Three Truths About Ascension

This term, Ascension, has been a feature of the spiritual zeitgeist for the past decade or so. While it has some descriptive value, it seems to be a catchall phrase gathering up a number of things that don’t really make sense.

That being said what ascension is point to – spiritual awakening, enlightenment, illumination or gnosis is very real, very profound and worth investing time and energy into.

This short piece of writing is designed to give you a few truths, some good, some potentially not so good about this concept of ascension.

First – ascension where? The name ascension gives a special connotation that creates a perception that spiritual awakeness happens in relationship to “up” somehow. Is up where heaven is? Is up where God is?If I get in a rocket will I be enlightened?This is obviously absurd, but the point is that if our awakening is up there that leads to a dangerous misconception that it is not here, not now.

Those who have pierced the veil know that is not true.True awakening is here and now and ultimately once it occurs you will realize that the self that is awakened (ascended if you like) was never not awakened .It is only our perceiving of our awakened self that was not yet noticed and practiced.

Second – Spiritual is better. Not necessarily. Spiritual is more, that is for sure. And, spiritual comes with more of everything. It requires someone who can be very good at managing the illusion of good and bad as well as the very real realities of good and bad and recognize each for its role to play.For example – to realize that all manifest things are illusion as the Buddhist say is a great stage of awakening. But, does that mean that you should just eat ten ice cream sandwiches a day? Why not, it’s just illusion?These types of very real issues become problematic if you have a misperception that all spiritual things are inherently better. I’ve seen a lot of spiritual people become very destabilized by very real awakenings.This leads to the third point.

Third- You live in a body, first. When you get really good at being in a body, and feeling your body, and being with all of the things that happen in a body like emotions, vitality (health) then you can safely and reliably move beyond.Without that, the chance for dissociation and fragmentation increase the more spiritual work you do.This is not ideal if you are a person who is living in the world instead of a monastery.This was the great gift of monasteries. It gave those who wanted to be in deep practice a place to go where they weren’t burdened by the mundanities of being a householder.

This isn’t a suggestion that you shouldn’t do spiritual practice if you’re not a monk. Instead it’s a suggestion that your spiritual practice should be deeply embodied as a foundation or launching pad of spirit. You should come to grips with the reality that spiritual experiences will make you more sensitive which often means you feel the pain and suffering of yourself and others more acutely – it really isn’t just all love and light. And most importantly you might chose to realize that there is no where to go to find “ascension.” It’s not up there, it’s right here in each breath, in each sensation, in each moment without fail. Our opportunity should we choose to accept it, is to allow ourself to relax into the felt sense of that truth and let it explode a supernova of awareness in our mind, heart and body.