MENTAL STATES

There are nine mental stages which characterize stages of our development. They are:

1. Dullness
2. Agitation
3. Mechanical reflection
4. Concern
5. Engagement in problems
6. Thinking
7. Deeper thinking
8. Higher thinking
9. Creativity

These nine stages of mind gradually develop in us through our striving. They are characterized by

1. Dullness, inertia, involvement in maya, carelessness, apathy, depression, indifference.

2. Agitation of the senses which demand pleasure, satisfaction, food, dress, shelter, transportation.

3. Mechanical reflection, following instincts, following orders, commands, thoughts, or desires of others, following the ideas and opinions of the masses.

4. Concern about business, life, wife, husband, children, future.

5. Engagement in problems such as food, health, money, housing, war, pain, suffering.

6. Starting to think on our own, trying to solve our own problems, trying to protect our body, family, future, and finding the ways and means to do it.

7. Deeper thinking, seeing the causes of many events, trying to find the laws controlling life in general, trying to prevent destruction, transmuting energies to higher centers.

8. Higher thinking, coming closer to the Hierarchical Plan, cooperating with the Law of Hierarchy, finding the laws controlling the astral and mental worlds, receiving impressions from higher sources and formulating them to meet the needs of life.

9. Creative thinking, bringing into existence those forms which will allow people to surpass their difficulties and their present level, come in contact with beauty, energy, love, light, and joy, and find their way toward superhuman evolution.

We can prepare for higher mental states by exercising

1. Discrimination
2. Dispassion
3. Self-control
4. Desire for liberation

Discrimination is thinking in relation to the Plan or the Purpose, or in the light of the Plan and Purpose. Discrimination is not only knowing but also choosing the factors that are in harmony with the Plan and Purpose.

Dispassion is the ability to insulate oneself from the influence of self-interest, the influence of objects and persons, and think in the clear light of the consciousness.

Self control is the ability to control your personality and life with the purpose of your divine Self.

Desire for liberation is the urge to stand above your physical, emotional, and mental worlds and act by the intuitional light.