What is ascension? Ascension to where?
 

I see this word tossed around frequently in spirituality, but I don't know what it means. I'm especially curious because I read somewhere today that the whole entire *overall purpose* of the human race being created and evolving is for us all to "reach ascension."

But what does ascension even mean? Is it just going to the the ether when you die? Can I just play video games all day every day and still ascend?

Ascension only means to rise. In every context. What rises and where you rise to is what matters. What Jesus spoke of in ascension was rising above sin. Our sin in the present keeps us on earth. We will never go to another planet with life, because of our sin. We are the only planet close enough to us with life. It does not matter if there is other life out there, because it will never change where we will be rooted. We cannot save the world, because God will destroy it and make a new one. Do not fear death or sin if you are saved by Jesus. When you choose Him, he chooses you. When he chooses you, the choice has been mad. It has been made in the Father, and the Father will not change the past. The Father is time and space. He will not make a mistake, because he will not correct one. Thus Jesus will not take His choice back. You were put on this earth because of your sin, thus you will always sin on this earth. The Jews are God's chosen people. They do not have to choose Him, because He has already chosen them. There is no Jewish man in hell. Jesus loves you and them. If you love Jesus by choosing Him, then he will never let you go to hell. It is not alright to sin and you should feel bad and ask for forgiveness when you do, but if you ask Jesus to choose you, then He will never lose you.

There is a very thorough answer here, What is Ascension? article

And in reply to Joshiepoo3000 (this is not directly aimed at you, but at all religeon as a whole). I am working on an article about this, but mainly:

When we look at the overall universe being 13.7 billion years old, and humanity being no more than maybe a few million years old (think cavemen..) then it is very likely someone else exists out there who is billions of years old, many of them live on the astral because there are less restrictions to having a physical body. When we are finally able to expand our awareness across the universe and look at it in this way, we can see that the 'God' that religions worship today, is very much the same as the early christian belief that the sun/stars revolved around the Earth. Only when we were able to expand our awareness further out into the universe, were we able to understand that in fact, this was false. I see the same thing happening with religion today, we must expand our awareness if we are to evolve, we must realize that we have the ability to alter our reality through the power of thought. We are not at the mercy of some 'thoughtform', we do not have to fear that they will strike us down or torment us for all of eternity if we do something wrong, those who created us merely did so with a purpose in mind, and have left us here to do as we wish. We were in fact created to be 'gods' which is very plainly acknowledged in ancient texts (Greek, Mayan, Sumerian, Egyptian) predating christianity and all the new religions. We save our own souls. There is a process layed out for 'ascension' (achieving godhead) in the temples of egypt and many other ancient texts predating christianity. And no it does not involve handing yourself over to some thoughtform who uses your psychic energy. It involves work, meditation, expansion of conciousness and greater awareness. If you decide to seek the truth and not live in ignorance, I congratulate you, for not everyone makes it to the afterlife.

great link tropicality, thanks for posting it.

here is what my guides had to say about ascension:

~ What is ascension?
it is a 'higher' state of being. interdimensional. a shift in consciousness.

~ What changes will this ascension bring about in the physical sense as observed by people on this planet?
people will perceive themselves differently.

~ How will this shift occur, one day to the next, or how long in terms of earth time?
it is a gradual process, occuring now and approx during next 20 years. it is a shift in consciousness.

If a man could save his own soul, then he would save it and worry no more. If a man does save his own soul, then he is heartless in deed, because he does not share his love of himself with others in order to quiet their misery. Jesus spoke of peace and men judge Him because some of his followers do not work peace. Does a son judge his father because the stranger will not listen? No. Neither should a man judge the teacher because some students do not hear. Should the teacher blame the student because he is deaf? No, and my teacher does not. My teacher has used sign language.

Skydust had answers that coincide with mine.

Ascension means to evolve your consciousness. If we can all ascend/evolve, we will shift our consciousness to a higher plane.

You can't ascend playing video games all day as far as I'm aware. Unless you recognize that life itself is like a video game (ala Steve's blog entry) and you're evolving and raising your consciousness inside "the game." Play the game of life. :)

Thanks for the responses, but this is not exactly what I meant.

I understand what the dictionary definition of ascension is. What I don't understand is what it would mean to me, or how it would feel to someone pursuing personal development. For example, I've made a lot of life changes recently, but I can't say that I *feel* any more evolved consciously. If anything, I feel more frustrated by other people's callousness than I did before, which seems to be a step in the wrong direction..

To reference Steve's article, over the past few years, before I knew personal development was called "personal development," I alternated between the mindsets of neutrality and courage. I was neutral until I needed to change something about my life, then I would fight to make that change, then I would go back to a content, neutral mindset. I generally didn't judge other people as I felt I had enough to worry about on my own.

Now I'm angry a lot more. I make positive changes for myself but then the world still sucks, and that pisses me off, especially because I've already done more than my part.

When I was in a neutral mindset, I didn't judge others or get angry because I knew that I had my own things to work on. I wasn't entitled. But now, after quitting smoking, quitting speeding, going vegan, working out 4x/week, not owning a TV, and breaking out of a co-dependant ltr, I feel way more justified.

I've done way more than I ever thought I would to ensure that I am leading a "net-positive" life, but I don't feel like a different person. I certainly don't feel ascended, not that I would even know what that felt like if it smacked me across the face. I do feel pissed that so many people could care less about living for a greater good, and that people don't seem to be able to see more than a foot in front of their face at any given moment. The vegan thing did *not* result in the opening of my heart chakra, apparently.

Is there some sort of empowering belief that I need to hold about people to make these negative feelings more productive? I just want world peace. Like Miss America. Aww...

What it sounds like is that you are looking for the emotion that most closely ties in with ascension.

From what I can tell, that emotion is peace.

I have been studying peace a lot recently, because my purpose is to bring peace to everybody. After finding my purpose and going back through Steve's posts, I was surprised to find Peace as the state of consciousness just before ascendancy, even higher than Love. That led me to question what exactly peace was, if it was such an 'unattainable' level of consciousness.

I finally put a definition on peace that I can understand, and it starts with my definition of love.

To me, love is feeling joy from my relationships. Of course, I consider that joy and pleasure are different, but not exclusive, emotions. Pleasure comes from your body, and joy comes from your mind. You can feel pleasure without joy, and you can feel joy without pleasure, just as you can have both or neither at the same time.

Similarly, peace is feeling joy from your environment, including your relationships.

On the chart of levels of consciousness that Steve quoted for his article, I would replace Love with Unconditional, Absolute Love, and Peace for Unconditional, Absolute Peace, or the states of feeling joy from every one of your relationships all of the time, and feeling joy from all of your environment all of the time.

So, you would like to know what it is to be ascended? Go through the path of love, which leads to the path of peace, and into ascendancy. Each other level of consciousness is just a stepping stone that allows you to learn how to hold love and peace, or for neutrality and below, especially fear, it is a step away.

Does that help at all?

Thanks Adam, yes, that does help. Do you use any affirmations or have any certain beliefs to help you stay in that frame of mind?

I have an issue with losing my temper when I see people that I care about making poor choices.

Do you use a kind of a "live and let live" philosophy to maintain that peaceful state?

By the way Adam, your blog is nothing short of masterful. Excellent job with it.

Dan, it sounds to me like you need to work on acceptance.

When I see people who are making choices that I consider poor, I try not to judge because what if their poor decisions are actually an improvement for how they used to be? Then instead of being frustrated, I feel encouraged that they are growing.

Even if that's not the case (perhaps they are taking a step backward in your opinion) I just accept that not everyone is at the same level as me, just as I know there are lots of people at higher levels of consciousness than me. I wouldn't want them to feel angry at my level so I can't in good conscience feel angry when someone else is making poor choices.

Know what I mean?

Thank you for complimenting my blog. :) I really appreciate it.

As for staying in a peaceful frame of mind, the first step that I take is realizing that I am in control of my emotions... This is either an upward or downward spiral, depending on how in control of my emotions I actually feel.

I use meditation nightly to figure out what I need to work on, connect with my form of spirituality, and to gain understanding of some of my tougher questions. My post on Evil was the result of about a month of these nightly meditations, as well as asking people who I regard highly and who were also working on the same question at the time. Foremost among them was Jeff Lilly at Druid Journal.

Some of the things that I find extremely useful is understanding the difference between pleasure and joy, and a rather large breakthrough was realizing that they are not exclusive despite being different. Some pleasures are exclusive of joy, such as smoking, but sex in a healthy relationship of mutual respect is both pleasurable and joyful. Exercise in small doses is not pleasurable, but when exercise becomes fun, it gives both pleasure and joy, even if not at the same time.

The ace in my sleeve, when I need a quick rush of joy to combat negative emotions, is cleaning. I'm in the middle of a thirty day experiment with it, and the results are outstanding. It is still hard to start cleaning, but if I take just five minutes to make a start that I can notice, I can raise my mood far enough to get the motivation to continue cleaning indefinitely, which gives a very quick, very powerful surge of joy.

The hardest part is to find peace with things that I find repulsive, such as war, the tools of war, and intolerance. Especially when I remember my past as a soldier and the people I have trained who are very likely to be in combat right now. Despite them being the catalysts for my life purpose, I still can not find peace with the events of Sept 11, 2001, and the DMZ, the border between North and South Korea.

Most of all, it takes practice, habit, and the willingness to either change your environment to be one that you can love, or change your beliefs about your environment so that you can love it.

I especially agree with Erin. I accept that everybody is learning, including myself. My brand of spirituality helps me out quite a bit on this, as I believe that we choose the lessons that we are to learn while in a spiritual perspective, and that we can try each lesson again until we get it right. The ability to fail in any endeavor is an opportunity learn, and the only real failure is when we don't take that opportunity. Being angry isn't sliding backwards along the scale of consciousness, it is a lesson on how it feels, what it takes to be angry, and how to pull yourself back out of it. Perhaps further down the line, you can help someone out who is feeling angry so that they can learn how to pull themselves out of it as well... so would being angry now be a failure, or just a potentially useful lesson? ;)

Just take comfort that everybody is improving in their own way, even if they seem to be sliding backwards. In school, people learn despite themselves. It is simply unavoidable. Whether they can apply that knowledge or not, or pass a test, is up to the individual, but each day, we all learn something.

One thing that I'm going to try very soon is to start some more physical rituals, rather than simply meditating. It has been quite a while since I have practiced anything actually Wiccan, so I don't think that my rituals will exactly match the ones that I learned before, but at least I have a template to go by. I'm working on a non-denominational ritual outline for those interested, and a general symbol database, but I expect the ritual outline to take a few more days, and the database to take a few more weeks. By the time the database comes through, my thirty day experiment with rituals should have some handy results.

To sum it up (since I've gotten a bit long winded), the way that I find peace is to be accepting of other people and their progress within their own set of lessons, to pursue joy through meditation and through working within my environment, and to practice with the mindset that I can not fail, since I'm only and always practicing. (There is a huge diference in stress between practicing and doing "the real thing." If I'm always practicing, I'm not stressed, I'm always improving, and ultimately, I'm still getting my task done.)

I forgot to add that one of the most effective ways to bring joy to your life is to help someone else experience joy.

To quote Callahan, "Shared Joy is increased. Shared pain is diminished."

(Don't bring pain to others... Let them know about your pain, and they'll work to help remove it.)

The same goes for Love and Peace, since they are both based on joy. ;)

That's the crux of the issue: Is it better to leave someone to their own devices or is it better to "challenge them incessantly" until something gives?

I personally don't mind being challenged, so I feel OK projecting it onto others. =)

peace, i dont know if that is exactly true, because the jews are no longer the chosen people they have deviated, from the path of god. If one follows the bible in concept, when it says, when u see written( go ye not in the way of the gentile nor the samarians but go ye to the lost sheep of the house of israel)then we know in english language (of) is preposition denoting ownership, so it is isreal , who hold (the children)hostage. Thus jesus, sent the desciples on a specific mission to free them, whom is captive by isreal (zionist jews). The other jews have not challenged those jews among their house to bring them into submission to god, so they lost their place as the chosen, and god chose the (lost sheep, of the house of israel).


If u recalled jacob wrestled with the angel, over night, and his name was changed to (israel)but notice he said through the night and not the day, for the day is for the lord, jacob was given knowledge of self and god, yet did not use it wisely , only to build israel, but destroy, others with the power that god gave. You become a servent of god when u have divine knowledge, so the book asked what man, having a light would hide it under a buschel basket.

peace

Right. It would just be nice if *some* of the people that I knew were learning the same lessons that I am.

I didn't expect my lessons to be so... segregated from everyone else's. Even my closest friends.

Hopefully this is a temporary thing though. My environment hasn't caught up with the rest of me yet. I did make a lot of drastic changes pretty quickly.

There are none so righteous as the newly converted. :)

The analogy I like to use is imagining we're all playing a board game, say it's the Game of Life. I find myself in the middle of the game, but I can look behind me and see a lot of people just starting out and I can look in front of me and see how far I still have to go and see others ahead of me. I don't feel angry at others who are just starting the game and I don't feel jealous of those in front of me. I learn from the people in front of me on the board, and I teach, by example, to the people behind me. If someone asks me for help, I give it.

Nice work
 

Wow, what an insightful, empowering way to look at things. I found that particularly helpful -- thanks Adam! http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/i...ons/icon14.gif

I will point out something, though:

I'd argue that there really is no failure at all, since even in our deepest, darkest moments, failure is yet another lesson on how it feels, what it takes to fail, and how to pick yourself back up again. Perhaps further down the line, you can help someone out who is failing so that they can learn how to pull themselves out of it as well... so would failing now be a setback, or just a potentially useful lesson? ;)

peace thats a good idea adam, but the question would be what is love? we can't give what we dont know.

"What is Love" is a Haddaway song.

Hope that helps!

What is love? That is a question that will take me quite some time to answer.

It is like the nameless tao. Love is unlimited. To describe it is to limit is, which keeps the definition from truly describing Love. Seekers may not find it, but it can only be found by seeking. Even calling it Love is not Love, because a name limits it.

I think this will take a lot of meditation... Love is subjective to everybody, and is an eternal truth for each individual, so my description will not fit with other people's descriptions.

The most simple description that I can come up with is that Love is relationships which increase Joy.

I have also seen a definition of love in a link from someone else's signature recently... Michael Chui's Definition of Love. It is written in a more scientific format, but it is thorough. ;)

Have you ever read "A course in miracles?" From what I can glean from the reviews on Amazon.com it's basically a course in love, with step by step exercises to assist in the process.

No, I haven't read it... I'll add it to my list of books to read.

peace adam, i would say, that explination of love is very good, i would have to agree with all of its properties, i would like to add this on, as additional understanding, something i wrote.



LOVE IS A GUN
LOVE is the most precious force that you have. Because when you offer your love, whomever you offer it to, can take advantage of you by your love. Your love becomes the vehicle of your enslavement, your manipulation or your destruction. You dont give love to everything or everyone. Note that using the word (falling) in love, indicates a drop, become lower, collapse, a descent.

Obviously you have engaged in something without knowing the nature of it. Even if you know the backround of a person - how has that background affected the nature of the person? It may have added another personality. Remember in a world like this all is a facade. It is not the seen you pay particular attention to; its the unseen that is the real nature. How do you pull it out or see it? By recognizing the nature of circumstances.

In addition to the background, and whatever the cause is, the effect has subliminally incoded itself in the subconscious, and it has to manifest itself, by other circumstances, which will bring it up from the depth of the subconscious. This is relevent to both parties. To enter into love shows more focused consciousness and direction of thought, because to enter means to go or come into, join, begin, engage.

Reality should cause you to know something externally and internally, in order to have both sides to a thing or person. Duality is the complete concept of life; you have body + spirit. One does not exist without the other. So love is freedom, justice and equality. By knowing self, produces love for other than self, seeking to elevate self to create a forcefield of protection for those lives.

For an act to qualify as love, it has to be conducted in the absence of emotional pressure. It has to be subjected to intellectual deliberation, involving the careful and intelligent weighing of choices, outcomes, and consequences. Selflessness is not once or twice of GREAT MOMENTS of sacrifice, but in the day to day challenges that visits us all.

I think Love is the act of granting freedom to the loved person to be exactly as he is, and exactly as he is not. In that context, Joy might look a little different than you normally expect it to.

(I mean for the words "granting freedom" to signify only what happens in my heart -- surrender -- and not the more mundane definition that conjures power over that person.)

Adam, your intentions of peace and love come across pretty clearly in your endeavors on these boards, and it's not easy, is it?!

Actually, Angela, it is quite interesting that you brought up giving people freedom in the context of love, because I was thinking of sharing a story of my first girlfriend to show that love isn't always easy.

I'm sure most of us remember how we felt the first time that we fell in love; how we opened up our most vulnerable feelings to that person, knowing intellectually that the chances were that we would have our hearts broken, yet still giving ourselves entirely anyways.

Looking back now, I can see that it wasn't the best relationship to enter into. My girlfriend was very fickle, changing relationships with the season, yet I still fell in love with her absolutely. I have to admit, I was a complete nerd, so it probably wasn't very hard for me to become attached like I did.

Our relationship lasted for about three months. During that time, I was the first of my friends to get a car and a license, so I became the standard driver for my group. At the end of two months, though, my girlfriend started asking me to drop her off at another friend's house before school. As that month went on, she asked me to drop her off more often, and despite being in so much love, I wasn't blind... When she finally got around to telling me, I had already figured it out myself. I let her go without ceremony, just simply told her "I know," and let her go on her way. I think I only cried once, but my heart ached... yet because I loved her so much, I couldn't do anything that I knew would hurt her, despite how much it hurt me.

I think that being able to do anything to help another person, no matter how much it hurts, is a clear sign of love, but sacrificing yourself isn't a requirement of love. We may not be able to control who it is that we fall in love with, but until we can learn how to love unconditionally, it is best to love those who can return that love so that we don't need to face decisions between hurting ourselves and hurting those we love.

To answer the last question, whether love and peace is easy...

Well, computer guys like to use the phrase "it depends" a lot. I think it is appropriate here as well. With my wife, loving her is easy. It is easy for each of us to find joy in each other. I greatly enjoy giving her joy, just as she greatly enjoys giving me joy. I find no joy in war, so it is very difficult to find peace with it. I find joy in blogging, even though it has not given me any pleasure, so it is easy to find peace in blogging, but hard to find the motivation to do it, unless my motivation is for peace and joy. I am uncomfortable when cleaning, but I derive a great deal of joy from it, so it is hard to be motivated to clean unless I am motivated to have joy.

Similarly, I get pleasure from smoking, but I get no joy from it. I don't think that it is very surprising that I am motivated to smoke, despite it bringing fear, anger, and disease into my life.

So really, it depends on how much joy you are bringing in, as to how easy it is to be peaceful and loving. Pleasure is good motivation, but many people use it as a substitute for joy, rather than a companion, which makes them unhappier in the long run, and pushes them further from peace. If you aren't finding enough real joy, then work on yourself and your environment until peace comes naturally.

I'd like to add real quick that I don't think that you can only work on yourself or only work on your environment to find peace... There is only so much about the world that a person can change, and a person can only change so much, that they have to meet in the middle.

I see your point and it makes sense. I am correct in what happens to God's chosen people, but incorrect in who those chosen people are. So it is true that denouncing Christ loses your place in heaven. Thank you, Internal_Affairs12. I see now how much more important the choice for Jesus really is for ALL of us.

Not for me, Joshiepoo. Please do not speak for me. The choice for any superstitious belief is not important for me at all.

Especially not ones that proselytize. Most especially not ones that attempt to manipulate me with threats of punishment for not conforming.

I have to say I agree...every thread Joshiepoo posts in he has to say something about Jesus and how we are all pretty much wrong and doomed. Well I do not subscribe to that belief and I would appreciate Joshiepoo not making these statements as if they are factual...No one has it figured out quiet yet and sticking to one belief like that only hinders you from figuring it out...