It’s helpful to think about human consciousness as stratified and pluridimensional, with layers that are wholes within wholes, going from simple and rudimentary at birth, to increasingly complex and whole layers superimposed upon their predecessor in a way that includes the previous layer but transcends it. Formless meditation looks directly at the layer you are currently grounded in.
There are things to consider:
Including Western psychological models and Eastern spiritual models, we can say that humans have the potential to go from a very simple consciousness at birth to vastly higher complex levels of consciousness in one lifetime but there are no orthodox Western psychological models for at least the top 25%, or so, of our potential. Human consciousness is a psycho-spiritual continuum, but the high end of this nonlinear continuum is missing in Western models from about the point where the duality between subject and object dissolves. Right now we are seeing quantum physics, with its non separate observer-scientist and supporting theoretical framework plus “scientific proof” for the manifestation of non local mind, point to the high end human consciousness.
Along with not having orthodox Western psychological models for the higher end of consciousness, our society as a pacer of transformation also drops off and the great majority of the population tables off about half way to their potential.
The maturation of human consciousness manifests as the unfolding of 10 or 11 ever higher order layers. As your consciousness matures during your lifetime, you can not skip over a layer. The layers are the same for everyone. We can tell what level of consciousness a person is at by looking at such things as cognitive and affective style, and what one believes is true about time, etc.
The maturation of consciousness is the primary developmental task of adulthood, like learning to crawl, walk, talk and read, etc. are at earlier ages. Stress, dis-ease, and crisis result from not attending to it.
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on Sunday, September 17th, 2006 at 12:07 am and is filed under Marinating.
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