There’s No Ascenscion

In the New Age mindset, there’s a widespread belief that humanity is undergoing a quantum leap,  shifting toward a higher plane called 4D or 5D.

Think of it like vitamins. You take D3 to fix calcium into your bones. Presumably, when you start supplementing with D4 and D5, you’re fixing photons into your light body.

The sweet escapist seduction.

We don’t call it Paradise anymore, the Garden of Eden is so last century. These days we’ve upgraded to layered, complex terminology where the more convoluted the concept, the more magnetic it becomes, the more curiosity it generates.

The belief that all of humanity shares a collective destiny, 8 billion souls, plus every soul that has ever walked this planet before (because they count too, right?),  is a seductive illusion. Let me tell you why.

Because the moment you hand salvation, ascension, or enlightenment, my preferred word, over to the collective, you set yourself up for suffering. You transfer your responsibility onto external forces you can’t control, and just like that, you don’t have to do a thing. Convenient, isn’t it?

Enlightenment doesn’t move in a general direction. It moves in a subjective, individual one, where you do the work of moving from lie toward truth, from fear toward love. From the body of flesh toward the body of light.

And here’s what nobody tells you: no one can do this for you. Not your teacher, not your community, not even God. Because if God could, it would mean God plays favorites, and Divine Justice doesn’t work that way. Human courts of law mirror divine principles, not perfectly, but as an aspiration.

Ascension, at its core, is the same old escape fantasy dressed in new language. If you’re ascending, you feel like you’re leaving. But leaving prematurely from a place you were meant to inhabit isn’t transcendence, it’s avoidance. You’re running from a reality that doesn’t always smell like jasmine, where there’s real work to do, real lessons to sit with, where pain and pleasure are permanently braided together.

And here’s the solution.

My advice? I stopped giving advice a long time ago. A student of mine told me just yesterday that she’d found a tarot reader on YouTube who diagnosed her chronic neck pain as a malevolent spirit possession. Have you seen the Korean horror film Shutter? That’s probably the source material. I won’t recommend it, and I’m not just saying that. I’d rather not have your subconscious marinating in that kind of imagery at two in the morning.

What I did suggest was this: after her somatic shaking sessions, send love to the painful area. Say “I love you” to it, until even the spirits break a sweat from the warmth you’re generating in your own body.

Instead of chasing higher dimensions, try going deeper into the one you’re already in. Root yourself in your energy body. Here. Now. Start with the zero stance, what Taoists call wuji: stand upright, spine long, knees slightly soft, palms facing inward toward your body. Stay there for a few minutes and feel the energy currents moving up from the earth. I know a Portuguese practitioner who comes to Bali every year for months at a time to study Dragon Qigong with an Indonesian lineage. He told me he holds this posture for up to 45 minutes.

Don’t force it. Stay free within your own process, responsive to where your energy actually is. Build on consistency and persistence, not on how long you lasted in a single session.