Spirituality Timeline - Stages to Holistic Life

A Path

Introduction

Life in the truest sense is the real and only gift to humankind. As far as life is concerned every other thing, process and outcome is derived or flows from it. Life can be described either as a single block of unity or in the case of human life is broken down into phases, stages and times. Spiritual, wisdom, religious and intellectual traditions offer diverse insights on the number of phases and the constituents of each phase. Despite unique differences in the diverse approaches conditioned by time, location and circumstances; similarities are found in the details of phase constituents in their features, operations, inputs and outcomes. These phases become useful guides which generations of prospective seekers adopt for their lifelong journeys. For some seekers, the main reason for starting authentic spirituality is passionate desire for holistic life even where the path was unclear at the beginning of their reflection. In this presentation we focus only on 3 phases.

Water Life

Curiously every person have experienced holistic life from the beginning as a baby in the womb. Therefore the metaphor of pregnancy is an enduring significant symbol. The richness of pregnancy is emboldened by the mother, the unborn child and the life-giving space of the womb. This space is filled with water hence the unity of being and existence therein is rightly called water life. This is the first life in the s/Spirit which is also the female element of life, where higher consciousness of deeper unities and awareness of real presence of things dominate.

For growth to be realised in the womb, there is no separateness and otherness between the baby and the mother, as both of them are seamlessly united, bonded and embraced precisely by the water of life. The wholesome closeness of persons even in the clarity of their uniqueness offers a deep insight of their totally shared experiences and mutual dependence. They both live floating on the strength of what they share together rather than on their differences.

Air Life

The second life in the s/Spirit is generated by the first birth into the world or delivery from maternal pregnancy. It is the air life outside the womb where additional (baby) growth is only possible through separateness and otherness from the mother and every other person or thing. This is the male element which articulate definitions, clarify identities and create public interpersonal relations and communities.

Life here is not seamlessly integrated and is usually non-holistic because of its situation in separateness, difference and otherness. It implicitly and deliberately attempts to implement aspects of the water life with variable levels of satisfaction. The distractions, tensions, successes, uncertainties and struggles of air life accumulate as potential triggers that may provoke a seeker’s further insight and reflections on alternatives which sometimes leads to decisions towards the third life in the s/Spirit.

Holistic Life

The third life in the s/Spirit in a unique way brings power to being and existence of the first life outside the womb in the state of the second life of separateness and otherness. Any attempt in this direction following a conscious and positive decision of a seeker must involve a radical change or even an abrupt rupture from the previous, unintegrated and non-holistic second/air life experiences. This radical departure is actualised by a ‘painful’ non-biological second birth where true life in the s/Spirit in all its forms, character, qualities and outcomes becomes the new normal.[1]

The unitive presence of the first life and the separateness and otherness of the second life are profoundly integrated into a holistic life-giving union of the female and male elements necessary for genuine being and existence. A rebalancing and equilibrium becomes the outcome that defines the goal of a seeker. In this operation, the s/Spirit relationship is prioritised and enhanced with the aid of interiority tools (attention, silence, presence and listening) including their dynamic results and where applicable an experiential dimension towards a new, deeper, meaningful, profound and wholesome lived experience in the s/Spirit.

Holistic life have different names including spiritual life, divine life, mystical life, numinous life, life on the journey etc.

 Life is beautiful!

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[1] Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism – A Study on the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York: E P Dutton and Company, 1912), 234.