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Is this a 5th person perspective?

Posted November 25th, 2009 by randymack

Fifth Person Perspective?

 

I understand that a 3rd person perspective is one’s ability to observe the world as an object, i.e. more of less objectively depending on the degree of interpretinging.    I don’t remember a time before being able to access a third person perspective, although I have certainly fallen out of it many times while becoming entranced in the first and second person perspectives.    Then over some years a fourth person perspective became clearer and clearer, as I could perceive not only the world objectively, but also my own thinking and feeling responses to it.    And it has truly been a blessing to be able to do things like observe that my neurotic thoughts are neurotic even as I was having them.    Seeing them doesn’t necessarily stop them, but it does take the power out of them.    It does however help keep me from being as stupid in emotionally charged situations as I would otherwise be.

 

Moving along in my life, evermore informed by integral thought and values, I have become comfortable thinking of  myself as pretty grounded in integral.    So when looking at AQAL charts, and seeing the 4th person perspective next to green postmodern pluralism, and the 5th person one next to Teal-Turquoise I wondered: “What is the 5th person perspective?”    I can usually figure-ground my consciousness into higher states.      But those are states, and while each has its own perspective, those are different.   They come and go, and don’t have the quality of an embedded perspective.   And isn’t it is a truism that one cannot really understand any perspective that they haven’t directly experienced.    So I left the inquiry open.

 

Recently I had a few sort of flat affect, emotional heavy feeling days with no discernable cause.     In a moment of insight I saw it all from a new perspective.    I was just going about some daily activities, when I saw that how I was thinking was grounded in kind of dense feelingtone.   I don’t know what to call it.    I could see myself as carrying ot dragging along a mantle, a weighty somewhat pained shadow; a chronic critical self-judgment, almost voice-like.    And, oh blessing, I saw that I could let it go; that I no longer have to carry that with me.    I felt so much lighter and happier, with a delightful sense of irony that this state can persist through difficulties, minor or greater.    I understood that this murky cloud was a remnant of old circumstances, and serves no good purpose whatsoever.     AHHHHH

 

Promptly, an old pattern emerged, and I thought: “Ohh – I’ll probably forget all of this and go back to how I used to be.”    Then as I saw that thought for what it was from a 4th person perspective, I also perceived the deeper feelingtone of the entire related background complex and smiled.    In subsequent weeks I have generally felt a lightness of mood, a detachment from drama, a persistent quiet humor at the core of my floating I Amness.

 

So….  Does this sound like a 5th person perspective to those of you who know?

 

Thanks, Randy

 

PS OKAY – now that I have #5 all figured out…..  What’s a 6th person….. oh never  mind, that’ll come to me when I’m ready.       

 

 

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5th person perspective

Posted December 2nd, 2011 by debbi burch

Hi Randy,

I have been tracking a similar line of enquiry in myself lately in relation to perspective taking in the line of self. I think of a first person perspective being an experiential perspective (evolutionarily involving the reptilian brain) and a 2nd pp being a relational perspective (reptilian+limbic system). So a 3rd pp is an objective perspective where one can understand 1st & 2nd pps from the outside (cortex). I have, like you,experienced a 4th pp as being where I can be aware of my being, feeling and thinking but be primarily identified with being aware of what arises rather than any content. Like you I have then been able to be aware of neurotic thoughts but not identify with them and just let them go. The first time I had a powerful epiphany of this stage was a sense of "Oh, I cant get BEING me wrong." You know, I can think negative thoughts, I can feel intense hatred, jealousy etc, I can even behave badly but just as a gold ring is worth what it's worth because it's made of gold, I have essential worth because I'm made of life. And knowing that, the negative narrative doesnt hold as much sway, then I dont feel angry or fearful about being worthless & then I dont behave in a destructive way. But it took me many years since that epiphany to stabilise this perspective.

So, if I was a finger I would by this stage know I was a good enough, functioning, competent finger. So I guess an Integral stage is heralded by the impulse to participate in being a hand. And that does mean being identified with some mysterious soup that intuits/expresses the functionality of a hand before the fingers even sense it. So a finger has to let go of being obsessed with optimising it's own functionality before it really gets that there is a hand. It really is a lonely leap of faith as you describe. The trouble with green (4th pp) is that it doesnt correct the competitiveness of orange (3rd pp) because with green, anything goes (because you get that you cant get being you wrong, even if you're a competitive, ruthless power broker). So it's a hard leap to get from obsessively proving your worth at orange (because you still believe what you made up at red about your inherent unfitness in a world where only the fit survive) to knowing  not just that you cant get being you wrong, but that you are a unique, vital being that life itself is begging to express itself through.

So that dense, dragging sense that you describe is for me a kind of 'is this it?' dullness. A knowing that there is not much pleasure left in being preoccupied with improving and refining myself for its own sake, and kind of knowing that that life has a higher perspective that I can in theory participate in but just not quite knowing how to make myself available to that. And even then, it's not as if I dont have a fantastic life. I have everything I've ever wanted.  I guess the epiphany for this stage was 'THIS IS IT', which was accompanied by a thrilling sense of being connected to everything to the point where there was no inside or outside, no past or future, no me other than as the local instrument that non-local life wants to play through. But that's still coming and going, and I have yet to really feel stable in that, let alone being able to fully experiencing myself as part of hand rather than a finger longing to participate in that cooperative function.

So, it helped me to read what you said, thanks and its helped me to clarify this by writing it.

Best wishes, Deb

 

 
 

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interesting

Posted November 27th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

Hi, Randy - I just want to respond with acknowledgment that this is an interesting question. I don't know about 5th person perspective. I think you have an interesting line of inquiry.

I think I have some confusion around what is considered a numbered perspective higher than 3rd. I may have some conflation, apparently, about what is called a "witness" state, "turiya" and now perspectives. My general sense is that witness/turiya is a term to speak of a profound state and perspective and that it may be overused to speak of an everyday ego-related cognitive capacity of higher integration and an increment of distance - maybe analogous to thinking about thinking about.

I haven't felt yet the important implication of knowing these perspectives but I certainly can acknowledge that it might be very interesting. I do feel that my image and sense of a deep and substantially distinct turiya experience, without an intent to try to induce, would be important.

What do you think, Randy? Am I sprinkling on a small campfire? Or what else?

ambo