Hi Stephen, great to hear from you, welcome to Openhandweb. I'm glad the Five Gateways routemap has resonated - many have said that. Yes indeed, there is a strong tendency to overestimate where one might be (and I'm not saying you have! Just picking up on the point you made). Previously, these Gateways have taken lifetimes to transcend. It is only now, due to the catalytic nature of our environment, that things are being speeded up. In the past, to have transcended Gateway 4, would have been the realm of the 'Spiritual Masters' only, such as the Buddha or Jesus. But I am now witnessing 'ordinary people' (of course there is no ordinary!) also making this profound journey, which is wonderful and magical to behold. But we need to be completely honest with ourselves too. Otherwise we lead ourselves astray into some illusionary state. This pathway is utterly shattering, utterly life changing. It strips apart every thread of identity that might exist. It is not an easy one to be under-estimated. It will test you to the very limit of your being and then, take you deeper still. The Gateways are multi-dimensional, their transcendance being the progressive release of identification with each dimension. This is how Ascension works. So first you might confront the very nature of existence, which would be to work through physical identification with the first dimension. Then it might be emotional attachment within the second dimension and so on. The complication is that the dimensions all overlap in the same space and time. So sometimes we might end up processing the karma of the fourth dimension for example, even though we're only in Gateway 2. I observe a few people in the Openhand community genuinely going through Gateway 4 now. It is utterly earth shattering for them: years of continual confrontation with karmic past life regressions that can be deeply traumatic. Except by the time they've reached this Gateway, they've learned how to efficiently process the negative energy that arises. When you consider the trauma of the human journey over the eons, it is no wonder there's such a bottling up of this karmic energy, hence the need for this rigorous and stringent processing. There are very few people on the planet right now who've actually done this. Many of the so called 'masters' out there teaching spiritual evolution are mostly in a state of denial about shadow identities - there's a disassociation with their baggage - the 'non-duality' movement is a prime example of this: a tendency to 'drop the hot coals' but before the heat is truly felt and integrated. So unless you've experienced several years of intense karmic processing, it's unlikely you've passed through Gateway 4. Often what happens, is that there's a pre-Awakening phase (which people confuse with awakening) where the soul is touched for the first time. It can be so magical, sometimes people think they've become suddenly enlightened. It's then often followed by a seeking phase of the spiritual aspirant, trying to regain that previously elevated state. They may have had a taste of profound bliss in meditation for example. But then the state quickly disappears. This 'spiritual aspirancy' phase is often confused with Walking the Path (Gateway 2). When awakening finally happens, it's then confused with The Transfiguration (Gateway 3). To be truly walking the spiritual path, means that no choice is made without direct interaction with the soul - a constant conscious choice, even if that choice was to lead to ones death. So strong is the sense of pull of the soul. When one is enlightened (Gateway 4), there is no longer identification with daily life - there's full engagement, but no identification. Choices are no longer made within the mind, they happen as a flow aligned with the universe, moment by moment. So yes, the journey can be a touch confusing. That's the power of the Five Gateways routemap though, that's what it's for. It can show someone the influences they're experiencing and how to catalyse their next step. Open *OK*