The Levels

 

My latest approach to case taking is based on the philosophy of
"The Levels", which I discovered last year and which excites me most.
It is the Level of Experience that we experience at 7 different levels and what I believe;
it is not only applicable to homoeopathy, but also to life itself. It is something of much broader application.

These seven levels are:
1) Name
2) Fact
3) Feeling
4) Delusion
5) Sensation
6) Energy
7) Seventh (I cannot name it so it is called 7th).

So what are these levels?

Whenever we have an experience, for e.g. when we meet somebody or we see an object,
the first thing that comes to us is the name of that thing.

Name also signifies pathology or diagnosis - like cancer or myocardial infarction.
For e.g.

(a) this is mountain, or
(b) This is a computer.

This is Level 1- Name.

At the next level we experience fact.
(a) This height of mountain, it looks like, and so forth
(b) This computer is made by this company; this is price, dimension and so forth.

This is level 2- Fact.

At the next level we experience emotions. Where you react with feelings of happiness or joy or of grief and sorrow.
(a) This mountain, I like it, I don't like it.
(b) This computer, is so sleek, it looks so nice, Wow!
You just want it you don't look at the price, you are not looking at fact as what is the price etc. This is emotional.
Generally it is seen that whenever anything is experienced at emotional level you are not interested in the facts of it.

So there is a shift in levels. That means we generally don't function at all levels at one time
i.e. when your emotional level is functioning your fact level is not functioning so well at that moment in your life.

Then there is one more step after emotions i.e. imagination or delusion
This is beyond likes/dislikes, happiness/ joy, where you get images. You see something and then your mind imagines something else.
(a) I see a mountain feels like flying in the air and imagines it to be something else.
(b) This computer is like a monster!

This is level 4- Delusion.

Then that next level is level 5- sensation. Sensation means that you experience physically as well as mentally.

There is a common ground between mind and body. We experience sensation of heat, coldness, pain, anesthesia, sensation to be caught, to be pulled and so forth.

This is a level deeper than imagination or delusion.
Delusion itself is based on sensation. So if the sensation is pulling then there are many delusions based on that. Many images, incidents, pictures can name in about pulling which is devoid of sensation.

Then I discovered a level deeper than sensation, which is level 6- energy.
The energy pattern is represented by movement, sound and colors.
At level 6 he just becomes the mountain and starts, jumping up and down and making sounds.

(It is like a typical reaction of an infant or how an infant experiences it).
Movement has two components in it i.e speed and direction.
Direction also includes shape- circle, square, and triangle, star.
Then comes sound and colors. Sound includes music and colour includes art. Energy patterns are devoid of sensation, but from them sensations are formed.

Then I found there is one more level, which is beyond energy pattern and that is level 7- the seventh.
In this level all energy patterns can manifest. It is the basis of energy. Just like energy is the basis of sensation,
sensations is the basis for delusion, delusion is the basis for emotion. The basis for energy pattern which is
devoid of any pattern, which is devoid of any energy pattern. It is a complete void - it is blank, it is the screen on which
different things can happen and that is the thing that happens at the movement of death or at the time of conception.
That is the connecting link that completes the cycle of levels. From that level comes the energy pattern that grows into
sensation, into imagination, into emotion, into fact and into the name.

The same applies to:
¢ Levels of entertainment
¢ Levels communication
¢ Levels of art

Levels of Art:
You can have Art that simply depicts name- this is a picture.
You can also have art depicting fact - one king sitting on a royal throne and all details are there and below are written "Your highness and son duke of so and so".
You can have art depicting feelings - Mona Lisa!
You can have art depicting delusion - like devils coming and angles and so many other things, which don't happen in reality.
Or you can have art about sensations and energy where there is no picture and you will find only patterns of color, they call it modern art. It is abstract.

Levels of Music:
Similarly, you can have Music that arouses facts or emotions. But classical music, removes sensations. And as a response from those sensations many imaginations can come but what provokes it is absolute music. It generally doesn't even have a name.

Age wise representation of levels.
Level - 1 - senile
Level - 2 - Old age.
Level - 3 - Middle age.
Level - 4 - Teenage
Level - 5 - Childhood
Level - 6 - Infancy.
Level - 7 - Conception/Death.

The Levels and Continents.
Level - 1 Japan - They think of name like Nokia/Sony.
Chine - They think of spice, tea.
Level - 2 Europe - Talks of facts about great philosopher and writers.
Level - 3 South America - There are feelings. Talks of excitement.
Level - 4 North America - Land of imagination. Involvement into Cannabis.
Level - 5 African / American + Native Indians - Are at level of sensations.
Level - 6 Africa - Instinctive or at energy.
Level - 7 India. - No name - Land of Buddha.

Levels and Nervous System:
Level - 1 Hypothalamic (autonomic)
Level - 2 Intellect.
Level - 3 Emotion
Level - 4 Imagination
Level - 5 Sensitivity.
Level - 6 Vitality.
Level - 7 Consciousness.

That exactly has to do with the different types of Homoeopathy that can be practiced.

Levels of Homoeopathy.

Level 1

Diagnosis, Pathology
To prescribe on the pathology. If a patient has enlarged prostrate then give him Sabal Serulata or if has an enlarged liver then give him Cardus Marinus

Level 2

Local symptoms, Location, Modalities, Sensations
Practice at levels of symptom. If patient complains of congestion in chest, aggravated by movement then give Bryonia.

Level 3

Feelings, Concomitants, i.e. General effects of the Local symptoms.
Practise at level of emotions. If a patient has disappointment in love then give Ignatia or Natrum Mur.

Level 4

Delusions, N E I, Cravings, Sleep, General modalities
From the level of emotions I studied more deeper to the level of delusions. If a patient has fear of dark, ask him, so how do you feel like in dark?
I feel I am in a dangerous jungle in which there are animals, which will get me, and you give Stramonium.
So you are prescribing on imaginations, which seemed to me the deepest level earlier. Though the success rate increased drastically, but obviously that was not deep enough the level because there were still many failures.

Level 5

General sensations and affections.
Then came the idea of plants. In plants we couldn't connect the idea with remedies from same family just based on the mind symptoms. I couldn't find connection between Pulsatilla and Staphysagria, etc there had to be another level to make this connection and that was the sensation.

Level 6

General movements and patterns

But if we have failure even after that we have to look at one level deeper that is energy and that is what we should focus on now.

The Energy level is non-specific for kingdom and not specific for remedy, which means if you understand the energy pattern of a remedy, then that energy pattern is not just specific for that remedy only. A remedy from plant, or from animal or even from mineral, all can have the same energy pattern. But they will differ in kingdoms and the expressions will differ. This brings in the idea of correspondence. Which remedy in plants corresponds to an animal or mineral, which has the same energy pattern?
So the energy pattern is not giving us the remedy but if you touch the energy then the sensation becomes very sharp and clear and everything opens up in the case. If you hold on to the sensation then the mind symptoms becomes clear. If you hold on to the delusion then the emotions become clear. Just like that if you hold the energy pattern and ask one question about that, then everything opens up in the case. But it won't give the remedy straight away. The remedy lies at the level of sensation.
This is the exact pattern I follow in case taking.

What do the levels do?
Levels game me an idea, a map of case taking process. From that I know exactly, what the patient is speaking.
First is the name, then the facts, then followed by emotions, and then sensation. In all the cases, this pattern is followed. It starts with the diagnosis. Then he will talk about his local pathology describing with some sensation locally. Then he talks at emotional level, "I feel wild with this". Then he uses his imagination like a robber coming and attacking with a knife and then what kind of sensation he experiences there. Thus he comes back to the level -2 i.e. fact. And when this cycle completes the whole case is complete.
That the chief complaint is the crystallization of all the turmoil, turbulence, the disease and the disturbance of the energy pattern. That is its main manifestation, so instead of ignoring the chief complaint, I hold on to it like a last straw of a sinking ship. The patient may take me round the world but I hold on to the chief complaint.
So you get the sensation from chief complaint. You get the miasm from chief complaint. Then you will get the feeling and imagination and from the imagination come back to the sensation and this sensation is exactly the same what the patient talked in the chief complaint. And when that happens you confirmed what you know already.
It has given me a map. I saw it that you go this way and you come back there. I hold the patient at the level he is speaking about. For eg, if a patient says this pulling makes me wild. I don't go to wild, I hold him onto pulling, because I have to understand everything about pulling first. Once I complete that level then I let him go to the other level. Watch him go to the next level and then have the pleasure of letting him see himself go back there.

What is the deeper meaning for these levels?
We are dealing with a world at various levels. At the level of identification, at the level of fact that is generally intellect or at the level of feeling i.e. emotions.
We experience any phenomena as an identity, or as a fact or emotionally. And generally a word consciousness stops here, but obviously it is a very top layer of the experience. It is like a tip of the iceberg and the whole iceberg lies below i.e. subconscious. And not only subconscious but it is sub-sub-subconscious. It is even deeper than mind. Mind itself is like a tip of the iceberg. What we are experiencing as an emotion is actually based upon a delusion; a false perception of situation and usually it is a fixed perception that we have been carrying all along. So when I say I love you and I hate you, then it is based upon what perception I have about you. That perception is subconscious, and that is imaginative. And you can't allow it to come into conscious surface because it is so ridiculous, so illogical and so senseless.
The level of sensation came to me by my understanding of plant kingdom. While doing it, I couldn't come to a common ground or basis of the same family on the basis of mind or delusion or emotion. I had to go to a level that is deeper. A level that is common to human and plants. Obviously plants don't feel the same kind of emotions as what human feels. It is human specific emotion. But plant definitely feels sensitivity to atmospheric changes- to air, pressure, and weather. That sensitivity is physical. That gives rise to sensation and modality like aggravated from storm, aggravated from injury. So modality and sensations are two sides of the same coin. They arise from plant sensitivity when that sensitivity of plant is transferred to a human being then corresponding delusions arise in the mind. Delusions that satisfy that particular sensation. If the sensation is that of injured/hurt, then there is delusion that he is going to be that have injured mentally or physically and therefore don't want to be approached or touched. So then sensation is the mother of the delusion. Delusions are human specific. Sensations are non-human specific. Example, I have a delusion I am king, this is human specific.
Delusion is an expression of the sensation in a human form. Therefore, when I feel a particular emotion you are talking at one level. But when I say I have particular perception of this reality you are talking at a deeper level. But you don't stop there and say actually I am getting this sensation common to mind and body then you are talking of even deeper level. It is at that level that remedy can be found and at that level you can connect to plant, mineral, animal and it is this connection that we use in homoeopathy. From a delusion you get a rubric and then a remedy.
The level at which kingdoms get differentiated is the sensation level. By just going by symptoms we can't differentiate kingdoms.
These sensations are even more abstract, illogical, nonsense, insane. Atleast delusions can be represented in a movie or imagination or pictures, but sensations can't even be represented as pictures and therefore they are more abstract and then you start doubting whether it is or it is not. You are not on a firm ground. You are not dealing with symptoms any more. You are not dealing with pictures any more. When you have delusion that he is a king, it is seen in a rubric and there is a remedy for it. And you feel you have done a wonderful thing. But here in the case you are saying everything is caught and released. So we are abstracting from the whole information and from different sources the same sensation. It is the abstraction. It is generation. But according to my understanding this is the absolute truth, the reality. Beyond our feeling, beyond our delusion lies something that is non-human specific, something that we share with other kingdoms. Whether it is survival, or structure or sensitivity and that is the underline basis of all the stories whether of all the mood swings that we have of all the happiness that we have. That under lying sensation, which is not even human, but that sensation is also not the final destination. Beyond that is the energy pattern. It is the force, the movement, direction, speed, colour and sound. This energy pattern is even more abstract then sensation. Atleast in a sensation you can say caught, tied, contracted, etc but the energy level is just represented as a mass of colour or sound. That level is not only shared with other kingdoms but we share it with the universe. We go beyond plants, minerals and animals. We go to star, sun, universe and cosmos. It is cosmic. It is completely huge. That energy pattern arises from the cosmos itself. It is beyond the sun and stars. That is the most deeper layer and beyond that is the silence - no colour, no light, no movement.
It is complete blank from where comes the energy pattern from which comes the sensation from which comes the delusion, from which comes the emotion, from which thoughts and from which arises pathology.

What do I call where there is nothing?
It is everything and nothing at the same time. We can't even call it a void. It has everything in it. From that 7th arises energy pattern of energy, which is present in each one of us. You call it God or conscious.
It can be the stage of conception and the stage of death. It is also what I think is the stage of coma or the stage just before birth and is the stage immediately after death - it is a stage of nothingness. From nothing comes something and from something it becomes nothing.
Then it acts differentiated into animal, mineral and plant in our world.

And how within us that energy pattern is manifested?
The manifestation can be sensitivity, survival or a structure. That will determine the sensation, which will give us the kingdom.
So the way we deal with world now is a very superficial level that is the same way we deal with homoeopathy that is why one's success rate is low. If we go deeper, the success is greater i.e. the philosophy. When you get angry with someone all emotions are based on a certain energy pattern. The expression of that anger will have force, speed, direction, colour and sound. We are expressing these energy pattern all the time in our emotions and the same pattern will be formed in our delusions, sensation, etc.

A lot of homoeopaths work on pathology, on symptoms, on emotions.
Some misguided homoeopath use delusions. Some are working on sensation, some are working on energy but no one is working on all. You have to see the same everywhere then only you can be sure. Idea is you don't abandon one level from the other, from the 7th to name, is like evolution of whole universe.

What is interesting with this new pattern is I concentrate less and less on emotions. Less and less on facts and whatever the patient says I trace it back to the delusion, sensation, and if possible the energy and it is amazing from where they reach where. So it exactly illustrates what one experiences and what one feels and what is actually happening.
What is happening in Homoeopathy now is that we generalize on the basis of emotions and may be delusions, so we say this remedy has to do with this emotional or a delusional state and we fix it.
But now what we are looking at is the common point between the body and mind and that is the point I could not understand before I understood the sensation level.
Pulsatilla is mild, yielding, weeping disposition, irritable at times, and it has greenish discharge, scanty menses, thirstlessness and so on. What is the connection? It is just the conglomeration. It is when in a patient where I can understand both the mind and body at the same time that is the centre. But at the same time it can't be and must not be a theory that connects the two. It must be absolute and solid facts. It is from the mouth of the patient, which is directly expressed, and to get to that common point in the patient you need to go deeper and deeper levels.

Two questions I ask cases is:
* The experience and not the word.
* Where is the energy lying in this case?
(1) In a case if I ask what kind of pain it is?
The patient says it is a "shooting pain". The word is shooting, don't worry about the word. I ask the patient, tell me more about shooting. What we want is the experience of what the patient describes. So the words are very very misleading. So words are misleading but experience is the truth. How do you experience the shooting, and then he tells you the reality.
(2) Where is the energy pattern manifested?
Hold on to that what is it when he speaks and shows the energy pattern.
What is it that he experiences, that you can see in the energy.
You can see the gesture, you can see the force, and you can see the energy.
There it lies the truth that is the connecting point.

Questions for the levels:
Level: 1
Name
Q: So what exactly is happening or what of all this is bothering you and when you ask him he will say what is bothering at him at 3 sub-levels.

Level: 2
Fact
(a) Fact what -I have pain in my knee.
(b) Fact qualified - it comes on beginning of motion, it is better with continued motion.
( c) Fact peculiar - every-time I eat cucumber it really gets worse.

Level: 3
Feeling
Q: How do you feel ? How does this affect you ?
(a) What is the feeling.
(b) Feeling qualified.
( c) Feeling peculiar.

For e.g. (a) Common feelings, anger, fear, sadness.
(b) Feeling further described - I feel fear that something bad is going to happen.
(c ) What that something bad is going to happen ?
I think someone is going to die - peculiar.

Level: 4
Delusion
Q: How does that feel like ?
What comes to your mind ?
(a) Situation - it feels like your most near and dear one is dead. This is actual situation.
The patient will use commonly used metaphors, like I felt shattered. I felt stabbed in the back.
(b) How is it experienced - like a huge building has collapsed (imagination)
Gives precise images (images with energy, gestures, not just used words).
(c) Dream (entire sub-conscious)
You are going deeper into sub-conscious.
It is not imaginative. How do you experience this death. Then he says it is like a huge building has collapsed. This comes in the pure range of imagination and then what is your dream. Here you see entire subconscious situation. You are going deeper and deeper into subconscious situation.

Level: 5
Sensation
Q: So what sensation do you experience in that situation ?
Then they start showing hand gestures.
You are at a point where there is an opening, which was blocked. Then this hand gestures are shown.
Observing hand gestures is very important and obviously, it shows sensation, energy level.
The moment you ask about sensation then there are 3 sub-level.
(a) Kingdom - so is this sensation is the experience as of loss of structure , or sensitivity or an issue of survival.
(b) Precise nature of the issue.
So when you say tied what do you mean?
Then you come to the specific family.
(c) Precise degree, depth and quality of the sensation, structure, survival.
Then with the miasm involved and the family you can come to source.

Level: 6
Energy
Through out the case you observe the energy pattern. What is the base of the sensation but lacks the sensation. Energy is represented by the way it moves. Energy is common to all kingdoms. The energy of any substance is that which is common to that substance and to entire universe.

Theory of using bypasses:
Route 1:
Level - 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6
But usually cases don't go like this. They usually go from 2 to 5. Because when they go to local, they usually express sensation, from the local sensation to the general sensation, from fact to sensation.
After that you ask so what does it feel like to be tied (sensation) ?
I feel very anxious.
Describe this anxiety?
I feel time bound, and then they come back to 5 (sensation).
So they go from 2 to 5 then 3-4-5.

Route - 2:
Level 2 to 5 then back to 3rd and then 4th and back to 5th in a much more general way.
You are not leading the patient but you are following him.
He may take this route or any other route.

Route - 3:
Level 2 to 5 and then level 4, then to level 3 then level 4 and finally back to level 5.

They take you from local sensation to general sensation and then to imagination, then to emotion and then to imagination of different order and then back to sensation.

Sometime the patient gets stuck at a particular level. When you ask him feeling, I don't know feeling. What is the sensation - I don't know sensation.

When a patient in case taking gets stuck at a particular level, we have to use a bypass to get to the deeper level. This also determines the potency. The level he gets stuck, the previous level is what he often is in and that is the potency he needs.

Bypassing Level:
From level 2 to 3 there are 5 bypasses:
1) Feelings are denied.
2) Feelings past.
3) Feelings for what it is not.
4) Skip to level 4 and you turn.
5) Feelings avoided.

(1) So you ask, you have severe headache - so what you feel about it ? When does it experience ? How does it bother you ?
"Doesn't bother me. It is just a headache. I just pop in a pill and I am OK. It doesn't bother me. Just a headache".
So usually they start with denial.
"It doesn't scare me or make me anxious'.
So what is anxious?
"It is not that I directly think that I am going to get a brain tumor and I am going to die. I don't think like this. Silly people think like this".
So by denial he led you to level 3 & level 4. So feelings denied is the 1st bypass.
What is it that you don't feel?

(2) Feelings past:
So today you may not have feeling about it but in past what feelings you had ?
"You know I meant to the doctor and he told me it might be the cancer and I was really worried about it and then we did a MRI and all those feelings disappeared.
So tell me about the feelings about the time when you were anxious? You ask about the feelings of past; the feelings denied.
The patient says I don't have feelings at that moment, so what to do. How to go on or you go straightaway skip to level 4 and then you ask so what does it feel like.

Similarly from level 3 to 4 there are 8 Bypasses.
a) Situation denied.
b) Past exciting situations.
c) Situations avoided.
d) Situation in other sensitive.
e) Situation projected.
f) Situations anticipated.
g) Situations books, movies, etc.
h) Similies.

Bypass Level 4-5:
a) Sensation in the chief complaint.
b) Hand gesture.
c) Physical effects during excitement.
d) Similies.
e) Opposite of the sensation - pleasant modalities.
f) Sensation in part exciting.
g) Situations/complaints.

By Pass Level 5 to 6:
a) Movements of the patient.
b) The sound, frequency and speed of the speech.
c) Hand gestures.
d) Interests, patterns, e.g. music, art, dance, race cars.
e) Similies.
f) Reaction as opposite.

By pass Level 5 to 6:
a) Movements of the patient.
b) The sound, frequency and speed of the speech.
c) Hand gestures.
d) Interest, pattern, e.g. music, art, dance, race, cars.
e) Similies.

Levels and Follow up:
Level - 1 person will say my blood sugar has gone up concerned with fact.
Level - 2 - will say my pain is better locally.
Level - 3 - will say I am better generally, less irritable.
Level - 4 - will say I don't feel in a tunnel any more; feel released.
Level - 5 - will say that I don't feel that heaviness any more, feel lighter.
Level - 6 - will say he feels energetic and can bounce up and down.