She has taught consciousness and healing for 24 years in Europe,(speaks 5 languages) and has published a book titled, ""FROM THE HEART THROUGH THE HANDS" Unconditional Love and Laying on of Hands , A new synthesis of healing" which can be found in 3 European languages, (aprx. 40,000 copies sold, now considered a classic.)
Maud is also an experienced lecturer. If you are interested her website: www.maud-nordwald-pollock.com.
"In the 25 years of doing workshops teaching health practitioners how to do laying on of hands healing, out of necessity to get them beyond ego needs to do the healing helper work, I developed a very powerful method for healing emotions, like fear, pain etc. I call "Feeling Dissolve©" it neutralizes our negative feelings, makes us detached and clear thinking. And we are able to move out of need and judgment t into Unconditional Love. So much for that, if you are interested you can read about it on my website, especially the article called the "5th state of consciousness." ~ Maud Nordwald PollockI have included a snippet of Maud's beautiful article called the "FEELING DISSOLVE "© a tool to facilitate the FIFTH STATE of CONSCIOUSNESS for your reading pleasure.
~enerchi
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"FEELING DISSOLVE "© a tool to facilitate the FIFTH STATE of CONSCIOUSNESS
by Maud Nordwald Pollock
In 1995 Len Fliers wrote a paper called Demystifying mysticism: Finding a developmental relationship between different ways of knowing.(1) His article helped me to better position the work that I have developed since 1989, a tool to manage and sublimate feelings and thoughts i.e. the emotions that I call "Feeling Dissolve"© .
To understand the purpose of Feeling Dissolve© and what it can accomplish it helpful to review briefly the evolution of our consciousness, guided by Fliers insight and my spiritual view.
FIRST ORDER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
In his article Flier separates the evolving consciousness into five levels. Jean Piaget conceived a psychology of cognitive development, in which the progress of an individual is based on qualitative ability to take in more complex information. As a child grows up it not only knows more, it knows in different ways.
Four year old children are presented with two glasses of water, one tall and narrow the other shorter and wider, equal volume of water are poured in both. When asked which glass had more water, at first they would agree it was the same. When the same amount of water was taken from the shorter glass and poured into the emptied taller narrower glass, the child when asked, would reply that the latter glass had more water. This experiment demonstrated that a young child relates to the world in terms of what it sees. This way of experiencing is considered pre-operational. When the water was poured back into the original glass, when questioned the child would reply that the quantity was the same now, but not before. Despite repeated attempts to make it clear that it was the same quantity there was no way of making the small child realize otherwise. This demonstrated that no matter how logically or concrete one tried to present this reality to the child, or for that matter anyone at a certain level of development, it was unable to be perceive at the next stage of development. What I see is what I believe, and what I believe is true.
Robert Kegan developed constructive-developmental psychology, which includes personality and classifies the first order of consciousness, the development in a small child, age four, as being impulse based. The small child accordingly takes as objects his/her sensations, it feels what it sees. I feel that it has an impression, and in my experience an impression is feeling based. My interpretation is that its experience is feeling motivated, a small child is learning to deal with feelings and is dominated by feelings, which supercede the ability to reason. According to Flier the morality at this level is based on impulse. "If I feel like hitting that other child because it is playing with my toy it is OK because I feel like it."
Grown ups can partly remain at this stage of development, reflected by this feeling based trait to see what we choose to see, and deny what we don't want to see. This trait when practiced by groups Jean Houston calls as "cultural lenses". A particularly poignant example of this phenomenon is demonstrated by a group of natives discovered by anthropologists, a tribe of living in the Klahary. These people believed that at the boundaries of their territory was the end of the world. To cross this boundary meant certain death. When anthropologists tried to demonstrate that this belief was untrue by crossing the boundary, these natives cried profusely stating that the other would die and stopped seeing the person. To them that person simply disappeared in a void.(2)
In my view spirituality at this level of consciousness is imminent. A small child lives the finer dimensions, it can remember, see, hear, smell of feel presences of other vibratory levels of reality. When these are reinforced they can become the point of reference of a lifetime of knowing. Research demonstrates that small children two to three can remember their time in-uterus or before.(3) But likewise these can be confusing sources of information when denied by the outside world.
SECOND ORDER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The second order of consciousness, is entered approximately at the age of seven. The seven year old is able to include to what it sees, what it knows. The amount of water is the same, it is the shape that changed, it is able to separate subject from object. This stage of development is considered concrete- operational. I would interpret this to mean that it comes to concrete things mind i.e. reason precedes feelings.
According to Kegan at this stage the child is able to order the sensations into categories, durable categories that can be defined as perceptions. The development that takes place is one where the evolution of perception goes from taking something that is subject and recognizing it as an object. However this order of consciousness is imbedded in needs, desires and preferences. In my view the child is still dominated by feelings, reason is influenced by feelings. Expressed as needs and desires in the first person, his/her own needs and desires. These exist only in relation him or herself, creating a morality of fairness as to "my" needs and preferences. It is the phase in which the world revolves around us, and has to comply to what we want, if this does not happen I am a victim of the outer circumstances. The world is to blame and I don't feel in control of it. Flier states that the second order the reasoning the morality base is a "tit for tat" attitude. That of "an eye for an eye."
In my view spirituality at this stage becomes conditioned by the outside world in the form of religious beliefs. Although the ability to perceive is still there it can become diminished by the immense input of information from the outside world, which does not always correlate with what the child is experiencing. The information becomes confusing and since reason is starting to dominate it may be chosen as the primary mode of reference. Intuition is subsumed to reason. i.e. The child who enters a room where parents recently have had a big fight, experiences the vibratory charge of the environment, knows there has been a fight. But when confronting the parents, these pretend nothing has happened. This confuses the child, who is right? The pretending parents or my perceived feelings. Since children tend to trust their parents they submit to the former version, unintentionally giving up their intuition.
Many years ago I experienced such an event with a unknown child. I was swimming in a public pool when a stranger, a woman, come over to me to ask me if I was OK. Her little daughter had told her I was not feeling well. In fact physically I was fine, but emotionally I was in considerable pain. This child had in some way noticed my distress, and sent her mother to help. My first reaction was to put on the mask, saying there was nothing wrong with me, which was true on the physical level. On second thought I felt I owed the child an explanation and needed to validate her ability and empathy. After confirming to the mother her child's insight, I swam over to the 10 year old and thanked her for her concern, reassuring her that she was right about my emotional state.
THE THIRD ORDER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The third order of consciousness is awakened by feelings analogous to those stimulated by a romantic love. At this stage of development the individual is confronted with feelings for others. By now the understanding is that the world does not revolve around me, I am part of the world and have to make adjustments and compromises. The group is experienced. There is a willingness to sublimate his or her own feelings, to enter into a commitment and identify with the feelings of other with empathy. I see this as the experiencing the sensation of love, a different kind of love from parental love, in the form of cathexis when it has to do with attraction to another.(4) The need for this different quality and the desire to give it, is awakened. It is an intense more poignant quality of feeling. Flier defines the moral of this order as based on mutual expectations, those held in relationship. I view it as a need to have the other live up to a commitment so as not to experience hurt feelings. The motivating factor is the desire to control situations via these expectations. The mind tries to control the situation to avoid feeling unpleasant feelings. The attitude is "I am still a victim of circumstances even though I try to control the world with my thinking and via my will." "I" want things to be a certain way. The use of fear, pain and anger are common to this phase.
This type of world view is again expressed through the tribal pattern. It is a conditioned, structured form of reasoning, where controlling rules are the basis of behavior. It is an emotional control that has a fear base. Everyone has to think alike, dress alike, behave alike. Individual thinking is subsumed to the group, be this the thinking of a sect, religious beliefs, scientific, political, educational, moral, ethical, cultural or sexual. The feeling of fear is used to manipulate, stimulating fear of loss or abandonment. In relationships the state of symbiosis is reflected by this level, which expresses the feeling of need, which is fear based, fear of separation, fear of loss, fear of the pain of loss. Although phases of symbiosis are also joy based, those stimulated by the feelings of love or sharing an experience with loved ones. Flier notes that in legal terms this order expresses itself as "The law is the law because we all commit to it"(5) and if you don't watch out! In my view the tendency of an individual in this groups dominated consciousness is to give his/her power up to the group, letting the group decide, affect and condition. The group and the individual create their own reality that validates their vision and justifies their action.
At this stage of development like the previous ones, unless one has experienced first hand something, being in love for example, one has no understanding for the evolving experience of the other. Again there is no way of convincing the other of the experience when the other has not lived it. We cannot become other centered without the fundamental shared experience. The 12 year old who has not yet been in love has no understanding for the experience in the companion. Such an experience is inconceivable. In fact confronting this experience can be threatening to the inexperienced, stimulating aggressive behavior, in this case in the form of ridicule of the other, as teenagers tend to do. The transcending experience can seem to the inexperienced like an abandonment of responsibility. A feeling of being left out or behind. The fear of change is prevalent in this order of consciousness, holding on rigidly to certain world views. Spirituality at this level of consciousness when considered, is conditioned by an outside deity, that loves but also punishes when disobeyed.
THE FOURTH ORDER OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The forth order of consciousness is the state where we break away from the conditioning controlling behavior of the group. Reason seems to sublimate feelings. For the first time the individual begins to see herself/himself as a creator not only as a victim. The individual starts taking responsibility for what happens in his/her life. In relationship this is expressed by the desire for independence. The need to identify with the other comes to a halt. An inner search for self is initiated. According to Flier principles become the guiding force. They precede relationship, the law. Freedom of choice and justice that are based on principles. There is right and wrong but this is guided by principles. To the other still locked into the third order of consciousness this too seem like an abandonment of responsibility and the need to move in this direction is inconceivable. However the motivating factor for each transcendent step from one order to the other is "an irrefutable challenge to ultimate reality"(6) My experience demonstrates that usually the shift from one level of consciousness to another is accompanied with some event or trauma that forces the process. Pain seems to have been the motivating factor in most cases until now.
Spirituality at this stage of consciousness can become very ambivalent. The denial of a supreme being, materialism and intellectualism driven by mentally constructed logic may prevail. If integrated the acceptance of a loving supreme divinity that guides benignly, letting us experience right and wrong. Although the tendency to question the Supreme Being's wisdom may be still prevail, when things appear to be wrong.
If the drive for transcendence is spiritually motivated the challenge becomes even greater, because the fourth order of consciousness is still conditioned by views that the ultimate reality is based on principles and pairs of opposites or judgments. My work demonstrates that even though judgments are based on principles, seeming to by conditioned by reason, judgments are feeling based.
THE FIFTH ORDER OF CONSCIOUSNESSBUDIHHIC BODY
The shift to the fifth order of consciousness requires an abandonment of that which is the principled morality, the feeling that something is right and wrong. It requires the sublimation of feelings. It is the challenge of moving beyond judgment. Flier notes that morality is not abandoned, a new reality is discovered. In my view this reality is one that is beyond a feeling conditioned morality. At last the individual understands that they are neither victim or victimizer, but both and that the process is co-created. Lessons in which we are all students and teachers at the same time. A mystic state is reached. In this state nothing is either right or wrong, it simply is. And again this state can not be reached via the intellect, by trying to understand it. It is a state of knowing. No different than each progressive state on the ladder of transcendence, this knowing can seem inconceivable to someone of the fourth order level. "The fifth order of consciousness is enlightenment in secular terms."(7) Like Flier, I agree that there are stages of unfolding and insight at this fifth order, like at all the others, yet once someone has achieved it regardless of the direction he/she come from they are at the same stage of consciousness. The realization is oneness, there is no difference between you and me, I am you and you are me, and neither, all at the same time. I refer to this state as that of "Unconditional Love", where no judgment or attachment exist. This state bespeaks Wisdom, everything is seen from the reference point of the greater picture, as simply being. This state moves beyond wanting to understand or know, it is the void and the fullness, the light and the dark. It is as one of my participants expressed so beautifully, beyond the "knowing everything", it is the "being everything."(8) When reached this state is termed in Sanskrit, Samadhi. The path one takes to reach that state in Zen tradition is known as the Tao, in Chinese, or in Hindu tradition as Dharma, a Sanskrit word. At this stage we accept that we are one with the supreme, that the supreme is us. That all of us are "God" in western layman's language.
