Tag Archives: meditation

Viewpoints on the Inner Vistas of the Mind

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By George A. Boyd ©2016

When people look within, they do not always experience the same perspective on their inner world. These alternate perspectives on interiorization, we speak of as the Seven Ray tracks, which color (a) what you see, and (b) the context through which you view it. Here are some examples:

Ray

What Your Inner World Looks Like in this Perspective

Associated
Meditation
System or Technique

1

You behold the space of consciousness and the darkness of the unconscious. Intention guides attention across the unconscious to break through into the true essence of being. You can also use a mantra to carry you across this gulf.

Tratakam, use of mantras to transcend into the true essence of being

2

You see a series of forms, or vehicles of consciousness, with an internal seed atom. The seed atom in each vehicle is connected with a thread of light.

Agni Yoga

3

You see a stack of levels of mind, which contain different activity and content. A central figure appears to animate each level; a type of intelligence appears to work at each level.

Jnana Yoga

4

You experience each layer of mind as an aggregate, possessing certain qualities or characteristics. The wave of the present time dwells at each level: focusing the attention on this wave reveals that everything is in process, continually changing.

Vipassana

5

You experience a stream of light that moves along the track of the thread of consciousness. When you follow this thread of consciousness, you obtain visual information about each vehicle of consciousness and the sub-centers (chakras) visible within it.

Raja Yoga

6

You are a spiritual entity that is separated from the Universal Life by darkness. You are aware of your desires, needs, and shortcomings. You recognize that some things you can improve by your own efforts, but for other things, you need help. You may develop faith in this Higher Power as you conceive it, and establish a relationship with it through prayer.

Prayer, dialog, chanting, or worship

7

You feel energy and warmth rise with you as your awareness opens into new bands of the mind. This energy activates the level of mind where you are experiencing, and stirs it into life.

Kundalini Yoga

We encourage you to study these different perspectives, and observe when you adopt them. Notice if you shift into them spontaneously and naturally. Note whether this is your dominant perspective: the one you prefer and find most easy to enter.

Identify what triggers you to shift into other perspectives. For example:

  • Do you shift perspective when you are reading something in a book or the Internet, listening to a program on the radio or television, in response that you are reading, hearing, or viewing?
  • Have you been taught a meditation that reliably shifts you into an alternate perspective? Do you maintain this perspective after doing the meditation? Or do you return to your preferred perspective after you are done?
  • Do you find yourself shifting to another perspective when you are speaking with certain people? Do certain environments facilitate your shifting into another perspective?
  • Do you find yourself defending your perspective as the correct one? Do you find it difficult to enter other perspectives, and feel entrenched in the one familiar to you?

To understand yourself and others, you will benefit from studying the different perspectives of the Seven Rays. For those taking our intermediate courses—the Accelerated Meditation Program or the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation—we have a series of more advanced webinars about the Seven Rays that you may find valuable. For the general public, you may wish to study the material in A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation on this topic, which provides a good, basic introduction to the Seven Rays.

Learning to Master Meditation

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By George A. Boyd ©2015

Many beginning meditators become dependent on their meditation teacher to guide them into a state of meditation. They are not confident about their ability to meditate on their own, and consequently, when they try to meditate on their own, they get poor results. If they can wean themselves from dependence on the meditation teacher to guide them, they can arrive at meditation mastery.

In general, it appears that the gradual acquisition of meditation mastery follows a progressive gradient through seven stages:

  1. Practice meditation through listening to a compact disk or recording of the meditation teacher’s voice; you may also utilize video recordings or Internet videos of the meditation teacher to learn the rudiments of meditation techniques.
  2. Learn the steps of a meditation technique and remember those steps. Practice the steps one-by-one until you can do them on your own.
  3. Develop the habit of regular meditation. Establish a routine of meditating at a regular time in a regular place.
  4. Explore how you can deepen and gain greater mastery of your attention using this meditation technique. Experiment using finer concentration, or greater relaxation; absorbing of your attention into new vehicles of consciousness; or gaining enhanced awareness of your vehicles of consciousness, as you meditate.
  5. Learn three to seven different meditations to take you to the same focal point. There is more than one technique, for example, to focus your attention on the attentional principle, the Self, Being, the spirit, a nucleus of identity, or your Soul.
  6. Make a detailed study of the vehicles of consciousness that you access through meditation through studying the Mudrashram® Correspondence Course [for those who have completed one of our intermediate courses—who have completed either the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation or the Accelerated Meditation Program], or taking a course like the Introduction to Meditation Program [for beginning, new meditators] or the Adventures in Pinda webinar series [for those who are experienced meditators, and have completed one of our intermediate meditation programs].
  7. Learn the meditation to the degree where you can guide others. Typically at this stage, you have integrated the ability to do the meditation into your Soul, and you have thorough knowledge of all aspects of the meditation.

We encourage you to make the effort necessary to master each meditation you learn, so you may ultimately be able to teach others how to meditate, and guide others in meditation, as you have previously been guided.

These same steps are common to any type of learning, so if you can apply these steps to meditation, you may be able to use them in other subjects you wish to learn. These seven steps are:

  1. Listening to or watching the instructor
  2. Initial practice
  3. Automatic, habitual practice
  4. Ability to explore and creatively innovate
  5. Gaining greater insight and facility with the method
  6. Integration with the Soul, so it becomes an expression of your deepest nature
  7. Teaching or guiding others

If you persevere, you will gain mastery. It will not come overnight, but if you will continue to practice, you will see improvement and progressively deeper meditations.