On Making Resolutions

The Gentle Art of Making Resolutions and Making Them Come True

By George A. Boyd © 2018

As we again come to the turning of a new year, you may be making new resolutions that you hope to accomplish in the the coming 12 months of 2019. It is a common experience for people to set resolutions, and not follow though on them, despite their best intentions.

It is important to understand the mechanism through which you actually carry out a resolution. This process starts with getting an idea of what you want to change or implement in your life. If you are clear about the exact process through which you turn an idea into reality—which we call concretizing ideas—you can begin to actualize your resolutions and produce the change that you want.

I have written on this topic, and I share it with you here:


Concretizing Ideas

By George A. Boyd © 2017

It is relatively easy to get an idea. You can brainstorm. You can get a tip from someone. You can listen to advice from a friend or relative. You can read something in a book or on the Internet.

Ideas are plentiful. There is no shortage of ideas. Maybe there is a plethora of ideas in the world, with so many opinions and no one seems to agree what is the right idea is to solve your problem.

But in spite of this, you have settled on an idea that you believe will solve your problem; something you believe is a workable solution to your dilemma. But how do you run with this idea? How do you turn it into action?

  1. You first need a vision of how you will implement it.
  2. You examine alternate ways to implement it.
  3. You select the best alternative, based on your research and the information that you have.
  4. You set a goal to achieve it.
  5. You make a step-by-step plan to implement it.
  6. You make a commitment to the plan and determine you will do whatever is necessary to make it happen.
  7. You take action, working on the first step of your plan.
  8. You monitor the effects of your actions, and you adjust your course if necessary.
  9. You arrive at your goal. You have made your idea real.
  10. You measure your effectiveness in achieving this goal and look for ways to improve on your performance and your product.

People typically get stuck at steps one, six, and eight.

People get stuck at step one when they don’t know how to do it. This requires that they learn how to do it.

They get stuck at step six because they have lingering doubts, and they can’t make a commitment to their goal. So they procrastinate.

They get stuck at step eight when things go wrong or are don’t go as expected. They often give up here.

Think on these steps and see if you can take an idea and bring it to fruition and make it real. The more you do this, the more effective you become at translating ideas into reality.


Think about what you do that sabotages your resolutions year after year. Try using this ten step process and see if you aren’t able to actually carry out your resolutions this year.

The Seven Orders of Communication

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: How do I give Satsang? I’m not clear how I connect with the Soul and spirit to enable them to channel through me.

A: Satsang is a seventh order communication. These seven orders of communication are:

First order communication – self-disclosure. You use this when you tell your life story or share your experiences with others.

Second order communication – empathic reflection. You utilize this when you ask others questions to get to know them, and you reflect back their experience and their feelings and meanings to let them know you’ve heard them.

Third order communication – therapeutic suggestion. When you guide others to encounter their issues and emotional pain in their unconscious mind and assist them to resolve them, you are operating at this level of communication. This is the level at which psychotherapy is done. Hypnotherapists, who guide their clients to work with material in the unconscious mind, tap this level.

Fourth order communication – clarification and empowerment. You communicate at this level you guide others to uncover and clarify their options for choice, like a counselor. Coaches also access this level when they empower others to make choices to achieve their core life goals and hold them accountable to achieve them.

Fifth order communication – attentional guiding. When you are able to give suggestion to guide the attention of others along the thread of consciousness, you are connecting at this level. Those who do guided meditations communicate at this level. Yoga teachers, who teach deep awareness of the body and the subtle energetic system of the chakras, also activate this level.

Sixth order communication – spiritual communion. When you are able to directly behold the attentional principle and spirit of others, and you train them in meditation, or guide them through the inner Planes, you are in communion at this level.

Seventh order communication – inspired discourse (Satsang). When you are able to give a voice to your attentional principle, your spirit, and your Soul, and allow them to speak through you, you are capable of giving Satsang. Those who channel other entities also access this level, but they are acting as a mouthpiece for another being.

Those who utilize the method called intoning taught in our intermediate meditation courses—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—learn how to use their vocal octaves beyond consensual, everyday communication.

There are three steps to learning how to give Satsang:

  1. Focusing your attention on the aspect of your nature that you wish to express.
  2. Giving permission for this aspect to communicate.
  3. Inviting that aspect to speak.

Once you have invited that aspect to speak, you must simply allow it express, without censoring it or attempting to control what this essence communicates.

As you practice this more and gain more experience with the variety of levels of non-consensual communication within you, you will find it easy to tune into your spiritual essences and give Satsang.

Is It the Flu or Karma

Is It Just the Flu? Or Is It Your Karma?

By George A. Boyd© 2016

Many aspirants are puzzled why illness and misfortune visit them, and they wonder if this is their karma acting up. One of the key determinations you need to make is whether this is a simple illness—unrelated to any karmic issue you are working through—or whether it does have karmic underpinnings. Here’s how you can tell:

Karma adds additional layers to a physical injury or illness. For example, physical symptoms accompany illnesses. These symptoms can include inflammation, fever, swelling, pain, throbbing, abnormal growth of tissue, formation of scar tissue, nausea, or dizziness—there is something you recognize isn’t right, and you don’t feel well.

Illnesses that are the expression of karma have seven additional layers:

  1. Etheric blockage – your life energy (chi, prana) doesn’t flow through this area
  2. Emotional reactions – underlying the symptoms are dysphoric feelings such as emotional pain (suffering), shame, worry, fear, anger, depression, or desperation
  3. Desire or craving – the symptoms may embody wishes or desires: what you want, but aren’t getting; or what you are experiencing, and you don’t want to deal with anymore
  4. Imagination – there are the images, dream-like reveries, and animations of the subconscious mind that personify the issue
  5. Beliefs, memories, and thoughts – this is the cognitive expression of the issue—the beliefs, thoughts, and memories that the issue generates
  6. Mental impressions – These appear like iron or copper filings that adhere to the causal body. You feel these impressions are imbedded in the helix of the mind. This is the actual substance of karma, which Buddhists call samskaras.
  7. Seed at the core of the issue – This is the essence upon which all other aspects of karma are anchored. When this seed is burned away through transformation, all of the karmic layers dissolve.

You can do an inquiry through a structured process meditation to determine whether your physical symptoms have a karmic foundation or not.

If the symptoms are localized—for example, you have a throbbing pain in your right elbow—you would ask that part of your body these questions. As you do this process, you are going to put your attention on that part of your body that doesn’t feel right.

If it isn’t localized—for example, you feel achy all over—you would just ask your whole body these questions. Your attention is going to just touch the edge of the symptoms of malaise as you do this inquiry.

Here are the questions and process requests you can make to probe the symptoms of your illness to determine whether they arise from karma:

  1. What physical symptoms do you cause in me? Your illness might not “tell” you this, but you will simply note what these symptoms are through paying attention to what your body is experiencing in the present time and labeling them: congestion in the nose… aching in the cheeks…
  2. Show me the blockage that you represent. If your condition is karmic, you will feel a blockage or obstruction somewhere in your body that feels directly connected to the symptoms you are experiencing. If you wish to explore this more deeply, you may wish to trace with your attention where this blockage begins and ends.
  3. What emotional reactions do you embody? Note if any feelings come up, and what those feelings are. If memories of specific incidents arise as you do this, notice what those incidents are.
  4. What do you desire or want? [You can also ask, what are you rejecting or avoiding?] You will note what it is you want at a deep level that you are not getting. If you don’t get a response to what you desire or want, ask the alternative question, “What are you rejecting or avoiding?”
  5. What image represents you? You might get a simple image here, or you might get a wild internal drama enacted before your mind’s eye. Simply pay attention to whatever your question evokes from your subconscious mind.
  6. What beliefs, memories, or thoughts are associated with you? Here you will pay attention to the cognitive layer where these beliefs, memories, and thoughts express, and simply note what arises.
  7. Show me the impressions that underlie this karmic pattern and the seed at its core. If your subconscious mind has been giving you information as you asked each of these questions, at this stage you will a see a pattern and a black or golden seed at the end of it. If you get this vision, you will have definite confirmation that the symptoms you are experiencing are rooted in karma.

If you don’t get a response to questions two to seven, it is likely that you have an uncomplicated illness, not related to a karmic substrate. But, this could also mean that your subconscious mind is as silent and mysterious as the sphinx, and doesn’t wish to tell you anything!

If you are getting clear answers to questions two to seven, you may have some initial confirmation that the symptoms you are experiencing do have a karmic substrate. You may wish to hold this information you have received with some reservation, however, because some individuals have a truly wild imagination and make up all kinds of crazy things!

You may find this meditation may be helpful in teasing out whether some naughty thing you did in a past life—or earlier in this life—is catching up with you, or whether you have just caught a bug.

Trance States in Meditation and Life

By George A. Boyd © 2014

A state of hypnotic trance can occur during meditation, or it can be induced during your everyday life. This article will briefly discuss what occurs during a trance state, what is the difference between an involuntary or induced hypnotic state and a voluntary trance, and how you can break out from a hypnotic spell.

In a state of trance:

  • You are highly suggestible, and the suggestions of other people can readily influence you or shape your behavior.
  • You have a narrowed attentional focus; your attention is focused on a narrow range of content.
  • You are not aware of thoughts; you may experience a state in which your mind seems empty of thoughts and you are simply observing in the stillness and silence.
  • You may experience that your emotions become suspended, and you feel an inner numbness. This is called dissociation; in this state, you no longer feel your emotions.
  • You experience a vivid interaction with the content suggested to you with rich sensory detail. This imaginary world becomes alive and real to you.
  • You can readily become convinced that statements made to you while you are in this altered state of consciousness are true; you may tenaciously hold on to these truths despite evidence to the contrary. Many ideological political and religious beliefs are shaped while people are in a trance state, and they hold on to these beliefs zealously.
  • When you are in a trance, you revert to automatic or habitual behavior. You can also act out suggested ideas using ideomotor behavior. People in a trance can seem like zombies or robots.

You can readily enter a hypnotic trance when the correct conditions are present. Some types of hypnotic trance operate involuntarily, in that you do not consciously choose to enter this state, but physiological, psychological, and group dynamics influence you to fall into the trance state. Here are some examples of these involuntary trance states:

  • Trances arising from physiological deprivation or ordeal – these trance states arise after long fasting, sleeplessness, or extreme physical exertion. These methods are commonly used in torture and brainwashing to make prisoners susceptible to their captors’ control.
  • Trances arising from subliminal cues in the environment – These types of cues, commonly used in advertising, associate something you subconsciously desire with their product, so you are influenced to want it and to purchase it. These subliminal cues shape consumers’ brand loyalty and purchasing preferences, and they are skillfully used to similarly influence voting decisions in political contests.
  • Trauma-induced trance – Some individuals who do not have a response when trauma or catastrophe occurs “freeze” instead of fleeing or fighting. They remain in a state of immobile, frozen terror and shock.
  • Possession trance – In some religions, believers participate in dancing and singing that puts them into a state of trance, and then the “spirits,” “gods” or “goddesses” of their faith “possess” them. While in this trance state, they may communicate a message from this entity [channeling or prophecy], or they may perform actions under the influence of this entity’s suggestion. This type of religious trance is also seen in so-called charismatic groups that invite the Holy Spirit to possess them, and channel through them as the “gifts of the Spirit.”
  • Sustained altered state of consciousness (Mystic trance) – in certain spiritual and cultic groups, the spiritual teacher or leader encourages their followers to remain continuously in an altered state of consciousness. This continual absorption becomes involuntary when spiritual practices used in these groups move the essences of consciousness out of alignment with the personality and the axis of being. This produces a state of consciousness where attention becomes fixed in this spiritual essence, and those in this state cannot bring their attention back to normal grounded awareness again.
  • Drug induced trance – In a variety of groups, people ingest alcohol and drugs to enter a relaxed, uninhibited trance state. Social pressures may influence people to partake of these psychoactive drugs, and to participate with them in a communal trance state.
  • Addiction – Addiction is a form of trance where a powerful craving in the unconscious mind forces the addict to seek out alcohol, drugs, sex, food, gambling, or other objects associated with reward, pleasure, ecstasy, or cessation of pain and suffering. This powerful craving operates outside the ability of the addict’s will to control it. If it continues to control the addict’s thinking and behavior, it progressively leads to deterioration, destitution, disease, despair, and death.

You enter a voluntary state of trance when you receive hypnotherapy to help you make changes you want in your life. You also voluntary initiate a state of trance when you practice self-hypnosis, or when you do a meditation in which you specify the meditation objective you wish to achieve by entering this altered state of consciousness.

We teach auto-hypnosis in our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We teach several hypnotic methods that show you how to help others work with their stress in our Stress Reduction Consultant Certification Course, which has been completed and will shortly be available to the general public.

If you are in an involuntary hypnotic trance, others are controlling your behavior, your belief, your values, your life, and even your perspective. If you wish to take back control of your own life from this environing spell, here are some things you can do:

  1. Recognize you are in a state of trance. This is the first step to freeing yourself from this spell.
  2. Identify the mechanisms or methods through which others are trying to control you.
  3. Determine how these mechanisms trigger your emotions, your beliefs, or your behavior. Train yourself to not respond to these attempts to influence you.
  4. Empower yourself by defining what are your beliefs, your values, what is important to you, what you want your life to become, and who you are as a person and who you are spiritually. Train yourself to resist the pressure of others to have you conform to their desires and values.
  5. Stop going to places where others influence you negatively, or that trigger your bad habits or addictions. Select new friends that support yourself in actualizing your potential and fulfilling your dreams.
  6. Get help for patterns that are now out of your control. See a psychotherapist, counselor, or addictions professional to help you.
  7. When you enter an altered state of consciousness, always bring your attention back to the waking state of awareness, and take time to reflect upon and integrate the experience you have had while you were in this state of meditation.

By better understanding what occurs in the trance state, and how you can free yourself from these influences that attempt to control you, you can begin to take back your own life, and begin to fulfill your unique purpose and achieve your dreams.