Ways People Complete Things

By George A. Boyd © 2013

As 2022 draws to a close, I wanted to share an article that discusses incompletion. As you review the goals and resolutions you set for 2022, you may notice that you may have not accomplished a certain percentage of what you intended at the beginning of the year. I wanted to share with you some ways you can do a better job of completing the goals you set for 2023—and to gain some insights into what may have been sabotaging you fulfilling your resolutions. I extend our best wishes for a better year in 2023.

One of the major issues many people have is completing or finishing issues that occur to them. These issues may take the form of:

  • A loss, which is not resolved, which leads to unfinished grief and regret
  • A betrayal or violation, which evokes rage, and a desire for revenge
  • A traumatic experience, such as incidents that occur in a relationship, through molestation, through crime, through a terrorist incident, through a natural catastrophe, or in a war
  • A failure or embarrassment experience, which makes a person not wish to try that endeavor again
  • A fearful experience, which leads a person to avoid the object or person that made him or her afraid
  • A goal left incomplete, which rankles for completion—for example, not completing a college degree
  • A creative project left unfinished, with a strong desire to finish it

People resolve these unfinished issues through several methods:

Enactment relies upon deliberation and decision to promote change. In this method, you identify what goals or actions have been left undone, and take purposive and intelligent actions to finish the goal; you persist until the goal is completed.

Understanding and communication employs dialog and listening to work with your issues. Those who adopt this approach listen to your pain, grief, rage, and shame, and acknowledge it. It uses understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness to allow you to process through the feelings, work through them, and release them. Counseling and psychotherapy use this method.

Finding solutions seeks to find an answer through reviewing potential solutions and options. This method identifies the problem, and attempts to find solutions for it. It may look at different options to solve the process, explore outcomes of those choices, and facilitate a decision to act on one of the choices. This is called the problem solving approach; work teams and inventors commonly exercise this strategy.

Mindfulness adopts observation and process to promote insight and release. This method simply allows the mind to become aware of each traumatic issue or painful feelings, to fully experience them, and let go of this. Forms of psychotherapy that teach clients mindfulness-based solutions make use of this method.

Active remembrance and release applies process meditation or free association to uncover deep issues hidden in the unconscious mind. This method focuses on a selected issue and keeps attention upon it—this may be elicited by a repetitive question, or an inquiry as to what is associated with a theme. The issue is processed or explored until its origin is located, and the person can release it, and re-create a new intention for that theme. Variations of this approach are found in Scientology™ or other “transformational trainings” that use process meditation; Psychoanalysis and its offshoots adopt the inquiry or free association method.

Invocation of spiritual assistance primarily utilizes prayer. This method invokes the Holy Spirit, or the intervention of an angel or a spiritual Master. This method calls upon the Light of etheric and emotional healing to minister to the wounds of the heart.

Transformation takes two forms: personal and spiritual transformation:

Personal transformation approaches use perspective shift, acting from another frame of reference, confronting fear or limiting beliefs, uprooting excuses and making a firm commitment to deal with the issue, facilitating realization or “aha moments,” experiencing breakthroughs or “personal wins,” or courageously doing that which is risky or scary.

Spiritual transformation uproots the karmic seeds that underlie these unfinished issues, using techniques that lead the spirit to open the inner channels of Light and Sound (the Nada), and/or to unfold the Soul and its vehicles of consciousness through methods like Bija mantra or Kriya Yoga, or through Light Immersion methods.

If people do nothing, or simply take medication to make the bad feelings go away temporarily, the issue will not resolve. If they put off dealing with the issue, it will not be finished. If they avoid the issue, it will not be ended. If they make excuses about the issue, or blame others, it will not be worked out. If they delude themselves about what the problem really is, they will not be freed from its continual rankling. If they continually think about the problem, but don’t take action, the issue will remain incomplete.

People don’t complete things because they don’t use the tools designed to help them complete things. If you use these tools effectively and resolutely, you will finish these issues and move forward in your life.

If you don’t use them, you will remain stuck in the past—in the morass of should have, would have, could have, I regret that, sorry that I didn’t, must not have been meant to be—and all of the other mental quagmires that impede your forward progress towards success and fulfillment.

Some of these methods you can learn to use and do for yourself; others may require the assistance of a professional counselor or therapist. Realize that if you do not take action on these issues and work to resolve them, however, they will continue to hound you until you finally resolve them and finish them for good. May you summon the courage and resolve to not be bound another day by these incomplete issues of your past.

How Mudrashram® Can Help You Reach Your Spiritual Objectives

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Aspirants report that they are seeking solutions to their core spiritual issues in eight major areas. We provide a brief summary of how Mudrashram® has developed specific tools to help you resolve these issues below.

Keynote

How Mudrashram® helps
 you achieve this objective

Where you can learn this
 in our training programs

Relationship with God

We teach you how to connect with your spirit and to travel back to God in full consciousness (Nada Yoga); we teach you how to consciously journey through the inner Planes as your attentional principle and enter into the Presence of God (Raja Yoga); and we teach you to unfold your Soul’s spiritual evolutionary potentials so you can move along your path to where God dwells, you can ascend to spiritual Mastery and Liberation (Mantra Yoga)—these are the three core techniques of Integral meditation.

You can learn these core methods of Integral meditation in our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—you learn advanced theory and techniques for these three methods in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation

Reincarnation

Using the three core techniques of Integral meditation, you will finish your spiritual work in the Subtle and Planetary Realms, and you will no longer have to reincarnate physically. You will complete your spiritual work in the Transplanetary and Cosmic Realms, and you will no longer have to reincarnate in any astral form. You will complete your spiritual work in the Supracosmic and your aligned Transcendental Path; you will rise on the Bridge Path to Mahatma Stage, where you will no longer have to reincarnate in any causal world.

Our intermediate classes, augmented by actually journeying to all of these higher levels in our advanced course.

Perpetual Suffering

You learn specific methods to work with the karmic issues in your unconscious mind that give rise to suffering: you will learn a variety of tools drawn from invocational methods, intuitive meditation (Jnana Yoga), and activation of the inner Light Fire within you (Agni Yoga) to work on these issues and resolve them.

Our intermediate classes

Seeking Enlightenment

You learn how to activate the Illumined Mind to get guidance, to contemplate and derive meaning and understanding of spiritual ideas, and to discern and realize the essential nature of your Soul (Jnana Yoga)

You learn the fundamental techniques of Jnana Yoga in our intermediate classes, and even more profound methods to activate the Illumined mind and gain enlightenment in our advanced course.

Actualizing Spiritual Potentials

You learn a variety of ways to tap the spiritual potentials of your Superconscious mind: to awaken the vehicles of consciousness of your higher mind (Kundalini Yoga), to gain intuitive knowledge and insight from your higher mind (Jnana Yoga), and to engage in spiritual ministry and attunement (Agni Yoga).

Our intermediate classes, plus you learn about how you activate your spiritual powers in our advanced course.

Inner Sensing

You learn what are the octaves of sight in our public webinar, “The Vision Workshop.” You learn how to activate the attentional and metavisional octaves of spiritual sensing using Raja Yoga; the spiritual octave of sight using Nada Yoga; and the higher intuitive and core octaves of sight using Jnana Yoga.

You learn the fundamental techniques of Raja Yoga, Nada Yoga, and Jnana Yoga in our intermediate classes, and even more powerful methods to activate these forms of inner sensing in our advanced course.

Knowing Soul Purpose

You learn about the different octaves of purpose are in our public webinar, “The Purpose Workshop.” Through Raja Yoga you are able to travel into the presence of your Soul and trace its track across the higher unconscious to behold each stage of its journey to Mastery and Liberation, which is called its Intrinsic Soul Purpose. Through Jnana Yoga, you gain the ability to dialog with your Soul and allow it to reveal the aspects of its purpose that it is expressing in your life right now, which is called your Expressed Soul Purpose.

You learn the fundamental techniques of Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga in our intermediate classes, and additional methods to visualize the higher reaches of your Soul’s Intrinsic Soul Purpose in our advanced course.

Transformation

You learn how to activate the Quintessence Divine Name, which allows your Soul to unfold through the Subtle, Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, your aligned Transcendental Path, and the Bridge Path. You are able to accelerate your spiritual development exponentially, so you can do thousands of lifetimes of spiritual growth in this very life. We offer Light Immersion, which we call Light Sittings, for active students to assist them speed up their spiritual progress even more.

You learn the fundamental techniques of Mantra Yoga and Guru Kripa Yoga—the reception of spiritual Grace and Power from a spiritual Master that unfolds the Soul—in our intermediate classes, and you learn additional methods for Mantra Yoga and the key transformational method, Kriya Yoga, in our advanced course.

We invite you to explore the articles on this blog, our Open Stacks page, and our Library on this website. You can purchase one or more of our public books to learn more about our innovative and comprehensive system of Integral meditation on our sister website, Mudrashram® Publishing.

You are welcome to take webinars that interest you, available in our Public webinar area.

After you have had a chance to examine our teachings, and feel that what we offer resonates with your sense of truth and provides a elegant solution for what you are trying to achieve spiritually, we encourage you to sign up for—if you have never meditated before—our beginning meditation program, the Introduction to Meditation Program.

Those who have meditated before or who have completed the Introduction to Meditation Program, you can sign up for one of our intermediate programs. Once you complete one of our intermediate programs, you become eligible to take the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation and the additional advanced programs designed to maximize your spiritual experience and accelerate the attainment of your spiritual objectives.

The Spectrum of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Many coaches, motivational speakers, meditation teachers, channelers, and sundry other New Age practitioners promise their clients “transformation” to achieve their dreams, to actualize their potential, and to make their “Ascension”—without truly understanding the full spectrum of potential personal and spiritual transformation.

In the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation, we describe for poles of being. These poles are:

Pole one – The ensouling entity or Soul

Pole two – The individual spirit

Pole three – The spiritual forms or vehicles of consciousness that the Soul animates and controls, through which it expresses its love, wisdom, and ability—these are the higher aspects of spiritual emotion, intuition, and the aspects of transpersonal volition that operate in the Superconscious mind

Upper pole four – The attention and intentional consciousness (attentional principle) that witness human life and can commune with the other three poles of spirituality through meditation

Lower pole four – The matrix of human life that operates through the unconscious mind and the three mental fields that comprise the personality—the Conscious mind, the Subconscious mind, and the Metaconscious mind; the personal integration centers of the Self (Metaconscious mind) and the ego (Conscious mind) govern and direct these aspects of mind through the personal aspects of volition.

The modalities for transformation operate on one or more of these poles of being. Many of those who purport to offer transformation to their clients and meditation students are not aware that other types of transformation exist outside the type(s) that they have experienced and share with those they coach, counsel, and teach. It is important for those who seek to transform others—and those that believe transforming is something that they should do—to be aware of the entire spectrum of potential transformation. Here are eight major types:

  1. Personal transformation – this changes aspects of your personality into something better than you experience now. This type of transformation takes place on lower pole four. These aspects are parts of you that you want to change, you believe change is possible, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure this change happens. This change can take place at the level of:
    • Behavior – you learn new skills that enable you to do the things you want that you aren’t able to do right now.
    • Habits – you change habits that are unhealthful or unproductive into habits that support your health and optimize your productivity.
    • Attitude – you shift from holding a pessimistic, hopeless attitude to an optimistic and hopeful one.
    • Belief – you alter your beliefs about what is possible, so you believe that you can reach your goals and achieve your dreams.
    • Values – you identify what is truly important in your life, and you align your actions, speech and thinking to align with these core life priorities; you begin focusing on your priorities instead of doing things that waste time.
    • Perception – you modify your mindset about what you can do, be, and have as you change your perception of who you are and what you have the capacity to become.
    • Knowledge – you educate yourself to enable you to enter your chosen career and to enact your life purpose.
    • Choice – you make new choices and don’t let fear or worry hold you back from fully living your dreams.
    • Identity – you come to experience yourself as someone who is more empathic, skillful, competent, effective, courageous, and capable of delivering results.
  2. Rebirth – you achieve rebirth through moving your attention and/or attentional principle into union with a spiritual essence—a nucleus of identity, spirit, or ensouling entity—and sustaining your union with this state until you fully identify with it and it begins to govern your values, beliefs, and behavior. This is the transformation typical of upper pole four. Once you become identified with this essence, you begin to direct your personality from this spiritual identity. This type of transformation is typical of
    • New Age aspirants who identify with the Star Seed on the Psychic Realm
    • “Born again Christians” and Jews affiliated with mystical sects who identify as the Moon Soul nucleus of identity
    • I AM Movement members who identify with the Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity within their Solar Angelic form
    • Disciples of Yogi Preceptors who identify with their cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity in the First Cosmic Initiation
    • Students of Light Masters who identity as the cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity
    • Chelas of Cosmic Masters who identify as the Astral Soul (a higher octave ensouling entity)
    • Followers of Supracosmic Path Gurus, who identify with the Supracosmic seed atom of that Path
    • Devotees of Transcendental Path Sat Gurus, who identify with the spirit on that Transcendental Path
  3. Superconscious integration center unfoldment – you produce transformation of a vehicular seed atom or nucleus of identity through practicing a transformational method that unfolds this essence. This is pole three transformation. This moves the vehicular seed atom or nucleus of identity out of alignment with the axis of being, and reinforces identification with this integration center of the Superconscious mind. Examples of this type of transformation include:
    • Taoist martial arts practitioners who unfold the Subtle Etheric seed atom though using the Microcosmic Circulation technique
    • New Age aspirants who unfold the Star Seed on the Psychic Realm with the Merkaba method
    • Christians and Jews affiliated with mystical sects who unfold their Moon Soul nucleus of identity using specialized mantras or Kriya-Yoga-like methods
    • I AM Movement members who unfold Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity within their Solar Angelic form using specialized decrees
    • Disciples of Yogi Preceptors who unfold their cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity in the First Cosmic Initiation utilizing Kundalini Yoga, mantras, Kriya Yoga, and Light Immersion
    • Students of Light Masters unfold their cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity using mantras and Light Immersion
    • Followers of Supracosmic Path Gurus, who unfold the Supracosmic seed atom of that Path through Kundalini Yoga, mantras, Kriya Yoga, and Light Immersion
  4. Transformation generated through movement of the spirit – this practice is typical of Paths in the Transcendental Sphere, which drive transformation through having the spirit open the inner channels of the Nada. This is pole two transformation. Examples of this types of transformation is found on:
    • Transcendental Path One (T1) – Followers of Subud Masters open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Two (T2) – Disciples of Sant Mat Sat Gurus open the channels of the Nada and follow the inner guide form of their Master to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Three (T3) – Devotees of the Avatar and the five Perfect Masters open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Four (T4) – Those that Paradise Masters initiate open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Five (T5) – Chelas of ECK Masters (Mahantas) open the channels of the Nada and use specialized mantras to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Seven (T7) – Premies of the T7 Sat Guru open the four channels of the Nada on their Path and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
  5. Transformation of an ensouling entity with its associated vehicle of consciousness – These transformational practices move an ensouling entity along its track. This is pole one transformation.
    • Occult Adepts awaken the Kundalini to move the Soul Spark through the Subtle Realm and guide it to rise through the Occult Initiations.
    • Adepts and Adept Masters use Light Immersion to move the Soul and its vehicles and confer Planetary Initiation.
    • Agni Yoga Yogi Preceptors and Cosmic Masters bestow Light Immersion to translate the Astral Soul and activate its vehicles of consciousness; advanced forms of Kriya Yoga (Kaivalyam Kriya) or a specialized mantra (Cosmic Divine Name) are also used to selectively unfold the Astral Soul.
    • Selected Supracosmic Gurus unfold the Supracosmic Soul through Light Immersion, Kriya Yoga, and targeted mantras.
    • The Avatar and Perfect Masters on T3 employ Light Immersion to unfold the ensouling entity of this Path.
  6. Coordinated transformation of selected spiritual essences though alignment with a template for transformation – This type of transformation is very rare: we have seen it applied in only one instance. This is mixed transformation of pole one and pole three at different bands of the Continuum of Consciousness. In the Risen Christ Yoga that my first spiritual teacher promulgated, he bestowed Light Immersion to unfold the Astral Soul, the God consciousness nucleus of identity, the Avataric consciousness nucleus of identity, the cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity—each Cosmic Sphere spiritual essences; the Monad (a higher octave ensouling entity of the Transplanetary Realm); and the Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity, the Moon Soul nucleus of identity, and the seed atom on the Psychic Realm in the Planetary Realm.
  7. Integral transformation at one band of the Continuum of Consciousness – this is partial Integral transformation as it operates on one band of the Continuum only. It unfolds the ensouling entity (pole one), the spirit (pole two), and the essential vehicle of the Soul and its associated vehicles of consciousness (pole three), together with guiding the attentional principle into union with the Soul (upper pole four). We are aware that this is practiced in two instances:
    • Certain Adepts and Adept Masters use Light Immersion and Guru Kripa Yoga to unfold the Soul Spark and Soul in synchrony with the spirit, the vehicles of consciousness, and the attentional principle in the Subtle and Planetary bands of the Continuum.
    • Integral or Guru Kripa Yogi Preceptors use this same schema of balancing the four poles of the Astral Soul to guide Integral spiritual development during the First Cosmic Initiation.
  8. Integral co-resonant development – This combines Integral transformation at the cutting edge of spirituality with simultaneous and synchronous unfoldment at each octave of being. This unfolds on all four poles of being, not only at the level of your spiritual growing tip, but also at each higher octave of being. This is the form of transformation that we teach in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

You can drive transformation through personal effort, using choice and commitment to effect personal transformation; you can also employ a transformational technique to produce spiritual transformation. Grace can also drive spiritual transformation through Light Immersion. Integral Light Immersion is called Guru Kripa Yoga.

Regular Guru Kripa Yoga operates at one level of the Continuum, and unfolds all four poles of being in synchrony. This is characteristic of transformation type seven.

Adi Guru Kripa Yoga unfolds all four poles of being in synchrony at each level of the Great Continuum of Consciousness—Subtle, Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental. This generates co-resonant development. This produces transformation type eight.

In addition to the tools to support personal transformation you learn in our intermediate meditation courses, our practical meditation training that our Introduction to Meditation instructors are authorized to teach provide additional tools for personal transformation. Our upcoming coaching modules will give you still more methods to work with your issues and transform them.

We invite you to study these different types of transformation and identify how you can generate personal and spiritual transformation that resonates with your inner sense of truth, and feels appropriate for your current stage of growth.

We point out that spiritual transformation types two through six, which work on only one pole of being or on multiple poles without promoting Integral synchronous spiritual development, commonly yield imbalances. We recommend that aspirants embrace Integral meditation strategies for optimal outcomes in their quest for spiritual progress, while avoiding the pitfalls of transformation methods emphasize spiritual development on only one pole.

Formative Experiences

By George A. Boyd ©2017

A formative experience is one that shapes identity, life narrative, and your sense of the world—whether it is safe or threatening; whether you are an effective change maker in your life or you are largely at effect of your circumstances. There are seven major types of formative experiences:

  1. Trauma – This is an event, or series of events, that take place where another person, or a catastrophic natural phenomenon, harms you, and teaches you that other people, or the world is not safe. The psychological repercussions of this event include lasting fear and vigilance towards any similar occurrence. You feel a need to protect your body, family and loved ones, and your possessions from a re-occurrence of this event. If another person has perpetrated this event, and you assess their motivation to be malevolent, trauma can also spur anger, rage, and a powerful drive for revenge.
  2. Acknowledgement – This is an experience when someone truly sees you, hears, you, and lets you know you are known. Acknowledgement is the key to you owning your authentic Self; it gives you permission to be who you are. When you are acknowledged, you feel loved and known—this can be a very healing experience, which can help you rebuild your self-esteem.
  3. Successful performance – This is the first time you do something on your own. Think back to when you first rode a bike or a car on your own, or first gave a public speech. Successful performance builds confidence, a sense of competence and efficacy, and expands your capability. Successful performance enhances your self-esteem and brings healthy personal pride.
  4. Spiritual awakening – This typically have this experience during a mystical or peak experience, or a near death experience, where you discover you are a conscious essence beyond the body, and you awaken as your attentional principle, your spirit, or your Soul. Spiritual awakening introduces you to the immortal principles within yourself—and if you do not slam the door shut out of fear—this deeper aspect of yourself will reveal its gifts, and bestow upon you an intuition of a greater purpose or mission.
  5. Academic or vocational calling – This occurs when you read something in a book, watch a video, hear a lecture or attend a class, or observe someone perform the actions of their career, and you realize that this topic or career you are encountering or witnessing is what you want to study and do in your life. This discovery of your academic or career track happens when you recognize this is what you genuinely want to do. Excitement and enthusiasm mark this discovery: it makes you want to learn all you can about this topic or this career.
  6. Awakening of faith in God – Faith arises when you encounter a universal or cosmic being that appears to you to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and you choose to establish a relationship with this being. Encountering this being awakens feels of reverence, devotion, awe, humility, and love for this being. Those who follow religions and spiritual groups in which there is a ritualized tradition of worship develop faith. Faith shapes their whole lives through inculcating moral values, encouraging specific prayers and meditations, and encouraging the practice of ceremonies or rituals that deepen identification as a member of that group.
  7. Transformation – There are two types of transformation: personal and spiritual.
    • Personal transformation is a radical change in your personal life or circumstances that you attribute to the guidance or coaching of another person or a miraculous, supernatural phenomenon. You can also initiate personal transformation through your choice to establish new habits, to operate from an alternative mindset, and to do things in a new and better way.
    • Spiritual transformation takes two major forms: rebirth and movement into a new state of being.
    • Rebirth is a change of perception of who you are. Rebirth occurs when you receive an attunement—receiving the Holy Spirit, Shaktipat, or Light Immersion—that brings your attention into union with a spiritual essence. Depending on the attunement you receive, this spiritual essence can be your spirit, a nucleus of identity, or an ensouling entity. In rebirth, you experience that this essence is your true nature. The rebirth experience can also be generated when you listen to the retelling of a mystery tale, or you receive formal diksha—the conveying of meditation instructions that enable you to gain union with a spiritual essence.
    • Movement of your spiritual essence to a new state of being, which is called Initiation or Samadhi, occurs when your Soul—or other spiritual essence—progresses along its track into a new nodal point. This unfolding bestows new knowledge; new love, understanding, and virtue; and awakens heretofore dormant abilities. [We teach you how to generate spiritual transformation in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation, or the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.]

These formative experiences become a permanent part of your life story.

  • If you have one or more traumatic experiences in your life, your life story may have to do with how you are coping with the aftermath of that experience, or how you have learned to overcome it.
  • If it is acknowledgement that changes your life, you may be on a mission to acknowledge, validate, and empower others. Many therapists, counselors, healers, and coaches trace their choice to enter a helping profession to their own experience of being truly loved, known, and accepted.
  • If successful performance has changed your life, you may be an advocate of performing successful action and establishing a track record of success. You may believe that you can set goals and achieve whatever you visualize. You may have gone on to achieve career and life success and wealth through implementing this key life strategy.
  • If spiritual awakening has dawned in your life, you may have completely transformed how you live, how you see the world, and to what you now commit your life. Spiritual awakening may radically transform your priorities.
  • If you have had clear insight into your academic or career calling, you typically have followed that lead to gain the education and training that enables you to do that as your life’s work.
  • If you have had the awakening of faith, you may have felt led to join a religious or spiritual group, which has instilled new values and reformed your character, shaped your beliefs and behavior through adherence to the principles of your faith’s scriptures, and inspired you to attempt to commune with the spiritual being your worship through prayer and meditation.
  • If you have undergone personal transformation, you have undergone changes that have completely revolutionized your life.
  • If you have undergone spiritual transformation, your worldview, and every aspect of your Soul—or other spiritual essence you are transforming—has expanded into a deeper, wiser, and more loving state of being.

It is important to reflect upon what were your formative experiences, and how they have shaped who you are today. Some people have several formative experiences. Some have only one. A few people have never had one of these major formative experiences.

  • What formative experiences have you had?
  • How did this experience impact your life? Affect your spirituality? How is your life or spirituality different?
  • Have your formative experiences had negative consequences in your life? How?
  • Have your formative experiences produced positive outcomes in your life? In what ways has your life been improved or enhanced?
  • If you had not had this formative experience, how would your life be different?
  • What new strengths or abilities have come to you as the result of your formative experiences?
  • What new insights did your formative experiences provide for you?
  • How have your formative experiences influenced your relationships, your career, or your life direction?

Formative experiences can be a powerful catalyst for change and growth. However, in some cases, when these experiences are negative, they can cast a shadow upon everything in your life. How you use the opportunity a formative experience provides you can open your life to new possibilities that make all the difference in your life and spirituality.

May you be rightly guided to utilize these experiences to gain maximum benefit.

From Mindfulness to Depth Meditation

By George A. Boyd ©2017

The current cultural fascination with mindfulness does not understand cultivating mindfulness as a preparation for the deeper work of depth meditation. This article will briefly explain the differences between the two, how mindfulness is achieved, the levels of preparing for mindfulness and the levels of depth meditation, and how enlightenment states of mind that some teachers highlight do not produce transformation of the spiritual evolutionary potentials that permit you to ascend to Mastery and Liberation.

Differences between Mindfulness and Depth Meditation

You achieve initial mindfulness when your attention collects into a sphere (e.g., concentrates), and you become conscious and present. This state is the precursor to depth meditation.

Depth meditation involves moving your collected attention along the thread of consciousness to contemplate focal points within the vehicles of consciousness that operate at different layers of your mind. Depth meditation enables you to focus your attention upon discrete objects of meditation and become aware of them. These objects of meditation include:

  • Personal identification centers – your ego, and your Self at the nucleus of your personality
  • Identification centers of the Superconscious mind – your nuclei of identity
  • The immortal essences of consciousness – your attentional principle, your spirit, and your Soul
  • The form of a spiritual Master you encounter in the Superconscious mind – the radiant Guide form
  • The Universal Consciousness – the Divine, God, or the Universal Self

Aspirants need to understand that achieving mindfulness is the necessary foundation for depth meditation, but does not produce the actual movement of attention that marks the process of depth meditation.

The present time monitoring that aspirants learn through mindfulness practice allows them to become aware of the content of the level of the mind where their attention is focused, but does not emphasize selecting an alternate focal point for attentional monitoring.

Depth meditation enables the identification of discrete focal points in different vehicles of consciousness, whereas mindfulness only notes content as it is arising, without any context or recognition of the level of the mind from which the content is arising.

Mindfulness has a special strength in that it allows you to process through mental content and transcend it, but it does not emphasize processing material from layers of the unconscious at other bands of the mind—so while you may process through the issue at the level of the waking state of awareness, you might not remove the impressions for this issue at deeper strata of the mind.

Seven Methods to Achieve Mindfulness

There are seven major ways to achieve mindfulness. We suggest there is not one way to achieve the state of initial mindfulness—based on observing the perceptual substratum of attention across the Seven Rays—but several different pathways.

Those aspirants who are having difficulties collecting their attention and becoming present should try each of these seven methods to discover which ones enable them to reach the initial state of mindfulness. These seven methods are shown below.

  1. Direct concentration of the attention using intention (Tratakam)
  2. Absorption in the breath using a full inhalation
  3. Discerning the centers (chakras) below the waking state of awareness, and shifting awareness until it is focused in the medulla center
  4. Using body scan, and processing through the issues held in the body to disengage attention from the issues and free it to rise into the state of mindfulness
  5. Using a mantra coordinated with a quick sniff breath to collect attention (the Hansa Breath)
  6. Absorbing attention in sensory currents through Laya techniques for the visual track (Jyoti Laya), the auditory track (Shabda Laya), and the combined gustatory and olfactory track (Amrita Laya)
  7. Absorption of attention through movement or postures, such as Hatha Yoga or martial arts poses

We teach methods one through six in our meditation classes. We encourage you to become familiar with all seven methods for achieving mindfulness.

The Spectrum – from Mindlessness to Full God Consciousness

The stages of achieving mindfulness and its subsequent progression into depth meditation are shown below.

Stage zero to eight marks the progression from mindlessness (also called ignorance or Avidya) to initial mindfulness.

Stage nine through sixteen comprises the journey of attention along the thread of consciousness in depth meditation.

  • Stage 0 – (Mindlessness) Here you act out unconscious passions of lust, rage, attachment, greed, ignorance, or arrogance without awareness that you are doing this.
  • Stage 1 – You become aware that you are acting out of unconscious patterns.
  • Stage 2 – You place your attention on the issue and make initial contact, and may recognize it (e.g., this is my anger), but you do not enter into its stream of impressions.
  • Stage 3 – You place your attention on the issue and you begin to become aware of its thought impressions arising in the present time.
  • Stage 4 – You place your attention on the issue and you begin to uncover its core beliefs and justifications.
  • Stage 5 – You place your attention on the issue and you begin to become aware of its core desire and craving.
  • Stage 6 – Your attention transcends the issue and becomes focused at the point between the eyebrows.
  • Stage 7 – (Concentration) Your attention collects into a sphere.
  • Stage 8 – (Initial mindfulness) You become conscious and present at the medulla center in the waking state of awareness.
  • Stage 9 – (Initial meditation) You move your collected attention along the thread of consciousness, contemplate selected focal points of the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind, and notice the content arising from that level.
  • Stage 10 – (Purusa Dhyan) Your attention focuses upon the attentional principle and activates it: you awaken as the attentional principle.
  • Stage 11 – (Surat Dhyan) Your attention focuses upon your spirit and activates it: you awaken as the spirit.
  • Stage 12 – (Manasa Dhyan) Your attention focuses upon the vehicles of consciousness in your Superconscious mind and the nuclei of identity embedded in them, and activates these centers: you awaken the abilities, knowledge, wisdom, and altruistic emotions anchored at these levels.
  • Stage 13 – (Enlightened mind) Your attention focuses upon the wave of the present time on the Akashic Aether; you become aware of your Soul’s thoughts and intention arising in the present time, generating a dynamic vortex of creation.
  • Stage 14 – (Adi Atma Dhyan) Your attention focuses upon the Soul and activates it: you awaken the Divine Atom within the Soul and experience Gnosis.
  • Stage 15 – (Guru Dhyan) Your attention focuses on the guide form of the Master that supervises your spiritual development and you receive guidance and instruction from him or her.
  • Stage 16 – (Bhagwan Dhyan) – Your guide leads your attention into the presence of the Divine and you gain conscious union (Samadhi) with the Universal Self.

In addition to training students in different methods to establish initial mindfulness (stage 8), we teach a methodical practice of contemplating each major focal point in the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind (stage 9, Initial Meditation) in our Introduction to Meditation class, which is designed for those who have never meditated before.

We reveal the methods for awakening the three immortal essences—the attentional principle (stage 10), the spirit (stage 11), and the Soul (stage 14)—in our intermediate classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

We show you how to contemplate your Superconscious identity centers, called nuclei of identity (stage 12); to commune with the spiritual guide (stage 15); and to travel into the Presence of God (stage 16) in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation.

Achieving mindfulness is like stepping into the ocean of the mind at the shore, but depth meditation shows you how to cross that ocean. We invite you to progress beyond the preparatory technique of collecting your attention and establishing conscious presence—mindfulness—to the mastery of the practice of depth meditation, which you can learn in Mudrashram®.

From Enlightenment to Initiation

There are several popular teachers who train aspirants to move from initial mindfulness to the two stages of “enlightened consciousness,” the wave of the present time (stage 13) and union with the Soul, with conscious awareness of the Divine Atom within you (stage 14). These practices activate the abilities of the Superconscious mind; tap the Soul’s intuitional stream; unites your attention with the Soul’s unconditional love and compassion; and absorbs your attention in the bliss of the Soul—but they do not move the Soul closer to the Source.

Enlightenment means that you unite with the Soul inside of you and gain access to its knowledge, compassion, and abilities. But you do not move the Soul; it remains where it is.

Initiation means you move the Soul along its track through each nodal point of the Way until it reaches Mastery and Liberation. This adds new abilities to the Soul’s repertoire; expands its sphere of intuitive knowledge, wisdom, and love; and deepens its bliss.

Initiation can be experienced actively or passively.

Active Initiation occurs when you use a transformational method to draw down the Light of Spirit to unfold the Soul. [We teach this method of a transformational mantra keyed to your Soul in our intermediate courses.]

Passive Initiation occurs when you receive attunement from an Initiate (e.g., a spiritual Master), who actively unfolds your spiritual potentials. [We give these attunements in our bi-monthly Light Sittings, which our intermediate and advanced students are eligible to attend.]

We acknowledge that many aspirants do not feel ready for the work of depth meditation, immersion in the enlightened states of mind, or core transformation. But when you do feel ready to move beyond the practice of mindfulness to these deeper levels of spiritual work, Mudrashram® is here to assist you.