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PLATEAUS OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Our life's journey of self-discovery is not a straight-line rise
from one level of consciousness to another. Instead, it is a
series of steep climbs and flat plateaus, then further climbs.
Even though we all approach the journey from different directions,
certain of the journey's characteristics are common to all of
us.
We begin our spiritual understanding in a mundane place: the
ordinary world of survival - that dimension of common people's
consciousness where the ego reigns supreme, and tribal attitudes
and ideologies are promoted as the only knowledge one will ever
need. The plane of the day-to-day existence that most experience
as "life" is what I call "tick-tock."
The people who taught us the rules and methods of tick-tock took
us through our childhoods and dropped us off somewhere in, or
even before, our twenties. They were for the most part, sweet
and kind, and they loved us and did their best, but from the
perspective of a higher understanding, they were often as thick
as two heavy, wooden planks.
They rarely gave us the necessary tools with which to proceed.
Then, suddenly, came the day we began to question the validity
of all that we'd been taught. There had to be more. Once we began
to question and to seek, we started to climb out of a lower evolutionary
rhythm into a faster more rarefied alternative.
If you accept that your destiny is mostly formulated and controlled
by your mind and its mental and emotional projections, you will
see that as you climb out of tick-tock you change your destiny
away from the evolution of the common person (who belongs, somewhat,
to the collective destiny of his tribe or community). You step
into a separate reality, one driven by your own hopes and dreams,
rather than one belonging to the collective reality of humanity.
In my experience, the first part of an individual's climb out
of tick-tock usually takes a thousand days. That is not long
when you think of the years you have spent asleep, coddled in
the humdrum world.
In tick-tock, you are safe, and even though the vibration of
it was low, you know how to operate within its confinement, and
you can see possibilities for yourself. Being attached and linked
to it emotionally, its familiarity gives you strength and confidence.
But once you begin the climb of self-discovery, your attitudes
change; your energy rises quickly; and soon you realize that
in order to sustain your progress upwards you have to discard
much of the mental emotional weight of the encumbrances you acquired
in your formative years. As those aspects of yourself are released,
your connection to tick-tock is loosened, and it becomes harder
to relate to issues that others feel are important.
What you have now are your new ideas and disciplines, but often
little else, as yet. That is why the climb out of a tick-tock
mind feels, on an inner level, like scaling a rock face - much
of the stability you were used to, mundane as it was is now gone.
All that holds you now is your expectancy of a greater energy
up ahead, and your belief in self, driven by your desire to discover
a new way.
During the thousand-day climb you never see further than a few
yards in front of you. That is because your imagination and your
ability to envision, formulate and materialize plans was originally
developed at a lower energy level. You may not yet know how to
make the currency of a new vibration work for you at this higher
level of being. The only thing you can be sure of is that each
step you take on your inner journey carries you away from the
security and linkages of the old world, upward to an unknown
place. A place that is faster, better.
Your spiritual understanding and inner development is empowered
by whatever disciplines and teachings you take on - meditation,
vegetarianism, shamanism, spiritualism, or whatever "ism"
takes your fancy. But mostly it is empowered by your ability
to discard the emotional baggage and attitudes you acquired in
tick-tock. This is because, within you is the natural power of
your Higher Self - the spirit that you actually are - and as
soon as you become even slightly less cluttered, the force of
that power begins to emerge and perceptions come to you quick
and fast.
For now, you are no longer getting in your own way. The inspiration
of the climb infuses you with a new vigor; you want to align
to a new energy - possibly a new career - one that is more spiritually
aligned or has more meaning, except you don't clearly see what
direction to take. The question common to us all at this stage
is: "What the hell do I do next?"
It's natural as one rises out of a slower vibrational field to
want to help others make the climb, and it becomes important
to take on some kind of meaningful employment or occupation,
less aligned to the money-making of tick-tock and more aligned
to higher ideals. But what?
The problem in this early stage of your spiritual development
is that your vision of life is literally at the rock face of
your inner climb so when you ask yourself, "What next? Which
way?" you often get no real answers. Things don't open for
you as you feel they should. Though there may be opportunities
and new associations, and though you may be experiencing a lot
of psychic activity, unusual coincidences, ESP, and sometimes
even strange phenomena, there is nothing very concrete or obvious
presented to you. This can cause you a lot of confusion and heartache,
as you search for a new, higher level place in which to slot
into life.
The secret is this: while scaling that rock face you need every
ounce of your energy to hold on, as the handholds are small and
you can easily, through simple lack of determination, fall back
to the mundane plane of tick-tock. It takes time for you to gradually
become comfortable with new ideas and beliefs, enabling them
to take hold. While it's easy to understand a new concept intellectually,
and to agree with the idea, it takes much longer for that concept
to become real in your heart where, you'll live and breathe it
naturally.
There is a tendency for people to get so carried away with their
inner journey of realization and the sheer exhilaration of the
climb that they become hyper-energized by their enthusiasm. They
immediately discard their old systems of financial support and
wander off like pilgrims, hoping to discover, from within their
inspiration, a way of making a living that suits their changing
consciousness. In their efforts to open up a new path, they often
succeed in decapitating the old order to such an extent that
they soon face financial hardship, or worse, complete ruin.
In fact, the lessons are simple. While you are climbing the rock
face, recognize it as such. Understand that because your vision
is limited, you will not see far into the future. The best thing
to do is to concentrate on the climb, rather than trying to carve
out a new career for yourself just yet. If you head out too early,
you'll shoot yourself in the foot. I have seen it happen a thousand
times - an individual has become so inspired by the climb and
their desire to quit tick-tock, they have set themselves up in
a new business usually related to self-help, alternative healing,
or assisting others in some way, before they really have the
energy or perception to pull it off.
Invariably the business ends in failure, which further pressurizes
them. Their progress up the rock face is stymied, because their
belief in self is temporarily shattered. In addition, their finances
are decimated, which greatly inhibits their ability to purchase
the knowledge and experiences they need to complete the climb.
Further, to really change your consciousness and to create a
consolidation of power within yourself, you need peace and balance,
and time to reflect. A lack of money at this time is detrimental.
Instead, do this: first, recognize that you are on a climb, know
that it is important and sacred, and that what you are doing
at this moment is climbing - nothing else. Simplify your life
and support yourself any way you can, providing it does not take
too much of your time and energy. Fry hamburgers, pump gas, whatever.
Be satisfied in just climbing. Be patient; all will come in time.
A second option is that you may decide to hold on to your tick-tock
job while making the climb, even though you have to grit your
teeth and suffer, because your energy is no longer aligned to
the old world. It is better to do that and have a strong financial
backing to your quest, than to be terribly spiritual and potless.
It's almost impossible to stabilize yourself at a higher vibrational
energy if you are being harassed by mundane stuff like making
the rent.
A third possibility is to keep your former means of financial
support in place and begin a new venture, perhaps on a part-time
basis. That way you have both things going for you simultaneously.
Once your new, chosen direction becomes strong enough to support
you, you can discard your old tick-tock money sources and step
to the new career in a balanced way.
Once the thousand-day climb is over and you'll know almost to
the exact day when that is - you reach the first plane of understanding.
Because the changes within you are now consolidated, they belong
to you and they are you, instead of your attempting to belong
to them, as is the case during the climb. Now you will have vision.
People and opportunities will be pulled to you, because from
within you there is a peace and a naturalness that comes from
the consolidation, and that exudes from you as stability of character.
When you look back as you climb, you'll see how during that crucial
time you are too uncomfortable with yourself to be of much use
to others, and because you are changing, you often lack complete
confidence. It is common for your over-energized obsession with
your new discoveries to actually push people and opportunities
away. Remember, the world on an inner level is very intuitive.
Opportunities, move toward order, balance and power; they move
away from scattered, over-energized people, and they flee at
high speed from confusion and a lack of consistency.
Once you are up upon the first plateau of understanding, opportunities
will emerge for you. At first they seem rather small and relatively
unimportant. Follow them, they will lead to greater things. Invest
in yourself and try things out. It matters not if you head up
the wrong path, for at a higher level of perception you'll soon
see if a particular direction is for you, and if not, you'll
shift to another. Going a little way up the wrong path is not
a bad thing. You learn about yourself and your needs, and if
nothing else, you understand what to eliminate. Eventually, you
are bound to find what you seek.
Then, after the thousand-day climb, there are other climbs up
ahead, but none will be like the first.
Stuart Wilde has written extensively
in the "human potential" field and has produced dozens
of self-help tapes, videos and seminars. Stuart Wilde has a worldwide
audience of over 10 million.
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