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Ascended Master Padmasambhava through Kim Michaels, January 8, 2023. This dictation was given during the 2023 New Year’s webinar – Being a spiritual person in a chaotic world.

I AM the Ascended Master Padmasambhava.

I have given you the perspective that is sort of focused on your individual situation, how you can look at yourself and your situation as being in embodiment on earth. But now let us take a different perspective and look at the overall situation of earth.

You are a spiritual student. Many of you have been spiritual students for lifetimes, that is why you can even recognize a higher teaching in this lifetime. You cannot remember how it was when you, in perhaps a very distant past, were not a spiritual student—what state of mind you were in. You can barely remember this. You may have some intellectual understanding that many people on earth are in a lower state of mind, but you have very little direct remembrance of it.

People resisting change

Now what have we said? The earth is a schoolroom, and there are two ways to learn in the schoolroom of earth. One is through higher direction, spiritual teaching, spiritual practices, self-observation, working on your psychology, walking a path. But the other is the School of Hard Knocks. Well, it may have been a very long time and many embodiments since you were in the School of Hard Knocks, so you do not remember it, and you understand intellectually that most people are in the School of Hard Knocks, but do you really grasp what it means? What is the consequence of this?

Now, you look at yourself and how you can accept the concepts of a golden age, and that we are moving towards a golden age. But you do realize, do you not, that the vast majority of people on this planet would have no concept of what you are talking about if you attempted to explain to them the golden age and what it is—the potential to move into a golden age. They would have no clue as the saying goes.

Because they cannot fathom that you can raise your consciousness and therefore systematically bring the earth higher into a higher state. They are not even considering that they could deliberately raise their consciousness. They are not willing to look at themselves, look at the beam in their own eye, as Jesus called it. And therefore, how could they be brought into the golden age, and how can the earth be brought into the golden age as long as they are in that state of mind?

Many of these people live what you would call an impoverished existence but they are still holding onto it. Look at many people in the poor part of the world who have grown up poor, who have the vision they can only be poor and who are actually resisting changes in their country that could give them more affluence or give them more freedom. Look at how many people around the world are resisting progress. How can you manifest the golden age on a planet as long as so many people, a majority of the people are resisting progress, any kind of progress? They have no vision of a golden age but they resist progress because they hold onto whatever they have.

How can you manifest the golden age on a planet like this? Well, you can only do it when these people shift their consciousness and become willing to experience progress, to become willing to experience an improvement in their conditions. Now, you are saying as a spiritual student: “But if people are suffering why wouldn’t they want to improve their conditions?” But they do not. That is the difference between you and most people on this planet.

You want to improve your life, you want to overcome suffering, you want to attain freedom and you are willing to change yourself to attain it. That is why you are a spiritual student. But most people are not at that level of awareness yet. They cannot see any vision of a golden age or a spiritual path. They just know what they have. They do not want to lose it so they resist the change—they think a change could only mean a loss rather than a gain.

The dynamic on earth

How do you manifest a golden age on a planet like this? Well, you must find a way to shift people’s consciousness. And here is where you need to understand the dynamic of free will. Two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago it would not have been possible to manifest the golden age that Saint Germain envisioned. Why is that? Because back then very, very few people could grasp the concept of a golden age, the concept of a spiritual path, the concept of changing themselves and the concept that changing their consciousness can influence planetary conditions.

But today many, many people have moved into that awareness. Many people who have never heard of ascended masters or even heard about the spiritual path have become open to change, have realized that conditions can change. They look at how much progress has happened over the last several centuries and they see that this can continue into the future, they accept it, they want it.

The earth has passed this critical mass where there are enough people who want change that the law does not allow that the people who resist change can hold back the progress towards the golden age. Even though there is a majority of people who resist change, there is still a critical mass of people who embrace change that they are the ones who are driving the dynamic towards the golden age.

They are the ones who are determining–because they are the top 10%, and more than the top 10%–they are the ones who are determining the overall direction of the planet. Therefore, the law of free will is set up so that when a certain critical mass of people on a planet want change then that change must be allowed to unfold.

But what does that mean? That means that the part of the population that is resisting the change, they will not be forced to change as such but what will happen is that their karma will not be held back, to explain it in one way. You can say that there is a certain grace period where people’s karma is held back so that they can have an opportunity to grow. But when the cycles turn, the karma will be released. This means that the School of Hard Knocks will give them hard knocks.

You could also look at it in another way and say that the reflection back from the cosmic mirror is accelerated so that again the School of Hard Knocks gives them harder knocks in a shorter period of time. Thereby they are forced to change their consciousness but what is forcing them—[is] not the critical mass of people that want change, not the ascended masters—what is forcing them is their own past choices. They are, instead of being allowed to ignore their own past choices, they are now being confronted with those past choices and can no longer ignore them.

The shadows on the wall

This is the dynamic that is happening on earth. How does that help you as a spiritual student change your view of the earth? Well, let’s start with Plato’s cave, this old analogy given by the philosopher Plato. You have a cave. Inside of it is a group of people who are chained in such a way that they cannot turn their heads. They are facing a wall in the cave.

Outside of the cave the sun is shining, there are people walking by the opening in the cave and as the sun shines in it casts shadows onto the walls of the cave. The people can, in a sense, realize there must be something behind them, something outside of their cave, but they cannot see exactly what it is, they can only see the shadows on the wall.

Plato, of course, meant this to illustrate that what you see with the outer mind and the physical senses is only a shadow of causes that exist in the higher realms, what he called the “realm of ideal forms.” This is comparable to what we have called the emotional, mental and identity realms where the images held there by individual people, by humankind is what is projected onto the Ma-ter light in the physical octave. The material world is just the shadows of the images and the forms in the three higher levels.

Map of levels of human consciousness

Now you know that science has created many different measuring instruments. You have satellites that are constantly orbiting the earth, scanning the earth to look for very specific things. You can imagine that you are orbiting the earth in the space station looking down on earth as a human being. What are you seeing? Well, you are seeing the landscape, you are seeing forests, you are seeing oceans, you are seeing cities, you are seeing roads, you are seeing people. As a human being you naturally tend to focus on the activity of people.

Now you have a satellite that is scanning and it is scanning for temperature. You are seeing a certain outlay of the earth. But this satellite is only seeing temperature differences. Some zones are colder, they are blue. Some are warmer, they are red. It does not see the people, it does not see cities, it does not see roads, it just sees temperature differences.

Another scans for minerals, it sees rock formations, certain kinds of iron ore. Another may scan for oil, another may scan for elevation. It sees only differences in elevation.

You can create a man-made map of the earth. It has cities and roads and national boundaries or you can create many different other kinds of maps on the earth based on these different criteria. Temperature, elevation, rainfall, minerals, whatever you have. There are many different ways to look at the earth. And what you can do as a spiritual student is you can incorporate this and you can step back and you can say: “What is the earth? What is the earth, especially in this period where we are moving further into the golden age”?

We are approaching the point where the golden age will start manifesting but in order for the golden age to manifest, many changes will have to be made. Well, you can step back and acquire a different way to look at the earth. You can say: “What will it take for the golden age to be manifest? It will take that this large number of people will have to shift their awareness.”

You could even create a map of the earth that shows you where there are concentrations of people and what their level of consciousness is. How close are the people to manifesting the golden age consciousness? How far are they from it? And you could create a map with different colors that would show that in some parts of the world many people are close to the golden age consciousness. In other parts most people are far away from it. And thus you can say: “What will it take for the people who are far from the golden age consciousness to shift their consciousness”?

The School of Hard Knocks

Well, a spiritual teaching is not going to do it. Other kinds of teachings, even ideas about democracy for example, are not going to do it. The teachings about the liberation of women, equality between men and women, greater humanity, treating all people with honesty and decency, such teachings and ideas are not going to do it because if they could do it, they would have done it so far.

What will it take for these people to shift? Well, they are in the School of Hard Knocks, so the knocks have to become so hard that people actually notice. Right now, you may say these people are suffering, they have been suffering for a long time, they might experience various hard knocks, various disasters, various calamities, but it has not been enough of a hard knock to shake them out of their present state of consciousness, to make them realize: “No, we have to change.” The question is really how hard of a knock do various groups of people have to experience before they come to that recognition: “We have to change, we cannot continue being the way we are.”

Life on earth is a performance

And when you realize this you can say: “Well, what is the earth”? You can go back to ancient Greece. They had amphitheaters where they performed various plays. One kind of play was a tragedy. The purpose of the tragedy — and those who wrote and performed these plays knew this — the purpose of the tragedy was to out-picture certain situations in life, to out-picture certain emotions, certain dilemmas that people had, so that the audience could actually resolve something in their consciousness by watching the play, so they did not have to experience it in real life or they could perhaps learn something from the play that can apply in real life.

Well, in a sense the School of Hard Knocks is like a play. The purpose is to awaken the audience to the need for change. The question is what kind of a performance needs to be enacted for a specific group of people to be awakened to the need for change. And therefore, you can see that the outer events that take place on earth, they may seem very dramatic, they may seem disturbing, but they are just a means to an end. In fact, the outer physical events that are taking place on earth can be compared to a theater performance.

Now, when you are in a physical theater watching a theater performance, you know what is going on on the stage is not real, it is not real life that is happening. Why do you not realize that about so called real life — that the appearances that are taking place on earth are really no more real than a theater performance. It is just that there is not a stage, it is an immersive environment and therefore, it seems more real. I am not talking about the majority of the people realizing this, but I am talking about you as the spiritual students realizing that what is happening on earth is a theater performance for the purpose of awakening certain people who are resisting progress towards the golden age. And therefore, it is simply a matter of how strong is the people’s resistance, how hard do the knocks have to become before they are awakened.

“This should not be happening”

And when you realize this, when you accept this you can then say: “Well, why should I take this seriously? Why should I take it personally? Why should I resist what is happening? Why should I use the spiritual teaching to evaluate: – Oh, this should not be happening.” This messenger when the invasion of Ukraine happened, he clearly felt: “Oh, this should not have happened.” Before it happened despite the warnings, he thought “This is not going to happen. There is no way that Putin cannot see the consequences of this, that the Russian leadership cannot see the consequences. They cannot be that blind.” But they were that blind as you can all see today.

The messenger could see the consequences and projected his own state of consciousness that surely somebody in the Russian leadership could see the consequences and would stop this. But he was wrong and he has been willing to admit that he was wrong. Likewise, you can come to that admission that there are many people on earth who need to see enacted in what they see as real life, in the material world, on this stage of earth, very dramatic scenarios before they can awaken to the need for change.

But you are not among them. You are a spiritual person. You are open to direction from beyond your own mind and the material universe. You are not in the School of Hard Knocks. Why should you take this so seriously or even take it personally? Why should you resist it? Why should you seek to change it? This is actually part of the process of moving the earth closer to the golden age. Surely you cannot expect that everybody on earth can move towards the golden age the way you are doing it.

You need to recognize that many people need the School of Hard Knocks in order to move. What you can do is you can step back from this and realize no matter how real it seems, it is a theater performance being outplayed. I know, this will seem insensitive to many people because there is some real-life suffering that is happening and people are being killed and blown up and all of these things. I am not asking you to be insensitive. But I am asking you to step back and realize that as a spiritual person you need to allow this theater performance to unfold so that those people who cannot be awakened by a spiritual teaching can be awakened by this outplaying of events in what they think is the real world.

Avoid being pulled into the performance

Of course, it has tragic consequences for many people. Of course, you would like to avoid it. Of course, we of the ascended masters would like to avoid it. But when it cannot be avoided, you can avoid that you are pulled into it, pulled into the feelings, the thoughts, the vortexes or even the physical vortex of such events. You can stand back and observe and watch as you would sit in a theater and watch a Greek tragedy unfolding on the stage. I am not saying you need to enjoy the performance but you can see it as a performance and then you can avoid being pulled into it. You can avoid reacting to it as something that should not happen.

From a certain perspective, yes it would be better that it did not happen. It would be better if people could grow without the suffering. But if they cannot, then it actually, in the very long run of the golden age, produces less suffering in the long run than it otherwise would if people did not change. It is a matter of realizing that when you know about reincarnation, you realize that even if someone goes out of embodiment prematurely because of a war this is not the end of their opportunity. They will have an opportunity to come back into embodiment in a different circumstance and therefore they can move on.

So even if you look at the perspective of one soul you can say the person might suffer intensely for a short period of time in this lifetime but this could prevent a much more prolonged suffering in several future lifetimes. What is from the overall perspective the more constructive outcome.

You understand that I am not sitting here as an ascended master and making these evaluations. I am presenting them to you as a way for you to avoid being pulled into fear, a fear-based reaction or anger or resentment or whatever reactions you can be pulled into when you witness such events. You can stay centered; you can stay focused on moving the planet further towards the golden age. You can give your invocations and decrees, you can raise your consciousness, you can work on your divine plan and therefore move the planet forward instead of being derailed or going into a detour because of a strong reaction to such events.

Everything is an appearance

You take the line in my decree: “Earth is an appearance where nothing is real.” This is a statement that disturbs many people but you as a spiritual student, you can step up to a different perspective on it and you can realize that everything people see, everything people experience is an appearance. The appearance is created by a combination of what is happening outside people’s minds and what is happening inside people’s minds. In other words, there are external events but then there is people’s perception filter which color the way they look at those events.

There are scientists who are seriously debating that when two people look at a lawn they might agree that it is green but do they actually see the exact same shade of green or do they have an individual perception of the color green? This is, believe it or not, the subject of serious scientific debate, and it is not an invalid debate because it is the beginning of this realization that people have individual perception filters. And it is not just a matter of looking at a certain color but if even looking at a color is individual and subjective, then how much more is it when people look at events and ideas and their own lives?

You realize that when you look at this from an ascended perspective you can say: “The Elohim have manifested planet Earth. Given their level of awareness the Earth is real, there is a planet that is real.” But when you look at this from the perspective of human beings in embodiment, they are not seeing the real planet, they are seeing an appearance that is produced inside their minds. From the perspective of a person in embodiment, earth is an appearance where nothing is real, because what they perceive is not what the Elohim created but an appearance strongly influenced by their own minds, and the more people are in a lower state of consciousness, the more closed their minds are, the more they resist change, the more they see only the appearance and not the reality.

What is real?

Now, you can apply other considerations here and say: “What does it mean that something is real”? And many people would say it is something that has an objective experience independent of mind. There is some validity to this if you realize that human beings who are in the duality consciousness, their minds are entirely subjective and everything they see is subjective. You can say that outside of that mind—that dualistic separate mind—there is some objective existence. But you cannot say that only that which is not influenced or created by a mind is real because how did the Elohim create the earth? Through the power of their minds. They formulated mental images, they projected them upon the Mat-er light and manifested the planet.

Well, the same with the rest of the universe. Everything is created out of mind so if you say that that which is created out of mind is not ultimately real then nothing is real in the entire universe. But, of course, it is more practical, on a planet like earth, to realize that the more subjective, the more closed a mind is, the more it will see only an appearance where nothing is real.

What can you use this for as a spiritual student? Well, you can then lock into again the theater analogy, and say in a theater nothing is ultimately real—it is a performance that is meant to have an influence on the mind of the spectators. The entire planet is a performance but the difference between a theater and the planet is that people on earth are not just passive onlookers, they are participating in the performance. They are on the stage, so to speak, they are all part of the performance but they, of course, think it is real life. But you as a spiritual student can free your mind from this illusion that this is a real world. And the benefit of doing this is that you can then realize that if something is not real how can it influence your mind?

The illusion of an objective world

You have been brought up for many lifetimes programmed by the fallen beings to think that there is a real world, there is an objective world and your mind has no power over that objective world but the objective world has power over your mind. It can influence your mind. This is what the fallen beings want you to believe—that there is an objective world that is not created by the mind and therefore there is a limit to how much you can change your personal situation or how much humankind can change the planet.

The fallen beings want you to believe that you live in a real world. You cannot change it and therefore the influence that this world has so far had on your mind cannot be changed by you. You do not have the power to change this. The world is in a certain way. There is warfare in the world. This influences your mind in a certain way, and as long as there is warfare in the world you cannot change how it influences your mind. This is what the fallen beings want you to believe and it is, of course, an insidious lie.

The reality taught by the ascended masters for a very long time is that you have the power to change your mind so that you change the way that the world outside your mind influences the world inside your mind. In fact you can attain a state of mind where nothing in the world can influence your state of mind. You are choosing your state of mind independently of external events happening in the world.

This is what the Gautama Buddha talked about as the “path”, the “eightfold path”, where you gradually come to this point where nothing in the world influences you. The demons of Mara, the prince of this world they cannot influence you and force you into a certain reaction.

Buddhahood and Christhood

Many of you have not even started grasping this. Some of you have understood it intellectually but you have not fully internalized it. Buddhahood, Christhood means that you come to a point where nothing that happens in this world can control your state of mind. Nothing can force you into a certain reaction. You are free so that you can look at any event that happens on earth and you have complete freedom to choose your reaction, to choose what you feel about it, what you think about it, how you identify yourself in relation to it and how you act in relation to it. You are free. You are not forced by external events.

How can you come to that state? By realizing that you have certain selves—separate selves that are based on this illusion that your mind must be influenced by external conditions—and that they can only be influenced in a certain way. This goes back to when you first came to earth and you received these shocks. You experienced there was warfare on earth. You experienced the absolute ruthlessness that certain fallen beings were willing to kill tens or hundreds or thousands or millions of people for their own ego gratification. You were so shocked by this that you created a separate self to deal with this so that you can still maintain some sense of equilibrium that even though you are on a difficult planet, it is not a completely insane planet where you cannot survive psychologically.

This was an understandable reaction when you first came to earth, but you have been here a long time, you have walked the spiritual path and it is time to look at this separate self, these separate selves and let them die. This does not mean that you become insensitive in the sense that you deny that suffering is happening or you do not feel compassion for people. But it does mean that you realize that even though there is still warfare on earth, you can choose your reaction or you can choose not to react with fear, with separation. You can instead choose to say: “I will hold the vision. I will give the decrees and invocations that this will be transcended. I will work on raising the collective consciousness so that this will be transcended and become an impossibility.”

But you are not disturbed, you are not pulled into this negative reaction of anger, fear or hatred. You remain non-attached. It does not mean you are not acting, you are not doing whatever can be done to change the situation, but you are not acting from this state of being attached, being disturbed. Because that state comes from a separate self and when you act based on this, your impact is much smaller than when you can act from this higher state of Christhood and Buddhahood.

You could say also that your I AM Presence might send an impulse into the four levels of your mind that is aimed at transforming the energies that pull people into war but that energy has to pass through the identity, mental and emotional body and as it does so it will interact with whatever reactionary patterns you have there, which will reduce the force of the impulse. So, when you get rid of these reactionary patterns, these separate selves, the impulse can pass unhindered through your mind, from your higher self and therefore have an immensely greater impact.

Do not postpone your Christhood indefinitely

The other advantage, of course, of seeing that nothing is ultimately real is that it can help you attain this state of being at peace with being on earth even in the present conditions.

What is it that is required for you to manifest Christhood or Buddhahood while you are still in a physical body? Well, one of the mechanisms created by the fallen beings is that they project that: “You are a responsible spiritual student. You are striving for a higher level of awareness. You have achieved a higher level of awareness but you need to engage yourself in what is happening on earth. You cannot just be aloof. You cannot withdraw, you cannot be non-attached and not care about other people.” So, as long as there are these terrible conditions on earth such as war you cannot manifest your Christhood. You need to first eradicate these outer conditions so there is more peace on earth, then you can manifest your Christhood.

The fallen beings are always saying: “You need to engage in current conditions and seek to change them and then after that, you can manifest your Christhood.” Thereby causing you, if you agree with this, to postpone your Christhood indefinitely: “There is something I have to take care of.” It is the parable of Jesus, where the young man comes to him and says: “I want to follow you, but let me bury my father first.” And what is Jesus’ reaction? “Let the dead bury their dead.” Because what the young man was saying is: “I want to follow you. I want to walk the path towards Christhood, but there is just something I have to take care of in the world first. There is something I have to do, then I can focus on Christhood.”

Well, there may be things that are a legitimate part of your divine plan that you have to do or that you have to experience in order to be free of it, and it is part of your path to Christhood. But what the fallen beings project at you is that there is some outer situation and as long as that situation is there you cannot manifest your Christhood. Of course, what is the only way to remove warfare on earth? It is that a critical mass of people manifests Christhood and therefore can pull up on the collective consciousness so that more and more people are awakening to a different view of warfare.

Catch-22

So if you postpone your Christhood because of war, how will war be removed? It is a dilemma, a catch-22 created by the fallen beings and they have created many of them. There comes a point where you need to look at this and you need to realize that regardless of what conditions are unfolding on the planet, you have a right to disengage from this and focus on your spiritual growth, manifesting your Christhood. Because when you reach a higher state of awareness you can have a greater impact in terms of changing conditions on earth but you cannot do this as long as you are attached, as long as you react based on a separate self.

Now, there is another perspective that we might consider. As I have said, the fallen beings have created many enigmas, a catch-22, an impossible situation, a dilemma. A classic example of this is the fallen beings attack you physically and threaten to kill you. What do you do? Do you let them kill you or do you strike back and kill them? This is just one situation. The fallen beings precipitate a war. One country attacks another. What do you do?

Accepting the fullness of free will

So these are dilemmas created by the fallen beings, and you are only pulled into them when you are in the duality consciousness and have these separate selves where you feel that you have to do something about this. The ultimate way is to, of course, resolve those outer selves. But you can also shift your attitude and say: “But I am living on a planet where the ultimate law is free will. If other people use their free will to do something, why do I have to do something about that? It is not my role to change other people’s free will. I have my own free will. My role, my authority is to make my own choices but I am not responsible for what other people do with their free will and I don’t have the authority to forcefully change their minds and their free will. So when other people do something, why do I have to react to this? Why do I have to seek to change their choices? Why can I not simply allow them to outplay this so they suffer the consequences?”

In some cases it is because you want to protect yourself from the consequences but as spiritual people, most of you, it is because you actually want to protect the people from the consequences of their choices because you see those consequences and you do not want them to suffer. But on a planet with free will, it is not your responsibility to prevent people from making certain choices or prevent people from suffering the consequences of those choices.

As we have said before, many avatars who came to earth came because they did not quite lock into, internalize the fullness of free will. This is one of the challenges that avatars face on this planet — to come to the point where you can look at what is happening, look at what people are doing and instead of trying to prevent them from making the choices that cause suffering, you step back and say: “Come what may. Let them experience the consequences because they will not listen to me anyway. They cannot learn from being told, they can only learn by experiencing the consequences. Why should I prevent them from learning in the only way that they can learn? Why is it my job to insert myself between people and the return of their karma? Is that really my role, as an avatar on earth, to prevent people from reaping the consequences of their choices by trying to prevent them from making those choices? Am I here to change the minds of other people or am I here to change my own mind, to raise my own consciousness, to escape whatever illusions I have about free will, to transcend them”? When you realize this, you can again step back, look at the earth and let things unfold.

Enigma built into free will

This is what relates to the dilemmas created by the fallen beings to trap you, to pull you into this endless spiral of reacting. But there are certain dilemmas that are not created by the fallen beings. They are actually, we might say, built into free will and the whole process of raising your consciousness. And there are several of such dilemmas or enigmas, but the one I want to touch upon here is: You are created, as we have said, as an individual being with an individual free will. We have said that you are an extension of your I AM Presence which exists in the spiritual realm. In the spiritual realm everybody, every being, feels connected to every other being, feels they are part of the one mind, they see the world as an interconnected whole. You are sent into an unascended sphere as an individual being. You have the option to go into duality and see yourself as a separate being but what I am talking about is the very fact that you come in as an individual being.

You are meant to experience this world as an individual being from your particular vantage point. You are meant to grow in awareness, expand your awareness, but still as an individual being. And then when you reach a certain level of awareness you can give up this individual existence and return to your I AM Presence or however we have attempted to explain this with words, that will always be inadequate. But the enigma that is built into this process is: how do you balance your individual free will with the fact that you are not alone in this world, that there are, on this planet, eight billion other individuals with free will? How do you balance that?

We have talked that on a natural planet you do not lose your sense of connection. But we have also said that on a natural planet you still start out with a point-like sense of identity. You see yourself as an individual being, you realize you are connected to something beyond your own mind—you are connected to other people, you are connected to your environment, but you are still an individual being. So even on a natural planet there is this dilemma, this enigma. How do you resolve the fact that you have an individual free will and that everybody in your environment has an individual free will? How do you deal with this?

Now, I am not presenting you with this based on some thought that there is a magical way to look at this that will resolve the enigma. I am not trying to say that you have a wrong perception, that you have a wrong view of this and that you should shift your view and then you can solve the enigma. The enigma is there and it will be there until you ascend. When you ascend you can say you resolve the enigma, but I cannot give you words and teachings as long as you are unascended that will resolve the enigma for you.

Balancing your will with the will of others

It is not possible to describe it in words, but what you can do is you can accept that the enigma is there. You can accept that as long as you are in embodiment, even when you reach the 144th level of consciousness, you will be dealing with this need to balance your free will with the free will of the people around you.

Look at two people who are in a relationship. They live together in the same house, they may have children, but they have a life together. Let us just simplify it, just look at two people. You may have great love for each other, you may know each other well, you may have respect for each other, but you are still two individuals. You have a different vantage point, a different perspective on life, you have an individual free will. How do you balance that? How do you deal with that when one person wants to do one thing and the other person wants to do something else?

Again, I am not saying there is some easy clear-cut solution that resolves it. I am just pointing out to you that this is an enigma that follows you as long as you have this individual existence in an unascended sphere, even on a natural planet, because it is still in an unascended sphere. Now, what can you do as a spiritual person about this? Why would I tell you this if you cannot resolve it or do anything about it?

Well, you can use it to look at the entire planet again and you can say: “Naturally I need to find a way to balance my free will with the free will of the people who are close to me, that I have a direct personal relationship with. But when it comes to the rest of humankind, I do not need to do the same thing. Therefore, I can step back and I can say: Those eight billion other people on this planet have an individual free will. But I am not responsible for their free will. I am not responsible for their choices. I do not need to adjust my free will based on the choices they make.”

When you are in a direct personal relationship, you need to adjust your free will and your choices based on the people around you. But you do not need to do that with humanity at large. When you think about it, how could you possibly do it? When there are so many different people, that want to do so many different things.

What you can do as a spiritual person is then step back and say: “I am not responsible for these people’s choices. I don’t need to react to the choices they make or the consequences of those choices. I need to remain non-attached and let those consequences unfold. They may affect me personally, but I need to be as non-attached as possible to this and realize that these people need to experience these consequences in order to shift their consciousness. And I need to be completely non-attached to this and focus on my own state of consciousness. I am not responsible for these people’s choices. I do not need to adjust my free will based on their choices. I have a right to focus on my own spiritual growth, my own spiritual path and pay minimum attention to other people’s choices. Even if they affect me physically, I can find a way to let them affect my mind, my state of mind as little as possible.”

How to be at peace in a chaotic world

This does not resolve the enigma, but it certainly makes it easier for you to exist on a planet where there is so much turmoil. And this has been part of the focus of what we wanted to give you at this conference. Our hope was that we could help you be more at peace in a chaotic world. And how do you do it? By accepting the chaos, by embracing the chaos, by realizing that regardless of what choices other people make, you can still make your own choices. And even if you cannot control your outer circumstances, you can control your state of mind independently of other people’s choices. In other words, you can say: “I am not allowing the chaos created by other people’s choices to enter my mind and influence my choices. I am still navigating in the River of Life with a clear sense of where I want to go. And whatever happens, whatever twists and turns, I simply turn back and go in the direction that I defined in my divine plan.”

Now, I know very well that what we have given you is not some magic bullet. It is not so that you can study the teachings given at this conference and you will instantly resolve your sense of being disturbed and now feel at peace. But there is no magic bullet. And we have explained why.

What is the real path all about?

You need to learn, you need to experience, you need to adjust your consciousness. That is how you grow in awareness. So many spiritual people come to the spiritual path and they have a certain goal to attain a certain state of mind. But that state of mind might be many steps above their current state of mind. But these people see that there is this goal, whether you call it Christhood or Buddhahood or enlightenment or higher consciousness, and they are saying to the spiritual teacher: “Give me the magic bullet so I can instantly step up from my present level to that level that I see up there. Show me how to jump from where I am to where you are.”

But how did I reach my present level of consciousness? By taking one step at a time. Because it was by taking one step at a time that I gradually transformed my consciousness. How could you possibly jump from your present level to the ultimate level in one big leap? It cannot be done. You need to be willing to go through the same process that all of the people who have ascended from earth have been willing to go through.

If you want a shortcut, if you want to skip steps, well you are not really ready for the real path that has been taught in many different contexts throughout the ages. You are in a sense looking for the left-handed path of the false teachers who make all kinds of promises that they know cannot be fulfilled.

A true teacher will not make a promise that cannot be fulfilled. Why would he? A true teacher does not need anything from the student. A false teacher needs something from the student. It might be your light, your energy, it might be your obedience, it might be certain actions you can take. But a true teacher that has transcended the duality consciousness and the unascended sphere needs nothing from you. The true teacher wants you to grow and therefore can only give you a path that describes the only way to grow—one step at a time.

For each step there is an enigma you need to resolve, an illusion you need to overcome. Sometimes students think: “Well, the end goal is to be free of the illusion, so why can’t I just jump up there and be free. Give me that magical insight so I am instantly enlightened.” But the goal is actually not to be free of the illusions. The goal is to go through the process of resolving the illusions one by one, because it is in resolving an illusion that you expand your awareness. It is not being free of the illusion that expands your awareness, it is resolving the illusion that expands your awareness. This is the real path.

It is the journey, not the destination

When you grasp this, when you accept it, you can be at peace of following that gradual path. You can accept, you can embrace the step you are on, you can focus on the current illusion. You do not have to worry about the bonds that are still above you. You focus on your current illusion, you work with this enigma, you come to see the separate self, you let it go, then you rise to the next level. You feel fulfillment in having risen to that level. But after some time, you say: “What is the next illusion? What is the enigma at this level”? And you focus on that. And you are at peace with the fact that you will be continuing to do this as long as you are in embodiment on earth.

Taking one step at a time, resolving one illusion at a time. And when you lock into this, when you embrace it, you can overcome this deficit attitude, where you feel incomplete as long as you know you are not at the ultimate goal. Instead, you can feel complete in participating in the process. It is, as the saying goes, which has become somewhat of a cliché: “It is the journey, not the destination.” But there is a truth there. Many, many people approach the spiritual path with this deficit attitude, that they will never be at peace, they will never feel fulfilled or whole until they are at the ultimate level of enlightenment.

Being neutral while observing events unfold

But you can shift your attitude so you are at peace, you feel fulfilled in walking the path, seeing the process unfold, feeling fulfillment every time you take a step up, even feeling fulfillment in being at your present level and observing the world through your present level of consciousness.

You can come to a point where you are at peace with observing the theater performance of earth unfolding, seeing how other people react to it, seeing what people are doing, observing, you do not need to judge it, you just observe how far into extremes do certain groups of people have to go before the knocks become hard enough that they actually notice and realize the need to change themselves. You can just observe this. Observe it unfold like you are watching a movie or a play in a theater.

Ultimately, the goal of any spiritual teacher is that we wish our students could have the same level of consciousness, the same awareness that we have. Ultimately, of course, I want you, each one of you, to ascend and experience the freedom and the joy that you have in the ascended realm, but I know, this is not realistic.

So the second thing I want, and we all want for our students, is that while you are still in embodiment in this chaotic world, you can attain a certain inner resolution, inner peace, inner acceptance of the world you are in, the events that are unfolding and the process of raising your awareness and participating in raising the world closer to the golden age.

We as ascended masters find a fulfillment in being part of this process. We hope that you can find also fulfillment, even though we know it is more difficult while you are still in the density of the material realm and the four levels. But still you can achieve this inner resolution where you stop resisting the process and instead you embrace it. You embrace the chaos, you embrace the fluctuations, the dynamism in your environment.

Longing for stillness

The interesting thing, and this is another enigma, is that you are sent into the world by your I AM Presence in order to give your I AM Presence experiences of moving through stages. Your I AM Presence is more in peace, you might say, it is more standing still, but an unascended sphere is moving in a different way. In a sense you are sent out of stillness into movement, but you have a longing back to stillness.

I am not saying that the ascended realm is stillstand, but I am just giving you a contrast that can be described in words. You come out of stillstand into a world of movement. You are a moving being, but you are longing for stillness and you think that the only way to achieve the stillness is to stop the movement, but this is an illusion. The only way to achieve stillness is to embrace the movement and see that the movement is only possible because there is a background of stillness.

And when you tune into the background, you can feel the peace even while you are moving. And that is what we all achieved at the higher levels of the path. But there is no law that says you have to be at the higher levels of the path to achieve this. You can achieve it at almost any level above the 48th level and certainly about the 96th level. This is what Gautama and I wish for you, that you can attain some sense of peace while being in movement.

With this, you have the gratitude of myself and Gautama for being willing to be the instruments for taking this into your minds and projecting it into the collective. We hope it has benefited you individually. We know it has benefited the collective and it is a major step forward to have a teaching like this released, not only in the physical but in the four levels of the material universe.

With this, our deep gratitude, both Gautama and I seal you in the peace that we are. We are at peace compared to people on earth but we are still moving for even in the ascended realm there is self-transcendence and we are embracing that process.

Be sealed in the movement of peace, the peaceful movement.

 

* As a thoughtform for this coming year we will use the Sun thoughtform from last year:

“Gautama Buddha, you are the perfect mirror for earth”.

“Saint Germain, you are the perfect mirror for the economy”.

“Mother Mary, you are the perfect mirror for women” .

 

Copyright © 2023 Kim Michaels