When to move on from Step 2 to Step 3
You have fulfilled Step 2, and it's time to move on to Step 3, when you feel:
intensification -- togetherness -- affinity -- connection
As you radiate with love and "love around" in Step 2, your being will naturally rise to higher, more vibrant levels. We refer to that enhanced vibrancy as INTENSIFICATION. The qualities of inner strength, attentiveness, bright awareness, feeling, and energy are all intensified.
Also, as you surround all you feel or envision with love, a strong sense of togetherness, affinity, and connection will come over you.
TOGETHERNESS feels like, "We are close, we are together" (in contrast to the common conviction of being separated, or at a distance from, others and Life as a whole). AFFINITY feels like, "We are similar, we are in agreement at heart" -- a welcome relief from feeling different, in competition with, or at odds with, others and Life as a whole. Sometimes, a sense of natural attraction may arise out of affinity as well. CONNECTION feels like, "We are in touch." It's a feeling, really, of being in contact with Life as a whole, and with God. It dissolves all sense of being isolated, cut off, and vulnerable.
In Step 2, a "WE" develops where I and YOU once stood, staring at each other across the imaginary chasm that seemed to separate us. As you will see in Step 3, this feeling -- "we" -- represents a significant increment in the surrender of the basic presumption of other-ness and separation.
Summary: When the four results described above have been achieved, AND they are reasonably stable, it's time to move on to Step 3.