To infinity and beyond!

Beyond Stage 5, there are other stages, but they are hardly worth thinking about at this point.... if thinking about them is even possible, really. Suffice it to say that once this pull towards Oneness begins, it continues. People who are in Stage 5 and passing into the higher stages will gradually pass from an ethnocentric to a world-centric view of things. Their main areas of concern will encompass more than just themselves and their immediate cultures/nations/surroundings.

One thing is important to point out on that journey: expansion of concern, compassion, and capacity for suffering are not feelings, they are experiences and deep understandings/knowings/beings. (There really is not a word for it, exactly. Picture being able to grok the experience of Oneness, rather than just theorizing about it or feeling it emotionally.) Instead of feeling concern for all beings in the world at this stage, you ARE all beings in the world, and you know it.

I am sure there are a lot of other aspects of this that I do not even touch on because I am not able to. Alas, all I can do about these stages is theorize.

Nevertheless, that spiritual line of development is only a teeny tiny portion of spiritual development itself! It's about 1/4th of it to be exact.

Now that we've described a single line of development in detail.... let's blow the doors off this thing.