No one can behave beyond their level of consciousness

• Each of us at any time and space is doing the very best we can with what we have. Louise Hay
• Everybody is wounded and doing the best they can with what they have. Srinivas Rao
• Everyone is acting from his own level of consciousness. This is all we can ask of ourselves or anyone else. However hurtful someone is, he is doing the best he can, given the limits of his consciousness. Deepak Chopra
• People are doing the best that they can from their own level of consciousness. Deepak Chopra
• When you realize that no one really knows what they are doing and that everyone is doing the best they can according to their own level of consciousness, life gets a lot easier. Carl Sagan
• No matter where you are in life, no matter what you’ve contributed to creating, no matter what’s happening, you are always doing the best you can with the understanding and awareness and knowledge that you have. And when you know more, you will do differently, as I did. Louise Hay
• Much judgmentalism arises from posing the hypothetical, i.e., that people ‘should’ be different; however, if they could be, they would be. David R. Hawkins
• The state in which ordinary people operate does not imply any moral fault or defect but merely represents the possibilities of the fields of consciousness as they express themselves through each living entity. David R. Hawkins
• It helps if you remember that everyone is doing their best from their level of consciousness. Deepak Chopra
• Everything in existence is already ‘being’ what it is to the fullest it can be at any given moment. David R. Hawkins
• When we see how people are dominated by the ego’s programs, we realize that, without awareness or insight, they are relatively unable to help themselves. We say they are ‘driven’ by greed, hate, fear, addiction, or pride. It is a mistake to adopt the hypothetical, moralistic positionality that ‘they ought to know better’. As a matter of fact, that really is not the case. To be unconscious means just that; thus, ‘sin’ can be seen really as a limitation in the evolution of consciousness. This limitation was termed ‘ignorance’ by both the Buddha and Jesus Christ. As evolution expresses itself in gradations, some people will be farther along the road than others. When we see this simple fact, forgiveness and compassion replace anger, fear, hatred, or condemnation. David R. Hawkins
• In actuality, people cannot really help being other than they are. If they could be different, they would be. Limitations define possibilities. David R. Hawkins
• The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life’s challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare. Eckhart Tolle
• Do you carry feelings of guilt about something you did–or failed to do–in the past? This much is certain: you acted according to your level of consciousness or rather unconsciousness at that time. If you had been more aware, more conscious, you would have acted differently. Guilt is another attempt by the ego to create an identity, a sense of self. To the ego, it doesn’t matter whether that self is positive or negative. What you did or failed to do was a manifestation of unconsciousness–human unconsciousness. The ego, however, personalizes it and says, “I did that,” and so you carry a mental image of yourself as “bad. Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of? Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they know not what they do,” also apply to yourself. Eckhart Tolle

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Unconscious behaviour is driven by unconscious conditioning

• The intrinsic innocence is because, comparably, the person is like the hardware, and their actions and beliefs are like the software. The hardware is unaffected by the software programs that they are following blindly without awareness of significance or consequence of these actions. Classically, the unconscious software programs are called ‘karma’. The state in which ordinary people operate does not imply any moral fault or defect but merely represents the possibilities of the fields of consciousness as they express themselves through each living entity. David R. Hawkins
• If you are unconscious of an aspect of yourself; if it operates outside your field of awareness, that aspect has power over you. Gary Zukav
• All evils are the effect of unconsciousness. You can alleviate the effects of unconsciousness, but you cannot eliminate them unless you eliminate their cause. True change happens within, not without. Eckhart Tolle
• It might be said in modern terms that people are run by their ‘software programs’ of which they are unconscious. David R. Hawkins
• A human brain that is deeply unconscious is completely attached to its thoughts and is completely lost in a sense of being a separate self. There is no spacious awareness. In that state, the brain is being run completely by its unconscious conditioning.  It is as if the form is on auto-pilot.  God is absorbed in the experience of that, trapped in a powerless dream state within the form, with no influence over the actions of the form. This is God experiencing the absence of God.  It is an experience of limitation and of disconnection, which is why we can say “my soul feels dead.” Anthony Lambert
• But then every man is ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account what’s going on in his heart and mind. Aldous Huxley
• Evil is an extreme manifestation of human unconsciousness. Eckhart Tolle
• How can we stop judging others? A: Through compassion arises the desire to understand rather than condemn. With understanding, we see that people cannot actually help being other than they are at any given moment. People are generally unaware that they are run by programs inherent in society and in the specific energy field that dominates their consciousness. The average mind is unwittingly brainwashed, and the people are dominated by a field of consciousness to which they are attracted.  David R. Hawkins

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Unconscious behaviour is driven by ignorance…

• An alternate view that stems from consciousness research is that humans emerged as basically innocent but ignorant, which calibrates at 200. In contrast, there is the view of man as expressed by Socrates that all men are intrinsically innocent because they can only choose to do what they perceive as the good, but they are unable to discern the true good from the false illusions of the world. David R. Hawkins
• The fundamental innocence of mankind is based on the reality that the human mind is incapable of discerning truth from falsehood. It has no innate defense against the utilization of its hardware to play any introduced software program without prior approval, discernment, or options of the will (e.g., the impact of the media). David R. Hawkins
• Operationally, there is just one single recurrent ‘sin’, which is that of error, ignorance, misperception, mistake, or miscalculation. It is a consequence of a limitation of human consciousness. Self-forgiveness is facilitated by humility and acceptance of this limitation. David R. Hawkins
• Lend your light to the blind. Why should the wickedness of men irritate you, when it is only blindness? Eugenio Maria de Hostos
• If the myth of pure evil is that evil is committed with the intention of causing harm and an absence of moral considerations, then it applies to very few acts of so-called ‘pure evil’ because most evildoers believe what they are doing is forgivable or justifiable. Steven Pinker
• Would a CONSCIOUS human being destroy himself through war, and crime, and quarrels? No, a man simply knows not what he does to himself. I. Gurdjieff

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…which makes them mistake “evil” for good

• Both the Buddha and Jesus Christ taught that the basic ‘sin’ (defect) of humans is ignorance. Socrates taught that all men are intrinsically innocent because they always choose what they perceive to be the good, even though it is in error. A Course in Miracles teaches that everyone is intrinsically innocent and merely beguiled by the ego. David R. Hawkins
• Human beings cannot but will that which they take to be an unqualified good. Aritotle
• Keep in mind Socrates’ dictum that all men choose only what they perceive to be the good. It is just that they do not know what is the ‘real’ good. David R. Hawkins
• No man chooses evil because it’s evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. Mary Wollstonecraft
• So too with the fanatical bombers plaguing the world today, who are as close to my conception of evil as one can get, but seem to believe (in their deranged way) that they are doing what is right and good. Bernard Haisch

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Unconscious behaviour is often driven by pain

• Does this mean that people are not responsible for what they do when possessed by the pain-body? My answer is: How can they be? How can you be responsible when you are unconscious, when you don’t know what you are doing? Eckhart Tolle
• In ordinary unconsciousness, habitual resistance to or denial of what is creates the unease and discontent that most people accept as normal living. When this resistance becomes intensified through some challenge or threat to the ego, it brings up intense negativity such as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression, and so on. Deep unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been triggered and that you have 50 become identified with it. Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness. It can also occur easily whenever and wherever a crowd of people or even an entire nation generates a negative collective energy field. Eckhart Tolle
• It is those feeling angry, insecure, and stressed—and not those feeling happy, secure and relaxed—who are likely to behave badly. And second, those who behave badly are setting themselves up for negative outcomes in the future. In other words, because those who commit misdeeds are currently suffering from emotional negativity or will suffer from negative outcomes in the future, one should be compassionate towards them. Raj Raghunathan Ph.D.
• It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgements about them, their present and their pasts, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. what a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceburg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul. Sherrilyn Kenyon
• The unease of ordinary unconsciousness turns into the pain of deep unconsciousness – a state of more acute and more obvious suffering or unhappiness – when things go wrong, when the ego is threatened or there is a major challenge, threat, or loss, real or imagined, in your life situation or conflict in a relationship. It is an intensified version of ordinary unconsciousness, different from it not in kind but in degree. Eckhart Tolle

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Unconsciousness is often a cry for love

• Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. Rainer Maria Rilke
• I have observed with my heart and seen clearly that every action we take is either an expression of love or a cry for love. This practice has heightened my capacity for compassion and opened my heart greater than I ever knew possible. Dezarae Starnes

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An unconscious person is disconnected from awareness; who they really are

• When a person is deeply unconscious, the mental and emotional conditioning has taken over and the Divine Awareness they are is trapped in that. Awareness is obscured.  The person is disconnected from who they really are and disconnected from spiritual power.  Anthony Lambert
• The most unconscious amongst us have been overtaken by their pain bodies. The pain body can be likened to an entity that takes a person over.  It is the pain body that acts and speaks.  When this happens, there is no awareness or space.  There is no choice.  Only unconscious reaction. Anthony Lambert
• An unconscious person has no access to awareness. When we do unconscious things due to anger, we say “We lost it.” What did we lose?    Anthony Lambert
• Don’t confuse a person’s unconscious behaviour with who they really are. Eckhart Tolle
• An excellent way to practice love is to set your intention on seeing beyond someone’s behaviour or personality. Try to realize that beneath the surface insecurity, negative thinking, and poor behaviour, everyone is connected to God. Just as you wouldn’t get angry at someone simply because he or she is in a wheelchair, you need not be angry because a person hasn’t yet opened his or her heart to the nourishment of his or her Soul.  When people act in unloving ways, it only means that they are out of touch with their Souls and aren’t feeling spiritually nourished.  Richard Carlson
• When the villain arrives in the movie of your life, do not hate him. Even if he behaves very badly, know that he is being as he is scripted to behave.  As Jessica Rabbit said (in the movie ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’), “I am not bad. I’m just drawn that way!”   An unconscious person doing unconscious acts is God, ignorant of his true identity and disconnected from the spiritual power and peace of his true Being. No-one is able to act beyond their level of consciousness.   Anthony Lambert

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If there is suffering in life, it is God that suffers through “us” for a purpose

• God lives, feels and suffers in every one of us, and in course of time, His attributes, knowledge, beauty and love will be revealed in each of us. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
• There is a saying that “Art is worth suffering for.” This is not a God that watches you suffer. This is a God that suffers as you in the pursuit of something beautiful, epic, profound and wondrous. Anthony Lambert

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Severe unconsciousness is God trapped in a nightmare

• Evil acts can occur when God, experiencing through a form, is completely disconnected from Inner Being. There is a complete absence of awareness and a complete identification with form, often combined with deeply repressed inner pain. In other words, deep unconsciousness is God experiencing the absence of God. It is God dreaming a nightmare.  Anthony Lambert
• Look deeply enough into the eyes of an unconscious person and you will witness God within trapped in a nightmare. A nightmare that God within that form cannot easily wake up from because access to the inner space of awareness is so limited. Anthony Lambert
• We can only do good, when we love God. Within the murderer too resides God. It is as if the “clothing of a murderer” has been superimposed upon God. Take him by the hand and tell him the truth. Teach yourselves; teach every one his real nature. Call upon the sleeping soul to see how it rises. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.  Swami Vivekananda.

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Unconsciousness has no choice

• The more unconscious a person is, the less choice he or she has. Only when awareness arises is there the arising of choice.  It is awareness that creates a space between an event and the response.  Anthony Lambert
• With awareness, we have choice, the freedom to choose, free will. It is choice that gives us power. Laura Kangas
• Awareness is like bringing a light to the darkness of mindless reactions. Once you can see them more clearly, you can choose to respond more skilfully. Bob Stahl
• Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is. G. I. Gurdjieff

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To realise all this is to feel compassion and forgiveness for those who act unconsciously

• When I see someone behaving badly and I am conscious, I realise they have lost access to their Inner Being, that which they truly are. In other words, they have lost access to that which is most precious. Herein lies the arising of compassion.  This does not mean I don’t step in to stop cruel behaviour when I see it, but I do it from a place of understanding and even love.  Anthony Lambert
• If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace. Eckhart Tolle
• You forgive by realizing that nobody can act beyond their level of consciousness. Eckhart Tolle
• Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. Jesus Christ
• Compassion is one of the highest states of consciousness that you can choose to assist you in times of enormous pain. Debbie Ford

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All experience, even deep unconsciousness, has its role to play in the totality

• Judgement of another is to say, “That experience is wrong.” How can an experience ever be wrong?  All experience is valid, an essential part of the greater whole.  God experiences exactly what God wants to experience.  Anthony Lambert
• Life is an infinite canvas and each life experience is a brush-stroke on that canvas. Each brush-stroke is an essential part of the whole, none more valuable than any other.  An exquisite painting needs both dark shades and light shades for its beauty and to shine through.  Anthony Lambert
• When the curtain goes down at the end of the drama, the hero and the villain step out hand in hand and the audience applaud both because they know that the hero role and the villain role are only masks. Alan Watts
• Do you know of someone whose main function in life seems to be to make themselves and others miserable, to spread unhappiness? Forgive them, for they too are part of the awakening of humanity. The role they play represents an intensification of the nightmare of egoic consciousness, the state of non-surrender. There is nothing personal in all this. It is not who they are. Eckhart Tolle

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Let go of judgement

• To let go of judgment does not mean that you don’t see what they do. It means that you recognize their behavior as a form of conditioning, and you see it and accept it as that. You don’t construct an identity out of it for that person. That liberates you as well as the other person from identification with conditioning, with form, with mind.  Eckhart Tolle
• I know the outer world as well as you do, and I judge it. You know nothing of my inner world, and yet you presume to judge that world. Aldous Huxley
• Who am I to judge you and your life. You are simply God having a different experience. Anthony Lambert
• Allow consciousness to experience what it wishes to experience through that form. Allow him to be as he is, to experience as he experiences. Anthony Lambert
• What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself. Eckhart Tolle

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All judgement comes from ego

• The more limited, the more narrowly egoic the view of yourself, the more you will see, focus on, and react to the egoic limitations, the unconsciousness in others. Their “faults” or what you perceive as their faults become to you their identity. This means you will see only the ego in them and thus strengthen the ego in yourself. Instead of looking “through” the ego in others, you are looking “at” the ego. Who is looking at the ego? The ego in you. Eckhart Tolle

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All judgement comes from projection

• Very unconscious people experience their own ego through its reflection in others. When you realize that what you react to in others is also in you (and sometimes only in you), you begin to become aware of your own ego. At that stage, you may also realize that you were doing to others what you thought others were doing to you. Eckhart Tolle

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Do not fight unconsciousness but rather react with love and understanding

• Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness. Eckhart Tolle
• Recognise that whatever horrors a person has committed, they remain a human being. Waleed Aly
• To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil – such belongs to a perfect spiritual love. Maximus the Confessor

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Forgive yourself and others for unconscious behaviour

• Forgive yourself. Let the past go. You did the best you could at the time with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge that you had. Now you are growing and changing, and you will live life differently. Louise L. Hay
• The capacity for forgiveness arises from accepting with honest humility the limitations inherent in the human condition itself, which is, after all, merely on a learning curve of the evolution of consciousness. David R. Hawkins