Different Perceptions of God and Where They Arise

By George A. Boyd ©2018

Q: I was reading an article online in Science Magazine, “Democrats More Conservative, Republicans More Liberal in Some Ways,” which was published on 2/21/18—the original article appears on the Baylor University website [1]. In this article, it said that people’s political philosophy varied depending on how they saw God. They mentioned that the Baylor researchers, whose findings in Sociological Forum [2] were summarized in this article, categorized study participants into seven different perceptions of God:

  1. God is distant
  2. God is ever-present
  3. God is removed from the world
  4. God is concerned with the world’s well being
  5. God is concerned with personal well-being
  6. God is directly involved in worldly affairs
  7. God is differently involved in personal affairs

How do these different perceptions of God arise? What states of consciousness give rise to these views?

A: God appears in different forms depending on where you encounter this Universal Being on the Great Continuum of Consciousness.

Type one, where God is distant, is commonly found when people relate to God through the cord of faith, which links the ego to God in His Form in the First Mesoteric Initiation.

Type two, where God is omnipresent, is found in those people who keep their attention ever merged with the Divine Spark within their ensouling entity, and they see the Divine everywhere. This is the pantheistic viewpoint: God is all-pervading in Nature, the Universe, and on the spiritual Planes.

Type three, where God is removed from the world, typifies spirituality where you are identified with a nucleus of identity, a spiritual essence, or an ensouling entity in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental levels of the Continuum. Here the emphasis is on getting away from the world—or having as little to do with it as possible—and to return to the God Source on your inner horizon.

Type four, where God is concerned with the world’s well being, resembles the idea of Providence, where God loves the world and all creatures and cares for them. Ecological movements and aboriginal religious groups commonly adopt this Deistic viewpoint.

Type five, where God is concerned with personal well-being, people believe God responds to your prayers and grants them, and He may send an angel to watch over you. This perspective conceives that God is loving and benevolent, and will guide you and protect you if you approach Him. Catholic and Evangelical churches of the First Exoteric Initiation hold this view.

Type six, where God is directly involved in worldly affairs, views God as the engine behind history. This gives rise to God-inspired movements that change the leadership of nations and installs benevolent leaders; social justice movements that struggle for equality, presses for independence from colonial oppression, seeks freedom from injustice and slavery, and seeks to protect human rights and freedoms. This type resembles the Social Justice Christianity of the Fifth Ray in the First Exoteric Initiation, which Dr. Martin Luther King embodied.

Type seven, where God is differently involved in personal affairs, suggests that God has selected a chosen people, an elect, or a group of secret initiates, and shares with them esoteric knowledge, a special dispensation, or unique blessings that others, who are not part of this group, cannot receive. This viewpoint is commonly seen in cultic groups, in groups that interpret their scriptures that God has made them a chosen people, or those who are the direct initiate of a spiritual Master that imparts esoteric knowledge and confidential meditation methods.

If you transform your ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality, and explore your relationship with the Divine at every level of the mind, you will encounter each of these viewpoints along the way. Your Soul Ray and Personality Ray often influence the way you view God and how you establish a personal—or impersonal—relationship with the Divine.

To help you understand these viewpoints better, we have written on the varying perceptions of the Divine in our book, “Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?.” It may also be valuable for you to study about the Great Continuum of Consciousness and the Seven Rays—we have summarized these ideas in our book, “A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation.”
Those of you who may wish to take your God exploration to the next level may enjoy “The Mystery of God” workshop. This is one of our public webinars available through our Public Webinar Access portal, under the Public Webinars tab.


[1] Perceptions about God Make Democrats More Conservative and Republicans More Liberal — But in Different Ways

[2] Thomson, Robert A. and Froese, Paul “God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes,” Sociological Forum 1/30/18


Reflections on Fantasy and the Veiling Power of the Mind

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: Many religions base their teachings upon myths. Aren’t these just fantasies?

A: It is important to understand the different levels of fantasy, myth, and the unconscious mind’s veiling of spiritual essences. These different levels are described below.

  1. Conscious fantasy – This occurs when you keep your attention in the state of reverie or free association. At this level, you are simply witnessing the stream of consciousness that arises in the mind at the current time, without judgment or attempts to alter it.
  2. Directed fantasy – You use directed fantasy when you are brainstorming to get ideas relevant to a particular topic. You might invite your mind to suggest every possible solution to a problem, which you simply write down as they come to you. In creativity, you might utilize this function to come up with different perspectives or backgrounds in a painting, or to call to mind alternative melodic refrains when composing music.
  3. Story-telling fantasy – When you make up a story or a joke, you are tapping this level of the mind. You may also recount—and sometimes embellish—stories that were told to you, or elaborate episodes from your own experience. In this case, the tale you weave is about a person—either yourself or someone else, and you tell a story about them. In many cultures, these stories may be a part of folklore; people retell legends about kings or queens, heroes, or great warriors. Many movies and novels draw their inspiration from this level of fantasy. This level is about human beings, who may have done humorous, remarkable, or heroic things.
  4. Archetypal fantasy – These are the myths that you witness in the Superconscious mind about gods, goddesses, angels, and other spiritual beings. When you tap into this dream-like dimension of your higher mind, sometimes these archetypal beings interact with you: they may show you the phenomena of the worlds over which they have purview or give you inspired discourse. You may access this level when you are passively traveling on the inner Planes, such as when you are intoxicated with a hallucinogenic or anesthetic drug. You may also experience this zone of fantasy in dreams in which your astral body is drawn up into your Superconscious mind—these are sometimes called teaching or revelatory dreams.
  5. Religious fantasy – These consist of a series of archetypes that are embedded in a particular band of the Continuum, and are used as landmarks upon the inner journey on that track or Path. These archetypes become the inspiration for scriptures of holy texts of religious groups; interpretations of these scriptures or commentaries upon them derive from meditations on this level of the mind. These groups may use a variety of prayers or meditations to invoke the archetypal beings that array along this track, and receive their guidance, blessings, or support. Advanced disciples or Initiates of this spiritual tradition may guide your attention, your attentional principle, or your spirit through these corridors of the mind, showing you the sacred Arcanum of the their Path.
  6. The veiling power of the mind – This is the covering of the unconscious mind that conceals spiritual essences. These veils may cover seed atoms of vehicles of consciousness, nuclei of identity, the spirit upon a Path, or an ensouling entity. Initiatory traditions may use mystery tales, attunements, or mantras to reveal this essence, and to remove the veil that obscures it. Once this curtain of darkness is removed, this spiritual essence is freed to unfold along the track on which it dwells.
  7. The veiling power of the Horizon Effect – This is a limitation inherent in the techniques that spiritual teachers of different traditions disseminate that enables someone to travel to an apparent inner horizon on a Path, but to travel no further. As a result of this inherent cosmological horizon effect, spiritual teachings are locked into certain bands of the Great Continuum of Consciousness, and cannot conceive of anything beyond the form of the Divine they behold on their inner horizon—this highest being or Supreme form of God upon which their cosmology is founded.

Most religions operate from level five, where they promote belief in the archetypal beings that inhabit their Path, teach ways to commune with them. They may capture the spiritual experiences of their advanced disciples and Initiates in the scriptures or sacred texts of their tradition.

Those spiritual traditions that initiate others into awakening a selected spiritual essence seek to remove the veil over the essence with which they perform Pathwork. They perform their spiritual work at level six. They employ mantras, attunements, and other evocative methods that clear the track to this essence. Depending on which essence these traditions awaken and unfold, they may move these essences out of alignment with the axis of being—we describe this type of spiritual work as outside the cutting edge of spirituality.

The Spectrum of Methods that Unveil and Unfold Spiritual Essences

There are a variety of methods that can remove the veil over selected spiritual essences, and in many instances, unfold that essence along an inner track, where students of these traditions can experience the archetypes that array along that pathway. The most common essences that selected methods can awaken and unfold include:

  1. The seed atoms of selected Subtle Realm vehicles of consciousness
  2. The Soul Spark and its vehicle of consciousness
  3. The seed atoms of the vehicles of consciousness in the Biophysical Universe
  4. The seed atoms of the vehicles of consciousness in the Abstract Mind Plane
  5. The seed atoms of the vehicles of consciousness in the Psychic Realm
  6. The Moon Soul nucleus of identity
  7. The Solar Angel and the Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity
  8. The Soul and its vehicles of consciousness
  9. The cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity
  10. The cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity
  11. The Avataric consciousness nucleus of identity
  12. The God consciousness nucleus of identity
  13. The Astral Soul and its vehicles of consciousness
  14. The Supracosmic seed atom upon each active Supracosmic Path
  15. The Supracosmic Soul and its vehicles of consciousness
  16. The spirit and the ensouling entity on Transcendental Paths one through five
  17. The spirit and the ensouling entity on the Bridge Path, and Transcendental Paths six and seven

Methods 2, 8, 13, 15, 16, and 17 unfold the ensouling entity at different bands of the Continuum.

Methods 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 transform specific nuclei of identity.

The other methods target seed atoms in vehicles of consciousness.

When spiritual work moves these essences off the axis of being, outside of the cutting edge of spirituality, it brings about a state of spiritual imbalance that brings about re-identification with the spiritual essence that these unveiling and unfolding methods activate.

Unfolding of a spiritual essence past a certain crucial stage brings about re-identification with this essence. Where this re-identification takes place depends on the native alignment of this essence relative to the axis of being.

When you move this spiritual essence a critical distance beyond this axis of being, there is a re-integration around this spiritual essence, and it becomes your new core identity. This critical distance can range from 24 nodal points to 108 nodal points or more.

At each level of spiritual work that produces misalignment, there is a key juncture where the mind “snaps” into a new state of identification. This can occur when:

  1. The veil over the essence is fully effaced
  2. The spiritual essence is moved along its track to a vital energetic nexus point

Re-identification type (a) is characteristic of religious conversion.

Re-identification type (b) is commonly associated with Kundalini syndromes and interference with personality functioning.

Those who are interested in learning more about what happens when this misalignment occurs in religious conversion and initiatory spiritual traditions will enjoy reading our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?

We teach a transformational mantra that unfolds your ensouling entity and its vehicles of consciousness at the cutting edge of spirituality, which does not migrate any essences outside of the axis of being. Those interested in learning more about this can look into our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Aspirants will benefit from contemplating each of these levels of fantasy and the veiling power of the mind. This reflection helps you develop spiritual discernment.

Visioning

By George A. Boyd © 2017

One of the key abilities of a leader is the ability to envision the future for his enterprise. Coaches also use this ability when they clearly visualize the next steps of growth for their clients. It is also a key aspect of goal setting. It is used in the creative arts. It is used in meditation. These varieties of visioning are described below.

  1. A strategy to achieve an objective – You use a tactical plan to implement the strategy and you measure its outcome. You frame a successful outcome as a victory; you consider an unsuccessful outcome as a defeat. Military planners use this type of visioning, as do many executives of successful companies.
  2. A continuum of growth and development – You have progressive realizations, make courageous decisions, and take constructive actions that allow you to mature into a desired future state in which you achieve something you ant to be do, or have. This process of development occurs over time, and moves forward unevenly, as you encounter inner and outer obstacles that impede your progress. You live into this life goal, and establish markers to know you have achieved it. Coaches and developmental psychologists embrace this perspective.
  3. A vision of the collective future of individuals, groups, or humanity – Through inner visions, revelations, or inspiration, you have a vision of the future. This can be your own future, for other people, for selected groups (e.g., the Jewish prophets foretelling the future for the Jews through the prophecies recorded in the Bible), or for all of humanity. Those given the gift of prophecy assert that God has granted them this ability; seers and prophets of different religious and spiritual traditions claim to possess this gift. In the modern scientific era, those who study future trends and make predictions of the future are called futurists. Those who study trends using mathematical models attempt to predict the most likely outcomes in their area of expertise: these model-based prognostications appear, for example, in meteorology, economics and finance, and insurance actuarial reports.
  4. Artistic visioning – Sculptors who visualize the finished sculpture in a block of unfinished marble or a painter who beholds his finished vision on a blank canvas use this type of visioning. Architects also utilize it when they conceive of a completed building in all of its details; as do fashion designers when they perceive an image of their elegant garment, and interior designers when they imagine the decor of a home. This bestows the ability to employ 2-D (surface), 3-D (solid or space), and 4-D (changes of a solid or space over time) visualization.
  5. Goals list – You create a goals list when you write down what you plan to achieve in each area of your life. You operationalize this through having daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly checklists that you mark as you complete each of your written goals. You review your progress periodically and make changes to your plans as circumstances change.
  6. Religious and actualization visioning – In religious visioning, you imagine what it might like to be a saint, to be in heaven, or to have attained the summit of perfection in your spiritual tradition. In the humanistic vision of actualization, you imagine what your ideal life will be like in rich sensory detail—you might concretize this vision through a “vision board” in which you place images of what you desire to continually remind yourself of what you hope to achieve. You might use prayer to augment your religious visioning; affirmations enhance your visions of personal actualization.
  7. Inner seeing – Meditation awakens this type of visioning, which includes activating the subtle senses of your astral body (astral visioning), contemplating with the “mind’s eye” (attentional visioning), opening the innate vision of your attentional principle (metavision) and your spirit (heart sight), turning on the octaves of personal and transpersonal intuition (intuitional perception), and realizing the Soul in its own nature (Gnosis, the dawning of enlightenment or core sight).

In Mudrashram®, we teach you how to activate this seventh variety of visioning, the different types of inner vision. You can experience an overview of these types in “The Vision Workshop,” which is available in the Public Webinar area of our website. You learn specific techniques for activating attentional, metavisional, and heart sight in our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We also teach techniques for activating your transpersonal octave of intuition in our intermediate courses and in our advanced course, the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation—you will also learn a technique for activating Gnosis (core sight) in our advanced course.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself with all seven types of visioning, and learn how to use those varieties that support you in your career and in your personal and spiritual life. Visioning is a powerful tool at your disposal: use it to create success and personal growth in all aspects of your life.

 

Bound or Free

Bound or Free: An Inquiry into Control

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: Am I deceiving myself that I have control over my life, when I really don’t? Is my will just an illusion? Is everything just unfolding on its own and I have only the false belief that I am doing anything at all?

A: To answer this question, you need to inquire what enables you to create change and what you cannot control.

Internal factors that you control include:

  1. Your personal liberty – you are free to make choices between alternatives using the volition of the Self
  2. Stored karma – you can use transformational spiritual practices to work out stored karma behind the Soul (Adi Karma), in the channels of the Nada (Sinchit Karma), and behind the seed atoms of your vehicles in the Superconscious Mind (the stored aspect of Kriyaman Karma)
  3. Your transpersonal liberty – your Soul is free to carry out its ministry and service using its transpersonal will; your attentional principle operates its intention freely; and your spirit expresses its wish without barriers

Internal factors you do not control include:

  1. Destiny (Pralabdha) Karma – these are psychological and constitutional factors that you cannot control through your will, intention, or wish
  2. Divine Will – this is the Eternal Force that animates the Soul and guides the process of spiritual development; it is fully manifest in spiritual Masters

External factors you can control include:

  1. Using the egoic octave of will, you can initiate individual units of behavior to operate on the environment to carry out the activities of daily life and to design and organize your environment
  2. Your zone of responsibility extends to your property and possessions; and to your relationships—your duty and commitments to other people and the society in which you live. You can choose to exercise this responsibility or to neglect or abandon it.

External factors you do not control include:

  1. Other people’s choices – while you can attempt to use negotiation, persuasion, or manipulation to attempt to make people do what you want, you do not control their ultimate choices
  2. The activity of Nature and the world around you – you do not control the weather, the movements of the earth or the sea, or the creatures that dwell in Nature
  3. The activity of other spiritual beings – you do not control the activities of other attentional principles, spirits, or Souls; angels, Masters, gods and goddesses, or the Divine—these beings operate independently from you.

Your challenge is to identify what you can control, and use it effectively to carry out your Soul’s purpose and make a positive contribution in the lives of others. We suggest that you study the conative principles within yourself—will, at both its personal and transpersonal octaves; the intention and suggestion your attentional principle generates; and the wish that expresses your spirit.

There are several states of conscious awareness that certain spiritual teachers point to as states of enlightenment. In these states it appears you have no self, and that things unfold of themselves, without a doer.

These states of awareness, where it appears that spontaneous action arises, include:

  1. The voidness of being – this highest center of the Metaconscious mind appears as a pool of peace, and action appears to effortlessly arise without choice
  2. The wave of the present time – this first nodal point of the Akashic Records Subplane of the Abstract Mind Plane is the nexus where the Soul’s thought pours into human life. Passive absorption into this center brings the awareness that there is no self or abiding identity, no desire, no meaning, and no one to make any change.
  3. Brahman – in the first Cosmic Initiation, at the pinnacle of the seventh chakra of the Cosmic Man or Woman, it appears that the entire Creation is God’s dream, and only God is real. Human life and its parade of actions are like a movie that plays spontaneously, with no actor.
  4. The Supracosmic seed atom on the Vipassana Buddhist Path – here is appears that everything arises out of the ground of Mind, and is an eternal flow in which the heart-mind experiences in the moment. Everything is transient, impermanent, ceaseless change. This ceaseless change is called Samsara; the consciousness that perceives it is Nirvana.

We point out that if you don’t focus your attention in these states, you will be aware of integration centers in the personality—the ego and the Self; and integration centers in the Superconscious mind—nuclei of identity and the ensouling entities. You will also become aware that volition arises from these integration centers, and that you can generate action and life change through your volition.

We suggest that these is a time when it is appropriate to repose in these flowing, passive states of being and non-action; for example, when you are in need of rest and wish to experience peace and reduce your stress. It is also important that you be able to operate out of the empowered states where your volition acts to promote change and accomplish your goals. The challenge for aspirants is to locate both these wellsprings of being and will, and to be able to function in both states as the situation requires.

Stages of Establishing a Disciplic Relationship with God

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Establishing a disciplic relationship is ultimately a direct connection with God mediated through a Master or Initiate. It appears to pass though several stages.

The first order of a disciple’s relationship with God is at the personal level. This is part of what we call the aspirant or seeker stage of spirituality.

When aspirants relate to God from the ego, the first sign is the establishment of faith in God. The believer, at this stage does not know God, and imagines what the Supreme Being might be like.

When aspirants begin to relate to God from the core of their personality, or the Self, they often receive an intuitive reception of guidance, revelation of the meaning of scriptures, and directives to act kindly, ethically, and compassionately towards others.

The second order of a disciple’s relationship with God we might call mystic communion with God. In this this stage, the disciple enters into an altered state of consciousness and travels into the Superconscious mind. Several markers typify this state.

When aspirants are able to unite their attention with their attentional principle and travel consciously onto the inner Planes, in many traditions, they are called a chela. As they become more proficient with this skill, they may behold the inner guide form of the Initiate who supervises them, and experience astral communion with their Master.

Once the chela has gained the ability to travel at will into the presence of the Soul, the supervising Initiate will commonly anchor the Light or Holy Spirit (Shakti) in the attentional principle. This attunement channels the Omnific Power and Grace of God through the chela.

In many Paths, the chela will be led to meditate on a nucleus of identity (Manasa Dhyan), and learn to transform it along its track to a universal stage of consciousness. Once disciples reach this stage of Union with Divine Life, or Christ Consciousness, the Holy Spirit (Shakti) may anoint them to begin ministering, teaching, and guiding others.

The third order of a disciple’s relationship with God is the enlightenment and empowerment stage. At this point, the disciple moves beyond universal consciousness and moves directly into the Presence of God. At this stage, the disciple becomes an Initiate.

The Initiate, who the Divine anoints, and who dwells in the Divine Presence, has been given many titles. The Initiate might be called an Adept, an Adept Master, a Yogi Preceptor, a Light Master, a Cosmic Master, a Supracosmic Master or Guru, or a Transcendental Master or Sat Guru.

In the Christian tradition, the Master is referred to as the Son of God, who is an intermediary between God and human beings.

The Initiate or Master who guides chelas and supervises their spiritual evolution is capable of leading them through all stages of the Path and ultimately enabling them to become an Initiate in their tradition.

In some traditions, some rare, select Initiates become Incarnations or Avatars, where God the Father expresses directly through them. This form of the Divine that empowers other Initiates is the ultimate source of the Light they send to others.

If you practice meditation under the tutelage of a God-inspired and Divinely-empowered Initiate, you will journey through the mystic stages of discipleship and ultimately become like your Master. The form of Mastery you may ultimately attain is contingent on who the Initiate is, who supervises your spiritual development.