Survival
In the first stage of the Ten Stages of Human Consciousness, the person is totally occupied in just staying alive. This level has a hierarchy of needs: air, water, food, clothing, shelter. As each need is satisfied for the moment, the person’s attention and effort will move to the next. He has no consciousness or TE left over from just staying alive to be interested in or to do much else.
Security
In the second stage of the Ten, the person has immediate Survival (the first stage) handled, so that his consciousness can turn to assuring survival into the future. In this stage, his attention and TE will go into assuring that he and his family will eat and wear tomorrow and the next day and the next; into arranging to pay the rent next month, and into preparing for any possible future threats to survival.
Sensation and Pleasure
In the third stage of Human Consciousness, the person feels that s/he has survival and security under control for the moment. S/he will then turn her attention (Consciousness) and TE to gratifying the physical senses, to seeking pleasure. In this level, life is about having fun. The person seeks wining and dining, nicer clothes, jewelry, music, parties, travel, vacations, sex, drugs, etc. anything that provides sensual stimulation.
Dominion
Eventually, as the person’s Consciousness grows, the person will seek bigger games than just personal pleasure. In the Dominion stage, the person moves into wanting power and mass.
S/he wants to obtain, accumulate and amass things (far beyond any personal need for them), and to control people, places, things, events, and energy. This can take many forms: a search for recognition, prestige, fame, or social position. It can take the form of the search for fortune, for money and economic position and the power these bring. It can take the form of trying to create an immense and preferably monopolist business empire. It can take the form of striving to move as high as possible in a hierarchy, be it a corporation, the government, the military, or a church. However, it is egoic power: power used for the benefit and glory of self; as opposed to love power, where everything is administered for the good of all.
Dark Night of the Soul
After a time in Dominion and as the spiritual Consciousness of the person grows, there will come a moment when the Being becomes dissatisfied and unhappy with her worldly games and pleasures. Life starts to be experienced as empty and meaningless. The person looks up from her beguilement with Matter and asks the Philosopher’s Questions: Where am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? Where is here? How did I get here? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of it all? There has got to be something more than just these games! The process of the movement into the Dark Night can be fairly quick or it can take many years, but eventually the BEing in the experience of the dryness and emptiness of life most of the time. It can be an extremely painful era, filled with frustration, desperation, and depression.
Search
The Dark Night of her soul impels the Being to begin a Search for Light, for answers to the Philosopher’s Questions, for real Knowledge. The person’s religious beliefs are seen to be inadequate and useless to aid her in the Dark Night. The person begins to seek for Knowledge, to read books, to attend courses, to investigate other religions and spiritual systems.
The First Awakening: The Possibility
In the Search, eventually the person accumulates sufficient true spiritual information that the possibility that life is spiritual become real for the person The First Awakening is the dawn of a realization, still very weak, that life is fundamentally spiritual. The person begins to see that the suffering in the Dark Night is a spiritual problem... The Dark Night is still very much present, and the person is still in great confusion about the nature of Spirituality. The Search for more and more knowledge continues and leads to...
The Second Awakening: The Reality
The person continues to accumulate a quantity and quality of real spiritual knowledge and experiences until finally that her conviction that life is fundamentally spiritual is at least 51%. It is now real most of the time for the BEing that life is spiritual and that the answer to everything is the development of her spirituality. As the person increases her spiritual mass of understanding, as her Light increases, the Dark Night diminishes ever more. However, the Being can still have periods of confusion and of Dark Night.
Commitment (Warrior)
Eventually, the Light of Truth that the person has ignited within is so strong that she can no longer ignore its brilliance and its call. Previous to this stage, no matter how much attention the person had on her spirituality, it was still not first her priorities. Previous to Commitment, the Being was still putting worldly considerations of family, work, or money, ahead of her spirituality. At the stage of Commitment, s/he reverses her priorities. Now, her spirituality is more important to her than her worldly affairs. It is not until this stage that the person has finally put FIRST the Kingdom of Heaven. The person transitions from being a spiritual amateur to being a professional. Commitment opens the way to Help from above and to rapid progress.
The Third Awakening: Re-Integration to the ONE, Illumination, Cosmic Consciousness, Nirvana, the Seventh State, etc. The practice of the spiritual disciplines (supposedly the Being has been practicing and improving his practice since the First Awakening) finally renders fruit. The Being slips the surly bounds of Matter (of the Essence Suppressor Mass) and re-integrates his identity to the ONE. The Being is now experientially ONE with the SOURCE of ALL THAT IS. In the first stage of this Level of Consciousness, individuality remains but is seen to be an illusion. The Being may remain with individuality, or return fully to the ONE, as s/he pleases. This is the state of Buddha, Christ, Lao Tse. Only about 235 human beings have ever attained it since the beginning of Man.
Magus' Comment:
Across religions and spiritual systems, there is always a mention of a Commitment stage --- a threshold that one must cross by reversing priorities and putting SPIRITUALITY way ahead of worldly considerations such as love, family, work, money, etc. in order to achieve ILLUMINATION.
Arguably, worldy things are DISTRACTIONS. They really are.
Is our SPIRIT, one that was made in the Great Spirit and Likeness of the UNIVERSE so limited that it cannot achieve a so called Oneness if there is a stain of Earthliness? And most say that once you have reached the ranks of the ILLUMINATED, the matters of this world, the beauty of living on 3D Earth will no longer excite you. WHY not?... Really?
