"Stages"

“Levels” or “Stages”:

Although there are certain classifications that can be used in spiritual or mental development, classifying or comparing human beings is not really very fair or kind. Some say everyone can develop, but “can” means “wanting to” and not everybody wants to! So let’s use a poetical classification from Swami Sri Yukteswar who describes levels of the "human heart" as follows: 

1. The Dark State of the Human Heart. Most human beings are here. Thinking and feeling is scattered and diffused outwardly in desires for material things. There is no inner unity, and one's consciousness is directed solely to the outer world of perceptions, in complete obliviousness of one’s true self and the universe. A blog about “spiritual or mental development" is not of interest to this kind of person.

2. The Propelled State of the Human Heart. When one has grown dissatisfied with mere things and the experiences of this world leave us empty, we yearn for a higher truth, a deeper understanding of life. When we begin to search sincerely for that experience, we have entered this stage, pushed forward or propelled by our inner dissatisfaction to seek something more than the superficial experiences and pursuits of the senses. In this state, we eventually find a spiritual teacher or teaching that can show us the way to the Infinite.

3. The Steady State of the Human Heart. As our upward evolution continues, we enter this third stage in which one's propelled restlessness is gradually transformed, through self-control, into the calm will to persevere on the path.

4. The Devoted State of the Human Heart. By remaining steadfast in our spiritual practices, we come to the fourth state, in which Truth becomes a reality to us through direct perception.

5. The Pure State of the Human Heart. As we deepen that devotional contact with Truth or God, the dross, the lower inclinations that prevent us from being receptive to the presence of God, falls away. We then reach the highest level, what Sri Yukteswarji refers to as the clean or pure state of the human heart. One feels not just devotion for God, but true union with Him. As two human beings who are deeply in love can intuit what each other is thinking and feeling, in divine communion between the soul and God there is a continuous, infinitely more intimate interchange of love and caring.

This is why we say this blog will be of interest and hopefully of help to those who are interested in leaving stage 1, developing stage 2 and embarking on stage 3.