Shaktipat meditation uses living, divine energy to bring the teachings from the mind of the teacher to the mind of the student. It is the fastest path to fulfillment, and forms the most evolved teacher/student relationships on our planet.

Shaktipat is a type of subtle energy, meaning particles of energy too small for modern science to observe or detect. However, science can observe the effects of subtle energy. The experiments of Clive Backster, the inventor of the lie detector machine, demonstrate the effects of thoughts and subtle energy on plants.

It is essential that the Shaktipat meditation master is not only fully realized, but also fully clean and clear. It is simply not possible for any teacher to give anyone a state of meditation that they themselves do not have, and realization, or enlightenment, is the goal of the Shaktipat teaching. As the Shaktipat energy flows through the teacher, it picks up the essence of the teacher. If the teacher is contaminated with yearnings or suppressed emotions, these harmful energies will be transmitted to the student along with the beneficial teaching. If the teacher is full of love, peace and joy, that is what the student will experience.

Realization is defined here as having experienced the twelve levels of consciousness listed below. These twelve levels are taken from the writings of the great Yogi Vivekananda and rewritten here to make them more understandable for today’s readers. Vivekananda’s complete writings are available on the Internet.

Shaktipat meditation can frog-jump students through these levels, allowing them to go directly to higher levels such as God-realization, oneness, and emptiness. This is accomplished by the teacher putting his own meditative state directly into the student. It is then the responsibility of the student to meditate with dedication in that state until he is anchored in it. If the student fails to do his meditation work, the great gift his teacher has given him will quickly be lost, leaving behind only a beautiful memory.

These twelve levels are usually experienced by most practitioners. It is common to be growing on several levels at once. Levels can be experienced in a different order than listed here. Some practitioners never consciously experience some levels. Some traditions focus completely on God while others ignore God and go towards Oneness. There are many differences of opinion about the higher levels of Samadhi. The levels are presented here as a general guide.

1. Understand the purpose of our existence. We are spiritual beings enjoying an earthly experience, not human beings seeking a spiritual experience. You reach this level when you consciously begin your Spiritual work.

2. See the suffering of others. When you begin to see beyond your own selfishness to the needs of others, you begin to want to help them.

3. Take away the suffering of others. Consciously working to heal and teach others gives you the fastest growth.

4. Find passion, peace and love. When we selflessly work for others, we become passionate about our practice and our work. We also discover peace within ourselves and universal Love, love with a capital L.

5. Conversion of negative energies to positive. Anger, fear, sadness, negative thoughts and entities that hit your aura are transformed into Love by the Love that emanates from you.

6. Opening the Third Eye. Your psychic abilities awaken.

7. Bliss. You experience unlimited joy. You become able to find happiness in all circumstances because bliss springs from your inner being and does not depend on external circumstances.

8. The Source. You experience your direct connection with the Supreme Being, also called Allah, Jehovah, and God the Father.

9. Become the source. You become an inexhaustible source of energy exactly like God.

10. Unity. You experience that our entire universe is a conscious, living, intelligent organism without division or separation. Everything is a very living energy field.

11. The nothing. Your complete being, all your experiences and creations completely dissolve into blackness. All egoic mental structures disappear. You become capable of experiencing reality and creating real structures.

12. Nirvana or to be inferior or not to be. There is a lot of debate about this state and if there is something beyond it. It can only be experienced. It cannot be explained in understandable terms.

Completing these twelve levels can be compared to graduating from a Western university with a bachelor’s degree that prepares the student for graduate work. Achieving realization allows people to experience reality and begin to learn how to work with it.

This process of learning to work in reality continues for the rest of a person’s life as they go deeper and deeper into meditation. Again, the teaching of Shaktipat meditation by a person further down the path can greatly speed up learning.