…we all inhabit more than one level of reality at the same time.
First attention organizes the surface of life; second attention organizes the deeper levels. Intuition and wisdom both grow out of second attention and therefore cannot be compared to ordinary thinking… A gut feeling is as close to the oracle of Delphi as many people are going to get. That we can bypass reason to gain insight is certainly true. Intuition involves no cogitation or working through. Like lightening, it flashes across the mind, carrying with it a sense of rightness that defies explanation.
The big question is how we can learn to trust second attention… Once you start identifying with the knower – that part of yourself that is intuitive, wise, and perfectly at home in the quantum world – then God assumes a new shape. He turns from all-powerful to all-knowing… You will never trust your intuition until you identify with it. Self-esteem enters here. At the earlier stages of inner growth, a person is esteemed who belongs to the group and upholds its values. If the knower within tries to object, he is stifled. Intuition actually becomes an enemy, because it has a nasty habit of saying things you aren’t supposed to hear.
“You will know a lot about human motivation once you realize one thing: ninety-nine percent of humanity spends ninety-nine percent of their time trying to avoid painful truths.”
A person who has arrived at stage four long ago gave up group values. The enticements of war, competition, the stock market, fame, and wealth have faded. Being stranded in isolation is not a good fate, however, and so the knower within comes to the rescue. He provides a new source of self-esteem based upon things that cannot be known any other way… the emptiness of outward life is rendered irrelevant because a new voyage has commenced. The wise are not sitting around contemplating how wise they are; they are flying through space and time, guided on a soul journey that nothing can impede. The hunger to be alone… comes from sheer suspense. The person cannot wait to find out what comes next in the unfolding of the soul’s drama… Someone who still felt burdened with guilt and shame, however, would never embark on the voyage. You don’t have to be perfect to try to reach the angels, but you do have to be able to live with yourself and keep your own company for long stretches of time…
The disciple could also have no idea of the excitement felt by the master, because from the outside there is no sign… God leaves no traces in the material world… you find yourself fascinated with God, not because you need protection or comfort, but because you are a hunter after his quarry. The chase is all the more challenging when the prey leaves no tracks in the snow.
…fate becomes a pressing. The person has experienced enough instances when “an invisible hand” must be at work. The instances may be small, but there is no turning away from them.
After paying enough attention (always the key word) you begin to see that events form patterns; you see that they also hold lessons or messages or signs – the outer world somehow is trying to communicate – and then you see that these outer events are actually symbols for inner events… Wisdom consists of being comfortable with certainty and uncertainty… life is spontaneous, yet it has a plan; events come as a surprise, yet they have inexorable logic. Strangely, wisdom often arrives only after thinking is over. Instead of turning a situation over from every angle, one arrives at a point where simplicity dawns. In the presence of a wise person one can feel an interior calm, alive and breathing its own atmosphere, that needs no outside validation. The ups and downs of existence are all one. The New Testament calls this “the peace that passes understanding,” because it goes beyond thinking – no amount of mental churning will get you there.
…a state where all love is included in one love. Such an aim is hard to achieve, and most people don’t even see it’s value… Since infancy we have all gained security from having one mother, one father, our own friends, one spouse, a family of our own; this sense of attachment reflects a lifelong need for support… the whole support structure melts away – the person is left to get support internally, from the self. Self-acceptance becomes the way to God… It isn’t a cold, heartless detachment but a kind of expansion that no longer needs to distinguish between me and you, yours and mine, what I want and what you want. Such dualities make perfect sense to the ego, yet… the goal is to get beyond boundaries. If that involves giving up the old support systems, the person willingly pays the price. The soul journey is guided by an inner passion that demands its own fulfillment.
There are no victims.
Everything is well ordered; things happen as they should.
Random events are guided by a higher wisdom.
Chaos is an illusion; there is total order to all events.
Nothing happens without a reason.
Deepak Chopra, an exert from Stage Four, How To Know God
To quote The Pretenders classic, Spiritual High, ‘a state of independence shall be…’. This exert from Deepak Chopra’s How To Know God illustrates humanity’s greatest challenge, if we are to evolve to the next ordained state of being. We stand poised at the edge of this particular cliff, in a time of profound change, we are in fear of letting go of all that we have known. Apollinaire’s words seem especially poignant;
Come to the edge
We can’t. We are afraid.
Come to the edge.
We can’t. We will fall!
Come to the edge.
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
Guillaume Apollinaire
At the entrance to the oracle chamber at Delphi is an inscription:
Know Thyself
We all have the ability to fly, and I don’t just mean you, or me, I mean all of us. The only requirement is that we simply choose to do so.
V
∞
The saying goes that when the student is ready, the teacher appears
