The Dogma of Consciousness

[Tim R]

"Not very conscious"

"He's lacking consciousness"

"Is this a conscious thing to do?"

"High consciousness"

"Low consciousness"

 

Sounds familiar?

 

More consciousness, more, more, more! It's so funny. "Consciousness" has become the holy word, the teaching, the dogma. The ultimate goal. The standard by which all can be judged. 

Always seeking for more. "Deeper insights", "more insights", "more consciousness", "higher levels of consciousness" than everybody else.

 

Such a silly game.

Keep playing it, it will lead precisely nowhere

[mandyjw]

Consciousness got you, you no got it. 

[commie]

Yes, it's hilarious. But I don't think it's fair to call it a dogma. When boys claim the their dick is larger, is that a dogma too? There's of course an ideology underlying the form one-upmanship takes in a particular (sub)culture but that's not quite the same thing.

[ivankiss]

There is truth in what you're saying, but it's not the entire Truth.

There is more

[lmfao]

You made the post for sharing what you've noticed with others. Putting that aside, the first place to go to is your relationship to the statements and dogmas. Because its about whether you get "sucked in" and buy into it. 

I think if you wanted to avoid the dogmatic thinking on this forum, I'd say avoid excessive Spiral Dynamics discussion as well as the politics section. 

[Megan Alecia]

@lmfao what's wrong with s dynamics? 

[Preety_India]

It would be incredibly difficult to not use a word that describes a person's spiritual growth in life. 

There is always be a system or a model or a word for the sake of distinction and description. 

If someone that to you and it in some way made you feel awkward, just politely decline any judgement thrown at you, simply tell them you are a work in progress and such terms don't suit you. 

Yes I can completely understand your perspective Tim. 

Yet if your friend is involved in low conscious behaviors like stealing or addiction, you might want to reveal to them a distinction between high consciousness behaviors and low consciousness behaviors and help them out to pursue a higher goal in life 

At the same time, a lot of people use such terms in one upping each other, a merit badge of sorts to measure people on a scale of consciousness and it can easily turn into a superiority - inferiority game of "I'm better than you" and that definitely does not come from a helpful origin. 

My suggestion would be to try to get to know the intention of the person since consciousness is such an ambiguous term, it would be quite difficult to gauge a person's intention from that word alone, so you would need to look at the overall context of their post or conversation. Look for clues. If they're not helping you with real practical advice and simply trying to pigeonhole you with "low consciousness" labels, then let them know that and ignore their subtle games. 

On the other hand, do not miss out on great advice that someone might have to offer,simply because they used the phrase low consciousness, maybe they're trying to direct you to a better path in life by choosing to tell you that the current state of your world is coming from low consciousness. 

So it definitely benefits to focus on overall context in which such phrases are used. 

 

[Thought Art]

Hmm, how is the antithesis of a thing the same thing as the thing? Thats the devil.

[lmfao]

@Megan Alecia I’m not saying “SD is wrong”. A word or idea is meaningless alone, it’s about how it’s animated in a person. Me personally I like SD, but that's not the point. Even if I hated SD that wouldn't change the "validity" of what I'm saying. 

People seem to spam SD instead of any actual insight or understanding of things. There’s an image/impression that is repeatedly clung to.  Whatever the topic, it’s the first place their brain jumps to for making a link. Why do you need these colours to understand or see things? 

Lots of people say in defence “yeah it’s just a model and map isn’t territory”, but many say those words without it being reflected in how they perceive or be. 

Perhaps in the bigger picture, SD is the arbitrary/dummy/placeholder symbol that allows people in this particular place to justify meaningless chatter and misperception. You could perhaps say the problem isn't rooted in SD since it's just 1 of many symbols and outward forms that the same delusions and misperceptions can take. 

Edited February 2, 2021 by lmfao

[commie]

12 minutes ago, lmfao said:

There’s an image/impression that is repeatedly clung to.

Using colors as labels is probably the surest way to trigger such behaviour (see: racism, pills and so forth).

Edited February 2, 2021 by commie

[lmfao]

8 minutes ago, commie said:

Using colors as labels is probably the surest way to trigger such behaviour (see: racism, pills and so forth).

hahaha might be 

[Leo Gura]

@Tim R Clearly you ain't too conscious.

[Willie]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

@Tim R Clearly you ain't too conscious.

There’s a thought. What would becoming excessively conscious be like? Dying?

[Tim R]

5 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Yet if your friend is involved in low conscious behaviors like stealing or addiction, you might want to reveal to them a distinction between high consciousness behaviors and low consciousness behaviors and help them out to pursue a higher goal in life 

5 hours ago, Preety_India said:

On the other hand, do not miss out on great advice that someone might have to offer,simply because they used the phrase low consciousness, maybe they're trying to direct you to a better path in life by choosing to tell you that the current state of your world is coming from low consciousness. 

@Preety_India Yes, all of that is true.

I'm not taking some "anti-consciousness" perspective and I'm not saying that the pursuit of higher consciousness is bad, my post was intended to be exaggerated in order to get a point across. 

And that point is don't get sucked into consciousness as an ideology.

Because that's what I see is happening for some people. Hence the quotes at the beginning. Some people seem to have such an aversion against what they call "low consciousness" and are so eager to reach "higher and higher" stages that they have completely missed the point of spiritual work. 

"Low" consciousness must be loved and accepted, too. "Low consciousness" behavior mustn't be condemned. 

That doesn't mean that I promote or accept let's say criminal, egotistical behavior. I think that should be fairly obvious. 

 

This whole game around "becoming more conscious" is nothing but (more or less) advanced one-upmanship.

Mostly you're trying to one-up yourself, and sometimes even others (take the quarrel between Leo and Frank Y. as an example). 

SD comes in very handy for doing that, but that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with the model, there isn't. 

 

And really in the end, if you think you're gonna get somewhere by becoming more conscious, you haven't understood the first thing about enlightenment.

[Brandon Nankivell]

I am yet to find a higher ideal than raising consciousness.

I don't see anything wrong with using the words "I am raising consciousness" or "his consciousness is low". Nor do I see anything wrong with seeking to raise consciousness. Every major spiritual teacher like Jesus said something along the lines of 'Seek and ye shall find.' And as Osho would say, the boat is required to cross the river until it's not. Or a certain level of discipline is required, until it's not.

I get the impression that what you're concerned about is the place that some people are coming from when they say these things. It is indeed not uncommon to see someone going on about raising their consciousness but acting in a way that is holding them back.

My self included sometimes.

[Tim R]

40 minutes ago, Brandon Nankivell said:

I don't see anything wrong with using the words "I am raising consciousness" or "his consciousness is low". Nor do I see anything wrong with seeking to raise consciousness.

As I said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with raising consciousness. That's not the point of my post.

41 minutes ago, Brandon Nankivell said:

I get the impression that what you're concerned about is the place that some people are coming from when they say these things. It is indeed not uncommon to see someone going on about raising their consciousness but acting in a way that is holding them back.

Yes, that's more in the direction of my thought. The attempt of raising consciousness in order to - what? Become enlightened? - that attempt itself can become dogmatic and ideological to the point where it becomes an impediment on the way of liberation. Liberation includes letting go of the need of raising consciousness.

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, Tim R said:

Liberation includes letting go of the need of raising consciousness.

This is so wrong. But I'm not going to argue. 

It's a waste of time if you have fundamentally screwed up the whole idea of enlightenment. 

 

[Tim R]

@Preety_India How can you be liberated if you feel the need to do something? 

[Preety_India]

@Tim R I don't have enough time. Because it will need pages and pages of explanation.. 

It's suffice to say that you've completely misunderstood the whole thing about enlightenment and consciousness. 

Keep reading a ton of threads in the meditation subforum. 

Also read what Leo writes on such threads. What he writes is absolutely crucial in understanding consciousness. 

 

[Tim R]

@Preety_India I've spent many years in trying to understand enlightenment, and the first and last rule is: your desire to become enlightened is the impediment to enlightenment.

Of course in the beginning you really have to want it and to work extremely hard to reach it, but after a certain point, you will realize that you are in a trap which no amount of work will ever resolve. 

Therefore the last step to become enlightened is the step of letting go the desire of becoming enlightened - and that step simply cannot be taken, by no method, no teaching, no understanding, no 5-MeO, nothing will lead you there. It won't happen by anything you could ever set out to do. 

21 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

It's suffice to say that you've completely misunderstood the whole thing about enlightenment and consciousness. 

That's way too simplistic and dismisses my whole perspective. Not very sophisticated of you.

28 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

Also read what Leo writes on such threads. What he writes is absolutely crucial in understanding consciousness. 

You follow Leo blindly.