Level 4 Triangles
As Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote in their musical Okla homa,“Everything’s up to date in Kansas City. They’ve gone about as far as they can go.” While our life on this small planet and our relationship to God remain part of a Divine Mystery, we believe that reaching Level 4 being and functioning is about as far as we can go. Even so, only a few of us have experienced it.
We can begin to describe Level 4 as the ultimate peace and joy that we experience when we embody the essence of the Trilogy of God. The Trilogy includes God, God’s unconditional loving energy for us (the Holy Spirit), and God’s child, the Christ.38 If the modern holy book A Course in Miracles is right that we humans have forgotten that each of us is also a Christ, then it is possible that at some time in our evolution, we also can experience Level 4 being. For most of us that peace and joy comes in brief glimpses. Contemplatives search for it. Many people use alcohol or drugs in search of it. Others use the Hollywood notion of “romance” to look for it. Many pray for it. By contrast, some say that it is our natural state, when we remove our ego and fear from its frequent distractions.
People in recovery from addictions have called part of it serenity, Eastern religions have called it samadhi or sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss), A Course in Miracles calls it Atonement (pronounced At-one-ment), Richard Bucke called part of it cosmic consciousness, and others call it Christ Consciousness.
This is an interview that one of us (BW) did in 2003 with Greg, then age sixteen. While at a church-sponsored work camp with his friends (they had just finished a new roof for an Appalachian house that was much in need of repair), Greg’s close friend Kyle became acutely ill. He was helped to the nurse’s office, disoriented and confused, by the nurse and one of the chaperoning fathers.
BW: Tell me what happened in your own words.
G: When I got in there, Kyle was lying down. The nurse’s room was really small. We were all crowded in there, the nurse, Michelle’s dad, and Kyle lying down on a cot. He was in his work clothes, with a bandana on his head that was mine, covered with a sleeping bag and still shaking really bad. I got in there and took one of his hands; the other was under the covers. Eventually I was holding both his hands. I didn’t know anything about his condition, but they wanted him to drink some kind of Gatorade and he wouldn’t.
I sort of knew he was in shock. He didn’t really know what was going on. I tried to tell him not to worry and tried to give him some drink, but he gagged.
I got him to look right in my eyes. I said to him, “Breathe with me, Kyle.” Then he started breathing normally. I didn’t really know what happened or how this happened. I could tell that everything was coming back to him. I could tell he knew now what was going on.
BW: Later in the day, Kyle said that Christ was in you, and you had helped him to heal. How do you feel about that?
G: Well, I . . . I didn’t feel like . . . I didn’t feel like Christ. It felt good that I could help. I wasn’t looking for recognition or for praise for what happened. It wasn’t like that. I’m just glad I was able to help Kyle.
BW: Yes. I understand, and I hear humility.
G: Yeah. I definitely felt humbled. I felt something moving through me, like light or something. I cried the whole time. It felt like something was going through me to get to Kyle. It was incredible. I told him afterward that only three people will ever know what happened in that room—him, me and the Lord.
BW: But it sounds like the other kids felt it because there was a lot of crying going on when you told everyone else the story. Your friend, Frankie, said something like sixty-five kids were raised up by it. So could we say this was “contagious”?
G: Yeah. There was a brother and sister there who were fighting a lot, and all of a sudden they were seeing eye to eye. Everyone was getting along.
BW: I’ve done hands on healings and then written on how Spirit uses us as instruments. I found over the years that it never makes us arrogant, but it makes us humble. We have a direct relationship; it’s a direct knowing instead of just believing that this is possible. We know it is possible because we can feel it coming through us. Can you comment on that?
G: Yeah. I definitely felt it, and then after it was like a breath of fresh air, kind of . . . a release. And I knew it, but I knew I didn’t do it.
BW: Could we say, “We’re conduits”? We’re like empty tubes and it’s coming through us?
G: Exactly!
BW: But we have to be willing. It only happens if we are willing. Do you think that somewhere in you there was that “click” of being willing—there was that moment?
G: Yeah! I have this thing with our Father. Every night when I go to bed I tell God about my day, and I thank him for it all. I am so grateful for every day.
BW: Have you always had this relationship with God?
G: No. It’s been about two years.
BW: What do you think it is that happened two years ago?
G: I think I reached just a complete understanding and full appreciation for the Lord and everything he has provided me and that he provides me every day. An example of this would be my family. They are a miracle.
BW: Tell me about your family—that two years ago you realized they were a miracle.
G: Well, I always knew how important they were to me, but it’s like once you begin having this powerful relationship with God, everything in your life takes on a new value. I always loved them, but I’m also so grateful.
BW: What do your parents do to help you? Is there anything special that they do?
G: They’re hopeful and caring. They show a lot of love for each other and me. I see a really healthy relationship between them. I think it’s a lot of things. I know for a fact that when I get married, I would want my relationship to be similar to theirs.
BW: Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about your spiritual life? Who you are spiritually?
G: I am truly grateful for everything in my life, for God; I trace everything back to him. He is the source of all the great things in my life. I pray every night, which I feel is a big part of why I have such a strong relationship with God. By praying every night or just whenever I want to—God seems closer to me and my heart and Heaven just doesn’t seem like a destination above, but rather a place in my own heart. I personally thank God for everything in my life and for everything I have when I wake up every morning and when I go to bed every night.
BW: What do you think you’re going to do in the future? Are you going to use this in any way?
G: Yeah. I probably want to be a teacher or a school counselor or a sports trainer. I’d love to be a part of a career that helps others. I understand how religion in public schools isn’t generally accepted, but I would use everything I have learned, and I guess you could say this “gift” that I have, by applying it to everyday life.
I feel everyone possess this “gift” within them. The definition of the gift is simply just making others happy with something as simple as a smile. God’s love isn’t something hard to find. It’s within everyone.
BW: If you could say anything else . . .
G: God is always with us. People tend to feel alone at times, but if they just opened the eyes of their hearts they would realize that he is always there. People can find God in themselves and in others. . . . If people stop focusing on the negative aspects of others and themselves, God’s love becomes present—making for a happier view of ourselves and of the world we live in.
Greg’s experience gives us an example of Level 4 being and functioning. Grounded in this reality, it illustrates many of the characteristics of humility (as described in Chapter 2). Never owning this spontaneous healing as coming from himself, he attributes this remarkable moment to his and others’ relationship with God. He continues this way of being in the way he sees God in others, especially in his parents’ relationship with each other and their children. He goes on to look forward to a life where he will serve others. He uses prayer not to ask for things but to continue his ongoing relationship with a personal God that he knows in his heart.
There is a dilemma when we try to talk about human relationships at Level 4. We are standing on new ground—or trying to climb to higher ground. Our map of the mind includes the Sacred Person: True Self, Higher Self and Higher Power as One. When we are totally alive and no longer need to spend any energy from our false self—our Sacred Person is the fourth level.
Our highest functioning friends tell us that when they ask for help as this threesome, almost immediately help comes in ways they could not have predicted. This help is softer and more loving than they could have imagined and comes with integrity and tenderness—there are no painful confrontations except an occasional loving confrontation where they are flooded with knowledge about themselves, the other person or the relationship. In such instances it appears they are in a meditative state or a life review.39 And now, in this reality they feel what the other is feeling. They see the bigger picture. The reality of the other side is this reality, too. And they trust God’s Divine Energy (Holy Spirit) to work in others as it is working in them. Table 9.1 shows us how Level 3 compares with the expanded spiritual awareness of Level 4.
Table 9.1 Characteristics of Level 3 and Level 4 Triangles
Areas of Attention |
Level 3 Co-Creative, Higher Self |
Level 4 Higher Power, Home, Unity Consciousness |
Stance or Story |
Mythic |
Divine Play |
Parenting |
Accepting/allowing |
Full Collaboration; Divinely creative |
Roles/Polarities/Energies |
Creativity/love; expansion/energy; movement |
Creator/God/Goddess/All-That-Is/Christ Consciousness/Holy Spirit; “Om” vibration; Ruach Ha Kodesh |
Primary Characteristics |
Vision; compassion; creativity and expansion |
Unity Consciousness; fully authentic and aware; harmony and vibratory bliss |
Chakra |
“Third Eye”—fifth and sixth |
Crown—seventh |
Triangle Maintenance |
Relating to energy—not form |
Merged with the Beloved (archetype) |
Triangle Initiation/Embracing the Shadow |
Humility and aloneness; stepping out of the game |
All-one-ness |
Transformation of Suffering |
“Letting go”; compassion; divine intelligence |
Unconditional love; pulled by your vision |
Power, Act, How You Meet It |
Internalized Divine Authority |
Vehicle of the Mystery |
Energy That Drives It |
Grace; stillness |
Love in action; service; compassion |
Spiritual Practices |
Continued and deeper meditation; prayer; selfless service |
Living life as the Presence of God |
Hindrances |
Ego; fear of losing self |
Pressure of the collective unconscious |
Humility |
Builds; expressed |
“Is” (fully expressed) |
My life review during my near-death experience taught me what I now believe to be a Level 4 understanding. Others in my life were one in concert with me and God. Here I had no ego or fear—nothing to stop me from taking in what I needed to know. Humility was not an issue, because it seemed natural to me then.
God’s love was holding me. It felt incredible. There are no words in the English language, or maybe in this reality, to explain the kind of love God emanates. God was completely accepting of everything we, God and I, reviewed in my life. . . .
In every scene of the review I could feel again what I had felt at various times in my life. And I could feel everything everyone else felt as a consequence of my actions. Some of it felt good, and some of it felt awful. All of this translated into knowledge, and I learned—Oh, how I learned!
The information was flowing at an incredible speed that probably would have burned me up if it weren’t for the extraordinary Energy holding me. The information came in, and then love neutralized my judgments against myself. In other words, information about every scene—my perceptions and feelings—and anyone else’s perceptions and feelings that were in the scene came to me. No matter how I judged myself in each interaction, being held by God was the bigger interaction. God interjected love into everything, every feeling, every bit of information about absolutely everything that went on, so that everything was all right. There was no good and no bad. There was only me and my loved ones from this life trying to be or just trying to survive.
I realize now that without God holding me, I wouldn’t have had the strength to experience what I did.
When it started, God and I were merging. We became one—so that I could see through God’s eyes and feel through God’s heart. Together, we witnessed how severely I had treated myself because that was the behavior shown and taught to me as a child. I realized that the only big mistake I had made in my life of thirty-two years was that I never learned to love myself. . . .
I also realized that I didn’t end at my skin. We are all in this big churning mass of consciousness. We all seemed to be a part of this consciousness we call God. We’re not just human. We are Spirit. We were Spirit before we came into this lifetime. We all seem to be struggling Spirits now, trying to get “being human” right. And when we leave here, we will be pure Spirit again.
God held me and let me into God’s experience of all this. I felt God’s memories of these scenes through God’s eyes. I could sense God’s divine intelligence, and it was astonishing. I know that God loves us and wants us to learn and to wake up to our True Self—to what is important. I realized that God wants us to know that we only experience real pain if we die without living first. And the way to live is to give love to ourselves and to others.
I experienced that we are here to learn to give and receive love. But only when we heal enough to be real can we understand and give and receive love the way love was meant to be.
When we are held by God in our life reviews and we merge into One, we remember this feeling as being limitless. God is limitless. God’s capacity to love is never-ending. God’s love for us never changes, no matter how we are. God doesn’t judge us. During our life review, we judge ourselves when we feel the pain we have created in other’s lives. We also feel the love we have created in other’s lives. (This may be a kind of “cosmic equalizer.”)
I never saw an old man with a white beard sitting in judgment of me. I only felt limitless divine love. God interjected love into all the scenes of my life to show me God’s reality. And the most amazing part of all is that God held nothing back. I understood all that God understood. God shared all of Godself with me—all the qualities of gentleness and openness and all the gifts . . . including the sudden experience of empowerment and peace. I never knew that much loving intelligence and freedom could exist. God held me in eternity.
I am back here, in time, but still with God. It is just a little harder for me to realize God’s presence because my body and my mind get in the way. But that’s all right. I still feel it as I continue to awaken to what is real—not the physical world that only teaches us to achieve and consume, but the real world where our spirits grow and learn about healing and love.
And now back in this lifetime, in this reality, what I learn about another person may not be what I had wanted that person to be. However, unconditional love remains firm. Real love begins only when one person comes to know another for who that person actually is as a human being. We get closer to the whole picture, the truth of who another is and who we are.
This reality now is interchangeable with my original life review. I am aware of God’s presence, and I am aware that I have a choice of choosing pain or choosing love, choosing projection or expanding and becoming my potential. Each one of us is a unique reflection of God. I sensed that for us not to develop to our potential is to deny God another facet of God’s being.40
Time and space are still different from the way they were before my near-death experience (see sidebar, “Time and Timelessness”). Daily, each relationship has the quality of my life review. I pray to create my life with God’s energy of unconditional love. Each human relationship that I share with my Creator becomes the challenge of sustaining the higher levels or at least asking for the help to stay out of (or get out of) Level 1. And I am helped to hold some light so it can outshine the darkness.
I am learning to let go every moment and accept all of my experience—courage and fear, celebration and pain, expansiveness and limitation. Staying in touch and tender at the same time, this strength is coming from my core, or Child Within, in relationship to my Higher Self and Higher Power. Occasionally, for a moment, all three become One. Every one of us who struggles to learn unconditional love is giving birth to our Sacred Person. The faint inner voice that at one time we could barely hear, we now have more opportunities to embrace, bonding in unconditional love.
And so it is at this Level 4 of human consciousness. We pass through this reality into the reality of God’s bigger consciousness. We have moved from our limited experience and come face to face with the Universe. At this level it is not simply that God chooses us, but that we also choose God. We open to God every moment and with every breath. Then we choose to invite unconditional love, God’s loving energy in action, into our lives. We live our own potential. And it hits us one day, possibly the day we notice that it is the same on both sides of reality: We are all inside God, and God is loving us through us.
I experience this as though I am holding one hand up to God in God’s world and my other hand extended out to the people I love and the people I assist in their healing work. Other clinicians report similar observations during some sessions with their patients. Hospice workers and others who help people die report the same type of Level 4 experiences. One way to demonstrate this is while doing a hands-on healing (see sidebar, “Sharing the Energy of the Higher Levels” on page 139).
We now realize that we are continuously creating our own reality instead of walking into one created for us by others or by default. We accept that we are a Sacred Person. Our True Self, joined to our Higher Self, is connected to our Higher Power so that instead of Co-creating as in Level 3, we are now at Level 4 Creating as our Sacred Person/God—with humility.
It is here that our joy lies. When we invite Spirit, Higher Self, into our conscious physical being, it brings with it what we have craved throughout our lives. We who at our core are Spirit need our root spiritual feelings—peace and joy. We naturally are Spirit—and these feelings of peace and joy are our natural spiritual feeling state when we open to and join with God to create our lives.
We are now creating our destinies. We remember our powers of manifestation and create our version of heaven on earth. No longer do we ask in prayer for what we want. We now proclaim gratitude for all we have, because instead of craving things, we witness the abundance already surrounding us. As we accomplish this, we automatically empower those around us, and everyone wins.
Our lives are a celebration because:
God has a dream
And the dream comes true—
Each time one of us
Awakens.
—Barbara Whitfield
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The Greek word for meek has been variously translated to include gentle, humble, considerate, patient, and courteous. Spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle said, “The meek are the egoless. They are those that have awakened to their true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all ‘others,’ all life-forms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source. They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth. A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now and you are it!”42
We take our conflicts and turn them into harmony. What seemed to be the curse becomes the gift. We make lemonade out of lemons. We transcend right and wrong, yin and yang, and unite our opposites. We heal the split and embrace something new, something born from balance. When all of us live life, sharing unconditional love, we may become the synergy of God. This is part of what the Mystery of God may include. It is not an easy task, but ultimately it is the one we may have been given. God’s will is our highest human potential, shared.43
We summarized the characteristics of Level 4 and contrast them with the characteristics of Level 3 in Table 9.1. Please see Appendix E for expanded characteristics of the four levels.