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154
Hermann Kuhn
APPLICATION
blocked as long as the existing latent karma (i.e. our inactive emotional attachments to experiences on lower levels) obstructs further advancement.
It is not required to experience level 7 to 11 sequentially. We may e.g. bypass all these levels to get a feeling for gunasthana 11 and then later go back at will to explore any of the levels we sidestepped.
2) The dissolution of karma. On this path our remain
ing karma is dissolved once and for all. It bypasses level 11 and leads via level 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 to level 14 and then to liberation. This path is the only way to liberation.
In the seventh and higher stages pleasure and pain - as we knew them on the lower levels - still manifest as the respective karmas mature. Yet these feelings now hardly attract our attention. We presently are far more in touch with our own eternal character that was merely suppressed by our attachment to karma. With intense joy we feel radiant bliss nearby that attracts us far more than any pleasure or pain the lower gunasthanas might offer.
The seventh to the tenth gunasthanas appear less well defined than the stages one to six. This happens because we now change stages far more frequently than ever before and also because we pause only for short periods on each level. Initially it may even be difficult to identify the specific characteristics of each stage.
But 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
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