Riso and Hudson’s strata 7-9 are about what happens in “The Void.” It is a place without the constraints of ego, and yet we still ARE. We experience true freedom, and all that comes with spiritual truth – love, gratitude, peace, joy, awe. We are aware of the divine.

In the Buddhist tradition the void is referred to as the “Shining Void.” It is the place where everything comes from, and to which everything returns. In the void there is no ego, and no attachment, there is just pure being.

Paul Tillich often talked about experiencing “fragmentary moments of unambiguity.” I believe what he was talking about was fleeting moments of experiencing the void. The void is where everything comes together into a unity – there is no good or bad, self or other, there is only God. We are separate, but at one with the ground of being. Everyone, whether doing dedicated spiritual work or not experiences these fragmentary moments. They are times when God breaks into our experience, and we see things clearly, if only for a moment. People who are doing spiritual work may actually be able to sustain these experiences for a bit longer, but even the most spiritually developed people can’t live in the void. Everyone must return.

Susanne Fincher continues, “After this comes transcendent ecstacy – a moment of experiencing the divine ‘through direct experience,’ rather than by intellect. This is a peak experience.”

When we return from these experiences in the void, we are changed. There is an increased awareness of the divine nature of reality, and our place in reality. We are aware of the power of God and the purposefulness of life, even though we can’t know that purpose. Sometimes a miracle does happen, and we are able to let go a piece of our egos that causes us pain; let go of some of our attachment to our suffering. (Gurdjieff said that the last thing people will let go of is their attachment to suffering.)

In the mandala system, after the peak experience, comes the beginning again, and in this system, the beginning is The Void. Then one makes the journey through the circle of the mandala all over again, each trip around the circle developing greater spiritual depth.

Whichever system we use to interpret our experiences on the spiritual path, there is a universality to the experiences. Mystics from all the major world religious traditions all speak of these experiences in similar terms.

There is a spiritual practice that is followed which allows us to see ourselves more clearly and to examine our lives. This causes crises that involve suffering and pain and attachment to that suffering and pain. Eventually our journey leads us to a place where we feel disconnected from all that we have known in our lives, including our God. This is a terrifying place of darkness and unknowing, what Christian mystics call the dark night of the soul. And yet we continue on the spiritual path because all we have known up until this place has proved empty and insufficient. There is a spark of truth that carries us through this difficult period. Sooner or later we are able to let go and fall into “the void,” in which we experience what is beyond the limits of our existence. We come out of the void as changed beings, with new understandings. Then we start all over.