The Four Pillars of Consciousness or
the “Bookshelf Model” for Elevating Consciousness
By Kashonia Carnegie PhD
When you read my paper, “What is Consciousness?” you’ll see that I talk about many different types and forms of consciousness. But no matter what form of consciousness you’re talking about, if you want to move to a higher level of consciousness then the same basic four pillars need attention.
These four pillars are:
1. Relationship with Self – Where are you at?
2. Understanding or Knowledge
3. Skills;
4. Relationships with Others.
I sometimes talk about “The Bookshelf Model” because at each end are Relationship bookends, with many volumes in the middle of Knowledge and Skills.
Interestingly, in my paper “What is Love?” I spoke about the 5 keys necessary to raise love consciousness as being, Empathy; Humility or Egolessness; Unity Consciousness; Self-Awareness; and Self-Control. Love Consciousness, is one of the many forms or sub-systems associated with the larger system of Spiritual Consciousness that I am currently talking about.
And each of those five keys is linked to at least one of the four pillars above.
1. Relationship with Self: Humility or Egolessness, Self-Awareness, and Self-Control,
2. Understanding or Knowledge: Unity Consciousness; plus mentioned in passing what the Masters say about Love
3. Skills: Empathy, Humility,
4. Relationships with Others: Empathy, Self-Control.
So if we want to raise our Spiritual Consciousness or Meta Consciousness, the form of consciousness that is beyond all other forms of consciousness, let’s take a little closer look at what the four pillars entail.
1. Relationship with Self
As with most things in life, if YOU want to make some changes then you must start with YOU.
What is the story you tell yourself about your life? Analyse that story and see if and where it needs changing. What are your strongest beliefs, what are their foundation, and why are they held so strongly? Do those beliefs limit you or support you? What are your values, virtues, wants, desires, needs, and why are they a part of you? What things or people are you still attached to that might need letting go of?
Then you need to look at your fears, who and/or what are you afraid of? How often do you question a story or do you just accept it as is?
And of course the biggie that needs to be addressed is ego. We all have an ego of some kind. For simplicity sake, I like to look at positive ego – the thing that gets you up in the morning, and motivates you to take a calculated risk. Then there is the negative ego which seems to control so many lives. This is the ego that needs to be taken firmly into hand and addressed.
It’s our negative ego that is so very concerned about others think of us; that stops us from saying ‘no I can’t do it today’. It’s negative ego that makes the dictators of our world want to have total power OVER others, so much so that they do not hesitate in killing or maiming their people. It’s the negative ego that makes us want to be noticed in a crowd or want to control a conversation so the people in the group will know how cleaver we are.
To what degree do you have negative ego, and how does it manifest?
2. Understanding or Knowledge
With the concept of love, we need some theoretical understanding of what it is, which is why so many people don’t have a clue what love is all about. So too when it comes to moving our consciousness to a higher level there are some fundamentals that we need to have an intellectual understanding of.
One of the stories that I tell in my “What is Consciousness?” paper is of the Vipassana Yoga retreats that are held all over the world.
A Vipassana Yoga retreat is a 10 day, live-in experience/course, which is normally set in beautiful natural surroundings. It is a totally silent retreat – 24 hours a day. For the entire 10 days, 24 hours a day, you must not utter a word to anyone nor look at anyone in the face. If you are walking from A to B and someone is approaching you must look down, or at least avert your eyes. Normally, you will sleep in a dormitory – men in one and women in other. And again, you must not talk to anyone in your dorm either. The only person you can talk to, in extreme cases, is the person running the retreat.
Most of the day, from about 5.30am, is spent in meditation. However, prior to each meditation session, there’s a session of content where the course ‘leader’ explains what this is all about so you have an intellectual understanding of what it is you’re about to do and why.
So even in something as strict and spiritual as this, there is an understanding that meditation alone is not sufficient without some intellectual understanding of what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how best to do it.
And the same most definitely applies to moving to a higher level of consciousness.
Now some of these topics that I’ll mention in a moment might have you saying something like – “Kashonia, you must be kidding. I have no interest in any of those subjects at all, and even less interest in learning about them.”
And that’s fine if you feel that way. As with all things in life it is your decision, your choice as to what you do and don’t do. And that’s why the first pillar is so important to start with – the pillar about learning about yourself and learning about the things that are important to you.
Now it’s true that you can say, no thanks; look I’ll just be a kind, caring, and loving person towards others and I am sure that will be sufficient for whatever is heading this way.
And that is absolutely fine.
If you read my article http://www.envisioningconsciousness.com/summary/2012-prophecy-what-will-happen-part-2 you’ll see that people who act this way will indeed experience a form of automatic increase in consciousness, even if it does take its toll on the way. But all will be fine in the end.
But if you really want the full benefits of opening yourself up to living a life of higher consciousness as mentioned in my “What is Consciousness?” paper – benefits such as, enjoying peace and contentment; a fulfilling life; getting younger everyday in every way except chronologically which will no longer matter; being healthier, happier, more productive, and attracting your dreams, and the list could go on.
If you want to enjoy a life at higher levels of consciousness, then these four pillars will help you do it. As I’ve said in many different places, I can show you how to climb the staircase of consciousness, I can warn you of the obstacles along the way, but if you really want to keep climbing – then you will have to physically take action and do the climbing yourself.
And the aspect of climbing the stairs that I think is so important and so very special, is that once you start to climb the stairs then you can guide others and assist them on their journey too. And that is a very fulfilling gift indeed.
So briefly, what are just some of the topics that you need to learn about to really help you up that staircase. And you only need a very basic understanding of these things. You’re not going out to teach graduate school. It’s just a basic conceptual understanding of things like, truth, integrity, virtues, values, ethics. You need to understand the fundamentals of consciousness itself and systems thinking. And it will also be enormously helpful if you have a basic understanding of topics such as harmonics, vibration, frequency, resonance, and the unified field.
If one or more of these topics is a great interest to you, then you can continue on your own to research the topic at greater depths. Otherwise, a basic understanding of the concept, what it is, and how it works in relation to helping you climb that staircase of consciousness is all that is required.
3. Skills
By definition, the word “moving” your consciousness to a higher level indicates that some action must be taken. And there are at least four essential skills which you’ll need to both understand and continue to hone if you want to move to higher levels of consciousness. And I use the words “at least’ four because in each of these there are also sub-categories.
Intuition
“In no particular order” the first is intuition. Many people are calling this new age/era we have entered, the Age of Intuition. Developing and honing your intuition is one of the most important things you can do. A well-honed intuition is your decision-maker, it will keep you safe from harm, it will make you a much more understanding and loving person, and it is your connection to the rest of the world.
Creative Thinking
The ability to think in new and creative ways are essential to give you the flexibility to cope with the changes ahead of us all and to come up with new and innovative ways of doing things.
As an example, unless we can learn to be flexible, innovative, and handle ambiguity for starters, all of which come with the ability to think creatively, we will never be able to break the mould of a lifetime of thinking in a certain way and move to a higher order of thinking.
Thinking at Higher Levels
If we are going to move from an old paradigm way of doing things to new paradigm ways we must be able to think ‘outside-the box’. We need to think in new and different ways. We need to be able to take a multi-perspective approach to all things both looking inside at ourselves as well as outside of ourselves at others around us.
Questioning or Philosophical Analysis
Finally, not only is creative thinking important, so is analytical or philosophical thinking.
Now again, this does not mean that you have to be able to think like Socrates – although WOW wouldn’t that be fantastic! But, especially at this time of transition, it’s important not to accept anything on face value. It’s the fact that so many of us accept, without question, what we are told, by big business, or governments, or even the church, that enable us to be misled, or subtly “controlled” by these entities.
And someone with an elevated level of consciousness is not controlled by any one. Because they are not controlled by others they are able to be unconditionally open and loving to all.
How many limiting beliefs do have that have been embedded by someone who has some form of power over you?
You might say that no one has power over you.
But what about something as seemingly innocuous as the church and religion? Have you ever stopped and questioned the veracity of your religion’s doctrine? Where did it really come from? Or our governments, who work hand in hand with the business world because they both have the common number one value of economic success. To what extent do these groups have power over something as basic and simple as what you eat?
Take a look at my article at http://www.envisioningconsciousness.com/summary/codex-alimentarius if you think for a second that what you eat is not controlled by “big brother”.
It is essential that we learn how to question what we are told. And that includes what I am saying now for that matter.
4. Relationships with Others
With the first three pillars for elevating consciousness working for us, then it’s time to examine and develop our relationships with others. You’ll also find that this will frequently link back to further exploration of your relationship with yourself.
The most important relationship to develop at this time of transition is our relationship with nature. Again, this too loops back to pillar number one – our relationship with ourselves. As an example, if we are not really a nature-type person, and many people aren’t, then the question is, why not? After all, we are a part of nature, so if you have no close affinity with nature then that is something that really must be explored.
Other aspects to be considered, in regard to having a relationship with nature, are what does that relationahip actually entail? And why is it important?
Then there are relationships with family, friends, and community. This might also lead you to service to others and becoming an inspirational leader. Whilst becoming an inspirational leader is not an essential aspect of elevating consciousness, but being an inspirational role model is.
So here we have the four pillars of moving to a higher level of consciousness (1) Relationship with Self; (2) Understanding or Knowledge; (3) Skills; and (4) Relationships with Others, and a few insights as to what these four pillars are all about.
These are the areas we need to be working on if we want to be able to integrate with the greatest possible ease, those higher vibrational frequencies that are arriving on our planet.
As always, I’d love your thoughts and comments in the comment box. Just click on the heading and scroll down to the end of the article.
Love
Kashonia
