We reach the top due to our competence, hard work, and luck. We feel good that we have reached the top but not necessarily content. We arrive at the top but don’t know where the ladder ends. We follow an order: food-shelter-belonging-self-respect-self-actualization. It is not easy to come down after reaching the top. After tasting success, it is not easy to leave it. We run into the same set of people while going up and coming down; only their attitudes toward us are different. Being ignored is the worst thing that could happen to an individual. Who have seen adulation, it is difficult for them to swallow repugnance.
Fulfilment is a factor in vertical transformation. Let us say that a person’s basic needs are Roti, Kapda, and Makaan. A person will not look elsewhere if he is hungry. He will try to meet the requirements of his hunger. Once the individual is secure socially and financially, he may want to remain in the present state. He may not want to move up. But, some individuals like to move to the next stage. They feel dissatisfied in their present stage. The dissatisfaction could be due to inherent limitations and contradictions in the present, or one has gotten tired of it. As a result of this dissatisfaction, dissonance arises. At this point, some insight might help the individual to move forward. The driving force for this insight could be what the individual ‘actually wants’, and ‘what reality offers’. Introspection, conversations, therapy, meditation are the facilitators of the insight. These factors create an opening to the next wave of consciousness.
We want to move to the next stage only when we know it is more delightful, more satisfying than the present one. Going to the next step doesn’t mean that we offload the baggage of the present. Moreover, everyone can’t go up to the same extent, as each person’s horizons are different. The question is; What is our horizon, and where is the peak?
Going up the ladder is difficult than coming down. Remember the song: “It took 15 years goin’ up, and one night comin’ down. After 15 years goin’ up, it’s hard to take a fall.” Coming down is not easy, particularly for those who find it difficult to tell lies or cheat. They know if they compromise with their value, they would not be able to face themselves. So, going up and coming down are not the same thing. Rain to cloud and cloud to rain are two different processes. In a spherical earth, one often doesn’t know if he is going up or coming down.
School Of Upna Life 