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.