The spiritual plateau: Why love is not the highest spiritual state
When talking to spiritual people I often observe a key plateau on the path that stops them from spiritually evolving further. These people are committed to the journey and know that the standard way of living and relating to each other is not for them. They want to break free of the mold, live their best self and experience the bliss and expansion of higher states of consciousness.
If this is you, you may have thrown yourself into spaces which connect you in emotional and/or physical intimacy with others. You may have read the books, done the retreats, sung the mantras. You know how it feels to be in spiritual bliss or expansion. However, you may also feel like you're repeating certain patterns, despite having thought you'd moved beyond them. Maybe you feel like there could be even more to discover about life and yourself than what you have so far, but aren't sure where to go next. You're probably fine and mostly happy, but there may be an underlying frustration or exhaustion.
This frustration, this exhaustion, is calling you towards transcendence. Love is indeed a state which brings us closer to the source. However, I put it to you that it is not the source itself.
Why?
From my experience, the source itself originates from the singularity point: a void of form that contains the potential for everything. From that potential arises form (not only physical), including the stream of consciousness that is your soul. So, when you touch the source (singularity) within, it can feel like nothingness or emptiness, but also like pure potential. It feels like pure presence.
In actual fact, all experience is only possible through duality - this in relation to that. Therefore, although the ultimate truth is the oneness of all things, it is impossible to have a direct experience of that oneness because it exists only in the void. The closest we can come is to access a state of beingness which feels like it's beyond our body-mind. This is described as pure presence. This is transcendence.
The problem with love arises when you believe that it's the solution to a particular problem, or that you have to act a certain way in order to express love. All this does is create an identity around a certain way of being. Even if it's a 'spiritual' identity - actually these are the hardest to get past.
Whenever you strategise by saying, "I'm going to be like this", you actual hinder the natural flow of the soul. You actually limit the full potential of who you are, therefore coming further from the source, which is pure potential. Maybe in your deepest truth you can feel this. In the moment you make such a statement, your path becomes more fixed and less fluid. You become programmed in a certain way, even if that program is one that is generally aligned.
To clarify, I'm not saying that one shouldn't be loving. What I'm saying is that love shouldn't be the aim. Rather love is what naturally arises when you move beyond the small self (ego). This can only be done by going deeply into every wounding, every experience that keeps you from being the pure flow of soul, and then transcending that experience into pure presence. It's not about healing on an intellectual level, but allowing healing to occur on a deeply energetic and embodied one.
If you do this, then every word, every action becomes one of love because you're expressing directly from the source. So, you naturally intuit how to be in order to align with the natural flow of the torus of life, flowing to and from the source. You don't think about it, or strategise. You just are that.
So how to step beyond love?
Love exists within the 4D (4th density) which we feel as the heart space. It's also the causal body, which allows us to dream and astral travel. It's the space we might immediately pass into when we die, having left the 3D (body, emotions, mind).
To step beyond love you have to recognise when an attachment to love or compassion is getting in your way. This happens if you think, "this is how I have to act now" or, "the highest form of expression would be to be compassionate". Note this last one especially. The statement may be true, but if it's your intention, you risk making it a fixed strategy - thus you limit the flow if it invites something else of you too.
Then there is the realm beyond the 4D consciousness of love - the 5D. This is a faster vibration. It's not the source itself, but it's closer to it. When we connect and act with the 5D, we're connecting into a field that is less literal and more metaphoric. The whole universe speaks to you through synchronicity, reflecting to you how you're being or what you might be missing. The call of a raven, a pattern in the clouds, the blow of a car horn. You may or may not understand what they are telling you. You actually don't have to because the 5D is beyond intellect so it doesn't have to register in the mind - rather, you'll feel it, like a rightness or an infusion of kundalini (life force) energy.
How to connect more with the 5D?
1) As I've alluded to earlier, you have to watch where you limit yourself because your wounding causes you to resist the natural flow in some way. The soul wants you to break through this limitation, so challenging the identity with body, emotions and mind is essential as a daily focus.
2) As much as possible, connect to the pure presence within, through meditation.
3) Get out in nature as much as possible and really spend time connecting with it. Then feel how it may be speaking to you. You've just got a face-full of spiders web? What is that telling you? How does that stone formation feel?
4) As much as possible approach your day with a feeling of flow. Not planning every minute part of it. It's also very important to become friends with the unknown. That allows more spontaneity.
5) As you deepen your practice, you may start to see reality as more metaphorical or symbolic. Less literal. Keep connecting with this feeling. It's like reality becomes a weaving together of truth, experienced like a feeling of magic.
Here is a very basic overview of my personal experiences of 3D, 4D and 5D consciousness. Please note, these are simply different levels of being with reality. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other. However, if we are stuck in 3D or even 4D, we limit ourselves to the potential that's there for us.
3D: If my consciousness is primarily in 3D, I'm concerned with goals. Achieving this by doing that. Soul gives me an impulse in a certain direction and 3D consciousness works out how to achieve that in the physical.
4D: Consciousness is a little more dreamlike. I notice how people, nature and events are connected. I can mediate through different situations and different truths/perspectives. I notice that there's a deeper meaning to life beyond the physical.
5D: The limitations of mind and body do not dictate my actions. Instead, it's an intuitive pull or a weaving together of flow. Spontaneous and uncertain and yet trusting and clear. It's fast - if you let doubt get in the way then the flow is gone. There's a deep feeling of metaphysical truth about it. Knowings land without necessarily being interpreted by mind. Most of all, for me, it feels like magic. I feel like a wizard when I'm in the 5D.
I trust that this article inspires you to reach beyond love. Love is a beautiful thing indeed - yet it's easy to become stuck in that frequency bubble if you make it a fixed concept or an intention. I want to inspire you to strive for truth, for interconnected flow and for magic.
Warm wishes,
Richard
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