Ascended Master requirements

[Wabi-sabi]

I was looking at the list of Ascended Masters and it is obvious to be an Ascended Master you must have been famous in your most recent lifetime. Seems a lame requirement but it is a fact. Also, it seems easier to become an Ascended Master in the current age. For example:

Martin Luther King Jr and Gandi. No question they are Ascended Masters but they are hardly in the same league with Jesus or Buddha.
Princess Diana. Okay, she was famous, oppressed by the Royal Family and fought for all the right causes. Marginal in my opinion.
Mother Teresa. Famous, helped the poor, was a great leader but hardly enlightened when it came to issues like gay marriage or abortion or causes like that. Does not seem very likely she is an Ascended Master.

I certainly don't want to piss off any of the Ascended Masters, but just what the heck are the requirements?

[Antarananda]

I think the very notion of "ascended Masters" is amusing, because "you" cease to exist as an individual after leaving the physical body. The personification of a Master only happens as a projection of our minds. Ultimately everyone/everything is all the same formless Energy.

[stephencp]

First, you need to define "Ascended Master"...

Stephen
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[AndyMartin]

The number of famous vs. non-famous ascended masters probably tips heavily towards the non-famous. Consider that the type of person who becomes an ascended master is not going to seek fame or notoriety. A few got it anyway, and that's fine. But it's a very grim view if only the handful we know about have ascended.

Plus, let's not forget about the revolutionary concept of the Boddhisattva vows, by which a soul pledges to put of their ascension in order to help others ascend. Try, try 10,000 years then come back, help others.

[stephencp]

"Plus, let's not forget about the revolutionary concept of the Boddhisattva vows, by which a soul pledges to put of their ascension in order to help others ascend. "

So I'm assuming that "ascending" = being "enlightened" ?

Stephen
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[AndyMartin]

Originally Posted by stephencp

So I'm assuming that "ascending" = being "enlightened" ?

My interpretation of matters is the Enlightenment is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ascension. While leads to the real big question: "What is Enlightenment?"

The two questions are inextricable, because if you're interested in Enlightenment, you have to ask why. Is it because of the promise of some sort of liberation (aka ascension) from this modality of life?

Or is it for the unique experience of life that it brings, and the unique opportunity to help others?

This is where the devotional (second-person god) vs. introspective (first-person god) traditions seem to diverge. The 2-p approach says help other people, but doesn't address the transcendence of the soul. The 1-p approach addresses transcendence, but does not address the immanent reality. Then there's the third-person face of god as creative force, Gaia, or the web of life, or -- I will submit -- as the motive force described by the Law of Attraction, which doesn't describe a transcendent experience at all, but probably should.

I think the ascended masters have fully realized each of these three faces of god. They have found the god-self of Enlightenment, they have offered themselves in compassion and service towards others, and they have mastered creative manifestation (ie miracles). It seems that only that comprehensive of an experience can support a claim of having transcended physical life enough to justify liberation from it.

[dECLAN]

I really like the Zen proverb and is appropriate in this case.

Before enlightenment chopping wood carrying water...
After enlightenment chopping wood carrying water...

[SteveG]

Originally Posted by Antarananda

I think the very notion of "ascended Masters" is amusing, because "you" cease to exist as an individual after leaving the physical body. The personification of a Master only happens as a projection of our minds. Ultimately everyone/everything is all the same formless Energy.

You mean according to your beliefs.

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by SteveG

You mean according to your beliefs.

According to my beliefs, too.

[daveangeles]

I think the whole 'ascended master' title is kinda bogus.

These are humans who have managed to align themselves with a greater consciousness. We're all capable of this -- to try to become 'ascended' makes it sounds like something intangible and reserved for 'great minds.'

It's something that can happen in an instant. dECLAN quotes that Zen proverb... just about sums everything up. I really like koans like that (assuming that's a koan, I may have my terminology mixed up)

[Antarananda]

Originally Posted by SteveG

You mean according to your beliefs.

Let me clarify. I have personally had visions of my own Master (who is living in a flesh and blood body), in a state of consciousness which is described in Yoga as "turiya", or the transcendental fourth state (as different from the waking, dreaming and deep dreamless sleep states). In that vision I physically met my Master, and what followed resulted in my having an ecstatic experience of myself dissolving into light.

Now what exactly happened? I obviously accessed a dimension of reality which wasn't a mere fabrication of my mind (as dreams are). This was confirmed by my Master, when I asked him,; he said "it was real". But what actually happened was that my meditation opened up pure awareness in my body and mind, and that enabled me to connect with pure intelligence, which took the form of my Master, in order to facilitate my understanding. The human mind assimilates deeper truths of the nature of our real Self best in a form which it can identify with.

Christians have Jesus appear to them, and when devotion is intense, the vision can even take the form of a physical body. That doesn't mean that Jesus actually exists in some form or body floating in some "dimension". All it means is that existential energy took the form of Jesus because you identify with him as the most pure, the most true Master in your heart or mind. A Hindu will experience a vision of some Hindu deity, or an enlightened Master from his or her own cultural tradition.

My Master meant this when he said, "Living Masters are not living as you think they are, and dead Masters are not dead as you think they are." So often he has had people come up to him and say, "You healed me. You appeared in a dream and healed me", to which he always replies, "it was your faith which healed you".

All Self-realized Masters who have attained nirvana, or liberation from the cycle of births and deaths, are available to us in the form of a body, whether gross or subtle, because the infinite creative intelligence of Existence (which we also are) is able to manifest that according to our yearning for the truth, or for a teacher of it.

[SteveG]

Thanks Antarananda. I don't share this belief because I have received different information during meditation. But that's okay, I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right, or vice versa. Thank you for the explanation. It was very interesting and informative.

[dECLAN]

Originally Posted by daveangeles

dECLAN quotes that Zen proverb... just about sums everything up. I really like koans like that (assuming that's a koan, I may have my terminology mixed up)

Yes it is a koan.

Do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon...

[AndyMartin]

Originally Posted by dECLAN

Before enlightenment chopping wood carrying water...
After enlightenment chopping wood carrying water...

Is there such a thing as "after enlightenment?" If there is "after," then where did it go?

Originally Posted by SteveG

Thanks Antarananda. I don't share this belief because I have received different information during meditation. But that's okay, I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right, or vice versa. Thank you for the explanation. It was very interesting and informative.

The thing we often forget is that what we experience in meditation, contemplation, prayer, etc. still has to go through our mind for interpretation and memory. Even the "pure experience of the pure suchness of purity itself" still gets passes through the identity with a name and a body and an ego. What that means is that all of your culture, education and personal history as well as your levels of cognitive and spiritual development will play into your interpretation of your experience.

We cannot lose sight of the need to transcend the interpretation and naming of experience because the minute we apply mind to the experience it becomes something else. That's one reason we are taught humility by Jesus, and no-mind by Buddha, and submission by Mohammad. Anything we can say can never be fully right.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

The description is simply the best you can do to approximate a taste of the infinite through the finite lens of your mind. That in no way devalues what these experiences teach us. We just need to take it and continue moving beyond each teaching and on to the next.

[dECLAN]

Originally Posted by AndyMartin

Is there such a thing as "after enlightenment?" If there is "after," then where did it go?

It goes to the same place that darkness goes after you switch on a light.