Stages of Spiritual Growth – Part I

Over the last several months, we have been focused on some of the rudiments necessary for a truly spiritual life.  We have introduced a number of concepts which were, no doubt, rather a surprise to you.  If you were raised Christian, you probably learned that Satan was the enemy.  How strange it must have been to hear that our own egos, that Desire–Beast within us, was the true enemy.  And yet, even that Me–Me–Me part of us was created by God as the motive force that can carry us closer to God.  At least, it can carry us for a time.  But then, like all tools, it outlives its usefulness and needs to be discarded.  We have talked most recently about how to measure spiritual progress.  That carried us into a radical understanding of the kind of changes that we need to make.  It is no longer enough to tell the truth; now we must so identify with the truth that we become the Truth.  This means developing an integrity of the highest order.

This seems like a perfect place to put a pause on our interior work so that we can look ahead and see the full scope of the spiritual journey.  I’ve always found it easier to get somewhere new if I have a map.  The same principle works in the spiritual life.  If we have some idea of where we’re going, if we have a map of the ground ahead of us, it seems far more likely that we will achieve our goal of drawing closer to the Divine.  So, let’s spend the next several weeks going over what lies ahead.  Much of this material is covered in depth in my book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transformation.  But for those of you who have not yet read the book, these next few weeks will give you an idea of the journey that is ahead of us.

Most of us start this journey lost in a wilderness of conflicting claims about God and confusion about who and what to believe.  We are brought up with the understanding that chasing after our own desires is the sum total of human life.  If we are lucky, there is someone in our lives who challenges this notion.  Perhaps someone took you to a church, a temple, or a mosque when you were a child.  Perhaps an exceptional teacher challenged you to look beyond your own needs and to consider the needs of others.  However this happened for you; something changed in your outlook, and you began to consider that there was more to life than just taking care of your own needs.

As your outlook expanded, you began to develop a faith.  ‘Faith’ is a churchy kind of word that is used to describe trust.  You began to develop a growing trust that there was something greater than yourself.  As this trust developed, you may have begun to sense a Presence – a Presence that was different in kind than anything else you have ever experienced.

Perhaps this sense of Presence came after you experienced a great loss.   Perhaps it came through the love and kindness of someone in your life – a grandparent, a mentor, or your best friend's mom – you saw that there was more to our humanity than just following the dictates of our selfish egos.  At that point, you really didn’t know what that Presence was, but you knew there was something more to this life.  However, you came to this, you began your search, and step by step, you became open to those great but invisible truths that all point to the existence of God.

I find it fascinating that it is often a great tragedy or loss that brings us to this understanding.  This is how it happened for me, many years ago.  When I was in college, in my sophomore year, a dear friend of mine was killed in a car wreck.  It was winter, and he spun out on a patch of black ice and collided with a tree.  He died before the volunteer fire department could cut him free.  This was my first encounter with a tragic death, and the pain of my loss turned my world inside out.  That night, I couldn’t sleep.  I wandered around the streets of our little town, raging inside, asking God why did Bert die.  Why did you take this gentle and gifted man away from us in such a horrible way?  Why? Why? Why?

I walked by a church and thought I might go in to pray.  Of course, at two in the morning, the church door was locked.  I thought of this as an apt kind of metaphor – that here is this remote and uncaring God doing terrible and arbitrary things to his creatures, and we are his helpless victims shut out from grace and love.  I was in a terrible state, raging with a surprising force.  And then, out of nowhere, the sky in front of me opened up.

Two winged angelic creatures took hold of the sky and parted it as if parting a theater curtain.  In the space that was created, Bert appeared to me, head and shoulders, serene and gently smiling.  (As I write this, tears fill my eyes as I remember seeing him again.)  He spoke to me and said, “It’s okay, Ken.  I’m in a much better place.  You don’t have to grieve for me.”  It was like I was suddenly seeing into that vast Presence, experiencing in my own flesh the love and kindness of the Divine.  And then the angelic beings let go, and the curtain fell back into place.  Everything was the same as it had been before – the night sky and the black tree branches against it.  But for me, everything was completely altered.  There was a certainty in Bert’s words to me, and with that certainty, my grief turned to joy.  My loss was no less, but it was transformed.  I had seen the Truth, and it was the complete opposite of what I thought had been true.  God was not some uncaring and vicious monster, and my loss was only a tiny part of the full reality – the reality that I had just glimpsed.

I believe that I experienced a special grace in those moments.  The depth of my pain and loss somehow transcended the abyss of death, and once again, I was able to see and be with my dear friend.  But what do you do with an experience like this when you’re 19 years old?  When your friends look at you strangely as you tell them the story?

This put me on the road, a road I’m still traveling.  In a strange way, this experience allowed me to jump the stage of faith development.  After this experience, I knew that God was real and that I was cared for and loved.  I still didn’t know what to do with that, mind you!  After all, I was just a 19-year-old kid.  But it began my exploration in a very deep and serious way.  It gave rise to questions like, What is the purpose of this life that we are leading?  Perhaps more importantly, what is my purpose, and how can I realize the richness, the fullness, the gentleness that Bert showed me on that dark and gloomy night?

*  *  *

But my story takes us away from my purpose today – to talk about the stages of spiritual growth, from the very beginning to the end, which is a realization of the Presence of the Divine in everything we do and experience.  What all of the great religions say comes next is behavior change.  “If you wanna get to heaven, you’re gonna have to change,” to paraphrase the words of an old folk song.

When you compare the writings of the great spiritual teachers of all the major religions, they all agree that four behaviors must be changed if we are to be successful in our search for the Divine.  They include:  1) no lying, 2) no stealing, 3) no sexual improprieties, and 4) no violence.  At first, I didn’t understand why these four misbehaviors, out of all the possibilities open to human beings, were singled out.  Further thought soon made it clear.

In each case, we engage in these behaviors to gratify our own selfish desires.  Instead of working for the good of all, we engage in behaviors that result in the good for ME.  Let’s go back to Newsletter #4 and review how this works.  Let’s take stealing, for example.  Imagine that someone points a gun at your chest and says, “Give me your money, or I will blow you away.”  The thief is saying that, in effect, his needs are more important than yours.  This is the essence of self-centeredness, isn’t it?  “My needs are more important than you or your life.”    

Me-me-me!  

In effect, the thief has drawn an impenetrable boundary around himself of Me-first, and that boundary blocks him from uniting with God.  How can you be on a spiritual path, which is God-centered, while refusing to center your life on the Divine?  Clearly, the me–me–me part in all of us gets in the way and blocks our spiritual progress.

The same holds for the other behavioral changes that are necessary for a truly spiritual life.  When we lie, we do so for self-centered reasons.  Once again, our self-centeredness blocks our spiritual movement.  Furthermore, since the Divine is often referred to as the Truth, it seems obvious that telling untruths is harmful to us spiritually.  When we violate sexual norms, we do so for our own selfish gratification.  When we adopt violence to solve our problems, again, we act out of extreme selfishness.  In every case, we are choosing self-gratification over everything else.  

Take a minute and reflect on the arc of your life with me.  Much and perhaps most of our lives are spent gratifying our own desires.  We rarely think about God, and we rarely pay attention to the needs of others around us.  In truth, our selfish egos run our lives.  

Let’s look at what that entails.  We work hard in school to get a good job to make enough money to buy all the stuff that marketers say will make us happy.  But does it?  Does that new car make you happy for more than a moment or two?  Or does it magically transform into the burden of monthly payments to the finance company, the car insurance company, and the auto repair guy?  When you reflect on it, the ego’s dictates do not bring us happiness.  Usually, following our selfish desires results in losing our freedom and finding ourselves in misery.  Is this what you want from your life?  Even more importantly, is this all there is?

Of course there is more, but with the constant barrage of others exhorting us to follow our own selfish needs, it is hard to discern those small, still voices echoing in our own hearts.  You would not be here, reading this, if you had continued to ignore that whisper within.  But you are here, and you are listening.  Even more importantly, you want to be able to hear more.  You want your heart to be more open to the ever-flowing love that flows from God and sustains you day after day.  

So let us rejoice and be glad, for the Divine is always ready to welcome us home.  

That’s all for this week.  Next week, we will continue to explore the stages of spiritual growth.  As I said last week, I am also working on a new focus for meditation that is extraordinarily powerful.  So stay tuned in the coming weeks.  There is some great stuff in the works…

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

To access the other newsletter editions of the “Inside The Invisible Newsletter,” or if you’d like to read ahead or go back.

Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.