Reflections on Identity States

By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: What is an identity state?

A: An identity state is an internal essence with which you first form mental associations from learning about it and hearing other people talking about it. Next, you gain attentional union with that state. Then, you feel that that essence is who you truly are.

There are a variety of potential identity states. We excerpt from “A Mudrashram® Primer” to describe these identity states:


Identification

You can identify with a role, a group, an issue, or an aspect of consciousness.

An example of a role is when you identify with your career. You might say, for example, I am a plumber, I am a secretary, or I am a short order cook—depending on what you do. You also can identify with your role in the family. You tell people, I am a mother, I am a son, or I am the sister of someone.

Group identification occurs when you identify with your nationality, ethnic group, or religion. You identify with your nationality when you say I am an American, I am Egyptian, or I am Chinese. You identify with your ethnic group when you tell them I am a Kurd, I am a Romani (gypsy), or I am a Sephardic Jew. You identify with your religion when you tell people I am a Buddhist, I am a Catholic, or I am a Shaivite Hindu.

You identify with an issue when you think of yourself as the limitations, problems, or illnesses that you have. You might say I am not a good skier, I am awkward in social situations, or I am a cancer survivor.

You identify with an aspect of consciousness when you keep your attention associated with a particular aspect of your mind for a long period. These different aspects of consciousness with which people commonly identify include a personal identification center, a seed atom within a vehicle of consciousness, a nucleus of identity, a spiritual essence, or an ensouling entity.

We excerpt from our course, “Meditation for Yoga Students and Teachers” to describe these different aspects of consciousness with which you can identify.


“Meditation is focusing attention on discrete objects. These objects of meditation dwell within the mind. They include:

Focal points – these are centers in inner vehicles of consciousness, sometimes called seed atoms, in those vehicles. Vehicles of consciousness are the functional nexuses through which the ego, Self, and Soul can express their abilities. They exist in all levels of the mind—Conscious, Subconscious, Metaconscious, and Superconscious. [You identify with the center in a vehicle of consciousness that we call the seed atom, which is located at a focal point. It allows you to say, for example, I am my body, I am reason, or I am my life narrative.]

Personal identification centers – these are integration centers of the personality. In the Conscious mind, this is called the ego. In the Metaconscious mind, this is called the Self. These integrate the functions of several vehicles of consciousness and coordinate them through volition.

Nuclei of identity – these are centers in the Superconscious mind that coordinate activity at selected levels of the Superconscious mind, and carry the activity of the higher octaves of the will. Nuclei of identity are found in the First through the Fourth Planetary Initiation, the First through the Fifth Cosmic Initiation, and on each Supracosmic Path.

Spiritual essence – this is the individual spirit, or spiritual heart. This essence travels back to the Divine through inner channels of light and sound that we call the Nada. We have identified twelve segments of the Nadamic Path. This type of meditation is most common in Transcendental Paths one through seven, which comprise the sixth through twelfth segments of the Nadamic Path—though it is also used in the MSIA group, which focuses on the essence of the fourth segment of the Nada. We refer to these segments of the Nada as Domains.

Ensouling entity – this is the Divine Spark that dwells within each individual. We have identified 13 different ensouling entities. The most common ones that people encounter in their meditation are the Soul Spark (Jivan Atma), which operates in the Subtle Realm; the Soul or Higher Self (Atma), which operates in the Planetary Realm; and the Monad (Paramatma), which operates in the Transplanetary Realm.”

First you locate an aspect of consciousness within you. You hold your attention upon it so you recognize where it is and the functions it performs. You become familiar with the content associated with this level when you hold your attention there. You come to associate different experiences with that aspect of consciousness. As this experience of association with this aspect of consciousness matures, you eventually come to identify with this essence.

There are a wide variety of different identifications that people hold. People identify with the social clubs they join, with their favorite sports teams, with a fan club of a celebrity, with the city in which they live, their sexual orientation, or their political party. These are other types of group identification.

Take a moment to check in with the identities with which you are identified.

  • What are your career identities?
  • What are your relationship identities?
  • What are you group identities?
  • With which aspects of consciousness do you identify?

People become intractably identified with a role, a group, an issue, or an aspect of consciousness (RGIAC), and have difficulty understanding people who identify with other roles, groups, issues they have not personally experienced, or an aspect of consciousness to which they have not been introduced. We think it’s important that people understand why people come to identify with the RGIACs they embrace, and by which they create meaning for themselves.

In Integral meditation, we start you with the aspects of your consciousness that are fully incarnate in your life.

At your personal level, this is your ego and your human Self.

Spiritually, this is your attentional principle, your spirit associated with the cutting edge of spirituality, and the ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality.

So we don’t lift you out of this native matrix that makes you uniquely you, but we show you how to unfold your spiritual potentials where you are. [We teach you how to unfold your spiritual potentials in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.]

This makes us different than a lot of Paths that ask you to identify with their nucleus of identity, their ensouling entity, or their spiritual essence that is outside of your native matrix. When you pursue these Paths, you come to realize your ego and Self are not real (depersonalization and derealization)—so you create this unnatural split in yourself.

Some of the by-products of creating these splits include, not only states of depersonalization and derealization, but also dissociation from your emotions, loss of motivation to pursue personal goals, demonizing your ego and your personality, or assuming that your Path is the only true Path—and sometimes, Kundalini Syndromes, where you interfere with the energy of awareness in your mind.

We encourage you to become a spiritual investigator, and find out:

  • With what spiritual essences are people spiritually identified?
  • How does that condition their perception of the world, their beliefs, their values, and their behavior?

Those of you who want to study these phenomena in greater depth will benefit from reading our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?

Stages of Aberrant Kundalini Awakening

By George A. Boyd © 2017

In some people, the Kundalini energy is partially awakened, and this core energy of the mind awakens their awareness through the Subconscious mind and up into the Self at the core of the personality. When the Kundalini awakens your awareness to this stage, you are said to be Self-aware.

In a few other individuals, their Kundalini rises through the bands of the Superconscious mind to awaken awareness up to the level of the Higher Self, or Soul. When this state dawns, you become Soul-aware. There are a group of spiritual teachers who regard this state of ecstatic union with the Soul as the state of enlightenment.

These first two stages represent normal Kundalini functioning: the Kundalini rises up, you gain union with the Self or Soul, you gain some insights and understanding, and then the energy goes back down to ground.

Where the Kundalini begins to cause problems is when:

  1. It remains fixed in a higher state of awareness, so it does not go back down to the grounded state of awareness, and your attention is locked in that altered state of awareness.
  2. It is lifted into states of awareness beyond the presence of the Soul—nuclei of identity or ensouling entities of the Cosmic and Supracosmic Spheres.
  3. It is lifted into states of awareness beyond the presence of the Soul, and there is concurrent unfolding of the spiritual essence in which the Kundalini becomes anchored—this creates a spiritual imbalance, moving one or more vehicles of consciousness out of alignment with the axis of being.

There are many well-intentioned spiritual traditions that emphasize Kundalini awakening that produce these three types of problems through the practices they disseminate. Moreover, many of the Supervising Initiates in these traditions actively use spiritual attunements to actively awaken the Kundalini in others—this induced awakening is called Shaktipat or Deeksha.

What we see—when people contact us with Kundalini Syndromes generated through either using techniques that create these three types of aberrant Kundalini awakening, or having this awakening induced through the attunement of a Kundalini Master—is that these syndromes appear to express in seven levels of intensity:

  1. Very mild – The Kundalini energy produces some spacing out and mind wandering, it is possible to refocus the mind and function normally. You find yourself readily drifting off into trance or reverie if you do not keep re-focusing your mind on the task at hand.
  2. Mild – The Kundalini energy produces states where your body, your mind, and the world around you seem unreal. This is the stage of derealization and depersonalization. You can function, but you feel like you are functioning in a dreamlike state.
  3. Low moderate – The Kundalini energy begins to deaden your emotions, and you begin to lose motivation to perform any action or pursue your personal goals. You may begin, at this state, to want to continually meditate. You may feel you have no personal purpose other than to realize God: most personal pursuits seem fruitless and meaningless. This is the stage of dissociation and detachment.
  4. Moderate – The Kundalini begins to produce somatic symptoms. You start to have sensations of heat moving in your body, unexplained aches and pains, strange perceptions like your head has disappeared. As you deepen into this stage, you may find your hands move into spontaneous postures (mudras), or you cannot move the body at all (catatonia). This is the stage where some people recognize something is wrong, and may start asking for help. You may find it difficult to carry out the activities of living at this stage. You may spend a lot of time alone, and feel immobilized when this energy surges within you.
  5. Moderate high – The Kundalini lifts your attention into an altered state of awareness and you cannot return to your waking state of awareness. Action occurs, seemingly by itself, and your life seems to seem unreal, like you are watching your life in a movie. You do not sense that you are the actor in your life.
  6. High – At this point, your personality functions begin to shut down, and you experience profound inner silence and stillness. When you do speak, you speak from your spiritual essence. When you feel, you feel the spiritual essence in which you are fixed, in others. When you think, it is revelation about this spiritual essence. You no longer identify with a separate Self; only the spiritual essence with which you are identified seems real. Carrying out the responsibilities of a job or raising a family become extremely difficult at this stage. You may require the care of others to help you function in the world.
  7. Very high – This stage appears to take two tracks in individuals. (1) The first track is the track of dissolution—here, the Kundalini energy continues to burn upward through the vehicles, and you are unable to function; some experience terrible physical pain in this state. (2) The second track is the track of empowerment—in this scenario, you reach that stage of advanced unfoldment on the path upon which your spiritual essence dwells; you become able to awaken the Kundalini in others.

By the time you reach stage five or six, it is nearly impossible to intervene in the complete take over of your personal functioning through a progressively totalistic absorption in your Kundalini experience. You will benefit from identifying these different levels of intensity for Kundalini awakening, and seek assistance before your energetic profile shifts into a state that is irremediable.

We offer Kundalini Syndrome Readings to the public on a donation basis—if you think you are developing a Kundalini Syndrome, you may wish to obtain one of these readings.

We also encourage you to read our articles on Kundalini, “Dealing with Kundalini Emergencies,” “Illusions about Kundalini,” “A Kundalini Arousal Scale,” and “Reflections on Kundalini.”

There are also additional articles on this topic in our Library.

I Have Brought You A Diamond

By George A. Boyd ©2017

For this week’s blog post, I will share some recent poetry. For those of you who like poetry, there are selections of my poetry in our Library. For those of you that eat, breathe, and live poetry, you can obtain my three books of poetry, volume one, volume two, and volume three.


I

I have brought you a treasure. I stand in the middle of a field with this huge diamond, and I say to you, “This diamond is for you. Will you take it?”

A few of you say, “yes,” but discovering that it is heavy, you put it down a little ways down the road. You throw away a treasure.

And of the few, a tiny number of you recognize what you have, and you are beside yourself with joy!

“What is this treasure,” you ask?

It is the key to winding up your karma in every world of Light, and to consciously ascend to Mastery and Liberation in this very life. It is a simple key. If you use it, you will draw down the Light Fire of the Spirit and burn away each layer of the darkness that holds back your Soul from moving closer day-by-day to that inner horizon within you. And to each inner horizon until you are liberated in every realm—Subtle, Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental. And then you ascend to Multiplane Mastery, where there is no more darkness.

But I also am going to give you rubies and gems in a pouch, to go with your diamond.

I am going to give you the key to liberate your spirit, your loving heart, which is trapped like a bird in a cage. I have enclosed the key to that cage, so your spirit can fly back to God.

I am going to show you how to open your dormant third eye, and free your consciousness to travel through every world of Light, and to behold your Soul, and God.

I’m going to reveal to you how to ignite your intuition, so you can use it to get guidance, to know your Soul’s purpose, and to listen to the your Soul, as it whispers to you its truths.

I’m going to offer you the opportunity to kindle the inner fire that sleeps in your mind to awaken your awareness through every level with you, so you can know your naked Soul, unveiled at last.

I’m going to impart to you the way to activate the Light Fire within your Soul to energize your body and melt away the painful issues of your heart.

I’m going to bestow the experience upon you of the perfect inner balance that occurs when you melt away the karma from all four poles of being and you move forward upon the inner Path, illumined, empowered, and filled with a greater love.

Will you take this diamond and pouch of jewels I have to offer you?

II

You are cynical. You say, “I have been promised diamonds by so many along the roadway, and when I got it home, it was just paste and slime…worthless baubles, sold to me at a great price.”

“I have seen them here and there,” you continue, “touting this road and that road is the key to the mystery of life… the road to the heart of God… the secret path that releases mighty powers hidden within…”

“I ask you then, why will you travel another road, when your own Path, unique to you and yet common to all, tracks behind your living Soul?”

“Why will you uproot yourself, and transplant unto a Way, unrelated to your Soul’s native ground?”

“I have seen them follow their roads to castles upon mountains, to castles in the sky, while their Soul languishes, unmoved, in the valley below.

“I will teach your Soul to move, your spirit to become free, and for you to behold the process of unfolding as it occurs—at the core of you, on your Path, fulfilling your spiritual destiny in this very life.”

“I will give you the key to burn away the karma of lifetimes, and end the necessity of being born again in the human form—doing the work of untold lifetimes, in this, your ascension life.”

“Will you take these jewels I have to offer you?”

III

Your terror and doubt is very great. The pull upon you by your desires, the many responsibilities that have now become your burdens, is overwhelming.

“How can I do these things,” you say, “when my hours are filled with too many things, my life is filled with struggle and stress. How shall I find the time to do meditation, when I do not even have the time to breathe?”

“Make time. Carve out an hour a day, and do the work. Use the tools that I give you, and the inner miracle of transformation will occur. You will feel it. You will hear it. You will see it. You will know it.”

“Come take these jewels, while you still have strength, and faith, and time.”


These keys to which the poet refers are shown to you in the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Enlightenment Revisited

Enlightenment Revisited: What the Gurus Aren’t Telling You

By George A. Boyd © 2017

There are a number of spiritual teachers, who are showing their students how to unite with the Higher Self, and proclaiming this the state of Enlightenment. Some go as far to say this is “an evolutionary state of consciousness,” but fail to show methods to actually evolve this spiritual essence—e.g., to move it to progressive nodal points along the track of its development. Others proclaim this is “the highest state,” the Summum Bonum of spirituality.

While union of the attention with the Higher Self (Soul, or Atma) is a necessary achievement to advance to discipleship with a spiritual Master, it is not a state of consciousness to you have to continuously maintain, as some of these teachers advocate. In fact, those who keep their attention merged in this essence can develop feelings of grandiosity and omnipotence, delusional beliefs that they are possessed with super powers [that they are unable to demonstrate], and dissociation and detachment from their actual human feelings and experience—among other issues.

There are a number of techniques that people use to unite attention with this essence. These include [this is just a small sampling of the many methods that can be used to gain attentional union with the Higher Self]:

  1. Remembrance – Remembering the nature of the Higher Self and then focusing attention upon it.
  2. Attunement – Drawing down a beam of Light from the Higher Self and guiding the attentional principle with conjoined attention into union with it.
  3. Direct Projection – Using intention to move the attentional principle with conjoined attention along one of the Seven Ray tracks up into the presence of the Higher Self.
  4. Astral Projection – Placing attention into the astral body and directing the astral body through suggestion or “guided meditation” to unite the attention with the Higher Self. [This only works for those whose Soul dwells below the top of the Psychic Realm.]
  5. Breaking through the Shadow – Through monitoring present time experience at the level of the ego—after processing through the I AM statements, life narrative, mandala of defenses, and the issues embedded in the personal unconscious that make up the Shadow—attention breaks through the unconscious mind and unites with the Higher Self.
  6. Breathing into the Higher Self – Through breathing into the Higher Self, awareness opens and unites with this essence
  7. Awakening the Kundalini – Utilizing a mantra on the breath [or other methods that rouse this energy into activity], the Kundalini can be drawn upwards to unite with the Higher Self, awakening awareness as it rises. The upward current of this energy rising commonly absorbs the attention and lifts it into the state of union.
  8. Contemplation of the Soul’s Reflections – Contemplating any of the Soul’s reflected seed atoms in its vehicles of consciousness (Atma Dhyan) leads to remembrance and union with the Soul on its own Plane (Adi Atma Dhyan)
  9. Centering mantra – Repeating a mantra [keyed to the resonance of the Soul] with the attention can unite attention with the Higher Self.
  10. Resonance Homing – Being in the presence of a group of people whose attention is united with their Higher Self can bring remembrance of the Soul, and facilitate moving attention to the same state of consciousness. Resonance homing acts like a tuning fork: a number of people all attuned to the same frequency draws out that frequency in you.
  11. Chanting – Chanting selected mantras that are anchored in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental can sometimes lift attention into union with the Higher Self.
  12. Contemplating the Wave of the Present Time – Lifting attention into union with the wave of the present time on the Akashic Aether can connect attention with the thought stream of intuition, the stream of unconditional love, and the higher volitional stream that come from the Soul. Dropping into any of these streams will draw the attention into union with the Higher Self.
  13. Remembering the Atom of Divinity within the Soul – Through employing the mantra, “I am God,” attention becomes absorbed into union with the Divine Atom within the Soul. This brings about Gnosis.
  14. Divine Attunement – When an Initiate [Spiritual Master] sends a beam of Light to the Soul, this attunement can awaken awareness and lift attention into union with it.
  15. Evocative Ascent Metaphors – Through adopting analogies like riding in an elevator, moving to a particular step on a ladder, or climbing to the summit of a mountain, attention can be elevated to the level of the Soul.
  16. Dialog and union methods – Through approaching the Soul, and then asking questions to an archetype that represents the Soul, the attentional principle with conjoined attention can receive answers to questions and then rise up into union with the Higher Self. The Soul can appear in a variety of forms, such as an inner star or sun, a wise old man or woman, or a god or goddess.
  17. Spontaneous Awakening – This occurs when the Soul reveals itself to the personality and the attention. It commonly takes the form of a peak experience, where the Soul lifts the attention into union with its true nature, via guiding or awakening the Kundalini.
  18. Listening to the Vehicular Resonances – Through absorbing attention into current of inner sound, which reverberates through the inner vehicles of consciousness (Swarupa Shabda), it can be moved up into the presence of the Soul, which is hears as an unmistakable vibratory resonance.
  19. Watching the Radiant Light Stream – Through absorbing attention into current of inner light, which radiates through the inner vehicles of consciousness (Swarupa Jyoti), it can be raised into the presence of the Soul, which it beholds as an sun of fiery light.
  20. Bathing in the Water of Life – Through absorbing attention into current of nectar, which flows through the inner vehicles of consciousness (Swarupa Amrita), it can be raised into the presence of the Soul, which it experiences as an eternal wellspring of the Water of Life.

While your attention is completely absorbed in union with the Higher Self, it experiences the state of enlightened mind. This state is ecstatic, and makes you feel all-powerful and omnipresent, but this state does not evolve the Soul, nor does it magically solve the problems and issues that beset the personality.

A genuine transformational method does evolve the Soul; it actualizes the dormant potentials that are part of the Soul’s destiny. Merely keeping the attention fixed in the state of enlightenment does not achieve those ends—though you float in bliss, you do not move one millimeter closer to fulfillment of your intrinsic Soul Purpose.

While those that teach methods to enter the state of enlightened mind give their students a great boon, not showing them how to actually evolve and complete their Soul’s Aeonic mission is a disservice.

We teach several of these methods in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the online and by-mail Accelerated Meditation Program. We describe and train you in many more of these methods in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation and our intermediate and advanced webinars. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with several of these methods that can reliably move your attention into this state and master using them.

The Keys to Experiencing the Soul and God

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Q: What keeps people from experiencing the Soul (Higher Self) and God (Universal Self)?

A: There are three major things that keep you from experiencing the Soul and God.

  1. You need to move your attention from your waking state of awareness to your Soul and to the form of God you wish to experience. We call this practice of focusing your attention upon your Soul and letting your awareness fully open into its presence, Adi Atma Dhyan, which means to contemplate your Soul on its own Plane. When you contemplate one of the forms that God dwells on the inner Planes, it is called Bhagwan Dhyan—in this meditation, you move from contemplating the microcosm of your own Soul to the Great Life that pervades the Macrocosm. If your attention doesn’t go to where your Soul is, and where the form of God you wish to contemplate is, you don’t experience these essences.
  2. You experience obstacles in your mind that block the progress of your attention beyond a certain point in meditation, which hinders you from uniting your attention with the Soul and with the Divine. We detail the ways in can contact the Soul in our blog article, “Ways you can connect with the Soul”. We describe the stages of encountering God in our blog article, “How to Contact God”.
  3. Your ability to see within may be limited, so you might feel the presence of the Soul or God, but you don’t hear anything or see anything when your attention reaches that depth. We have developed several webinars to help you learn to see within. We recommend that you start with two of these webinars, “The Vision Workshop” and “The Mystery of God Workshop.” You can take both of these webinars in the Public Webinar Section of our website. [Click on the link for Public Webinars to access the page.]

For many people beginning the practice of meditation, they have not built the inner roadmap of the different focal points along the thread of consciousness. This thread leads through the different layers of the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind at the Self at the core of your personality. Then this thread tracks upward to through the Superconscious mind to the presence of your Soul. If you follow this thread into the higher unconscious behind your Soul, you will find the forms of God on each Plane of Light, and ultimately reach the seed of calling, which marks the place where your Soul completes its spiritual mission.

We train you to build this inner map for the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind in the Introduction to Meditation course.

In our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation, and our by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program, you learn to travel in full consciousness to your Soul and beyond it to its seed of calling on the other side of the higher unconscious.

Once you complete one of our intermediate courses, we teach you in a guided meditation format how to explore the Superconscious mind in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation and the Satsang Program Home Study Course. This is the next step in training for those who complete one of our intermediate courses.

Those who have completed one of the intermediate courses, and wish to make a detailed and comprehensive study of the nodal points in each level of the Great Continuum of Consciousness, can take our master consciousness studies course, the Mudrashram® Correspondence Course.

Once you build this inner map through your experience of the different focal points, you can then select the focal point you want to contemplate, project your attention to that inner location, and tune your attention into it. This brings you full awareness of this object of meditation; with practice, you will gain union with it.

Your Soul dwells in one of these focal points. The form of God that you can experience on each Plane of Light dwells in another. Once you master this ability to move your attention to the place you intend, you can know your Soul, you can know God, and you can travel to every level of the Great Continuum of Consciousness. When you achieve this, God will not be a mystery to you—you will consciously recognize this Being that pervades the Macrocosm at each of level of the Continuum.