In classical spiritual biographies and autobiographies, the seeker usually moves through several stages, today referred to as levels of consciousness. The seeker travels from simple consciousness (“the child”), to complex consciousness (most of the middle of life), and, hopefully, to enlightened consciousness, which looks surprisingly simple again! Is that the real meaning of “second childhood”? Such enlightenment is, of course, the goal.
The first simplicity and the second simplicity are, however, completely different. The first simplicity is naïve, dualistic, and far too sure of itself. This is what Paul regrets about his early zeal and righteousness, which led him to kill Christians. In our early years, we largely “split” for the sake of quick and false success—we split the natural from the spiritual, the light from the shadow, the weeds from the wheat, the friend from the enemy. But when we come to enlightened consciousness, which is the second simplicity, we have learned to include, accept, and forgive the negatives, the problems, and the contradictions that were revealed in the middle of life to be much more complex than we first imagined.
As Paul says above, we learn to stop “crucifying”—ourselves and others, which is precisely “resurrection”!
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