Deep Surface

I finally got around to reading Steve Pavlina’s series on Subjective Reality. I find some of it profound, but most of it is a poorly communicated New Age explanation of a higher state perspective.

In his mostly brilliant second post, he describes his first experience with this perspective:

I tried to imagine what it would be like to perceive the world through the lens of non-localized consciousness. Just then I felt my sense of consciousness expand. I instantly understood that the wall in front of me was just as much “me” as my physical body was. My consciousness was no longer localized — suddenly it was everywhere. I had an intense surge of positive emotion, but it was so overwhelming that it knocked me out of that state, so the whole experience only lasted a few seconds. It was like the first time I had a lucid dream — I got so excited that I immediately fell out of the dream state. And no… I don’t smoke, do drugs, or anything of that nature.

The rest of this page is a fantastic description of God-consciousness or Kosmic Consciousness, until he starts getting into to the psychic development. According to Steve, because I don’t believe in psychic stuff at this point, I will be unable to experience it. He may be right, but I’ll stick with plain old Kosmic Consciousness for now.

In the first and third installments of this series, Steve seems to combine the different levels of consciousness into one first person view and he barely acknowledges levels of consciousness. This leads to a confusing, long read that sounds like the typical new age confusion- paraphrased: “Because thoughts are the root of any action, and I am part of everything, then my thoughts are powerful enough to manifest anything if I get rid of my limited beliefs.”

Here’s a sample of this nutty conflation of the power of self and Self:

[Supposed reader's question:] Who are you?

I am a manifestation of your thoughts. You believe I exist; therefore, I exist. My existence will be subject to your expectations. If you believe I can be helpful to you, then I will be helpful. If you believe I am misguided, then that will be your experience of me.

[Supposed reader's question:] What if I spend time thinking about what I don’t want, like worrying?

Then you will manifest what you don’t want. To hold a thought at all is to choose to manifest it. If you do not wish to manifest something, then do not give it any thought. Turn your attention to what you want instead.

I think Pavlina has been able to access higher states of consciousness, but he has no structure in place to interpret it, so he makes this shit up. If he would check out Ken Wilber and Integral Theory, he would be better equipped to communicate his ideas to his million+ readers. Without such a framework, he’s trying to re-invent the wheel. Sorry about the tired cliche, but it fits.

There is a paralell conversation at Integral Practice on Pavlina’s series.