deep within man, until the darkness of the human mind is dispelled and it can comprehend just what is that Light. Then it “descends”—pushes down—and makes its abode in the soul or heart of man as an inner Light, staying in that man until self is crucified and all sense of separation from that Light is gone, and the Word then comes forth and possesses the mind, becomes the flesh, and the Light alone is.

In the meantime, the consciousness of the outer mind may have many times “ascended” or withdrawn into that Light of the Christ, and may have abode there for a greater or lesser period of time, until gradually the mind learns to live in His Consciousness and to work from It, the two eventually becoming one. This is symbolized by self’s final crucifixion, when the mind can say “It is finished,” and “gives up the ghost” (the illusion) of being separate in any way from God or His Spirit—the Christ or Logos; and its consciousness unites and becomes wholly one with His Consciousness.

Then of course it has no longer any use for the body, and its cells fall apart and return to the “dust” from which they came.

This might be said to have been Jesus’ greatest Ascension, for when self is no more, there can be no body, only the Spirit visions and needs one, when It can put on a body or put it off at will, as did Jesus, after His crucifixion of self.

However, Jesus had made the Ascension many times before, during the three years of His ministry, after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him in the Jordan. For every time He spoke from the Consciousness of the I AM, using those words in the following significant ways, He was ascended and in His Christ Consciousness.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father except by me.”

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from me ye can do nothing.”

“I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.”