Continued from above.......

The word anu means after, afterward. So that is the Gita that followed the Bhagavad Gita.

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In the Chandogya Upanishad there is a description about how a soul becomes transited to the divine world. This might be called the full ascension using your words. There it explains that after reaching a certain high plane of existence, the soul has to get help, where someone has to come from the divine side and pull that soul over.

In other words from our position now, we cannot get out on our own. And all the same we won’t get out if we do not make endeavor either.

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Personally gaging from what I know now, from the yoga austerities and kriyas which I practice recently in this life, and seeing what those things have done for me in terms of elevation, I really do not see how it would be possible for a person to transit to the spiritual world without divine help.

I do not think it is possible except in the condition where the person was from the divine side in the first place and do not need help because that person’s soul is not a conditioned being. I make this estimation the way a mountain climber could estimate what others must do to reach certain levels based on directly climbing up before to those heights.

Unless there is some miracle it is not going to happen that any of us will get to the divine side by ourselves. We are not equipped to do it from this side of existence.

It is possible for a deity from the spiritual world to translate anyone to the divine side but that is sheer chance. I do not think any rational being is going to sit around and rely on that.

If you are on a desert island it is possible that a ship might come one day and you will get to board it and get out in that way, but to sit around and wait for that ship, well that depends on your nature.

I will try to build a raft or something and take my chances out at sea. If a ship shows up, sure I will leave my raft and climb aboard but I will not just sit on the island waiting for never-never day. And I won’t join with a group of dreamers who year after year say that they are the chosen people and their God is going to send a ship for His believers.

Mind you, if that happens and I am on the island, then I have enough sense to submit but in the meantime, I am building my raft.

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Trouble with the idea of sitting around is that on the desert island there is a manual which is called Bhagavad Gita. There the God left clear instructions on how to build the raft and where to steer it out at sea to reach the divine world. So, on that basis I prefer to make some effort. To me the grace is present in the deity’s act of leaving the manual.

Alfredo 3 years ago

Michael Wrote: [In the Chandogya Upanishad there is a description about how a soul becomes transited to the divine world. This might be called the full ascension using your words. There it explains that after reaching a certain high plane of existence, the soul has to get help, where someone has to come from the divine side and pull that soul over.]

Alfredo’s Reply:

Tremendous Upanishad. I believe this part is in Chapter 4, on what happens after death when a relationship is established between the Pingala nadi and the trajectory to Brahma-loka thru the Sun.

It is interesting that in the previous section to that one, the importance of Brahmacharya is stressed for attaining passage to Brahma-Loka.