Six Stages on the Spiritual Path

In Six Stages on the Spiritual Path, we learn about spirituality and its stages as well as how spirituality helps to reduce our suffering and create more love. Writings from ancient to contemporary mystics across the world provide us with practical and spiritual wisdom that will make our lives happier and more loving.
In the first stage on the mystic way, children experience awe and wonder, but they do not realize that this is a spiritual experience. While all indigenous people recognize awe as a mystical experience, only some adults and most artists do. When parents and religious leaders teach children about God, they cause their spiritual growth to flourish or to become stunted at an elementary school level.
Awakening is an experience of the Divine that helps us realize that the Sacred Spirit is within us and loves us. Awakening produces love for our neighbors and ourselves. Then love nurtures more awakenings. Illumination and union are deeper mystical experiences that the Holy One is not only within all of us and all of creation, but also that we are within the ONE. Illumination creates more love for all people and all the universe.

Ruth Whitney retired after teaching religion and women's studies for over three decades at a number of schools, including Rutgers University and University of South Florida. As she continues her work as a lifelong activist for justice and equality, she is the author of two books, Feminism and Love: Transforming Ourselves and Our World (1998) and The Heart of Jesus' Teaching: The Key to Transforming Christianity and Our World (2016).