URB #454 — GM-Node Soteriology: The Three Tiers of BT Existence, Self-Evidence as the Universal Drive, and TI Sigma's Doctrine of Grace

How do beings relate to the GM-node architecture — the mycelial network of all consciousness through which CCC's presence and influence flows? TI Sigma proposes a three-tier model of BT existence that formalizes what every religious tradition has intuited: there are different modes of relationship with the Divine, and they are not all equally accessible through personal effort alone. **Tier 1 — Bare Existence:** Every BT has a minimal GM connection as a criterion of being — connection to CCC is not earned, it is constitutive of existing at all. **Tier 2 — Moral Permissibility:** A BT can achieve moral permissibility (above the -3 PD threshold) through its own free will and GILE alignment, without any special GM mycelial support. Survival, reproduction, and basic self-expression represent this tier at the biological level. **Tier 3 — True Greatness:** A BT cannot achieve genuine greatness (+2 or higher in the PD) through its own effort alone. Greatness requires GM's active mycelial support — CCC extending through the network and amplifying the BT's GILE expression beyond what the BT's own LCC can generate unassisted. This is TI Sigma's **Doctrine of Grace:** effort alone achieves permissibility; only CCC's active partnership achieves greatness. This paper also formalizes the concept of **self-evidence** — the universal drive by which every BT seeks to maximize the expression of its own nature — and shows how survival and reproduction at the biological level, and conscious self-actualization at the human level, are the same drive operating at different scales of LCC.