our "missing" foundation

Civilized life disconnects us from the most foundational component of our psyches, rendering it unknown and unknowable. The more we live in disconnection from this part of ourselves, the more unworkable our lives become - without our ever knowing why. When complete (mid-2014?), this blog will be a book-length description of what this component of the psyche is, how it functions, how civilized life disconnects us from it, how this affects us, and how we can restore our connection to it.

Monday, April 28, 2014

The Causal Level - Chapter 1

Dear Visitor-Reader,

The following is the first chapter (of Part 1 of Book 1) of what is planned to be a two-part book about a level of being (which can also be thought of as an “aspect of the psyche”) that, in the civilized world, has been unknowingly “deleted” and rendered dysfunctional. I’ve named this aspect of us the “causal level.” My thesis is that the dysfunction of the causal level is a hidden, unrecognized cause of - and also an enormous confounding factor in our attempts to properly identify and resolve - many of our individual psychological ailments as well as global civilization-wide problems and crises. 

Eventually, this first chapter will be preceded by an Introduction. For now, the minimal bit of orientation that may be helpful for you to have before wading in is as follows:

• The causal level is distinct from other levels of being like the physical, energetic, mental, emotional, or spiritual levels of being.

• We will talk about the causal level in terms of being “connected to it” and therefore being “fully informed by it” or being “disconnected from it” which indicates that it has become “disrupted.”

• It’s a long chapter - about 45 pages as a Word document. Pace yourself. (Might also be nicer to read if you copy and paste it as a Word document?)

Thanks for taking a look. I’m very gratefully open to receiving feedback of any kind - and at this point in the writing process I’m especially curious how well I’m succeeding - or how badly I’m failing - at evoking the causal level as something truly distinct from other, already familiar aspects of human nature.

Happy reading,

Greg

Part 1

The 4 Basic Concepts

We will now begin building the case that the causal level is an entire “missing” level of being; that it is the most foundationally important component of human nature; that civilized life as we know it is irresolvably off kilter because of our (felt, subjective) disconnection from it; and that the only way to get civilized life back on track – to have lives that both feel right and work right – is to consciously reestablish our full, felt connection to the causal level and thereby restore it to its normal functioning. 

Our first step will be to describe the four main ways of recognizing and understanding the causal level:

1. OKness
2. feeling fully
3. the foundation
4. causal sensation

These four concepts are the essential building blocks for all that follows. Even though these four concepts can be seen as “aspects” of the causal level, they really constitute one, indivisible whole. For the sake of discussion, however, we will initially focus on each concept individually. Then, at the end of Part 1, we will show how they relate to each other to make up that indivisible whole. But it is important to recognize, right from the start, that, because they are inseparable, each of these four concepts is, in fact, synonymous with the causal level itself. They are not parts of it. Each one contains – and is – the causal level in its entirety.

Still, each one of these four facets of the causal level reveals a separate, currently hidden and unrecognized aspect of human nature that can only be known if something other than the already recognized physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual levels of being exists. These four experiential truths, which can only be known as a result of recognizing these four aspects of the causal level will thus come as something of a surprise from the civilized point of view; and so we can also refer to these four basic concepts as the “4 Surprises.” 

Chapter 1.1 OKness

Probably the easiest place to begin understanding the causal level is with its overall experiential quality – the (one and only) felt state of being to which the causal level directly gives rise. This is the “what it feels like” to be fully connected to our normally functioning, undisrupted causal level. Actually, we will discuss four such qualities, which together make up an overall, integrated state of being that we will call “OKness”; but OKness will be the main, overall term we will use for what the causal level feels like as a specific, qualitative, experiential state of being. 

So long as we remain fully connected to the causal level, we will always have a sense of OKness, meaning we will experience ourselves as possessing the following four qualities:

• security
• belonging
• ease
• rightness-with-life

(In case there is any confusion, we are now talking about a second “group of four” here. First, there are the four key components of the causal level – one of them being OKness; and now we are focusing on a sub-group, the four qualities of OKness.) Unlike other levels of being, which can have many changing felt states of being associated with them (for example, on the physical level, we can be hungry, tired, warm, dry, healthy, and so on), the causal level only ever has this one state of being – OKness – connected with it. 

Of the four key aspects of the causal level, the four qualities of OKness are probably closest to our already known, familiar, day-to-day experience, which makes them a good starting point – although we will soon see that these qualities are not nearly as familiar as they might at first appear to be. In fact, there is a danger that these four qualities of OKness will seem so familiar that the reader will wonder how they could possibly constitute anything truly “new.” To a large extent, our answer is that, familiar as they may seem, our civilized point of view misconstrues them to a significant degree. That is, civilized life has not placed these qualities in their proper context, where they take on their full meaning, stature, and role. More precisely, our answer is that these qualities operate at two very distinct levels. Of these two levels, we are currently familiar with only the more explicit, secondary level; but there is also a much less apparent, primary level that can be recognized only when we look at ourselves from the causal perspective. It is this primary-causal level of security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life that we will be introducing here as something truly “new” to human discourse. 

As with the four key ways of understanding the causal level, we will start off by describing each of the four qualities of OKness separately. But again, please keep in mind that OKness – like the causal level itself – is all of a piece. It cannot, in actuality, be broken down into component “parts.” It is always and only a total, non-mental, non-conceptual, experiential gestalt. It is only for the sake of aiding understanding that we will describe OKness as if it can be divided into four “separate” qualities. And as we also said of the four basic concepts, so here again: each one of the four qualities we are about to name are synonymous with OKness – and therefore with the causal level itself. Each “part” implies – and truly is – the whole. Finally, the reader should know that these are not THE four qualities of OKness. We could reasonably describe OKness in terms of other qualities – and it could be three, or twelve, or any other number of them. But the four we have chosen to focus on will provide a good, overall, representative sense of what the indivisible, non-verbal experience of OKness feels like.

The Four Qualities Described

Now, as we just mentioned, security, belonging, ease, and rightness are all more-or-less familiar- and ordinary-sounding terms; but we will be extending their meanings in unprecedented ways by using them to refer specifically to qualities that arise only from the causal level; and as such, they have significantly different meanings from those to which we are accustomed. With these new meanings, these words offer truly new insight into currently unrecognized aspects of human nature.

Thus, the type of “security” associated with the causal level is fundamentally different from security as we now usually think of it. Causal level security is not the result of such things as being free of outside threats, knowing that we will be supported, protected, or taken care of by family, friends, allies, or fortifications, being well armed, having adequate food supplies or financial resources, living in a well-organized, stable society, or anything else that we currently normally associate with feeling safe and secure. It is not even the result of feeling strong, capable, or independent within ourselves or of having acquired any particular skills or knowledge. And the type of security that is part of causal level OKness is certainly not the result of consciously realizing that “I am eternal, immortal spirit,” that “God loves me and looks after me,” or anything of such an elevated or spiritual nature. Although these can all be sources of what we now rightly call a sense of security, the kind of security associated with the causal level is a purely innate, irreducible, primal sense that (to the extent we can put it into words, which is not really possible), “I am completely OK just as I am, for no reason whatsoever. By my very nature, without doing anything at all, I have everything that I need – and always will.” This form of security does not “come from” anywhere. We all have this sense of total security – the full, maximum degree of it – so long as we are normally connected to the causal level – which is how we are all born. In other words, we are all born with the maximum degree of this form of security. Having this form of security does not result from or depend upon anything else. Other than continuing in our normal, in-born condition of full, undisrupted connectedness to the causal level, there is nothing else we need in order to have this type of security and there is no other way to get it.

“Belonging” as a component of OKness is similarly not the result of any particular external conditions, such as others expressing their acceptance of us, or being a member of any particular group, or of having been well-socialized and so on, but is, again, an innate and absolute sense that, “I fit with the world and the world fits with me. It is right for me to be here. I have a place here. By my very nature, without doing anything at all, I belong here – and always will.” Again, regardless of external circumstances – or even any personal development or skills we may have acquired – we will have the full degree of this sense of belonging so long as – and for no other reason than that – we are fully connected to and informed by the causal level. As long as we remain normally (fully) causally connected, which requires no effort – or even knowledge or awareness – on our part (until civilized life disconnects us from it), any sense of not belonging in this absolute way simply cannot arise. So long as we remain causally connected, our sense of belonging is total and unquestionable.

“Ease,” in the same vein, has nothing to do with finding ourselves in circumstances that allow us to avoid or overcome effort, exertion, difficulty, challenge, threat, or even pain. Of these four qualities, ease is perhaps the most difficult concept for modern, westernized people to grasp because the notion that life is a “struggle for survival” is so explicitly and deeply embedded in our minds as a “scientific fact.” Nonetheless, what is meant by “ease” is precisely the sense that life is not a struggle at all. It is the innate sense that, “All I ever need to do in any situation is what comes most naturally to me. Just by being who I am and doing what comes most easily and spontaneously to me, everything that needs to happen just happens – and always will.” If they could speak in words, all creatures – except civilized, causally disrupted humans – would agree that this statement reflects their direct experience of life. That is, no creature ever does anything other than what comes to it in the easiest and most natural, spontaneous way. Even a gazelle being chased down and savaged by a cheetah on the savannah – even up to the moment of death – would agree that there is not the least bit of “struggle” in this, only a sense of natural ease. Civilized life alone has projected a sense of struggle onto life as a whole and introduced the idea that in order to “make it” in the so-called “fight for survival,” we have to forcefully make ourselves into something other than what we naturally and already are. But so long as we simply remain undisruptedly connected to the causal level, we remain free of any internal sense of struggle and only experience a sense of life unfolding – even in moments of maximum danger or exertion – with spontaneous ease. (To the modern mind, this may sound utterly senseless. How can it be denied that life is full of struggle? But rest assured, this will make sense from the fully developed point of view that we are only just beginning to explore. For now, we will just underscore the idea that the sense of life-as-struggle comes only from trying to be something other than who we already are – which is something that no normally causally informed person would ever feel compelled to attempt under any circumstances.)

Finally, “rightness-with-life” has nothing to do with acquiring any knowledge of or capacity for the “right,” “correct,” “proper,” or “desirable” way to be. It is not the result of positioning ourselves in any particular way in relation to any part of the world or human society. Rather, it is the innate sense that “Everything that happens around me and every impulse and action that emerges from within me has an appropriateness or rightness to it. It all fits together. Everything in the world – myself included – works so wonderfully well. Everything is as it should be. Life is good – and always will be.” This is not a moralistic, “right-versus-wrong” kind of rightness, but rather a visceral, non-conceptual, felt sense of the suitability of all things taken together that arises and abides with us for no reason other than that we are causally connected. 

Taken together, these four qualities give us a rough sense of what we mean by the state of OKness. At the very least, it is probably fairly clear that this is a highly positive, desirable state of being. Thus, as with “security,” “belonging,” “ease,” and “rightness,” we are adapting the word “OK” to suit our present purposes. OKness in this specialized sense refers not just to an “acceptable,” “agreeable,” “alright,” or even “very good” state of being (the usual connotations of “OK”), but to the maximum degree of basic, foundational well-being available to us, where we have the fullest amount of innate security, belonging, ease, and rightness possible – which is the exact amount with which every one of us is born. 

Other Qualities of OKness – Acceptance

OKness is a purely experiential state of being; and as with all such states, there is no precise way to define or describe it. As we said before, other words could be used to convey a sense of it as well. For example, in addition to the four qualities just mentioned, we could very reasonably name “acceptance” as a fifth. But since acceptance seems to be so strongly implied by the other four, rather than naming it separately, let us just briefly look at how integral to and implicit in the other four it is. This will serve as a general model for how a number of other qualities might also be included as part of OKness.

Indeed, it is quite clear that all four of the qualities of OKness express an elemental, unconditional, and total acceptance of things – of life in general, of our own selves, and of all others – just as they are. We could not have true security, belonging, ease, and rightness of the type we have just described without an all-encompassing and absolute sense of acceptance. We are speaking here of a pre-verbal, non-mental, non-rational, and felt sense of the timeless and absolute perfection of all things, which is a much deeper form of acceptance than we normally conceive of. At this (causal) level of being, we do not merely think or say that things are acceptable (but then possibly feel or act otherwise); we simply and unthinkingly do fully accept things exactly as they are – and it never even occurs to us to do or think otherwise. In other words, at this level of being, non-acceptance or rejection of any kind is not even a possibility. This type of acceptance is not, therefore, any kind of a conscious or mental refutation or repudiation of non-acceptance. It is not a willful abstaining from rejection or from passing negative judgment. It is not an attempt at being positive and accepting. It does not involve any sort of mental maneuvers or manipulations of any kind. And it is certainly not a grudging acceptance – a willful forcing of ourselves to “accept” something that we actually reject. Rather, it is an absolute and primal acceptance that has no “opposite.” It is the acceptance that exists before the idea of accepting or rejecting first arises in the mind.

Viewed in terms of acceptance, OKness can be verbally approximated as the sense that “Everything is fine exactly as it is right now. It would never occur to me to want life to be any other way. I, just as I am right now, am totally adequate to encounter life, just as it is right now. Nothing needs to change in order for me to be OK.” As the reader can no doubt see, this version of OKness conveys very much the same overall sense conveyed by security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life as we have described them; but those four qualities express this sense of acceptance in more specific ways.

Normally in the civilized world, we only ever glimpse this kind of total acceptance in very young children and in our pets because children and animals are so utterly non-mental in their way of being – so there is no possibility of their being other than accepting to this total degree. In other words, no mental quality of acceptance-rejection has arisen in them that could interfere with their causal sense of absolute acceptance. (Yes, animals have a causal level too. If they did not – if they did not display pure, causal level acceptance of us – we would not find them nearly so endearing.) Of course, even very young children and animals can be extremely vigorous in expressing their visceral dislike of anything that does not feel good to them; but this is not the same as mental judgment or rejection. In fact, as we will soon see, it is precisely their non-mental acceptance of everything-as-it-is that allows them to express their visceral feelings so fully and freely. (If it is hard to see how a screaming child, a hissing cat, or a snarling dog could be expressing any sort of “acceptance,” this will become clearer as we go along.)

But it is not that such total acceptance can only exist when we are very young, before our mind begins to develop. That is, in normal, causally informed living, this absolute degree of acceptance is meant to be an integral component of, not just child or animal nature, but fully mature adult nature as well. But nor is it that we as adults are meant to be free of the discriminative mental functioning that allows us to accept and reject and make all manner of judgments. The absence of this capacity in an adult would only be an indication of unhealthy immaturity and lack of proper development. As we will see, the “mindless” form of absolute acceptance is meant to co-exist with and underlie fully developed, mature mental functioning. The capacity to make judgments is not meant to replace our causal sense of absolute acceptance; rather, it is meant to rest on and be informed by it.

This might sound surprising, confusing, or even paradoxical. How can a mind make judgments and be informed by a sense of absolute, unquestioning, non-mental acceptance? But as we will see, not only is this entirely possible; our mind functions far better this way. In contrast, our mental functioning becomes severely degraded when we lose our full causal connection and when our mind is then forced to operate in relative isolation from this absolute form of acceptance. Our mental judgments then tend to become gravely at odds with the concrete, visceral, felt reality of things – which causes all sorts of problems and unintended consequences, many of which we will explore later. Thus, this deep form of acceptance would never stop a mature adult from rejecting and fighting against things that are truly inimical to life and that need to be rejected and fought against. Rather, it would allow hir to do so from a stance of overall balance, which would allow hir to be optimally effective and as life-supporting as possible. (We will be clarifying what we mean by “life-supporting” as we go along throughout the book.) In general, the idea that the “known” (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) aspects of us are meant to rest on and be informed by our causal sense of OKness, and that they stop developing and/or functioning optimally when we lose our full causal connection, will be a major theme throughout these pages. It is in this sense that we will talk about the causal level as the “foundation” for all the rest of us.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Whatever functional role it is meant to play in our lives, the point for now remains simply that there is an absolute form of acceptance, it is implied by each of the four qualities of OKness, and it belongs exclusively to the causal level. Buried somewhere deep inside each one of us is absolute acceptance of everything, just as it is; and the causal level is where that degree of acceptance “comes from.”

Experiential Interlude: Conjuring OKness

We do not normally think of qualities like security, belonging, ease, or rightness as arising from essentially “nowhere,” without cause. For this reason, the existence of OKness might not seem to make any sense – might not seem real or possible – upon first encountering it. And in any case, no verbal description of these four qualities can convey the experience of what OKness, as an innate state of being, actually feels like – what it feels like to have always had a full and unbroken sense of OKness and to naturally, un-self-consciously move through life, moment-to-moment, with that full sense of OKness unquestionably intact. Consequently, this discussion may initially seem somewhat abstract and disconnected from “real life” or overly idealized, and thus hard to relate to or even follow. But in truth, OKness is an extremely simple, basic, concrete fact of life. Once experienced directly, it cannot be denied, even if it cannot be fully explained or verbalized. And really, experiencing it is the only way to truly understand it. So, rather than forging ahead with further verbal explanations of it, let us pause here to ground our discussion of OKness with a short exercise. Having a felt, concrete connection to this discussion will likely make it a good bit easier to relate to and follow. 

Take a moment, then, to conjure up – to whatever degree possible – a felt sense of what it might be like to have an unshakeable, fundamental sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-the-world at all times and in all circumstances – even in the face of threats, loss, adversity, and so on. We were all born with this sense; so deep inside, we all retain at least a memory-trace of it from early childhood; and we all continue to get momentary flashes of it every now and then; so whatever part of those felt experiences and memories you can tap into now – even if by using your imagination – will give you a genuine taste of it. Do not worry for now about how disconnected from it you may be. Even disconnected from it, we can all conjure up a sense of it for a moment or two.

It may also help to know that, since we were all born with it, OKness is not any sort of “higher state of being.” Therefore, experiencing it does not depend on our learning any new skills – like how to meditate – or on our becoming “better,” “purer,” or more “holy” or more “enlightened” people. It is as natural, down-to-earth, and freely, easily accessible as anything can be. Nor should we be looking for the kind of experience that arrives in a dramatic, bolt-of-lightening, “big breakthrough” way – so do not expect anything like that. It is a quite, unassuming, simple sort of thing that arises any fanfare; but still, there is no denying when it does. It really is just a sense of complete OKness with everything in the universe. Nothing more – but nothing less.

With this in mind, evoke in yourself – as much as you are able, and in whatever way you are able – a feeling of absolute and total OKness – whatever that intuitively means to you right now. Imagine what it would feel like if, right now, everything was literally exactly as you wished it to be, with no threat whatsoever of it ever being otherwise; if all your desires, for now and evermore, were unquestionably assured of being fulfilled. (This is not how OKness actually works, of course – it has nothing to do with fulfilling our every desire; but imagining this will create the same feeling as OKness, which is all we are interested in at the moment). Imagine feeling totally and wonderfully at ease and at home in whatever circumstances you might find yourself and having all your abilities and capacities working together easily, gracefully, and flawlessly – just as you would want them to. And so on. Whatever you think “perfect rightness-with-life” would feel and look and be like, go hog-wild imagining it. This is actually not so easy to do, so take the time to allow your imagination to free itself from its usual rational constraints and get itself fully stoked up. If the rational part of your mind jumps in at any point and tells you that this is “silly” and that perfect OKness is “not realistic,” then thank it for trying to be helpful, but tell it that you are just doing an imaginative thought-experiment and that it can safely let you do this for a few minutes. This is not the time to be realistic. This is the time to be unreservedly imaginative and idealistic. So in whatever way works for you, using whatever imagery or thoughts naturally come to you, with no limits whatsoever, conjure up a sense of absolutely perfect, causeless, timeless security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life. Create as utter and total a sense of it as you possibly can. 

Got it? Pretty nice, isn’t it?

Now, as you go on reading, use this feeling (or the memory trace of it) as the template for what OKness might be like. (Eventually, as we fill in the picture of what it means to be fully causally connected and to have a normal sense of OKness, you will likely find it easier and easier to access the real version of this lost sense of self without needing to use imaginary, idealistic thinking to conjure it up. Amazingly, the real version is even better than any imagined one.)

The All-Important Innateness of the Four Qualities of OKness

Having experienced, at least to some degree, that there really could be a state of being where we have an absolute sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness, we will now return to our conceptual discussion of it. Along with acceptance, there are any number of qualities that could reasonably be included in OKness. In Part 3, we will explore an entire set of “foundational characteristics.” But the four qualities we have chosen to focus on are enough, for now, to convey the essential meta-quality (that is, the quality of its qualities) of OKness, which is that it is innate. The innateness of OKness is its most important feature. It is what makes OKness fundamentally different from all the other, more familiar qualities and states that we might now view as beneficial, positive, and desirable. It is what makes the qualities of OKness truly causal. It is specifically the innateness of security, belonging, ease, and rightness that tells us that we are encountering a truly “new” and distinct level of being – one that functions differently from anything else we now know and that therefore holds the possibility for ways of living-feeling-being and viewing reality that are truly new to us. Not incidentally, it is also the innateness of the qualities of OKness that most particularly flies in the face of our civilized and scientific beliefs. 

The innateness of the qualities of OKness speaks to the questions, “Where does OKness come from? What causes it to exist?” To which we answer: nowhere and nothing. That, after all, is what “innate” means. Saying that OKness is innate means that it has no source or cause. Like life itself, there is no logical reason why it should exist. Somehow, it just does. Apparently, this is the nature of things. As beings who exist, we are innately imbued with a sense of OKness, and that is just the way it is. We cannot know why. There is no further, deeper explanation for it. All we can do is experience it (hopefully). And no, it is not that there actually is an explanation for where OKness comes from but that we (that is, scientists) have just not figured it out yet. Calling OKness innate is not any sort of cop-out or excuse to avoid thinking or exploring further. OKness must be innate. It must have no deeper or prior cause. As we will see, life could not work otherwise. (For those with a religious orientation, it is perfectly fine to say things along the lines of, “OKness comes from God, who is the Ultimate Cause.” To say something “comes from God” or that it is “innate” essentially amounts to the same thing: there is no explanation within the realm of cause-and-effect for why it exists.)

This is why we are not talking about security, belonging, ease, and rightness in the way we usually talk about them: as the product or result of either external circumstances or of our own personal development and acquisition of skills, training, knowledge, or abilities. Rather, we are talking about a form of these qualities that is given or primary – a form that cannot be reduced or attributed to anything else; a form that exists for no “reason” at all. The causal form of these qualities are unconditional and irreducible – not the product of any process, such as growth, work, or creation or any prior set of conditions or circumstances. In other words, the causal level sense that “I am exactly what I ought to be; I belong here; I only ever need to be myself and do what comes most naturally and easily to me; and everything is perfect and always will be” is not something we need to – or even can – learn, acquire, develop, or build up through experience over the course of time. If we have this sense at all, it is only because we are causally connected – which simply means, “connected to the sense of OKness.” 

These qualities literally have no cause – other than simply being inherent in the causal level itself. But really, it is not even that they are “inherent in the causal level.” These qualities simply exist; and it is their existence that we are calling “the causal level.” So it is not that even the causal level “causes” them to exist. They simply are the causal level. The causal level and these qualities are one and the same thing. Neither one “causes” the other. This is similar to how the physical level does not “cause” our body to exist; and nor do physical things (like bodies) “cause” the physical level to exist. Rather, our body is the physical level. But even if we wanted to say that the causal level “causes” the qualities of OKness to exist, there could still be no explanation for how it does this. All we can say is that, for no identifiable reason, these qualities simply do exist – so long as we remain normally fully connected to the causal level.

But wait. Does not the fact that we keep saying that we have these qualities so long as we remain connected to the causal level contradict what we are saying? Is not remaining causally connected itself a “cause” of these qualities? It may seem to be, at first; but really, it is not. At birth, we are all fully connected to the causal level, just as we are all fully connected to our bodies. The very fact that we are born and that we exist means that we have – and are fully connected to – all the various levels of being: physical, mental, emotional, energetic, spiritual, AND causal. (All levels other than the causal are less than fully developed at birth, so that is a difference; but we are still just as fully connected to them in their immature forms. Thus, the fact that the causal level is uniquely fully formed from birth is not relevant to the fact that we are equally fully connected to all levels of being at birth.) The point is: being fully causally connected is itself a basic, “given” condition of existence; and having the FULL measure of causal security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life – the maximum degree of OKness – simply “goes with” that basic, given condition. (In the next chapter, Feeling Fully, we will discuss more precisely what we mean by “being fully connected” to the causal – or any other – level of being.) Incidentally, when we talk about becoming “disconnected” from the causal level – as in civilized life – we are really talking metaphorically; there is no way to disconnect from the causal level in a literal sense. Talking in terms of disconnection simply gives us a way of conceptualizing why we often do not feel the sense of OKness that is innate in us.

Implications of Innateness

Along with not being caused – i.e., existing for no reason – there are several additional important implications of the innateness of OKness. For one thing, if OKness is not caused by anything – if there are no causal factors involved in creating its qualities – then it follows that those qualities do not ever change. If nothing causes them to exist – if they are not the products of causality – then how could any causal factor have any impact on them or make them change? If they are not the product of normal growth or of any other process, like learning, training, cultivation, and so on, then it follows that these qualities do not grow, develop, increase, decrease, or otherwise change in any way. The sense of OKness we have as a baby is exactly the same sense of OKness we have in old age and at every moment in between. There is no variation whatsoever. OKness is always the same.

It further follows that the qualities of OKness always and only exist in their “full” form. To have any amount of them is to have the maximum amount of them that it is possible to have. There are no increments or degrees of OKness. When we speak of having different degrees of it, we always mean different degrees of connectedness to it. A simple analogy is that, while varying amounts of cloud cover make the sun appear to shine sometimes more, sometimes less brightly, in truth the sun always and only shines fully.

Yet another implication is that (full) OKness is our “default” setting right from the very beginning of life. Without our needing to do a thing, we start off with the maximum amount of it. Being fully OK is therefore not some destination we must get to; it is the place from where we start. It is like being born a billionaire. OKness never needs to be created, acquired, or developed. It only ever needs to be preserved, exactly as it already is, in its fullness. Or rather, our connection to it only ever needs to be preserved. And since having a full connection to OKness is part of our “default” setting, we do not even need to do anything in particular to preserve that connection. Unless we do something that specifically disconnects us from it, everything we do automatically keeps us fully connected to it. Unfortunately, as we will see, civilized life has found – without our ever realizing it – how to disconnect us from it.

Finally, the innateness of these qualities implies that, not only is there no need to create, acquire, cultivate, increase, or develop OKness, but even if we wanted to, we could not do so. It is impossible to do anything to increase it in any way. No matter what we do, we can never have more than the “default” amount of OKness that we have at birth. But since that is already the full amount, it is utterly meaningless to try to create more. A sub-implication is that, if we do not feel a full connection to OKness, then we simply have to reestablish our normal connection to it; but this is not the same as increasing it.

These are the main implications of the innateness of OKness that we will focus on, but one more worth noting briefly is that the sense of OKness is not only exactly the same for each one of us over the course of our lives; it is also exactly the same from one person to the next – including non-human persons, such as animals. In all of existence, there is only one version of OKness and we all have it. Naturally, this is the one implication that we cannot verify through our own, directly felt experience – so we will not make too much of it; but it follows logically from everything else we have said and is worth mentioning in passing. (Also, it speaks to the non-genetic basis of OKness.)

None of these implications of the unchanging innateness of OKness should be taken to mean, incidentally, that OKness keeps us in some kind of stasis from where we never grow or change. Quite the opposite. As we will see in a number of ways, OKness is the foundation and necessary pre-requisite for all healthy growth and transformation over the entire life cycle. But this foundation itself – in order to be a foundation – can only always be fully developed and unchanging, right from the very start. It is all the other levels of being – which are all immature at birth – that grow and develop over the course of life. The causal level alone must be fully developed from the very beginning and must remain unchanging. This is perhaps the greatest single indicator that it is indeed a distinct level of being unto itself. And again, it is for this reason alone that it can rightly be called the causal level. Nothing causes it; and that is why it can be the cause of everything else. Only something causeless and changeless can be the initiating cause for everything else that does change. (Again, even if we want to say that, “God created/caused the causal level,” we would also have to say that it is apparent that He created it to be the (relatively) “uncaused cause” principle within His creation. In other words, attributing OKness to a divine source does not fundamentally alter its nature or function.)

As we said just previously, OKness must be innate and uncaused. It must exist “for no reason.” It is not a matter of science “figuring it out” someday. But just for argument’s sake, if scientists were ever to somehow figure out that something else “causes” our sense of OKness, this would not make much difference to what we are saying. It would only push the issue back another level. The fact is, in order for a chain of causality to exist, something uncaused has to exist at its foundation. If it turns out not to be OKness, then it will be something else so exactly like OKness that we might as well just stick with OKness and agree to call it the experiential, qualitative state of the causal level. 

The innateness of OKness thus clearly distinguishes it from every other aspect of us and defines it as a truly separate level of being. That is to say, we can only make full sense of the innateness of OKness by conceiving of it as a distinct “new” level of being. 

Other Versions of “Innateness”

The idea of an innate set of traits – positive ones in particular – is not new. For example, many within the civilized world hold a general philosophical belief that “human nature is innately good,” – which is to say, innately loving, intelligent, honest, kind, cooperative, generous, life-affirming, and so on. (We will leave aside the opposite position, that human nature is innately evil, although much of what we say here will apply to that point of view as well). Aside from whether or not it is true, is this version of innateness similar to what we are saying about OKness? 

Not really. For one thing, these sorts of “good” qualities are not states of being in the same way that security, belonging, ease, and rightness are. They are evaluative, general descriptions of behaviors or ways of functioning and acting. It does not really “feel like something” to be intelligent, honest, or cooperative, for example. Or, we can be loving or generous in our actions and interactions, but we do not generally speak of having a “sense” of lovingness or generosity. (And if, in any way, I do have a “sense” of generosity or kindness, but do not act generously or kindly, then this renders my “sense” rather senseless, no? Whereas, if I have a “sense” of security or ease, no particular behavior can definitively belie this. Feeling secure is security. The felt sense of it is what fully defines the actual existence of it.) So really, existing ideas of “innate goodness” are an altogether different phenomenon from what we are talking about. For this reason alone, the question of whether or not these qualities really are innate belongs in an altogether different discussion and is simply not relevant here.

But for another thing, what many people actually mean by “innate traits” of this or any other type – especially these days – is that they exist as potentials in our genome. That is, we believe that through the process of natural selection, human DNA has come to encode certain characteristics and tendencies in human nature because they enhanced our physical survival at some point in the past. So yes, all of us are born with these traits and they are innate in that sense. But since we all have different genes, we will all necessarily have more or less of these qualities. Also, if our genes mutate or get damaged, then again we might have more or less – or no amount at all – of these qualities. Furthermore, most genetic qualities still need to be unfolded through a genetically mediated developmental process or through willful cultivation. And once again, these processes of development and cultivation can unfold more or less fully for countless reasons. In other words, any genetically “innate” traits are innate in a much more limited, conditional sense. They are most certainly not outside of causality. They are caused by our genes – which are themselves highly subject to other causal forces. As such, all of these traits can and do change in one way or another – usually many ways – and for all sorts of reasons over the course of life. 

Similarly, a more morally neutral version of “innateness” is observable in the fact that all babies have certain inborn reflexes and instincts. Without needing to be taught, we (almost) all automatically do things like grip a finger, suckle, mimic movements and sounds, learn to speak, and so on. But these are really only tendencies or drives; so again, they are not states of being like security and belonging. While some of these drives could be described as “fully developed from birth,” they generally wane with the aging/growth/ learning process, so they are clearly not unchanging and are not innate in human nature as a whole. And again, no one questions that all such instincts and drives are strongly genetically mediated. So while all of these traits can certainly be called innate, they are not innate in the sense we are talking about: being outside of causality. Genes are causes that themselves have other causes.

Indeed, perhaps most surprising to the modern mind will be the fact that the qualities of OKness are not genetically encoded or mediated – that they are not “produced” or “caused” in any way by DNA. How is this possible? How can any part of us not be encoded in our genes? After all, science seems to tell us that our DNA contains every last bit of us – that without DNA, we are nothing at all and do not even exist. But we know that all genetically mediated qualities vary enormously whereas it is not the case that some of us have more OKness and some of us have less, or that we have more or less of it at different times and at different phases of the lifecycle. (In this context, we can invoke that final “implication of innateness” mentioned earlier – that not only is OKness an unchanging phenomenon within each one of us; it is unchanging from person to person as well; that it is exactly the same for all people – and for all beings, in fact, human or otherwise. In other words, it is not that there is a human form of OKness and a parakeet form and a poodle form and so on. Any and all living beings, regardless of any other factors, including genetic makeup, have exactly the same sense of OKness, it is always the full amount, and it never changes. We can even think of OKness as something that – again, for no “reason” – pervades the universe. Rather than being a product of genetic evolution, then, OKness defines the conditions within which evolution occurs.) 

If OKness is unchanging and the same for all, then where is there a role for genes in this? It is quite meaningless to talk about genes “encoding” or “producing” a fully-developed-from-birth, unchanging-throughout-life state of being. Genes are selected for over the course of evolutionary time by constantly changing external circumstances; they are therefore only adaptive under some circumstances and not others. In other words, it is sometimes more, sometimes less adaptive to have (more or less of) any given genetic trait. That is why there is so much genetic variation. What role could genes play in something that only exists in its maximum form and that never varies? Since we could not function without it, we can say that OKness is “evolutionarily adaptive”; and it most certainly does “enhance physical survival”; but it does not exist because it is evolutionarily adaptive and enhances physical survival. And it only “enhances survival” because it always exists in its full, unchanging, non-genetically mediated form. 

Also, if unchanging OKness were to be genetically encoded, this would mean that it was “contained” – like all other genetic traits – in the same few chemicals that make up our genetic “code.” But could just these chemicals – just the very ones encoding OKness – of all the other ever-changing physical-material things in existence, which are undeniably very much part of causality – somehow become exempt from causality and variability? This would seem to be even more stupefyingly unlikely than OKness simply being innate. If we agree that the chemical constituents of genetic material are subject to causal forces, then it follows that they cannot be the basis for unchanging qualities.

Clearly, this could become a very complex discussion; and we will get into the relationship between genetics and the causal level more deeply in Part 3; but for now, it is enough to point out that having a sense of OKness is not caused by anything – not even our DNA. 

In the sense that it has no material-mechanical cause of any sort, OKness would seem more related to the spiritual side of life. We might then want to say that OKness is innate in our “soul.” As with saying it is “caused by God,” this is perfectly acceptable from the causal perspective. But again, it does not add much to or alter our understanding of it. Also, it could potentially lead to the danger of overly “spiritualizing” the causal level. As we will point out repeatedly, “higher” or transcendent spiritual qualities – selfless love, divine insight, wisdom, and compassion, worldly detachment, self-realization, devotion to truth or God, and so on – are (as spiritual teachers tell us) innate in us in much the same way that a fruit is “innate” in a seed. That is, higher qualities exist in us from birth in potential form. They always need to be developed or cultivated in some way – even if such cultivation is conceived of as “learning to do nothing” and thus “allowing our true, already-existing, eternal nature to shine forth.” In contrast, causal qualities are much more “down-to-earth” than spiritual qualities; and they are as fully developed as they can possibly be right from birth. In other words, under normal circumstances, none of us are born “enlightened”; but under normal circumstances, all of us have a full sense of OKness. (The fact that most of the world’s billions of people no longer have a full sense of OKness does not make it any less the norm for human nature. It simply tells us how odd civilized life is. In contrast, being born into the spiritually unenlightened state of being is genuinely normal and natural for all people.) This already tells us that spiritual states and OKness must be different.

Thus, a person who never suffered any degree of causal disruption would automatically – without making any effort at all – retain hir full sense of OKness throughout life; but for whatever reason, such a person might never choose to develop hir higher potentials and could therefore be quite devoid of genuinely spiritual qualities. We can see from this that causal and spiritual qualities constitute two very different kinds of innateness; and this is why, even though the causal level is indeed very close to, and in many ways similar to, the spiritual level of being, it is properly conceived of as a separate and distinct level of being unto itself. 

(Because we do not currently distinguish between them, many qualities now believed to be “spiritual” in nature – and therefore requiring special techniques to be cultivated – are actually causal qualities that would normally be found in all people at all times. That is, being so disconnected from our natural sense of OKness, many misconstrue it as a difficult-to-attain, “higher” state of being. Thus, it is actually a sense of primary OKness that most “spiritual seekers” today hope to get out their spiritual practices – i.e., practices originally conceived for attaining self-realization, transcendence, liberation, oneness, Nirvana, the void, bliss, the True Self, God, and so on. The vast majority of people now supposedly pursuing these sorts of things would almost certainly be satisfied by simply regaining their normal, natural, inborn, “worldly” or “mundane” sense of OKness. That is what the vast majority of today’s “seekers” actually sense they are missing. Our inability to distinguish between these two realms leads to much confusion; and also much frustration because people are attempting to use spiritual techniques to cultivate qualities that are actually part of the causal foundation – the foundation that, as we will see, we must have before we can successfully cultivate the truly spiritual qualities. We will attempt to disentangle these issues as we go along.)

Another idea related to innateness is that “people would be innately good if they were loved/raised/educated/treated properly.” In some ways, this comes close to what we will be saying about maintaining causal connectedness. But again, our degree of connection to or disconnection from the causal level has no effect on the qualities of OKness themselves. In contrast, those good qualities that are brought out in us as a result of being raised and treated in a loving, caring, intelligent way are very much part of the world of causality. They are not the same as, and they do not have the same sort of innateness as, OKness. Being loved or raised properly never causes the qualities of OKness to come into existence. They do help to preserve our connection to OKness, however (which is why there is a great deal of similarity between the “people are good when they are raised with love” point of view and the causal point of view).

To sum up, the innateness of the qualities of OKness – which distinguishes OKness as an aspect of human nature worthy of being designated a distinct level of being – uniquely implies several things:

1^st implication: no cause

2^nd implication: no variation

3^rd implication: always fully developed

4^th implication: our default setting given “for free” at the start of life 

5^th implication: not possible to create or increase

(6^th implication: the same for all – somewhat speculative, but makes sense)

Getting Practical: The Two Levels of Security, Belonging, Ease, and Rightness 

Whatever other aspects or qualities – goodness, love, fear, selfishness – we may currently believe (rightly or wrongly) to be innate to human nature, it is fairly safe to say that most people – psychologists included – would not consider security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life to be among them. The vast majority of people in the civilized world would very likely agree that:

• we have little-to-none of these particular characteristics at birth
• beyond a basic amount that we may receive from our parents, we must work strenuously in a number of ways to develop or acquire them (or else be very lucky, like being born rich or talented)
• they depend on so many factors that change so constantly that, no matter how much of them we may acquire, we can completely lose them in an instant for any number of reasons 

Therefore, asserting that there is a form of these qualities that is innate, describing them briefly, and then claiming that their innateness constitutes a unique phenomenon that deserves to be categorized as a separate and distinct level of being might not be too convincing to most people (unless that little exercise in conjuring up a sense of OKness worked exceptionally well). What might be more convincing is if we can describe the practical implication of this point of view. What difference does it make to have, specifically, an innate form of these qualities? How is this any different from having the “usual” form of them – the form that we are all already familiar with and that is not innate (that has to be built up over time and that can be lost)? What is the significance of having a set of qualities that are very much like our ordinary qualities, except that they are innate?

New ideas can be intriguing, but they are not persuasive if they seem to contradict lived experience. Thus, the reader might readily agree that, if qualities such as security, belonging, ease, and rightness (and acceptance, and possibly others of this ilk) exist in an innate, unchanging, fully-developed-from-birth form, this would indeed tell us something new and important about our basic, irreducible human nature – about who we really are. In other words, the reader might be very willing to grant that, if these qualities really are innately part of us, then we are a different kind of being from whom we now assume ourselves to be. But why should the reader accept any of these theoretical possibilities as actually being the case? Unless it makes some practical difference, we might as well go back to believing, as some people apparently once did, that there is a little person – a homunculus – inside our heads who controls us – as if that somehow explains anything. But no, the innate form of these qualities is not any kind of superfluity that Occam’s Razor would demand we dispense with. It has real-world practical import. Innate OKness is essential to every minute of our day-to-day lives. We could not live without it.

To demonstrate this, let us begin by defining the “usual,” familiar forms of these qualities – for example, the type of security that depends on external circumstances, like having a close-knit family or a good job, or on personal qualities (either acquired or genetic), like having certain skills or strengths – as the secondary forms of these qualities. In keeping with this, we will refer to the entirety of what we now think of as our normal, day-to-day, mechanical, cause-and-effect level of functioning and existence – the physical, mental, and emotional levels of being as a whole – as the secondary level of life. The “secondary level” thus refers to virtually everything we now think of as constituting human nature, human life, and “the world.” Strange as it may sound, from the causal perspective, virtually everything that we now believe “life is about” is only the secondary level of things. In contrast to this, the primary level refers strictly to the causal level and causal connectedness. Thus, the qualities of OKness are the primary forms of those qualities we are now only familiar with in their secondary forms.

Now, the secondary forms of these qualities are extremely important in their own right. In fact, they are pretty much all that we are meant to consciously care about and pursue in life. The reason security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life seem so ordinary and familiar to us is that most of us pursue the secondary forms of them (by whatever names) virtually non-stop and with great eagerness. Through the acquisition of power, wealth, pleasure, fame, status, relationships (alliances, connections) and other such highly sought-for aims of life, we hope to increase the amount of these four qualities that we posses – to accumulate so much of them that we will have as little chance as possible of ever falling into insecurity, alienation, struggle, and being-at-odds-with-the-world. Most people are willing to work very hard to acquire the money, connections, support, skills, credentials, knowledge, material possessions, and so on that give us these qualities on the secondary level. Again, as far as most of us are concerned, this is “what life is about.” Even when we pursue love, goodness, beauty, truth, and such “higher” values, we are very often really only seeking to increase the amount of secondary security, belonging, and so on in our lives; and even if we do pursue these higher aims for their own sake, we do so only when we feel that we have already attained an adequate amount of secondary security, belonging, and so on. But this is not to suggest that the pursuit of secondary qualities is in any way inherently dishonorable, degraded, or lowly. Under normal conditions, this is our normal occupation. We are supposed to desire and pursue them. This is not even “selfish” because, under truly normal, causally connected conditions, this secondary pursuit includes, to a significant degree, taking care of each other.

Bringing OKness to Conscious Fruition

How strongly do we want a secondary sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness? Let us put it this way: Being successful in acquiring the secondary forms of these qualities is very much akin to that deep down, delicious feeling that we call “being loved” – which is undoubtedly the greatest value of all. That is, when we feel that our pursuit of these secondary qualities is going well, we almost always feel a much greater ability and willingness to “be ourselves” and to live our lives fully and freely, to be “big” and “expansive,” to pursue our dreams and visions, to connect with others and enter into meaningful, close-knit relationships, and to express who we are in authentic ways and without undue hesitation or reservation. The successful pursuit of the secondary forms of the qualities of OKness puts us into what we normally think of as our most desired frame of mind and state of being – one in which we explicitly feel positively engaged by life and other people. This is what we are all meant to consciously value and pursue. This is what normally gives us the self-aware perception that life is going the way it is “supposed” to go. Being successful in our pursuit of these secondary qualities is also very closely related to what we now call having “high self-esteem” – and just about any other description of life-and-self flowing along optimally. All of this is contrasted, at the opposite extreme, to the shut-down sense of shame – the sense of being small and contracted – which is the felt sense (not just the belief ) that, “I’m bad/evil/flawed/ unworthy/undeserving/ unlovable/unacceptable/wrong.”

This highly positive quality of self-and-world is well known to us, at least in the sense that we all seek it. But what we are suggesting is that the real core and heart of this familiar and desired state of being – this wonderful, expansive sense of being loved, and the freedom to live fully and without reservation that goes with it – is the completely unknown and subconscious primary state of OKness. Only by first having the underlying, primary form of these qualities can we successfully pursue the secondary form in a way that will actually produce the fully satisfying version of that deep-down “life is good” feeling that we all want. Otherwise, even a person who has been able to secure a great deal of the secondary forms of security, belonging, ease, and rightness but who does not have a strong sense of primary-innate OKness will feel much less overall security, belonging, ease, and rightness – and therefore less love and less freedom and expansiveness – than even a person with very little secondary forms of these qualities but a full sense of OKness. Yes, the person with the full sense of OKness would feel even better if s/he were more successful in her secondary pursuits; and the person with less OKness will still feel better than if s/he had very little of either the primary or secondary forms. But OKness is primary. It is always what we want and need primarily. The forms of security, belonging, ease, and rightness that we are more familiar with – the forms that we must acquire in some way – can only ever matter to us in a strictly secondary way. We would all willingly give up the secondary forms in exchange for the primary form – if we understood what this meant. Important as the secondary level of these qualities is and as wonderful as they can make us feel, they are simply not the same as, and are nearly worthless without, the innate-causal primary form.

From the causal perspective, then, the way life is set up to work is that, being born with the full amount of primary OKness (and subconsciously learning how to stabilize it, as we will discuss in future chapters), we then we spend the rest of our lives employing this unconscious, unknown, unrecognized foundation in conscious pursuit of the familiar, well-known, secondary qualities. If we are successful, this gives us an additional, heightened, conscious sense of vitality, expansiveness, and positive engagement with life. The secondary pursuit of well-being – when it goes even reasonably well – brings the primary form to its peak of fully conscious fruition. And life is good. But even when secondary success is unattainable for whatever reason, we are meant to always retain a basic, baseline, subconscious sense of OKness at all times. Even then, life is pretty good.

Primary OKness is thus somewhat like “start-up capital.” If life is essentially about building up our secondary forms of security, belonging, and so on, OKness is the form of those qualities that we must have at the very beginning in order to do anything whatsoever to begin building up the secondary forms of them. Nothing at all can happen without the primary qualities being there first. And the primary ones must be “given” to us absolutely “for free” (not even as a “loan”) in order for us to have a true starting point from which to begin building. 

Somewhat surprisingly, it is not even that our parents give us this start-up capital. Although we do definitely rely on their (hopefully) abundant supply of these qualities throughout our childhoods, we must have the full, primary form of them on our own, from the very beginning – even before we first encounter our parents – in order to be able to profitably accept, respond to, and make use of whatever love, nurturance, attention, and other gifts our parents and other caretakers bestow on us. Odd as it sounds, even to accept nurturance, even to do just this much – something that seems so effortless and automatic – we must already have our full, basic, “start-up” sense of OKness. It is not merely that we have genetic instincts for how to respond to and accept our parents’ nurturance. Yes, we do have such instincts; but they too are of a secondary nature; and so they can only “kick in” and begin functioning properly – we are only fully free to act on those instincts – if we already have an innate sense of security that comes from nowhere and is simply inborn. Natural, normal, healthy, instinctive functioning on the secondary level has to start from somewhere – it needs some solid ground to start building on – and we are suggesting that it starts with innate, primary, causal OKness.

This is not to say that newborns are somehow “independent” in any way and do not need parental care and love because they already have a full sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness. What we are saying is that it is because newborns have a full sense of OKness that they are able to be fully dependent on their parents and fully receive their care. Without OKness, we would not be able to fulfill our genetic drives and instincts by responding appropriately to our parents and taking from them and integrating what we need to grow and develop. Having a full primary sense of security does not make us independent; it makes us healthily and normally responsive, interactive, and receptive.

Because the primary form of these qualities – OKness – are given entirely for free from the beginning of life and never change, they are quite naturally taken entirely for granted and ignored as the unconscious background of our lives. This is as it should be. We are only ever meant to consciously focus on the secondary level of life. But our ability to do so – and the healthy vigor with which we do so – depends entirely on our first having that hidden, unknown sense of OKness. That primary foundation is precisely what frees us to engage wholeheartedly – and healthily-sanely – in our secondary pursuits. The thing is, there is an enormous liability built into this arrangement (although it probably worked flawlessly for the first hundreds of thousands of years of human life): if anything happens to our unknown, unconscious connection to primary OKness, we will never know it. Our ability to pursue secondary well-being will be greatly impaired, causing all kinds of unintended consequences; and no matter how successful we are outwardly, we will never feel right inwardly. But we will never know what has gone wrong (or even that something has gone wrong) or how to fix the situation. This is a big, big problem.

A Concrete Example of How the Two Levels Interact 

It is in the relationship between the primary and secondary levels that we can begin to understand the practical significance that the causal level has for our day-to-day lives. We will begin to demonstrate this with the following example (many more examples will follow further ahead in various contexts; in a sense, the purpose of this whole book is to map out this one distinction and relationship; but as there are many aspects and levels to it, we will only give a general, introductory glimpse of it here): A young, causally connected child with a full sense of primary security will still feel insecure in many situations – like if s/he becomes involuntarily separated from hir caregivers or if a strange person or animal threatens hir – but under normal circumstances, this type of insecurity will always be on the secondary level only and will not in any way decrease or alter hir primary sense of security by disconnecting hir from it. 

Why refer to these as two separate levels of insecurity? If we feel scared and insecure, who cares whether we call it “primary” or “secondary” – we’re still feeling scared and insecure, right? Actually, it makes an all-important difference. Because of hir fully intact primary sense of security, the causally connected child will always remain fully free to do whatever s/he is able – whatever comes naturally and spontaneously to hir – to resolve any insecurities that arise on the secondary (physical-mental-emotional) levels. For a very young child, this might mean simply crying uninhibitedly. A slightly older child who has developed more cognitive and physical skills will be able to verbalize the cause of hir secondary insecurity and, equally uninhibitedly, will be able to do things like tell an older person about it or seek help in some other way. An even older child might be able to take more specific actions to counteract the secondary insecurity hirself – possibly defending hirself somehow, thinking of a solution, or simply reassuring and soothing hirself. But in all cases, the fully causally connected, fully OK child will always respond fully, freely, and spontaneously and in the most appropriate way available (given hir level of development and the overall situation) until hir secondary sense of security is restored to the fullest extent possible (again, given the overall situation). S/he will never give up on expressing and following hir natural, healthy, appropriate, and balanced impulses so long as s/he has that underlying, unchanging causal sense of security. Because of hir absolute primary sense of security, s/he will always feel 100% secure in hir drive to resolve any and all secondary insecurities and pursue any and all sources of secondary security to whatever degree is possible. In general, for “no logical reason” and without any identifiable cause, s/he will feel free, at the deepest, primary level of hir being, to “be who s/he really is” and to do what comes naturally to hir and “feels right.”

In contrast, a child who has become causally disconnected to some degree and who does not have full access to hir primary sense of security – who feels a sense of insecurity at the primary level – will not have that same sense of inner freedom. Without hir full primary sense of security, s/he will not be able to respond as fully, spontaneously, and appropriately to (in this example) secondary sources of insecurity. S/he will either fail to respond adequately – will needlessly acquiesce to the threat and suffer harm – or will respond in some other less-than-fully appropriate way – including wildly, inappropriately over-reacting – that is either less likely to lead to a complete and satisfactory resolution of the secondary insecurity or that will cause yet other problems (sometimes worse than the initial one) on the secondary level. In short, hir ways of responding to secondary insecurities will become garbled, stifled, and dysfunctional. In general, s/he does not have the underlying, foundational security to respond naturally, uninhibitedly, freely, spontaneously, and in a balanced, appropriate (again, age-appropriate) way to any of hir experiences at the secondary level. 

Note that in this example, it is not that the causally disconnected child responds in inappropriate, dysfunctional ways simply and solely because of a lack of either proper development, cognitive understanding, learning, conditioning, or training – although these might certainly be contributing secondary factors. It is not that such a child merely needs to be taught, conditioned, trained, helped, or encouraged to act differently. In this example, the fundamental problem is not at the secondary levels of cognition, impulse control, social-emotional processing, speech, or physical behavior. Overshadowing any potential problems or deficits at these levels (which will likely also exist) is hir primary disconnection from OKness; and this cannot be “undone” or “overridden” by any manipulations or changes at the secondary level. It can be undone only by directly re-establishing the child’s primary sense of OKness (a process we will discuss mainly in Book II – although, given a chance, most children will do it more or less spontaneously). Until then, s/he will always respond inappropriately and dysfunctionally in one way or another. Of course, all of this would apply in exactly the same way to an adult as well.

Analyzing the Example

This example begins to give us some concrete sense of how OKness fundamentally changes the way we experience and function on the secondary level. In the broadest terms, a full sense of primary – but unconscious – OKness allows us to experience the secondary level through that sense of OKness. This, in turn, allows us to function optimally on the secondary level. And then this, finally, is what allows us to create that most fully conscious sense of positive engagement, meaning, and fulfillment in life. In contrast, any loss of primary OKness negatively impacts the way we feel and function on the secondary level. In other words, this one, seemingly slight – even invisible – difference changes everything. Thus, the way most of us now experience and respond to secondary sources of insecurity, alienation, struggle, and being-at-odds-with-the-world and the way we now pursue security, belonging, ease, and rightness may be quite far off from the long-standing, optimal “norm” for humans. It may very well be that the way the vast majority of us now experience and function in the world is, more than anything else, the result of having less than a full sense of OKness and that most of us would experience and respond to life in far more satisfying ways if we did have that full, underlying sense of OKness.

Currently, we tend to assume that our (seemingly) deepest, most automatic and spontaneous emotions, responses, and ways of experiencing life “couldn’t be any other way” – and so we take them for granted as “givens” about who we are, as in, “That’s just the way I am.” Or, we assume that “the way I am” is purely the result of secondary factors such as development, learning, training, habits, genetics, circumstance, and so on. Either way, we assume that, if we want to change the way we experience life (the way we feel inside) and the way we function, we can only do this is by making willful, cause-and-effect changes at the secondary level – mechanical changes to our physiology, behavior, thoughts, and emotions (or spirit – as in “getting right with God,” having more “faith,” “witnessing” or “transcending” our problems, “letting go of everything that is not my true, higher Self,” and so on). We also tend to assume that our lives will be “optimal” – that we will feel and function best – if we can manage to arrange things on the secondary level in the way we like. We strive for the sense that everything inside of us and around us in the world is “going my way.” Again, it is normal to assume that this is what will make us feel best. We are “meant” to keep our attention solely focused on this secondary level of things. This should be a perfectly workable, satisfying way of living in the world.

But this example shows us that there is a whole other level of being that directly and significantly determines the manner in which our emotions and responses emerge and that, more than anything we can change on the secondary level, it is this deeper, hidden level of things – our primary, causal sense of OKness – that plays the biggest role in determining whether or not we feel and function normally-optimally on that more familiar, apparent level of things. The “normal” arrangement of things – where we focus all of our conscious attention on the secondary physical-mental-emotional-spiritual levels – only actually works when we already have our full sense of OKness. Without it, our otherwise normal, healthy, secondary focus stops producing truly optimal outcomes. If we lose our primary sense of OKness, then instead of merely bringing our primary sense of well-being to its peak of fully conscious fruition, our secondary pursuits become fruitless attempts at compensating ourselves for our loss of OKness. This can never work.

A natural question, then, is, “How can we define the ‘optimal’ secondary functioning that results solely from having a full sense of primary OKness?” In order to understand the uniquely foundational role of OKness, we must distinguish it from what we now think of as our “optimal” ways of feeling and functioning – i.e., when things are temporarily “going my way” on the secondary level, but which we can only “enjoy” as a relatively tepid compensation for our unacknowledged loss of OKness. Also, we must distinguish genuinely sub-optimal functioning – the type that results specifically from having less than our full sense of OKness – from the normal, universal sorts of problems that all people – even those with a full sense of OKness – are invariably subject to (i.e., the sorts of problems that truly are inescapably part of the “human condition”). Both of these – false forms of “optimal” functioning and normal, inescapable forms of suffering – further obscure the already difficult to discern role of OKness.

These are enormous issues to sort out, and we would have to cram the whole book into this first chapter to fully address them. Defining the difference between having a full sense of OKness versus being disconnected from it to any degree is the task that we will be engaged in throughout this book. At this early point, we will stick to describing this difference in fairly general terms only – just to make it clear that there is some difference there and to get an initial feel for it. Then, as we build up the required concepts and language, we will describe this same basic distinction from many other points of view and in many other, far more precise ways. Further ahead, we will talk about it in terms of feeling fully versus being blocked or disconnected from feeling; fully digesting our experiences versus having undigested residues; reacting and defending ourselves normally and appropriately (even if extremely vigorously) versus either under- or over-reactive, inappropriate defensiveness; foundationlessness versus normal (even if highly negative and painful) conditioning; living within natural limits versus exceeding natural limits – and still other terms that would not make much sense if we mentioned them at this point. The key thing for now is that all of these distinctions exist and are meaningful only because of the existence of the causal level. Each distinction is a point where two fundamentally different worlds open up – two worlds that can only be different from each other if there is a causal level with its sense of OKness and a possibility of becoming disconnected from it. We will not fully explore all of these differences just now, but the following discussion will still be something of a preview of the book as a whole. 

For now, we will convey what we mean by “optimal functioning” – the kind supported by a full sense of OKness – with words like “natural, life-affirming spontaneity,” “authenticity,” “presence,” “balance,” “appropriateness,” “trust in life,” “freedom,” “fullness,” “completeness,” “functionality,” and “flow.” Taken together, these words paint a certain kind of picture that anyone can relate to. In contrast, we can describe the type of sub-optimal (or outright dysfunctional and pathological) functioning that results from having less than full OKness in terms of “unnatural, life-denying rigidity,” “fakeness,” “shut-down not-thereness,” “too much and too little,” “inappropriateness,” “expectation of being hurt or let down,” “excessive need for domination-control,” “emptiness,” “desperation,” “breakdown,” “stuckness,” and “hesitation.” Although these qualities can exist, to endlessly varying degrees, in endless combinations, these words paint a very different overall picture. These two sets of words convey the general kind of difference we are talking about.

But as we all know, words are not always so straightforward; so we will give a few more examples to further clarify the general type of difference we are pointing to here. Part of the difficulty with these words is that we now use exactly the same words to refer to relatively less significant differences at the strictly secondary level. For example, normal conditioning – learned or acquired likes and dislikes – can superficially reproduce many of the same characteristics as OKness and its loss. Conditioning consists of learned reaction patterns, like becoming habituated to – and therefore preferring, liking, enjoying, wanting, or “needing” – certain foods, customs, activity levels, routines, lifestyles, material objects, comforts, forms of interaction, and so on and disliking (hating, fearing, dreading) their opposites or absences. Conditioning can result in our feeling safe and secure in otherwise neutral places or situations and scared in others – like being scared of, say, elevators if we happened to have had a bad experience in one when we were young. But the positive and negative states and reactions produced solely by these learned, acquired associations (i.e., “elevators=scary”) will only be on the secondary level. Thus, I may be genuinely terrified of elevators all my life – which can give the impression that I have lost my primary sense of security; but if I still have a full sense of OKness, I will feel totally fine about myself for having this fear, will feel totally fine about going to even extreme and odd lengths to avoid elevators, and will be openly expressive and not the least bit ashamed about showing my fear and hesitation if I cannot avoid using an elevator – even if I know that it is a “silly” fear that almost no one else shares. The conditioned fear of elevators is only a loss of security at the secondary level. It does not affect me at the primary level.

We must keep in mind that acquiring conditioned likes and dislikes/fears is entirely normal and can be entirely consistent with healthy functioning. We are genetically “wired” to be conditioned in both positive and negative ways. Conditioning prevents us from having to consciously think through every single decision and reaction. Often, it can be life-saving to simply have a bit of automatic conditioning step in: “Red light means stop!” with our foot automatically hitting the brake pedal. But of course, we often end up being conditioned in ways that end up not being useful at all, as in, “The last time I was in an elevator, something terrible happened, so I must always avoid them from now on.”

Let us take another example of conditioning, then – one that has even more serious consequences. A person with a full sense of OKness could be made to feel – simply through normal, strictly secondary level conditioning – a low sense of self-esteem. For example, as a result of being repeatedly told throughout childhood that s/he was a “second-class,” or “inferior” person and then being actually treated that way in social situations – perhaps due to being of a particular ethnic group or having certain physical characteristics – even someone with a full sense of OKness could come to believe that s/he really was objectively, factually less worthy and inferior to others. Even when no longer in hir oppressive surroundings, s/he might continue to defer to others, keep from expressing her thoughts or wishes openly, appear timid, and so on. Hir thoughts might be something like, “For some reason, I’m lower. And even though it feels rotten, there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s just how it is. I just have to keep my head down, try to please people, and make the best of it.” This is obviously a very oppressive sense of self-and-world that would negatively impact a person’s functioning (although it might have promoted hir survival in hir original, oppressive – and likely violent – conditions). But even with this low sense of self-worth on the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional-social levels, such a person with a full sense of OKness would still (automatically) be fully present and fully aware of hir authentic emotions (that is, fully able to acknowledge and register that “it feels rotten to be treated as lower”) and would conduct hirself in a balanced, appropriate way given her unfortunate conditioning. S/he would have a kind of self-possessed acceptance of hir “lot in life,” even if s/he did not like it, did not think it was just, and felt angry, sad, and hurt about it. 

But also, because s/he did still have hir full sense of OKness, if the opportunity arose, s/he would have the psychological wherewithal to regain hir full cognitive and social sense of deserving fair, dignified treatment. S/he might first need to be convinced that it truly was hir conditioning and hir society that was wrong – not hir own self; but s/he would be fully capable of being convinced of this and of overcoming her conditioned low self-esteem. In contrast, even someone conditioned to believe that s/he was of superior status, but who had less than hir full sense of OKness, would be relatively inauthentic and frequently inappropriate in hir behavior – either too shut-down and hesitant or overly domineering, controlling, and aggressive in hir attempt to compensate for hir lack of OKness – and no amount of trying to “re-condition” hir on the cognitive, behavioral, or social-emotional (or even spiritual) levels would be capable of changing this.

Even something like “authenticity” is not so straightforward a trait. For example, a person with a full sense of OKness might come to believe, for whatever reason, that acting in a false, inauthentic way would best serve hir interests, at least in some situations. This belief might also be the result of unhealthy conditioning – like being raised among people who taught hir that, “It’s bad to show fear.” But again, unhealthy conditioning is only a secondary factor. It does not cause disconnection from OKness. Thus, fully connected to hir sense of OKness, such a person would at least be fully authentic inside hirself, knowing that s/he is intentionally presenting a false front to the world; and in that sense, at least, s/he would be fully authentic and “real.” Or, going back to the elevator fear, if I have been conditioned to hide my fear about it, then I will not be open and up-front with others about my feelings about elevators, as in the previous example. But there will be a kind of authenticity in me as a person who feels compelled to hide his fear – odd as that may sound. In other words, it will be clear to anyone who knows me that, “I’m that guy with the false bravado.” It will almost be humorous – although often annoying at times. In contrast, a person who is disconnected from hir full sense of OKness will be inauthentic in a far more blind, self-deceptive, and possibly even shrinking, shameful, way – a way that even s/he hirself would not be fully able to acknowledge because it is too fraught and threatening. Rather than authentically expressing a clearly defined – even if false – persona (hir particular form of secondary conditioning), s/he would be expressing hir lack of primary OKness – although “expressing” would no longer be quite the world for it. S/he would simply come across as, say, shifty and deceptive and “hard to read.” Sure, one could argue that such a person is “fully expressing” hir lack of OKness just as authentically as anyone else expressing hir normal feelings/persona/conditioning; and technically, this would be true; but it would still feel entirely different – and that is the point. 

Similarly with “inhibited”: We can, in full OKness, consciously choose to “inhibit” ourselves in one way or another – like by keeping quiet or otherwise not expressing ourselves – if we believe (or have been conditioned to believe) that this will best serve our secondary pursuits under certain conditions; but this is not the same as a person who is inhibited in a much more blind, chronic way due to loss of OKness. In loss of OKness, inhibition, inauthenticity, and so on are no longer choices; they are imposed necessities.

Again, the difference we are trying to hone in on here is that the person with only “conditioning issues” but a full sense of OKness will remain far more present, free, spontaneous, natural, authentic, and so on – even in the enactment of any areas of conditioned fear, aggression, insecurity, hesitation, fakeness, and so on that s/he might have – whereas the person with genuine loss of OKness will be far more globally, chronically shut-down, overly-aggressive, not-there, unnatural, fake, and so on. 

Clearly, even with a full sense of OKness, negative forms of conditioning can cause serious problems in our lives. But any and all issues arising from mal-adaptive conditioning alone – like specific fears of dogs, airplanes, elevators, and so on and specific beliefs about our worth, strengths, capabilities and so on – are relatively easily resolvable at the secondary level. These are the sorts of conditions that can often be resolved by short courses of cognitive-behavioral therapies, neuro-linguistic programming, “positive thinking” (“mind over matter!!”), self-esteem building exercises, and other strictly secondary level approaches – including simply being treated lovingly and kindly. Loss of OKness, on the other hand, cannot be resolved by any means on the secondary level – not even after years of working at it. As we will see, a totally different approach, aimed specifically at reconnecting to the primary, causal level, is required to resolve loss of OKness.

If this difference still seems unclear (or if it seems doubtful whether this actually is a true distinction at all), rest assured that it will become much clearer as we express it in other, more precise ways further ahead.

Spontaneity

The practical significance of OKness essentially comes down to this: We can only function fully freely and spontaneously in a natural, balanced, appropriate way on the secondary levels when we have our full sense of OKness at the primary level. But is being fully free and spontaneous always such a desirable thing? If, as we said before, we are meant to focus our full conscious attention and energy on creating and preserving secondary level security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life – acquiring wealth, friends, skills, and so on – is acting in whatever way comes to us most spontaneously likely to produce the best outcome? What about careful planning, strategizing, and self-control? And in fact, isn’t being spontaneous often the very source of our problems – like when we blurt out some mean, rash, or stupid thing; or lash out violently in anger, jealousy, fear, or spite; or give up on a project on a passing whim or in a momentary fit of frustration; and so on? These questions point to a crucial issue – one that is central to the causal perspective: What aspect of us is best suited to drive and guide us through life? Desire? Pure instinct? Sheer will-power? Rational intelligence? Love and compassion? Intuition and wisdom? Pure, detached, transcendent consciousness? Or some perfectly balanced combination of all of the above (assuming we can figure out how to attain it)?

We will begin to tackle this question in greater depth in the upcoming sections on Feeling Fully and especially the Foundation. For now, we will just say that many of the problems we currently associate with being “too” spontaneous are due to the fact that we actually only act spontaneously here and there and in a limited, partial way. We almost never act truly, fully, and consistently spontaneously because we do not have the full sense of OKness that would support this; but if we did, we would find that true spontaneity is quite different from what we think it is. For reasons we will discuss elsewhere (reasons having to do with why true, causally informed spontaneity really does produce the best overall outcome for us), the inability to act fully spontaneously causes all sorts of problems in our lives, the stresses and pressures of which build up in us and then explode every now and then in what we call “spontaneous” outbursts. But this bottled-up, highly emotional explosivity is in no way similar to the causally informed, sustained spontaneity of a person with a full sense of OKness. In several key ways, they are exact opposites.

Like authenticity and inhibition, spontaneity is not so clear cut. Philosophically, it could be interesting to try to analyze precisely what it means to be spontaneous. What portion of any given behavior is spontaneous and what part is “under our control?” How can this be determined? What does it mean to “lose the ability to be spontaneous?” Are there different types and “grades” (better/healthier versions) of spontaneity? And, in a sense, is not everything we do “spontaneous” – in the sense that we never know what our next “conscious decision” will be until after we have made it? (I.e., we cannot pre-decide what our next decision, choice, or action will be. The decision has to come to us spontaneously first. That is when we ourselves find out what our own decision is.) We might not be able to answer such questions fully here; but let us take a brief look at what new light the concept of OKness sheds on them.

It may seem odd to talk about the primary-causal sense of OKness – or anything else, for that matter – “allowing” us, or giving us the “ability,” to be spontaneous. We do not normally think of spontaneity this way. Spontaneity just…happens. We all do spontaneous things all the time. We cannot help it – which is precisely what makes those behaviors spontaneous. We do not know how – or sometimes even why – we do them; we just do them. We laugh, we cry, we scowl, we react instinctively to some situation, our body moves this way or that, a thought forms, emotionally charged words pop out of our mouth, and on and on. In fact, most of what we do is spontaneous in this sense – even if we think of ourselves as being particularly tightly controlled or even rigid and habit-bound. We might always have precise, detailed plans for what we intend to do and how we want to do them; but even still, most of what we think and do comes to us spontaneously. We do not know the exact words we will say next, even as we say them. We do not know exactly how our body will put together the precise series of movements that will accomplish our goals. We do not know how we might alter our goals as we receive new feedback along the way. We do not know what our thoughts and emotional reactions will be to the unexpected circumstances, obstacles, and successes we encounter. 

But if we all engage in this type of spontaneity all the time, how can it be any sort of “ability” that rests or depends on something else? If all of us are spontaneous most of the time, then does this not mean that, either we all have a full sense of OKness or that OKness is simply not a factor here? Not necessarily. Although we are all spontaneous much of the time, some spontaneous behavior produces wonderful results while some produces quite disastrous results. The upshot of the causal perspective vis-à-vis spontaneity, then, is that there are really two types of spontaneity: a healthy, freely flowing, unobstructed, balanced, appropriate spontaneity – spontaneity that is a direct, full expression of the totality of our being, perfectly in synch with our fullest, naturally optimal functioning; and a bottled up, explosive spontaneity that is disconnected from our immediate experience (usually the result of undigested experiences, as we will discuss elsewhere) and that is therefore less than fully balanced, appropriate, and adaptive and that overrides what would otherwise be our natural mode of experiencing and functioning. Much of our “spontaneity” in the civilized world is of the second type – the type that reflects our disconnection from OKness.

Thus, as illustrated by our first main example of how primary OKness works, even something as seemingly automatic as being able to feel insecure and react spontaneously to it – by crying, running, seeking comfort, fighting-defending, or self-calming – is profoundly affected by how connected we are to our primary sense of OKness. Two people who are otherwise alike in all ways and who are in exactly the same (secondary level) insecurity-producing circumstances – but who have different degrees of connection to OKness – will experience and respond in entirely differently ways for this reason alone. Persons with full OKness will respond in healthily spontaneous ways; all others will respond in less-than-healthy “spontaneous” ways.

But is not the loss of spontaneity a natural occurrence, due in large part to our becoming more “grown-up” and acquiring more effective skills, abilities, and responses that are under our conscious control – responses that we can carefully plan out ahead of time or intentionally program into ourselves as adaptive habit patterns? As adults, we do not need to burst out in tears every time we feel hungry. We can simply walk to the fridge or go out for a meal – and we can plan ahead, knowing that we will eventually need to eat. To a great extent then, are not children more spontaneous simply because they have a more limited range of learned, adaptive responses, less foresight, and poorer impulse control? 

To some extent, yes. But again, we are not contrasting some sort of totally “uncontrolled” spontaneity with purely pre-planned, mentally controlled behavior. We are talking about how spontaneity underlies all of our behaviors, from the most automatic to the most controlled, and how this spontaneity can either emerge in a freely flowing, balanced way or in a rigid, inhibited, unbalanced way that reflects pathological disconnection from OKness. This distinction applies equally to purely instinctive children and to fully mature adults who employ learned responses and pre-planned strategies in virtually every situation (as is perfectly normal). The distinction we are making, then, is not between childish spontaneity versus adult self-control, but between healthy and free versus unbalanced and shut-down spontaneity at any phase of the life cycle.

Besides which, we know that many of us do indeed lose a great deal of our abilities to cry, laugh, move, and speak spontaneously – and not for any positive reason, like being smarter or more “grown up.” We really do become rigid, shut down, overly controlling, and unable to express ourselves fully and easily in so many ways that are not at all beneficial or adaptive. So while, as adults, we obviously do acquire more effective, planned-controlled modes of functioning and do not need to cry every time we are hungry in order to be “healthily spontaneous” (getting up off the sofa and waddling to the fridge during commercials is plenty “spontaneous” enough, even if totally habitual), the fact is, even when we do feel a genuine need to cry – or embrace someone else who is crying – many of us cannot, or can only do so partially and haltingly. This has nothing to do with healthy maturity. Some of it can be chalked up to normal conditioning, as we discussed previously. But that does not account for all of our loss of spontaneity. Clearly, in addition to the fully appropriate, desirable “loss of spontaneity” that comes from healthy maturation; and the normal loss of spontaneity that comes from simple conditioning; there is also an outright abnormal, pathological loss of spontaneity. This general idea is nothing new to us; but the concept of the causal-primary sense of OKness adds to our understanding of what this abnormal loss truly consists of. And it clarifies that this sort of loss of spontaneity is not as inevitable as it now seems to be.

In the end, although it might not be possible to sort out precisely how much of our behavior is spontaneous and how much is willed and what the healthiest balance between these two modes is – or even what the exact difference between them is – the concept of OKness does add something new and important to our understanding of what we can reasonably call our optimal mode of being. There is a real and significant difference between the experiential and functional qualities of a person with a full connection to hir sense of OKness versus that of a person with less than a full connection to it; and this difference can be understood in terms of the two types of spontaneity. For simplicity’s sake, then, from here on in, whenever we refer to spontaneity, we will mean only the healthy, free, balanced type supported by full OKness. (Of the concepts we will be developing to discuss these matters more precisely, “feeling fully,” the “foundation,” “free interaction,” and “openness” will, in particular, help us further refine what we mean by the healthy, balanced, natural spontaneity that is supported by a full sense of OKness.)

As a last note on spontaneity, we mentioned briefly before, and we will explore much more fully further ahead, how truly spontaneous functioning is precisely what leads to the fullest, optimal development of all of our physical, mental, and emotional (and spiritual) capacities – i.e., the entire secondary level of life. This includes our capacities for willful, intentional planning, strategizing, exercising self-control and self-regulation, delaying gratification, and any other “non-spontaneous” modes of functioning. These aspects of us are therefore not only fully compatible with unbridled and free spontaneity: they only fully and properly emerge as a result of it. As much as it goes against our civilized way of thinking, the full, natural, healthy, and balanced development of our “non-spontaneous” capacities occurs…entirely spontaneously when we have our full sense of OKness. Thus, even our most measured, thoughtful, mature responses to life ultimately depend on the uninhibited spontaneity of the primary level. 

In spite of what the civilized superego might like to believe, there is no way we can coordinate and manage all aspects of ourselves through conscious, willful self-control. Attempting to do so would completely overwhelm our conscious faculties and we would fail miserably, never mind attaining optimum well-being. As we will see, the integrated functioning of our total selves can only be properly and optimally coordinated at the primary, causal level – in full spontaneity, beneath our conscious awareness. We will leave the practicalities of how this works for our discussions of the Foundation. At this point, we are still only attempting to convey the general sense that successfully pursuing secondary security, belonging, ease, and rightness – creating what we think of as a “good life” for ourselves – depends on our already having the full, primary form of them.

The Freedom To Be Positively Negative

Related to spontaneity is the somewhat unexpected fact that, even to properly and fully experience, process, and respond to negative states of being we must have a full sense of OKness. That is, we cannot even be properly and optimally negative without OKness. Continuing with our main example, we saw that even the ability to properly and fully feel insecure on the secondary level – having what we can call the “freedom to be fully insecure” (which includes such things as being able to fully and clearly register, express, and act on any anxiety, concern, longing, or anger we feel about things like having, say, enough food, money, protection, friends, allies, skills, or whatever else we need to feel secure on the secondary level) – requires us to have our full sense of security on the primary level. This is true in the same way that even something as seemingly automatic and natural as being able to cry freely and spontaneously depends on our having a full sense of OKness.

But “the ability to feel properly insecure???” 

“The freedom to be insecure???”

What in the world are we talking about? Who wants to be “properly” insecure? How is feeling insecure any kind of a “freedom?” Insecurity is something we want to get away from, not something we want to feel. We want to be free from insecurity, not free to experience it. And anyways, who has any trouble feeling insecure? Aren’t we all masters at it already? It certainly doesn’t seem to require anything of us.

Quite naturally, we are not used to thinking positively about negativity. Nonetheless, the ability to authentically and appropriately feel and express any secondary state of being – the ability to flow easily and naturally from one emotion and state of being to the next, even “negative” ones like insecurity anger, jealousy, fear, sadness, hurt, oppression, and so on, in response to real life experiences and circumstances – is actually a tremendous freedom. (We will further qualify what we mean by this in the chapter on Feeling Fully.) We are most fortunate when we have it. Why? Because no matter how many secondary forms of security (or belonging, and so on) we manage to acquire (friends, allies, protectors, physical strength, knowledge, financial resources, social stability, and so on), all of us will still invariably encounter situations from time to time that make us feel insecure (or angry, sad, jealous, and so on) on the secondary level. But the more security we have on the primary level – even if we are not conscious of it – the better we can deal with negative, insecurity-producing situations on the secondary level – and the faster we can regain that wonderful, expansive, conscious sense of well-being. That’s real freedom.

Without our full sense of OKness, we do not have this freedom. Instead, we find ourselves in a dysfunctional mode of inhibition, imbalance, inauthenticity, and/or inappropriate reactivity. In this mode, our responses to negative situations do not arise in simple, direct response to those situations as they really are, but mainly in response to our own disconnection from OKness. For reasons we will see further along, our lack of OKness causes us to misperceive and misconstrue what is actually happening around us. Negative circumstances then feel too big, too threatening to face and deal with; and instead of evoking a normal, healthy insecurity, fear, anger, sadness, and so on along with a free and spontaneous response, they evoke an out-of-all-proportion terror, freezing up, “checking out,” rage, shame, or depression – responses that are generally far worse than the actual circumstances themselves. This is why very little of what we do in this mode is helpful in restoring our optimal, conscious sense of well-being. This is the type of insecurity – the kind that comes from loss of OKness – that comes to us so easily and that plagues us; this is the type that we have “mastered” in the modern world. But this is nothing like the natural insecurity we are free to respond to effectively when we have our underlying OKness.

The freedom to feel and encounter negative situations does not, however, guarantee that we will be able to resolve them to our satisfaction. If someone we love dies, we cannot do anything to change this. A person who is oppressed in hir society may not be able to alter hir painful circumstances. A person conditioned to fear elevators will feel genuine and deep discomfort if unable to avoid riding on one. Nonetheless, it is always preferable to encounter life with a full sense of underlying OKness. Even if we cannot immediately do anything to change a situation to our liking – even if we must live with, say, some source of insecurity – OKness makes all the difference in our ability to do so for however long may be necessary and unavoidable. With our OKness intact, we automatically encounter even insecurity with the sense that, “Just as I am right now, I am adequate to face this situation. Even if I cannot find a way to improve or resolve it, I can simply weather it or live with it. I may not like it, but I can do it. I can remain my essential self even in the midst of these trying circumstances.” In contrast, if we experience painful or difficult circumstances without the underlying support of OKness, those situations feel overwhelming – as if they will crush us. Loss of OKness always compounds and prolongs the pain of negative circumstances in ways that are totally unnecessary and that serve no useful purpose.

This makes it quite clear that it is not the secondary forms or sources of security that makes us feel secure. When we talk about someone being a “secure person,” we are sensing that s/he has better-than-average access to the primary, causal form of security. In fact, it is often precisely how well a person handles unavoidable secondary forms of insecurity that tells us how secure s/he really is – meaning, at the primary level. In contrast, a person who has a great deal of secondary security but little primary security – like certain rich people – will not strike us as being a truly “secure person.” We will discuss these sorts of differences in greater detail further on in the chapter in Part 1 on the Foundation and then at much greater length in Part 3.

Since most of us do not currently experience our negative circumstances and emotional states with anything approaching a sense of “freedom,” we cannot know how it is that a sense of security on the primary level would totally transform our experience of insecurity – or any other negative state – on the secondary level. But the fact is, no negative state on the secondary level would seem nearly as negative if we had our full sense of OKness. That is, those experiences would not be accompanied by the horrible, crushing, shrinking sense of being defeated or overpowered – which is also a sense of being unloved, rejected, and shamefully humiliated – that now characterizes so many of our negative experiences; but which really comes only from being disconnected from OKness (not from whatever is actually happening around us). Instead, we would respond to negative experiences with the same spontaneous freedom with which we might now respond only to our most positive, non-threatening experiences (if even those). Again, this does not mean that we would “like” or “enjoy” those negative experiences; but we would not feel nearly as squashed, deflated, or beat up by them as we do now. 

We see then that there are really two types of negative experiences depending on whether or not we are fully connected to our sense of OKness: those that we are capable of resolving – or at least withstanding or living with while we continue to be our true selves – and those that seem to overwhelm, overpower, and crush us – that seem to diminish and injure us and render us unable to remain fully ourselves. 

“Optimal feeling and functioning,” then, does not mean the total absence of negative states, as we might currently think. From the causal perspective, it means experiencing all states of being with our OKness intact. OKness does not guarantee that we will feel ideally good all the time – the way we might want to feel; but it does make us feel optimally good given our current circumstances. Maintaining OKness on the primary level always insures that we feel and function as well as possible on the secondary level.

Healthy Limits

To conclude this analysis of our main example of OKness-in-action, we might talk a bit about the confusion that could arise regarding what it means to be “unlimited” and “uninhibited” in pursuit of our secondary fulfillments. Based on our modern experiences, unleashing people who are even more uninhibited than we are in the pursuit of secondary sources of security, belonging, ease, and rightness might seem like a recipe for total environmental and social disaster (or at least for quicker disaster, since we already seem to be well on our way). Would not people who felt totally unlimited and uninhibited in the pursuit of their secondary desires become the grotesque epitome of ruthless, self-centered, self-serving rapaciousness? Should we not be looking for ways to make people more inhibited, not less, in these pursuits? If a full sense of OKness would further incline people to persist in and maximize their secondary pursuits, then OKness would seem to be the very last thing we need right now.

This would be a most understandable misunderstanding. Again, we will defer a full exploration of these matters until we have had more time to build up the required conceptual framework; but an essential aspect of OKness that we can mention briefly here is that, somewhat paradoxically, the sense of unlimited and uninhibited freedom that comes from full OKness is at the very same time the source of healthy self-limiting. That is, when our way of pursuing secondary sources of security, belonging, and so on emerges spontaneously from a full sense of OKness, then yes, we will persist in this pursuit until we have fully restored any loss of these qualities; but we will also only ever do so in a way that is consistent with our sense of OKness. (This is an important part of what it means to be “informed” by the causal level, as we will discuss later.) And if we already have a full sense of primary OKness, it only takes a very moderate amount of success on the secondary level to bring those qualities to that delicious and fully satisfying peak of conscious fruition. To pursue more of them than we actually need would only begin to diminish them; and when we are fully connected to OKness, we can clearly feel where that balance point is. Therefore, only people with a full sense of OKness can, and automatically will, feel inclined to limit themselves on the secondary level. So long as nothing disconnects us from it, our sense of OKness remains unlimited – and that is the only form of unlimitedness a healthy human wants or needs. Furthermore, in full OKness, our secondary focus is mainly on building strong, healthy relationships – which is something that has no downside and can never be “overdone.” Ever-expanding relatedness is the true “wealth” of the causally informed.

The grotesque, unbalanced, world-destroying exceeding of natural limits that we now see in the most “advanced” countries is an expression of people who are missing their sense of OKness – people who are far too inhibited and limited, not too uninhibited and unlimited. It is in the hopeless attempt to compensate ourselves for our missing sense of OKness that we go beyond all natural, healthy limits – the limits of sanity itself. It is the sense of something missing that sends us on the endless quest for “more” – which is never “enough” – because no amount of “success” on the secondary level can compensate us for even a tiny loss of OKness. But unfortunately, when we lose any amount of OKness, we cannot help trying to compensate ourselves. All we know is that something is missing – we do not know what – and that we absolutely must fill the void. We attempt this in the only way we know how: by pursuing secondary forms of security, belonging, ease, and rightness. This is why civilized humanity consumes the world. 

Summary of Primary/Secondary

The primary/secondary distinction and relationship is the essence of what OKness is all about, so let us make sure that we have got it straight before we move on. Primary-innate-causal OKness allows us to ongoingly function in the most free, uninhibited, spontaneous manner, which in turn allows us to fulfill our secondary needs and drives in the most natural, balanced, and appropriate way (given our overall situation), which in turn brings our unconscious sense of OKness to its fullest conscious fruition (again, given our overall situation – meaning that we are not talking in ideal terms here). Thus, the distinction and the relationship between primary OKness and the secondary level of life is: the former is the foundation for the latter.

We are already well aware of needing and wanting security, belonging, ease, and rightness. These are avidly sought-after, core values or aims in life. And very naturally, we are only aware of – and we only ever seek – the secondary form of them, which is the form that can be created, generated, increased, and so on through mechanical processes, including our own efforts. This is exactly as it should be. Creatively and intelligently using the means at our disposal to increase our secondary forms of security, belonging, and so on is precisely what humans are “meant” to do. This is the proper occupation of our conscious, willful selves. But we are not meant to pursue the secondary forms of OKness without having the full, underlying (and normally unconscious) primary form. When we are forced to do so, our pursuit of the secondary forms of these qualities becomes extremely problematic and anxiety-ridden. And even when we do succeed at securing some secondary forms of OKness, we do not feel the full satisfaction and well-being that we would have if we had the full primary form as well. Without OKness, we can never have full security, belonging, ease, and rightness. There will always be a sense of something not being quite right, of something missing. Because there is.

We see, then, that what we normally think of as “life” is really only the secondary level of life; and that our way of feeling and functioning on the secondary level does not come out of nowhere. The way we appear to be on the secondary level is not necessarily “the way we are”; and we are not limited to “fixing” the secondary level on the secondary level. To a very significant extent, most of us are “the way we are” on the secondary level because of disconnection at the primary level; and so increasing our connection to OKness will be a far more effective way of changing our experience on the secondary level than anything we can do directly on the secondary level. 

In short, OKness is what allows us to feel and function optimally (all things taken into consideration) in any situation. “Optimally” here means two things:

1. the way that maintains/reinforces our connection to OKness (this is the first part of how we feel best)
2. the way that best creates and/or restores the secondary forms of security, belonging, and so on (this is how we function best – and is the second part of how we feel best)

Civilized Fallacies of Fear

Going off on a bit of a tangent, applying our new distinction between primary and secondary levels allows us to see that the notion commonly held in the civilized world, that so-called “primitive” peoples and earlier human ancestors lived (for millions of years) in a state of profound and near-constant dread (of each other, of being eaten by wild animals, of natural phenomena, and so on), is patently absurd. All creatures – humans included – are inseparably part of the world, not alien visitors upon it. We belong here. Could the world (in the form of the creatures who inhabit it) live in fear of the world? Could the world fear itself, in other words? It makes no sense to assume that it could. Such a preposterous notion could come only from people who know only the secondary level of things and who are alienated from the primary, causal level – and therefore from nature, which is permeated through and through with the innate sense of OKness. From the causal perspective, it makes far more sense to assume that our hunter-gatherer ancestors and kin live(d) in far greater security than we do, certainly on the primary level – and in many significant ways on the secondary level as well. Naturally they would feel fear from time to time, as we all do. But living in a manner, as we will see, that does not in any way cause disconnection from the causal level, they would also enjoy a complete sense of primary security – and the optimal functioning on the secondary levels that goes with it. From this perspective, our extreme civilized efforts to insulate ourselves from all sources of fear or even discomfort on the secondary levels is, as mentioned before, largely an attempt (an utterly futile one) to compensate ourselves for our missing sense of OKness.

Similarly, a prevailing assumption is that children {footnote: Not incidentally, aboriginal peoples and children (along with animals and nature) are often seen in similar terms by the civilized world – negatively and dismissively (but also idealistically and romantically, in turns). Uncomprehendingly and falsely, in other words.}are born into and live in profound insecurity. Indeed, for precisely the reasons we have just described, children can certainly express insecurity and fear most freely and uninhibitedly whenever they do feel these emotions. To the civilized mind, this seems to confirm that they are “innately” fearful and insecure. But what we miss is that children can only express fear so uninhibitedly and freely because (at least for the first few years of their lives) they are still so secure on the primary level. Again, the ability to freely and fully express insecurity – or any other (continually changing) emotional state – rests on that deeper, truly innate, and therefore permanent type of security. Without this underlying foundation, we cannot freely express very much of anything – except numbness, unfocused anxiety, desperation for compensations, inauthenticity, depression, and shame, which are not true forms of expressivity at all, but merely the indicators of causal disconnection. It is only because we are not currently aware of this deeper, causal level of things that we assume that the gloriously full and uninhibited expressions of fear in a child – or in any causally connected person – is a sign that they are more fear-dominated than “us grown ups” (or “us civilized people”). The irony is that the sense of superiority that characterizes civilized adulthood rests partially on the fact that we often do appear less fearful – but only because we have less ability to express our true emotions due to our lack of primary OKness! The gross misconception that we are less fearful, then, is nothing but a projection onto others of our own adult/civilized lack of OKness – and our resulting greatly increased (but less freely expressed) sense of insecurity. Thus, we civilized adults, alone among all beings, are the ones who believe that life is fundamentally a frightful fight for survival, that we all start off life with zero security, that we must then struggle to acquire as much of it as we can, and that civilized life is precisely what “helps” us to acquire the maximum amount of it. But as we said, without the primary form of it, no amount of secondary security ever seems to be “enough” – which only further reinforces our false sense that security is something we have to work hard for – and that we can completely lose at any moment.

To spell it out most plainly, a baby who is crying fully and freely is not insecure in the way we in the civilized world imagine hir to be; and, in fact, the only reason s/he can cry fully and freely is because s/he is absolutely secure in a way we do not currently recognize. That is, from the modern-civilized point of view, all crying babies are “insecure” – end of story; and the reason babies cry is because purely genetic-instinctive programming makes them do so. But from the causal perspective, if a baby is able to fulfill hir gene-based instincts to cry fully and freely (and also to be fully soothed and returned to a relaxed-alert state if the source of hir crying is appropriately addressed), then s/he this is because s/he is secure on the primary level and is insecure only on the secondary level. Only a baby who is unable to cry fully and freely – who is unnaturally silent and still or who cries in a strained or halting way – and who cannot be readily soothed – can be called wholly insecure because s/he is insecure on both the primary and secondary levels. In other words, a freely crying baby is primarily expressing security and only secondarily expressing insecurity and it is precisely hir full, free crying that is the “proof” of hir underlying security. This is in keeping with the general principle that the full and free (but also balanced, appropriate) expression of any “negative” state is indicative of underlying OKness. (But since causal disruption/loss of OKness is ubiquitous in the civilized world, our mistaken assumption that “all babies are insecure” seems to be true. As we will see, this is a “self fulfilling prophecy”: our belief that babies are born insecure makes us treat them in ways that seems to validate our original assumption.) 

This is not to deny the reality of fear or the enormously powerful grip it can have on us. Certainly, creatures have evolved a capacity to feel fear, it can be very strong, and this is a most useful survival adaptation. But adaptive fear arises – and only serves a useful function when it is set – against a backdrop of total security and at-homeness in the world. Otherwise – if we do not have that underlying, absolute security – we become either blinded by, numb to, or paralyzed by, fear and lose the normal, natural ability to respond spontaneously and appropriately to it, which is an ability we see in all healthy creatures. (As Peter Levine discusses in his books on trauma, healthy creatures also become temporarily paralyzed with fear at times; but only when that is truly the last option available to them; never otherwise; and they retain the full ability to become unfrozen.) Fear then ceases to have any meaning as a survival adaptation. This further shows that it takes primary security to properly feel and act on secondary insecurity (or any other emotion); that the underlying form of security must be innate in us – must be the absolute “ground floor” upon which all other functioning, developing, and learning takes place; and that it must constitute a level of being that is distinct from the level of being which gives rise to fear and all other evolved, genetically-based emotions and survival-oriented mechanisms and processes. Again, our current view of children and non-civilized humans living in perpetual terror is but a projection of our uniquely causally disrupted condition, our exceptional loss of innate, primary security, our fear, which – because it does not rest on innate security – tends to be more of an ineffectual numbness, wild over-reaction, or paralyzing terror. It is this type of fear alone that takes on life-dominating proportions, distorting our whole sense of who we are and what kind of a world we live in. We are wrong to assume that all others who express fear experience it – and the world – similarly to our civilized selves.

Non-Objective, Non-Mental

There are a few remaining points worth making regarding OKness. For one, it is totally subjective. As components of OKness, security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life – much like other highly valued aspects of life such as love, beauty, meaning, and humor – are not “things” that can be located “out there” in the so-called “objective” space-time realm of matter and energy. They can only be known through a living person’s felt experience of them. Without someone to subjectively feel them, they do not “exist” at all. While secondary security, belonging, ease, and rightness might be said to consist of objectively identifiable circumstances (like having adequate food, being part of a supportive society, etcetera), the qualities of OKness exist only if and only because we feel them. No other factor is involved. This is what we mean when we say that “we have our full sense of these qualities so long as we remain connected to the causal level.” Our purely subjective capacity to feel is our connection to the causal level. But the fact that these primary qualities only exist when someone feels them does not make them any less “real” than material-mechanical things. In fact, as felt, phenomenal experiences, they are every bit as real as – one could even say realer than – anything in the objective world. They are certainly closer to us and have a greater impact on us than anything “out there.”

The modern, objective, scientific mindset may not be comfortable with these purely subjective aspects of life; but we cannot simply dismiss them for this reason. It is very likely that this unnatural, unfounded discomfort with – and even distrust in – the subjective side of reality is the reason modern science has thus far not been able to arrive at an understanding of human nature and the psyche that allows us to resolve – or even correctly identify – the many psychological ailments from which so many of us suffer.

Furthermore, and along the same lines of their subjective, experiential nature, these causal qualities are totally non-mental and non-conceptual. With the secondary forms of these qualities, there is always – along with the purely visceral, felt sense of them – a mental-conceptual component that adds to the overall feeling of them. So, for example, with secondary security, not only do I feel secure, but I can think about what it is that makes me secure: “That $10 million I’ve got in the bank sure feels great!” or “It’s good to know I have a skill that can get me a job anywhere,” or “It’s wonderful being married to so-and-so – I’ll never have to worry about being lonely again,” or any other such thing. These thoughts contribute to and reinforce our sense of security. Not so with the primary forms of these qualities. The words we use to describe them – “security,” “belonging,” and so on – are only approximations that point to a direct, unmediated, purely visceral-felt experience that cannot be put into words or conceptualized. There is no thought component to them at all. And as our unchanging “hidden” foundation, we normally would not even notice them, never mind thinking about them. And yet the presence of these qualities, if we are causally connected (or their absence, if we are not), makes by far the single biggest difference in the quality of our lives, even if we cannot express this difference in words.

Again, there is no logical proof or objective evidence for any of this. We can either experience the existence of these primary qualities directly or we can take it on “faith”; but there is no “reason” why simply existing – why our given, inborn, “default” state of being – should be experienced as OKness. It just is.

Why Just “OKness?” Why Not “Happiness?”

If the causal level gives rise to – or simply is – a state of being that is so profoundly positive, then why do we only call it “OKness?” Why not just go ahead and call it “happiness?” The reason we only call it OKness is that, even though it is the only basis for all positive, beneficial, workable, right-feeling states of being, it does not, in and of itself, constitute “happiness” because it is entirely possible to be in the state of full OKness without being happy. Our example of how primary security gives us the “freedom” to feel negative emotions (insecurity, anger, fear, sadness, etcetera) on the secondary level in a useful, appropriate fashion, illustrates this point. Thus, if a loved one dies, even with our full sense of primary security, belonging, ease, and rightness, we will certainly not call ourselves “happy” at that time. Instead, we will very likely feel deep sadness and loss. But even in our sadness, we will still feel that we are fundamentally OK just as we are, that we fit with the world, that just being ourselves and acting naturally (perhaps crying, in this case) is what works best, and that there is an appropriateness to the way everything in the world works – including loved ones dying. OKness, then, is simply the normal and unremarkable, but nonetheless unsurpassable, optimal state of underlying well-being of anyone who is causally connected – as we were all born to be. 

Happiness is something else. For one thing, it only involves the secondary physical, mental, and emotional levels of being. When we feel especially good on any or all of those other levels of being, we say that we are “happy.” For another, happiness can only be a transitory state (something that is true of all secondary states). For these two reasons, we notice happiness – it jumps into the foreground of our awareness and stands out to us. In contrast, the unchanging, “hidden,” background experience of OKness – for those lucky (or rather normal) enough to have it, always goes unnoticed and is always taken for granted. This is as it should be. But even though we do not specifically notice it when we have it – or specifically notice its absence when we do not – OKness is, ultimately, far more important than our passing foreground state of happiness or unhappiness. It has a much greater impact on our overall sense of well-being and satisfaction in life. OKness is deeper than and prior to the duality of “happy” versus “unhappy.” {Footnote: The “bliss” of spiritual transcendence, in contrast, is beyond the duality of happiness/unhappiness. Thus, we have OKness on the deepest (causal) level, happiness/unhappiness on the middle (physical/mental/ emotional) levels, and bliss on the highest (spiritual) level. Further distinguishing between OKness and bliss, we can see that, while both are unchanging, bliss must be cultivated while OKness is fully present at birth and continues thus without any effort on our part so long as nothing happens to disconnect us from it.} If happiness is a delicious, attention-grabbing dessert, and less happy states of being are anything from the plainer foods that we eat for pure nutrition to the foul-tasting foods we hate, then OKness is like the invisible and “ordinary” air that we breathe throughout the meal and all day long without paying any attention to it at all, but that is absolutely crucial to digesting that attention-grabbing meal – and to every other aspect of our well-being. 

Happiness arises whenever we succeed at establishing some degree of secondary security, belonging, ease, and rightness or when we experience something pleasing to the senses or ego-mind. At these other levels of being we become habituated to positive experiences, so the happiness we derive from them will inevitably fade in time, no matter how hard we try to sustain or repeat those experiences. We cannot continually and endlessly increase our positive experiences on each of these levels and thereby always stay ahead of our tendency to become habituated. That cannot happen in this world of constant change, interaction, accident, happenstance, and contingency, no matter how much money or power we have. But OKness, never having been caused by anything, cannot be caused to go away either. It never increases, but it also never diminishes. We can become disconnected from it, so that we do not fully experience it any more; but even this does not change it. It remains just as it always was, as we can all discover for ourselves by taking the steps that allow us to fully reconnect with it. If we do, we will find that perfect and total OKness abides for however long we remain connected to it without ever increasing, decreasing, or otherwise changing in the slightest.

We can be happy or unhappy while in the state of OKness; but the unhappiness of a person with full OKness is nothing like the unhappiness of someone who is causally disconnected and who therefore does not have hir full sense of OKness. And even a person with the full amount of OKness who is temporarily unhappy for whatever reason is much better off than someone who is disconnected from normal OKness but who happens to be experiencing a bit of passing happiness. OKness is a permanent condition (or at least it can be and is supposed to be) and it is far more important than the transitory condition of being either happy or unhappy due to ever-changing circumstances.

Of course, many people pursue happiness quite doggedly today, and much of current psychology and spirituality – not to mention modern business, technology, entertainment, romance, and advertising/consumerism – is aimed at attaining and hanging on to it. But these attempts at attaining lasting happiness are misguided because, not only is happiness an inherently transitory state, but to the degree that we can be happy, it must rest on a foundation of OKness; and OKness demands the one thing that, as we will see, we modern people most strictly (but unknowingly) avoid: feeling fully.

The causal perspective is not about whether we are happy or unhappy or about how happy or unhappy we might be. It is about whether or not we have the full ability to be both happy and unhappy – and the degree to which our happiness and unhappiness (and all other feeling states) are based in reality. All of this depends on whether or not we maintain our primary sense of OKness.

The Re-Definition of “Optimal”

Along with the fact that OKness exists, another thing we can only know by experiencing it (or that we have to take “on faith” if we have not yet consciously experienced it) is the fact that OKness is the only state of being that can truly feel right to us. {Footnote: Again, we are setting aside for now the possibility of attaining spiritual states of being – a possibility we do not deny, but which is not strictly part of ordinary, day-to-day functioning (and which will be address elsewhere). In other words, what we are saying here is that OKness is the only natural (or, if you prefer, “unenlightened”) state of being that truly feels right to us.}Also, as we will see in our upcoming discussions of the Foundation, OKness is the only state of being that works right as well. In other words, it is the state of being in which – all other things being equal – we feel and function best. This is a “non-negotiable” fact of human existence. There is no getting around it. We do not have the option of deciding that, “Personally, I feel and function best in some other state of being, which I happen to like even more than OKness.” By definition, only OKness can be our optimal state of being. Only when we have our full, innate, primary sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life can we feel and function best. This is simply the way we work. To think we do not need OKness in order to function and feel best is like thinking we do not need happiness to be happy, or warmth to feel warm. OKness IS the state of feeling and functioning best; so in order to feel and function best, we must have OKness. Without it, nothing – not positive thinking, not prayer, not willpower, not anything else – can make us feel and function optimally. (Positive thinking, prayer, willpower, and all other such secondary factors can only truly help us when we already have our full foundation of OKness. Then, they can help bring our unconscious, primary sense of well-being to its fully conscious peak of fruition. But that is the most they can do. They cannot create the foundation that must first be there in order for them to function.)

As noted previously, defining OKness as “optimal” does not mean that we will always feel and function the way we’d like to in the state of OKness. We can be extremely unhappy – scared, angry, sad – while in full OKness – or even injured, ill, or dying. Thus, OKness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for feeling and functioning the way we might prefer. Nonetheless, OKness always defines what is optimal given our current (external/secondary) circumstances. Thus, if I have a broken leg, while this is not “optimal,” our ability to live and function with a broken leg – and our ability to heal it – will be optimal if we are in our normal state of OKness. This is what is meant by “optimal.” It does not mean “perfect” in an ideal way. Modern civilization often strives for the abstract, mental ideal; but as we will see, without the foundation of the optimal, the mental ideal is not only impossible to attain, but often morphs into something quite monstrous as well.

Perhaps an easier-to-understand way of communicating this is to say that OKness is the inner state of being that is our natural, proper, and true “home base” – the state of being in which we feel most at home and at ease in the world and that we will always strive to get back to whenever we get pulled out of it (disconnected from it) to any degree. If we lose our full sense of OKness then we lose our way in the world and forget who we really are and what normal, natural life is really about. But if we retain it, then no matter how bad things get on the secondary level, we also retain a healthy orientation to life.

Quite simply, OKness is the state of being we all enter – at least briefly – after a good, deep, heartfelt cry. We all know what that feels like. It’s wonderful. Everything seems so simple then. But most of us also know how hard it is to really let go and cry freely, which tells us that many of us only have limited access to our natural home base. Some of us have practically none.

Of course, many people would insist that our most spiritually advanced or “enlightened” states are our truly optimal states of being; and this is a justifiable point of view. But as we will see, our “higher” potentials for relating to other people, to the planet, to the cosmos, and to the very ground of being itself (however we conceive of it, whether theistically or atheistically) are in no way separable from our “humble, lowly” state of inborn OKness. The very highest in us is only attainable as an outgrowth of the “lowest.” (In this context, “lowest” does not refer to the venal depths to which we sink in our worst moments, but to our natural stating point in life – the point at which no meaningful growth of any sort has yet taken place.) The tree and its luscious fruit emerge from the seed. Our highest states of being rest upon our home base of OKness exactly as a tall steeple ultimately rests on the church’s unseen and buried foundation. OKness is truly our psychic foundation for everything. But once again we are getting ahead of ourselves. We will have to lay more groundwork before sorting out the causal-versus-spiritual issue.

For now, it is enough to grasp the general sense in which OKness is the most crucial, foundational factor in human life – even though we in the civilized world do not fully benefit from it because, again, it “exists” only when we are fully connected to it. Thus, while we may experience any number of other states as “good,” “positive,” or “optimal”; and while we may be capable of cultivating impressively high states of performance and accomplishment; none of these is the particular state of being that exists fully developed only as a result of being fully connected to the causal level, none of them has the same characteristics or qualities, works in the same way, or gives us the same benefits, and none of them allows us to function as optimally or to feel as utterly right and at-home in the world. In this way, OKness is fundamentally different from any of the states of being that we now consider most highly desirable, positive, and beneficial. 

One final thought on OKness as our new definition of “optimal”: There are already countless views of human nature that contain concepts similar in some ways to OKness. Every philosophy, teaching, and personal growth system has its version of what is “optimal.” The general concept of positive states of being, of unconditional acceptance, of total well-being, or naturalness and balance and so on is obviously nothing new. Humans have been talking about and seeking for such things for millennia. In this sense, OKness is perhaps only the latest version of a timeless idea. But of all such conceptions, only OKness is fully innate and fully developed from the start of life. To the best of my knowledge, this particular conception of a state of optimal well-being has never been articulated before. No other conception of a state of being “similar” to OKness (“flow,” being in the “zone,” having “high self-esteem,” having a “peak experience,” attaining “self-actualization,” or even “higher” spiritual or mystical states like a “state of grace,” oneness, bliss, surrender to God, and so on) views that state as fully innate and fully developed from the start of life. (In fact, to test of whether any other state of being is the same as OKness, we need only ask two questions: Is it as fully developed as it can possibly be right from the start of life? And can it be effortlessly and unconsciously maintained throughout the course of life?) As we have said, it is only its fully developed innateness that allows OKness to form the foundation for all the rest of us. It is not that OKness is meant to supplant other notions of what is optimal; it is meant to supplement them by distinguishing their essential, underlying foundation.

Conclusion and Summary

OKness as we have described it here – as an innate and always fully developed, causeless and unchanging sense of security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life – does not fit in with our current view of ourselves and the world. (Actually, the extent to which OKness contradicts the modern-civilized worldview is almost impossible to imagine at this point, but will become clearer as we continue.) It is not the idea of innate characteristics per se that is new; but the idea that these particular characteristics could be innate; the idea that they are innate in a completely uncaused, unchanging, non-gene-based way such that all persons have exactly the same – i.e., maximum – amount of them from birth; the idea that they are normally maintained throughout the course of life effortlessly and automatically; and the idea that they form the necessary foundation for everything else – from things as seemingly automatic as crying for food in infancy to things as seemingly advanced, difficult, and even divinely inspired as attaining the highest states of consciousness; all of this would certainly seem highly unlikely – if not completely impossible – if not utterly fantastical – from the civilized perspective. Such notions would seem to put us squarely in the fuzzy, anything-goes, believe-whatever-makes-you-feel-good, purely faith-based spiritual-religious-mystical-magical-New Age realms. Nonetheless, our contention is precisely that OKness is indeed innate and that it forms the primary support for the normal-optimal functioning of all other aspects of us (the familiar, “ordinary,” secondary levels of being). Nothing could be more practical and down-to-earth than these two simple, experiential truths. There is nothing the least bit flaky or airy-fairy about them. Still, the reader should be warned: adding just these two concepts to our overall perspective (whatever else we may believe) takes us well beyond the commonly accepted limits of the civilized world. This may be a bit unsettling at first – and may become even more unsettling as we continue. But eventually we will see that these two ideas form the basis for a basic kind of sanity now missing from civilization.

Odd or impossible as the idea of it may seem at first, once we start seeing OKness at all, we start seeing it everywhere. Suddenly, it becomes obvious, whenever we see a young child or practically any animal (assuming it has not been overly demented by human contact or mistreatment), that all of hir behavior – even hir most seemingly anxious or angry behavior – is so balanced, fluid, and free that it must rest on a deeper base of profound, total, unquestionable security, belonging, ease, and rightness. Just take any squirrel, bunny rabbit, or bird out in the yard: They seem to be the epitome of high-strung nervousness and anxiety, no? But notice that, underneath their species-specific, genetically mediated modes of functioning – jumpy, flighty, hyper-alert, looking up and around every few seconds – they are totally at ease; totally, at-home in their world. When was the last time you saw a squirrel – no matter how urgently dashing to escape potentially life-threatening danger – trip, stumble, or awkwardly flail about in an out-of-sorts fashion? Never, right? Could any one of us civilized adults, even under ideal, no-pressure circumstances, do anything – never mind race up and down the vertical trunk of a tree – with such flowing, unhesitating, carefree grace and ease? Not likely. Or observe how our pets (like our young children) can flow from one intense emotional state – hissing or barking furiously at a rival or passing stranger – to another – the softest, cuddliest affection – in a split second. Do we have that inner flexibility? Not nearly. These are the sorts of obvious things that begin to jump out at us once we start acknowledging the existence of OKness. It becomes obvious that our every gene-based ability is meant to rest on something else – something that has to be there for no reason, something that never changes even as everything else does. And although we may feel inclined to call it part of our “spirit” or “soul,” it is very much part of our most mundane, ordinary, day-to-day functioning. It is wholly ordinary – truly “nothing special.” (If even now it still seems that we are “making up” and inserting an extraneous or redundant level of being into human nature, keep in mind that it is especially hard to tease out the role of the causal level in very young children or animals because they are all connected to it more or less uniformly; and so for this reason it “blends in” to all the rest of human/ animal nature and becomes virtually indistinguishable from it. The role of OKness becomes much more apparent when we look at older children and adults who no longer have a full connection to it. It is in identifying those dysfunctions that could result only from its loss that we can most clearly distinguish OKness from the rest of human nature. When functioning properly, OKness essentially “disappears” as background.)

This nearly invisible, underlying realm of OKness is the causal level – and we can perhaps already begin to see that a conception of human nature based upon it will be something quite new to us. It is already possible to begin to grasp, from just this one discussion of the first of the four key concepts, how different the causal level is from anything we now know. We might even begin to sense how being connected to the causal level and having our full sense of OKness might radically transform our understanding of reality and our sense of self – and possibly even help to resolve (or better yet, prevent) some of our most deep-seated psychological ailments – seemingly irresolvable chronic anxieties, depression, compulsions, addictions, and so on. (We will make these connections to the healing process more explicit as we go along and will discuss them fully in Book II.) 

Indeed, if we start with the premise that OKness is innate in human nature and defines a kind of absolute, baseline norm for how all humans should feel virtually all of the time – we are inexorably led to a completely and fundamentally new conception of human existence, society, and psychology – a completely new understanding of who we are and “what is going on here.” Positing the existence of innate OKness sets us on a course that leads in a direction virtually opposite the one in which civilized life has taken us thus far. As we will discover, these two visions of human nature couldn’t possibly be any more different from each other. They literally define the outermost extremes of two inverse worldviews – one based on balance, the other on imbalance. 

Surprise #1

In addition to the qualities of security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life as we now know them – as qualities that must be created or developed through some sort of specific processes, mechanisms, or actions or that arise as a result of certain conditions; and that increase or decrease to infinite, ever-changing degrees from moment to moment, throughout our lives – there is also a primary form of them – OKness – that is innate, unchanging, and fully developed from the start of life; and that is fully available to us simply by (and only by) being fully connected to the causal level. There is no other way to have, create, or increase them. This currently unrecognized (and now seldom experienced) state of being is what allows us to feel and function optimally – regardless of whether we are happy or unhappy, healthy or ill. The entire realm of life with which we are now familiar – in which everything grows, develops, and fades over time, and where we feel happy and unhappy by turns – is undergirded by this virtually unknown level of being that is totally unchanging.

Looking Ahead

OKness is now our first piece in the puzzle of “what is missing from the civilized way of life.” And that – the fact that it is missing from our way of life – is the real reason the idea of innate security, belonging, ease, and rightness seems so odd or impossible to us. Somehow, the civilized world found a way to render this foundation for functioning less than fully functional. The next piece in the puzzle – essentially, a new conception of what “feeling” is – will help explain how it came to be that OKness is missing from our lives.

Feeling is crucial to the causal perspective. Short of feeling it, none of us would ever conceive of such a thing as innate OKness. It would never cross our minds. Why should such a thing exist? It certainly doesn’t seem to exist. The only good reason to accept such a notion is that it accords with our direct, felt experience. But chances are, the existence of OKness does not accord with our direct, felt experience. So then what?

Clearly, we must now turn our attention to what “being fully connected to the causal level” – or “feeling fully” – means. If having a full sense of OKness depends on being fully connected to it through an unhindered capacity to feel, then we can examine ourselves to see if we have any blockages in our capacity to feel. Our claim is that if we resolve these blockages and return to our original fully feeling connectedness to the causal level, it will become undeniably self-evident that OKness not only exists, but is the very cornerstone of healthy, natural, normal human life. 

Chances are, this next topic will again seem perplexingly far removed from established civilized ways of viewing and thinking about things. But that’s a good thing.

An Appeal To The Reader (if you’re still having trouble with the idea of OKness)

As much as I have tried to present the four qualities of OKness as something truly “new” and foundationally important, I remain keenly aware that, if the causal perspective ends up being dismissed as factually wrong (or simply inconsequential), the most likely reason for this will be the claim that a “truly new level of being” could consist of elements as seemingly familiar, mundane, and already sought-after as security, belonging, ease, and rightness-with-life. In fact, this would be such a natural objection that it is hard to see how it could not arise. Even with all the discussion of “innateness” and “primary versus secondary,” it is still hard to see how OKness could leap off the page as anything significantly different from what we already know and experience every day.

Another obstacle to accepting OKness as the basis of a “new” level of being is that the modern, high-tech-oriented mind is by now quite habituated by – and therefore inclined to expect – specialized, scientific-sounding terminology from any discussion purporting to describe heretofore unknown aspects of human nature. But “security?” “belonging?” “OKness?” How can such ordinary, down-home, even hokey-sounding words add anything new to our cutting edge, research-based models of knowledge? If the modern mind will accept the possibility of a whole new level of being at all, it will almost certainly want it expressed in highly sophisticated vocabulary (you know – long, chemically words that end in “-amine” and that sort of thing).

How, then, to overcome these limitations of language when the reality of OKness can only be conveyed by direct, felt experience and not by words – especially when the experiences that would reveal the newness of these seemingly familiar and banal elements of day-to-day life are precisely the experiences that civilized life banishes?

Perhaps all that can be done at this point is to anticipate these difficulties, appeal to the reader’s willingness to suspend hir disbelief for a little while, and make as explicit as possible that this is indeed the crucial issue upon which all else hangs. To put it plainly, our primary task in these pages is precisely to present and define these four seemingly well-known and ordinary qualities as something truly “unknown” and “missing” – and foundational to human existence in a way that has never been conceived of before. So central is this to all that lies ahead that I suspect that if we can clear this first hurdle – if these qualities can be seen in a meaningfully new context – then all the other claims that we will be making about the causal level (odd or outrageous as they, too, might otherwise sound) will fall quite naturally and easily into place. In other words, our entire theory as a whole may hang on just this: showing that security, belonging, ease, and rightness have a far deeper significance than has yet been recognized and that, more than anything else, we need to reclaim this deeper version of these qualities. 

The tricky part is that it will not be fully possible to show these “old” qualities in their new light until all the other parts of the causal perspective have also been laid out. So this really is a case where some suspension of disbelief will be required of the reader. The reader will simply have to provisionally accept the “newness” of these qualities – even if it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated yet – and then wait to see if, combined with what comes later, doing so allows us to arrive someplace useful that would otherwise have been inaccessible and inconceivable. (“But then why not just begin laying out the causal perspective on more solid ground, where this suspension of disbelief is not required?” the reader asks. To which I must reply, “The causal perspective is so entirely outside the modern, civilized perspective that no part of it would serve as a readily acceptable starting point. No matter where we began our presentation of it, some amount of suspension of disbelief would be required just to get the ball rolling. No matter where we begin, all the elements of the causal perspective have to be laid out before any of them can become ‘believable’ to the modern mind. Hence, there is no logically obvious, ‘right’ place to begin.” Still, as noted before, we began with OKness precisely because, of all the concepts we will be discussing, it is the one that will seem most familiar. Furthermore, of the four main aspects of the causal level introduced in Part 1, OKness is the only one that we can directly care about and want for its own sake. The other three, important as they are, can only matter to us because they are part of our felt sense of OKness. For this reason as well, it makes some sense to lead off with OKness.)

In other words, what we are saying is that the reader should tuck away in hir mind the claim, however unfounded it may seem at this point, that our discussion of the four qualities of OKness adds – as groundwork for all that follows – something fundamentally new and essential to our understanding of these qualities, something that goes far beyond our current conceptions of them. If the current discussion does not make them seem new, it may be because I have failed to bring that newness out properly; or, it simply might not be possible to bring that newness out properly without first presenting more of the overall picture; but either way, it remains the case that this section is of key importance to all that follows and this much, at the very least, should be kept in mind. 

This then, is my appeal to and request of the reader: that even if this section falls flat, you will stick it out for at least the rest of Part 1 to see if the various elements of the causal perspective will somehow meaningfully come together in the end. In other words, please do not dismiss the entire causal perspective on the basis of any seeming implausibility of just the very first part of it. See how a few parts of it begin to link up with each other and what sort of picture begins to form before irrevocably making up your mind.

# posted by GregJS @ 9:26 PM

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