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bewell
1275 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 05 2010 : 7:43:06 PM
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"All that Devi and everyone on Coquina Island knew was that John was gone, apparently by divine ascension..." (From "Secrets of Wilder" a novel by Yogani).
Part of what first drew me into AYP was the the divine ascension scene in Secrets of Wilder. It resonated on many levels.
I was raised Christian, but I do not recall ever taking the biblical ascensions of Jesus, or of Elijah, or of Enoch literally. Nor did I take literal view of the "second coming" wherein it is said that "... the dead will rise first and the living will join them in the air with the Lord." (from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians). Nevertheless, I have a deep appreciation for the mystical meaning divine ascension.
It is a sort of family legacy. I have an ancestor, Jonas was his name (my mother's father's great great grandfather) and he was seriously into divine ascension -- after a series of raptures, he took to wearing all white clothes all the time -- a mirror of the ascended saints around the divine throne. That was very unusual for a retired Amish farmer in rural Ohio from around 1850 to 1870
Back in '94 I took a year just to research and write about Jonas's unusual life. For me, that research was "following my bliss" (Thanks Bill Moyers for interviewing Joseph Campbell on the PBS series, The Power of Myth!)
Jonas wrote that he got some of his ideas from the book, Wandering Soul (also published as Pilgrim Soul) a work of spiritual fiction. "Wondering soul" was a time traveler who went back to interview Adam and Noah about among other things, the life and divine ascension of Enoch.
Here now for your enjoyment (I hope) dear AYP friends, an extended reading from the book of the wondering soul as it relates to the divine ascension of Enoch (warning: this is a long quotation):
Interview with Adam
Adam: There is now living among us a man who has through the grace of God for many years maintained a steady course of consistent piety. He has been constantly growing into the likeness of God's moral image until he now resembles an angel rather than a man.
Pilgrim: Is it possible?
Adam: Indeed what I say is true. He is so loving, kind, tenderhearted; so virtuous, and charitable; so pure and honest, that the sight of him inspires us with love and veneration. He rebukes sin and preaches the truth of God with zeal and power.
Pilgrim: But still he is a man!
Adam: Just such a man as we.... Enoch is his name.
Pilgrim: Father pray tell me more of the life and character of that good and pious Enoch. It makes my heart rejoice to hear of him.
Adam: From his early youth he was distinguished for mild and gentle disposition and lovely mariners and for ardent love to God. But after the birth of Methusaleh gave himself up wholly to God determining to devote whole life to his service. He often visited me in my tent to inquire about the creation of the world, the revelations of God, and every thing by which he could learn his will, become acquainted with his glorious character. When I described to him the happiness of paradise, and spoke of overwhelming manifestations of the divine love which we experienced there, his affections kindled into raptures, and burst forth in flaming zeal....
pp.21-24
Interview with Noah
Pilgrim: ...Man still must die at last.
Noah: Die! did you say? Nay; this temporal death is but a transition into a new and better life. Blessed Enoch was an example of this. After a godly walk for three hundred years, God took him up bodily, to the mansions in heaven. Gen 5 24
Pilgrim: Did it really happen so father?
Noah: It certainly did. My father was well acquainted with Enoch. He was about one hundred and thirty years old when this event transpired. I was also acquainted with a number of other persons who saw him ascend with their own eyes and testified to the fact.
Pilgrim: What a wonderful sight that must have been!
Noah: Son time would fail me to tell all the wonderful things which I have heard concerning that holy man: his mode of life; his zeal; his love; his faith in God; his pious exercises; and at last his wonderful ascension. Those who stood by, saw him, and looked up after him; others, who were not present, would not believe the fact, and searched through hills and valleys to find him; great lamentation and weeping was made by the pious, for the loss of his company, conversation, advice, and instruction. Others rejoiced that he was gone, because he reproved their wickedness, and reproved their corrupt inclinations. Some marked the spot where he was last seen upon earth -- I have seen it too. The matter was for a long time a subject of general conversation -- some believed, others contradicted -- all were amazed.
Pilgrim: Father, I do not doubt the truth of what you say. But since all the other patriarchs and fathers died, and none were taken up but Enoch, what consolation and hope can you derive from this ascension?
Noah: A great consolation indeed! First, we learn from this event that there is a mansion prepared for the saints in heaven, of which Enoch himself testified while on earth. Second, we see the power of faith: even death itself is conquered by it.
http://books.google.com/books?id=SY...noch&f=false |
Edited by - bewell on Dec 05 2010 9:58:19 PM |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 10:20:06 AM
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Here is another great divine ascension text that inspired my ancestor Jonas:
Listen, I tell you a mystery:
We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we will be changed.
For the perishable
must clothe itself with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality.
When the perishable
has been clothed with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality,
then the saying that is written
will come true:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
--From a letter from St. Paul to the Corinthians |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 10:46:35 AM
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In 1850, Jonas wrote a tract and paid to have it published. And in that tract he talked about the second coming of Christ mostly. He expected it to happen in three and a half years (summer 1853).
Jonas believed he had a very special connection with "immortality" of the sort that Enoch was ascended into and that Paul spoke of as a "mystery." Jonas wrote: "Immortality... shall now be manifest through me."
As far as we know, nobody believed what Jonas said, and nothing spectacular happened to validate his words during his lifetime. His tract was discovered in an attic in the 1960s and stored in an archive where I found in in the 1990s.
One day I was reading it closely, resolved to suspend disbelief and listen. I took notes about Enoch's ascension, and Paul's mystery, and about Jonas's claim that the mystery of immortality would be manifest through him.
That night 1/13/95 I was changed by a divine ascension. It was not a lucid dream. It happened in an awakening from a dream during sleep paralysis: my soul ascended up to "the one" beyond perception. And then out of that mystery, I came back to my body completely desireless, "lightness of air," luminous, at peace beyond understanding, mind clear, discerning.
I am inclined to say that that night, Jonas's words came true: the mystery of divine ascension was manifest to me through him. |
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cosmic
USA
821 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 10:49:31 AM
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My deepest gratitude, Be. This feels like it was written for me. Very timely, my friend.
Love
cosmic |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 10:53:47 AM
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"divine ascension" is my inner guru.
my neurophysiology has been rewired
by divine ascension
my practices in the body
bring the ecstasy of divine ascension
into my daily,
sits and walks. |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 11:13:30 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by cosmic
This feels like it was written for me. Very timely, my friend.
cosmic
"the guru is in you"
thank you so much for giving your loving attention to my testimony
be |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2010 : 11:39:39 AM
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"divine ascension"
is where I come from
and where I am going
it is past remembered
future desired
present eternally |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2010 : 1:02:46 PM
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After my experience of "divine ascension" I lay in bed watching my thoughts go by for about twenty minutes, then felt tired, turned to one side and drifted back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning (sat. 1/14/95, age 33) I had a feeling that the most important thing in my life had happened, and yet is was hidden. I did not tell my wife. I did not have any way of expressing it in words. There seemed to be a huge unbridgeable divide between the ascension and my ordinary daily life.
But I made one important external change. I stopped initiating sex. I told my wife I only wanted to have sex if she felt like it. I was amazed how relatively infrequent intercourse became -- down from two or three times a week to two or three times a month. I did not know about the yogic idea of conserving sexual energy by abstaining from ejaculation. I had not discovered yoga yet. But I was feeling the inner benefits. I was less prone to depressive phases, more free to express affection with my wife through touch and cuddling without it leading to intercourse.
Looking back, I am very grateful for that inner leading to stop initiating sex. But still there was a huge gulf between the "ascension" experience and my ordinary daily experience in my body. It began to seem like an abstract idea divorced from experience. Sometimes I feared the ascension was just a delusion and that it might be bad to honor the memory of it. But even when I intentionally followed someone's advice to "let it go" as a past experience in favor of living in the present, aspects of the ascension would come back like an inner teacher. I realized that the memory of that past experience actually helped me to practice letting go into the present moment.
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2010 : 1:28:41 PM
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At the height of the ascent there was a "gap." "I" ascended up into the gap and I ascended out of it. But what was it? I have meditated on this question, and I am amazed at the result. I now see it in yogic terms as "turya" -- the fourth state in relation to the 1) deep sleep, 2) dream sleep and 3) waking. When I meditate on the forth state, a higher consciousness, an awareness pervades my other states, and particularly, it changes my sense of what it means to be "awake."
I play a little game where in each moment I look around with surprise as if I had just been dropped there out of nowhere. It is fun. Another game I play is ask myself, "what am I missing" and then I watch for thinks I ordinarily overlook. In that case, outer realities are revealed to me as if from nowhere. I find I overlook things all the time. I overlook things in relationships. I overlook things in my physical environment. I overlook intuitions. The little game helps me wake up to that.
The most important thing is to play the little games within a sense of inner silence. Much of what I overlook in relationships has to do with anxiety which is an absence of silence. I do not look in people's eyes for long, but instead I nervously look away. I do not listen, but instead plan my reply. Inner silence lets me look into another's eyes and listen. |
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divine ascension
