The Fourteen Stages of Development (Jainism)

(From Wikipedia)

The fourteen stages of development according to Jainism:

According to the Jain tradition, through the following fourteen stages of development, the soul gradually frees itself, firstly from the worst, then from the less bad and finally from all kinds of karma, and manifests the innate qualities of knowledge, belief and conduct in a more and more perfect form.

The first four gunasthana are related to belief or rationality in perception. As and when the soul acquires rationality in perception it moves on to 4^th gunasthana. Stages 5 to 14 relate to conduct. The purity in conduct determines the gunasthana from the 5^th stage onwards. Those who have taken the anuvratas {minor vows} may reach up to the 5^th Gunasthana. The 6^th to 14^th Gunasthanas can only be attained by those who have taken the Mahavratas (the major vows) of Jain asceticism.

The Fourteen Stages

मिथ्यदृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of wrong belief.
सस्वदानंसंयाग्दृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one who has a slight taste of right belief.
मिश्रदृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of mixed belief.
अविराट संयाग्दृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one who has true belief but has not self discipline.
देसाविराटा संयाग्दृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of partial self-control.
प्रमातसंयत संयाग्दृष्टि गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of complete self-discipline, although sometimes wavering due to negligence.
अप्रमातसंयत गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of self-control without negligence.
निवृत्ति बद्र संपराय गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one in whom the passions are still manifesting in an unevolved form.
अनिवृत्ति बद्र संपराय गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one who practices the process called anivritti karana and in whom passions are still occurring.
सूक्षं संपराय गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one in whom passions occur in a subtle form.
उपासमा कस्याव वित्राग चद्मस्ता गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of one who has suppressed every passion but still does not possess omniscience.
क्सिन कस्याव वित्राग चद्मस्ता गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of who has annihilated every passion but does not yet possess omniscience.
संयोगी केवलिन गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of omniscience with activity.
अयोगी केवलिन गुणस्थानः॥	The stage of omniscience without any activity.

Levels Of Thinking

"George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that most humans live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential." -- Wikipedia.

Gurdjieff taught that thoughts have hypnotic power.
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Levels of thought based on my understanding:

Level 1 : Unaware of thoughts. Can say things like "I think", "I was thinking about XYZ", but has NO IDEA at all what thoughts are.

Such a person, if you say to him something like - "I hear voices in my head" - he will tell you to go to a shrink.

Because he has no idea what thinking is.


Level 2 : Semi aware of thoughts. Understands that thoughts are spoken words. Assumes that his thoughts are correct about everything. Takes pride in the human 'intellect', reasoning etc.


Level 3: Aware of thoughts. Semi aware of the errors in his thinking process. At this level, thoughts could be very painful.


Level 4: Has knowledge of thoughts. Knowledge because he has reached a point where he does not assume that his thoughts are correct all the time.


Level 5 : Thoughts have slowed down and transmuted into a peaceful stream. Quality of thoughts has improved. Because observation of errors in thinking has improved thinking. Consequently the pain has gone.