The Evolution of Consciousness Through Music

Exploring Music's Role in Human Potential through Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Introduction

In a 2006 research study, Mark Koltko-Rivera from the University of New York argues that we have misrepresented Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, leaving out a key component of his research and thought. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist, who in the mid-twentieth century was famous for developing a way for understanding our life purpose and goals through a hierarchy of fundamental needs. According to Mark Koltko-Rivera, a new assessment of the Hierarchy in light of these changes would alter the way humans envision themselves and their life purpose, providing new meaning and direction for human growth, health, and development. This new view of Maslow’s hierarchy changes the way we may think about music and its role and function within culture, envisioning it a technology for aiding human potential and purpose that is in direct alignment with Maslow’s research.

The original version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The original and popularised  version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs stated that people pursued their basic needs, which are categorised into hierarchical levels from lower to higher. According to Maslow, individuals can only progress up the chain of needs once a previous need had been satisfied. The ability to satisfy needs were based on cultural, social, and financial factors, affected by birthplace and environmental conditions.

At the base of this hierarchy was the psychological (survival) needs which included basic necessities of life, such as water, food, and air. Unless these basic needs are fulfilled, a person would be unable to think (or care about) any of the higher needs. The next layer is safety needs, which include a person’s security through law and order. This is followed by belongingness and love needs through affiliation with a group. Once these base needs are fulfilled, a person can move towards higher needs, such as achieving esteem through achievements and recognition. The last layer of Maslow’s original and popularised hierarchy was the level of self-actualisation, which was the seeking of fulfilment through excelling at one’s personal potential. Self-actualisation may take various forms for different people. It may be the desire to be a great mother, a great athlete, or doctor, but the focus of self-actualisation was extending one’s potential through an expansion of the self.

Maslow’s second iteration of the Hierarchy of Needs

According to Mark Koltko-Rivera, Maslow was hindered from publishing his later ideas that extended the Hierarchy of Needs, and which showed that self-actualisation was not the end goal but a transition point, a rite of passage that enabled access to a higher-level which Maslow believed was the ultimate purpose of life. He called this final and ultimate layer: self-transcendence.

Self-transcendence is a development beyond the ego towards a cause beyond the self, and includes experiences of communion beyond the boundaries of the self through peak experiences. Maslow believed that the lower level of self-actualisation was necessary to strengthen the ego in order to transcend it, and that peak experiences, such as mystical states, aesthetic experiences, or emotional experiences involving nature,  provided the means for temporarily experiencing this transcendent level beyond the self. While people from any level in the hierarchy could temporarily experience peak states, Maslow thought that reaching the perpetual state of self-transcendence was only available through the transition from the level of a strengthened ego, thus suggesting that our current cultural emphasis on ego is a transitional stage, a rite of passage, into a higher level of awareness.

Table 1: From Koltko-Rivera (2006, p. 303)

Flow states and self-transcendence

Maslow’s belief that self-transcendence is the ultimate human need aligns succinctly with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) research into flow states. Csikszentmihalyi thought that the goal of a happy life was achieving control over consciousness through flow states, which are immersive experiences achieved when one is lost in a particular activity.

“Individuals who depart from the norms—heroes, saints, sages, artists, and poets, as well as madmen and criminals—look for different things in life than most others do. The existence of people like these shows that consciousness can be ordered in terms of different goals and intentions. Each of us has this freedom to control our subjective reality.”

Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p.28)

During such states, one’s sense of self is transcended so that they no longer are clouded by desires, or concerned with binary notions such as rich or poor, powerful or weak (1990, p.7). Csikszentmihalyi is saying that the needs of the personal self cannot make us happy, nor can the cultural beliefs, religions, arts, and philosophies that take on a compensatory function, trying to shield us into a false sense of control with temporary satisfactions. He argues that things that serve the ego are ultimately empty, and that true meaning comes from experiencing consciousness in everything that we do for its own sake. Peak experiences, such as flow, are important for touching upon these higher states to reveal a deeper meaning to life beyond superficial pleasures based on our instincts, and from the shields provided by culture and religions to alleviate our sense of dread, fear, and meaninglessness.

According to Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p.40), peak experiences enable the growth of the Self through differentiation and integration. This means that experiencing extended flow states provides the self with a feeling of uniqueness- separating oneself from others, while simultaneously creating union with others through ideas and entities beyond the self. He states:

“A self that is only differentiated—not integrated—may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person whose self is based exclusively on integration will be connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity.”

Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p.40)

Csikszentmihalyi is reflecting the ways that we self-transcend beyond ego and instinct, while not neglecting aspects of our individuality. He is echoing Maslow’s idea that self-actualisation is a transition stage where the individuality is sufficiently strengthened in order to integrate our uniqueness into service of others. It isn’t a surpassing of individuality and ego, but an integration where the ego becomes subservient to higher ideals.

How does music participate in these higher ideals?

When we change the way we think about music, from a form of entertainment to a technology for achieving higher states, we elevate its role in helping us evolve from a self-actualised to a self-transcendent humanity. Music rituals provide us with flow experiences that lead us into altered states, causing stillness of the thinking mind, a sense of communal oneness, and union with a higher force. Music rituals facilitate communal peak experiences that can impact thousands of people simultaneously. These experiences provide people with the experience of flow and altered states that provide an insight into a hidden reality that transcends our ego and its base desires. In these states, selfish drives, superficial tendencies, and focus on the self is transcended, often leading to life altering changes in a person’s life and personality.

Music serves as a technology for reaching these states, giving us the experience of another reality which urges us to explore these other realms of experience, and leading us to evolve beyond the ego self. Music rituals serve as the rites of passage that mimic our innate desire for cosmological self-transcendence, transforming us from the level of self-actualisation (our focus on personal ego expression), to self-transcendence (a focus on higher ideals of service, sacrifice, and communion). These rites of passage give us the direct experience of the next stage of our human evolution, a vision that includes union with life, animals, and the environment, provoking new explorations of alternate ways of living that question our true-life purpose and meaning.

In many pockets of the West, we are seeing the rejection of materialism, egoism, and division, which is a sign of the emerging consciousness that seeks higher levels of experience and a deeper life purpose to serve humanity. New entrepreneurs, businesses, and organisations are appearing that seek to serve rather than taking on the old mindset of plunder and pillage. These entrepreneurs are tired of war and destruction, and seek to foster peace and harmony in our communities and global politics. Music can play a critical role in this development by serving as a technology for experiencing higher states beyond the ego. These experiences develop our self-awareness towards expressions of higher social, cultural, and spiritual ideals.

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References

Csikszentmihalyi, M., 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper & Row. Available at https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/authenticityandastonishment2/files/2013/04/Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi-Flow1.pdf

Koltko-Rivera, M.E., 1998. Maslow's" transhumanism": was transpersonal psychology conceived as" a psychology without people in it"?. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 38(1), pp.71-80.

Koltko-Rivera, M.E., 2006. Rediscovering the later version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory, research, and unification. Review of general psychology, 10(4), pp.302-317.