FIRST FOUR STAGES OF DELIVERANCE

33. ‘Now these stages of deliverance, Ânanda [from the hindrance to thought arising from the sensations and ideas due to external forms^[1]], are eight in number. Which are the eight?

34. ‘A man possessed with the idea of form sees forms–this is the first stage of deliverance.

35. ‘Without the subjective idea of form, he sees forms externally-this is the second stage of deliverance.

[1. These are the Attha Vimokkhâ. Buddhaghosa has no comment upon them; merely saying, ‘The passage on the Vimokkhas is easy to understand’–which is tantalizing. The last five Vimokkhas occur again below, in Chap. VI, §§ 11-13, where it is clear that they are used to express the progress through deep meditation, into absent-mindedness, abstraction, and being sunk in thought, until finally the thinker falls into actual trance.]

36. ‘With the thought “it is well,” he becomes intent (upon what he sees)–this is the third stage of deliverance.

37. ‘By passing quite beyond all idea of form, by putting an end to all idea of resistance, by paying no attention to the idea of distinction, he, thinking “it is all infinite space,” reaches (mentally) and remains in the state of mind in which the idea of the infinity of space is the only idea that is present–this is the fourth stage of deliverance.

Buddhist Suttas – MAHÂ-PARINIBBÂNA-SUTTANTA 
Translated from Pâli by T. W. Rhys Davids [1881]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe11/sbe1103.htm