When should we advance our spiritual practice?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
“I’ve noticed that my progression from one spiritual stage to the next has happened with absolutely no active participation on my part.
The progressions have happened to me, and the average reader of ‘How to Know God’ might suspect that a person decides when they are ready to move to the next stage (if they ever do) and then takes active steps to go there.
So, if I am at stage three (which I believe I am), do I set up some kind of plan to move to stage four?
I have had glimpses of the next stage, but remain rooted in stage three.
Stage four must be the most amazing kind of life to live, at least from my perspective.
For example, I was seriously considering leaving my temp job one day and someone in the elevator asked out of the blue how much longer I was going to stay!”
Response:
Spiritual progress unfolds naturally, but it is much easier and smoother when one’s intention is aligned with the unfolding process.
Suffering results when we resist that flow of evolution.
You are right that the stages of the God Responses are not dictated by decisions the way we decide whether to get an advanced college degree or not.
But there is a quiet process that goes on in the recesses of our soul where we are either opening up to the greater reality, letting go of the old and affirming our identity with the new stage, or conversely where we contract, close down, deny the new self, and reaffirm our old, limited self.
It’s not so much a decision based on will or analysis as it is a ripening toward an affirmation of your truth.
Regarding moving toward stage four, continue your spiritual practice and then follow it with loving and conscious daily activity.
The necessary spiritual unfoldment will unfold from there the way a rosebud naturally opens into a blossom.
Love,
Deepak
