Transcendence

In Catholic/Christian religious faith, “living on Level 4” means desiring the unconditionally loving, good, truth-filled, and salvific will of the unconditionally loving God. The proof and explanation of this unconditionally loving, good, truth-filled, and salvific will occurs through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

An intellectual choice of Level 4 as one’s fulfillment, purification, and joy, does not necessarily translate into an affective (emotional) choice of Level 4. Thus, we might say that Level 4 is the identity to which we want to move, but find ourselves unable to give up attachments to Levels 1 and 2 (which interfere with the move to Level 4). We can therefore find ourselves in conflicts of desire, failures of resolve, and feelings of inadequacy and guilt. You should not find this daunting because it is part of everyone’s journey toward Level 4. I am not aware of a single person (or a single saint) who found detachment from Levels 1 and 2 easy. However, patience, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and above all, prayer pave the way for progress. Slowly but surely Levels 3 and 4 begin to replace the deep attachment to Levels 1 and 2, bringing with them a decrease in jealousy, fear, anger, egocentricity, self-pity, contempt, inferiority, superiority, ego-sensitivity, and so many other debilitating emotive states. In their place, Level 4 (arising out of a deep relationship with the unconditionally loving God) brings peace, inspiration, zeal, hope, a remarkable efficacy in life, and above all, love (even progress towards unconditional Love). In short, the long journey of detachment from Levels 1 and 2 toward attachment to Levels 3 and 4 brings sanity, peace, and eternal Love.