Among the new and old age spiritualities are catchy terms; “reaching a higher level of consciousness, spiritual energy, cosmic consciousness, awakening”,etc. As usual our forward thinking brains assume this is a step up, but like ALL human tendencies to underestimate the obvious through belief, we have it completely backwards.
We are already at our highest level of consciousness. Clearing the mind of all that we think, would be regressive, not progressive. Imagine trying to feed the world when everyone behaves enlightened? The great ones were completely useless in this state of mind.
These idle states of mind may sound cool, but it is where we came from, not where we are going—and the more one anchors into the past the less likely we are to have a breakthrough of any kind.
Imagine a 40 day trance and consequent fast? It requires the unenlightened to nurse them back to health. There is a reason evolution has hidden the unseen strata from our eyes—it offers zero chance at survival.
But, society will keep reaching into our darkest days of struggle and evolution, thinking all the while it is enlightenment, when in truth you already have it. Everything is exactly as it could be. And if we all achieved that awakened state, nobody would know it nor live to tell about it.
Can you be more than what you are, or can you capture the past before we became aware of being aware? If we were all in that state we’d never know it. That was our Eden, where everything was perfect because there was nothing to compare it to.
TheCommonAtheist 
Brilliant, just brilliant!
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Thank you Steve. I saw this meme come over my Facebook feed “How do you tap into your higher consciousness”? Um, just as usual the unknown is more valuable than the known. It occurred to me through inspiration that we have this, just as backward as everything else in religion. The new age is not exempt.
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Thank you, Jim.
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Thank you, Frank. I still think you are the pithy aphorism guru of all the WordPress gods.
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Now THAT’S how to get my Friday off on the right foot! Cheers!
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Ah, so this is how we tame overpopulation and overconsumption of the world’s natural resources! We can eat the enlightened.
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Lol. Yum. If everyone achieved this amoebic state no one would eat anything.
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Well, not cannibalism, but fertilizer, surely.
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My life goal is to become a batch of actual fertilizing compost and keep gardening when I’m dead. In the current motif of cremation we don’t even afford the earth that right.
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Cremation services now include hydrolysis (liquefying your soft tissue which goes down the drain). The process was patented by a farmer in the 1800s to use his livestock for fertilizer. I plan on a natural burial so I can be recycled properly.
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Yeah, you could be correct. The thought drifts forward from the likes of McKenna, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary and the like. But as the planet surpasses 8 billion people, are we not past the “survival” stage of existence? Should we not be searching for a different construct for society besides productivity and GDP growth?
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Certainly George. I’m with you on that one and I’m certain a breakthrough will come, but not by this. We must persist in our greedious folly a bit longer.
There really is no reason everyone on earth couldn’t have a basic independent income. The only reason we don’t is the way it is set up. It will take a beginners mind to figure it out.
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I certainly have no desire to meet the 3-dimensional creatures McKenna talked about when he was on DMT.
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Hate to break it to you, Jim, but you think on higher levels of consciousness all the time. Compare your thoughts to your younger Mormon self and tell me you think on the same level now as then. Atheism is a higher form of consciousness.
What you are doing in your post is using definitions given to you by others, not allowing yourself to define what is right in front of you. Just thinking that “higher levels of consciousness is a non-survival trait” is to be thinking on a higher level than those who gave you those definitions.
Pride is only a sin if you misuse it to make yourself feel superior to those around you. To realize and admit you think on higher levels than some others is merely a fact of life, and a stepping stone to more and greater thoughts. Give yourself permission to be be a higher thinker, Jim. You are already there.
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We think on higher levels based on our past experience.? They are not higher, simply different.
Like your entire journey is based on a glimpse in the past? Non ordinary reality is not higher, just different. But quite possibly lower from a time we were less evolved. It was imperative to our survival as a specie to get beyond that phase or else.
So, we made it and everything is as it could be based on the tools we have and the current atmospheric conditions.
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You say potato, I say tomato.
Experience is important, I agree. But to experience a different level of thought that brought me so close to the spirit of life within me was so enlightening as to only be able to call it a higher level of consciousness.
In my daily life I live on a particular level of consciousness, but when I delve into the deeper reaches of my mind, I can feel my consciousness rising. It’s like going up 50 stories in a very rapid elevator. The air pressure change makes me, at least, feel momentarily light-headed. Changing levels of consciousness make me feel something equivalent on a mental and spiritual basis.
I am not trying to change your mind, Jim, i am just saying that this is how “I” experience life, and consciousness. It is the difference between trying to think when you are drunk and when you are singing an uplifting song you love. If those feel the same to you, sobeit. I don’t drink at all anymore, because I do not like not being able to think through a head filled with wax. But I do love to sing,
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Isn’t that just called thinking?
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Depends what you are thinking about. Hoping to get laid takes simple thoughts. Trying to solve the problems of the world needs first undrstanding what the problems of the world are.
Yes, it is all thinking, but understanding 1+1=2 is a far cry from understanding E=mC2, And I know you know that.
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rawgod, could it not be said that the “head filled with wax” for the drinker could be a form of higher consciousness for some.
Zoe returns to the top of the mountain to contemplate but she cannot cross her legs.
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lol
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Ans there you hit the nail on the head, Zoe. 🤣
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rawgod, if I may . . . I wonder if it is not about comparing as as a young Mormon or young whateverist, is it not possible to consider that youth itself might be a form of higher consciousness. I think of a little girl at age 6 playing with a garter snake, at one with the ground, the soil, the snake . . . in her bliss. Probably high on the spores in the soil, but nonetheless, I can recall that my atheism didn’t compute many times to my brain as higher consciousness . . . it wasn’t necessarily better. It simply was different.
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The young girl in touch with nature is a mind not yet cluttered by the stupidity of the world. Things are much clearer when you do not have the morass of society and education to wade through. I guess I would call it innocence, and great thongs can be achieved through innocence.
But once the authoritirs of the world swoop in and tell you what is or is not possible, innocence mostly disapoears. And if one is capable of fighting to retain or return to that innocence they discover a new understanding of innocence.
Did you ever have religion, Zoe? The more religious a person is taught to believe the harder the fight to achieve atheism, in a lot of cases. Becoming atheist after being a believer took me teaching myself a whole new way to think.
One can think if it as just being “different” if one so chooses, but if you follow the mental processes you had to use to get there you will see that you learned more about thought by doing so.
Some people just do things without thinking, changing their minds based on feelings, not thought processes. Maybe some decide on a whim to give up religion, I have no idea. For me it was a long process to make sure I understood each step, and why I was taking that step.
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I think it’s possible rawgod to consider that the young girl can be very much be in touch with the truth around her that she is not on safe ground, except when alone with the soil and the snake. And that she can have clarity about the morass of society, in her home and her school. That is it is possible that she has waded through enough dirt to know she is not an innocent. One could make a case that at that time she was “enlightened.” 🙂
I did have “religion.” I was an ancestral Christian. Raised in it, chose born-againism at age 13, while in a dissociative state from trauma. The young girl by her early teen years wandered away (emotionally) as she no longer played in the soil with the snake. Maturity took that away for awhile. So in its place I chose what the other brainwashed people told me was the truth. There was no other way for it all to be at that time. Salvation literally saved me (its own type of dissociate state) until of course the morass of it all further traumatized me.
I was a fundamentalist Christian for 30 years. My journey out was life-threatening. It was long and arduous. I was always a thinker, and that increased my suffering. Cults don’t like thinkers and they abuse them. They also don’t like whistle blowers (Zoe waves her hand in the air). They also don’t like it when you tell them to go to hell and walk away. It’s then that they try to destroy your life.
rawgod: ” For me it was a long process to make sure I understood each step, and why I was taking that step.”
Zoe: Me too. 🙂
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How to address this? Yes, the girl can be said to be enlightened in the sense she was never “unenlightened.” This is why for me indigenous societies around the world are so much closer to nature, and purity.
With your journey away from religion and belief, good work! There were so many points at which you could have been turned back, but you were strong enough and determined enough to complete the journey.
So tell me, do you think you are able to think on a whole new level now? Do you think you went through any changes along that journey. I know I do. I learned how to think, to put it as simply as possible. Until then, i just thought, believed what I was told, did what I was told to do. Now I know why I think the way I do, and to me that is a new level of consciousness, and I apply it to to everything in my life.
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An enormous neuro-rewiring and pruning took place to get me to now. And the process continues.
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And the level of your consciousness rises. And so life survives another day…
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You are saying I should stop meditating to achieve nirvana?
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Just listen to one of their cds. Far easier.
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The time to listen to bundled cds is what I don’t think I can spare
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Why do you want to achieve nirvana? Because someone told you to? Or because it sounds like a place you want to be? Where does nirvana get you?
In my mind nirvana is the equivalent of the Christian heaven, or the Muslim paradise. None of these places exist.
I live to live.
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That was tongue in cheek.
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Yes, rawgod … always be careful how you read mak’s comments. He’s very good at witticism. 😊
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The question was still real. I answered anyone who thinks nirvana is a goal.
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Read a new one the other day – well, new to moi.
Some half-baked numpty said she wasn’t religious in the least, but was striving to achieve Christ Consciousness.
I refrained from further dialogue as the site has a strict comment policy and I considered it best not to upset the inmates.
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“Christ consciousness” would not be found in Christianity. That is maybe the funny part.
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Pardon moi as I enter in the blissful consciousness of rolling on the floor laughing but not too loud as to pee my pants.
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What is absolutely fascinating in the era of QAnon, many “Christ consciousness” believers are now preaching it inside the Christian church.
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Qanon— I did a little google search on that as a word and Islamic circles that is canon-like an official doctrine meaning blood, law, and sharia law. It would be funny to see that all these believers are being led to these rabbit holes by a Islamic group set on dividing the good ol USA.
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So true! And this whole paedophilia stuff. They all are acting like they’ve stumbled on some secret and have no idea about the history of blood libel etc. I remember saying to my mother, ‘gee mom what you are saying reminds me a lot of my former Christian fundamentalism.’ That did not go over well. They see themselves on a higher plane of consciousness without really understanding there is nothing new about their beliefs.
I laugh too when the “Christians” who demean all things Islamic/Muslim line up to get their gall bladders removed by the Muslim surgeon. My goodness your blog post is causing an awakening Jim. I shall now return to my base camp a little lower down the mountain. Must clean the freshly baked squash and empty the guts into the compost.
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At least you’re not polishing your gun. Hehe
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No. Just making soup. 🙂 They may shoot me but at least they’ll eat (if they think to raid the freezer.) ;/
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Still trying to parse out your blog Jim. I’ve been interested of late in the use of psychedelics. I sat in on a week symposium and something I noted was this idea that if we all used them (safely) there would be no need for war, no hunger, just enlightened understanding and bliss. We’d all start to solve our universal problems. If I’m understanding your intent here, you’re suggesting if we are all on the top of the mountain or higher, what use are we? During my church years I was heard to say a couple dozen times (or more) that many people so-called Christians were useless because their heads were in the clouds (supposedly with Jesus or fighting of the demons in the unseen places.)
Is this sort of what you’re implying?
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It is what I’m saying, more or less. On nearly every scale the truly enlightened either go into seclusion, teach, or return to normal life. But those who live continually in that state of mind are worthless to take care of even themselves. There is a reason evolution has selected to hide the underlying strata of reality. It is overwhelming and sorting it out makes you go extinct. Sri Ramana had to have caregivers feed him. Part of the biblical narrative is absent about Jesus and his 40 day fast—it requires a helper to resuscitate his physical condition.
Diving back into the primordial pool of conscious beginnings may be blissful for some, but if everyone did it we would go extinct.
Evolution by natural selection has no requirement that truth is necessary for survival. It might be fun to dabble in psychedelics but not take it too seriously. Someone has to do actual work to feed this mob of 8 billion.
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And this is the problem I have with your premis, Jim. You are talking about a dying understanding of what enlightenment really is.
For 5000 or more years people who call themselves “enlightened” have withdrawn from whatever society they live in, thinking they are too good to get involved in dharma, when, if they really do have a superior understanding of anything, society is where they are most needed. Life is not an individual experience on higher levels of consciousness. Life needs to be a group affair, meaning all living beings.
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Actually everything does only what it can do. What else could it do considering the tools and experiences of reference? If evolution really needed these people in society for survival that is exactly where they would be.
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Evolution does not work on demand, as you know, Jim. Nature takes the long path, not the short one. You can’t just throw something away without giving it a good try. 5000 years is the blink of an evolutionary eye.
Even after 2,000,000 years the jury is still out on whether humanity can be successful or not. Looking at us right now we are a blight on our mother planet. But we still have the potential to redeem ourselces. But can we? A camera shot of 2022 says no! Camera shots never tell the whole story.
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rawgod, is it that they think better of themselves or is it that under the circumstances, there is no other place to be for them in that time and place. They are secluded yes but not the majority. Some remain on the mountain, maybe to teach. Others do leave the mountain and return to say, ‘it ain’t what they said it was.’
I’m not sure about the superior understanding. Sounds egotistical to me, though I do realize we need ego. It sounds like a qualifier though. Why not those who understand?
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I cannot speak for others, and my words were not intended as truth, but rather were based on a feeling.
According to the stories Buddha did not withdraw totally from society, but he definitely stepped back. I think in his mind he was trying to help his society by becoming a teacher. I don’t really know.
But enlightenment is a slippery idea. What for some means helping society could mean abandoning society on other levels.
I like Jim’s term “level of consciousness” because that is how I describe it in my own mind, and have ever since my first drug experiences
(not including alcohol or opiates) as a youth.
I literally felt my mind opening up, and reaching upward. I stopped thinking as a pure individual, but rather as a member of a group. I don’t have the words today to fully express my ideas, but for me to accept “those who understand” is not explicit enough in a discussion like this.
But maybe I am just imagining that this discussion is different from a discussion on deciding which sitcom to watch on TV.
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All good on my end rawgod. Appreciate the discussion.
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Thank you for the explanation. Helpful.
I like this part here: “Evolution by natural selection has no requirement that truth is necessary for survival.”
Yes.
And this: “It might be fun to dabble in psychedelics but not take it too seriously.”
I won’t be dabbling, though as a grade 8 student I won first place for my LSD speech. Seems absurd now. What did I know? Must have been my delivery. My interest is related to those with mental illness &/or trauma histories. Specifically a family member who has lived a life of suicidal ideation. The healer in me is curious if it might be the last step to give her some sort of peace.
“Someone has to do actual work to feed this mob of 8 billion.”
When I first started participating online (way back when the goo was warm) we were at 6 million.
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In 1969 I took my LSD very seriously. I could feel the power in it.
Now microdosing. I have no experience in it. But I am sure there are lots of secrets hiding in its use. If I was younger I would be much more interested in how this works. In my day, taking LSD involved committing at least 8 hours of one’s life to a single dose. It is hard to imagine any size dose that does not last 8 hours.
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The enlightened ones… so very attached to detachment!
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There has to be an ideal state to reach for or we go backwards. It seems what everyone in this position is striving for puts them in a state of consciousness that requires some un-enlightened intervention to keep them alive.
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