Is your spiritual development linear or spiral?
A colleague asked me to write an article about profound turning points in my spiritual path. When I asked, what specifically he is looking for, he replied with a question of how long I have been on the path of self-discovery.
“Consciously, being aware that it's that path, about 15 years”, I said. “Well, then you should definitely have several, if not many experiences, that made a huge change in perception of life.
I am asking you to share that wisdom you gained through them”, he answered.
It really made me think and feel deeply into my aha moments. His gut feeling was right, during those 15 years I have gone through many extraordinary experiences and all of them have left their own marks. Same time it's really difficult to bring out one or few of those experiences and say: “those were the moments in time that changed everything”.
Doing that I would possibly devalue more subtle teachings that life gave me in other ways. I have noticed that I tend to remember “fireworks”, cause they have emotional charge and forget what was written between the lines - the real wisdom of heart, that can't be put into words.
Saying that I have to admit that I have been a spiritual experience junky - someone who is always ready for the next hit, even if I'm actually not. I have used my fear as a jumping board. People close to me often describe me as a person who loves to jump into the unknown. I would not say that I love it, I have done it a lot, cause I have been frightened to stay where I was. Jumping just has always looked like an easier solution and I believe that it helps me to get rid of fear.
To be honest, it doesn't, it just helps me to move. Fear comes sooner or later again, attacks me when I least expect it and strangles like never before. I have kept running and hoped he won't catch up with me. Illusion, she always does. So we have been playing this little game since I remember, from early childhood. Don’t really know when and where it started, but this pattern is here and doesn't easily let go. It means, I took that pattern along to my spiritual path and started using it to discover everything I could or would dare to.
The start is always wonderful. It’s like falling in love with somebody. You get all the fireworks in the beginning. You feel so much, so excited, so full of all possibilities. Same time so sure that this time this is the “right thing” and you can say bye-bye to all past hardships and pains.
I would say from my experience that starting launch allows us to have a peek into possible potentiality, but everything we left there from where we flew off, does not stay there. It is attached to us with rubberlike cord, but it just starts moving little after we are gone. When it moves, then it does it with such great speed that whenever we slow down, it hits us from behind. Mostly it is a really painful collision. You always have a choice to keep on running, but keep in mind, there is nowhere to hide.
Here is the point that 15 years of self-discovery has taught me. Whenever something hits You, don't run. Stay afoot. Open your ears and see. Open your eyes and really listen. Open your heart and deeply feel, no matter how difficult it feels. It goes over, sooner or later. More present you are with it, the sooner it does. Just do not move, because this is the only way you are going to really learn. This will take you beyond what you think you know or are able to perceive.
Only that has real value. You can forget about all the wisdom you learned from books and tales of other people. Your own personal experience is the only teacher to follow. And I'm not talking here about the tales your mind runs about the experience, that is mostly the repetition of learned stories. I mean the real experience that you have felt through, with your heart and body. When it really goes through, it lets go of the pain caused as well. If it doesn’t go through, the pain stays and hence the stories will stay repeating themselves. It’s not here to punish us, it's just here for us to really see what's happening. It's a loving act from Creator. The human mind just simply has an extremely selective vision, cause really is afraid to be wrong, even when it does know it's wrong. Admitting that can be a long journey.
We can learn so much about our personal blindspots if we just took the time to honestly follow our thoughts. To see the repetitive patterns we fall into. Mostly we use the fear to run, to make ourselves busy and then we are not able to see.
Looking back at my life, I must say with sadness, that I have spent so much of time pointlessly keeping myself busy. Doing whatever else I could, just not to face my own pains that I have left blindly lurking into shadows of my being. I'm not saying that I don’t do it anymore. Have to be honest with myself - I do. I just hope that 15 years of looking into mirror has done its work and I chase my tail lot less than I used to.
Why I say I hope? I’ve learned to be less sure on anything. Only thing I know I can be sure of is that everything changes. All the time. There are days when I feel that I understand life and then there are days when I feel that I understand nothing. Also days in between those two.
Where I'm aiming with my story is that after giving it days of consideration I realised what has been the most important ahaa in my own spiritual journey. I must say, that this realisation itself didn’t jump to my screen of consciousness in one moment. It took time to digest life and everything that had happened with me. It took time of integration to reach that understanding. I had read about it from a few books and yet, for knowledge from books to turn into wisdom of heart, we need time of integration.
The point is here - spiritual development is not linear happening. It’s not climbing a ladder.
It’s spiral. At any point you can feel that you are back again at the start. In a way you are, and you are not. One thing is for sure - the soft spots you thought are long time ago solved and done, will come and pay you a visit once and awhile. When they do, you often feel even worse than before you started the journey. On those spots self-compassion is needed. I believe that this is the most effective way to learn compassion - through radical forgiveness for my own trespasses. It’s not easy.
I have been judgemental and blaming, so many times that I don’t even want to think about it. Yet, I understand that every time I have judged someone, I have judged something I don’t like about myself. That is a hard bone to swallow. Even more hard to really forgive myself. Sometimes I manage and yet, there are times when all my effort flies to my screen and paints it over with brownish tones. In an instant I fall from the skies, I believed I had made myself a permanent nest.
Radical self-forgiveness is the way we can really understand that difficult journey all of us are on. It’s so individual that we really can’t know where anyone of us is and what they should or shouldn't do. Good enough if we can find it out about ourselves.
When you start your journey and get amazing experiences and results right from the beginning, it’s very normal, keep in mind if you can - you are not the chosen one who has to save the world. You have to save yourself from yourself. For that real superheroes are needed. While everyone else is looking for fault and someone to blame outside, superheroes stop the spinning of the world and dive in.
Jewels hiding in your soul, can be brought up one by one. You need to dive a lot and rest a lot between dives to digest the experience and integrate what You learned. I don't mean becoming a couch potato. I mean taking time and space for yourself. Doing what you really love to do. Moving in nature, being with yourself, taking good care of the body and also the mind.
Keep in mind - once You open that mystical box of self-discovery, there is no way back. It’s a spiral that from outlook takes you up to heaven, but over time you’ll experience that it takes you inwards, deep into your heart, passing through hells and heavens on either side, taking you to a sacred place where the source of life lives. You just have to keep on walking the path. To make path more smooth, become friends with fear and let it guide You, deeper and deeper into your own being.
Writing this article reminded me from where I read about stages of spiritual development and non-linearity of it. Its from one of my favourite books - “ 40 rules of love” by Elif Shafak. Here are the seven stages of on the Path to Truth every soul had to go through in order to attain Oneness.
First stage is the Depraved Nafs, the most primitive and common state of being, when the soul is entrapped in worldly pursuits. Most human beings are stuck there, struggling and suffering in the service of their ego but always holding others responsible for their continuing unhappiness. If and when a person becomes aware of the ego’s abased situation, by starting to work on himself, he can move to the next stage, which in a way is the opposite of the previous one.
Instead of blaming other people all the time, the person who has reached this stage blames himself, sometimes to the point of self effacement. Herein the ego becomes the Accusing Nafs and thus starts the journey toward inner purification.
In the third stage, the person is more mature and the ego has evolved into the Inspired Nafs. It is only at this level, and not anytime before, that one can experience the true meaning of the word “surrender” and roam the Valley of Knowledge. Anyone who has made it this far will possess and display patience, perseverance, wisdom, and humility. The world will feel new and full of inspiration.
Nevertheless, many of the people who reach the third level feel an urge to dwell here, losing the will or the courage to go further. That is why, as beautiful and blessed as it is, the third stage is a trap for the one who aims higher.
Those who manage to go further reach the Valley of Wisdom and come to know the Serene Nafs. Here the ego is not what it used to be, having altered into a high level of consciousness. Generosity, gratitude, and an unwavering sense of contentment regardless of the hardships in life are the main characteristics accompanying anyone who has arrived here.
Beyond that lies the Valley of Unity. Those who are here will be pleased with whatever situation God places them in. Mundane matters make no difference to them, as they have achieved the Pleased Nafs. In the next stage, the Pleasing Nafs, one becomes a lantern to humanity, radiating energy to everyone who asks for it, teaching and illuminating like a true master. Sometimes such a person can also have healing powers. Wherever he goes, he will make a big difference in other people’s lives. In everything he does and aspires to do, his main goal is to serve God through serving others.
Finally, in the seventh stage, one attains the Purified Nafs and becomes Insan-i Kâmil, a perfect human being. But nobody knows much about that state, and even if a few ever did, they wouldn’t speak of it.
The stages along the path are easy to summarize, difficult to experience. Adding to the obstacles that appear along the way is the fact that there is no guarantee of continuous progress. The route from the first to the last stage is by no means linear. There is always the danger of tumbling back into earlier stages, sometimes even from a superior stage all the way down to the first one.
Given the many traps along the way, it is no wonder that in every century only a few people managed to reach the final stages.
Earlier in the article I wrote that your personal experience is the only teacher to follow. Yet I have to admit, that this requires real self mastery to reach the point where your discernment evolves to the level of accuracy required for leaning only on Your personal experience.
That is why it is inevitable on earlier stages to follow the paths of Great Masters, who managed to reach the final stages on the Path of Truth. They have paved us beautiful paths to discover and realign ourselves on our personal journeys. We can stand on their shoulders.
Only when we are truly ready to take a leap, let go and fall into our personal manifestation of highest Grace.
Luckily we are living in a moment of time what many prophecies consider as time of many awakened ones. This door has never been more widely open than now. Yet at the same time, it requires from us real concentration and trust to walk in balance on the spiral pathway.