Perpetrations make a bumpy road
I’m not sure if a series of articles on obstacles to a smooth Ascension is useful to people so I’ll leave comments open to get your feedback. Some people may see it as negative. I’ll let you decide.
I’d almost like to do a Top Ten of the obstacles to a smooth Ascension. One thing that fazes me in doing so is to give the impression that I’m somehow not subject to these obstacles, along with everyone else.
I ran an inch of water in the bathtub today to see if I could walk on it and I sank below the surface. So I’m not there yet myself. But I benefit from a discussion such as this, along with anyone else who does.
Number One on my list of obstacles to a smooth Ascension was vasanas, the reaction patterns we inherited from the trauma of our younger years. We spoke about that a few days ago. (1)
Number Two would be perpetrations.
Perpetrations are harmful acts we deliberately and mindfully commit. If we commit a harmful act but without deliberation and mindfulness, we usually call it an accident. Often when we perpetrate and get caught, we may try to represent the act as an accident, but it still has consequences for us, even if we succeed in fooling others – perhaps especially when we succeed in fooling others because we’ve perpetrated a second time thereby.
The consequence is to take us out of alignment with our higher self, out of integrity or wholeness. We tend to start a skewing within ourselves that just grows and grows with each fresh perpetration.
A perpetration can be a lie, a threat, an attack – anything that harms. It can be big or small, blatant or subtle. It can be a one-off or part of a pattern.
An example of a pattern might be to perpetrate and perpetrate and then tell others that they should forgive us or they aren’t good people. Once forgiven, we perpetrate and perpetrate again. We call this pattern an act, a number, or a racket.
There are several problems with perpetrations. One stems from the way life was designed. It was designed so as to foster the divine qualities and wean us from unwholesome qualities. The law of karma brings us a return for all our acts. The return for unwholesome acts is usually not something we find pleasant. So perpetrations bring us an unpleasant return.
And then our lives (this one or the next one) can take a turn for the worse. We can face conditions of disability or poverty or broken relationships – some condition that’s designed to show us how it feels, so to speak, as a learning situation on the road to developing the divine qualities.
SaLuSa referred to this in his Dec. 3, 2012 message:
“It was known that most souls would be drawn into the negative side at times, and it is not held against you.
“After all, in most cases you have already overcome your weaknesses by understanding your problems through karmic experiences. Freedom is a wonderful attribute to have but, as you have found out, it comes at a price as you are responsible for your actions and even words. Your Sword of Light has been honed in the depths of darkness, and now it shines out brighter than ever.
“You were already highly enlightened souls when you took on duality, but now you are even more powerful as a result of your experiences.” (2)
A second problem with perpetrations is somewhat more difficult to describe. All of us are like Babushka dolls nested around our higher self or soul. The soul’s communications to the outer levels of consciousness are often called “the voice of conscience” or “the still, small inner voice.”
When we perpetrate, that inner voice or conscience responds and it’s usually a variation on “no” or a response of disagreement or disapproval.
That response doesn’t feel good and so it sets off a rift between the pleasure the outer consciousness feels at having done something agreeable and the displeasure the inner voice feels over it.
The outer voice feels good. Perhaps it’s gloating over showing someone a lesson or feeling triumphant at having gotten back at someone. But the inner voice feels disappointed or disapproves, etc. So we now have the two out of alignment with each other and this has an impact on our character. We now lack integrity or wholeness. We’ve now put a kink in our character.
Moreover, the more we perpetrate, the more we lose touch with our inner voice., Eventually we may not be able to hear it, which is worse than feeling its disapproval. After all, it’s there to guide us whether we appreciate the guidance or not.
The pleasure we feel at perpetrating is what makes it so hard to do the right thing. Putting someone else down, getting even, winning at the expense of another can often feel downright good. If it didn’t, there would be far less impetus to perpetrating.
Sages make reference to this situation:
The Upanishads: The wise prefer the good to the pleasant; the foolish, driven by fleshly desires, prefer the pleasant to the good. (3)
The Upanishads: The good is one thing; the pleasant is another. These two, differing in their ends, both prompt to action. Blessed are they that choose the good; they that choose the pleasant miss the goal. (4)
The Buddha: I have been wounded by the enjoyment of the world, and I have come out longing to obtain peace; I would not accept an empire free from all ill even in the third heaven, how much less amongst men. (5)
When we live in alignment without perpetrations, then life, love and energy all flow. We experience bliss and joy when we live in squeaky-clean integrity.
When we live a life of perpetration, we lose touch with our aliveness, joy, spontaneity, satisfaction, and full self-expression. When we perpetrate, we may experience a short term gain, but we eventually lose 100 percent of the time. Life is set up to see that we do.
Squeaky-clean integrity is a high bar, perhaps, but then it becomes a very desirable goal in this lifetime, as opposed to any other. If we approach life allowing ourselves the luxury of perpetrating, we erect barriers between us and a smooth Ascension.
Instead of getting even, the road gets very uneven and we treat ourselves to a very bumpy ride.
Footnotes
(1) “Painting with Awareness: Dealing with the Most Common Obstacle to Ascension,” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/12/painting-with-awareness-dealing-with-the-most-common-obstacle-to-ascension/
(2) SaLuSa, Dec. 3, 2012, at https://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm
(3) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 16.
(4) Loc. cit.
(5) The Buddha in BMT, 119.