Who Here On This Forum Believes That Higher Consciousness Is the Apex Of The Pyramid?

[Entrepreneur]

I get this sense that many people on this forum (perhaps all - I don't know) possess a mental paradigm of believing that achieving a higher level of being conscious is ultimately the highest possible achievement in life- Kind of like it sits at the top of Maslow's Pyramid if Maslow had included it in his theory of human needs.

I am interested in a few questions:

1) Is that what you believe?

2) Do you think that is what every human's same highest brick is on their pyramid whether they realize it or not?

3) Do you believe something entirely different and if so, please explain.

[theleelajoker]

I started to write an answer, then I realized that I don't know the answer to question 1)

I thought it's freedom, total presence in the moment, being free of conditioned mind. But then I was like...it is REALLY what I believe is the highest possible achievement? I mean, do I truly, truly feel that? Is that what I strive for in life? 

So...

1) don't know 

2) don't know

3)  three 🍎 and a 🍌 

 

[Hojo]

To self actualize maybe, to self realize no. Once you reach self realization you dont need the pyramid. So you dont need it but its the easier way. 

Notice how the tip of the pyramid is another pyramid.

Edited Wednesday at 09:41 PM by Hojo

[theleelajoker]

@HojoDifference self-realize and self-actualize for you?

Non-native speaker asking..

[Hojo]

@theleelajoker self realization is realizing you are god. Self actualization is becoming the best version of yourself.

You can say buddhas path is self actualization then self realization. And Jesus was self realization to self actualization.

I don't know if you can do both at the same time.

Edited Wednesday at 09:45 PM by Hojo

[theleelajoker]

Thanks. First reply I get, but don't get the difference in the Buddha and Jesus Story. 

Buddha first was seeking a lot, failed , then became the best version of him after enlightenment right? Then started teaching etc and helped many people. So actualized , then realized. That's how I remember the story at least 

[Hojo]

@theleelajoker buddha was born a king and had infinite wealth then went fuck i need to suffer. Jesus was born suffering and poor the realized he was the king.

Buddha only started seeking when he had the realization that he will die later in life. So he was born self actualized and then had to self realized. Jesus was born self realized and then had to actualize. But they don't tell the later life of Jesus Christ they just say he died and was reborn and don't say what he did after that.

Edited Wednesday at 10:05 PM by Hojo

[theleelajoker]

What he did after being reborn?

[Hojo]

@theleelajoker I heard he just lived a happy life somewhere. Similar to buddhas beggining.

Kinda like you can eat your vegetables first then your steak or eat your steak then your vegetables.

Edited Wednesday at 10:32 PM by Hojo

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Entrepreneur said:

- Kind of like it sits at the top of Maslow's Pyramid if Maslow had included it in his theory of human needs.

What do you lay in the word "self-transcendence"?

 

Quote

Late in his career Maslow focused increasingly on self-transcendence as a human phenomenon and concern. As he explained in his seminal paper titled Theory Z, the motivation for transcendence literally 'transcends' his original hierarchy of needs. So, for example, some people who achieve self-actualization — the highest level of his original pyramid — also achieve a transcendent life orientation, while other self-actualizers do not. On the other hand, some people, like the proverbial "starving artist," value self-transcendence ahead of all material values, including self-actualization (in the sense of being materially "successful"). Hence, for Maslow transcendence is not so much an extension of his original pyramid as an orthogonal dimension.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_Z

Edited Wednesday at 10:30 PM by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Entrepreneur said:

1) Is that what you believe?

Yes.

 

2 hours ago, Entrepreneur said:

2) Do you think that is what every human's same highest brick is on their pyramid whether they realize it or not?

Yes.

[Entrepreneur]

37 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Yes.

Yes.

Interesting.   I suspect many here see it the same way as you.  Thank you for the direct answers.

[aurum]

The highest achievement must inevitably be God.

What other answer could possibly be higher?

 

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Entrepreneur said:

Interesting.   I suspect many here see it the same way as you.  Thank you for the direct answers.

And you?

[Entrepreneur]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

And you?

I’d love to share my views.   Forgive me for the length.  I will try to make it short yet comprehensive enough to get my points across.

My view is a modified version of Abraham Maslow's theory.

It is important to note that Maslow did not present his theory of needs as a pyramid.  The pyramid was added later by other people.   Maslow believed that there was some hierarchy to needs, but that they all exist simultaneously, with a person working to satisfy different needs at different locations in the hierarchy at all times.   Shaping them as a pyramid tends to distort their meaning somewhat in an unintended way.  (This is the same beef I have with Spiral Dynamics because I don’t think they are stages that progress in a specific order, but rather they all exist simultaneously as choices a person can make for their own logically explicable reasons.)

I believe the first three categories of human needs are in fact strictly hierarchical with the lower needs demanding satisfaction before a person will care about anything else above them.   Because of this, I would display them as a pyramid.  The base category of my pyramid would be ”immediate physical safety from any life-threatening situations”.  The second brick would be “minimally acceptable levels of physical and mental health”.  Third would be “a source of enough stable basic income” to provide for other survival needs such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc.   Those are all survival needs of any person living in a first-world country.  (I would reword it, removing “basic income” if we are talking about people outside of a first-world country, because they might provide their survival needs through methods other than buying them with money.)

After a person’s survival needs are met, come desires.   It is better to call them desires rather than needs because a person doesn’t need them to live.   They desire them because each of us has a fundamental motivation to thrive in life. We try to satisfy all these additional desires in an effort to thrive more (meaning to avoid immediate pain or suffering, enjoy life more, and derive satisfaction from it)  

I think of these other desires as existing on a priority list rather than a pyramid because some of them will carry equal weight to others.  Above survival needs, the next on a typical person’s priority list would be a toss-up between self-esteem and love, depending on the person and whether they are lacking a significant amount of either.   After that, the choices of what comes next on the priority list depends entirely on the person, their personality, their beliefs, their upbringing, their decisions, etc.   There are many other things that could appear higher on a person’s list including, sexual gratification, career goals, educational goals, family goals, spiritual aspirations, seeking autonomy, financial safety, financial prosperity, relationship goals, health goals, etc.

In my paradigm, seeking spirituality is nothing more than a personal decision.   It ranks at a different spot on everyone’s priority list according to their own personality, beliefs, and desires.   I don’t believe it is fundamental to humanity at all.  In fact, I believe there are numerous people who would not place it anywhere on their priority list at all because it completely lacks any meaning in their lives whatsoever.

Yet you will not find a single human who does not need food, water, shelter, safety from immediate physical harm, etc.   Those are fundamental human needs that apply across the globe to every single human.   Once we get past those “survival” needs, everything else is up for question and debate about where it ranks on a person’s priority list and why it ranks there if it even appears there at all.

Spirituality and what I think people on this website are referring to as “being conscious” is merely another possible choice of aspirations someone may or may not choose in life at all.

And the reasons for that are mostly due to things such as the circumstances the person was born into, who his parents were, what his family was like, what beliefs his family had, what his friends and other influencers believed, how he was raised, who he chose to befriend, as well as a million other variables based on the individual choices this person has made in life about what matters to him and what doesn’t.

[Entrepreneur]

8 hours ago, aurum said:

The highest achievement must inevitably be God.

What other answer could possibly be higher?

It depends on the person.  Not everyone believes in God or a God.

If they don't believe in God, then obviously they would choose something else as their highest achievement, no?

[Carl-Richard]

@Entrepreneur What if we could predict what everybody values the most based on an inverse activation of the Default Mode Network, and that the end goal of spiritual practice is the pinnacle of that?

[Entrepreneur]

15 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@Entrepreneur What if we could predict what everybody values the most based on an inverse activation of the Default Mode Network, and that the end goal of spiritual practice is the pinnacle of that?

I don't understand what you mean by the question or what the purpose would be.    Why bother predicting what everybody values the most?  It is merely a decision they make and continue to make as they go through life.   Why not just ask them if you want to know?   And what does it matter what the end goal of spiritual practice is in relation to what a person chooses as being important to them in life?

 

On a separate note, I would love to know what you like, dislike, agree with, or disagree with about my paradigm that I presented above?

Edited 19 hours ago by Entrepreneur

[Carl-Richard]

10 minutes ago, Entrepreneur said:

I don't understand what you mean by the question or what the purpose would be.    Why bother predicting what everybody values the most?  It is merely a decision they make and continue to make as they go through life.   Why not just ask them if you want to know?   And what does it matter what the end goal of spiritual practice is in relation to what a person chooses as being important to them in life?

They seek deactivation of the Default Mode Network in their own limited ways, the ways they were brought up to do, conditioned, what they believe is the best thing to do, but if they were given a taste of what spirituality does, they might capitulate to it completely or fear it for its intensity and for threatening their sense of limited identity and stability. It's a constant tug-of-war between what is desired the most (expansion) and what is feared of being lost (contraction). The common man is lost in the middle, being ruled by both, not capitulating to pure expansion. That's the truth of suffering, attachment, dukkha, samsara, being reborn as a fearing ego moment to moment. But it's not just the common man. It's every spiritual seeker up until the moment of letting go of everything they fear, and even everything they desire, but pure desire.

[Entrepreneur]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

They seek deactivation of the Default Mode Network in their own limited ways, the ways they were brought up to do, conditioned, what they believe is the best thing to do, but if they were given a taste of what spirituality does, they might capitulate to it completely or fear it for its intensity and for threatening their sense of limited identity and stability. It's a constant tug-of-war between what is desired the most (expansion) and what is feared of being lost (contraction). The common man is lost in the middle, being ruled by both, not capitulating to pure expansion. That's the truth of suffering, attachment, dukkha, samsara, being reborn as a fearing ego moment to moment. But it's not just the common man. It's every spiritual seeker up until the moment of letting go of everything they fear, and even everything they desire, but pure desire.

What about all the humans who aren't spiritual seekers because they are either comfortable with their own spiritual understanding or simply disinterested in it entirely?