The Divine Life Society, I thought was purely classical yoga, but I was surprised to read that in the writings of Swami Vishnu Devanda, a disciple of Sivanananda. By the way, there is another organization with the same name, Sivanananda, but it is different from the Divine Life Society founded by Sivanananda himself. The teachers seem to be quite similar.

H.H. Swami Sivanananda, a great yoga teacher and the founder of the Theosophical Society in Rishikesh, Himalayas, "Yoga: Complete Works."

It is natural that classical yoga and Theosophy are similar, as Theosophy was founded by someone who practiced in the Himalayas. However, I didn't think Sivanananda was Theosophical. However, I have read the same book before, so I may have thought the same thing then and skipped it, or I may have forgotten.

However, it seems that it is not a hierarchy as described in Theosophy, but a yoga-like hierarchy, and it seems to be a fairly unique hierarchy. It may be better to consider it a unique school, as it is based on practical experience and is a good reference.

According to the book, the following stages are described:

7 Stages
1. Svadhyaya: Aspiration for Truth
2. Vichara: Seeking True Knowledge
3. Tanumanasa: Dissolution of the Mind
4. Sattvapatti: Attainment of Purity (Sattva). Knowing the direct Truth within oneself (I am Brahman, God). Sampragnata Samadhi. A state where duality remains. This stage is considered the "disciple" stage.

From the next stage, the individual self merges with the higher self.

The remaining three stages, beyond Sampragnata Samadhi, are the knower, the knowledge, and the known.

This is difficult to understand in translation. Because I have read other English writings by the same author, which tend to be in prose, I think this is simply a list of keywords. If you read it literally, you might think that the remaining three stages correspond to each other, but the actual meaning is that there are remaining three stages where these three distinctions disappear.

There is neither the knower nor the known. Because there is no object to be meditated upon, there can be no objective knowledge. The individual self, the "I" consciousness, merges with the universal consciousness, and within that, humans see nothing external to themselves, so no knower can exist. (Same book)

5. Asamsaktar: Not being affected by anything. This is achieved by not being deluded by Siddhi (supernatural abilities).
6. Paralta-bhavina: The absence of external objects.
7. Tsuruya: Seeing only God (Brahman) everywhere.

These expressions, although different, seem to align with the hierarchies of various schools of thought.

However, when I asked a disciple of the Shivanananda lineage, they said, "I've never heard that Shivanananda was related to Theosophy." So, it might be something different, just a matter of translation.