Boomeritis Sidebar G: States and Stages

Boomeritis Sidebar G: States and Stages

Part I.  The Relation of States of Consciousness and Stages of Consciousness: No Model Is Complete without Both

Hazelton walked from the front of the stage back to the podium.  “Let me switch gears here a bit.  We need some more background information, so let’s focus on this topic: what is the actual relation of states of consciousness and stages of consciousness?  That is, how do temporary states eventually become permanent traits? 

“We have a theory at IC, first tentatively proposed in Integral Psychology, that draws on both ancient psychology and modern psychology, but both set and reframed in an AQAL context; it suggests the following relation between states and stages: 

“To begin with, the three great states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, sleeping) are said to correspond with the three great realms of being (gross, subtle, causal)—this is an idea found in Vedanta and Vajrayana, for example.  This simply means that, each time you are in a different state of consciousness, you can ‘see’ a different world or realm (because consciousness and being, or epistemology and ontology, are inseparable).  For example, when you are in a dream state, you see a dream world, a subtle world of images and visions and archetypes; in the waking state, you see the sensorimotor world of rocks and rivers and houses.  Each of the three great states shows us a different “world” or “realm.”

“These three great states are also said to contain, or to be able to contain, various sheaths or levels or stages of consciousness (called the nine vijnanas in Buddhism, the ten sefirot in Kabbalah, the seven chakras in yoga, the five koshas in Vedanta, and so on).  Of course, these ‘levels’ are not rigid rungs in a ladder but overlapping waves or spheres of consciousness.  Today we will use the 5 koshas or sheaths as a simple example of these levels of consciousness; they are said to be: anna, prana, mano, vijnana, and ananda—which we can translate roughly as the material level, the emotional-sexual level, the mental level, the higher mental, and the bliss-formless.  These levels of consciousness are really just a variation on the Great Nest of Being, which, in its general outline—matter to body to mind to soul to spirit—is found in most of the sophisticated wisdom traditions.  Of course, at IC we dramatically reframe those levels in a post-metaphysical fashion: they are not pre-existing structures but enacted worldviews.  Still, we can use the sheaths as a simple example of a more generic point, which is the relation of level/stages and states. 

According to both Vedanta and Vajrayana, those 5 levels/stages of consciousness are related to the 3 states and the 3 realms as follows:

For the typical person, the material level or sheath constitutes the gross realm or world, the sensorimotor world which is experienced in the waking state.  So we have a state of consciousness that reveals a realm or world, which contains various levels.  In the waking state you see a gross or sensorimotor realm, which contains the material/physical level.

Moving to the subtle realm, let’s first note that in these traditional 3-realm, 3-state models (gross/subtle/causal realms corresponding with waking/dreaming/sleeping states), “the subtle realm” includes ALL of the levels or sheaths between the end limits of the material-gross sheath and formless-causal sheath: in this case, the subtle realm includes the three levels/sheaths of emotions, mind, and higher mind (as we will later explain in more detail).  Those three levels are all contained in the subtle realm which can be accessed or experienced in the dream state (and in other states such as meditation, shamanic voyaging, etc.—but right now we are focusing on the three great natural states of waking, dreaming, sleeping).  Thus, in the dream state you see a subtle realm, a realm that can contain all the in-between levels of emotion, mind, and higher mind.

“Finally, in the deep-sleep state, you see a causal realm, a realm that contains nothing but the level or sheath of bliss-formlessness. 

“Okay, friends, why do Vajrayana, Vedanta, the Neoplatonists, and so many of the other great wisdom traditions make those correlations?  It’s actually very simple.  When you are awake, you are, at the very least, aware of the physical world, or the material level of reality (the anna sheath).  Of course, you might be aware of other levels, too; but the thing that everybody shares is an awareness of the gross realm with its physical level of reality.  When you are awake, you can see mountains, trees, airplanes, houses, lakes, your physical body, and empirical objects of all sorts—the whole sensorimotor world that is the gross realm. 

“But when you go to sleep at night, and you begin to dream, you do not see the material world.  In the dream state, there is no matter, no nature, no Gaia, no physical body, no sensorimotor rocks and rivers.  Rather, you see images, you feel emotions, you can even have thoughts and perhaps luminous visions.  In other words, you do have access to the levels of emotion, mind, and higher mind (or the prana, mano, and vijnana levels).  So you have access to the overall subtle realm, but you do not have a direct awareness of the gross realm.  That’s clear, yes?

“Finally, when you pass into the deep, dreamless state—the causal or formless realm—then not only does the gross realm fall away, the subtle realm also falls away: there are no emotions, no thoughts, no images, no dreams, no visions, no nuttin’—except vast emptiness or formlessness, a blissful release from all forms, high or low or in between.  And thus in the causal realm there is only the ananda ‘level’ of blissful formlessness.

“That model adds one more very important item: you can learn to enter all these higher realms while awake or fully conscious.  And when you can enter all of them while awake, then you are Awakened or Enlightened, because you have access to the full spectrum of consciousness and its realms, and thus you are Free from the binding power of being limited to only a few of them, a limitation that cuts into your soul with its fragmented partiality.

“Now that part of our integral model—which can be found in rudimentary form in Vedanta, Vajrayana, etc.—is really a very profound phenomenology of states and stages, isn’t it?  We will unpack it a little more carefully in a moment, but you can probably already start to see that this simple, elegant model shows how states of consciousness fit with worlds or realms of being, and how those fit with levels/stages of consciousness (namely, different worlds are disclosed by different states of consciousness, and states can contain several stages).  This model has the further advantage of being based on direct experiences, many of which (waking, dreaming, sleeping) you yourselves have had.  For these reasons, it is probably one of the simplest yet profound psychospiritual systems available, and certainly one of the oldest.  Of course, that simple model doesn’t answer all the questions or cover all the bases (it needs to be set in an ‘all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states’ context), but for the breakthrough insights that this ancient model offers, we have much to learn.”

Hazelton smiled radiantly, walked to the front of the stage.  “And there is one last piece of information that is crucial, and this really is the key to the entire relation of states and stages:

“To begin with, notice that most people directly experience the subtle and causal realms only when they fall asleep, only when they are unconscious.  That is, they experience the dream and deep-sleep states mostly when they are NOT AWAKE.  And so, for the average person, the waking state of the gross realm seems to be the MOST REAL state.  The subtle and causal seem ‘less real.’

“But a funny thing happens when consciousness continues its growth and development (especially when helped by spiritual practice).  As consciousness grows stronger and stronger, first the dream realm, and then the causal realm, can be entered while awake.  An ever-wakeful Presence, a brilliant clarity of Now-ness, begins to permeate the waking, dreaming, and deep sleep state, until all states are suffused with a radiant Wakefulness, and you are… Awakened, never to be fooled by the dreams of life or the illusions that drive ordinary souls who take them for real.

“Accordingly, as this Awakening process begins and starts to mature, this Wakefulness increasingly pervades all aspects of the waking state and begins to spill over into the dream state, rescuing them both from a half-asleep fog.  As one then enters the dream state, one begins to lucid dream—to remain conscious where the average person passes out or goes blank.  What happens is that the dream state is being converted from unconscious to conscious, and thus it begins to yield all of its visionary, archetypal, subtle revelations.  Moreover—and just as important—because you have made the dream state conscious to some degree, you have started to transcend it—it has ceased to enslave you; it is now object, not subject; you now embrace your dreams, they don’t embrace you. 

“Likewise, if consciousness continues to gain strength, then a very tacit awareness will persist even into the deep dreamless state, and you will awaken as vast, formless, empty, infinite Consciousness without an object—a direct experience, it is said, of Nirvana, of the Abyss, the Ursprung, Ayn, the infinite Void, the groundless Ground of all that is. 

“As both lucid dreaming and lucid sleeping start to occur (usually as one progresses and develops in meditation), one can begin to experience these higher states and realms and bring them into consciousness during the waking state.  For example, in a type of meditation known as savikalpa samadhi (or mediation with an object of awareness), one can directly (while fully awake) experience the higher reaches of the subtle realm; in states of nirvikalpa and jnana samadhi, one directly experiences the causal realm; in states of sahaja samadhi, one directly realizes the nondual (which we will discuss in a moment). 

“In all of those cases, one is developing one’s capacity to experience higher states by converting them into permanent acquisitions.  States that are normally unconscious have been made conscious; states that are normally temporary have been made permanent.  One progresses from a Wakefulness of the waking state, through a Wakefulness of dream state, to a Wakefulness of the deep sleep state: one’s consciousness fluidly unfolds from gross to subtle to causal embrace, with each expansion of consciousness including and enveloping more and more realities.  (For the stage- or wave-like nature of these developments, see below, Part II.)  One thus increasingly gains a liberation from the binding torment of being identified with lesser, smaller, shallower states; one gains an increasing liberation from their binding spell, until one can transcend and include all states in pure empty Consciousness as such—an ultimate realization or enlightenment that is known by many names, but the Great Liberation will do.

“So what does this tell us?  Namely, that all three of the great states of consciousness are converted to permanent waking realities by developing through the levels of consciousness.”  Hazelton looked around.  “Let me say that again, because that one sentence ties together everything we have discussed: temporary states become permanent traits by developing through the stages of consciousness.  And there, in a nutshell, is the ultimate relation of states and stages.”

“Kim, are you following all this?”

“It’s great, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.  I think I’m lost.  We at Artificial Intelligence get none of this stuff in our classes.  It’s sort of scary how limited our understanding of consciousness is.  We’re supposed to be the guys who understand human intelligence so well that we will be able to get supercomputers to reproduce it and then totally surpass it.  We are totally deluding ourselves, is what it is.”

“Yes, Wilber, you have that totally deluded look all over your face.”

“Thanks, Kim.  Did you have any friends when you were growing up?”

“So let’s take a short overview here, still using just the simple Vedanta model of 5 levels and 3 states, and show exactly what is involved with states versus stages/levels.  This is important because most psychospiritual models focus on either states or stages, but few adequately integrate both, which is clearly required.

“It’s really very simple, I promise.  You can have an altered state or temporary peak experience of any of the three great realms of being—gross, subtle, and causal—and you can do so at virtually any stage or level of development.  Why?  Because even an infant wakes, dreams, and sleeps.  And because the infant has access to these three great states (waking, dreaming, sleeping), the infant has access to the three great realms of being (gross, subtle, causal)—and that can happen at any stage of development (because at every stage, infants and children and adults all wake, dream, and sleep).  But as for the levels or stages themselves, they unfold and develop over time; that is the very meaning of a stage of development.  Thus, although the infant has access to the three great states, the infant does not have access to all the levels or stages that can occur in those states, because those have to develop and unfold in its own case.  Is that clear?  Yes? 

“For example, using this simple 3-state, 5-stage model, a human being can be at ‘level/stage/sheath 2’—that is, their general center of gravity is at the emotional-sexual wave of development (in early childhood)—and they can still have a temporary peak experience of the subtle and the causal realms—because they have perfect access to dream and deep-sleep states, and thus they can ‘peek’ experience them.  But they—the child at level 2, in this case—will not be able to experience all the stages of the mind level, such as formal operational thinking, because those have not yet emerged and developed. 

“Precisely because the basic levels or stages have not yet emerged and stabilized, the altered states of a subtle or causal nature are not permanent.  They are merely peak experiences; they come and they go quickly; they cannot be permanently contained—there is, so to speak, nothing to hold them in place, no structures or stable patterns in the psyche that can maintain access to these higher states, which are therefore always temporary and passing.  So anybody at virtually any stage can have a profound, authentic, genuine state-experience of a subtle or causal realm, but they will not be able to experience those subtle or causal realms in a permanent fashion—the peak experience or altered state will come and go. 

“Likewise, they will rarely be able to remain conscious when they enter those states during sleep at night; they will not remain conscious in the dream and deep sleep states.  Of course, there are always a few exceptions, especially in highly developed souls, but generally speaking, it is only with further development through the stages or levels of consciousness—moving from emotional-sexual to mind to higher mind to bliss-formlessness—that individuals will be able to successively convert those passing states into permanent traits that will remain in consciousness and not merely come and go like a drive-by shooting.

“In short, you can convert temporary states to permanent traits if you evolve through the great spectrum of consciousness, the great spiral of development.  As we have often said here at IC, the levels of the spectrum of consciousness are not predetermined, pregiven, rigid molds to which you must conform in every way; they are rather great morphogenetic potentials and fluid waves of increasing consciousness and care.  Exactly how you navigate those waves and streams of potential unfolding is up to you, but they are given as open possibilities to all beings.

“By the time you develop to the higher mental wave (vijnana stage, or sheath 4)—that is, using our simple 5-level model, by the time your general center of gravity stably reaches stage 4 or the higher mental wave of consciousness—you will begin to lucid dream (because you have now developed to the uppermost reaches of the subtle, and therefore the subtle itself becomes object).  If you develop further to the ananda-mayakosha (sheath 5)—so that your center of gravity is actually at the ananda/causal level—then you will remain tacitly awake even in the deep sleep state.  (Incidentally, we have compelling EEG studies of long-term meditators who remain conscious during all sleep states, including deep dreamless sleep.  See One Taste.) 

“That is why we summarize all this as: By evolving through the waves in the spectrum of consciousness, passing states become permanent traits.

“The net result of this evolution of consciousness is very simple: all of the levels or waves or stages of consciousness are now available to the waking state; or, conversely, the waking state has expanded to include all levels, include the entire spectrum of consciousness, so that the Immediate Presence, Now-Awareness, and Brilliant Clarity first available only in the waking state has permeated every possibility of your being, drenching it in the Spirit that it always already is.

“So at any stage of your own evolution, of course you can have all sorts of amazing altered states, nonordinary states, advanced meditative states, satoris, and profound spiritual experiences.  Nobody is denying that.  But those states will come and go, passing through your psyche in a way that cannot be reliably maintained because the psyche has not yet grown enough depth to stably contain the vastness of these higher realms.  That is why we say that the potentials contained in states become actual stages with increasing evolution.

“In this regard, one of the things we want to remember is that there is an important difference between state experiences and stage experiences.  According to the simple Vedanta/Vajrayana model (and remember, other models will also work, we are simply using this one to get us started):  When you experience one of the three great states (waking, dreaming, sleeping), the thing that defines that state is its essential characteristic.  For example, if you are having a waking-state experience, all waking-state experiences have one thing in common: you can see the gross, sensorimotor realm.  It doesn’t matter what else you see, if you can see the sensorimotor world, you’re in the waking state.  Thus, the essential characteristic of the waking state is: you can see the gross sensorimotor world.

“Likewise, the essential characteristic of the dream state is: there is no sensorimotor world.  More precisely, you are floating in a realm that is not material, but it is not yet formless either.  So no matter what else you are aware of—and there are all sorts of levels of mind that can float by in the dream state (as we saw, Vedanta maintains that there are at least 3 levels available in the dream/subtle state)—but no matter, if you are not formless and not in the sensorimotor, then you are in the subtle realm.  (This is why it is said that the subtle is also the realm that occurs in the bardo or after-life states.)

“Finally, how do you know you are in the causal realm, such as the deep dreamless state or nirvikalpa samadhi or the cloud of unknowing?  Very simple: if there are no gross phenomena and no subtle phenomena: welcome to the causal, a vast formlessness without gross or subtle objects.

“So that is why you can be at virtually any stage or level of development (for example, using the Spiral Dynamics levels, you can be at the purple level, the blue level, the orange level…) and still have a subtle realm experience (which can happen whenever gross objects are not the content of the experience, due to dreaming, shamanic voyaging, trance states, hypnosis, psychedelic-visionary experiences and illuminations, etc.).  You are NOT skipping stages here, because you are plugging into states, natural states that are already given and already available because all human beings, starting in the earliest months after conception, wake, dream, and sleep.  Actual stages CANNOT be skipped, because each stage is a component of its successor (this would be like going from atoms to cells and skipping molecules); but the three major states are available at virtually any stage under the right circumstances.  (Thus, you cannot go from red to green and skip blue and orange; but at any of those stages you can have a gross, subtle, or causal peak experience).

“We add one more item: you can have a subtle-state experience at virtually any time, but you will experience that subtle realm using whatever levels you have developed: in other words, states are always interpreted by stages (we will return to this important idea in a moment).  Nonetheless, no matter what level/stage has an experience of the subtle realm, it is said to be the same basic subtle realm with the same subtle energy pervading it, even if it is interpreted according to the mental structures that you have present (much as an alcoholic stupor is an alcoholic stupor, whether you’re blue or orange or green….  Same state, different interpretations while in it).