Eliza, to answer some of your questions, which were good ones...

"an inner, third level of being which is essentially 'pure'. Would you say that it is present in, say, a very young child, and subsequently becomes submerged under the veneers or roles invented by the adult?"

Yes. Absolutely. It is present in a very young child, and that is one reason why we find the innocence of young children (and young animals) so beautiful. There is a purity and simplicity there. There is no intent to harm. They are not yet doing the kind of complex mental roleplaying and hiding behind behavioral masks that they later learn from the society and the family and time they get born into. It's not a third level of being, though, it's the primary, essential level of being. Personality and all forms of cultural conditioning and mental conditioning get pasted over top of it, so to speak, year by year from quite an early age until they completely cover it up. At that point it appears to have been "lost"...though it's still there, but hidden underneath the outer acquired mental layers. It's usually not being consciously accessed at all any longer by the outward personality, although it can be accessed in brief moments of 'satori' (a feeling of complete peace and beauty which people will sometimes experience when watching a sunset or a rainbow or in some other evocative moment). I think it can also be accessed in moments of inspiration and great creativity.

"I wonder how one could access this original level."

By silencing the mind, yet remaining keenly alert and receptive. Quiet awareness. No mental chatter. This is NOT easy to do! You have to completely stop the habitual incessant flow of thoughts (your mental monologue or dialogue...people often mentally imagine a dialogue with someone else, specially when they disagree with them)....stop all that mental chatter and simply observe in silence, without any evaluation, purpose, prejudice or judgement. One good way to quiet the mental chatter is to closely observe your own breath rising and falling, and stay with it. See where it takes you.

Imagine what it would be like to be completely without ALL your established political, racial, class, cultural, religious (or non-religious), national, ethnic, and gender-based beliefs, assumptions, and partisan positions....all of which are learned mental postures of one kind or another.

Different? You bet. It would be a completely fresh and unbiased look at things. It would be a bit like being "born again"... ;-) ...because a young child is for a short while free of all that culturally added baggage. Even free of having a "name" (Your name is not who you are. It's a label. You can change that label, but who you essentially are remains.)

"is this concept at all linked to that of 'righteousness', a goal aimed at by spiritual and philosophical 'pilgrims'?"

Yes. Absolutely. Religions, at their more esoteric or their deeper mystical level, attempt to regain that original pure state of awareness...one that has been linked symbolically with concepts like "Paradise", "Eden", "Heaven", etc. (At their more superficial levels they play all the usual dirty political, money and power games that have given religion a bad name.)

"Would it not be quite difficult to strip away those carefully constructed layers? (and scary, perhaps?)"

Yes! Very difficult, because your mind absolutely does not want to become silent and give up all its familiar (mental) "posessions"...it's habitual positions, reactions, and stances and its emotional dramas. It equates the giving up of that with its own death. Thus it is very scary to the mind. The fear vanishes if you manage to do it, though, and is replaced by a great sense of expanding peace and beauty.

I have not reached a point where I'm much good at doing what I'm alluding to here. I'm barely beginning. I just know a bit about it, because I've known a tiny handful of people who clearly can do it...so I know it's real. And I study it. I work toward it. How do I know it's real in those people? Simple. Just by being around them a good deal and seeing what they are like, how well and kindly they conduct themselves, and by listening and observing carefully.

It doesn't mean that you have to join some kind of religion. That is not necessary at all. You don't have to join anything, in fact. You don't have to believe in any specific deity or set of rules. You just access what you originally were, before you got programmed by the culture all around you, your family, your nation, etc. The original you, before you carried ANY acquired prejudices, political grudges or fear.

If I'd never encountered people with experience doing this, I'd probably have given it little consideration. As it is, I now give it a great deal of consideration.


*****

Roleplaying is fun, and it can be quite constructive if you pick a constructive role. I roleplayed being a folksinger-songwriter for decades, for example, and it has had some good effects on me and on others, I don't regret it, but it IS a culturally acquired role...and I know it. (I took on that role because the people I most admired in my youth were a small number of really fine folk musicians, singers, and songwriters. I sought to emulate them and built myself the role accordingly.)

As long as I know it's a role, then I am free to use it...instead of it using me. But beyond that, I am more than the role I play. I'd like to connect with that in me which is beyond the outer role I play. To the extent that I do, I can play the outer roles in a much more effective and harmonious way.