Home
Doors
Essays2007
Essays2008
Essays2009
Essays2010
Wisdom
Gallery
Links
Bios
Contact
|
..:: Spiritual
Ascension ::..
By
Alan Schneider
This is the first in a series of
essays that will address the subject of Spiritual Ascension as a part of
a larger paper that will be framed for presentation as a grant proposal
to study – and hopefully experimentally achieve – individual, personal
Ascension for groups of experimental participants.
Ascension is one of
several terms that have been mentioned often in these essays, but
perhaps not subjected to the clarification deserved. What is
Ascension, how and why does it take place, and what is its implication
for human affairs on the Physical Plane of expression?
Ascension can be defined as
the shift of normal waking awareness to and through a succession of
altered states of consciousness of successively more abstract symbolic
content, culminating in the absolute non-dual perception of all
experience in one ecstatic state of being. Although Ascension
experiences have and do occur in sleep states, these are significantly
less organized in content. The sleeping consciousness is subject to a
wide variety of motivated experience in the relative absence of the
waking ego, including many types of dreams (e.g. Freudian
wish-fulfillment dreams, incomplete waking experience dreams, Jungian
“Big” dreams), lingering emotional drive states, latent physiological
responses, and legitimate spiritual visions, all frequently mixed
together in a chaotic mosaic of perception. Of the dream group, the
Jungian dreams come closest to spiritual visions, having much of the
same high-value psychic content, but the spiritual vision is in a
category by itself, frequently leaving the individual wide awake after
its appearance in conscious perception. This type of experience in sleep
states is exceedingly rare – even Astral experience (e.g. Astral Travel,
the Astral Chord, etc.) is not quite of the same valence, although
Astral manifestations occurring in sleep can occasionally be the
precursors of legitimate spiritual visions.
The key to understanding the
Ascension process is the production of the waking altered state
of consciousness, because here we at least begin with the ego-integrated
perception of the Physical Plane in a psychologically and spiritually
more or less grounded condition. After the Ascension episode is
concluded, we can hopefully return to the intact, if modified,
physical perception of the Physical Plane as the ego reintegrates on a
more intuitive level than before. This progressive building of the
intuitive function is the integral goal of Ascension, as a bridge of
consciousness is constructed through the Planes of Ascension. More will
be said about these Planes later within this essay.
How are the waking altered
states to be induced? There are many affective methods of approaching
this question. This author personally prefers meditation as his gateway
to the Planes of Ascension, but there are several others as well.
Chanting of Mantras of many different varieties is an approach that
works well for some people – in fact, Hindu Gurus routinely give
dedicated personal Mantras to their students at full Initiation
into a particular sect. This is done in great secrecy – the Initiate is
admonished not to repeat the Mantra to anyone, nor say it out loud, and
even the Guru carefully whispers it into the Initiate’s ear so that none
present may know its content. The Mantra conveyed in this fashion
becomes the Initiate’s personal Gateway to Ascension. Meditation focused
on Yantra images is another path to Ascension. Certain geometric designs
are known to have great influence on the human consciousness, and many
Yantras incorporate these designs into their structure. Physical
movement of certain specific types, including dancing in prescribed ways
(e.g. certain Native American dancing rituals and the Rites of the
Islamic Whirling Dervishes), many Yoga postures (e.g. the Solar Asana),
Zen walking techniques, and certain acrobatics, can all induce the
initial altered state of perception needed for Ascension. Along with
Mantra chanting, singing of spiritually significant themes (e.g. Hymns
of many different faiths), is a path known to be functional – many Hindu
men still sing the verses of the Sacred Texts such as the
Upanishads to their sons as part of the Hindu spiritual Initiation
process.
Prayer is yet another method
of attaining the altered states that bridge into Ascension. Saint
Theresa is said to have routinely prayed herself into a state of
religious ecstasy that most certainly is/was an Ascended state of
consciousness, and many Christian sects practice allied techniques such
as Speaking in the Tongues, and Communing with the Angels to attain
Ascended States wherein the individual is placed in close proximity to
Higher Beings (e.g. Angels, Archangels, and God) and Higher
Consciousness.
With regard to meditation
techniques, this author has used several to great advantage in the
pursuit of Spiritual Ascension, including the aforementioned Zen Walking
Meditation, Mindfulness Breath Meditation, and Cabala Mantra Meditation
on the Holy Words (and certain other content) of the Old Testament –
most notably the Tetragrammeton, the so-called unpronounceable
name of God – YHVH or YHWH. This latter is capable of
producing a very powerful Ascension when combined with a series of other
preparatory exercises, including the study of Cabala and Cabalistic
concepts and theory, certain dietary restrictions, various specific
austerities, and a variety of other spiritually focused techniques. The
simple practice of self-denial in the form of Austerity can be a
powerful adjunct to the attainment of Ascension – vows of Poverty,
Celibacy, Vegancy (vegetarian diet, and the avoidance of all animal
products), Silence, Restriction (binding of limbs, distortion of limbs,
movement in restrained methods), Abnegation (resting or sleeping on
beds of nails, sleeping upright, voluntarily submitting to various forms
of torture), Inversion (hanging inverted for prolonged periods), and
voluntary sensory deprivation can all support and/or produce
Ascension experiences. All of the Austerities have the common thrust of
turning consciousness away from the gratification motive present on the
Physical Plane, thus supporting the search for meaning elsewhere in
consciousness. The author has practiced, and continues to practice,
numerous austerities as an adjunct to Ascended experience, in addition
to Meditation as his primary technique. Anything that draws attention
away from material gratification and focuses it inward and upward is a
step in the right direction from the perspective of Ascension, however
forbidding it may appear to the ego on the Physical Plane!
There are preferably certain
more or less clearly defined stages in the Ascension process that are
frequently referred to in the Western Mysteries as the Planes of
Ascension. I say preferably here because there are instances on
record of spontaneous Ascensions that have occurred under curious,
atypical circumstances, frequently those featuring hallucinogenic drug
use taking place recreationally outside of a clear spiritual tradition.
This type of activity is very dangerous – the mind must be
progressively prepared for the experience of Ascension – to
simply burst into the celestial realm of God and find oneself in the
Divine Presence with the assistance of chemical substances almost always
results in permanent psychological impairment. In no case has my
personal Ascension involvement ever involved the use of artificial means
of achievement. The reader must heed my advice in this matter, and avoid
the chemical enhancement of consciousness as a means of seeking
Ascension – rather, it is far better to follow the time-honored,
if slow, techniques of known legitimate spiritual traditions.
This being said, the Planes
of Ascension can generally be classified according to the level
of alteration produced in consciousness. Again, in the Western Mystery
tradition, the first Plane (or altered state) beyond the physical
sensory perception of the Physical Plane is the Astral Plane,
already mentioned in the previous paragraph on dreaming and dream states
of consciousness. This Plane is generally thought of as being the final
site of composition for the experience that is perceived in the senses
on the Physical Plane and segregated by the ego – the often confusing
and chaotic Astral impressions are literally sorted out by the
ego (the pilot mechanism of consciousness) according to various social
and cultural paradigms, and the result channeled into the conscious
perception of a sensory “world”, or state of experience. I have
often said that perception on the Physical Plane is a matter of what is
not excluded by the ego, and this remains my conviction. On the
Astral Plane, we make direct contact with “what is not excluded”, and
some of it would seem to be subject to exclusion for good reason! In
particular, the Lower Astral region is the one most immediately
contiguous to physical perception, and it is populated by many negative
archetypes of Astral expression, and the repressed contents of
the personal unconscious – negative memory experiences from this
incarnation, and (arguably) from past ones. With this dark influence
present so close to the Physical Plane, it is no wonder that events here
are so often unpleasant in character – if no precautions have been given
to spiritual Initiates regarding the nature and influence of this
region, they risk confusion and deception radiating from a most
unpleasant proximal psychic layer! The Astral Plane in general is
analogous to the unconscious mind of psychology, and tends to be
a collective dumping ground for all that is rejected by the ego as
“unfit for consumption” in awareness. The first stages of access to this
region in meditation are frequently very intimidating for the
aforementioned reasons.
The Middle and Upper Astral
Planes are generally significantly less difficult to navigate once the
Lower Astral turbulence has been assimilated. The term assimilated
is very important here, because this lower region includes the personal
unconscious mind, and the repressed memories noted in the previous
paragraph. Until these memory elements are reintegrated in conscious
perception or “realized” (the Jungian term for Maslow’s “actualized”)
they will plague the Initiate’s meditation experiences, or, in severe
cases, prevent meditation entirely. For this reason, I strongly
suggest a course of psychological therapy as an adjunct to Ascension
involvement. Once this process has at least begun (and it can be
conducted concurrently with spiritual practice and investigation), the
Middle and Upper Astral regions, the site of manifestation of the
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious mind, can be further
investigated.
The term “Astral Plane” is a
remnant from ancient times, when human beings perceived the world as
being created in large part from heavenly and stellar influences that
were felt to have intelligent consciousness apart from, and much more
potent than, ours here on Earth. Astrology was the “first
science” of old, and many correlations were made of the movements of
stellar and planetary bodies in the belief that these indicated the
intentions of the extra-planetary, extra-personal influences determining
events on Earth. In a way, this supposition is correct, because the
Astral archetypes do heavily influence waking consciousness by
patterning tendencies of perception, and these are qualitative
influences of exactly the same range and type that the ancients
attributed to the planets, comets, constellations, and stars! The old
observation, “As above, so Below” sums up this interesting synchronicity
very accurately. The human mind evolved into manifestation amid the
background environment of the existing universe, and there is every
reason to suppose that the human consciousness is a refection of that
background condition couched in the symbolic parameters of the
archetypes. For this reason, the predictions of astrologers are
never to be taken lightly – they reflect the Cosmic Mind of the
universe.
The further belief in ancient
times was that, under conditions of altered consciousness such as sleep,
abnormal stress, narcolepsy, trance, etc, the mind of the observer
could, and did, travel into the Astral environment – interplanetary and
interstellar space – and experience the potencies there directly at
first hand. This is also substantially accurate, with the proviso that
we are actually “traveling” into and through the consciousness
duplicate of the stellar environment, as opposed to the literal
environment itself. In the Mystery Theories, inner space is outer
space, and vise versa – they are perceptually the same condition.
So it is that the Astral Plane is the great admixture of symbology and
symbolic content all kinds, and from this first stage of Ascension we
can continue to journey anywhere else we choose to. Why? Because
symbols are ultimately more real than their sensory
correspondents – the impressions of the senses are transitory,
while Archetypal symbols are eternal.
There are numerous
correspondences in other traditions of thought between the Astral Plane
and similar states of conscious expression – I will limit the discussion
here to analogs from Cabala and Yoga. In Cabala, the Astral Plane is
represented on the Tree of Life, (i.e. the Tree of Consciousness)
– Cabala’s primary psychic model – as the three Sephora of Hod,
Yesod, and Netzach, collectively referred to appropriately
enough as the Astral Triangle, a reference to the occurrence of
their triangular arrangement near the lower portion of the Tree. They
are found directly above Malkuth, the Cabalistic representation
of the Physical Plane of expression. In the system of the Chakras,
frequently called the Lotus Tree – Yoga and Tantra’s primary
psychic model – the Astral analog is the Chakra Svadhisthana,
again lying immediately above Muladhara, the symbolic
representation of the Physical Plane in on the Lotus Tree. Svadhisthana
is concerned with pleasure, sexual expression, and procreation, while
the Astral Triangle is concerned with Astral perception. There would not
seem to be an immediate relationship between these two, but there is
nonetheless a deeply hidden relationship, one that involves the
essential life force that Freud called libido. Conscious does not
simply happen – it must be driven into expression by an
underlying force, and that force is libido. Tantra calls this force
Kundalini, and equates it with all tendencies toward
manifestation. Cabala calls this force the Three Pillars, or Paths
of Ascension, on the Tree of Life – the Pillar of Severity, The Pillar
of Mildness, and the Pillar of Mercy. Taken together, these represent
three pathways to the higher conscious states that lie beyond, pathways
that are deemed to be suitable to the three primary psychological types
present in humanity – Jung referred to these as Extroverted, Integrated,
and Introverted, respectively. These Pillars of Consciousness originate
in the three Sephora of the Astral Triangle. And they amount to
tendencies toward direct, balanced, and indirect sexual
expression and conduct on the part of the Initiate – here is
the hidden link with the Chakra Svadhisthana!
The Western world has always
traditionally been significantly imbalanced regarding attitudes toward
sexual expression, swinging from extreme extroversion to extreme
introversion throughout history. The original Dravidian Hindu culture
was not particularly sexually repressive, even following the
so-called Aryan Incursion, until the Persian conquest of India. With the
introduction of this notably Western culture into India, sexual
repression was established as the norm by the notoriously violent and
patriarchal Persian Empire. This nine-hundred year long occupation left
its mark on Hindu civilization in many forms, including the Tantric
division into Right and Left Hand Paths, with the Left Hand Path being
equated with heterosexual activity (and generally frowned upon by
Ascensionists), and the Right Hand Path of Yoga, abstinence, and
austerity, as the expression preferred by Ascensionists. The
Astral Triangle of Cabala is even more sublimated than Svadhisthana,
which at least alludes to sexual conduct, and only can be understood as
sexual and libidinal expression by mental health professionals
customarily having several advanced academic degrees, and Mystery
Students who have encountered and accepted the correct Jungian
Cabalistic interpretations. Nonetheless, the correlations most
definitely exist. It is the libido that drives Ascension in every
tradition, although this force may be called by many different names.
When the libido is turned
away from the direct external expression seen in sexual activity (e.g.
Left Hand Tantra), it can become either a source of mental illness
(predominantly neurosis), or a driving force that can be used to power
the Ascension process (e.g. Right Hand Tantra). The techniques of both
Yoga and Cabala contain prescriptions and methodology needed to
accomplish just this constructive conversion of sexual energy to serve
Spiritual Ascension. It should be mentioned here that the practices of
both Left and Right Hand Tantra can be carried on simultaneously
in life as complimentary activities, but only with proper guidance and
instruction.
This concludes our first essay
on Spiritual Ascension. The next in this sequence of essays will
continue the investigation and illumination of Astral and Mental Plane
phenomena, concluding the Astral segment, and beginning the Mental. The
Mental Plane is the Ascended State immediately following the Astral
Plane in the sequence of Ascension experiences, and is focused around
the concept of the thought form – a higher order archetypal
manifestation that possesses volition and the capability to influence
events on the Physical Plane in highly specific ways according to the
wishes of the Initiate. Namaste...
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
Return to Top
|