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Ascended Master Gautama Buddha through Kim Michaels, January 4, 2026. This dictation was given at the 2026 New Year’s webinar: Becoming Wise to the Serpents.

I AM the Ascended Master Gautama Buddha, and it is my privilege and my joy to give the final address at this New Year’s webinar.

It has, from our perspective, been successful. It has exceeded our expectations. We have given more dictations than the lowest potential. You have invoked more light than the lowest potential and as a result, the entire interaction between you and us has had a greater impact on the collective consciousness than we expected. For this, you have our gratitude and just our recognition of your willingness to come together, so many people connected via this Saint Germain’s technology and add your momentum to the momentum of the group.

The thoughtform for the year 2026

Another order of business, we might say, is the thoughtform for the year 2026. This time it is somewhat similar to thoughtforms given in the past, but nevertheless, what is needed for this year? It is that you visualize a gentle but steady rain falling, but it is not water. It is golden drops of the Second Ray of Wisdom, but in a liquid form, and it falls gently to earth, everywhere on earth. It falls gently, covering everything, running together in rivers and lakes, even replenishing the many dry rivers and lakes found throughout the planet, alleviating the water shortage found in many places. But the primary purpose is to cover the earth with liquid wisdom. Surely a new concept, but why should energy, which is of the Second Ray of Wisdom, not be able to take on a liquid form? Eventually, you may visualize that this golden rain covers everywhere on the land and flows into the ocean, spreading throughout the globe, until the entire planet glows with a golden glow of the Second Ray. It is not an aggressive light, it is a gentle light, but it still lights up the dark places so that nothing can be hidden.

That is the visualization for this coming year, that the liquid golden light will expose everything that needs to be exposed, so that people can see it for what it is, see what is hidden, the hidden motives, the hidden agendas, the illegal activities, the harmful, self-centered activities. And people can have an opportunity to decide: How long will we accept this going on, on this planet, in our nation?

Progressive revelation

I will now turn to the topic of this conference, becoming wise to the serpents. I wish I could have given this teaching about the serpents 2500 years ago. Jesus wishes he could have given it 2000 years ago, even though he gave some hints about the scribes and Pharisees, those who are of the father, the devil, who are outwardly beautiful, but inwardly filled with dead men’s bones. But still, we wish we could have given the teaching we can give today, but of course that was not possible due to the level of the collective consciousness. There simply were not people in embodiment who could have fathomed these teachings.

And as you will see that in order to give this teaching about the serpentine mind, you, who are our direct students, already had to know a lot of things, about the previous spheres, about the possibility that beings could fall, about the duality consciousness, about those who want to manipulate, want to oppose God’s plan for the raising up of all life. It is not a simple teaching. It is a far-reaching teaching.

But as Padmasambhava said, there comes a point on your path to a higher level of awareness, call it Christhood or Buddhahood, where you need to understand the psychology involved. The psychology that directly opposes, blocks, aborts, hinders the birth of the Christ in you.

You need to understand the nature of the path towards a higher state of consciousness, why it must involve free will, why you must be allowed to experiment with your free will, until you reach that point where you can, in full awareness of what you are doing, give up using your free will as a separate being. That is a teaching that has never been given before, at least in the recent history of earth, which we can count in the tens of thousands of years. There was some awareness of this given in the temple of the Divine Mother in Lemuria, but not even on Atlantis could this teaching be given.

Avoiding submission to fallen beings

Why am I saying this? To make you feel special because you can receive the teaching? Nay, to help you recognize the reality that you have reached a certain level of Christhood. Because when you recognize what Christhood is, this will not make you feel special compared to others. For in Christhood, the high are made low, the low are made high. None are more special than others. All are unique individuals, and there can be no value judgment or comparisons in uniqueness.

This is what the fallen beings find it most difficult to accept. They have spent a very long time building up their status, even their power, in this world. Now here comes a person who does not have that long history of a fallen being. Who does not even have the outer understanding of how the universe works, does not have the power to manipulate matter and to manipulate other people. Who is he compared to the fallen beings? Or she? And yet, this audacious person dares to embody the Christ mind, and suddenly that person is elevated beyond the fallen beings. Because the status of this world is nothing before the Christ mind, or the Living Christ.

Yes, the fallen beings could kill Jesus’ physical body, but they could not make him submit to them. They could not make him idolize them, even though they tried, which is not recorded in the scriptures. Many other examples throughout the ages of a person, who had embodied some degree of the Christ consciousness, was approached and attacked by the fallen beings. And even though the fallen beings could traumatize that person, they could not make the person submit and idolize the fallen beings.

Many of you, who came to earth as avatars, yes, you were exposed to the birth trauma. Yes, you were traumatized. Yes, you created the primal self. Yes, you have been affected by this ever since, but did you submit to the fallen beings? Did you think they were of a higher status than you? The vast majority of avatars that came to earth never submitted. If you did, you can overcome it by using our teachings. But most of you did not, because you had some measure of Christ’s discernment.

You can say in a certain way that it was not that difficult for an avatar to avoid submitting when you were viciously attacked by the fallen beings. But you see, not all avatars were viciously attacked, as described in a book about My Lives. Some were approached by the serpents who attempted to make them feel special and act as if they were special. But still, most avatars did not submit.

That is why you need to be aware of the fallen beings, so that you do not submit in this lifetime, so that you do not surrender your Christ discernment to some leader, fallen or not, that you think knows better than you, even better than the Christ mind. You do not want to be like the people who rejected the Living Christ and preferred Barabbas. And if you find yourself in that situation, then extricate yourself as quickly as possible by being willing to admit that you were fooled, but even that can become a positive learning experience. It is far better to admit that you were fooled by the fallen beings than continuing to be fooled for the indefinite future, even for the rest of this lifetime, because it aborts your Christ potential.

An experience in the mind vs. a state of mind

What have we said that everything on earth is? An experiment. Following a fallen being, accepting some serpentine logic, can be seen as just an experiment. But it is only an experiment if you are willing to use the Second Ray of Wisdom to evaluate the outcome of the experiment. Otherwise, it becomes not just an experience, but a state of mind. An experience passes through your mind. It may shift your view of life, your view of yourself, but it does not necessarily leave a trace. But when an experience is not processed in the light of wisdom, it creates a subconscious self that dwells below the threshold of conscious awareness. And now, instead of having one fleeting temporary experience that may have colored your mind, you now have an ongoing experience, a state of mind, rather than an experience in the mind. That is what leads to attachments, for the self is attached to the illusion that defines the self. An attachment leads to suffering.

Suffering as a safety mechanism

What does the serpentine mind do? Padmasambhava talked about safety mechanisms. Well, one safety mechanism is actually suffering. You are conducting an experiment with the First Ray or any ray, but you refuse to evaluate it neutrally. This creates a separate self. The separate self leads to suffering. This should be a sign that you have created an attachment. And therefore, you need to look at your psychology. You need to be willing to process your experiment. Re-evaluate. If you are not willing to do it, you reinforce the suffering. What is it that enables you to feel that you are suffering, but to refuse to look at the cause of your suffering? It is the serpentine mind, which allows you to justify or explain away the suffering as inevitable, as natural, as put upon you by God who created you as a sinner, or even as benefiting some cause.

For example, many Russians believe that Russia is destined to be the savior of the nations because the Russian people will outlast the West because they are more willing to suffer than any other nation. Suffering has suddenly become a virtue, not through experience, but through the serpentine logic. The German people are meant to purify the earth of the lesser races and be the Aryan race, but they have to be willing to give their lives to obey Hitler’s commands. Suffering becomes a virtue. You are still suffering, but you refuse to look at what it is in your own consciousness that causes you to suffer because there is some external reason that says you are meant to suffer. You can only suffer because God created you as a sinner, so you do not need to look at what it is in your consciousness that causes you to suffer. You just sit around on a hard church bench and wait for Jesus to show up and save you.

What is suffering?

What is suffering? Where does it take place? In – your – mind. Suffering is an experience in the mind. Yes, there is physical pain to the physical body, but pain is a warning signal to the body that something is threatening the survival of the body. Suffering does not take place in the body. Suffering takes place in the mind. For example, when the mind evaluates: “I should not have this physical pain, this should not be happening to me.” But you see, when it comes to the psychological suffering that comes from these attachments, these subconscious selves, you are not even saying in many cases: “Oh, I should not be suffering, this should not be happening to me.” You are thinking it is a virtue or it is inevitable.

You may say: “But is the purpose of life not to have the experiences you want to have until you no longer want them?” Sure, you can say that. But how can you choose that you no longer want to suffer if you are fallen prey to the serpentine logic that makes you believe suffering is inevitable or it is a virtue that serves some greater cause and will lead you to some reward in some afterlife?

Suffering is a state of mind. How can the afterlife free you from suffering when the fact is that even after the body dies, your mind still continues? Is not the whole idea of a religion, that after the body dies, your soul lives on? What is your soul? Your mind. How would the death of the body or the actions of some external savior change your state of mind when your state of mind is the result of the choices you have made or the non-choices you have made, the choices you have refused to make?

Yet the serpentine logic can come up with these ideas that your suffering is not the result of choices you made. You were created by God as a sinner. You are meant to suffer, if you are Russian. So how can you choose not to suffer? How can you choose to change your state of mind when your suffering was put upon you by an external force?

Even avatars can fall prey to this logic. When you come to this planet with the best of intentions, you are exposed to the birth trauma. That trauma was put upon you from without. But was your reaction to it put upon you from without? Or was it the result of choices you made? Again, we are not blaming you for making that choice. As we have explained, we all made that choice. But the importance of acknowledging that your state of mind is the result of choices you made is that any choice you have made, you can undo by making a more aware choice. Whereas if your state of mind is put upon you from without, how can you choose to escape it?

The essence of spirituality

What is the entire purpose of a true spiritual teaching? To help you change your state of mind by making more aware choices than the choices that caused you to create your current state of mind in which you suffer. What did I give people 2,500 years ago? A teaching. How could they get results from that teaching? By applying it. Did I ever promise that I would do it for them? Did Jesus promise that he would do it for them? The fallen beings who created the Catholic Church made that promise, but Jesus did not. No true teacher ever has.

You can only give people a teaching that will change their state of mind if they apply it, but they have to choose to apply it. But the very fact that they have to choose to apply the teaching shows that if applying the teaching can liberate them from their state of mind, their current state of mind, then their current state of mind must be a result of choices they made. Otherwise, how can the choice to embrace the teaching liberate you? This is the central truth, the central reality, the central realization of all true spirituality.

Suffering takes place in the mind. It is a state of mind. Your state of mind is the result of choices you made in the past. The only way to escape suffering is to consciously change your state of mind by making more aware choices. This is the essence of spirituality.

The fallen beings, those in the serpentine mindset, have done everything they can think of to prevent people from coming to this essential realization. They will deny what I have said. They will divert your attention. They will say: “Oh, it cannot be that simple. No, no, salvation requires much more than just changing your mind. You need an external savior. You need the external religion. You need these elaborate doctrines, these elaborate rituals. Otherwise, you will not qualify for entry into the kingdom of heaven, which must be much more sophisticated than earth. It is so far away from earth. It is so hard to get in. That is why you have not gotten in so far. It proves how hard it is. You must go through this elaborate ritual, this elaborate process. You cannot just change your mind and get in.”

And it is true. You cannot just change your mind. You cannot have an instant awakening, an instant enlightenment like some of these modern non-dual teachers claim. For you must change all of the choices that created your current state of mind, that created the subconscious selves that you have. And you must do it one decision at a time. And it must be conscious. It will not happen automatically.

How do we grow?

When you are exposed to a traumatic situation here on earth, whether you are an avatar or an original inhabitant, here you are—you are confronted with a certain situation from without. You have to react. The situation might overwhelm you, might disturb your sense of peace, your state of equilibrium. But you have to react. When you are forced to react this way, you are not making a fully conscious choice to create that separate self. That is why you so often accept an illusion that creates a separate self.

You can say that you have gotten yourself into your current state of mind by making a lot of unconscious or semi-conscious choices, where you reacted, you were forced to react by external circumstances. But the only way to escape, to rise above, to transcend your current state of mind is to undo those unconscious choices by making conscious choices, aware choices.

Some will say: “Oh, that is just unfair.” And you may say: “A natural planet is unfair, free will is unfair. You could make a mistake when you have free will. Wouldn’t it be much easier if you did not have free will, so you could not make a mistake?”

That is the serpentine logic again: “God made a mistake by giving beings free will. He should not have done that. He should take it back.” But how then would you grow? It does not matter that you make unaware choices and go into a state of mind that causes suffering because when you go out of that state of mind by making aware choices, that is how you grow. That is how you expand your sense of self.

What does expanding your sense of self, raising your consciousness mean? You become more aware. You can go into a state of illusion without being aware of what you are doing. But you can only go out of it consciously by becoming aware and that raises your awareness, which is the whole purpose of your existence, to raise your awareness from that localized sense of self to the all-encompassing sense of self of the Creator.

The function of the teachings’s complexity?

You look at even the religion of Buddhism and you see that even the teaching that I gave, as much of it is recorded in the Pali Canon, which is of course not all of it, but even that teaching is very complex. You look at many religions on earth, very complex teachings. You look at many spiritual teachings, very complex. You look at the teaching we have given you about fallen beings and the serpentine mind, as I started out talking about—very complex. Yet the basic dynamic is as simple as what I have just stated. The basic dynamic is simple. Does that mean the complexity is wrong? No. What is the function of the complexity? To raise your awareness, to expand your awareness. The more you become aware of, the more it expands your awareness. Now some of the things that you find in the world, you can say: “Oh there is great complexity,” but they are born out of the duality consciousness, the consciousness of separation. They are not real. But yet, even if you go into these dualistic illusions, when you consciously go out of them, you become aware, more aware.

Expanding awareness has two sides. You become aware of what actually exists, what is real, and you become aware of what exists only in the separate mind. And therefore, from a certain perspective is unreal. But see, even becoming aware that something is unreal expands your awareness. That is why we have said that it does not matter that you go into duality because you can learn when you consciously go back out of duality. But you see, you have to acknowledge the dynamic. If you are suffering, there are conditions in your own mind that cause the suffering. And you will only overcome the suffering by exposing those conditions and consciously choosing to leave them behind, to let them go, to let them be dissolved by your higher awareness of what is real.

The serpentine mind will do everything possible to prevent you from going through this process of self-examination. The serpentine mind will attempt to prevent you from using the very basic ability given to you by the Creator, the ability to be self-aware.The serpentine mind will do everything possible to sabotage your self-awareness. You will be self-conscious. You will be conscious that you are suffering. But you will not be able to escape the suffering because you are not willing to become self-aware by looking at your state of mind and seeing the choices that cause your suffering and replacing those choices consciously. Spirituality does not need to be more complex than that. But in all practicality, it should be more complex because, in a sense, the more complex, the more you learn.

The growing complexity of the creation

We have often talked about the progression of the spheres and the spheres become increasingly dense. When a sphere is denser, what does that mean? Everything is more complex, more complicated. You can go deeper into separation in the seventh sphere than you could in the first sphere. Therefore, it is more complex to go out of separation. And by going through the more complex process, you increase your awareness of what is real and unreal. This expands your sense of self. This, however, is a delicate topic.

Am I saying that if you take a being who ascended in the first sphere, that being had an easier process of ascending, and it has therefore, only reached a certain level of consciousness in the ascended realm? But if you take a being who ascended from the seventh sphere, that being has seen more complexity and should therefore, be more advanced than the being who ascended in the first sphere. Is that what I am hinting at? Nay, because what created the second sphere? It was created out of the beings who ascended in the first sphere. They are experiencing what you are experiencing in the seventh sphere. Just as the Creator is experiencing everything you experience— is experiencing its creation from the inside through you. As you expand your sense of self and ascend in the seventh sphere, the beings all the way up through the hierarchy also grow in awareness.

Nevertheless, as we have said before, recently, you can still, after ascending in this sphere, fulfill the role of teaching those who ascended in previous spheres because you can share your experience with them as you saw it, as you experienced it. They are having their experience, they are not having your experience, and you can share that with them.

Limitations of the linear mind

Sounds complicated, but you do not need to understand this with the linear mind. You need to contemplate it till you experience the reality beyond the words. You may realize, if you would step back and look at the progressive revelation we have given starting in 2002, that we are beginning to give you concepts that cannot be understood by the linear, analytical, rational mind. Therefore, the words that we give you, the concepts that we give you, are not meant to give you linear understanding, but to stimulate your mind so you can say: “I am not understanding what Gautama said, but I am willing to reach for a direct experience of his being so that I can experience it beyond the words that he gave to stimulate my mind.” This has always been the case. It has not often been explained as clearly as we explain it now, but there has always been a need to go beyond the words to the direct experience.

I was aware of this 2,500 years ago. I was aware of the limitations of words. That is why the serpentine mind tempted me by saying, “You have had such a high experience that nobody will be able to understand and relate to it. There is no point in you going back and sharing it with the world.” And as I said back then: “Some will understand.” But it really means some will desire to experience. Some will open their minds to that experience, not just an understanding of the Buddha’s teaching, but a direct experience of the Buddha’s consciousness, the Buddha’s state of mind.

What is Buddhahood? A state of mind. Beyond the separate dualistic state of mind, certainly, but still a state of mind. What is the consciousness of the beings who ascended in the first sphere? A state of mind. What is the consciousness of the Creator? A state of mind. Infinitely beyond yours, almost as infinitely beyond mine, but still a state of mind.

The metal construct of nothingness

In this year, 2026, the energies of the Second Ray will have a profound impact on religion and spirituality. They will challenge all religions and spiritual teachings influenced by the serpentine mind. Jesus described how the Nicene Creed has been influenced by the serpentine mind. Well, many Buddhist interpretations have also been influenced by the serpentine mind. That is why you see these divisions in Buddhism, some of them. Others are just a different focus, but some are caused by the serpentine mind.

One of the big challenges in Buddhism and in some modern spiritual teachings is the concept of nothingness. Try to use your linear rational mind to contemplate the topic of nothingness or nothing. What is nothing? Some Buddhists, some modern teachers, some Vedantists will say, “There is a state of a void of nothing. Brahman is undifferentiated. Therefore, there is nothing in Brahman. Any differentiation is a duality, and the highest form of spirituality is to attain a non-dual state of mind or a non-dual awareness, overcoming all differentiation.” Is there a state of nothingness? Well, as we have said, there is the void created by the Creator. But is the void really nothing? The void is a sphere separated from the Allness, so there is none of the Allness in the void.

There is no form as you see in this world of form, so there is no thing in the void. But is the void completely empty? Is there nothing there? Nay. There is the Creator’s consciousness, the Creator’s being. How could the Creator create a void that was empty of itself? This cannot be done. The Creator can create anything it can envision out of itself, but even the Creator cannot uncreate itself and create a void where there is no thing, no Allness, and no Creator. The void is the undifferentiated expression, so to speak, or state of being of the Creator’s being. But it is not nothing. There is a living Presence, a living being there.

Nothing does not exist. A state of nothing does not exist. It is a mental construct, a concept created in the mind of separation. And now, because it is created in separation as a dualistic polarity to something, something must have an opposite, something that has form must have an opposite, and that must be nothing, no form. So the dualistic mind reasons. The serpentine mind now takes this concept of nothingness and says, “Ah, but this is not just nothing. It is the highest something. The undifferentiated Brahman, the non-dual state that is the highest and what you should strive for is to attain no self, nothingness.”

But what are you? An extension of the Creator’s being. It is not the purpose of your existence to go through all kinds of experiences in the world of form and then go back into nothingness, for you did not come from nothingness. You came from the Creator’s being. And your purpose is to go back to the Creator’s being, not that you disappear into it, but you come back with the very awareness you have built in your journey through the Creator’s world of form, the many layers of the world of form. So that you come back to the Creator’s being with a full awareness of the Creator’s creation, but with an individual perspective that is different from the Creator’s perspective. That is how you become a Creator in your own right. And you become able to create a creation that may have many similarities with this world of form, but still has that individual expression.

Leaving duality and earth behind

So any illusions are thought up by the serpentine mind. You could go through all of these dictations we have given here. You could go through what we have said previously. You could make quite a long list of these illusions. And yet it would only be a partial list. There is many more, so many more illusions, but you do not need to know them all. You do not need to experience them all. You need to come to a point where you come to the realization: “I see how duality works. I see how separation works. I see how the serpentine mind works. And I am ready to choose to leave it behind me.” This is the last thing that the fallen beings, those in the serpentine mind, want you to realize. As we have said, you can just leave it behind. You cannot leave behind the higher spheres created out of the Christ consciousness. You need to experience them and go higher and higher. And as you do, you take your awareness with you, but you can leave behind the unascended sphere and anything created in the unascended sphere out of separation, duality and the serpentine mindset.

You do not carry that with you, for it is unreal. What you carry with you is the experience of seeing the Christ reality, the Buddha Nature that replaces the illusion. The illusion is not real, but the higher reality that helps you see the illusion, that experience is real, and it expands your sense of self. And that is the purpose.

The serpentine mind will scream that this is a lie, that this cannot be so. It cannot be that easy. You cannot just leave the serpentine mind behind. You are trapped once you go into it. You cannot just leave the fallen beings behind. You must react to them and continue to react to them as you did the first time you encountered them. But you can. And the only way to be free of them is not to “understand”, not to fight them, not to eradicate them, but to make them irrelevant to you and just leave them behind.

The only way to leave the earth, to ascend from earth, is to make the earth and anything you can do or experience here, irrelevant to your state of mind, to your sense of self. And therefore, you can stand there, you can sit under the Bo tree or stand at the top of the staircase. You can look back, you can allow the demons of Mara to parade before you, the prince of this world to come and seek to grab on to anything in you. You can let them do their thing and you have no reaction. You do not even say: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” You say nothing, you think nothing, you feel nothing. You just leave it, turn around, focus your attention on your I AM Presence and you merge into it, leaving everything on earth behind. Even the state of mind that made it seem important to be on earth. And you embrace a higher state of mind as an ascended master.

What is an ascended master? A state of mind. I AM the Ascended Master, Gautama Buddha. What do I offer you? What can I offer you? Only one thing—my state of mind to give you a frame of reference for looking at your own state of mind, realizing: “I too can be the Buddha. For what one has done, all can do. What one has undone, all can undo. What one has left behind, all can leave behind.”

With this, I have given you my Presence, my state of mind. Not the fullness—I have given you a piece of my mind. But it is sufficient for you to experience the whole.

With this, I seal you and I seal this event in the state of mind that is the Ascended Master Gautama Buddha. Be sealed, be sealed, be sealed.

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