The seven stages of the spiritual evolution
In his spiritual evolution, man passes through different stages, each of them having some specific characteristics. Recognizing these characteristics can open the path toward superior levels which leads us to perfection.
The first stage emphasizes ignorance or total lack of knowledge and even of information concerning the nature of the spirit and of reality. This is, generally speaking, the case for the majority of people in the present time, who restrict themselves to believe blindly only what they can perceive with their five senses or only in science and mechanical technology.
The second stage emphasizes the more or less accentuated sensitiveness compared to other state of consciousness which can be produced accidentally or in an organized, traditional manner (for example, yoga practice); sometimes the awakening of the interest for spiritual aspects can be produced due to the releasing of some ineffable inner processes of resonance while learning a valuable spiritual text, the evidence of a great master, other times through a mystical experience or even during the paroxysm of a painful existential crisis; in other cases, the repeated frequentation of a group of spiritual people or even making an unconventional but efficient therapy can awaken gradually in the human being the respective beneficial subtle forces not suspected earlier.
The third stage emphasizes the search, full of aspiration, of some efficient awakening methods, of an authentic spiritual path. This stage is most often characterised by an ardent and continuous search. We think only to our object, and something inside us whispers that we are approaching truth; the reading confirm to us afterwards this feeling. We will then search with ardour a master and we rush sometimes in what a great yogi named “a spiritual cocktail”, meaning a kind of body posture, therapies, “esoteric” readings combinations which are mixed more or less with meditation techniques, martial arts or tai-chi type practices etc. There are some people who unfortunately concentrate definitely only at this level and then they believe thoroughly in the half-learned person manner that they have found their path. Included in this category those who immediately after their first spiritual experience think they are self-realized and they stop there. Others though find at the end of this long journey their spiritual master and their true path. Only then the great spiritual adventure starts for them.
The fourth stage emphasizes the consistent approach, full of aspiration, to an authentic spiritual path. During this stage the human being normally gradually discovers the barriers which impede true knowledge and learns progressively to dissolve these obstacles. The specific methods which are used in this stage vary depending on the chosen path. They can change at a given moment depending on the personal spiritual evolution and according to certain individual conditions. Yet, if the respective human being seeks to reach the ultimate spiritual stage, they must never stop their spiritual practice. This will thus progressively extend on the entire everyday existence. This stage lasts and is maintained practically unaltered in the following stages.
The fifth stage emphasizesemotional stability and profound inner peace. As the obstacles dissolve and are completely eliminated from the path of our consciousness, which here corresponds to the identification and control of the intimate origins of our feelings and destructive emotions, the mental agitation of the thoughts diminishes and a profound and euphoric peace enters into us. This is an absolutely necessary condition for what will follow, even if there are some spiritual paths which take advantage of all conflicts that appear in the human being using them as some direct and immediate means to attain transcendence. This stage is generally accompanied by a correct and profound understanding of the nature of reality and the mind. The respective human being aspires now with power that this profound and euphoric peace to embrace the whole world. In this stage the capacity to love is very much amplified.
The sixth stage refers to the attaining of non-duality. Until this stage, the human being was often the theatre of the manifestation of numerous phenomena, in the Greek sense of the word which means illusive “appearances”, such as visions of form and light, hearing some inner sounds, perceiving some subtle energetical vibrations which afterwards give birth to some parapsychological manifestations, regressions into their own past life or past lives of other beings with whom they come into contact. A competent spiritual master will help the human being to understand that almost all these phenomena are the same kind of illusion as dreams or usual physical universe. In all these experiences there still exists the real illusion of the separation between the subject and the perceived object, appearing sometimes even the risk of strengthening the perpetuation of this illusion of separation. Complete dissolution of this phantasm leads progressively to the appearance of a holistic a-conceptual and ineffable experience. The initial stage of dualistic ignorance is passed into the true Divine Knowledge, to that state of impersonal presence in which we astonishingly realize that there no longer exists a certain someone who to know… Love for all human beings becomes the Divine Light and it is revealed to us what as being what it always was in reality, from the beginning without beginning…
The seventh stage marks spiritual liberation. During the preceding stage the nature of the reality was observed under the form of some profound illuminating lightning, now the presence of God or true Knowledge is finally in place and it will remain constant and can never be lost. The relative-absolute dichotomy is now surpassed. There are no longer concepts and conditionings, but only a Supreme Space – Light, boundless and radiant. In the same time we stunningly discover that oceanic love and all-embracing Knowledge pass this body without being limited by it. We then realize that this was a primordial state which in reality existed in our being always, but it was permanently hidden because of our previous ignorance. Now we realize that the veil has been completely dissolved.
Yogaesoteric
December 2007
