Henosis Foundation.

In Location 1, Layer 1 is the default layer. This means that mental activity still dominates subjective experience. The mind has a gravity to it in Location 1, which usually means that subjective experience defaults to mental activity when a Finder is not actively sinking in to deeper layers. This will often lead Location 1 Finders to doubt whether they are experiencing Fundamental Wellbeing persistently; however, usually the fluctuations they experience involve changes in depth within Location 1, and not in and out of Fundamental Wellbeing. 

Layer 1

Contrary to what is sometimes believed, it is not true that all forms of Fundamental Wellbeing involve a largely or completely silent mind. When subjective experience is centered in Layer 1, as is the case for the majority of Location 1 Finders, the activity of the mind will predominate in moment-to-moment experience. The mind can still be quite active and reactive at this point. However, typically there is still a significant decline in self-referential thoughts, which continue to drop off as locations get later. 

Fundamental Wellbeing also does not typically show up as persistent equanimity or bliss in Location 1, as some also believe will be the case. There is still psychological conditioning that can activate positive and negative emotion and push peace to the background. However, unlike before the transition to Fundamental Wellbeing, all of these experiences arise within the context of everything seeming fundamentally okay, even if that sense feels far in the background at times. 

The remaining psychological conditioning at Layer 1 keeps the peace of Fundamental Wellbeing pushed to the background most of the time, especially when someone has recently transitioned. Over time, the deconditioning cycles that unfold in a Finder’s system after transitioning deal with a lot of this conditioning and the peace moves increasingly to the foreground of experience. 

Layer 2

The dominant quality of Layer 2 is the sense of all-containing spaciousness (i.e., emptiness, expansiveness, space, nothingness, openness, and so on). Attention is centered more in the present, in direct experience, rather than thoughts about experience—when Layer 1 is no longer front and center in experience, the overlay of labels, concepts, and interpretations on the being/existence of everything falls away. 

Layer 2’s sense of all-containing spaciousness is accessible to a degree in Location 1. It is not the default for this location, which is Layer 1, and the gravity of Layer 1 tends to make the experience of Layer 2 unstable for most people. Layer 2 is usually the layer that Finders in Location 1 have temporary experiences of, and this experience makes them conclude that they must be going in and out of Fundamental Wellbeing. In reality they are sinking in to deeper experiences of Location 1 (Layer 2) and then being pulled back to a more shallow experience (Layer 1) by the habitual patterns in their attentional systems. These habit patterns can be changed over time with consistent interruption and reorientation of attention, although this can take more effort to do from Location 1 than a later location. 

In Location 1, this layer will typically be experienced as everything just arising, with a general sense of things arising as one, but maintaining the perceptual duality of an observer (subject) here and everything arising there (object). People will often describe this experience as being like looking at a painting or a movie screen. Therefore, the notion that Fundamental Wellbeing necessarily entails experiencing a unified or oneness-based type of perception (nonduality), is not accurate. Both Location 1 and 3 are dual locations, in that there is a sense of distinction between subject (observer) and object (observed). However, Location 3 is subtly dual, just like the experience of Location 1 becomes more subtly dual in Layer 2 than it is in Layer 1. 

As one begins to sense into the shallower end of Layer 2, there is a quality of stillness that feels deeper than or more real than the mind and its contents. There is a sense of detachment and space around what is happening at Layer 1, resulting in a more impersonal observation or witnessing of its activity. This experience is usually Layer 2 mixed with Layer 1 because it is hard to achieve an isolated experience of Layer 2 without a more unified or oneness-based (nondual) perception, which only shows up in Location 2. Often deepening into Layer 2 pulls a Finder’s system over to Location 2. 

Layer 3

Layer 3 has a quality of all-pervading fullness and beingness. It tends to be difficult to access within Location 1, and the experience typically remains temporary and shallower than at other locations. As with Layer 2, the movement in and out of these temporary experiences can give Location 1 Finders a sense of “not being there yet,” which is usually not correct—there are simply more locations and depths within them to explore, and they are at the beginning of that process unfolding.

In contrast to Layer 2, which has the qualities of spaciousness and emptiness, Layer 3 feels like a profound fullness. Rather than feeling as though it contains everything like Layer 2, this feels as though it pervades and infuses everything. At the early end of Layer 3, it feels like an essence or presence infusing, but different from, experience. This is typically initially perceived as beginning to infuse the spaciousness of Layer 2.

As mentioned, in Location 1, there is usually a more partial experience of this layer, mixed with previous layers. It will often initially be sensed as a deeper or mysterious stillness or beingness within everything, which is intrinsic to its being as an expression of life itself. The qualities and tendencies of Location 1 typically prevent Layer 3 from being experienced clearly and completely, and so Layer 3 is felt more as a mysterious essence within everything rather than its qualities being dominant and pervasive in experience. 

Layer 4

Layer 4 is extremely difficult to access from Location 1 and generally experienced as a glimpse from other layers. Those who can get a sense of it are mostly Finders who have deepened into Layer 4 in further locations and are pulled back down to Location 1 for some reason. It would typically be experienced as the quality of flatness and loss of dimensionality that comes with Layer 4, in addition to greater peace, stillness, and silence. This is as far as you can get away perceptually from the experience of the mind, and also from the experience of and association with the body in Location 1, both of which will feel distant from Layer 4.