The Stairway to Heaven: Nine Steps of Consciousness from Unawareness to Full Enlightenment

I am tempted to just write "Wow." as my only review... but I guess I will go on. This book has cleared up for me so much confusion, it's incredible. And it's only been a few days since I finished and my entire past life is now being re-sorted moment-to-moment. Having lived in a fog of confusion due to my upbringing, abuse, and PTSD, this book has completely sorted out just about everything that 15 years of psychotherapy only made worse.I have read The 12 Stages of Healing by Donald M. Epstein, which I loved and have reread a few times, trying to understand my own path and how I could help other people, but that book can't hold a candle to this one, although it is still a good read. I have also enjoyed Healing into Consciousness by Mada Eliza Dalian, but it was not anywhere near as clear as The Stairway to Heaven. And finally, I recently read Letting Go by David R. Hawkins, and thought that was as good of a description of the stages of consciousness I was going to get. But while all those books have informed me on my path and helped me to understand the world better, but this book blows them all away. Tara Springett's background as a buddhist teacher and psychotherapist who has obviously spent much of her life painstakingly observing humanity make this book extremely clear, comprehensive, and easy to understand. Furthermore, it is an absolutely amazing book to use as a tool for anyone doing any kind of healing work, counseling or teaching.I will never look at the world the same way!My only worries about the book were her coverage of abusive relating, though that has been somewhat cleared up by having begun her book Soulmate Relationships, which clarifies her stance better. I was alarmed in this book and The 5-Minute Miracle where she suggests using healing methods for abusive realtionships, and being a survivor myself and being in the community, I found this rather upsetting, as abusers are often horrific liars whose reports can't be trusted and their spouses will often cover for them and not be honest with themselves about the true lack of progress going on. But I am open to my attitude changing about this more as all of Tara's books settle in to my consciousness.I do wish there was more information about people pretending to be at a higher level than they really are in order to manipulate people, but I guess I can entertain myself by figuring out what that is all about on my own.Overall... an incredible book and resource that I will definitely read over and over and over again. If everyone understood the contents of this book, the world would be a VERY beautiful and peaceful place, as everyone can really appreciate where others are once they have passed on through that stage themselves.Love, love, love!

The motivation for this book was the observation that different people need different kinds of help, depending on the quality of their consciousness. This observation came from Tara's work as a therapist and Buddhist teacher. At first she was puzzled by these differences, since many schools of thought in both psychotherapy and spirituality teach a one-size-fits-all approach. Her explanation for the different needs is the nine-step stairway. These are the nine levels of progressively higher consciousness that people ascend on their way to enlightenment.She numbers the nine steps computer-style, from 0 through 8. Not everyone will agree with the way she defines and organizes the steps. While the upper ones are clearly more high-minded than the lower ones, I think the specific arrangement of the upper steps reflects Tara's Vajrayana Buddhist outlook. For example, she puts "merging with a divine being" at the top of the ladder. It's not that I think this is totally off. St. Teresa of Avila's final three mansions in her Interior Castle are spiritual union, spiritual betrothal, and spiritual marriage, and Tara does mention these in a later chapter. But what about Bernadette Roberts, who puts the no-self stage beyond the unitive stage? And what about people like Adyashanti and Eckhart Tolle? These are highly awake people who show no sign of ever having ascended a ladder step by step, and who never mention "merging with a divine being" or anything of that nature. When she does discuss Eckhart Tolle, I got the impression she had force-fit him into her framework.Once I understood what she wanted to do in the book, I was expecting to see a chapter for each step. It turns out the book is not ordered by step, but by aspect of life. Each aspect gets its own chapter. All nine steps are then discussed in that chapter's context. For example, she has chapters on primary motivation at each stage, character traits at each stage, sense of self, view of the world, beliefs, relationships, money, and so on. I think this is a much better arrangement than just having one chapter per step.I found the client portraits that illustrate each stage extremely helpful in making the steps real. I would have welcomed more of these concrete examples. While there are case studies of clients and well-known people later on, I found myself often reading paragraph after paragraph of generalizations in the middle chapters of the book. Admittedly, including more examples would have made this into a massive book, as there is a lot of material here.Toward the end of the book, Tara confirms that the book is not intended simply to document the steps, but to help people ascend the ladder. The last chapter therefore gives meditations and spiritual exercises. These are organized so that they are addressed to people at each step, to help them move up to the next step of the stairway.The book is the result of distilling ten years' worth of notes. Whether or not you are a Vajrayana Buddhist, I think you will find it rich with insights and well worth the read.

Without exaggerations, this was for me a life changing and deeply inspiring book. It produced effects on spiritual, psychological and intellectual level, and also with the ideas in the field of my work. I’ve met the concept of conciseness development n 9 stages before, in Ken Vilber’s works. Tara Springett brings a lot of new insights and clarity in her explications.She shows how our development is gradual and goes thru stages that all have to be mastered and integrated before we can advance up on our path. She explains the benefits and requirements o each stage, as well as pitfalls and painful experiences if we stuck on some stage for too long.This development she explains in multiple levels, not only as some spiritual path which is not involved in mundane issues: she describes worldview, religion/spiritual believes, relationships, relation to work, money, and many other things on each stage. Also shoves how to develop in a fast and safe way.Gives a lot of insights in a problem that always bothered me: how comes that some attitudes or methods work well for some people and can’t reach he other or can be counterproductive… And many other things. I recommend this book with whole hart 

Awesome book. Loved it. I agree with 99% of what she says in terms of evolution and how to relate to people from this perspective. The truth is every person can only understand reality at their level and below. The author can be found on utube and she is a very loving and spiritual person.

clean one sweet.... Excellent

This is a wonderful, thoughtful and well researched book. I would recommend it (and have) to anyone who is aware of their need for a personal growth path and is looking for more. The examples of people who are at different consciousness levels is very helpful as is the the encouragement to assess one's own level with a view to moving onwards. From my Catholic Christian position I see the movement onwards/upwards as very dynamic and not within my own personal gift; depending on God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit within me. I do not think everything us within our own capacity to alter or to direct but think that our efforts are an important part of our readiness to received Grace. "Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love him whom I cannot know. Though we cannot fully know him we can love him" (The Cloud of Unknowing: Chapter 6, Paragraph 2).

I have just finished reading this invaluable book for guiding yourself towards a happier more fulfilled and loving existence. It is exciting to work out where you are on the Stairway to Heaven through recognizing the particular traits that you have and learning the different steps on the stairway to full enlightenment. A look back through ones life to date and where you passed through each step of the pathway is most enlightening too. This book can be used not only for your own personal development but also to assist others on their journeys particularly if you work in a healing or counselling capacity. It is a book that will always be useful to have readily at hand to refer to time and time again to learn the lessons it teaches and to provide you with the tools to progress further up the the stairway to enlightenment.

An excellent overview of the spiritual perspective of human nature. Great for plotting your current place, and mapping areas to work on. 👍🏿

As every book that Tara writes, I also like this one very much!Here she describes the gradual steps towards full awareness or enlightenment.This book helped me already within a few days to get much clearer about my own development. Even more, it is wonderful that all the phases that seemed to be so cruel in our lifes are even described as somehow necessary steps in ones development and Tara always offers the hope that one can develop and will no matter how much misery one has been trough in life, if one is determined to do so and that everybody is able to lead a good and fullfilling life. This I think is fortunate and also very realistic. As always, Tara presents some very efficient Meditation techniques which I have just used for severals days and already experienced progress in my overall well-being. I think she presents us here just another Masterpiece.I am very grateful for every impulse of you, Tara and one of my biggest wishes is to again get in touch with your books if I would die unexpectedly, because they are the ones that helped me the most in my development, as well as with my psychological and spiritual issues.Thank you so much Tara! May every being benefit from your work and your books.