The Mind
The natural tendency of the mind is to seek greater happiness. It is always striving for it in every moment. Even a busy chaotic mind is attempting to reach that goal, but without an effective vehicle it ends up running around and around in endless loops only finding more thoughts.
When you learned to Ascend with the first Praise Attitude, you were given a tool for the mind to reach the goal of ultimate happiness effortlessly and instantly. This goal is the Ascendant, the Source of everything. Now, instead of letting the mind wander around aimlessly, you have a choice to give it exactly what it wants. Because the mind already knows how to Ascend, there is very little that we need to do to begin the process other than to use the tool of the Ascension Attitude.
In the beginning the conscious mind may not be aware of this subtle inward movement and there may not be a conscious awareness of touching the Ascendant. The beauty of this mechanical process is that it requires no belief, or even a particular kind of experience, it works anyway. Every time you think an Ascension Attitude it will drive the mind inward.
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The more consistently you use the Ascension Attitudes the more the silent depth inside of you comes to the surface for the conscious awareness to recognize it. The natural state of the mind is silence and fluidity and alertness and the ability to be present in the moment. These are the by-products of the Ascending mind.
Every thought comes from the Source. Every thought is pure in its inception. It is only because of the grooves and stress in our nervous system that they are experienced twisted and bent out of shape on the surface mind. As the mind is Ascending through using the Attitudes consistently the quality of our thoughts will change. We are then able to experience pure thoughts coming directly from the Ascendant without being clouded by stress. This is where creativity begins to blossom in our lives and we will realize what a great tool the mind can be as we can now consciously direct it and choose the thoughts that we entertain.
The truth is that what we focus on grows. If we focus on Ascending, the mind will naturally find the greatest happiness, the Ascendant One.
Nataraja Ishaya
The Best Use of the Mind
The mind is capable of so much more than it is generally being used for. Normally the mind is continuously preoccupied with thoughts, thoughts which have been built up over our entire life-time. Many do not realize this, but our mind is simply replaying over and over again the same themes. And most often, these are themes of separation, of ego and judgment: “I can’t draw. I’m not worthy of love. I’m too this, or not enough of that”. These stem from internal programs that were created in response to our experiences. However, there is actually a much more productive way of using the mind. It involves turning one’s attention away from the 100,000 mostly useless thoughts we think in a day and putting it on something else. This ‘something else’ is nothing other than the Infinite Source of all that is; of all wisdom, love, creativity and intelligence. We do not have to be victims to the incessant rambling of our ego-based thoughts; instead we can use our minds consciously to turn toward the good.
This was a revelation to me. I had no idea, really. I mean, I knew in theory that there was more. I always have. But not until immersing myself in Ascension, primarily through Teacher Training, did I start to experience this. Through Ascending I started to become familiar with what preoccupies my mind. Sitting in the bunk for hours and hours every day for a few months gave me a lot of time and nothing else to do but study the mind. What did I discover? I can decide what my mind does and thinks about. The mind’s attention can be on thoughts, beliefs, judgments, memories, and fantasies – all the grooves of internal programs that we are so accustomed to focusing on. Or, the mind can think of the Ascension Attitudes, Praise, Gratitude, Love, and hence the Ascendant.
Ascending with eyes closed first thing in the morning establishes the upward Ascending Current as the priority for your day. Ascending during the day with eyes open continues the upward current and prevents stress from accumulating. Ascending at night before bed provides twice as much rest as regular sleep. Praise can change your whole experience of life….begin and create a whole new future ahead of you. The mind can do only one thing at a time, so give the mind the most useful thing to do, Ascend.
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I actually have a choice. This is what I discovered. Before this I didn’t even know that my mind was preoccupied in an endless loop of ILLUSION. I was just immersed in it! Now that I have experienced another use of the mind, I can see what was/is illusion. Once the mind is cleared of its chaos, it can reflect clearly; it becomes aware of awareness itself. Ascension knows what it is doing. And it always depends on us how to use it. We have free will, therefore we get to participate in our own awakening! The life-long habit is to create our universe based on the habitual way of thinking. But once one has tasted the sweet nectar of the Infinite Awareness there is a new path available that is not so easily forgotten.
Through regular practice of introducing the Ascension Attitudes we start to utilize the power of our mind to put our attention on the upward spiraling current of creation, rather than on a downward one. This is the best use of the mind; no longer at the whim of unconscious patterns, we can direct our lives consciously. The kundalini energy rises, the heart opens and the crystal clarity of the Ascendant shines forth. We realize that we are connected, all the time, to That.
Surya Ishaya
Awareness
Awareness of the environment and our thoughts is the function of the mind. The mind is not the same thing as awareness: rather, it is a machine that is operated by awareness. The old belief that awareness is an artifact of the physical body is just materialistic superstition and is falling rapidly away in the modern scientific and medical communities. The attempt to understand awareness as a by-product of chemical and electrical processes in neurons and nerve tissue was always doomed, for the source of our awareness is not the physical structure of our bodies. Awareness is primary; the body and the physical brain are secondary. The twelve billion cells of the central nervous system create the physical structure of the greatest computer of all time, but they are not themselves aware of anything, any more than the wires and circuitry of a computer are by themselves conscious.
The various functions of the physical mind are performed by an extremely complex network of interconnected neurons: every neuron is connected to many thousands of others through direct synaptic connections and to millions or even billions of others through its receptor sites for neuropeptides. There are fifty trillion cells in the body; each is capable of producing the neuropeptides which communicate with the neurons in the brain. Thus the mind is not limited to the cerebral cortex; we are in fact body-minds – the whole structure of our physiology is intelligent and capable of talking back and forth with itself. It is all alive with wisdom; it all reflects our individual awareness.
MSI, Ascension!
Question & Answer
Aren't the Ascension Attitudes complete in the fact that they align the practitioner to God, or the Ascendant, or Love? What else does one need to know?
The Ascension Attitudes are tools. They, in and of themselves do not create wisdom or the ability to know the difference between illusion and Truth.
Like using a hammer, a person may be able to find many uses for it, hitting rocks or hitting a neighbor over the head or even hitting ones’ self in the head, but will it (the hammer) be able to build a house if you have no knowledge of carpentry or the intricacies of house construction?
The Ascendant is all around us, in us, and it acts thru our intentions whether conscious or unconscious. Our ability to understand our relationship to it comes from the study of it.
Ascension is much more than just knowing the Attitudes; and Self-mastery is much more than an effect that takes place after sitting in a First Sphere and learning the Attitudes. One has to know how to use them (the Attitudes), the effects of stress dissolving in the mind and body, and the effects of following thoughts during the process of meditation and while you are not meditating on the Attitudes. Otherwise a person can distort the practice of Ascension as well as sabotage their own desire to find fulfillment.
There are years of practical guidance and understanding that comes thru the practice of Yoga.
Mahadeva Ishaya
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. If you wish to participate in an online dialog about Ascension, we invite you to join teachers on the Ishaya Foundation Forum. Of course you can call or email us at any time for a more immediate personal response.
State of Ascending
The underlying principle of the Ishayas’ Ascension is that it is completely natural. One does not need to try to gain the state of pure awareness; once your attention has turned inward with an appropriate vehicle it naturally moves toward greater happiness.
As the mind moves inward, the metabolic rate falls lower than in sleep, oxygen consumption decreases, blood pressure and the heart rate lower; all of which are purely by-products of Ascending. The body follows the mind as it moves into ever deeper rest. The state of Ascending is characterized by deep physical relaxation that is twice that of sleep while the mind remains alert. The result of this deep rest is a much better functioning nervous system and therefore enhanced clarity of mind. This is a physiological change different than the waking, sleeping, dreaming or even hypnotic states.
According to Anthony Campbell in Seven States of Consciousness, “This is quite different than hypnosis. The physiological changes in hypnosis show wide variations which appear to be related to the suggestion which has been given. Attempts to lower the metabolic rate by means of suggested deep relaxation have not succeeded. In the hypnotic trance there are, it appears, no characteristic physiological changes at all.”
The regular practice of Ascending is quite valuable to both the mind and the nervous system. As the deep rest continues, the physical nervous system clears, tensions that cloud awareness are dissolved and the Self begins to shine through more brightly. Said another way, the nervous system, which is areflection of consciousness, is being polished to reflect Omnipresent Pure Awareness. It is this dual action that causes the dawning of higher states of consciousness.
Jyoti Ishaya
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This is the 60th edition of the Ishaya Foundation newsletter.
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