Monthly Archives: April 2019

Reflections on Worthiness and Self Image

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By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: From an early age, I have always felt unworthy. I have always felt inferior when I compared myself to others. Now that I’ve begun to do spiritual work, I believe this is holding me back. Can you shed some light on this issue?

A: Worthiness is a judgment people make when they are going to give a gift to someone, offer someone a job, or allow their son or daughter to marry someone. It carries with it the connotation that whoever is receiving their bestowal of kindness, money, or permission must have the requisite positive qualities, good character, or responsibility, so their gift will not be misused or squandered.

When you internalize the judgments people make about you as to whether or not you are worthy shapes your beliefs about your worthiness. It colors whether you believe you are worthy of receiving what you want in life, or whether you see yourself as qualified enough, experienced enough, or responsible enough to work in a career or to care for a spouse and family.

This internal judgment you internalize shapes your sense of what you can, be, and have. It has been called narcissistic entitlement.

If parents, relatives, friends, and teachers love you unconditionally and reward you for simply being and participating, you might get a sense that you are entitled to whatever you want—because people have continually given you this message.

If on the other hand, your parents, relatives, friends, and teachers made you work hard for their rewards and praise, you may internalize a belief that your worthiness is conferred based on your performance, your attainment of standards of excellence, and demonstrating noble qualities and good character.

Alternately, if parents, relatives, friends, and teachers continually abused you and bullied you—told you that you were worthless, inferior, you didn’t measure up, you were deficient, or you were flawed or unlovable—you might internalize these harsh judgments and conclude you are unworthy of love, money, happiness, and the other good things in life.

These internal judgments about worthiness appear to lie upon a continuum that ranges from antisocial to grandiose.

  1. Sadistic or antisocial people believe they deserve whatever they desire, and they force others to give them what they want. If they don’t get what they want, they may make the other person suffer for not giving them what they want—showing others abuse, cruelty, and even torture.
  2. Depressed people believe they are undeserving and unworthy of receiving anything they want. People who have been abused may feel this way.
  3. Self-reformers believe they might not currently deserve to achieve what they want, but believe they can prepare themselves to receive the good things of this world by changing themselves through education and training, working on their issues, or improving their habits and character.
  4. Passive aggressive people believe that they deserve to get ahead, but the world is unfair. They perceive Fate gives unworthy people the good things in life, while they are denied. These people harbor resentment, anger, and envy towards those who have what they want, but can’t seem to achieve.
  5. Those who perceive they live in a just and moral universe believe that they deserve what they experience in their lives, and they receive what is just and fair. They are grateful for what they receive.
  6. Those perceive they are in touch with their spiritual core believe they have the ability to manifest or create whatever they desire, and they are worthy of anything they desire. If their magical beliefs do not manifest what they desire, they may blame others or continually look for some flaws in themselves that purportedly block their manifestation.
  7. Those who become grandiose and develop pathological narcissism believe they inherently deserve what they want, because they are a superior or god-like being; that others should recognize their greatness, and obey, serve, and worship them.

If you are dealing with issues of feeling unworthy, it may be helpful if you can begin to adopt the mindset of a self-reformer. Instead of believing you are inherently unworthy and undeserving and that there is no way out—a belief that will paralyze your forward movement with depression, apathy, and hopelessness—you can begin to see that if you can improve yourself, you can prepare yourself to have what you want. This will give you motivation to begin to work on yourself and start improving your lot.

I’m reminded of the story of Jack LaLanne, an exercise aficionado, who was shamed as a teenager, because he was a “97 pound weakling.” This spurred him to become a body builder and world-renowned exercise coach. Those that shamed him came around to admire him and emulate him.

Q: I also believe that my self-image is damaged. Can this be rehabilitated?

A: Self-image is the ego’s inner picture of who and what you are. Like worthiness, there is a continuum of self-image states. These can be broken into personal self-image states and transpersonal or archetypal self-image states.

Personal self-image states are based on your identity with the roles you play in the world.

Transpersonal self-image states appear to arise when your Soul migrates through the Psychic Realm, and you are caught up in the cascade of visions and inspirations that flood the Soul.

Examples of personal self-image states include the following:

  1. Psychotic self-image – At this level of self-image, you feel your world has fallen apart and you are subject to gross distortions of perception (hallucinations), belief (delusions), and mood.
  2. Demonic, criminal, or sadistic self-image – if you have this type of self-image, your sense of entitlement makes you rationalize it is all right to harm or abuse others to get what you want.
  3. Neurotic or anxiety-laden self-image – when this self-image state is present, you may act out self-defeating patterns of behavior that sabotage your happiness and success, or your anxiety and self-doubt may hinder you doing what you want to do. You may be conflicted and confused, and it is difficult for you to make decisions.
  4. Normal or realistic self-image – when your self-image enters this zone, you become adjusted to life and you believe that can get what you need. You are able to secure a job and find a life partner, and you plan for your future. You are realistic and hard working.
  5. Successful self-image – when your self-image migrates into this level, you may be able to get extra education or training that qualifies you for a good-paying job. You accrue some wealth and you can begin to enjoy the good things in life.
  6. Highly successful self-image – those who reach this level of self-image typically are millionaires with abundant wealth, and can get whatever they desire in the world.
  7. Celebrity or leader self-image – those who ascend to the summit of the mountain of personal self-image become the role models for others, and typically have the accoutrements of power and wealth to influence the world around them.

Those that embark on the Path of spiritual development may sometimes have an ego-death experience that makes them identify with a spiritualized self-image. They die from their role in the world, and they come to regard themselves as an archetypal self that has non-ordinary powers and enhanced intuitive knowledge. Some examples of these forms of archetypal self-image that appear when the Soul crosses the Psychic Realm include:

  1. Reality creator self-image – those whose self-image has polarized at this level believe they can influence reality through their intention and thought. They may believe in the operation of the Law of Attraction.
  2. Psychic powers self-image – those whose self-image operates at this level may be engaged in developing their psychic powers, and experimenting with using them.
  3. Metaphysical practitioner self-image – after much study of the intuitive sciences or non-empirical healing systems, they may become a metaphysical counselor or alternative healing practitioner. They may function as healers and professional psychics.
  4. Channeler and spiritualist self-image – Those whose self-image reaches this zone may believe they can commune with the dead, with spirits, angels, and Ascended Masters. They behold entities that are not in the room, as a matter of course, and may receive odd information from these sources.
  5. Star being self-image – Those whose self-image becomes established at this level may believe in alien abductions, the presence of aliens among us, and might report that they regularly commune with an extraterrestrial intelligence.
  6. Library of all-knowledge self-image – Those whose self-image migrates into this realm believe that they can access the stored experience of the Akashic Records and commune with any person who has ever lived.
  7. Glorified self-image – those who move their self-image close to the top of the Psychic Realm may come to think of themselves as a Master or Christ-like being.

Those whose Souls evolve beyond the top of the Psychic Realm typically identify with their spiritual essences—their Soul, a nucleus of identity, or their spiritual heart. This spiritualized self-image that emerges in the Psychic Realm disappears; grounding in this higher “essence of being” replaces it.

Most people who are struggling with a “damaged self-image” are working out issues from the neurotic or anxiety-laden zone of the personal self-image. You can find help for these issues from a competent psychotherapist or counselor, who has learned methods to help you uncover and eliminate these issues. Your task is to retire enough of these issues, so that you can function normally in life, and begin to work on actualizing your dreams.

Varieties of New Age Meditation

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By George Boyd © 2019

Many “New Age” practitioners—guides, coaches, psychic readers, channelers, shamans, and visionaries—incorporate some type of meditation in their practice. These techniques variously purport to bring about “enlightenment,” produce healing, empower others to live up to their “true potential,” dissolve negative or limiting beliefs, remove blocks to true love and happiness, and to enable communion with guides and other denizens of the Astral Plane.

Seven major categories of meditation that these practitioners utilize include:

  1. Meditation that incorporates occult practices – These include summoning spirits; employing hypnosis to control other people; using tarot card decks designed by occult initiates; making use of amulets, charms, or crystals to bring good luck or ward off evil; applying essential oils to evoke certain powers or stimulate selected chakras; or intoning “spells” or magical incantations to manifest desired results.
  2. Meditations that incorporate shamanic elements – These include ingesting psychedelic drugs, such as ayahuasca, peyote, potent marijuana or hashish, or psilocybin mushrooms that enable people to enter altered states of consciousness and commune with spirits; cleansing the atmosphere with sweet grass, sage, or feathers; invoking the Earth Mother or kachinas; participating in sweat lodges; making offerings with a “sacred” pipe; going on “vision quests;” playing native instruments in invocational ceremonies, such as pan pipes, primitive flutes, native drums, or didgeridoos; transferring bad energy or illness to an egg or other object in healing sessions; or calling upon animal spirits or native American guides.
  3. Meditations that incorporate pseudo-scientific elements – These include meditations featuring purported “DNA restructuring” through attunements; setting up healing environments that employ frequency generators, like the Rife generator or “sound healing” chambers; employing brain entrainment technology with “photic” (visual) or “aural” (auditory) stimulation; entering places that produce sense deprivation, like “samadhi tanks;” promoting radical diets to promote weight loss and healing, including the foodless “breatharian” diet; and teaching others to manifest desires using the quantum field or enter into the “unified field” in meditation.
  4. Meditations that invoke inhabitants of the Psychic Realm – These meditations may call upon extraterrestrials or Masters of the Galactic Brotherhood; angels or archangels; “Ascended Masters;” sundry “channeled” entities; or pray to the Mother Father God at the top of the Psychic Realm.
  5. Meditations that channel energy – These meditations make attunement with the etheric body to promote healing; send the Light to work with material in the unconscious mind to bring about emotional release and remove limiting beliefs; and channeling spiritual energies from sundry Psychic Realm entities designed to instill new qualities in the aura.
  6. Meditations that lead attention into union with the “Higher Self” or Soul – These include meditations on the wave of the present time on the Akashic Records Subplane (the eternal now); varieties of “enlightenment” meditation that focus attention on the Soul; and “guided meditations” that take your attention on a hypnotic journey to meet the Soul within.
  7. Meditations targeted upon selected bands of the Abstract Mind Plane and Psychic Realm – These include training in visualization and autohypnosis; process meditation; meditation on the “present time” or eternal now; using evocative inquiry questions to promote change; affirmation; changing beliefs to positively influence the Law of Attraction; learning to activate your psychic powers; journeying to levels of the Psychic Realm where you can commune with departed spirits, angels, “Ascended Masters,” and extraterrestrials; activating and unfolding your “star seed;” communing with astral personality forms or receiving guidance from entities of the Psychic Realm through channeling; or traveling with a Psychic Guide to behold the flame of the Mother Father God at the top of the Psychic Realm.

We recommend that aspirants who are journeying through the Psychic Realm focus on learning radiative healing and alternative healing modalities, activating their native psychic powers required for their Soul’s mission, and mastering specific meditations that activate and provide access to the knowledge and abilities of each Subplane of the Abstract Mind Plane and Psychic Realm.

Syncretistic meditations that incorporate occult or shamanic practices may bring in energies or entities that are not benign from the Lower Astral Plane. We recommend that practitioners steer clear of these types of practices—substituting instead, meditations that tap into the Subplanes of the Abstract Mind Plane and Psychic Realm.

We suggest that you subject any pseudo-scientific-based meditations to critical analysis. Determine whether or not they produce the results they promise and whether their premises are valid or flawed.

We also caution those who come into the orbit of powerful Psychic Realm personalities and the entities they channel or embody. Our experience is that many seekers can become entranced and their lives controlled through these psychic cult leaders. There are a variety of Psychic Realm cults that have grown up around these charismatic channelers, healers, and visionaries.

Helpful Meditations to Use When Journeying through the Psychic Realm

Meditations that teach you how to channel energy; show you how to unite with your Higher Self or Soul; or train you in specific modalities for healing or working our issues in your unconscious mind may be good preparation for your future spiritual ministry in levels beyond the Psychic Realm.

It would also be valuable for you to get some context on where the Psychic Realm dwells on the Great Continuum of Consciousness; understanding that this is but one grade in the School of Life will go a long way in helping you properly appreciate what you are learning in the light of the “big picture” of your Soul’s Aeonic journey.

From this band of the Continuum, we predominantly teach meditations of type seven, meditations keyed to major levels of the Abstract Mind Plane in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. These meditations are important tools for work on personal issues and to augment the transcendence meditations that form the core of Integral meditation practice.

Mudrashram® Study Suggestions for the Psychic Realm

We suggest aspirants read our book, The Psychic Realm: Finding Safe Passage through the Worlds of Illusion to gain greater understanding of this mysterious realm.

You may also find our webinar training, “The Psychic Realm Series,” under the Public tab in the Public Webinar Access portion of our website will be helpful in gaining insight into some of the common experiences people have in this realm.

Those who are currently learning to develop their psychic powers may also find our “Psychic Powers Workshop” and “How to Read Your Own Past Lives,” under this same Public tab, to be useful.

Finally, we recommend that aspirants should know why they do certain practices, dispassionately evaluate their effectiveness, and the potential limitations or drawbacks of their use, and avoid employing methods that bring in unwanted influences, or result in enslavement or self-delusion.

Back on the Radio

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You might wish to watch our interview on the “Heaven on Earth” show with Athena Starseed on April 13, 2019 on CRN Talk Radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8gKp4sENUo.

In this show, we talk about the three types of purpose, what happens after death, reincarnation, and how to dialog and get guidance from the Soul.

Perspectives on Thinking

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By George A. Boyd © 2019

There are a variety of perspectives on thinking that drive decision and how they interface with the thinking process—whether they engage thought actively to produce behavior or whether they passively observe it. This spectrum of levels of interface with thought is shown below.

  1. Detachment from thought (Vairagya) – You witness thought from a detached viewpoint. This is typical of those who identify with a seed atom on a Supracosmic Path. After maintaining this viewpoint for some time, you can begin to watch thoughts arise and pass away; to stop yourself from acting on thoughts; and to lose the sense of identification with thoughts.
  2. Experiencing thoughts as waves of energy that arise on the surface of the mind (Vritti) – From this standpoint, you sense that thoughts appear to bubble up from the depths of the mind to the surface, where they enter consciousness and you become aware of them. Learning to notice the space between the arising of thoughts makes you aware that you are the ball of observing mind stuff (chittam), which we call the attention. Following these thoughts down to the depths makes you aware of the underlying karmic impressions (samskaras) that give rise to thought. Yogi Preceptors impart a variety of transformational methods to teach their disciples to dissolve these samskaras in the field of the Cosmic Mind. When these impressions are fully effaced, the state of perfectly still mind dawns (Nirvritti), and Yogis realize oneness with Brahman.
  3. Thought appears to arise from the Divine Spirit at the Nirvanic Flame – Adepts—those who reunite Soul with the Monad—use attunement of thought as a carrier wave for the Divine Spirit, and they can initiate, awaken, illumine, guide, and purify others through this laser-like beam of intention-driven thought.
  4. Thoughts are the radiant downpour of the Illumined Mind (Buddhi) – From this standpoint on the Buddhic Plane, which arises when your Soul undergoes the Fourth Initiation, you view the golden waterfall of thought that purifies the mind of ignorance and heals the emotional wounds of the heart.
  5. Volition channelizes thought to accomplish an objective and fulfill a purpose – During the Third Initiation, it appears that you constructively utilize thought to enact plans, fulfill goals, and actualize your Soul Purpose. At this level, we call these directed thoughts, Intelligent Activity; in this perspective, they appear to be the working of the Third Ray.
  6. Thoughts spoken aloud manifest reality – In the Second Initiation, those thoughts that stream forth from the vortex of the Mighty I AM Presence that you utter under inspiration appear to create and manifest the outcomes you intend. You program this center, and allow it to “speak the Word.” This type of creative meditation has been called decree, affirmation, or fiat.
  7. Thoughts are inspiration from the Divine – In this scenario, you view inspired thoughts coming from the Holy Spirit and angels as ideas sent to direct your decisions, to reform your character, and help you understand the meaning of scriptures. You experience thought in this way when you are undergoing the First Initiation, when you raise your attention into the nucleus of identity of this level, the Moon Soul or Christ Child.
  8. Thoughts are the kinetic expression of karma in expression – It appears on the Wisdom Plane that thoughts are the energy of your karmic seeds, when they become activated. These dormant karmic seeds, stirred into life, give rise to thought, imagination, emotion, desire, and action.
  9. Thoughts are the creative force of your intention that activate the Law of Attraction – In this perceptive frame of the Psychic Realm and the Universal Mind Subplane of the Abstract Mind Plane, it appears your thoughts can either attract or repel what you desire. Through carefully controlling your thoughts, you can direct what you receive from the Universe.
  10. Thoughts channel the force of intelligence that activates the intellect – Through visualization, hypothetical deductive reasoning, creative “possibility” thinking, philosophical inquiry, process meditation, and goal-directed thought, you activate the faculties of the Abstract Mind Plane that enable you to use ideas in your career, in school, and in your avocation to innovate, solve problems, produce successful outcomes, and enhance performance.
  11. Thoughts are the content that arises from the mental bands of the personality – Thought appears as the content of the operation of the mental field of the Metaconscious mind—personal intuition, intellect, and the concrete mind—and the content of the mental seed atom of the Conscious mind, which governs the faculty of deductive and analogical reasoning. The Self directs thought in the Metaconscious mind through the personal octave of volition; the egoic will operates the faculty of reason.
  12. Thought is an epiphenomenon of the firing of neurons – in this viewpoint of the waking state of awareness, it appears what we regard as thinking is simply the firing of neurons, which gives rise to the executive mental functions of the prefrontal cortex and directs behavior through the neural motor pathways. In this view, there is no self or Soul directing thought; instead, the organism itself reacts and adapts to conditions in the environment, learning from its mistakes through experience to perform better responses to the stimuli it encounters. This gives you the illusion of a self and free will, when in fact, your organism has a predetermined response that you rationalize as your decisions.

The perspective from which you view the force of thought influences how you use it. For example:

Aspirants who take up the spiritual Path in the traditions of Supracosmic Gurus and Yogi Preceptors are trained to interface with thought through perspectives one and two, and have a detached view of thinking.

Those who undergo the Planetary Initiations experience thought in perspectives three through seven.

Those sojourning through the Planetary Probationary Path—the band of the Planetary Continuum from the Biophysical Universe to the Wisdom Plane—encounter thought via perspectives eight through ten.

You view perspective eleven when you focus your attention on your Self at the core of your personality.

Perspective twelve appears when you do not move your attention out of the waking state of awareness and you only perceive the functioning of your brain and body.

We suggest that those who become fixed in the detached thought postures of perspectives one and two would value from learning to shift their attention to the perspectives of the Planetary Sphere, where they can utilize the perspectives of goal-oriented, creative, and intelligent thought to carry out their Soul Purpose and actualize their personal potential.

Remaining in these detached perspectives fosters the belief that the physical world and personal functioning are an illusion, and the only true objective of human life is to realize God. We point out that it is possible to make spiritual progress while concomitantly working on your personal goals and objectives, and actualizing the facets of your Soul’s unique purpose.

Can the Soul influence the physical world?

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On the Potential of the Higher Self
to Influence the Physical World

By George A. Boyd © 2019

Q: Some people say that the Soul cannot influence the physical world, because it is an immaterial essence. Others contend that the Soul does indeed operate on the physical world, and point to various miracles attested to in different spiritual traditions as evidence for their claims. What is correct?

A: We see there is a spectrum of postures through which the Soul relates to the personality and the world, which encompasses both of these viewpoints. Here is the range:

  1. No relationship between the Soul and the physical world and personality – during different segments of the Soul’s journey across the Continuum of Consciousness, it has an experience that it does not wish to transmit through the personality, so we see no evidence of the Soul’s activity.
  2. Correspondence – In this posture, we see the one-to-one correspondence of karma layered on the tracks behind the Soul (Adi Karma), behind the Soul’s vehicles (stored Kriyaman Karma), or in the unopened channels of the Nada (Sinchit Karma) and behavior or physical symptoms. When this karma underlying the condition is effaced, the symptoms ameliorate and disappear. Long-standing bad habits, mysterious aches and pains, and chronic illnesses can be seen to drop away as these karmic precursors are dissolved.
  3. Spiritual gift – In this scenario, the Soul anchors one or more of its abilities via an energetic connection to the physical brain, which you can access voluntarily in your waking state of consciousness, upon request. Artistic and psychic gifts commonly express through this pathway.
  4. Direction – In this type, the Higher Self directs the behavior of the personality through an inner commandment. It may overrule your choices that arise from the level of the ego and the Self, and guide your personality to carry out your Soul Purpose. This overshadowing of the personality typically occurs when your Soul undergoes the Third Planetary Initiation.
  5. Detectible change in matter and energy – The academic discipline of parapsychology has, as its mission, an inquiry to determine whether a spiritual being can create a change in matter or energy. They have studied phenomena such as moving objects with the mind (telekinesis); deformation of physical objects, like Uri Geller’s spoon bending; influence of healing energy on the growth of plants or the rate of healing of wounds; and the purported levitation of objects or the physical body, among others. When psychic powers awaken in the Soul, some people experience these phenomena spontaneously arise. A few individuals train themselves to produce them at will.
  6. Miraculous change in energy and matter – Miracles recounted in the world’s scriptures—walking on water, teleportation, manifesting food for the multitudes, and resurrecting a dead body, among many others—appear to operate from the interface with the higher volitional nexus, which we call the siddhi yantra, and the subatomic matrix substanding matter. There are many anecdotal stories of living savants and seers, who demonstrate these miraculous powers (siddhis), after having opened these strata of the mind where these potential abilities dwell. We show our students in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation where to locate these siddhi yantras, and to assess the powers which are now available to their Soul.
  7. Transmutation of matter – in the alchemical lore of the Western mysteries and the legends of the Shaivite Siddhars, through secret methods, initiates learn to transmute lead into gold, charcoal into diamonds, and sand into precious gems. The legend of the Philosopher’s stone hints at this ability; the methods to make this stone, alas, are veiled in cryptic language and symbol—opaque to all but those who have been trained to penetrate the arcane language to identify the intimate secrets of the craft.

Most aspirants, during their spiritual journey, will experience elements of types two to five. Types six and seven are much rarer—special training is required to wrest these powers from their hidden lair, and to uncover the secrets of miracles and transmutation. We suggest that exploration of the volitional channel along its higher octaves will disclose where your potential siddhis dwell, and will allow you to determine whether your Soul has chosen to express them. We further point out that the Soul may not choose to manifest powers that have no relevance to its mission and purpose, so many miracle-manifesting abilities are left dormant as the Soul progressively journeys to the shores of Mastery and Liberation.

We train those who complete one of our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program and take the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation in accessing this volitional channel as part of our advanced Raja Yoga training.

Those who are interested in learning to develop their psychic powers may enjoy taking The Psychic Powers Workshop available on the Public section of our Public Webinar Access page.