Let's Talk About Human Consciousness
Clare Graves is a psychologist whose research revealed that human consciousness develops over the course of 8 stages all of which take place within 2 tiers.
In tier ONE there are SIX stages.
AND.
In tier TWO there are TWO stages.
In tier one people are generally very focused on themselves and their tribes. People in tier one have the idea that their truth is the only truth and that no one else’s understanding of truth can possibly be right.
“My understanding is right.”
“Our way is the best way.”
“Yours might sound nice, but it’s wrong.”
A large number of mainline evangelicals would fall into this category. I used to be a tier one student, a tier one pastor, a tier one Christian.
“Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ and then he said that ‘no one comes to the father, but through me.”
I didn’t understand what was so hard about that to grasp. I saw Jesus and my understanding of him as the only right way and the only way to escape eternal torture. For me, the belief that Jesus died to take the punishment for sin that I rightfully deserved was a truth that everyone needed to grasp, everyone needed to confess.
And so as a tier one Christian I did my best to tell everybody about this important truth so that seeds would be planted in people’s minds in hopes that they would one day abandon their own (wrong) truth to take up my (obviously right) truth.
Graves, however, says that there’s another tier.
In the second tier, she says, people come to or evolve to a place where they see value in all truths. Sure, they might not accept every facet of every person’s truth.
BUT.
Rather than looking to draw lines and create dichotomies and divisions about our truth being right and theirs being wrong ... tier 2 people see value in their own truth as well as value in everyone else’s truth and look to move humanity forward arm in arm even if we don’t all necessarily see eye to eye on every single little detail.
Now - here’s the interesting part.
Through her research she discovered that at NO POINT IN KNOWN HISTORY was more than 1/10 of 1% of the population at a tier 2. In other words, there has never been a time in history when more than a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people had (at the same time) evolved into or moved into a tier 2 way of thinking.
Tier 2 has ...
Always been a small group.
Always been the minority.
Always been next to invisible.
Now, however, she says that group is growing. As technology advances and more people have more access to other people’s truths and other people’s ways of thinking and understanding, more people can adopt more ideas and see more value in religions and truths and ideals that are different than their own.
In fact, she says, this group is growing so quickly and so fast that as we enter into this new decade developmental experts predict that more than 10% of the human population will move into a tier 2 way of thinking so that tier 2 will be bigger and more diverse than its ever been before.
This, she says, is super significant.
Why?
Because throughout history and in various settings, whenever 10% of a group of people adopt an idea or thought, that 10% is responsible for tipping the rest of the group forward as well. And so, in other words, Graves predicts that in this decade the 10% of the population who have evolved into a tier 2 place of human consciousness will help pull the rest of the population forward so that tier 2 continues to grow and develop and move our world forward.
As we enter into 2020 I think I’m finally at a place where I can call myself a “tier 2 Christian”. I no longer see my truth as the only truth and I no longer see my way of understanding God or the Divine as the only way. I no longer think that my understanding of eternity or human sexuality or how to think about the ancient texts is the only way or even the right way. The things I once held onto tightly I now hold onto fairly loosely. And rather than reject the truths of my neighbors, I have come to envy them, find value in them, and graft pieces of them into my own understandings of God and what it means to walk with the Spirit.
Are you part of the 10% of tier 2 people? We don’t need to see things eye to eye in order to move forward arm in arm ... aiming to make the world around us a more loving and inclusive and heavenly place to be.
Want more of this? Check out this book by Ken Wilbur.
Much love,