Vishen Lakhiani is the owner of MindValley… a huge company promoting gurus and their programs.
The original article was to promote his webinar workshop on becoming limitless, on October 13. The webinar’s job is to promote their continuity, i.e. subscription to the $29 a month Mindvalley Academy.
Because so many people are interested in becoming limitless, or at least happier, I am going to review the article… I can’t review the webinar, or something I haven’t happened… but I can look at the person and his work any time, and make bold assertions to their results.
One thing that will clue me in is the truthfulness of this article… or the lack of truthfulness. I don’t mean honesty, by the way. I mean: are the principles valid? Do the methods produce the results he claims they produce? Is the thinking correct?
This may take me days… I just hope I won’t miss the deadline.
So, here is the article by Vishen Lakhiani:
The 5 Stages Of Consciousness Evolution: Where Would You Stand Today?
The idea came to me while I was in a chamber. In pitch darkness. My brain hooked up to some of the world’s top neurofeedback and brainwave measurement tools.
I was using science to hack my consciousness.
But first, a backstory.
When I was a kid, my Dad enrolled me in a weekly Tae Kwan Do class. Tae Kwan Do is a form of Korean Karate. And one thing I loved about the experience was that every year we’d strive to perfect our moves so we could pass a grading test and get to the next belt level.
I started out as a white belt, and slowly ascended to yellow, green, blue, brown and eventually, the much-coveted black belt…
The belts were a beautiful system dating back centuries, that allowed a student to grow to a mastery level in easily attainable stages. It made growth easier and motivated a student far more than just having a vague goal such as “become a master.”
Each belt became a beautiful and reachable goal to hit, and a validation of our hard work and progress as a martial artist.
As I got older and began my adventure in human-transformation I wondered…
Is there such a scale for the “Evolution of Human Consciousness” that makes it easier for all of us to “Level Up”?
Much like martial arts, a scale that shows us what a black belt looks like, and also gives us intermediate stages like blue, yellow, and brown, to pass through on our way to a black belt level of understanding consciousness.
This month, finally, it clicked for me.
See, I’ve experienced two incredible things this year.
The first was a powerful biohacking-based meditation retreat where I spent days in a chamber and had my brain hooked up to machines that allowed me to test the various different techniques that we share on Mindvalley Academy.
All the techniques for intuition, connectedness, compassion, forgiveness, and altering reality suddenly became measurable to some degree. Not just from my personal reflection, but on actual data on what was going on within my brain.
As I drifted in and out of various stages of consciousness I began to notice certain patterns.
Second, through my project Consciousness Engineering, I’ve been on the phone every week with the world’s greatest spiritual thinkers as well as billionaires, biohackers and other people performing at the peaks of the human condition.
I’ve learned much from these conversations.
Several of these leaders I spoke to started talking about similar growth and mystical experiences they went through during certain periods of their lives. I noticed more patterns.
The past few months I’ve been putting together all of this research into a framework, which is going to be released in my book Code of the Extraordinary Mind in May 2016, by Rodale Publishing.
What I want to share with you in this post is a glimpse of this framework because it’s one of the most powerful tools which I’m using in my personal life — to run Mindvalley, and to make sure our customers have an incredible experience.
I call it “The 5 stages of Consciousness Evolution.”
The graph below illustrates the stages with deeper descriptions below.
We begin at Level 0: Early Man.
Level 0: Early Man
We have already moved beyond this stage. Hence the Zero.
My note: Wrong. Most of us haven’t moved beyond this stage. What defines a stage is NOT what you do, not what society, house you live in, but your values, your right/wrong, your relationship to yourself and to others. So no, we haven’t moved beyond this state.
In fact a whole 60% of humanity is on this level: the consciousness never rose, just the living circumstances.
We started out as hunter-gatherers as early man. Early man was not that different from an animal, it was simply an intelligent animal. We learned to dress ourselves, we learned to hunt, we learned to gather food, we learned farming. But one of the things that helped early man evolve into modern man, is language.
While a regular ape could point at a tiger, early man learned to say,
“Hey Bob, don’t go by the river until noon because I saw a tiger there. You might get eaten.”
That same faculty of language allowed us to expand, to form societies, cities, guilds, tribes and religions…
Then it allowed us to go to war over these same societies, cities, guilds, tribes and religions…
But in any event, language allowed us to build the modern world. And this brought us from Level 0 to Level 1.
Level 1: Modern Man
Humanity today is largely in Level 1. And at Level 1 we live in two different worlds.
We have one foot in the physical world. In the physical world, we can all agree on what a “dog” is. Or a cup. Or how that rock is grey. The physical world is absolute truth.
My note: What he wants to say here, that the physical world is independent of the observer. That what you say about it doesn’t make it so. What he doesn’t say is that in spite of the physical world being what it is and how it is, we still have a personal view of it… that makes us often ineffective… but that is another story.
But we also have one foot in the cognitive world. This is a cognitive world of ideas — a cognitive world of culture, of religion, of social practices — all man-made. And all constructed by the use of language patterns and models in our brain.
Much of the modern world is built on such ideas.
Passion, Career, God, Love, Self-Esteem, 9-to-5 jobs and millions more words we use are nothing more than thought-constructs in our head. Yuval Hariri in his book Sapiens, calls this the Cognitive Revolution.
Think about the word “career”… can you point and see a career?
Think about the word, “entrepreneur”…
Think about the word “God” or “meditation”…
These things are nothing more than cognitive constructs in the human mind, yet they feel real to us.
You can’t see culture, or tradition, or social rules… but for many people they are as real.
And this is the problem with the cognitive world. It’s a world full of constructs that may long have hit their expiration date. My friend Bill Jensen, author of Future Strong puts it succinctly:
“Even as we enter one of the most disruptive eras in human history, one of the biggest challenges we face is that today’s systems and structures still live on, past their expiration dates: How we organize people in companies; How we create and manage budgets; How we train and develop and coach and mentor people; and more. We are locked into 20th century approaches that are holding back the next big fundamental shifts in human capacity.”
My note: The situation is a lot more basic than that. You see, these guys ignore DNA. Social DNA. DNA that decides for us what is important, who to follow, who is important, where our loyalties lie. Who is to be judged and who is to get away with murder. Who has to work for sustenance and who is to be a freeloader… This is not 20th century, this is first century or earlier.
Many of the cognitive concepts that bind us to existing ways of living, are based on obsolete models of reality. I coined the term “Brules” to describe these. A Brule is a “Bullshit Rule” that we accept as true.
Ideas such as “success = hard work.”
Or that you need a college degree.
Or that the most productive use of people’s time is a 9-5 40-hour work week.
Or that fats are bad and carbs are good.
And so while Level 2 is a step above Level 1, it has a serious flaw.
At Level 1 we create judgments (this is “right” and that is “wrong”) and other belief models which are largely inherited but very rarely picked through rational choice. Human beings imitate for convenience. And so many such obsolete ideas get passed down from generation to generation.
The vast majority of human beings — I would estimate 95% — exist at Level 1.
My note: The author of this article doesn’t have a vantage point of a high vibration. Vishen Lakhiani personal vibration: 180. Bill Jensen, author of Future Strong: personal vibration: 170
This is one of the most important aspects of the vibrational reading: you can’t see enough distinctions, you can’t see sharply enough, and you can’t see the big picture if your vibration is low.
Said in another way: the truth value of what you see is low.
But there is a Level Higher.
Level 2: The Culture Hacker
At a certain stage, we start to question the world around us.
- Why do I need a college degree?
- Why was I raised in this particular religion?
- Is there more to life?
- What is God?
At this level, you question the dogma of the cognitive realm and start to make your own rules.
This state is about questioning everything. Most of our audience is questioning everything, which puts them on a path to learn, grow, and expand their abilities in every aspect of their life — parenting, health, meditation, consciousness, etc…
My note: OK, this is a big big big BS… if you question on a low level of vibration, you will get answers on that same vibration. To get accurate answers, or even to understand an answer that comes from a higher level, you need to first do the inner work to effect your vibration and your DNA
All the answers on Mind Valley come from and land on a “small picture” vibration… useless time wasters.
You start to see that you can hack this stuff, and live an extraordinary life by defying convention that doesn’t make sense for you.
This is where my model of Consciousness Engineering comes in.
It’s an elegant framework that gets you from the cognitive plane, to a reality hacker. To living up to your true potential, and becoming extraordinary in many areas of life.
By questioning conventions about work, love, sex, happiness, religion, and culture, you can make your own rules that empower and serve you.
But what happens when you’ve fully stepped outside of society’s rules… and off the path that others are following?
My note: at the risk of repeating myself, stepping outside of society’s rules with a DNA of the caveman, or the tribes man is going to be still a caveman doing whatever you’ll be doing. Your vibration is the same, your DNA is the same, and life is still going to be incredibly stressful, because your vantage point is inside the hubbub… where you are always in danger… thus the anxiety, the anger, the frustration, the greed, the forcefulness, the competitiveness. Misery galore
You forge your own path.
And this means you need to find your own mission, your own purpose, and your own vision for your future.
Again: vision, mission, purpose created from a low vibrational level will create an in-order-to life, not a meaningful one.
You need to get to the state of “limitless.”
Level 3: The State Of Limitless
When you get to the state of limitless something feels different.
I noticed that many of the great leaders I brought together for Consciousness Engineering spoke about this.
Joe Vitale (personal vibration: 200) spoke of how “inspiration leads to intention.”
Michael Beckwith (personal vibration: 140) talks about how you can become a “servant to the universe.”
Emily Fletcher spoke of the importance of following the nudges that lead to your calling.
All had one thing in common:
The idea that at a certain stage, traditional goals no longer motivate you as much. Instead, you’re obsessed with a mission. And this mission gives you meaning and drives you.
At this level you’ve hacked your reality, freed yourself from dogma, and taken steps to understand who you really are so that you can begin the next stage of your life.
In this state, you’re not driven by a conventional career or even money. Instead, you’re driven by…
Fulfilling Your Mission.
But it’s more than just that…
In the state of limitless, you have a clear vision pulling you forward… but you’re happy with where you are right now.
You’re tapped into a deep, intuitive sense of what you should be doing in life to really contribute and shake things up.
When you’re in this state, you have a mission, a clear vision, and you embody your purpose so fully that it seems as though the universe itself has your back.
There are 4 profound things I notice that people in this state seem to feel:
- A Sense Of Connectedness: When you get to this state, you start to feel a deep sense of connectedness with the world. All life, cultures, nations, people seem to resonate with you as part of “one family.”
- Tapped Into Intuition: When you get to this state, your Intuition seems incredible strong. You have gut feelings guiding you. Not occasionally, but on a regular basis. Many people I interviewed at this stage spoke about how when they started to write a book or speak at an interview, words would just “flow” through them. And the words would be extraordinary.
- Inspiration Drives Your Intention: At this state you don’t get moved by regular goals. Instead, you’re motivated by bigger missions to serve the world.
- Luck Is On Your Side: At this state, you seem to feel lucky. All manner of coincidences, synchronicities and luck seem to happen to push your forward. You thus tend to be positive, enthusiastic and optimistic about the world and life in general.
This is the state where the world’s most extraordinary people operate from.
But it’s not just for entrepreneurs, or even people doing things on a global scale.
With the right practices, anyone can get to this state, and be truly fulfilled serving their calling no matter what scale they do it at.
When you live life like this… you start to get glimpses of the God-mind.
Level 4: The God Mind
The God Mind is a mysterious state that I’ve only ever experienced for brief moments in my life.
It’s a pure merging of consciousness with all-that-is. Words can’t explain it well.
Ken Wilber (personal vibration: 170 he talks but his god-state was induced by drugs) talks about such a state and says that there is only a handful of people alive today who are able to consistently perform at this state. Most of us experience it through certain specific moments of awakenings. I experienced it in the Amazon rainforest with shamans of an indigenous tribe. (drugs again)
But for most of us, these glimpses are momentary and rare. But when we experience them – they leave us changed for the better.
It’s extremely difficult to describe using words… But it’s a feeling of pure connectedness with life and all parts of life. And it’s something that you can get closer to as you ascend through the levels of evolution.
How These States Correlate with Your Personal Growth
The interesting thing is that to ascend through these levels you need different tools depending on where you are.
You cannot jump a level. You can’t go from Level II to Level IV. But you can go from II to III.
Within each level the tools you use for your personal growth are also different.
For example in Stage I: Modern Man, you may start to dabble with goal setting.
In Stage II: Culture Hacker, you start to understand that your thoughts shape your reality. And you might begin practising basic meditation or Creative Visualization.
But at Stage III: The State of Limitless, you’re beyond normal goals. Your intention and goals stem from being tuned in to a higher source. Inspiration leads to Intention. At this stage (I moved here in 2014), the tools you use change dramatically. I no longer practice Creative Visualization. It’s kindergarten stuff compared to what I now know. Instead, I use a technique called “Merging” which involves disassociating my consciousness from the ego and ‘merging’ with the thought form of that which I want to bring into the world. (It’s very hard to describe with words.)
It’s more than I can explain in this post alone, but ascending through these stages is something I’m really passionate about, so what I’d like you to do, is join me on my upcoming masterclass, Becoming Limitless where I’ll be talking more about the five levels, and the specific techniques that you can use to ascend these stages.
More info on the Masterclass “Becoming Limitless” Below.
Let me talk about paradigms a little bit: a paradigm is a space, a world. Everything that you can see, could see, think or could think, be or could be makes up a paradigm.
You can think about about a lot of things, but thinking about a thing on the level of the paradigm.
Science fiction is the best example: writers write about futures on the level of thinking of their own time.
Becoming limitless on the level of vibration 170 is airy fairy, pipe dream, because it is not supported by the beingness of a higher paradigm, and therefore it smells of sweat, pretense, and haughtiness.
But you can sell it… and this is what Vishen is doing, at the tune of millions of dollars a year.
So, what do I recommend? I recommend doing the work of altering your DNA… so you can look at the world with more precision, more distinctions, and from higher.
My articles will, at some point, make you see what it is you need to do. My energies, energy remedies will support you to take action that make you venture into the next higher paradigm. My coaching will make the process faster.
One thing is certain: without action nothing will happen… including raising your vibration, including altering your DNA.
If you are still hoping that energies and remedies will do it for you… give it up. That is not the way reality works. Unfortunately. You need to earn your rise. And occasionally it is painful.
What other gurus “sell” you is angel dust… blinds you, but doesn’t do anything for you. This, including all the gurus, Vishen Lakhiani is no exception. And neither are any of his promoted gurus.
Read the rest of the article: Vibrational Review: 5 stages of Consciousness Evolution by Vishen Lakhiani