Tension Versus Ascension

hello everyone welcome to another one of our presentations called friday night spiritual insights with michael murdad we appreciate you joining us today we're going to talk about i guess you could say the difference be it's an obvious difference but i want to explain the difference between tension attention and ascension or just tension versus ascension and it's interesting to me because the differences are obvious by just a standard definition but what people don't realize is that ascension has to do with surrendering to

like the frequency of god or the peace of god now do most human beings walk around with that intention and that focus that single-minded choice you know instead it's it's really it's intention on tension it's not intention on ascension and every thought every worry that you have every doubt that you have everything that makes you tense at all tense up at all i mean the word tension refers to being in a state that lacks peace why are you tense you're not at peace that's why if you're at peace

tension automatically dissolves letting go of of any form of tension could generally reveal what's behind the tension not what's behind it causing it but what's hidden behind it light and light is you could say synonymous with ascension in consciousness ascension is thought to be like a movement from where we are in a day-to-day experience and then rising to new levels of consciousness so you know tensions about being in a state that just doesn't seem to have peace it lacks peace tension means to to tense up or worry

you know tension and it's um i play that word also uh attention because what is attention it's a tension but you can have a positive attention because the tension means in a sense to focus so i can put a tenseness like attention in a form of a tension a tenseness or i can let my attention be a focus so attention is like the bridge between tension and ascension what am i putting my attention or focus on what am i putting am i putting it on a tension or a focus and that that's all the difference in the world

how are how am i choosing to perceive how am i choosing to live my life tension is being like like hyper alert always tense never at rest never never no sense of peace i'm tense because i'm afraid something's gonna go wrong i'm gonna have this conversation with my boss today and i know it's gonna go bad you're tense you're acidic and you are self-destructing you are in a biocidic life-destroying state literally the cells of your being are being destroyed because you're tense you're worried you're

you know whatever you want to call it now when i'm thinking about this is really sad to me because people that say i'm worried that this conversation might go badly etc and then it doesn't go badly it goes either great or it goes okay the average human being doesn't go hmm you know i i think i was mistaken and if i was mistaken this time then maybe maybe i should stop leaning towards assuming the worst and lean towards assuming the best i mean after all generally it seems to go well and here's

evidence again today so i should put my attention on higher things ascension instead of putting my a tension on something as though it's going to go poorly but the average human being doesn't do that why because we are programmed and allowing ourselves to choose to be in a tense state there's little ways around it practicing an attitude of gratitude you know learning to be grateful and i don't mean meagerly grateful i mean wow you know i didn't just get by in that conversation that went pretty well and i'm really

happy that i was mistaken i loved that i was wrong about that conversation otherwise i'd be just dying over the the outcome of a bad conversation tense or got fired etc no man they complimented me they valued me this feels really great and it gives me good cause to say i probably don't need to trust my ego and its opinions as much anymore because they're usually wrong once in a blue moon it might prove to be accurate oh i was worried about something and it did happen that way forgive release yourself from it

and put your attention your attention and your focus on something happening differently next time go back and literally visualize it as though it's happened differently so that your brain can say well maybe maybe there's another option you got to put that option in the mind so even even people who can't you know even people who can sleep there's people that sleep eight hours a day but never rest there are people who sleep a couple hours and they rest thoroughly it's a state of mind you know a lot of

masters throughout history have said you really only need to sleep a few hours or a lot of them practice something called power napping where they might have only slept a few hours but middle of the day just boom they just just totally let go and fill up again energetically speaking so they just feel totally vitalized there are people who can sleep eight hours and ten hours and i've known several no matter how much sleep they're never never at rest and i i don't know guys i think it's a very sad and unfortunate

thing sometimes they can't rest because of you know some programming some post trauma but sometimes it's just because they just refuse to let go i remember you know having a child um 30 years ago 30 plus years ago having a child and you know you could see children and we would laugh at you know watching any of us can watch other people's children too they're going to sleep but they just don't want to sleep they'll just resist it even though they're sleepy and they're ready to go there's a part of them that's no no

mustn't go to sleep and it's like that people would sleep and no no i mustn't rest you know it's like you should ask yourself if this applies to you or to friends of yours or clients if you're a counselor or healer you rested you slept but you didn't rest you slept can i ask you let's let's dialogue around that and ask ourselves is there like what if there was any reason inside at all that you would say just pretend because some people say i don't know that thought in my mind

well then just pretend and then it'll pop up and you say what if hypothetically you were afraid to rest not sleep but rest what reason would there be you guys you you'd be amazed what pops up it could be anything like because i was in the military and they kept you on hyper alert could be that could be um i had brothers and sisters who who my parents would say they worked harder and uh you know all you ever do is sleep and wronged me for that it could be uh there were abuses going on in the household and it put me on hyper alert i

never learned to really rest and it could just be self-worth i don't deserve to rest which means i'm not good enough as i am so if i rest it would just it's like telling god i'm allowing myself to be worthless so i need to show god that i need to worry and i need to stay tense and so on and so on these are just thoughts that might be behind whatever you're dealing with so attention is something that that many people seek but in seeking attention because there's tension there's attention which can be like i

said a focus attention a focus when you say attention it means you're putting a positive tension on that on that wire that communication where i'm gonna i'm gonna put some focus which means i'm gonna create a band between me and that visual that i'm doing visualization or a goal i'm putting a positive tension on it like i'm coming after that here we go but attention can be seen as a focus positive tension a tension a stress a negative but even the word in the middle of those two what about seeking attention think about

how playful that can be if we look at the negative attention hi i'm seeking attention i'm looking for tension in my life you know you think it might even sound sound positive i i i deserve attention i did no you don't you're a holy child of god there's no tension you need but i want to be seen why what is so insecure in you that you need to have attention people's attention i need my mother's attention i need my father's i need god's attention i need my spiritual teacher's attention

all that does is confirm that you have problems you know that you are not seeing yourself as a holy being so there's another way of seeing that word attention i'm trying to get attention boy it's just compensatory you're just trying to get something it means you lack self-awareness the only time people seek attention is because they lack in their minds they they on some level they they feel like they're lacking something and they are true self-awareness when you really know who you are you don't need anything least of all

attention you know and people you know as a spiritual teacher um people have advised me so often through the years you know what you ought to do is you need to do you need to in you auto and you you know telling me what is missing from my life it's like the john lennon song i'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round just love to watch them roll no longer riding on the merry-go-round because he said you know i got on the merry-go-round all this churning and churning up gears and got ground up got ground up really

lost my mind got into drugs and heavy drugs and got depressed and i'm off of that now i'm not going to go back on that and despite what everybody wanted him to do a lot of his own peers colleagues you know you've got to get on you got it and he's saying no they think i'm crazy dreaming my life the way he says in the song and i tell them there's no problem only solutions you know i i feel at peace and as a spiritual teacher you know people would say well you have to write this type of book

to sell so that you can my books have sold great oh no but you you got to get number one new york time why why would i want to be on new york times as anything i've never read the paper wouldn't read the paper don't have any respect for such newspapers that get into sensationalism and bias and so on it's all really gross if you put me on a front page saying the number one spiritual teacher uh sales author blah blah of all time it just it it often attracts more negative a tension than it does positive of a focus

on anything you know people say you've got to get on a talk show i i've never felt called to it um people's talking all the time and they're creating attention a tension a you've got to do this really i didn't know i need to do that now i'm tense because i gotta go do something why not just be at peace you know the old story about the and i'm just paraphrasing but the the corporate executive goes and visits you know venezuela up in the mountains or somewhere you know in south america

and some lake you know quiet little sleepy village you know and in the morning he gets up and there's not a whole lot to do all he has to do is go out and go out to the dock you know and do a little fishing and relax and he does this for days he just says god this is so amazing you know you know people should know about this place like they say about me people more people should know about you a lot of people know about me and i'm fine with that but more people should know about this village well why they asked

well because if you more people knew you you could have more industry you couldn't have more money here you know you're kind of impoverished in a way what we eat every day oh no but that's it's not security you folks could could have more and if we did then why more people would visit where would they stay well you could build little hotels and you know casas and things for people to stay in okay and then what well then you'd have more money and well how would people get around if there were that many people or roads are

well you develop the roads and you get taxis to haul them around or rent to cars and on and on the story develops develops develops and then the the villagers saying to the corporate guy and then what and then what and then what and then what and the guy says well then once you have income like that you wouldn't have to worry about to so much you could just do what um don't go fishing and the guy says it's exactly what we're already doing every day so why do we need to build all this stuff where you have to

need to do something just to get to the place you're already at and if you think about it look at your life you know for me i can say um there are times pivotal moments in my life where i reach a fork in the road and i think let's pretend let's pretend i save up 10 grand and and i think well i you know i need a car i got to get you know a nicer newer car uh and then i go get one now if i have a car it's already paid off but i've had this happen in my life now but i've got 10 grand now i can go get a good down payment on

another one then i have to make payments on is that an upgrade in america or in the world we call it an upgrade or is it creating a tension that didn't have to be there now the opposite doesn't always sound good either because well i don't want to get a new car i'm going to just keep driving the old one and it breaks down or whatever let's say which decision is best guys this world keeps you split between those two things is prosperity consciousness that i already feel great in the car that i have you know

like they always talk about uh warren buffett billionaire and uh and he keeps driving some beater old old truck you know uh bill gates once said he went to visit warren buffett and was you know gonna just talk to him you know we're both wealthy and are there are there projects we could team up on and he said i go and visit him and i sat on this chair and the chair like fell through or whatever and buffett's like oh yeah you got to be careful you know those old like from the 50s those old hard and they had that

shiny vinyl you know like from the old cafes you know from the 50s um you know and the screws weren't in it so the thing would just rock and then fall through and oh yeah you got to kind of sit on that very steadily so it doesn't break through and his car you know the springs of this old truck are sticking through i mean it's the strangest thing so is he a a miser because he all he did is just kept let letting the money accumulate and then it was gates that was saying well but you can use it positively no no no no

and his wife kept telling him that buffett and and it was heartbreaking for him because his wife said you know what honey i love you and i know you love me but you need to do good with your money and i can't stay in this condition anymore where you just hole it up you know you just store it away so she left him and it broke his heart you know and that's when he decided to start coming out a little more and giving and sharing so the the opposite can be true as well where you have extra but the first time you

get a little extra you spend it on something as a down payment not save it to where you can buy it pay it off you save it end up with payments creating new levels of tension in your life ascension means i'm at peace whether i've got my old beater truck that said you know buffett or whether i paid off a car but i'm not going to get myself too much into owing and owing and owing because owing is not ascension it's not higher into fullness of god it's back to constriction because tension is constriction oh you know boy your

muscles feel really tense what do you think they mean nice and relaxed tense constricted not soft not sturdy in a good tone way but we want it to be neither hardened muscles nor mushy just nicely toned it's good enough that's peace being at peace with that that's ascension i found the middle ground and i felt good so it all comes back to self-awareness that most people don't have most people don't know how to feel a compass or a barometer inside to say where am i at today instead they go well

their version of where am i at is what do i have oh the neighbors are noticing as i drive by you know nice casual look you know and new car as you go by that's what people think is their goal the only goal is ascension the only goal is shifting back into god consciousness why anybody would want to settle for anything less than that is just insanity ascension means i have a sense i am on i have a sense ascension i have a sense a sense that i am on the right track ascension you know instead of someday we're all

going to send beings of light that's all true but how are you doing ascension today on a day-to-day basis so you know there's if i'm in a state of i have a sense i am on the right track that it means i have nothing to seek least of all tension the last thing i need to be looking for is you know i need a little tension in my life so it's just the silly stuff of life ascension means to ascend beyond the human self and into the soul self you know it's like i'm identifying with my soul my heart and soul

instead of my humanness it doesn't mean deny the humanness but my primary focus is on myself as a spiritual being what do i need if i'm a soul basically the only thing that fuels a soul is love things that fuel the human self well nothing because you're not really a human self but you'll try all kinds of things in the fuel tank drugs alcohol you know sex food money lack limitation stress tension competition these are all these bizarre uh forms of fuel and all they are is like taking drinking alcohol

you know booze putting it in your gas tank you might get a poof for a moment and get some distance in your car for a second but it just blows up and disappears you know it doesn't run steadily like on what fuel would be right for your car so it's the same with life i mean if people get tense sure they have some sort of fire inside but it just doesn't get them where they really want to go which is i want to ascend and to ascend means ascend from human self into my soul self my heart and soul means to rise to higher levels of

consciousness less worry more trust less worry more trust ask the average person if they're doing better this year than that last year and they're usually going to think in terms of money and romance and if you say what about job that's still related to money it's usually money romance these two primary areas and to me it's just it's so strange the average person doesn't say well let me think about this god you know my trust level has increased my stress level has decreased think about this

ask 10 people and and see how many go to this stress barometer versus the relationship and money what does that tell you about the human race that they're still way too focused on stuff on the the shallowness of life to ascend means that our soul feels complete and it should feel complete but that takes you know the intention to get to that place it means nothing else really is as important as mine getting to that new level of consciousness no need for stress no tension around my identity i know who i am so i

don't have to worry i don't have to stress compete tense up or whatever else i'm gonna let go and let god and uh wow what a change what a what a shift that happens when we just go you know i need to do nothing but let god show me the way connecting with god is my guide every day as best i can and every time i see myself competing struggling tensing i should ask myself what are you doing what are you tensing up over what for well because what if live as though you are connected live as though there's nothing to do what if you're

already okay you know what if i'm already on some in some dimension on some level what if i'm already one with god then then why don't i look at this world as a temporary um viewing you know of how i'm doing on the highest level this is just a viewing so is this viewing of 3d world is that that viewing through the the lens is it showing me that i am connected or is it like some weird nightmare that doesn't reflect my being back with god so it's like no no you know the stresses the tensions and we all have them

don't get me wrong i understand you know some somebody tells you oh no i'm totally at peace yeah you know i could i could do that i could say oh i am i am a perfect peace within i am is sublime and you know enlightened but there are some teachers like that they have people drive them everywhere they have people cater to them everywhere um and yeah you know so they really think that that's their goal they think that that's it um they have people pay their bills when they fly it's first class they get upgrades they get

all that they need so it's comforts we can all feel a little more at ease when we get our way but it's not real so i always um i always sort of uh took time to to look at that in my own life you know we none of us like to struggle but if i got an upgrade on a flight i would say three or four out of five times i would pass it on to somebody else that i thought could use it a bit more and that varied it could be an old lady um that looked you know like she didn't have a lot of money it could be a a young guy who looked like um

he just would never got anything from anybody it could be somebody that looked like they had physical discomforts and um you know i feel okay about having done that some people say oh you were denying you're good if i was denying my good i would have cared about it one way or the other and i didn't what i felt best doing was gifting if i needed it or whatever then i i took it it was fine if i needed to be in the front of the plane because i needed to run for another terminal maybe i would take it but i didn't feel

tension around it i didn't have to have that seat but i know a lot of colleagues and so forth they've got to be catered to like that um when i was always on tour and so forth nowadays i'm more local to where i teach but when i was always on tour friends would often either take care of me when i land they'd pick me up take me here and there but i also had my fair share of having to rent cars drive places middle of the night be ironing my own clothes at midnight because i had to be you know up a few

hours later to get things together uh for the next day uh sunday service morning service sometimes you know i had to get up at six or seven to get there for an eight o'clock service if it was a drive so there were there were strange things like that and i did it for year after year after year you know i paid my dues as they sometimes say um so there's nothing wrong with having comforts but when you don't have all the comforts that's the real test do you can you still feel like you're choosing higher values higher

consciousness when you're not getting your way and there are seemingly tensions around i don't think i do that perfectly but i think i really do a pretty good job what i do know that i do is i believe in mastery so if there are you know if i come upon a car accident there's five cars strewn about and people are freaking out i'm gonna step into the tension and i'm gonna take some initiative which will look like maybe to somebody it's controlling i don't care what you think it's called

this is what's needed in the moment whether i'm stepping into helping somebody with a a project they're doing or whether it's a car collision i'm going to step in hold it no traffic goes by here hey dude can you call 9-1-1 hey and i'm just going to step in if somebody has a better way of doing it like a police officer pulls up let's say let him take over then i'm going to shift gears and go i'm here to serve officer what do you want me to do if he says leave great if he says run traffic for me

great mastery it looks like there's tension involved but there isn't there's focus attention in a positive sense focus what do you need me to do officer and you get to it so some people are going to confuse that that initiative that stepping up that focusing as being the same as tensing up and it isn't tensing involves worry i don't feel worried when i'm taking a situation and maneuvering cars this way cars down i don't feel worried i felt confident remember worry creates tension but worry is the

opposite of trusting i trust the officer to tell me what he needs done i trust if there's no officer yet there that i'm gonna do the best i can and i have no room no time for worry which will result in tension how would that help anybody how is it going to help if if you're a doctor and they bring someone in on a gurney and their doctor is an emergency and you go oh my god i don't think we can do anything with you sir you know how is that helpful you don't have room for that you need attention

but a positive focus attention to get that person well and show them that you trust in what you're doing versus caving in and letting them see a sweat letting them see you worry and so on so just something to think about perhaps okay sometimes these talks are major topics in really big subjects and sometimes we have to go in and fine-tune pieces of a topic instead of being let's say just on divine trust today we're talking about when that's not happening and the bits of symptoms like tension that can come from

that so remember guys you can talk ascension all you want but are you living ascension by working through tension all right god bless you all thank you for being with us again every friday 5 30 we're doing these presentations they're free if you'd like to make a donation we totally appreciate it it helps us pay the bills um so thank you if you can afford to do so god bless you all lots of love to you and i hope uh that you just continue on your path because it's all we've got and it's all

that matters don't let the craziness of the world take you down all right peace bye