On the healing of the soul ...

      There is a great deal of work being done at this time toward the healing of the soul, or the psyche, but there is little said about the stages of the soul's progress.  The human consciousness progresses through discrete stages and the needs of one stage are quite different from the needs of another.  There is not a set solution for developmental problems that is effective for individuals at all stages.  The condition of each person will dictate the necessary change and the required operand.   For example, at one stage a person may require total freedom, while at another a strict pattern will need to be followed.  At each stage, the world that an individual sees is different with different opportunities and challenges.  The way an individual responds to and interfaces with each stage will also differ.  Sometimes it will be successful and he will move on, other times he will fail to move on because his responses are mal-adapted.  This is the condition where a new understanding and approach must be found.  Without an adequate knowledge and understanding of these stages a person is often unwilling to consider the changes that are required, or unable to adjust to new perceptions.  Knowledge is equally important for anyone who is attempting to assist another in this process.  First it is necessary to accept that stages are normal and a required part of normal growth, sometimes even when they appear to indicate the onset of abnormal conditions.

      Language is both an indicator and a tool.  A person may say the same thing but have an entirely different meaning in a different stage.  If a statement is made to individuals at different stages they may understand totally different things from it.  This is the cause of many if not all human misunderstandings.  It often occurs that two individuals are conversing, and neither understands a word that the other is saying.  With an understanding of these stages one may form the proper sentences to engage a person in the world that they see, and speak of that condition.  They may also understand what someone is saying by understanding the context from which it is spoken.

      Much has actually been written about these stages in the past, but since it is found primarily in religious material it has fallen out of fashion, and been abandoned with the bath water, as it were.  I will attempt to put it into modern (or post modern) language, although some of the concepts will be difficult to translate into the current multiplicity of perceptions.  I would like to request some patience in attempting to understand the meaning beneath the words.

        Some say the staged are four, some say seven, and others that they do not end.  I will use seven which seems both the most common and the best defined.  The first three stages deal with the identity, and are therefore stages of limitation, since the identity is composed of limitations.  The fourth seems to be a transition between the first three and the last three which deal with the heart.  Heart here refers to an expanded awareness beyond normal mind not to the physical organ of that same name.  In the first three stages, awareness which transcends normal thought is experienced as emotion in the last three it is experienced as awareness or insight.  I will give a very brief description of the stages of the growth of human awareness and how they progress.

      When you were born, your senses were new, raw and unused.  You needed a reference in order to survive and to unravel the overwhelming barrage coming from these senses.  So you began to construct an identity.  This is not the sort of work that is done in a day. 

This construct developed over many years and proceeded to become more and more limited, since the purpose of this identity in the beginning was to sufficiently limit sensory input to allow perception.  You now had a pattern where you approached new experience by creating new  limitations.

       At some point, your true nature became trapped by this construct, causing uncomfortable feelings.  Your immediate reaction was to repress or deny these feelings since they opposed your identity.  You could not, however, deny that there was something that you did not understand, so you began to search for some new meaning, an answer to this nagging uncertainty.  As these feelings grew, your denial grew, and your search grew.  From your perspective at this time, you were your identity.  You did not remember life before this construct and could not in any way imagine life without it.  In fact any feeling or thought of life without it was to you identical with death.  Yet it was becoming more and more evident there was something else out there.

      At some point you will experience an identity crisis.  When this happens you will become aware of the existence of your true nature, although you will, no doubt have another name for it.  You will want to embrace it, but you will be totally unable to abandon your identity, so you will begin a new construct.  In this new model you will be faultless.  You will project all of your perceived inadequacies onto others.  You will become angry at each of the limitations you have invented in order to survive.  You will be like a snake feverishly working its way out of an old skin that no longer fits.  Your new skin will also tighten up and eventually become painful.  This new construct will begin to show cracks similar to the last.  Until a new crisis of identity occurs.

       Since you still cannot imagine a scenario without identity, you will begin another reconstruction.  This time, in order to maintain control, your construct will accept every responsibility with a strict code of conduct doing what is right and not doing what is wrong.  You feel that this is the secret of control and that it will enable you to survive without any holes or cracks in your construct. 

       When even this fails you will at last be willing to admit to the defeat of the identity and allow your true nature to emerge.  As this new consciousness grows, you will begin to miss your abandoned identity.  This will lead to depression and grief.  As the grief waxes you will try all the old solutions and more, but eventually you will be compelled to go through the grieving process to the other side.

       This is when the awareness will move to a new home.  It is variously called, from mind to heart, or from left brain to right brain, or from earth to heaven.  Here grief will become joy, sorrow will be happiness and anxiety will give way to contentment.  Where you once had feelings you now have knowledge and insight.  You will understand in an instant what you could not write in a lifetime.

        These insights will grow and you will be more and more astonished as you learn what it means to be human.  What you learn here can be expressed only through the arts or in actions.  You may be sought out for your wisdom, insights and perspective, but perhaps with little or no appreciation and respect.  You may appear eccentric.

        There is no need to describe the remaining stage.  If you arrive you will know, if not it really doesn’t matter.  It is who you are and who you will be, and where you are at peace.

       I hope this serves as an overview as we look at some specifics of each stage.  The most useful approach is probably to focus on how to help another person move from one stage to another.  It will help if we see them as common to all and not as some sort of ranking.  Individuals may regress in response to a life crisis or a bad choice, so all we may do is help each other where we are in the moment.

      The first stage is usually referred to as search or concupiscence.  Individuals here are searching whether they know it or not.  Denial is the strongest characteristic here since they don’t know that they know, so they search everywhere else.  It is important that they look everywhere.  The symbol or sign that will trigger an awareness might be anywhere.  If they confine themselves too much they may miss it, and if they do nothing to protect themselves they may come to harm.  They must remain detached, avoiding both love and hate, which would mislead them.  They must also avoid backbiting which would end the search before it begins.  Thus protected they must search confidently and patiently knowing that they will eventually find what they need.  You cannot successfully argue with them.  You can best help them be providing them with new material and experiences, by listening as they sort things out, and by answering their questions.  When finally they glimpse their true nature they will transform before your eyes.

       The second stage is called love or irascibility.  This stage is characterized by criticism and opposition.  Here the individual is attempting perfection, projecting all faults to others.  These are the individuals who have given the ego a bad name.  These are the theosophists.  They believe that their new identity is their true self, free from all limitation.  It is not.  They must learn the painful lesson that life in a comparative world does not allow perfection of this sort.  They must remain until they accept their own imperfection.  Once again you must not argue, even if they do.  You must not criticize them, since this prevents them from seeing their own shortcomings.  Help them to talk things through until they see their own position in them.  Demonstrate your own ability to accept error and take responsibility.  Thank them for their criticism, understanding the goodness they intend.  When finally they understand something of their own condition they will be able to move on.

         The third stage is known as knowledge or inspiration.  This is the last stage of the identity where it is willing to take on all responsibility in order to maintain control.  The individual here no longer tries to be right, but rather tries to do right.  They must eventually learn that control is not and never was theirs.  Having an illusion of control has been useful and even necessary in the past but now they are able to conceive of a life without it.  They will learn this best if you let them practice this illusion and not obstruct them.  They must see for themselves and cannot be told.  It is not confidence but faith that will allow them to relax so that their true self may emerge.

         The fourth stage is unity or benevolence.  It has been referred to as nirvana.  Here the illusions are lifted the constructs are gone and the individual is able to perceive the world by its true nature.  Once again the birth person, now able to understand.  This is the death once feared now beloved.  Conflict is gone. All is from a single place.  The ransom far greater than the expectation.   Ambition has no meaning beyond service.  The individual here no longer feels needed, not necessary any more; beginning to miss the illusion, beginning to miss the limits.  Depression of a sort, because happiness remains, begins to emerge.  All things must be grieved when lost even the identity.  Until this grief is gone through contentment will be denied.  When at last it ends pure joy is its replacement.  A gentle wind blows through and a new home is found.

       The fifth stage is contentment.  This is the beginning of the stages of the heart.  

See the world grind slowly by
from this new abode
where a thousand things occur at once
and not a single one untold.  
Only a poet may speak of this place
in a way you can understand.  
Only for artists and singers
this beautiful inner land.  
Outsiders are barred from even a peek.  
Though this be the place that all of them seek.