The Path to Enlightenment: Exploring Three Primary Paths of Spiritual Development

Understanding the Three Paths

There are 3 primary paths of development in achieving enlightenment and higher levels of consciousness and connection with your spirit. The 1st is the path that develops the human being from the bottom up, the 2nd path develops from the top down, and the 3rd path develops from the middle out.

Any one of these paths are not necessarily better than the other, It all depends on where that person is on their spiritual path, where the major constrictions or blocks are for the practitioner and where the best vantage point is to enter the work. I also think we are in an age where we can start to incorporate all 3 paths in our training. This provides a kind of checks and balance for the perspectives and ways of sharing that perspective in any one tradition that can easily be taken out of context or warped when looking at or through only one vantage point.

My Journey Through the Middle Path

Personally, I began my training along the middle path back in 2007, focusing on the heart. In the first nine years, I struggled to unlock the full potential of this path. I found this part of my energy system to be closed off and energetically a bit warped as I think many of us experience. Accessing my inner fire of love and compassion and growing that sacred space in center seemed to keep getting filled up with everyone else's energy and emotions but mine. Any communication with the "One" through this space was quite unclear. It wasn't until about six years into my clairvoyant training that I understood the developmental stages of energy and spiritual growth.

Just like a child grows into adulthood, we must progress through stages of spiritual maturation. You cannot leap from first grade to writing a doctoral thesis. There are a lot of stages and choices along the way that you have to move through. The energetic and spiritual anatomy must become stronger and more defined through consistent practice and living that practice.

The Importance of the Heart Center

The middle path emphasizes the significance of the heart center. This space exists between your body and soul. It transcends specific energy centers, yet encompasses them all for it's ability to open up and be in flow. Your heart center forms a crucial link between your Higher and Lower self. It cultivates a sacred space that harmonizes your awareness between both realms simultaneously.

In my personal opinion, I see this middle path as more of a 3rd stage of growth once the bottom up, and top down paths have been developed. It is a point of connection that naturally opens by itself.

Stages Before Connection

Initially, I was taught to begin practice connecting to the field or grid of the “One” in center from day one. However, I have come to realize that there are several stages prior to this connection that have to be in place for this space to truly open to this connectivity. This space at the heart is a sanctuary of connection and relationship, and that first relationship that lays the foundation to all relationships is the one you have between body and soul personality. This lays the foundation in first creating that space free of foreign energy, and competition so there can be flow and cooperation.

Addressing Foreign Energy

It’s important to acknowledge that the area between the body and soul at the heart level is also a space that can become the most hijacked area of the body besides the crown chakra. Like the crown chakra, this space can harbor a lot of foreign energy. Often, we subconsciously allow this energy in from childhood, from traumatic events, or past life connections seeking safety and protection when we have felt vulnerable or "not enough". This can greatly intensify when there is trauma in the relationship dynamic of the family.

You can definitely learn to clear this foreign energy in your energy field. Yet, if you haven't correctly developed this middle space, accessing the heart can lead to matching these foreign energies. When this happens, it's easy to identify with those energies as part of your self which will prevent you from ever being truly free at the deeper levels.

Understanding Your Energy

Understanding the difference between your own energy and what isn’t your energy is a part of the growth we all must go through in stepping into our power and certainty and re-owning the parts of ourselves we have unconsciously given away. Although Archangel Michael and our spiritual support team can assist in clearing these energies, they won't bypass this important step in our development. There’s a particular class of beings—like gatekeepers—to the next stage of our evolution. There must be a separating out that occurs and an active reclaiming that the soul must be involved in the learning and clearing process. Using your clairvoyance, or your ability to clearly see and know (6th & 7th chakra) is a big part of that process.

The Challenge of Starting at the Heart

Starting at the heart can be a more challenging space to start this work. Unless of course you have many lifetimes of soul memory and practice at this level and have come into this life in a loving and supportive home that has really shaped you into an integrated and connected individual.

Developing Relationships

The second relationship that must be developed is the one you as an adult have with your inner child. Once this relationship with the inner child is strong and integrated, it naturally opens the heart to the innocence, kindergarten, play, wonder and magic we all had as children. It is our inner child that ultimately introduces us to our next relationship out in the field and that relationship is with our higher and lower self; the shakti and shiva or yin and yang of our soul that isn’t incarnated. Once this relationship integrates, then the connection to the “One” can really land and be known and integrate within this space.

It's developmental. The first lesson to stepping back into our power is that we are all separate. The last lesson to stepping into our power, is that we are all one. Both are true at the same time.