Levels of Mind
Any time you are experiencing negative emotions such as sadness, anger or anxiety, it’s never because of something you’re seeing or hearing that’s outside of you.
Negative emotions are always the result of the limiting thoughts and beliefs being held in your mind.
The process of getting in touch with negative thoughts and beliefs is especially difficult when you’re experiencing intense emotions. In these moments of intensity, the Levels of Mind/Instrument for Peace process walks you step-by-step back to the thoughts and beliefs in your mind that are generating the upset. Once you identify the thoughts and beliefs, you are in the best position to let the upset go.
You can download the form here to your desktop so you have it ready and available when you need it.
Levels of Mind is a unique process designed by David Hoffmeister that offers a visual diagram to help you access the levels in the mind that determine perception, so you can choose a different experience. As soon as you learn how things work in the mind, you have the tools to undo the ego completely. You will know of your mind training “success” by the peace you feel.
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Use our Levels of Mind forms below
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Levels of Mind Introduction
Levels of Mind Form with Instructions:
After watching the above video introducing the Levels of Mind, you can start your online form below. Fill-in the form step by step and refer to the instructions on the right for each step as needed.
On the outer circle draw, or write, something that you perceive as problematic or disturbing (e.g. a thief, an environmental problem, sickness, a victim).
This cosmos is just a projection of what is going on in consciousness. What perception sees and hears appears to be real because it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perceiver. This leads to a world of illusions, a world which needs constant defense precisely because it is not real. The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference, the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. “Projection makes perception.” We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing.
Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward. W-304.1
If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes—our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it may take—we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair. All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being “good” and “charitable, ” but because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world with our twisted defenses, and are therefore seeing what is not there. As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them and “forgive” them. Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body’s eyes and hears through the body’s ears. It evokes the limited responses which the body makes.
Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one right use of judgment. T-4.IV.8
Write the feeling/s that you have in relation to this perception; for example, fear, anger, hurt, sadness, hopelessness.
The world you see is just a reflection of your emotions. To learn to follow the Holy Spirit, pay attention to your emotions. When you are upset you know you need a new thought. The Course gives you new thoughts to practice with to train your mind to think in a different way so you can feel in a different way and perceive in a different way. It is that simple.
At first you may need to think about things. But as you become more intuitive you don’t have to figure anything out. Because you are told from within what is most helpful. You have no need for opinions and can learn to say “I don’t know,” because your real focus is to be happy and peaceful. Your intuition knows the words to speak; sometimes no words, just a smile.
You have but two emotions, love and fear; one you made and one was given you. Each is a way of seeing, and different worlds arise from their different sights. T-13.V.10
You learn to laugh a lot, not to take the world so seriously, to relax and come into the present. If you think you need help, someone shows up to help you. You see that the world is coming from your own thinking. You no longer believe in luck. You realize that the only purpose for this world is to practice forgiveness. Nothing else works.
That you do listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings and your behavior. T.4.IV.1
Write the thoughts associated with this; for example, disturbing thoughts / attack thoughts.
Your thoughts come from the ego. They are always partial, concerning such things as relationships, judgment and money. These will never make you happy. You always want more and you are left chasing dreams. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual. You are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice.
Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. T.1.I.12
Release everything in your mind that is not of God, and your thoughts are happy thoughts. The witnesses to your happy thoughts will appear, and you will have no enemies. The emotion that comes from these thoughts is love. It is only judgment that drains you of your energy. When you don’t judge the dream it is very peaceful. Do not try to fix the dream or to obtain a future goal. Be happy in the happy dream now.
Your ability to direct your thinking as you choose is part of its power. T.7.VI.2.6
This model of the levels of mind can be used to see that your behavior comes from your thoughts and your feelings. You can take full responsibility and hold no one else responsible. When you trust Spirit you are filled up from the inside. With the use of this mind training you come to have very loving relationships.
You believe in what you make. T-1.VII.3
Get in touch with the beliefs beneath all of this: I believe I’m unsafe/in an unsafe world, (death), I believe I’m at the mercy of the world (personhood/victimization), I believe there is not enough / he wants to take from me (scarcity).
You still believe you are an image of your own making. Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief you are regarding it from an ego viewpoint. A decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. T.4.II.4
In the instant of the tiny mad idea of separation came the first belief: the ego, the belief that you could be something other than what you truly are. What you believe you are is now the question. The Holy Spirit teaches us that there is only one helpful belief: forgiveness. Jesus spent his life on earth teaching forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the Love that you really are. He uses the symbols of the world to lead you back inside your mind. The Course is just to help you hear your Internal Teacher. Then you no longer need it. If you are happy it is because of your thoughts, because of your own mind training. That is the reward of forgiveness. Forgiving is a way of aligning all the levels. At the center is your desire to know who you are. If you practice it will come, because your belief becomes forgiveness.
Belief produces the acceptance of existence. T-1.VI.4
At the core of the mind is desire.
Get in touch with what you want, how you feel/desire/ pray that it should be. Can you see that you want things to be different from how they are, and that this is keeping you from being at peace now?
The desire to be a person in a safe world is the desire to be something other than Christ. The desire for more of something, or something in form is the desire for something other than the peace of God. The desire/expectation for a brother/sister/the world/the future/the past to be different/act differently is a desire for something other than God.
Are you willing to offer this desire to the Holy Spirit now, in order to realign with the only goal that can bring you what you truly want; to accept peace of mind now?
If it feels helpful, take some time to pray or meditate with this to really see what is on the altar/desired. The answer is a decision. The answer is the Spirit. The answer is an experience that comes from release. When your willingness has been offered to the Spirit, trust that He will do His part.
Desire is in the middle, your altar, the prayer of your heart that is always answered. The world was created in an instant by your desire for something other than love, your desire to separate. You are created as pure divine love by God. Then you had this crazy thought, “Could there be more than everything?” When prayer or desire becomes split, purity is lost. From that prayer all the rest spreads out. The belief becomes the ego and the thought becomes attack and the emotion becomes fear and the perception becomes the entire cosmos. It all springs from the desire for more than everything.
You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing them you will have no wish to sleep, but only the desire to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours. T.10.I.4
What is the Present Upset I’m Feeling?
This list can help you dial in to the precise upset in the mind when completing the Levels of Mind Worksheet. The more specific you can be about the feelings that are arising during a movie, the greater likelihood that you’ll be able to identify the specific beliefs underlying the upsetting thoughts and emotions.