Stages of spiritual growth

Friday, June 21, 2024

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Stages of spiritual growth

Athaliah began to kill off the whole royal family.

In this way she became Queen of Israel, the only queen ever in Israel’s history.

One of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations has been burning a hole in my pocket. Would Queen Athaliah have benefited from a daily meditation? Well, it certainly couldn’t have hurt.

An appendix of Rohr’s book The Naked Now details Fr. Richard’s description of spiritual growth and maturity. He shared this 9-stage model with his readers this week. See what you think:

One of the more important breakthroughs in understanding why some people seem to “get it” (whatever “it” is) while many do not get it or even oppose or distort it, has now come to be recognized by teachers as diverse as Jean Piaget, Lawrence Romberg, Abraham Maslow, James Fowler, Clare Grave, and Ken Wilber. Their insights remind us of Thomas Aquinas’s observation that “whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver.”

 In simple terms, whatever you teach or receive will be heard on at least eight to ten different levels, according to the inner, psychological, and spiritual maturity of the listener. Level 1 people will misuse the Bible, the sacraments, the priesthood, spiritual direction, the Enneagram, or anything else that is presented to them. Levels 7-9 people will make lemonade out of even sour or unripe lemons.

 It does little good merely to assert doctrines or passages of Scripture and, because people assent to them, to assume that they have any existential knowledge of what they are talking about. You can perfectly assent to the Catholic belief in the Real Presence, for example, and be totally incapable of presence yourself— so there will be no inner experience and no transformation of the self. One will manipulate or use the very doctrine for ego enhancement purposes and control. This is likely what Jesus is referring to when he quotes Isaiah 29:13 in his Sermon on the Mount: “These people have all the right words, but no change of heart. It is all just a lesson memorized, a human commandment.”

 Following is my own attempt to correlate the various schemas of development that I have studied. In my experience, we move from level 1 to level 9. (Note that this is merely a teaching tool; real life is much more subtle.)

 

1. My body and self-image are who I am. Leads to a dominance of security, safety, and defense needs. Dualistic/ polarity thinking.

 

2. My external behavior is who I am. Needs to look good outside and to hide or disguise the contrary evidence from others; I become so practiced at this game that the evidence is eventually hidden from myself, too. This emergence of the shadow is very common among conservatives.

 

3. My thoughts/feelings are who I am. Development of intellect and will to have better thoughts and feelings and also control them so others do not know, and so, finally, that I do not see their self-serving and shadowy character myself. This education as a substitute for transformation is very common among liberals and the educated.

 

Normally a major defeat, shock, or humiliation must be suffered and passed through to go beyond this stage.

 

4. My deeper intuitions and felt knowledge in my body are who I am. This is such a breakthrough and so informative and helpful that many stay at this level. Leads to individualism, self-absorption, and inner work as a substitute for any real encounter with otherness.

 

5. My shadow self is who I am. The dark night. My weakness comes to overwhelm me, as I face myself in my raw, unvarnished, uncivilized state. Without guidance, grace, and prayer, most go running back to previous identities.

 

6. I am empty and powerless. “God’s Waiting Room.” Almost any attempt to save the self by any superior behavior, technique, morality, positive role, or religious devotion will lead to regression. All you can do is wait and ask and trust. Here is where you learn faith and discover that darkness is the much better teacher. God is about to become real.

 

7. I am much more than who I thought I was. Death of the false self, and birth of the True Self. But because you are not at home here yet, it will first of all feel like a void, even if a wonderful void. “Luminous darkness,” as John of the Cross would call it.

 

8. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Henceforth there is only God, or as Teresa says, “One knows God in oneself, and knows oneself in God.” All else is seen as a passing ego possession, and I do not need to protect it, promote it, or prove it — to anyone.

 

9. I am who I am — “just me.” Warts and all. It is enough to be human, no window dressing necessary. Now you know religion is just a finger pointing to the moon, but not the moon itself. There is no need to appear to be anything but who I really am. Fully detached from self-image and living in God’s image of me — which includes and loves both the good and the bad. This is the serenity and freedom of the saints. Total nonduality.

Six years after Athaliah killed off the heirs to the throne so she could ascend it herself, one son that she missed in the gore and blood, one who had spent six years in a monastery keeping away from her, who had been a baby six years ago now returned, was crowned and became king. Athaliah shouted “Treason! Treason!” but it was not treason, and not long after she herself lost her life.

Perhaps as she faced the deadly music at the end, she could say to herself and those around her: “I am who I am – just me. Warts and all. In this final moment there was no need for her to pretend to be anything but who she really was.”

Well, I hope so. We won’t be privy to each other’s final moment, only to our own. What is God’s design as we die? I think that the more we dis-attach from before we die, the less we have to dis-attach from afterward. Rohr’s nine stages make a difference.

But me? Really? How would I know? We’ll have to wait and see

(2 Kings 11, Psalm 132, Matthew 5, Matthew 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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