Many years ago I learned about stages of spiritual development. I’ve since discovered that many different spiritual teachers and teachings have different names for what seems quite similar to me. Because I spend so much time thinking about the process of aging and the spirituality of aging, I began to wonder if we experience this process differently depending upon the stage of spiritual development that we are in. This is just the beginning of my exploration.
The FOUR STAGES
Here’s a simple way I like to remember the stages.
TO ME; BY ME; THROUGH ME and AS ME
Stage one – Life is happening TO ME – I am a victim
Stage two – I create my reality; I can manifest whatever it is I put my attention to and life seems to be one miracle after another.
Stage three – I learn to surrender – to LET IT BE – to know thy will not mine be done and that indeed all I do is truly letting Spirit flow through me to do.
Stage four is Living in EXPERIENCE. Living in pure ENERGY and pure Energy is the way many people today- scientists and theologians alike – are describing the state of God Realization – Knowing that I am one with all that is and all that is is Good or God.
Victim and Blame
Most of us are familiar with 1st stage – victim stage – Something outside of self is doing something to us =– whether it is God outside of ourselves, the devil, superstition, the day they were born, the numerological chart, the cracks on the ground, our parents Our parents did it to us and then our mates. But victims always have a blame story about how something is doing something to them or something in their lives is happening because of some outside condition – like the economy or the weather. And perhaps even the process of aging itself when we experience the things that happen as our “enemy.”
Orderly Universe
Then somewhere along the line we discover, either through pain or through insight – those are the two ways we grow – we begin to understand that we are a part of something that is bigger than ourselves, that is orderly, it’s a universe – That something wonderful happens 
and it operates lawfully. At this level we become manifestors or manipulators. – we learn how to manipulate energy. We learn that there is a Law in the Universe. That as Dr. Michael Beckwith once said, “things don’t just happen – they happen Just” They happen according to what’s passing through your awareness – -what’s passing through your subjective consciousness.
Stage 2 is often called the NAME IT AND CLAIM IT stage. If you can name it and claim it, you can have it. It’s all about visualization, If you can see it with your mind’s eye; you can feel that it is done, you can have it. This is the stage where you MAKE IT HAPPEN. Movies like THE SECRET are all about this stage.
Usually, when things aren’t manifesting – it’s because we’ve reverted back to first stage thinking – and think something OUTSIDE OURSELF has to change…. Or we’re holding onto old stories – or old grudges.
When we view the process of aging from this viewpoint, we probably spend a lot of time dealing with longevity doctors and use products that are advertised as “anti-aging.” We are convinced we can control and maybe even reverse the process, and in some respect, we do. But, we limit ourselves to the acceptance and learning that comes when we face what is, rather than living from wanting to be in what was.
Make Me a Channel
During stage 2, you are working at reprogramming your thinking – ?You begin to have an feel & awareness that the Universe is Good – that things don’t just happen to you == that there is an underlying all pervading presence that is Good, it is Wonderful, it is harmonious and it begins to become your tendency. When that happens you begin to move into the stage called through us where you become a channel or instrument of the spirit.
And all of us know about this stage – if we are not in it regularly – we at least experience, brief glimpses of it. Perhaps you’ve experienced it in your writing, in art, in athletics, there came a moment when suddenly you were in the Zone and beyond what you could image or make happen, you went beyond your borders and your boundary and experiences something and revealed some piece of music or some piece of art that was beyond what you really could make happen and sometimes you even feel somehow that you didn’t do it – it was done through you.
Those are moment of the Spirit operating through you, when you weren’t trying to make it happen but you were totally involved in it. Do you understand what I’m saying? This is the LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD stage. At stage 3 – It’s beyond your imagination, beyond what you can visualize, beyond what you can make happen. The Spirit of God in its Isness begins to flow through you, So, at level 2 – you make it happen. At level 3, you make it welcome. What would the process of aging look like in this stage? I believe it’s when we accept our Wisdom and Saging and begin to really live in the flow, without wishing we were younger or fearing what might happen next. The studies of adult development show that people who live in the flow are the ones who actually live longer and happier lives.
Let it Be
When we truly LET IT BE we come to the final stage as us – This is the stage of KNOWING our ONENESS – MYSTICAL stage which is a stage of being, a sense of at one-ment with the presence of God where you realize there is no difference nor is there any separation between this one life – there is only the Life of God. When you study the mystical teachers of the ages, whether it be Jesus or the Buddha, they primarily live at these particular levels. When you hear Jesus living at level 3, he’s saying, “it’s not me that does the work, it’s the Father within” Why call me Good, there’s only one Good that’s the father within. At other times You hear him say, when you see me, you see he who sent me. I and my Father are One.
If you’ve ever been at the bedside of someone who dies peacefully, you have seen this stage. There is no fear. There is no doubt. There is complete surrender. Not a surrender that gives up on Life, but a surrender that knows that life is eternal and that the aging process we experience in this realm is a stepping stone to more Good that lies ahead.
And YOU?
Where are you at? How are you experiencing these stages in your own life? Does it effect the way you see the process of aging? Please comment below.
Thanks you for this wonderful article. This is wonderful writing that inspires the beauty and grace that is available within journey of spiritual awakening and particularily in the later stages of life beyond the attachment to ego desire.
This staged progression of life through the different levels of awakened awareness has been mapped by the greatest teachers of humanity. This invitation comes from all the world’s various religions. The problem is that rather than take the journey into the inspired (in spirit) journey of the human becoming the knowing of the Divine most lower consciousness followers promote the words of the invitation in a very literal sense.
Thus we get the teachings of Love turned into a dogma to believed in rather than an experience that we allow to be revealed to us and through us. It is great to see someone like yourself who is, to my mind, a real spiritual coach.
Blessings from one Tony to another Toni
Thanks for your comments, Tony. I agree – sometimes dogma has gotten in the way of the actual experience of the Presence…but as I see it, more and more people and even Churches are coming to understand that the only true religion is the religion of Love and that all paths are leading us there. Glad to be on that path with someone like you.
Thanks for an interesting post.
Where am I at? Wherever it is, it doesn’t stay constant 🙂 I have practiced zazen every day for the past 30 years or so and there are days, when everything is fine the way it is and other days, when my mind cuts in and wants to interfere as soon as I start focusing on my breathing. I need to discover the witness within, and trying just drives this ability further and further away. Suddenly, I can transcend and watch myself struggling with myelf, providing of course I am not trying to transcend. Where I am at now, is at the point where I can detach from how “well” I am sitting zazen.
Stages in my life… For the most part I am leading a very Zen-like life.. My feelings of whether or not I am being mindful or not seem to trap me sometimes, especially when I have resolved to take mindfulness into my day-to-day activities. Sometimes I am sitting watching TV and notice that I am drawn into the drama or whatever is there.. I become mindful, but am not satisfied being mindful of what’s going on in the drama. But that is mindfulness just the same, and there is no promise in Zen that mindfulness is something enjoyable! Zen promises nothing, or no-thing and everything. And all is included enjoyable or not. That’s what I like about it. I don’t have to be a certain way, or follow certain rituals. 🙂
How do I see the process of ageing? I don’t like it. I would like to have attained the insights I have now back in my 20 or 30s when I first started Zen practice. But that is the mind speaking. If I look within, I can see that all the struggles, all the pain, all the mistakes, all the insights, as hard as they were to get, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I had a heart attack that showed me a lot. Nobody knew I was having an attack. I thought I had a stomach bug and there was lots of abdominal pain. I went straight into zazen and my blood pressure and heart rate all showed up normal with the paramedics. I was put into a side cubicle and a nurse came along and by chance gave me an ECG and discovered that I was having a heart attack. I had ridden through that for 6 hours in a meditative state. A clot had lodged itself in my heart. A clot buster freed it and an angiogram later showed minimum damage and the technician involved told me that he hoped that he had arteries as good as mine.
During the attack, I thought I was going to die. Even though I had no idea that I was having a heart attack. Something within me seemed to know how dangerous this was. I was OK about dying, but didn’t really want to leave just yet. So if I could go back in time, would I have that experience again? I don’t know. At least I am not saying an emphatic “no!”
As painful as it can sometimes get, would I give up Zen? I know the answer is definitely no..