Often considered as the ultimate goal of meditation, ascension meditation the essence of enlightenment and self-realization. Also called Nirvana, it is the final stage of an individual’s spiritual evolution – an amazing state of being in which you can fully experience oneness with all creation and realize your true nature as a spiritual being. This is most commonly achieved through ascension meditation.
How to Practice Ascension Meditation
1. Engage your mind
Engage daily in meditation, prayer, thoughtful and/or spiritual contemplation, or intellectual deliberation. This gently pushes the mind toward higher and more inward thinking. Like studying or reading exercises that stimulate your intelligent mind, think of meditation as exercising your spiritual mind.
2. Be mindful
Mindfulness helps you transcend the physical world and the limitations that you perceive as ‘reality’. People get so caught up in the past or the future that we entirely miss out on the miracles present in each moment. Since the term ‘eternity’ means “the absence of time”, the only way to experience eternity (while here in this physical experience) is to be in the moment.
Anytime you’re fully engaged in what you are doing and your mind isn’t someplace else, you are “here, now.” In the moment.
3. Detach
Many people confuse ‘detachment’ with not caring about anyone or anything, but that’s not the case. Detachment means you aren’t subconsciously preoccupied with losing this thing, person, status, etc. because you know that as an energetic being, you cannot ever ‘not be’ – and that includes people you love. Detachment embraces the ever-changing yet energetic and timeless nature of everything and actually opens you up to loving more completely and freely, without the fear of loss.
Worldly desires are based on lack – always wanting what you don’t have – but there is no place for the lack in the energetic universe of consciousness. Worldly attachments are based on fear of loss, and there is no place for loss in consciousness.
Begin seeing what you really love and treasure as the energy that is passing through this physical experience but will never ‘die’ or disappear.
4. Get regular physical exercise
The body is the vehicle through which you experience the physical world. It is a way that the soul (or higher self) communicates with you. It is also a conduit of energy. Blockage in your energy centers can cause your spiritual body to become lethargic and be closed off to mental travel and connection.
Yoga, Tai Chi, or any other form of exercise that requires both physical and mental discipline and strength will help to open the free flow of energy. Walking is one of the most primal yet spiritual exercises you can do.
Principles of Ascension
Make the following an integral part of your daily meditation practice; and more than that, embody these principles in your everyday life as you move toward enlightenment (literally, bringing in the light of ‘knowing’ and wisdom).
1. Praise
Take note of the miracles and perfection in all that exists and praise them – notice and praise how incredible everything in creation is. Start with the limitless miracles found in Nature.
Extend that awareness to yourself. You are a miracle! You may believe that something in your life is wrong. You may judge yourself for what you cannot do that you think you should be able to do; for what you don’t have and believe you should have; for what you have done that you regret.
Judgment is like a broken femur that cripples you and keeps us from being able to walk freely. Praise is like the cast that holds that broken bone in place so that it can heal. Conscious praise for everything and everyone including yourself opens you to the very core of your being.
2. Gratitude
Gratitude comes naturally alongside praise. The key is to be grateful for everything. Simply being aware of the guidance that ‘negative’ events bless you with, will open you up to conscious awareness, without judgment. There is innocence and purity to awareness without judgment! That is the purity of WHO YOU ARE, the spiritual you.
3. Love
Love is the basis of our being, yet many become shut off to it and end up on lonely and empty paths. Feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness create a shroud of fog over your heart that keeps you from openly feeling and expressing the unconditional love that is inherent within you.
Consciously choosing to perceive, think, speak and act out of love dissipate the fog, allowing for the shining light of love to come through and illuminate the oneness that already exists within.
4. Compassion
Opening your spirit to the light of love allows for a wondrous expression of compassion to all. Compassion is an expression of unconditional love and it replaces the negativity of judgment and criticism.
5. Forgiveness
Perhaps hardest of all, learning to forgive both others and yourself comes as a natural effect of praise, gratitude, love, and compassion. It means releasing yourself from the emotional burden of pain that you carry; and it means seeing the other person in a light of love, compassion, and understanding.
Forgiveness does not mean condoning the actions, and it does not mean forcing yourself to rekindle a relationship – it is all about releasing the burden of pain. Forgive others and yourself.
All of this takes effort because it’s not always easy to love people who have hurt you; it’s not easy to detach or to forgive. It’s hard to stop being self-judgmental. It’s a conscious effort and commitment but… you can become an instrument for universal love and wisdom.
Ascension meditation will not give you anything that you do not already possess within you. It is simply the key that will unlock what you may not have known you had.
