TOPICS: True religion is the one that opens your heart to God – no religion can guarantee salvation – kingdom of God is a state of consciousness – the belief in one true religion came from the serpentine consciousness – the false outer path – you cannot make a deal with God – salvation is not still-stand – you must constantly transcend yourself in order to ascend – path to Christhood is the key –
Question: What is the true religion? Are we to follow the Bible the Koran, the Book of Mormons , seven day Adventist, catholic? I am a Christian, but I don’t want to be wrong when it comes to heaven, I don’t want to be wrong about what I’m believing, everyone believes their religion is the one true religion, how can so many religions be the one true one?
If you can answer any of these please do. I tried Christian chat but they believe Christianity is the one, as I always have, but what if its not?
Answer from ascended master Jesus through Kim Michaels:
As you will see from my answer to another question, there is indeed more than one true and valid religion. In reality, the true religion is the religion that opens your heart to God and helps you rise to a state of consciousness in which you can see and fully accept that you are indeed a son or daughter of God who is worthy to enter your Father’s kingdom.
I am sure you can see that the process of getting from your current state of consciousness to the state of consciousness that I am talking about must take place inside yourself. We are not talking about becoming a member of an outer organization, swearing allegiance to its outer doctrines or participating in its outer rituals. There simply is no organization on earth that can guarantee your salvation. There never was such an organization and there will be—no matter how many claims are made to the contrary.
One of my most important statements, as they are found in the current Bible, is the statement that the kingdom of God is within you:
20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke, Chapter 17)
You will see that I said that the kingdom of God comes not with observation. It cannot be found through outer activities; it can be found only by purifying your heart and transforming your state of consciousness. So the right religion for you personally is the one that opens your heart to God and helps you manifest the higher state of consciousness that truly is the kingdom of God, the inner kingdom. On my website, and during my mission in Galilee, I called this state of consciousness for the Christ consciousness. However, you can use any name you prefer, because the name is not important. It is the state of consciousness itself that is important.
There are many of the religions found on earth that have indeed produced people who attained the consciousness that allowed them to enter the kingdom of heaven. There are also people who have attained this state of consciousness without belonging to any formal religion. You will note that I said that blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. When you purify your heart, you attain the state of consciousness that allows you to see that you are one with God because God created you as an individualization of himself. This realization can come only when you attain conscious contact with your Christ self and your I AM Presence.
Contrary to the beliefs held by so many orthodox people from virtually every religion, God is not concerned about which religion you follow. God is no respecter of persons, and therefore God is no respecter of people’s beliefs about which religion is the only true religion. In fact, I can assure you that the entire idea that there can be only one true religion never originated from God or from the ascended masters. It originated with the serpentine consciousness that wants to prove God wrong, as Mother Mary has explained in her beautiful discourse.
This entire serpentine state of consciousness, which I often refer to as the dualistic mind, wants to believe that there is an outer salvation, an automatic salvation, a guaranteed salvation. This is the false path that I talk about in another discourse and which the Bible refers to in the saying that there is a way that seems right unto a man but the ends thereof are ways of death [Proverbs 14:12].
You will see that I often chastised the lawyers, the scribes and the Pharisees for following and promoting this outer path. You will see that I chastised people for doing their alms in public and for giving their prayers in public. I warned about rote repetition, not because repetition is wrong but because a ritual that is performed without engaging and opening the heart has little value in the eyes of God.
The serpentine mind wants you to believe that salvation can be attained through outer means; that it is a mechanical process. In other words, if you follow certain rules and believe certain doctrines, then God simply has to save you. So many religious people are literally trying to strike a deal with God, yet God gives salvation freely to all who will accept it. The problem is that you cannot accept God’s gift while you are trapped by the dualistic mind. As explained in my parable about the wedding feast [Matthew 21:1-14], you cannot enter the wedding feast without putting on the wedding garment. The wedding garment is the Christ consciousness, and nothing less will gain you entry to the kingdom of God.
The serpentine mind also wants you to believe that once you have attained salvation, it is a state of no change and you need never strive again. Yet in reality, God is the eternal creator. God never stands still because God is constantly creating. The only way God can create is to transcend itself and its sense of identity. Therefore, as a son or daughter of God, you are meant to be a co-creator with God, and therefore you cannot stand still either. You must be willing to constantly self-transcend, and this is indeed the key to the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, you can never stand still while on earth—and neither can you stand still in heaven.
You cannot simply find a church that you define as the one true church, accept its doctrines and follow its rituals and then think you will make it to heaven. You must continually strive to expand your understanding of the spiritual side of life, to purify your heart and to raise your state of consciousness, so that you can express more of your divine individuality every day. There are people who have made great strides on the spiritual path for decades and who come to a point where they feel like they have done enough, and now is time to relax and rest on their laurels. Because of the downward pull of matter itself, combined with the serpentine consciousness, such people will immediately, and often without realizing it, begin to slide back into a lower state of consciousness. If they are not alert, they can eventually lose much of the spiritual attainment that they had gained through their decade-long efforts.
The true religion is one that opens your heart to God and keeps it open, so that you can continue to transcend yourself and express more of God every day. I am aware that many orthodox religions promote the serpentine lie of an outer salvation. Yet within all of those churches there are still people who manage to see beyond this lie and open their hearts to me and to God. I honor such people no matter which religion they follow, and I only hope that more and more people will discover the inner path to Christhood. This is truly the key to transforming the old, stale religions into living churches that can once again be open to the winds of the Holy Spirit. God is a Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth [John 4:24].
Copyright © 2004 by Kim Michaels