What is the Difference Between Enlightenment and Ascension?

Posted by Steve Beckow for 31 August 2012 

A listener of InLight Radio has asked to have the differences between Ascension and Enlightenment clarified. Please allow me to do that here. 

There is no difference per se between Ascension as a generic process and Enlightenment or Illumination. 

The Ascension we’re going through on Dec. 21, 2012 (or later) is an Enlightenment. However, it has some extra features about it that make it different from the generic process of Enlightenment associated with it, that persuade me to call it “Enlightenment Plus” and I’ll get to those differences below. 

By the same token, there are many levels of Enlightenment stretching all the way up to the final mergence with God. That comes to us so many lifetimes down the road that we have no conception of that event. 

In just the Third-Dimensional range, there are at least four stages of enlightenment: 

(1) spiritual awakening, which occurs when the Kundalini reaches the fourth-chakra, 
(2) Savikalpa Samadhi, when the Kundalini reaches the sixth chakra, 
(3) Brahmajnana or God-Realization, seventh chakra, and 
(4) Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, spiritual heart or Hridayam. 

We can have each of these enlightenment experiences and still remain in the Third Dimension. But Ascension will mean that we leave the Third/Fourth Dimension of our physical and spirit lives and migrate to the Fifth Dimension. This is a difference between Enlightenment per se and our present Ascension. 

If we were on the spirit side of life, an Ascension would involve the passage from one dimension to another. So, when we pass from the Astral Plane (Fourth Dimension) to the Mental Plane (Fifth Dimension), we’re said to have ascended, because we’ll shed our astral body for our mental body. But when we pass from the Middle Summerlands of the Astral Plane to the Higher Summerlands, we’re not said to have ascended, because we retain our astral body.  Movement from one subplane to another does not involve Ascension. It is movement from one dimension to another that does involve Ascension. 

That is why Shankara would say: “When all the five coverings are removed, the pure Atman [the Self or Christ] is revealed.” (1) By successive Ascensions, we remove the five coverings or bodies associated with the previous plane or dimension until, well after the experience Shankara is referring to, all that is left is God Himself/Herself. We have uncovered or revealed God by successive Ascensions. 

In our Ascension on Dec. 21, 2012 (or later), we’ll ascend with the physical body, which is a first and new development in Ascension. Because we will, we’ll need to raise the vibrations of that body gradually as it changes from carbon-based to crystalline-based, so that it can exist in the higher vibrations of the Fifth Dimension. But in all Ascensions on the spirit side of life, we would have simply shed the previous body. 

But where our Ascension on 21/12/12 resembles all other Ascensions is that we’ll pass from one plane or dimension to another; in this case, from the Third/Fourth Dimensions associated with our usual physical and spirit lives to the Fifth Dimension. So, because it represents a dimensional shift, we call it an Ascension. 

So, yes, it does involve a process of Enlightenment. Whether that is the Enlightenment associated with the seventh chakra, which is called Brahmajnana and does not result in a permanent heart opening or liberation from rebirth or the Enlightenment associated with the spiritual heart or Hridayam, known as Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, which does result in a permanent heart opening and liberation, I don’t know. I should probably ask Archangel Michael about that. 

That’s my understanding. There’s no difference between Ascension and Enlightenment in many respects. But our 21/12/12 Ascension is Enlightenment Plus, because in it we also get to take our physical bodies with us (renewed, of course), need not die, get to leave the Third Dimension for the Fifth (whereas in ordinary enlightenment we would not get to leave), etc.

Footnotes
(1) Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, 56. There are countless levels of enlightenment beyond the one Shankara is discussing here.

Kundalini and Prana

Source: http://www.kundalini-shaktipat.com

Regulating Prana is often a major aspect of a Kundalini Awakening. The word “Prana” is a Sanskrit word from India, and means “the energy life force”. Every philosophy has its own word for the same thing. From China the word is “Ch’i” meaning “present in all matter”. The Greeks called this all-present life force “Pneuma”. Franz Anton Mesmer called it “Animal Magnetism”, and later recognized it as a “universal energy”.

All matter has an aura, an invisible luminous energy field. This invisible energy can be seen by clairvoyants, and photographed using Kirlian photography, which is based on an extremely high voltage creating a high electrical frequency field, and which allows this etheric body, or aura, to become visible when viewed on light-sensitive paper.

Every person has two “phantoms”, an etheric body, consisting of an inner aura that follows the contours approximately 4 to 6 inches out from your physical body, and an outer aura, which protrudes approximately 3 feet away from the body.

When we become sick it is due to a leak of pranic energy from the inner or outer aura. The amount of purity and the circulation of prana through our etheric body will determine the quality of our health, and also the quality of our emotional and mental well-being, including our thinking.

From the surface of the body are perpendicular etheric rays projecting outwards, towards the perimeter of the outer aura. These are your health rays and work as a force field to protect the whole body from germs and disease. Toxins and the bodies’ pollutants are driven out through these health rays. When a person is weak or sick, these health rays can droop and also become tangled.

With a healthy person, the health rays are clairvoyantly seen as fine bright white lines; but with a sick person, or someone with a lot of toxins in their body, these fine white lines or rays look greyish in appearance and are coarse rather than fine. Beyond these health rays, the aura, which is an inverted egg shape, is multi-coloured, and the colours change depending upon various influences including the physical, mental, and emotional states of the person.

Basically it is this etheric body that is the vehicle for pranic energy. You could say that this aura is the vehicle or container surrounding our physical body that holds and contains our consciousness.

Through clairvoyance and Kirlian photography it has been seen that clogged or dwindling areas of pranic energy appears in the etheric body prior to a disease of the physical body. It has also been seen that a man will still retain his etheric double, his inner aura after the amputation of a limb. Thus this is an explanation for phantom limb pain.

The more man starts to understand and to know about his own body, the more amazing and wonderful he realizes it is.

Only nature can heal itself. The human body can repair itself via the prana it breathes, via the prana from the food it eats, and the water it drinks. The body can also be healed by pranic energy directed by another person. Mesmer said that he could heal another person simply by his touch and by the direction of a flow of Universal energy.

There are four main types of prana that the human body absorbs. Air prana, breathed in, solar prana from the sun, and of course too much solar prana can be bad for us, causing sunburn and sunstroke. Ground prana, which is absorbed through the feet and especially by walking barefoot, or by lying on the ground and lastly, a certain amount of prana from the fresh food we eat and water we drink.

The easiest way to absorb extra pranic energy is from breathing exercises. This is a science in itself known to the Indian yogis for thousands of years and is called “pranayama”.

Certain breathing exercises may produce clairvoyant powers. These clairvoyant powers are derived from residues of the kundalini energy. The famous Indian monk Swami Vivekananda states in his own commentaries that all prayers and miracles are the direct result of kundalini energy and not from an external source.

The powers derived from pranayama are gained from the potency and strength of the thought behind the breath. Affirmations are more potent when they are focused on the outward breath. Another key here is in the aphorism, “Energy follows thought”.

Any form of yogic breathing is extremely powerful. In my opinion the technique and correct method is not as important as intention and moderation. This cannot be stressed enough. Intention and moderation. Pranayama, or yoga breathing cleanses the aura, the chakras, and the nadis, the energy channels. Once these are purified and cleansed it makes an easier passage for the kundalini.

I used to practice tree hugging. I had an old beech tree that I built a relationship with. I would approach the tree, hug it, and ask the tree for some of its surplus pranic energy. Trees are known for extruding vast amounts of prana, especially old pine trees. I would then sit under the tree and do very slow deep rhythmic breathing for around ten to fifteen minutes. My whole body would begin to tingle. I would visualize the pranic energy filling my chakras, filling my body, with pure white light. I practiced this for around two months. It was during this time I had spontaneous kundalini awakening. Could it be that a tree, an old beech tree was to become my biggest teacher in life. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. Is this what happened for Buddha? (So I have heard)

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