R :
this is very helpful. I like the four stages very much.
Tell me please what your quest has looked like to know yourself. You've made reference to it several times and I'm wanting to know the elements of it, the practice involved if there is one, etc. I assume it works along the lines of the 4 sentences, but if you can flesh out for me what it looks like in your daily life, I know I would get something of value from that too.
For me the quest for knowing myself has been unstructured and haphazard, and that has suited me fine at times, but not as fine at others. I'd like more of a practice in my life and to be devoted to it. Are you familiar with the term Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)? I don't have it by US standards, but in the US focus and concentration are reserved for sports heros and precision desciplines. Because you can do just fine here without ever learning much focus, most of us don't ever learn it. It can make us dull, but functional.
I am not lamenting my state, but am telling you an element of my starting point in all this. Part of me bristles at discipline and practice and I have found that I can learn quite rapidly while in turmoil, but not so rapidly in times of relative ease.
So this is what I am sitting with and hoping that you can shed some clarity. Do know that I'm never expecting "answers" so much as information that expands the two of us in our thinking and knowing. I think we are making something beautiful in all of this.
ALV
As usual, warm, and a truthful, account of where we all possibly are ....... trying to make some meaning of His scheme of things vis-a-vis ourselves.
One of the greatest disadvantages of "eternal world" (as defined by you) is the total absence of metrics for measurement, of progress, as against the "temporal world", where at every step, something like a daily/monthly/qurterly reports, can be made/analysed. An action plan can also be drawn up. The only saving grace in the former, is a degree of undefinable comfort, felt occasionally, during moments of " perceived blessings" which manifests itself in His own ways.
But these moments are indeed very rare, and the weight of responsibilities of the temporal is so heavy, that (a) these are immediately forgotten, (b) often found inadequate, the moment this comfort feeling passes, and it passes sooner than later.
Let me cite an example for you to understand what I am saying ; There is this friend/teacher/ evolved human being, of our family who lives abot 2500 Km away, from my home in another city, to whom we look up to, in moments of distress. During a time when things were terribly down, the need to see him for some succour was immense. I had no chance of going to him due to heavy oficial work.
One day, as I went out to fetch some provisions, bang in the middle of the road, I find this man squatting on the pavement, trying to find his way to my house!!!!!. Miracle? Is there a need for me to explain in detail the "comfort" and the immediate link to His Grace to my finding my man?
The "comfort" however was for say a few days, only to be overtaken by the inadequacies in my temporal world .......This pattern more or less describes the life I have had for over 6 decades; dissatisfaction over a long period, followed by a glimpse of His Grace, and back to business as usual.
This meandering preamble is necessary, to understand the reasons, for my belief that in the four stages of evolution, though I would like to pretend that I am in stage 3, I am somewhere in between 2&3, as I am able to only think in terms of the need to transcend from 2, and the need to persist with the ritual part in 2 still finds an important place in my psyche.
However there is a major difference ; there is this realisation that the performance of the daily duties(rituals) with a sense of detachment, and without an expectation of fruits of such actions, is an inevitable intermediate step, before one gets fully into the step 3. Frankly I feel, I am able to do some justice to this intermediate step.
Let me reserve the further narrative of my so called evolution to my next mail.
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