"Plateaus of Higher Consciousness"

by Stuart Wilde

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.

Copyright © 2005 Stuart Wilde
More information about Stuart Wilde Click Here