Brian D. Stephens
Through spiritual development you draw closer to the divine. Learn about the stages of spiritual growth and the journey from separateness to unity.
There is a surface reality of separate objects and a deeper reality of oneness. The spiritual journey is the process of learning how to perceive the deeper truth and eventually become one with it. There are three major stages that you will pass through on the journey to oneness. Discover what they are… Read more
According to many enlightened teachers there are three planes of reality: mental, energetic, and physical. The vast majority of people on the planet perceive only the physical plane of reality. The true spiritual journey begins when a person learns to perceive the energetic plane of reality. You can feel energetic forms through your energetic body. And you might even see energetic forms with your physical eyes… Read more
Spiritual development is the weakening of the ego. It is formed by past conditioning (or karma) and sustained by thoughts. A spiritual practice enables you to still the mind so you can perceive and connect with the deeper reality. While connected your karma dissolves, weakening the ego. When all of your karma is gone the ego is destroyed and you attain liberation… Read more
Perhaps the biggest impediment to spiritual progress is your ideas about God. You may hold your spiritual beliefs to be true. Yet they are nothing more than ideas in the mind. They are only mental representations of reality, not reality itself. There is a deeper truth that cannot be accessed through the mind. It is experienced directly beyond the limitations of thought. Ideas can at best lead you to the experience. And at worst they keep you from the experience… Read more
At each point along the path, a seeker has only experienced the divine at a certain level. And he is ignorant of what it is like to experience the formless at a deeper level. If a seeker is not careful he can delude himself regarding his level of spiritual knowledge and development. As you walk the spiritual path remain humble and open to new and better ways of connecting with the formless unity… Read more
One of the more popular spiritual memes is that more people than ever before are on the spiritual path. What does Meher Baba, the most recent incarnation of the world savior, have to say on the subject? There are 8.4 million yogis who perceive the energetic planes and another 8.4 million who are aware of the mental planes. So the total number of people on the spiritual path is 16.8 million. There are currently 8.7 billion people on the planet. That means the number of yogis make up only one-fifth of one percent of the world’s population… Read more
Many enlightened teachers describe the influence of karma and how it keeps each of us trapped in an endless cycle of rebirths. They also talk about maya, the force that creates the illusion of separateness. While a person is under the influence of maya they see only separate objects and are unable to perceive the deeper reality that sustains all of creation. Yet most enlightened teachings do not discuss evil, the active nature of Maya that consciously impedes a person’s personal happiness and ability to progress spiritually… Read more
It has become clear that most of my thoughts put some sort of limitation on what I am capable of doing. And they are lies. Any thought which appears in the mind should be viewed skeptically. They either arise from the ego, which is a part of maya. It is a foreign life form that has taken control of your awareness. It causes suffering by keeping you focused on external objects and trapped in the illusion of separateness. It uses fear to keep you from realizing your potential in life and from connecting with your deeper nature… Read more
Life tries to impose limitations upon us. Having the courage and the willpower to make a better life for ourselves is essential. If you don’t try, you feel powerless and become a passive victim of fate. Yet even if everything in your life were to work out just right—with your job, finances, relationships, and health—you would still not be free. True freedom is not something you find in your external circumstances. Instead, it is found within… Read more
The divine is present within everything in creation. Yet most people are oblivious to it. Their awareness is trapped within the ego-controlled mind. So they perceive only forms and not the formless universal consciousness. When filtering reality through the mind, you are unable to experience reality directly. The mind gets between you and what is happening. The spiritual journey is about freeing your awareness from the confines of the thinking mind and experiencing reality directly… Read more