Ascension Spiritual Quotes

When blame and self-judgement are transformed, healed, and cease to be, we have reawakened without the myth, the mythos, of separation. We are One.

Vulnerability is the least celebrated emotion in our society

Study yourself. Become your own mentor and best friend. When you are suffering stay at the bottom until you find out who you are. Let the storms come and pass. How you walk through the fire says a lot about you. Nobody likes a victimhood mentality and what happened to you is not important. It is about how you use your chaos that matters. The dawn will come

I don't trust anybody who isn't a little bit neurotic

I take it as a compliment when somebody calls me crazy. I would be offended if I was one of the sheeple, one of the sleepwalkers in the matrix or part of the collective hallucination we call 'normal

Our society shuns people for being a bright light in the world. Sometimes if you are too futuristic people do not like how revolutionary you are

Life is a useless passion, an exciting journey of a mammal in survival mode. Each day is a miracle, a blessing unexplored and the more you immerse yourself in light, the less you will feel the darkness. There is more to life than nothingness. And cynicism. And nihilism. And selfishness. And glorious isolation. Be selfish with yourself, but live your life through your immortal acts, acts that engrain your legacy onto humanity. Transcend your fears and follow yourself into the void instead of letting yourself get eaten up by entropy and decay. Freedom is being yourself without permission. Be soft and leave a lasting impression on everybody you meet

Give someone everything you can think of, the wings to fly and the roots to stay. If they chose none of these hold the door open for them with a smile

I am a habitual rule-breaker

You are not always right. It’s not always about being right. The best thing you can offer others is understanding. Being an active listener is about more than just listening, it is about reciprocating and being receptive to somebody else. Everybody has woes. Nobody is safe from pain. However, we all suffer in different ways. So learn to adapt to each person, know your audience and reserve yourself for people who have earned the depths of you

I have been at war with parts of myself for so long

Your fear of becoming a cliche is what turns you into one. If you remove the fear, we are all really walking contradictions, hypocrites and paradoxical cliches

I have always believed reincarnation to be true. This will go on and on until one discovers oneself. But at times, my thinking deviates a bit from eastern philosophy. I don’t think our bad karmas would make us cockroaches, rats, pigs, etc., in our next lives. I am of the view that achieving Moksha isn’t possible unless we experience everything that could be experienced. I have to experience oppression, but I also have to oppress. I have to be a sparrow to experience the joy of flight. I have to be a bee to experience colours beyond the visible spectrum. And I have to be a dog to hear ultrasonic sounds. Do you get it? I have to experience everything to achieve moksha. Becoming a bee in the next life is not the result of my bad Karma. It is instead a stepping stone. The path to ascension has to be a spiral. Not round and round. Every decision of mine has to lead there. Every step has to lead me towards self-actualization.

When the soul is consciously awakened can it comprehend the acquiescence of Muhammad, the unshakable foundation of Abraham and the very nature of Christ, equating the Aleph in the sealed Universe — As The Soul Speaks

Merkabah is translated as either meaning the throne of god or chariot. Both definitions imply a means of spiritual ascension, not a physical one. They only have it partly right.

I never realized it was all a game, until I started winning.

You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions”* in about two minutes.

Hmm. I think love is about loving all things, to treat each and every thing and every one as a sovereign being that’s free to make its own choices.

Empaths and Lightworkers did not arrive on this planet to lead a cheerful carnival parade into a perfect New Earth paradise. There is much work to be done before anyone will ever enter that promised land.

We effect more than we can possibly know. With every mood, every thought, every word, every gesture, we change our lives and our universe.

To ascend you must rise above, and I believe in the idea of keeping your “feet in the clouds and your head in the stars”.

In the physical ascension one sees the signs upon the horizons; in the spiritual ascension one sees the signs within himself.

Once you know, you know nothing Nothing can stop you from being you Rare beautiful human being Please don't stop being you

The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness — yea, the divine nature — appear in man and the universe never to disappear. -Mary Baker Eddy (SH 509:24)

Nothing is excluded and the unique nature of every aspect of creation is celebrated. This is how oneness works when it is not just a concept but a living presence. Many patterns and attachments that we think are essential to life will fall away, just as our present structures of power will become redundant. And the wonder of this change is that it need not be gradual, because it belongs to the now. Any real change is always a miracle - it happens through the grace of God.

The very demands of his survival teach man craftiness, lying and deception; otherwise others will survive against him. These are the Laws of this universe. What he will finally reach after these thousands of reincarnations is not ascension –as they claim– but total spiritual death inside the clever body of a bio-robot.

Redefined soul anew, bow now with pride. Reborn from the darkness, a man now wise.

Each truth we find (in life) leads us a step closer to God.

Even the "bad" teaches us "good"....

Open your soul - it is the solution to every problem in life.

Note, though, something else of great significance about the whole Christian theology of resurrection, ascension, second coming, and hope. This theology was born out of confrontation with the political authorities, out of the conviction that Jesus was already the true Lord of the world who would one day be manifested as such. The rapture theology avoids this confrontation because it suggests that Christians will miraculously be removed from this wicked world. Perhaps that is why such theology is often Gnostic in its tendency towards a private dualistic spirituality and towards a political laissez-faire quietism. And perhaps that is partly why such theology with its dreams of Armageddon, has quietly supported the political status quo in a way that Paul would never have done.

Ascension through all levels of consciousness and awareness can only happen when you live life as you, and not how others think you should live. How could self-realization possibly be anything other than being yourself?

In the Gospel story we find five great points of special importance; the birth, the life on earth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension. In these we have what an old writer has called "the process of Jesus Christ;" the process by which He became what He is to-day--our glorified King, and our life. In all this life process we must be made like unto Him.

Each person has a unique spiritual blueprint and role in this shift. You are important to this ascension of humanity. You are the only one who can determine your purpose. The best gift you can give yourself and the world is to live authentically, live your Truth, see the Truth of others, and remain in nonjudgment as you permit them to have their own consciousness.

I'm so proud of myself for all the battles I've secretly overcome. I'm grateful for all the people that left to make room for genuine connections. I'm grateful for all the opportunities that ended so I could stretch into new roles. I'm grateful that I've learned to clap for my success without an audience. Most importantly I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience God as Love. I'm just grateful. #devinepressure

Hence, in the Ascension of Isaiah we possess the "heretical Christian" concept of a Christ crucified in the heavens. Even in orthodox Christianity, Christ is said to have been "allegorically" or "spiritually" crucified in "Sodom and Egypt" (Rev. 11:8). In other words, in the New Testament-held as "gospel truth" and "God's Word"-Christ is depicted as having been crucified three different times in three different places!

Our spirit is connected to the heavens by God as the Spirit. In spirit we are therefore in the heavens, in ascension. To live in ascension requires that we live, act, move, and do everything in our spirit. Thus, we must learn how to discern our spirit. If we do not know our spirit, if we do not know how to discern our spirit from our soul, we cannot be a spiritual person. When we live in our spirit, we are in ascension as the new creation in resurrection. We are a new person living in a new universe. (Life-study of Song of Songs, pp. 36-38)

It is very impressive, to notice that whatsoever you make a person believe about you, that person will rush to represent within his role, as if he or she was mentally programmed to play the drama being offered. People are so trapped within their mind, that they end up always acting inside a theatre, in which their part has been foreseen long before they entered the roles they represent. Likewise, they become easily predictable, programmable, influenceable, manipulated, played like a string puppet. And these puppets become funnier, when mentioning mental programming, fearing mental programing and attacking mental programming, while not realizing that they are doing it, using the words, and gestures, and even phrases, that they were programmed to do, by those who program them. The one with a poor conscience is always a poor actor within his own life. He perfectly represents it, without any awareness. If he had any, he would probably not do it. But what else could he do? As prisoners in a cell with an open door, they ask when presented with freedom: “What shall I do if all I know is this?” And so, they remain inside of it, waiting for someone to tell them an answer they cannot ever understand before they see it for themselves.

We love Mary for one reason: because we love Jesus. The more we love Jesus, the more we love Mary. If we could grade Catholics on a scale of sainthood, a kind of spiritual graph, three lines would be almost identical in height or depth: how saintly you are, how much you love Jesus, and how much you love Mary. That’s the empirical fact. Here comes the explanation. Look at the Hail Mary prayer. It stops halfway through. The speaker has to take a silence break before and after the name “Jesus.” He’s at the heart of that prayer as He was at the heart of her body, her womb. Look at the title we give her in that prayer: “Mother of God.” Unbelievable, astonishing, incredible, amazing, infinitely wonderful! What? Jesus in Mary, Jesus incarnating, Jesus coming down to us in Mary. Suppose He had chosen to come in another way. He could have. He could have appeared instantly as a full-grown man descending from the sky, the reverse of the Ascension. He could have come down on a mountaintop, or in the Temple. And if he had, every Christian in the world who adored Him would make a pilgrimage to that mountain or that Temple. They would love that place above all places in the universe. They would make a very big deal of it. Why? Because they make a very big deal about Him.

The unseen essential awaits your enlightened heart's ascension to love.

Pour les hommes de l’âge d’or, monter une montagne, c’était réellement s’approcher du Principe; regarder un fleuve, c’était voir la Possibilité universelle en même temps que l’écoulement des formes. De nos jours, gravir une montagne, — et il n’y en a plus aucune qui soit a centre du monde »! — c’est « vaincre » son sommet; l’ascension n’est plus un acte spirituel, mais une profanation. L’homme, dans son aspect d’animal humain, se fait Dieu. Les portes du Ciel, mystérieusement présentes dans la nature, se ferment devant lui.

The wisdom raises and grows within the feeling while that remains itself empty of the feeling. That both, start the flight of vision with integration, each other on the journey of spirituality accessing humanity's ascension. It is the completion of the human called the greatest of all other creatures.

Do you grow straight up like a redwood to the sun in choosing your heart and not list like a weed in the wind to the fads of the day?

It is easy to become caught up in what is wrong in your world. Yes, there is much that needs changing. Yes, there is much suffering and cruelty and negativity present here still. Know that your inner state of being is mirrored by the world outside and around you. And so your ascension work is fundamental in shifting that which is in physical reality, which is on the lower-vibrational scale. And your work in consciousness prepares you for your high-vibration work as an ascended physical being, for meditating and self-release and prayer and preparation are essential but are not all-inclusive for those spiritual beings who walk the ascension path in physical form. Action in a physical sense is required, indeed. But through your meditation and preparation you are able to know your course of action and you are able to remain in love while engaging and changing the harsh or negative aspects present within physical reality. Remember that your choice makes all the difference ‒ your choice in every moment, the grand choice, the ultimate choice.

Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant, which is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Jesus as the final covenant Mediator brings significant typological advance.[48] What Covenant Theology tends to miss is the determinate role of the mediatorial head of the covenant. For example, Covenant Theology teaches that the sign of the covenant is applied to the believer’s offspring rather than to the mediator’s offspring. Israel circumcised the offspring of Abraham, and the church is to baptize the offspring of Christ.[49] As R. Fowler White writes, “The genealogical principle continues without revocation, but not without reinterpretation under the new covenant.”[50] Inclusion within the covenant community can no longer be decided by interpreting the genealogical relationship between the covenant community and the covenant head in physical terms. The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ the new covenant Mediator necessitate a spiritual relationship between the covenant community and the covenant head.[51] In other words, Christ has no physical offspring. He has no grandchildren. One becomes “of Christ” through union with Christ, which is appropriated through faith and baptism (Rom 6:4; Gal 3:27-28).

Healing is a spiritual connection with self.

It’s like a seed—it carries the past inside of it. Through it, our memories are allowed to grow and flourish. It’s how we remember who we are: culturally, individually, spiritually. Through ritual.

According to many experts the majority of the people won't be needed anymore for the coming society. Almost everything will be done by artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars and trucks, which already exist anyway. Some even mentioned that AI is making universities obsolete by how fast it can produce information. However, In my view, the AI has limitations that the many can't see, because on a brain to brain comparison, the AI always wins, yet the AI can only compute with programmable data. In other words, the AI can think like a human but can't imagine or create a future. The AI is always codependent on the imagination of its user. So the limitations of the AI are in fact determined by humans. It is not bad that we have AI but that people have no idea of how to use it apart from replacing their mental faculties and being lazy. This is actually why education has always been a scam. The AI will simply remove that from the way. But knowledge will still require analysis and input of information, so the AI doesn't really replace the necessary individuals of the academic world, but merely the many useless ones that keep copying and plagiarizing old ideas to justify and validate a worth they don't truly possess. Being afraid and paranoid about these transitions doesn't make sense because evolution can't be stopped, only delayed. The problem at the moment has more to do with those who want to keep themselves in power by force and profiting from the transitions. The level of consciousness of humanity is too low for what is happening, which is why people are easily deceived. Consequently, there will be more anger, fear, and frustration, because for the mind that is fixed on itself, change is perceived as chaos. The suffering is then caused by emotional attachments, stubbornness and the paranoid fixation on using outdated systems and not knowing how to adapt properly. In essence, AI is a problem for the selfish mind - rooted in cognitive rationalizations -, but an opportunity of great value for the self-reflective mind - capable of a metacognitive analysis. And the reason why nobody seems to understand this is precisely because, until now, everyone separated the mind from the spirit, while not knowing how a spiritual ascension actually goes through the mind. And this realization, obviously, will turn all religions obsolete too. Some have already come to this conclusion, and they are the ones who are ready.

Ascent is neither the lone journey of Jesus nor the abstracted elevation of the soul, but is the future for an embodied humanity that is copresent with Jesus and his Father.

The full theological import of xotvwv[a will only be revealed in the Pauline letters as that most intimate union of man with God and with his fellow-men accomplished through Christ that constitutes final salvation."24

To safeguard the integrity of creatures, modernity has chosen the path that has led to its own destruction: that of defining "freedom" in terms of autonomy and distance from God.

The spiritual warfare is defensive, not offensive, because the Lord Jesus has already fought the battle and won the victory. The work of the church on the earth is simply to maintain the Lord’s victory. The Lord has already won the battle, and the church is here to maintain His victory. The church’s work is not to overcome the devil but to resist him who has already been overcome by the Lord.

The Negative Ego, caught in the delusion of needing to feel superior or inferior, will tell you that you mastered this material in the “Spring of ’72.” Alternatively, it will tell you that you can’t allow yourself to admit a mistake, for that makes you inferior which, of course, is delusion also. The Negative Ego will also tell you that it is more interested in other celestial and esoteric matters dealing with the Ascended Masters and such a book is not necessary for you to read. I am here to tell you myself and on behalf of the inner plane Ascended Masters of the Spiritual Hierarchy, that there is no subject on planet Earth in dealing with your spiritual life more important than this. The transcendence of Negative Ego is the core foundation of Ascension and all spiritual development no matter what spiritual path you are on.

April 15 The Relapse of Concentration But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days. 2 Chronicles 15:17 Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you say—“Oh, that does not matter much.” The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very great deal to God. Nothing is a light matter with a child of God. How much longer are some of us going to keep God trying to teach us one thing? He never loses patience. You say—“I know I am right with God”; but still the “high places” remain, there is something over which you have not obeyed. Are you protesting that your heart is right with God, and yet is there something in your life about which He has caused you to doubt? Whenever there is doubt, quit immediately, no matter what it is. Nothing is a mere detail. Are there some things in connection with your bodily life, your intellectual life, upon which you are not concentrating at all? You are all right in the main, but you are slipshod; there is a relapse on the line of concentration. You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating. You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions” in about two minutes.

Every morning when I get out of bed I jump in the shower, go over my dreams, and make any and all adjustments! If it is what I call a bigger dream and there is a larger lesson I may go to my computer and do a little journal typing or writing to try and figure out the full meaning! If necessary, I might make some kind of specific Spiritual Vow in writing to never let this happen again! When I do this I always feel better and I always strive to stick to my specific Spiritual Vows! If I ever make an unconscious mistake and a similar lesson happens again, I redouble my efforts! The trick is to be relentless in your pursuit of “God Realization and Integrated Ascension”!

have been spiritually starving inside this union. My soul is parched and lonely and I have pushed aside its cries for partnership. I have ignored the needs of my own soul. I suddenly feel like the worst sham of a human being on this planet we can Earth. For while my spirit has dwelled inside this physical being I call my own body, I have ignored its need for companionship and squelched its desire for ascension. I have all but aborted my own spirit. I have done all of these actions in the

It is we humans that need to forgive others and ourselves for all wrongs, no matter what they may be. Only by forgiveness can we move higher up in our ascension and see in truth, there was never really anything there that needed forgiving

Though my approach throughout the book will be positive and expository, it is worth noting from the outset that I intend to challenge this dominant paradigm in each of its main constituent parts. In general terms, this view holds the following: (1) that the Jewish context provides only a fuzzy setting, in which ‘resurrection’ could mean a variety of different things; (2) that the earliest Christian writer, Paul, did not believe in bodily resurrection, but held a ‘more spiritual’ view; (3) that the earliest Christians believed, not in Jesus’ bodily resurrection, but in his exaltation/ascension/glorification, in his ‘going to heaven’ in some kind of special capacity, and that they came to use ‘resurrection’ language initially to denote that belief and only subsequently to speak of an empty tomb or of ‘seeing’ the risen Jesus; (4) that the resurrection stories in the gospels are late inventions designed to bolster up this second-stage belief; (5) that such ‘seeings’ of Jesus as may have taken place are best understood in terms of Paul’s conversion experience, which itself is to be explained as a ‘religious’ experience, internal to the subject rather than involving the seeing of any external reality, and that the early Christians underwent some kind of fantasy or hallucination; (6) that whatever happened to Jesus’ body (opinions differ as to whether it was even buried in the first place), it was not ‘resuscitated’, and was certainly not ‘raised from the dead’ in the sense that the gospel stories, read at face value, seem to require.11 Of course, different elements in this package are stressed differently by different scholars; but the picture will be familiar to anyone who has even dabbled in the subject, or who has listened to a few mainstream Easter sermons, or indeed funeral sermons, in recent decades.

Earth is currently transitioning into the Fourth Dimension. The climax of the upcoming Ascension will be felt towards the end of 2012 as the Year of the Dragon spreads its wings, all the way for the next seven years until 2019. Although the Third Dimension is focused upon the physical world, the Fourth Dimension has a primary focus on the spiritual world. In order to accept this new state of existence, profound elements of the Fourth Dimension were introduced into our Third Dimensional society to lessen the sudden impact of Ascension. Profound spiritual concepts such as Enlightenment and aspects of Unconditional Love must be understood as the next steps to progress from the Third Dimension. These seeds were planted and allowed to grow in individuals who have accepted that it is time to open the doors to the spiritual world. As human beings are the most complex forms of embodied consciousness on the planet, we will still retain our current shape and forms. What will change is the importance we place on achieving such profound spiritual objectives. The 2012-2019 Ascension will mark a turning point leading to spirituality playing a much more dominant role in society with less fixation on a solely material world. The Fourth Dimension follows the Third Dimension in its way of life; the difference is what is placed upon the core belief structures of those living within it.

His divinity existed without His humanity before the Incarnation, but ever since the Incarnation His humanity is joined forever to His divinity. His Ascension was not the undoing of His Incarnation.

The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

Death is an illusion. It is the way to rebirth or ascension. It is the point when you realise that you are the spark of the one life, and that you always have and always will have that divinity within you. It is not something to fear.

And I don’t even agree anymore With the expression falling in love It is the one of a world That sees love as a fall I would rather say we rise with love Love is an ascension

The darkness transformed the moment you accepted it, and all the power that was blocking you before now becomes the power of ascension, of upliftment. When you feel really negative and you talk about it—not as a victim but as a way of facing the enemy and loving it—you are saying, “Out of God come all things.” All things. That includes the negative things, too. Negative doesn’t mean bad; we make things bad by judging them.

Every act of altruism, kindness and generosity is helping you to burn more karma and have access to better stages of life. If you still stagnate in your existence, look closer if and how your actions benefit all living beings. Our general evolution and ascension depends deeply on the level of commitment to assist and help all the others. The egoic driven actions and intentions are the main obstacle in one's material and spiritual progress.

The energy flow from the feet chakras to the cosmic chakras creates a harmonious balance between grounding and spiritual ascension.

I was a "chaser". Due to rejections I faced as a child or people taking things from me that didn't belong to them, I thought I had to chase things to have it or fight to keep it when all I truly had to do was attract and let go. Essentially....I just had to remember how to be me.

Oneness & Ascension (The Sonnet) Religion that doesn't bring oneness, Is not religion, but the original sin. Science that doesn't lift human condition, Is not science but superstition. I don't go gaga over science, I don't go gaga over philosophy. I don't go gaga over religion, Because humanity is my priority. I use every tool with the potential for good, After, of course, discarding its unchecked baggage. I have allegiance to neither virtue nor vice, I am but a lover, and love is my home base. Oneness is the path, oneness is the destination. Where there is oneness, there is ascension.

After death the soul crosses either a ‘sea of fire’ or spiritual ‘frontier’, where the powers of evil wrest from it what belongs to them and leave it stripped, ready to embark on a life of peace and silence (the ‘abodes’, one above another, of which St Ambrose speaks here suggest a progressive perfecting). Thus the ‘sleep’ of death appears as a contemplative state. Death, undoing the tangles of idolatry and sin, offers the soul that peace, quies, hesychia, which spiritual persons know already here below, a blissful visitation of Christ who is always present in hell. For since Holy Saturday and the Ascension he is the fulfilment of all things.

In common upward prayer, we lift our desires, concerns, needs, and confessions to God. Downward prayer, which is much less common but shouldn’t be, means calling upon the resources available to us in the heavens. If that idea sounds strange to you, it may be because we teach about Jesus’ death and resurrection but often ignore His ascension.

Now here is your second chance at surrender: If you cannot accept what is outside, then accept what is inside. If you cannot accept the external condition, accept the internal condition. This means: Do not resist the pain. Allow it to be there. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness, or whatever form the suffering takes. Witness it without labeling it mentally. Embrace it. Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace. This is your crucifixion. Let it become your resurrection and ascension.

The source and destination of a soul is the lotus feet.

The way towards oneself is towards God.

Spirituality is not the end goal or destination, it's the way of life.

God doesn’t get sick so neither need you, since you are God. So what causes sickness? It is the negative ego. Sai Baba says that “God equals man minus ego.” The ego doesn’t exist in God’s reality and ideally, it shouldn’t exist in yours. When you get rid of the negative ego you recognize that you are perfect

Life doesn't end after death, it actually begins.

Segal is probably right in suggesting that “scholarly reticence to ascribe spiritual experience to Paul may be rooted in theological embarrassment with the nonrational aspects of the human soul.”513 Paul is also a mystic, in Segal’s view, so it is a combination of Paul’s conversion experience and his mystical ascension that forms the basis of his theology.514 Paul’s “conversion” is not to be explained in intellectual categories alone, as the exchange of one set of religious facts and information for another: “Paul is not converted by Jesus’ teachings, but rather by an experience, a revelation of Christ, which radically reorients his life.”515

It’s not reliving, it’s . . . ritual. How can I put it? These days, particularly here, we’re always encouraged to try new things. To be innovative, to be inventive. Novelty has inherent value. How I grew up, it was different. In Japan, to be a master craftsman is not to try anything new. It is to pick one thing and perfect it. There are chefs who devote an entire lifetime to making one specific type of sushi. Blacksmiths who make only one knife, over and over and over again, seeking impossible perfection. Everyone here is obsessed with moving on, with the new. They forget about their connection to the past. This . . .” She pointed at the netsuke. “It’s like a seed—it carries the past inside of it. Through it, our memories are allowed to grow and flourish. It’s how we remember who we are: culturally, individually, spiritually. Through ritual.

The thorns, all within I pulled you out. Every sliver of infinite grace, I need not even give haste. I feel you and return to you In this sacred space, even your thorns give me mercy and never leave me thirsty. The chill in the air with the warmth of the sun and the taste of this day Oh, how shall I be unspun.

Until you gain a knowledge of the plan of God which He planned and sent the Lord Jesus to consummate...Until you gain a knowledge of what you are in Christ, and Christ in you...Until you gain a knowledge of what He did for you in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating at the right hand of the Father...Until you gain a knowledge of what He's doing for you right now, seated at the right hand of the Father where He ever liveth to make intercession for you...Until you gain a knowledge of your standing before the throne of God...Until you gain a knowledge of the fact that He defeated Satan and demons, and that all the forces of the rulers of the darkness of this world are dethroned powers, and that they can't rule over you.

Otherworldiness can be a real temptation in the religion, but the Incarnation itself is a corrective. Down to earth, real flesh and blood. And even at feasts such as the Ascension, which might seem otherworldly, the scripture texts for the day are anything but: "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" (Acts 1:11, KJV). As if to say, take a look around; your work is here! One of my favorite passages in the Roman Catholic Breviary, used during Advent, has a practical and yet visionary tone, a combination I find irresistible. Heaven seems to be an important construct in the human imagination, and these words by St. Augustine tempt me to believe that the power to imagine such a heaven is almost heaven enough. "Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we still live in anxiety, so that we may sing it one day in heaven in full security... We shall have no enemies in heaven, we shall never lose a friend. God's praises are sung both there an adhere, but here they are sung in anxiety, there in security; here they are sung by those destined to die, there, by those destined to live forever; here they are sung in hope, there in hope's fulfillment; here, they are sung by wayfarers, there, by those living in their own country. So then ... let us sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten our labors. You should sing as wayfarers do - sing, but continue your journey ... Sing then, but keep going.

Power hounds the mystic that has unified the Divine. In this state one senses ascension like a dog on heat, full of potent lust.

The Buddha left Bodh Gaya to teach others. Jesus came out of the Judaean desert to preach. Spiritual awakening is meaningless if it does not culminate in finding your voice and speaking up for what is right.

Why is it, we may ask, that the walker is so often attracted to the hill-top, and what is the reason for the emotion which he experiences in the far view, with its effect upon thought and feeling and imagination? … For them [the hill-walker and the mountain climber] the mountain track symbolises the way of the soul's ascension. There is implanted deep within the human heart the desire to ascend … It is to the heavens above, declaring the Glory of God, that the psalmist first points us, then to the firmament as showing His handiwork … It is the working in us of a great benevolent Spirit that sends us to the high places, there to experience this feeling of elation with all that it brings to life consciousness, and physical and spiritual enjoyment.

To attain the “permanent” aspect of your Harmonious Twin Flame Union, you must commit to healing your upsets as they arise; and know that it does get easier and easier, and it does feel better working on yourself spiritually with your Twin Flame by your side in the physical. In fact it’s even more rewarding to accomplish your spiritual work while in Harmonious Union together, because you share your process, feelings, love, and joy as they arise. Is there an end to experiencing upsets in your Twin Flame Union? Absolutely! As you progress further and further into your Harmonious Twin Flame Union, you will eventually arrive together to a state we call “Perfect Union,” also known as, ascension. We speak more of this important ultimate end goal in another chapter.

The resurrection is central to how we see salvation. We are not saved just for a purely spiritual experience in heaven. Jesus was raised to earth, not to heaven. We should not confuse the resurrection and the ascension.

Individual experiences of the Kundalini process vary greatly, but the fundamental signs of the rising Kundalini that a person may experience include: • Feeling different, not fitting in • A deep dissatisfaction or a yearning for inner development • Inner sensations of light, sound, current, or heat • A heightened inner or outer awareness; increased sensitivity • Feelings of energy flowing or vibrating within • Special abilities, capacities, and talents • Non-ordinary phenomena; altered states • Spontaneous bodily movements or breathing patterns • Emotional fluctuations; psychological issues coming forward • Atypical sensations or sensitivities • An interest in spiritual growth or in metaphysics or the esoteric • Compassion and a desire to help others • A sense that something non-ordinary, transformative, or holy is happening within • Personal development, and optimally, spiritual transformation and realization CHAPTER 2 BENEFITS OF ASCENSION KUNDALINI And once the latent spirit is awoken, it bolts up the spine, creating other important changes. Maybe the most important of these is the opening of the chakras, the centers of energy that govern our energetic body. All seven must be open so that the Kundalini can rise. There are many people who have devoted their entire life to awakening their Kundalini through meditation practice and spiritual study. Everything takes so much time, really. If you are one who is attuned to the universal energy, the cycle of awakening Kundalini will be easier for you, rather than random. So, what are the rewards of awakening the Kundalini? • Increased intelligence and IQ capacity As you begin your awakening process, your mind becomes clearer, and your mental capacity deepens and enriches in potential. You will be able to multitask and plan more than ever before, and you may even see that your IQ number is actually increasing as your kundalini travels within. It will touch your third eye and crown chakra as shakti energy spins and moves through your chakras, opening these mental capacities as effortlessly as it acts on your heart and healing. • Greater sense of peace, bliss, and tranquility One of kundalini awakening's most commonly experienced benefits includes an increased sense of peace, bliss, tranquility, and confidence in the universe that you are exactly where you should be. Chalk it up to meditation or yoga or even being in nature, but it is also true that when your kundalini awakening begins and becomes sustained, you can find a deep and lasting peace even in moments beyond nature or meditation. You will begin to notice how that equilibrium remains in an inner space that you always and everywhere bring with you.

knowing that you belong, that you are just as worthy as any other beings in the universe to be there. The truly spiritual human who is awake understands that they are Source Energy and knows that everyone else in the entire universe is as well.

Integration is Illumination (The Sonnet) Asato ma sad gamaya*, Benevolence is bismillah. Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya**, Mind is the mightiest menorah. Luz, lux, noor - light by any name, Brings the same illumination. And what is this mythical light, If not an act of collective ascension! Light is not the absence of darkness, Light is the absence of indifference. Darkness is symptom, coldness is the sickness, Once we treat coldness, we'll treat all darkness. I repeat, light by any name brings the same illumination. If not now, when will we put an end to this dehumanization! (*Let's rise from ignorance to truth. **Let's rise from darkness to light.)