Just as we grow and change physically from children to adults, we also grow and change emotionally, socially, intellectually, religiously, and spiritually. And just as our bodies never stop changing, we never stop evolving along these other aspects. Self-development is happening, whether we know it or not, all the time. Several people have published solid research in this area including Keagan, Fowler and others. I won’t repeat their work here. But I noticed that the social development stages of Kegan, the religious development stages of Fowler and the Spiritual development stages of several others plus me, all link up perfectly if you line them up correctly. If you line them up, they show you a sequence of 11 stages of development that encompass the social, religious and spiritual evolution of every one of us.
As much as we would like to think that our journey is unique – and in many ways it is – in this respect it is not. We all run through the same stages, skipping some, leaving others incomplete. We are pushed into later stages through our mid-life crisis and other major life events. And we often end up in something of the latest stages by the time we depart this world.
These steps are often portrayed as a staircase or race; something to achieve. They talk about us taking two steps forward and one step back but generally always moving forward. I think this may be wrong. I want to introduce another idea:
It is not a straight line or staircase
No one stage is lesser or more than any other, and
It is a circle – a circle that we traverse over and over, around and around as the slings and arrows of life cause us to skip or leave incomplete certain steps and return us to others.
This CYCLE of our development has been key to helping me understand why people do what they do and how to help them get to a stage where they may find more peace and joy and to spend as much time there as possible.
Here is the short version. See how it wraps back around on itself at the end:
1 – Newborn: everything is me. Nothing is separate from me.
2 – Reflexes and experiences are not me, but everything else I see is. The universe/divine is not me and is safe/unsafe.
3 – I am my needs. I learn and accept religion through stories.
4 – Others have needs too. They are their needs and I am mine. My deity is just and anthropomorphic. I interpret my religious texts literally.
5 – I am my ideology / values (religious, political, social, moral, etc). I feel offended when someone questions my ideology, and I attack / judge others who have different ideologies.
6 – I can see how others might have a different ideology. I see them as their ideology and I am mine. I reflect on the complexity and inconsistencies in my religion/values/ideology and am OK with that. I think that there might be something more to it all. I no longer attack or judge others for their ideologies, although I may greatly disagree with them.
7 – Frustrated with the inconsistencies in the ideologies I see, I reject all ideologies. I am a child of the universe/god/divine. I question everything.
8 – I see that all ideologies are partly true and I can see the interdependent truth at the heart of them all. I still feel like there is more out there there but I surrender to not knowing everything yet.
9 – I see people, places and things as one coherent whole under the principles of love and justice. There is no self. I am a consciousness in this body. I see how my thoughts affect my reality.
10 – I am the ONE consciousness in this body. I can access infinite wisdom in this moment. I can begin to dictate my reality.
11 – I am the one consciousness and the physical manifestation simultaneously and there is no difference. Energy and matter are one – it is all energy – it is all me. I actively and consciously create my reality while still rooted in the joy of this human existence.
The irony is how we develop through this cycle only to end up where we were when we came into this world. The one-ness that we feel as newborns is the truth. (but I will get into that more in another observation)
Back to the stages. I have numbered them to show order but don’t take that to mean that one stage is more or less than another. We proceed around and around this cycle more times than I can count. Why? If we could compete childhood and hide in the forest contemplating the nature of life and the divine, we might be able to proceed through the stages cleanly, and remain in stage 11 until the end of our days. But that is not most of us. We have lives, jobs, kids, hobbies, dreams, goals, fears, and LIFE JUST KEEPS COMING. So around we go.
In each stage there are important tasks and questions that we can use to help ourselves reach the next stage and spend more time in later stages; and to pull ourselves out of earlier stages when we find ourselves once again focused only on our needs or ideologies. (I will get to that in another observation)
For now, try to recognize which stage you are in mostly these days; and do not judge yourself – accept where you happen to be spending most of your time these days and ask yourself why. Would you prefer to be in a different stage most of the time? What do you want for yourself in terms of this path of the self?
