How To Know God Part 7

Sin can be defined as a wrong that leaves an impression. Wrong deeds that you forget have no consequence, along with those that were inadvertent-leaving a pot boiling unattended that catches fire is accidental, not sinful. In the East any act that leaves an impression is called karma; this is a much broader definition than sin and it includes no moral blame. People often speak of bad karma, concentrating on the aspect of wrong; but in its purest form, karma can be right or wrong and still leave an imprint.

The importance of this distinction becomes clear in stage four, because as right and wrong become less severe, the desire arises to be free of both.

It would make little sense to have this aim before stage four. A tremendous amount of effort is expended in earlier stages trying to be good. G.o.d punishes those who aren't, and what he doesn't accomplish, a guilty conscience will. But the G.o.d of stage four, intent on redemption, sees sinners and saints in the same light, and all actions as equal. This valuation is scandalous. Society exists to draw the line between right and wrong, not to erase it. When Jesus a.s.sociated with lepers and outcasts, when he neglected religious observances and pared the hundreds of Jewish laws down to two (put no other G.o.ds before G.o.d and love your neighbor as yourself), the good people around him a.s.sumed he was either crazy or criminal.

In actuality, he was extremely responsible. In one phrase-"As you sow, so shall you reap"-Jesus stated the law of karma quite succinctly. He had no intention of getting away with wrongdoing but instead pointed to a higher spiritual rule: your actions today define your future tomorrow. Regardless of whether an act is deemed good or bad, this higher rule can't be sidestepped. Those who think it can have not looked deep enough. By stage four there is enough insight to realize that all past actions have a way of coming home to roost. This dynamic turns out to be more important than identifying sin.

What, then, would forgiveness of sin amount to? How do you redeem your soul? Finding the answer is the life challenge of this stage. A redeemed soul sees itself as new and unblemished. To reach this state of innocence would be impossible according to the law of karma, for the cycle of sowing and reaping never ends. (Unlike sin, karma grips us even in the case of accidents and inadvertent mistakes-regardless of circ.u.mstances, an action is an action and has consequences.) The problem is further complicated by the fact that each person performs millions of actions in a lifetime, and these overlap on all levels.

Emotions and intentions are both tied in. Is a man virtuous who gives money to the poor out of a selfish desire to save his soul? Is it right to marry a woman who is carrying your baby even if you don't love her? The parsing of good from bad becomes extremely complicated, and the doctrine of karma makes the calculation harder rather than easier, because the mind can always find some tiny detail that was overlooked previously.

It can take a lifetime to solve this riddle, but in theory at least the answer is simple: you redeem your soul by turning to G.o.d. A redemptive G.o.d is the only being in the cosmos exempt from karma (or sin). Or to be more accurate, G.o.d transcends karma because he alone isn't in the cosmos. A person in stage four has no interest in praying for a miraculous delivery from all his past evils; what he wants is a way to get outside the cosmos as well. In other words, he wants the rule of "As you sow, so shall you reap" repealed.

How can that possibly happen? Clearly no one can repeal the law of cause and effect. In the East, using the terminology of karma, they say that evil acts pursue a soul across time and s.p.a.ce until the debt is paid. Even death cannot abolish a karmic debt; this only happens by becoming a victim of the same evil you committed or by working off bad imprints through good ones.

At the level of second attention, however, this cycle is irrelevant. One doesn't need to repeal the law of karma at all. Despite all the activity on the surface of life, a speck of awareness inside is not touched. The instant they wake up in the morning, a saint and a sinner are in the same place. They both feel themselves to be alive and aware. This place stands outside reward and punishment. It knows no duality; therefore in stage four your challenge is to find this place, hold on to it, and live there.

When you have accomplished this task, duality is gone. You are free from all bondage of good or bad actions. In Christian terms, your soul is redeemed and returned to innocence.

What is my greatest strength? ...

Insight.

What is my biggest hurdle? ...

Delusion.

I said earlier that in stage four all the moorings are cut loose. Now we know why. The inner quest is all about undoing attachments. These do not come free all at once, nor is every attachment equal. It is entirely normal to arrive at profound insights about yourself and still feel as ashamed or guilty as a little child over certain things. The soul is like a ragged army on the march. Some aspects push ahead; others lag behind.

The reason for this is again karmic: not all our past actions leave equal imprints. Some people are haunted for life by incidents from their past that are seemingly small. I know a man who has had to fire hundreds of employees, reorganize businesses that eventually went under, and in various ways decide the fate of many people. His decisions caused grief and complaints every time, no matter how well intentioned they were. He sleeps undisturbed by any of that, while in his heart of hearts he cannot forgive himself for not being at his mother's bedside when she died. The thought of having left so much unsaid makes him guilty every day. He knows at some level that his love for his mother is felt by her, but that doesn't heal the guilty wound.

Because of its intense subjectivity, stage four requires new tactics. No one outside yourself can offer absolution. To get past an obstacle requires your own insight; if you can't get past it, you keep fighting off delusion until you do. In this man's case, his delusion is that he is bad for not being with his mother (he had in fact no choice, since his trip home was delayed beyond his control); the insight is that his genuine love doesn't have to have an outward show. But beyond these particulars, there is only one insight and one delusion in stage four. The insight is that everything is all right; the delusion is that we have made unforgivable mistakes. The reason that everything is all right goes back to redemption; in the eyes of G.o.d, all souls are innocent. The same reason tells us that we are deluded to keep holding on to past mistakes. They cannot blemish our souls, and their residual effect, in terms of guilt, shame, and payback, will be washed away in good time.

What is my greatest temptation? ...

Deception.

This is meant both in terms of self-deception and deceiving others. Every stage of inner growth contains more freedom than the one before. Breaking free from sin is a great accomplishment in stage four, but the price of redemption is constant vigilance. It is hard to keep examining yourself all of the time. A voice inside often urges you to be easier on yourself, take things as they are, act the way everyone else does. To follow this advice would make existence much more pleasant. Socrates could have apologized for offending the morals of Athens; he could have preached the accepted wisdom instead of his own. But to fall into this easy way amounts to deception, because the inner march of wisdom cannot be stopped. (Plato put it eloquently: "Once lit, the flame of truth will never go out.") Unless you are willing to deceive yourself into believing otherwise, a person in stage four really is free of outside values.

How long this temptation lasts varies with each person. In myth one is redeemed instantly by a merciful G.o.d when in fact it is a long process with many turnings. "I think my soul is like one of those squirrels in the park," someone once remarked to me. "When you try to feed a squirrel, he won't take the peanut from your hand in one go. He darts toward you, then he loses his nerve and darts away. The slightest gesture scares him off, and only after a few feints will he get up the nerve to reach out for what he wants." The parallel is exact. At some level everyone wants to be rid of guilt. As Rumi says in one aphorism, "Outside all notions of right and wrong there is a field-will you meet me there?" However much you want to, it isn't possible to dash toward this place. Our old imprints are very strong; guilt and shame arise as a reminder that it takes more than an act of will to escape notions of right and wrong. The process has to continue without deception. You can't fool your sense of being imperfect or sinful-choose your terms-in the hope that the slate can be wiped clean once and for all. There is a lot of work to do in the form of meditation, self-reflection, taking responsibility. You have to act on the truth as it occurs to you. Every step forward must be tested, and the temptation to go backward persists until the very end. Whatever is involved in total self-acceptance has to be met. The triumph of stage four turns out to be a paradox in the end. At the very point when you see that you are all right, that you need never worry about good and evil again, the realization dawns that you never did wrong to begin with. Redemption returns the soul to a sense of innocence that never actually went away. Or to put it more simply, the whole process of being true to yourself brings as its reward a higher level of awareness. At this level, the issues of duality have been left behind, and when that happens, the subjective feeling is one of being redeemed.

STAGE FIVE:.

G.o.d THE CREATOR.

(Creative Response) There is a level of creativity that goes far beyond anything we have discussed so far. It dawns when intuition becomes so powerful it must break out into the environment. This "super-intuition" controls events and makes wishes come true, as though an artist is working not in paint and canvas but in the raw material of life. The following example from my own life began in mundane circ.u.mstances that grew more and more amazing: Some months ago I was in my office looking over a project that needed some cover art, but I knew no professional ill.u.s.trators. As soon as I had the thought "I wonder whom I can find?" the phone rang. It was my grown daughter, Mallika, calling from India, and when I mentioned my problem, she immediately suggested an Irish artist named Suzanne Malcolm (not her real name). Neither of us had any idea where she lived. I hung up and thought nothing more about it, until that afternoon when a publisher friend called from London. On the off chance, I asked if he knew Suzanne Malcolm, but he didn't. An hour later he found himself at a c.o.c.ktail party when the person next to him got a call on his cellular phone. He put it to his ear and said, "Suzanne?"

My publisher friend gave in to a sudden impulse. "Could that possibly be Suzanne Malcolm you're talking to?" he asked. Astonishingly, it was. My friend took down her telephone number and also asked her to call me. By this time-we are still on the same day-I had flown to Los Angeles for a scheduled lecture. I was early, however, so I pulled my rental car over to the curb; I had no idea exactly where I was. Checking my messages on the cell phone, I found one from Suzanne Malcolm. This was good news, and I dialed the number she had left me.

"h.e.l.lo?" a woman's voice answered.

"Suzanne," I said, introducing myself, "I was wondering whether you could fly over from Dublin. I think I have an art a.s.signment for you."

"Well, actually, I'm not in Ireland at the moment. I'm in Los Angeles."

"Really? Where are you staying?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "Oh yes, it's 3312 Dominic." I looked outside the car window and felt a shudder pa.s.s through me-I was parked directly in front of her house.

How unwittingly we fall into G.o.d's reach. This example clearly goes beyond intuition, because no one involved in the story had any. It amounts to more than synchronicity, since this wasn't just a chance encounter that turned out to be significant. What can we call it when a string of events begins with a faint intention, only to be orchestrated across two continents, several time zones, and the random lives of four people?

The answer is creativity. The mind field, being beyond time and s.p.a.ce, can manipulate them for its own use. Usually its workings are not exposed to view. We don't observe how the wheels of fate turn-until stage five, that is. Now the time has come when fate no longer has to be hidden from view.

This happens when a person gives up all notions of accident, coincidence, and random events, and instead claims responsibility for each and every incident, however trivial. Events no longer happen "out there" but are guided by one's own intentions. Stage five joins the individual to G.o.d in a partnership as co-creators. When you are ready to form this alliance, the G.o.d you meet has these qualities: Unlimited creative potential Control over s.p.a.ce and time Abundant Open Generous Willing to be known Inspired This is the most intimate G.o.d we have projected so far, because of a quality that is the key to stage five: openness. G.o.d the Creator is willing to share his power with his creation. His abundance and generosity follow from his openness. The Creator is much vaster than any previous G.o.d, and our minds have to grasp just what it means to have all of time and s.p.a.ce at our disposal.

When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, it immediately created a sense of shame in them. This first moment of self-consciousness caused them to hide from G.o.d, and to some extent we have been hiding ever since. In other words, the conviction of sin has deprived us of our own creativity, which could parallel if not equal G.o.d's. Getting back to the source has been a constant theme ever since the first stage. In stage five, at long last, there is no trace of original sin, no imperfection to atone for.

To return to my first example, the fact that I found my ill.u.s.trator doesn't mean that I arrived at stage five. The crucial question is over the role I played. If I see myself outside the process, then I am not a co-creator. Lazarus, after being raised from the dead, was incredibly astonished, but he didn't raise anyone himself, nor did he claim to be his own miracle worker. To be in alliance with G.o.d, you must uphold your side of the partnership, which involves some very specific beliefs: You have to see yourself at the center of the creative process.

You have to accept responsibility for all outcomes.

You have to recognize that all thoughts have consequences, even the most minor.

You have to identify with a larger self than the one living here and now in this limited physical body.

Many people on the spiritual path willingly accept one or more of these beliefs, but the deciding factor is whether you live them out. One prerequisite is years of meditation, contemplation, or prayer; another is doing a great deal of inner work to remove self-doubt and beliefs about one's imperfection. Above all, this is a stage of power, and that implies getting straight about whether you deserve to wield it. People in stage five are usually inward and private, but they all know that their intentions count. Things happen because they want them to, no matter whether the results feel good or bad and irrespective of whether or not they bring any obvious benefit. Behind their screen of privacy, these people are not necessarily grand, rich, or famous. They are overjoyed, however, by knowing that G.o.d is sharing his creative genius with them.

Brain research sheds little light on what mechanism is involved here. It is surmised that when people are in a creative state, the cerebral cortex first establishes restful awareness. Creativity exhibits the alpha rhythms of relaxation; subjectively the person feels open and receptive. Unlike other periods of relaxation, this state is on the lookout for something-a stroke of inspiration-and when it occurs a spike of activity is registered by the mind as a moment of "Eureka!" Famous artists and inventors all testify to this experience, and in their work it can have profound implications. A eureka isn't ordinary thinking. Truly creative people tend to introduce a question into their minds and then wait for the solution to arrive-hence the necessity of going into a relaxed mode.

What is the brain doing for those hours or days before the creative solution appears? We have no idea. While incubating a great theoretical breakthrough, Einstein's brain exhibits the same mundane activity as anyone else's.

Yet it is undeniable that the mind is doing something highly unusual, particularly if we extend creativity beyond what an Einstein or Michelangelo does. If creativity means carving your own destiny out of s.p.a.ce-time, it would be fruitless to look for evidence on the material level. We are speaking of quantum creativity here. For quite a while I have put aside our quantum model because I wanted to portray G.o.d from a more human, personal standpoint. As soon as we start approaching the miraculous, however, the quantum world has to return; there is no other viable way to explain such powers.

"There are no miracles," an Indian master once remarked, "unless you look at all of life as a miracle." He meant something quite specific here. The world seems to be a given, not the product of a miracle, whereas turning water into wine seems absolutely miraculous. The two fuse, however, at the quantum level. If I look outside my window I can see an old gnarled oak standing between myself and the ocean. Is that tree simply there, a given object in the landscape? Not at all. To a neutrino, which can pa.s.s through the entire earth in a few millionths of a second, solid objects are as vaporous as fog. My nervous system must create an oak tree from the fog of quantum data. Everything about that tree is malleable. To a proton, which takes billions of years to be born and then decay, the life of an old oak is less than a split second. To a mayfly, with its life span of one day, the oak tree is literally eternal. To a Druid priest, the tree would be sacred, the home of forest deities, and therefore a tremendous source of power. To a logger it is just a day's work.

Take any quality the tree might have, and it changes according to the perceiver. Now consider the environment of the tree. Every quality possessed by the air, the sea, the earth, and the sun are equally under my control. In a catatonic state, I would see nothing that I see now. In a state of religious inspiration, colors, smells, and sounds might be acutely sharp. This is more than a subjective shift. To perceive the world, my brain must convert virtual photons into sensory information.

Having covered this area already, I will just emphasize the most important point: there is no tree "out there." No sights, sounds, textures, tastes, or smells exist without a brain to create them. We are so accustomed to accepting the world as a given that we overlook our creative role in it, but one can imagine a sightless world-it is the one that blind cave fish inhabit. Since their environment contains no photons of visible light, eyes aren't needed. This isn't a loss to them; it is just a choice not taken. Likewise, when one person is able to create outcomes in his life while another person merely experiences random events, the difference is a choice not taken.

So many of us limit our choices that we look upon higher creativity as miraculous, but it isn't. In your mind's eye, see a scene from your childhood. Most people can do this easily, putting themselves back at the beach with their families, for example. With a vivid enough imagination, you can even get absorbed in the scene, feeling the sun's heat and brightness, letting the surf surge over your body. There is no essential difference between doing this in your mind and actually going to the beach in person. In both cases the brain is shaping virtual photons into a pattern of experience. When Jesus turned water into wine, he used the same ability, only he obliterated the arbitrary line between imaginary results and real ones.

In stage five a person flirts with crossing that line. This is not yet the phase for complete miracles like levitation or raising the dead. Here one takes the role of apprentice, willing to peer into the master's box of secrets yet not quite a master oneself. In other words, there is still a small separation between the individual mind and its source at the virtual level. Imagining yourself in stage five is much like being the most privileged pupil of Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci. To be accepted as an artist in the master's eyes, the following relationship would have to develop: You need to trust that your teacher really is a great master. G.o.d the Creator has unlimited creative potential.

You expect the master to be able to work confidently in his chosen medium. G.o.d the Creator uses the medium of reality itself: he controls time and s.p.a.ce.

You want your master to have a great deal to teach.

G.o.d the Creator is abundant and generous.

The master shouldn't be so lost in himself that he isn't approachable. G.o.d the Creator is open.

You don't want the master to hold back his real knowledge. G.o.d the Creator is willing to be known.

You want the master to transcend mechanical ability and tap into the source of genius. G.o.d the Creator is inspired.

At earlier stages of inner growth, it would seem blasphemous, or at the very least impudent, to undertake this kind of relationship. Earlier stages did not desire or permit such intimacy. But by stage five, a person realizes that G.o.d is not a being with desires. Since he has no preferences, everything is permitted. The inhibitions that hold us back-and this holds true at every level of growth-exist inside ourselves.

Because he is infinite and therefore all-inclusive, G.o.d sees all choices with the same eye-his vision includes no judgment. When a person realizes this, G.o.d suddenly opens his deepest secrets, not because G.o.d changed his mind but because our perspective has.

Who am I? ...

G.o.d's co-creator.

The master-apprentice metaphor stretches only so far. G.o.d is never to be met in person, and he doesn't announce what he has to teach. The entire process is internal. As a co-creator, however, you are expected to do more than just live and have random desires, as most people do. A co-creator takes a certain orientation toward his desires. This doesn't mean controlling or manipulating what you wish for. Those are choices made at the ego level. In stage five, the process is about becoming the author of your own life; some have called it writing your destiny script. How is that done?

First of all, one has to see the difference between before and after.

Before you become the author of your own life, you feel inadequate and powerless. Unforeseen things happen all the time. Every day presents some kind of obstacle, large or small. Indeed there may be ma.s.sive confusion about what you want in the first place. If you are operating from a place of conflict and confusion, outside circ.u.mstances seem to have the upper hand.

By contrast, after you a.s.sume authorship of your own life, outcomes are never in doubt. No matter what happens to you, each event has a place and a meaning. You see that your spiritual journey makes sense, even down to the smallest details. It isn't that your ego wakes up every morning and arranges your day. Events still unfold unpredictably, yet at the moment they occur, you know that you are adequate to meet them. No question arises that doesn't have its own answer somewhere inside it. The adventure is to uncover the creative solutions that most appeal to you. Like an author who can make any world he chooses on the page, you gain authorship based on your own inclinations, with no outside help and no second opinions.

Stage five isn't the last phase, since we haven't crossed the line into miracles. You can tell if you are in stage five by the way you get what you want. If you rely almost entirely on an internal process, then you are, with a minimum of effort, a co-creator of reality.

How do I fit in? ...

I intend.

If we get down to specifics, the act of creation is reducible to one ingredient: intention. In stage five you don't have to master esoteric techniques; there are no magic tricks to making a thought come true, no secrets of miracle-working. You just intend a thing and it happens. When highly successful people are interviewed, many times they repeat the same formula: "I had a dream and I stuck with it, because I was certain that it would come true." This att.i.tude is a symptom-one might say the symptom-of co-creation. Of course, there is a great deal of work to be done to arrive at any great accomplishment, but in stage five the end result is preordained, and therefore the work itself isn't primary. It's just what you need to do to get to the goal. In fact, many famous achievers testify that the astonishing events of their careers seemed to be happening on automatic, or as if to someone else standing outside themselves. Whatever it feels like, intention lies at the heart of the process.

To break this down into specific behavior, the following qualities can be seen in people who have mastered the art of intention: 1. They are not attached to the past or how things should turn out.

2. They adapt quickly to errors and mistakes.

3. They have good antennae and are alert to tiny signals.

4. They have a good connection between mind and body.

5. They have no trouble embracing uncertainty and ambiguity.

6. They remain patient about the outcome to their desires, trusting the universe to bring results.

7. They make karmic connections and are able to see the meaning in chance events.

These qualities also answer the earlier question of what good comes from inner silence. The good is creative. In these seven qualities some huge life lessons are embedded. One could write a book about this list alone, but here is a brief synopsis: Making any idea come to life always involves intention. If you have a flash of genius, that flash remains inside your head until it materializes. So the important issue is how it gets materialized. There are efficient ways and inefficient ways. The most efficient way is shown to us by the mind itself. If I ask you to think of an elephant, the image just appears in your head, and even though millions of neurons had to coordinate this image, using chemical and electromagnetic energy, you remain aloof from that. As far as you are concerned, the intention and the outcome are one; all intervening steps remain invisible.

Now consider a larger intention, such as the intention to go to medical school. Between having this idea initially and fulfilling it are many steps, and these are not internal at all: raising tuition money, pa.s.sing exams, gaining admission, etc. Yet, just like the image of the elephant, each of these steps depends upon brain operations being invisibly coordinated. You think, move, and act using intention. In stage five this automatic pilot is extended to the outer world. That is, you expect the entire process of becoming a doctor to unfold with the least effort, unhindered by obstacles. The boundary between "in here" and "out there" is softened. All events take place in the mind field first and then exhibit their outward manifestation.

Having realized this fact, your behavior is now free to follow the seven principles outlined in our list. You can be detached from how things are going to work out because you have left it to the cosmos. Past success and failure don't matter since each intention is computed afresh, without regard for old conditioning. You are able to be patient about each step, given that timing is worked out perfectly on another level. Over the months and years of getting to be a doctor, you remain a silent witness as pieces of the process fall into place. Even as you go through action, the "doing" of it remains impersonal. On the ego level you may feel disappointment that event A occurred instead of event B, which you expected, but at a deeper level you know that B happened for a better reason. When that reason reveals itself, you make the karmic connection.

Since no one is perfect, you will still make mistakes, but you adapt to these quickly; there is no need for stubbornness since after all you are not in charge of how things work out-your chief responsibility was to have the intention in the first place. (Skeptics might wonder what prevents you from intending the perfect murder or embezzling a million dollars, but the universe tends to support what is best for you, not just what your whims dictate.) Finally, as any intention unfolds, you aren't just pa.s.sively riding along like a pa.s.senger on a train. Your role is to remain as sensitive and alert as possible. The turning points in life arrive as small signals at first; these only amplify when you choose to follow them. So being vigilant about tiny clues is a major part of spiritual evolution. G.o.d always speaks in silence, but sometimes the silence is louder than at other times.

How do I find G.o.d? ...

Inspiration.

I often hear people quote Joseph Campbell's advice to "follow your bliss."

But how exactly is this done? I might get bliss from eating chocolate cake, but if I follow that, the results would be uncomfortable after a while; greedy, selfish, abusive, controlling, and addicted people could mistakenly believe that they are following their bliss, too. In stage five bliss becomes better defined as inspiration. Rather than having intentions that originate with your ego, you feel that you are called to do something highly meaningful. Self-gratification is still intense, but it is no longer narrow (in the way that having an o.r.g.a.s.m or eating in a great restaurant is). The sense of being outside yourself is often present and, as G.o.d takes over, the fruition of your desires feels blissful-whereas the fulfillment of ego desires often surprises us by feeling very flat: ask anyone how they feel six months after winning the lottery.

To be inspired is a high state of attainment. Four decades ago, the psychologist Abraham Maslow first spoke of peak experiences, his terminology for a breakthrough into expanded consciousness. A peak experience shares many qualities with inspiration, including feelings of bliss and being outside oneself. Peak experiences have been reported atop Mount Everest, but they also might arrive in the ecstasy of music making, falling in love, or winning an important victory. The conscious mind receives a supercharged burst from the unconscious, and even though this may happen only once in a lifetime, that feeling of empowerment can influence the course of events for many years.

By contrast, ever since Freud uncovered the basis of neurosis, psychology has insisted that human nature is freighted with violence and repression.

The unconscious was not a region close to G.o.d but a dark, murky terrain.

Our worst instincts thus became normalized, overlaid with better instincts such as love and peacefulness, but never to be escaped. Maslow felt differently, that it was not normal to be violent or evil in any way.

Although Maslow theorized that peak experiences gave glimpses of the real norms of the psyche, it was nearly impossible to prove that anyone lived at a peak for any length of time. Out of the whole population, Maslow and like-minded researchers could barely find 5 percent who even temporarily made such a transition. When they did, remarkable things happened. Such individuals felt as a normal experience that they were safe, confident, full of esteem for themselves and others, deeply appreciative of what life brought to them, and constantly in a state of wonder that the world could remain so fresh and alive every day, year in and year out.

This handful of people were labeled "self-actualized" and then more or less forgotten. The norm did not get redefined. This wasn't a failure of insight. To redefine human nature in such positive terms seemed unrealistic. Freud had already laid down as law that human nature contains hidden tendencies that break out like caged monsters to overwhelm us but are always present beneath the surface.

Maslow himself, believing with all his heart that human nature is trustworthy and capable of great inner growth, had to admit that tremendous obstacles stand in our way. Most people are too needy to grow, because as long as our needs are frustrated, we spend most of our time being driven to fulfill them. Need comes in four levels, Maslow said: the first is physical, the need to feed and clothe ourselves; next comes the need for safety, followed by the need to be loved, and finally by the need for self-esteem. A huge amount of inner work is devoted to these basic requirements of life. Maslow taught that needs are stacked up, one above the other, into a hierarchy. Only at the top of the pyramid does a person get the chance to feel self-actualized.

By this measure most of spiritual life is wishful thinking. When someone turns to G.o.d in order to feel safe or to be loved, need is the real motivation. In any event, G.o.d doesn't intervene to rectify the situation.

To be driven by need is just how life works. To bring back the sacred, it must accomplish something that love, security, self-esteem, or good fortune cannot. This is where inspiration comes in, because when we are inspired, we don't act from need at all. Inspiration, as the Bible says, is an act of grace, a blessing.

In stage five this sense of being blessed begins to spread beyond a particular moment. You don't have to be spiritually advanced to feel triumphant when you reach the top of Everest or win the n.o.bel Prize.

Spiritual advancement shows up when the small things carry a share of blessing, too. As Walt Whitman wrote, "A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books." (This is a poet who scandalized his readers by declaring that the smell of his armpits was more holy than any church.) Someone in stage five sees grace in all things.

What is the nature of good and evil? ...

Good is higher consciousness.

Evil is lower consciousness.

"For me, a new phase began in a very trivial way," a woman once told me.

"I was in a hotel room sitting next to the window. My plans for the day had been ruined by heavy rains that had moved in overnight, and I was a little glum. Down the block I could see a skysc.r.a.per looming up, when all at once I thought, 'It would be nice to see a patch of sun on that building. I've probably never had a more trivial idea in my life.

"All at once, in the midst of a downpour, the clouds parted, and a brilliant shaft of sunlight landed right where I was looking. It paused for a moment, as if to say, 'Okay, do you get it?' and then the gray closed back in. I wasn't shaken; oddly enough I wasn't even surprised, but that tiny incident had a huge impact on me. I began to believe that my thoughts were connected to outer reality."

Once attained, this connection becomes the most valuable thing in a person's existence, and losing it becomes one's worst fear. In stage five the fall from grace becomes a personal threat. Is such a fear groundless?

Yes and no. It is inevitable that no one in stage five can make every wish come true, and bad things, in terms of pain and failure, continue to occur. This stokes the fear. Many people who have attained tremendous success find themselves spinning out of control, losing their center and no longer relying on the inner a.s.surance that is needed at every level of awareness. Outward pressures are sometimes to blame, or inner demons may rise to the surface. In any case, stage five is not a magic haven.

On the other hand, these setbacks are only temporary. The ego has forgotten that a learning process is involved. When things don't go right, failure is not the issue, much less evil. Being a co-creator implies complete mastery, and during apprenticeship that hasn't yet been attained.