(unmediated – without substances)
Once the individual passes through the crises of ego death and the knot in the navel is ‘severed’ the heart breaks open then the beginning of the fourth stage of life begins.
Energy is felt to be centered in the region of the middle chest. The life energy is no longer associated with the left side of the heart and the downward current. The current of life is reversed. The revulsion of life energy, needing to be ‘thrown out’ has turned. Breathing comes in and out of the heart region and the navel is expanded. Breathing falls naturally into the navel, the belly has dropped. The navel is expanded with life energy the contraction or knot in the navel is gone.
One is aware and awake from the heart. The feeling center of being is the middle heart. Feeling is awakened and the mummery of life is awakened. The play of life is just that a play. Life is no longer a ‘serious’ affair, humour is awakened and laughter is alive. Every moment is a moment of ‘unfolding possibilities’ without the crunch of death pressing in.
This stage of live is the beginning of the Subtle, Astral or Higher Mind. The mind continues as it did before only in the context of the Open Heart. Feeling is awakened and is not the orgin of ones life. The horror of this is the ‘madness’ of life and what ‘others’ are doing. The unity of what one feels at this stage is alive and the need for strife, struggle and the fight for survival is ended. One is alive and is Lived. The breathing if happening and the mind is running, the Witness is Alive.
In some cases the Mind is ‘blank’. Nothing is happening any more. The content of images and visions is gone. One closes ones eyes and there is nothing there. It’s a blank, black screen. Breathing is alive and feeling is pulsating. Thoughts continue and are witnessed. Freedom is apparent. Your home, and the Paradox is Awakened. Not just philosophically but Actually, in every moment.
Human demands of life are exactly the same. The only difference is ones relationship to them. The Mystery is awakened and the responsibility to ‘submit’ to That Which Is is Constant and Alive. This is the beginning of spiritual life.
Based on States of Life – Fourth through Seventh – Adi Da Samraj
Heart Open in Love. Love of God, the God of Love. Devotional Surrender to God.
The Fourth Stage of Life
(in Its Beginnings, Its Basics, and Its Transitional Role as a Means toward the Process and the Realization associated with the Fifth Stage of Life)
This stage of life corresponds to the fourth charka.
The Heart Opens in Love, Truth and Reality. There is a natural disposition of devotional surrender to god truth, or the Mystery.
The of course does not mean one does not have to function in the first three stages of life. Quite the opposite, one continues to live just as before except that all life is lived from the heart and is primarily broken from the egoic struggle for identification with the three lower stages of life. One if fundamentally orientated and dependent on The Divine Reality or Truth, not the ego struggle to the survival, recognition or domination of the egoic bodymind. It is truly the first stage of the Bodhisvatta.
The Hindu (and General Indian) Tradition of Religious and Philosophical Mysticism
1. Bhakti Yoga
2. Narada Bhakti Sutras
3. The Roots of the Modern Bhakti Tradition
4. Modern Teachers of Bhakti Yoga
a. Ramakrishna, His Source-Traditions, His Devotees, and the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Movement
b. Rang Avadhoot and the Dattatreya Tradition
c. Akkalkot Maharaj and the Dattatreya Tradition
d. Shirdi Sai Baba and his Devotees
e. Upasani Baba and his Devotees
f. The Life, Teachings, and Source-Traditions of Meher Baba
g. The Life and Teachings of the Shivapuri Baba
h. The Life and Teachings of Swami Ramdas
(including the Autobiography of his Principal Devotee, Mother Krishnabai)
i. The Life and Teachings of Sitaramdas Omkarnath
j. The Life and Teachings of Anandamayi Ma
k. Neem Karoii Baba and his Devotees
Modern Hindu (and Christian) Proponents of “Evolutionary Idealism”, or the Tradition wherein Bodily (and Otherwise Human) Spiritualization and Even Bodily Immortalization are Sought, and Which are to be Achieved by Means of the Descent (or Bodily, or Otherwise Human, Contemplation) of Divine Power
The Classical Mediterranean Tradition of Religious and Philosophical Mysticism, which is the Root-Tradition of All Western (or All Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) Mysticism, and which (Especially in the Form of Greek Neo-Platonism) is (in Many Respects) Rooted in the Mysticism of the East (Especially that of India)
The Jewish Tradition of Religious Mysticism
The Christian Tradition of Religious Mysticism
1. The Catholic and Protestant (or “Western Church”) Traditions of Christian Religious Mysticism.
2. The Orthodox (or “Eastern Church”) Tradition of Christian Religious Mysticism
3. The “Oriental,” Tradition of Christian Religious Mysticism
E. The Islamic Tradition of Religious Mysticism
F. The “Other-Power” Tradition of Shin Buddhism
Fifth Stage
Persons in the fifth stage of life are always in Yogic Samadhi, always immersed in the ascended Spiritual energies. Examples: Swami Nityananda, Swami Muktananda, Swami Rudrananda, Sai Baba of Shirdi, and Rang Avadhoot, Akkalkot Maharaj and Upasani Baba.
Way of Absorption is a way associated with devotional and Yogic disciplines associated with fourth stage of life. Of which there is the “basic” and “advanced” phases. The advanced stage is the second step in this Energic Way – “absorption in energy”. This advanced step is also corresponds to the fifth stage as a whole.
1. Way of Absorption – basic
2. Engeric Way – advanced
3. Absorption in the Void
4. Absorption in Bliss
A Realization of the fourth and fifth stage would affirm that the conditional self is Really Siva (or the Formless Divine) and the conditional world (from top to bottom) is Really Siva. The confession that the conditional self sublimed by the Revelation as subtle Yogic forms, is (even as a psycho-physical self) Divine.
The Fifth Stage of Life
(and Its Foundation in the Advanced Process of the Fourth Stage of Life)
A. Shamanism (the Root of the Fifth Stage, or Fourth to Fifth Stage Traditions)
B. The Fifth Stage (or Fourth to Fifth Stage) Experience and Its Way of Practice
C. The Fundamental Energy of Mystical Ascent
D. Patanjali and Raja Yoga
E. Hatha Yoga
F. Summaries of Traditional Yogas (Particularly of the Fifth Stage, or Fourth to Fifth Stage, Variety)
G. The Yogas of Subtly Perceived Life-Energy, Sound, and Light
H. Mantra Yoga
I. “Kriya Yoga”
J. Shabd Yoga (or Nada Yoga and the Sikh Tradition
K. The Tradition of Kundalini Shakti Yoga
L. The Tantric Tradition of India (Hindu and Buddhist)
M. The Tibetan (Vajrayana, or Tantric) Buddhist Tradition
N. The Tradition of Taoist Yoga
Primarily the Sixth Stage of Life, including some Expressions of the Seventh Stage of Life
The Tradition of Advaita Vedanta
1.The Ancient Advaitic (or Non-Dualist) Tradition, Shankara, and the Tradition of Shankara
2.Modern Teachers of Advaitism
3. Literature on the Life and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi
(including interpretations of Ramana Maharshi’s Teachings by Various of his Devotees)
4. Ribhu Gita
5. Sri Devikalottara Agama
6. Yoga Vasistha (in Its Sixth, or Sixth to Seventh, Stage Mode)
B. The Samkya Yoga of Patanjali (in Its Sixth Stage Mode)
C. The Jain Tradition
D. The Traditions of Buddhism
1. The Fully Developed Hinayana (or Theravada) Tradition
2. The Mahayana Tradition
3. The Ch’an, or Zen, Tradition of Mahayana Buddhism
4. The Tibetan Tradition
E. The Tradition of Taoism
Sixth Stage
The sixth stage is someone always founded in the Bliss of the Heart Itself, The Feeling of Being, which transends the rising and falling energies of the Circle (ascending and desending circuit of energies) of the body-mind. Examples: Brahmagna Ma, Sadguru Gnanananda, Ramana Marharshi.
A sixth stage tradition is based on a Transcendental point of view, rather than on a conditional point of view, or a psycho-physical or emanated, hierarchical cosmos.
A Realization of the sixth stage tradition would confess the transcendence of the conditional self and only the Trnascendental Self is affirmed. Identifing with only the Transcendental Self.
Traditions
Kashmir Saivism – Muktananda
Saiva Siddhanta
Tibetan Buddhism
Advaita Vedanta – (talking (Shankara*, Atmananda, Swami Satchinanandendra Saraswati, Nisargaddatta Maharaj) and practicing schools (Shankara, Swami Gnanananda, Brahmajna Ma Ramana Maharshi).
This school has as a characteristic method of teaching is engaging their listeners to verbal arguments. Which is in contrast to the real ordeal and deep meditative process and sadhanna.
Practical self discipline, disinclination toward the ‘search’ for (and attachment to) conditional satisfactions associated with the first five stages of life.
Seventh Stage Literature
(or Texts which “Confess” the Seventh Stage Realization, and with Critical, or otherwise Minimal, Address to the Point of View, or the Necessary Progressive Disciplines, of the First Six Stages of Life)
A. Astavakra Gita
B. Avadhoot Gita
C. Tripura Rahasya
D. The Diamond Sutra
E. Mahayanavimsaka
F. Lankavatara Sutra
G. The Sutra of Hui Neng
See more about the Seven Stages of Life