with leaves and acorns, dance on the grass.
The Subtle level is a dimension of conscious awareness—consciousness beyond but including material reality. In this dimension, life is sensed as having mythic proportions. People are brought into more direct and conscious relationship to their own life force, or prana in Sanskrit. It is not unusual to sense vibrations and streaming energy in the body, or even to see these manifestations of life energy in other people or natural elements. People more aware of the energy of their own humanness have a sense of belonging to the human race with a potent inner meaning never accessible before. This renewed awareness of dimensions beyond physical, objectified reality are often the basis of inspiration in the arts. Dante expressed his direct experience of Subtle realms this way:
Fixing my gaze upon the Eternal Light I saw within its depths,
Bound up with love together in one volume,
The scattered leaves of all the Universe .. .
Within the luminous profound subsistence
Of that Exalted Light saw I three circles
Of three colors yet on one dimension
And by the second seemed the first reflected
As rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.
The Causal Level
Few people experience Causal level consciousness for an extended period of time. They may experience it in deep meditation as a result of spiritual discipline or for a short period as a result of deep relaxation, being inspired by music, or nature, or a loving relationship. We have called these short periods "peak experiences." Some mind-altering substances can bring about Causal level experiences. It is a state of perfect ecstasy, bliss, untainted by any distracting thoughts, desires, or moods. The Causal level includes the awareness of Subtle and material dimensions, but also goes beyond them to the full realization of union with God. It is a state of being at one with Higher Power, or God, "love-in-oneness." At the Causal level there is no sense of time, only of eternity.
Michael, thirty-three, is an executive in an advertising agency in Los Angeles. He was committed to his spiritual growth, and researched ways in which he could accelerate his development. He wanted to realize God-consciousness within himself, and was willing to work hard to accomplish that. He attended a meditation retreat in 1987, with these results:
After three days of meditation and focus from 6:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. each day, I had opened up tremendously. I began sensing myself as just light. I would close my eyes and feel that my body was just full of light. For almost twenty-four hours I no longer assumed the roles and expectations I usually identify with. I even had to watch someone else at lunch to remember what a fork was for. The world was totally fresh and new! It made no difference who I was, who anyone was. Personal differences had very little importance. Most important was fully experiencing that we are all part of one thing. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are all one body. Never before have I felt so totally fulfilled, so completely ecstatic.
Michael's wife was extremely disturbed when she saw Michael after his retreat, because he could not be personal with her for twenty-four hours. He was completely absorbed in the Causal level.
Most religious traditions consider a teacher to be very important at this transitional point of spiritual growth. As Michael's experience illustrates, students moving more fully into transpersonal realms need reassurance and direction in letting go of life as they have seen it, letting go of the boundaries of time and space, letting go of themselves as the ones who witness life. Students need reassurance that dissolving these boundaries will not result in death or craziness, but rather in an opening to fuller life. They need guidance in integrating Causal level experiences into the rest of their lives so that relationships to partners, children, and jobs still proceed and grow in a natural course.
While we are in meditation, the world may disappear. Yet out of meditation we still need to be grounded in the world—to drive safely, to know how to teach moral values to our children, to get to work "on time," to be respectful of the values and mores of our culture.
The Atman Level
The Atman level is beyond the Causal but includes all dimensions below it—the material, Subtle, and Causal. Atman is a dimension of consciousness so completely immersed in the Highest Power that nothing else exists in awareness. Thus, this state brings perfect ecstasy—yet it is mysteriously beyond any emotion. Indications of the Atman level exist in mystical religious texts, but they are always referred to as being beyond description. It is the ultimate unity experience, where the witness to life and that which is witnessed are one and the same. Wilber writes, "[T]he entire World Process then arises, moment to moment, as one's own Being, outside of which, and prior to which, nothing exists.” 2 The eternal Now is all that exists.
Having an experience of any of the higher realms does not necessarily mean that people will be in a crisis. However, even when they have openness, trust, and flexibility, it is still a challenge to let go of their habitual ideas of the world and enter a world of psychic phenomena, timelessness, boundlessness, limitless energy, and inspiration. Approaching these realms, even though they offer ecstasy and love, is often disorienting and can cause profound fear.
The way we ordinarily deal with short visits to higher realms of consciousness is to say to ourselves, "Something magic happened to me. I feel so lucky; what a miracle it was." We don't usually view these miracles as signposts guiding us to a whole new territory of our lives where we are capable of sustaining clairvoyance, clairsentience, communion with archetypes and angels, ecstatic bliss, and union with God. But that is indeed what can happen and what, I believe, is our true course in natural development.
Who Needs Help?
Increasing numbers of people are reporting their experiences of transpersonal levels due to spiritual practices, global changes, and resuscitation technology. Such people often feel isolated and confused. They need a conceptual understanding of their experiences and a sense of connection to others who are more familiar with this dimension of life and can offer some guidance and orientation.
I have been unusually fortunate in my ongoing process of spiritual emergence. From the time of my introduction to meditation through the last twenty-five years, I have had highly developed teachers in meditation, shamanism, intuition training, body therapies, and analytic psychology. I have also had the benefit of a community of "spiritual friends," people with whom I share mutual interest and sympathy in the ups and downs of spiritual awakening. This has meant that both my own process of spiritual emergence and my learning to be a helper to others have been supported in an enlightened way. I have had excellent role models as my counselors, medical help attuned to spiritual values of reverence for life, an academic background strengthening my conceptual understanding of human development, and a home community centered around spiritual growth.
I am very concerned for the people who have not been as lucky as myself. I have known of people who have killed themselves as a result of being isolated and overwhelmed with spiritual experiences. This happened to my mother. I have had clients who were intent on exploring their inner life whose families perceived them as crazy and wanted to put them on psychiatric medications to stop the spiritual experiences. These are stories that illustrate spiritual emergence processes of a critical nature, stories in which individuals are taken by storm with no one to guide them, no friends or family to support or encourage them, no community to contain them. Most of these individuals do not have the benefit of a conceptual framework to understand what they are experiencing. In the worst case, they
