“Yes. There is more. Ego apprehends. Ego grasps, attaches, and possesses. It is a possessor of possessors, most insidious. There are entities that possess the bodies of other beings. They are parasites that wrap their psychic and energetic tendrils into their hosts, and establish a system of inseparable feedback and mutual sustenance. When this happens, possession becomes complete. However, even the possessor is unaware that it is itself possessed. It is possessed by ego. How perfectly it hides. It does not hide in darkness, for that is where all possessors hide. Instead, it hides in the light.
“We get different views regarding ego with respect to the ten levels of mind. There are two ways to view the ten levels of mind, a ubiquitous way and a localized way. From the perspective of ubiquity of mind, the first level is that which is driven by the propensities and impulses of the ego alone. It seeks its own survival, preservation, and gratification. In the second level, a being is socialized with respect to right and wrong, and ego enters the social arena. It cannot assert itself only and survive, so it assimilates social information and cloaks itself in decency and upstanding behavior. Those who fail at this level become social pariahs. In the third level of mind, a being experiences transcendence beyond the social and horizontal domain of community and its laws; it discovers the vertical, that is, religion. Ego hides itself in religious indoctrination at this level, and projects itself onto a supreme being or supreme beings. It submits to a greater Ego than itself, while it has succeeded in its wiles to establish the greatest self-protective mechanism it has ever thought of: it cloaks itself in the guise of submission to a greater Ego, while the greater Ego is none other than itself. It has found the perfect guise and doctrine, that there is no greater mode of being than to sacrifice one’s existence or happiness for the sake of that supreme being that is none other than the ego itself.
“These three stages are the early levels of the development of mind. They are phlegmatic in their obfuscations, and beings wade through their existence enslaved by ego. These three stages correspond to gross enslavement to ego. As you can see, it becomes more and more insidious with each level. At the fourth stage, there is awakening. A being realizes that the horizontal and vertical were constructs of thinking, perceptions, and paradigms. A being realizes that ego is a mere epiphenomenal construct—something that emerges as an inferred whole based on parts—and has no inherent existence. It realizes that ego is nowhere to be found, that it is impermanent. Now it becomes even more insidious, and it must raise the stakes. Ego attaches itself to this awakening, and complies. Hence the being who has awakened is now under the sway of subtle delusions instead of gross delusions as in the first three levels of mind.
“In the fifth level, a being is spontaneously awakened and trains itself to become free from the confines of constructs based on ephemeral illusions created by ego, but because the being views everything as an illusion of ego, it focuses only on its own freedom. It lacks the horizontal dimension and thus is akin to the first level of mind, except in a subtle way of delusion. In the sixth level an awakened being reaches the horizontal dimension and thus seeks the freedom of others. This is akin to the second level of mind, except now the delusion of ego is subtle, because it attaches itself to sympathy for others, and by so doing introduces again the gross doctrines of self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and self-denial in which ego hides. The insidiousness reaches a very dangerous level at this point, because the awakened being who seeks the salvation of others believes that it has advanced to a penultimate state of being, while it has become enslaved to the subtle wiles of ego as it hides itself in selflessness, egolessness, and selfless service for the sake of others. The being at this stage is unbalanced, and is unaware of the subtle delusions. This stage is akin to the third level of mind, except it is subtle.
“In the seventh level, the universal mind is finally experienced, and there is greater awakening. The being realizes that there is an ego construct, but that mind itself is indestructible and universal. Its mind realizes that mind is without beginning and without end. It realizes the spacious emptiness of everything. It becomes tranquil, and is no longer held under the sway of obligations, doctrines, and constraints. It has integrated opposites. It becomes attached to this freedom and tranquility, and ego finds a home there. It is a comfortable place. This is akin to the first and fifth levels of mind of gross and subtle delusions, but now it is even more subtle and refined. In the eighth level, mind awakens to non-duality and unity of utterly everything. It has gone beyond the either/or. Ego has receded to the background so much now, that it can no longer sense it. But ego already has its subtle tendrils in the attachment to world view and understanding. This is akin to the second and sixth levels of mind of gross and subtle delusions, but now it is even more subtle and refined.
“In the ninth level of mind, the mind becomes ready for the final epiphany, and realizes the universal interpenetration of all things. But because it is still based on being singular in the light of the unity of everything, it does not see the possibility of processes of Life Force that have their own dynamic. It is unaware of the Life Force and its inherent awakened dynamic, and while viewing everything in terms of world views of emptiness, illusions, non-duality, integration of opposites, unity, it is unaware that the Life Force pervades all, and that the Life Force has its inherent intelligence in perfect awakening. Hence the ego shuts out the possibility of complete and total integration, and maintains its existence in the subtle of subtlest delusion. This is akin to the third and seventh levels of mind of gross and subtle delusions, but now is at the stage of the most subtle delusions possible, virtually undetectable. These delusions are undetectable so often, as only those at the tenth mind level can detect them.
“In the tenth mind level, the Life Force has broached the mind and the mind awakens to its all-pervasive body, the universal body. There is awakening unto the great Life Force, and thus integrates the phenomenal and noumenal—that is, body, biology, matter, life—to become the universal body itself. It awakens to the third factor of universality, that of vibrations. Everything is alive and vibrating at the most subtle and minutest levels. These vibrations are the resonance of the reservoir of information of the universal body and mind; hence there is not a moment in which there is no information. Nothing, utterly nothing becomes superfluous. Everything is imbued with Life Force, with the dynamics of life, with consciousness, and with resonant information. One has a final epiphany at this level, from the very universe itself, and thereby becomes the universal body, mind, and speech. It is the resplendent stage of mind when it becomes the very universe itself with nothing amiss. One can speak of a synergy of all stages hitherto and make that the eleventh level of mind as well. But once a being reaches the tenth level of mind, there is complete freedom to reach that eleventh stage. There is no constraint at all; it becomes a single inference of thought. Hence the eleventh is usually not considered a stage of mind.”
"Cosmic Induction," CittaBhumi: Book Omega, Beyond Apocalypse by C.J.J.Crow
