Today, I am attempting to add to Peter’s video on The 4 Levels of Consciousness, and hopefully, making it relevant to a committed Christian. For your reference, you may want to check out his video. It’s about 20 minutes long, and it’ll be worth your time.
Peter begins with a statement from Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. This statement gave birth to the concept of “levels of consciousness”, and Peter simplified it in 4 levels.
1. To Me (Victim State)
A person at this level has a mantra that “everything happens to me.” He would say things like: “If you had my boss/family/circumstance...” He believes that he is wronged by someone else, and others inflict trouble TO him. It’s a very sad and limited level of existence. As Peter would say it, a person at this level lives life at effect, and not at cause. When things go wrong, he will always have someone to blame because things didn’t turn out the way he planned it. How do you know that you are in this level? You probably feel bored and disempowered. I call this state the "defeated" state.
2. By Me (Achiever State)
A person at this level recognizes that if he will just wait to win the lottery, he might wait forever. He realizes that he’d rather do things himself, and make things happen. His mantra is “life will happen BY me.” Compared to the To Me level, the By Me person is far more productive than the former. Most people are probably in this level.
How does one move from To Me to By Me? To move to the next level, he must give something up, and replace it with something else. He must give up BLAME and replace it with RESPONSIBILITY. Most of the self-help and personal development tools are geared towards moving from To Me to By Me. Things like – setting goals, have persistence, cultivate desire, how to have joy and success, and make life in your own terms.
Coming from a To Me level, the motivation to move to By Me starts with awareness that something is not right. One questions if it is worth it to take responsibility and action, or just close the door and slide back to the To Me state. For example, a chain smoker could realize the smoking is bad for him. Does he just hold it intellectually in his mind that smoking is bad? Or will he move forward with the awareness of the consequences, and take action?
At the beginning, the By Me mode can be fun and exciting. Moving from bored to achieving is an amazing accomplishment. However, this can be very exhausting. It is like being in a supermarket with everything on sale, and we elbow each other to get what we want. It’s like – if I put a lot of energy on something, I’ll get half of what I want. How do you know that you are in this level? You are probably tired, overworked, but you have results. You are hoping that there is another way to do things, hopefully, easier. I call this state the “striving” state.
3. Through Me (Flow State)
A person at this level is in a much more relaxed state than By Me. Things happen. Doors open before he puts his hand on the handle. People show up at the right place at the right time. Everything seems effortless. I would call this state the “rest”/”cease striving” state. However, some people who have not understood this level can easily fall back into the By Me, and swim upstream again.
What does one need to give up to move from By Me to Through Me? He must give up the NEED TO CONTROL. What can we really control in life? Notice that it doesn’t say “give up control”, but just the NEED to control. He must embrace uncertainty a little higher. It’s like letting go of the death grip of how life should look, and allowing himself to flow a little more with the river, rather than panic, because it is not going to the direction that he is expecting. Then he starts to let go of the By Me heart attack lifestyle.
What does one need to replace the need of control with? Peter asserts that there are 3 things that can be useful:
- BELIEF – belief is formed when we have references. The things we believe in are things that we have tested, we have done ourselves, or someone else has done it. It is something that has proof. Belief gives us a feeling of certainty. The more references we have on a certain belief, the stronger it becomes. I recall a time that my boss in my previous job would say in front of his staff that “he believes in the new CEO.” He said that because the CEO has a track record of doing great things in the companies that she led. Additionally, he heard how she speaks, and he is impressed with her, and saw a lot of potential in the company with her leadership. His proofs are her track record and her behaviors.
- FAITH – when belief collapses, faith can enter. Faith is very useful because it works with the absence of references. One doesn’t need proof to have faith. When one has great faith, it can be strong enough to compel him forward despite lack of evidences that it is right, or it will work. However, faith has a limit. There is a force that counters it called doubt. When our doubt is greater than our faith, we stumble. If someone gives us a perfectly timed false evidence or fear, our faith can be tested and could potentially plummet. Faith can become unstable when we try to question – did I really hear from God? Or I just made that up in my head? Or I just interpreted it to fit my desires? Did I overly spiritualize the Word of God and assumed that my interpretation is God’s interpretation?
- KNOWING – there is something more supreme than faith. It’s called Knowing. With knowing, you know that what you know is truth. There is no struggle, no effort, nothing to defend, nothing to conquer. Knowledge of the truth is just plain truth. For example, if I let go of a stone from my hand, I don’t say – “I believe that the stone will hit the ground” or “I have faith that the stone will hit the ground”. But I will say “I know that the stone will hit the ground – the law of gravity.” There is safety in knowing the truth. Have you ever gone into a stage of moving from “I believe that God is good because I was told and I read in the Bible that He is” to “I have faith that God is good because I am going through crisis and He’ll walk with me through this” to “I know that God is good with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. I have seen the beauty and goodness of God. I know Him.”
A person at this level is in a much higher level of consciousness. In his eyes, there is a strong sense of connection, there is no separation, and his mantra is “I see myself as you”. I listened to a sermon from my pastor in Israel, and he was explaining the beauty of the greatest commandment: Love the LORD with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And to love your neighbor as yourself. He emphasized on the word “as yourself”. In Hebrew, it is כמוך (kamocha). He explained that what it actually means is that your neighbor is someone who “is like you”. It implies that we love our neighbor with the awareness that he is no different than us, he’s like us, a sinner, imperfect, and needing salvation.
Peter suggests that in order to reach this level of consciousness, one must give up the ILLUSION OF SEPARATENESS. I would like to suggest that we also must give up PRIDE. Pride makes us see that we are higher than someone else, and hence, making us feel that we are different from others. What do we replace them with? Lo and behold, I was not surprised that Peter said UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
It encourages me to know that while this man that I listen to, who doesn’t have the same faith as me, whom I highly respect, came to the same conclusion as I, and many people of the same faith as me did – what a man desires is unfailing love.
How does unconditional love look like based on Bible? It is to die to self, just as what Yeshua did at the cross. He died for our sake, and called the men to love their wives just as He did for His Church. With the power that He has because He is God, He was able to resurrect Himself from the dead. His love does not only give a love worth dying for. His love also has the power to resurrect the dead, and to live for all eternity. He offered the most important thing that we need - FORGIVENESS - while we are still sinners. This is the richness of His love, that He is able to accept us fully for who we are, while walking with us to our best version of ourselves. After all, He is our Maker, He knows what's best for us, and the best that we can be - our glorified bodies. His love comes with much faith and much hope in who we can be with Him. While I’ve heard too many definitions of unconditional love, His love is still unbeatable, and still the greatest one of all. I would call this state the "glorified" state.
As a bonus, here's a video from Myles Munroe on How Love Works.
How does unconditional love look like based on Bible? It is to die to self, just as what Yeshua did at the cross. He died for our sake, and called the men to love their wives just as He did for His Church. With the power that He has because He is God, He was able to resurrect Himself from the dead. His love does not only give a love worth dying for. His love also has the power to resurrect the dead, and to live for all eternity. He offered the most important thing that we need - FORGIVENESS - while we are still sinners. This is the richness of His love, that He is able to accept us fully for who we are, while walking with us to our best version of ourselves. After all, He is our Maker, He knows what's best for us, and the best that we can be - our glorified bodies. His love comes with much faith and much hope in who we can be with Him. While I’ve heard too many definitions of unconditional love, His love is still unbeatable, and still the greatest one of all. I would call this state the "glorified" state.
As a bonus, here's a video from Myles Munroe on How Love Works.
The highest level of consciousness is to know God's mind
