Experiencing A Shift in Awareness

By George A. Boyd © 2017

Underlying meditation is the ability to make an intentional shift in awareness from the waking state of consciousness to an altered state of awareness. Incorporated into this shift of awareness is a concomitant change in your sense of identity and how you are capable of working on yourself. Seven major shifts from this waking state of consciousness are described below.

  1. Waking state of awareness – You experience yourself as a unified organism, a body-mind with nothing outside of it. You simply live your life without giving thought to change.
  2. Mindset of suggestion – You are a mind that influences the body. You relax and enter a state of hypnosis, where you can give suggestion to your body and you can program your behavior. You believe that you can change yourself.
  3. Mindset of personal actualization – You are a being that has a body, emotions, and mind. You have an internal experience of your body, emotions, and mind; you have an external experience of these three aspects of your nature in the environment around you, in your relationships with other people, and your communication of your beliefs and ideas to others. By working with the issues that impact these six areas of your life, you become more whole and actualized as you turn your dreams into reality.
  4. Observing mind – You are the attention that observes your body, emotions, and mind. You are able to process the issues that underlie the tension and pain in your body, your emotional concerns, and your mental problems through giving your full attention to each of these elements that perturb your experience. You become capable of processing each issue to the state of peace. You enter the state of mindfulness.
  5. Attentional travel – Your attention moves along the thread of consciousness. You discover your mind has many different strata or dimensions. You can observe the operation of these different levels of the mind as a series of forms or vehicles of consciousness. You become capable of depth meditation.
  6. Discovery of the essence of consciousness and intention – As your attention moves to into the system of chakras of your Subconscious mind, you encounter the principle of consciousness and intention, which we call the attentional principle, or Purusha. As you activate this essence and train it to move into yet higher dimensions of the mind, you become capable of doing spiritual work (sadhana). You can activate a transformational mantra, travel in full consciousness through the spiritual Planes, anchor suggestion into any vehicle of consciousness, develop the faculties of inner seeing and hearing that let you experience the phenomena of these higher Planes, and to do healing Light ministry and attunement.
  7. Discovery of the essence of love and devotion – As you focus your attention at specific locations in your Superconscious mind, you encounter your spiritual heart. When you activate this aspect of your nature, you become capable of traveling back to the spirit’s origin on the inner channels of light and sound, which we call the Nadamic channels. You develop spiritual purity, holiness, and spiritual virtues, as you refine this essence.
  8. Discovery of the Higher Self – As you focus your attention on your Soul, you experience the state of union with the Divine Atom within you. You experience bliss, the downpour of intuitional knowledge, the outpouring of unconditional love and compassion, and the activation of your Soul’s innate powers. You experience enlightenment and Gnosis.

Your innate capacity to shift your perception and identity through these seven higher levels beyond your waking state of consciousness is called awareness. Meditation is a key skill that enables you to make these voluntary shifts in your awareness. This changes what you perceive, what you believe you are capable of doing, and ultimately, your experience of who you are.

This identity shift from the waking state of awareness can be captured in a series of affirmations.

At the waking state of awareness, level one, you experience your identity as, “I am the body.”

At level two, you experience, “I am the mind that influences the body.”

At level three, your affirmation becomes, “I am a physical, emotional, and mental being, with an inner and outer life. I am the integral Self that is capable of change, learning, growth, and actualization.”

At level four, you affirm, “I am the perceiving mind (attention) that witnesses the content of the present time experience of my body, emotions and mind.”

At level five, you realize “I am a multidimensional being with many focal points along the thread of consciousness, where I can witness the content arising in each vehicle of consciousness. I can consciously encounter the personal integration centers of the ego and the Self that integrate and control each vehicle of consciousness within their purview.

As your attention continues to journey through the multi-dimensional matrix of your mind, you discover the three immortal principles: attentional principle, spirit, and Soul. Through union and identification with each essence, you become capable of expressing each of these essences.

At level six, you affirm, “I am consciousness and intention.”

At level seven, you recognize, “I am the spirit.”

At level eight, you realize, “I am the Soul.”

Once you can identify these immortal principles within you, you become capable of inner work and transformation of your eternal nature. To access these levels, it is essential to have the meditational tools to unite your attention with these essences.

In the Mudrashram® system of Integral meditation, we train you in using the meditational tools that enable you to access levels four through eight. You explore levels four and five in our beginning course, the Introduction to Meditation Program. We give you the essential tools to awaken and activate levels six, seven, and eight in our intermediate courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program.

In the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation, we introduce you to yet higher states of being in the levels of the Great Continuum of Consciousness beyond where your Higher Self dwells. You learn to travel in full consciousness into Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental bands of the Continuum, and encounter your spiritual essences at those levels—stages of spiritual development into which you will evolve through using essential transformational practices that we impart to you in our intermediate courses.

We invite you to explore these voluntary shifts in awareness until you can produce them at will in yourself. We stand ready to assist you with a complete toolbox of methods to help you master levels four through eight and beyond.