Tag Archives: Visualization

Eight Meditation Themes

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By George A. Boyd © 2022

Q: People meditate, but they don’t appear to have a similar experience. Can you shed some light on why this might happen?

A: Depending on what pathway you are focusing your attention, it evokes different content from the Higher Mind. Here are eight major meditation themes you might encounter:

  1. Direction – In this theme, you receive guidance for action. This comes from the Soul communicating its purpose to the personality. In advanced disciples and Initiates, they may receive the impress of the Divine Will (Agya). This is associated with the First Ray, which taps into the Will Stream.
  2. Visualization – In this type, you obtain an image or seed thought upon which you contemplate. This might appear as an image that will help you focus your attention on a spiritual essence—attentional principle, spirit, nucleus of identity, or ensouling entity. Sometimes, this might employ revealing a mystery that veils a spiritual essence. This Second Ray meditation theme draws from the Intuitive Wisdom Stream.
  3. The Wellspring of Love – This type opens into the virtue, unconditional love, and compassion of the Soul. It is associated with Agni Yoga, which sends healing attunements, and Nada Yoga, in which the spirit travels back upon the tracks of the Nada and unites with the Divine Beloved through love. Loving kindness meditation and meditations that enhance virtue and improve character also access this pathway. This alternative Second Ray meditation draws from the Love Stream.
  4. Inspired Discourse – This explains spiritual ideas to promote insight and understanding. It may also act as a voice over in guided meditation, which leads attention into union with a selected spiritual essence. This Third Ray pathway channels the Vocal Stream.
  5. Experience – This views the present time unfolding of life at different levels, and becomes fully aware of the content of the mind, wherever attention is focused. Mindfulness and Vipassana enters this track, and allows you to be aware of your present time experience; Raja Yoga moves attention along this inner corridor through the levels of the mind and lets you become aware of the content at each focal point. This Fourth Ray immersion in experience leads your attention upon the Thread of Consciousness.
  6. Analysis – This carefully studies spiritual forms or vehicles of consciousness to reveal their structure and function. It identifies the major landmarks and content of the Continuum of Consciousness through the four bands of the mind. The Mudrashram® Correspondence Course utilizes this approach. This Fifth Ray path of study contemplates Form and Structure.
  7. Invocation – This calls upon a spiritual being—an angel, a spiritual guide, a god or goddess, or a form of the Divine—to fulfill a fervent desire, to ensure success in an endeavor, or to receive Grace, Blessings, or Divine Comfort. This Sixth Ray aspiration activates the Thread of Faith.
  8. Synthesis – This ties together disparate insights or revelations to create comprehensive understanding: it constructs a global picture that places each idea or insight into an ordered context. This Seventh Ray perspective draws upon the Intuitive Thread (Antakarana).

These eight different meditation approaches evoke different aspects of the Higher Mind. Different systems of philosophy and meditation emphasize one of these pathways:

  1. The Will Stream is prominent among Karma Yogis, who seek to know the Divine Will and enact it.
  2. The Intuitive Wisdom Stream uses evocative images, spiritual ideas (seed thoughts), metaphors, parables, and stories to spark meditation and inspire contemplation. Many religions and spiritual groups embed parables and stories in their scriptures and their commentaries to provide guidance and inspiration.
  3. The Love Stream taps the healing love of the Divine to awaken the heart. Nada Yogis immerse their spirit into the river of the inner light and sound, and travel back to their Divine Beloved. Agni Yogis taps this everlasting fount of love to minister the Light to others. This immersion in Light awakens the love and devotion of the spiritual heart.
  4. The Vocal Stream gives rise to satsang or preaching. It directly communicates spiritual revelations to teach and guide others.
  5. The Thread of Consciousness is the native track of the attention, and enables the meditator to experience each level of the mind directly. Vipassana and Raja Yoga practitioners interiorize along this pathway.
  6. Contemplation of Form and Structure enables exact knowledge of the forms through which the immortal essences of consciousness—attentional principle, spirit, and ensouling entity—operate. It facilitates the construction of maps of consciousness for each of the levels of the mind. This enhances discernment: it helps you know exactly where you are in meditation.
  7. Awakening the Thread of Faith allows you to remember and commune with selected spiritual beings. Most established religions emphasize this pathway, and adopt some form of prayer and worship to connect with the spiritual source that they invoke. Bhakti Yoga practitioners commonly adopt this approach to worship God and dedicate their lives to serve the Divine.
  8. Contemplation of the Intuitive Thread leads to Enlightenment and Gnosis. The Soul reveals its essential nature and accesses the layers of insights and discoveries it has experienced along its inner journey of spiritual evolution. Jnana Yogis gravitate to this track.

We recommend that aspirants and disciples learn to access each of these eight themes. They can use these pathways to:

  • Get direction
  • Receive ideas for contemplation
  • Become immersed in healing love
  • Tap into spoken words of guidance
  • Directly experience the levels of the mind
  • Study the levels of the mind and the Continuum of Consciousness
  • Call upon the Divine for succor and support
  • Achieve a complete understanding of their station on the Path and realize their Soul

We teach ways to access approaches (2), (3), (5), (6), and (8) in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We introduce you to approach (1) and go deeper into approach (8) in our Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation. We invite you to study with us to learn to connect with these different meditation themes.

Expanding on Wim Wenders’ Breathing Technique

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By George A. Boyd ©2020

Q: What is your opinion on Wim Wenders’ breathing method? It is supposed to enhance your immunity and make you more resilient to cold temperatures.

A: After having practiced the technique as he guided the audience during a televised interview, I was able to ascertain two things about his style of breathing:

  1. It appears to focus attention in the second third of the Body Mind Programming Subplane in the source of breathing. This center interfaces directly with the autonomic nervous system, so it is conceivable that with practice, someone could learn to control autonomic responses to cold.
  2. Some people may experience hyperventilation or even faint practicing sustained breathing in this fashion, e.g., thirty deep, full breaths followed by breath holding for thirty seconds—then repeat for three cycles, with longer breath holding on subsequent cycles.
    Those who access this first band of the Abstract Mind Plane find this Subplane has three major sections.

The first third of the Body Mind Programming Subplane focuses on training your voluntary muscles to enhance performance in sports and dance. Visualization and self-hypnosis have been employed to improve an athlete’s or dancer’s functioning.

The second third interfaces with the autonomic nervous system, the “non-voluntary” operations of the tissues and organs. These layers include:

  1. Skin, hair, and nails
  2. Subcutaneous tissues and fat
  3. Muscle
  4. Connective tissue (ligaments and tendons)
  5. Bone
  6. Organs
  7. Circulatory system
  8. Lymph and immune system
  9. Endocrine glands
  10. Central and autonomic nervous system
  11. Life force driving breathing, heartbeat, circulation, peristalsis, brain wave rhythms, and resting muscle tone

Since breath is a voluntary function, breathing methods can be used to access layer 11. From this level, it is possible to give suggestion to layers 1 to 10 using hypnosis. Biofeedback and Autogenics™ taps this dimension, as do the visceral access channels of autohypnosis.

The last third of this Subplane enables you to direct the astral body. This ability can be broken down into eleven discrete competencies:

  1. Ability to move the astral body out of coincidence with the physical body
  2. Ability to move the astral body to a discrete location in the physical universe or an Astral Plane (astral projection, also called bi-location)
  3. Ability to have the astral body show you what it is seeing and hearing at this remote location (remote viewing)
  4. Ability to move the astral body through sold objects, e.g. passing through walls or into locked rooms
  5. Ability to use microscopic astral vision to view bacteria, viruses, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles
  6. Ability to use macroscopic astral vision to view the entire earth, solar system, galaxy, and the entire physical universe
  7. Ability to sense the environment and inhabitants who dwell on Astral Planes
  8. Ability to sense the energy of life force from the Etheric Aura interpenetrating the physical body
  9. Ability to sense the energy of emotions from the Emotional Aura interpenetrating the physical body
  10. Ability to sense other’s thoughts from the Mental Aura interpenetrating the physical body
  11. Ability to sense the energy of another’s spiritual essence from the Spiritual Aura interpenetrating the physical body

Once your attention is established in the breath center through Wim Wender’s breath, you can lead your attention to access the astral abilities of the highest levels of the Body Mind Programming Subplane using the cooling breath (Sitali).

In this type of breathing you roll your tongue and breathe through it, breathing in and out through the mouth through the tongue tube, like you were breathing through a straw. As you do this breath, you will be drawn up to a point where this subtler breath appears to emanate.

If you focus in this place where this astral breath emanates, it will give you access to the control center where you can direct the astral body through higher-level auto-hypnotic suggestion. You can, through strong suggestion, command the astral body to carry out these eleven functions.

You can extend this breathing to unite your attention with the wave of the present time on the Akashic Records Subplane through using the hiss breath. Here you slightly curl your tongue and suck air into the center of your tongue. Listen to the hissing sound that your breath makes, and follow that current of energy upwards.

At the summit of this spire of breath, you will drop into the wave of the present time unfolding. When your reach this blissful moving wave, you will unite with the current of your Soul’s thought and intention that expresses in your life.

Wim Wenders’ breath method appears to be a tool to introduce people to this center where they can interface with the autonomic nervous system. With training and practice, it is conceivable you could learn to control functions that are normally not accessible through the voluntary muscles of the body, and practice healing autohypnosis.