26. How to fulfill your mission on Earth

Ascended Master Lord Maitreya through Kim Michaels.

I hope you can begin to see that what I am seeking to create in this age is a new movement, an initiative unlike anything seen on Earth in recorded history. I am seeking to establish a movement of people who see the fallacy of duality and who are absolutely committed to rising above it, thus demonstrating the path to others. Yet for this to happen, it is essential that those who want to become part of this movement truly understand how subtle and pervasive duality can be. Let me give you an example.

Beings who are trapped in duality have created an illusion which allows them to hold their primal fear at bay. Thus, they want to maintain this state of equilibrium, and when you challenge their illusions, they will feel threatened. They will seek to destroy the threat, and in so doing, they are seeking to pull you into one of two reactions. Most people are not doing this consciously, but the effect is the same. The reactions are:

They want you to accept their illusion, to become one of them through submission.

They want you to oppose them, to become their enemy through opposition.

It might seem as if these two reactions are opposites and that one affirms their illusion while the other opposes their illusion. Yet when you go beyond the surface, you see that there is a more subtle understanding. The basic illusion of all fallen beings is that they are separated from God and other forms of life—they are separate beings. If you submit to their way of life, you affirm that their way of thinking is superior to your old way of thinking, meaning that you affirm its separate status. If you oppose their way of thinking, you affirm that it is in opposition to your way of thinking, which also affirms its separate status.

Can you see that either reaction will affirm the basic illusion of the fallen beings, namely that they are separate from other parts of life? Whether you submit to them or oppose them, you affirm that they are different from you. The basic illusion they do not want to give up is the illusion of separation. So either way you respond, you are actually empowering them to continue in that illusion. If you submit, you voluntarily give them your light, and if you oppose, you engage in the dualistic struggle that misqualifies God’s energy, whereby you also give your light to the false gods who thrive off the dualistic struggle. The real issue is that whether you submit or oppose, you place yourself in one of the dualistic extremes that are the inevitable result of separation. When you separate from the oneness of Christ, you inevitably step into the duality of anti-christ, in which there must be two opposing polarities. Regardless of where you place yourself on the scale that has two opposite polarities – right or left or anywhere in between – you are inside the dualistic struggle.

Either way, the cause of non-duality is lost, so it is imperative that you stay out of this pattern by always seeking to respond in a non-dualistic manner. You must begin by recognizing that other people are trapped in the illusion of separation, and you must then refuse to become part of it. You do this by neither submitting to their illusion nor engaging in a dualistic struggle with them. As the next step, you must avoid reinforcing the illusion in their minds. Again, this requires that you neither submit nor oppose, but then what is left—how can you possibly react when those trapped in duality reject your light and your truth?

It was part of the mission of both the Buddha and Jesus to demonstrate how to respond to dualistic people in a non-dualistic manner. That is why Jesus told you to not resist evil but to turn the other cheek. Let me give you a practical example. One of the places on this planet where the dualistic struggle has been outplayed the longest is in the Middle East. You have various factions that oppose each other and have been doing it for so long that no one can remember how it all started (the reason being that it did not start on this planet). What we see is a downward spiral where one group is seeking revenge for offenses committed by another group. Yet those offenses were acts of revenge against offenses committed by the first group. So each side is seeking revenge for revenge in a frenzy that no one seems able to stop.

Can you see that what is really happening here is that the two sides are reinforcing each others illusion of separation? Nothing can break the spiral until one side refuses to respond in a manner that reinforces the other side’s illusion. Say Group A has built up a great hatred against Group B, feeling its members are bad people and are responsible for their own problems. At some point the self-reinforcing spiral of hatred reaches a flash-point, and some of the weakest members of Group A (they see themselves as the strongest members) commit an act of violence against Group B. Group B reasons that the members of Group A are bad people and deserve to be punished, so they commit an act of violence in retaliation. What have the members of Group B just done in the minds of the members of Group A? They have reinforced Group A’s illusion that Group B are made up of bad people who are responsible for their problems. They have also reinforced the underlying illusion of separation between the two groups. Thus, Group A feels justified in having committed the first act of violence and in seeking revenge for the revenge of Group B. And before they know it, a couple of millennia have gone by with countless acts of revenge and countless people killed while neither side has made any real progress. What can break the spiral?

Suppose Group B decides not to respond to violence with violence. They decide to follow Jesus’ advice and turn the other cheek. The immediate response from Group A is surprise, because Group B didn’t respond the way they usually do. What is going on, what are they up to now? It is likely that Group A will test the waters by committing other acts of violence. For a time, Group A might even interpret the non-violent response as weakness and become emboldened to commit more violence. Yet what happens if Group B consistently refuses to respond to violence with violence? At some point, the more mature members of Group A will begin to question their own beliefs about Group B, and they will even begin to question their own self-image. If Group B refuses to affirm the separate sense of identity of Group A, the members of this group will eventually begin to question that identity. If the members of Group B are really so bad, how come they are not shooting back? And if we keep shooting at someone who is not shooting back, does that mean we are the bad people and they are not?

I realize that so far human history does not have a lot of examples of people who responded to violence with non-violence. But there are certainly some, and one magnificent example is how the Indian nation, under the generally non-dualistic leadership of Mohandas Gandhi, responded to the suppression of the British empire. The Indians eventually succeeded in making the evil of the British so obvious that the British began to question whether their actions in India were in alignment with their self-image of being a highly civilized nation. When the discrepancy finally became obvious to the British, they changed their behavior in India. A similar approach could literally resolve all of the conflicts seen on this planet.

Yet for such an initiative to start and be carried through to completion, there must be people in embodiment who have risen above duality so they can avoid being pulled into a dualistic reaction. How can you become one of these people?

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The essential step is to recognize the very mechanism whereby you became trapped in the consciousness of duality. This most likely happened because you were misled by the fallen beings who are the false teachers of humankind—even though they cleverly present themselves as the true teachers of humankind. These beings exploited your most vulnerable period, namely – as described in previous chapters – when you came to the point when you had to consciously take charge of building your identity. This is the point where you have the potential to become spiritually self-sufficient, to become the Living Christ.

For this to happen, you must be willing to accept full responsibility for your own path and your own salvation. You must be willing to make the essential decisions – the LIFE decisions – that propel you beyond all sense of separation and empower you to be reborn into a new sense of identity based on oneness with your own higher being, oneness with your Creator and oneness with all life.

As I have explained, you were most likely created in order to descend into a sphere – be it the material universe or what is now the spiritual realm – in which there were already fallen beings. Thus, your higher being knew you would encounter fallen beings and run the risk of being trapped by their state of consciousness. Yet it also knew this was part of God’s larger plan, and therefore your higher being – your real self – decided to run the risk. I am saying this because I am hoping to help you accept the decision of your Higher Self, the decision to send you into a sphere where there is a mixture of light and darkness. By coming to this acceptance, you can quickly adjust your approach to life, whereby you can connect to the determination of your Higher Self, the determination not to be or remain ensnared by the fallen consciousness. You can thereby come to the realization that you need to make a very one-pointed effort to free yourself from all of the dualistic illusions that have been admitted into the four levels of your mind. And once you have made that decision, you have taken the most important step toward freedom. In fact, making this LIFE decision wholeheartedly is half the victory—the rest is largely a matter of cleaning up the mess.

I realize that the duality consciousness can seem very subtle, and thus you might fear that you cannot escape its illusions. Yet once you decide that you are willing to become free, you can quickly begin to attain the discernment that will allow you to see through the illusions of duality. In this endeavor, you are not alone, since you can make use of your own Higher Self, often called your Christ self, and the Ascended Host who will gladly serve as your teachers. Yet in order for you to take advantage of this divine direction from within, you must first overcome the major block that the false teachers have managed to insert into your mind. You can see this illustrated in the story of how the Serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The situation was that Eve had been told that she would die if she ate of the forbidden fruit. The Serpent undermined this belief and thus made Eve doubt the true teacher and her ability to understand and follow the divine direction from a true teacher. Because of this doubt, Eve was not able to respond to the Serpent’s temptation by making a LIFE decision. Instead, she made a Death decision and the rest, as they say, is history.

The story of Eve illustrates that you also fell because you doubted your ability to receive accurate direction and your ability to make LIFE decisions—your ability to be the Christ in embodiment. Ever since then, the false teachers have attempted to uphold your doubt in your ability to get accurate directions and make LIFE decisions. They have done this by using your fear to scare you into following them blindly.

Most people on Earth tend to blindly follow their leaders, but the most spiritually mature people have attained enough self-sufficiency to avoid being blind followers. Yet the false teachers have attempted to prevent you from becoming self-sufficient by reinforcing your doubt in the true teacher and your ability to follow the teacher. If they cannot get you to blindly follow them, they seek to destroy your ability to follow any teacher or make your own decisions, seeking to plunge you into spiritual paralysis. They do this by setting up outer standards and making you believe that if you don’t live up to them, you have failed. Thus, it is safer not to try than to run the risk of failure.

How do you overcome doubt? Doubt can exist only in the shadows, a fact that is captured in the popular saying, “Without the shadow of a doubt.” Doubt exists in the gray areas of your mind, areas where you have not taken dominion because there is something you have not taken a conscious look at. To overcome doubt, you need to make a conscious effort to seek out the gray areas and expose them to the light of truth, whereby the shadows of doubt will disappear. This is the only way to overcome doubt, and take note that it is not nearly as hard or intimidating as it might seem. Again, the ego and the forces of duality seek to put you in a catch-22 in which you fear to take a look at the gray areas, you fear what might be hiding there. Yet all fear is a fear of the unknown and things are never as bad when you actually get them out into the light. As the popular saying goes, you have nothing to fear but fear itself, and once you experience how taking a look at your doubts can set you free, you will build a positive momentum on overcoming doubt.

For example, when I talk about people attaining personal Christhood, I am well aware that for many this will seem like an unrealistic goal. Yet the primary reason for this is the intense cult of idolatry that the fallen beings have built up around Jesus over the past 2,000 years. He has been portrayed as being so perfect that no one else could possibly become like him. If you listen to the false teachers, you will feel so overwhelmed by Jesus’ supposed perfection that you will not even try. You will think that being the Christ on Earth means that you have to be perfect. Yet this entire book has presented life as a gradual path. Thus, Christhood must be attained in stages and you have a right to express your current level of Christhood even though it is not the full Christhood. In fact, until you begin to express your Christhood in selfless service to others, you cannot go beyond a certain level of Christhood. You have essentially buried your Christhood in the ground, where it cannot be multiplied. The false teachers know this and that is why they seek to abort any attempt at expressing your Christhood in this world. They want to stop you before you can take dominion and set forth the example that all people can follow in Jesus’ footsteps. So the question is whether you will listen to the false teachers or to Jesus, who clearly said:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12)

Another way the false teachers work is by getting people to doubt that anything is real, using the illusory nature of the duality consciousness to make some people so confused that they can’t accept anything as ultimately real. This is easy to accomplish for people who do not have a direct inner experience of the Spirit of Truth and have only encountered dualistic appearances. Because these are all unreal and because spiritually mature people begin to see this, they can be made to doubt everything. How can you overcome such a Catch-22?

The key realization is – as already mentioned – that all fear of loss springs from a separate sense of identity. When you identify yourself as a separate being, you will inevitably believe that your identity can be opposed by other people’s identity. And this opposition implies loss and victory, meaning that someone else could potentially destroy or control your identity.

The price you pay for establishing a separate sense of identity is that you inevitably come to believe that your identity, your individuality, could be lost. And the separate identity you create really can be lost. In contrast, when you see the truth that all life is one, you realize that everything came from God and thus nothing could be separated from God in reality. And since separation is an illusion, it follows that loss is also an illusion. Only that which is unreal can be lost, whereas that which is real – your spiritual identity – cannot be threatened by anything.

Another way to describe this is to say that your true identity and individuality is defined in your I AM Presence, which, as explained earlier, is above and beyond the material universe. Nothing that happens in this world could negatively affect your I AM Presence, and therefore your true identity can never be lost. The sense of loss can come only because your conscious self has lost contact with your I AM Presence and has entered into a temporary, separate identity created from the duality consciousness. Yet your conscious self is an extension of the Creator’s own Being, and thus it can never be lost either. What can be lost is only the temporary sense of identity with which you have identified up until this point. By letting go of this identity, you can overcome the sense of separation and thus the fear of ultimate loss of identity. When you give up separation, you will feel the unconditional love of your own higher being and the entire Chain of Being above you. This is the perfect love that will cast out all fear. The problem is that you will not be able to accept this love as long as you hold on to the separate sense of identity.

NOTE: The rest of this dictation is available in the book Master Keys to Spiritual Freedom.

Copyright © 2007 Kim MIchaels.