There's long been silent discord between competing spiritual traditions emphasizing either transcendence or embodiment ("Non-dual vs. Dual"). In this 21st-century we are learning that we must learn to embrace both at the same time.

Traditional enlightenment calls us to find our True Self in The Absolute, or non-dual realm of no-self. World Spirituality embraces this truth, but goes further. We must also learn what it means to embrace the Relative world at the same time; the world of Unique Self flowing in and out of The Absolute. This Unique Self is a conscious embodiment, or the gross State of Consciousness (as compared to the Subtle, Causal, and Formless States).

This theme is becoming more and more common in 21st-century spiritual circles. It is a more complete way of understanding how a soul awakens that can run contrary to conventional thinking or desires. For instance, it is common to believe we can skip stages and go right to the top using all kinds of ego-tactics. This simply isn't true. To be a fully embodied spiritual being we ultimately must both include every element of every stage at the same time we are transcending and moving to higher Stages and wider States of consciousness.

We often use the analogy of language to depict how consciousness evolves. In creating language, the first level is learning the letters of the alphabet. The next involves sentences, then paragraphs, chapters, books, and perhaps a series of books. We see this same evolutionary unfolding in the growth of a fetus, the birth of a flower, and the construction of an atom, to a cell, all the way to and complex organism.

Just like in nature, our consciousness includes all the previous levels of growth as it grows into a more complex being with greater awareness and perspective. You can't build a molecule without atoms. However, in the case of humans, we often lose pieces of a healthy ego structure and essential soul elements as we grow into the world of our parents and beyond. Along the way various elements of these stages are either left out or misconstrued.

A significant part of the spiritual journey involves going back and working on the missing pieces to bring them back into alignment allowing them to play a greater role in our soul-inspired life.