The Woo Path

When I started my spiritual journey, I was on a quest to feel better. I needed a way out of the depression, anxiety, and lack of purpose that had gripped my life. I knew something was not quite right with me, but was unable to sort it out using conventional means (ie self-help, therapy, etc...). 

At that time, my mindset was very "Western" - find the right pill, find the right therapy, find the right self-help book, find the right workout, find the right relationship, find the right hobby, find the right diet, find the right "x", and that would make me feel better, give me purpose, and get me back on track of pursuing my egoic goals in life. 

It was not until I was able to work with our divine sacrament that I began to understand that I did not need "x" to make me feel better - nothing that was outside of me was going to help. I was shown that my issue was that I had a massive hole in my heart (note: when I am using the word "heart", I am referring to my spiritual heart, not my physical heart or emotional heart) and there was nothing outside of myself that was going to be able to fill it. As the saying goes, there was no way out, but in...

Thus I came to understand that my journey to feeling good in this life was going to be a spiritual one - a journey of calling my soul back into my body and fully opening my heart. I did not know exactly how, but after my first ceremony I could see a very small light at the end of a very long tunnel - and I knew this is where I needed to go. 

Looking back on my journey, I can see that the light at the end of my tunnel was me waking up to my true divine nature, and the path that I have been on, what am calling the Wake Up Path, or WU Path (pronounced "Woo"). :-) 

1. Clearing: Removing or integrating this-life and past-life traumas. This can be very uncomfortable, as one is often required to process feelings or experiences that one had previously gone to great lengths to bury away. Keep the bucket close...  :-) 

2. Healing: Energetically rebuilding your energetic system - repairing and tuning all of your Chakras so that they can take the full charge of all of your soul energy. At some point during this phase the heart opens up which is critical for all future phases. 

3. Growing: Receiving new capabilities, energies, talents, or spiritual gifts. I think of this as getting an operating system upgrade. For example, upgrading from You v. 3.2 to You v. 3.3.  Fewer system bugs, and more system features. 

4. Serving: It says it right in our name, "Sanctuary of Universal Love & Service"! At some point on the journey, it becomes necessary to serve others in order to continue to service yourself. This does not have to be spiritual service, but it does require one to utilize one's upgraded energy system and new spiritual gifts to help others. 

5. Waking: The light at the end of the tunnel! As you continue to walk down the spiritual path, your perspective begins to change from, "I am a human having a spiritual experience", to "I am an Eternal Soul having a human experience". This is a profound paradigm shift where one begins to really identify as a Soul and looks inward, not outward, to generate love and receive wisdom.

And here is the big disclaimer: the WU Path is a general model of how MY spiritual path unfolded. Each person is different, each path is unique, and each journey is its own mystery. I have often received some or all of these stages in a single journey or weekend. But, taken in totality, I can see how each of these "steps" were needed for me to fully call my soul back into this incarnation and to feel all of the benefits of living an awakened life - including Love, Joy, Purpose, and Inner Peace.

And please remember, that this idea, as with any spiritual teaching, is just a "finger pointing at the truth"*, and not the truth itself. As the famous first line of the Tao Te Ching says, "The Tao (Truth) that can be told is not the true Tao (Truth). 

In other words, the only way to access the highest level of Truth is directly through your own experience. Human thoughts and words are way downstream of eternal truth, but as long as we have human brains, these ideas and frameworks are very useful in helping to orient oneself and, at the very least, give the brain something to chew on. :-) 

So, given all of that, what are some ideas that can be taken from the WU Path model? 

1. You are on a journey! There is a spiritual path, and you are on it!

2. Some people wake up very quickly and spontaneously, others are more of a slow burn. I can see my path stretched over multiple lifetimes and at least 20 years of this lifetime, and was (and is) definitely a slow burn. 

3. Locate yourself along these steps - if you are very early in your spiritual work, it is likely that you are still in the clearing phase. But take heart - there is an end to the trash that needs to be taken out and before you know it, you will be starting the healing and growth phases!

4. As with any difficult journey, sometimes it is two steps forward, one step back. Hey, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! So get ready for some setbacks. It is not uncommon to have many "dark nights of the soul" as we traverse this path - but again, take heart and keep moving along the path and whatever needs to move through you or out of you will eventually do so

5. It is helpful to recognize when you are shifting phases - oftentimes the nature of your journey work will change. I could tell a distinct shift in the nature of my journeys when I began the growth phase.