Someone did not know the cyclic nature of the stages and so I made the reply below. The idea of cycling is very important and fundamental. I suggest a sticky be made entirely devoted to that idea. People are to easy to jump to diagnose where they are because there are so many things you can mistake for stages. Knowing that they should be cycling through all of them constantly should keep that diagnosis in check.
What do you mean by cycling/cycles?
This idea of cycling is fundamental
You travel through stages on your way to enlightenment. However, it is not discrete. It is not like, ok I have now obtained stage 5, and now you permanently feel the way stage 5 feels. In reality, you cycle through and feel all previous stages constantly. If you are at stage 5, you constantly cycle from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, then back down to 1 to 2 to 3... ect. This is the way in which you progress. Then you would attain 6, and cycle all the way through six. Up until stream entry, sotappana, after that is attained you cycle through ALL of the stages constantly.
However, your cycles will vary in time. Sometimes it will take a while to go through them all, sometimes it will just be a short time. On top of that, the feelings which correlate to the stage you working on at the moment will be the feelings you feel the most. If you are at one of the dukkha nanas, then you cycle through all the stages prior, however, the feeling of that particular dukkha nana will be the strongest.
Knowing this information helps us out a lot. It is the strongest indicator in finding out how far you are and what you have attained. Meaning, if you think you are at a particular stage, you should notice yourself cycling up until that stage. The easiest phases for me to feel is the AP, EQ, magga (enlightenment) and the fear dukkha nana. This makes it relatively easy, given some time, to figure out what stage you are at or what you have attained. You just have to occasionally notice one of the stages. Much of the time you may not even notice that you are cycling, this is different for different people and may be based on things like how pure you are, how aware you are, what type of meditation you do, and even if you know or don't know the cycles exist.
