Two levels, and only one of them grows
My Big TOE splits a person in two. The intellectual level is what you think — your assessments, your justifications, and the image you hold of yourself and the world. The being level is described as the authentic total you, without the usual overlay of conveniently invented image.
Growth happens only in the second one. Knowledge on its own, the material says, cannot raise the quality of a consciousness. Campbell's own version in conversation is harder: if it never makes it to the being level, it is just so much theory and talk and good ideas.
He gives a test that takes no effort to apply. When you work from the being level, you help the old lady because she needs help. You do not think about anything else. You just do it. Any deliberation about how it looks, or what it says about you, is happening somewhere else.
Two things worth holding onto. The intellect is not the villain — the material is careful that fear and ego are the cause, and the intellect is merely what fear has recruited. And the split is not permanent: the two levels only exist as separate things inside a consciousness that is afraid. Remove the fear and they become one.
So this is not an exercise in silencing your mind. It is an exercise in noticing which of the two is currently talking.