Stages of spiritual attainment
Stages of spiritual attainment
Spiritual attainment is a gradual process. From day one no one can be an
enlightened person. It take its own time for the spiritual unfoldment to happen.
The overall path of spiritual attainment can be divided in four stages. Each
stage shows certain symptoms based on which the seeker can come to know about
his or her progress. These four stages are explained below:
Stage 1 - Purification of Prana
State 1 is a beginning stage where mainly all sorts of purification takes
place. Purification of prana and nadis is an important step in this stage. The
practitioner becomes pure, light of limbs, gastric fire increases, whole day the
practitioner feels energetic. His body becomes free from diseases.
Stage 2 - Awakening of Prana
In this stage the practitioner gets reasonable control on sense organs. His
chakras are opened up considerably. Prana and Apana start uniting. He may get
divine vision. He may experience a blissful state. One also sees purification
the five great elements.
Stage 3 - Awakening of Kundalini
The most important event that happens in Stage 3 is entry of prana in
Sushumna. The practitioner may feel as if ants are crawling on his body. One may
feel a tingling sensation in spinal column. A hot wave of energy may be felt
rising from Mooladhara to Sahasrara. One may feel Shakti moving in his body.
Light may be seen and divine sounds may be heard. One may spontaneously do some
pranayamas and kriyas.
Stage 4 - Meditation Matures
This is the final stage in which the meditative aspect of the practice
becomes more and more mature. Kundalini merges in Sahasrara. The practitioner
can remain absorbed in deep meditation for hours. Finally, Samadhi is attained.
One important thing to remember is that the practitioner should not
continuously keep looking for these symptoms. Spiritual awakening is not a
chemical formula where mixing fixed number of chemicals in fixed proportions
give the same results to all. Spiritual progress varies from person to person.
The symptoms given above are just rough indications and should not be
considered as a fixed measure for each and every seeker.
Bipin Joshi is an independent software consultant and trainer by profession specializing in Microsoft web development technologies. Having embraced the Yoga way of life he is also a yoga mentor, meditation teacher, and spiritual guide to his students. He is a prolific author and writes regularly about software development and yoga on his websites. He is programming, meditating, writing, and teaching for over 27 years. To read more about him go here. More details about his Kriya and Meditation online course are available here.