An Experiential Meditation on Evelyn Underhill’s 5 Stages Of Awakening. What is life like after awakening? What are some of the signposts of this process and the shifts of spirit that happen along the way? The stages, while laid out in the most helpful model I’ve seen, are still only that, a model. They are not set in stone, nor is it essential to locate yourself in the exact phase: growth is rarely linear.
Drawing on the tradition Benedictine model of Christian mysticism [1. Purgatio 2. Illuminatio 3. Unitio], Underhill expanded the Holy Road home to God into five territories that usually overlap:
1. Awakening
2. The Purgative Way
3. The Illuminative Way
4. The Dark Night Of The Soul
5. The Unitive Way
Her writings in her masterpiece work, Mysticism, utilize quotes from the saints and mystics of the past to illustrate the shifts and turns in consciousness that occur as our inner being awakens to the Presence of God everywhere all the time here NOW. Ultimately, it is a journey where Grace takes over our individual egos, and The Holy Spirit wakes up to Itself within us. We are only the vessels in which the transpersonal God makes Himself manifest in this earthly domain.
Below is Clint Sabom’s meditation on his experience with the stages, both in himself, his clients, and his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
Contemplative Light offers a course on the traditional Christian meditative practices:
1. Lection Devina
2.Centering Prayer
3. Igantian Exercises
4. The Jesus Prayer
5. Christian Meditation
Our course on contemplative practices can be found here.
This looks like crap and goes no where. What is the purpose of this ?