THE CELESTIAL LADDER

Excerpt from Sunday Service

April 5, 2009

by Aeptha

We are called today to talk about ascension, the ladder into heaven, and when you go back through the extensive literature of different cultures that speaks about ascension  there are interesting parallels to be found in the different systems. 

One of the earliest texts that describes Ascension is found amongst the Pyramid Texts which were written in approximately 2375 BCE. And when I say written I speak of the hieroglyphic texts that were found in the pyramid that was the tomb of the Pharaoh of Unas.  In this text there is a very clear description of moving through the process by which the Pharaoh would ascend to the stars and would become as a god himself, one of the Imperishable Lights. The text is found on the north wall of the tomb’s ante- chamber and one of the things that you will notice in the ascension literature is that inevitably the direction north plays an important part, the reason being that north is the place of the Pole star, what they call the imperishable star. These are stars that do not descend below the horizon. It was also said that it was in the north that the throne of the Creator resides.

In this tomb, in the north, one of the first things that was stated about the Pharaoh of Unas was that he was a good man, moral and ethical and an upholder of the laws. In the ascension literature that is something that you will see across all cultures. You don't make it by your good looks alone. In other words there is a call to hold to a certain standard of purity, of behavior and to hold to a high standard of being in the world.  This is seen in every single text throughout the ascension literature.

The Pyramid Text describes a movement through seven gates and as you go to each gate you must go with the knowledge of who the guardian is of that gate and what it is that must be given there, be it in the form of a gift or talisman or a word of power, so that you will be given permission to pass through it. And ultimately you pass through the seventh gate and reach the throne of God.

What was interesting in Egypt was that originally it was the role of the Pharaoh to move through this ascension process and to take his place as a god in the Imperishable Region.  But historically one of the things that started to happen is that there came a time where there were people besides the Pharaoh who were able to go through this process and this opened the door to the possibility that the common people could also make their way to become Imperishable Stars, to become as gods themselves.

It was some 1800 years later that Ezekiel, a Jewish priest who was captive in Babylon had his vision of the chariot.  This was the vision that Jewish mysticism is based upon and it is primarily an oral tradition that speaks of ways to ascend to the Throne. This is described in the Merkavah texts, Merkavah being the chariot, and in the Hekhalot texts, which is about the throne. These texts take you through the different levels and they are based upon the vision of Ezekiel. Now what is interesting is that when you read the story of Ezekiel he is facing north when he has this vision. For those of you who read the Bible you know that he encounters a series of things in his vision including the Four Holy Creatures, and he moves higher and higher until he actually experiences himself before the throne of God. And each time he brings this information back to the people. This was very important because we have to remember that these are people that do not have a temple because at this time their first temple had been destroyed. Now in the Judaic tradition a lot of what was essential to the practice of their beliefs had to occur within the temple. How does that happen when you do not have one? They did not have any place to practice their faith and in addition they had been dislodged from their land.

Ezekiel's vision was built upon the practice of ascension technology that would lead you before the throne of God and it was believed that if you followed certain steps that you too could take this ladder up into the heavens and have the experience of coming before the One. And this is central: you then bring that information back down to the people. And that is the teaching in all the different traditions of the Ladder of Ascension, that we not only are able to do this but that we are called to do it, and that by this act of the movement of consciousness we can achieve a different perspective, a greater point of view and a different level of understanding.

The other thing that comes up over and over when we speak of this ladder, this stairway, is that it takes you out of your normal relationship with time and space. You go up and then you are no longer bound by time and space. You can have experiences in this process that would normally take you lifetimes to achieve and you can do it in a place that is no longer bound by time and space. So you can be in this process where, from the experience of the person in Malkuth you would be gone for an hour and you would be in a deep meditative trance state for an hour, but your experiences, your levels of consciousness of what is happening to you, could be the experience of years and even of lifetimes. And so there is the possibility to transcend the limitations of time and space.

In China they talk about going through the seven palaces to reach the immortal palace in the north. They talk about the seven Rishis which are the seven stars in the Big Dipper that govern this particular level of creation. And the Big Dipper, which is the tail of the Great Bear, is also mentioned over and over in various traditions including the Egyptian, because that is part of a grouping of stars that move round the Axis Mundi, the Pole Star, but they do not go below the horizon. The Axis Mundi is the world tree that connects the heavens and the earth and in the various traditions we find a recognition of the connection between heaven and earth.

In the higher levels, according to the literature, the most dangerous place is when you get up to the sixth rung of the ladder. Those of us who have read St. Teresa of Avila and the “Interior Castle” will remember what happens in the sixth level. That is the place of the greatest torment, the place of the greatest challenge, before you enter into the seventh level and you experience sacred union. So too in the ascension literature that spans the different traditions, this is how the sixth level is experienced. Shamanistically it is the level where you are figuratively dismembered, where you die, where there is the dissolution of the personality. Why does that have to be? Because it is what we identify with and if we go in there thinking “I am who I am” and that happens to be “me”, then that will be what binds us because that is our identification with our personality. So it is in this sixth level, if you get to that place, that whatever is left of your attachment to your ego must fall, must be dissolved, so that you can stand before the throne of the One and truly be open to learning.  It is like stepping into the unknowable.

Part of the training in the various traditions, including in the Merkavah tradition, is what they call the “derangement of the senses”. What does that mean? If you look at this on a world level are we not being deranged and derailed? On a global level we’re like a wobble toy. We’ve wobbled and we’re not able to get upright. This is “derangement of the senses” on a mystical level. There are ways you do this in your meditation too where you trick the senses so that they are scrambled or preoccupied with something else. The way that you normally keep a cohesive sense of your personal identity is no longer operating. You find this frequently when you practice breath-work because when you do this properly there is the place where you move out between the breaths and there you are not bound by the rules of time and space or by your senses.

The ascension literature speaks of three ways to ascend. One way is that from above there is a rope that comes down and you can climb the rope, the implication being that there is help from above. The second way is that you actually have the wings to fly. The third is that you climb the ladder and you have to pull yourself up by the boot straps. You have to work each rung and build the ladder as you go. The latter is the method that is usually used but there are occasionally the kinder, gentler methods such as the lowering of a rope, or better yet, the provision of a pair of wings. But we don't have the option to ascend that way. We’re taking it rung by rung and by the time we get to the sixth level we will have encountered the guardians at the different gateways.

Another aspect of this process that shows up in the various accounts that you read is that in order to be successful at this not only do you have to derange your senses but you also have to find ways to detach yourself from the mundane world. That means giving up all of the ways that we normally use to comfort ourselves when we start to feel expansive or perhaps when we are shifting consciousness. We usually plug into a mundane way of being, sometimes through a repetitive thought process, sometimes by going back to an old habit. But what I find interesting is that a lot of times you think that you are doing something that makes you feel good, but what is curious for us as human beings is that a lot of times we will pick out something that is familiar to us that makes us miserable, like some negative thought pattern, or some way of going back to some past experience. How many of us have not found ourselves doing this? I've been getting reports back that even in that twilight zone when you're coming out of sleep that you are getting pulled into an astral level where you experience old fears, negativity or uncertainty.

But we’re going up the ladder; the whole world is. I’m not even going to venture to guess where we are in that process but I guarantee that part of what humanity is doing is seeking to ground themselves into a sense of what is familiar. And that is one of the things that in these mystical practices they say you have to separate yourself from because otherwise you don't move consciousness, you don't shift out of this time and space and you keep identifying with what you think is real here, even if that reality is something you claim you don't believe in, yet our thoughts or actions take us there.

Another aspect that I'd like to draw your attention to, because it was very potent to me as I was reading it, was the Qumran community.  This was the Jewish settlement where a lot of the Gnostic teachings were said to have occurred and where Jesus was said to have studied.  In this community a lot of the Merkavah training took place and one of the components of this was an ethical way of being, a moral standard, but also physical purity. Why this? It is not because the body is nasty but because purifying is a discipline, a consciousness and a way of regarding the body as sacred. There are teachings that say that our bodies were not always the way they are today but that we used to have bodies that were much more refined. As we became more and more engrossed in the illusions our bodies took on a different level of vibration and a different way of being. The act of purifying is the difference between eating good food and food that is not good for us, the difference between drinking water versus Coca-Cola, the difference between treating our body as a sacred temple as opposed to treating it is a dump zone.  It truly has an effect and our body responds to that discipline.

In the Qumran community a high level of purification was required as well as an ethical and moral way of living.  For the time this community was very unusual because it was open to both men and women and it was through stages of progressions and initiations that the members advanced. But the point that I'd like to make is that this was a community of priests and by this time the second Temple had been built but it was a far cry from the first Temple and it was being desecrated. So what that meant for these Judaic people was that again they did not have a temple to worship in and so they created a heavenly temple and they did this through a mystical, magical process. And it was through visualizations, disciplines and focus that they could then ascend to the Throne, go into the heavenly temple, engage in these sacred acts and then return, changed and transformed.

As you move forward in the study of this literature what you find is that it changed from the individual mystical practitioner, or the individual shaman who would engage in this practice, to that of the group.  And this is where you start to see it move into the Western Mystery tradition where initiations started to take place as a group. And you see a lot of this being presented in the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries, particularly in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, in the initiation processes of the secret societies where the idea is that you move through the initiation process very slowly, ascending the ladder, and in these initiations you are no longer bound by time and space, and it gives you a different perspective, a different understanding of reality. But you are not to go up and stay. You are to go, to retrieve and to bring it back. It is the great inner alchemy. 

I believe that many of us read or have heard of the Harry Potter books. In these books we read of the Philosopher’s Stone and Nicolas Flamel, who was a real person. And there are stories about this person who lived in the mid to late 1300’s. It is documented that he had a bookstore in Paris and it is said that a book of about 20 pages came to him and he started following its directions. All of a sudden he had a lot of money, and he was doing many philanthropic things in the community. And they said that on his gravestone there are occult symbols.

In the ascension literature you read that one of the things that happens, or that can happen, is that in this alchemical process there can be increased wealth and increased health. The reason is that you no longer need to be bound by the necessity to go out in servitude to earn money, or be bound by poor health. But this is the kicker - whatever you receive is not to be used for yourself.  The teachings in these Grimoire or magical texts state that if you have achieved this level then the understanding is that all that you receive is to flow through you and be sent back out to help others. 

I found this ascension literature fascinating and my message today is this: we should desire to shift our consciousness, to transmute, to transform, to no longer be bound by the perceptions and the illusions, to ascend the ladder of consciousness and reach a place where we can gather a different understanding of reality, of healing, of imperishability and then bring that back into our day-to-day, moment-to-moment life. It is something that has been spoken of since the earliest recorded history so it is something that is held in the collective consciousness. Why is it held there? Because it is obtainable. It isn't something that happens to somebody else, or happened way back when, or happens in some fairy tale book like Harry Potter. We are called to the celestial ladder. We are called to climb the rungs. We are called to the sixth level where we give up our illusion of control and truly surrender to the unknowable. We are called to sacred union and to stand before the One. And then we are called to return, not to show we are better than the rest, but we return with the knowingness and the wisdom that if indeed we have stepped one rung up then it is our opportunity to reach our hand down and know that there is a hand below us reaching up to us, one of our brethren, for we are part of a continuum.

And yet we get into our perceptions of our own limitations, our perceptions of our own identities; we get into our busy schedules and we get into our fear. Some of us convince ourselves we do not need to meditate. Someone once asked, “What do I do when I don't have time to meditate?” And the answer was, “What you're telling me is you can't clear out 15 minutes a day to talk to Goddess, to talk to God, or better yet to keep quiet and listen?”

You see the thing is that these rungs are really not very far apart, and it is really not very high at all. But we’ve convinced ourselves that it is not only unattainable, if indeed it is even real, but maybe we'll put it in our blackberry and do it tomorrow or that if we get to one rung we’ll never make it to the next or the one after that. And all of that is simply not so because it was understood, and has been understood in every culture, that everyone is called to this path. It comes in different forms and traditions and with different names, but it comes and it is here, now.

It is in this understanding that we're going to be moving into a Pathworking and so I ask that you would make yourself comfortable and start to take some nice deep breaths. Focus on the breath as you move the breath in and out of your body. The breath is Spirit. The breath is life. The breath is fire. And just as the seven rungs of the ladder are reflected to us in the northern sky, in the starry realm, so too are they within our body: the seven wheels of light, the seven chakras.  And so it is that some travel the ladder of light through the chakras.

And so I would ask that we would turn our attention for a moment to a point below our feet. Be aware of a star about 18 inches below your feet. Connect in with that star. It will give you the stability to take this journey so that you can then take that which has been received and bring it back to this place, to this time and space. So connect in with that star. Now turn your attention to the root chakra, to the first rung on the ladder. Focus on that energy of procreation, of creation, of survival, of connection. And begin to rise up, feeling the energy of that root chakra and raise it up. Now focus on your breath and move the energy up to the sacral, pausing there for a moment as you gather the one-pointed focus; gather the desire, the will, the courage. Use the breath as we rise up to the third rung, to the solar plexus. I know we are anxious to move forward, but this is the place in the training where many think they're moving forward and they are really not for it is the place where our sense of self will deceive. So we stay here for a moment, for it is here that in order to continue up the ladder of ascent that we must truly hand the reins of the chariot to our Soul, to that which always is from life to life, from experience to experience. Hand over the reins and feel the quickening as you relinquish control, as you call to your Soul: I seek liberation; I seek to rise through you, by you. Quicken your breath for a moment for this is a birthing moment. This is the transitional moment that the birth of your true self may come forward. Allow the birthing and slow the breath. And now we rise to the heart. We rise, we are one heart and here we rest for a moment in this love, in this expansion, in this glory, in the certainty that we are divine. And yet as glorious as this is, we yearn and we cast our eyes upward. We reach out our arms, as we rise to the fifth level, to the throat. And now we rise to the Ajna. We are the obelisk reaching up, and we are the ben ben stone; we are the Phoenix. And it is here that we must willingly cast ourselves into the fire. It is here we must willingly surrender. It is here we move out between the breaths as we prepare to move to the seventh level. Be aware of the space between the breaths. And let the ashes of what has been be cast into the sea of the Great Mother. Cast yourself into the sea. And now enter into the throne room. Move into the crown. Follow your breath and be aware of the star beneath your feet, the crown and beyond the crown, and the extension of light above you and below you, the extension of light like spokes of light that are moving, spiraling; a whirling wheel of light above and below and all around; a whirling wheel of love, of will to good. And again with the use of your breath be aware not only of the external, but the internal, accepting that fire, that light, and feeling it in every cell of your being, physical, emotional and mental. Now hold in the silence of all potentiality.

Gather the love, the celestial love but also gather the earthly love. Feel the imperishability of your light, the certainty that it is never diminished. And we gather this as a group. Let that which is above be so below. Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth. As we are uplifted, all are uplifted. The Light is below, the Light is above, the Light is all around. Beauty is above, Beauty is below, Beauty is all around. The High Law is above, below and all around.

And now recognize that we are in this time, and we are in this place.