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Layer 2 is an amazing Layer. Even so, like all parts of personality, it has it's down side as well as it's up.
What does Layer 2 contain?
To begin with, the big four: politics, psychology, religion, and philosophy.
What do all these things have in common?
They are all "big picture" views of us and of our world. Which makes them all, by design, impersonal views.
How does this affect our personalities?
The further you get from your personal view, the less you experience your aloneness.
Why?
Because despite the beauty in observing from the higher view, when you watch from a distance, you become just another "grain of sand on the beach." Translation: when you view life from Layer 2, you view life from a higher (not better) perspective. In doing so, because you view life from a great distance, while you may see beauty or patterns-of-difficulty not visible from a closer stance, you also become personally detached from your life, especially from your experiences of aloneness.
Taken to an extreme, you become logically cold and unfeeling, at least about individual lives. Thus, in Layer 2, people can make the cold, hard decisions which are necessary in warlike situations. But they cannot make peace time decisions with compassion or spiritual openness because they cannot access the essence of these situations: personal aloneness.
Now, lest you hear what I'm saying as, Layer 3 is "bad," please note, no layer is "bad." They simply offer us the views from which to better manage our lives, along with the knowledge of where to look when we do struggle.
Thus, at times, we very much do need to take the higher view in order to know what is best for us and for our loved ones. On the other hand, if we only see life from this higher view, while we may be skilled at the philosophical wisdom's, we will repeatedly fail in our personal lives and not even know how.
To use a Layer 2 wisdom, all the layers should be "taken in moderation." By this, I mean, even the personal non existence of the next layer, Layer 1, is an important part of our personal existences. Given we chose to be in it in times we and the ones we love actually benefit from it.
Finally, note how Layer 2 builds on the previous layer, "time as a sequence."
Thus, we have not philosophy, religion, or psychology without an understanding of how time affects our lives, including how it connects and disconnects us from our personal aloneness.
As for how to become more conscious in and around Layer 2, "time spent with teachers" is the best way. Along with becoming a teacher yourself.
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