Monthly Archives: May 2021

How the Ego Generates Behavior

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By George A. Boyd ©2021

Q: If the ego is a state of identity, how does it interface with actual behavior?

A: If you carefully analyze the structure of the ego’s identity and how this extends to actual behavior, you find the following layers, from the innermost to the outermost:

  1. Life narrative or story – Your ego is identified with your unique life experience, which spans from your first conscious memory to the present.
  2. Ownership – Your ego’s awareness of what it has or possesses. This includes both wealth and possessions.
  3. Ability – Your ego’s awareness of the skills it has practiced in its life. These are resources that the ego can draw upon, depending on what each situation requires.
  4. Esteem – Your ego’s assessment of how well it is doing in your life. In people who are depressed, esteem will be very low. In people who are narcissistic, esteem will be exaggerated.
  5. Support – Your ego’s assignment of people to zones of intimacy on your life, according to their importance to you. For example, your spouse or partner and your children might occupy the innermost ring; your close friends, the next ring; relatives and friends, the next ring; and co-workers and neighbors, the outer ring. Your rules for disclosure of what you deem sensitive or secret is based on which intimacy zone you have currently assigned them.
  6. Dreams and desires – This is what your ego tells other people what it wants be, to do, and to have. This is the ego’s reservoir of motivation that fuels your actions.
  7. Life organization – These are twelve areas in which you play different roles. [In my book, The Practical Applications of Meditation in Daily Life and Education, I suggest ways that you can inventory what you want to achieve in each of these areas of your life.]
  8. Roles – These are the major activities that you carry out in your life. For example, in the area of home, you might play the role of a homemaker. Your thinking, feeling, and behavior related to this role are integrated into this identity state. In the I Am statement Vipassana meditation, we teach in our Introduction to Meditation class to contemplate the ego, you tap into this level: you note the identity state in which you are currently operating, and what you are thinking and feeling while you are in this identity state. So, for example, if you were contemplating this I am statement for your role of homemaker, you might be thinking about what you need to clean in the house, what laundry needs to be done, and what supplies are getting low that you need to purchase the next time you go shopping; you might be feeling irritated with your teenaged son, who always leaves his bathroom in a mess—and you wind up having to clean it.
  9. Sub-roles – The ego groups each related activity associated with a major role under this main identity, and assigns these sub-roles unique I Am statements. For example, under homemaker, you might have the activity identification, “I am a dishwasher,” “I am a carpet cleaner,” or “I am a floor washer.”
  10. Direction of individual behavior – This is the egoic octave of volition. This carries out the individual behavior required to enact the activities of a sub-role—one action at a time. For your dishwasher sub-role, this might look like: pick up the white cup… clean it with the sponge… rinse it under the sink… place it on the fourth peg on the top shelf of the dishwashing machine… [And then you would repeat this behavioral chain for each item that needs to be washed in the dishwashing machine.]
  11. Translation of behavioral command into neurological interface – Similar to machine language in a computer, behavioral command is translated on the information ether into signals that produce the neural electrical cascade that generates physical action.
  12. Neurological response – with each behavioral command and its subsequent translation into “brain recognizable directions,” you would detect specific areas of the brain light up and neural signals are sent to the appropriate body parts to carry out the specific action. This is the aspect of behavior that we can measure with technology and testing.

Your desire or motivation for action at the egoic level springs from level 6. You adopt the role (level 8), and operate through sub-role (level 9) that contains the behavior you are aim to perform. The egoic octave of volition (level 10) translates this behavior into the individual actions that others can witness you do (level 12).

That’s how your identity can give rise to action: your actual observable behavior is predicated upon your desire. No desire; no action.

Factors that Influence Poverty and Prosperity

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By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: What allows some people to struggle with wealth and live forever in poverty, whereas others seem to have no problem earning great money and building wealth?

A: When we look at the factors that hold people in poverty, we find:

  • No opportunity – there are no jobs, there are no apparent ways to make money
  • No capital – unable to make an investment in inventory, tools, and labor to sustain a business enterprise and to enable it to earn steady income
  • No education, no knowledge of using technology limits what you can do
  • No marketable skills limit the jobs you could do
  • No track record of success to market skills to potential employers (job) or customers (entrepreneurial)
  • Very high competition for available jobs
  • Corruption and criminal hegemony make job seekers or would be business owners subject to an environment where they must pay to play; they are extorted and threatened
  • Members of government and political leaders use their positions to enrich themselves and do not invest in education and career development to improve the lot of the people
  • The wealthy elite use their money, power, and influence to enact policies that will enable them to accrue even more wealth, power, and influence— while suppressing the opportunities of those who are poor.
  • Religion and culture instill beliefs that it is destiny or God’s will that they are supposed to be poor, and to accept their lot in life.
  • Karmic factors lead individuals to sabotage their options to become wealthy or not have access to the factors that would enable them to earn a good livelihood or accrue wealth

Factors that promote wealth include:

  • Creative matrix—the Soul takes charge—dissolving the limiting factors of the past, decreed in the present you shall manifest wealth and abundance, and to visualize that for the future.
  • Alignment with the Law of Attraction and the Divine Law of Prosperity—you create and set up the conditions that allow you to make money and accrue wealth
  • The wisdom to make the right choices to earn money and accrue wealth
  • Blessings of the Divine in response to prayer, charity, and tithing
  • Activating the power of the Mighty I AM presence to manifest wealth and abundance
  • Merit, good karma from past lives, sets up birth in opulent and wealthy families
  • You create or invent something that has mass appeal; many people buying your product or service makes you wealthy

Environment plays a role in many people’s lives, seemingly limiting what is possible and holding them down in patterns of lack and poverty. This is one of the reasons why people migrate to wealthier countries, where greater opportunity exists.

Those who practice prayer and meditation can learn to access to the dynamic matrix that creates wealth and abundance, and actively change the conditions of their lives. Training in using the Law of Attraction, for example, can change the way people relate to money and wealth, and can connect them with the source of unlimited abundance.

If earning sufficient money is one of your issues, we encourage you to learn methods to connect with the money-manifesting power of the universe that dwells within you. This, coupled with rectifying your personal deficiencies that limit your employability, can greatly aid in changing your money destiny in your life.

On Communication of Spiritual Teachings

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By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: Why are spiritual teachings so hard to understand?

A: It depends on what level a spiritual teaching is being given. There are seven major levels at which a spiritual teaching can be communicated:

  1. Popular – This approach breaks down the teaching into very simple examples. It uses analogies to explain concepts. It gives key ideas without complex elaboration. You would find this level of teaching in “popular psychology”—magazine treatments of meditation and spirituality.
  2. Academic – This teaching level uses religious and scholarly citations to structure its presentation, which may be given as a lecture, a seminar, a scholarly paper, or a journal article. It constructs models to visualize the interrelationships between concepts. It comments on the meaning of the ideas presented in the scriptures and core texts of the teaching. It may compare and contrast these ideas with those presented in other religions or spiritual groups. It defines terms it uses in its exposition. It is based on established scholarship. This may require that you learn theological language to comprehend the teachings as they are presented at this level. Theologians and religious commentators communicate at this level.
  3. Metaphysical – The terminology used refers to essences and principles that can be readily understood and accessed, but an experience of the idea is necessary to fully grasp the meaning. Aspirants access these ideas through hypnosis or guided meditation. These essences and principles can be found in the Subtle Realm (“Pagan,” Wiccan, Magical, and Occult groups), the Biophysical Universe (Native American spirituality); Abstract Mind Plane (Process Meditation, Self-Hypnosis, Coaching and New Thought groups); Psychic Realm (Spiritualist, UFO groups, and channeling circles); Wisdom Plane (Forgiveness and 12-step groups); and First Exoteric Initiation (interpreting scriptural texts, symbols, and archetypes in Christian and Jewish sects). Many of the New Age, Christian and Jewish spiritual traditions tap into this style of teaching, where they will present an idea, elaborate upon it, and have those who are receiving the message contemplate upon it.
  4. Mystic – The languaging is designed to lead you into immersion in an altered state of consciousness. It cannot be understood intellectually. It is Gnostic: it can only be known through ineffable and wordless experience. It may be expressed through poetry. Christian and Jewish mystics, Sufis, Zen Buddhists and Taoists, and those who give Knowledge (initiation into the seventh Transcendental Path) convey their teachings in this way.
  5. Esoteric One – Here, the general narrative is understandable, but specific terms are not defined, so it is not possible to penetrate the teachings without initiation into the experience of the essence awakened in that Path and impartation of the Path’s core teachings. Buddhist and Hindu teachings, as well as many Paths established in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental bands of the Continuum utilize this style of teaching.
  6. Esoteric Two – The teachings are veiled in cryptic, arcane language and complex symbols. Only those with extensive training in the symbolic keys can fathom these teachings. This type of transmission of hidden knowledge typifies the Mystery School teachings, Kabala, and Theosophy.
  7. Esoteric Three – Only Masters or Initiates and their intimate disciples can penetrate this level of teaching. It is often shared as a telepathic impress, as a wordless glance, or spoken in the sacred Senzar language—the language of the Soul and of the angels. It is completely unintelligible outside the circle of initiation; this knowledge is not disseminated to those whom are not initiated—or to those whom are not highly advanced on the Path, who have not undergone the requisite preparation and spiritual development to understand these most profound spiritual insights.

Popular and academic treatments do not penetrate to the depths of a spiritual teaching. They can explain concepts, but they can’t provide an experiential means of fully grasping what is taught.

Metaphysical teachings span from the Subtle Realm to the First Exoteric Initiation. While they can share some experience of the idea they have explicated, but they can’t explain ideas that are outside of their narrow band of the Continuum.

Mystic spiritual teachings bypass intellectual understanding and opt for direct immersion in Mystery. This leads to mystification. But when you do have experiences at this level, it is timeless and ineffable.

Buddhist and Hindu teachings typically use the esoteric one approach, as do many other traditions anchored in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental Spheres. While you may follow part of what they are saying, you get stuck on the terminology they use and have no experience of the essence they indicate in their writings or oral teaching. Unlike metaphysical level teachings, the levels where these principles and essences dwell are at profound depths of the Continuum, so those who have not been trained in how to unite with the essences with which they do Pathwork, cannot be readily access this material. Only after initiation into their Path—and with study of books and scriptures and attendance at inspired discourse events—could you begin to grasp the meanings of the terms used in these teachings.

Esoteric two requires in-depth immersion in the teachings to understand the “secret code” that enable you to understand these highly abstruse teachings. Highly abstract meditations like Gematria, working out anagrams, unraveling complex symbols or figures that represent esoteric concepts, decoding ciphers and encryption, performing Pathwork on arrays of archetypes, finding correspondences, and penetrating to the esoteric meaning veiled in scriptures and other writings that the uninitiated cannot understand. Systems like Tarot, astrology, and numerology have derived from these deeper concealed systems of knowledge.

Esoteric three is the language by which Masters and their most intimate disciples communicate among themselves. It is not anything you might understand unless you have reached these same heights and entered the Sublime Abode where the Masters dwell.

Mudrashram® teachings, like many other teachings sourced in the Transcendental Sphere, are currently disseminated at the esoteric one level. While we provide an extensive glossary and articles going into greater depth on many of the concepts we present, you still cannot truly grasp what we teach unless you learn to meditate with us and awaken the three immortal principles—attentional principle, spirit, and ensouling entity—and truly experience what we describe at the seven stages of the Path.

You can learn these methods in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program, and build upon this foundation in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation.

Perhaps some intrepid ones will attempt to popularize Mudrashram® teachings in the future, through producing basic introductory materials written at the popular and metaphysical levels, so beginning aspirants can grasp them. As Mudrashram® becomes a larger movement, this might spur some academic researchers to study our novel teachings and attempt to integrate them into a larger rubric of related spiritual teachings.

Ways Kundalini Can Be Fixed in Cosmic Consciousness

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By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: How does Kundalini get raised and fixed in cosmic consciousness? How is it lowered to terminate Kundalini syndromes?

A: There are four factors that can play a role in fixing the Kundalini in cosmic consciousness:

  1. Presence of the Shakti within cosmic consciousness – Shakti comes to dwell in this center and activates this nucleus of identity and its vehicle of consciousness
  2. Form of the Goddess behind cosmic consciousness – This archetype appears in some Yogi Preceptor traditions—particularly in Kundalini groups. This archetypal, intelligent form has been described as a creative intelligence that can be programmed or directed to carry out the Yogi Preceptor’s commands.
  3. Attunement from a Yogi Preceptor – When this “wheel attunement” is established, the Yogi Preceptor, in effect, claims those individuals, who receive this attunement in their cosmic consciousness, as his or her disciple.
  4. Rising Kundalini energy becomes fixed in cosmic consciousness – this can occur actively through using selected meditation practices that awaken Kundalini to this level. It can occur passively through generating a energetic short circuit when cosmic consciousness is moved off of the axis of being and creates a severe imbalance.

These four factors can generate Kundalini syndromes individually, or in combination with other factors. There appear to be seven major types of Kundalini syndrome scenarios in which these factors play a role:

Type One – Cosmic consciousness is moved out of alignment with the axis of being and creates an energetic short circuit. Kundalini becomes fixed in cosmic consciousness. This primarily results from the passive form of factor four.

Grounding can sometimes bring this energy down; dynamic rebalancing can rectify the imbalance.

Type Two – Shakti is anchored in cosmic consciousness, and it draws up the Kundalini. This is an example of factor one.

When the Shakti withdraws, it is sometimes possible to use grounding to lower the energy.

Type Three – The individual receives an attunement from a Yogi Preceptor, which lifts Kundalini into union with cosmic consciousness. This derives from factor three.

We call this type an induced type of Kundalini awakening. Since this type of attunement, establishes a disciplic relationship with the Yogi Preceptor, the individual must break the relationship with the Yogi Preceptor to release this energy.

In this scenario, we cannot assist until the individual is freed from the Yogi Preceptor’s supervision and control.

Type Four – The aspirant fixes attention upon cosmic consciousness and identifies with it. The aspirant typically attempts to enhance and maintain this union through Pranayama, Yoga Bandhas, and repetition of mantras, which serve to actively fix Kundalini in cosmic consciousness. This is the active type of factor four.

Sometimes returning attention to the waking state of consciousness and disidentifying with cosmic consciousness can help bring the Kundalini back down in this type—but the individual must stay away from meditation practices that associate attention with cosmic consciousness again to avoid triggering a reoccurrence of the Kundalini syndrome.

Type Five – In this type, the Yogi Preceptor anchors suggestion in the form of the goddess that Kundalini will remain fixed in cosmic consciousness. When this is operating, we typically see the Kundalini will lower in response to grounding, but it will rise back up. This employs factor two.

A Power beyond and greater than the Yogi Preceptor—like a Cosmic Master, a Supracosmic Guru, or a Transcendental Sat Guru—can sometimes overrule this suggestion and allow the Kundalini energy to be released. The Yogi Preceptor can also cancel his or her suggestion to the goddess, which will also allow this energy to return to the grounded state.

Type Six – Here, the aspirant uses mantras or other types of invocation of to ask for Light and Grace from gods, goddesses, or Yogi Preceptors. This can sometimes raise the Kundalini into cosmic consciousness during the time of invocation, but usually, the Kundalini will go back down when the ceremony is completed. This is an alternate presentation of type three.

This type can become complicated if the aspirant uses mantras that open conduits to a god or goddess. In this type, the god or goddess can keep the Kundalini raised in an alternate form of factor two. In some individuals, this can result in a possession-like state where they become the involuntary channel of the god or goddess.

Type Seven – In this scenario, the Yogi Preceptor awakens Kundalini through Shaktipat. This is another form of factor three.

Certain Yogi Preceptors have the ability to awaken the Kundalini through touching the aspirant on a particular center on the body [e.g., the top of the head, the point between the eyebrows, on the “chakra points” along the spine, or on the right side of the chest (Hridaya)]. They can also do this through steady gaze (Tratakam), a spoken mantra, or through a charged object [e.g., a piece of fruit or a picture].

In this type, aspirants can sometimes lower the Kundalini energy, if this Shaktipat does not permanently fix the energy in cosmic consciousness, and this does not result in any permanent attunement, like type three.

In our Kundalini consultations, we can sometimes assist others to bring down the Kundalini permanently; in other cases, the Kundalini syndrome seems immovable.

  • Type one and type four appear to be the most amenable to our intervention.
  • Types three and five are particularly resistant to change, as the aspirant must break the connection and the spell of the Yogi Preceptor.
  • If types two, six and seven are temporary in nature, the Kundalini experience may be self-delimiting—when the Divine Shakti or attunement is withdrawn, the Kundalini would normally go back to ground.

In a Kundalini Syndrome Reading, we can assess which types of Kundalini awakening is operating in you, and we can identify options to work with it. While this might not work for everyone, sometimes just clearly knowing what is at work can allay some of your anxiety about the Kundalini syndrome.

Grounding does seem to help many people. With this simple technique, the Kundalini feels more manageable. We typically train those who are in the midst of a Kundalini awakening experience in this technique in our follow-up consultation.

If you or one of your loved ones has what you believe is a Kundalini awakening and it is causing you problems, please contact us to obtain a Kundalini reading—and if warranted—a follow-up Kundalini consultation.

This is a service to the meditation community. Those wishing to make a donation for these readings may do so on our donations page.