SIXTEEN
Levels and Types
Emotional Levels:
Here is the model. A mire-coated man, waist-high in a pit of mud, is surrounded on three sides by steep and slippery rocks that are overgrown with thorny vines. On one side only is there ground that is level and unobstructed. We shall return to the model in a while.
In all of human experience, in all of spiritual evolution, there are levels. Man’s journey takes him from the primitive, embryonic end of that spectrum to his fulfillment at the other end of the same. Mankind began his sojourn with utter ignorance and feral longing.
The mind of God was, to man, more distant and less attainable than space travel: Romans 11:34, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord?”
Yet, mankind never existed in a vacuum; that is to say, apart from God. Man’s genesis is from the spiritual. His spiritual counterpart, though high and exalted, was bestial after a certain fashion, and so man, being the reflection, began in an extremely low estate. Therefore, changes became necessary on the spiritual side.
See Daniel 7:4, “The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart (mind) was given to it.”
Ever wonder why angels, as described in the Bible, looked like wingless men? Man began low, like a salmon at the mouth of a river. Just as the salmon faces a long, mostly uphill, and frequently dangerous journey, so the journey of mankind and the evolution of spirituality has had to face seemingly insurmountable odds. Man has always had to grapple with his brutish nature, and by that, I do not only point to mankind’s propensity toward violence, but to all of man’s more emotional inclinations.
See John 16:6, “But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart (mind).”
Just as a wolf can, in a moment, go from docile to ferocious, so a man will careen between lofty elation and bottomless sorrow. Why? Man has always wrestled with the spiritual. He has sought to alleviate sorrow by the application of elation. Man has sought continuing and ever-increasing gratification.
Lamentations 3:51, “Mine eye affecteth mine heart (mind).”
Unfortunately for mankind, that has always worked against his spiritual nature. The end result of mankind’s fight against his spiritual nature has always seemed rather automatic.
See Deuteronomy 28:65, “Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.”
To say ‘man shall not live by bread alone’ is equal to saying ‘there is more to man than meets the eye’. Yet, man’s sorrow, and by extension, his search for happiness via gratification, is inexorably entangled in corporeal issues.
See a short list of corporeal happy-makers in Psalms 104:15, “And wine that maketh glad the heart (mind) of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart (mind).”
Now, back to our model. Man in a mud pit. Man’s face caked with mire. The pit is his world; he identifies with it - cannot distinguish himself from the mud. His sustenance, his gratification, is the mud.
Man’s spiritual journey has fallout: lives first settle on emotional levels. Mankind’s first spiritual stirrings are emotional levels of sorrow, need, desire, anger, joy, hate, love . . . and anyone who tries to sell man on something more than the pit must reach him through his emotions.
See an emotional appeal in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart (mind), so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
See an emotional appeal in Romans 9:1-2, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart (mind).”
See an emotional appeal in John 16:22, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart (mind) shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
The first spiritual levels, therefore, must be seen as levels of identification. The man in the pit must come to a new assessment. He must see that he really is not one with the pit, and despite the fact that mud covers him, he is not the mud, but a man in the mud. Enter the prophet: an ordinary Joe, except for the fact that knowledge helped him identify himself as not-the-mud. He pulled himself from former gratifications to find a higher happiness. He stands on the level ground and offers the man in the mud an alternative.
Philemon 1:20, “Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord.”
There is, then, a new way to deal with sorrow.
Psalms 102:4, “My heart (mind) is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.”
Suddenly, there is new direction: another rather than self.
See Daniel 6:14, “Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart (mind) on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him.”
Man learns that there is something more than the pit; it is himself. Man learns that there is something more than the man he is able to see; it is a whole new man inside himself. It is a man of great potential - already, in the identification of his inner existence, he has recognized someone aside from himself; someone named ‘(br)other’.
A dialog has commenced. Along with the concession that he is not the mud he wallows in, is the evidence that his brother has found a strength that is not of the mud. Since his brother has a non-mud strength that can lift him to higher ground (also newly discovered), maybe there is something in all of this for him.
See Job 34:33, “Should it be according to thy mind? He will recompense it, whether thou refuse, or whether thou choose; and not I: therefore speak what thou knowest.”
So, the man in the mud has changed. Through his emotions, man has managed to reach a broader scope of view. He has guessed that there is more than the mud; now he sees more than the mud. His former happy seeking no longer gratifies. His sorrows loom once again, and his desires reach beyond the pit. To this, add the new and bizarre: there is someone like him, only ‘not him’; a fact that demands due consideration. Not only is the other man on a higher plane, neither in this pit nor another, but he offers to share the found strength that lifted him to higher ground. The stranger points to known facts - facts that the man in the mud can all too clearly see in himself.
See Psalms 109:22, “My heart (mind) is wounded within me.”
See also Psalms 143:4, “Therefore is my spirit (mind) overwhelmed within me; my heart (mind) within me is desolate.”
And, the man on the higher ground continues his attempts to render aid. He knows that like as he used to be, the reasoning of the man in the mud is (if you will permit the pun) grounded in the mud. All the man’s ups and downs are in the pit, like sticks and stones on the surface. Surely, every time he reaches for one of them he sinks a little deeper. The man on the higher ground must present his arguments on the level of the other man’s emotions. The man in the pit must be shown the sorrows of the pit and the joys of higher ground. Comparisons and contrasts are cataloged.
See Proverbs 17:22, “A merry heart (mind) doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
See also Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred maketh the heart (mind) sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”
The man in the mud is drawn to the level side, where the emotional appeals are seamlessly integrated into a proper reasoning. He puts his elbows on the bank and listens more and more to the man on higher ground. He is shown his own ‘higher ground’ strengths and the gratifications of ‘higher ground’ bonds.
See Isaiah 63:15, “Where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me?”
After both have identified that the man in the mud desires the higher ground, it is explained to him that when he chooses any part of the pit, the mud, or his former habits, he is actually choosing against the higher ground. If he wants ‘up’, he will never get it by choosing ‘down’.
See Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (mind).”
That man is drawn slowly to higher ground, where a continuing education may be found in the social
levels. Now, the man in the mud has two basic choices. He can accept the proffered hand of the stranger, or, he can reason: “If that man can do it, so can I.” If he chooses the latter course, he grabs hold on the vines and receives thorns in his flesh; he climbs the slippery rocks only to fall back again and again. He has moved past the entrance to social levels and has made a choice for ‘lost levels’.
According to his reasoning, the path that leads to the level ground is blocked by the extended hand
of a stranger. On the emotional levels of identification, there are always ‘self’ and ‘other’. A ‘brother’ is just an ‘other’ with a couple of letters in front.
The man in the mud hears what the stranger has to say, understands that the hand will draw him up to higher ground - but, herein lies the problem for the man in the mud: there is no mud on the higher ground. He may tell the man with the extended hand, “Oh, that’s just your opinion!” The man in the mud may, indeed, exercise his freedom of choice all day long, but freedom of choice and freedom from the pit are never the same. The man offering help will counter, “You are free to choose.”
See Romans 14:5, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
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