How You Can Become Illumined and Enlightened

By George A. Boyd ©2018

Q: What is Illumination? How do I become enlightened?

A: To understand how you do this, you need to understand something about the levels of mental functioning. To become enlightened, you have to move your attention to the core of your mind and unite with your Soul. But before you do this, you have to move through the other strata of mental functioning. So beyond the firing of neurons in your brain that instruments can measure, there are seven additional layers of mental functioning:

  1. Reason – At this level of the Conscious mind, the faculty of reason enables you to use analysis, deductive and analogical reasoning. With your reason, you are able to “test reality” to detect if a statement is true or false. You use this level of the mind when you investigate something or gather evidence to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
  2. Intellect – At this level of the Metaconscious mind, you are able to utilize problem-solving strategies to arrive at a solution to a problem. The intellect is capable of inductive, dialectical, and synthetic reasoning.Reflective and Receptive meditation – When you activate this connection to your Soul through the intuitive thread (Antakarana), you can ask the Soul questions and receive answers. So if you ask your Soul, “What is the purpose I am alive?” The Soul will give you an answer if this cord that connects your intellect with the Soul is functioning. You can also “sit in the silence” and passively receive guidance from your Soul through Receptive meditation.
  3. Psychic intuition – This type of knowing operates in your vehicle of consciousness in the Psychic Realm. Depending on your state of spiritual evolutionary development, this aspect of intuitive knowing allows you to read the “ethers”—the chemical ether (comprising molecules, atoms, and the subatomic unified field), the information ether, the resonance ether, the life force ether, the desire ether (e.g., the Law of Attraction), the thought form ether, and yet higher ethers up to the presence of the Soul. This form of knowing allows you to gather information about other people, so you can do “psychic readings.”
  4. Revelatory intuition – This type of knowing begins to operate in the First Planetary Initiation. It ostensibly reveals the meaning of scriptures, gives correspondences to metaphysical ideas, and constructs a philosophical framework through which you can understand the world. With sufficient acquisition of this knowledge from this source, you can begin to teach and counsel others about metaphysics and spiritual subjects.
  5. Illumined Mind downpour of knowledge – This aspect of the mind functions when you awaken the “Buddhic capsule,” the inmost mental stratum around your Soul. You can awaken this capsule through deep Raja Yoga or Kundalini meditation. When it is activated, there is a continuous downpour of intuitive knowledge, which shows you the content of every level of the mind, and reveals the Soul at the core of the Superconscious mind. This igniting of this deepest aspect of the mind is called Illumination or Samadhi. The discerning wisdom that operates at this level of the mind is called mandalic reasoning.
  6. Gnosis – This state dawns on the mind when you know the Soul from the Soul’s perspective. In Gnosis, you become the Soul. This state is also called Enlightenment.

Most people are familiar with layers 1 and 2—you use them at school and at work. Some people can also access layer 3, so they are able to ask a question to their Soul, and the Soul will give them guidance.

Usually people begin to tap into layer 4 when their Soul journeys onto the Psychic Realm; layer 5 appears when the Soul enters the First Planetary Initiation; and layer 6 dawns with the Soul takes the Fourth Planetary Initiation and it migrates onto the Buddhic Plane. There are spiritual practices that can enable people to prematurely activate layers 4 and 5—this typically results in distorted and confused information being disseminated.

You can learn ways to safely activate layers 3 to 6 in our intermediate meditation classes, in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We explore the deeper aspects of gaining illumination (layer 6) and experiencing Gnosis (layer 7) in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation.

We encourage you to acquire techniques from intuitive meditation (Jnana Yoga), so you can begin to access the deeper layers of your mental functioning. We teach these techniques in our intermediate and advanced classes to help you reach the states of Illumination and Gnosis.

The Progression of Integration

By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: How does the process of psychological integration progress? Do people become more integrated as they grow spiritually?

A: Integration first occurs at the level of the personality and then progresses to encompass transpersonal and universal perspectives. Transpersonal integration occurs when you begin to incorporate elements of the Superconscious mind, and ultimately come to identify with the Higher Self or Soul. Universal integration occurs when you are able to minister to thousands and millions of other Souls—this is the state of spiritual Mastery.

Integration appears to progress through seven stages:

  1. Relative disintegration – You sense that you are composed of multiple parts or subpersonalities. Your parts are often in conflict, and it is hard for you to move forward in your life, because it is difficult to decide on what you really want to do. As a result, you cling to what is known and comfortable, even if it doesn’t make you happy. You may find that elements from your unconscious mind regularly run your behavior: things you sense in the world around you and what other people say and do trigger you to do and say certain things, even though you may feel this is not right or good.
  2. Partial integration – Your life begins to make sense and have a relative coherence. You identify with your roles at work, as a parent, as a partner in a relationship, and with activities you do in the community. You have established regular routines that make your life more efficient and less stressful. You begin to honor your needs, and you have set times for work and productivity and times in which you relax and rejuvenate. You continue to improve your results as you periodically monitor your behavior and modify things to do even better. You have trusted, supportive role models who guide you and mentor you. You may have the support of a religious or spiritual community that inspires you to do your best, or influential business leaders who show you how to prosper and how to advance in your career. You continue, however, to have aspects of your behavior you do not control. For example, you might have emotional outbursts, or be immoderate in your eating or using alcohol.
  3. Personal integration – You become self-aware, and you recognize that you create your personal destiny through what you choose. You set goals in each area of your life, and you manage your time and resources to achieve them. You are able to dialog with each of the subpersonalities within you, and find ways to meet their needs. Unconscious patterns and the influence of others govern less of your behavior; you consciously chart your course through life and make your own decisions. You become clear about what you want to do, be, and have in your life; you set about making that happen.
  4. Genius – You begin to tap into the abilities and knowledge of your Soul and begin to express them in your life. With your established capacity to make the things you choose happen in your life, you begin to concretize the inspiration of your Soul as creativity, inventions, new theoretical knowledge, and novel procedures and methods that improve productivity and performance.
  5. Transpersonal integration – You discover your Soul’s purpose and you begin to cooperate with your Soul in carrying that out. Your Soul fully expresses through you and you become its instrument. You gain discernment of the true nature of your Soul and you can guide and teach others to discover their own Soul and its gifts.
  6. Universal consciousness – When your Soul evolves to states of universal consciousness, you begin to minister and teach the multitudes. This first stage of universal integration allows you potentially influence millions of lives. You may originate a thought stream that inspires many people all over the world.
  7. Spiritual Mastery – At this stage, God empowers you to guide, teach, and transform other Souls, leading them to personal integration, lifting them to connect with their Soul’s genius, gain transpersonal integration, rise into universal sates of consciousness—and ultimately, rise to the same level of Mastery you have achieved.

Gaining personal integration is an ongoing process throughout your life. Using centering methods, meditation techniques that unite your attention with your Self, help you become established in this core of your personality and facilitates you taking charge of your life and incorporating your many parts into a harmonious synthesis. In addition to centering methods, there are several other methods that we teach that can help you work with these subpersonalities to help you integrate them into the Self.

As you begin to connect with your Soul, you begin to activate your Soul’s genius. Techniques drawn from Agni Yoga and Jnana Yoga assist you to make this connection and channel this wisdom.

You can begin to contemplate the Soul directly using Raja Yoga, and to awaken its innate knowledge and ability using Kundalini Yoga. This accelerates the rate at which you achieve transpersonal integration.

You achieve transformation in your spiritual development into states of universal consciousness using a transformational method. In our system of Integral meditation, we give you a transformational mantra that allows you to reach these states after sustained practice over several years.

Ultimately, if you follow the track of your spiritual development to its culmination, you will reach the stage of Liberation and Mastery. At his highest level, you will become an channel of the Divine Light.

We teach methods to help you activate stages three through five, and to ultimately rise into universal states and spiritual Mastery, in our intermediate meditation classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We invite you to learn how to do these methods, so you can more swiftly achieve personal and transpersonal integration.

Why Religion Drives Some People Crazy

Why Religion Drives Some People Crazy

Leading to Political Strife, Fanaticism, and Terrorism

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Religion influences people at multiple levels. It conditions:

  • Identity – who they believe themselves to be
  • Volition – what choices they are allowed to make, and which choices are labeled as wrong or evil
  • Cognition – what they think and believe about selected topics, which shape their political and social opinions
  • Morality – how they decide what is right and wrong behavior
  • Affect – how they react emotionally to ideas or objects
  • Behavior – what they allow themselves to do, as their beliefs and values direct them
  • Motivation – what desires are acceptable to fulfill and which are not
  • Perception – what mindsets they adopt and which they abandon
  • Cosmology – what mythological world they perceive their spiritual essence dwells, which contains the narrative of how Creation occurred, the spiritual beings that inhabit this inner world, and what is the form of the Supreme Being

This multi-faceted, multi-modal influence that religion has over human beings can completely take over their autonomy, and turn them into instruments for the agenda of the leaders of the faith. People no longer discover who they are; know their genuine thoughts, feelings, and motivations; or make independent choices—they are shaped and molded into who they should be, according to the doctrinal vision of the religion.

When we examine the eight stages of alternate perceptions of the world that can be generated through prayer, hypnosis, and meditation, we find that religion emphasizes two parts of this internalization process. Understanding these stages sheds light upon what is happening to people who come under the sway of religion and how this occurs.

Stage One – You believe in or remember a form of God. You may do some type of activity to praise or worship this Being. You typically make requests to this Being through prayer or supplication. As you practice prayer for some time, you may begin to receive guidance or teaching from this being through intuition. This is called invocation.

Stage Two – You collect your attention and become present. You may be able to focus your attention on feelings that arise in the present time in your body and work them out. This is called mindfulness.

Stage Three – You move your attention along the thread of consciousness you access selected centers of the Conscious mind to relieve stress, lower your anxiety, and gain clarity on what you need to do. This is called practical meditation.

Stage Four – You move your attention along the thread of consciousness into the Subconscious mind, which allows you to travel through the temporal-mnemonic strata of your mind, and to access the system of chakras and your astral body, using hypnosis and meditation. This is called liminal meditation.

Stage Five – You move your attention along the thread of consciousness into the Metaconscious mind to unite with the Self. Through this means you empower you will and activate the executive faculties of your personality to take charge of your life and personal destiny. This is called centering meditation.

Stage Six – You focus your attention upon your three immortal essences of consciousness—your attentional principle, your spirit, and your Soul—to awaken your ability to do conscious, inner spiritual work. This is called awakening meditation.

Stage Seven – You focus your attention upon a center in the Superconscious mind that is in proximity to the form of God to whom you pray and whom you worship. In many religions, this is an integration center in the Superconscious mind, which we call a nucleus of identity—though in some groups, they will have you focus on the spirit or an ensouling entity at another level of the Continuum, other than where your Soul dwells.

After keeping your attention merged in this essence for prolonged periods of time, you come to identify with it. As you contemplate this band of the Continuum and receive teachings from those who are established in this cosmology, it begins to shape your perception, thinking, and beliefs; influence your emotional reactions, attitudes, and moral beliefs; and ultimately, how you act.

Since this is an altered state of consciousness in which your reality testing mechanisms of the mind are temporarily suspended—like being in a hypnotic trance—you can be programmed to believe almost anything, accept it as true, and act on it.

This state of mind is called unitive meditation. In different traditions, it has been called being reborn, gaining Realization, awakening of true faith, recognition of original mind, experiencing Gnosis or Divine Knowledge.

Stage Eight – You use the attentional principle, spirit, and Soul to work on the issues of your personality from a detached perspective, activate the full operation of the faculties of your Superconscious mind, free your spirit to return to its Source, travel in full consciousness as the attentional principle through every band of the mind, and unfold the spiritual evolutionary potentials of the Soul using transformational meditation. This is called transcendence meditation.

Religions typically emphasize stage one and stage seven—invocation and unitive meditation. They have you believe in or remember God to establish a relationship. Then they use some modality to alter your awareness so you can enter into mystic union with the spiritual essence that dwells in proximity to that Divine Being. This might take the form of singing or chanting, sacred movement or dancing, using a mantra to focus your attention on this essence, or doing special breathing methods.

There certainly is not a problem with visiting this nucleus of identity or other spiritual essence in meditation. Where it becomes a problem when you begin to operate from this higher center and you become fully identified with it: in this scenario, your religion begins to program you and gradually takes over your life.

Many religions and spiritual groups focus your attention on a nucleus of identity, or the spirit or an ensouling entity outside of where your Soul dwells, and then lock your attention in this state. [We refer to this to doing spiritual work outside the cutting edge of spirituality.]

They use role authority, e.g., the sacred leader, the Guru or Master; sacred text authority, citing scriptures and other holy books; and instill fear, guilt, and shame to indoctrinate you—these methods eventually start to control you. They condition your lifestyle; inculcate their approved doctrine to shape your beliefs, values, and behavior; and have you engage in regular religious rituals to continually remind you of your identification with this religion.

The other forms of meditation of stages two through six and eight—mindfulness, practical meditation, liminal meditation, centering meditation, awakening meditation, and transcendence meditation—operate under your control. You may be initially guided in doing these meditations to learn them, but after you are able to practice them proficiently, you direct where you focus your attention and decide what inner work you do.

We teach you mindfulness and practical meditation in our Foundations of Practical Meditation Program. We show you liminal and centering meditation in our Introduction to Meditation Program. We train you in awakening meditation and transcendence meditation in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

To do this conscious inner work, you must shift from belief and faith to knowledge and direct verification; you must move from being a believer at stage one to being a mystic knower, who is capable of independent inquiry, contemplation, and actively transforming your spiritual potentials.

Moreover, you must break out of the bubble of programmed hypnotic belief at stage seven to do this. This commonly requires you to deconstruct the perceptual filters and scaffolds of belief that lock you into a remaining in continual union with a spiritual essence. This allows you to settle into your own nature—untrammeled by the hypnotic influence of religions that attempt to mold you into an ideal pattern of their design—and actualize your genuine personal and spiritual potentials.

We discuss in greater depth how you shift from faith to knowledge and how you deconstruct the mindsets and beliefs that lock you into an altered state of consciousness in our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing? We encourage you to read this book if this is a topic that interests you and you would like to learn more.

How You Can Activate Your Inner Seeing Power

By George A. Boyd ©2018

Q: How do people see auras and visions of the spiritual worlds? Is that a special Gift from God, or can anyone learn to do this?

A: Behind physical vision are seven other layers of vision:

  1. The vision of your astral body
  2. Your mind’s eye: what you “see” with your attention
  3. Your personal intuition, which allows you to see what is going on at each level of your personality
  4. The vision of your intentional consciousness, or attentional principle, which we call metavision
  5. The vision of your spirit, which we call heart sight
  6. The vast intuitive vision of your Higher Mind, or Buddhic capsule, that enables your Soul to “see” all of the realms it has opened up as it journeys across the Superconscious mind
  7. The simultaneous vision of each of these different levels from core sight, the Soul’s innate vision

Most people are familiar with the first three types of vision, your astral vision, your attentional vision, and your personal intuition. For example:

When you are asleep and your physical eyes are closed, yet you see the images and scenery of your dreams. This is astral vision. You also use this type of vision when you enter the state of hypnosis, or do astral projection.

You may have experienced listening to a lecture and you were only aware of the content of what the speaker was teaching you. This is attentional vision, which allows you to “see” ideas and associations. You can train this faculty in meditation to explore each level of your mind and activate the higher octaves of vision.

Personal intuition allows you to check in each level of your Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind, so you can monitor what you are experiencing. You might check into your feelings, the voice of logic, or your conscience, to help you decide what is the best course of action to take.

By focusing your attention on your attentional principle, your spirit, and your Soul, you can begin to activate vision types 4 to 7.

Realize that all of these forms of vision are operating just behind your physical vision in progressively deeper layers. To tap these other layers of vision, you need to (a) focus your attention there, (b) allow your awareness to open into this level of the mind, and (c) let your sensory energies withdraw into this deeper layer of the mind, where this higher order of vision operates.

What is true for vision is also true for the other senses—hearing, taste and smell (these conjoin in the deeper aspects of inner sensing), and touch—when you are able to withdraw your sensory currents into these deeper layers of the mind, these other subtle senses begin to function.

This withdrawal of sensory currents is called Pratyahara in Yoga Philosophy. You do this when you fall off to sleep, or when you enter a state of hypnosis—this allows you to activate the senses of your astral body.

When you collect your attention and concentrate upon the mental schema of something you are learning, you use attentional seeing. When you are deeply concentrated, you are just aware of what you are learning.

Your astral body’s vision regularly sees auras. If you travel in your astral body through the physical universe into what we call the Astral Light, it is possible to behold the inhabitants and scenery of the dimensional worlds or “Astral Planes.”

If you would like to learn more about the different levels of vision, you may enjoy the Vision Workshop, which is one of our Public Access Webinars. You can order it on our website, and read the notes and listen to the guided meditations, so you can learn how to access these deeper levels of sight.

For those of you who have not meditated before, and would like to learn to use attentional sight to explore the levels of the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind—beyond just focusing on a mental schema for a subject you are learning in school or on a project you are doing for your work—you can learn how to do this in our beginning meditation program, the Introduction to Meditation Program. This is available online, or you can do an in-person class with one of our trained Introduction to Meditation teachers.

If you have meditated before, and you would like to learn techniques to awaken your immortal spiritual essences and activate your four highest octaves of sight, you can take one of our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

If you can learn to focus your attention and withdraw your senses, anyone can learn to see auras and view the inner Planes—and with time and practice, to fully utilize each of your seven inner octaves of sensing.