5-Purification

In Stage 5 (Purification), anything inconsistent with the highest expression of the declaration asserted in Stage 3 is ground down. Through oppression, surrender and even suffering, all three levels of human experience (mind, emotions and will) are freed of agendas and attachment.

This is the equivalent of the mystic’s proverbial “dark night of the soul,” but on the scale of human faith.

Stage 5 is a time when God has you; you don’t get to run the show, no matter how hard you try. This profound and relentless purification – essentially an ultimate lesson in humility – prepares for Divine union in Stage 6.

No Longer A “Normal”

In the broad sweep of the evolving world religions, this is the stage we are in now, collectively, on Earth.

Volatility, uncertainty, climate change, diminishing resources, questioned relevance of scripture, violence, cynicism, and doubt threaten life as we have known it.

No longer can we assume a sense of “normal” or stability each day. What we think should be, what we feel should be and what we want to be (mind, heart, will) meet consistent challenge.

And that goes for all of us, regardless of our beliefs. Everyone of every faith is looking around perplexed these days, thinking that surely things aren’t going (according to them) the way they’re supposed to.

As deeply uncomfortable as all these challenges are, remember that to be challenged in the mind, emotions and will is the purpose of this stage.

In this stage we are being asked to let go of what we think should be, what we feel should be and what we want to be. We are being forced to surrender to a Greater Force, a Higher Way – and to settle into having no personal certainty at all, finding a moment-by-moment trust in that Greater Way to show the way.

The End Goal

The purpose of this stage is to arrive in a neutrality and humility so profound that:

In the Mind, what you think you know is neutralized.

In the Emotions, your attachments are neutralized.

In your Actions, your insistence upon what “should be” is gone. Moment by moment, you accept What Is – which is Divine Will.

When we’re truly this empty, in God’s way and in God’s timing, God’s grace takes us to the next stage – a true union of the purified vessel with pure spirit.

Why Muhammed is The Last Prophet

But perhaps now you can see why, in the previous religious stage, Mohammed asserted that he was the Seal of the Prophets – and why he was right.

With its insistence on purification, Stage 5 does two things:

It eventually wipes out all certainty of mind, emotion and will
It yields a profound acceptance of What Is

Remember in Stage 1 we talked about the Hebrews and the forward-looking consciousness they ushered in. With their hardship came the conviction that God wanted things to be better for them. The Jews, then, brought the advent of prophesy – the foretelling of what was to be. Specifically, how things would be different.

But by the time you get to this stage (Stage 5, Purification), though, you’re going in the opposite direction. You realize that Everything already is God. There’s no more need for anything to change! Everything is fine! Thus there’s no more prophesy because there’s no place else to go any more. There are no more changes to be accomplished. The only task remaining is to burn away any desire for change… until a radical acceptance of What Is takes hold.

Muhammed was indeed the Last Prophet – the last great world teacher to be at a stage where he saw the need for anything to be different than it already is.