Spiral Dynamics Tier 1 is underrated

[EternalForest]

The more deeply I study Spiral Dynamics, the more I realize that the true juice of life is lived at Tier 1, and not Tier 2. I mean yes, at Stage Yellow or Turquiose you've accessed levels of consciousness that most people couldn't even imagine, you've gained a total understanding of the entire system, and you've obtained all the wisdom you'll ever need. But...then what? What's left for you to do? The answer is nothing. There's nothing to do, there's nowhere to go from there except to start anew.

From my view, the people at Stages Blue, Orange and Green, although they might be going through their own dysfunctions and they have their own levels of ignorance about things, there's a certain bliss in that. There's a certain bliss in living your life simply to make your family happy, to make your friends happy, to go see a football game or an epic concert, to building a business that matters a lot to you, to going to church, to having your own passions, goals and dreams. There's a certain joyful simplicity in life at Tier 1, a genuine purpose and a certain wonder at how the whole system is constructed.

Sure, you can still have the knowledge of how the entire thing works metaphysically at Stage Yellow and still get that juice out of life, but its more subdued. There's more joy in experiencing than simply being. Tier 1 gets to actually get dirty and appreciate the highs and lows and intensities of life first hand. Turquoise may be conscious, but at the level they're at, they can't unknow the fact that they are an observer. It's like asking someone: Would you rather watch a movie or be inside the movie? There's a certain pleasure to both, but if you ask me, I'd rather be in the middle of the action, I'd rather be inside the movie!

[Matt23]

I wonder if people at 2nd tier can't/don't have those passions, excitements, and hands-on experiences with life...  I've only watched Leo's, Glen Beck's, Ken Wilber's and a few others' videos on the spiral and haven't actually read any of the books, but I find it hard to imagine that people at tier 2 can't do, have, and feel the things you're talking about (or beyond).  

Who says people at stage Yellow can't have businesses?  Leo in his spiral series claims that people at 2nd tier can do, have, and feel all the things from lower tiers (perhaps just at healthier & more vivid ways.

Why would things be more subdued at stage Yellow?  Where did you get that info?

You might be making a mistake in thinking that simply because there's "nothing to do" (i.e., everything's perfect as is, etc.), that you don't actually do anything.

"Before enlightenment, do the laundry.  After enlightenment, do the laundry."

...I dunno, I guess i thought your perspective was kinda weak and not nuanced enough or accepting of all possibilities... like you're saying it's bad to be at those higher levels .... and I think that it's good to be at higher levels.... haha  ... I got triggered a bit   

I still think that there's tons more freedom, love, and general well-being to be had at higher stages since A) you know a shit ton more, thus, can do a shit ton more (and successfully), B) you'll be super clear about what's most meaningful to you so, I could imagine one's ability to align with that and actually create w/e is most meaningful would be way more plausible and "pure" (not sure I like that word, but meaning not all neurotic n stuff)..... 

but hey, you could be right.  

P.S.  did you read any of the spiral dynamics books (or Ken Wilber's books)?  If so, would you recommend any?  

[Eph75]

That's tier 1 talking ? there is always more, and it tend to become more and more, and more and more interesting. Even just "nothing" is enormous. 

What if the ability for understanding complexity in tier 2 makes living even more easy than what can be imagined from a tier 1 point-of-view? 

And what if you can make the movie yourself? The unseen third option. 

You can fill your life with complexity but that isn't the same as living a complex life. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Eph75

[Apparition of Jack]

@EternalForest  I think you've made a common mistake (one that I have made myself) of assuming that once you recongise non-duality, all you're left to do is just sit there in enlightenment and not worry about anything at all going on around you. In some sense this is true, if you so choose you could just sit on your ass staring at trees all day, but in another thats just a shallow way of looking at it. Because remember, non-duality is so non-dual that it even allows for duality within it. Look at Leo. He's enlightened and yet he runs a forum, has a girlfriend, talks about philosophy and politics, does the shopping, posts memes, and all that regular stuff.

Another thing to note is that while Tier 1, as you say, is guided by some sort of "innocent bliss", it's an innocence thats dependent very strongly on how the world is around you, and how the world moves will push and shove you about whether you want it to or not. Sure if you're young and healthy with no major responsibilities life might seem fun and breezy, but if you get older and sick, or if you end up in bad relationship after bad relatioship, or you suddenly find yourself looking after sick family members, or you get into financial trouble, or if you find yourself in a warzone, or if a political party that makes life harder for you gets into power, etc. etc. then being at Tier 1 will make it just that much harder to navigate these trials. Being at Tier 2 lets you be pro-active in creating your reality, rather than reactive, which is a great place to be.

To me, the whole point of Tier 2 is that it gives you the tools to create the life you choose, not the life you've been told to want or the life you can't seem to get. If at Tier 2 you still want to have a family and go to soccer matches and watch movies, you can choose to do all these things, but if you don't want to do these things either, then you can also choose not to. You're not being compelled to do these things by your conditioning, or your society, or your hormones, or anything else like that. You're coming from a place of wisdom and control rather than ignorance and compulsion, which is an incredibly powerful framework to operate form.

 

[Leo Gura]

You have not even lived until you reach Turquoise.

[Jonac]

@EternalForest i see your point, but personally I just wanna transcend tier 1. Some ppl might have enough of 'doing' and just want that inner peace that comes from being. If you still want action and prefer doing, maybe you haven't yet pass and embody tier 1 fully, you just have a conceptual uderstandid of what it is. 

[LfcCharlie4]

@EternalForest You can still live life at tier 2, post awakening or whatever you want to call it. 

You can still go to concerts, sports games etc, in fact they're even better without any resistance to the now  

Plus, wait until you feel and understand the peace and happiness of genuine awakening, then you'll understand. 

Then, in terms of what's left? Go live your fucking life however you want, and do what you love. And, living from this understanding is the greatest gift of all.

[Apparition of Jack]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You have not even lived until you reach Turquoise.

Go go Turquoise Man!

 

[Yog]

I like what old bald grandpa Wilber said about t2:

-Hurts more, bothers you less.


Having that in mind, from what I have observed:

-t2 has a more of detached form of passion. It is branching, free flowing and expanding. It can reach to so many different depots of different juices.
I Imagine it like roots, freely going trough the soil and branching where needed.

-t1 has a more attachment based form of passion, one that is more narrow, constrained and one-directional. It usually reaches to one depot of juice. I Imagine it like roots going trough a narrow pipe.

t1s drive and passion can feel so big just because their world is small and their consciousness is dense.

Btw there actually was... a certain dryness when I hit yellow.... As if the spell was lifted and the magic was gone. It felt like I knew what is going on and for what reasons. But that got fixed quite quickly, especially after some good amounts of micro-grams.

[VeganAwake]

"Comparison is the death of joy"

- Mark Twain

 

[The Awakened Viking]

Sure if you are just comfortable and have never really suffered in life I guess you can enjoy an "ignorance is bliss" state of the lower stages.

But many advance up the stages because of deep suffering, they are seekers and "have no choice", with such an intense suffering that nothing external is enough to keep them distracted. Then the methods that actually heal are revealed and you start to see the limitations of your current stage/paradigm and advance to the next stage. If the suffering is deep enough, your seeking will eventually end up in turquoise as only the Truth will suffice, all delusion is revealed as the lies they are as they can't touch the deepest suffering.

That people can live good healthy lives in lower stages is not something many disagree on, but haven't you seen these people still chase "the next thing" live relatively spoiled/privileged lives surrounded by lots of material comfort, or maybe a group of like-minded people that just confirm their comforting beliefs?

[Ero]

@EternalForest You have not even tasted life at Tier 1. You have no understanding of the stages you speak of, so all of the rationale is based on beliefs of what you think they are. The amount of life-purpose, vision, strength and will you have at Tier2 are nothing to be even compared. Your entire psyche and consciousness has opened towards infinity and oriented towards truth and manifesting your higher self (Selflessness). Even glimpses of those  facets can have your juices going for months at a time. You seriously have no idea what you are talking about. And that's perfectly okay. When you've been fed up with the superficiality of Tier 1, your consciousness will naturally seek what's more. Can't ride a rocket ship before discovering fire.

[student]

You are standing on truth. There is nothing but truth to see. Truth meaning what is actually there. You can live a life of ignorance, but it will be a life of ignorance, because, again, you are standing on truth. Truth is the foundation. Everything else emerges from it. To be ignorant means to direct your attention on a by-product of truth. Of course it is "fun", "adventurous", it is all a creation. It is a miracle. It doesn't end when you become directly conscious of truth. It continues.

You are asking from a place of ignorance. You can't know what you haven't experienced yet. You can only open yourself and immerse yourself in that which is unknown, and it comes very easily if you don't grab on a "way of being". Of course, this is a decision. You can make the decision to live a life full inauthenticity, full of things which are actually not yours but borrowed from your surroundings. Ideas that have no substance whatsoever borrowed from the "external" (no substance whatsoever) to create a self (with no substance whatsoever). Or you can gradually open yourself by refusing to be located in neither paradigms/tiers.

[Matt23]

@Apparition of Jack Does Turquoise man instantly move people into stage Turqoise?

... Imagine if human culture was so familiar with Spiral Dynamics that, for Halloween, kids would dress up as their favorite Spiral Dynamics super heroes.  That, from an early age, an aspiration for all people was to become fully integrated at stage Turquoise.  Including dreams of success, life purpose, etc., kids' dreams included going up the spiral ladder.  

I wonder if there's a form of healthy competition in "out-spiralling" your friends. -->  "I just meditated for 4 hours staight", or, "I just reached being able to take on the 4th person-perspective"...  

[Forestluv]

@EternalForest That's like saying there isn't much to do outside of a cave and it's best just to live inside the cave.

Yet on the other hand, I do think you make a good point that there is a price to pay for self-transcendence. Immersion into a self construct can have personal highs and lows - since the the identification as the character is so strong. Yet I think you are over-playing this price. I wouldn't use the metaphor of a movie character. Another way of looking at it is someone believing they were a dog. And then saying "transcending a dog identity isn't worth it because I won't get to smell dog butts and pee on fire hydrants anymore". Yea, there is a price to pay, yet I would say it's a small price relative to the reward. 

[Annoynymous]

@EternalForest i was reading your post and as i was reading,  i was getting confused. I mean, what is the truth here, really? Is it true what i have read or the truth is something else? Then i suddenly realized that truth can not be derived by logic. It is something that you become aware of, not by reasoning through it.

Here's where i have arrived : your statement here is false. You don't know what you don't know.  So you are just coming where you stand right now. And by your statement, what i assumed that you don't stand in a high place of awareness, that is why you reasoned like this.

But that's ok. Everyone has to start from where he/she is at so... I can just wish the best for you

 

[EternalForest]

@Serotoninluv Sure, but I think if God wishes to experience itself through the self, then the self is something to be cherished. I guess over time I've stopped becoming so attached to this constant need to transcend-transcend-transcend all the time, and instead, fully relish in the state I'm in now. Because once you've transcended, you've transcended. You'll never really be who you are at this moment again. And I think that's what the beauty of Tier 1 is. Your identity is created out of what you do not know. But once you do know your true identity, you'll realize that all past identities were nothing but an illusion. Enjoy the illusion, while it lasts...

[Eph75]

@EternalForest Do you see that you argue that the stage you are in is the best stage - which coincidentally is a trait of the teir 1 stages. 

You don't have to transcend-transcend-transcend. It sounds like the words of the achiever, the orange stage, with a need to succeed. Well, you don't need to anything.

You don't transcend stages, each stage is building on the previous stage. So you won't end up waking up one morning feeling like "you" have been lost. You're not losing anything, you're gaining something new. Of course you're losing limitations in making sense of things, but you won't miss "not being able to make sense" or "making less sense" any more than you probably don't miss wearing and pooping in diapers. 

Your reasoning sounds like it is coming out of fear of what's not known and it manifesting as a defence mechanism that is working hard at convincing yourself that the best thing would be just to stay where you are at.

The beaut is that you don't have to convince anyone, just do what you feel is right at this very moment. There's no twisting of arms. But you're probably allured by what's on that other side, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

The problem is that you can't convince someone for whom doing his business in the toilet makes sense to agree to it making more sense to regress to "pooping in diapers". The example is ridicules, but it is really the same mechanism at work.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Eph75

[Nahm]

@EternalForest Sometimes we innocently pick up a bogus belief at a foundational level, and it webs up through and ‘rears it’s head’ in ways seemingly unrelated. 

[EternalForest]

I never said there was a best stage, I just said Tier 1 is underrated. What stage do you think I'm in? @Eph75

If you think I'm in fear, you're mistaken. I'm just becoming aware that moving up to further stages is inevitable and so it's best to see the best in the lower stages, and recognize that your perspective in them is temporary. Like Leo's video about impermanence, all of this will be gone someday. The more you internalize that truth, the more you appreciate Tier 1, I believe.

I'm allured by Tier 2 yes, but I'm not afraid of it. Very important distinction. A defense mechanism would be to straight up attack it and call it inferior, which I'm not. In concept, it's the logical end point to the entire system, and as you said, a building process.