The Novice

The Novice meditator is pretty easy to identify, because for the most part, they’re just starting out with meditation. It’s the very beginning of The Meditative Path.

If this is you, chances are you won't have meditated that much, if at all. It's possible you've dabbled with it before, but have fallen off the horse a few times too. Either way, it'll feel like you're starting fresh again!

No matter what your background is, there’s a sense of just starting out and getting familiar with meditation that unites all novices in this phase of practice.

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Novice stage!

Phase 1- Establishing a Foundation

As a Novice meditator, establishing a good foundation for practice and focusing on the bare minimum to get you started is most important. It's easy to get overwhelmed with information and techniques, which can make it more difficult to get meditating and lead to bad habits down the line.

All you need right now is a good technique, some basic information and clarity, and to get started. Everything else will develop in time as you gain momentum in your practice.

Phase 1 Practice Goals:

• Find a core meditation style that's a good match to you
• Learn the ideal mindset and effort for meditation
• Experiment with some logistics: posture, time of day, caffeine, etc.
• Overcome some common pitfalls related to your core practice and meditation as a whole
• Learn how to track your meditation and progress further

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Novice stage!

The Beginner

The Beginner meditator is still fairly new to meditation, but unlike The Novice, they've begun meditating. If this is you, your practice might not always be clear, structured, or consistent, but you ARE meditating!

If you’ve meditated before, this part of The Meditative Path is where you’ll most likely identify, even if there’s some aspects of The Novice you’d still benefit from going over.

If you haven't found a suitable meditation technique yet, you're likely doing a lot of guided meditations offered on other apps and YouTube.

No matter your starting point, when you practice, you might not always be sure if you're doing things right. You'll struggle with distractions like sounds, thoughts, body discomfort, and/or fidgeting.

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Beginner stage!

Phase 2- Refining Your Technique

As a Beginner meditator, the most important thing to focus on is refining your technique and working with common distractions. This will build off the momentum and experience you've been cultivating in Phase 1.

Any meditators who have been practicing with guided meditations should first go through The Novice phase to find a suitable core practice and establish a proper foundation before moving forward.

Phase 2 Practice Goals:

• Learn how to establish proper mindfulness
• Learn how to balance the 3 E's in your practice: effort, engagement, & energy
• Discover how to work with common distractions like thoughts, sounds, and physical sensations to calm your mind
• Discover how to overcome dullness within your practice to achieve more mental clarity and alertness
• Begin evaluating your practice after to more effectively adapt and grow through this phase
• Start bringing in an element of self discovery by exploring signs of personal resistance around your practice (like procrastination, uncertainty, too much pressure, etc.)

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Beginner stage!

The Intermediate

The Intermediate meditator is much easier to distinguish because there’s a confidence and consistency that has been developed in their practice. There may even be some exciting meditative phenomena beginning to happen!

If this is you, your practice is definitely more established than it used to be. You make time to meditate, and do so fairly consistently. You're not just meditating for 10-15 minutes. You're going through your process, working with distractions, letting your mind settle properly, and putting in some real effort.

Sometimes meditation might feel wonderful, easy, and like it just clicked into place effortlessly, but other times you might find yourself having to "knuckle down" more. This can pose some unique challenges with the quality of your meditation.

On the "good days" exciting meditative phenomena are likely to show up as a result of skillful practice! This will vary from person to person, but sudden jolts of mental clarity and effortlessness, brightness, lights, energy sensations, and pleasant feelings are all common examples reported at this stage.

You're also going to start tapping into very uplifting mind states that will bring inner happiness, contentment, creativity, and clearer access to your intuition. It's at this phase that people really start to feel like their practice is taking off!

If you haven’t felt any of these yet, it doesn’t mean you’re not an intermediate. But it’s not uncommon to show up as you near this stage of practice, so it’s worth noting.

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Intermediate stage!

Phase 3- Overcoming Limiting Mindsets & Achieving a Key Meditative State

As an Intermediate meditator, you've already put in considerable time developing consistency and technique in your practice, so the best way to help you progress is by focusing on the QUALITY of your practice by: overcoming limiting mindsets and achieving a key meditative state.

Now that you've established a proper foundation and refined your technique, you get to start learning the more internal aspects of meditation. It's during this stage that you'll really start to see the artistry behind meditation. It's not just a process-based skill, but a unique path that unfolds each and every time.

These limiting mindsets are mental traps that all meditators will face, but how they manifest for you will be unique. But no matter how they manifest, you can trace them back to the same 5 mindsets time and time again. Learning to recognize and navigate these mind states are the first area of focus during this phase.

In this phase, the limiting mindsets you'll learn to overcome, directly block your ability to achieve a key meditative state. It's known by a few names, some you might have seen before like: access concentration, light trance, beta/alpha brainwaves, Monroe's Focus 3, the hemi-sync state, etc. I like to call it the key state, for simplicity's sake.

No matter its name, you can think of this meditative state as a key that unlocks a much higher potential for connecting with higher consciousness and utilizing your intuitive abilities. It has a mental aspect of happiness, peace, and contentment that's ripe with creative potential and enhanced problem solving abilities.

Phase 3 Practice Goals:

• Learning how to identify and overcome the 5 limiting mindsets
• Learning how to balance this more introspective phase of practice with the more technical phases from before
• Accessing a key meditative state known in many different spiritual practices that helps you connect with higher consciousness and utilize your intuitive abilities

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Intermediate stage!

The Advanced

The Advanced meditator is identifiable by the fact that they're now using the technique and self-awareness they've developed to connect with higher consciousness and utilize their intuitive abilities more effectively.

In this sense, an advanced practitioner begins to see meditation not just as a skill (The Novice & The Beginner), or an art (The Intermediate), but as a life practice that deeply affects all areas of your life.

This can look very different depending on the practitioner. But if this is you, you’ve now progressively built a foundation of knowledge and experience, developed a consistency of practice, and have refined the quality of your meditation.

And as a result, you’re regularly achieving the key state consistently and letting it become the focus of your meditation before exploring various areas of practice.

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Advanced stage!

Phase 4- Connecting With Higher Consciousness

As an Advanced meditator, it’s not so much about progressing any more, but using what you've learned to further explore other areas of practice that connect you with higher consciousness and your intuitive abilities, while further developing mental qualities of joy, peace, and creativity.

We categorize these areas of further practice all under the umbrella of "higher consciousness" because they let us connect to higher parts of ourself, our world, spirit, and a greater reality.

In Phase 4, there's no clear way forward. There are many doors for you to walk through depending on your interest, all of which will be benefited from the key state (Phase 3).

*Potential Phase 4 Practice Goals:

• Learning more progressively refined mental states that give you a true sense of inner-happiness, contentment, and peace
• Learning how to access the immaterial through out of body experiences (OBEs) and astral travel
• Learning how to connect to the immaterial through trance speaking/channeling
• Learning how to use the key state for self discovery, creativity, and problem solving
• Learning how to use the key state for increased intuitive abilities like psychic development and mediumship

*This is not a comprehensive list

Click here for a more in-depth breakdown of The Advanced stage!