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SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

stage where people, through detachment, begin to experience love
rather than fear of God as their motivation.

Spiritual Direction for Stage 3
Sufi spiritual direction moves spiritual directees in three steps at this
stage. First, they are challenged to let go of their desire for worldly
gain and improvement. Since these focus on the ego, they are blocks
to progress. Second, the Sufi Shaykh becomes the “beloved execution-
er” by challenging the disciple to begin to give up the inner desire for
all benefits for the self, even spiritual states. The Shaykh undermines Although
the patterns of inner identity that matter to the disciple because they
trap the consciousness. The aim is for the disciple to become detached spiritual
from everything. Third, disciples are encouraged to realize the worth-
lessness of their own spiritual realization because even their spiritual directors may
renunciation is about them, not God (Vaughan-Lee 2009).
Teresa recommends that spiritual directees at this stage have some- use their
one more advanced than they are to give them light and urge them
on because the complacency that some people at stage three espouse same basic
means that they prefer not to be challenged (Teresa [a], 68; Burrows,
34). Spiritual direction needs to focus on spiritual directees’ inte- methodology
rior tests to surrender and trust God, which test the soul’s sincerity
(McLean, 6), especially during the trial of aridity. Spiritual directees of spiritual
at this stage also need to be challenged to assume adult responsibility direction with
for their own decisions rather than surrender their agency to others,
for example church authorities, and to respond to God’s invitation people at the
to a relationship of companionship, guidance, and support (Michael,
109–10).
various stages,
Stage 4 they can be
The fourth station of the Sufi path is faqr or poverty, the refusal
of non-spiritual attachments and desires. Attar calls it the Valley of challenged by
Detachment (185). Travellers on the Divine path have reached the
stage of being independent of worldly possessions, and their need of the difference
God alone is their foremost concern, which leads to the emergence
of a universal perspective on life. A saying describes this stage: “The in content
life of the heart is in the knowledge of God alone.” Yet they are called
by God to even further renunciation. The mystical path continues experienced.
to draw the travellers into the abyss of non-being. This experience of
nothingness can be frightening, even terrifying (Vaughan-Lee 2000,
188). The detachment from desire at this stage is referring to non-
spiritual desires. At later stations of the heart, even good spiritual
desires are eschewed as part of the annihilation of the self.
This station is Teresa’s mansion of transition and transformation,
the first stage of the Illuminative Way. She saw that we ourselves do
the work in the first three stages, whereas in stages four to seven the

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