Ascension and Enlightenment
Ascension comes from enlightenment and is the process of returning to source (religion) and becoming one with the creator upon finishing 'the last life' on earth.
The need for thought to overcome constant dissatisfaction.
The need for action to overcome non participation or a disinterested approach to life and its meaning.
Enlightenment - the Holy Grail of Spiritual growth
Spiritual and astral forces are at work continuously, and have been so from the very earliest ages of the earth. But there come certain times in human history when the doors between our physical world and the inner realms are more open so that men become more receptive to these subtle influences. Some of us are leaving an era of materialistic life and thought and are entering a more spiritual one focused on the inside.
At the same time, the world is full of evidence of an outbreak of psychic and spiritual influences, and these are always deceptive, always dangerous, because the astral realms belong to a lower range of material existence, filled with tricks and devious emanations, human and otherwise.
In our time where we believe that spiritual and astral energies are quickening is not so much a new thing but a transition between two long cycles, the ending of one and the beginning of another. As one cycle ends and another begins with this transition, the minds of men are rapidly evolving, becoming more psychically sensitive.
There is great danger in this movement but progress often comes with unwanted side effects and both positive and negative influences. As more turn their thoughts towards higher things this acceleration is especially powerful in so far as spiritual forces are concerned.
Unfortunately as is always the case in an age where we are exploring our spirituality people today yearn for powers. Seeking development of suspected but scarcely accepted higher faculties made glamorous and powerful in movies and tv shows, x-men or tomorrow people. In their blindness they search outside of themselves rather than within.
Their hearts are hungry for answers to the enigmas of life, and so they take what they can from self-advertised teachers about how to gain and use psychic powers, and such 'teachings' are always baited with personal benefit of the teacher more than the student.
It is difficult to speak of these things without hurting many trusting souls who, not knowing the truth, follow what seem to them to be glimpses of a greater life than that which they have; and this accounts for the many so-called psychic, spiritual and quasi-mystical movements (including cults) presently existing which, in many cases, are leading people away instead of toward the light emanating from their own inner god. We have to be ever watchful in these matters.
The waves of the astral light are exceedingly unreliable, and thousands and thousands follow the will-o'-the-wisps of psychic light instead of the steady burning splendor of the divinity within.
The plain fact is that many are being misled by psychic teachings and readings which in themselves have nothing permanent in them. Those who follow these practices are, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people of untrained formal spiritual and psychic nature who are thus easily caught by the 'life of a psychic' and can be seen in the conspiracies they see in society.
This does not mean that such faculties and powers are evil or are not natural parts of the human constitution, nor that they are useless. The meaning is that they are very hazardous to one without spiritual vision and the power of intellect and spiritual will to guide and control the psychic nature in which these faculties lie.
Dangerous also are the hatha-yoga practices of a psycho-astral type, usually connected with physical posturing, etc., to which certain individuals are addicted in their attempt to gain for themselves powers of a lower kind. These practices not only can affect the mind and even dislodge it from its normal seat, thus producing insanity, but also can interfere with the proper pranic circulations of the body. Religious fanatics often go insane; and in certain sensitive instances become the so-called 'ecstatics', believed by the ignorant to be exemplars of a holy life merely because their skin may bleed, and their hands or feet show wounds supposed to represent the nails of the Cross. The same may be said of the fakirs and lower type of yogis of the Orient. Results can be produced which endanger both the mind and the health, as well as the life itself. In all these practices there is not a breath of spirituality.
He who enters the path with the hope of gaining powers of any kind, regarding them as something of paramount importance, is destined to failure. Indeed, he is embarking upon a very hazardous and questionable road, which at worst could lead to sorcery and black magic, and at best will bring to him only the Dead Sea fruit of disappointment. Powers as such, whether spiritual, intellectual, or psychic, will develop in due course and in a perfectly natural way as we progress, provided that we have the unflinching determination to achieve, and, above all, that our heart is forever brightened and filled with compassionate love, a love that is even now a distinguishing characteristic of the spiritual soul within.
There is immense hope and spiritual beauty in the teachings of the esoteric tradition. In them is the path along which we may evolve, but it depends upon the individual whether or not he ascends along the ray which is living and working within him. While it is true that fully to understand the deeper reaches of the philosophy requires high intellectual power and a spiritual vision, it is often very simple natures who see a great light. Light passes everywhere. We have but to open the closed doors of our personality and the light of itself will come in, and we shall then understand instinctively the most recondite secrets of nature.
Jesus the psychic and spiritual avatar, so ill understood in the Occident, taught the same truths. Seek first the treasures of the spirit, of the kingdom of heaven, and all other things will be added -- all the psychical powers and energies and faculties will fall into place naturally and safely, enlightened and guided by the spiritual sun within.