Levels Of Thinking

"George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that most humans live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential." -- Wikipedia.

Gurdjieff taught that thoughts have hypnotic power.
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Levels of thought based on my understanding:

Level 1 : Unaware of thoughts. Can say things like "I think", "I was thinking about XYZ", but has NO IDEA at all what thoughts are.

Such a person, if you say to him something like - "I hear voices in my head" - he will tell you to go to a shrink.

Because he has no idea what thinking is.


Level 2 : Semi aware of thoughts. Understands that thoughts are spoken words. Assumes that his thoughts are correct about everything. Takes pride in the human 'intellect', reasoning etc.


Level 3: Aware of thoughts. Semi aware of the errors in his thinking process. At this level, thoughts could be very painful.


Level 4: Has knowledge of thoughts. Knowledge because he has reached a point where he does not assume that his thoughts are correct all the time.


Level 5 : Thoughts have slowed down and transmuted into a peaceful stream. Quality of thoughts has improved. Because observation of errors in thinking has improved thinking. Consequently the pain has gone.