can anybody reach to Highest level of consciousness only with Intelligence (Truth, Love, Power)

or You would also need GRACE ?

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by PerDev

Can anybody reach to Highest level of consciousness only with Intelligence (Truth, Love, Power)

or You would also need GRACE ?

If by grace, you mean help, then yes, we will all need help to achieve enlightenment. But after we become enlightened, we will see that we were helping ourselves all along. There is no externality involved. It's all within.

[Venger Satanis]

have you studied the 4th way? if not, i don't think there's any hope of man reaching the higher states of consciousness.

truth, love, power, grace? words won't do the job, start with self-observation.


VS

[Dannyboy1]

Who's Grace?

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

Who's Grace?

A definition of terms is useful. "Grace" has been defined as "unmerited favor", that is, special, beneficent, unearned assistance from a divine source.

The original poster's question implies several things:

1) There are levels of consciousness
2) Reaching the highest level is both achievable and desirable in terms of a goal in this life.
3) Intelligence is a means of achieving (2) and consists of truth, love and power, but
4) You might also need grace, which implies
5) There is a Source of grace, presumably divine

Personally I allow (1), doubt (2), and disagree with (3), so I can't even get as far as discussing (4).

Intelligence in the context of the question is in my view the ability to use one's mind to inquire about truth and process information, but I'd say it consists of observation and judgment. One can mis-perceive or mis-understand, thus intelligence doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with truth. One can be clever for purposes other than love. As for power, well ... that's a loaded word and I'm not sure how the OP even defines it, but I certainly don't see its relationship to using the intellect to raise one's level of consciousness.

--Bob

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

A definition of terms is useful. "Grace" has been defined as "unmerited favor", that is, special, beneficent, unearned assistance from a divine source.

The original poster's question implies several things:

1) There are levels of consciousness
2) Reaching the highest level is both achievable and desirable in terms of a goal in this life.
3) Intelligence is a means of achieving (2) and consists of truth, love and power, but
4) You might also need grace, which implies
5) There is a Source of grace, presumably divine

Personally I allow (1), doubt (2), and disagree with (3), so I can't even get as far as discussing (4).

Intelligence in the context of the question is in my view the ability to use one's mind to inquire about truth and process information, but I'd say it consists of observation and judgment. One can mis-perceive or mis-understand, thus intelligence doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with truth. One can be clever for purposes other than love. As for power, well ... that's a loaded word and I'm not sure how the OP even defines it, but I certainly don't see its relationship to using the intellect to raise one's level of consciousness.

--Bob

I could have very easily gone through life never even knowing what enlightenment was, but I was fortunate enough to be put on the path because I finally had enough suffering. So, I'm saying there must have been a hand in this.

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I could have very easily gone through life never even knowing what enlightenment was, but I was fortunate enough to be put on the path because I finally had enough suffering. So, I'm saying there must have been a hand in this.

You may well be right. And you are not alone in thinking this -- you have Jung and his talk of synchronicity, as well as Peck and others who speak of grace in terms of all sorts of things that go right in any given moment, never quite allowing all the things that go wrong to quite get the upper hand. For example as I write this, zillions of protein foldings and enzyme reactions must go perfectly, dozens of hormones must be in near-perfect balance, brain chemistry must basically work right, etc., for me to even have coherent thoughts on the topic much less discuss them with you. I have to be living far enough up the hierarchy of needs to give attention to something besides basic survival. I have to have enough hope to believe that bothering to think about such things matters in some way, etc. Seen from this perspective, almost any human progress or even human hope seems miraculous.

All that being said, though, it may simply be that you are on "the path" simply because the pain of not taking that journey reached a tipping point where it was worse than the pain of taking the journey, and it's as simple as that.

After all, if you say that god gave you the grace to move towards higher levels of consciousness, you're automatically implying, are you not, that he has NOT given that same grace to others who are not advancing. If you believe the religious definition of grace ("unmerited favor") you are further saying that you having grace doesn't mean you're more deserving than those who don't have it (and you're also saying that you're not now more deserving than you used to be before you were on the path). How is this different from saying that it's random that you're advancing, vs not advancing before, or vs others not advancing now?

The only point in saying that it's grace would be a belief that we can't advance unless god helps us. And if he helps us not because of any special merit on our part, but just because he decides to for reasons of his own, then you're saying that it's impossible to advance in awareness without help that we basically have to sit around and hope for.

Or am I missing the point?

Mind you, I'm not saying this is right or wrong -- I'm just honestly trying to understand where you're coming from and how and whether this really helps you improve your awareness. I used to believe in prayer and in a god who is generally disposed to answer prayer; I now firmly disbelieve in these things. I still have a tenuous belief in grace but don't see that it much matters because grace implies that the favorable (dis)regard of god for particular outcomes in my life is in practice more or less indistinguishable from the background noise of random happenstance.

--Bob

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

The only point in saying that it's grace would be a belief that we can't advance unless god helps us. And if he helps us not because of any special merit on our part, but just because he decides to for reasons of his own, then you're saying that it's impossible to advance in awareness without help that we basically have to sit around and hope for.

I believe we cannot achieve enlightenment without taking an active role. Without the desire for enlightenment, I would never have searched for it. Some people accept their misery. It is only by the hand of grace that these people are put back on track. So, one cannot work without the other.

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I believe we cannot achieve enlightenment without taking an active role. Without the desire for enlightenment, I would never have searched for it. Some people accept their misery. It is only by the hand of grace that these people are put back on track. So, one cannot work without the other.

Ah. So you are saying that taking an active role in enlightenment is necessary and effective, but the ability to take the role is itself a grace. I guess I'd buy that, at least provisionally.

I would agree that it is not right to think you're better than someone who has not taken an active role, which would tend to make you regard your ability to do so as a grace.

However, I suspect that people accept their misery, not because they lack grace, but because the pain of their misery is not sufficient to motivate them otherwise. Also, because there are plenty of societal structures in place to institutionalize their misery and encourage them to accept it, and to discourage them from seeking enlightenment. For example, some churches glorify misery and regard patient endurance of misery as a virtue. And I believe that this has evolved at least in part to keep people dependent on the belief system and to provide the fear and guilt to drive monetary support. A sort of sick co-dependence.

Even outside the church, my late wife is widely admired when I tell her story, because she suffered greatly for years without complaint. People accord her sainthood without even knowing anything about her character or lack thereof. I don't disabuse them of that notion because it just happens to be more or less correct, but the phenomenon fascinates me because nothing says she was a good person just because she suffered. People just assume she was.

Conversely, toward the end, there were times when, due to severe dysautonomia, she broke down and displayed an outwardly whiny, simpering aspect. This is something that basically no one but me actually saw, but I have no doubt that if it had been on public display, she would have been dismissed as a whiny, spoiled princess, probably even by some who knew here "when". In this case, what should have provoked compassion and concern would have provoked disgust and judgmental dismissal.

I'm using an example of physical agony here, which isn't precisely the same as purely existential suffering, but the principle is basically the same, especially given people's tendency to want to believe that physical suffering is necessarily self-created anyway, or that it is the consequence of sin or weak character or a secret desire to be miserable or something. All of which are defense mechanisms -- none of us wants to believe it could happen to us, too, for any reason or for no reason.

So this business of being content with misery is a very powerful societal meme. One could say with some justification that breaking free of it is a grace, or one could just as well say that the existence of the forces that lock people into it is a shameful obscenity.

--Bob

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

Ah. So you are saying that taking an active role in enlightenment is necessary and effective, but the ability to take the role is itself a grace. I guess I'd buy that, at least provisionally.

First, I'm sorry about your wife's suffering. I would say that to suffer without complaint to anyone except your spouse shows an amazing display of character, which is probably one of the reasons people spoke so highly of her. How she carried herself was admirable.

If you look at shows today, you'll see many weak and despicable main characters. In my opinion, these shows are like cigarettes. They may not kill you, but they sure aren't good for you. There is also a lot of victim heroes... melodramatic sappy stories of the hopeless, which in some cases are meant to enlighten people and urge them to help, but in most cases, these shows want you to feel as bad as possible for the person. They're put on a pedestal because of their suffering and I think that's what many people believe, that they're somehow more worthy because of their suffering. They focus on how much they're suffering. They wallow in it instead of looking for a way to rise above it.

However, I think the media is slowly losing its grip. I think there is a movement in the world today toward enlightenment and I think once it reaches a certain percentage of people, it will spread like wildfire. I truly think we're on the verge of a new evolution because we're getting to the point where we have two choices left for humanity. We evolve, or we die. I don't believe mankind was created to destroy itself. Just a couple of years ago I may have believed that, but I've seen too much to deny the approaching wave of enlightenment now.

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I think there is a movement in the world today toward enlightenment and I think once it reaches a certain percentage of people, it will spread like wildfire.

I certainly hope that you are correct. Widespread enlightenment on a worldwide scale is thus far without precedent. Arguably, widespread enlightenment on any scale is unprecedented.

--Bob

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

I certainly hope that you are correct. Widespread enlightenment on a worldwide scale is thus far without precedent. Arguably, widespread enlightenment on any scale is unprecedented.

--Bob

I think you'd like it.

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1

I think you'd like [The Power of Now].

I read it and liked it, although I liked A New Earth better.

The idea of a coming tipping point in human awareness is scarcely a new idea. The harmonic convergence, the new millenium, some interpretations of the Mayan age ending in a few years, and no doubt other hopeful hooks down the pike from there, ad infinitum, have served as a fulcrum for this particular hope. As a former evangelical Christian it reminds me of the anticipation of the Second Coming that has been imminent for, oh, say, two millenia now and counting.

Whether it is something to stir the New Age pot and keep people involved, or something with actual substance, remains to be seen. I'm rooting for it, but feel that my best contribution is to raise my own awareness, an activity with both up and downsides ...

--Bob

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

I read it and liked it, although I liked A New Earth better.

The idea of a coming tipping point in human awareness is scarcely a new idea. The harmonic convergence, the new millenium, some interpretations of the Mayan age ending in a few years, and no doubt other hopeful hooks down the pike from there, ad infinitum, have served as a fulcrum for this particular hope. As a former evangelical Christian it reminds me of the anticipation of the Second Coming that has been imminent for, oh, say, two millenia now and counting.

Whether it is something to stir the New Age pot and keep people involved, or something with actual substance, remains to be seen. I'm rooting for it, but feel that my best contribution is to raise my own awareness, an activity with both up and downsides ...

--Bob

I'm starting on his DVD. It's funny, but if I had never read his books and tried to start by watching his DVD, I'd have thought he was a wacko. People who haven't read his books would be lost immediately with the way he opens his seminar. But it's perfect and mind blowing for someone who's read them already.