Ascended Master Jesus through Kim Michaels.

In this discourse I will give you the overall view – the big picture – of how the ego manages to make and keep people spiritually blind and what you can do to start getting yourself out of the trap set by the ego. I know that for people who are still identifying with their egos, this teaching will be impossible to grasp. As I said in the first discourse, most people who find this book have made some contact with their Christ selves, and thus they can benefit from having the big picture.

If there was one thing that I wish all spiritual seekers would understand, it is the fact that the spiritual path is a process whereby you gradually free your mind from all of the illusions created by the ego. As I explained in the previous discourse, the ego can never experience the Spirit of Truth. The ego creates a description – a mental image – of God’s truth (and collectively human beings have created an almost infinite number of such graven images). The ego is absolutely convinced that its description of truth is the real thing. In reality, the ego’s description is an idol that obscures your direct experience of the Spirit of Truth itself. The ego is in violation of the first two commandments given by God to Moses:

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… (Exodus, Chapter 20)

The first command is that you have no other gods before the real God, which means that you do not accept any description in this world as a substitute for the direct experience of the Spirit of Truth. The second one is that you do not take onto yourself any graven image, which does not mean a statue carved in stone but a mental image. The ego creates these mental images and then it seeks to make you believe that you should accept an image as the absolute, unchanging truth. You should be satisfied with the idol so that you do not attempt to go beyond it and experience the Spirit of Truth.

The ego cannot experience the Spirit of Truth, but you can. When you do experience the Spirit of truth directly, you will no longer believe the ego’s illusion, namely that its description is the real thing or is all you need in order to be saved. The ego will lose its power over you, and as you stop feeding the ego energy, it will gradually wither away and it will eventually die. Because the ego has a strong survival instinct, it does not want to die, and thus it will do anything to keep you from seeing through its illusions. It will do anything to prevent you from experiencing the Spirit of truth directly so that you can gradually expand your vision and can eventually rebuke all of the lies created by the ego and the prince of this world.

We might say that the essence of the spiritual path is to gradually clear your mind from the illusions of the ego so that you gain a progressively purer experience of the Spirit of Truth. As Paul said it:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1Corinthians 13:12)

The basic choice of life

In traditional religions you find the concept of the laws of God. We might also call them the design principles that God used to create the universe in which you live. The origin of all other design principles is the principle of oneness, the Law of Oneness. It is described in the Bible as follows:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John, Chapter 1)

God created everything out of its own Being, and thus God’s Being is embedded in everything that was created—without him was not anything made that was made. The Word is what is also called the only begotten son of God:

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)

Many Christians think this refers to me, the historical person of Jesus. However, as I explain in the previous books in this series, I came to earth as a representative of something far greater than any one person. That is why I said:

Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. (Mark 10:18)

The concept of the word or the only begotten son refers to what I today call the universal Christ mind. This is the mind, the state of consciousness, that is created by God as the very foundation for the principle of oneness. The fundamental function of the Christ mind is to be one with God, one with God’s overall vision for the universe and one with the specific design principles that God created in order to make sure the universe reaches its intended goal.

You now need to realize that you – meaning your lifestream, which is more than your physical body and your outer mind and personality – were created to be a co-creator with God. That is why the Bible says:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion… (Genesis 1:26)

God has given human beings dominion over the earth, which means that God (or rather a group of ascended masters called the Elohim) created this planet as a foundation upon which human beings could build a “house” as a way to express and develop their creative abilities. Human beings have been given free will so they must – individually and collectively – decide what they do upon the earth. The only catch is, of course, that they will inevitably experience the conditions they create. God did not create the current state of limitations, lack of resources and other forms of suffering. Humankind has collectively created current conditions, and everyone is experiencing them.

When God gave co-creators free will, a fundamental duality came into being. As I said, the universal Christ mind is an expression of the principle of oneness which is designed to make sure everything follows God’s purpose and vision. When co-creators gain free will, it becomes possible that they can choose to go against the principle of oneness. The mind of Christ logically has an opposite. The basic reality of free will is that a co-creator can create in one of two ways:

You can co-create by using the mind of Christ, which means that everything you do is in alignment with God’s purpose and the design principles used by God. The Elohim used the mind of Christ to build the original earth and you use the same mind to build onto it.

You can de-create by using the mind of anti-christ, which is in opposition to the mind of Christ. Everything you create through the mind of anti-christ is out of alignment with God’s purpose and laws.

The mind of anti-christ is in opposition to the mind of Christ because it is based on the illusion that it is separated from God. Free will gives you two options for expressing your creativity:

You can co-create within the framework of God’s law. This ensures that you are in harmony with God’s purpose and that your efforts enhance your own life and the lives of everyone else. Everything you do raises up all life.

You can de-create outside the framework of God’s law. Thereby, you set yourself apart from God’s purpose and you are, so to speak, fighting against the current of the River of Life, you are fighting against the entire universe. The result of co-creating outside of God’s law is that you limit your creative freedom and power, and everything you do only pulls down yourself and all life. That is why humankind has created so much suffering on this planet.

To better understand the difference between following or going against God’s laws, consider the law of gravity. This law is what makes it possible for you to live on the surface of the earth instead of floating into empty space. Is the law of gravity a restriction of your creative freedom on this planet or is it the foundation for it? Would it make sense to rebel against the law of gravity and spend your entire life fighting it? (Take note that flying is not a rebellion against the law of gravity but a result of learning how to make more advanced use of all of God’s laws.)

As a co-creator, you have the option of co-creating through the mind of Christ – the mind of oneness with God and all life – or the mind of anti-christ—the mind that sees itself as separated from God and all life. You now see that the mind of anti-christ is based on a fundamental division, a division between itself and God, God’s law and all other co-creators. The mind of Christ is the mind of oneness whereas the mind of anti-christ is the mind of division, the mind of duality, the mind of separation. We now need to take a closer look at the fundamental duality of the mind of anti-christ.

The knowledge of good and evil

When you stay within the framework of God’s law, you have an absolute standard for evaluating everything. There is that which is one with God’s truth, God’s reality, and there is that which is apart from God’s reality. When you move into the consciousness of anti-christ, you lose this absolute guiding rod. Only the consciousness of Christ can see God’s reality, and when you step outside the consciousness of Christ, you can no longer see God’s absolute truth. You now enter a state of mind in which truth becomes a relative concept, a concept that is dominated by two opposites that can only exist in relation to each other.

The Bible describes these concepts in the story of how Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden. The literal, orthodox interpretation of this story is out of touch with reality. Adam and Eve were not the only human beings in the Garden. The story is meant to illustrate what has happened to every co-creator on earth. You are not being punished for the original sin of Adam and Eve. Your present situation is the consequence of the fact that you – for most people, many lifetimes ago – made the same choice made by Adam and Eve.

What was that choice? In the beginning, all God’s co-creators lived in a protected environment in which they had direct guidance from a spiritual teacher—what Genesis calls “God.” This teacher [In reality, the teacher was named Maitreya] was teaching co-creators how to exercise their creative powers while staying within the framework of God’s law. Because they had free will, they also had the potential to go outside of God’s law. This is what Genesis describes as follows:

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis, Chapter 2)

What is the deeper spiritual meaning behind the metaphor of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” It is a description of the consciousness of anti-christ, the consciousness that sees itself as separated from God. Perhaps you have wondered why God planted the tree in the Garden if he did not want Adam to eat of it? The reason is now clear. The “tree” was an inevitable consequence of giving God’s co-creators free will. God could not give you free will without giving you the potential to go outside of God’s law.

Having this potential does not mean that you have to exercise it. Being able to hurt yourself does not mean that you have to hurt yourself. However, having the potential does mean that you are exposed to the temptation to go outside God’s law. The Serpent can be seen (among other things) as a symbol for the fact that free will does come with a price, namely the temptation to make choices that harm yourself and all life.

The real meaning behind the expression “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is that it represents a state of consciousness, namely the consciousness of anti-christ. In this state of consciousness you have stepped outside of oneness with God, and thus you no longer see God’s reality. You now see everything as defined on a scale with two opposites. On one side of the scale is good and on the opposite side is evil. For the scale to exist, both are necessary, meaning that “good” and “evil” have now become relative concepts. They exist only in relation to each other and one is defined as the opposite of the other.

The consequence is that in the consciousness of anti-christ there is no absolute truth. “Truth” has become relative, meaning that it can be defined differently by different people. You have heard the expression: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and in the consciousness of anti-christ “truth” is in the eye of the beholder. When you partake of the consciousness of anti-christ, you create your own definition of truth—and it will be outside of God’s absolute truth.

The ultimate outcome of the consciousness of anti-christ is the belief that evil is the opposite of God, meaning that the devil (or however you picture personified evil) is the opposite polarity of God and is a necessary (even beneficial) part of the basic polarity of life. In reality, the consciousness of anti-christ is not in a polarity with the consciousness of Christ. Evil is not the opposite of God. Evil is outside of God, and the consciousness of anti-christ is outside the consciousness of Christ—the consciousness of oneness. Relativity is a product of the consciousness of anti-christ, and it is only in the sphere of anti-christ that good and evil exist as relative concepts, as opposing polarities where one cannot exist without the other.

NOTE: The rest of this dictation is available in the book Freedom from Ego Illusions.