Maybe this is the Seventh Level… or maybe we are still waiting on the sixth.

We cannot tell anymore.

We have to focus to remember.

There are ten levels to the ziggurat of consciousness.

The Sun rests on the tenth.

No one knows if it was built up, or built down.

We don’t think it matters.

We were all born onto the first level, and moved up from there. It was very crowded and busy; full of childish distractions. We do not say that negatively, for we were once happy among those people.

It feels like an instinct to want to move up to the next level, but it really was a choice that we made in a part of our mind that we were not aware of yet. Becoming aware of the feeling was like finding a string in the dark. The conscious choice to follow that feeling, to follow that instinct, to find out where it came from, was like grabbing onto and following the string. This conscious choice brought us to the second level.

It is not my intention to make this sound easy, for it is not. Removing ourselves from the first level required that we stopped living by reaction, and make conscious choices about what and how we did things. Most importantly with our relationships.

With this effort came a tidal wave of confusion and isolation. We alienated those we thought of as friends and family. We suffered the judgments of people who were uncomfortable with everything that did not fit with what they were accustomed to… and the abuse of those afraid of anything they did not feel they had leverage over.

We had to learn to accept that there was no way to explain any of it to anyone.

To move up to the third level, we had to learn to let go of the anger and blame we projected towards the people who were still on the first level. To stop focusing all of our attention down at those people and let them go about their business… without us.

Or, another way to see it, is that getting to the third level required that we accepted responsibility for that one choice we made in a mind we were not aware of.

The third level is a place that seemed more crowded than it really was. It was a constant battle between people fighting for attention, with claims that their path to the third level was the best path to the third level.

So many different stories.

So many different gimmicks.

We had to learn to laugh at the humor of it all. For the truth is that all perceptions of how we got to the third level were an illusion; just stories we told ourselves to allow us to let go of the anger and frustration.

Different paths to the third level are numerous,.. and all correct.

Once we let go of the need for attention that caused the competition on the third level, we were able to look up and find someone willing to help us to the fourth level. We did not need the help, we only needed to look up. But there is always someone on the fourth level ready to offer a hand.

On the fourth level, we spent most of our time looking down over the edge. It is very high and the view is wonderful. But also, the rise to the next level is so high we mistakenly thought that we could go no higher. The way we rise to the fifth level is to learn that we can only offer a hand to people who were one level beneath us, and were open and ready for our help. It is the lesson that there is as much responsibility in the question as there is in the answer.

Many times did we make eye contact with a person on the first level, offered them a hand, and found ourselves down at the bottom again… having to work our way back up.

Many times did we try to reach out to people on the second and third levels, to try and convince them to let go of their anger and conflict, only to find ourselves dragged down to them and having to work our way back up again.

We had to learn discipline to keep our focus on the third level, and patience to wait for someone to look up.

Once we became confident in our ability to connect and offer assistance, we saw the shadows on the floor cast by the light of the sun behind the people of the fifth level. We learned to read what these shadows were trying to communicate, and used that information to rise to the fifth level. But when we got there, we did not find a single person.

We could see the sun, and, when we looked over the edge, we could see the shadows cast on the floor of the fourth level. It was clear that the source of the shadows was on the fifth level, but there were no people we could see with our eyes. It took a while, but eventually we realized that we had, somehow, learned to see without our eyes while we were down on the fourth level.

All of our time and effort on the fifth level was spent trying to figure out how to control our shadows down on the fourth level so we could use them to communicate. In the end, the long and short of it was, the effort to learn how to communicate with our shadows cost us our physical form.

Once we are able to get someone to rise up to the fifth level, our sense of accomplishment allowed us to rest. As we rested we became entwined with the mass of other people who were there resting on the sixth level.

This is where we find me now. Trying to remember myself within this mass of thought and memory.

Which ones are mine? Does it matter?

Only to the point of knowing my own identity. Outside of that…

It is not like memories and thoughts are private property. It is not like I do not enjoy (or fear) the memories of others, the identities of others.

But, did I come all this away to lose myself in a turbulent ocean of chaos?

Nothing is going to give me my identity and structure here. I must discover, and build that for myself.

The sixth level is a tangled ball of yarn.

The path to the seventh begins with knowing I still have my hand on my own string within that ball.

Perhaps there is a way to make this more organized…

September 2018