Thoughts and Feelings for what they're worth.

Some depression and sadness today, and the energy in my body feels tinged with some nervousness and fear. Lately in my meditations I have ceased working with outer forms such as Ascended Masters and the Earth Spirit so that I may allow my inner focus to dwell in the last remaining vibration or hum of I AM. These practices are mixed with a lot of busy-ness with my comics sales and concerns with money. The Earth has been rainy and I feel this way also.

In my searching out You Tube for videos related to the teachings of Maharaj Nisargatta I came across the enlightened being known as Mooji, who has many videos available to watch there for free also. This is a great teacher, this Mooji. He has managed to incorporate the spirit of gentleness and love into his self-realization teachings in a profound way, which echoes my own theoretical outlook on what is the most efficient way to transmit teachings of that sort. A little honey works better than a strong stick. Maharaj Nisargatta is unquestionably correct in the fundamentals of his teachings, but his style has often seemed too abrubt and rough for me, too often challenging where no challenging is required. That was his temperment and his way, God Bless him. And these of course are only my own subjective ruminations. My hat goes off to anybody at all who has attained.

I do not claim to be some very knowledgable authority on Spiritual pathways, Ascension, or Self-Realization, and do not consider myself to be such. But you know, I have done some fair reading, inquiry, and as such have both questions and ideas. So I feel suited to write them here, as they are nothing more than my own.

One question or tendency that I have is to compare the paths of Ascension with Self-Realization. To what extent are they the same thing and to what extent are they not? I think that it can be fairly said in a general way that the ascension process works within the area of manifested consciousness and form, which is the state of relativity, whereas self-realization points back further to the unconditioned state which precedes all of this, the Absolute. To attain, to become self-realized, is to reach the end of it. It does not stretch out further and further, higher and higher via degrees. It does not go anywhere. It Is.

The Maharaj Nisargatta had no time for such things as ascension, which he would have called,"an enrichment of the false." Of course this is also a relativized, subjective statement which exists in the same zone as the "false". You can't form a sentence without entering into that zone, ultimately. This is because the Real itself is unconditioned, nothing describes it, nothing is true or false about it. It allows everything, includes everything, gives rise to everything, and yet stays itself, unqualified, indescribable itself.

But what do I think about Ascension? Do I agree with the Maharaj on this point, that it is merely an enrichment of the false? My own feeling about this is that what happens in the manifest consciousness is what happens. What harm is there in raising it up? This ascension movement is the action of manifest consciousness itself, the intelligent response to highly faltering conditions of living on the planet Earth. Basically I agree with the Maharaj in a technical sense, but do not agree with what his statement implies. I see value in the aspect of the manifest expression of the Absolute. I see something worth saving and improving. Both ascension and self-realization can help to achieve this. One does not cancel the other-they exist in harmony. To me, is Self-Realization the parent teaching? Yes. It simply goes farther and more directly into Oneness.