Tag Archives: Yoganidra

Tracks Across the Unconscious

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By George A. Boyd ©2022

Q: How can I move beyond the unconscious mind? It keeps holding me back from transcending into deeper states of meditation.

A: There are seven major methods for moving through the unconscious mind. If you imagine that these tracks across the unconscious mind are like pathways through the centers of a form, we can visualize these tracks as follows:

  1. Base of the spine – This is the track of the Kundalini Shakti. When the Kundalini moves through the unconscious band of the mind, it can generate spontaneous emergence phenomena. This typically occurs when the Kundalini is drawn up into union with cosmic consciousness in the First Cosmic Initiation or with a Supracosmic seed atom, when an individual’s cutting edge of spirituality is Planetary.
  2. Navel – This is a vocal track, where you give a voice to the issues in your unconscious mind. This is done in dramatic forms of psychotherapy like Primal Screaming or Psychodrama. This speaking from the issues in the unconscious mind has been called abreaction or catharsis, and produces a release of pent up emotions.
  3. Solar plexus – This is the breath track. This uses techniques like Rebirthing or Holodynamic Breathing to move attention across the unconscious, which brings about insight into the issues and facilitates emotional release. When this Breathwork culminates, it permits breakthrough into the Superconscious mind.
  4. Heart – This track employs mantras to move attention across the unconscious. Commonly, simple mantras like “OM” or “I AM” are utilized. This grants full awareness of the issues that dwell in the unconscious mind.
  5. Throat – This track gives rise to glossolalia, which are mantra-like syllables of an “unknown tongue.” Christian Charismatic sects activate this track to move attention across the unconscious into union with the Moon Soul or Christ Child nucleus of identity.
  6. Point between the eyebrows – This track makes use of Tratakam, which leads attention along the thread that passes through the unconscious mind. This practice ultimately results in consciously crossing the entire zone of the unconscious, which we call Yoganidra.
  7. Brain – This track visualizes the unconscious as a series of layers, resembling a mandala. Using Vipassana to focus on each successive layer and releasing the energy contained within it allows the meditator to sink down to the very core of the unconscious and then transcend it.

Different meditation and psychotherapeutic techniques appear to access these tracks:

We teach Opening, moving attention over the boundary of the unconscious and observing the content in our intermediate mediation classes—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. This moves attention along the point between the eyebrows track.

In the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation, we teach Yoganidra, which moves attention much deeper on the point between the eyebrows track, and the Rebirthing Breath, which moves attention along the solar plexus track. More than simply dipping into the unconscious like in Opening, Yoganidra moves attention to the other side of the unconscious mind.

We discourage our students from using the base of the spine track that spans the unconscious, which pushes Kundalini beyond the cutting edge of spirituality. This readily produces emergence phenomena, which students have difficulty integrating.

We do not specifically teach abreactive methods, which arise from the track across the navel, for this is the province of psychotherapy. This giving a voice to the issues of the unconscious, or acting them out, needs to be carefully managed.

One of the techniques arising from the I AM meditations of the Second Planetary Initiation is using “I AM” as a mantra to move attention along the heart track through the unconscious mind. We teach I AM meditation to our students who are taking the Second Planetary Initiation. Those who have unfolded their Soul’s spiritual evolutionary potentials to this level or beyond can readily use this application of I AM meditation.

Yogi Preceptors and their advanced disciples commonly use the “OM” mantra to unite attention with cosmic consciousness, and then explore the track of the unconscious behind it, which separates this nucleus of identity from union with Brahman.

Some of those receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit demonstrate glossolalia. We do not specifically train people in this method: it appears as a special gift of the Holy Spirit.

We teach a mandala method in our intermediate meditation classes to explore individual issues; this method can be readily adapted to identify the layers of the unconscious mind that separate you from liberation.

We suggest that you learn to move your attention using the methods of tracks (3) solar plexus, (4) heart, and (6) point between the eyebrows to help you consciously transcend the blockages of the unconscious mind you are encountering in your meditation.

Extensions of Mindfulness

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By George A. Boyd ©2022

Q: In the Introduction to Meditation program, you frame mindfulness as tool for monitoring the contents of consciousness arising in the present time. Does mindfulness have other uses?

A: Mindfulness begins with the collection of attention, so it is present and inwardly alert. Then it can be focused on the content arising in the present time from the different levels of the Conscious mind. This monitoring of present time experience can be performed at any of the focal points of the Conscious mind. For example:

  • Waking state of consciousness (Body scan)
  • Movement center (Walking meditations)
  • Sensorium (Heightened awareness of sensory experience—sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch)
  • Deep body awareness (releasing sensations of pain or physical discomfort)
  • Feeling center (working with emotions arising in the present time—used in psychotherapy)
  • Mental center (observing thoughts in the present time)
  • Ego (observing the different roles of the ego organized under discrete “I am” statements)
  • Preconscious (observing the content of the Subconscious mind that enters conscious awareness)

A deeper function of mindfulness comes into play when attention is applied to not simply monitor the content that arises in the present time, but to actually process the content. Here attention notes the content, releases it, and moves to a deeper layer of the mind. It sinks down into a deeper stratum of the mind that lies just behind the content that arises at the surface.

This processing function of mindfulness has been called Vipassana. This uncovering through process can be performed on different types of mental experience. For example:

  • You can uncover the core of physical pain in the body and release it.
  • You can move through an emotional issue that is locked in the body and work it out.
  • You can sink to the core of confusion and find clarity.
  • You can encounter a block or obstacle in the mind that keeps you from going deeper meditation and you can break through it.
  • You can interface with a subpersonality in your unconscious mind and transform or dissolve it.
  • You can travel across an entire segment of your unconscious mind and reach the Light of Liberation beyond it.
  • You can trace a karmic impression in your causal body to find the karmic seed at its origin.

We train students in both functions of mindfulness in our meditation classes.

  • You learn the monitoring functions of mindfulness in the Introduction to Meditation program.
  • We introduce the processing function in our intermediate meditation courses—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. In our intermediate courses, you learn the technique of Physical Vipassana, where you are able to sink deeper into the body to ultimately have a breakthrough experience and lift up into the voidness of consciousness of the state of being; you also learn to interface with a subpersonality using the Rainbow Technique.
  • In the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation, you learn to travel across the unconscious mind to the other side using the Yoganidra method.

Mindfulness in its monitoring and processing aspects is a powerful tool for meditation. We suggest it will be beneficial for you to learn how to perform these different applications of mindfulness.

Personal and Spiritual Cognitive Strategies

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By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: What cognitive strategies would help me make progress in my personal life? Which cognitive strategies are helpful in spiritual development?

A: Personal cognitive strategies are primarily functions of the intellect. Spiritual cognitive strategies are functions of the intuition and Illumined mind in the Superconscious mind.

Personal cognitive strategies include:

  1. Goal setting – This visualizes a clear goal image. It determines a plan to achieve it. Then, you execute that plan.
  2. Empathic listening – This operates when you listen to the words of other people and sense their meaning; this can take the form of internal dialog with subpersonalities to understand your psychological issues.
  3. Project management – This identifies the steps of multiple activities and scheduling them so they are coordinated, and the end product is delivered on time and within the allotted budget. This can be applied to organizing homework assignments in school, caring for children and family and coordinating each family member’s schedule, and to achieve work objectives.
  4. Creative listening – This receives ideas from the Subconscious and Metaconscious mind and organizes them in a “presentation envelope”—for example, as music, poetry, an essay, a screenplay, or a marketing proposal.
  5. Analysis and testing – This subjects hypotheses to rigorous testing and uses specific criteria to determine whether the findings are valid. This is the primary approach of scientific research.
  6. Introspection – This searches your conscience and notices how you have deviated from your standards and moral values. It looks for solutions to improve your behavior and reform your character.
  7. Synthesis – This ties together the contribution of multiple factors in a system to enable you to visualize the whole, and to understand the relative influence of each factor with that system. It identifies key factors within the system that can be “perturbed,” to bring about necessary, desired changes.

There are also spiritual cognitive strategies drawn from Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Intuition; Raja Yoga; and other invocational techniques. These include:

  1. Yoganidra – This examines the track of one level of the unconscious mind and identifies each issue within it. You then apply methods to work with each issue that you find there.
  2. Contemplation – This focuses attention on a particular object of meditation. You allow your awareness to open until you are able to become aware of the content that surrounds and arises from your object of meditation.
  3. Studying Interrelationships – This studies individual elements in an array and notes their interrelationships with other elements in that array. This cognitive strategy plays a role in Pathwork and the intuitive sciences. In Pathwork, you might adopt this strategy in working with an Enneagram, or studying the Tree of Life (Kabala). In intuitive sciences, this is used in doing an astrology reading, a tarot card reading, or in numerology.
  4. Becoming Mystery – This enables you to penetrate beyond words to become one with the object of meditation. This state of fusion has been called Gnosis, Samadhi, and Oneness.
  5. Finding the origin – This strategy uses a technique to trace a trace an issue to its origin. Examples of techniques that help you achieve this aim include sustained attention to an issue as a felt sense in the body and opening into it (Vipassana); asking repetitive questions to the unconscious mind (Process Meditation); identifying progressive layers of the issue down to its core (Mandalic Reasoning, the Mandala Method); and dialoguing with the issue and finding its core (Rainbow Method).
  6. Remembrance and Invocation – In this strategy, you bring your attentional principle or spirit into “center”—this may be the nucleus of identity or the ensouling entity in your spiritual tradition upon which you meditate—and from this location, you invoke the Grace and Guidance of the Divine or the Masters of your tradition. This inner listening—to the voice of the Soul, the Holy Spirit, an angel, or a guide—is called Receptive Meditation.
  7. Dimensional expansion – This progressively opens the mind to encompass a broader experience of the object of meditation. These dimensions include:
    • 0 – the point where attention focuses (focal point)
    • 1 – the thread of consciousness that connects focal points
    • 2 – the field of perceptual content contained within each focal point
    • 3 – The space containing the focal point, which appears as a form or inner body, which we call a vehicle of consciousness
    • 4 – The present time experience at that focal point, where you notice what arises in that level of the mind in each moment
    • 5 – Integration center; this is the aspect of the mind that contains and operates that facet of the mind. In the Conscious mind, ego is the integrating center; in the Metaconscious mind, the Self is the nexus; and in the Superconscious mind, the Soul ties together the functioning of the vehicles in this zone of the mind.
    • 6 – Inner witness; this is the essence of consciousness and intention, which we call the attentional principle. It witnesses each of these dimensional states and can use intention to open the origami-like folds of the mind to expand awareness into these larger perceptual and experiential frames.

Depending on your dominant Personality and Soul Rays, and your training and experience with these different personal and spiritual strategies, you may find that certain of these approaches are easier for you to utilize. These personal and spiritual strategies that are almost like second nature to you are your strengths.

The challenge for the aspirant and disciple is to learn to use these non-dominant strategies when required. This ability to switch Rays and dimensional perspectives empowers you to understand what you currently cannot grasp; to solve problems employing new methods that you do not currently apply; and to find ways to surmount your obstacles through an alternate approach.

See if you can learn to use each of these personal and spiritual cognitive strategies to enhance your ability to function in your life and to receive insight and guidance from your spiritual pole. For those of you who would like to learn several of these evocative spiritual cognitive strategies, we teach them in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.