"The spiritual journey might be compared to descending a spiral staircase, moving from the superficial layers of the false self up above, toward the reality of union with God in the depths. As we progress toward the center where God actually is waiting for us, we are naturally going to feel that we are getting worse. This warns us that the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move. It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self. It is experienced as diminutions of the false self with the value system and worldview that we built up so painstakingly as defenses to cope with the emotional pain of early life . . . The spiral staircase is a combination of the horizontal and vertical . . . As we descend toward our center, we encounter difficulties again because there is a circular structure to the spiral staircase and hence horizontally we seem to meet the same old problem. But vertically we are now dealing with it on a deeper, more mature level . . . By leading us gradually (the way human things work), through growth in trust and humility, we are able to make an ever deeper surrender of ourselves to God. In this way we reach a new level of interior freedom, a deeper purity of heart, and an ever increasing union with the Spirit . . . What happens when we come to the bottom of the spiral staircase and fully access the divine presence? It will be a great surprise and not like anything we expected."
Thomas Keating, Trappist Monk
Photo: Spiral Mountain-mahogany seeds glowing in the sunlight, Hewlett Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO, October 17, 2009
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