Here and Now
Space and time are the two concepts that we use to relate to this world. They give us a framework that we use to create a picture that makes at least apparent sense to us in our efforts to navigate in life. Our sense of space is limited because our identity is firmly locked in the physical body. That is the space we seem to occupy and that is the space that we think defines who we are. That is the point of reference we use when we move in the world quite blind to anything of subtler nature. The time that we relate to is most always either the past or the future. Sudden glimpses to the present are powerful but more like peaks instead of stable experiences. Our thoughts are largely elsewhere and not quite in the Now.
To be truly Present requires that we experience the truth of who we are and that can only be experienced Here and Now. For the truth there is no time or place as it exists everywhere at all times. The truth of the Ascendant One is beyond our concepts of space and time and transcends them instantly.
If one has a suitable vehicle to gain that experience, one can gradually open up to experience the real Here and Now of the Divine Presence. Ascension Attitudes have the power to bring this about and they do it every time we choose to use them. They instantly cut through the chatter of the mind and reach for the stillness of the Ascendant One. Our surface awareness does not necessarily recognize it especially in the beginning but it happens regardless. The Ascension Attitudes are thoughts born in the Here and Now and they lead us back to it. The more that our mind is saturated by them, both in our active lives and in our inner focus of eyes closed Ascension, the more we will experience the unbounded nature of our own consciousness. Consciousness that is not defined or limited by our surface concepts of space and time that we so often hold onto for dear life.
As our identification is no longer centered in our physical body and our past experiences we come to experience the reality of the Ascendant as our center and as the true form of our self. The simple by-product of consistently returning to the attitudes of Praise, Gratitude and Love is a life lived in the Here and Now. There is no complication, time or hardship required to accomplish this. Only our continual choice to turn toward the light of consciousness that is present Here and Now.
Even Now reading this newsletter is an opportunity for you to introduce the Ascension Attitude in your mind and let yourself experience more of That, Here and Now. It is quite simple. We just do it.
Nataraja Ishaya
Pada I Sutra
Now, the Teaching of Yoga.
The typical experience of the adult human mind is that awareness is rarely in the present moment. Scientists have estimated that the average adult thinks some 50,000 (currently well over 100,000) thoughts every day; these are almost without exception concerned with the past or the future or the distant. There is little or no experience of life as it is Now and Here. When we do rarely for an instant slip beyond the continuous barrier of our unending thought streams, we find that life suddenly becomes vastly different from our typical Waking State experience. Instead of being caught by regret for the past or worry for the future, we are free to experience life as it is right now, free from self-defeating beliefs and judgments, free from the limitations imposed by past experience, established in peace and joy.
Therefore the science of Yoga begins and ends in the present moment. Everything to be understood about the transformation of life from suffering to permanent happiness, from failure to success, from ignorance to enlightenment is to be found in the present instant of time. Life in freedom is the result of learning to turn from the imperious demands of our past experience. Nothing can be done for the past, it is over; nothing can be done for the future, for it never comes; all that can be done is to make the present Ideal. Then the future will take care of itself. Perfection of the present instant is at once the goal and the means of the Science of Union.
Life is meant for freedom, joy and continual progress. How is this to be accomplished? By freeing our experiencing machinery from bondage to past experience. Union with the universal Higher Self is easy to accomplish; it is only necessary to turn the mind away from the noise of the internal programming and experience the perpetual peace of the present instant, already present within.
MSI, Enlightenment!
The Threshold of a New Age
It is precisely the tendency of life in the waking state to hold onto everything that is so damaging to the world. Give it all away and become part of the solution rather than continue on as part of the problem. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If you store up your treasure where moth eats and rust corrupts, you will weep for your lost idols in the end, for one by one they will be taken from you. You will one day return to Life as you entered this world -- naked of body but trailing clouds of glory through your soul. Choose instead today for the Truth and Beauty and for the kingdom of Heaven -- not in some far off future state, but Here and Now -- and watch how quickly your life transforms in magic and wonder and love and joy.
Take these simple words to heart and I promise you, you will dance with the Ishayas in Immortal Life even here on Earth. Or deny us and run away -- it makes no difference to us but all the difference to you. So many rivers have flowed into the Unbounded Ocean before. The ocean needs none, accepts all, flatters none. Its status never changes - but what a transformation for the river! Its narrow boundaries fall away and are found no more. The river learns "I am the Ocean --" I am Infinite, Unbounded, Eternal. And this is known not as a dry, intellectual concept but as a vibrant, living Truth of what is.
Unite with us, children of Light and Truth and Joy, and we will transform this Earth in one generation into Paradise, back into the Garden of Eden. And we will find the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil naturally transforms back into the Tree of Immortal Life. The abuses of the waking state will be universally replaced by the Direct Cognition of Perpetual Consciousness, in which every thought is based in permanent Infinite Awareness.
We stand on the threshold of a new age, an age prophesied in all parts of the world for thousands of years. The New Jerusalem is at hand - the twenty-seven Ascension Techniques are the master key to unlock all the boundaries of past painful choices and experiences and reveal the Unbounded joy of life as it is.
MSI, Ascension!
Time and Eternity
God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. Your election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.
Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. This is the ego's continuity. It gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. But you can and you must. God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as its maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.
A Course In Miracles
Pada I Sutra 40
The Ascendant has dominion over every limit;
it is beyond the smallest and beyond the greatest.
The all-pervading nature of the Ascendant is here described. It lies beyond the furthest limit of the Universe; it is larger than the largest; yet it is also smaller than the smallest, more subtle than the subtlest. Remove every scrap of matter and energy and what is left is the Infinite. It is all-pervading and the same everywhere.
One who has stabilized the experience of the Ascendant consciousness knows the underlying Reality of everything. This is dominion; this is mastery. One has recognized the omnipresence of the Absolute -- not as a dry, intellectual understanding but as a direct, living, continual experience. The Ascendant is beyond space; it is also beyond time. There never was a time when it was not, nor will there ever be a time when it ceases to be. The world may end, the sun may burn out, the entire Universe may cease to exist, but still the One Ascendant will continue on, unchanging, forever.
MSI, Enlightenment!
The Sacred Seed
You have much to gain by learning to appreciate your spark of life. Concentrate on its presence, feel it, enjoy the silky flow of it as it gushes up from the deep well of your soul. This spark of life is the very Light of Christ which I wedded to you and from which you cannot possibly be divorced. By simply learning to appreciate it, you may cause its flow to be enhanced until it gushes up and becomes a living fountain that can never be diminished.
By the opposite attitude, you can decrease its flow. You can squeeze it out of your body altogether. But you cannot destroy it or cause yourself to become anything apart from the Light of Christ, for it is out of this very light that I have shaped your being.
The elemental nature of life is to increase, to seek more and more expression. This law of increase holds true within you as readily as it does in any aspect of nature. Life is joyous, singing river ever surging onward. As you feel it and appreciate it, the little trickle finding outlet through your being will bubble up into a flood, drawing you into the beautiful pathway of the River of Life More Abundant.
This is what happens when you become the Living Christ. You do not suddenly become something else, or somebody else, you merely express a fullness of what you already are. You merely allow the Light of Life to come forward and increase. You merely allow the soul to stand forth in full reign over your body kingdom, your own personal soul whose right it is to have full reign.
Meditate on the life within you, cherish it. How joyous the surge of it! Imagine that surge doubled, tripled, multiplied by a hundred, by a thousand. That glorious Light of Life will respond to your appreciation and begin immediately to shine brighter.
Ruby Nelson, The Door of Everything
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This is the 14th edition of the Ishaya Foundation newsletter.
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