many usurped a level of authority it simply does not possess. It is the servant and not the master, a position of ascendance intellect arbitrarily assigns itself, first, because mind is its clever adjunct, and second, because intellect does not have the capacity to interpret a function higher than its own. When we live exclusively in realms of intellect and the mind we cannot grasp, as the senses have limits, the mind has limits too. It’s not that the mind will never know, but the mind is the last to find out. Eventually it will be informed, however only when higher levels of wisdom send information back to a chastened, restrained understanding.

To grasp the limits of intellect becomes easier once we recognize and function from the fourth level, variously named assessment, discernment, even judgment, that is judgment within the personal arena of determining something about ourself, not anyone else. This judgment articulates for us what I did was wrong, what I said hurt someone, this was wrong, that was right. This level of wisdom we sometimes identify with conscience takes us within, the first truly human step on the path because here we encounter, for the first time, a level of consciousness we do not share with the vegetable or animal kingdom. There is no sense of right or wrong in plants and animals, they merely do what they do, always in a state of loving praise to God, but they do not know what we know, they do not have the experience or knowledge of good and evil.

Neither plants nor animals have the appalling human capacity for revenge, for envy, for concern about what will

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