Eyes Open Ascending
The techniques of Ascension are called Ascension Attitudes, and for a good reason. They are not merely tools to be used for some limited gain, but they are Attitudes that affect every part of our life and every single relationship we have had, are having and will have. They help us to come down to a very basic level of choice that we are making in each moment. What is my Attitude in this moment? What is my Attitude in this experience? Is it one that is expanding and opening in Praise, Gratitude and Love or is it one that repeats the patterns of old thinking and painful memories of the past.
This is where the power of the practice of Ascension really comes in. If we use the tools only to a small degree and continue with the thoughts we are used to having, the rate of progress will be slower and the benefits will not come to us as quickly as they could. The most powerful and really the only place where the choice can be made to Ascend is NOW. When we choose to Ascend in our life as it is happening, as we are standing in the grocery store line, as we are waiting for the traffic lights to change, as we are drinking our morning cup of coffee, that is where the change happens. That is how we establish the new groove of Ascending into our minds, by creating new pathways with the help of the Ascension Attitudes.
Thinking the Ascension Attitude eyes open helps us to be more present in our experiences. It may not change it instantly or have a discernible effect right away, but the more we put Ascension into practice in our daily life the more we will see how the underlying quality of everything changes. Ascension is very subtle and very powerful. The greatest power lies beyond what our senses can pick up and this is what Ascending opens up inside of us. We tap into the reservoir of the All Good that brings the greatest growth to everyone at all times.
As we choose to light up our connection to the Ascendant even amongst the activities of life we not only help ourselves, we can be the lighthouses for other people. We can be doorways to a different choice. We can live consciously in this present moment with growing awareness of how Praise, Gratitude and Love create everything in our lives and how these Attitudes are at the heart of our being.
Nataraja Ishaya
Life as a teacher
It is not sufficient to taste the Ascendant only during silent meditation with eyes closed. The full development of consciousness requires a movement of the Ascendant into the daily life. To accomplish this, life itself becomes the Teacher. Every desire, every conflict, every problem is an opportunity presented by this flawless and wonderful Teacher to release us from false confines of the ego and learn that the Ascendant is the underlying Reality of everything. Once we start actively pursuing growth, every experience shows us exactly which desires and aversions maintain our past destructive behavior patterns. Every life-situation becomes an opportunity to grow toward enlightenment. As we become adept at renouncing all the previous mental constructs, we naturally develop a state of evenness that carries us smoothly over and through the mirage of Earth-life.
MSI, Ascension!
The quality of our daily thoughts
When I attended the First Sphere for the first time, I learned that regular Ascension was important. However, I did not hear that it was important to use the Ascension Attitudes with my eyes open. I only heard “if you think of it, use the Ascension Attitudes with the eyes open.”
So, for the first several weeks, Ascending regularly with my eyes closed, but not eyes open, I began having some pretty contrasting experiences. Since I wasn’t using Ascension Attitudes with my eyes open, I was not experiencing the additional benefits that come from eyes open ascending.
I attended an advanced meeting and the teachers made it clear how important it was to use the Ascension Attitudes with the eyes open. They used the “bathtub analogy”. The bathtub represented the nervous system. As stress builds up in the nervous system (or water fills the bathtub), sleep is not enough to remove the stress. By the time many learn to Ascend, the bathtub is full (the nervous system is full of stress). The drain is clogged. So, by Ascending with the eyes closed, the drain is opened and the bathtub drains much more quickly.
It is important to note that the water faucet remains on in this scenario, representing the stress coming in through daily living. This is where the eyes open practice is very important. Ascending throughout the day prevents most of the new stress from entering the tub. Regular Ascending for a year or more removes enough stress from the nervous system so that the biological age decreases by an average of 7 years.
The bathtub analogy is only the tip of the iceberg however. The quality of our thinking and what we put our attention on the majority of time, affects the quality of life that we live. If we spend our time in fear, doubt, and judgment, listening to old stories, hearing the old tapes from the past, we create from that underpinning. Instead, we could be using the Ascension Attitudes and strengthening our connection with the Infinite Force for Good, and creating a completely different future ahead of us from a foundation of Praise, Gratitude, Love, and Compassion.
Jyoti Ishaya
Ascension in the daily life of an ascender
As a Chiropractic Physician I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with lots of wonderful people, and because the body is designed to heal itself I have also witnessed many
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healing miracles. However, I have been faced with challenges each day, such as staying on time with a busy schedule, and handling a few complex patients who bring negativity, anxiety, worry, hopelessness, suppressed anger or resentment with their physical complaints. My challenge is not only getting the patient to heal with this emotional baggage in tow, but for me not to get caught up in their stuff as well. Growing up I was taught that a “good person” is one who jumps into the emotional ditch with the person who is upset and sympathizes with them. In my busy practice I found this to be emotionally draining. The good news is that Ascension as taught by the Ishayas has given me a tool to change all that.
To demonstrate this I will share with you a specific example. A few weeks ago I was interviewing an elderly new patient. At first it was typical as she described her aches and pains and I took notes and asked questions. Then she unexpectedly slid into an emotional ditch and started explaining that her husband of 62 years was in a nursing home with dementia and severe physical impairment. She began to cry as she continued to direct the conversation and her emotions towards her ailing husband and their separation. I felt my heart strings tug as I felt her emotional pain.
But then my Ascension practice kicked in and I used the open-eyed Compassion Attitude. I felt an inward movement that gave me instant relief. It even caused me to stand up straighter and take a deep cleansing breath. As I continued to Ascend and engage the patient in conversation, I noticed she too sat up straighter and her emotional state began to shift upward as well. I then made the suggestion that skilled care was what her husband needed. This brought her up and out even faster as she admitted that he was in the best facility, and that his caregivers were in fact wonderful and that he often recognized her when she visited. She had gone from pain and despair to appreciation and then back to the conversation of her health in only a couple of minutes. Her 55 year old daughter just looked at me and smiled. This full emotional shift occurred because I made the decision to Ascend. This simple but profound tool not only helped me and the elderly patient right then, but it continued to help me and subsequently all the rest of the patients that day as I used the open-eyed practice.
I believe my consistent Ascending, eyes closed and open, is retraining my nervous system. When certain feelings or situations arise now it feels natural to use my Ascension tools, and that inner movement first always gives me a better outer view and response. In closing I would like to pass on an analogy. I tell people that Ascension is like a piece of exercise equipment, only much easier. It will work if you use it consistently. If you use exercise equipment to hang your clothes on to dry then it won’t “work”. I have been Ascending only a few months and I can already see that the benefits keep compounding.
With much Praise, Gratitude, Love, and Compassion
Louis Hagene DC
Open eyed Ascending and Scientists who study Meditation
Ascension is so easy. We can use the techniques any time, any place. Often we have Ascenders ask, “How do I use the open eyed practice, when I’m driving down the road with kids in the back seat, or working a fast paced job in which so much is coming at me at once?” Well the gentle answer is that Ascension works open eyed when we just easily think the Attitude and let it go. We just do it.
We never push thoughts out when we are Ascending. Since thoughts are a natural part of life, they are natural part of Ascending. By alternating the Ascension Attitudes with other thoughts we become more familiar with the deeper levels of thinking.
Make this day an experiment. Instead of being submerged in the active world of many thoughts, make a commitment to have the Ascension Attitudes be the main focus of the day and then see for yourself how it affects your day. Your own experience of Ascending is a more powerful motivator than anything else. The old habits, the 100,000 thoughts and the stresses, can quickly and easily be replaced with a new habit of Praise, which grows into Gratitude, and with continual use expands into Unconditional Love.
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Living in the world is normal, and because that involves input to our brains and bodies the scientists at the University of Wisconsin are studying the benefits of mediation with the eyes open. As reported in NCCAM, one recent study addressed a phenomenon known as "attentional blink”.
Our mind can only do one thing at a time, very fast, but still only one thing at a time. So what happens when we receive two pieces of information in very fast sequence? Sounds like a normal day, huh? Fast paced and busy with lots of things going on? Well, most minds have what is called “attentional blink”. When this occurs, the brain is unable to process the information from the second piece because it is still processing the information from the first. So the second piece of information is virtually unavailable or ignored.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin studied the input of multiple stimuli to subjects who were hooked to an EEG machine, in order to find out if meditation helped with “attentional blink”. With eyes open, the subjects used a computer screen with visual number
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and letters in rapid sequence. What they found was that subjects who had meditated for as little as three months experienced “reduced elaborative processing” that allowed “improved brain allocation” that resulted in “improved detection” of the second target. Perhaps the words could read there was reduced thinking that allowed more of the brain to be free, to be used to detect more.
With longer practice of meditation, according to NCCAM, the researchers found that intensive training did reduce "attentional-blink." The participants who had gone through the mental training (meditation) were more likely to perceive both pieces of information instead of just the first because the brain used fewer resources to detect the first piece of information—leaving more resources available to detect the second.
And although there was no proof, the researchers further posited that a committed meditative practice can be expected to reduce the elaborative thinking that would be stimulated by evaluating or interpreting a selected object, and further that meditation could offer a reduction in the propensity to “get stuck” on a target.
Well, what does all that mean to me? It means that Ascending open eyed allows my mind to function more optimally, freeing me from repetitive patterns of thought and allowing more efficient operation and perception. In short, Ascension open-eyed works. I can rest and be more aware at the same time.
Mayasakti Ishaya
Prayer
A natural law states what we focus on grows. In the Bible, Christ said the same thing in another way, “What you sow, so shall you reap”. He also said that “what you ask for, you will receive”. Frequently, however, our prayers do not seem to be answered the way we would like them. Why is this so? Where we put our attention creates an energetic wave that will manifest into a physical reality. However, if we have an underlying belief in being less-than, or not worthy, or coming from lack, then this subconscious pattern of thinking sabotages our desire.
A single pebble (a desire) dropped into a still pond (the mind) will send out ripples (energy waves) that effortlessly and smoothly go out to the edge of the pond (Universe) and return them back to where it was dropped (you, the sender). This is an analogy of how when we send a clear desire out into Universal Mind it will return as a manifest reality. However, if that desire is accompanied by thoughts and beliefs of limitation and doubt and worry and fear, including subconscious ones, then our message is no longer clear. This is akin to dropping a handful of pebbles into the pond, which creates conflicting waves that cancel each other out and return the same conflict and doubt.
The Universe serves us unconditionally, and says YES to everything. When we are clear we get clarity back, when we are doubtful or afraid or coming from lack, the Universe responds with “I see my child, this is what you want and so you shall have it”. We are the creators of our lives and our realities in a perfect holographic mirror of what we perceive it to be, of how we think it to be. This is good news, because now that we are able to see more clearly we can simply change our perception with the perfect tool of Ascension and create anew.
In the last newsletter it was said that Ascension is perfect prayer, and that perfect prayer is Ascension. This is so because the Ascension Attitudes have no opposites. They are therefore pure thoughts that pierce through any and all of the underlying subconscious beliefs of limitation and doubt and worry and fear. When we think an Ascension Attitude there is no thought that conflicts with it. Sometimes a thought we may have afterwards is simply the release of stress, a doubt or a worry or a fear that was shaken loose from our nervous system as a by-product of the perfect prayer. A healing has occurred, so let it go and then effortlessly return to the Ascension Attitudes. As the nervous system is healed by these releases there will be less and less conflict and stress. Then stillness dawns in our own clear mind (pond).
“We are all vessels of consciousness, of the light of the perfect Ascendant Source of all that is. It is not particularly difficult to realize this intellectually; the good news is that it is not particularly difficult to realize this Reality as a continual, twenty-four hours a day conscious experience. That is what is meant by ‘Praying without ceasing.’ (Praying without ceasing is most assuredly not trying to hypnotize the mind with continual verbal prayers and growing exhausted in the process!) The natural state of the human is to be established in continual experience of the Ascendant. This is the highest state of prayer even as it is the highest state of consciousness.” MSI
Nandisvara Ishaya
Question & Answer
“The way I interpret what I've read is that Ascension reduces the stress in the body.”
“This is correct, but Ascension is much more than just a form of meditation. The mechanics of Ascension are such that when the mind and body relax in meditation stress releases. This can sometimes be contrasting to those who are looking for a particular experience and the experience doesn't match the expectations. When we relax into meditation we can have a peaceful experience or not, but if we are not aware of how we introduce stress into the body our meditations become a desire to escape, to attach ourselves to thoughts and feelings, rather than the foundation in our training and approach to awareness of self destructive habits, If we are used to a peaceful meditation but then re-emerge into the world of stress, we may be taking time to remove the stress but then upon rising from our meditation we begin adding stress to the nervous system thru the habits we have yet to change.
“It can be that over time we can overcome the habit to attach ourselves to thoughts, feelings and experiences using just close eyed Ascension but we can speed up the process by recognizing how we hold onto an experience by trying to push it away. We tend to try to avoid certain experiences thru our judgments of what we want to see, hear, taste, touch and smell, instead of embracing each experience for the essence of what they are, which is energy.
“The inward approach of the mind using the Ascension Attitudes is to deepen our experience of the unified field of potential, which is the Ascendant/Consciousness. By our recognition of that field in our awareness it can be drawn into every one of the senses. This requires a mode of thought that incorporates the use of the tools of Ascension to expand awareness, and the intellectual choice to apply it to those things we experience thru the senses. In the Ascension Circle of "Ishaya speak" it is called choosing, the application of expanded awareness with the understanding of the mechanics of Ascension to each and every thought, feeling and action. Also spoken of as "Letting go and letting God."
Mahadeva Ishaya
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This is a part of one discussion on the Ishaya Foundation Bulletin Board. We welcome any questions that you readers may have concerning the practice of Ascension so that they can be addressed here as part of the newsletter. You can email your questions to contact@theishayafoundation.org with the title Question & Answer. Thank you!
Switzerland Spring Retreat
As the natural feeling of rebirth and renewal occurs with the approaching spring, a sense of undeniable joy often fills us. A renewed desire to grow and expand comes with it. Ascension is the perfect way to simply and naturally align our inner world with what is happening all around us in nature.
When we Ascend, we bring more of the deep true inner Peace that is within us consciously into every moment. This is one of the reasons we offer Retreats, so that each person can give themselves time to experience the deeper reality within –their True Self. This Self is a treasure that is truly Peace on Earth. In a Retreat, you have the opportunity to set aside the cares of your daily life and dive into the inner experience, to find more Truth from within.
We are pleased to offer a Retreat in Switzerland in the spring of 2010. This seven night Retreat begins on April 24 and ends May 1. It will be held in the heart of central Switzerland, in the beautiful rural valley of Muotathal. There, surrounded by the Swiss Alps, in a setting that has been dedicated to prayer and meditation, you can renew yourself in heart, mind, body and soul.
Details are available at
http://www.theishayatradition.eu/german/retreats.html
http://www.theishayatradition.eu/finnish/retreats.html. A deposit is due March 22 for the Switzerland Retreat. Please contact us at info@ishayas.eu as soon as possible, if you would like to attend.
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This is the 54nd edition of the Ishaya Foundation newsletter.
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