Imagine that you suddenly hear a voice inviting you to ascend. “As you probably know,” the voice explains, “ascension is the next stage in spiritual growth, and it’s time for you to get moving. Will you come?”
OK, this is pretty fanciful, but go with it for a moment. How would you respond? I’m not too proud of my own response when the question recently occurred to me. Here are a few of the things that flashed through my mind: “Gee, the Super Bowl is coming up—can this wait a few days? And my children still need me; I can’t leave them now. Also, I’m working on a project I’ve been dreaming of for years; let me finish it first. Uh, by the way … after I ascend, will there still be chocolate?”
Other people could no doubt compile a similar list of excuses, ranging from reasonable to silly, that would all have one thing in common: They’d regard some facet of human life as more important than spiritual growth. And underlying this is a subtler feeling: that we don’t really want to grow out of matter or material life at all; we only want to “ascend” out of the unpleasant parts—pain, disease, worry, loneliness, lack, conflict, and so on. After all, if we’re healthy, have a good family life, an interesting job, and no real money worries, well, what’s the hurry?
