In actuality our state is contorting and changing throughout the day. Perhaps we live most of the day in a gross state, and have glimmers of subtle and maybe when glimpsing a beautiful woman, we are momentarily cast into a flash of causal. States are constantly changing but we do seem to have a center of gravity that we fall back to. As we meditate more and more that center of gravity changes. It can elevate to a subtle state-stage, where we are thinking creatively and intuitively. Where we follow our nose and imagine shapes and magic, on a regular basis. Or perhaps we experience life from a space of a silent mind where those intuitions collapse and congeal. A presence and closeness to that which is being done. There is little interpretation, and planning. The causal.
I think that these three state-stages are actually quite common, and even non meditators are sometimes living from the subtle and causal state-stages unknowingly.
When you have experienced a glimpse of what it feels like to have a clear mind, you begin to see it in others. Regular people sometimes have a certain sparkle about them, a clarity and presence to their face and actions, and I believe it is because it is possible to “spot” state-stages that ordinary people are at unknowingly.
Why Dave Chappelle? Look at his face and his eyes, there’s a wholeness to him, as if his mind was empty. He says in one of his shows “I see too much”, to me he has a sort of elevated perspective, he’s smart, he’s present, and I believe he lives from a causal state. Though I have no evidence.
Alex Honnold actually did have his brain studied.
Unfortunately it seems to have only been an MRI which showed a decreased response from his amygdala. Which could be indicative of a causal state, though I don’t know of any evidence to support this. He has the same kind of wholeness that I see in Dave. A sort of puppy dog innocence to their eyes.
To me this indicates they may both be living from a causal brain state stage.
Someone that I believe is living from a subtle state stage is Abraham Hicks. If you listen to her she kind of lives from an inspired place, and has long improvised teachings. The style in which she speaks is almost psychedelic. To me this indicates she may be speaking from a subtle state stage.
One thing to note is that states are natural and are tapped into in a myriad of ways. It’s likely that people grow naturally into higher state-stages without having done any meditation, and don’t even know that they have a completely different perspective than a majority of others.