Journey into the Heart of the Cosmos

Ascending with Jesus

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

All my life, I have received mockery for my belief in Jesus. I understand why some conservative Christians have a chip on their shoulders over their belief in Christ. It is important to always remind my siblings, sisters, and brothers across the aisle that we should respond to this treatment with the grace, compassion, and humility of Jesus.

What we have to remember is the frame Meister Eckhart gave us to understand our relationship with the life of Christ:

What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.

So let’s ask the question we need to answer every year:

What is the Ascension happening today?

It is easy to see the face of the crucified Christ in the refugees and those killed by the police and mass shooters. We strive for resurrection in our work for justice, healing, equality, and reconciliation, but what is the ascension for today? How can we experience the ascension of Christ today?

When we consider the life of Christ through the lens of the chakras, it becomes evident that the virgin birth is symbolic of the awakening of the heart chakra, Anahata. This chakra represents the energy center that embodies love, compassion, and selflessness. It is considered the center of our emotional and spiritual being, where we learn to connect with others, experience empathy, and cultivate a sense of oneness with the universe. Christ's virgin birth is a representation of the purity and unconditional love that we all have the potential to embody when we awaken our heart chakra.

We live this power through embodying compassion and grace in all our actions and interactions with others. We strive not to react, but to act from our heart. This is how we bring this purity of action to our life.

Similarly, the ascension of Christ represents the journey from the sixth chakra, Ajna, to the seventh chakra, Sahasrara. Ajna is often referred to as the third eye chakra, and it represents our ability to perceive reality beyond what is visible. It is associated with intuition, spiritual insight, and enlightenment. Sahasrara, on the other hand, represents the highest state of consciousness, where we move beyond all discursive language and experience the non-dual reality of the cosmos and God.

In the ascension of Christ, we see the journey from the limited perception of the material world to the infinite, all-encompassing reality of God. This is the ultimate goal of spiritual evolution, where we transcend our ego and experience the oneness of the universe. Christ's ascension represents the attainment of this state of consciousness and serves as a reminder of the potential that exists within each of us to reach this level of spiritual awareness. By understanding the connection between the chakras and the life of Christ, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the transformative power of spiritual practice and the universal nature of spiritual awakening.

Again, to quote Meister Eckhart:

The Ultimate and Highest leave taking is leaving God for GOD, leaving your notion of God for an Experience of That which transcends all notions.

The Ascension is the Breaking of Idols

We live in the power of the Ascension when we realize Idols are not statues made of wood and stone. An idol is any image, even if we make it from words and beliefs, that distracts us from the reality of God as the one in whom we live, move, and have our being.

Jesus is our mediator, our high priest. Even though many of us believe that Jesus is God, we cannot allow Jesus or Holy Spirit, or even the Father, to become an idol that distracts us from the truth that God is so much more than any of us can ever express in words.

In the act of ascending, Jesus rises into the air and disappears in the clouds because God is present in nature, in the earth, and in all of us.

Through faith, we ascend with Jesus as the body of Christ and let go of our preconceived notions and melt into the vibrant living world to co-create the world to come with God.

Ascending to Oneness

We arise with Christ,
with the angels,
with the hopes and prayers of billions.

We rise into the sky,
into the cloud of witness,
into the great cloud of unknowing.

We fly into wisdom,
on the wings of grace,
on the winds of Spirit.

Into the heart of the cosmos from which compassion allures us to awe, to release, to create, and to transform the broken to the whole, pain to relief, the old to the new, suffering to justice.

Hand in hand with Christ, we twirl in the spiral dance of creation from path to path, lifting up our hearts, minds, and spirits as we uplift the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the suffering.

May we heal the world and restore the world to come into the beloved community longing to be born.