Michaels – Page 36 – Ascended Master Answers

Implementing the ideas from the ascended masters

Question: During the conference and listening to what the masters have to say, I feel like I can accept the ideas that they are presenting to us. It is the same with my Christ Self and I Am Presence, I am able to receive these ideas and know the validity in them. However, when it gets to my emotional body, I can begin to see that these ideas begin to get tainted by emotions of anger and irritation. It starts as excitement and clarity but moves towards these less constructive emotional reactions. Can the masters comment on this process?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, it is what we have given quite a number of teachings on, that you have four lower bodies and that when we give a dictation for example, or even for many of you, in other contexts, the Conscious You is temporarily liberated from, at least to some degree, from the four lower bodies. Instead of seeing a new idea presented by us through the filter of the four lower bodies you are seeing it directly, you are receiving it more directly. That is why you have an experience of being in an elevated state of consciousness during a dictation and therefore you see with greater clarity.

But then of course, when you are out of the force field of a dictation, going back to your normal state of consciousness, you still remember the idea, but now you are starting again to see it through the filter of your four lower bodies, and that is why there is a certain resistance to implementing the ideas, and why it often is so that you can see with great clarity what you need to do, but then you can’t really implement it.

What you simply need to do here is to recognize that this is because there are some selves or some accumulated energy in your four lower bodies, and you need to use our tools to clear it. And as you clear it, you will find that it will be easier and easier for you to grasp our ideas, but it will also be easier to maintain that feeling, and to implement these ideas in your life.

Now don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to implement all of the ideas we give because as we said before, when we give a dictation, we give ideas for a broad range of people, so, what you need to do is find the one idea from a dictation that mostly appeals to you, and then contemplate that idea and then maybe later you can read the same dictation and pick up on another idea. You need to not be frantic about this and come down on yourself, you need to recognize you are at a certain level, and as you continue to strive to raise your consciousness you will gradually increase your ability to implement the ideas you receive.

The relation between energy and information

Question: From Einstein we know that matter is actually lower vibration energy, but what is the relation between energy and information? Is it somewhat similar that information can be transformed into energy and vice versa on some level, or is the relation between them very different?

Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, matter is energy that has been transformed into a different state, but what transforms the energy into the state of matter is information, so we can say that information is what causes energy to take on a certain form and a certain direction.

However, you need to consider what you mean with ‘information’. In the modern world there’s a tendency to say that information is data. In other words, you know some facts, you have some factual knowledge, and this is information. But in reality, the information that causes energy to take on the specific form is not really what you call data.

It is however, the images that self-aware beings, co-creators, hold in their minds, and this is more than what you just call data, it is more than factual knowledge, it is also visual images, sensations, beliefs, and so forth. In other words, it cannot be reduced to the kind of data that for example a computer can deal with and analyze and categorizing and so forth, it is more than that.

It is the totality of what goes on in your four lower bodies that is being super imposed upon the energy that you receive from the I AM Presence and that then takes on the form based on the contents of your four lower bodies. Of course, with the Elohim when they created the Earth, they didn’t have four lower bodies, but they also formulated in their minds a certain image that was more than just data, more than just information.

Progress and the upward spiral in Ukraine

Question: More than a year has passed since the conference in Ukraine. Has the collective consciousness of Ukrainians made progress, and what are the prospects for Ukraine in terms of liberation from the influence of collective entities, which are trying with all their might to slow down economic, social and spiritual development in Ukraine?

Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain  through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well the conference in Ukraine was, as we said at the time, a great turning point for the nation, but as we also said at the time that it will take some time. It will be a gradual process for Ukraine to break free from these old momentums that exist in the collective consciousness. Certainly, progress has been made in the last year, partly because of the invocations and decrees given by students, partly also because of the President’s willingness to really look beyond the traditional way of doing politics in Ukraine.

There are also a number of people who have been cut free by your decrees, to look for new ideas, but as we have said many times, there is a limit to how much a leader can change a nation because it also requires a change in the collective consciousness, so this will take some time to accomplish.

What I really want to say is that an upward momentum has been started, an upward spiral has been started, and if you continue to make your calls and invocations, then it will continue to grow. Do not be too concerned about seeing specific outer results, because again, it is a complicated equation for what happens in the collective consciousness.

People need to be ready; a critical mass of people need to be ready for a certain change. When you look at the history of Ukraine, you can see that there are many difficulties in the Ukrainian nation, many events from the past that have created momentums and collective entities and divisions in the collective consciousness and it will take time to overcome them, so continue the good work, but be patient in terms of looking out for specific results.

Men who fear the rule of women

Question: Will women who do well also help those men born in a poor family? It is possible that many men simply do not know women very well and this is a chance for women to show that they are caring and will help both men and women.

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, you will see that women, because of what we said in our teachings about women and because they have more of a mother instinct, they will as leaders not act as men have been doing. And so it is clear that women will create more equalitarian societies and they will not set themselves up as tyrants.

This is not to say that we envisioned that there will be any countries that will exclusively be led by women. There will ideally always be a balance of men and women who can complement each other. But even if women were allowed to rule, they would not be as unbalanced as men have been and still are in many nations.

So, what you actually see here is that these men who fear the rule of women, are as you correctly say, they don’t know women. And the reason they don’t know women is that they are projecting male psychology onto women. They think that women have the same basic psychology as men and therefore if women are put in the same position of power as men have had, they will act like the men are doing. Now I know you can point to certain historical female rulers who have acted like tyrants, but this is not what you will see in the modern world, certainly not the democratic part of the world.

What can men do to overcome the negative attitude towards women

Question: Some men, especially men born in a poor situation, fear that women are taking over completely and will rule the world and men within a short time. What can men do to overcome these fears?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, most men will not be open to an ascended master teaching, so there is nothing we can really say other than simply let things work out so that these men see if their fears are justified, which they won’t be. But if you are more spiritually aware, you can of course realize that this comes from a separate self that has been created by this male dominant culture that you find in many parts of the world, where men have a negative attitude towards women, are very suspicious of women, and especially of women being in leadership or decision making positions.

There is no reality to it, but it has been projected into the collective consciousness of certain nations for so long, that many men have created these separate selves that actually believe that women will be tyrants and will enslave men, as women have been enslaved by men in the past or still are in some nations.

Why women are growing taller nowadays

Question: Many women are growing taller, some nearly as tall as men and sometimes even taller. Is this a result of the Law of Transcendence?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

No, it isn’t a spiritual cause. It is primarily better nutrition that is causing both men and women to grow taller and therefore balance some of the discrepancy between the height of men and women.

There is of course, no natural cause why women should be less tall than men but there has been some traditional causes in the sense that men have been eating more or eating differently because they had to do hard physical work or they had to be ready to go into a battle and therefore, it was perceived that they had to be physically strong. But since this has faded away in many countries where the physical strength of a man is not as important, it has allowed things to balance to their natural level.

Wish-fulfilling jewel and Dhyani Buddhas

Question: The East West invocation for the retrieval of lost soul fragments makes a reference to their magnificent wish fulfilling jewel in a call to Ratnasambhava. Will the masters please explain what that is?

Answer from Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

I actually sense that the masters don’t really want to explain this because the Dhyani Buddhas at least in some Buddhist movements are seen as meditation Buddha’s. In other words, you are meant to meditate on them and even though we see the Dhyani Buddhas as ascended masters and as real ascended beings, they don’t want to give us something more concrete that the linear mind can use to categorize or understand or comprehend it.

The important thing about Dhyani Buddhas is to use them in their capacity. We can meditate on them, we can give their invocations that mentions them. There are many in the “Fulfilling Your Highest Spiritual Potential” book. You can also look at these qualities that they have and the perversions and you can meditate on this and seek to receive insights directly from the Dhyani Buddha’s. But this has to bypass the linear mind and that is why they don’t want to give a teaching that the linear mind can grab onto and that can actually block your intuitive attunement.

What is the most important thing to pray for on behalf of France and the French?

Question: What are the most important points to pray for on behalf of France and the French?

Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, France is a complicated nation. It actually has a deep division in the collective psyche, because the Catholic Church still has a deep influence on many among the French people. At the same time, France is one of the most secular people in Europe, meaning that it has a large group of people who are firmly convinced of the materialistic view of life and are against all religion.

As a result of this very, very deep division and this animosity between these two groups, you will see that France has a lower level of what you might call spiritual, but not religious people. In other words, people who are open to non-standard spiritual teachings, whether it is ascended master teachings or something else. The most important thing you could pray for right now is that more and more people would be cut free and awakened so they could embrace a spiritual teaching, that is an alternative to both the Catholic Church and materialism.

If you take what I have said about the golden age, then there will not be one religion that will dominate the golden age. Neither will scientific materialism dominate the golden age. There will be a universal outlook, a universal set of ideas based on the simply neutral objective recognition that human beings have a higher potential, that they are more than material beings. There can be many different ways that people acknowledge this potential and seek to develop it. But the development of people’s higher potential will be a theme.

And it should be something that also can appeal to many people in the French nation, and many other nations that are also in the process of challenging the Catholic Church, or Islam or any other religion that has been dominant in that nation for a long time, and therefore are facing this very delicate balancing act of how do you challenge a traditional religion without flipping to the other dualistic extreme of scientific materialism? Many nations are facing this challenge and it is certainly something that you can make the calls for, both for France and other nations that there will be a critical mass of people that will be cut free, so they can embrace that middle way between these two extremes.

How visualizations and affirmations work

Question: If I use a self-made affirmation of just two lines without invoking the light, for example: “I am utilizing my talents to my highest potential for the mutual benefit of myself and people on the planet”. Will this result in the creation of a separate self? What if it is said hundreds of times a day? Will it be able to eventually override the separate selves that are blocking our progress? Or is it just going to complicate things still more?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my beloved the answer is yes and no. You have a very long tradition on this planet of positive mental attitude using certain visualization techniques such as treasure mapping and giving positive affirmations. And there is validity to it in the sense that for a time, it can have a positive effect on overriding some of the selves that you have that block your abundance for example.

But if you continue to do it beyond a certain point, then it is correct that it will simply create a separate self. Unfortunately, you have many of these people who have been into these affirmations, visualizations, manifesting and positive mental attitude who have simply created separate selves that are in a constant battle with their other separate selves that are blocking their abundance. So you now have two groups of separate selves that are fighting with each other and it all ties up your energy, your attention even your subconscious energy, so that you have less energy left over to actually manifest more abundance.

Now, this is not to say that there is no validity to these movements that promote this positive mental attitude. There was nothing else at the time because there wasn’t the awareness of psychology. So there was no possibility of bringing forth the teachings that you have today about the separate selves. So people had to do something and this was one way to at least create some improvement.

For some people, it has worked relatively well. But that is usually because they have reached some resolution of psychology in past lives, so that this could work for them. But you will also see if you look at these movements that many, many people have applied themselves and been disappointed, because of the lack of results. This is simply because there isn’t the resolution of psychology that makes this work. It is clear that the deeper approach to this is to look at the psychology and resolve the separate selves that are blocking your progress, whether it’s abundance or something else, instead of creating other separate selves to suppress them. That way you can free up your energies, and the more you free up your energies from being tied up in these structures in your subconscious mind, the more energy you have to fulfill your goals.

Providing services for free

Question: What is the perspective of the ascended masters concerning providing services for free, such as healing, counseling, coaching, etc.?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, you could say that it has worked out quite well for this messenger, who from the beginning has provided a large number of teachings on the websites for free. The same thing can be said for anyone who is providing any service. In order to get started, in order to get established, it can be very valid and valuable to provide something for free.

Even later, it can still be valuable to give a certain amount of free teachings. You can consider the concept of tithing and say that you would give away a certain number, whether it’s exactly ten percent, or some other number of free services, which would then attract to yourself new clients and therefore grow your service.

It is part of the whole concept of multiplying the talents, that you are willing to give something away for free, instead of looking with the linear mind to always get payment for services rendered and to get the exact payment—to get your “pound of flesh” so to speak.

There are limits to what you can understand with the linear mind

Question: I cannot wrap my head around one thing, and I realized that my thinking about the topic is too linear. Nevertheless, it would be great to get some input, as explained by the ascended masters, everything is always expanding, including the Creator itself. So how is it possible that one can unify again with the Creator consciousness when everything is always expanding? Are there beings from lower spheres, let’s say the fourth or the fifth spheres that have become one with the Creator consciousness already?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, it is correct to say that with the linear mind you cannot resolve questions like this. It is true that the Creator is continually expanding its sense of self. So how can you reach that level that the Creator has attained by being at the Creator level and growing from there? It would seem to the linear mind that you first have to go to the level where your Creator started, or the level where your Creator was at when you were created, and then you have to catch up to where the Creator has grown to in the Creator consciousness, and you will never be able to do this.

But this isn’t actually what is meant with this. It means that you can still come into unity with the Creator even though the Creator has raised its consciousness. You can still attain the level of the Creator consciousness. This is not something that the linear mind can understand, can grasp, but I can assure you that when you have raised your consciousness to that level the enigma will disappear.

Now in terms of the question of whether there are beings who were created in your world of form that have attained the Creator level of consciousness? Yes, there are some from the first sphere, not from the lower the spheres that were created after the first one, but from the first sphere there are some that have.

How to solve the problem of prostitution

Question: Should prostitution be legal like in the Netherlands or should it be illegal like in other countries? Maybe it should be treated in a way Sweden does. In Sweden, the client is punished but not the woman who is working in this capacity.

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, another example of a question that doesn’t have a strictly black and white answer. It is clear that there are certain countries that have decided to legalize prostitution because they have come to the realization that it is a phenomenon that will be there regardless.

So, when it is illegal it will be forced underground, which means the people who are working in that area will have no protection, no legal recourse. There will be no oversight or regulation of it, whereas when you legalize something then there can be some oversight and some protection against for example, human trafficking and women being forced into prostitution.

Is this the ideal solution? No, of course not. Is the solution enacted in Sweden ideal? No, but it can also be a valid solution for some countries. It is clear that in the long term the solution to prostitution is that the demand goes away whereby the supply also will dry up. For the foreseeable future of course, this will only mean that those who are organizing prostitution will move to other countries where there is still a demand and there will be a demand for a long time in the future.

But nevertheless, it is clear that as part of raising the collective consciousness there will be some nations that will come to that point of recognizing that as a part of basic humanity, prostitution simply isn’t acceptable to them anymore. This will then raise the collective consciousness so that people, also those who are buying prostitution, will be able to rise above this need and find another way to deal with their sexual desires.

This is not a simple thing, because we have talked about before, how the abuse of women comes from advertising, where mens’ sex drive is artificially inflated. These things will need to be addressed before you can come to the point where the demand for prostitution fades away.

Measuring the progress, trends and the growth of society

Question: Was the measurement of the global peace index (GPI) influenced by the ascended masters?

Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Yes, it was inspired by us, not necessarily that we support everything that is done or the entire methodology, because this of course can be measured in many different ways but it is important to have some way of measuring which countries are more peaceful than others. What is the difference between more peaceful and less peaceful countries? What is it that creates division in a country and makes a country more likely to war with its neighbors?

It is clear that this and many other attempts to measure certain indexes and measure the progress is an important part of the world becoming more aware of what forces drive change and what forces work against change. You have a unique situation in the world today, because you have computer technology that can store amounts of data that could not have been stored earlier and you have the technology that can process large amounts of data. Therefore, you can do things with statistics that were unthinkable 30 or 40 years ago. It is very necessary to use this kind of capacity to look at many aspects of life, many aspects of the evolution of nations and institutions and history and see what are the trends that can be learned.

As we have said, if you look back and see the trends, see beyond the outer actual events, but see the underlying trends, then you can project those trends in the future and see that if nothing changes this is likely to be the result. I’m not saying this is always going to be accurate, but it is important in terms of making people become more aware of what is happening and which direction society is going. Naturally, there is always the possibility that these things can be manipulated, can be misinterpreted like you see in the climate debate. But nevertheless, it is still a necessary part of the growth of the collective consciousness.

What is the next step for Switzerland to take?

Question: I have a question about Switzerland. Recently, there was a vote concerning big companies that are domiciled in Switzerland. The initiative suggested that the company should be held responsible for any violation of human rights abroad and held responsible for environmental damage in other countries. The majority of the people voted yes, which is a great progress but unfortunately, without a majority of the states, which means it was turned down. I realize that there is a big fear in the collective consciousness in Switzerland. Its citizens feel that with moving more towards unity, or for that reason embracing diversity, they will lose something. This is shown in Switzerland not entering the EU, with inequality of women in certain areas. And also, the attitude towards fugitives or refugees and many more of these examples. It sometimes feels like an island in the middle of Europe, where people believe it is safe, so we better not change too much. Sometimes, it seems quite strange to me: on the one hand, a very progressive nation with this direct democracy, lots of innovative drive, and on the other hand, these regressive attitudes in some other areas. I appreciate your perspective also about what is the next step for Switzerland to take and how we can bring it about.

Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Switzerland is certainly a unique nation in the world. And it is partly due to its geographic location, where the mountains have various effects. Now, there are some people who will say that mountains are spiritual. You see in India, how they revere the Himalayas as the location for many spiritual people, even spiritual communities. And there is a certain reality to it, that this massive rock gives a certain stability in a country. This can have certain spiritual aspects where people can withdraw to the mountains, and therefore be somewhat isolated from the hustle and bustle of the marketplace in the world, and lead a more secluded existence.

But you also see that there is a tendency in mountainous areas, that people are very conservative, not very progressive and willing to change things. You see the same thing in Switzerland. And you see also that the mountains in Switzerland, are actually acting as a division between different groups of people: the German speaking, the French speaking, the Italian speaking, and so forth, and so on. You see that Switzerland is really not a particularly homogenous nation. The population has a different mindset in the Italian, the French and the German speaking parts, and it goes quite deep. You could say that you actually have three countries in one that are trying to coexist by ignoring their differences.

The next step that Switzerland could take would be that people would start openly acknowledging the differences, talking about them and talking about whether they could be resolved, and a more unified national consciousness could emerge. Or whether these differences are simply so deep that it should be acknowledged that they cannot be resolved.

If you look at the more long-term perspective of the golden age, I have already talked about how nation states will become obsolete at a certain point. I have talked about how there can be certain regions that build a deeper sense of unity. And this could mean that national boundaries get blurred, and that even some nations will be split up or disappear. So, I know that this is not something that many Swiss people are willing to even consider. But it is nevertheless one of the important steps that Switzerland could take to have an open debate.

Do we actually have a future as one nation? Or should we split into three nations that then can divide individually, whether they will join Italy, France, or Germany, or perhaps even find a way to cooperate with Austria. I am not saying that there is a particular outcome here that needs to happen. What I am saying is that the debate itself could help the Swiss nation progress, where people could confront some of these questions and issues that they have not, so far, been willing to confront.

What we see in the Swiss nation, not only in the Swiss nation, but certainly in the Swiss nation is an unwillingness to confront certain issues that are deemed to be too confrontational, too extreme, too difficult to resolve. There is a tendency to ignore issues. And there is especially a tendency to let the different regions have certain differences that really are not compatible with a national awareness as a whole. Like, for example, the treatment of women in some regions that is far behind what it is in the rest of the nation and in the rest of Europe. This is just one example.

There needs to be a more open debate about what kind of nation is Switzerland? What is the national identity? Is there really a unified national identity? And is it possible, is it even desirable for us to continue as one country?

How Africa can get closer to the golden age

Question: After Ghana attained independence in 1957, ethnic divisions have not been fully resolved, leading to coup d’états until 1992, when we now have a stable country—one of the examples in Africa. But currently these ethnic and religious divisions have surfaced with the “EWE” group, who are one of the minorities threatening to break away. Ghana goes to the polls on the seventh of December 2020 to either change or retain the current government. As part of issues of corruption against the government, citizens, especially minority ethnic groups, feel unsafe. How can Ghana resolve her divisions and progress towards the golden age as an example in Africa? Do the master see this possibility in Ghana and Africa as a whole?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

As we have said before, the situation on the African continent is very complex. We have given teachings on this and really, even though some countries are further ahead in the process than others, you still see that there is always these ethnic divisions that go back to the tribal period, where Africa was so divided into many different tribes.

You have of course seen other parts of the world who also have this tribal phase, where small tribes saw themselves as being different from or in opposition to other tribes because they were competing for scarce natural resources. What you have seen in other parts of the world is that the tribal consciousness can be completely overcome, but it usually takes quite some time, certainly generations. But it is overcome when people realize that they can actually attain a greater material standard of living by working together then by working against each other based on these tribal divisions.

Now, the difficulty in all nations is, of course, that there is always a tendency that when a nation moves out of the tribal phase, it can very easily move into the feudal phase, as you saw in the feudal societies of Europe, where you have a power elite that basically enslaves the broad population. And because parts of the world have moved beyond this phase, there is a pull on Africa to either not go into this phase, as you saw exemplified in the colonial age, or to move through it more quickly than, for example, European nations did.

You see here that Africa is being pulled by the rest of the world, to move from the tribal phase to a more modern state, much more quickly than has been done in any other part of the world. And it is natural and understandable that this will give various problems. It is very difficult for people to move so quickly through these stages.

There really is no one thing that is like the magic bullet that would help Ghana or other nations in Africa move through this phase. There will be some conflicts, there will be issues that need to be dealt with, and it is something that will take time. It might require certain confrontations, a certain willingness to look at the national mindset, the collective consciousness, and acknowledge the divisions instead of seeking to suppress them. You can create stability by suppressing divisions. This you see in many parts of the world, but it only works for a certain time, and then the divisions will surface again, and unless they are resolved, then the country cannot move forward.

One of the important factors would be a willingness to acknowledge the divisions, to acknowledge that different people have different issues that are valid issues and to address them, to discuss them openly in the public forum, and to have the government do whatever it can to address these issues and these divisions.

Basically, you need to come to a point where a population begins to see itself as more homogenous. People begin to be able to see beyond these outer divisions, and they realize that they are all part of the country and that the country can really only prosper if all people in that country prosper. You look at some of the more affluent nations in the world, such as the European countries in Northern Europe, and you see that they have today a much more homogenous population, but they did not always have this. They have attained this by people gradually, over generations coming to see beyond the divisions and accepting that they have a common consciousness, a common national identity.

This is what can happen in some of these African nations. But you also need to recognize that you have a very difficult to solve problem in Africa, because many of the current African nations were created during the colonial age. And this was where the colonial powers from Europe drew boundaries, in some cases, in very artificial ways based on a temporary situation, a temporary balance of power between, say, the Germans and the British, and therefore a line was drawn there, not taking into consideration the history of that area—the various tribal divisions found in that area.

If you were to look at this realistically, some of the boundaries in Africa should actually be redrawn, so that you can create more homogenous populations based on the history of that area. But whether this is even possible or realistic, given the consciousness that you have already built of a certain national consciousness, that is an open question. But it is certainly one of these things that ideally could be considered. So that you could look at a certain population living in a certain area and redraw certain boundaries so that they had their own nation, and that there were not any minorities in that nation, because they belong to another nation where they could be more part of the majority.

But I realize, of course, that this is a very complex issue and it is not something that is likely to be addressed in the near future.

A practical, material renewal in India

Question: Could the ascended masters explain why many religions keep forming in India, in ancient and medieval times, including comparatively lesser-known ones such as Jainism and Sikhism? Were these influenced by the ascended masters? And why is it not happening now, considering the descending spiral of law and order, as well as religious, linguistic, social, economic, and political agenda issues in India?

Answer from the Ascended Master More through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my beloved, India is, of course, a very vast and very complex country. What you saw in the past ages, in some areas of the world was a proliferation of new religions. Some of them were inspired by the ascended masters, at least to some degree. And this was because we attempted to renew the Indian nation, from being so stuck in the Hindu spiral, the spiral created by the Hindu religion.

What you see today is that there are not so many new religious or spiritual movements springing up because there has actually been a shift in the collective consciousness of India, where there is a certain realization that the primary goal for India right now is not a spiritual renewal but a practical, material renewal.

What really needs to happen in India is to overcome poverty. And there is no more important step that the Indian nation can take, than to raise the majority of the Indian population out of poverty. This is a necessary phase that India is going through and is engaged in. And until there has been a certain critical level reached in terms of overcoming poverty, there is no point in any religious renewal because overcoming poverty is the foundation for a spiritual and religious renewal in India.

What you have traditionally seen in India is of course, a very divided society where there was a clear elite of land owners who dominated the majority of the population who lived in such abject poverty, that they had no energy or attention left over to pursue any spiritual goals. You have seen a few people, even some who were born in poor families, who have withdrawn themselves from society, follow the guru, join the monastery, and therefore have pursued a spiritual path. But this has all only been for the select few.

And what needs to happen is, of course, that India moves to a position where more and more people among the population can find a true valid spiritual teaching that teaches about a spiritual path to a higher state of consciousness and follow it. And this will not be the Hindu religion, because it is too stuck in tradition and rituals. There can be other new spiritual movements that spring up, but it simply cannot happen until there’s enough people who have been raised out of this poverty, where they can really actually follow a spiritual path. You might say that for India, pursuing material growth is actually a spiritual endeavor. This will not be forever of course, but at least for the time being.

How to find an alternative way to make a living

Question: I’m getting tired of my nine-to-five job. I’m grateful that my salary allows me to provide for myself and my family, but I’m not liking it anymore. I’m frustrated about the fact that I’m stuck at work all day long. I can’t do other things such as meditating, saying my decrees, spending time with my family, exploring other careers. The only reason I haven’t quit yet is because I’m scared of losing my income. However, I feel like I’m not accomplishing my divine plan through this position. I did the Great Divine Director novena many times but I haven’t received any insights. What am I doing wrong? And how can I fix it?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my beloved, I know this again, sounds repetitive but when you have given a novena to gain direction and you have not gotten any direction it is because there is some kind of self that is blocking it. You need to consider what your attitude is to work in general, to your specific job, what your attitude is to the spiritual path and how you can follow it.

Not all people are meant to withdraw from society and live a life where they are constantly meditating or focusing on spiritual goals, especially not at their younger ages. You need to look at all these things and see what kind of self you have that blocks you from either finding another way to make a living, finding a more interesting career or finding an alternative.

You will find if you are willing to look at this, that there will be several selves that relate to the concept of work, the concept of earning money and when you deal with those and let them go you will have greater clarity of mind.

How to free yourself from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse

Question: Is incest worse than an adult sexually abusing a child he or she is not related to? What can survivors of sexual abuse do to transcend the sense of unforgiveness, the sense of resentment, the self-hate, the sense that it is the worst thing that could happen to a person?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, it depends on what you mean with: “Is it worse?” You could say that, from a certain perspective, it is not worse, because both are acts of violence. And any act of violence is a violation of the free will of the child.

But of course, there is a psychological aspect in that if you are violated by a person you trusted, then this can create a deeper psychological trauma. Again, I know that we sometimes sound repetitive on this, and I do not want you to get the impression that we are insensitive to people’s suffering, but whether you have been sexually assaulted by a family member or a stranger, this has created trauma. And as with all traumas, the effective way to heal them is to use the tools that we have given. This is not to say that you could not also benefit from various forms of therapy that are available today. I am not saying that you should exclusively use our teachings and tools, but you certainly can use the tools for healing spiritual traumas to deal with this issue as well.

You need to come to this point where you start looking at the fact that the trauma forced you to create certain selves. And these selves are very often based on certain patterns that are set up in this world, often defined by the fallen beings. They have defined some very subtle selves about feeling angry with those who have violated you, feeling resentment towards them, and even feeling hatred towards yourself for allowing this, because then it has been projected into your mind that even though you were a child at the time, you should have been able to resist this.

You need to recognize that these are collective entities created by the fallen beings that can enter your mind when you have been exposed to trauma, and set up this negative spiral that makes it very difficult for you to leave the trauma behind. And you need to recognize this, and determine that you are not going to allow the fallen beings to get away with this. You are not going to allow them to first expose you to this trauma, and then cause you to go into a reactionary pattern that means you cannot leave the trauma behind.

You have to look for these separate selves, but you also have to make certain conscious decisions, that you will not resent those who violated you, that you will not hate yourself, you will not feel you should have done differently than you did. Because if you could have done differently than you did at the time, you would have done so.

You need to have the willingness to resolve the selves, but you also need to have a certain willingness to make these firm decisions that you will forgive those who violated you, and you will forgive yourself for your own reaction to it — both when it happened and afterwards. You will forgive, you will let go, you will let the selves die and you will move on. Because as Jesus just said: “There is nothing that could happen to you from earth that you cannot overcome, if you are willing to stop identifying yourself with it and return to the sense of being pure awareness coming from the spiritual realm into embodiment on earth.”

Transhumanism is simply unrealistic dream

Question: Master Jesus, the website of the World Economic Forum provides undeniable proof that the power elite plans transhumanism for mankind. The power elite defines transhumanism as a fusion of our physical, biological and digital identities, which involves merging artificial intelligence with our physical bodies. Right now the power elite needs to manipulate our perception to control us, but if they succeeded in merging our physical bodies with artificial intelligence, then they would be able to control us directly. The manifestation of transhumanism would enable the fallen beings in the identity, mental, emotional and physical realms to effectively take the free will of human beings away, and control them as they see fit. Will the fallen beings succeed in a manifestation of transhumanism? Could you please confirm if David Icke, who has been warning about this for 30 years, is correct?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Transhumanism, as it is currently defined by certain power elite groups, is simply an unrealistic pipe dream. It is based on a materialistic outlook on life that simply is not in accord with reality. You are not materialistic beings, and therefore you cannot merge these so-called identities into one, and create a being who can function. Artificial intelligence cannot be implanted in humans. Why would it need to be, when you have natural intelligence that can be developed to ever-increasing levels?

This is not to say that there are not certain power elite groups, even some well-meaning people, who believe in this, and that this is the future of humankind. But it is simply not a realistic dream, it is not something that you need to worry about or make calls on, because it simply cannot be done as they envision it right now.

Now, this is not to say that there will not, in the future, be certain technologies released by Saint Germain that will seem somewhat similar, but that are really not what these fallen beings can envision. Again, it is not something you need to worry about or make calls on as an ascended master student.

Is that possible to return to pre-pregnancy weight?

Question: Since I had my daughter three years ago, I am not comfortable with the way my body looks. I have not lost all the pregnancy weight. I eat now more than I used to, although I have stopped breastfeeding two years ago, and I am wondering if I am being realistic to want my pre-pregnancy body back. Is that possible?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my beloved, some women have, of course, managed to do this. Some have had to go through a rigorous regimen of diet and exercise in order to do so. I do not want to give the impression that it is not possible at all.

But for the majority of women, it just is not realistic, because their body changes as a result of the pregnancy. And therefore, even though you make an effort with diet and exercise, you will never really get back to that level that you had before you became pregnant. This has unfortunately caused many people to decide that they are going to make the effort to try to get back, and then when they fail, they go into this endless spiral of blaming themselves, feeling inadequate, coming down upon themselves, because they were not strong enough, they were not disciplined enough, and all of these things.

It is an individual matter to try and gain some attunement, to see whether you should make the effort to get back to that same weight that you had before, or whether you should simply give it up. You need to recognize here that most women have to give up many things in order to become mothers. Maybe for you, one of the things you need to give up is the desire to return your waistline to pre-pregnancy levels. You may simply have to accept your body as it is now, and then move on with life, and adopt a positive attitude towards your body as it is now.

How to free yourself from the sense of worthlessness coming from being poor

Question: I grew up poor. I remember that I did not have any problem being with other children who were richer than me. However, as I grew up, I started noticing how adults would make me feel like I was less than the other children because I was poor. The more I grew up, the more I did feel like I was less than my peers. I unfortunately accepted that because I didn’t have some material possessions, I didn’t have any worth. I still suffer from that feeling of unworthiness up to now. I believe, although I study your teachings, that if I don’t have a lot of money and if I don’t own the most expensive possessions, I don’t have any worth. I would like to stop believing that poor people have no worth and rich people are superior to them, that it’s only by having all the money in the world that I will be happy, and I will feel like I am somebody.

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, again, the answer — which is almost a standard answer — is that this kind of belief, of course, comes from a separate self. And you need to use our tools to uncover that separate self and let it go. You also need to make a decision to simply not accept this belief. But of course, on a planet like this, there is a very old tradition, where the fallen beings have wanted the majority of the population to feel that they are poor, that they can only be poor, and that as a result of that, they do not have the same worth as the elite, who are rich and have power and authority. The fallen beings have created this very, very elaborate collective beast, or entity, that projects at people that your worth is defined by your outer power, your outer possessions, the amount of money you have, the fancy houses, the smart sports cars, the jewels and so on.

Now, there are people who have grown up in relatively poor circumstances and not accepted this kind of belief. This messenger is one of them. His parents gave him the impression from early childhood that it is how you behave and how you are as a human being that defines your worth, not your outer possessions or your position in society. If you have grown up in an environment where you have come to accept this belief, it is because it is part of your divine plan that you demonstrate how to get over it. Therefore, you simply need to apply the tools that we have given so you can get over this, and then demonstrate to other people in the same situation that this is indeed possible, and here is how it can be done.

It is clear from what we have said that when you have Christ discernment, you realize that a person’s worth is not defined by the outer possessions, by the amount of money, or by anything else on earth. It is not your race, it is not your nationality, it is not where you are born that matters. All that matters is your inner sense of who you are. And all people have equal worth in the eyes of God, in the eyes of Christ. As part of Christ discernment, you naturally overcome this belief.

Can a fallen being become a student of the ascended masters?

Question: Can a fallen being become a student of the ascended masters?

Answer from Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, yes, and it has indeed happened to quite a number of them. Not so many in this dispensation, but especially in the Summit Lighthouse there were many fallen beings, not necessarily the highest ranking ones, but there were many people who were close to the messenger, and even on staff, who were fallen beings. In most cases, it was because they had followed the leaders as fallen beings, and the messenger had volunteered, the messenger for the Summit Lighthouse, had volunteered to give these lifestreams an opportunity to rediscover the path to Christhood.

You can, of course, always raise the question: “Can a fallen being become a student of the outer path and the outer teachings of the ascended masters?” And the answer is yes. And then you can go on and ask: “Can a fallen being become a student of the inner path, and really, truly lock into the teachings of the ascended masters?”

Experience shows us that some fallen beings can indeed do this, but relatively few of them. Many of those who have become students of ascended master teachings have not locked into the inner path. They have not passed the second challenge of Christ. They have come to that point where the very illusion that caused them to fall, gave them such a sense of reality that they were not willing to question it. Even when they were confronted with this need to question this illusion — whether it was done by the messenger, or from within, or by other people — then they refused to question it. Some of them even left the organization, became disgruntled with the messenger or criticized the messenger, and so on.

It is difficult to help these fallen beings from an ascended master perspective, and that is why we are no longer focusing so much on this — although, in the early years of this dispensation, we did attempt to use this messenger to give certain initiations to certain fallen beings that were part of this movement in the early years. We also gave many teachings that were meant to help these beings overcome their illusions and step onto the inner path. But again, relatively few of them managed to do this.

The best position for giving invocations and decrees

Question: Beloved masters, could you tell me if the rosaries and decrees can be recited while lying down? Or will the light of the ascended masters not come to me in this way? In what position is the efficiency of reading decrees most effective?

Answer from Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, again, and we do not want to give you a black and white view of this, but it is clear that if you look at traditions going far, far back in the east, you see that people have always been sitting somewhat upright with their spine erect during a meditative posture or while chanting. This is because when the spine is upright, and fairly straight, then the light can most easily rise through the chakras, from the base chakra to the crown. It is clear that if you want the maximum efficiency, it is better to sit somewhat straight, but still sit in a comfortable position. For decrees, it is better not to have your legs crossed, but to sit on a chair, where you can sit in a comfortable position that you can hold for some time.

Of course, if you have some kind of condition that makes it difficult for you to sit up, then you can of course lay down and recite invocations and decrees. They may not have exactly the same efficiency in terms of raising the light along the spinal column, but they will still have a high degree of efficiency, especially if you focus in your heart and really put your heart into giving them. So it can of course be done, and it is, of course, better to do it from a lying position, than not to do it at all.

Feeling of being behind

Question: At times I have a feeling which others may experience. It is the feeling of being behind. From a practical perspective, what frame of mind or attention can assist in breaking this state of consciousness, or state of mind?

Answer from Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar- Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, in the early days after he discovered the spiritual path, this messenger often had that feeling of being behind. It was partly caused by the fact that he grew up in an anti-spiritual society, where there was nothing that stimulated his spiritual growth. It was not until he was 18 years old that he realized there was a spiritual path, and it was not until several years later that he discovered the ascended master teachings, and so in the beginning, he felt that he was behind where he could have been if he had had a spiritual teaching earlier. And this is the case for many of you.

You have a certain divine plan, there is a certain timetable built into that divine plan, and you can often have an intuitive sense that you are behind that ideal timetable. It is not really a matter of making that feeling go away. It is a matter of recognizing that you have this feeling, and then asking for inner direction and contemplating this. How are you behind? What is it that you can do to get back to the timetable you defined in your divine plan? Then you can open yourself up to receiving these intuitive insights from the Christ mind. And you can, of course, give various novenas and exercises and invocations to facilitate this. Then you may well receive these insights, if you are open and neutrally asking, what you can do to catch up to where you yourself wanted to be at this time.

How is the Lord Maitreya connected to Lord Ganesha?

Question: A question for the Great Divine Director. I read somewhere on the Summit Lighthouse website that your causal body is somehow connected to that of Lord Ganesha, who is much revered in Hinduism. I am an ascended master student who has grown up in a Hindu culture, so it is of great interest to me. What exactly does this mean? I would like to have a better understanding of your Being, as I often pay my respects to Lord Ganesha too, and would like to know your thoughts on this. It would dissipate confusion, and maybe help let go of mental images I have created for yourself and Lord Ganesha as well.

Answer from the Ascended Master The Great Divine Director through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my beloved, we have, both through previous organizations and dispensations, and this one, attempted to somewhat bridge the gap between various religions wherever it has been possible. We have, in previous dispensations, given certain teachings about the connection between myself and Lord Ganesha. Now, it is important to realize here that you cannot be too literal about these things, you cannot look too much at the specifics. It is clear that the very outer form that Lord Ganesha has been given in Hinduism really has no bearing on who I am as a cosmic being, because this is a form based on the images and the animal forms you find on earth, and of course, I am beyond all of this.

But what can be valid is to maintain a certain connection between various religions. Obviously, in this dispensation, we talk about Shiva, we talk about Krishna, even though not very much, but we have mentioned it, and so then attempted to establish a connection between the ascended masters and the Hindu gods and goddesses. And this is valid enough as an interim stage. But it is clear that we are not really seeking to attract a great number of Hindus, because in order to really step up and become an ascended master student, you need to be willing to look beyond the Hindu religion and its outer expressions.

The Hindu religion is a very diversified religion, so many gods and goddesses, so many rituals, so many images, so many customs, that it is literally overwhelming to most people. It is a little bit like the Jewish religion that has also become so set in customs, traditions and rituals, that there is very little room for the spirit to enter. You can, of course, use these parallels, such as the parallel between Lord Ganesha and myself, the dictations of Shiva and other eastern masters, Kuan Yin and others, to maybe bridge the gap between various eastern religions. We have, of course, talked about the Buddha and the Buddhist religion, and Gautama Buddha has given many teachings through this messenger, and so it can be valid for people who are open to something beyond their own religion.

But if people are still very much identified with their religion, be it Buddhism or Hinduism, then we do not intend to have our students go out and try to convert people to an ascended master teaching. This needs to be something people are ready for at inner levels, before they will be open to it. It is not our vision that we create some kind of movement where people go out and become missionaries like you see in the Christian churches, where they go out on these missionary expeditions to convert other people to their religion, and have them abandon their old one. But of course, there is nothing wrong with people who have grown up in a Hindu environment taking various teachings or rituals, such as decrees and invocations, from the ascended masters’ teachings, and still maintaining some customs from the Hindu religion.

How to move towards a more balanced state of mind

Question: Is there phase on the spiritual path where we experience a shattering of our outer life and norms, where our lives are turned upside down and we experience loss and a stripping away of what we have come to rely on for continuity in our day-to-day existence, where we are forced to rely completely on our Christ Self and I AM Presence to survive and take the next step? Also, why is it that some of us have very extreme experiences on the path, such as depression or mental breakdown, and have great difficulty surviving these experiences and moving on from them? Why do some of us have experiences such as these during our spiritual awakening that we never really get over, and have to carry them with us for the duration of our current lifetime?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, again, you need to recognize that you live on a very, very difficult planet. Walking the spiritual path, especially the path to Christhood, is a very difficult task on a planet like earth. You have had many past lifetimes where you have been exposed to various traumatic experiences, and you have created various separate selves in response to this. What we can say is that the more traumas you still have from the past, the more you have a tendency to have an unbalance in your lifestream, in your four lower bodies. And the more unbalance you have in your four lower bodies, the more you tend to have these more extreme experiences on the path.

Depression and mental illness are certainly a sign that you have very severe traumas and wounds in your four lower bodies, but also the sense that you have completely lost your sense of continuity. This is something that has happened to various people, in some cases as a result of a Kundalini rising, in some cases for other reasons. And what we have attempted to do, especially in this dispensation, is to give you a very balanced path, and a very balanced approach, so you can avoid having these more extreme experiences.

It is completely possible to walk the path to Christhood while having a more balanced experience. There will be some swings, there are certain initiations you need to face, and you certainly need to face the initiation of being willing to give up things in order to take the next step on the path. And there comes a point where you need to demonstrate that you are willing to give up anything on earth in order to take another step up to a decisively higher level.

When this messenger became a messenger, he had to demonstrate to me that he was willing to give up anything on earth, even his life on earth, in order to rise to a higher level. But this was not a shattering of his norms and sense of continuity, because he had already attained a high degree of balance in past lives.

For those of you who have not attained this balance in past lives, again, we have given all of our teachings on healing the spiritual traumas to help you move towards a more balanced state. It is understandable that people can have very traumatic experiences, of a mental breakdown, for example, or depression, and feel like they can never really overcome this in this lifetime. However, this is an illusion promoted by the fallen beings and the collective consciousness.

There is nothing you could encounter on earth that you cannot overcome, if you are willing to use the tools and the teachings we have given. And willing, of course, also to make the decisions that need to be made of letting certain selves die.

There are people who have gone through various traumatic experiences, whether it is outer experiences or psychological conditions, mental illness, and who have built a certain self at the identity level as being a victim of such circumstances, even defining themselves based on these circumstances.

And it is understandable that people have created this self, but I must tell you straightforwardly that there comes a point where you cannot make progress unless you confront this self, see it as a separate self, and decide to let it die, so that you can rise to a higher level of identity where you are no longer defined by these past occurrences.

Anything in your past, you can overcome. I am not trying to hereby put pressure on people, because I know very well that many people have been severely wounded and it will take them time to heal it. But you need to know that anything that has happened on earth cannot affect your I AM Presence, cannot affect the Conscious You, and therefore the Conscious You can be free of it, when it is able to make the decision to let it go.

But as we have said, that requires, in most cases, the confrontation of many separate selves that you need to let die one by one, precisely so that you avoid losing your sense of continuity. You do it gradually, but you need to keep in mind that the Conscious You is not defined by anything that has happened on earth, and you can return to that state of pure awareness, but you can only do so by giving up these separate selves that pull you away from it.

How to find a balanced approach to selfless service

Question: I came to see this one outer self in my psychology, which was indeed very subtle, namely that I submitted my free will myself to service. The question I had in my mind was always: “How can I best serve the world?” Rather than: “What do I enjoy to bring forth?” It was passive and submissive, a very unbalanced way of service. I think many of the spiritual people probably have this outer self. Can the ascended masters give some advice on how to best deal with this outer self?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, anything can become unbalanced. And it is of course, the characteristic of the ego, and even the fallen beings seeking to influence you, that they want to take every progress you make on the path and distort it by making you unbalanced in your approach to it. There is, of course, a stage on the path — the lower stages — where you are completely focused on yourself, you are very self-centered, looking at only your own self-interest, seeing yourself as separated from others, and always, as the saying goes, looking out for number one, meaning looking out for yourself.

There comes a point on the path where you begin to overcome this, and now it is natural that you focus on how you can serve others. But of course, any quality can become unbalanced on a planet like earth, and you can indeed, as you correctly express, create this self that suppresses your natural creative drive.

Now in many cases, this self is not existing alone. It is actually supported by other selves, because you can have certain selves that were created in distant past lifetimes where you were very self-centered and focused, and so you created certain selves that are based on the belief that selfishness is wrong, selfishness must be avoided, and therefore, you should avoid focusing on yourself, and you should focus on doing something for others. In fact, the Christian religion, by raising this ideal of service, selfless service, has contributed to this process where many people, spiritual and religious people, feel that they should serve, and that in order to serve others they need to suppress any kind of desires for expression or experiences that they have themselves.

There are also ascended master students who have felt this way, and who therefore have become unbalanced in doing what they conceived to be a service. This messenger himself, in his early years in the Summit Lighthouse, spent so much time doing decrees that he neglected other aspects of life, and as he realized at a certain point, he even used the decrees, and a desire to decree to improve the world, as an excuse for not looking at his psychology. He started looking at his psychology, and by resolving the psychology, he eventually rose to a level where he could begin to give truly selfless service. But of course, even as a messenger for the ascended masters, you can become so unbalanced that you think you have to focus all of your energy, time and attention on just doing the work, whereas you never allow yourself to relax or enjoy other activities.

This is of course something that applies to students as well, and we have attempted to give many, many teachings that talk about the need for balance, so that you find a personal balance where you, first of all, recognize there may be certain experiences that you have decided to have on earth, and you may not have entirely finished having those experiences. Then it is legitimate to participate in those experiences, so that you can come to a point where you feel you have had enough of it. You are also given teachings about how to avoid that this becomes a downward spiral, where you never have enough.

There is, of course, also the issue of creative expression, where your I AM Presence can have certain legitimate desires to express something on this planet, and it is correct that many people have used the ideal of selfless service to deny the I AM Presence the ability to be the open door. Basically, how can you come to a point where you find more balance? Well, again, only by looking at these selves, looking at the belief that causes you to have an unbalanced view of what selfless service is. Selfless service really does not mean that you focus on other people. This is sort of the beginning stages of selfless service. You think you have set aside your own desires and focus on other people, but this can also be the ego that has a desire. Many Christians have this desire to prove that they are selfless people by serving others. But it is, of course, a desire that springs from the ego, and therefore does not help raise their consciousness.

What you need to realize is that truly selfless service means that you overcome the outer self, and these separate selves that pull you into unbalanced reactions. That way, you can come to a point where you will, number one, recognize: “I have certain desires for certain experiences on earth, and I need to have those experiences.” And you also recognize that: “My I AM Presence wants to express certain creative expressions through me, and I need to make time and attention for this in my life. Therefore, I need to find a balance where my service still allows time and attention for these other aspects of my divine plan and my spiritual growth.” This is a decision to make, partly a conscious decision, but you cannot fully make that decision until you resolve these selves that pull you into this unbalanced reaction.

How did the avatars depart from their teacher?

Question: My question is pertaining to avatars. In the teachings, especially those of Lord Maitreya and the Garden of Eden, there is a point of departure from the original teacher, and that is how those lifestreams entered into duality. How did the avatars who came to earth as volunteers depart from their teacher? There are teachings and invocations that try to help us intuitively find out what was our original point of departure from the teacher. But I’m not clear whether many avatars would have been around in the Garden of Eden when this happened originally, or does this symbolize a type of veil that they took on when they first descended into embodiment on earth? I haven’t understood this teaching well, and if this has already been given to us, I am unaware, and would be happy to be pointed to the book or teaching.

Answer from the Ascended Master Lord Maitreya through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, my book, Master Keys to Spiritual Freedom, talks in great detail about what happened in the Garden of Eden, which has traditionally, in ascended master teachings, been seen as Maitreya’s Mystery School. Now, of course, there are some limitations to this view if you attempt to interpret it literally. It was, for example, in the Summit Lighthouse, said that the Garden of Eden was Maitreya’s Mystery School, and this was said to be the original descent of lifestreams into embodiment on earth, in other words, at the very beginning of the earth.

But it was also said in the Summit Lighthouse that there came a point where the earth was in a downward spiral, and Sanat Kumara descended with 144,000 from Venus, and the first person to respond to them was Gautama Buddha, and then I, Maitreya, was the second person to respond. Gautama ascended first, and I ascended later. If you take this with a linear mind, and want to put this on a linear timeline, it would seem that it could not have been that I could be both the teacher in the Garden of Eden at the first descent of lifestreams to earth, and then have ascended as Lord Maitreya, later. And this is, of course, correct enough. You simply need to recognize that there is a certain office that is the Office of Maitreya, and that it is not necessarily the same being that has held this office throughout the entire history of the earth. You actually have more than one ascended being with the name Maitreya.

The intent behind the book, Master Keys to Spiritual Freedom, is first of all to reach out to the original lifestreams that descended to earth, and those who went into duality, and did so by leaving the teacher behind, because they came to this point of thinking that, with their outer minds, they could define, or divine, what was truth and error, so they could know good and evil — be “as gods, knowing good and evil”. This is not to say that avatars cannot benefit from the book, because avatars have gone through a similar process. It could have happened on a natural planet, and it could have been why the avatars descended to a planet like earth. It could also have happened after you came to earth and encountered the fallen beings.

You need to recognize here that an avatar who descends to earth will be prepared. In other words, you will not come from a natural planet and descend directly into physical embodiment. You will descend to the etheric level, where you will enter the equivalent of a mystery school, and you will be prepared there for taking embodiment at the physical level.

But the question then is how you respond to that teacher if you had a very, very strong desire to come to earth to provide specific improvements, and to remove certain problems from earth, or expose certain problems, then you might be so eager to do this that you are not fully listening to the teacher. And therefore, you leave the mystery school prematurely because you think you are now ready to go into embodiment. And this is also a departure from the teacher, not exactly the same as the original inhabitants, but similar enough that you can at least benefit from contemplating these teachings.

How to find a balanced approach to money

Question: I feel like I’m not ready to spend most of my energy and time just earning a living anymore, and I want to devote myself to being an open door for my I AM Presence. However, now I do not see any options for how I could get the means of living by expressing it, and in my country, it is quite difficult to make money. One needs to make a significant effort to earn at least a little money. How realistic is it to manifest an abundant life in the current situation on the planet, when you don’t focus on making money, and can work to raise yourself and all life, without worrying about how to make money?

Answer from the Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, you can begin with my saying that you cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve God and mammon. But of course, this saying has many deeper meanings, and it is not just about your attitude to money. But what you can begin to contemplate is the attitude that you have towards money, and the attitude that you grew up with about money. In many countries, you have people who are brought up with this attitude that if you are born into a poor family, then you can only remain poor for the rest of your life. This is, in a sense, serving mammon instead of serving God, because you are letting money, or rather, the lack of money, define you.

The other opposite polarity here is that you spend all of your time and attention on making money, thinking that once you have made enough money, then you can relax, and then you can retire, and then you can be spiritual. There are many people in all nations, but of course, more in the richer nations, who are focusing all of their energy on making as much money as possible and it, of course, takes them away from spiritual focus.

But there are also many people who are poor, and who think they cannot make money, and who feel that it is a struggle to make enough to satisfy the basic needs, and they are also serving mammon. This is another unbalanced attitude towards money.

And you can work on this, uncover the selves and overcome those selves, and then you might find that things will open up for you. You will have a more balanced approach, whereby you can make enough money to take care of your physical needs and still have time and energy and attention left over to focus on the spiritual needs. But this requires your willingness to look at these separate selves that you have created, often in many past lifetimes, but certainly also in this lifetime, as a response to the environment in which you grew up, and the attitude towards money found there.

How to heal sexual trauma

Question: The masters have released not so many teachings about sexual energy and sexual traumas, whereas this is one of the most difficult topics for people. Can you tell us more about the causes of sexual desires and arousal, how to deal with them and how to heal sexual traumas? In my experience, it is the multiple sexual injuries that create lust. How to transcend lust?

Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2020 Webinar – Increasing Your Christ Discernment.

Well, there is really no difference between a sexual trauma and other kinds of traumas, it is just a matter of what causes it, but the process that takes place in your four lower bodies is very similar. If you are exposed to violence, whether it be of a sexual nature or not, it creates a certain trauma, and that is why all of the teachings we have given on healing your spiritual traumas and the other books in the series are applicable to dealing with sexual traumas.

Sexual trauma does not actually create lust. Lust is created by entities in the emotional realm that invade your energy field. But it is, of course, the traumas that make your emotional body open to being invaded by these entities and demons. Again, invoking spiritual protection, cutting yourself free by giving calls to Astrea, are valuable tools, but ultimately you need to resolve the trauma and the belief behind it that makes you susceptible to it.

It is not, of course, only traumas or lust that create the sexual desire. It is also a natural functioning of the body, and even a legitimate desire to experience one of the activities you can experience on earth. As long as your sexual desires are balanced, as we have said several times, there is not anything inherently unspiritual about it. It is simply something you do, as one of the activities you do on earth, without making any kind of epic battle out of it. Unfortunately, the fallen beings, through various spiritual and religious movements, have tried to make sex into an epic battle, where there is something you need to fight in order to grow spiritually, and this is not something we support or encourage.