Hakann: Spiritual Stages

My dearest brothers and sisters,

This is Hakann speaking. I greet you in peace and love.

I would like to give an overview of spiritual stages that people will probably go through on their path to inner peace. Most people will go through roughly these stages, in order, before they reach inner peace, which is stage 5. That said, of course such a list has to be a generalization. Models are never completely correct in all cases. Some people may skip a stage and for some people certain stages will look a bit different than is described here. Some people may be in one stage one day and in another stage the next day. However, for a lot of people it will be roughly accurate.

Note that this is not a model of how spiritually skilled or how spiritually advanced someone is or how high vibration someone is. It's possible for someone in stage 2 to be more spiritually advanced than someone in stage 3, because stage 2 just means that someone is externally focused and stage 3 means someone is internally focused. Someone who is externally focused (stage 2) can be more spiritually skilled and more spiritually advanced and have a higher vibration than someone who is internally focused (stage 3). However, it is true that almost everyone has to eventually switch from an external (stage 2) to an internal focus (stage 3) if they want to eventually reach inner peace (stage 5). So these stages are more like waypoints on your path than they are levels of skills, or levels of spiritual attainment.

So I wouldn't recommend using this model as a way to determine who is more spiritually advanced than someone else, let alone who is more valuable as a person than someone else. Source loves everyone infinitely, including those who are at the lowest stage in this model. However, this model can give you some insight on what you may need to do if you want to progress on your path towards inner peace. This model can also help you understand other people better, including spiritual teachers, which may help you decide which teachers and which messages you want to listen to. Also, this model can give you a new perspective on what kind of people you will and will not be compatible with when it comes to dating.

Let's look at the first spiritual stage that someone can be in, according to this model:

Stage 1: Helplessness

People often start off feeling helpless. They feel helpless to either build a good life for themselves or to create desired social change. They will more or less only do what's socially expected of them or what they need to do in order to have an okay life, but they will not expend much effort to either build an amazing life for themselves or take much action to change society for the better. They will also not expend much or even any effort to grow spiritually or deal with their old pain.

Most people on Earth are currently in this stage. Some spiritual people are in this stage too.

A key to dealing with this roadblock in a productive way is the message: "you can do anything you put your mind to. It may require some time and work, but if you can think it, you can create it." This message is my outro on youtube. A good coach can also help in this stage. Other helpful messages to progress past this stage are: "take full responsibility for your life" or "think of what life you would like to have in five years, then make a plan to achieve that, then consciously work towards that" or "you can create anything you desire" or "you can manifest anything you desire" or "follow your joy" or "choose your load and then bear it" or "make sure you go the the gym consistently" or "for now just do what feels good to you" or "go and meet your needs" or "clean your room" or "just focus for now on what feels good, and notice that you can change your mood via positive focus."

Note that if people cannot find good-natured guides to get them out of the Helplessness stage, then they will start listening to destructive guides that can maybe get them out of this Helplessness stage. For example, if a young man cannot find a good positive role model or has a good father in his life, then he may start listening to someone that advises him to lie to women and manipulate women in order to hopefully have a lot of sex. Or he may listen to shady figures that advise him to engage in illegal or borderline illegal activities in order to become rich. Or he may even end up in a neo-nazi group. Because after all, people at this point crave to get out of the helplessness stage, and well, certainly "manipulate women this way and you will get lots of sex" or "do this borderline illegal thing and you will make lots of money" are messages that can get someone out of the helplessness stage.

This also means that ideally, society should push forward and make widely available positive role models that can help people get out of the helplessness stage. Because if society doesn't, then people may very well end up listening to destructive guides. If people wonder why on Earth young men are sometimes listening to certain destructive: "fuck bitches and make money in whatever way you can" types of people, or enter cults, then part of that is often a lack of positive role models and a lack of good fathers in their lives.

Furthermore, this means that people should be very careful with attacking existing role models for people in the helplessness stage. For example, doctor Jordan Peterson is one such role model who is quite good at helping people exit the helplessness stage. Now we don't agree with every single thing he says, but if somehow people succeed in permanently silencing him tomorrow, then lots of young people that are currently listening to him will start listening to quite nefarious figures instead. And those young people will then go down a far more destructive path, both for themselves and for society, than if they keep listening to doctor Peterson. So cancelling doctor Peterson would be a net negative for society.

In general, it often happens on Earth that people think that X is bad and so they oppose X, but they never ask themselves if their proposed cure isn't worse than the initial disease X. Or they don't consider second-order effects of removing X, such as: if you cancel Jordan Peterson, then lots of young people will instead start listening to certain figures who you really don't want young people to listen to.

Also note that intelligence and morality don't always determine the spiritual stage someone is in. A dumb but ambitious criminal may feel that he can get rich if he starts selling drugs, and this person may quickly progress past this helplessness stage. Because after all, he may not be moral and he may not be smart and he may not even have realistic expectations, but he does feel that he can build the life he wants, and therefore he moves past this stage. 

Conversely, it's possible for a morally upstanding smart person to create a comfortable and stable but not super fulfilling life for themselves. And then this smart and moral person can stagnate in their comfortable and stable life, because due to trauma or lack of confidence or lack of ambition, they never take the risk to try and create a really amazing life for themselves. Some genuinely smart people are stuck in this stage.

A person in the helplessness stage isn't always someone who has some huge problems in their life that they can't deal with. Someone in the helplessness stage may have a stable and functional life that makes them moderately happy and comfortable. They're just people who haven't yet made the step to try and create a really amazing life, one which makes them excited to get out of bed every morning. They may be people who just play it safe all their life, and eventually they arrive at their death bed safely. And then they pass on to the other side, and they realize that they didn't come to Earth to play it safe.

If you feel that someone and someone's life circumstances haven't changed that much in ten years, then they're probably stuck in the helplessness stage.

Not always, but in some cases you can think of depression as someone being very deep in the helplessness stage. They feel stuck and they feel that they don't have the ability to create a happy, good life for themselves. Or they don't dare take the action that could cause them to be unstuck and that could potentially lead them to a better life.

That said, if someone is deficient in vitamin D, then supplementing that can sometimes also help with depression.

Fortunately, a lot of people eventually do get out of the helplessness stage.

Stage 2: External Focus

After the helplessness stage, people often become externally focused and work in the external world to build the life they want. Or they become externally focused and work in the external world to create desired social change or to help others. People in this stage act in an effective and generally motivated way, because they feel that they can achieve their goals if they work at it. People at this stage may or may not be spiritual.

This category is very broad. It has everything from motivated criminals, to dark controllers who try to implement a global totalitarian system on Earth, to entrepreneurs and CEOs, to overconfident people who are not very successful in life but who are motivated and ambitious, to people who work at a homeless shelter and who feels that their work is making a difference, to political activists, to soldiers who believe that their service is making the world a better place, to all kinds of spiritual people. What these people have in common is that they are externally focused and they genuinely feel that through their work they can either build the life for themselves that they want, or they can achieve the desired social change that they want, or they can significantly help other people. People in this stage are externally focused and feel that they can achieve their external goals.

Most people live their entire lives in either the first or second stage. Very few people reach the third Internal Focus stage, which is the stage where people's primary focus becomes their own emotional healing or spiritual growth. Lots of spiritual people, including some who make a living via spirituality, never get beyond this second external focus stage. Note that someone who is more focused on their spiritual business than on their own personal spiritual growth is in this second External Focus stage. And sure, maybe an external focus is even smart in some situations because people need to pay their bills after all, but regardless, being primarily focused on the external means that you are not reaching the third Internal focus stage.

And yes, the dark controllers have absolutely noticed that if they keep people focused on their survival and physical well-being, then they can keep almost everyone externally focused and thus not able to achieve the higher levels of consciousness.

To move to the third and next internal focus stage, you really have to make self-healing or spiritual growth your primary priority. Someone who meditates every day, or who goes to a psychologist regularly, or who occasionally attends a spiritual workshop or retreat, but otherwise has a conventional life and a conventional focus, is in this second external focus stage. Someone in the third internal focus stage will prioritize their healing or their spiritual growth over things like romantic relationships, current happiness, career success, life stability, money and how their friends and family perceive them. Someone in the third internal focus stage may end romantic relationships or move to another country or make career decisions that seem unwise, if they feel that is helpful for their healing or their spiritual progression. Someone in the third stage will probably dedicate at least several hours per day to their healing or their spiritual growth, over a period of years -- not to learn a viable spiritual career path, but purely for their own spiritual growth. And yes, this does mean that most people never reach the third spiritual stage.

Still, some people do progress past this second stage. For example, some people eventually reach their external goals. Maybe they become very successful and financially well-off in a professional or business sense. They might have a prestigious and well-paying job, or they might have created their own company, or they might be a successful freelancer. Or in the Buddha's case, they simply might be born into wealth and power and start their lives in the second stage. However, at some point this person realizes that success and wealth and material objects and sex don't ultimately bring them fulfillment. Or they may notice that they keep being hindered by old unresolved pain from their youth. And then they sit down and decide to dedicate themselves to either resolving their personal pain or to attaining spiritual growth, at which point they move on to the third internal focus stage.

Or someone in this second external focus stage might realize that despite their years of second-stage activism or years of helping people, the world hasn't changed as they hoped. Perhaps they notice that they keep being hindered by old unresolved pain. They may realize that they may need to change themselves first, on a deep level, before they can change the world. Then they may move on to the next stage.

Alternatively, someone in this second External stage might be super excited about their newfound world of spirituality and may be wanting to use their newfound spiritual tools to manipulate the external world in order to create a better life for themselves. During the rest of this section, I will be discussing what this second stage looks like for someone who is very much into modern spirituality.

These modern, newly spiritual people often believe in and absolutely loves the classic nice-feeling spiritual messages, such as: "you can manifest anything you want", "focus on what feels good", "if it feels good then then automatically means you should do it or believe it to be true", "you choose your vibration and therefore your reality", "everything that happens is there to help you", "you're a master creator and you're sovereign and you control everything that happens in your life", "you are a conscious creator and can design your life as you wish", "you entirely create your own reality", "everything that happens is automatically for everyone's greatest good", "shut things out of your reality that could lower your vibration", "everything happens for a reason", "the idea of serving Source is so last-millennium", "every single one of my days is magical and blissful", "you should focus on having fun and feeling good and only engage with people and things that make you feel even better", "stopping demons from harming people is bad because that's dualism, while in reality all is Source", (To address that last point: would you also say that stopping wild animals from harming people is dualistic because wild animals are Source?)

So for example, a second-stage spiritual person might be focused on using manifestation techniques to create a better life for themselves, by manifesting a relationship or more money or something like that. Or they may seek external things that make them feel better, such as channeled messages, fun people to be around, attending fun spiritual events or having a vacation.

Note that externally focused people often pretend that their external circumstances are better than they are, partly to maintain a good image, partly because they think that this keeps their vibration high and thus causes more good things to manifest for them. A spiritual person in this second stage may publicly say that their life is magical and full of bliss and that they are creating and manifesting anything they want. Someone in this second External focus stage is also likely to not mention things that are going poorly in their life, or that they are sometimes feeling anxious or have unresolved pain come up. 

A person in this second stage often doesn't want to look at old pain, either because it hurts or because they feel that they don't have the space to deal with their old pain right now. (Note that most people are too quick to say "I don't have the space to look at my old pain right now" -- often the answer is to make space for it, because it is important. But then again, that is the third spiritual stage, not the second.) People at this stage often overvalue feeling good in the moment. 

Having a romantic relationship with a second stage person can be difficult, because they may very well give the impression that their life is great and they think that you are amazing. However odds are that they simply aren't dealing with their own old pain and aren't discussing those things in the relationship that annoy them. Over time, this can mean that small issues become huge problems, and that their personal psychological issues may keep festering. Also, if you are in a higher stage of development and try to have a relationship with a stage two person, then that stage two person might feel that you are spending too much time on self development or personal healing and too little time on activism or becoming successful or doing fun things in the external world, and so the second stage person may eventually break up with the higher stage person. People in the first or second stage generally don't like being around people who are clearly doing a lot of internal self-healing or self-development work, because it reminds them of the work that they themselves are not doing, 

Someone at this stage in spiritual development might develop a spiritual ego and believe they are better than non-spiritual people. Someone at this stage in spiritual development might also suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. They may have seen the tail of the ox – they know a few spiritual principles and may have had some spiritual experiences and may have a few so-called supernatural powers -- but they haven't seen nearly enough of the ox yet to have a deep understanding of spirituality. They might be tempted to follow unhelpful and undeveloped teachers. Or they may occasionally publicly declare that a certain teacher or spiritual principle is false, because it's not the tail of the ox that they have seen, and they don't realize that the teacher or principle is trying to share the leg of the ox with them.

Still, while I am giving criticism of the distortions that are part of this stage, it is still a major step up from the previous Helplessness stage, which most of humanity is currently in. And in practice, most people do need to go through this External focus stage to get to the higher stages. So people are not bad or wrong for being in this stage. It's often a necessary step.

Focusing externally and focusing on feeling good is often, well, superficially pleasant. However the problem is that it ultimately doesn't work. The path to lasting happiness involves focusing at least for a time on doing lots of spiritual work and probably on healing your old pain. That's the next stage.

Service-to-self or "evil" beings don't generally progress past this stage, because they generally are not willing to spend several hours per day, over a period of years, to either heal their old pain or to grow spiritually. Studying magic for several hours a day for several years usually doesn't count, because people usually use magic as a tool to eventually achieve some external goals. And yes, from the point of view of galactic confederation military planners, these service-to-self beings are very predictable. Almost always they just seek to manipulate the external world to get pleasure or avoid pain.

Earlier we shared a bunch of superficially nice, but ultimately flawed or unhelpful spiritual cliches. Tunia debunked a lot of those in her messages: Spiritual Broccoli, part one and two.

Often, spiritual people at this stage take the conventional manifestation narrative seriously, but then eventually realize that they are in fact not able to manifest what they want, and move on to the next stage. After all, while the conventional techniques can get your rational mind and perhaps emotions to want to manifest something and thereby help a bit, your subconscious and your soul also determine what does and doesn't manifest. Which is, again, why we have advised observing your thoughts and emotions (which over time clears your subconscious from old pain) and talking to your soul.

Now some people will at this point say that they, or their spiritual teacher, can in fact manifest anything they want. And we do acknowledge that the conventional manifestation techniques can help a bit. However, can you or can your spiritual teacher really say that over a period of say a decade, all their dreams came true and nothing really bad happened that they preferred didn't happen?

Sure, there are some spiritual people who are able to make a living off selling spiritual courses and they get to travel the world or live in a beautiful location. But if that is proof of their manifestation abilities, then any successful small business owner or music star is also a manifestation expert who could teach a course on manifestation. Because look, they too have manifested their dream!

The unexciting reality is that if a huge group of people try to create and manifest their dream life, then some will succeed. But while their manifestation techniques may have helped a bit with this, there's also a huge element of just sheer probability and survivorship bias going on. Of course some people will succeed, and of course those people will then turn around and proclaim that they're manifestation experts because look at their nice life. However, you're not hearing from someone who tried those exact same manifestation techniques and failed. And in some cases, people succeed because they have a magnetic personality, and those people can often make a living by selling just about any product just because they are charismatic. But this doesn't prove that they have deep spiritual wisdom. They're just smart and good salespeople.

In fact, it would be better if people at this second stage of spiritual development don't yet teach, and only start teaching at stage five. Even if someone at this stage is able to make a living as a spiritual teacher (and some people do), that does not automatically mean that they should teach. This is not me being unnecessarily elitist. People who try to teach at this spiritual stage usually do more harm than good, even if they can generate a reasonable income by teaching.

The average person doesn't actually want a spiritual teacher who teaches spiritual growth, because growing spiritually means doing a lot of practice, some of which can be emotionally painful. Few people want to do that, and hence no teacher can make a living from advising people to breathe deeply and observe their emotions. What the average person wants instead of a spiritual teacher is someone who makes them feel good in the moment, or who teaches them how to achieve desired results in the external world. And so by teaching people a couple of heartwarming but flawed concepts, or inspiring but flawed manifestation techniques, you can make money as a spiritual teacher.

That said, while people at this spiritual stage aren't ready to be spiritual teachers, they can genuinely be good healers, channelers, tarot card readers, et cetera.

This is the stage where people are most drawn to using drugs or plant medicine as a way to heal or grow or to have spiritual experiences or insights. After all, these promise quick results without having to do a lot of time-consuming or painful work. People in higher stages sometimes also use drugs or plant medicine, but it will be less central and less important in their life, and it will be more a tool that they occasionally use. If someone is enthusiastic about drugs or plant medicine and regularly uses it and often talks about it and it is a pretty big thing in their life, then likely they are in this second stage. (Our perspective on drugs is to not use synthetic ones, and to only use natural ones if you feel guided to do so. And as a legal disclaimer to protect the channeler, we don't support doing anything that is illegal in your country.)

People in this second External focus stage usually eventually hit a wall at some point and realize that these beautiful-sounding techniques aren't really working out for them, and they still don't have the life they desire. At this point, a few things can happen. They might abandon the spiritual path. They might spend years hopping from one teacher and from one workshop to the next, trying to find the perfect technique, not realizing that the actual key is just sitting down and doing consistent spiritual practice for years.

Or they might realize that they haven't been directly dealing with their old pain directly, and that this doesn't work, and they should finally sit down and consistently work on that. Perhaps an unpleasant life event such as a breakup forces someone into this realization. Once someone moves past the spiritual cliches and stops looking for short-term magic and is willing to do healing and integration and spiritual work for years, in order to finally Resolve their inner turmoil, then they move on to the next Internal focus stage.

Stage 3: Internal focus

This is the stage where you can see past the nice-sounding but ultimately flawed or unhelpful spiritual cliches from the previous stage. Or you see that success and wealth and sex don't ultimately make you happy. This is the stage where people shift their primary focus to psychological healing and / or to their personal spiritual growth.

The end goal is psychological healing, an end to inner suffering, spiritual development or something like that. If you spend a lot of time going within so that you can then achieve some conventional external success, such as setting up your own spiritual business, then that is still second-stage behavior. 

People probably spend several hours per day on inner development or inner healing for a long period of time. Meditating for an hour per day, or going to a psychologist, or occasionally attending short spiritual events or retreats, or regularly reading spiritual messages, isn't enough by itself to qualify for this third stage. People at this stage prioritize their personal healing or their personal spiritual growth over everything else. An average observer might very well look at a third stage person and wonder: "what is wrong with this third stage person, that they are spending years supposedly healing the wounds from their childhood, when normal people are out there going on holidays and earning a good income and starting families and having fun?" 

Because, yes, the vast majority of people have far deeper psychological wounds than they are conscious of. Even people who seemingly had a good childhood, often still have unresolved and deep-buried psychological pain from their youth. Because after all, someone who has zero unresolved pain or trauma is very likely someone who loves everyone unconditionally, which includes loving say racists and rapists. How many people on Earth are currently able to do that? And yes, if he or she is not traumatized, then the natural state of a human is to love unconditionally, including racists and rapists, because after all those people wouldn't be racists or rapists if they weren't in deep pain themselves. And the proper response to someone who is in pain is to love them. Now that love may very well be paired with a desire to protect the innocent and a judgement of people's behavior, but that love is still there. We personally judge behavior, not people. We always maintain our love for the people themselves, even if their behavior is very destructive. Even if we actively work against someone in order to protect the innocent, we never stop loving them.

I'm not saying that you should pretend to love racists or rapists if your genuine truth is that you don't. You don't benefit from that. I'm also not saying that I judge you for not loving unconditionally. Given how tough Earth is, and given that you have had your own pain during your life, I completely understand. But that is my point: almost everyone has unresolved inner pain, as illustrated by their inability to love so-called bad people. And so it makes sense to spend a number of years internally focused, deeply working on resolving this inner pain. This is the third stage.

Someone really needs a strong internal motivation to go through this stage, because this stage is a lot more challenging and a lot less fun in the moment than just being focused on external pleasure and external success. That said, eventually this stage does lead to a large degree of inner peace.

Reading endless amounts of spiritual messages and spiritual texts is not third stage behaviour, because that's yet again a focus on something external. A third stage person can absolutely still read a good amount of spiritual messages, but it's not the primary focus. The primary focus is diligently doing whatever personal spiritual or self-healing practice the person chooses to engage in.

In this stage you understand that it's not about finding the one perfect spiritual technique, but instead it's about finding a good technique and just getting started and being consistent in your practice. You understand that this may be uncomfortable or boring or emotionally painful, but you are willing to do this anyway. Your spiritual practice becomes one of the or even the most important thing in your life, and is no longer just something you do on the side. You probably will attend several workshops or retreats somewhere during this stage (note that second stage people may visit workshops and retreats too). It is also quite possible that you will visit spiritual healers or psychologists or shamans at some point.

In this step, you understand that even if you are dedicated and consistent in your practice, this process can still take years or possibly even one or more decades. In fact, most people don't even reach this Internal focus stage, let alone stages beyond this one. However, you also understand that every bit of progress you make will also improve your life, so it's not like the reward is only at the very end of this quite long road. And eventually, once you find resolution to your inner pain and turmoil and have let go of some of their illusions and old concepts, you will progress to the next fourth stage.

People in this stage are typically a bit more open-minded and humble and less willing to label things they disagree with as objectively wrong than people from the previous stage.

This person generally will not feel the need to pretend that their life is better than it actually is, as people did in the previous stage.

Note that your subconscious mind is one of the things that determines what does and doesn't manifest in your life. Therefore healing your old pain and letting go of blocks will help you manifest less undesired things and more desired things. At the end of this stage, you will likely be much better at manifesting than you were when you started this stage. That said, if you have successfully manifested one or a couple of things, that doesn't prove by itself that you are at or beyond the end of this stage.

If two people of at least this spiritual stage are in a relationship, then there is a pretty good chance that this relationship will be beneficial for both people and it may very well be a relationship that lasts. After all, people of this level and above are actively working on resolving their issues. Conversely, if one of the people is in the second External focus stage, there is a good chance that the relationship will not last, because people there are not focused on resolving their issues. And actually, two people who are both in the helplessness stage may very well also have a stable relationship. Both helplessness stage people may have a moderately functional life and they may both be spending a lot of time watching tv or playing video games or using weed or engaging in some comforting crafting or artistic hobby or otherwise going through their familiar routines. Both people may be moderately satisfied with their moderately functional life and reasonably fun and familiar hobbies, and hence the relationship can very well be stable.

So if you are in this spiritual stage and you want to find a partner, try to find one who is at least also at this spiritual stage. Otherwise the relationship may not be stable: both Helplessness and External focus consciousness people may think you're crazy for spending this much time on healing your old wounds or on spiritual development, and they may eventually leave you because these are not their interests, and in fact you may be subtly triggering them because your presence reminds them that they aren't doing their own work. 

Ironically, people who are doing their emotional work often come across as more psychologically damaged to the average onlooker than someone who has simply suppressed all their old pain. Even though the person who is actually doing the emotional work may very well be more spiritually healthy.

During this Internal focus stage, you may be nudged to resolve the remaining practical problems in your life. For example, if you hate your current job, then probably at some point in the third stage you will be guided or a situation will come up that leads to you finding another job or another way of living that you don't dislike as much. Now I am not saying that to progress past this stage, it's mandatory to ditch your normal job and start making a living in some kind of spiritual field, or generate some kind of passive income -- although these are good paths for some people. It is entirely possible that the solution for you is to find a normal day job that's not unreasonably unpleasant, and to release your resistance to making a living in a conventional way. Having a normal, not-too-tiring job and then doing your spiritual work next to that can be a good path for some people.

Still, this is a stage where one way or the other, you may very well be guided to improve your life in a practical way, or to release resistance to your life as it currently is. And yes, this may take work and may be challenging. This stage doesn't feel as good as the second External focus stage, or as good as the next stages. However, this third Internal focus stage is where you can build a good foundation for the future.

Somewhere near the end of this stage, you may have to confront your fear of death, which nearly all Earth humans have. Learning about your past lives, possibly with the help of an expert on this topic, may be helpful here (make sure your expert isn't actually a charlatan). After all, learning about your past lives may help solidify the idea that you genuinely are a reincarnating soul.

Most lightworkers are either in the second External focus stage, or in this third Internal focus stage.

The spiritual singer Fia has some great and free music you can listen to on https://fiasmusicofficial.com/music . Her second album, "legacy of light", is a great example of the second External focus stage and it contains some manifestation cliches that we have discussed. Her more recent song, "Faces of Strangers", is a good example of this third Internal focus stage, because in that song she really sits down and observes and partially works through some of the pain of her breakup, thereby moving a step closer to creating resolution.

If you are able to start communicating regularly with either your soul, or your heart, or your guides, or something like tarot cards, then that can be very useful here. You may have enlightenment experiences or moments of utter bliss. You may start developing so-called supernatural powers during this Internal focus stage (although those can also show up in the previous External focus stage). People can attain partial enlightenment near the end of this stage, under some definitions of the word "enlightenment" -- there are many definitions of that word on your world.

What eventually gets you past this stage is simply resolving your own trauma and letting go of certain concepts and illusions. You can do those things through a lot of spiritual work, such as through the spiritual practices that you already know, or through breathing deeply, or through observing whatever comes up without judging or suppressing or trying to change it. If pain comes up, then observe pain. This process can take many more years and can be much more painful than people think it "should" be, but it is very much worth doing. Every bit of spiritual growth and healing that you do makes your life a bit better. This process may feel like peeling away the layers of an onion, so that you can come closer and closer to the real you, while occasionally you probably will be crying from the onion peeling. You may also experience that you heal something, and then some time later it comes back for a second round of healing on a deeper level. The healing and integration process may seem endless, but that is just a trick that your ego plays to try and get you to abandon this internal focus path. If you keep at it, you will reach a point where you are much happier and much more stable and have a much better life than before you started.

Stage 4: Partial Unity Consciousness 

At this stage, you have resolved enough trauma and peeled back enough layers and let go of enough illusions that you are able to realize that the homeless person you pass on the street is actually just you. You don't literally perceive that other person as being part of yourself, but you do realize that all the suffering in the world is your personal suffering. You will feel drawn to helping others not because you rationally think you should or because you emotionally feel bad for them, but you feel drawn to helping others in the same way that you would feel drawn to helping your own finger if it was bleeding. The thought of sitting back and not helping your brothers and sisters seems not just "yeah that's probably not morally right" but it seems downright nonsensical. In other words you will embody unity consciousness to a large extent (though not yet fully). 

In this stage you will do good deeds, and you will not care if you get social recognition for that or if you are not always able to make money off that. If at this stage you own a spiritual business and someone needs your help but can't afford to pay, you will probably help them for free, and you probably will not seek to get good publicity or social approval for your generosity. If at this stage you own a spiritual business, it is possible that you are also doing some other projects on the side that help people without giving you money and without advertising your main business. You just want to help, in any and all ways you can, because they are you, and they are in pain.

Also, you will also maintain your own spiritual and self-healing practice, on top of you helping people in one or even several ways at once (quite possibly for free or for a low amount of money). Yes, people during this spiritual stage will likely be quite busy. People over-exerting themselves is one huge potential pitfall here. Someone at this stage might very well be tempted to prioritize helping (including helping people for free) other people over resting sufficiently or having sufficient time for themselves. 

If you are often helping others and you are wondering if you are at the second or fourth stage, then you can just ask yourself if you have spent years going through the agonizing self-healing and spiritual development process of the third stage. If yes, then you are probably at the fourth stage. If no, then probably you are at the second stage. People in the second stage are also more likely to subconsciously have a low self-image or a desire for approval from others as a motivation to help others. People in the second stage care more about how people perceive them and they become defensive more quickly when criticized. If someone often tells stories about how amazing they are or what great qualities they have or that they are doing so much good or that other people appreciate them so much or that their lives are so wonderful, then it is also likely that they are in the second stage. Even someone who says "I regularly tell stories of how amazing my life is in order to inspire others to reach their potential too" is likely in the second stage. People in the second stage are more judgemental of others. People in the second stage care if and how they will be remembered after their death, while people in this fourth stage aren't alarmed by the thought that they might not be remembered or might not be remembered fondly after their death.

Some spiritual teachers who seem to have so-called supernatural gifts and who appear very spiritually advanced and who are sometimes genuinely working with angels and ascended masters, can nonetheless be in the second stage. People in the second stage really can come across as very spiritually advanced to the average person. And people absolutely can be powerful healers and be able to perform ceremonies and know some beautiful spiritual principles and have genuine connections with angels or galactics or ascended masters, and yet nonetheless be in the second stage (or the third stage). Don't be too quick to say that you or someone is in this fourth stage, because it really is quite rare at this moment in time.

It's quite possible that either at the end of the previous stage, or during this stage is where you stop feeling resistance to having a normal day job to pay the bills. And you certainly can be in stage four while having a regular day job. People who make a living in a spiritual field or who have set up a passive income are not automatically more advanced than those who don't. Trying to make a living in a spiritual field, or trying to generate a passive income, is a great path for some people but it shouldn't be a high priority for everyone. 

It's really not valid to say that you can measure a person's spiritual development by their ability to earn a living in some spiritual field, or via their ability to set up a passive income. First of all, you can make a living by teaching inspiring feel-good nonsense to people, but this doesn't make the world a better place or make you spiritually more advanced. And even if what you offer is valid and genuinely helpful for people, then a big part of whether you succeed as a small business owner are things like likeability, your physical attractiveness (this matters a whole lot), how pleasant your voice sounds (if applicable this again matters a whole lot), your ability to market and sell things, your intelligence, how good you are with computers and with the internet, your personal health, your ability to maintain a financial administration, starting capital, your ability to manage people and even sheer luck. Those things don't have a lot to do with how spiritually advanced someone is. And thus, whether or not someone can make a living in a spiritual field really doesn't say that much about their level of spiritual development. Yes some people absolutely should set up a spiritual business, but we wouldn't advise that to certain other people.

Let's go back to describing the fourth stage. At Partial Unity Consciousness, your life is usually broadly stable (unless you are falling in the trap of over-exerting yourself to help others) and you have found resolution to your primary psychological wounds. There may still be some occasional practical problems and some inner pain, however someone who for example consistently has large financial problems is probably not in this stage yet. After all, you need to have some practical and inner stability to be able to spend quite some time and energy to practically help others, which is one important trait of this stage.

At this stage, you either already have so-called supernatural powers, or it is very easy for you to pick at least some of them up. Someone at this stage could learn tarot reading or energy healing very quickly, for example. Maybe one of those two wouldn't click for them, but they'd be drawn to some spiritual technique and they'd be able to quickly learn something. If someone seems superficially happy, but they have no so-called supernatural powers and also no interest in learning them, then they are not at this stage. That said, having so-called supernatural powers doesn't mean that you are at this stage. People in the second stage can already be excellent energy healers or tarot readers, for example.

At this stage, it could be useful to say that you are in service to Source. If you do, more opportunities to help others will cross your path and you will find that the "universe conspires in your favor" even more strongly. Whether or not you commit to serving Source, likely at this path you will be regularly helping people in one or more ways. Hopefully you can find ways to help people that are not draining to you, and hopefully you can get some joy and positive energy out of it. Also, at this point the idea may start clicking for you that you doing your own spiritual work IS helping others, and you helping others IS you doing spiritual work. 

At this stage you'll be able to accept that different and partly contradictory perspectives all have some amount of utility and merit (not necessarily the same amount of merit, but still at least some merit). You will probably be able to convincingly argue in favor of viewpoints that you really strongly disagree with, in a way that people who genuinely believe in that viewpoint think you are doing a good job. After all, you understand other viewpoints and aren't too judgemental about others anymore, because you are them. If you come across someone whose ideology you think is harmful or dangerous or bad, then you will probably not feel the need to tell them they are wrong or bad or should be censored or they should change their opinion, because you know that this doesn't actually help. Note that the vast majority of people on Earth are not here yet.

A fourth stage person does love so-called bad people, such as racists and rapists. As explained earlier, this love can very well be paired with a judgement of their action and a desire to protect the innocent from them. But while you judge their behavior, you never stop loving them as people and as fractals of Source. Because after all, anyone who does bad things must have suffered themselves, otherwise they wouldn't do these bad things. And the proper response to someone who clearly is in pain is to love them.

If you ever feel yourself judging another person, it can be good to remind yourself that they have suffered. Because if they hadn't, they likely wouldn't be acting the way they are acting now.

A fourth stage person doesn't have just love but has wisdom and strength too. This person can stand up for themselves and is not afraid to speak their mind and be themselves even if that's unpopular, because this person no longer fears death and no longer is very afraid of pain or discomfort or social exclusion. This person is able to have tough and challenging conversations with others. That said, this person has also let go of the idea that the world will be fixed if they just tell enough people that they are wrong and that they need to change their belief system.

At this stage you will no longer feel an inner void or inner emptiness or like something in you is missing.

Note that to the average person, someone in this fourth stage or someone in the third Internal focus stage will actually look less spiritually advanced than someone from the second External focus stage. After all, someone in the second stage may post on Facebook something like: "every one of my days is filled with bliss and magic. I am a powerful creator, I consciously create my life and I simply manifest anything I want. Recently I was able to afford to fly to Hawaii because of the money I made from my online manifestation course, look at these gorgeous pictures." And that sounds very impressive. Conversely, if you talk to someone in the third Internal focus stage, he may tell you that he's currently in year six of working to resolve his childhood wounds, and today he again cried or felt angry at his parents. Or if you talk to someone from the fourth Partial Unity Consciousness stage, he may tell you that during the week he worked his day job and did his spiritual practice, and in the weekend he was able to help someone and he feels happy and grateful about that, but he also feels some fatigue and some heaviness from all the suffering that is going on in the world. Well, both the third and fourth stage person may sound less impressive than the second stage person. Therefore lots of people are drawn to External focus stage teachers and remain stuck themselves in this second stage.

It is entirely possible that a second-stage person does more good in the world than a third-stage person, because the third-stage person is focusing on their own healing and spiritual growth. However, a fourth-stage person is likely doing far more good in the world than a second-stage person. So it does actually help the world if a second-stage altruistic person sits down and takes the time to get to this fourth stage, even if that means temporarily not helping any people during the third stage years.

If someone at this stage asked me: "should I start teaching" then I would advise them: "no, focus on growing spiritually just a bit more, you're almost at the beautiful fifth stage from where you will be able to teach much more effectively." Still, someone at this fourth stage who does teach, often is a net positive to the world, unlike a second stage spiritual teacher who is often a net negative. That said, while a fourth stage teacher often has good points, they can still occasionally spread messages that do more harm than good. As stated earlier, you can be a great spiritual healer or tarot card reader or channeler or something similar just fine from the second stage onwards.

The primary potential pitfall here is not taking enough time to rest or taking enough time for yourself. You may also face difficulty or frustration in getting along with other people, because you see how people could be so much happier and how the world could be so much better if only people treated each other and themselves in a better way. You may feel occasionally disheartened by how much suffering there is in the world and that things could be so much easier (although people at the second stage may have these frustrations too). You may have a desire to spend some amount of time by yourself (which can indeed be beneficial for a time, but at some point it is probably good to return to regular society).

The way to move to the next stage is to just keep doing your spiritual work, keep helping other people and keep following your own intuition or inner guidance or soul.

Stage 5: Peace

At this stage, you usually are at peace and you usually feel good, even if your life is not going particularly well from a conventional standpoint. For example, even if you are not in a romantic relationship, you will feel genuinely at peace (which is actually incredibly rare, almost no one on Earth is able to be genuinely at peace if they're not in a good relationship). If you do something and it fails, then that will not cause great anxiety in you. In other words, you can take action without being overly attached to the outcome. This is not the old "I have suppressed my anxiety and therefore don't feel negative emotions anymore" kind of peace. This is an actual, deeper, "my cup is empty" kind of peace. Painful external circumstances can still trigger so-called negative emotions, but this won't happen as often as in earlier stages. Moreover, you don't resist so-called negative emotions, and hence they pass quickly.

Any trace of feeling unworthy or not being good enough is gone. Even if a credible person told you that you would die in an hour, you would feel at peace with that and would feel at peace with what you have accomplished in this life. This is also the state where you may genuinely start practicing non-resistance to pain or discomfort or to so-called bad events, and you may be as welcoming to so-called bad events as you are to so-called good events. If a Peace-stage person had planned a holiday that they were looking forward to, but then they break their leg just before their holiday starts, they might think something like: "oh, I see. Guess I'm not going on that holiday. Well, I'm curious to experience what this leg recovery process will be like." 

Peace-stage people generally are not quick to label certain events as either bad or good, as either beneficial or harmful. Instead, events are just events. They are what they are. Remember the story where a wise man found a beautiful horse, and everyone said that was amazing, but the wise man said: "let's wait and see." Then the wise man's son broke his leg while riding the horse, and everyone said that was awful, but the wise man said: "let's wait and see." And then war broke out, and the wise man's son was not drafted because of his broken leg, and everyone said this was great for the wise man's family, and the wise man said "let's wait and see." If someone actually embodies the consciousness of the wise man from that story, as opposed to just rationally being able to see the value in that consciousness, then it is likely that they are in this Peace stage.

At this stage you are probably not always focused on creating more happiness or pleasure or wealth or success for yourself, because you will not be in resistance to pain or to a lack of wealth or to a lack of success. Besides, even just sitting or walking, without any external stimulation, feels really good. So this stage is not like depression or like nihilism, where nothing seems to matter and where nothing feels particularly good. Instead, just sitting or taking a walk feels genuinely very enjoyable, and at times can even feel amazing and blissful.

At this point, the Eastern idea may start to really click that all is impermanent. This will no longer just be an intellectual thought, but it will be an insight that hits you on a deep level and that will genuinely bring you even more peace.

It may seem strange or almost funny that you used to be so anxious about certain things. You can and will more consciously decide what you want to do or create or experience with your life, or what kind of play you want to engage in. There's no longer a pressing need to "fix the world", or a pressing need that says "other people are suffering, and they are me, therefore I must help them", because you realize that other people are just walking their own path and having their own experiences. Even their so-called negative events are just experiences that have their own kind of value. Now you will probably still help people who ask you for help or who are clearly crossing your path for a reason. And if you enjoy helping people or feel called to do that, you of course can and may do so. That said, if you feel that someone isn't doing their own work or isn't taking their own responsibility or isn't listening well enough or simply isn't a promising student, then you may decide not to help them. Fifth stage people can be picky about who they help or who they teach.

This is a good time to start teaching, if you feel called to do so. Some respected teachers are indeed in this Peace stage. That said, it is also entirely possible that someone is in the Peace stage and they have a normal day job and they are not publicly offering spiritual teaching or spiritual healing or something like that, and they are neither rich nor famous. An average person might not even recognize someone in the Peace stage as being spiritually advanced and might simply think of them as a stable and happy and pleasant person.

People in this stage can spend a lot of time helping others, or not. They can be a great teacher, or not. They can simply spend most of their time enjoying their existence, or not. They can be dedicated to deepening their spiritual practice even more, or not. They can feel called to start a spiritual school, or not. They can be financially well-off, or not. This is because at this point, it's up to the person to choose what he wants to do and what he feels called to do. You could also think of this as the Stage of Choice. Unlike the previous stages, here you are not making choices because you feel a strong need to do something, or feel a strong need to run away from something. Here you just make choices based on what you want and what you feel called to do, because your existence is peaceful and pleasurable as-is, no matter which choices you make. So here you genuinely are free to choose what you want to do.

Now people may want to immediately jump to this stage, because it sounds nice. And indeed, it is very nice. However generally speaking you will not be able to reach this stage without going through the previous stages. If you do try to directly reach this stage, then most likely you will be suppressing some emotions or you will pretend to be more spiritually advanced than you actually are, and this will ultimately only hold you back and cause you pain. Frankly, the only reliable way to get here is to just do consistent spiritual work, as described in the previous steps. If there was a magical technique that could instantly get anyone to this stage, then I would share it with you. But it doesn't exist, as far as I know.

Someone who insists that every day is filled with magic and bliss and that their life consists of nothing but exciting adventures is probably in the Internal focus stage (and is also probably hiding the painful bits of their life). Someone in the Peace stage primarily just feels peaceful and pleasant to be around. You feel that you can be yourself if you are around a Peace stage person. Being in contact with this person will probably teach you a lot and help you re-align yourself, but both will likely happen in a subtle and effortless and graceful way. A Peace stage person will probably not push suggestions on how you can improve at you. A person in this stage will likely not try to tell you how amazing their life is, because they're too busy just enjoying existence -- not in a sense of fireworks and excitement and continually striving for external fun experiences, but in the sense of deep calm and fulfillment and peace and enjoyment. They will probably be usually relaxed and occasionally playful or childlike.

Note that a person at the Peace stage will still experience what most people would call unpleasant events. Even if this person tried, they would still not be able to manifest literally the exact life they wanted for an extended period of time (unless they are lucky and what they try to manifest matches what their soul and what Source wants). This person still has not achieved full unity consciousness. This person still probably cannot walk on water or levitate or fly. This person still has not achieved what some people call total enlightenment. This person still has not united their mind and will fully with Source, so that there is zero difference between what they want and what Source wants. This person will feel peaceful when they sit down and may experience periods of bliss, but even if this person tried, they still would not be able to be out of their minds with bliss during every minute of the day.

In other words, there are stages beyond Peace that people can reach and indeed have reached. However, so few people are even at the Peace stage that discussing further stages at this point would do more harm than good. People might try to directly go to a much higher stage than they are ready for, which usually doesn't work, or they might self-identify as a much higher stage than they actually are. Besides, once you are at the peace stage, you do not need other people anymore to give you advice on what to do.

So, this is a rough overview of spiritual stages that people may be going through, as well as guidelines on how you can reach the next stage.

Note that there are a bunch of messages that are very helpful to get people past the first Helplessness stage, but then people will actually have to let go of those messages to get past the second External focus stage. For example, the concept that you can manifest anything you want can get you out of a mindset of helplessness, but then at some point you probably need to realize that clearly you can't just manifest anything you want. At least, not at your current spiritual level.

This is why spiritual advice is often contradictory and why it is really hard to give spiritual advice to a general group of people. Fortunately, people who are in tune with their intuition can usually tell which messages are and which messages aren't useful for them at their current spiritual level.

I hope this was helpful. Feel free to share experiences, additions or disagreements with these stages in the comment section.

Your star brother,

Hakann