Stream2

In the spiritual advancement of the individual seeking things like enlightenment or the metamorphosis of spirit, three checkpoints or thresholds can be crossed. Each checkpoint or threshold is like a target – something to aim for. Once each checkpoint, threshold, or target has been reached, the seeking individual’s relationship with purpose is forever altered.

Before the first checkpoint, threshold, or target, the individual may desperately seek purpose and meaning, but never feel like they have a solid grasp of what they are looking for. They may hatch plans over and over, devote themselves temporarily, but then fall off, and retreat back to their low baseline. Eventually, one of these plans will succeed. In the depths of their pursuit they find something like stream-entry. The ego absorbs the self. They recognize the passage of time, the fluidity of the self, and with a bang they are forever one with a vague purpose.

I do think that this first checkpoint, threshold, or target is like the Buddha outlined Sotapanna – the first stage of enlightenment.

After this point they are highly motivated to have a reoccurrence of experience, but it can be a very long time before this happens.

What needs to occur now, is for the individual to channel their purpose into something. It is insufficient for them to be vaguely grasping for a repeat experience. There needs to be something concrete for them to latch onto. They will go through life impassioned, but not attached to anything worthy of their passion.

When they finally encounter something that makes their blood boil, they will go all in. It is what they had been looking for the whole time. Something worthy of their moral efforts. When they do this, their spirit will challenge them. Their conscience, for so long quietly watching, will rear it’s head. They will be completely overwhelmed by their conscience’s response to their will. It will scare the seeking individual. They will be shaken to the bone. It will feel like they lost. It will feel like they will never find what they were looking for. This is the second checkpoint. The second threshold. The second target.

At this point the individual will be disillusioned and they will feel defeated, but they will continue looking for purpose. Again it will take a long time for them to have a repeat experience. The spirit needs some symbol, something unshakeable, that represents the reason that they challenged their conscience. Without such a symbol, they will feel more lost than ever. It is almost like they took a step backwards, but don’t be fooled, it is in fact a step forwards.

Without such a symbol, they are however not much better off than after the first target. They know what they care deeply about, but they don’t know what they can do about it. They have no anchor, no moral code, no value to orient themselves around.

However after the second threshold, checkpoint, and target, the spirit will inevitably begin the process of manufacturing a symbol. The spirit refuses to lose to the conscience. The spirit needs to recruit the conscience! The conscience says: “stay calm, preserve yourself”, but the will says “there is much work to be done!”.

Eventually, once the seeker has forgotten about their fear of their lame and ancient conscience, they will be able to manufacture something for themselves. This will happen in the regular flow of work effort. They will blow their own mind with an act of spiritual creation so previously unknown to them that they will almost doubt its validity. However they will never fully doubt it, and this is what is needed. This is how they succeed in recruiting their conscience to come along with them on their mission of purpose.

Armed with their symbol, they now know how and what to pour their efforts into. They have secured their purpose. They have recruited their conscience. They have manufactured something original for themselves. They will never again question what it is they are meant to do in this life. Thus begins the long work of vocation for the spiritual individual!