THE SEVEN DEGREES OF BEING OR SANCTITY
As mentioned earlier, Sufi mystics have indicated that progress towards divine unity involves a hierarchy of degrees of being or sanctity. They explain these degrees as follows:
First: Carnal soul. In this stage, a person is dominated by worldly desires, vanity, greed, etc. They serve their ego, and their state of being is ignorance. However, like everything that exists, they are also moving towards God, albeit unconsciously.
Second: Admonishing soul. Here, a person becomes aware of their real situation and critically judges it. Although their previous nature has not disappeared, their heart is troubled by it, and they tentatively initiate inner change. Now, they are not only moving towards God unconsciously but being led by God, and their state of being is sympathy.
Third: Inspired soul. In this stage, a person decisively puts into practice what they consider necessary to achieve inner change. They feel inspired. They become aware of who they are, become patient, generous, and expel ignorance. Their path is towards God, and they know it: it is the journey with God, and their state is love.
Fourth: Pacified soul. In this state, one acquires the certainty of being on the right path back to God. They are no longer moving towards God but with God. They feel at peace with themselves, nothing weighs them down. They become generous, kind, forgive everything, and ignore the faults of others. By offering themselves to others, they offer their soul to God. They are in a transitional phase from which they cannot turn back. They experience a state of total submission.
Fifth: Satisfied soul. A person reaches spiritual maturity and travels within God. All the darkness of the soul has disappeared in them. Here, they attain the first state of union, and their state of being is the nonexistence of the ego.
Sixth: Pleasing soul. In this state, the eternal truth is embodied, and one travels from God. All their attributes are now attributes of their divine essence. They have unified their love for the Creator with their love for creation, and their state of being is dazzlement.
Seventh: Realized soul. In this final degree of perfect spiritual maturity, a person recognizes unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity. They have achieved the perfection of the universal human and attained divine unity. They have realized in consciousness the two aspects of God: transcendence and immanence, and recognized these two aspects as one. Their journey is now realized in God, and their state of being is permanence and subsistence in God.
Source: Shiva Shambho