TOPICS: The gap between the consciousness of the ascended masters and their students – having the teaching become alive in you – a living teaching – using the key of knowledge to integrate the teaching – making the outer teaching an end in itself – you cannot make an impact through the outer teaching – only by working directly with the masters will you have an impact – students must look at why they have not applied the law – using the teaching to reinforce the catch-22 – Christhood is not an ego trip of seeking to save the world – community of the Holy Spirit – paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake – desire for superiority – balance and detachment – self-absorption – seeking to raise the separate self versus seeking to raise all life – many people needed to save the world – promoting universal ideas rather than a particular organization – the savior complex – becoming a true student – truly holding a spiritual balance – understanding the true path – demonstrating the path – the goal is not to create outer changes – stepping down the teachings – becoming self-sufficient – your personal mission is to demonstrate your personal Christhood – individuality and community – golden age is process oriented, not result oriented – going beyond the dualistic struggle –
Question: My question is why students of the ascended masters have not had a greater impact on the world? Why haven’t people run with the teachings and expressed them in various contexts? Why haven’t they shown how the teachings of the masters can bring a unique perspective to just about any area of our lives? What are people waiting for?
Answer from ascended master Jesus through Kim Michaels:
I can tell you that the question you are raising is often discussed as we have meetings in the ascended realm. However, I can also tell you that we of the ascended masters have a different perspective on the issue than do most of the people who see themselves as ascended master students.
There is a gap between the perspective of unascended students and their ascended teachers. Obviously, the purpose we have for giving forth teachings that can be studied by unascended beings is to narrow that gap. Yet, as the question here demonstrates, this is no easy task—for if it was easy, then our students would indeed have had a more direct and more visible impact on the world. So we do indeed see that our students are not currently living up to their fullest potential, and we would like to reduce the gap between potentiality and reality, so people can fulfill their divine plans to the fullest.
So let me endeavor to give some teachings on this, and let me begin by rephrasing the question raised above. The real question is why some people can study a teaching that is given directly by the ascended masters – and thus is a living teaching, the Living Word – without having that teaching become alive within them and thus spontaneously seek expression in the world?
The full explanation is complex, and I address it more fully in the book on the path to Christhood. However, let us begin by looking at the mechanics of the situation. What we have done in terms of giving teachings over the past century is not really different from the way true spiritual and religious teachings have been brought forth for ages. It is taking the process of direct revelation to a new level, but it is still the same basic process. A person raises his or her consciousness to the level of the ascended masters and becomes the open door for giving forth a teaching that can be studied by people who are NOT (yet) able to raise their consciousness to our level.
In other words, the process is born from the fact that there is a gap between the consciousness of most people and the consciousness of the ascended masters. Someone bridges that gap, and we give forth what is a living teaching, whereby I mean that it comes from a higher level of consciousness than the level of the collective mind. This is opposed to teachings that originate from the same level of consciousness or one that is slightly higher but not at the level of the ascended realm.
Yet although a teaching is alive when it is given, as soon as the teaching is expressed in words that can be communicated to other people, it becomes just another outer teaching. There truly is no magic that can set the teachings of the ascended masters apart from any other teaching, such as the Bible (portions of which were also given through direct revelation). The “magic” comes in when people study the outer teaching but use what I called the “key of knowledge” to go beyond the teaching. They then integrate the teaching, whereby the teaching becomes alive within them. And when the teaching becomes alive in you, it will build a creative tension that will seek expression through you, so that the teaching will not only help you but will help others through you.
So the mechanics are simple. The reason we have to give a teaching is that there is a gap between our consciousness and the consciousness of most people, so they cannot receive our directions from within themselves. They have not yet entered the kingdom of God which is – as I might have mentioned – within you. Yet the very fact that there is a gap makes it difficult for people to use the teaching as intended. They often fall prey to the temptation that you see in most religions, namely to focus on the outer teaching and make the teaching an end in itself, rather than seeing the teaching as a means to an end—namely their direct communion with us.
Most ascended master students have grown up in a culture that is heavily influenced by the mass consciousness – as outpictured in mainstream religion – of idolizing the outer teaching, organization and leader. So instead of idolizing me as the only son of God, they now idolize a particular messenger as the only one who can communicate directly with the ascended masters. Thus, they either believe there will never be another messenger or that they can never personally commune with us. This consciousness is extremely powerful on this planet, and many ascended master students still have not set themselves free from it, thus inevitably turning a living teaching into just another dead doctrine or organization.
What we see here is that our progressive revelation is guided by the exact law that I described in my parable about the servants who multiplied their talents. We of the ascended masters can give forth a teaching through direct revelation, but if there is not a critical mass of students who multiply that teaching, then the revelation cannot continue through that organization. And, of course, if the students do not multiply a teaching, then we have nothing to multiply, which explains why many of our students have great ideas but cannot seem to manifest them in the material realm. The reason being that with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
What I am saying here is that you cannot make an impact on the world by taking an outer teaching we have given and applying it with your own power. You can make an impact only by multiplying that teaching, whereby we can multiply your offering, which you then multiply again—and so on until our combined efforts break through the inertia of the mass consciousness and shift that consciousness. Our students cannot change the world on their own—it must be a combined effort. Yet that combined effort is contingent upon our students multiplying what we give—and continuing to do so.
Now, at this point I know many students will think that surely they have done such and such outer things, including supporting a sponsored organization, decreeing, studying the teachings and so on, and why haven’t this “paid off?” Well, my beloved, what I would like you to acknowledge is that the law is absolutely unfailing.
The universe is a mirror, and when you multiply your talents, we WILL pour out our multiplication of your efforts and the physical results will be manifest. There can be no failure on our part, so the only possible explanation is that our students – despite their good intentions and efforts – have not actually applied the law. They may think they have applied the law, but if they had done so, then the results would have been obvious and undeniable. Thus, when the results are not there, one must consider the saying of Albert Einstein, “If you keep doing the same thing and expect different results, you are insane.”
So the question now becomes whether those who call themselves students of the ascended masters are willing to consider that they might not have fully understood the law. This will require them to look for the beam in their own eyes, as I said 2,000 years ago. However, some of today’s students have reasoned that this cannot apply to them—since they are ascended master students and have the highest teaching on the planet, meaning that they surely are beyond that stage. Well, my beloved, if you are in embodiment on earth, you are NOT beyond having to look for the beam in your own eye.
This process of overcoming the spiritual blindness that prevents the law from working would accelerate greatly if people would make use of the new teachings on the ego, as well as Mother Mary’s new rosaries and invocations.
The equation is simple. The law works unfailingly, as does an ordinary mirror. If you smile at the mirror, it smiles back. If you truly multiply the teachings of the ascended masters, the return current from our octave WILL come forth and this WILL have an obvious impact on the world. Thus, if the return current is not there, you have not truly multiplied the teachings. And the ONLY factor that can prevent you from multiplying the teachings is the ego. Yet the ego can prevent you from doing this only as long as you are not seeing it for what it is—because your fear or your pride (both of which spring from the illusion of separation) makes you think you don’t need to look.
So we come back to the age-old problem that the duality consciousness forms a closed loop, a spiritual catch-22. We give a teaching because there is a gap, but the very fact that there is a gap prevents people from using the teaching to bridge the gap. What is the ONLY thing that can break the stalemate? It is that the students wake up and honestly begin to look for the beam in their own eyes. When you consciously see an aspect of your ego and choose to surrender it, THEN you have taken a step forward on the path—and THEN you have multiplied the teaching.
Let me make it clear what we desire to see happen. We desire our students to develop their inner, personal communion, so they can receive direction from their higher selves and from us. This is the ONLY way you can fulfill your divine plan, for it cannot be given to you from without. If the motivation does not come from within, then it will not carry you through the opposition from the mass consciousness. You cannot complete your divine plan by doing, only by BEING.
Thus, the true goal of any teaching is to serve as a stepping stone for the students developing spiritual independence—meaning personal Christhood. Yet this does NOT mean that people go on an ego-trip and single-handedly try to save the world. What it does mean is that when – and ONLY when – students attain independence from their egos, they can come together and form the true community of the Holy Spirit. This community is based on its members having the (horizontal or Omega) oneness with each other below and (the vertical, Alpha) oneness with the ascended masters above. In other words, the success of the students and their community on earth depends on the multiplication from the ascended realm, but this multiplication will not come forth until a critical mass of students have overcome their egos and formed a true community of oneness.
There will still be some people who serve in a more official or public role to bring forth new teachings and ideas, but each member of the community is able to receive inner direction about his or her personal divine plan. The people use the outer teachings as a guiding rod for aligning themselves with their higher selves and seeing through the illusions of the ego. Thus, the people can come together in a true spirit of oneness, whereby you will multiply each others efforts and achieve infinitely more than any of you could achieve alone. The Aquarian age is not the age for the individual hero but for the community effort. Yet before there can be community, the members must come into unity by separating themselves from their egos and from the mass consciousness.
What does this mean in practical terms? Well, the pattern we observe is that many of our students find it very difficult to find a balanced approach to applying and living the teachings. They generally tend to go into one of the following extremes:
- One is that people become so afraid to make a mistake that they dare not do anything. They become passive and refuse to connect to their inner creativity, instead wanting us or the messenger to tell them what to do. Yet we cannot tell you what to do unless you are willing to multiply what we have already given by experimenting. These are the people who become followers of the teachings but who never want to stand out from the crowd or take any personal initiative. They might be very willing to do what they are told, but they are highly reluctant to accept personal responsibility. They are often prone to what I call gray thinking. Since they don’t take any initiative, they cannot truly multiply the talents.
- The other extreme is people who are very willing to take charge and do something, but they do it out of a desire to show how superior they are. They want to stand out from the crowd and receive recognition from us and the world. This leads to a fundamental imbalance, and even though such people might be doing a lot, they are not actually multiplying the talents. These people are often very active and seek leadership positions. If they don’t get such positions, they become highly critical of leadership, always talking about how things should have been done. If they do get a position, they act as if they know better than everyone else how things should be done. They are often prone to what I call black-and-white thinking, being convinced that they are right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. In fact, they thrive on defining themselves in opposition to other people, be they in the organization or in the broader society. Thus, they often make imbalanced decisions that have disastrous results or no result.
The first reaction causes people to think they cannot have direct communion with us or doubt that their direction is accurate. The second reaction causes people to think they do have communion, and they often use it to beat other people into submission. They are generally very convinced that their communion is accurate, but because of their unbalanced approach, this is rarely true. Which means that the communion such people claim to have is either from their subconscious minds or lower forces. It tells them what they want to hear—as opposed to the ascended masters who tell you what you need to hear.
So the real issue here is the need for balance, which leads to detachment. And only when you are non-attached can you have accurate inner communication with the real ascended masters. For if you are unbalanced towards either of the extremes I have described, your self-centered world view will color your inner direction. Thus, those who do not have balance cannot have accurate discernment, and without discernment, you cannot walk the straight and narrow way of having and maintaining communication with us.
If you look behind both of these reactions, you will see the same basic psychology, namely a focus on oneself, a form of self-absorption. The problem here is that such people are focused on the separate self and are not seeking to raise the All, the One Self. This is a fundamental imbalance that will polarize them toward one of the two extremes. Self-absorption leads to self-consciousness. For some this is expressed in a fear to make mistakes, so they would rather do nothing than make a mistake. For others it is expressed in a desire for self-elevation that causes them to be very active without seeing that their actions are unbalanced and thus cannot lead to the desired result. If you take an honest look at ascended master students you have known, you will see this pattern. If you take a look at yourself, well …
It is ONLY when people rise above this that they can come into unity both with each other and with us. And it is ONLY through this unity that they can multiply their talents. Why is this so?
The consciousness of anti-christ is one of seeking to elevate the separate self to such a superior status on earth that God simply has to allow that separate self into his kingdom—or so the ego reasons. In reality, this can never work, and the goal of the ascended masters is to awaken people from the futility of this false path and the dualistic struggle it generates.
We are seeking to raise all life, for we see the underlying oneness behind all appearances. The students of the false hierarchy are seeking to raise up themselves – or their group – to a superior status compared to other people. It is a stark reality that it is perfectly possible for people to be members of an ascended master organization and still use our teachings in an attempt to elevate the separate self. Such people might – out of the fear-pride duality that is the shadow of the ego – put forth a great effort, but they are NOT multiplying the talents.
What we clearly see in many of our students is an impure motivation. They will claim to be doing something for us, but their real motive is that they think we will then have to do something for them. This is an expression of the basic illusion of the ego, which throughout the ages has caused many religious people to think they can buy or force their way into heaven by doing what their religion prescribes on earth. Yet as I said between the lines 2,000 years ago and as we have said between the lines in our modern teachings, this will never work.
You will NEVER enter the marriage feast without putting on the garment of the Christ consciousness. What is the Christ consciousness? It is that you see yourself as one with God Above and one with all people below. Thus, your efforts are no longer focused on raising your separate self. Instead, you are focused on raising all life. You now love your neighbor as yourself because you see your neighbor as yourself—as part of the One Self. Only when you seek to raise the All will you multiply the talents, and only then will you have the return current from us. We have seen students who for decades have been making great outer efforts based on this false motivation, but because they have not actually multiplied the talents, we can send them nothing in return. The law is unfailing.
Many students have used our teachings to develop a mentality of being separated from the world, being persecuted or being better than other people. This can ONLY spring from the separate self, which can pervert anything, even an ascended master teaching. Those who truly internalize our teachings will overcome the separate self and thus begin to feel an increasing oneness with all life that will stop them from setting themselves or their organization apart.
The ego will forever think it can fool God, because the ego will never see through its own deception. Yet the ascended masters are not fooled by any of the games played by the ego. You will NOT multiply the talents until you begin to selflessly work for raising all life. And you will NOT receive a return current – a multiplication – from us until you align yourself with our purpose of raising up the All.
Take a look at how the fundamentalists of every religion are absolutely convinced that they are the only one who will be saved, thus essentially believing that God will send 99 percent of humanity to hell. It would be extremely wise if ascended master students did not fall into this trap by thinking we are interested in saving only those who recognize us directly. God is no respecter of persons, and neither are we. As I said, let those who would be greatest among you be the servants of all.
So if I were to name one factor that is the primary reason why ascended master students have not had a greater impact on the world, it is self-absorption, the tendency to use our teachings to elevate the separate self. Obviously, this is a complex topic, and there is much more to say about it. The full explanation is or will be given, but let me comment on a few points.
What we see among many of our students is that they do have a genuine desire to help save the world, but they also have a desire to take credit for doing so. In other words, they would love to see the world recognize the importance of the ascended masters and a particular organization—thus also recognizing its members. If you are honest, you will see that this is a self-serving motivation that is NOT aimed at raising the All.
In contrast, we of the ascended masters have only one desire and that is to see the world saved. We have absolutely no preference or value judgment as to who should do so or receive credit for doing so. In fact, we see very clearly that for the world to be saved, a very large part of humanity must be willing to take part. Thus, we have NEVER subscribed to the belief – so common among religious people – that one particular group (large or small) can save the world or deserves credit for doing so. This does not mean that we are ungrateful for the many sincere people (religious or not) who have made contributions to the progress of humanity. It simply means that we are no respecter of persons.
What will save the world is that the collective consciousness is raised. This will happen by the top ten percent catching the key ideas that we are releasing from the ascended realm, internalizing them and then expressing them in various ways in their lives. My central point here is that many ascended master students have a backward view of this process. They think they first have to attempt to convert the world to be members of their organization, and THEN the world will be saved. The reality is that the world will be saved by universal ideas. Thus, the true way to save the world is to promote such ideas in any context possible WITHOUT seeking to make them exclusive to a particular organization.
This is precisely why ascended master students have NOT had success in writing books. They have gone forth with a self-centered desire to promote their organization, which is really a camouflaged attempt to take credit for saving the world. Those who have tuned in to the need to promote universal ideas have had success, even though they do not have the deeper understanding available to our direct students. Nevertheless, they are seeking to help all people in a universal manner, and this multiplies the talents.
Our release of new ideas is not exclusive to any individual or group. Anyone who is sensitive can tune in to these ideas, and if they are willing to multiply them, they will make a real contribution to progress. There is NO guarantee that being a member of an ascended master organization will attune you to our ideas, for if your mind is closed, you will not be an open door (as is proven by the fact that our direct students have not had a greater impact on the world). Likewise, there is nothing that prevents people from internalizing an idea even though they have never heard of the ascended masters or a particular organization.
For example, we always like to see when a person who has internalized some of our key ideas becomes the leader of a nation (which has indeed happened many times). But whether that person is consciously aware of the ascended masters or is a member of a particular organization is completely immaterial to us. In other words, our students need to take a careful look in the mirror and se whether they have an unrecognized savior complex. The desire to save the world and take credit or get the world’s recognition for it is the hallmark of the students of the false hierarchy—and what is to prevent them from seeking membership of an outer organization, thus affecting the culture of that organization?
It is also wise to consider that the last thing we want to do is to start another dogmatic religion that promotes the outer path. So, we truly have no desire to see our teachings become “elevated” to being the state religion of any nation or even the whole world. We need our teachings to remain pure, which can only happen when they are not directly locked to a particular nation, society or institution. The separation of church and state is not only to protect a nation from being dominated by one church, such a the Catholic church during the middle ages. It is also to protect a true spiritual teaching from becoming a tool for promoting any secular agenda.
Do you see what I am saying here? Some students seem to think that we want particular teachings elevated to the status of being the only true religion or the foundation for running the whole world. Some think we want our students – specifically themselves – to be the leaders of the world. Some think we want all people converted to our teachings, but that simply is not a realistic goal.
One can also consider what it means to be a student of the ascended masters? It should be obvious that we once again have a gap. Many people think that by being a member of an organization that is – or was in the past – sponsored by us, you automatically become our student. From our perspective that is NOT the case. ONLY those who internalize our teachings and express them in a selfless desire to help others are our students. And they are found all over the world, many of them never having heard about us or a specific organization with their outer minds.
So from this perspective we could say that our true students – those who are the inner students – have indeed had an impact on the world. Which, however, does not change the fact that we would like to see them have an even greater impact on the world. Thus, we would like all who have attunement with us to become consciously aware of this and make use of some of our outer teachings. And we would like those who are already aware of us to internalize and express the teachings.
Let me make it clear that some ascended master students have a tendency to believe that even though they have not seen outer results of their efforts, they have nevertheless done invaluable work on inner levels, including “holding the balance for the planet” (however that vague term is perceived). Yet it should be clear that the inner work you can accomplish is also dependent upon the degree to which you have internalized the teachings. Some people seem to think that our return current is a mechanical process, and every time they open their mouth to say a decree, our multiplication is instantaneous and independent of their own level of internalization. This obviously is NOT the case.
EVERYTHING depends on your state of consciousness and – despite what some students seem to think – you cannot hide anything from the ascended masters. If there is no internalization, you can decree forever without accomplishing significant inner work. Thus, for some people this is simply a “head in the sand” mechanism that their egos use as an excuse to prevent them from looking in the mirror and acknowledging that they have not internalized the teachings. They think they do not have time to work on their psychology because they are so busy saving the world for Saint Germain. Thus, the lack of outer results is also an indication of a lack of inner results.
That being said, it is true that we work by releasing ideas and energy. And our students have indeed played a significant role in grasping such ideas and energies, thus creating cracks in the rigid walls of the mass consciousness. This has indeed shifted the collective consciousness in a positive direction over the past century. Our students deserve credit for this—although one must define students in broad terms and not simply as members of particular organizations.
It must also be acknowledged that there are four levels of the material realm, so it does take time for ideas and energies to cycle through to the physical octave and manifest visible results. Thus, much of the inner work done over the past century simply has not yet reached the physical world. Yet a large part of the reason for this is that there are not enough people who are able or willing to be the instruments for anchoring the changes in the physical. It takes persons with a certain amount of Christhood for changes to break through to the physical realm without causing cataclysm in society or the planetary body. And this, of course, is where our students have an enormous potential for impacting the world in coming years—if they can overcome the separate self and start working on raising the All.
Also, consider how you measure success. As I have tried to make clear, we do not measure success through outer results but by the individual internalization and the shift in the collective consciousness. So what I have said about ascended master students also applies to the public. There is indeed a growing openness to spiritual topics. Yet this in itself will have little impact on the world unless there is a growing awareness of the true path. In other words, it is quite possible that people can become open to spiritual topics without actually understanding the true path. Thus, their openness is simply misdirected into a more clever disguise of the false path than what is seen in traditional religion.
If you look at ascended master teachings, you will see that one of our main goals has been to describe the difference between the false (outer) path and the true (inner) path. If humankind is awakened to the true path, you will see major changes in the world. Yet if the false teachers manage to divert them into simply a more sophisticated version of the outer path, then little will be accomplished.
Thus, our teachings have been given with the hope that they would spread an awareness of the true path. Yet how can this be accomplished? Not by simply giving the teachings in books or on the internet. The true path cannot be understood intellectually. It must be demonstrated by our students, who internalize the teachings and then outpicture the path in their own lives. This is what has so far been lacking, and this is where there is the greatest potential for our students to very quickly bring themselves into alignment with us and thereby impact the world.
I am not hereby saying that the people who write popular books are necessarily false teachers. What I am saying is that there are levels to the effort to awaken humankind. The more popular teachers write about the path in a more general form that is easier for the public to accept. This is a necessary part of the process, but it can never be ultimately successful in itself. There will be success ONLY if those who are awakened through popular books eventually discover the true path and engage it. And this will ONLY happen if a critical mass of our students embody that path.
The most important factor for those who are aware of the ascended masters and our teachings is to demonstrate the path to Christhood. If your personal path involves being involved in politics or in other ways working on improving the world, then by all means pursue this. But always seek to do so in a way that demonstrates the true path – of going beyond ego and working for raising the All – in whatever endeavor you engage. In other words, don’t make it your goal to change the world. Make it your goal to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness – the Christ consciousness – and then all things shall be added unto you.
As I have said many times, balance is the key, which actually means that you cannot serve two masters. There are students who have attempted to have an impact on politics, but you cannot be effective if you are trying to serve two masters. Whereby I mean that you cannot be an ascended master student and at the same time attempt to change the physical world through physical means.
As I have attempted to explain, the foremost goal of the ascended masters is to awaken people to the true path and the fallacy of the outer path. Which means we want our students to engage in all areas of society. Yet we do not want them to engage society the same way non-students do. We do not want you to engage with the goal of creating outer changes by doing what everyone else is doing.
For example, some of our students in the United States have become convinced that the ascended masters have a very conservative political agenda. They reason that they should engage in politics to advance the goals defined by various conservative movements or philosophies. Yet in doing so our students simply become drawn into the age-old dualistic struggle between two opposite polarities.
Our true goal is to awaken people to the inner path, and the essence of this path is that you rise above duality and refuse to perpetuate the struggle. If our students engage in this struggle, they are not multiplying their talents, thus we have nothing to multiply and their efforts will not be successful.
Again, the key is balance, which leads to accurate discernment. As a true ascended master student you do NOT engage in society for the purpose of promoting particular changes. You do so for the purpose of demonstrating that there is an alternative to dualistic thinking. And when you do this, the results will follow in proportion to how you raise the awareness of all people. Unfortunately, many people have used the teachings given by us to create an organizational culture that actually hinders their Christhood rather than helping them attain Christhood and then giving them an environment in which to express it.
Again, balance and discernment are essential. It is acceptable to “step down” the teachings given by us through sponsored messengers by applying them to specific areas and reach a specific audience. However, our students need to be very careful in not seeking to become so popular that they actually compromise the true path and thus in essence promote the illusions of the false path. It is acceptable to step down the teachings, but you will NOT multiply your talents by watering down the true path—as some of the popular writers are doing. Thus, seek first to be right with God and don’t worry about becoming popular with men.
True changes will only happen if people internalize the path by rising above what we might call “tabloid spirituality.” If you want to look beyond ascended master students, you can indeed ask whether people of other spiritual movements have had a major impact on the world? Have the people following New Age teachings, including some of the many channeled teachings, had an impact on the world? Again, the answer is that there has not been a sufficient internalization of the teachings and thus a lack of return current from Above.
The teachings we have given on the true path to Christhood do not need to be stepped down in order to be acceptable to large numbers of people. We have already designed these teachings with the current level of humankind’s consciousness in mind. They simply need to get out to people, which means they must be promoted, and this is a task that is beyond the messengers who cannot do everything and should not do everything. For example, the new book The Art of Non-War has the potential to reach a very wide audience and shift the collective consciousness to see the need to go beyond duality in all areas of people’s personal lives and in society.
This, of course, does not mean that other people could not take these teachings and incorporate them in books or presentations for specific audiences. I am very much encouraging people to do this, but I am also cautioning you against thinking that you have to step the teachings down to people’s level. The goal is NOT to become popular by appealing to people’s current level of understanding. The goal is to take people beyond their current level of understanding, and this can ONLY be done when the teaching is higher than people’s current level and thus challenges them to raise their consciousness. Obviously, the teaching cannot be so much higher that people cannot connect to it, so that is where people have opportunities for expressing the teaching based on their personal experience. You will know how the particular groups of people in which you grew up can be presented with the teaching.
However, find the balance so that you do not compromise the teaching in order to become popular or accepted. And to find this balance, you must overcome your self-centered need to be accepted by the world or other people. Which again means that you must pursue the path of overcoming the illusions of the separate self. For only the separate self needs acceptance from the world. When you connect to your real self, you know you have oneness with God, so acceptance from the world becomes irrelevant.
Many students are truly waiting for permission, either from an organization, a messenger or from the ascended masters. Yet our goal is to make our students spiritually independent by helping them attain Christhood. As the Christ you are not waiting for permission from above or below—you act spontaneously by perceiving a need here below and knowing how God would help people transcend that need.
So what does it take to become self-sufficient? You must internalize the teachings, and how do you do that? By experimenting with expressing the teachings to help others. You cannot multiply your talents if you dare not experiment. On the other hand, if you seek to multiply the talents in order to raise up your ego, you will likewise not multiply the talents, so again balance is the key.
Again, you need to be very balanced. As I have said, a Christed being is spiritually self-sufficient, which essentially means that your personal mission and Christhood NEVER depends on anyone else. You will NEVER become the Christ as long as you maintain even a subtle belief that your Christhood depends on anyone or anything outside yourself.
Thus, you should ALWAYS focus on being who you are to the fullest without being concerned at all with what other people are doing or not doing. It simply is not true to say that “my personal mission cannot be achieved by myself.” Your personal mission is PERSONAL, meaning that it does not depend on anyone else.
The essence of your personal mission is to manifest Christhood and then demonstrate that in all situations you encounter. Your Christhood is spiritual independence, which by definition cannot depend on anyone else. Thus, there is no one and nothing that can prevent you from attaining Christhood. And when you do so, you will have fulfilled the major part of your personal mission. That being said, there are of course aspects of everyone’s divine plan that involves cooperation with others. Yet by focusing on your own Christhood first, you will gradually attract the kind of people needed to fulfill your divine plan.
This is the only way an Aquarian age movement can be successful. People must attain independence before they can truly come together in unity and form a community that is based on freedom from ego rather than on the needs of the ego.
People can help each other attain independence by helping each other see through the ego, but in the end, each person must claim his or her Christhood. No one can do this for you, and it is possible to have attained Christhood at inner levels without having claimed it with your conscious mind and will. In fact, this is one of the major reasons why our direct students have not had a greater impact on the world—yet it could change as quickly as you can make a decision. In fact, some spiritual organizations have developed a culture that prevents people from claiming their Christhood and expressing it within the organization.
It truly baffles us how we can have students who have so much knowledge and still do not allow it to become alive within them, thus being compelled from within to share it. As I said, what the heart is full of, the mouth overflows with. So if the mouth is not overflowing, there is no fullness in the heart. And this is actually a lack of love for the greater self, which can only come from an unbalanced, possessive love for the separate self. So while we fully understand the cause of this, we are still baffled that more people have not overcome this fixation of the separate self.
All you can do is to BE who you are. And sometimes that means leaving behind people who will not come up higher and who do not want you to come up higher, for it is a threat to their sense of comfortability—which makes them think they do not have to transcend their current level. Why do you think I said, “Let the dead bury their dead?” and “What is that to thee—follow thou me?”
How do you become spiritually self-sufficient? For a time it is absolutely necessary for you to follow an external teacher—a teacher who is not inside the mental box created by your ego an thus can see what you cannot see. Yet there comes a point when you have to go beyond the external teacher and trust fully in your inner direction.
Some people do this before they have attained balance and discernment, so they go off on an ego-trip, often blaming the teacher or claiming the teacher is wrong. Others are so afraid to make a mistake that they do not want to ever go beyond the external teacher. What is the problem with both? An unwillingness to accept complete and total responsibility for your own path. You simply cannot become self-sufficient until you accept that YOU and ONLY you are responsible for your own progress. Thus, you cannot lean on a teacher and you cannot blame the teacher. You must become the teacher.
It would also be wise for our students to reconsider their concept of what a Golden Age really is. Certainly, there will be outer changes compared to today. But the main change will be an awakening to a consciousness that is beyond duality and thus independent of outer conditions in this world.
When you see this, you see that the main goal for a Golden Age is NOT to build a great civilization with gold streets. The true goal is to awaken people to reality, so a Golden Age is truly about this inner awakening. Thus, it is process-oriented rather than result-oriented (at least it does not define results as outer appearances).
So stop worrying about what might have been or what should have been. Focus all your attention on developing and expressing your personal Christhood, and then take joy in participating in the grand process of awakening humanity. For if you awaken yourself, then you will be doing all anyone can do to raise up humanity. As I said, If I be raised up, I will draw all men unto me.
All is well in the sense that the experiment of awakening humankind is progressing because our students – in a broader sense – are raising their consciousness. However, we of the ascended masters certainly hope that this growth can be accelerated dramatically in the coming years and decades.
Again, it is essential to realize that your personal Christhood cannot be stopped by any force outside your real self—the Conscious You. The power elite cannot prevent the real students of the ascended masters from changing the planet, for when enough people manifest a sufficient degree of Christhood, the collective consciousness WILL shift and this WILL lead to physical changes. There is no power elite and no amount of fallen angels in or out of embodiment who can stop this process.
It is true that many false students work very hard, but they do so because they are driven by pride or fear, which drives them to want results in the physical world and to be very attached to those results. We do not want our students to engage in and thus perpetuate this dualistic struggle. We want them to go beyond the struggle and then go into the world to demonstrate their Christhood, thus demonstrating that there is a higher way than the dualistic way.
We love it when our students have excitement about the path, but we prefer to see that excitement be balanced so it can be channeled in the most constructive direction. This is attained by focusing on your own personal Christhood without being overly concerned with or attached to what other people (or the world) do or don’t do. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven in perfect. Be here below all that you are Above. Be what you are above regardless of what is temporarily appearing here below, for it is only when you transcend outer appearances that you will help the planet transcend them as well. You will be the Christ only when you accept that nothing on earth – including your own ego – can prevent you from claiming your Christhood.
Copyright © 2012 by Kim Michaels