Category Archives: Religious Experience

The Abandonment of Money

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By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: In several spiritual traditions, they encourage adopting the monastic path of poverty and idealize the saint’s disregard for money. Can you speak to the motivations of monastics and saints for adopting these attitudes?

A: When spiritual seekers become completely absorbed in their spiritual life, the foundations of material life—career, money, and relationship—are often willingly sacrificed on their altar of devotion to God. Through intense cultivation of their inner life, they learn to tolerate not having money. Moreover, they no longer desire a relationship, a family, or a career, choosing instead to focus fully on their spiritual development and to move closer to the Presence of God.

What are some of the motivations for this abandonment of money?

  1. Saints are so absorbed in their inner experience that their outer experience is unimportant to them.
  2. God is the most important thing to saints: they may often see the outer world as a distraction or an illusion. They may see what goes on in the outer world as not relevant to the core values of their lives.
  3. Saints have gratitude and equanimity for whatever befalls them, as they see it comes from God’s Will and Providence.
  4. Saints believe God will provide for them, and look to God for sustenance, instead of their own efforts.
  5. Saints may be so uplifted into ecstatic spiritual consciousness that working a complex, modern job, with its stress, its multiple demands, and highly distracted environment is something they are no longer capable of doing.
  6. Some saints wish to preserve their energy so they can commune with God, and might feel working a job for the sake of earning money depletes their energy and interferes with their spiritual communion with the Divine.
  7. On some traditions, saints take a vow of poverty or have renounced accepting gifts during their monastic ordination, so they may see pursuing or even accepting money is a violation of the rule by which they are expected to live.

Abandoning money is an extreme position, but saints readily embrace this, because drawing closer to God is the most important thing to them. Perhaps no more than one percent of seekers have this overriding passion to entirely devote their lives to prayer, meditation, and the service of God—but we note that it is from this small group of the most dedicated seekers that many spiritual groups draw their priests and clergy.

The Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation holds that it is important to be able to function fully in the personality—having the ability to work, have a relationship, and raise a family—meanwhile making steady progress towards spiritual Mastery and Liberation. For some rare individuals, a monastic avocation is appropriate, but for most people, a life balanced between spirituality, and discharging the duties of student, worker, parent, and citizen enables them greater fulfillment, even if their rate of spiritual development and acquisition of holy virtues may be slower than that of saints.

The Seven Fires of Man

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By George A. Boyd ©2017

Q: What is the fire in the belly of which people speak?

A: There are actually seven fires within human beings. Across the Seven Rays, they are:

Ray

Type of Fire

What It Does

1

The fire in the belly

This activates your personal octave of will. It aligns your volition, personal intuition, intellect, concrete mind, conscience, persona, and commitment to achieve a goal despite obstacles or setbacks.

2

The fire in the brain

This is the kindling of the Illumined Mind, or Buddhi, with the downpour of intuitive knowledge. This purifies ignorance and removes negativity from the mind.

3

The fire in the sacred heart (Hridaya)

This is the anointing of the Divine that is anchored in an ensouling entity that has drawn into the Divine Presence. This anointing is also bestowed upon the cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity for the Yogi Preceptor in the 1st Cosmic Initiation; on the cosmic soul awareness of the Light Master in the 2nd Cosmic Initiation; and on the Supracosmic seed atom of a disciple who has fully opened the Supracosmic brain chakra on a Supracosmic Path. This empowers the individual who has attained this exalted station on the Path to be a spiritual Master in that tradition.

4

The fire in the center of the palms of the hands

This is the fire of life force with which healers are imbued. This fire connects the point between the eyebrows (visualization and intention) with the heart (compassion for the suffering of the client) with the palms (the focalized nexus of healing energy).

5

The fire in the eyes

This is the attentional principle, anointed with the Light of Spirit. It ministers the Light through an attunement, as we do in our Mudrashram® Light Sittings. On Transcendental Paths (T1 to T5 and T7), this attunement is made with the spiritual heart instead of the attentional principle.

6

The fire in the heart

This is the anointing of the Holy Spirit, anchored in the Moon Soul or Christ Child. The fire of anointing can come to dwell in other nuclei of identity or the Astral Soul. This awakens that center, purifies it, and connects it with the Divine at that level of the Continuum.

7

The fire in the spine

This marks the awakening of the Kundalini Shakti, the energy that opens awareness and activates the vehicles of consciousness of the Subconscious, Metaconscious, and Superconscious mind.

Everyone should be familiar with the stirring of will and resolve to achieve a goal that arises from your personal volition, when you are determined to succeed despite obstacles or adversity. This is your personal fire: it comes forth when you decide you are going to do, be, or have something you truly want, no matter what it takes.

Those who invoke the Divine as the Holy Spirit are familiar with the fire in the heart. When this glorious flame enters the receptacle of the Moon Soul or Christ Child, it inspires confession and repentance, and re-dedication of your life to God. It may also bestow the “Gifts of the Spirit,” which temporarily enables you to access hidden knowledge, speak words of wisdom, act as an instrument of healing, or become a channel for Divine Prophecy—among other gifts.

Those who are healers should be familiar with the heat they feel in their hands when they are ready to heal others. This is the tangible marker that they are charged with the Living Force (prana, Chi), and can direct it to others through laying on of hands or visualization with intention.

Those whom a Master initiates, and actively unfold their spiritual potentials experience the awakening of their Kundalini (fire in the spine) and their Illumined Mind (fire in the brain). Some spiritual traditions will also train their disciples in ministering the Light to others (fire in the eyes), which may be sent through the attentional principle or the spiritual heart of disciples, depending on the core focus of the Path. [Typically Transcendental Paths empower the spiritual heart.]

Those who become Initiates [Masters] directly experience the anointing of the Divine to carry out their spiritual Mission and complete the Dispensation granted to them.

Aspirants will benefit from recognizing what triggers the activation of will (fire in the belly), the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (fire in the heart), and the gift of healing (fire in the palms).

Disciples should become familiar with how to stir the Kundalini Shakti into activity (fire in the spine), and how to awaken their Illumined Mind through entering full Samadhi (fire in the brain). If your tradition practices it, you may be trained in sending the Light to the ensouling entities of others through attunement (fire in the eyes).

When you become an Initiate, you will experience the direct anointing of the Divine (fire in the sacred heart), which will enable you to kindle—depending on the Dispensation given to your tradition—between two and six of these other fires in humanity, and to pass the torch of the Living Fire to the one ordained to be your successor (fire of the sacred heart).

Those unfamiliar with the Seven Rays can read more about them in A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation. Those who are taking one of our intermediate courses—the Accelerated Meditation Program or the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation—can also gain greater understanding of this topic by taking the webinar series in the Level One member area on the Seven Rays.

The Seven Spiritual Activities of the Guru

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By George A. Boyd ©2016

A spiritual Master or Guru is not just a conveyer of wisdom stories and sage advice, but is capable of seven spiritual actions that transmit the energy of the Living Divine Spirit to others. These seven actions are listed below:

  1. Darshan – In this state of consciousness, the Guru reveals the Presence of the Divine to others, and that he or she is established in the Divine Vortex to which disciples aspire.
  2. Teaching – In the teacher mode, the Guru gives wisdom teachings for the Soul, and activates the Illumined Mind of disciples.
  3. Facilitating Discernment – This posture of the Guru reveals the nature of the Soul beyond the dimensions of the mind, and confers Enlightenment and Gnosis.
  4. Acting as a Preceptor – Here the Guru reveals the nature of the Soul’s truth (Dharma), the Divine Law, and the Way. Jesus enunciated that he adopted this role, revealing that he embodied the Truth, the Life, and the Way. The Preceptor will also guide disciples to work with issues in the unconscious mind that hold them back from making spiritual progress.
  5. Guiding – In this role, the Guru shows the spirit and/or the attentional principle of disciples the content of their inner vehicles of consciousness, the inner Planes of Light, and the nature of their Soul.
  6. Awakening devotion – In this activity, the Guru creates yearning to meditate and make spiritual progress, to do service, and to love God. This can be conveyed through telling stories of the lives of saints, and speaking directly to the spiritual heart of the disciples, which awakens their love and yearning to make spiritual progress and attain the presence of the Divine.
  7. Bestowing Attunements and Transformation – This work of the Guru sends the Light to unfold the disciples’ potentials of the Soul, to awaken their vehicles of consciousness and spiritual essences, or awaken the energy of their awareness (Kundalini). In this activity, the Guru channels the Grace and Power of the Divine.

The Divine empowers a genuine Guru, which places him or her on a platform above the priest, who does sacred ceremonies or ritual invocation; or the cleric, who interprets the meaning of scriptures. The Guru is a Grace-Bestowing instrument that brings the Love, Wisdom, and Grace of the Divine to those who open themselves to receive this blessing.

Aspirants will benefit from identifying which of these activities their prospective spiritual teacher expresses. They need to be certain their spiritual teacher is truly established in the Divine Presence and empowered, and not merely surmising he or she is enlightened. The Presence of the Light and these seven activities is a key indicator that he or she is a real Guru, and not just a pretender.

When It Is Not OK to Be Human

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By George A. Boyd© 2016

Q: When does spirituality not make it OK for someone to be a human being?

A: In many spiritual traditions, the objective of their spiritual developmental Path is to realize God. This takes three major forms:

  1. Discovering Inner Divinity – This brings the knowledge that God dwells within the Soul as a Divine Spark. In this perspective, there is no attempt to transform this spiritual essence: one is content to simply be one with this Inner Divinity.
  2. Realizing one is God – This approach presupposes that there is some obscuring substance or force—Cosmic Illusion (Maya); spiritual ignorance; or mind in its unconscious, nescient form—veils the truth that one actually is Almighty God. Here, it is the sense of separate “I-ness” that is the root of the problem: one works to overcome this fundamental error of the sense of separation. This philosophy characterizes Vedanta and Advaita, which espouse that Brahman is the only Reality. This is also seen in Sufism Reoriented, Meher Baba’s Path, which declares that only God is real.
  3. Discovering a Divinized aspect of one’s nature, and moving this essence into the Presence of the Almighty – This method uncovers a God Self or inner Divinity within an individual (Microcosm), and then moves that essence into the Presence of God that ensouls the Macrocosm. This process disengages from the ego and the Self, and fully identifies with the essence that migrates into the Divine Presence. The Risen Christ Ashram, which unfolds the Astral Soul through the Cosmic Sphere typifies this style of spiritual work; other Paths that teach their followers to identify with a spiritual essence and move this into the Presence of the Divine as it can be known on their Path—while regarding the ego and the personality as hindrances to spiritual development—follow a similar approach.

In type one, one can have an inner Divinity, but can concurrently be a human being. In this approach, human life is a Divine Joke or Divine Play, and can be engaged in consciously and joyously.

In type two, one can only sustain the experience that one is God by holding human life and personality as unreal and illusory, and by maintaining the altered state of consciousness that allows one to perceive they are God.

In this scenario, the ego and personality can continue to function, but may be suppressed or attenuated to allow the state of Divine Realization to express through the body.

In type three—when the track of spiritual development interferes with the functioning of the personality or aims to dissolve the ego and the sense of a separate human Self—this deconstruction of personal identity can lead to states of spiritual narcissism and grandiosity. In this state, one believes that he or she is a God-like being, who cannot deign to act like a common mortal—similar to the way the “god-king” Pharaoh could not mix with the common people. If an individual in this state is subjected to probing questioning, they may become defensive, agitated, and even paranoid.

In Mudrashram® we see what is common with these three approaches is that the philosophical rationale they give for clinging to the Divinized state predicates that it is not all right to be a human being and to function in the world in normal waking awareness.

There are four major postures regarding spirituality. We first described these four postures in our article, “Learning to Be an Amphibian: A Model for Re-entry for Cult Members Returning to Society.” [This article was published in our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?]

  1. Reject the existence of the spiritual world – This is the posture of the materialist, who believes only that which can be verified in the physical world is real.
  2. Reject the material world as unreal – This is the approach of those that advocate remaining continuously in an altered state of consciousness; and also those that seek to identify with Divinity embrace this posture.
  3. Reject both material and spiritual worlds – This is the perspective of the psychotic, who becomes immersed in the unconscious mind, tossed to and fro by the maelstrom of inchoate thought. By rejecting both poles, they lose the ability to function, to think rationally, or create a coherent worldview.
  4. Accept both poles – In this approach, one is a human being and a spiritual being and a human being, at the same time. One makes progress as a human being on personal goals; one makes progress towards one’s spiritual calling through inner work.

This fourth posture is the one we advocate in Mudrashram®: to embrace both your humanness and your spirituality; to respect and honor each aspect of your nature

The ego has its job to carry out individual units of behavior and to ensure the survival of your body.

The Self’s job is to create meaning and value in human life, and to create and enact your personal destiny.

The Soul’s job is to actualize and express its full spiritual potential, and to fulfill its Divine Purpose.

We suggest that rather than attempting to suppress or deny the functioning of the ego and the Self, one should empower and support them to do the job they were designed to do. In this way, one avoids:

  1. Derealization and depersonalization
  2. Delusional thinking
  3. Spiritual narcissism and grandiosity
  4. Inability to function effectively as a human being
  5. Paranoid mindsets and world views
  6. Manic judgment that arises from a grandiose perspective
  7. Suppression and repression of legitimate human needs and restricting the healthy expression of the human drive to growth and progress towards meaningful and life-enhancing objectives

We urge that those who believe that it is not OK to be human re-examine their beliefs and consider, as a more life-enhancing alternative, the Integral approach.

How Do You Contact God?

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By George A. Boyd ©2015

Many people do not believe in God, because they have never experienced this Divine Being directly. Like discovery of the Soul, the encounter with God also appears to pass through several stages. These are summarized below.

  • Atheism – No other essence other than the brain and the universe that can be known through astrophysics is evident to you, and you do not believe that God exists.
  • Agnosticism – You have no experience of God, but you notice that others seem to have experiences that indicate to them that God is real. You entertain the idea that God may exist, but you maintain the belief that until God reveals Himself, you will continue to hold an agnostic belief about God.
  • Mystery – You have an experience that you cannot explain within the parameters of science or what you have previously known in your life. These experiences can include consciously journeying out of your body (astral projection), suddenly feeling one with the universe (a peak experience or mystical experience), or feeling the infilling of God’s Light in your heart (anointing with the Holy Spirit). You cannot deny this experience: it may lead you to quest for an answer or explanation, or you may consider that you went temporarily insane, and you will seek to suppress the experience.
  • Encounter with Spiritual Grace and Power – You experience this when you spend time in the Presence of a highly spiritually advanced human being—a Master or Initiate. You sense great Light emanates from them, great love and purity pervade the space around them, and you sense a powerful presence within them. Their words seem to come from some deep reservoir of wisdom. They have penetrating insight and knowledge. You leave their company touched and moved: you see something of your own spiritual potential mirrored in them.
  • Numinous encounter – You experience a numinous encounter in meditation: here you may behold an angel or a radiant Ascended Master, who tells you about God. Through what they describe to you, you sense something of this Divine Being, and sense that this Being is at a deeper level of the Great Continuum of Consciousness.
  • Faith and dialog – At this stage you come to believe in a form of God, and you pray to this Being, and listen for the Divine to answer your prayers. You may begin a question and answer dialog with this Being through the cord of faith and remembrance. This is the level people experience when they adopt religious faith.
  • Mystic union (Samadhi) – At this stage, your attentional principle, your spirit, or your Soul enters into the Presence of God at one level of the Continuum, and you directly encounter this Being. Here you can verify that God exists—at least this form of God you have directly encountered. As you progress on the spiritual path, you encounter even greater forms of God beyond this first encounter.
  • Empowerment – When you reach this stage, God empowers you with Light to teach, initiate, or guide others. This is the stage of spiritual Mastery. You dwell in the Presence of God. You know God’s will. You become the conduit of God’s love, wisdom, and Grace.

If you have gone through the barrier of mystery, and have begun to experience the Superconscious mind, you will ultimately directly encounter the forms of God on the Great Continuum of Consciousness. People believe in God, and pray to this Being; those that learn the key techniques of transformational, spiritual, and attentional meditation can actually ascend into the Divine Presence—and ultimately become a conduit for Divine Grace and Love.

We teach these methods through which you can experience Soul Realization and God Communion in our intermediate courses—the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program and the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation. If you persist in your meditation using these methods, you will discover God in the many ways that the Divine appears on the Great Continuum, and ultimately, you will rise into your own state of Mastery and Empowerment.