Higher States Addiction
One common mistake we make is to ‘pursue the experience’ of higher states of consciousness.
It is important and useful to be able to recognize the higher states of consciousness while one is experiencing, but we need to be careful one’s desire and effort to experience the higher states of consciousness is not from our instinctive center. The instinctive center loves to experience these unusual states of consciousness. Same as who are addicted to drugs or alcohol, the Fourth Way followers tend to get addicted to the experience of higher states of consciousness, and erroneously think that more frequently and intensely one can experience higher states, the more one is advancing in the Work.
The instinctive center can make you believe you are experiencing higher states of consciousness, when in fact, you are just experiencing the enhanced states of instinctive center awareness.
You need to be able to distinguish true higher states of consciousness and not to be deceived by the instinctive center.
In true higher states, you are heart centered and grounded, accompanied by higher emotions such as gratitude and love, whereas ones from instinctive center you feel head/mentally oriented.
It is a wrong triad if the first force of one’s effort is to ‘experience’ higher states of consciousness. In a correct triad, the first force is our desire/effort to be present and to remember oneself, and as a result one might experience higher states.
