Finding Core Motivation

By George A. Boyd © 2022

Q: I find that I seem to have lost my passion. How do I motivate myself?

A: It is important for you to find your core motivation. There are several levels of motivation that drive people. These include:

  1. Addiction and compulsion – these patterns of craving and obsession well up out of the unconscious mind. Those under the spell of these powerful mental forces often feel they are not in control of their behavior, when these patterns stir into activity.
  2. Manipulation – other people activate emotional patterns of rage, fear, and horror in people, and then, tell them what to do. People that are manipulated in this fashion can be programmed what to buy, who to vote for, who to love and who to hate. Those under the thrall of conspiracy theories, hate groups, and religious and political cults act under this motivation that misinformation, lies, and the malicious persuasion of others instills in them.
  3. Excitement and passion – This arises when you sense there is an opportunity to attain your desires and to realize your dreams. Many salespeople promise that their product or service will fulfill these desires, and it produces hope and optimism. When these dreams are not fulfilled, however, your passion may give rise to apathy and your excitement to depression.
  4. Inspiration and revelation – Those who have opened portals into the Psychic Realm may receive inspiration and revelation from a spiritual guide. Some feel motivated to embark on the spiritual path and bring out their Soul’s potentials listening to these messages—unfortunately, these messages can also convey false information, which can lead to delusions.
  5. Holy guidance – those who commune with the Holy Spirit and are able to listen to its whispering within the altar of the heart in the Moon Soul can be guided to carry out activities of charity, compassion, and service—but, this moral octave of volition can be shaped and conditioned through sermons of clergy with devious agendas, who can effectively take control of people’s lives to serve a religious group or its leader.
  6. Soul Purpose – those who can connect directly with the Soul can intuit the activities that carry forward the Soul’s Purpose, and they carry them out. Unlike levels (2) through (5), this form of guidance is mental, not emotional, and is task and goal oriented. When this form of motivation becomes the dominant force in your life, your transpersonal will of the Soul starts to overshadow your personal will, and guides you to carry out actions that develop your skills, that give you the necessary experience, and enable your Soul to express its purpose in your human life.
  7. Divine Will – Those who ascend to the heights of spiritual Mastery at different octaves of the Great Continuum of Consciousness receive the anointing of the Divine, and are directly shown the spiritual service and ministry they must carry out. When advanced disciples surrender to their spiritual Master and receive his or her direction (Agya), the Master conveys the Divine Will to them.

Many people experience the emotional roller coaster of levels (2) through (5). When the tranquil guidance of the Soul’s Purpose at level (6) begins to operate, it may feel strange at first, because it doesn’t stir your emotions and passions. The challenge of aspirants and disciples is to cut through these emotionalized layers of the mind and to contact the clear mental and intuitive streams coming from the Soul.

Greater serenity and a clear sense of direction is the by-product of following the Soul’s guidance. While you will still continue to react emotionally to the events of your life and in your social and community environment, and the struggles and lessons that arise when you follow your Soul’s direction, you will have a greater willingness to face these issues and obstacles and press to overcome them.

Those who are dealing with the addictions and compulsive drives of level (1) will need to find the necessary support and guidance to help them recover from these destructive patterns. Some may find our Addiction Recovery Coaching Program can help them understand, sublimate, and uproot these negative mental tendencies.

Methods of Jnana Yoga, which we teach in our intermediate meditation classes—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—teach you how to tune into your Soul’s guidance.

Much of the turmoil that you experience in your life comes from tapping these emotionalized layers of motivation—with their inevitable highs and lows… ups and downs… wins and losses. When the still, small voice within can cut through this mental cacophony, you can begin to find your way amidst a thousand siren voices that seek to lead you away from what you were born to do.

What is the Alaya?

Everything You Wanted to Know about Alaya but Were Afraid to Ask

By George A. Boyd © 2020

Q: Here’s another term that befuddles me: What the heck is Alaya?

A: We generally speak about Alaya as being the force that animates the cutting edge ensouling entity. There are actually three major forms:

  1. The Alaya directed to the ensouling entity – This is the brain center attunement. It gives life to the Soul. It reveals the calling of the Soul to complete its journey in that Division of the Continuum of Consciousness. It is the force that unfolds the Soul’s spiritual evolutionary potentials, which bestows initiation. It empowers the Soul to use its innate abilities, which are called the Shaktis of the Soul.
  2. The Alaya directed to the spirit – This is the spiritual heart center attunement. This activates the spirit in the domain that is contiguous with the cutting edge ensouling entity, and imbues it with Divine Love and remembrance of its Source. The Alaya expresses through a Nadamic Master that dwells in that domain to guide the spirit to reunify with the form of the Divine Beloved that dwells there.
  3. The Alaya directed to your vehicles of consciousness – This is the medulla center attunement. This circulates energy through your causal body, which revolves around your seed atoms of your vehicles of consciousness contiguous with your cutting edge ensouling entity.
    • It moves clockwise through the awakened zone of your consciousness, and allows you to carry out your personal and spiritual activities that arise from a center of integration—your ego, your Self, and your Soul.
    • It moves counter-clockwise through the layer of your unconscious mind directly behind your awakened zone of your consciousness, and brings forward your unconscious issues—these unconscious issues may be behavioral, like bad habits; emotional, like anxiety and depression; or cognitive, like obsessive or paranoid thinking—and allows you to process them.
    • The relative percentage of conscious/clockwise and unconscious/counter-clockwise energy movement varies widely between individuals. A woman with a virtuous, saintly character might demonstrate a 95% conscious/ 5% unconscious mix; whereas a man who is powerfully addicted to drugs might operate with a 15% conscious/ 85% unconscious matrix.

When the Soul is liberated in one Division of the Continuum, this brain center Alaya picks up and animates the Soul in the next Division. So for example, when you finish the development of the Soul Spark, Planetary Soul, and Monad in the first Division of the Continuum, the Alaya picks up and animates your Astral Soul in the Cosmic Sphere.

When you liberate the spirit in one domain, the spiritual heart Alaya will pick up and animate the spirit in the next domain. This occurs when, for example, you liberate the spirit upon the third Path of the Nada at the top of the Second Planetary Initiation, it animates the spirit of the fourth Path of the Nada, which begins in the Third Planetary Initiation.

When you drop a vehicle of consciousness into its origin, the vehicular Alaya will begin circulating around the next vehicle of consciousness on the next higher Plane. If you liberate your cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity and its associated vehicles of consciousness at the top of the First Cosmic Initiation, this energy will begin to work in your vehicles of the Second Cosmic Initiation, and work with the karmic stream behind those vehicles.

Q: Where does the Alaya come from?

A: The brain Alaya and the spiritual heart Alaya emanate from Satchitananda, the ensouling entity of the Seventh Transcendental Path. The rhythms of the vehicular Alaya originate from the Lords of Karma.

So when you liberate the spirit or the Soul, the energy of the Alaya returns to Satchitananda, then animates the next ensouling entity through the brain center attunement—or it may activate the spirit in the next domain through the spiritual heart attunement.

As long as you have vehicles of consciousness at your cutting edge of spirituality, this current of karmic cycling will operate within you.

Q: What happens if someone activates an ensouling entity, spirit, or nucleus of identity with its associated vehicles of consciousness outside the cutting edge of spirituality?

A: You perturb the Alayic Force.

First, you generate an imbalance that begins to create an energetic split between your cutting edge ensouling entity, its aligned spirit, and its vehicles of consciousness. You begin to partly process karma behind your vehicles of consciousness associated with your cutting edge of spirituality, and partly from behind the misaligned spiritual essence.

Second, when this imbalance reaches a certain point, you experience what we call a fulcrum shift: you fully identify with that spiritual essence that operates outside the cutting edge of spirituality, and your attention becomes fixed in this essence. You begin to primarily process karma from behind the misaligned spiritual essence; the karma behind your vehicles of consciousness associated with your cutting edge of spirituality begins to move into a state of suspension or dormancy.

When this fulcrum shift occurs, you begin to live from the misaligned spiritual essence and you may regard your native spiritual essences at the cutting edge of spirituality as unreal or illusory. You may abandon goals and desires that operate within and behind the spiritual essences and vehicles of consciousness at your cutting edge of spirituality; you instead operate on an alternate agenda.

Third, when you liberate the ensouling entity, spirit, and or vehicles of consciousness at this alternate octave of being, this energetic tributary to the native Alayic current returns to Satchitananda, and becomes refocused at the cutting edge of spirituality.

This is why the Masters of the Mudrashram® lineage may work with individuals, who have generated significant imbalances in their spiritual alignment, to liberate those higher essences, so they will be able to realign energetically with their cutting edge of spirituality. This heals the split within them.

This need for liberation of higher essences becomes most pronounced when individuals have moved their ensouling entity and spirit on a Transcendental Path way out of alignment, as the conflicting energetic harmonic that is set up makes it harder for them to function at the level of their personality.

Q: Is the Alaya the same as the Will of God?

A: The Alaya is synonymous with the core activity of the Divine Will. Those who work with a Master or Initiate may also incorporate the attunement of the transpersonal octave of will with the Divine Will, which confers discipleship. It may also include giving a spiritual service assignment to the attentional principle or the spirit under the Aegis of the Initiate who supervises the development of the Soul—we call this attunement, Dhana.

The next octave of the Divine Will aligns the personal octave of will with the Soul’s purpose. In disciples, when the Divine Will overshadows their transpersonal will, it is possible for the personality to receive the knowledge of the Divine Will through the Soul—and align personal activity to carry out that impress.

We discuss the Divine Will and its interface with the personality in greater depth in our article, “The personal octave of the Divine Will,” with is available in our Library. It is also published in our book, A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation. [We highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to study the Mudrashram® teachings in greater depth and to understand the different types of meditations that are subsumed under the umbrella of Integral meditation.]

The Four Quadrants of Volition

By George A. Boyd ©2013

There are four quadrants of human activity:

  1. The zone of voluntary personal action – This zone encompasses the operation of the first three octaves of volition: personal will, habit, and the desire driven will of the ego. This quadrant aims to fulfill goals and desires. The individual senses that this zone is fully within his or her control, and can determine the outcomes. This is sometimes called the zone of free will. Coaching and counseling address this level.
  2. The zone of involuntary action – This zone comprises the operation of the unconscious mind, which is out of awareness and functions autonomously to the control of the will. Compulsive or impulsive behavior, as well as self-sabotaging behavior, arises from this zone. Hypnosis and psychotherapy tap this zone.
  3. The zone of transpersonal volition – This zone comprises the activity of the higher octaves of volition in the Superconscious mind, up to the level of transpersonal will, which is anchored in the Soul. It also includes the activity of intention of the attentional principle, and the wish of the spirit. This operates outside and beyond the control of the personal will; it is the higher order of will that permits the Soul to express its gifts, its wisdom, and its love and compassion. Meditation enables access to this zone.
  4. The zone of Divine aegis – Those Initiates and accepted disciples, who have entered the presence of the Divine, know this zone—and they have been empowered to teach, to guide, and to minister to others. This brings them the knowledge of the Divine Will directly—these Initiates communicate this Divine Wish to their disciples, aligning them with their purpose and the Great Plan for their spiritual development, and leading them progressively to Mastery and Liberation. Masters reveal this Supreme Direction to their disciples.

It is important to recognize what can be done voluntarily, and what operates outside of that zone. Personal volition can shape human life and situational behavior; it can express those talents that have been learned through education and training; and it can learn new knowledge and skills. If skillfully used, it can lead individuals to personal fulfillment.

It does not control the octaves of the transpersonal and Divine Will; however, these octaves of the will can come to overshadow the personality to express the Soul’s gifts and genius, and to reveal the Soul’s purpose. It may only partially control those elements of the unconscious mind, which operate autonomously.

At certain levels of the Great Continuum of Consciousness, it appears that all consciousness is a product of the brain, and that volition and the sense of self are nothing more than products of the firing of neurons, and the construction of language. Those who meditate, however, find they readily transcend this “brain consciousness,” and encounter the will as a dynamic force that expresses through the brain and activates the vehicles of consciousness beyond it; and discover the Self, attentional principle, spirit, and Soul far beyond the confines of the skull. They directly gain union with these essences beyond the webs of language: they experience these essences wordlessly and immediately.

Aspirants and disciples should meditate on these four quadrants, with an aim to discern what aspects of their lives fall within each zone, and whether or not the Will Divine has been intimated to them. They should aim to expand the zone of voluntary personal volition, learn ways to cope with and resolve those issues that arise from the unconscious, and cooperate with the transpersonal will so that the Soul’s gifts can be shared with others.