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Understanding oneself. The multi-layered nature of human consciousness



Who am I? What is the essence and meaning of my life? What is my destiny? How can I improve my life? How to stop bumping into problems every day? How to defeat the negative within oneself and within understanding of the world around one? How to achieve harmony with myself? How to build trusting relationships with loved ones? Almost every person asks oneself these and many similar questions. But not everyone manages to find answers. Perhaps because a human being is a very multi-layered structure in a variety of senses, and to know them all, one need to invest a lot of time and effort. And to also know where to look.


Human consciousness is the most complex out of all living forms on planet Earth. Only a human being has conscious thinking and the ability to reason. There are, of course, higher species of animals, such as dolphins. But it is the human being who stands above the rest of creation and is able to decide the fate of the world. And it is human consciousness that is the most complex. It allows a person to know oneself and the greatest depths of world consciousness, right up to the Absolute.


No animal is capable of contemplating the meaning of life: who it is and how it lives, etc. Animals live only in here and now. Human being, in addition to being in the present, still has four types of consciousness:

  • operational consciousness;

  • individual unconscious;

  • collective unconscious;

  • level of self.

All these levels, including the present moment, fit into the pyramid of consciousness presented by Pavel Piskarev and collected over 20 years of multifaceted experience.



Where are the answers to my questions?

If one look at the pyramid of consciousness, a person can be divided into two worlds: one’s personal inner world and the surrounding outer world. It is remarkable that the answers to all questions asked by a person stem from the inner world. This means that one needs to go there first.


The way a person is arranged inside determines outer life and environment. Thought is primary. It is the inner reality of a person that causes all subsequent events, and therefore fate.


The modern world provides a person with a huge amount of information and events, so sometimes one can drown or get lost in it. In order not only to stay afloat, but to also develop further, one needs to learn how to benefit from this. How can it be made simpler and easier?


To do this, one must have an appropriate map. Imagine a traveler who arrived in a foreign country. In order not to get lost, one needs a map of the area, a location of important places, where to go and where not to go. By reading the map, travelers can easily move around, be free and enjoy the trip. What if one doesn’t have a map? It is good if local people are helpful and can direct the traveler. This is dependence and a loss of a large part of freedom. And what happens if the traveler does not understand the local language? The trip will turn into a nightmare.


Transfer this analogy to life, and one will understand that in order to live a full life, one needs to learn to understand the inner world. It contains all the answers to any of the questions. Today there are many different doctrines and theories among people. More and more people are beginning to abandon external influences, trying to understand their own desires and goals, and rely on themselves. Hence, in recent years, some professions are gaining more and more popularity that help people to learn to safely travel deep within themselves and find answers there. Why are the answers hidden inside? Within the inner world? We can agree that how we look at rain, for example, depends only upon us. “Great, it’s fresh!” - or - “Oh no! It’s wet and muddy again!” It depends only upon what we see around and our perception. And it is within our power to learn to look at things differently, from different angles. Many answers will begin to come through numerous and varied insights.




Twenty thousand leagues beneath


The deeper a person plunges within oneself, the closer one can approach the Absolute and the acceptance of love. This is where all the power of existence is. A person who knows how to immerse up to this level and draw energy from there is able not only to realise one’s personal desires, but also to influence the course of world events. No wonder we say about great people that they are very deep, and the depth of their thinking is sometimes very striking.


Starting a gradual immersion from the present moment into the depths of one’s consciousness, a person encounters many limitations. This is normal, because they have been accumulating the whole life, and most of them even come from the depths of centuries - from past lives or from ancestors - as one prefers.


It is necessary to start immersion within oneself gradually, step by step, little by little. And do not quit if “it doesn’t work” or “becomes annoying”. The pyramid of consciousness gives an understanding of how the inner world of a person is arranged, and how to overcome all obstacles and all negativity. This is the theory for removing limitations. It is work with the pyramid of consciousness.


The very first level of immersion is a conscious stay at the present moment. The actual consciousness is responsible for this. Thus it determines the degree of a person’s presence in life.


Many people live completely unconscious. Some even get to the point that they do not remember and do not realise what they have just said and where they have just put something.


In the present, within here and now, a person’s contact with the outside world occurs. This is what a person sees and feels at the present moment. Such awareness makes it possible to understand where these feelings and sensations come from: within a person or from the outside world. It is very important to learn to distinguish this, since within the actual consciousness lies the very border between the external environment and the depth of the inner world.


Within one’s inner world, a person can dream about anything. But when the eyes open, one faces external reality, many restrictions and obstacles. Therefore, some people prefer to stay inside themselves for years without creating any contacts with the people around them. And this is a problem. Moving towards one’s goals in real life requires overcoming all these limitations.


What gives one strength to overcome limitations? Love of the Absolute. The problem is that it goes in an endless flow without restrictions, and a person is not able to perceive this flow as a whole, based on ideas about something. Where love gets stuck and cannot pass, there are human limitations. This is our own negative attitude towards something or someone. There are no limitations - there is love - thus problem doesn’t exist.


Love of the Absolute moves from deep inside to the outside. That is, inside each person there is an inexhaustible source of energy. The task is to find the keys and open it completely. This is what the work with limitations is all about.


How can one characterise personal growth? How can we understand that a person is more and more able to plunge into the depths and get more and more divine energy from there?



Pavel Piskarev says about it this way:

Personal growth is an indicator of how much energy a person is able to realize from within oneself in the current moment.

Otherwise, this is the amount of energy that a person has within oneself when one meets the world around. The problem lies in the fact that the volume of a person’s present moment can be very narrow in comparison with the flow that comes from the Absolute, and which this person can pass through himself. All human limitations are located, along the pyramid of consciousness, between the point of the present and the level of the Absolute.


The second level is operational consciousness. It stores the programs and knowledge that a person uses in life. It is like a computer’s RAM. There are downloaded programs, but not all are needed at once, they are instantly activated as needed. One doesn’t need to waste time to download, one just needs to access them. Likewise, in a person, this is something that doesn’t require a lot of energy, but comes to mind at the very first demand. For example, what is your name? The human mind is capable of expanding. They said, people use only 5-10% of the total brain capacity. Can one imagine what our potential for expansion is? Operational consciousness is our efficiency.

The third level of immersion is the individual subconscious and the individual unconscious. All past experiences are contained here, as well as attitudes and beliefs. And they include not only personal experience from the moment of conception, but also experiences associated with past incarnations. That is, it is the entire experience of the soul in all its manifestations. Some people may disagree with the idea of ​​reincarnation. Some people can interpret this in their own way. But in any case, it should not be denied that the soul is outside time and space, which means that its experience is much broader than what we can imagine in the present.


This level contains the talents of a person, one’s abilities, as well as negative past experience. Meeting with a very strong reaction suggests that in this situation some experience from deeper levels was revealed. This experience is different for all people. This level influences the decisions made by the person. Every second of life is dictated from this level. Traumatic experiences have some effects. Successful experiences - others. Everything here determines the unconscious actions of a person. For example, for some reason we may unconsciously get angry with someone or not accept a certain situation. In many situations, we act out of habit. And these very habits are largely dictated by this level. And only a creative attitude to life and goal-orientation can help to consciously get rid of neurotic and emotional addictions.


We meet with our fears, experiences, and some kind of body sensations because they are pushed to the surface from the depths by the energy that goes from the Absolute, from the self to the surface of our consciousness. And the deeper we go, the stronger the Experience is. No need to be afraid. Every problem in our life comes with an opportunity and a key to solve it. One has only to reach the Absolute.


The next level of immersion is the collective unconscious. A person is part of something larger: an entrance, a city, a country, a religion, an enterprise, planet Earth, and much more. The collective unconscious includes the information of a certain collective to which a person belongs in one way or another.


This affiliation dictates their own models of thinking and behaviour. For example, the way of thinking and the life of a European, African and Asian are very different. In other words, it is the memory of something larger than an individual person. Today almost everyone knows such words as “egregors” and”archetypes”.


And the deepest level is the level of Self, the Absolute. This level is the base of the pyramid of consciousness. From here all the energy and love goes up. Plunging here, a person gains calmness, freedom, and ego dissolves.


Reaching this level provides the opportunity for personal transformation. There is no other way. Everything that is above gives impetus only to some certain changes. But it is from the level of Self that we can completely transform ourselves, both on a spiritual and physical level: learn to think and perceive everything in a different way, strengthen our health.

The level of the Absolute is an endless ocean of energy and love, flowing to a person with an endless, perpetual stream. The only question is: am I ready to accept this greatness in myself and apply it in my life. It does not matter that it is very far away. One needs to start the path of changes and improvements in life gradually, from the very first step. Get started today.


Lao Tzu:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”



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