Enlightenment, Lightwork, and Ascension | Steve Beckow

Ute Possega Rudel has best illustrated the situation with the Self in the heart

By Steve Beckow, July 26, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Enlightenment, Lightwork, and Ascension – Part 1/4

I’ve been relating for many years how in meditation one day I entered into the heart chamber and found myself flying fast within it until I reached a cul de sac.

I shared how there, to my left, was a smaller antechamber with a ledge, upon which “sat” the radiant Self.

I told you how its light was translucent more than bright and how I wondered about that. My experience comprised mainly feeling pure and innocent in the presence of the Self. That was definitely enough of a consolation.

And I’ve related how I later spoke to the Divine Mother through Linda Dillon who confirmed that she had truncated the experience – toned it down – so I wouldn’t leave my soul contract.

I’m going to quote that conversation at length because I think it’s important for lightworkers to see how much the Mother and her archangels involve themselves in our spiritual unfoldment. I apologize to readers who’ve seen it before:

Steve: The experience at Xenia, Mother, was that truncated?

Divine Mother: Slightly, yes.

Steve: I had the thought [it was]. … The Light I saw should have been brighter than a thousand suns. The fact that it wasn’t suggests to me that the experience was truncated. …

DM: It was not is brilliant as possible, let us put it that way.

Steve: Alright… And again, the reason is to keep me in sync with my readers?

DM: To keep you in sync with your readers. But let me be very clear…. If you had seen the light as it actually is – yes, a million, billion suns – you would have simply departed. …

We don’t mean die but you would have departed the life that you have designed – yes, with us – for yourself, for the service you are providing – you would have departed and simply said, ‘I do not need to do this. I will just simply sit in the bliss of love and good luck, everybody!’” (1)

So because of our service contracts, we’ve agreed to forego the senior levels of enlightenment – or indeed any levels – that would take us away from fulfilling our agreements. Enlightenment comes later.

Three times I’ve had experiences which have been moderated: Brahmajnana/God Realization (seventh chakra) and two experiences of the Oversoul (seventh dimension). (See 2)

In fact all higher-dimensional experiences of bliss, ecstasy, and exaltation must have been truncated or I wouldn’t still be here. The Mother would be right, as she always is: I’d be off on a rock somewhere, meditating and enjoying the bliss.

I’d like to start by looking at the rationale for the toning down of the Xenia experience. I think a lot of us – if we’re familiar with the stages of enlightenment – will find our experiences being moderated so we don’t drop our service contracts.

The more general question behind this is how much and in what other ways does the divine guide and oversee our spiritual unfoldment? Is our enlightenment due to our efforts, a Plan, or a mixture of both? I’ll leave that to another article.

Later in this series, I’d like to look at the words of terrestrial sages on the Self being “situated,” if such a thing were possible, in the heart.

In other words, the sages have not been romanticizing things. We stopped at their storefront and asked for directions to the Self. They told us “the Heart.” They weren’t kidding. They were just being explicitly accurate.

The heart really is the seat of the soul. “From the bottom of my heart” really does mean something.

(Continued in Part 2.)

Footnotes

(1) Divine Mother in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Oct. 26, 2018. (Hereafter AAM.)

(2) Brahmajnana

Steve: [Emptiness of mind] was followed next by what appeared to be the kundalini completing its circuit at the seventh chakra. Is that in fact what happened?

Archangel Michael: Yes. …

Steve: Hmm, interesting! Ordinarily you would experience Brahmajnana at that point but I felt that it had been muted, toned down.

AAM: When you use the term “dramatic enlightenment experiences”[as I did earlier], you are talking about Nirvana. You are talking about the unity of all with One.

It is not to say that you will not experience that, but you cannot (well, you can if you wish; it is a choice to) simply remain in that state of unity, of One, or be fully conscious, in service, in action….

So, it is a toning down, if anything. It really is the middle ground. …

You know that enlightenment is right there in front of you. It is yours to access. But if you are in service, you will not choose to live there. …

You can think of it as keeping two feet firmly on the ground. (AAM, Feb. 14, 2012.)

First Experience of Oversoul

Steve: I had an experience at a meditation workshop in which I felt regal. It was a partial [truncated: no bliss] experience. Can you tell me what that part of me was that I accessed.

Archangel Michael: … Your Highest Self, your Oversoul, is very regal.

Steve: So that was an experience of the Oversoul.

AAM: Yes. (AAM, Sept. 13, 2011.)

Arcturians: Seventh [Dimension] is your Oversoul. (Arcturians in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Suzanne Lie, March 17, 2013.)

Second Experience of Oversoul

I had a vision of a man so noble that I could only stand there in awe. …

At first I gazed in wonder. The thought that humans could reach such a level woke me up. I was so buoyed up from the experience that I never inquired as to the identity of the man. …

Upon trying on the notion that the man I saw in my vision was actually a higher-dimensional version of me, it and I began to merge.

How can I describe merging? Let me look for a metaphor that both of us can agree on. Here’s my metaphor, aimed at the experiential level. Remember that a metaphor only captures some of the similarities, not others.

Imagine a large piece of all-white blotting paper. Pristine and pure. Suddenly wet patches begin to show on it. Gradually wetness pervades the whole of the blotting paper.

I was that blotting paper and my Higher Self was the water. When I was soaked through and through, who was I? The “water” or the “blotting paper”? Or water-and-blotting-paper?

All I know is that, before the merging, there had been a subject and an object, me and the man in the vision. After recognizing it as my Higher Self and merging with it, as I did with bliss and peace, there was only a subject.

It feels as if the everyday man is the one that remains. I hear Michael saying that I need to keep my feet on the ground. And, for many reasons, I do.

To return to the vision, when I saw my Higher Self, I was awestruck. I saw a knight in shining armor, mounted on a white horse and holding a lance. (“‘Is This What You’re Looking for?’ – Part 1/2, August 21, 2017, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/08/21/289210/.)



The heart is a portal to the higher dimensions

By Steve Beckow, July 27, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Enlightenment, Lightwork, and Ascension – Part 2/4

(Continued from Part 1.)

When Archangel Michael looked back on things in 2017, what he said of me applies, I think, to all lightworkers. It’s sufficiently important to quote at length:

Archangel Michael: You have experienced progressively, periods of unity, of transformative love, of ecstasy, of bliss that you feel (and I emphasize feel) come and go.

But every time, you have had this experience it has edged you up a level. So that now you say to me, ‘Michael, I feel like I have a new baseline. I have a new foundation of happiness.’

But you also have a new foundation of knowingness, of understanding, of wisdom, of humility, of tolerance, of kindness. This has all been bringing you to an expanded sense of self [but] an expanded sense of not only how we operate but of how the collective operates.

It has become clearer in a nonjudgmental way how things are unfolding and, dear heart, they are unfolding. You are seeing for example with your experience with your friend, that situations have need to be brought to the surface and clarified, not even in a way of general mayhem such as the wars or the atrocities that are taking place but in ways that are very personal.

So you are seeing what is the [residuum that must be cleared up] for humanity to collectively take that, not only that progressive step, but the snap [full Ascension, Sahaja Samadhi, moksha].

Think of how every time you especially enter the transformative love, that is a snap. It is not the full dramatic snap but it is a snap. Each time you are progressing up what you can think of as a level.

Think of [entering] your love as flying back and forth through the portal. Now sometimes you’re aware and sometimes you’re asleep. (1)

Read the passage a few times. Michael has just described the process of our gradual Ascension. Ever-broadening experiences culminating in a climactic snap. Just what you’d expect if you were slowly acclimatizing an entire planet.

The last fully-climactic snap has many names: Ascension, Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, moksha, liberation from birth and death, entrance to the higher dimensions, the Rapture, Salvation, Redemption, Buddhahood, Nirvana, etc.

But this will be the spiritual path of the vast majority of people who will ascend with Gaia. Lightworkers who need to remain in service may have their experiences toned down as befits their contract: That’s the primary message I’m wanting to get out and underline here so that no one is disappointed.

In the same year, Michael said:

Archangel Michael: What you have seen is that you have been given bite-sized pieces of energy, of energy bumps, of input of what you can digest and handle and truly bring to fruition. If you are in the process of expansion, you don’t go from Grade 3 to a PhD in a week. (3)

These words seem aimed at all ascenders: We don’t go from Grade 3 to a Ph.D. in a week.

Michael went on to be very explicit about the celestials watching over our spiritual unfoldment as lightworkers to maintain it in line with our plan within the Divine Plan:

Archangel Michael: You have received several upgrades in terms of what you would think of as your levels of enlightenment. So it is not that those adjustments have been absent. But let us also say that right now if you were to complete your full ascension, many of you would not bother to stay and finish the creation of Nova Earth.

Steve: So you really have to meter it out to us, so to speak, so as not to send us flying off into some other pursuit?

AAM: That is correct.

Steve: But we will have enough to do the job, enough smarts, enough heart…

AAM: Think of it as growing every day. Then you are given more responsibility, more allowance, and more cooperation. You begin to fully see us and engage with us. Many of the Masters return. So that you’re given all that you need to expand like a flower blossoming. (4)

I need lots and lots of that same brand of reassurance. Like everyone in the Reval, I’ll be doing big work afterwards. I could use a pep talk.

I’ve already been told that St. Germaine will be giving me instructions, which relieves my anxiety! (5) And now we’re told that we’ll have the needed capabilities to handle the work; again, reassuring. Keep it coming!

***

So far we’ve been travelling in carbon-based bodies that would not have been able to tolerate the more refined vibrations.

Astral residents have said the light of higher planes is too bright for them and they feel as if they can’t breathe. Here’s T.E Lawrence describing the experience:

“Should a man try to live in that rarified spiritual air [of a higher plane than Lawrence occupies] who carried still in his being the uncleansed stains of earth, his sufferings would be terrible, as intense as the joy of which he would be capable when he is cleansed of them.” (6)

Our situation if we advanced before we were ready might be similar.

So we as a planet have to take the process as slowly as the carbon-based body requires as it transforms to crystalline. And we lightworkers will be taking it even slower so that we’re still able to continue to serve and not all go off to the Himalayas!

The price of caves would skyrocket! Can you imagine a horde of western devotees descending on the mountains and squabbling over caves? (Just kidding.)

The moderation of experiences is just one instance of the manner in which the divine and her agents oversee our enlightenment process. Time permitting, I’ll write more on that in another piece.

(Continued in Part 3.)

Footnotes

(1) “Archangel Michael on Snaps, Expansion, and Ascension,” June 6, 2017, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/06/06/archangel-michael-on-snaps-expansion-and-ascension/.

(3) “AAM on Truncated Experiences,” March 21, 2017, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/03/21/aam-on-truncated-experiences/. Based on March 10, 2017 reading.

(4) Archangel Michael in a personal reading through Linda Dillon, March 10, 2017. (Hereafter AAM.)

(5) Steve: How am I to be contacted by people who want to use me as a pipeline?

Archangel Michael: This will be by a variety of means. [Deleted] or a mysterious interlude with strangers. And if one of those strangers should look like St. Germaine, do not be surprised! (AAM, June 6, 2018.)

(6) T.E. Lawrence through Jane Sherwood, medium, Post-Mortem Journal. Communications from T.E. Lawrence. London: Spearman, 1964, 86.



By Steve Beckow, July 28, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Enlightenment, Lightwork, and Ascension – Part 3/4

(Continued from Part 2.)

In this article, I’d like to transition from looking at our Ascension to looking at discussions of how the Self is “located” (as far as the Self can ever said to be located) in the heart.

And I mean this as plainly as saying that my laptop is located on my desk. I am not being metaphorical.

Obviously the Self is everywhere, but our progressive experiences of it have been adapted to our dimensional level, I believe.

I’d like to start with the views of terrestrial sages. We’ll hear them describe the Self with various terms: Spirit, soul, Christ, Atman, “I,” Buddha, etc.

I saw the Self after journeying to the end of the road within the heart. And there it was. (1)

The Upanishads predicted what I found. There in the heart is where we’ll find the Self:

“The ancient, effulgent being, in-dwelling Spirit, [is] deep-hidden in the lotus of the heart.” (2)

Sri Krishna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, also said that the “Lord, their soul” is to be found in the human frame; specifically in the heart.

“Fools pass blindly by the place of my dwelling
Here in the human form, and of my majesty
They know nothing at all,
Who am their Lord, their soul.” (3)

“There in the ignorant heart … I dwell.” (4)

When I first read that, I said to myself, what a nice flowery statement with a mystical meaning that I will probably unravel one day.

No, no. It’s a literal description. There in the ignorant heart the Self dwells. I saw it.

Shankara’s words mirror my experience, though his was undoutbtedly much more magnificent:

“Here, within this body, in the pure mind, in the secret chamber of intelligence, in the infinite universe within the heart, the Atman [I, Self, Christ] shines in its captivating splendour, like a noonday sun.” (5)

Shines in its splendor for non-lightworkers!

Fast forward to the recent past and we have Sri Ramakrishna affirming that “He abides in the hearts of all.” (6)

Jump to the near-present and we have Sri Ramana Maharshi’s attempt to explain the soul’s location – and in fact the heart’s location – to listeners who mostly don’t know about dimensions.

Let’s listen to one attempt to “locate” the heart and what Sri Ramana’s difficulty is:

Questioner: Sri Bhagavan has specified a particular place for the Heart within the physical body, that it is in the chest, two digits to the right from the meridian.

Maharshi. Yes, that is the Centre of spiritual experience according to the testimony of Sages. The spiritual Heart-centre is quite different from the blood-propelling, muscular organ known by the same name. The spiritual Heart-centre is not an organ of the body.

All that you can say of the Heart is that it is the very Core of your being, that which you are really identical (as the word in Sanskrit literally means), whether you are awake, asleep or dreaming, whether you are engaged in work or immersed in Samadhi.

Q. In that case, how can it be localized in any part of the body? Fixing a place for the Heart would be simply setting physiological limitations to That which is beyond space and time.

Now Maharshi reveals that he must fit the truth into words that his listeners can understand.

M. That is right. But the person who puts the question about the position of the Heart, considers himself as existing with or in the body. While putting the question now, would you say that your body alone is here but that you are speaking from somewhere else? No, you accept your bodily existence. It is from this point of view that any reference to a physical body comes to be made.

The ultimate truth is different from our metaphorical descriptions of it. Pure consciousness is indivisible, indescribable, incomprehensible.

Truly speaking pure Consciousness is indivisible, it is without parts. It has no form and shape, no ‘within’ and ‘without’. There is no ‘right’ or ‘left’ for it. Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all; and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate Truth.

From this absolute standpoint, the Heart, Self or Consciousness can have no particular place assigned to it in the physical body. What is the reason? The body is itself a mere projection of the mind, and the mind is but a poor reflection of the radiant Heart. How can That in which everything is contained, be itself confined as a tiny part within the physical body which is but an infinitesimal, phenomenal manifestation of the one Reality?

But Sri Ramana wants to reach his listeners.

But people do not understand this. They cannot help thinking in terms of physical body and the world. For instance, you say “I have come to this Asramam all the way from my country beyond the Himalayas.” But that is not the truth. Where is there a ‘coming’ or ‘going’ or any movement whatever, for the one, all-pervading Spirit which you really are?

You are where you have always been. It is your body that moved or was conveyed from place to place till it reached this Asramam. This is the simple truth, but to a person who considers himself a subject living in an objective world, it appears as something altogether visionary!

It is by coming down to the level of the ordinary understanding that a place is assigned to the Heart in the physical body. (7)

Exactly. There’s the full case for the difference between realizing the Truth and communicating it to people using comprehensible Third-Dimensional language. The latter seems impossible though sages never stop trying.

We find in the end that only realization fully communicates.

(To be concluded in Part 4.)

Footnotes

(1) See “The Heart is ‘the Seat of the Soul’,” December 17, 2018, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2018/12/17/the-heart-is-the-seat-of-the-soul/.

(2) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 17.

(3) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 81.

(4) Ibid., 87.

(5) Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, 53.

(6) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna- Center, 1978; c1942, 375.

(7) On other occasions, Sri Ramana has added:

Q: What is the heart?

M: It is the centre of the Self. The Self is the centre of centres. The Heart represents the psychic centre and not the physical centre. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Three Volumes in One. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanashram, 2010, 46.)

The place where the vasanas are is the Self; i.e., the Heart. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Talks, ibid., 393.)

The Heart is used in the Vedas and the scriptures to denote the place whence the notion ‘I’ springs. … This Heart is pointed to as the seat of the Self. But in truth, we are everywhere, we are all that is, and there is nothing else. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Talks, ibid., 35.)



By Steve Beckow, July 29, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Enlightenment, Lightwork, and Ascension – Part 4/4

(Concluded from Part 3,)

Our own channeled sources agree with our terrestrial sages.

Matthew Ward tells us: “Your heart [is] the seat of the soul.” (1) Exactly so.

Tazjima described it in 2013:

“There is a secret space within your etheric body sometimes called the secret garden, the Holy of Holies, the secret chamber of the heart.

“Whatever title you give it, it is the seed that the Mother and Father gave to each of you, planted in your flesh, to grow and expand into self-mastery at the appropriate moment preordained by your Higher Self.” (2)

That seems like an excellent summary of the situation to me.

I discussed the matter at length with Michael as well and his comments are germane here. First of all, what is a heart?

Steve Beckow: Lord, I have had so much trouble describing the heart and for that matter describing love. What exactly is a heart?

Archangel Michael: It is the motor of your being. If you think of yourself, not just the physical motor, but the motor that keeps you infinitely connected to the divine, to the source, to the One.

So it is the way in which the fuel of love comes into the heart and allows you to experience what truly is almost beyond human words and expressions.

And that is because the word love has been so minimized – overused, disregarded and minimized. Now we do not want to differentiate in terms of the levels of love.

What we want is the sublime experience, existence, connection because when you are in the love, you are literally all-knowing. You have experienced this. (3)

So the heart is our motor and our connection to the One. The fuel of love comes to us through the heart and cannot be described in Third-Dimensional language. Michael adds:

“So that is where we want you to go. So that is the full connection. So being and experiencing love is truly accessing the heart, the mind, the existence of One. It is the place of complete union.” (4)

Ascension itself is a full and permanent heart opening. Keep going deeper and deeper into the heart, into love.

Where does the heart exist?

Steve: The heart … doesn’t exist on the physical, obviously. What dimension does the heart exist at or is it multidimensional?

AAM: It is multidimensional but if you want to find a home for it, it would be in the seventh.

Steve: … I tried to define love and I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t even want to do it; it’s counterproductive. The heart is another one of those things that is very difficult to define or understand or communicate.

AAM: But you will keep trying.

Steve: I know – a thousand words – but I will keep trying.

AAM: Because it is the essential work. It is the essential message for humans to truly come to understand who they are. (5)

Yes, I will keep trying. I don’t know why, but I continually want to.

At this moment, as happens so often when I write about it, I’m experiencing a low level ( call it a “working level”) of this transformative love. It feels sweetly nurturing and buoys me up.

***

To summarize then, all of us are ascending by mounting Jacob’s Ladder of consciousness and eventually having one enlightenment experience after another.

Some of us will see the sight of the Self. Those of us who enter the heart in our meditations will find the Self “located” there, at the farthest reaches of the heart – in “the seat of the soul” or “the bottom of my heart.”

Scriptural passages that talk about the matter in flowery language are not romantic flourishes, but are being literally true in telling us where we can find the Self : In the heart.

Moreover, our sources tell us, love flows from the One to us via our hearts. Rather than looking to our partners to “supply” us with love, we may wish to look to the artesian well of it that endlessly and copiously flows – in the heart.

In the beginning, we were given an endless reservoir of love, hidden in the recesses of our heart. (6) Now Ascension will see us gradually – and sometimes suddenly – access that flow of love in the heart, which is destined to elevate us to a higher dimension of life.

Footnotes

(1) Matthew’s Message, May 21, 2008, at https://www.matthewbooks.com.

(2) “White Cloud: On Seeking the Savior Within,” channeled by Eliza Ayres ((AKA Tazjima Amariah Kumara)), December 25, 2013 at http://bluedragonjournal.com.

(3) Archangel Michael in a personal reading through Linda Dillon, Dec. 5, 2018. (Hereafter AAM.)

Yes, I experienced what he’s discussing here. During the vision of 1987 I felt myself drowned in bliss, which helped me to understand what I was seeing.

(4) Loc. cit.

(5) AAM, Dec. 5, 2018.

(6) In the end, we really do turn out to be cave dwellers: The self dwells in the cave of the heart.