Spiritual development progresses through stages. Different traditions conceptualize these stages differently, but all recognize that development is progressive.

It can be helpful to identify where you came from: what's changed for you already. It's even more valuable to know what you're aiming for. This is often the tricky part - just getting pointed in the right direction.

Spiritual frameworks, at their best, offer freedom from the constraints that most of us live within. At their worst, they do the opposite, luring you deeper into the maze instead of helping you find the exit. The worst culprits are innocent-seeming concepts like "ego" or "enlightenment". By their nature, these concepts resist being put into words. As a result, the labels we give them are usually misleading. Getting hooked on the wrong word can really hamper your development. You can waste years trying to defeat your "ego", or "seeking" "enlightenment".

We'll make sure you haven't gotten trapped by rigid or misleading concepts. Traditions have much to offer, but staying grounded in your real experience is far more important. If you can't confirm a theory through your own experimentation, it's just another theory.

There is no shortage of spiritual practices to choose from. Meditative, yogic, mystical, and philosophical traditions abound. The best practice for you, however, may be one designed with you in mind.

If we can identify the places you get stuck, we can devise practices to get you unstuck. You may need to let go of old practices that have taken you as far as they can, or to tweak them so they fit you better at this specific juncture in your development. We will experiment together to engineer practices that take you further, and further still…

It's not surprising that enlightenment doesn't make you better at basketball. Spiritual growth does not automatically confer athletic prowess upon spiritual seekers. It doesn't substitute for psychological, emotional, or relational development either. Your spiritual work can uncover unhealed hurts, but it won't heal them for you. It can expose weak inner resources, but it won't strengthen them for you.

Are the steps you need to take next in some other domain besides the "spiritual"? We'll look to see whether what you most need is something that spirituality alone can't give you.