Welcome to the first "Techniques" post. As I said in my last post, I would have to fit the first three (of the 27) techniques into one month since I have been in Moldova for almost three months now-crazy! I really gave myself a challenge in writing this up so quickly but when I started to read the document in-depth, I found much of what was being said quite familiar!
A few notes on how I am doing this:
- Explanations directly from the document, Ascension: The analysis of the Art of Acension as taught by the Ishayas,will be underlined and anything that is a direct quote with be in parenthesis.
- I will typically start with the explanation from the document and then either delve right into my interpretation, or take you along my thought process in my attempt to make sense of it!
Technique #1: Praise
Praise corrects the fundamental stress of the modern world, that "something is wrong." This root stress begins when we are very young and continues to happen again and again, always assuring us that in some way, we are "not enough". Not pretty enough, not funny enough, not smart enough...enough, enough....something WRONG. Sound familiar? These are the very basic stories that we tell ourselves based on an observation we obtain from our external environment. Except if they were truly just observation, they wouldn't be harmful. It's that we turn these observations, "Johnny didn't sit next to me today" into judgements: "Johnny didn't sit next to me today, because I am not good enough for him." You see how this works? We therefore use praise- praise of ourselves, praise of those around us-to correct this terrible imbalance we place on ourselves. Reminding ourselves and others of how truly wonderful we simply ARE. I think you are wonderful. In fact, you were perfect the day you were born, and when we converse, when we laugh, when I look into your eyes, I see all the beauty of the world.
"Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God." -Eckhart Tolle
Technique # 2: Gratitude
The attitude of gratitude is focused on the objective world, "designed to cure all erroneous beliefs and concepts" about the body and the external world. Gratitude is the first step towards mastery of the outer world, and therefore "invaluable for healing disease of all kinds." That last part took me a while-gratitude healing all disease....but what I came up with is that when we live through gratitude, we further nurture this objective side of our reality, the pure observation. If we battle the subjective judgements with praise, then we nurture WHAT IS with gratitude. The sun rises...THANK YOU SUN. The neighbor's dog barks...I AM SO GRATEFUL TO BE ABLE TO HEAR ALL THE SOUNDS OF THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE...and so on and so forth. Yes, our bodies and even our thoughts (mostly them), our homes, our neighbors may not be exactly as we want, as we expected, as we desired. BUT (always a but-huh?), once we are able to stop judging these things (via praise) and start to just feel gratitude for them, all negative thoughts and intentions slip away and we are left only in the glow of positivity and life-promoting thought. This heals all indeed.
"I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. " -Dalai Lama
Technique # 3: Love
An attitude of love (and opposite of fear) is designed to "heal all misconceptions about our relationship" with the True Self/Spirit/Connection. Love is something we absolutely cannot prove, but know we feel. It's the sweetness of life. It's pure connection with other people. When I was in high school, I would doodle on my book covers incessantly. And one little phrase that I would write on every single book? "Life is love". This came through clearly to me at a young age. So much so that in fashion class, I made a jean skirt with the same slogan embroidered into the pocket. I have always believed that the end all, be all of this experience, life, is to to experience truly unconditional love while in human form. I say it this way because I believe we come from and return to a source of unconditional love. And if we can acquire the wisdom to hold onto that feeling, to act out of a place of love rather than fear, we have accomplished our greatest goal. Indeed we do experience moments of this, if we did not we would not want to continue to live. That's how sweet love is. It's what keeps us motivated to keep going day in and day out. Even when we don't recognize what it is that motivates us, in the end it's either love or fear. A lot of the world, a lot of the time, is operating out of fear, which is why we have so many issues that are basically due to greed (war, famine, starvation, poverty) which basically is born of fear, " I will take yours too in case I do not have enough for me."
"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand." -Mother Theresa
Summary of first three techniques towards "Ascension"? (I will have another post around the meaning of Ascension soon!): With these three attributes or attitudes, we are able to remove beliefs and judgements about the limited nature of the three primary divisions of life:
1. The subjective (Judgement), Praise--->helps us to cease to judge
2. The objective (Observation), Gratitude---> for what we observe
3. The spiritual, Love--->the sweetness of life, the nectar. What life is worth living for, what keeps us going.
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Life is love. Om tat sat.
If you're really feeling the love, go to this link and turn up the volume on your computer :)
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