There Are Infinite Layers of Growth
We need to stabilize spiritual insights before we can progress to the next level
Having engaged in decades of personal development work, I’ve experienced numerous times in which challenges I thought I had worked through would bubble to the surface again. Sometimes after years of thinking I had fully dealt with a particular issue.
At first it can be a little disconcerting to think that all the work I did in the past was seemingly for not, because here it is again rearing its painful face.
But it’s not truly like that. I mean, yes, it is in that things resurface, but they are not the same as before. As Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
A friend once shared with me the metaphor of the spiral. He said that we continue to circle around through issues like planets orbiting a sun, but each time we return to a prior issue we are higher on the spiral than before.
“The growth of understanding follows an ascending spiral rather than a straight line.” — Marion Milner
Both metaphors resonate with me. And . . . there is another part to this, which is when we understand what’s happening under the surface with each life challenge we grow through, we can then begin to comprehend that we are only able to accommodate so much growth at any one point in time.
Climbing Physical Mountains is Like Growing Spiritually
Many years ago, I climbed Mt. Shasta in Northern California. For me, it was an epic adventure. It was something like eight miles up from the parking area, eight miles down, and an incline of some 6,500 feet. I was not in ‘climbing’ shape and had not acclimated to the altitude. Although I was young and fit, I was not ready for that kind of exertion. I also didn’t know at the time that I don’t do well with altitude.
But never mind all that, youth lends itself to adventure with little preparation. Like I didn’t think to wear sunscreen, having no idea the effect of sun reflected off snow on the face.
A friend and I set out on our climb early in the morning. Two and a half miles through the forest before reaching the tree line, another several miles of climbing through bus-size boulders, and at 10,000 feet we reached the first glacier and an epic view. Then a very steep incline up a trough to the first ridge at 13,000 feet. Somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 I came down with altitude sickness. But I pressed on, higher and higher, until I could go no further.
My friend left me at about 13,500 to continue ascending to the summit. I thought I’d just wait for him, sitting on an incredible precipice with a 100-mile view, surrounded by snow and ice. It was beautiful beyond imagination, and I was sick with nausea and a pounding headache.
After some time, I decided to descend on my own. I came down a couple thousand feet and began feeling better. The more I descended, the better I felt. At about 11,000 feet my friend caught up with me. Then the lengthy hike back to the car.
We spent a long time soaking in a hotel jacuzzi that evening. I woke the next morning with a severely blistered face and could barely move. Even though I didn’t make it to the top, I felt then, and still do today, as though that was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
I learned many things, and not just about climbing mountains. If I had spent time camping on the mountain acclimating to the altitude before making the ascent, I would have done much better. I might not have felt as sick and been able to make it to the top.
This is exactly how I have experienced the process of emotional and spiritual healing to work. If I have a life challenge that I set myself upon, and if that mountain is significantly high, I can’t make it all the way to the top in one epic push. Why? Because I need to acclimate to new levels of understanding before I can push on to higher levels of spiritual insights.
Stabilizing Higher Understandings
We need to stabilize new understandings, so they become normalized within our being. Similar to camping on a mountain to acclimate to the altitude, we need time in stillness and meditation, time in nature, and time to reflect and process.
“I now see that certain knowledge can’t be known until we’re on the same wavelength with it . . . Perhaps, too, each stage of transformation wants to be experienced and practiced fully before we’re ready for the next expansion of our worldview.” — Penney Peirce
Every now and then I come across individuals who have lived through severe drug and alcohol addiction and left a wake of wreckage in their lives, until they found sobriety and spiritual healing. Then after a short two or three years of intensive growth they become a teacher, a guru to those suffering the ills they had once walked through. It sounds inspirational, that those who have found healing can now help others from a place of experience.
Except many times they are not ready to become a teacher to others because they haven’t spent enough time stabilizing their newfound understandings. They haven’t traversed the spiral enough times to peel additional layers and go steadily deeper into their healing work. They haven’t yet crossed the river enough times to change more fully.
Several years ago, there was a poignant example of this — a young man who had been an addict and found sobriety. He was also a good writer and launched a compelling blog. After a Tweet about him from a celebrity his website went viral, and in short order he was sitting with Oprah telling his story for all to hear. Next, he went jet setting around the world speaking at conferences and being the guru.
Then he fell — hard and fast.
I’m not telling his story to highlight his failure, but to acknowledge that by his falling down he became the teacher he sought to be. Because his very public fall taught us an important lesson, which is to take time to acclimate, to stabilize spiritual insights by having the patience to peel the layers and go progressively deeper into those life lessons we came here to learn.
I’ve been like him. I’ve had huge awarenesses that came from massive healing work, and then thought I totally had it. Then a few years would go by, and that same issue would come around again. But it was not the same river and I was not the same man. I was at a new and higher level of the spiral and was ready to peel another layer, to go deeper, and more fully anchor the understanding.
“We are not going in circles, we are going upward. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.” — Herman Hesse
Several layers later and I might be able to teach about a particular understanding. Then again, how many layers are there? Do we really know? Can we know what infinite understandings may lie beyond our field of view?
My perception is that there are an infinite number of layers, which means no matter how far we progress, there are limitless horizons yet to cast our gaze upon.
I read an ethnography of the Maya of Zinacantan, Mexico who spoke of human maturation and wisdom development as a process of "layering" based on the model of tree rings. They said of a wise person, "He is well layered." Or a young person: "He has much layering to do before he can speak of such things." Like a tree, a person grows outward from the heart, from their spiritual center—step by step, each ring or layer providing a challenge.
I observe in the tree model that the rings are fixed, a challenge met is overcome once and for all. But I think a Zinacanteco elder would say each layer or growth challenge is different in character, and presents the individual with the same or similar challenge at a different place in his or life.
Your model of the spiral, in concert with the evolutionary spiral of cosmos and consciousness, provides a perspective that promotes patience and encourages persistence along the lines of spiritual development. Indeed, wherever we are on the mountain the awesomeness of the view is matched by the depth of the learnings presented— through the experience of climbing. Whatever the model, we can celebrate the common attraction—pull—to the peak experience, the top of the mountain. Meanwhile, we catch a breath and stabilize in order to take another step.