What is the spirit?

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Q: What is the spirit? How is this different than the Soul? How does one meditate upon the spirit?

A: The spirit is the essence of love, purity, and devotion within you that you can contact using a specialized form of meditation called Nada Yoga. Groups that teach this mediation call this practice Surat Shabd Yoga, Udgit, movement of inner spiritual awareness, and soul travel.

In our mapping of the Great Continuum of Consciousness, we have identified 12 channels of the Nada, where you can contact the spirit. If you want to know about this, click on the tab on that article that says “Map Three – The Domains of the Individual spirit.” We recommend that you do the practice of Nada Yoga with your spiritual essence in the domain that is contiguous with your Higher Self or Soul.

In Integral meditation, we identify four poles of being.

Pole One contains the Soul and its Path back to its origin. This is your spiritual brain center. When you take this perspective, you see the Soul is on a Path—part of which it has opened, part of which is filled with darkness. At the very end of that Path, you see this inner seed, which is your calling—this represents completion of your Soul’s spiritual evolution in this level of the Continuum.

Pole Two contains your spirit and the channels that connect it with its origin in this domain. Most domains have two channels, but there is one that has only one channel, one that has three channels, and two that have four channels. The spirit opens these channels until it connects with the Divine Light from which it originated. When it reaches this stage, it is said to have reached salvation or spiritual liberation. This is the heart Path: the Path of love and devotion. From this perspective, it looks like your spirit is separated from its Divine Origin: it must open these channels of the Nada to go back there.

Pole Three contains your Soul’s vehicles of consciousness. Most groups that work on this Pole identify with an integration center in the Superconscious mind that we call a nucleus of identity. On this pole, you might tune into your intuitive stream, carry out spiritual ministry, awaken your awareness into this nucleus of identity to gain union with it, or express love to those who are established in this same stage of identification. This is the spiritual spine: each center or chakra along your spiritual spine represents a different vehicle of consciousness. From this perspective, you notice the track in which this nucleus of identity dwells is partially light, and partially dark—on your inner spiritual horizon, you see the form of the Divine from which this nucleus of identity came forth.

Pole Four contains your embodied life and its witness—your attention and your attentional principle. Your attentional principle is the aspect of you that is conscious and expresses through intention. Embodied life includes the vehicles of the personality, and the personal integration centers that control them—your ego and your Self. Your attention and the attentional principle are the keys to focusing upon the other three Poles and activating them. This is the “Third Eye” Path. From this perspective, there is a thread of consciousness that runs through every vehicle of consciousness along which your attention travels. You encounter your attentional principle, and travel with your attention conjoined with this conscious essence through the entire Continuum of Consciousness. This is the perspective that you see in the map of the Continuum of Consciousness, which encompasses every level of your mind—Conscious, Subconscious, Metaconscious, and Superconscious.

So, you will need to move your attention to Pole One to experience your Soul, and Pole Two to experience your spirit. We teach the methods for doing focusing your attention on the spiritual essences of Pole One and Pole Two in our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

To know what your spirit is, you have to know where to focus on it and how to activate it. This is not a theory; it’s an experience. We show you how to do this in the Nada Yoga module of our intermediate courses.

Revisiting the Veil Over the Soul

By George A. Boyd ©2015

Many people are not aware of their Soul. Their experience only encompasses the world of their senses, their body, their relationships, and their faculty of reason. Others have access to deeper layers of the mind, but their awareness is not raised to the level where they can cognize levels of their Superconscious mind, or their conscious essences—attentional principle, spirit, or Soul. Because they do not penetrate into these deepest levels of spiritual experience, they operate with a veil over their spiritual core.

It appears that successive states of identification come forward as layers of potential awareness progressively become dominant in the mind. These states of identification and potential awareness are shown in the table below.

Veil

Level

Dominant Faculty

Who demonstrates this
level of identification

85.7% to 100%

Empirical

Reason

Scientists

71.4% to 85.6%

Egoic

Ego

Politicians, actors, businessmen

57.1% to 71.3%

Attention

Attention (travels through the layers of the mind in the astral body)

Psychics, hypnotists, channelers, New Age practitioners, healers: these enter trance states through their astral body or meditate on the chakras

42.9% to 57.0%

Attentional
principle

Attentional principle (collects attention and leads it along the thread of consciousness,
directs it via intention)

Mindfulness practitioners, Raja Yoga meditators, those who utilize creation or manifestation meditation

28.6% to 42.8%

Self

Self (faculty of volition directs human life and destiny)

Coaches, teachers, counselors, and therapists

14.3% to 28.5%

The
spirit

Individual spirit (spirit awakens and travels in the channels of the Nada)

Mystics, devotees, Nada Yoga meditators

0% to 14.2%

Soul

Ensouling entity (realizes the God essence within)

Enlightened meditators, practitioners of Integral meditation, Psychosynthesis, Jnana Yogis who experience Gnosis

As potential awareness becomes established over time in each successive identity state, the veil begins to gradually lift until the Soul is revealed in its true essence. But this veil does not lift simply because you raise your awareness, it often requires that you work on the issues that hold it in place.

What Constructs the Veil?

The following factors play a role in construction this veil over the Soul:

  1. Unprocessed life experiences – This occurs when you never sort out your experiences through reflection or in the dream state, which keeps you stuck in a particular layer
  2. Karmic accretions – These are emotionalized, desire-laden impressions in the unconscious mind that form a barrier that blocks you moving to a deeper layer. You may have an unwillingness to confront these issues, which may bring up feelings of fear, guilt, or shame.
  3. Automatized awareness – This occurs when you maintain your awareness at one of these levels through routine or habit, or when you must function in that level through the demands of career or family.
  4. Lack of meditation practice – In this scenario, you don’t pierce the veil because you never lift your awareness through meditation to penetrate to your core.
  5. Limiting beliefs – You learn beliefs and values that dissuade or frighten you from entering deeper states of awareness. You may have learned that entering certain other states of awareness are states of insanity, or states where you lose control.
  6. Inner gates – You may come across inner gates that prevent your attention from moving deeper into the layers of the mind. Two common gates are the one that blocks entrance to the Subconscious mind, and the one that limits access to the Superconscious mind.

There are a variety of meditation methods to begin to deconstruct this veil. These methods include:

  1. Process meditation – This enables you to help you work through and complete specific issues, so they no longer influence you from the unconscious mind.
  2. Active reflection and decision-making – This allows you to analyze the nature of the inner block or barrier. Once you know what it is, you can make new decisions to release its hold on you.
  3. Breakthrough – Through moving through the entire unconscious mind and the issues stored in it, you can break through into union with your attentional principle, spirit, or Soul. This can sublimate the desire-laden impressions and give you greater control over their expression in your life.
  4. Mindfulness – Through creating the inner mental habits of self-observation and mindfulness, you can begin to break out of the hypnotic spell of habit and routine.
  5. Conscious ascension to deeper layers of awareness and identity – Through learning how to direct your attention along the thread of consciousness to unite with the attentional principle, Self, spirit, and Soul.
  6. Inventory and introspection – Through structured inventory and introspection, you can discover the beliefs and values that keep you locked in an identity state. You learn to cultivate courage, faith, and curiosity to drive attention to explore deeper layers of the mind.
  7. Breaking up mindsets – You can use affirmation and autohypnosis to counter limiting beliefs. You can utilize evocative coaching questions to shift your mindsets to entertain other possibilities.
  8. The truth shall set you free – Be willing to tell the truth about your experience and about your failings; be willing to face the truth about yourself that you have been evading, and to face the uncomfortable feelings that uncovering surfaces. Psychotherapy can facilitate this.
  9. Find another pathway – If you encounter inner gates, try adopting a different form of meditation to help you get around these barriers.
  10. Transmutation – Burn away the barrier through drawing down the Light of the Spirit through implementing a transformational meditation technique.

For Ralph Waldo Emerson, “the unexamined life was not worth living.” He insisted upon opening his awareness to the transcendental vistas of the Soul, and looking at life from this expanded perspective. Perhaps people do not achieve their full potential because they do not expand their awareness to the level where their true promise can be known and actualized.

For those who wish to take on the project of deconstructing their veil and fully actualizing their potential, we teach many of these methods in our intermediate Integral meditation programs, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and on-line Accelerated Meditation Program. These courses provide the meditator with a variety of tools to counter these inner barriers that construct the veil over the Soul, and dismantle them. Those who wish to learn more about our system of Integral meditation that promotes person growth, enlightenment, and unlimited spiritual growth can do so at our website, https://www.mudrashram.com.

What Is the Attentional Principle?

By George A. Boyd ©2016

Q: What is this attentional principle? Is it the pineal gland? I don’t understand it? Are there other names for it?

A: The attentional principle has also been called Purusa or simply, the third eye. We could call it anything, but the key is that you recognize what its essence is. The Purusa is a wave of consciousness (brain center), has the faculty of intention (point between the eyebrows center), can listen to directed thought (throat), can contemplate (heart), can enter suggestions (solar plexus), can enter into the experience of others through empathy (navel), can summon its forces and create (base of spine). It is located behind the pituitary center of the system of chakras, which is the first center above the point between your eyebrows.

The pineal center of the chakras of the Subconscious mind is the doorway to the Nadamic channels. The pineal gland in the body is light sensitive through nerves that connect with it, but these neural connections are designed to let it know how much light is outside, so it can secrete melatonin to darken the skin—this is what gives you a tan.

You use your attentional principle all the time—when you send a beam of thought-intention, when you make a suggestion to yourself in autohypnosis, when you direct your attention to contemplate something. It is simply that you must recognize or realize that what is sending this is a conscious essence, and this conscious essence is you—you are this consciousness.

We give a meditation on how to awaken your attentional principle. It’s in a article, “How to Open Your Own Third Eye.” You can read it here.

Why Should I Learn to Meditate?

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Q: Why should I learn to meditate? How will it help me?

A: There are many benefits to meditation. Here is a list that we compiled in 2001:


Excerpted from “Meditation for Therapists Workbook, Third Edition” © 2001

As the effects of meditation range from mild to profound based on the depth of relative absorption, so do the benefits that meditators report. These benefits include:

  1. Improved ability to relax the body and relieve stress
  2. Enhanced clarity and mental concentration
  3. Deeper insight and self-knowledge, culminating in Enlightenment
  4. Stronger will power and greater ability to control behavior and habits
  5. Development of intuitive and psychic gifts
  6. Richer, more vivid dream life and sounder sleep
  7. Direct experience of the spirit and the Soul
  8. Higher frequency of peak performance and flow state experiences
  9. Spontaneous correction of character weakness and cultivation of virtue
  10. More enjoyment of life, beauty, and sexual pleasure
  11. Revelation of the Great Mysteries
  12. Mystic experiences with angels, spiritual guides, and God
  13. Unfolding the Soul into higher spiritual realms
  14. Channeling healing energy and the Divine Light to minister to others
  15. Feeling greater love for Nature, humanity, and God
  16. Increased altruism, promotion of the urge to help or serve others
  17. Better appreciation of religious teachings, living essential truths and values

Some people are content with their lives as they are, and have no desire to improve their inner life or experience their full human and spiritual potential. So for these people, meditation is probably not something they would consider doing.

For others of you, maybe as you read this list, you find yourself saying to yourself as you look at one or more of these benefits, “yeah, that is something I want, and I’d like to learn how to do that.”

And for you few of you, you want to have everything on this list—and more!

If you want to do just a few things on this list, we can develop a custom program for you to address that particular issue. This is called a meditation consultation. We can do one to as many sessions as you need to help you achieve this goal you desire.

If your aims are more practical—you just want to learn to live with less stress, have better concentration, and greater focus and clarity in your life—you may wish to take the Foundations of Practical Meditation, which our certified instructors can teach you.

If you’ve never meditated before, and you don’t have a clue as to how to do the most basic rudiments of meditation, you may want to start with the Introduction to Meditation program. You can take this one on-line—as a self-study program at your own pace, or you can augment it with group or individual coaching—or you can take this class in-person with one of our certified instructors.

If you have meditated before and you found yourself saying, “yes!” to most or all of these benefits as something you want, you will find the tools you need in our in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail or online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Q: Why should I learn meditation from Mudrashram®? Can’t I just take a class at my Yoga studio? Or practice the techniques I learn on the Internet?

A: Each meditation has a distinct effect on your mind. It focuses your attention on a different level of awareness on the Great Continuum of Consciousness. It produces different outcomes.

Many people learn very rudimentary meditations in Yoga classes and on the Internet. They learn mindfulness, which is collecting your attention, becoming present, and monitoring the content arising in the present time. They learn to watch their breath. They learn to chant AUM and other mantras, and temporarily lift their awareness into euphoric altered states of consciousness.

But they don’t understand the context of the meditation that they are doing.

  • They often don’t know why they are doing it, other than it releases stress and makes them feel more peaceful.
  • They don’t understand where each meditation takes them. They have no sense about what are the levels in the mind.
  • They don’t understand what the meditation they are doing is designed to do, and whether it is appropriate for the aims that they want to achieve.
  • They meditate and go into passive trance states, which are restful, but do nothing to affect their personal growth or spiritual development.
  • Worse, they may learn and practice powerful transformational techniques that produce spiritual imbalances that can affect their ability to function personally, or even generate Kundalini syndromes.

You need to know what you are doing. You need to be properly trained in meditation. For example:

  • You need to now why you are doing a meditation, and what effect it has on you.
  • You need to know where that meditation will take your attention and how it will affect your awareness.
  • You need to know the purpose of each meditation, when it is appropriate to use it, and when it is not.
  • You need to make each meditation count for something—your meditations should not just put you in a trance state—but you should do something useful and practical with each meditation. You should accomplish a specific meditation objective in each meditation session.
  • And because you are not just doing one thing with meditation, you need a different meditation tool to accomplish each meditation objective. So you are going to use a different meditation tool to relax your body and release stress than you will use to tune into your Soul’s intuition.

Mudrashram® teaches each of these things. It gives you multiple techniques, because you will need meditation for different purposes. It’s like getting a toolbox to help you gain all of the benefits of meditation.

We welcome you to look at our programs. They are complete trainings. They are one of the best investments you can make for your health, your career, your personal destiny, and spiritual development.

  • For your health, you will learn stress reduction.
  • For your career, you will gain the ability to powerfully focus your mind and intention to achieve your goals.
  • For your personal destiny, you will gain to connect with the Self and your will power to manifest your core life goals.
  • For your spiritual development, you will learn how to transform and actualize your spiritual potentials, tap into your Soul’s intuition, discover your Soul’s purpose, and rise to Liberation and Mastery.

Explore our website. Read the articles and watch the free videos in our Library. Obtain our books that appeal to you. Take webinars on topics of your interest. And when you’re ready to begin meditation, sign up for one of our classes.

It’s truly one of the best things you could ever do for yourself!

Advanced Course Date Change

To accommodate those of you who are traveling to watch the total solar eclipse, enrolling your children in school and/or vacationing over Labor Day weekend, we will be moving the start date of the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation webinar class to September 9, 2017. The course go nine Saturdays and will finish on November 4, 2017.

You must have completed either the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the Accelerated Meditation Program to be eligible to attend the class.

We have raised our prices for this class. However, if you make your payment before midnight on August 30, 2017, we will extend you the old rate. Pay after that, and you pay the new rate.

If you have questions about whether you are eligible for the class, please contact us.