Let’s next look at the concept of the culmination of Ascension in Christianity.
Jesus and his disciples called the culminating event the Resurrection, Redemption, and Salvation.
Resurrection was from mortality to immortality, as Jesus asserts that he has accomplished:
“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen.” (1)
Of course the soul lives forever so the chances are that Jesus was really saying I have left the domain in which birth and “death” apply; I need never be reborn again into it.
In our modern terms, I have ascended from the Third/Fourth to a higher dimension.
The Sadducees denied the reality of the survival of – or resurrection from – physical death.
They put a case to Jesus in which one woman, after her husband’s death, married seven of his brothers in succession.
“Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife.
“And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
“But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
“Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” (2)
First of all, folks don’t marry in the afterlife (period). That’s more a feature of physical life. They don’t give birth so one reason for marriage is removed. And marriage would serve far fewer purposes when you live immersed in all-satisfying, transfigurative love.
To return to Jesus, as long as we’re in the Third Dimension, we haven’t escaped the wheel of birth and death. But, Jesus says, if we are “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead,” then “neither can [we] die any more.” He just described the means of our escape from the reincarnational wheel – Ascension.
He goes on:
“…as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (3)
What we conceive of as the dead are not dead. There are no dead in God’s kingdom. All live eternally. Jesus acknowledges our immortality.
Resurrection is our reward for everything, we’re told: “They cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” (4) And of course life in the Fifth Dimension or higher – drenched in love – is its own reward, of inestimable value.
In another place he said: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” (5)
As an avatar or direct descent of God, Jesus has the power to heal and enlighten. The avatars have the ability to open the door to higher dimensionality (as do archangels, seraphim, etc.).
The Resurrection was often considered to be the “second death”:
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the … resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (6)
The first death would have been that of the physical body, leaving one in the astral. Those that Jesus “saved” would then experience the death of the astral (Fourth-Dimensional) body and their Ascension to the Fifth or higher dimension as well in the mental body, light body, or merkebah.
Those who ascended would not be hurt of this second death.
Teaching the resurrection of the dead could be dangerous in Jesus’ time. Of his disciples after his Ascension, we hear:
“And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them,
“Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
“And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide.
“Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.” (7)
Jesus well knew the danger he and they were in. Therefore he used passwords (a movement and a rest) (8) and taught in parables (a man found a treasure in a field). (9)
Finally, before we ascend, we have to work out every kink. Luke describes the process, which Isaiah originally prophesied:
“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
“And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (10)
Every lack of self-worth shall be addressed; every hill of pride shall be leveled. That which is out of integrity shall be put straight; that which is rough shall be refined. Does that not describe the very process of purification and cleansing we’re going through at the present time?
At some point, all mortals on Earth (after the time of separation) will experience Sahaja Samadhi or “the salvation of God.”
Here we are at that time, predicted long ago in Christian and earlier literature – the time of the world’s Resurrection, Redemption, and Salvation.
Footnotes
(1) Revelation 1: 18.
(2) Luke 20: 35-6.
(3) Matthew 22: 30-2.
(4) Luke 14: 14.
(5) John 11: 30-42.
(6) Revelation 20: 6.
(7) Acts 4: 1-4.
(8) If they ask you:
“What is the sign of the Father in
you?”, say to them: “It is a movement and a
rest. (Jesus in A. Guillaumont et al, The Gospel According to Thomas. NY: Harper and Row, 1959, 29.)
(9) Jesus offers a complete spiritual practice in this one parable and repeats it again and again, in whole or in part, in the parables of the pearl of great price, great fish among fish, mustard seed that grew into a great tree, etc.
(10) Luke 3: 5-6.