In this tradition, spiritual progress is understood as a graded but integrated movement of the mind toward Supreme Consciousness, supported by a systematic discipline of practice. Foundational to this path are moral and ethical observances (yama and niyama), which purify conduct and provide the necessary stability for deeper inner work. Upon this base, practitioners receive stepwise initiations into meditation (sádhaná), each lesson opening a more subtle dimension of ideation on the Divine, including personal mantra, constant remembrance, and progressively refined forms of concentration and visualization. These practical stages are not merely technical; they are intended to transform the practitioner’s relationship with the world, gradually shifting identification from the body and material life toward a devotional orientation in which everything is seen as an expression of the Supreme.

The inner journey is often described through three broad stages of meditative development: dhárańá, dhyána, and samádhi. Dhárańá is the cultivation of one-pointed concentration, where the mind is trained to remain fixed on a chosen object such as a mantra or a psychic center. As this concentration becomes more continuous, it matures into dhyána, a sustained flow of mind toward the Supreme Ideal, in which the scattered tendencies of the mind are increasingly unified. When this current of ideation becomes so intense and uninterrupted that the apparent distinction between meditator, object of meditation, and the act of meditating dissolves, the state is called samádhi, or absorption in Supreme Consciousness. Within this highest stage, various subtle grades are acknowledged, culminating in a condition of complete, non-dual absorption.

Alongside these technical and experiential stages, spiritual progress is also marked by the deepening of devotion and the refinement of consciousness. The path leads from crude awareness, centered on material existence, toward more subtle and causal levels of mind, and finally toward the realization of Supreme Consciousness. As devotion matures, the practitioner moves from ordinary religious feeling to a state in which every thought and action is suffused with the sense of the Divine Beloved, a condition known as supreme devotion (parábhakti). Throughout this process, spiritual practice is inseparable from service and moral living; inner realization and the welfare of all beings are treated as two aspects of a single movement toward liberation and the spiritualization of individual and collective life.