Category Archives: Flow State

The Flow State of Bliss

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Volume 4, Issue 8

In this most recent series of blog posts we are reviewing the highest levels of consciousness above the divided levels in which most of us live most of the time. Two posts ago we discussed the three Observer states and in the most recent post we covered the first of the Flow states, the Flow state of Action.

These five Flow states and three Observer states are nested upward, meaning that the benefits of the Observer state inhere in all the Flow states, and each Flow state contains the benefits of the Flow states below it. It is because of this cumulating upward characteristic that it is logical to consider the states progressing upward in the sequence in which we have placed them.

I began to discover the Flow state of Action at age four when performing onstage. Fascinated and sensing that this strange experience had something to do with the purpose of my life I studied my inner states constantly after that. I suspect introspection has always been a strong natural tendency for me.

In my 30s I began to realize that I was not alone in experiencing these states. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had written about their efforts to organize and understand states of consciousness, and then Oscar Ichazo founded a school called Arica Institute. John Lilly had written a book about his studies with Oscar, and in his descriptions of the states of consciousness I saw correspondences with my own experiences. Much later I read Czickszentmihalyi, who advised the Human Effectiveness Institute (THEI) for a few years in the 90s and it was at that point that I adopted his term “Flow” state. Continuing my readings in the 2000s I learned through my friend Daniel Goleman of the Visuddhimagga, written in 430 CE, which includes tables showing levels of consciousness based on the path of concentration and on the path of insight. My own stacking of the levels I have experienced is similar but not identical to the path of insight table in the Visuddimagga, as accessibly reported in Dan’s The Varieties of Meditative Experience.

Above the Flow state of Action is a state I call the Flow state of Ecstasy or Bliss. The objectivity of observation that exists in the Observer state carries through into this state along with the self-propelled perfection of action. In this state, however, there is the additional overlay of the most positive imaginable emotions/feelings. Another way of saying this is that there is total appreciation for what one is experiencing. One sees the perfection in all of it and nothing is lacking.

This is the first stage in which a spiritual intuition comes along with Flow state although it may not be cognized that way. One is filled with love that connects to everything. A feeling of benevolence washes over you from the inside. The highest ethics become innate because there is a feeling of understanding and forgiving and therefore no wish to cause hurt to anyone or anything.

Of course, when the Founders of The United States of America (specifically Thomas Jefferson) used the expression “the pursuit of happiness” as one of the components of the unalienable natural rights of human beings, he was in a sense alluding to this end- state as the implied highest good (Latin summum bonum). From the standpoint of my own theory, described in my new book You Are The Universe: Imagine That, the highest end-state three levels above the Flow state of Bliss would be the target state, retaining the joy of the latter state but adding more dimensions to it, as will be discussed in my next three posts.

Best to all,

Bill 

P.S.

  1. Watch for my new book, You Are The Universe: Imagine That, coming next month.
  2. Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.
  3. For those interested in my work in the media business world you might want to check out this collection of videos.

The Flow State of Action

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Volume 4, Issue 7

woman sitting in active scene

Below the Observer state, we are like a computer that has one of the keys on its keyboard stuck down. A state of distraction and internal division exists. This is the state that most of the human race finds itself in, in the average second, in 2014.

Our level of consciousness is really all about our attention. The way our attention is yanked around below the Observer state is the opposite of self-mastery. Islam calls the great jihad the work we have to do against the processes that pull us down into this mechanical state. In the Jewish and Christian Bibles the term “hardening of the heart” refers to the lower states.

“Ego” is an interesting word, originally both Greek and Latin for the self-identity, and in modern usage meaning a person’s sense of self-importance. In our Theory of Holosentience the ego is the subsentience formed by neurons created after birth, which arrogate to themselves the status of the real self that existed at birth, maintaining that illusion until the individual attains the Observer state and sees through the masquerade.

In the prior post we described the Observer state and promised to discuss in this post the first level above the Observer state, the first level of the Flow state. The Observer state is when the individual is able to see the robotical self-protective and defensive way that the ego performs, projecting a strength opposite to the unconscious true feelings that are the motivation for accepting the rule of the ego. The Flow state is when the individual transcends the inner division between the self that was born and the ego, and allows both parts to unite as one doing something that delights all parts of oneself. The Flow state also can take over when the individual is challenged to the core and has no time for flimflam and although delight is not involved the person performs impeccably in inner unity.

Again it is all about attention. In Flow state the attention is single-pointed on the activity at hand. We are not distracted by attachment such as fear or worry or avarice or self-aggrandizement, all characteristic of the ego.

The first level of Flow state is the Flow state of action. Action is perfect because it happens with a sense of doing itself. There is no hesitation to consider alternatives. Action is intuitive and natural. For most people this occurs while doing something that has been practiced for a long time.

In an ideal life one discovers what one loves to do and spends a lifetime developing that practice, offering it to oneself and to the Universe as a gift. After a while one is in the Flow state at one’s métier. And this leads to the next level of the Flow state, about which, more in the next post.

Best to all,

Bill

P.S.

  1. Watch for my new book, You Are The Universe: Imagine That, coming next month.
  2. Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.
  3. For those interested in my work in the media business world you might want to check out this collection of videos.

The L-Offense in the Room

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Volume 4, Issue 4

Caring too much about something makes you unrealistic, distorts your judgment. Stuff you would easily and correctly get instantly, now you’re unsure about because you care too much. You either are too optimistic or too pessimistic or somehow both at the same time or they flip-flop. Your degree of caring interferes with reason. The gravity of the caring distorts, bends the light of your internal Reason signals around the blazing stars that attract you.

Western psychology would say that you are too far to the right on the Yerkes-Dodson Scale. If this persists, psychologists classify you as neurotic in the behavior involved: stuck. In the Acceleritis™ cloud where we live, it is easy for this to happen. We are already off balance from Acceleritis. It is the distraction of Acceleritis that makes it easy for our caring loving center (in the East they would say “heart”) to start to care too much about one thing or another, or in fact many things. When we are distracted, we make more mistakes.

It is also possible that the allocation of your caring is less than optimal. Could it be that you are caring too much about certain things, and perhaps not caring enough about other potentially even more important things? Perspective at its widest point recognizes that one is playing this local current game but in fact is oneself the same One that plays all these games. This moment of recognition and widest perspective attenuates excessive caring and stuckness and attachment to outcomes specific to the current Mission passion in the incarnation. The highest and best in oneself comes out. The caring allotments fall into the optimal allocation. Attention follows love and so the attention deployment becomes optimized. We call this Flow state.

Everything starts from Love. So if you want to trace back how you got to where you are so you can deal with it better, trace back to the Love that started the series of events. What was the Love for? What was your first Love, and your second, and where did these Loves all lead you in Life?

Some might say that our Loves could have been carried over from earlier Lives. There is no scientific reason why this or any other Eastern notion should be crossed off the list as impossible. That is not the spirit of true science but a mere epiphenomenon of reductionist scientism (the quasi-religious dogmatic ideology of Occam’s Razor Accidental Materialism Meaninglessness) of the last few centuries. It is no more in the spirit of true science than poesy is poetry.

Meanwhile, in our distracted Acceleritis-ridden state, something in you is sending out the wrong messages to everybody else and so the net Universe response to your actions brings you not what you want. These wrong signals are the ones you are least aware of sending. You are not purposely sending them from the workaday mask control system that you wear. In most cases the unconscious signals are the opposite of the ones you intentionally send. This out of synchness arises from a suboptimal deployment of Love. You are still too attached to certain things and are not even aware of how in Love with them you still are.

There would need to be a certain component in the Universe if One were an infinitely conscious Self hanging out devising a worthy Game to play for eternity. That component is the challenge. Without challenge there is no game, no fun. Without challenge the trajectory of a story does not exist. There has to be a function within the Universe that continually adjusts the challenge slope and type to maximally teach the player how to bring out the highest and best in himself/herself. Call it karma, destiny, kismet, the gods, angels, any name you prefer or no name at all.

So one must wake up each day in Love with the challenges that wait to pounce as soon as you are awake, and in fact while you were sleeping too. Recognize how you created them with what you Love, and accept that these are the jokes and enjoy them.

I love to create complex games. Then when they become overly complex and the email breaks down at the same time, if I am not in my highest and best place, I can get frustrated. That would be too much Loving the many people I see myself helping, and too much Loving time and efficiency, too attached to getting a lot more Good done in one day than just a few little sprinkles of Good. An L-Offense in the room that everyone can see better than me if I tumble down to narrow perspective.

Trusting the One wants each of us to win, learn, grow, becoming the higher and better self we can see in ourselves. Trusting this is the key to setting the heart at its highest and best place. Love will flow to everything from this perspective.

Next week, more about Love and the heart, which rule attention and therefore control the turning on and off of the Flow state.

Best to all,

Bill 

P.S.

  1. Bill is speaking at the ARF Monday at 1:50PM on Addressable Commercials.
  2. Watch for my new book, You Are The Universe: Imagine That, coming in April.
  3. For those interested in my work in the media business world you might watch my video interview on the unconscious decisionmaking of consumers with Bob Lederer on Research Daily Report this week . You also might want to check out this collection of videos.
    Bill Harvey interviewed on March 19, 2014 on Research Business Daily Report online

4. Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.

We Suddenly Know What Heaven We’re In

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Volume 4, Issue 2

In his song “Begin the Beguine”, Cole Porter describes that miraculous moment in time when you really experience being in a heavenly realm, even though you are still on Earth. It is one of the higher levels of the Flow state.

Lovers can sometimes shift into that place together, as if tuning across to a parallel universe of bliss just a dimensional twist away from this universe where we assume a defensive stance against endless trials and challenges whose humor we can no longer see. Rarely are the lovers intending that shift consciously, although Tantric Yogis populate much of this rare group.

Just as often it is one person alone making the shift. Again it occurs by itself without conscious intent sometimes, though great numbers of people on Earth engage in practices long ago discovered to have the effect of potentiating and bringing on that state and other levels of Flow. Yoga is the science of those practices, its purpose being the realization within inner experience of connection with divinity.

Yoga, from Sanskrit, means to yoke up, as an ox is yoked up to a wagon, or an attention node of the One Consciousness is consciously yoked up to the whole of which it is a part. The corresponding linguistic root in Latin is religare (verb), or religio (noun), meaning to bind, very similar semantically with the additional connotation of a debt or duty to repay righteously. All religions are forms of practice designed to accomplish this shift in inner state. These inner states actually exist, as has long been obvious to common sense, and as is now beginning to be validated by the skeptical reductionist science dominant in Earth thinking for the last four centuries.

The word “religion” today is not as useful in a conversation like this as it might have been. Organized religions have let people down on too many occasions due to corruption and wars and torture and molestation and God knows what else that is the obvious opposite of what religion must stand for if and when pure. The subtext of the word is therefore poisoned with that long history of going off course. The term I prefer to use as a result of that baggage is “Spiritual”.

I use the word “spiritual” in the context of the classical perspective that within what we can perceive of the whole of reality, there are two palpable aspects: matter and consciousness. We experience both and therefore common sense accepts that both exist. The remaining question is simply, “What is the relationship between these two aspects of reality?”

In that context, “experience”, “consciousness”, and “spirit” all mean the same thing to me. They are the names of the domain of reality that is not matter.

More about these thoughts — the levels of Flow state, the meaning of the spiritual levels of Flow, the practices of yoga and other spiritual methodologies, the meeting ground between the spiritual domain and science — in our next exciting installment.  🙂

My best to you all,

Bill

Watch for my new book, You Are the Universe: Imagine That, coming soon.

For those interested in my work in the media business world you might want to check out this video. Or this collection of videos.

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.