Thoughts on passing level 2 later in life.
I am sure that this statement will get an argument, but there is no more important time in life to have passed Level 2 than when you are old - old like in your 70's plus.
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of doing this level, it is all about getting rid of emotions, attachments (emotional attachments), standards, judgments, basically every concept and ideal that you have lived your life by.
And the reason it is important to get rid of these from your mind is because if you live long enough, life (nature's flow) is going to strip these all from you whether you like it or not, and if you have any minds about them it will make it so much harder.
Old age is all about dealing with loss.
I will start with the worst.
If you have any Pride in your mind you are in trouble.
It doesn't matter how important or powerful you were in younger life or what you achieved, if you don't die of something else first, eventually someone will have to feed you, wipe your chin and change your nappies. This usually does not happen all at once but you slowly and relentlessly see yourself losing the physical and mental abilities that you had before.
What about emotional attachments to Family and Friends.
Again, if you live long enough, most of these people will die or just move on. Partners, parents, siblings and all the good friends you have made through your life just disappear. And if you cannot grieve them and leave them, you will waste your own life mourning their loss rather than just accepting it as the natural order of things.
Money and Possessions.
You certainly do not want any attachments to these as they relentlessly disappear in old age. Unless you are very lucky, as it becomes 10, 20 or even 30 years since you made any money you will find that bank balance that you were so proud of creating...disappear. My beautiful Italian sports car that I wanted all my life and was finally able to afford, well I am selling it because it is just too expensive to own at this time of my life. Possessions become a burden as you get older and if you have a mind about losing them, it just leads to stress.
Physical Appearance.
Don't get me started on this one. I look in the mirror and it is my father staring back at me. He looks nothing like the picture of myself that I have in my mind. I don't care how much time, effort or money you spend on trying to stay young, you have to get rid of any emotional attachment to physical appearance.
Standards and Judgments.
I've always had my set of 'rules' that I lived my life by and now realise that I judged other people by. I liked people who were like me. The more they thought like me and acted like me, the more I liked them. But now I find that the world has changed, leaders have changed, and what is important to people has changed. So does that make me right and the rest of the world wrong...I don't think so. If I am going to live happily in this new world I must get rid of my rules and accept the change.
I could go on and on because it seems that everything we did in Level 2 fit my stage in life.
If you don't discard these images you get overcome by the fear of these inevitable changes in your life and find yourself to be a grumpy old man or a crappy old lady.
I believe in the method.
I believe in acquiring wisdom through meditation. I believe that the older you get the more important this is because nature's flow is all about letting go.
If all the things I mentioned above are being subtracted from your life, but your mind is still trying to hold onto these pictures, these standards, these emotions....you are doomed to a later life of stress and unhappiness.
So if you are young and none of this makes much sense to you then just file it all away in some deep recess of your memory and hopefully it will come back up when it is relevant.
For me I am onto Level 3 and get to discard another layer of my mind, about 'body'.