Have you ever wondered if there are steps or stages in an inevitable cycle leading us ever closer towards God? If there are, do we all go through the same process? Do some of us get stuck in a stage? Do we ever actually complete these stages? Do they go on forever? Do they overlap? Must they always happen in the same order? Do we sometimes go backwards, forwards or redo bits?
Maybe this is what these stages could look like:
Stage One
This is a state of being or existing without any real awareness outside the self, similar to how we perceive life as a child. Living in the moment. Only really aware of our own immediate needs. Our brains are Pandora Bracelets On Sale not yet developed or equipped to ask questions, to judge, think or discriminate in any way. As the mind develops, it starts to move from working only on immediate concrete needs to more abstract concerns like; where do I come from? Where do I go? What is the significance of this universe? We begin to start wondering about things! This is the first conscious step towards relating to some kind of creator or universal intelligence. Who/What made all this? Why?
When and if you conclude that there must be some superior intelligence that did the creating, you might then feel a need to try to relate in some way to this intelligence.
Stage Two
In stage two we start to sense the awesome indescribable power that must reside within such an intelligence. We start to see the patterns and cycles that exist in nature but because we are still spiritually and emotionally immature, we long for an authority figure that thinks for us, decides for us and is responsible for us. We cling to this idea of a “God” hoping to be relieved of personal responsibility for guiding our own lives. However, the problems start as we begin to realize that by abdicating this responsibility, we are effectively at the mercy of such a God. Then begins the long process of trying to appease, satisfy and submit to this imaginary figure which has been created from a projection of ourselves along with all our hidden pettiness, cruelties and weaknesses. This is not a happy place. The more we deny these traits in ourselves (they are too painful to acknowledge) the more we see them and fear them in our God. This God relationship is really based on our own personal needs and wishful thinking. The longer this phase continues, the more distorted our concept of God becomes, holding less and less truth and more and more dogma.
Stage Three
However, while all this is going on, our intelligence and emotional maturity is growing. Redefining itself, preventing us from continuing on in this way indefinitely. We start to slowly begin to realize that we’ve actually CheapPandoraCharms made all this stuff up! We have created this God! The thought process probably goes something like this. “There cannot possibly be a God leading and controlling my life for me. Look at all the bad stuff happening to me, to people around me and in the world! Life is up to me. It is my responsibility! I have free will!”
A reaction starts to set in and many people often turn at this point to the other extreme and become atheists. Others struggle on within a particular faith system, doing their best to reconcile and make peace with these realizations. This is a healthy and natural reaction to a superstitious God image that has been created from denying self responsibility. This phase is an extremely important and necessary one to any realistic and genuine experience of God. During it, we cultivate our own human abilities and faculties, honing them for individual and universal growth. Leaving no questions unasked and exploring all concepts and understandings about the world that we live in. It is a combative even an aggressive phase which allows us to break down old and rigid belief systems. We learn to accept and assume self responsibility. Atheism (or a crisis of faith) allows us to give up expectations of being rewarded by a God for our obedience or for any good deeds. It frees us from our fears of supernatural punishment. It is a vital phase of growth because it brings us back to ourselves.
Stage Four..Let Go and Let God!
In stage Four yet again…as in all the other stages, we continue to grow and develop. Slowly it becomes no longer possible to view the world only through our Atheistic eyes. Once our scientific, philosophic and religious ideas have been fully explored, debated, picked apart and carried to their logical conclusions, the human mind begins to make connections it couldn’t see before. We begin to perceive a unity, wholeness or oneness to life.
So, what starts out at the beginning of this journey towards God is;
- No conscious awareness of God! This then becomes:
- A yearning for God (but as a kind of “parent” or authority in our lives). This is then followed by:
- The rejection of our own man made idea of God, and finally:
- We move into the dawning realization that we ARE God or an integral part of that reality. There is no “other” or “outer”!
- In fact, there is nothing that is NOT God!
This is an awful lot for the human brain, which develops itself by creating polarity (what is good what is bad?) to take in. But we can’t get a clearer picture of things without moving past this “good guys verses bad guys” kind of thinking. This is stage 3 thinking. Simplifying everything down like this leads to creating distortions and suffering in our lives It is how our mind when divorced from our heart will operate. It is the nuts and bolts of many of our fantasy, adventure and horror stories and how most of our TV shows, news stories and politics are presented. But it should not be how we think! Dividing and fragmenting ourselves and everything around us into ever smaller categories and causing ourselves untold pain and suffering in the process.
We can’t reach this new kind of awareness without first experiencing and acknowledging our own confusions, errors and fears. It is not a case of becoming perfect. This won’t happen. We are human beings after all. But we can and eventually will experience our own imperfections calmly without avoidance or self judgement and without projecting them onto somebody else. If we steadily train ourselves to continuously recognise and face these personal distortions, habits, negative patterns and belief systems then they begin to lose energy and the condition of truly seeing any person, situation or thing in its entirety becomes possible.
Even more importantly, This phase once glimpsed, provides a tremendous sense of relief to the human mind. Life finds its proper balence rooted in an undistorted reality and the mind starts to align with the heart removing the splintered feelings so many of us have lived with and allowing a sense of wholeness, meaning and vitality to blossom
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