What's this "we" stuff, fanboy?

So, if you have been looking at these quadrants in the AQAL model, you should now realize that the left-side quadrants are internal parts of Being and the right-side quadrants are external parts of Being. The Upper Left, or "I" Quadrant, is the inside of the individual, while the Upper Right Quadrant, the "It' Quadrant, is the outside of the individual.

Let's take that further. The Upper quadrants are the individual. The Lower quadrants are the collective, i.e. not just you, but everyone with you.

So, the Lower Left Quadrant is the "We" quadrant. It is the internal side of the collective.

What does that mean in English?

You do not exist alone. There are many other individuals out there with you. Whenever you come into contact with some other person or group, there is a relationship that sets itself up. That relationship can be thought of as an entity in itself, really.

When you date someone, or marry them later on, you have your identity. Your partner has his or her identity. The both of you also have your fused identity together. There's three identities there. In a healthy relationship, all of them are cared for. In unhealthy ones, one or more of those identities gets out of balance.

That fused identity with your partner is not the only fused one you have. If you have children, you also have a fused family identity, or collective. If you work for a company, you are a member of that company's collective identity. If you are on a sports team or in a class, the same thing applies, and so on.

Identities can be short-lived or more or less permanent. When you are on an airplane, you are part of the "We are all on this plane together now" identity, until the trip ends and that collective disperses.

If you can open yourself up to this, you can feel the collective identity around you. In ancient times, these identities were worshiped as household deities, or saints, or ancestors. They can be felt and maintained, and they can be screwed with.

Just like everything else, "We" entities grow and evolve and unfold. You may identify with yourself early in life. Then you get a family and you identify with them. Perhaps, you are part of a tribe or a national group that you identify with. Tribes and national groups are a larger sphere of concern than families, so becoming concerned with members outside your immediate household represents an unfolding or advancement along a line of development in the "We" quadrant. Ultimately, your care can extend to "All of us", or the world's population as a whole. People at that Stage in this developmental line think of themselves not as a "Smith" or as "an American" or a "European", but as a "member of the human race on Earth".

Perhaps as time goes on, even that identity will expand, somehow.

In any case, reality in this quadrant is not about some supreme individual being, or a concrete physical existence, but rather it's about the understanding that all beings and individuals are one Entity.

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." That has a lot of meanings along this line of development. In the early Stages, it is literal: be nice to your neighbor even if he's mean to you. Later, as you develop along this line, you understand it to mean "Love your neighbor because you ARE your neighbor."