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Ascended Master Master Lanto through Kim Michaels, June 4, 2023. This dictation was given at a conference in Seoul, Korea.
I AM the Ascended Master Lanto, Chohan of the Second Ray, often associated with wisdom. But what is wisdom really? So many people in the world have looked at wisdom as some kind of finite knowledge, something that can be expressed either in words or in the language of science, such as mathematics. But can wisdom be captured by words or numbers or formulas or equations? Can it be captured by mental images, by concepts and ideas? Can wisdom be confined to any form? Well, yes and no.
A futile quest for ultimate wisdom
We might say that there is no ultimate wisdom except oneness, which is the Creator’s consciousness. But, of course, as long as you are in embodiment on a planet like earth, it is difficult to experience that consciousness. We might say that wisdom, as one of the qualities used to create your unascended sphere, does have a form. For if it did not have a form, how could it be used to create a world that has form? But wisdom certainly cannot be confined to the words and other expressions you use on earth.
The first step in connecting to the ascended masters and the quality of Divine Wisdom is to realize that spiritual and religious and political and scientific people throughout the ages have been on this quest to find or bring forth or define some ultimate knowledge, ultimate understanding, ultimate wisdom. And, of course, we understand that when you first find the spiritual path you have been affected by this age old quest. You transfer this to the spiritual path and you think that the goal of a spiritual teaching is to give you some ultimate form of wisdom. And that is why so many spiritual people become trapped into this mindset of thinking that their guru, their spiritual organization, their spiritual teaching has the highest wisdom, the highest understanding, the highest expression of how the world really works and how the spiritual realm really works. But while this is understandable at a certain level of the spiritual path, there also comes a point on the path where it is no longer constructive for it will not lead to growth.
A practical path for raising people’s consciousness
There was a time when the Buddha was in embodiment and the Buddha taught directly. And there are many people today that want to project that the Buddha was not only an enlightened being, but was the ultimate enlightened being because there were so many special circumstances around his birth and his life and his teaching. They want to project the image that the Buddha not only gave the highest teaching possible but that the Buddha’s teachings or certainly the Buddha himself could answer all questions. But these people have not studied the history of the religion of Buddhism, for it is a fact that there were questions that the Buddha refused to answer.
One example of such a question is whether there is a self or whether there is not a self. This was a question that the Buddha refused to answer. But why? Well, because the goal of the Buddha was not to give people some ultimate knowledge that would answer all of their questions. The goal of the Buddha was to give people a simple step by step path whereby they could raise their consciousness. This, when you look at it historically, was in sharp contrast to the tradition of the Vedic teachers, the Brahmins of the Hindu religion. They were in a phase at the time of the Buddha when there were different directions, different groupings within the Hindu religion, within the Brahmins. They had slightly different teachings although all within the same overall framework and they spent considerable time debating amongst themselves what was the ultimate understanding, what was the ultimate teaching such as, what is the ultimate teaching about the self and what is the self like?
But the Buddha saw, after his enlightenment, that all of this sprang from the level of the human mind, the intellectual and analytical linear mind and the Buddha saw that all of this, regardless of the elaborate arguments and descriptions that people had come up with, it was actually keeping people trapped at a certain level of consciousness. The Buddha saw that if he entered the fray, if he jumped into the ring of this circus and started to debate the Brahmins then he would accomplish nothing. He also realized that there are questions that cannot be answered by the linear intellectual mind, because as we have explained, this mind can argue for or against any point and some people can use the mind to convince themselves that there is a self and other people can use the intellectual mind to convince themselves that there is no self. And where is the meeting of the minds when two groups are absolutely convinced that their argument, which are all relative arguments, but still both sides are convinced that their argument is the ultimate argument?
And the Buddha saw, which is why he formulated the concept of the pairs, that in this dualistic mindset all arguments are relative so there is no finite argument that could be brought forth for people in this mindset. What did the Buddha do? He reasoned, and of course, he was working with certain ascended masters for his mission, and so he instead attempted to say: “Let’s not reason at the level of that human intellectual linear mind. Let’s give people a simple path for raising their consciousness. And once people have raised their consciousness beyond a certain level, then they can actually begin to acquire true wisdom, they can begin to acquire answers to these questions that cannot be decided by the linear mind.” You can also say that the Buddha realized that the goal for his work was to raise people’s consciousness not to bring forth some superior wisdom or scripture that would stand for all time.
The endless intellectual debates
Now there are modern Buddhists who would object to this as they would say that since the Buddha was a fully enlightened being his teaching had to be the ultimate truth. But then why is it so that Buddhism itself has split into several directions? That although agreeing on a certain overall framework, have elaborate arguments and teachings and diverging ideas and practices and cannot agree on many things? You see when you look at this neutrally that after the Buddha was no longer in embodiment the same thing happened to Buddhism that had happened to Hinduism.
There was diversification, there were divisions into different directions and groups, and people from these different groups came up with intellectual arguments and now started intellectualizing about what the Buddha had said, what the Buddha had meant. And if the Buddha’s teaching was the absolute highest teaching how could there be disagreements and interpretations? If you have an ultimate wisdom would it not be so that anyone who read it should reach the ultimate level of consciousness? And there should be no disagreement if it was the superior ultimate wisdom. Since there is disagreement, is it not possible then to reason that even the Buddha’s teaching was not the ultimate wisdom, not for any flaw in the Buddha but for a flaw in the people receiving the teaching?
The pragmatic approach of (to) spiritual teachings
After all, is it not clearly stated in Buddhism that the goal is to raise people to a higher state than the state of suffering, the Sea of Samsara? Clearly it is stated in Buddhism that the people for whom the Buddhic teaching is given are not in an ultimate state of consciousness. Is it not possible to reason then that the Buddha could not possibly have given any ultimate wisdom, for how could people in a lower state of consciousness have even grasped and made use of such a superior wisdom? And is it therefore not possible to step up and realize that whether it is the teachings of the Buddha or the teachings of Jesus or the teachings of the Vedas or any other spiritual teaching, nothing on earth is ultimate? For the intellectual linear analytical mind can take any spiritual teaching and come up with different interpretations and arguments for why this interpretation is better than that interpretation and the linear mind can project that there must be a superior interpretation, some ultimate interpretation.
And is it not possible then to realize that people who fall into this pattern are at a certain level of consciousness? And that the goal of a true spiritual teaching is not to validate people’s interpretations at this level of consciousness but to raise them above and beyond that level of consciousness? Is that really such a hard realization to come to?
We can say that there has never been an attempt to bring forth the ultimate or the final spiritual teaching on planet earth. For those who are the originators of spiritual teachings, namely the ascended masters, are fully aware of conditions on earth. We clearly see the limitations of the collective consciousness and different groups of people. We are not attempting to do the impossible but to do what is practically possible, give a teaching for a certain group of people that can raise them to a higher level where they can grasp a higher teaching and then gradually bring forth this progressive revelation. And ,of course, the linear mind is going to say: “Well when will the ultimate teaching be brought forth? For there must be some ultimate teaching.”
The ultimate teaching of everything
This is, of course, reinforced by science who now for decades, if not centuries, has been on the quest to come up with the ultimate spiritual theory or realization of how the world works, the theory of everything. Where is the wisdom of everything, the teaching of everything? When will that be brought forth? Well, again there will never be an ultimate teaching that will be brought forth on earth, partly, of course, because the earth is currently at that level that we call an unnatural planet where there are some severe limitations. But another reason is that even on a natural planet no ultimate teaching could be brought forth. For what is the ultimate teaching, the ultimate teaching of everything? Well, what must be encompassed in the ultimate teaching of everything? Well, naturally this teaching must encompass everything. Where is the ultimate teaching about this world or form to be found? In the mind of the Creator.
How could that teaching about everything be communicated to any level of creation that is less than the Creator? Well, it could not. You can only reach that level of ultimate wisdom by becoming one with the Creator’s mind. Then you know the ultimate wisdom. But, of course, we can also take another approach and say: “When will the ultimate teaching be brought forth on earth? Well, what is the ultimate teaching for a planet like earth? It is a teaching on how to transcend the levels of consciousness found on earth so you can start wherever you are at, rise up towards the levels of consciousness possible on earth until you reach the highest level and then you can transcend that level and go into a higher state. Whether you call it Nirvana or enlightenment or the ascended state or something else you can graduate from schoolroom earth.
In a sense the teaching that allows you to graduate from schoolroom earth is the ultimate teaching that can be brought forth given the specific state, the specific situation on earth, primarily the level of consciousness, the collective consciousness but also the density of matter. From that perspective we could say that ultimate teachings have already been brought forth in various forms because the Buddha’s teachings can allow people to transcend the levels of consciousness possible on earth, so could the teachings of Christ, so could many other teachings that are religious or mystical in nature. It is not a matter of thinking there is some ultimate teaching that will automatically produce the result. This is the flaw of the mindset I am addressing for the linear mind will say: “Well if I had the ultimate teaching then by studying that teaching and understanding what the teaching says then I should reach that ultimate level of consciousness and be enlightened or awakened or ascended.”
Understanding a teaching vs. raising consciousness
But it would not be possible to give a teaching that would automatically and mechanically produce enlightenment in anyone who understood the teaching. And why is this not possible? Because the purpose of the spiritual path is to raise your consciousness beyond the levels of consciousness possible on earth so you can make that leap to the ascended consciousness. The purpose is to shift your consciousness upwards, not to shift your understanding upwards and this is, of course, something that would shock many spiritual people from many different traditions and even going back through the ages many people would be shocked by this statement. For in their minds they think that understanding is the same as the level of awareness. For surely in order to fully understand the given teaching you must reach the highest level of awareness otherwise how would you understand the teaching?
But you see there is a difference between understanding an outer teaching, and internalizing the teaching whereby you raise your consciousness. Understanding a teaching is not the same as raising consciousness because what does it mean to understand something? It means to observe it from a distance. When you take an outer teaching, be it the Buddhist scriptures or the Christian scriptures or any other scripture, you are taking a teaching that you see as coming from outside your mind, you are evaluating it with the intellect, the analytical mind, the linear mind. You are seeking to grasp and understand it but you are still seeing this as something outside yourself. You may be trying to understand the spiritual realm. You may be trying to understand what an ascended master is like, thinking that if you understand Lord Lanto you will have connected to me, but this cannot be done.
Experiencing vs. knowing from a distance
Understanding implies distance between the knower and the known. But how do you raise your consciousness as long as you see a distance? How do you connect to Lord Lanto and the Wisdom of the Second Ray? Not if you think this is something you can grasp with the intellect, something you see as outside yourself, some understanding you must come to. You ultimately connect by coming to see that there is no distance and experience that there is no distance. You are not trying to understand me, because no matter how well you understand me with the intellect, you will not connect to me. I have many times, figuratively speaking, been standing right next to a student who is trying to grasp Divine wisdom. I am figuratively speaking, tapping on the shoulder of the student and saying: “Here I am”. But the student is looking at his scripture with his intellect trying to understand: “He must be out there. He must be far away.”
And some people think: “The farther he is away the more effort it requires to understand him, therefore the more superior the more special I am if I can understand this far away master.” But I am still right here, just turn your head and look. But no, he is looking at the book and the scripture weighing with his intellect: “Is it this interpretation that is the superior one or is it that one? If only I find the superior one, there must be Lanto.” (messenger taps three times) I am still right here. Why do not you look up from the book and you might see me by accident? But nay: “I am focused on the book for Lord Lanto must be hiding between the letters on the page. Where else could he be?” You see this is a game that people can play indefinitely as long as they are seeking that superiority of the intellect instead of seeking the simplicity of the experience. What is wisdom? Is it something that can be formulated in words? Nay. Wisdom is an experience. It is a Presence. You can only experience the Presence. You cannot understand Presence. That is why you cannot understand your I AM Presence, you can only experience the Presence.
Reaching back to the question that the Buddha refused to answer: Is there a self or is there not a self? The Brahmins debated this endlessly. Some are still debating it. Some people today have taken these ancient teachings and created their modern versions of them. They are still debating: “Is there a self or is there a state of no self? Should we strive to attain this ultimate self that is the Atman, the eternal unchanging self? But wait a minute. The Buddha said there is no such self. Then we must go to the opposite and say that means there is no self at all. Neither an eternal self nor any other kind of self. We should strive to attain no self and deny that we have any self. Then we will be reunited with ultimate infinite awareness of Brahman.”
The teachings of the Vedas say that there is an Atman which is the ultimate self, the One Self, the undivided self that is eternal, unchanging. Were the Rishis completely wrong for saying this? Yes and no. Can we perhaps shed some different light on this with the teachings given by the ascended masters? Yes and no. We can explain it, we can attempt to explain it in words. But can people grasp it? Or will they go into endless argumentation and take any teaching we give and use this to come up with new arguments, new interpretations, new fanciful intellectual interpretations?
Two aspects of the Christ consciousness
So let me attempt to give you something. Were the Vedic seers wrong about the Atman? Well, in the concepts and words that we have used in these teachings we could say not really, because what have we said? We have said that the Creator has created everything out of its own being, out of its own consciousness, out of its own self. And the first thing that the Creator created, the firstborn Son, was the Christ consciousness which is meant to give unity between the Creator and its creation so that the creation, meaning the self-aware extensions of the Creator, cannot forever remain lost in form. You can say that there is an aspect of the Christ consciousness, the universal Christ consciousness that is as the scriptures say, the same yesterday, today and forever. It can be said to be featureless, timeless, undifferentiated, having no form. And therefore it cannot really change for it is beyond what you could conceive of from the world of form.
On the other hand, where is this universal Christ consciousness created out of? Well, the Creator’s being, the Creator’s consciousness. And is not the Creator constantly transcending itself? Is that not why the Creator is creating so that it can experience creation, experience its own creation from the inside through you who are the self-aware extensions of the Creator? So is the Christ consciousness really unchanging or does it just have two aspects? One that is the constant oneness with the Creator and the other aspect of the Christ consciousness, one that is constantly changing, adapting to the illusions that people create, offering them a way back from that illusion to oneness.
Did the Vedic seers fully grasp this? Nay, for they were trapped in the intellect of reasoning that there must be the two sides of the coin, the opposites. And when there is a world where everything is constantly changing and moving there must be an opposite that is not changing at all, so they reasoned. So were the teachings that were received by these Rishis given from that level of consciousness that was already divided and in a sense dualistic? You see here, this is the feature of the intellect, the linear mind. It takes a certain state and usually it takes what you can observe in the world and then it reasons based on this, upwards, backwards into the spiritual realm and the origin of creation.
It always reasons that whatever you can observe, there must be an opposite. If you observe that everything in this world is change and movement, there must be an opposite that is not changing and then it projects that this must be some superior wisdom. The Rishis said there is an unchanging and eternal self, the Atman, and all people are out of that Atman. And when they awaken from the illusion that they are separated from the Atman they disappear into the Atman, become one with the Atman. The Buddha on the other hand said that in all of his introspection he had never discovered an unchanging eternal self inside himself. Was the Buddha wrong or were the Rishis wrong?
Ever-self-transcending self
Well, the Buddha was actually closer to expressing a truth that cannot be expressed fully in words. Because when you trace your origin back, you can trace it to first the Conscious You which is beyond the outer self, but then to your I AM Presence which is an extension of ascended masters that are an extension of other ascended masters, reaching up through the ascended spheres back to the Creator. But you are part of the Creator’s creation and in creation there is always change and movement. Creation is constantly changing from one state to another. So is there really an unchanging self, a personal unchanging self?
We have explained that you are created to be co-creators. What is a co-creator? It is a being who starts out with a point-like sense of self, gradually expands its sense of self until it reaches the self-awareness of a Creator. But this does not mean that you disappear back into the Creator out of which you came, it means you become a Creator in your own right. You were created to be a moving, self-transcending being and this can continue indefinitely. So where is that self that is never changing, the Atman? It is not there.
The state of no outer self
Well, there is an aspect of the Christ consciousness, the universal Christ mind that you can experience even as a human being in embodiment on earth. And when you being on a planet that is constantly moving, experience the Christ consciousness, it seems like the rock that is not moving relative to your constant movement and that is why it was interpreted that way that this is an unmoving self. But this was an interpretation seen from the world of form on a planet like earth. But then you can go on and say: “Did the Buddha not talk about a state of no self? What then did the Buddha mean?” There are modern Buddhists who think the goal of following the Eightfold Path is to reach a state of no self where you give up all self. There are other people who are in the Western world who have taken the Western logical linear mindset and think that the goal of the spiritual path is to eradicate the self. Who is right? Who is wrong?
Well, it all depends on what self you are talking about. If you are talking about the separate self, the egoic self that is born out of the duality consciousness, well yes then the Buddha was talking about reaching a state where you have no ego self, no outer self. But this is not the same as saying you have no self. For when you are no longer trapped in identification with this egoic self, you discover that you are an extension of your higher self, your I AM Presence and your I AM Presence has an individuality that was defined by your spiritual parents, the ascended masters. And you are meant to expand upon that, to transcend and become more as that individuality grows.
If you reason that the goal of the spiritual path is to go into a state of no self where you basically have no existence, then you are again using the linear mind to reason that there must be two polarities in everything and this shows you again the flaw of that reasoning mind. As the Conscious You separates itself from the outer self and the outer personality you discover the higher self, the I AM Presence and its individuality and you begin to express that individuality. So what does this mean that there are people who have experienced or claim to have experienced a state of no self? How is this possible?
The state of no self
Because over a very long period of time, going back to the fallen beings who fell in the Fourth sphere, they have created this, what we have called a collective entity, a collective self, a collective beast that is like a state of nothingness, a state of no self. So what you have in earth is you have the fallen beings doing two things about self. On the one hand, they are seeking to raise their own selves to some ultimate status where they think God will have to let them into heaven or put them in charge of the universe because they are so sophisticated. On the other extreme, they have created this state of no self and what are they trying to do? They are trying to pull, especially the spiritual people, into going in one of these two directions. Either seeking to make the self so sophisticated that they will gain entry into heaven, or to deny that there is a self and go into this limbo, this no man’s land, no-self-land, of thinking that you have no self.
And there are people who believe that they have overcome the self, the self has died. They project that there are certain masters who have attained the state of no self, non-duality. But how do people know that they have gone into this state of no self? When you say: “I have attained no self, I have attained non-duality.” What is the “I” that says this? Is it not a self? When you have a self that says: “I am no self” have you really escaped the self? Or have you just gone into some illusion where you are fooling yourself into thinking you have reached some ultimate state on the spiritual path?
The rest of this dictation, along with an invocation based on the dictation, is found in the book: Connecting with Your Spiritual Teachers.
Copyright © 2023 Kim Michaels