The Four Journeys

In this excerpt from The ABBA Tradition, we look at the Four Journeys of Humanity.

The physical and transpersonal Worlds around us are not what they were intended  to be and we, too, are not yet who we are meant to be. There is work to do for all of us. This is known as the Great Work and it is the shared task of healing all the Worlds, of making the physical, psychological and transpersonal Worlds better.

It is not possible to heal the psychological World alone because none of us is alone. We are all One. To complete the Great Work each of us individually, and all of us together, must go on four Journeys, called here the Journeys of Incarnation, Ascent, Mission and Homecoming.^[1].

Fortunately we have been given a map to guide us.

The map shows the Way that leads from God to Earth and back again, the Way from Here and Now to the Kingdom of God. It has many names and many versions: The Way, the Royal High Way, Great Chain of Being, Jacob’s Ladder, the Son of Man, the Staff of Stars, the Seven Chakras, all of these refer to the same underlying realities.

It is the purpose of the ABBA Tradition, and of this book, to open up the map of these realities and to be a guide to orient us as we journey through these worlds. In Chapter Three we looked at it as the Ladder that Jacob dreamt about in Genesis on which angels ascend and descend^[2] and as the ladder Jesus revealed in the Gospel of John.^[3] In this chapter we look at modern and traditional views of this map showing it as the Many Eyes of the Column of Consciousness; and the Lord’s Prayer.

The Four Journeys take us through all four Worlds of Jacob's Ladder (see diagram).

The first Journey is the journey of Incarnation. It starts at the top of the Ladder, before the Beginning, and descends into the beginning when God creates time, the Heavens, the Earth and Mankind. It continues as God forms individuals, male and female souls, living in the Paradise we call the soul World. And it finishes in the physical World where and when our soul wakes up and becomes conscious of itself as an individual, incarnate in a physical body.

The Second Journey is the Journey of Ascent. It begins with Body-Consciousness, the Serpent in the Garden of Physicality described in Chapter Three. As that serpent is lifted up,^[4] as my Consciousness ascends, I[MW1]  form an image in my psychological World of who I am, based on my body, what I am taught and what I experience for myself. In this place of ego consciousness there are truth and falseness, light and shadow, sleep, dreams and partial waking. Here I am conscious of who I appear to be but not of who I actually am. When I wake up from this place of appearances and shadow I come to the place of Self-Consciousness. Here I become aware of who I actually am, here and now in a veiled reality shared with others. Here, judging and forgiving myself, I choose whether I ascend further and pass to the place of Interpersonal Consciousness. At this place it is no longer I who judge but rather I who am judged. If the judgment is favorable, if my heart is pure, a door opens and I pass through and discover who I am meant to be. Here I find my SELF in the Kingdom of God. Here I discover who I am meant to be, why I am now here and receive my mission. This is the end of the Second Journey.

The Third Journey begins when I discover who I am meant to be. Knowing who I am meant to be gives my life meaning and purpose. It also shows me that I have work to do, a mission to go on, a third Journey to take. I have psychological work to do, to transform who I actually am into who I am meant to be. And I have transpersonal work to do, to help the lower Worlds more perfectly reflect God’s will. This is my Mission. It is the task of a lifetime, my lifetime. Fulfilling it will fill my life full of blessings and will make my life a blessing.

The Fourth Journey is the shared Journey of Healing all the worlds, .  It is the biblical Homecoming of the Prodigal sons and daughters to Abba, Our Father. Some say Homecoming is a long way off. Others see it near at hand. Either way, this Journey is well under way. Its end was in its beginning. Tradition tells us that we began in a Garden, we live in a Garden and we will come home to a Garden where “there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.”^[5]

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^[1]. These Four Journeys are described in detail in the work of Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi and in ABBA: The Four Journeys, Part III of the ABBA Trilogy.

^[2]. Gen. 28:12.

^[3]. John 1:51.

^[4]. John 3:14.

^[5]. Rev. 21:4.