It must be understood that to achieve enlightenment and integrated ascension one does not have to be perfect. Masters on the inner plane who have graduated from Earth life still make mistakes. The idea is to learn from them and as the Master Jesus said, “You are forgiven, but sin no more.” Righteousness in the eyes of God is not being perfect, it is trying to the best of your ability.
The Spiritual path has been esoterically described as a wrestling match with God. It is not really God you are wrestling with, but your own negative ego thoughts, imbalanced thoughts and feelings, lower-self desires, appetites, sensuality, carnality, indolence, automatic pilot, and so on. It is a wrestling match to overcome mass consciousness, glamour, maya, and illusion within oneself.
Paramhansa Yogananda has described the Spiritual path as a battlefield. His exact quote was, “Life is a battlefield!” Christianity describes it the same way in describing it as Armageddon. The forces of light battling the forces of darkness. In a metaphysical sense you are battling illusion.
Krishna saw life as a battlefield as well when he scolded Arjuna for crying and giving up on the battlefield. He said to Arjuna, “Get up and give up your unmanliness, and get up and fight! This self-pity and self-indulgence is unbecoming of the great Soul you are!”
The key word or theme for our universe is courage. Without courage one cannot make it in this lifetime. Others call this integrating the Spiritual warrior archetype. Yogananda may have described it best when he said, “If you want to realize God you must want Him like a drowning man wants air!” If you want God that much you will find God!
The Spiritual path is often seen like climbing a mountain, up three steps, down two. Up five steps, down four. Up seven, down five! This is how most people learn and grow. The most important thing is that you are making progress. A lot of people want fireworks to go off every day to show them their progress but that is not the way it works. Spiritual growth is earned in very small increments. It reminds me of the story of the tortoise and the hare. A great many Lightworkers storm out of the race like the hare but in the end the tortoise ends up winning. Better to be like the tortoise, for life is a marathon, not a fifty-yard dash.
This is why I have entitled this chapter about the importance of being relentless in your efforts. Every day meditate a little, do your service work, pray, read your Spiritual books, listen to your Spiritual tapes, have Spiritual fellowship, do your Spiritual practices, stay organized, do your journal work, and day by day, week by week, year by year, without even realizing it you will be growing on all levels. You will be increasing your love, wisdom, and power in service of God. Keep climbing your Spiritual mountains until one day you will be finding yourself climbing the final mountain of planetary ascension which I call the Mt Everest Initiation and Mountain. The key is to follow the admonition of the Master Jesus when he said, “Be ye faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life!”
