Monthly Archives: June 2021

Varieties of Enlightenment

Posted on by

This is the first article of two in which we will explore pseudo-enlightenment or delusional enlightenment. This week, we will discuss where delusional enlightenment fits on the spectrum of potential states of enlightenment. Next week, we will explore what is needed to ensure your enlightenment experience is truly integrated and genuine.

By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: We usually think about enlightenment as the experience of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree, awakening to Supreme Wisdom and Knowledge and Boundless Compassion. But the term appears to be widely used outside of this context. Are there different types of enlightenment?

A: There are seven major varieties of enlightenment. Not all of them are similar to the experience that Lord Buddha’s enlightenment exemplified:

  1. Delusional enlightenment – Awakening as a higher spiritual essence—ensouling entity or nucleus of identity—or a state of consciousness without any context or understanding. This state of so-called enlightenment conveys a state in which an individual feels god-like and omnipotent, but they believe irrational things. This is the state of those who:
    1. Awaken to the so-called “truths” found in conspiracy theories
    2. Are swept away to become “true believers” in religious cults and in hate and terrorist groups
    3. Encounter a higher state of consciousness through the use of hallucinogenic drugs
    4. Discover the “enlightened state of mind of the wave of consciousness on the Akashic Records” and believe that they can magically “create” whatever they want
    5. Slip off into a psychotic state

While their attention may be in union with a spiritual essence, unconscious mind material and the false indoctrination from the groups that promulgate these states of consciousness contaminates and vitiates this experience. They believe they have found profound truth: instead, they have found delusion.

  1. Non-functional enlightenment – “Samadhic trance” characterizes this type, where aspirants behold a beatific state or encounter a form of the Divine in meditation, but they are locked in a state of trance and catatonia. They cannot move. They cannot speak. They cannot think. Their emotions are numb.

This type is commonly found in meditation systems that unfold a spiritual essence outside the cutting edge of spirituality, and creates severe imbalances—there is a wide gap between their development on this track and the ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality.

  1. Enlightenment “Possession” – These are states in which individuals encounter a spiritual being on the inner Planes, who takes over their mind and consciousness. These individuals become channelers, shamans, and emissaries of new or novel sects of established religions.

They may be granted spiritual powers from this encounter. They may channel guidance. They may be empowered to bestow attunements or healing.

This state appears to be a blending with the being that possesses the individual, so that the individual undergoing this possession experience effectively disappears. The entity possessing them may come to dictate every action of their lives. Those who encounter them commonly observe these “God-possessed” individuals undergo radical changes in their beliefs and behavior.

  1. Incarnation of the Loving Heart of God – These individuals, who practice devotional meditation for sustained periods of time, merge into the Sun of the Divine Beloved, and lose themselves in the Ocean of Love. The greatest love and compassion for others and lives of selfless service characterize this type of enlightenment. They may not articulate teachings or doctrines, but their lives are a testament to their genuine encounter and union with the Divine.
  2. Creative enlightenment – This type results from the full awakening of the Illumined Mind or Buddhi. This type of enlightenment appears as the prolific inspiration of the Soul and expresses this in areas such as literature, music, invention, or poetry. At this stage of spiritual development, the Soul is awakened, and directly communicates its genius and mastery through this form of expression.
  3. Universal state of consciousness – A disciple enters this state of consciousness when an ensouling entity or nucleus of identity reaches this universal nexus on the Continuum. When disciples ascend to this state, great knowledge dawns. They gain access to spiritual powers. They have penetrating insights.

Yogis refer to this state as Sabikalpa Samadhi. Among the levels at which this type of enlightenment occurs include:

  1. The Light at the top of the Ideational Plane in the First Cosmic Initiation
  2. The Realization of Brahman in the First Cosmic Initiation
  3. Assumption into the golden lotus of the Yogi Preceptor in the First Cosmic Initiation
  4. Union with the Light Master at the top of the Cosmic Soul Awareness Plane in the Second Cosmic Initiation
  5. Awakening of the God Self in the Fifth Cosmic Initiation
  6. Fusion of a Supracosmic seed atom with the Supracosmic Soul on a Supracosmic Path
  7. Ascension of the Supracosmic Soul to the point between the eyebrows chakra on a Supracosmic Path, which opens a universal vista of consciousness
  8. Attainment of Supracosmic Mastery in the throne of Realization and Empowerment (Guru Padam) above the brain chakra on a Supracosmic Path
  9. Rising to a state of empowerment below the highest stage on a Transcendental Path, such as the Subud Master on the seventh Plane on T1; the Shabd Master above the second Plane on T2; the Brahmi Bhut on the seventh Plane on T3; the Maharaj above the seventh Plane on T4; and the Madhis on the fifth Plane on T5.

This is the type of enlightenment that Buddha appears to have attained, according to the popular imagination. [His attainment in this perspective would correspond to (h); the Bodhisattva to (g); and the Arhat to (f).]

  1. Synthetic enlightenment – This type combines several forms of enlightenment in one. In this type we see the combination of:
    • Incarnation of the Loving Heart of God as the Nadamic Master
    • Creative enlightenment as the illumined teacher and fount of inspired discourse (satsang)
    • Attainment of a universal stage of Mastery with empowerment and Divine anointing
    • Ability to extend guidance and Grace to aspirants and disciples

    We see synthetic enlightenment in beings that have become members of the Hierarchy of Light at Planetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental levels; Transcendental Path Sat Gurus; and Adi Sat Gurus (Multiplane Masters).

    In truth, Lord Buddha’s enlightenment was of this synthetic type. While his disciples see him in the context of his realization upon the Buddhist Paths of the Supracosmic Sphere, he possesses and operates through many other forms of Mastery. For example, he served as the World Teacher in the Hierarchy of Light before Jesus. He achieved the high throne of Sat Guru on several Transcendental Paths.

    We suggest that the delusional and non-functional types are not enlightenment at all, even though those who enter these states claim to have profound experiences. The groups that hold out these states of awareness as enlightenment believe that these rudimentary experiences are of the highest order, when they actually are not.

    Enlightenment possession has given us remarkable individuals with spiritual gifts and insights, but they do not possess these abilities and wisdom through the aegis of their own ensouling entity—these powers and inspiration are vouchsafed to them though the mediation of another being. Those who receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit are of this type: they preach under inspiration; they demonstrate supernormal abilities—but when the anointing goes away, so do the knowledge and abilities.

    Incarnation of the Loving Heart of God is associated with the highest development on Pole Two.

    Creative enlightenment typifies the highest development on Pole Three, representing the full flowering of the Illumined Mind.

    Attainment of universal consciousness is correlated with the unfoldment of the ensouling entity on Pole One. Varieties of this type of enlightenment may also be conveyed through a nucleus of identity, as is characteristic of universal consciousness stages (a) to (d).

    The synthetic variety of enlightenment combines Poles One, Two, and Three, plus the attentional principle on Pole Four is able to gain full conscious union with this blended nexus of Mastery.

    In Mudrashram®, we hold out the goal of synthetic enlightenment as being the goal of spiritual development. In our Integral system of meditation, we develop Poles One, Two, and Three in synchrony, and travel on the Fourth Pole as the attentional principle to witness this development. At advanced stages of discipleship, the attentional principle actively participates in spiritual ministry and initiation.

    Those who wish to learn the methods to ultimately develop synthetic enlightenment will benefit from taking one of our intermediate classes—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—where this training is imparted.

The Four Key Elements of Human Life

Posted on by

The Four Key Elements of Human Life: Identity, Desire, Meaning, and Change

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Human life is predicted upon four key elements: identity, desire, meaning, and change.

Identity asks, “Who am I?”

Desire asks, “What do I want?”

Meaning asks, “What is my life about?”

Change asks, “What should I become?

There is a scale for each of these elements that ranges from non-existence to the fullness of existence. These 12 factor scales are shown below:

Identity

  1. I am nothing, voidness—I do not exist.
  2. I am whatever I fancy my self to be in my imagination.
  3. I am my emotional and physical pain. I am my pain and unhappiness.
  4. I am what other people say I am, based on their labels and attributions, and their ideas of whom I should be.
  5. I am my possessions and my wealth—my identity is based on what I have.
  6. I am my relationships—my identity is based on whom I love and care about.
  7. I am my roles in work and in the community—my identity is based on my profession, and what I do.
  8. I am my body—I am in touch with my organismic wisdom and it guides me to inner truth.
  9. (a) I am the witness of my experience (attention, witnessing mind) and (b) I am the conscious, intentional being inside the body (attentional principle)
  10. I am the loving heart (spirit)
  11. I am the creator of my personal destiny and what I experience in my life (Self)
  12. I am the inner Divinity within me (Soul).

With each new identity state, the ego reaches a new state of integration. At the most complex stage of integration, the Soul becomes incarnate in human life.

The non-existence stage of identity connects you with the wave of the present time on the Akashic Aether. New Age authors like Eckhart Tolle and some Buddhist teachers regard this as the state of enlightenment.

Desire

  1. I have no desires.
  2. I have endless fantasies of what I want and I don’t know which to pursue.
  3. Whatever I desire, I can’t have—it is denied to me.
  4. I desire to please others, to serve their needs, and obey their wishes.
  5. I desire to have more possessions and more money.
  6. I desire to have sexual and sensual pleasure, comfort, and continual happiness—to have whatever I desire.
  7. I desire to advance in my career, to make more money, to gain greater recognition, and attain greater power and authority.
  8. I desire health, wholeness, and harmony.
  9. I desire to know and enact my purpose.
  10. I desire to love and serve.
  11. I desire to create my core life objectives.
  12. I desire to fulfill the Divine Purpose I was sent forth in the beginning to achieve.

The desireless stage similarly places you in the void, in union with the wave of the present time. Without desire, there is no motivation to do anything or achieve anything.

Meaning

  1. Life has no meaning. I do not exist.
  2. Life is whatever you want it to be. It has any meaning I assign to it.
  3. Life is suffering, deprivation, continued frustration, and want. The only meaning I can derive from this is to survive and endure.
  4. Life is doing what you are told to do, to obey and follow the commands of others.
  5. My possessions and wealth give my life meaning.
  6. My relationships are the core of what brings my life meaning.
  7. What I achieve, do, and accomplish provides meaning in my life.
  8. Being in touch with the wisdom of my organism and in harmony with Nature gives my life meaning.
  9. Inner discovery and journey into the levels of the mind, and gaining insight and wisdom fills my life with meaning.
  10. Going back to God as the spiritual heart bestows meaning upon human life.
  11. Becoming what you were born to be and actualizing your full personal potential grants meaning to life.
  12. Fulfilling your spiritual destiny and rising into Mastery and Liberation is the essential meaning and purpose of life.

The nihilistic or meaningless state is the abandonment of life. It is without desire or any sense of identity.

Change

  1. Life is ceaseless change. There is no “I” to change anything. Everything exists and unfolds of itself, without any doer.
  2. Life is chaos. There is no clear direction as to what I should do. Everything appears random, with no sense of how things might turn out. I could choose to do anything.
  3. Whatever I try to change is thwarted, frustrated, blocked, or sabotaged. What’s the use of trying anymore? I just give up.
  4. Change comes as others direct me. Others seem to know what is right to do, so I’ll follow their lead.
  5. I can obtain what I want if I buy it. I will change my life through accruing great wealth, so I can have anything I want.
  6. I can create change in my relationships through learning to effectively communicate with others, to persuade them, or to manipulate them to get what I want. I can learn the social skills to improve my ability to create change in my relationships.
  7. I can become whatever I want to be through study and experience. School, work experience, and getting mentorship hold the keys to become whatever career or community role I want to assume.
  8. I can build my muscles. I can lose weight. I can become extremely flexible through hatha yoga. I can achieve peak sports performance. I can become an invincible martial artist. I can learn to control my autonomic responses through hypnosis. I can learn to tap into healing energy within me.
  9. I can give suggestion to control my body and any vehicle of consciousness. I can travel to any level of the mind. I can use intention to activate the downpour of Spirit and bring about transformation of my Soul. I can use intention to send the Light to others through attunements.
  10. I can pray to bring God’s Love and Light to help others. I can dissolve the karma between where I am and where God is through meditation on the channels of the Nada, and I can go back to God.
  11. I can use my will to change my life. I can counsel, coach, teach, guide, and mentor others to success and fulfillment, and I can empower others to make life-changing choices.
  12. Within the sphere of my consciousness, I control all things through my transpersonal will. I give permission to allow my personality to operate independently to accomplish its goals, or I may direct it to enact my Divine Purpose in human life.

Lacking any sense of identity, it appears there is no doer, and life unfolds of itself. Some teachers regard his voidness as the state of enlightenment.

We invite you to monitor these four elements of human life to discover which of these identity, desire, meaning, and change factors are operating in you.

In Mudrashram®, we give you the keys to work on factors 9, 10, 11, and 12 for each of the elements of human life: we teach you how to activate your attentional principle, your spirit, your Self, and your Soul to actualize your personal and spiritual potentials—you can learn about these tools in our intermediate meditation classes, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

Upcoming Master Course in Meditation on 6-23-21

Posted on by

We will be starting a new virtual Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation on Wednesday June 23, 2021. The course will go ten weeks.

Those of you who have been waiting to take this class, here is your opportunity to take it in a format that requires less time commitment each evening.

You can view our You Tube announcement of the class here

 

The Spectrum of Earning Your Income

Posted on by

By George A. Boyd ©2021

People often limit their possibilities for earning their income, and will take any gig to survive. There are a variety of approaches that might allow you to earn money in ways you might not have thought about. Here is the spectrum of how people earn their living:

Get any job to survive – this is the fallback for most of us… much of my working life was spent gigging it in the early ‘70s and middle ‘80s.

Prepare for work and work in that profession – this is the time-honored tradition of going to vocational school or college, getting your certificate, diploma, or degree, and then working in your field. This works when the economy is functioning well; this becomes a challenge during a recession. It becomes extra stressful when you are carrying a lot of student debt you used to earn that certificate, degree, or diploma.

I used this approach to get my first career-related job as a drug counselor: I earned my bachelors degree in Psychology and a certificate in Alcohol Drug Counseling. Was there a downside of this? Yes, I didn’t start my career until about halfway through my regular working years.

Entrepreneurship – this is starting your own business and selling a product or service. Even while I was employed at my more regular jobs after 1983, I was running my own little company to earn extra money.

If you are successful at this way of earning your money, you can become wealthy—and not just little extra cash, as I did. I’m beginning to believe now that the key to this is targeted marketing and sales.

Trusting in God and living a life of surrender and service – In this scenario, you allow Providence to take care of your needs.

This was the approach I used during the Summer of Love in 1967, when I “crashed” in different people’s houses and “panhandled” for some change to get my favorite, fish and chips. [This was in my pre-vegetarian period.]

I have some friends who have traveled across the country and the world giving lectures, and sleeping where people invite them—and sometimes in their van—and accepting whatever donations people gave them, using this strategy. This is not for the faint of heart—you need to have a lot of faith and chutzpah to make this work.

Using your creative or athletic genius to earn money – you can use this if you are particularly gifted in your art or athletic prowess. You are hired on a sports team or your acting and public speaking skill lands you a job as an actor or media celebrity. This also includes the writers, artists, and musicians, who gather a large following. When you are successful in this type, you can earn a lot of money.

I have written and published 18 books. For me, this has not been my ticket to great wealth.

Climbing the mountain of the world – You can rise to the top of corporations and politics through getting in touch with the people, whose circle of influence gives you the inside track to promotion and power. Those who work this approach in corporations and government gain access to the positions of great wealth. If you notice what C-suite officers make, you will see this can earn you a lot of money.

This never appealed to me. Plus, the professions in which I worked didn’t have ladders to great wealth.

Selling your way to the top – While many sales people are essentially gig workers, there are those that rise in their companies to become managers can make a great living. Real estate agents and brokers, big-ticket item sales people, and stockbrokers can make a lot of money.

I never was attracted to sales positions. In my weak foray into multi-level marketing at the behest and with the support of my friends, I never got anywhere: I got to a screaming five people under me. I didn’t even make enough to pay for my monthly blue green algae supplements this company was hawking.

Earning money through expressing your Soul’s mission – To tap this level, you need to be in touch with your Soul, and it has to have something it wants to share with the world. This happens when your Soul has a purpose, and it lets you know about it. If this operates in you, your career choices are, well, settled. You do what your Soul wants 24/7.

Since 2010, when I boldly stepped away from my job as an academic vocational counselor—yes, Virginia, I was actually working in my career for 19 years—I have been doing my Soul’s work full time. I have been doing metavisional readings, meditation consultations, meditation teaching and meditation teacher training, webinars, and coaching.

This has not yet brought me fame and fortune, but the joy and satisfaction I feel doing this is priceless.

If you are struggling with working in the gig economy, and taking any job you can get to survive, I would encourage you to do some visualization and imagine what it might be like to be working in one of these alternate tracks.

Sometimes, this little discovery exercise can spark an insight that will lead you uncover to what you were born to do, and you can move your working life to a whole new level—and with it, often increase your income.

Themes in Christianity

Posted on by

By George A. Boyd © 2021

Q: There appears to be widely varying ideas of what it means to be a Christian and what is the aim of the church. Are there some common themes that these different varieties of Christian faith share?

A: At the core of Christian religious life is a recognition of changes in character that take place as the result of the ministry of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit within the human heart. These appear to fall into three major stages: the sinner stage, the conversion and traditional religious stage, and the mystical stage.

In the sinner stage, the ego is dominant and resists the influence of other people, rebels against authority, and rejects religion. Some of the markers of this stage include:

  • Violence towards others, acting out hatred
  • Hating others
  • Blaming others
  • Justifying oneself
  • Defensiveness

At the conversion and traditional religious stage, the individual gains the conviction that he or she has followed the wrong path, and has gone astray. There is a turning to God and a new willingness to change. This character change transforms the individual’s behavior, beliefs, values, and identity. Identity shifts from ego to the Moon Soul or Christ Child nucleus of identity. This character change appears to follow several steps, which ultimately leads to leadership roles in his or her congregation.

  • Telling the truth to oneself about what one has done
  • Confession to others about what one has done
  • Repentance, deciding not to act that way anymore
  • Choosing to live a new life
  • Living according to new values
  • Living a more virtuous and prosperous life as a result of living these new values
  • Teaching these principles to others
  • Anointing to play a role in the church: pastor, priest, prophet, evangelist, or a church leadership position

In the mystic stage, the individual becomes absorbed in an inner journey of prayer and meditation, which ultimately moves the Moon Soul into the Presence of God. This stage of the journey occurs over a long period of time.

  • Opening the gate to the mysteries, which might appear as Pandora’s box, a closed door, or a sealed entrance to an ancient temple
  • Entry into the life of revelation and inspiration
  • Sanctification and drawing closer to God
  • Anointing as a saint

In Christianity, this inner change comes about as a result of turning towards God and allowing Jesus Christ to minister the Light to reform character and inculcate a new way of living. This inner change appears to be the common theme among different denominations.

In other religious traditions, there is a similar re-orientation from an ego-centered life to relationship with the Divine, as God can be known in that faith. The religious faithful in these other religious groups learns to live by new precepts and adopts new values, beliefs, and behavior—similar to what happens in Christianity.

We suggest you study these different markers of these stages of character reformation and sanctification that occurs in the Christian tradition—or other spiritual tradition to which you belong— and notice to what degree this process has occurred in you.

Those who wish to learn more about the dynamics underlying the transformation religion can effect in human values, belief, and behavior, you may enjoy our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?