The Path of Ascent

A growing realisation of our common humanity is emerging, beyond any differences of culture, race or religion, as we watch with horror the destruction sweeping through our world in war, climate impacts from human neglect, and distortions of truth. These effects result from a sense of identity that is separate and exclusive, outside of the reality of our oneness and interconnectedness. When identification is limited only to race, religion, culture, location, or media profile, it ignores the greater identity we all share however we may express it through the myriad forms of the rich diversity of our world. If a personal or national identity is restricted by forms and rationalised by the concrete mind, it is out of touch with the divine essence we share, and which can guide us eventually to that Peace that transcends all outer seeming:

There is a peace that passeth understanding: it abides in the hearts of those who live in the Eternal. There is a power that maketh all things new; it lives and moves in those who know the Self as one.” From Intellect to Intuition, page 228

When identified with the greater Whole, we live and act according to the intuition through which the One Life coordinates and guides all parts of its vast body of manifestation. We then flow with the life currents and their direction which lead to the good of the whole. The intuition is accessed through an awakened consciousness whose scope and focus has expanded beyond the immediate demands of the little individualised personality and has become something much larger and more inclusive of all life. This can only be understood theoretically from the perspective of the isolated, individualised mind, but the full glory of it comes alive in its complete embodied realisation as it pours through the intuitive mind.

As we turn our attentive ear towards the higher intuition and away from the pull of the lower instincts, we open a channel for the One Life to express through what we are and do. At first it’s a struggle to release ourselves from the known and to open up to the unfamiliar territory of a realm so vast that we may fear to become lost and disappear in it. Yet the reality is that our essential Self is an eternal flame who knows these realms and cannot be extinguished. As Merle Stubbs explained in The Journey Continues, Chapter 1, What is Life:

We are all expressions of the one Life at varying stages of realisation or ‘unrealisation’. It is the most freeing experience one can ever possibly imagine – whenever we enter into anything we break through into a new area of consciousness. We break through into a far vaster dimension than our first touch with it. Having grasped a principle, understanding how it operates, we can employ it, set it in motion. But the old problem exists: to break through into something new we must leave something else behind. And this is where people are reluctant. ‘I might lose my identity.’ ‘I may lose my comfort zone, my security blanket – the things that hedge me around.’ ‘I don’t have to face the big, wide universe. The big, wide world was bad enough.’ …When we break through we break through into such a greater sense of freedom we wonder why we ever held back. It does, however, bring its own responsibilities. It does not allow anyone to be indifferent, lazy or inactive. What is indifference, laziness or inaction any more? We are living. This is life. Life and motion are synonymous terms. How can we be static anywhere? How can we arrest our movement forward? … How can we choose to stay in a confined space when Life beckons? …” sydneygoodwill.org.au/the-journey-continues-chapter-1/

Persistence and practice are needed to penetrate the wall of “white noise” woven from the sounds of the outer world of conflicting forces, driven hither and thither by the shifting forms of the great illusion of separation. It takes the pure focus of the ears of the heart to pierce through that illusory wall. The Tibetan Master explains that we need to turn our attention to the greater Life in Whom we live and move and have our being:

…the progressing disciple does not move into new fields or areas of awareness, like a steady marching forward from one plane to another… What must be grasped is that all that IS is ever present. What we are concerned with is the constant awakening to that which eternally IS, and to what is ever present in the environment but of which the subject is unaware, owing to short-sightedness. The aim must be to overcome the undue concentration upon the foreground of daily life which characterizes most people, the intense preoccupation with the interior states or moods of the lower self which characterizes the spiritually minded people and the aspirants, and the imperviousness or lack of sensitivity which characterizes the mass of men. The Kingdom of God is present on Earth today and forever has been, but only a few, relatively speaking, are aware of its signs and manifestations. The world of subtle phenomena (called formless, because unlike the physical phenomena with which we are so familiar) is ever with us and can be seen and contacted and proved as a field for experiment and experience and activity if the mechanism of perception is developed as it surely can be. The sounds and sights of the heavenly world (as the mystics call it) are as clearly perceived by the higher initiate as are the sights and sounds of the physical plane as you contact it in your daily round of duties. The world of energies, with its streams of directed force and its centers of concentrated light, is likewise present, and the eye of the see-er can see it, just as the eye of the mental clairvoyant can see the geometrical pattern which thoughts assume upon the mental plane, or as the lower psychic can contact the glamors, the illusions and delusions of the astral world. The subjective realm is vitally more real than is the objective, once it is entered and known. It is simply… a question of the acceptance, first of all, of its existence, the development of a mechanism of contact, the cultivation of the ability to use this mechanism at will, and then inspired interpretation.” Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, page 53-4

Many who have progressed before us along this expanding path have returned to reassure and to light the way ahead. Great Souls down the ages have come and left their imprint on the human heart, our point of greatest sensitivity. The ears of the heart are the most attentive to the intuition, to the voice of God. The way is opened by the divine love that radiates through the heart, the transcendent love of the whole of life, flowing constantly throughout and calling to all that live within its sustaining embrace as they learn to listen to its direction and rhythm. We are reminded of this in the guidance of the Master who gave us these words:

To see with the eyes of the heart; to hear the roar of the world with the ears of the heart; to peer into the future with the understanding of the heart; to remember past accumulations through the heart—that is how the aspirant must boldly advance on the path of ascent. Creativity embraces the fiery potential and comes to be saturated with the sacred fire of the heart. Therefore, on the path of the Hierarchy, on the path of the Great Service, on the path of Communion, synthesis is the one luminous path of the heart. How can seekers radiate the rays manifested if there is no flame affirmed in their hearts? It is precisely the quality of a magnet that lies latent in the heart. …So let us keep in mind the wondrous attraction of the magnet of the heart, which links all manifestations. …” Heart, sloka 1

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