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APPLICATION
14 STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
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karma. With intense joy we feel radiant bliss nearby that attracts us far more than any pleasure or pain the lower stages might offer.
As we follow the path of 'suspension of karma' that takes us rapidly from level 7 to level 11 and down again, we may at will stop at any of the gunasthanas we want to experience more closely. An analogy would equal this to a circular subwaysystem that gives us the option to get in or out at any particular station.
From the seventh level onwards we are far more in control of our fate than ever before. We may at any time choose to dissolve our final emotional attachments to karmic limitations and to proceed to level 12 and finally to ultimate freedom.
But we also have the choice of temporarily going back to stage four or five (though never to stage 1, 2 or 3), if we feel that the experience of particular events or emotions in these stages may enrich our scope of life and be necessary for our further progress. During our return to these (emotionally far denser) levels we may lose much of our previous higher insights until only a vague memory remains. Yet our time on the lower levels is limited. After completing the desired experience, we automatically
raise again to the higher level we came from. 8 - On the eighth level (apurva karana) entirely new and unknown
abilities open up. Our consciousness recognizes itself in everything it encounters. Though mild forms of passions still arise, we experience immense delight in either dissolving them or checking their consequences. From this stage onwards the practice of the highest form of meditation (shukla dliyana - 'white mediation') becomes possible. slukla dhyana is the instrument that enables us to achieve ultimate freedom.
9 - In the ninth gunasthana (anivritta karana) we experience an
expansion of the abilities of the eighth level.
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