On the path of Personal Evolution, as we continue to deepen—to evolve—our relationship to our sexuality deepens as well. It may be more accurate to say that our already existing depths are revealed to a greater and greater degree. What this means to you is that as a consciously evolving being, your experience of sexuality [both your own and that of your communion with another] will shift, change, and evolve as well.

As usual, this experience ranges from unconscious to conscious to super-conscious. From pre-rational, to rational, to trans-rational. From shallow to deep to deeply reflective and inspiring. From instinct to intellect to intuition. From body to mind to soul with each level transcending and including the former. From “getting laid” to “partnering” to having “spiritual communion” with each level solving the challenges of the level previously experienced while creating new, more complex challenges to be resolved by the next level.

And so on.

Jeff wanted to get laid. Often. He would go out to bars and “pick up on lovelies”. After years of “putting notches in his belt” Jeff finally felt unfulfilled, but he did not know why. Jeff had reached the limit of his capacities to behave unconsciously around his sexuality. His new depth now required more. He felt this in his bones, but could not name it other than to say he was “tired of the game”.

Sondra had a childhood fantasy of her Knight in Shining Armor. Since she was 5 she dreamed of her fantasy wedding. How her dress would be. How he would look—kissing her with his strong jaw line jutting forth like a marble statue of a god. And after her wedding–which looked just perfect—she was unhappy. When she made love to her husband—who was perfectly handsome—she did not feel connected to him. Not long after he did not seem to desire her as much. She had reached the limits of the gifts of her fantasy. It took a spiritual teacher to ask her if she had consciously chosen all the trappings of her fantasy. Did she? Or was she living off of the promises of that first bridal magazine she saw when she was five years old? She became more conscious. She began to consciously design her life. Communicating this to her husband lovingly and openly perhaps saved her marriage.

Steve was willing to wait for the right woman. He wanted a woman that demonstrated his values. A true partner who would make a good mother, provide him an oasis at home, yet was strong in herself and was her “own person” and was, well, gorgeous. Steve wanted a woman who did not “need” him, but who would lovingly “choose” him. He eventually found her in his mid-thirties. Their sexual relationship continued to deepen and enrich their lives and partnership, for the more he was around her, the more he loved her, the more he respected her, and the more she turned him on as a result.

Steve chose consciously and rationally and reaped the rewards a result.

Rachael was in love. However she was “in love” as a result of the continued deepening of the Self and the spiritual communion she experienced with her lover. He did not look the way she thought “her man” would look. He did not have the “right kind of job” her parents wanted her partner to have. However, he demonstrated openness and love and truly cherished her. And they had a mutually agreed upon approach to resolving conflict in their relationship; they took it on a as a spiritual practice. They viewed their sexual relations in the same manner—as a spiritual practice. As communion with God. Rachael and her lover were choosing trans-rationally. They evolved all the more rapidly as a result.

For someone at any of these levels of depth or evolution, the previous level no longer fulfills them. It will not support their happiness. While the level above provides opportunities for further stretching and evolution. Of course, if one is at a pre-rational level and meets someone at a trans-rational level, they will either be confused by their approach to the world, or be deeply hurt, or stretched beyond their capacities, and thereby in further danger of possible regression, rather than transcendence to the next level. One step at a time. Skipping the rational level will not help, it will hurt, as it is the rational that provides the foundational structures for a truly trans-rational game; a game of spirituality, intuition, openness and grace. And while this piece is intended to be focused on sex and sexual relations, there is a part of you even now beginning to generalize these concepts appropriately. Filling your mind with a rich map for Getting to Grace.

Remember—you are in a process. Your consciousness is ever evolving. The question is: “are you evolving consciously or unconsciously”.

The choice, as always, is yours. What will you choose?

Many of you heard Jason [me] talking about Personal Evolution on the Reality Sandwich radio show on KPOO 89.5FM with Julie and Martin Mathews. It was a rich hour of conversation. If you missed it and are looking for it, look no further. It is available now in MP3 format:

Download Here.

[As a preface, this piece assumes the rules of justice are commonly agreed upon and in place. That people are free from force and fraud as a matter of justice, principle, and integrity. These ideas are meant to build creativity within, and are not meant to give a way to violate that premise.]

“I would never die for one of my beliefs. I may be wrong [about it].”—George Bernard Shaw

“I am not interested in being right. I care about finding out whether I am or not.” –Albert Einstein

What Einstein and Shaw were both saying was that they would rather be accurate than be “right”.

Have you ever had a friend who thought they remembered something a certain way while you remembered it differently? Have you ever had a friend willing to argue with you about this very discrepancy? Have you ever done the same? While some may be eager to tell you how you are wrong, still others are willing to say “you may be right…but I remember it thus…”. Oh, what a difference a few words can make.

And it is that difference that makes the difference. It is that difference that can create ease, or foster dissonance. Generate grace, or create tension. Resolve differences or create new ones out of thin air.

Some would rather be right than be accurate. That is to say that they are constantly looking for evidence that their positions are “right”—buttressing their opinions in the face of contradictory information. This shows up in a range of behaviors from eco-terrorists violently attacking companies based on junk science to others ignoring the evidence of man-accelerated climate change. From those blaming intolerance for incompetence on racism whenever they can to the Bush Administration only listening to views that supported the existence of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and the call for the invasion of Iraq. From someone judging an acquaintance on limited information when their own self-esteem issues are triggered by them to having a fixed perspective on someone without direct personal experience with them. On both sides of the aisle—both ends of the spectrum—equally distasteful manifestations of this mind-set can arise.

At the same time, others would rather be accurate than be “right”. That is to say they are constantly taking in new information to verify their interpretations—and in fact working constantly to update them—having far less identification with them. They know they are not their opinions or views. They have their views. However, their views do not have them. These people are far more enjoyable to engage in political dialogue, they are truly intellectually curious.

Let us briefly examine both mindsets.

As usual, self-esteem plays an important role. As well as attachment. As well as ego—the antitheses of true self-esteem.

If one is interested in being “right”—they have their ego wrapped up in whether they are right or not—they are then deeply identified with their perceptions as an extension of themselves—then you can expect them to defend their positions as a matter of “honor”. They will be “up in arms” doing so. What follows may be a rather distasteful display of emotion in support of their belief, perception, etc. And, as a useful side note, you can always calibrate yours or another’s attachment to their view by whether or not they have a sense of humor around it. A sense of humor is a signal to a fluid perspective.

If one [you] are interested in accuracy, then they will be open, curious, have a lack of attachment to their views. They will be constantly working to verify their interpretations of the events in the world around them—of the people around them. This person will inevitably have high[er] esteem for the self, as it is only from this place that one can relax into the not-knowing that is required for fluidity around one’s perceptions.

What if one [you] in their self-reflexive moments notice that they are being attached to their view as “right” being blind to new information that may correct their accuracy?

What to do? As usual, the answer is to witness it, and then choose another path. Build the muscle of a lack of identification with your views. Build the muscle of witnessing. As it is from this place of pure witnessing that your spiritual path may lie ahead of you—quite clearly. Enjoy the view…and then step down and begin to walk the path. One. Step. At. A. Time.

WHAT is N.L.P.?
by Jason McClain

NLP–the set of tools titled Neuro-Linguistic Programming–is misunderstood far more often that it is understood. There is nothing new in NLP. There is no magic. It will not revolutionize your life whole-sum in one foul swoop, contrary to the marketing of some. So what is it?

The co-founder of NLP, John Grinder, says that it is simply a learning tool. Nothing more than a set if filters and tools to give you access to more of your neurology for the purpose of accelerated learning. Gregory Bateson, the world famous behavioral scientist, said that NLP is the only class 3 learning tool on the planet. What does that mean? With NLP you learn how to learn.

So then, why is NLP used the way it is used in the world most often—for brief and result-oriented therapy? This is a good question and certainly worth addressing.

In the beginning, in the early 70s, there were therapists producing amazing results. They were Virginia Satir, the founder and pioneer of Family Therapy; Fritz Pearls, the pioneer and founder of Gestalt Therapy; Milton Erickson, the grandfather of medical hypnotherapy. Additionally, there was the genius of Gregory Bateson–the world-renowned behavioral scientist. Given the results they were producing, the founders of this class of tools called NLP wanted to find out what patterns these geniuses were employing (at the meta level) that could be modeled, distilled, and reproduced. So, with their permission, they were studied by the co-founders of NLP along with the supporting staff. Who were these people that modeled the original patterns of these therapeutic geniuses? John Grinder and Richard Bandler assisted by Robert Dilts, Judith Delozier, Todd Epstein, and Leslie Cameron-Bandler. If you’ve a scientific or skeptical mind, read anything by Robert Dilts on NLP. He will make you a believer.

It could be argued that this original modeling is just one possible application of NLP. That argument would be stunningly accurate. NLP is simply a class of tools. It allows you to distill out the structure, process, and context of any given experience. Because of this, I call NLP “the study of the structure of human subjective experience”. Given that emotions are seemingly the biggest challenge facing human beings, then it could also be argued that investing so much time in studying the patterns of genius that have therapists get results was one of the most generous applications possible for this new-found tool. I would agree with that argument.

That was 30 years ago. Since then, NLP has come a long way thanks to the practitioners of this tool. They have modeled out many processes that the human being goes through naturally for the purpose of accelerated movement through said process. For example—how does someone naturally resolve a traumatic experience and come out of it with an outlook of positivity and even gratitude? This has been modeled. How does someone align themselves on multiple, holarchical levels of their experience—environment, behaviors, capabilities, beliefs/values, identity, and Spirit? This has been modeled. How does a human being take a part of themselves that they previously disliked and through greater understanding and negotiation, use it as a gateway to core states of being and connectedness? This has been modeled. How does a human being take some parental experience that was traumatic for them and move to a place of resource, gratitude, and compassion? This has been modeled. What is intuition, the most useful of all trans-rational experiences? This has been modeled.

The world owes NLP a debt of gratitude. This may not even be acknowledged for another generation and that is just fine…

NLP, as a field, does not care for dissertations or academia. This is largely why it is not accepted in the academic world. NLP, as a field, does not focus on whether or not something is true. “Truth” in this context has no meaning. What matters is whether or not something is useful. In that sense, NLP, as a field, is highly scientific. However, scientific in the broad sense, not the narrow sense. By scientific in the broad sense, I mean this: experiment, get some result, and offer up your findings to a group of your peers for rigorous testing. In this sense, NLP is deeply and rigorously scientific. Scientific in the broad sense. Not the narrow sense.

What is NLP? A tool to distill out models of excellence. Human models of excellence. Nothing more, but assuredly nothing less.

WHAT is N.L.P.?
a summary
by Mark Michael Lewis

NLP is sourced in the realization that that all human emotion is a function of how a person re-presents (represents, thinks about) any aspect of their experience. If you shift/change/alter how someone re-presents any aspect of their experience, you will shift/change/alter how they understand that aspect, what they feel about it, how they relate to it, and who they *be* around it.

In more technical terms, a “top 10″ might be:

1. The map is not the territory, the menu is not the meal – human beings make maps of their experience, they re-present their experience to themselves in the five senses/modalities.

2. How we understand, feel about, relate to, and BE around any aspect of our experience is determined by the map we make about that experience (our “occurring” world), not the experience itself.

3. You can change/alter/manipulate the maps (representations, how the world occurs) directly, by altering one or more of the five senses in the “map”.

4. When you change the map, you will change how people understand, feel about, relate to, and BE around that aspect of their experience

5. People work perfectly, they are not broken. They are getting exactly the results that they are getting. They can learn to get different results.

6. People already have all the resources they need and anything one human being can do/be/have/know/relate another human being can learn to do/be/have/know/relate.

7. People always make the best choice they experience as available to them.

8. Every human behavior is driven/caused/sourced by a positive intention, every aspect of human experience is to be respected/honored/integrated .

9. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly AT FIRST.

10. Choice is better than no choice, the element in any system which has the most flexibility will control that system – NLP is about adding choices, not subtracting them.

In plain language, NLP provides tools with which to resolve virtually any human emotional issue. NLP is 1) a set of filters through which to process our experience such that we have more power to achieve our values, and 2) a collection of hundreds of patterns/techniques/”interior rituals” that are specially designed to powerfully and permanently alter how someone represents (feels/BEs about) virtually every/any aspect of their life. Since human behavior (how we do/be/have/know/relate to our “world) is driven by our emotions 99 percent of the time, the more choice we have around how we “feel,” the more powerfully and elegantly we can create and move through our lives. It is the most powerful form of fix/change/improve technology I have ever encountered.

If transformation is all about shifting who we are/BE/relate to our world, NLP is all about shifting how that world automatically occurs for us through time. It is designed to alter not the “fact” of our Already Always Listening (AAL), but the standards by which our AAL automatically judges and assesses our experience. It is a tool for resolving our past (rather than getting off of it) and tapping into the juice/value of any/every experience we have. If transformation gives us the freedom to “be with” our occurring world, NLP gives us tools to shift the unconscious processes by which that world “occurs.”

Often, when we think of “being responsible”, many of us think of paying our bills, attending family gatherings, being on time, going to work, paying our taxes, etc. While that is accurate, there is a deeper level to peer into. One that affects each of us every moment of every interaction we have with others. And the question is, what does responsible communication look like? What does it mean to take responsibility in our interactions?

A woman was out eating at one of her favorite restaurants. She ordered a dish and made a request for a modification—she wanted feta cheese instead of cheddar. Seemingly, a simple change. When the dish came, the modification did not. She immediately blamed the waiter saying, “I told you feta”, quite indignantly. The waiter became defensive and clumsily blamed it on the kitchen, apologized, taking the dish back and soon brought out a new one with the feta cheese.

The rest of the service cycle remained tense and curt.

Perhaps the waiter was in error. Perhaps it was the kitchen. Perhaps she did not speak loudly enough when she made the request. What is certain is that she chose to blame rather than take responsibility.

If communication is about attaining some outcome, we could say that on the surface, she was successful; she got what she wanted. Or did she?

Every moment, we are faced with a choice to increase consciousness or decrease it. Something happens and we can either become more aware—rising to the occasion, or we can blank out. There is a more subtle aspect to this choice—we can either blame or we can take responsibility.

Both choices have consequences: the underlying ability to build or undercut self-esteem. At the same time, both choices have underlying dynamics: blame causes people to contract and defend. It can cause them to regress; to withdraw to more stable ground. And it supports pre-rational ego while undercutting the development of true self-esteem—for both parties, actually. While taking responsibility increases true self-esteem while necessitating the transcendence of pre-rational ego. It requires expansion, and gives both parties room to grow and evolve; to transcend.

Blame=causes regression=contraction

Responsibility=requires self-transcendence=expansion

Imagine the same woman eating in the same restaurant making the same request. The waiter brings the dish, having made the same mistake, and this time, the woman makes a different choice. She notices and, taking responsibility for the effectiveness of her communication asks, “Did I forget to mention that I wanted feta?” The waiter, feeling the space to take responsibility says, “You did. I am terribly sorry, let me fix that for you straight away.” The waiter brings it back with feta and informs her that dessert will be on the house. Instead of tension, there is a sense of openness and rightness and equitability in the sequence of events.

Each and ever day we engage in communication cycles with other people. Each and every day we consciously or unconsciously experience the dynamics of those interpersonal interactions. They impact us and impact others.

The example in the restaurant is a mundane example. But you can begin to notice even now, having turned your awareness to this aspect of your experience, how often you can make this choice in very meaningful contexts.

How often have you blamed [explicitly or implicitly, subtly or obviously] your lover, friend, husband, wife, mom or dad, when something did not go the way you wanted it to? How much has your intimacy with them suffered as a result? How many times have you not achieved some outcome because you were righteously indignant with a service representative, rather than gracious?

The truth is that most of us are not even aware of the costs of our behavioral choices in intimacy and frustrated outcomes. The added stress and tension. The inflated ego and undermined self-esteem. Given that self-esteem has been called the immune system for life, it is worth caring for. Strengthening. Supporting.

Every moment we each have a choice: increase our awareness or decrease it. And once there we have another choice: take responsibility or blame. To regress or transcend.

What will you choose?

Have you ever noticed how some people’s perception of the world seems more accurate than others? How some people’s perception of you seems more accurate than others? Have you ever stepped out and noticed the degree of accuracy of your own perceptions?

Have you ever had the experience of badly misjudging someone’s motives, being, intentions, behaviors, or character—thereby noticing your own inaccuracy? How did you account for this discrepancy? Have you ever noticed that you are more accurate about some people than others and how some people or some people’s behaviors trigger you and other’s do not?

What would your life be like if you were freed from disproportionate emotional responses and you could see the pure and innocent core of others?

It is commonly known in the world of platform skills training that most feedback tells you far more about the giver of the feedback than the recipient. In other words, if I do something in the world, like give a talk, or write something such as this piece you are reading, or even simply tell a joke in a public a small percentage of the feedback I receive will be solid, objective feedback. A larger percentage will be a demonstration of the person’s level of development, prejudices, beliefs, and—at worst—unresolved emotional events form their past and their issues of esteem for themselves.

Why?

The Buddhists speak of using Vipassana meditation to “clear away the clouds so you can see the sun”. The sun is always there—as it is. But in your perception, it is grayed. It is blocked. It is obscured. The word “vipassana” actually means to clear things away to see them “as they are”. Not as you would have them be, believe them to be, or think they are—but as they are. There is this I.D.E.A. of cleansing your vision. Giving your Self clarity of vision. How is this possible? We are lead to believe in our world of post-modern philosophy that this is not possible. There is only our skewed subjective experience. Yet simultaneously, many of us seek out coaches, gurus, leaders, and friends who have this very clarity. They “see” things—accurately and clearly. And these people are widely respected, valued, and many acquire great wealth in the process. Be it wealth of spirit or community or material wealth—or all of the above.

How is this accomplished? How can we clear our vision such that we see things more accurately and can relate with others in a space of clarity and presence? To answer that we need to back up a bit…

The first step is noticing. Do I have a preconceived notion about the person/organization/community? Am I dealing with and relating to them right now? Or am I dealing with my internal representations of them? Have I verified my interpretations of them/it?

Do I have “disproportionate” emotional responses? Do I experience anger, guilt, shame, blame, fear to a degree that stops me from being fully self expressed in the natural disposition that the spiritual warriors of Shambhala teach, which is the natural disposition of pride, joy, and a general upright posture and attitude? Do the “little things” in life bother me? Do I judge others as bad and wrong rather than experiencing compassion and wisdom for them and if so, to what degree?

Disproportionate emotional responses typically have two sources: unresolved past experiences that we have coded as “negative” in our subjective experience. These may come in the form of parental “imprints” or they may come in the form of a “gestalt” of negative emotions rooted in our childhood when we did not have the wisdom to see the positive learning or meaning in the pain. Meaningless pain leads to misery and agony and creates a deep gouge in our emotional consciousness. This can be resolved with any number of technologies and turned into a gift.

Self-esteem is the other primary source of a disproportionate emotional response. Using the definition that self-esteem is the knowledge that you are competent to handle life’s challenges and the belief that you deserve to be happy [self efficacy and self-regard] then what happens when one has insufficient self-esteem in any given context? One responds with fear, uncertainty, and this can often appear as anger or some other disproportionate response. A person with high self-esteem can respond with graciousness, clarity, and ease. The higher degree of self-esteem one has, the more gracious one will be.

Unresolved events and disproportionate emotional responses can actually “color” or skew our vision—and actually alter our internal representations. We have all heard of the “green monster” of jealousy and “seeing red” when one is angry. An excellent example of this was a client I worked with had their visual sub-modalities colored as red in memories where anger was present beginning at an impact experience when they were 4 years old. In other words, when they visualized the events, there was a red tint to the image. Once we worked with the events using Time Line Therapy™, all of the events had lost the red tint and they were now seen in black and white.

Of course, even to get to a place where one would choose to clear their vision requires self-reflexive awareness and a certain degree of personal responsibility; it requires the ability to notice and assess one’s own behavior and an acceptance of the truth that we are all responsible for our own emotional life and a desire to evolve one’s self. This in and of itself is a monumental breakthrough for most who experience it. The next step is to take the necessary action to clear one’s past and begin to build a strong sense of self, a large component of which is healthy self-esteem, and then to begin to generate a new compelling future—one of your own design that will inspire, uplift, and draw one to new heights unburdened of the past habit patterns. From this place of freedom and generative creativity nothing is impossible.

It is your natural born right to live a joyous and free life full of love and happiness. All that stands in your way is a choice. The choice of course belongs to you.

What will you choose?

We, as a people, seem to love classifications. As humans, it is what we do best: identification. It separates us from primates. We can identify and classify things into systems, genres, classes, subclasses, and so on. This is a great skill; a skill that could even save your life some day as you classify “dangerous, not dangerous – deadly, not deadly”. The ability to identify (what is it?) and then extrapolate accurately (what does it mean?) is indeed a critical skill. A skill no less critical even as we get more and more civilized. In fact, it could be argued that the dangers get ever more complex and demanding of this skill the more complex our society becomes and the more knowledgeable we become.

When this gets interesting is when we apply and over apply this skill to other human beings where physical safety is clearly not a concern. We have all sorts of categorizations and systems of classification. We have race, sexual preferences and orientation, political party affiliation, zodiac sign, political orientation or leaning, class separation, high school cliques, enneagram number, etc., etc. These are all tools we use to classify, to categorize, and to put people into some box or drawer. At first, it may seem like we use these tools to gain a better understanding of who they are, really. Is that how we typically use them, in actuality?

The way I have seen myself and others use them is as I described above. We put them into a box. We now think we “know” them, or at least that portion of them. They are a democrat or a republican and all of a sudden, we now “know them” politically. They are a 3 on the enneagram, and all of a sudden we “know” what to expect of their behaviors; their light and beautiful side and their darker patterns. We put them into a box and we can then relax, or tense, or whatever, but some part of us relaxes. We know them; we can now relax and move on to putting another part of them into a box. Are they heterosexual or homosexual? Ah, they are bi-sexual. We can now relax (or tense [laugh]) because we now “know” who they are sexually. But do we? (It is fascinating to see someone feed their ego when they think they have “nailed” someone’s zodiac sign or enneagram number by guessing at it; excited about putting someone in a box.)

Once we put someone into a box, we then stop relating to who they are as a unique and beautiful being — we begin to relate to the box. We begin to fit all of their behaviors into that box or view their behaviors through the filter of said box. Sure, we are more comfortable ourselves once we have classified them, but the real relating begins to die a slow (or rapid) death. We now stop relating to who they are in this moment, right now, and begin to relate to what we read about them in a book, or what we see about their “type” on TV, Etc. Then what began as a tool for greater understanding and deeper relating has ended up as a wall or a barrier to greater and truer understanding – a barrier to more intimate relating; a wall around the heart. A wall and a filter we are often not even aware of.

And what are human Beings anyway? They are manifestations of the divine. Can we really classify that? Human Beings at their best and most inspirational are creative, spontaneous, dances of improvisation, which is completely unpredictable, and if we get too caught up in who we think they are, we may miss a glimpse of god as it dances right before us, right within our grasp.

While these tools for classification are useful to a certain point, they are only useful to a certain point, where if we want true relating, true intimacy, they must then be cast aside. If we truly desire peace on this planet, it will take something like this, from all sides, from all perspectives, from all lands.

From the heart, guided by the head, enveloped in Spirit,

Someone once asked me: “Do we ever really fall in love with another person, or are we falling in love with the idea we have of that person. In essence, are we then not just narcissistically falling in love with ourselves?”

Some Baghwan or another said, “it is more accurate to say, ‘I experience love when I am with you’, than to say, ‘I love you’”.

What they both bring up is interesting, and I think it is accurate. Accurate, but partial.

It presupposes love is always rooted in the pre-rational level of development in s/he who is seeking or finding love. For it is in the pre-rational that narcissism is rooted and fixed. The need to have ourselves reflected back–approval from external sources given—is narcissistic. A need to be admired. Liked by Other. At all costs.

There is also a great deal of evidence in developmental psychology today that “love at first sight” is often the result of similar childhoods–parental histories specifically–somehow recognized at the unconscious level. Recognized and drawn to. A frightening thought as we look at most romantic archetypes and culturally trained patterns.

How many times have you seen people shape their behaviors so they can be loved [validated] by another? How many times have you done it? How many times have you subtly or not so subtly engaged in a dynamic intended to have them alter their behavior to fit your notion of how the love “should” look.

Unfortunately, as a culture, be it in our poetry, in the love stories, in romantic film, or in pop music, it is only the “I would die for you, I cannot live without you, I am nothing without you” [all pre-rational] that gets all the play, limelight, airtime, etc.

True (rational And beyond) esteem for the self is rooted in the rational. Self-esteem defined as the knowledge that we are fundamentally competent to handle whatever life throws at us and that we are appropriate to life, or that we deserve to be happy. There is a very real sense in which the depth of love you can give to another is limited [only] by the love you have for your Self.

At the rational level love often follows from finding people who embody your ideals. They may embody them more than you even. Is this narcissistic—which is loving your own reflection back with moral valence of “I am therefore good/bad; right/wrong”? I do not think so. I think this is gravitating toward that which you feel is worth emulating; that which you have determined produces worthwhile results in the world. Truly rational.

And the trans-rational and transcendent, where compassion, love of all sentient beings, and unconditional love begin to emerge. This does not mean the love of all behaviors of those sentient beings, but the ability to look beyond behaviors–to not confuse identity and behaviors, as they are different logical levels–and to love the being still. Love the being in the face of uninspiring–and perhaps even heinous–behaviors.

Of course, the challenge for us all is that as we develop through this spiraling ascent (or deepening of the Self, if you prefer) we can only understand the level of development we are at and below. At best, we can understand that which we have experienced. We may have experienced it for but a moment, giving us some inkling of the next level, or deepening. But that peak experience is required, in the least, to perceive it.

Perception often, truly is projection. We can only reflect the depth we have achieved and we can only reflect back the depth to which we can see. It is in this knowledge that we must look on others with fresh eyes, peering into their depths, knowing we may not be able to see all that they are…yet.