What level(s) of consciousness are you in?

[The Universal Call]

Hi, this is TUC. I haven't seen a thread - like this one - up just yet, if a similar thread has been made then accept my humble apology.

I didn't start this thread to explain to you in detail all the different levels of consciousnesses (if you don't know what I am talking about and want to educate yourself in this topic, please read Steve's post: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...consciousness/ ). No, this thread was made so that we could discuss and share our own experiences about the levels of consciousnesses. Whilst you could just vote in the poll and then dash off to watch that episode of CSI - please stick around to tell us about your level of consciousness. Are you in more than one level of consciousness? If you're at a higher level of consciousness - how long did it take for you to get there? How does your level of consciousness affect you, others, what good/bad have you gathered from it?

I would also LOVE IT if this thread would be made a place where we could not only share about our own experiences, but also HELP others about theirs!
I believe that we should all try our best to strive for a higher level of consciousness, and it would please me if we could ALL try and help EACH OTHER to take those steps, do those things, master those emotions - to achieve a higher level of consciousness. Given, this community will most probably average at a higher level of consciousness than most other communities, but even if most of us may not be in the lower levels of consciousness - let us not forget that; any level lower than the level of Enlightenment is a level too low.


Now, if not a zillion ideas have already popped up in your head which you want to write about - given the immense topic - I can share my own experience:
I'm a 17-year-old boy, named Adam. I live in Sweden. I'm currently at the level of Willingness, some of my behaviours could be found rooted in both Acceptance and Neutrality but I am slowly leaving Neutrality behind me. Given what education I have chosen (the hardest you can find) I have little to no time left for what I really wish to do. Week after week sadly passes with only schoolwork done, something which can be said is holding me back towards reaching Acceptance, considering I don't get much time to do what it takes to reach that goal. Whenever I am waiting for the bus (or whatever) I try to make the best out of my time however. A goal which dawned upon me was: "What if I can reach the level of Acceptance before my birthday?" School had just started, with very little homework and tests and I had changed a lot of my thinking during the summer. Sadly I found out that I had a long way to go before I could reach Acceptance, writing my goals and do's and do-not's just wouldn't cut it that easily. My birthday was a month ago, and the goal wasn't reached. [I have a lot more to write about this topic and I will probably edit the OP later to do so, but now I am writing this thread in a rush (yes you guessed it, school assignment to write)]
---- Besides your own experiences which I am thrilled to hear about, any feedback on mine is greatly appreciated. Am I on a low level for my age? Any tips for reaching a higher level with my studies taken into consideration? Just so you won't get the wrong idea by me asking so many questions about my experience:

This thread is not for me alone, discuss and share your own experiences, and if possible try and help each other to reach that next level!

[Conn Stell]

I don’t think a person is stuck at one single and pure level. I rather think somebody have a dominant level of consciousness at a given time but not a pure one. Throughout the same period of time that person may find himself at different levels or experiment intentionally or non-intentionally different levels. However, each individual have a dominant level. You can read more here: Experiment Superior Levels of Consciousness.

[Mew]

Originally Posted by The Universal Call

Am I on a low level for my age?

I don't think there is such thing. I'm about on the same level as you (as you described it) at 16, and I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of 40-year-olds stuck in pride. So I think we are actually doing better than most!

I can relate though with the school work.. I'm not quite in senior year yet bet the pressure is here. There usually doesn't seem like a lot of time for other things.

[WayToTwilight]

I don't believe you are on a low level for your age. There really isn't a 'right' level for you at any given time... just as long as you recognize you want to develop yourself, grow, and raise your awareness.

I currently consider myself spending most time wavering between Fear and Grief with inklings in desire, anger and courage.

This is a long story, hopefully it will fit. I will also reduce the font size. It has some mature elements in it, most people have probably faced these kinds of things, but I though I'd put this disclaimer here anyway.

I believe that for most of my life I had been stuck in fear and grief. I had a really low self-esteem in high school and drowned my sorrows in video games, which I think is probably just as bad as drowning your sorrows in drugs... except drugs physically harm your body so that's still probably worse. I didn't actually really drown my sorrows... more like I used video games as a way of keeping me distracted from my real problems. Eventually I got into this habit of only having happiness whenever I was playing games or watching anime, which I also really liked at the time. But whenever I finished a game or anime series, I felt apathetic and just overall lethargic. Occassionally feelings of anxiety and depression would hit me, it would be really painful because I would be reminded of things I didn't want to face. Also all the friends I made during high school were gamers, they weren't the kinds of people that were very social and all they did was play games as well. This continued to feed into video game lifestyle.

Then came my first year in college. I was still in my high school mode, still very fearful but also so excited at having a college internet connection so I could download movies, anime, and pirated video games... as well as play games on an excellent connection. For my first two quarters there I played and played until my head split open. I was happy that way... or at least it was an artificial happiness. Then third quarter came and something happened. Now I hope no one gets offended by this, this is a bit more of a mature subject.

Still here? Well in high school I never did anything. I stayed home all day playing games, never went out, never drank, never did drugs, never you name it. I would stay home or study. In my spring quarter I tried weed. Now I don't want to claim my awakening to weed. Rather during that quarter I started to have some courage to take risks, which led to trying weed...

During the summer I worked at my mom's company where I met some really cool people. They were all really young and into drinking and stuff like that. On my last night working there, one of my co-workers, brought me into San Francisco and into a strip club. Well the point of that wasn't to just show me naked ladies, but my co-worker later explained she just wanted me to expose myself to more things, and take risks. In fact I was very averse to going into the strip club, hope no ladies get too offended by this, but I enjoyed it, I'm not gonna lie. But at that point I started to get a bit of courage.

But I would also like to say, it was during my awakening time, about the time I started getting courage to take risks was when I found Steve's site. It was amazing because the moment I read his articles, everything made sense to me. All his advice just clicked. I attribute a lot of my growth to finding this website. I found this website because I started blogging on my Xanga. My friend posted on his Xanga, Steve's article on Being an Early Riser and I've been hooked ever since

My next year, sophomore year, I started drinking. I started getting into this mentality that if I drank, did drugs and stuff like that I would start to get to know more people and be more social because I thought "Oh that's what everyone's doing." At this time I stopped playing games and watching anime. I just wanted to go out and do stuff for once in my life. Unfortunately, after going through a quarter of alcohol and marijuana I realized this wasn't right, because all the druggy friends I made were just that... druggy friends... they didn't do much, all they did was party and/or sit around while high. I realized after a quarter this wasn't right, I wanted to go out and DO THINGS not just sit there and plug my body with chemicals until I reached an induced state of [artificial] happiness.

The next quarter rolled around and I started to finally think about what I wanted to do in life which was also for me, synonymous with my major. I eventually decided what I was going to do, I'll save that story for later if anyone ever wants to hear, because it is rather long. This story is long enough. Fast forward to now, and I've met a friend who really supports me. He listens to my goals and philosophical talks about purpose in life, spirituality and what not. He himself is a very goal oriented, business type but he's also very spiritual. He asked me if I'd like to join a club with him, the Undergraduate Investment Society. He asked me to run for an officer position with him. I said yes, even though I wasn't that interested in learning about investments. Instead I said yes because I wanted to expose myself to new people, new ideas and hopefully forcing myself to be social in a better setting than the ones I used to put myself in. And that's where I am right now. I feel though I still reside in fear and depression because I still am very fearful about making decisions. I desire some things but fear some sort of consequence. I get doubtful about my choices and become depressed whenever I see people who are both very successful in both academics and extra curricular activities. However I am so glad that I have reached this point because it has been a tremendous change in my mental thinking. I always think of growing, even if I falter sometimes sinking into depression. Growing is immensely important to me and I’m just really happy to have a found such a great community.

[Shaden]

I couldn't help but notice that some people tagged enlightenment as their current level of consciousness. That's scary considering the tagline Steve gave for that level was -

'Enlightenment - The highest level of human consciousness, where humanity blends with divinity. Extremely rare. The level of Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus. Even just thinking about people at this level can raise your consciousness.'

It's scary to consider that the forums have only been launched for a day and we already have two enlightened individuals in out midst. I hope people on this forum are as honest as they should be. Mind you theres always a few weeds amongst the roses

As for myself, I'm currently at the level of courage which I'm not too dissapointed in considering my age at the moment. It's very difficult to take conscious control of your life when you live with your parents

[taylor]

I liked your story WayToTwilight and I really want to join a club in college for the same reasons. I did the videogame thing to the extreme: 16 hours straight a day, every day during the summer, as much as possible during highschool. When I quit the MMORPG I felt like my life was over. I just paced around my house for hours and wondered 'what's the point?' In fact, that's pretty much all I did for a very long time. I don't know what level you'd call that. On the one hand, I was trying to determine the point to life to the best of my ability intellectually, on the other, my emotions were always negative, depressed, hopeless... I just disregarded emotions in making my decisions. All of that was necessary though.

But towards contributing to this thread, the key towards advancement is choosing a simple tool, like goodwill and kindness towards all of life, or grow and help others grow (for Steve), and pursue that nonstop. Instead of separating your life into little boxes with 'Spirituality' just being a section on your list of goals, your spirituality determines all of your goals to begin with. And I do mean ALL your actions and goals. It is your most sacred commitment and much more important than your other goals. Everything but the spiritual is temporary. One day you are going to die and lose all your knowledge, money, family, etc. And that's fine too.. you don't need that stuff. So dedicate your regular actions to your spiritual purpose and they are transformed into spiritual actions because of your motive. If the actions are not aligned with your spiritual path, get rid of the actions. So now your list of goals is really under one heading of 'Spiritual Pathway.'

I've done both, and the compartmentalized version leads to uncertainty, procrastination, doubt, and torpidity. The congruent version leads to clarity, certainty, energy, excitement, happiness, identity shifts, and spiritual revelations.

As for me personally, I've experienced around the level of Love or Joy more than once, more frequently lately. It seems so perfect... and that is only at half way towards the Buddha level. I can't even imagine what it must be like at the top of the scale. Right now I'm trying to heal those areas of myself that are currently below courage and that is keeping me busy enough.

Good luck everyone! God bless.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Shaden

It's scary to consider that the forums have only been launched for a day and we already have two enlightened individuals in out midst.

Maybe they mean in the sense that our true identity is enlightened already and our person just doesn't realize it. Maybe...

[Klamachpin]

I currently identify most closely to having only recently made the jump from pride to courage. It feels much like I finally got the momentum to jump out the pot, and now I must discover why the current surface I'm standing on is so hot and feels like teflon.

Now, forgive me, but looking at the poll I see that many folk identify with levels of consciousness well above courage - and especially given the approximate age of the majority of posters (20s - early 30s) I find that very difficult to believe.

For the vast majority of my life I was and have been surrounded by folk that would be identified by being at the levels of fear and desire. From what I've seen, the American media, advertising, and culture strongly supports this. To break away from that is very difficult, and even then you're at the level of pride. At pride you're very likely to identify yourself as higher than pride; I know I would have identified myself at reason, since I held logic and reason as a high value that I fully believed I lived.

[micth]

Originally Posted by Klamachpin

Now, forgive me, but looking at the poll I see that many folk identify with levels of consciousness well above courage - and especially given the approximate age of the majority of posters (20s - early 30s) I find that very difficult to believe.

Yeah, I think people aren't being totally honest with themselves. They may also think that being on a lower level is 'bad'. Accepting your true level of consciousness (even if it's low), rather than denying it, is much more empowering and will lead to much more growth. I can honestly say that I'm probably at fear atm, which is fine, because now that I'm honest with myself i can start being proactive in raising my consciousness

[kthdsn]

I ticked neutrality, willingness and acceptance. I think my actions are in the neutrality zone, but my thoughts and ideas are moving onto the willingness and acceptance levels. I'm not sure I really believe that people climb the same ladder through the same levels, but those levels felt like me when I read the list. I had expected to be a lot nearer the bottom of the ladder, maybe I am, or maybe I'm just on a different ladder. I also don't really think I want to go further up the scale. I quite like it here, at least for now.

Anyway that's how I feel and that's why I made those choices.

[Trina]

Every single one of those are a part of who I am at one time or another, depending on the circumstances. So, all of them? None of them? I don't know...

[RandomJohn]

Trina - the one you feel you are in the most. I think everybody experiences at least shame all the way up through love at least once in their lifetimes. The same way you can feel more alert and energetic at some times than others, you can have a higher level of consciousness at certain times. However, there does seem to be a "steady state" or "baseline state," at least with me.

[Trina]

Well, if I had to choose what I am at most of the time, I would say I bounce between reason and love, if I am defining them the same way all of you are. 5 years ago I was definitely at the grief level. Acceptance is something that I have done a lot of in the last 5 years of my life. I won't bore everyone with details. LOL. But, I am very happy with my life and understand who I am and where I come from, and I am satisfied with what I know and want to share it with others, and for them to share themselves with me.

[Levent Okyay]

WayToTwilight: I don't think you are at the level of fear. You sound like you are at the level of courage mostly. You expose yourself to new situations and are one the path of personal development. This is the level of courage.
I don't think the feeling of fear is related with the level of fear; the level of fear is all consuming, as Steve says, it brings feelings of paranoia, you're not paranoid, maybe a little afraid, courage is not the lack of fear, but the ability to operate despite fear, and that is what you are doing. I think you moved up into desire when you started trying to become more sociable and drinking, etc. When you gave that up I think you moved up through anger, and maybe through pride (did you experience feelings of superiority once you started figuring things out?) and into courage.


I myself hover around neutrality, occasionally i slip down to pride, and sometimes as low as desire, occasionaly I move up to willingness and rarely, to acceptance; mostly though I'm at neutrality, I'm finding it difficult to move up, neutrality is just comfortable and easy. I'll give myself some time. I'm still young.

[Larrious]

I did the 16 hour video game stint for a bit. with the well known WoWcrack.
I guessed my motivation for that would be similar to WayToTwilight. I dun just study in my University. I'm also working with an insurance company over here part-time.
And i kinda found turning my attention to games to be an easy way to distract myself from all troubles and things which i had to do.(read: no courage)
I din know it at the time but yea tat's the truth looking back.
The thing was self-development had always been something i enjoyed immensely deep down inside. Sure i played a lot of games, but i also had quite a bit of books on self-help etc etc. Felt that deep inside, i wasn't good enough for anything or couldn't measure up to anybody and therefore i need to improve myself.

I ticked both pride and neutrality. Pride being the dominant conscious level. Correct me please if i'm wrong. I'm still pretty much into one-up-manship, even though i don't say it loud often now. Its a culture kind of thing i forgot who mentioned it earlier. Its like when i'm reading the forums, articles i can move into neutrality for a bit. When i get exposed to the "real" world i slip back. sometimes further than pride. though the period is noticeably shorter than when i was just mindlessly playing games.

Oh, btw if you're reading this steve. I absolutely appreciate your work and i tink wat u said about having to be at a certain level of consciousness/awareness before u can control wat you think makes perfect sense. Everybody else says be positive. blah blah. but i tink u got the real point there.