Personal Growth versus Spiritual Growth

By Tony Cuckson

As a writer on the stages of spiritual develoment I like to point out that there is a difference between stages of personal and spiritual growth. One aspect is not to be considered better than the other. Each is needed and there is a form of paradoxical relationship between these two facets of personal and spiritual development. Paradoxically speaking the most important energy is spiritual but the development in spirituality takes place within a well developed sense of the person.

The simplest way that I have discovered to describe these two distinct facets of the personal and spiritual development process is through the system I refer to as the Way of the Chakra's. This is a universal map of personal and spiritual development. This map shows seven main energy centers.

1. The Root Chakra.
2. The Sacral Chakra.
3. The Solar Plexus Chakra.
4. The Heart Chakra.
5. The Throat Chakra.
6. The Brow Chakra.
7. The Crown Chakra.

Broadly speaking the first of the above three Chakra's are related to the development of an integrated personality. This integration involves the work of becoming grounded in the body. It integration involves the reconciliation of emotional opposition within and the power to use the personal will in the service of the ego. This is that aspect of the work of personal development focused in creating clear ego boundaries. This is so that in the second part of the human journey the individual can invite the will of the Divine to move and, more and more, inform one's life purpose and direction.

The heart Chakra is the middle Chakra. This Chakra links the personal and the Universal. With clear ego boundaries one starts to expand such bounds. This is achieved from a sense of letting go and letting Love be the driving force within the life of the person. The ego self then becomes not the enemy. The ego becomes an alliance of the will with the willingness to become all that Creation created the particular person to be. There isn't a sense that the ego is viewed as something that has to be got rid off. We see the absence of clear ego boundaries in individual's who have significant mental disorders.

There may be a problem with the ego should the individual over identify with this aspect of who they think they are. In such a situation the focus on their individual self can become a kind of addiction. Then the work of personal expansion can in many ways become a compulsion rather than an expansion into higher stages of spiritual development.

Personal growth moves into spiritual growth when the individual moves deeper into a process, not of achievement, but of surrender. The more developed stages of spiritual development are stages of deeper and deeper trust in the process of surrender that expands the ego into infinity. This process is said to be where the dewdrop merges with the ocean. I like to think it is where the Ocean of Oneness merges with the dewdrop of individuality. That seems much more mysterious, magical and miraculous.

About the Author:

Tony Cuckson writes and promotes courses relevant to stages of spiritual development. He specializes in sharing maps for the journey of personal and spiritual development including The Way of the Chakra's. To avail yourself of spiritual direction from these maps of personal growth and development and spiritual development visit http://www.tonycuckson.com

Three Stages of Spiritual Enlightenment

By Therese Yemana

The basic goal when people undertake spiritual practice is enlightenment. The culminating point marked in the practices is when one already attains the spiritual enlightenment therefore they feel the unity of soul, leaving behind all physical and mental engagements and everything else. It is possessing highly evolved souls, and to share the kind of enlightenment that these spiritual masters experience they propagate it through the world.

For practical purposes, reaching spiritual enlightenment comes into levels. The spiritual masters develop from the first to the third levels.

The 1st one is the animality levels to which many people are likely to degrade themselves. In this period, you experience and live the reality as any individuals might. You may continuously take part in ordinary activities like talking, gossiping, preparing the future, analyzing everything about us, and so on and so forth. You are the normal, normal person walking around just like everybody else.

You are experiencing much like everybody else is experiencing, even though in this phase, you're already taking the signal to uplift the enlightenment of your soul to an even more meaningful existence. When spiritual enlightenment is considered, you're in a period when you are getting just everything as presented but you are also undergoing a feat to detach worldly things from your existence.

In the 2nd level, you rise into humankind, to which now constitutes the very nature of the human individuals. In this stage, the person experiences a connection to every person all around them and even to every object surrounding them. The experience makes them like sacrificing their very own individuality; however, the culmination is taking its mark signaling that a merge is going on between their very own with the Supreme soul.

As you feel you are no longer the individual that you are and instead one with everything around your environment, you are closing in with the Supreme Soul as everything comes from Him. This is a great experience that anyone can undergo because enlightening of the soul is starting to dawn with more promises to be a lot better later on with the succeeding stage.

In the 3rd level is the divinity, in which now spiritual masters convene back and merge with the very source where humankind came from. In this point, you don't feel connected with everything around you anymore. And this is not a sense of disconnection, rather you're already understanding that you are that everything. This means the spiritual enlightenment takes its course up to provide you with the experience where unity with God is already culminating.

Therefore right after experiencing the humankind, the divinity allows you to feel you're everything. Meaning, you're no longer your own body, mind, senses, and your intellect faculty. As well as in this stage, you're directly undertaking the divine experience, the attainment of God, which is the top stage that spiritual masters undertake.

When an individual undergoes spiritual enlightenment, all luck is in them for it is that fruit that sets them free from the material wants, wishes, and desires. It does not only make you feel the complete bliss of being free but gives you the experience that rarely is being undertaken by everybody else.

About the Author:

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