short note: accidentally poured water on my keyboard yesterday which left me with a malfunctioning keyboard. i’m relying on both my keyboard & windows on-screen keyboard currently, which made the typing of this entire entry a total chore in itself. but for me to want to type this out regardlessly.. it’s because there’s something i really needed to get out there
(warning: extremely long entry ahead)
i think the holiday break has given me the opportunity to become more conscious about my life than ever before.
i stumbled upon this article on levels of consciousness by steve pavlina a few weeks back, which i thought was incredibly insightful. David R. Hawkins proposes that there’s a progressive hierarchy of human consciousness.
before i introduce you to the hierarchy, here’s some basic pointers, to quote steve:
“While we can pop in and out of different levels at various times, usually there’s a predominant “normal” state for us. … We’ll naturally fluctuate between multiple states throughout the course of any given week, so you’ll probably see a range of 3-4 levels where you spend most of your time.”
“ Hawkins defines this as a logarithmic scale, so there are far fewer people at the higher levels than at the lower ones. …Going up even one level can be extremely hard; most people don’t do so in their entire lives. A change in just one level can radically alter everything in your life.”
“Progressing from one level to the next requires an enormous amount of energy. Without (your) conscious effort or the help of others, you’ll likely just stay at your current level until some outside force comes into your life.”
here are the levels, pasted from the article, starting from the bottom-most (for a more detailed description, visit the link above). my personal experiences with the levels are in blue:
Shame – Self-directed hatred
Guilt – You think of yourself as a sinner, unable to forgive yourself for past transgressions
Apathy – Feeling hopeless or victimized. The state of learned helplessness
Grief – A state of perpetual sadness and loss. You might drop down here after losing a loved one (i plummeted here during the period with my mom’s surgery 1.5 months ago. seemed like so long ago.)
Fear – Seeing the world as dangerous and unsafe. Paranoia.
Desire – Not to be confused with setting and achieving goals, this is the level of addiction, craving, and lust — for money, approval, power, fame, etc. Consumerism. Materialism.
Anger – The level of frustration, often from not having your desires met at the lower level. This level can spur you to action at higher levels, or it can keep you stuck in hatred.(i was here during my junior college years, when i was surrounded by students and even teachers who didn’t hold any tinge of respect towards their own school and in turn, themselves. my attempts to bump them up were fruitless. at the end of it, detachment from them permitted me to move on to upper levels, as detailed below.)
Pride – The first level where you start to feel good, but it’s a false feeling. It’s dependent on external circumstances (money, prestige, etc), so it’s vulnerable. Pride can lead to nationalism, racism, and religious wars.
Courage – The first level of true strength. This is where you start to see life as challenging and exciting instead of overwhelming. You begin to have an inkling of interest in personal growth, although at this level you’ll probably call it something else like skill-building, career advancement, education, etc. (this happened during my internship in p&g last year, when i realised there is just so much out there for me to learn, and that the school curriculum had really barely been an appetiser.)
Neutrality – This level is epitomized by the phrase, “live and let live.” It’s flexible, relaxed, and unattached. A lot of self-employed people are at this level. (i was here in year 2, when i was doing my graphic designing work & before i got the first call for p&g’s recruitment rounds. bearing my own source of income, working for myself, by myself… it was extremely fulfilling in a mental way.)
Willingness – Now that you’re basically safe and comfortable, you start using your energy more effectively. Just getting by isn’t good enough anymore. You begin caring about doing a good job — perhaps even your best. (i was here during my uni years, especially during the last two years. it was during the cca saga when i was in year 2 that i consciously realised, for the first time, that i put my entire body & soul in whatever i do, regardless of the circumstance.)
Acceptance – Now a powerful shift happens, and you awaken to the possibilities of living proactively. At the level of willingness you’ve become competent, and now you want to put your abilities to good use. If something isn’t right about your life (career, relationship, health, etc), you define your desired outcome and change it. You start to see the big picture of your life more clearly. (i experienced this level during the earlier part of the holidays, when for once, i had my entire conscious mind to myself to think about my life. i decided i want to live healthily, and that’s why swimming & jogging are active parts of my schedule now.)
Reason – When you reach this level, you become capable of using your reasoning abilities to their fullest extent. You’ve reached the point where you say, “Wow. I can do all this stuff, and I know I must put it to good use. So what’s the best use of my talents?” You take a look around the world and start making meaningful contributions. At the very high end, this is the level of Einstein and Freud. It’s probably obvious that most people never reach this level in their entire lives. (i believe “acceptance”, “reason” and “love” are my current, ”normal” states, which i’ll be elaborating afterwards)
Love – This is unconditional love, a permanent understanding of your connectedness with all that exists. You see that you need a bigger context than just thinking for its own sake. This is the level of awakening to your true purpose. This is the level of lifetime service to humanity. Think Gandhi, Mother Teresa. At this level you also begin to be guided by a force greater than yourself. Hawkins claims this level is reached only by 1 in 250 people during their entire lifetimes. (i was bumped into this state yesterday night while reading something online. this is my first time entering this state, which is why i’m blogging about it now to capture the momentousness of it all.)
Joy – A state of pervasive, unshakable happiness. The level of saints and advanced spiritual teachers. Just being around people at this level makes you feel incredible. A near-death experience can temporarily bump you to this level.
Peace – Total transcendence. Hawkins claims this level is reached only by one person in 10 million.
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.
this paradigm allows me to understand certain behaviours and feelings i’d have in certain situations. it explains why in the past, i’d feel negative for a brief period after failing to pull someone of a lower level of consciousness to my own level. what i did in the past was i jumped into the pool to try to grab them ashore. what i came to realise a couple of months ago is that i need to first firmly root myself in my current level of energy, then throw them a buoyant. to those who refuse to grab the buoyant, i should just retract it and channel my energy towards productive purposes, until a call for help is heard again, where i’d repeat the same action of throwing. because the desire to change one’s current state of life can only emerge from within; all i can do as a third party is just help point the direction to them.
stumbling upon steve’s site and reading his various articles has allowed me to directly and much more effectively raise my level of consciousness, through identification of factors that raise it, followed by adoption of those factors. previously, my level of consciousness would shift in a reactive fashion, depending on the events i was faced with in life. now, i see people, conversations with friends, situations around me and even my own behaviours & thoughts, and i can somewhat identify the level of consciousness it is rooted in. to the degenerative circumstances, i try to detach myself from them whereever possible. within my locus of control, i’d actively pull myself towards conscious-raising situations while offsetting and transgressing the regressiveness of everything else i encounter.
i apprehend that in order to raise my level of consciousness, i need to surround myself with people of equal or higher level of consciousnesses. i need to constantly, continually & actively expose myself to anything that opens up room for self-reflection and thought, from intellectual writings, newsites, television programs, self-development sites, to writing about my own thoughts in my journal.
all this reading made me realise this world is still plagued with many problems, everywhere: poverty, violence, riots, terrorism (bush’s act of war is a terrorist act in itself), war, corruption, oppression of human rights, oppression of females, political facades, just to name a few. there’s a lot of changes that our world needs, and it needs the collaborative & pooled effort of all the conscious people it can gather if it’s going to have any chance against untangling from the labyrinthe of apathy, greed, hate and intolerance it is covered in. especially so when we take a look at our global leaders today, and all we see is their constant backsliding towards violence to resolve conflicts. endless people die everyday: some martyrs to causes, many in the name of patrotism, and endless innocents, caught in between the strife.
this has even gone as far as to make me wonder if a career at p&g, a decision which i’ve never once doubted since signing the offer almost a year ago, will allow me to fully utilise my skills and abilities towards the kind of contribution i want to make towards the world. a corporate job tends to be degenerative in terms of the kind of humanitarian reforms one can introduce, and it actually worries me that all the things i can possibly do for the world might never take place. i’m not trying to negate p&g’s work; it is definitively improving consumers’ lives everywhere, but i’m just not sure if my cause can be best served via this channel.
i think this epiphany gave me more than i had bargained for, when i said i wanted to reconnect myself during the holidays. but when it happened where it happened, it felt right. it didn’t feel foreign at all; it felt like something that was dormant inside of me that has just been awaken because i’m now ready for it, ready to somehow comprehend a little of the whole, entire significance it stands for. and the understanding of this little bit is perhaps a key of more to come. just like a ripple that ripples out in a pool.
at least though, my job is what’s going to keep me beyond the level of financial security and perhaps financially comfort, to the zone of financial independence. only when my lower level needs are all secured can i then single-mindedly devote my energy towards my cause. in addition, my work is definitely going to bring me to different parts of the world, and this experiential learning is what’s going to allow me to identify the roots of prevalent problems, and devise improvements that should be made to efficaciously improve the current state of the world. who knows, it might be through my line of work where an opportunity where i can better serve my objective presents itself.
