The Spectrum of Personal and Spiritual Transformation

By George A. Boyd © 2018

Many coaches, motivational speakers, meditation teachers, channelers, and sundry other New Age practitioners promise their clients “transformation” to achieve their dreams, to actualize their potential, and to make their “Ascension”—without truly understanding the full spectrum of potential personal and spiritual transformation.

In the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation, we describe for poles of being. These poles are:

Pole one – The ensouling entity or Soul

Pole two – The individual spirit

Pole three – The spiritual forms or vehicles of consciousness that the Soul animates and controls, through which it expresses its love, wisdom, and ability—these are the higher aspects of spiritual emotion, intuition, and the aspects of transpersonal volition that operate in the Superconscious mind

Upper pole four – The attention and intentional consciousness (attentional principle) that witness human life and can commune with the other three poles of spirituality through meditation

Lower pole four – The matrix of human life that operates through the unconscious mind and the three mental fields that comprise the personality—the Conscious mind, the Subconscious mind, and the Metaconscious mind; the personal integration centers of the Self (Metaconscious mind) and the ego (Conscious mind) govern and direct these aspects of mind through the personal aspects of volition.

The modalities for transformation operate on one or more of these poles of being. Many of those who purport to offer transformation to their clients and meditation students are not aware that other types of transformation exist outside the type(s) that they have experienced and share with those they coach, counsel, and teach. It is important for those who seek to transform others—and those that believe transforming is something that they should do—to be aware of the entire spectrum of potential transformation. Here are eight major types:

  1. Personal transformation – this changes aspects of your personality into something better than you experience now. This type of transformation takes place on lower pole four. These aspects are parts of you that you want to change, you believe change is possible, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure this change happens. This change can take place at the level of:
    • Behavior – you learn new skills that enable you to do the things you want that you aren’t able to do right now.
    • Habits – you change habits that are unhealthful or unproductive into habits that support your health and optimize your productivity.
    • Attitude – you shift from holding a pessimistic, hopeless attitude to an optimistic and hopeful one.
    • Belief – you alter your beliefs about what is possible, so you believe that you can reach your goals and achieve your dreams.
    • Values – you identify what is truly important in your life, and you align your actions, speech and thinking to align with these core life priorities; you begin focusing on your priorities instead of doing things that waste time.
    • Perception – you modify your mindset about what you can do, be, and have as you change your perception of who you are and what you have the capacity to become.
    • Knowledge – you educate yourself to enable you to enter your chosen career and to enact your life purpose.
    • Choice – you make new choices and don’t let fear or worry hold you back from fully living your dreams.
    • Identity – you come to experience yourself as someone who is more empathic, skillful, competent, effective, courageous, and capable of delivering results.
  2. Rebirth – you achieve rebirth through moving your attention and/or attentional principle into union with a spiritual essence—a nucleus of identity, spirit, or ensouling entity—and sustaining your union with this state until you fully identify with it and it begins to govern your values, beliefs, and behavior. This is the transformation typical of upper pole four. Once you become identified with this essence, you begin to direct your personality from this spiritual identity. This type of transformation is typical of
    • New Age aspirants who identify with the Star Seed on the Psychic Realm
    • “Born again Christians” and Jews affiliated with mystical sects who identify as the Moon Soul nucleus of identity
    • I AM Movement members who identify with the Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity within their Solar Angelic form
    • Disciples of Yogi Preceptors who identify with their cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity in the First Cosmic Initiation
    • Students of Light Masters who identity as the cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity
    • Chelas of Cosmic Masters who identify as the Astral Soul (a higher octave ensouling entity)
    • Followers of Supracosmic Path Gurus, who identify with the Supracosmic seed atom of that Path
    • Devotees of Transcendental Path Sat Gurus, who identify with the spirit on that Transcendental Path
  3. Superconscious integration center unfoldment – you produce transformation of a vehicular seed atom or nucleus of identity through practicing a transformational method that unfolds this essence. This is pole three transformation. This moves the vehicular seed atom or nucleus of identity out of alignment with the axis of being, and reinforces identification with this integration center of the Superconscious mind. Examples of this type of transformation include:
    • Taoist martial arts practitioners who unfold the Subtle Etheric seed atom though using the Microcosmic Circulation technique
    • New Age aspirants who unfold the Star Seed on the Psychic Realm with the Merkaba method
    • Christians and Jews affiliated with mystical sects who unfold their Moon Soul nucleus of identity using specialized mantras or Kriya-Yoga-like methods
    • I AM Movement members who unfold Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity within their Solar Angelic form using specialized decrees
    • Disciples of Yogi Preceptors who unfold their cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity in the First Cosmic Initiation utilizing Kundalini Yoga, mantras, Kriya Yoga, and Light Immersion
    • Students of Light Masters unfold their cosmic soul awareness nucleus of identity using mantras and Light Immersion
    • Followers of Supracosmic Path Gurus, who unfold the Supracosmic seed atom of that Path through Kundalini Yoga, mantras, Kriya Yoga, and Light Immersion
  4. Transformation generated through movement of the spirit – this practice is typical of Paths in the Transcendental Sphere, which drive transformation through having the spirit open the inner channels of the Nada. This is pole two transformation. Examples of this types of transformation is found on:
    • Transcendental Path One (T1) – Followers of Subud Masters open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Two (T2) – Disciples of Sant Mat Sat Gurus open the channels of the Nada and follow the inner guide form of their Master to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Three (T3) – Devotees of the Avatar and the five Perfect Masters open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Four (T4) – Those that Paradise Masters initiate open the channels of the Nada and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Five (T5) – Chelas of ECK Masters (Mahantas) open the channels of the Nada and use specialized mantras to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
    • Transcendental Path Seven (T7) – Premies of the T7 Sat Guru open the four channels of the Nada on their Path and receive Light Immersion to make progress on this Path and unfold their ensouling entity.
  5. Transformation of an ensouling entity with its associated vehicle of consciousness – These transformational practices move an ensouling entity along its track. This is pole one transformation.
    • Occult Adepts awaken the Kundalini to move the Soul Spark through the Subtle Realm and guide it to rise through the Occult Initiations.
    • Adepts and Adept Masters use Light Immersion to move the Soul and its vehicles and confer Planetary Initiation.
    • Agni Yoga Yogi Preceptors and Cosmic Masters bestow Light Immersion to translate the Astral Soul and activate its vehicles of consciousness; advanced forms of Kriya Yoga (Kaivalyam Kriya) or a specialized mantra (Cosmic Divine Name) are also used to selectively unfold the Astral Soul.
    • Selected Supracosmic Gurus unfold the Supracosmic Soul through Light Immersion, Kriya Yoga, and targeted mantras.
    • The Avatar and Perfect Masters on T3 employ Light Immersion to unfold the ensouling entity of this Path.
  6. Coordinated transformation of selected spiritual essences though alignment with a template for transformation – This type of transformation is very rare: we have seen it applied in only one instance. This is mixed transformation of pole one and pole three at different bands of the Continuum of Consciousness. In the Risen Christ Yoga that my first spiritual teacher promulgated, he bestowed Light Immersion to unfold the Astral Soul, the God consciousness nucleus of identity, the Avataric consciousness nucleus of identity, the cosmic consciousness nucleus of identity—each Cosmic Sphere spiritual essences; the Monad (a higher octave ensouling entity of the Transplanetary Realm); and the Mighty I AM Presence nucleus of identity, the Moon Soul nucleus of identity, and the seed atom on the Psychic Realm in the Planetary Realm.
  7. Integral transformation at one band of the Continuum of Consciousness – this is partial Integral transformation as it operates on one band of the Continuum only. It unfolds the ensouling entity (pole one), the spirit (pole two), and the essential vehicle of the Soul and its associated vehicles of consciousness (pole three), together with guiding the attentional principle into union with the Soul (upper pole four). We are aware that this is practiced in two instances:
    • Certain Adepts and Adept Masters use Light Immersion and Guru Kripa Yoga to unfold the Soul Spark and Soul in synchrony with the spirit, the vehicles of consciousness, and the attentional principle in the Subtle and Planetary bands of the Continuum.
    • Integral or Guru Kripa Yogi Preceptors use this same schema of balancing the four poles of the Astral Soul to guide Integral spiritual development during the First Cosmic Initiation.
  8. Integral co-resonant development – This combines Integral transformation at the cutting edge of spirituality with simultaneous and synchronous unfoldment at each octave of being. This unfolds on all four poles of being, not only at the level of your spiritual growing tip, but also at each higher octave of being. This is the form of transformation that we teach in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

You can drive transformation through personal effort, using choice and commitment to effect personal transformation; you can also employ a transformational technique to produce spiritual transformation. Grace can also drive spiritual transformation through Light Immersion. Integral Light Immersion is called Guru Kripa Yoga.

Regular Guru Kripa Yoga operates at one level of the Continuum, and unfolds all four poles of being in synchrony. This is characteristic of transformation type seven.

Adi Guru Kripa Yoga unfolds all four poles of being in synchrony at each level of the Great Continuum of Consciousness—Subtle, Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental. This generates co-resonant development. This produces transformation type eight.

In addition to the tools to support personal transformation you learn in our intermediate meditation courses, our practical meditation training that our Introduction to Meditation instructors are authorized to teach provide additional tools for personal transformation. Our upcoming coaching modules will give you still more methods to work with your issues and transform them.

We invite you to study these different types of transformation and identify how you can generate personal and spiritual transformation that resonates with your inner sense of truth, and feels appropriate for your current stage of growth.

We point out that spiritual transformation types two through six, which work on only one pole of being or on multiple poles without promoting Integral synchronous spiritual development, commonly yield imbalances. We recommend that aspirants embrace Integral meditation strategies for optimal outcomes in their quest for spiritual progress, while avoiding the pitfalls of transformation methods emphasize spiritual development on only one pole.

What Transformation Do You Offer in Mudrashram

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Q: Let me ask you Oprah Winfrey’s question: “What transformation do you offer?”

A: We offer five types of transformation in Mudrashram®.

  1. Soul transformation – We teach others to speed up their spiritual evolution and to unfold their Soul. They do this through using a transformational mantra and Light Immersion that we teach them.
  2. Individual spirit transformation – We teach others to awaken their spiritual heart and travel in the channels of the Nada until the spirit returns to its Divine Source. They achieve this through practicing Nada Yoga.
  3. Spiritual form transformation – We teach others how to activate each of their vehicles of consciousness and to bring their intellectual, creative, spiritual potentials into full expression. They learn how to do this though meditating on the forms as they tune up in synchrony with the unfoldment of the Soul using Raja Yoga, and raising the Kundalini into union with the Soul.
  4. Perceptual transformation – We teach others to shift their attention to activate their three immortal principles—attentional principle, spirit, and Soul—and how to move attention into the states of Enlightenment and Gnosis.
  5. Transformation through empowerment and skill acquisition – In addition to teaching others to work on themselves spiritually to accelerate spiritual evolution, bring about spiritual salvation, and actualize their spiritual potentials, we also teach them practical skills to work on their personality. We show them a variety of techniques to access the Subconscious, Metaconscious, and Superconscious mind. These methods assist them to actualize their goals, overcome their obstacles, and to rehabilitate their ability to be effective and achieve results.

While the first four types are experienced immediately, and progressively unfold your spiritual potentials with each new meditation that targets that aspect of being, the fifth type is ongoing and developmental.

For example, if you want to achieve your goals, there are several steps to translate them into action:

  1. Inventory – You find out what you truly want through inner process and introspection.
  2. Identify priorities – You ascertain which of your desires are essential for you to live a full and meaningful life. You recognize your key desires that make your life worthwhile, and label them as “A” priority.
  3. Path – You determine what actions you will need to take to make these core desires become real. You clearly define this as a goal you wish to achieve.
  4. Plan – You break down the actions into a step-by-step plan.
  5. Action – You work on the first step and make incremental progress towards your goal.
  6. Ongoing feedback – You notice what hinders your forward progress towards your goal, and find solutions to overcome those hindrances, and implement them. You focus on what is working and continue to make progress in that aspect of your plan. You continue to monitor what is and what is not working.
  7. Attainment – You finish the last step and attain what you have wanted to be, have, do, or experience. This successful achievement of one of your goals allows you to operate on a new plateau for this area of your life.

We discuss this process of goal setting and achievement in greater depth in our book, The Practical Applications of Meditation in Daily Life and Education.

For overcoming obstacles, there are similarly steps to work on each issue that hinders your forward progress and achievement of success. We noted in step six of goal achievement that you need to identify what holds you back or what you encounter that is difficult. For each obstacle, there are a variety of methods you can use to engage with it and resolve it.

  1. Identify the issue – Get clear as to what exactly your issue entails. Is it a lack of belief? Resources? Support? Lack of knowledge? Is it external or internal?
  2. Interact with the issue – For internal problems that are getting in the way, dialog with the issue as it is personified in your mind as a subpersonality. Use dialog and inquiry methods like the Rainbow Technique that we teach to find out more about the issue.
  3. Process the issue – You trace where this issue originated using process meditation, which we teach. You uncover what emotions, beliefs, perceptions, or choices hold it in place, again through process meditation, or through one of our evocative methods called the Mandala method, which allows you to gain insight into the layers of your issue.
  4. Go to the core – Focus your attention upon the issue and experience what it is like to be this part of you. Focus on its shape or form, its core feeling, and location in your body. Use the Rainbow Technique to uncover its core essence—what it is really.
  5. Transcend the issue – Lift your attention into the wave of the present time, and contemplate this issue from the perspective of your enlightened Soul. Process and release the issue as it arises into this enlightened state of awareness.
  6. Re-choose and re-create – From the Soul’s perspective of empowerment, choose a new outcome, scenario, belief, or possibility. Use reframing, affirmation, faith, and affirmation—view it in a new way that enables you to change.
  7. Dissolve and integrate the issue through transformation – When you complete your inner work with the issue, you experience transformation and integration. Genuine personal transformation dissolves the issue, so its pattern ceases to operate, and a new, more positive pattern replaces it: you change. The latent abilities, wisdom, and strengths that were buried in the issue become reintegrated into the Self, and you can function in new ways: you integrate the issue.

We teach these methods to work with personal issues in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation, and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

To be effective and achieve results, you undergo the process of learning and developing a skill to the point of mastery. This developmental process has several steps:

  1. You begin to learn the skill – You learn the theory about the skill. You practice the skill. You make mistakes, and correct them.
  2. Habit formation – You practice the skill until you can do it automatically: it becomes a habit.
  3. Innovation – You find ways to improve your performance of the skill. You use inquiry (what if) and experimentation to see if you can do it better. You may seek the assistance of a coach or mentor to help you improve your results at this stage.
  4. Gain insight – You discover the core components of the skill, and enhance your ability to utilize the skill, so that you excel and achieve peak performance in it.
  5. Mentor others – using the insights you have gained, you teach others how to use the skill. You might teach a class or write a book at this stage. You become an expert.
  6. Challenge yourself – Continue to set higher benchmarks and work until you can achieve them.
  7. Become a master of the skill – At this stage, you clear the channel of this ability to your Soul. Once this occurs, your Soul can express its gifts and genius through you, and you become an instrument of the Soul’s purpose.

You develop proficiency and mastery of skills through long practice, obtaining mentoring and coaching, and the process of continually motivating yourself to extend this ability. You achieve this mastery by focusing your attention upon this skill track and exploring whether you can do it better, what are the key elements of the skill, and continually aspiring to discover what greater demonstration of this skill is possible.

In Mudrashram®, we assist our students to gain mastery of meditation, but this basic framework applies to any skill that is a core part of your career and your life’s mission. We help our students gain mastery of meditation through training them in introductory, intermediate, and advanced meditation classes, supplemented with books, webinars, and additional courses to help them gain the deepest insight and proficiency in meditation—this ultimately readies them to teach and initiate others.

What Holds A Person Back?

By George A. Boyd ©2016

There are a variety of issues that people encounter that holds them back from achieving what they desire. These include:

  1. Fear, anxiety and worry
  2. Shame
  3. Inferiority, a belief that one is not competent, evidenced by a lack of confidence
  4. Unbelief, lack of faith
  5. Societal or cultural prohibition: laws, mores, or taboos
  6. False information believed as true, received from superstition, revelations, or conspiracy theories
  7. Lack of permission from the Soul and God

There are several meditational methods that can be used to resolve issues one through six; issue seven must simply be accepted.

  1. Connecting with the Higher Self or wave of the present time and transcending issues, traveling in full consciousness to the Higher Planes with Raja Yoga
  2. Dialog methods such as Psychosynthesis, Voice Dialog, or Rainbow Method
  3. Debating or refuting the beliefs underlying the issue, inquiry, connecting with inner sources of truth (Dharma Yoga)
  4. Mindfulness, Vipassana
  5. Process meditation
  6. Invocation of a spiritual being through prayer and supplication to help overcome the issue
  7. Use of autohypnosis, affirmation, visualization, and syncretic methods to create new outcomes

We teach all seven methods in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. Learning methods to work with your issues internally empowers you, enables you to work out your issues, and to function more effectively in your life. When you function more effectively, and personal issues encumber you less, you are more capable of fulfilling your life dreams.

Reflections on Discipline

© 2011 by George A. Boyd

In keeping with the theme of setting New Years resolutions, we are offering for our last blog post of 2016, an article we wrote on the topic of discipline. This article was written in 2011, and first published in our Initate’s Library level two book, The Winds of Adi Sat Guru Desh in 2013. It is important to realize that simply resolving to do something, but then, not following through, is doomed to failure. Discipline requires that you sustain your activity until your goal is achieved. Discipline is more than saying you will do something; it requires committed and perseverent action. Here’s the article:

Discipline occurs when the volition focuses activity and attention towards a specific objective over a sustained period of time. Those that gain personal mastery of any genre do so because they are able to discipline the faculties of their personality to achieve peak performance and functioning.

Across the Seven Rays, we can identify different types of personal discipline. These are shown in the table below.

Ray

Type of Discipline

Keynote

Dominant Personality Function

1st

Sports and Military

Courage

Will

2nd

Relationship and Therapeutic Communications

Empathy

Intuition

3rd

Management and Scholarship

Acquisition and Application of Knowledge

Intellect

4th

Musical and Artistic

Creativity

Imagination and Senses

5th

Scientific

Search for Objective Truth

Reason

6th

Religious

Development of Virtue and Holiness

Feeling Center

7th

Yoga/ Spiritual

Self-Mastery

Body and Vehicle of Consciousness Awareness

The following signs mark the emergence of personal discipline:

  • Regular behavior practice and drilling to perfect skills
  • Acquiring specialized knowledge about this specialty
  • Developing strong desire and commitment to succeed in the achieving this goal
  • Continued reflection and introspection about this specialty with an aim to improve your performance and knowledge
  • Focusing the attention upon this area to develop powerful concentration
  • Willingness to sacrifice desires in other aspects of your life to focus on this area
  • Associating with those who have achieved mastery in this field to learn their methods; obtaining coaching, teaching or mentoring
    from an expert or adept in this area

Discipline and the Path

Meditation is a Seventh Ray application of discipline. It includes learning to control your body and your vehicles of consciousness, to monitor the contents of awareness in different vehicles, and to actively unfold your spiritual evolutionary potentials.

Meditation begins as a process of inner observing and monitoring. After mastery of these rudimentary practices, meditation activates key inner centers: the attentional principle, the spirit, and the ensouling entity.

These types of spiritual discipline include:

Form of Discipline

Examples

Moral Discipline

Voluntary self-restraint, observance of rules for living such as Yama or Niyama.

Discipline of the body

Sitting still in a stable posture, practice of Yoga asanas or martial art poses.

Discipline of the senses

Withdraw of sensory current (Pratyahara), and detachment from the objects of sense (Vairagya)

Discipline of the attention

Steady gaze (Tratakam), Concentration (Dharana), Contemplation (Dhyana), and Absorption in the object of meditation (Samadhi)

Discipline of the attentional principle

Using suggestion programming and creation to control the vehicles of consciousness; using intention to the attention to perform attunements and to travel in full consciousness on to inner Planes

Discipline of the spirit

Engaging in remembrance of the Divine, voluntarily surrendering to God and the spiritual Master, dedicating all possessions and wealth and energy to the service of God, and following the Divine Will as it is revealed to you

Spiritual discipline aims to ultimately prepare the meditator to become a spiritual Master. This process of inner discipline, which yields progressively deeper egress into the depths of the mind, may be said to pass through 12 stages:

Level of the Mind

Stage

Abilities

Conscious

(1) Rudimentary Stage

Meditators are first introduced to very basic meditations that do not go deeper than the Conscious mind. They are capable of Practical meditation, relaxation, self-soothing, and introspection.

Subconscious

(2) Liminal Access Stage

The meditator can access the chakras of the Subconscious mind, and focus on the seats of the attentional principle and the spirit. With some practice, they consciously can enter the astral body, and utilize hypnotic suggestion. They can also scan through their personal unconscious to access early experiences.

Metaconscious

(3) Personal Empowerment Stage

These meditators can access self and utilize the faculties of the Metaconscious mind consciously. They can activate the will to take charge of personal destiny; they can set goals and accomplish them. They are capable of Centering meditation.

Superconscious

(4) Subtle Realm Access Stage

These meditators can enter the first band of the Superconscious mind, the Subtle Realm. They can access the higher octaves of the will operating in this band of the Great Continuum of Consciousness and may practice invocation, and magical or shamanic rituals. Those that reach this stage or above can practice Transcendence Meditation.

(5) Planetary Realm Access

(Psychic Attunement Stage)

These meditators activate their vehicles in the Psychic Realm, which grants powers of psychic sensitivity, healing, channeling, and reception of intuitive guidance. They may consciously commune with spiritual guides and can consciously unite with their Soul.

(6) Planetary Realm Access

(Holy Spirit Attunement and
Solar Angelic Attunement Stage)

These meditators can invite the Divine through prayer and invocation to anchor the Holy Spirit. Advanced meditators in this band can utilize the power of the spoken word (decree) to manifest their intentions.

(7) Planetary Realm Access

(Mental Attunement Stage)

These meditators can attune with the Manasic and the Buddhic Realms, and can receive, integrate, and transmit thought directed from the Soul, the Monad, and Initiates of the Planetary Hierarchy.

(8) Planetary Realm Access

(Empowered Union Stage)

These meditators unite the Soul with the Monad and become Adepts. They are capable of ministering the Light of Spirit to others; they become instruments of the Divine Will.

(9) Higher Octave Access Stage

These meditators can access the ensouling entities, spirits, or nuclei of identity of the Transplanetary Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental band of Great Continuum of Consciousness. They can direct their attention to these levels and perform inner spiritual work at these levels.

(10) Higher Octave Empowerment

As a result of these higher octave practices these meditators gain mastery over one band of the Continuum and become Initiates within that zone. This confers Higher Octave spiritual Mastery.

(11) Multiple Higher Octave Empowerment

Certain advanced Initiates gain mastery in more than one band of Great Continuum of Consciousness, and may have forms of Mastery in the Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental Spheres.

(12) Multiplane Mastery

This confers the ability to work in any realm of Great Continuum of Consciousness, and extends the mantle of mastery to all 12 spiritual domains and to all 13 ensouling entities.

The ability to discipline yourself will lead to progress and mastery of your chosen genre in personal life. When applied to spiritual development, it will lead you progressively across the Great Continuum of Consciousness, and ultimately, help you achieve spiritual Mastery. Without discipline, you will accomplish little in your personal and spiritual development. With discipline, all things become possible.

Keys for dealing with depression

Dealing with Depression: Some Lessons from Music

By George A. Boyd ©2016

200px-pianokeyboard-svg

When you are depressed—“D-pressed”—you need to switch to another key. When you’re stuck in D, you keep looking at how bad things are and what isn’t working.

So first you need to C—to see—what the issue is. So, you inquire, and you gain some understanding. You begin to C what is making you depressed.

After you do this for some time, you start to C sharp—you see clearly what is bothering you.

Then you need to play your E. When you feel joy and delight, you go EEEEE! E is the sound of delight! You need to focus on what brings you joy, the good things in your life, the beauty around you, and what evokes feelings of gratitude.

The problem for many people is that their E is flat—E flat. They aren’t in touch with their joy; they only remember their misery. So you need to re-focus on your E—your inner joy and gratitude, the things that make you go Yesssssss!

The other thing people who are depressed don’t realize is that have their F. So these are your options, F I do this instead, I don’t have to be D-pressed. When you shift to your F mode, you look at your options—what you are able to do right now, as opposed to what you can’t do. When you focus on what you can do, you can move, you can shift. When you focus on what you can’t do, it keeps you depressed—D-pressed.

The other mode is the F sharp. Your F sharp supplants the questioning F mode, which is where you look at F I do this instead. When you are functioning in F sharp, you say “F-you” to your obstacles and you are determined to press ahead. You get mad, and you resolve to not let your problems get in your way.

Then there is G. When you go G—gee (!)—You realize something. You have an insight. You put two and two together. You connect the dots. You uncover the mental patterns of beliefs and feelings that are making you feel depressed.

When you shift to G sharp, you discover the origins of your depression. You find the original decision that made you feel depressed.

Then there is A. When you go “A”—you greet your friends—“A, how’s it going!” You get some support. You don’t hang out alone. You seek the solace of loving friends and family—which cheers you up! You feel you aren’t alone. You feel that somebody loves you and genuinely cares about you.

The problem is, for many people, their A is flat—A flat. They don’t believe their friends will be there for them.
But you have got to decide that you’re going to find a true friend, who won’t judge you or criticize you for being depressed. Instead, they will encourage you and listen to you. Because a friend like that—who can give you unconditional love and acceptance—can make you feel there is hope again.

Then there is B. People don’t realize that there is a place inside of them where they can just be. You don’t have to do anything, you can just B. You might not be able to change things right now, so you can let them B.

When you are in B—the state of being, the place of now—you take a step beyond your suffering. You experience what is. You don’t resist your experience. You are open, accepting of what is, present, and mindful.

A difficulty for many people, however, is that their B is flat—B flat. They have come to associate being with boredom. But actually, if you can truly B, it is freeing and renewing.

What’s the last time you let yourself be? Without having to do anything? Without having any deadlines to meet? Without having 30 things to do on your to-do list? Without mentally obsessing about all the things you still have to get done? And you can just B present?

Well, helping you to use these other keys is the specialty of meditation teachers. They teach you to see—C. They show you how to get in touch with your joy—E. They guide you to contemplate your options—F. They give you methods that will promote insights—G. They lead you to discover your deep, silent, wise, and powerful being—B.

So honey, if you are D-pressed, remember you have all these other keys. These are exactly the keys you need to need to get out of your depression: to see (C), to feel your joy and gratitude (E), to examine your other options (F), to make the decision to change (F sharp), to gain insight (G), to seek support (A), and to tune into that part of you that dwells beyond the suffering, that abides in peace (B).

In this peace, there is also another key. It’s the bridge to the C of the next higher octave, Compassion. It’s this deep wellspring of compassion inside of you that can love you so much, that your depression feels like it is melting away, and you can just be in peace.


Please note: these are self-help measures. If you are so seriously depressed that you cannot implement them, you cannot engage in the activities of your life, you are obsessed with hurting yourself or hurting other people—you need to see a mental health professional right away.