Finally, after months of blog posts discussing human development, we arrive at the highest developmental level described by Susanne Cook-Greuter: the Ironist or Unitive perspective. Susanne really doesn’t like the name Ironist (which comes from another researcher), so I will refer to those from this stage as Unitives.
At this point it’s important to understand that the stages described by Dr. Cook-Greuter are not theoretical. They are, rather, derived from actual data from real people. This means that the descriptions of the developmental levels I’ve shared (the different perspectives a person can take as they seek to make sense of who they are and how they fit into the world) come from the analysis of data from real people, compiled over many decades.
In other words, Dr. Cook-Greuter describes a level or perspective only if sufficient data exists and she knows that some number of individuals exist who do see things from that perspective.
Almost certainly there are a few rare individuals who see things from perspectives even higher and broader than those described by Susanne Cook-Greuter and summarized in these posts. As time goes by, and more information comes to light, even higher developmental perspectives will no doubt be investigated and cataloged. Many theorists–Ken Wilber, for instance, and several others–have described possible ways of slicing the Unitive stage I’ll describe in this post into several different stages. As of yet, not enough hard data exists for these levels to be anything but theoretical.
You might say, then, that this is a story without an ending, because those living from the highest perspectives are always breaking new ground and exploring new ways to make sense of what it means to be a human being.
So, with that preamble, let’s look at the Unitive perspective, and see how it differs from that of the Magician.
The Magician is, in a way, a transitional stage in the sense that Magicians have one foot, or at least three or four toes, in the separate self, and the other foot in the transcendent. Or, you could say that the Magician experiences the self partly from the perspective of a separate, individual entity, centered inside (and identified with) the body/mind, and partly as the infinite connections linking that body/mind to the rest of the universe. The Magician has seen his ego for what it is–a mere map of reality, a construct, a way of seeing things, rather than something solid–but has not entirely transcended it. The separate self is no longer solidly real for the Magician, but it’s still a significant part of the Magician’s experience of life.
Unitives, though they still have a sense of being a center of awareness in a body, no longer experience themselves as a separate “me.” The separate me isn’t just an idea, a construct, a way of looking at things (as it is for the Magician, and to some degree for the Strategist and the Individualist). Now it is also felt and experienced as such. The Unitive’s felt sense has expanded to include the entire matrix of connections connecting everything in the universe in one universal ever-changing flow.
This is, quite obviously, an entirely new and different way of experiencing human existence and consciousness–a more cosmic or universal perspective. All the paradoxical aspects of existence are now integrated. Polar opposites, such as good and evil, being and not being, self and other, subject and object, existence and non-existence, are experienced without the sense of oppositional tension experienced by those at previous developmental perspectives. Instead, these seeming opposites are just part of the flow of how things are. In terms of time and space, the Unitive’s scale of perspective is infinite, taking in the passing of ages and, in terms of space and distance, the entire infinite universe.
The Unitive is able to take any previous developmental perspective or point of view and shift between perspectives and states of awareness effortlessly. All experiences–joy, grief, life, death, being, not being, pleasure, pain, having, not having–are seen as natural parts of the flow of existence, to be noticed and experienced as they are. The rational mind is not seen as a limitation (as it was by the Magician) but rather as just another manifestation of being human–sometimes useful and allowed to be more prominent, and at other times not needed and allowed to recede into the background.
The Unitive is able, then, to cherish all humans as part of the grand dance and flow of the universe, not needing others to be different than they are. “Higher” stages of development are no longer seen as “better.” Rather, all stages are necessary, interconnected, and always-changing aspects of the human condition.
The Unitive sees himself in similar terms–he has no need to be a certain way and therefore accepts himself in a non-controlling way. Though he may have many achievements, he sees their insignifigance in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, he sees that his contribution to the universe is an essential part of the whole–as is the contribution of every other person, animal, plant, rock, or piece of dust. His humility and grace, however, isn’t so much the result of a decision to be that way as it is a natural and spontaneous expression of his perspective. The Unitive truly sees the bigger picture, which allows him to “play” full out without attachment to what does or does not happen.
The Unitive’s perspective is one of non-ego-involved witnessing, moment-by-moment awareness, and resourceful responses to the infinite number of systems and variables swirling around him–including all the conflicting needs, paradoxes, and constantly shifting realities of the situation. He is no longer identified with a certain “me,” a certain role or identity. He spontaneously takes on whatever persona is necessary in order to catalyze others or in some other way be appropriate to the moment. His concern is quite often outside of what most people would consider his own individual interests–a concern often expressed as an unconditional love for humanity.
The Magician has a highly developed ability to “trust the process” of whatever is going on. The Unitive’s low identification with the separate self and his greater identification with the rest of humanity further elevates this trust–of the way things are, where they are going, and what can and “should” be done–to an even higher (and more selfless) level. To the Unitive, there is an awareness that on an ultimate level everything is happening in a perfect way, even including the fact that the world contains much suffering and many problems. These problems, and any addressing of them, are just parts of the dance, parts of the endless going on of it all.
This is reflected in the Buddhist perspective of the bodhisattva–the awakened being who vows to stay in the world until all beings have been similarly liberated.
The Unitive sees happiness and unhappiness as part of the necessary, temporary (and endless) fluctuations inherent in the human situation. Instead of seeing life in a dualistic way, where some things are appropriate and desirable while others are inappropriate and undesirable, the Unitive experiences the world as a place where all opposites “arise together” and “go together”–in any polarity each side implies (and needs) the other. Up needs (and is defined by) down, here needs there, life needs death, good needs evil, and so on. Positive and negative are seen–and experienced–as mental constructs, as ideas, rather than as innate or intrinsic characteristics of things, events, or people. The Unitive watches as positive turns to negative and back to positive, endlessly–and necessarily. This is, indeed, a totally new and different way of experiencing the world.
Because Unitives don’t seem to be as engaged in the goals, pursuits, and concerns of the rest of humanity, some–particularly Experts, Achievers, and even Strategists–may see them as being more distant from the world. This, however, is a mischaracterization. The Unitive merely sees the perfection of all aspects of the universe. This includes his own motivation to intervene in some cases and his contrasting motivation to leave things alone in others.
Unitives serve to catalyze others just by showing up. Their way of being in the world provides a spontaneous challenge to the perspective of others and demonstrates an alternative way of being in the world. Their ability to see others as whole, their tendency to interact in non-demanding ways, and their effortless comfort and inner security about being human often has a subtle but profound effect on others.
Unitives have a completely internalized transpersonal morality, independent of any particular societal standards or rules. Naturally being in the moment, they decide what is right by intuition. Conflicting impulses or external demands are simply part of life and need not be resolved, only witnessed. If a response is needed, it happens.
The Unitive feels no need to be this or that, to achieve this or that, or to be in this or that state. He may act to be something or achieve something, but this is just “what happens” rather than the result of a need to get somewhere. This seemingly passive attitude, however, in its in-the-moment spontaneity, actually allows the Unitive to take powerful, effective, direct action. It’s as if, in not identifying with a separate self, the universe acts through the Unitive. Buddhists describe this by saying that doing happens, but there is no doer (the implication being that there are no separate doers, and that the real doer is the whole).
The Unitive sees all words, mental maps, representations, theories, meanings, divisions, and boundaries as mere constucts–ideas about the world, rather than the world itself. Instead, reality is experienced as a living, flowing, interconnected continuum, a unified field of possibilities existing now, and only now. At the same time, though, the Unitive sees that words, maps, representations, theories, meanings, divisions, and boundaries are essential aspects of human meaning-making.
Because the peak experiences so strongly sought after by those at previous developmental levels are readily available to the Unitive, these experiences no longer have the extraordinary and often startling quality they have for those at other perspectives. They are one more part of being human, happening in time and then passing away–another wave rising, then falling.
As you might imagine, the Unitive lives in the now moment. He sees that even planning for the future or learning from the past happens in the present moment. Being in the now moment happens naturally because the Unitive isn’t focused on regrets or hurts from the past, nor is he hoping for something better in the future. Paradoxically, the Unitive looks at the universe from an expanded time frame that includes all past and future time–while never leaving the present moment (from the Unitive’s perspective, that’s really all there is–past and future are ideas, not realities).
The Unitive’s stable awareness of the now allows him to see things as they are, without the added meanings created by the mind–though when it serves his purpose he can use ideas, concepts, and mental maps as useful tools. He sees these things for what they are–often useful mental constructs about reality, but not the reality itself.
Life to the Unitive is a temporary eye-blink of separation from the ground of being from which all things emerge. And, the Unitive is aware that this separation, this taking of a human form, is a choice. (Zen master Genpo Roshi speaks of the awakened person as “the one who chooses to be a human being.”) To the Unitive this separation from the ultimate ground of being, and the creation of a enduring separate self, are illusions used to safeguard the ego’s need for permanence and to defend it against the fear of death.
Unitives have transcended such narrow and limiting ego boundaries. They notice but are not preoccupied with whatever enters their awareness. Their perspecitve is that of the witness. This is a watching, more effortless than ordinary willed focus, in which there is awareness but not necessarily an awareness of anything. This is sometimes referred to as pure consciousness, awareness without content. The Unitive notices whatever enters his field of attention, but everything receives equal attention and awareness, and nothing is judged as better or worse, or more or less appropriate. The Unitive, therefore, has an open, non-grasping and non-judging experience of life.
The Unitive sees his life’s work as a natural outcome of his participation in the flux and flow of the whole. He cares about the problems of humanity, even while he sees their perfection, and works for fairness, justice, and benevolence toward all. Magicians and Strategists see themselves as masters of their souls, but the Unitive sees this control of life as both illusory and unnecessary. All outcomes, all ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, or being are part of the flow and all are equally valuable. Whatever happens just is. Even not-being is valuable. This is a way of looking at life difficult for those from other perspectives to understand.
The full range of beingness is available to the Unitive. In one moment he can be serious and in the next, playful. He can be personal or global, simple or complex, serene or active, rational or transcendent, sublime or silly. He can also be sad or angry, or exhibit any other human expression. As you might imagine, only a small number of people live from this perspective.
With this look at the Unitive developmental stage, we come to the end of our overview of the various developmental levels. I began this series because, despite its fundamental importance, one’s developmental level is rarely taken into account in descriptions of human interaction, values, morality, politics, psychology, or behavior.
Humans interpret and respond to whatever they experience from their particular developmental perspective, yet few who observe humanity are aware of this spectrum of perspectives–much less where they come from, how a person from each thinks and behaves, or how to deal with persons from different perspectives. Expecting a person from one perspective to see the world from another perspective is futile, whether they are a Democrat, a Republican, an Iraqi soldier, a South African tribesman, a 14 year-old high school freshman, or a born-again Christian. You can’t argue or reason another person out of their level of development.
As you view and relate to other people, or as you watch the news, I hope you will realize that each person thinks and acts from his particular developmental perspective, and that this is the only way he can make sense of his environment and his life. All perspectives include a certain type of cognition, a way of determining what is right or wrong, a way of relating to spiritual matters, a way of understanding one’s sense of self, a way of deciding what is important and what to believe (including a way of determining what is “true” and what criteria are used to determine that truth), certain strategies for navigating the world, and a lot more. Understanding these perspectives allows you to see why people act as they do, and it allows you to better communicate with them (or realize that you probably aren’t going to get through to them).
And, of course, understanding these developmental levels also allows you to better understand yourself, to understand why you see things the way you do–and to realize that your perspective is just one of many.
As I said toward the beginning of this series, whatever your perspective, you are immersed in something, which means that you are unaware of it. In fact, in being immersed in something, you are it.
Your perspective is, in fact, the place where you are stuck, the place where you are unaware. Genpo Roshi once asked me to express to him my current understanding of the way things are. I gave a very Zen-like answer: everything happens by itself, there’s no doer other than the universe as a whole, everything is connected, and so forth. He then looked me in the eye and said, “Now doubt that.” He was really saying, “Your current understanding is where you are stuck.”
Keep in mind that each perspective is a way of making sense of being here, one of many possible ways of dealing with the trials, tribulations, and ups and downs of being a human being–which you may have noticed can be quite a challenge. Each of these ways of making sense of things works for as long as it works, which could be a few years, or a lifetime. If your way of making sense of things stops working, it’s probably because you acquired more information, had new experiences, or were thrust into a new situation, and in this new situation the old way of making sense of things just doesn’t work any longer.
At such times you feel uncomfortable and a bit lost–until you develop a new way of making sense of things, one that transcends and includes the old way, and can handle the new situation and take into account the new information.
And, finally, remember that awareness drives development. Whatever you are immersed in you are unaware of, like a fish in water. When you do become aware of it (if you do), your perspective changes. It expands. The goal here, if there is one, is to continually enlarge your perspective–until it ultimately includes everything. As that happens, your point of view moves from being me-centered, to group-centered, to world-centered, and finally to cosmos-centered. As this happens, care increases, compassion increases, and love increases.
And, lord knows, that’s what the world needs.
So, whatever you’re doing, watch. Learn to be the witness. Watch your body. Pay attention to how it feels and how it moves. Notice how those feelings and sensations change. Watch your emotions. Watch your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideas, the meanings you put on things. Watch everything. Be with all of it, right now, in each moment. You can even watch your sense of “I am,” your sense of existing. And, since Holosync creates increasingly deeper awareness (you knew I’d end up here eventually) and allows this watching to be more and more effortless, keep meditating with Holosync every day. If you do, you will greatly accelerate your growth.
Thanks for sticking with me through this long journey. I don’t know what I’ll tackle next, but I hope you’ll find it interesting and useful as you do your best to make sense of what it means to be a human being.
One last thing before I go–a reminder that Zen master Genpo Roshi and I will be doing another Big Mind workshop in New York on June 28-29. This is an opportunity to have a profound experience of the transcendent, to find out what it feels like to be one with everything, to be awake to who you really are–and, to experience any number of profound insights normally taking decades of meditation to realize. Nearly everyone who has attended a Big Mind workshop has described it as the most profound experience of his or her life. I would love for you to have this experience.
These workshops fill up extremely quickly, so if you are interested, go to www.centerpointe.com/bigmind right now and grab a seat. I look forward to meeting you in person in New York, June 28-29.
Until next time,
Be well.
Beyond the separate Self: the Unitive stage of development [23:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7730)
As always, well said and beautifully explained Bill!!! Many thanks.
There is one thing however that I will like to get your view, which is always very enlightening to me…
When you said that the “Unitive feels no need to be this or that, to achieve this or that, or to be in this or that state. He may act to be something or achieve something, but this is just “what happens” rather than the result of a need to get somewhere. This seemingly passive attitude, however, in its in-the-moment spontaneity, actually allows the Unitive to take powerful, effective, direct action. It’s as if, in not identifying with a separate self, the universe acts through the Unitive. Buddhists describe this by saying that doing happens, but there is no doer (the implication being that there are no separate doers, and that the real doer is the whole)”
What happens with the concept of free will? Is there such thing? or only the ilussion of free will, and the more develop the self become the more aligned with the whole universe become and then the ilussion of free will gets lessened… Could you please elaborate on this idea? It will mean a lot to me…(and hopefully to some other as well…)
FROM BILL: If there is no separate doer, then who is it who has free will? “Free will” is a way of thinking about things, not a real quality of nature. Any free from will is actually the free will of the whole, as the whole is really the only doer. Another way to look at this would be to say that all of “your” actions are really the result of the infinite number of interactions with and connections to everything else. Free will assumes that there is an agent who decides something separate from the whole. This is just not true. When you look at things from the perspective of a separate “me” it certainly seems as if there is free will, because a certain amount of “why” your organism acts is based on your nervous system, which has recordings of past interactions in it. These decisions, then, are also based on the rest of the environment, not on any agent that is separate from the whole and who makes decisions separate from any such connections.
Many many thanks!
You just explained basic meaning of enjoyment of life in realization of time. I AM THAT I AM , I AM ONE. CHOOSE LIFE
I typically enjoy your writing and enjoy this one as well. I do however feel that there are a few things that should be illuminated that are not. These are particularly important points that are prone to misunderstanding.
One of the main misleading things when speaking about this view is: although the Unitive may “see the grand dance,” “know they have no free will” and other relatively profound thoughts, there is an important message missing here. That message is: context. There’s a right and wrong context for when these views are embodied, and the unitive has the perspective to assume the right view for the right time because they were also at those prior stages at one time in their lives.
Here are a few examples. It is very important that when driving a car, planning your wedding, etc, that a doer is assumed. It is important to realize that a car crash would be bad and that showing up naked to a wedding is also bad. Now, from the “extra” perspective the unitive has, this is just “how it is” and “no one did it,” and so on.
This brings an important point: how reality “really is” is the exact same as it is for the unitive; although thinking about it from other way around perhaps teaches a better lesson. If you think being a unitive sounds scary in some way, then realize that the profound nature of what it SOUNDS like is much different from WHAT IT IS. I can best demonstrate it with the analogy of a coin.
Take a coin and look at the “heads” side, this will be our “phenomenal world,” the arising and passing sensations with all of their human meanings, all the drama, all the feelings, etc. Now view the “tails” side. This side is the “transcendent,” the ability to see the world as “it really is,” bare bones emptiness, unity, and so forth. Now put the coin on the desk and spin it. THAT is what a unitive’s life is like. Every single thing that was true before being a unitive is true afterwards. Now, hoever, there is simply an added wisdom that comes from the insights gained while moving through the path.
Enlightenment, being a unitive, and everything related does not outwardly change a person much on it’s own. The enlightened must choose to change the content of awareness by choice, just as anyone else does. When the dogma is stripped from enlightenment, the enlightened person is left with one basic thing: true insight and understanding of the 3 characteristics of reality (suffering/no-self/impermanence), and that is all. The content of reality is still the same, and that content may or may not be changed based on these insights.
In summary: the unitive still has the “heads” side of the coin, but they also have the “tails” side to look at now as well; and this duality is mixed and mingled to serve whatever purpose they decide, whether that is good, bad, or downright ugly.
FROM BILL: FIrst, I would say that the stage in which a person integrates the relative and the transcendent is perhaps beyond that of the Unitive stage. The Zen master Tozan referred to it as the Fifth Rank, the Unitive probably representing the Third.
Second, I did not say that there was no doer. I said that there was no individual doer. When driving or attending a wedding there is indeed a doer–the whole. Even for the most unawake person, there is no separate doer. The whole is always the only doer. The Unitive just has the wisdom to know it. So driving, or dressing for the wedding, both happen, but no separate doer is needed.
Bill, integration can take place at any stage on the path. The content of reality is still accessible and malleable despite one’s conscious level. Some may choose to integrate slowly while they gain insights, may some take follow a road that resembles Tozan’s 5 ranks.
The point I would make for what you said about a doer is similar. Although the unitive (assuming now that we’re speaking about Tozan’s 3rd) would have the ability to see that macro perspective of reality, he would not lose the ability to interpret the micro perspective of “his self.” Again, that is the content of reality and as you said, that is how it always has been. The point I am trying to make is that description like this SOUND like a limiting model of enlightenment, and any model of enlightenment that limits anything is erroneous and sets the stage for problems. I’m simply making the point that either view can now be embodied; more doors are open. While this new view is available, the old can still be taken to help the person function in a normal, everyday human way, and often times that is the best way to go about it, regardless of whether or not they have the knowledge to know that feeling is illusory.
Thank you Bill for Holosync and this Blog………..
I have used Holosync……..I the been an interesting ride to be sure. I don’t react quite the same way I used to act torward things….I am only on the 1st level……I like life more w/all the ups and downs………….this is what a few folks have said about me: …..What are you doing you definitely seem more settled……You look so much better……I notice you have let go of certain things you have definitely grown. ……you look and act a lot different, better somehow…..you sound different…….what are you doing?
FROM BILL: I hope you’re telling tem!
Dear Bill,
I have been using Holosync since July 2008. I am now on Awakening level 1 and I have to thank you for such a great tool you put at my disposal for furthering my personal growth.
I am a senior Psychotherapist at Kids Company a fairly large for UK standard charity organisation run by the great Camila Batmanlghelidjh based in London Uk providing assistance and help to over 12000 neglected kids in schools around London and about 1000 attenting their centres. You can read further about Camila and Kids company at http://www.kidsco.org/uk to have an idea of the type of organisation it is and how it operates. Last year Kids Company recived £4M from the governement.
I have been working with Camila for the past 4 years. I provide support/supervision and psychotherpay on a one-two-one basis to members of staff that work directly with emotionally neglected and physically/sexually abused children. I run creative imagination workshops for Kidsco as well as at CCPE (Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education) in West London. I also have a private practice in London Little Venice.
I was discussing Holosync with Camila a couple of weeks ago, I was putting forward to her the idea of offering to some of the young people attending Kidsco centres a room equipped with headphones and holosync meditation. Of course the first possible hitch we may encounter will be “attention span”. Can you imagine a group of 15years-old coming into a room and seat there for 30min listening to rain and bell sound? We both laughed, you can join us too in it.
I have chosen not to let it go and decided I would get in touch with you and pick your brain together with your personal and professional experience to come up with some ideas. You must have encontered similar enquiries or perhaps you have allready placed holosync in similar places.
So here I am asking for your inputs. I am very interested in such a project as I know directly how beneficial holosync has been to me personally. Bear in mind that I am a transpersonal psychotherapist and have been fairly interested in personal growth for several years.
Well, get in touch with me as soon as you can. I will be prepared to meet you in NY if necessary.
Bear in mind that Kidsco is a charity and always lacking funds so do not go over board when you look into the project. Camila has still to raise 4.5M to run the all operation and she does it very well together with Prince Charles, Allan Yenton, Ruby Wax, Gweneth Paltrow, The archbishop of Canterbury and many more committed benefactors Kids Company.
Awaiting to hearing from you
Best wishes
Adriana Sabbadin
FROM BILL: You are doing good things. I am on the board of a few similar organizations in the US, and give them lots of money each year.
I don’t think the attention span thing will be a problem, based on the feedback we get from thousands of parents who offer Holosync to their kids. They love it, including those who are ADD. And, it has a powerful positive effect on many of the problems such kids have.
Bill, thank you for your input. I would like to discuss this further. Are you reachable at any other address? if so please let me have your contact as I do not want to clog the blog.
all the best
Adriana
FROM BILL: I’m sorry, but I’m not available at any other address. Unfortunately, I have SO many people using Holosync and taking my other courses that if I interacted with all the people who ask for me, I wouldn’t have any time to do anything. That’s why I have a large support staff and communicate with everyone as much as possible in writing, audio, and video. More of that in the works. The best way to interact with me (other than this limited blog post opportunity) is to take the Platinum version of my online courses, where you get unlimited email access to me about the course content (www.centerpointe.com/life) or to come to a public event. The public events I’m doing consist of speaking at other people’s seminars from time to time, the workshops I do with Genpo Roshi (www.centerpointe.com/bigmind), plus, this year, an 8-city tour I will do with Lisa Nichols for her book launch (I will speak before she does at a Saturday night event in each of eight cities and then meet after with Centerpointe people in that city) in May and June.
Hi Bill–
Can you please explain the difference between the experience with Centerpoint’s CD’s and a person who does TM (transendental meditation) consistantly? Is there a difference and what might it be? While I believe in the power of technology, some things also can’t be shortcutted. Please explain. Thanks, Brian
FROM BILL: Excellent question.
First, you should know that I started with TM, in 1969, and did it faithfully or 16 years. In fact, I still do it sometimes. I have 6 of their advanced techniques, and took their advanced TM Sidhi program twenty-nine years ago. I have the utmost respect for the TM family of techniques.
When you do TM, or most other traditional techniques, you are slowing your brain waves into the alpha pattern, and later, if you practice enough, you are having periodic excursions into a theta brain wave pattern. These slower brain wave patterns create more awareness, they connect you more with the unconscious mind, they eliminate stresses from the nervous system, and they cause the brain to make a number of beneficial (and pleasurable) neurochemicals and hormones that improve your heath, your mental clarity, and your emotional functioning.
These slower brain wave patterns also create greater coherence, or synchrony in the brain. The two sides of the brain work together more (the result of new neural pathways between the left and right homishperes), creating what scientists call “whole brain functioning.”
In addition to the increases in mental clarity and the other things I mentioned above, brain coherence is associated with greater awareness of how everything goes together, how everything is one connected thing/event. This awareness is associated with greater happiness and well being, more peace of mind, greater compassion, increased wisdom, and greater feelings of spiritual connectedness.
On the other hand, brain lateralization–where to the hemispheres are not coherent (associated with the faster brain wave patterns most people are experiencing most of the time)–is associated with feelings of separation along with the emotions that go with that seeming separation (anger, fear, anxiety, depression, alienation, etc.). The ultimate feeling/experience that everything is connected, that everything “goes together”, is the Oneness experience many people speak of–Unity Consciousness, the Transcendent, Christ Consciousness, I Am That, or whatever you want to call it.
Holosync is simply another way to create these slower brain wave patterns, except that:
1) we can create them the first time and every time, easily, consistently, and precisely, so you don’t have to spend years (sometimes decades) perfecting the ability to create them with traditional techniques. People often quit meditation before they see real results (other than feeling a bit more calm and relaxed) because meditation, at least at first, can be tedious and difficult.
2) With Holosync we can go even deeper than traditional meditation, into delta patterns, which are associated with what is called the causal plane, with kundalini awakenings, and with incredible increases in awareness. This ability greatly accelerates the process (and is an amazing experience).
3) By lowering what is called the “carrier frequency” we use to change your brain waves as we go from one program level to the next, we can make the experience increasingly more potent (and more challenging), something similar in power to being in the presence of a powerful awakened teacher day after day. 4) People tend to progress, based on my experience with over 700,000 people over 23 years, about 4-6 times faster than with traditional techniques, and the progress begins right away, rather than after a lengthy time spent mastering the technique.
You seem to be wondering whether or not you can attain with tradional meditation with Holosync because it seems to be a shortcut, and therefore must be akin to losing weight without dieting, or learning without studying. I have two answers to that. First, the results speak for themselves. Ask someone who has done Holosync for any length of time and they will tell you that the results are real, and they are permanent. You can read many comments about this all over this blog. There are a lot of them after the initial post, for instance.
In fact, as with traditional meditation, a momentum is created when you use Holosync that continues for years after you stop. It does not create a dependency, and the results do not taper off or go away if you stop using it. And, I’d have to say that I had more happen in my first year of Holosync than in the prior 16 years of traditional meditation, and I was a VERY disciplined meditator pre-Holosync, putting in 1-4 hours a day.
Second, Holosync is anything but easy, and for the same reason that traditional meditation, if done seriously (rather than 30-40 minutes a day, for instance, as most people practice it) isn’t easy. Yes, you skip the big learning curve with Holosync, and the technology creates the brain wave changes rather than your focusing tecnnique. But the real challenge of meditation isn’t learning how to do it (in fact, Holosync users who have never meditated, after a couple of years, meditate better than much more experienced traditional meditators because their brains have been changed to match the brains of those who have put in many times the number of years of meditation).
The real challenge in meditation is that it reveals who you are under the surface, under your facade, and a lot of people don’t like what is revealed. Whatever aspects of yourself or the world that you have disowned–whatever you think is bad, wrong, negative about yourself or others–will move from unconscious to conscious. Because you don’t like or approve of this stuff, which is why you disowned it in the first place, you resist it when it comes into awareness. This can create tremendous upheaval, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You experience your own resistance to certain parts of the whole.
Ironically, it is the embracing of all of this stuff that allows a person to enter into transcendent consciousness. You can visit without handling all this stuff, but until you handle most of it, you can’t stay. If you want to realize that you are the ALL, you can’t be making part of it not-okay. This process of embracing ALL of the universe is the most difficult thing any human can undertake. At the same time it is an amazing journey, and every step takes you to a higher spot on the mountain, with a better view of yourself, other people, and the human condition.
A Holosync user has to go through this process just as any traditional meditator does, except that the journey starts sooner, because you skip the preliminary learning curve, and it happens faster. Results appear much sooner, which reinforces one’s motivation to keep going. Most traditional meditators, in fact, never meditate deeply enough, or for long enough, for this to really happen.
I have to say that I was extremely skeptical about what became Holosync myself when I first began to play around with it back in 1985. But when I began to experience the results, both in terms of the meditative experiences and the long terms results (all the stuff I’d read was supposed to happen but was only happening a little bit, here and there) I became convinced. Now, many years later, having seen many thousands of people report their own version of the same thing, I’m even more sure. And, of course, there is the fact that Integral Institute’s Ken Wilber and many of the top teacher there use (or have used–and endorse–Holosync, and Zen Master Genpo Roshi and many of his top students use it
Try it. You’ll like it. And, you can still do TM, if you already do it, along with it. Many people do.