Tag Archives: Integral meditation

What Is Integral Alignment?

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By George A. Boyd ©2021

Q: How is your approach to spirituality different than the what is taught in New Age, Judeo-Christian, I AM Movement, Yogi Preceptor, and Supracosmic Guru Paths?

A: There are three aspects that condition spiritual perception:

  1. Identification with a spiritual essence
  2. The apparent path or track along which this essence develops
  3. The vision of the Source of this essence, which is the perception of the Divine in this spiritual tradition

In the Paths you mention, there is a fundamental difference in the spiritual alignment for their orientation to the apparent Divine Source and the spiritual alignment we utilize in Mudrashram®. To understand this, you may wish to imagine there is a spiritual body that contains each of these groups as centers:

Brain center – This center contains the seed atom of a Supracosmic Path, which is your identity state when you take initiation into a Supracosmic Path. This Supracosmic seed is what we call a nucleus of identity.

Point between the eyebrows – This center reveals the God Consciousness nucleus of identity of the Fifth Cosmic Initiation. My first spiritual teacher, Maha Genii Turriziani, who was a Cosmic Master, revealed this center to me. Most spiritual groups along this alignment typically do not work with this center.

Medulla – This center aligns you with the Cosmic Soul Awareness in the Second Cosmic Initiation. Light Masters activate this center.

Throat – This center awakens when a Yogi Preceptor from one of the nine platforms of Mastery in the First Cosmic Initiation unites your attention with your Cosmic Consciousness nucleus of identity. This track leads through the seven centers of Cosmic Man or Woman—you discover Brahman at the brain center of this Cosmic Body when your Cosmic Consciousness unfolds along its track.

Heart – This center is the seat of your Solar Angel nucleus of identity of the Second Planetary Initiation. I AM movement groups train you to focus your attention upon this spiritual essence and activate it through using a decree or power affirmation.

Solar plexus – This center holds the Moon Soul [also called the Christ Child] nucleus of identity of the First Planetary Initiation. Judeo-Christian traditions train you to focus upon this center and to identify with it. It envisions the Heavenly Father God as the spiritual Source, which has begotten the Moon Soul. Mystic sects of Judaism and Christianity employ transformational methods to move the Moon Soul upon its track closer to the Divine, as He is conceived in these traditions.

Navel – Some New Age groups anchored in the Psychic Realm teach people to identify with their Star Seed, which is the seed atom of your form in the fifth Subplane of this band of the Continuum. Some teachers in this realm show you how to unfold this essence, which leads to union with a form of Mastery in the Galactic Brotherhood/Sisterhood along one of twelve star pathways.

Base of the Spine – This center reveals the wave of consciousness on the Akashic Records Subplane on the Abstract Mind Plane. This center allows you to tap into the Soul’s “thought and intention” that interface with your human life through this center. There are a variety of methods that groups established in the three highest Subplanes of the Abstract Mind Plan—the Akashic Records Subplane, the Dynamic Creation Subplane, and the Universal Mind Subplane—utilize to lift your attention into union with this center. Discovery of this center enables people to realize that the Soul can create what it visualizes and intends in human life. This leads to a type of enlightenment and empowerment experience of the “eternal now,” where people come to believe they can manifest whatever they desire through aligning with the Universal Mind or Law of Attraction. Some New Age teachers will use this as a portal to guide people’s attention into union with their form on the Psychic Realm.

The Supracosmic seed atom of one of the Supracosmic Paths becomes the orienting center of Paths aligned with the axis of non-Integral alignment. A subtle current of energy runs from the Supracosmic seed atom to the wave of consciousness of the present time on the Akashic Ether; focusing on any of the spiritual essences in the centers of this form taps into this energy stream.

The Integral meditation approach we teach in Mudrashram® is instead founded upon the axis of being that runs from Satchitananda, the ensouling entity of the seventh Transcendental Path, to the lowest center in the Infraconscious mind—which we call the Wheel of Time center—below the waking state of consciousness, where attention dwells in its ground state. You can visualize the body in which the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation does its spiritual work has the following centers:

Hridaya (sacred heart center) – This contains the Quintessence mantra or Alayic Divine Name through which the Divine Spirit flows to unfold the ensouling entity on the cutting edge of spirituality in synchrony with each other center along this axis of being.

Brain – This is the seat of Satchitananda, which is called the Infinite Consciousness. This is the polestar around which all spiritual development is integrated. It is the seat of the energy of ensoulment and sentience, which we refer to as the Alaya.

Eye in the middle of the forehead – This is the center where you encounter the Soul of the Bridge Path, which unfolds during the seventh stage of spiritual development in Mudrashram®. It is the “Master Soul” within that integrates the love, wisdom, and ability you gain as you develop each octave of being in the stage one through six of spiritual development.

Point between the eyebrows – You work at this level in the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation during the sixth stage of spirituality. One of the ensouling entities from the First to the Fifth Transcendental Path moves along with the ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality—we call this spiritual essence that moves in synchrony with your spiritual development, your aligned Transcendental ensouling entity.

Medulla – This is the fifth stage of spirituality in Mudrashram®. This level of spiritual work unfolds your Supracosmic Soul and its aligned Supracosmic seed atom to Liberation. Since many people have written into their spiritual destiny that they must open only one Supracosmic Path, Mudrashram® disciples commonly find that this process of development of this ensouling entity occurs in the background while they unfold at their cutting edge of spirituality, and find to their joy that this essence has been Liberated—when this is the case, they can skip directly from work in the Cosmic Sphere to the Transcendental Sphere.

Throat – This is the Path of unfoldment of the Astral Soul in the Cosmic Sphere, which is the fourth stage of spirituality in Mudrashram®. This ensouling entity becomes your new cutting edge of spirituality when you have completed your spiritual development in the Subtle, Planetary, and Subtle bands of the Continuum.

Heart – This is the track of unfoldment of the Monad in the Transplanetary Realm. This is the third stage of spirituality in Mudrashram®. It leads the Monad through the Planetary Hierarchy to the Planetary Logos; through the Solar Chain to the Solar Logos; and through the seven solar systems of our Monadic Life Wave to the Pleiadean Logos, from which the Monad originated.

Solar Plexus – This is the pathway through the Planetary Realm on which the Planetary Soul evolves, culminating in its opening this track to the Nirvanic Flame. This is the second stage of spiritual development in Mudrashram®.

Navel – This is the corridor through which the Soul Spark, the ensouling entity of the Subtle Realm, travels in its journey of reunion with the Soul. This is the first stage of spiritual development in Mudrashram®. Not everyone starts here; most Mudrashram® students have already moved their cutting edge of spirituality into the Planetary Realm, as they have already completed the Subtle arc of their spiritual evolution.

Base of the spine – This is the locus of your Human Self. This is the zone in which you develop your human potential through using the executive functions of your personality—volition, personal intuition, intellect, concrete mind, conscience, persona, and commitment. Mudrashram® does not neglect this aspect of human nature, but puts into place programs to study its function, such as the Life Coaching, Dysfunctional Family Recovery Coaching, Cult Recovery Coaching, and Addiction Recovery Program to overcome the key life issues that hold people back from being able to enter the portals of the seven stages of their spiritual development.

Top of the feet – This is where your ego dwells, which is the integration center of your Conscious mind. This aspect of your nature is embedded in your human life, and experiences the unfoldment of your life moment to moment. The ego has a functional side, and a “dark side,” which is called the personal unconscious or Shadow. We do not demonize the ego in Mudrashram®, but teach you to train this aspect of your nature to be more responsive to the working out of your Soul’s purpose, and to cooperate with your higher nature instead of resisting it. This is the zone of practical meditation—we have designed a course, the Foundations of Practical Meditation, to help people who are learning to work with their ego to make it more functional and sensitive to the intimations of the deeper Self.

You learn how to open to your cutting edge ensouling entity and transform it, where it dwells in one of the seven stages of spirituality, in our Intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Differences between Non-Integral and Integral Approaches

When we compare and contrast these two approaches, we find the following differences:

  1. Non-integral alignment is anchored in centers in the higher Planes. It seeks to manifest in human life through the Aethers. Integral alignment is grounded in your physical body, and manifests in your life and your behavior.
  2. Non-integral approaches train their students to identify with nuclei of identity or with seed atoms in selected vehicles of consciousness. This perceptual frame creates a sense of separation and detachment from human life, so that those on these non-integral Paths may regard their personality and ego as alien, unreal, or even as evil. Some types of non-integral spiritual development may lead to states of dissociation, derealization, and depersonalization. In the Integral approach, the connection is maintained between the ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality and your human life, so there is no sense of separation; this perspective holds that human life is the instrument through which the Soul expresses in the world.
  3. Non-integral approaches may project utopian or apocalyptic scenarios upon the world. They may visualize ideal societies, if everyone becomes aligned with their spiritual perspective. They may believe in doomsday visions such as the Last Judgment or Divine Punishment of those who do not believe and follow the dictates of their doctrine. Integral approaches focus on constructive action in your life and environment. They hold that rather than project on the world your wishes and fears, it is more productive to improve your personality and your life so you can become a finer instrument for the Soul’s expression.
  4. In some non-Integral Paths, they may awaken the Kundalini to fix your attention in a nucleus of identity. If Kundalini remains fixed in this center, it may generate Kundalini syndromes that disrupt your ability to function in the personality. In Integral Paths, Kundalini is never raised beyond the cutting edge of spirituality, and it is lowered immediately after it activates and enlivens the vehicles of consciousness of your ensouling entity.
  5. Non-integral Paths may utilize transformational methods to unfold a vehicular seed atom or a nucleus of identity with an aim to gain enlightenment and wisdom, love and virtues, and spiritual powers that can be accessed as this essence moves along its track to its apparent origin. This generates imbalance, as this essence is moved off of the innate axis of being. Integral Paths unfold the cutting edge ensouling entity in synchrony with each other center along the axis of being. As a result, no imbalance is generated; no center is moved off the axis of being.
  6. In non-integral Paths, they invoke the form of God and the Masters apparent on the inner horizon of their cosmology, which is perceptible to the spiritual essence with which they identify and unfold. In Integral Paths, invocation is performed through your Supervising Initiate, who connects your ensouling entity with its Source, and steps down that Divine energy to minister to the ensouling entity, the spirit, and the attentional principle.
  7. In non-integral Paths, their outreach to others seeks to bring these aspirants to identify with the nucleus of identity or vehicular seed atom of their Path that they cultivate and transform it along its track. Awakening the spirit is typically not done in these Paths. In Integral Paths, the aspirant is introduced to their ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality. They are trained to unfold this ensouling entity and its vehicles, and to concurrently open the Nadamic Path of the spirit in alignment with the Soul. Integral Paths develop all four Poles of Being in synchrony.

Those who wish to learn about doing Integral spiritual work at the cutting edge of spirituality can do so in one of our Intermediate meditation programs. Those who wish a greater understanding of spiritual development in non-integral Paths will benefit from reading Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?

Q: How is your approach to spirituality different than the teachings of the Sat Gurus of the Transcendental Sphere?

A: Sat Gurus of the Transcendental Sphere teach their disciples to awaken the spirit on their Path and unfold the Transcendental ensouling entity of that Path. These teachers are able to awaken the spirit on one of the Transcendental Paths, but not others. In these Paths, the spirit opening the tracks of the Nada is the key method of transformation.

These teachers who work on individual Transcendental Paths dwell on the first though fifth and seventh Transcendental Paths. These include Subud (T1), Sant Mat (T2), Avatar Meher Baba (T3), the Paradise Path (T4), Eckankar™ (T5), and Brahma Vidya (T7).

Similar to non-integral Paths, they develop the spirit and ensouling entity outside the cutting edge of spirituality. Unlike the other non-integral Paths, they rarely activate the Kundalini.

During the sixth and seventh stage of spirituality in Mudrashram®, you progressively develop and liberate the spirit and ensouling entities on the Bridge Path and T1 to T7—so you do not simply develop the spirit and ensouling entity upon a single Transcendental Path, you develop and ultimately liberate all of them.

Upcoming Master Course in Meditation on 6-23-21

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We will be starting a new virtual Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation on Wednesday June 23, 2021. The course will go ten weeks.

Those of you who have been waiting to take this class, here is your opportunity to take it in a format that requires less time commitment each evening.

You can view our You Tube announcement of the class here

 

What is a Nucleus of Identity?

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By George A. Boyd © 2017

Q: You use the term, “nucleus of identity,” frequently in your writing. I’m still not clear what this is.

A: We often refer people to our article, “Understanding Nodal Points and Nuclei of Identity,” to define what a nucleus of identity is. The easiest way to understand this is that the Soul has four quadrants of activity. You can visualize this as a pie cut into quarters.

We call these four quadrants, the Poles of Being.

Pole One

On the first pole, at zero degrees, is the Soul. When you meditate upon this pole, you are contemplating the essence we generically call the ensouling entity, on its own Plane. Depending on where on the Continuum of Consciousness you place your attention, you will encounter one of 13 ensouling entities.

For example, if you put your attention in the Planetary Realm, you will encounter the ensouling entity that is called the Planetary Soul. We simply refer to this essence as the Soul, since this is the cutting edge for so many people. Some refer to the Planetary Soul as the Higher Self, the God Immanent, the Transpersonal Self, or the Atma.

If you put your attention in the Cosmic Sphere, you’ll encounter your Astral Soul on this pole. Please see our article on the Great Continuum of Consciousness to learn about the 13 ensouling entities.

In Mudrashram®, we teach our students to meditate on their ensouling entity that is infused with the animating force of the Divine Spirit—this is what we call the cutting edge of spirituality.

In the stream of light where the ensouling entity exists are the nodal points of the Path that the ensouling entity has awakened, and it dwells in a nodal point. By identifying where the ensouling entity is on its Path, we can determine how far it has to go to reach Liberation.

People who meditate on the ensouling entity typically meditate on the brain chakra—or on the Transcerebral chakra, which is the center above the top of the head—to encounter this essence. The path of unfolding the ensouling entity has been called the brain path.

Pole Two

If you rotate your attention 90 degrees to the right (clockwise), you come upon the second pole. Here you identify as the spirit. People also call this spiritual essence the spiritual heart, inner spiritual awareness, the loving heart, or Surat.

If you were to drop your attention into the inner streams of light and sound we call the Nada, you would ride up this current into the spirit that is associated with your cutting edge of spirituality. [This technique is called Surat Dhyan. We teach it in our intermediate meditation courses.]

But like the ensouling entity, you can focus on this spiritual essence at different levels of the Continuum. We call these discrete segments where the Nada begins and ends, domains—we have mapped twelve domains on the Continuum. [Please see our article on the Great Continuum of Consciousness about the 12 domains of the spirit.]

People usually associate the spirit with meditation upon the area of the heart, but some domains begin where you feel your spirit at the point between the eyebrows or even the navel. The practice of opening the channels of the Nada through moving your spirit along them, ultimately to the source of the spirit, has been called the heart path.

Pole Three

If you rotate your attention another 90 degrees to the right to 180º, you encounter the pile of being of the vehicles of consciousness of your Superconscious mind. It is on this pole that you encounter the integration centers we call nuclei of identity.

We have located nuclei of identity in the first through fourth Planetary Initiations, the first through fifth Cosmic Initiations, and on each Supracosmic Path. People who meditate on the spinal axis, sometimes called the cerebrospinal axis, the spinal tube, Sushumna, or the chakras typically come to identify with a nucleus of identity, instead of the Soul or the spirit.

Probably the three most common nuclei of identity with which people identify are:

  • The nucleus of identity of the First Planetary Initiation, which has been called the Christ Child, Christ Consciousness, or nephesh. [In our writings, we commonly refer to this nucleus of identity as the Moon Soul.] Christians and Jews focus their attention on this center and commune with the forms of God that can be known in the First Exoteric Initiation and the First Mesoteric Initiation.
  • The nucleus of identity of the First Cosmic Initiation, which has been called cosmic consciousness or the Atman. Disciples of Yogi Preceptors identify with this center.
  • The Supracosmic seed atom of each active Supracosmic Path: Buddhists, Shaivite and Vaisnavite Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Jains—among others—typically identify with the seed atom of their Supracosmic Path. [For a full listing of these Supracosmic Paths, see our article “Faiths of the Supracosmic Sphere” in the Library section of our website. If you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free Library membership. For a full listing of nuclei of identity, read the article on our website, “Nodal points and nuclei of identity,” which you can access on our Open Stacks page.]

Pole Four

Finally, if you rotate another 90 degrees to 270º, you come to the fourth pole. This is divided into an upper and lower zone.

The upper zone contains your attention, the thread of consciousness, and the principle of intention and consciousness, which we call the attentional principle. This essence has been called the inner witnessing consciousness, the third eye, or Nirat.

The lower zone contains your personality and your life. This is where you encounter the two personal integration centers, the ego [the personal identification center that is embedded in your experience of your life, in what we call the Conscious mind] and the Self [the personal identification that governs your entire personality; it dwells in the Metaconscious mind]. This zone also includes the bands of the unconscious mind that express in your life—this is the level of the mind that psychologists call the shadow.

The attentional principle dwells in the system of chakras of the Subconscious mind slightly above the point between the eyebrows. It is from this perspective that you behold the thread of consciousness that travels through each band of the mind. It is from this perspective of the fourth pole that you view the map of the Great Continuum of Consciousness.

We encourage aspirants to familiarize themselves with the perspectives on each of these four poles of being. In the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation, we uniquely train you to work on all four poles of being and give you meditation tools that actualize you personally and spiritually. You learn these methods in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the by-mail or online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Mistakes Meditators Make

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By George A. Boyd ©2018

I have taught Integral meditation since 1983, and have published 16 books on this topic. I have observed the following mistakes meditators make:

  1. Meditating without a clear objective – if you meditate in this fashion, you will simply slip into a state of reverie. While this is relaxing, it effectively wastes your time. Every meditation needs to be done with a purpose.
  2. Not going beyond preliminary stages of meditation – while many people can reach the stage of mindfulness and begin to become aware of what they are experiencing in the present moment, this is only the first layer of meditation—the Conscious mind. Meditators need to reach the Superconscious mind to do the deepest work of meditation.
  3. Jumping ahead to practices that are not keyed to your current stage of spiritual development – This all too common blunder has people meditate on a spiritual essence other that your own Soul. If meditators practice powerful transformation techniques along with contemplating this higher essence, it can liberate powerful energies in the mind, and create dangerous splits in identity and perception. You can lose your motivation to pursue your personal goals; you can begin to sense that the world and your life are unreal; you can begin to hear visions and voices that tell you to do odd things.
  4. Get involved in a spiritual cult – While there are many reputable schools of meditation, there are a number of groups that, in exchange for teaching your meditation, expect you to let the leader of this group  completely reprogram and control your mind and your life, and have you dedicate all of your labor and money to him or her. I would strongly advise that those seeking meditation instruction have some knowledge of the dynamics of cults and if you start getting warning signs, get the heck out of there![We have articles about cults in our Library, and those of you who may like to understand this subject more deeply may benefit from reading our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?.]
  5. Having only one technique – If you call a handyman to your house, he won’t show up without a whole toolbox. Many schools of meditation teach just one technique. It’s important that you have a whole tool box of methods to use to work on the issues of your personality, to lift your awareness into your Soul, to transform your Soul, to get guidance from your Soul’s intuition.
  6. Remaining in an altered state of consciousness – Some schools of meditation that cultivate the experience of enlightenment encourage their students to remain fixed in this altered state of consciousness 24/7. This is not a good idea. You can become narcissistic, believing that the whole Creation revolves around your needs. You can become arrogant and grandiose, believing you are a superior all-knowing god-like being. You can become delusional, believing you are a Christ-like being, and expecting everyone to recognize how enlightened you are.
  7. Not understanding the context or big picture of why you are meditating – It is important to have a long term goal of what you are seeking to achieve in meditation and have the appropriate techniques to help you achieve this. Many meditators get excited when someone does a “guided meditation” and takes them somewhere, but they no clarity about what is the purpose of meditation and how they truly actualize their spiritual potentials. The objective is not to take visionary journeys into the higher mind; the objective is that your Soul will accomplish the Great Work that it was destined to do.

We have developed our Integral meditation system to help you avoid these common meditation mistakes. Those of you who wish to learn a complete system of spiritual development that steers you away from these spiritual detours, you may wish to investigate our intermediate meditation classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and they by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Different Tools for Varying Spiritual Objectives

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By George A. Boyd © 2018

Q: How are Mudrashram® meditation practices different than those I get from other groups?

A: Each group gives you tools appropriate for the job they do. Here are some examples:

A Wiccan or Occult group will show you how to unite with your Soul Spark and activate the upper Subtle Realm octave of will, which we call the Magical Will, to bring about manifestation and to protect against evil influences.

New Thought or New Age groups that operate on the Abstract Mind Plane and Psychic Realm give techniques that enable you to unite with the wave of the present time and your Higher Self, to process issues to completion, to activate the Soul’s power to manifest its transpersonal will, and to awaken your psychic abilities.

Jewish and Christian groups train you to commune with the Holy Spirit in the inner altar center of the Christ consciousness or Moon Soul nucleus of identity in the First Planetary Initiation. You learn to connect with God and listen to His guidance, and receive His blessings in your life.

I AM Movement groups lift your attention to unite with the Mighty I AM presence nucleus of identity in the Second Planetary Initiation, where you can activate the Omnific power of the spoken decree to manifest your intention.

Yogi Preceptor lineages teach you how to unite your attention with the cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity in the First Cosmic Initiation, and to transform this essence.

Light-Master-led groups reveal to you how to awaken the cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity in the Second Cosmic Initiation and unfold it, while concurrently guiding the spirit on that segment of the Continuum to its origin.

Cosmic Masters awaken you to unite with your Astral Soul and progressively move this essence towards its source.

Supracosmic Gurus initiate the Supracosmic seed atom upon their Path and lead it progressively to unite with the form of the Divine that dwells in the Supracosmic brain chakra.

Transcendental Sphere Sat Gurus focus your attention on the spirit upon their Path, and lead this essence to its origin in the highest Plane at that level of the Continuum.

You will learn different techniques to achieve these varying objectives. These groups will train you to focus your attention on a different spiritual essence. In groups that teach you to transform your spiritual essence, you will learn different techniques for unfoldment.

Mudrashram® spiritual practices are keyed to your cutting edge of spirituality, and lead you to progressively complete your spiritual development in Subtle, Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental bands of the Great Continuum of Consciousness.

You can learn about the steps of our Integral meditation system in the article, “Steps of Integral Meditation.” You can find out about the major meditation techniques we teach in our description of the Introduction to Meditation Program; our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program; and the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation.

We invite you to study about different approaches to spirituality and to identify one that resonates with your sense of truth. We welcome you to study with us if you feel our approach to spirituality seems right to you and matches the spiritual objectives you wish to achieve.