Day 40. May 21. Saturday.

Good night’s sleep. Good day of training about “Going Deeper” with more than 20 people in Denmark (also a couple from Germany) who have been exposed to the Three Principles now. What’s so impressive is when I was here in February or March 2014 only a handful of people had been exposed to the Principles. Mette Louise, Lise and Natasha deserve so much credit.

I taught this session with Mette Louise and I am always impressed with her deep level of understanding; the same is true for Lise, who chimed in from the sidelines. I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was by the end of this session. I think I’m wearing down from this trip.

Levels of Consciousness

However, when I got back to Mia’s place where I’m staying again (with much gratefulness!), I checked my email and found a discussion on Facebook by Ed Hannifin and Jill Whalen about Levels of Consciousness, bringing up my name. So I thought I ought to respond. It’s long but I’m reprinting my response here, because I’d like as many people to see it as possible: Ed and Jill, I’m really glad both of you raised the notion of levels of consciousness.

Syd [Banks] used to talk about levels all the time. In my view it’s an essential part of his teaching and message, and therefore an essential part of Three Principles understanding. In The Missing Link Syd writes about consciousness ascending and descending. That’s levels! But let’s be clear. There is only One Universal Consciousness. We “borrow” from One Universal Consciousness to have personal consciousness. The pure consciousness within us, which is another word for Soul, which is another way of expressing innate health, gives us automatic peace, love, wisdom, etc. Then we take our creative power of thought and come up with thoughts that contaminate pure consciousness to various degrees; our consciousness thereby descends in levels. Each level is a different illusion. Levels of consciousness always follow or coincide with our thinking; there is no separating them. But it would be silly to say that a level of consciousness we would call depression is the same as a level of consciousness we would call joy. Yes, they are all just experiences brought to us by our thinking; in that sense they are equal. But joy is at a much higher level of consciousness than depression; meaning, there is a different vibrational level.

Syd said we can always tell by our feeling whether we are at higher or lower levels. Which brings me to the objection some people have about saying higher and lower. The objection is around putting a value judgment on it (more thought), as if higher or lower refers to good and bad. It doesn’t! We are simply talking about the fact of different vibrational levels, and the reason we get feelings is because of a vibration at various levels as a result of our thinking, and feelings such as peace, love, joy, gratefulness, compassion, vibrate at much lighter levels than depression, misery and anger. I’ll never forget the deep spiritual, if incredibly complicated thinker, Ken Wilber saying something like, When people object to hierarchy and to saying higher or lower, they themselves are setting up a hierarchy by suggesting ‘not saying higher and lower is better than saying higher and lower.’ Syd (and Ken Wilber) said that higher and lower levels of consciousness just is. Others object to teaching levels of consciousness because they say, “People get the wrong idea; they think they have to try to get to different levels; better to not talk about it at all.” To me that makes no sense. It’s our job as teachers to be sure people don’t get the message that we’re talking about trying to get to higher levels, or that one level is any better or worse than another. We’re not saying that at all, and it’s incumbent upon us to ensure that is not the message people are getting. This is essential teaching, in my view. Who is any of us to say that a certain part of Syd’s message should not be taught anymore? That implies that we know more or better than he did. Really?! But that’s just me.