What level are you operating at? It will determine what you see, do, understand — and how other people react to you.
Here is a diagram of the levels that I see. In part 1, we looked at the higher levels. In this part, we’ll start from the bottom and work upwards. The lowest level is the exhaust. This is the stuff we no longer need: old ways of thinking, old attitudes, old habits.
The physical equivalent is going to the toilet or putting out the rubbish. When a person holds on to this kind of thing after it has passed its sell-by date, we might describe them as full of c**p. When they hold on to it for much too long, it becomes toxic. We all need to move on, to approach each new day with a fresh welcome. So, this level provides a necessary function but is not a place to stay for too long. The next level up is the self-focussed.
This level is about self-preservation — nobody else counts. Everyone and everything else are the wallpaper, the background of my life experience, the props in my personal theatre. I behave like a self-obsessed teenager, seeing others only in relation to myself. As with the exhaust level, this one has its place, such as when I need to take steps to look after myself in what might turn out to be a threatening situation.
There are also great learning opportunities from the time spent here. If we have arrived here out of ignorance, or misunderstanding, deep insecurity, or from personal hurt, we may come to regret what we have done while here. Why did I say/do those hurtful/spiteful/malicious things? Getting out of it and learning from it depends on us: whether we are prepared to face the consequences of what we have done, where we have ended up, and take appropriate action, however uncomfortable that is. The self-focussed level is isolating. Even though a person may travel the world, they only see themselves in it. Is that why we take selfies?
The next level, the domestic, has a larger range. This person may want to get on with the neighbours, with other road users, with colleagues. In managing their lives, they have consideration for those they interact with. Their world is bigger than just them. In their interactions with their community, they give expression to certain qualities, such as politeness, courtesy and consideration. Note: the community can be small or large. It may be a community of just one. What counts is the attitude that they bring to it.
A person at this level is responsible and reliable. A slight detour on the subject of qualities. Long before the physicists had invented the term ‘quanta’ (singular — quantum) to describe the tiniest quantities of energy, the philosophers had come up with an equivalent word for qualities. They coined the word ‘qualia’ (singular — quale) for that essential nature, what makes a thing what it is. When a person is courteous to the checkout assistant in the supermarket, they give expression to the essence, the quale of courtesy. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, which culture you are in, that essential quality carries the same frequency. It may have different expressions; for example, spitting may be polite in one culture and not another.
As (we are told) energy cannot be created or destroyed, I wonder if there is a bank of courtesy somewhere in those vast plasma clouds that exist beyond our planet. When we give expression to courtesy, do we tap into it, resonate with it, grow it? When we move from the domestic up to the evolving/exploratory level, the qualities take on a greater significance. Because this person is looking for meaning in their life, they become attractive to the qualities they want to induct, give expression to.
This person is ready to spread their wings. Yes, domestic safety is all well and good, but what else is there to experience, to understand? They might explore different belief systems: religious, philosophical, scientific. They immerse themselves in one set of experiences and the associated qualities, then another and another. If they give up trying, they may take what they have learned back to the domestic and apply it there, holding the experiences as treasured memories. Or they may find something that works for them so well that it takes them up to the next level.
For the next level up from the evolving/exploratory, the influenced, the qualities take centre stage. There is a healer I know, who quite simply wants all other lives to be in a state of well-being, from a bee to a cat to a human. They radiate the healing qualities to such an extent that it brings well-being simply to be near them. A healer can’t be separated from those qualities of remedy and easement: those frequencies have become their oxygen, their blood system, part of who they are.
At this level a person takes on a project because they believe in it; they want to see it come to fruition for its own sake. You can’t switch them off from it. It’s what they love and want to see thrive, and they keep on doing it despite the lack of recognition from others. Like the name in a stick of rock, it’s written through the whole of their being. Those plasma banks of qualia energise and empower them. With the connected, who can say. I’ll report back if and when I get there.
Of course, in our daily lives we jump from one level to another. In one arena we will be at the domestic. Something may knock us down to the level of self-focussed, then we will claw our way back up to the elevating/expanding. We may step down to the exhaust level when there are old habits that no longer fit, and which have to be relegated. Then, in a moment of profound insight where so many things suddenly make sense, we move up to the influenced or even connected for a while.
