Video Summary:

As we grow as human beings we move through different levels of consciousness. Piaget’s developmental psychology described moving from the concrete operational stage with black-and-white thinking to the formal operational stage with gray thinking. This is moving from one level of consciousness to another.

We also move into higher levels of consciousness as we grow spiritually. It's almost like moving into a different dimension that has a totally different vibration. We see things differently there. We become aware of more of life each time we evolve into a higher level of consciousness.

When a lower state of consciousness encounters a higher state of consciousness, the lower state of consciousness is not able to comprehend the reality of the higher level of consciousness. It doesn't make any sense to the person in the lower level of consciousness. It's not real to them and doesn't even exist.

So the lower state of consciousness takes what the higher state of consciousness presents to it and puts it in a box. It conceptualizes it and calls it something that does exist at the lower level of consciousness.

I'm sure you've experienced this. Perhaps you're talking to a concrete thinker and you're trying to explain something that you've just unlocked spiritually. You may see maybe their eyes glazing over a little bit while they say, "You mean like this?" And you're thinking, "That’s not even close to what I meant."

That process is them taking something that they can't comprehend about what you're saying, and putting it in a box so their mind can deal with it. And unfortunately what happens then is they're no longer dealing with you or what you're saying, but rather the concept of you or what you're saying.

This happens on our end as well. When we have a spiritual experience, vision, or dream, things are presented to us on the fringe of our consciousness. These things are at a higher level of consciousness than we are and are coming into our consciousness so we can expand into that higher consciousness.

Our tendency is for our mind to put the things that are presented from the higher consciousness in a box. When we have a new spiritual experience, it blows our mind. Typically we like to have this mind-blowing dream, meditation, or awakening- at least for a little while. It's a little scary, but it's exhilarating.

But in the aftermath of that, our mind tends to put the experience in a box. We bring it into our mind’s dimension which defeats the purpose because the whole point of the spiritual experience was to have us transcend that dimension. This is where spirituality becomes very intellectual for many people.

The alternative you have is to allow your mind to be blown for a while and know that your intellect is not going to like it. Know that you're going to be in the world of the unknown where you don't really understand how everything works which can be rather scary and unsettling.

Some Native American people call this the mystery and even pray to the great mystery. It's living in the mystery of the unknown and allowing yourself to not have finite answers to your questions. A productive approach is, "I’ve had this new experience that’s shifting me and now I'm seeing the world differently."

Spiritual inquiry is great for this. It's asking ourselves open-ended questions such as. “I just felt like I was one with the tree. What are the implications of that? I wonder if I'm one with other things too? Am I still Mike if I'm one with the tree? Am I bigger than I thought I was? Am I not as defined as I thought I was?”

These inquiry questions are powerful and effective because they help us truly integrate the new level of consciousness by dealing with it in terms of the new level of consciousness. We’re no longer taking the new level of consciousness and bringing it down into our old level of consciousness.