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Ascended Master Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels, June 6, 2023. This dictation was given at a conference in Seoul, Korea.

I AM the Ascended Master Saint Germain and I am very happy, if you can apply the word happy to an ascended master who is always in a neutral state of mind, to be here with you. I want to make some remarks about the situation in Korea whereby I do not mean the physical situation but the situation that has been brought about by the fact that so many of you have embraced these teachings and have done all the work you have done with translating, giving invocations, giving vigils, creating groups, studying the teachings.

Magnificent work of the Ascended Master students in Korea

You may look at the physical and say: “What has been the results of our labor, what difference has it made in the physical?” But I am not so concerned about the physical because the physical will always be a reflection of what happens in the three higher levels. It is just a matter of time before it breaks through to the physical what has been changed in the three higher levels. And by all of the work you have done here in Korea, you have indeed created what we might call a seismic shift in the collective consciousness in the emotional, mental and identity bodies.

You have especially created a change in the identity and mental levels because the emotional body will always be more turbulent because so many people have various fears, various doubts, various animosities and angers that are more difficult to calm. But nevertheless, the real change always begins at the identity and mental level and what you have called forth is a descent of ideas from me into the identity and mental bodies, not only of the collective consciousness, but of many people in Korea and I include North Korea in that, because that is Korea also, that are receptive to these ideas. These people do not know anything about the ascended masters, do not need to know anything about ascended masters for they are in a position to implement some of these ideas and therefore you will see in the coming years changes even in the physical.

When that will happen, exactly how it will happen, is always impossible to predict because of what we have said about the interdependent originations where there are so many complex factors of all of the people in both North and South Korea and in a sense, it is a matter of when do a critical mass of people come into alignment with a certain idea, then that idea can break through to the physical and when that happens is, of course, a matter of free will. What we can say is that you who are the ascended master students in Korea have done your part. You have done more than your part. You have done a magnificent work and I hope sincerely that you will all feel fulfilled in the work you have done and approach the coming work that you want to do, that you are willing to do, with a sense of joyfulness, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of peace and a sense of accomplishment.

The necessary linear approach to the path

The Seventh Ray, the Ray of Freedom. What does it take to tune in to the Seventh Ray? Well, obviously you need freedom but freedom from what? Well, as the other Chohans have described, freedom from the linear mind. What is it the linear mind projects when it comes to freedom? It looks at current conditions, it says: “I cannot be free because I am oppressed by this dictator. I cannot be free because I do not have enough money. I cannot be free because I do not have this and I do not have that.” The linear mind then attempts to create a linear course, a linear progression that says: “I do not have freedom because I lack this or I have too much of that. So, I have to project a step-by-step course that leads me to a point where now I have what I need to be free.” You start moving in that direction, you start pushing in that direction, you use the linear mind to discipline yourself and your actions and your feelings and your thoughts and you push and push and push.

Now again, we have said on the spiritual path you move from the 48th to the 96th level by pulling yourself above the mass consciousness. So, you need to take that linear approach: “What do I need to do? How many decrees do I need to give? What invocations? What do I need to study? What do I need to do? What kind of therapy might I need?” All of these things and you can plot this. You can basically plan your path from the 48th to the 96th level as this step-by-step path. This is perfectly in order. It is as Nada said, a matter of using the linear mind to deal with the practical realities of the physical octave which includes the collective consciousness. You can plot a course as many ascended master students have done when they found an ascended master teaching whether this one or previous dispensation and say: “I need to study, I need to participate in these activities, I need to give so many decrees every day.” And they have done it faithfully for some time, some people for a long time.

But here is the trouble with a linear mind. What many students have done is they have created this plan for what they are going to do and then they have said: “I need to keep doing this until I am free”, or they have said: “I need to keep doing this for the rest of my life.” And there is the trouble with the linear mind when it comes to freedom. What are you doing when you are plotting a course with the linear mind? You are, if you want to put it directly, putting yourself in jail. You are saying: “Here is what I have to do and here is what I have to continue to do until I am free.” But you see you are enclosing yourself in a structure—“This is what I have to do.“ Is it not a form of prison you are creating for your mind?

The necessary shift at the 96th level

You can say when you are overpowered by the mass consciousness you are in one form of jail because you have little ability to make individual choices. Now you find a teaching, a spiritual teaching and many spiritual people who have not found ascended master teachings but other teachings have done the same thing and you plot a course and say: “This is what I have to do” to attain whatever goal is defined in your spiritual teaching, be it enlightenment, awakening, ascension, whatever it may be and as we have said, between the 48th and the 96th level it is right for you to plot a course of using spiritual tools and teachings to raise yourself above that mass consciousness, to dissolve those selves, to follow the course of self-mastery. This is what you need to do to raise yourself out of the prison of the mass consciousness. In order to do this, you have to be focused, but the effect is that you are putting your mind into a structure and that is a prison for the mind.

This is not a problem as long as you are rising above that mass consciousness, but what Nada so eloquently explained is that it becomes a problem when you use the linear mind to project beyond the practical realities of this Ma-ter world, including all four levels. What many, many spiritual people including ascended master students have done is, they have embarked on the spiritual path and they have used the teaching to project this course they have to follow and now they project based on the understanding they have when they start the path—“This is what I have to continue to do, this will then take me into these higher levels of enlightenment or the Christ consciousness whatever you call it.”

But as we have explained at the 96th level you face a certain initiation, a critical initiation and it can be described in many ways as we have done, but one way to describe it is to say that you have to recognize that what has taken you to the 96th level cannot take you beyond. Because you see what you have done, you have used the linear mind to project what it is like to be the Christ, what it is like to go into the levels of consciousness above the 96th level which are the levels of personal Christhood.

What have we attempted to explain so many times? Look at our teachings. Go back and study what has been said, going all the way back to 2002 about Christhood. The Christ does not fit in any structure. What is the second challenge of Christ? It is that after you have recognized Christ you do not attempt to pull Christ into the structure created by the linear mind. You cannot move into Christhood through the linear mind. The linear mind cannot take you there, so whatever images you have projected on yourself and the path based on the linear mind below the 96th level, cannot take you into the levels of Christhood—they do not apply. I am not thereby saying you should stop giving decrees or studying the teachings. It is a much more subtle shift of consciousness.

The state of listening grace

What can be helpful for many of you is to make a decision and say: “I am not going to stop giving my decrees and invocations, I am not going to stop studying the teachings, but I am going to set aside some time where I am just going to sit down in a quiet room, close my eyes and attempt to the best of my ability, to go into a neutral state of mind—what Jesus meant when he said: “Unless you become as little children you shall in all wise enter the kingdom”—what the Buddhists talk about when they talk about “beginner’s mind”. Once in a while just attempt to go into a state of listening—listening grace.

If you feel a particular affinity to a particular master, ask that master to anchor his or her Presence over you and help you just listen. Just be neutral. Do not ask for answers, do not ask for directions, do not ask for a solution to particular problems or situations you are facing. That you can do at other times. Just ask the master to help you be neutral and listen because as you move beyond the 96th level and for that matter as you are moving close to it, you need to sense what is the next direction you need to go in, what is the next phase on your path. And it is different for each one of you, so there is no standard answer to this.

Striving to live up to the image of the good student

That is why again it is so problematic with the linear mind because what we saw in previous ascended master dispensations is that people took our teachings and they created a certain mental image of what it meant to be a good chela. And this created an organizational culture where there was a mental image created—this is a good chela—and then this image that was created was very difficult to live up to. It was actually like what we have talked about the fallen beings who project this image of perfection but nobody can really define what it is, so it is impossible to live up to it. So it was with this image of the good chela. You could define certain outer requirements but it was not really clearly defined, so it was very difficult to live up to and it required an enormous amount of time and dedication because the outer requirements were very, very elaborate. You have to do all of these decrees. You have to live a certain way, eat a certain way, walk a certain way, talk a certain way, think a certain way, feel a certain way and it just became exhausting and very difficult to live up to.

So, the people who attempted to live up to it, they had to strain so hard to live up to this image that they became literally stressed by it. They put themselves in a constant state of stress, tension, almost to the breaking point. It was almost like a rubber band that is stretched as far as can be stretched and it is very close to breaking. And so, when people go into this state of mind, they become very judgmental of other people. They are, for that matter, judgmental of themselves because they are always judging: “Do I live up to the image of a good chela or am I failing at some point?” But they also became very judgmental of others and that is why there was created this very judgmental state of consciousness where people were always judging each other.

And I can assure you that there were people who came in contact with one of these ascended master organizations and they sensed this judgmental culture and they just said: “Not for me”. And many of these people had a higher level of consciousness than the people inside the organization, which is something that the people inside the organization would not have believed because they thought they were in the highest state of consciousness because they were striving to live up to this image of the good chela. So, when they saw people come and leave, they would say: “They were not chela material”. But they actually were. They were actually at a higher level. They were at a higher level of where they were beyond creating this judgmental culture.

Very subtle dualistic selves above the 96th level

All I am pointing out about this is that we do not want to see you repeat this pattern. We want our students in this dispensation to transcend these patterns so you can come to this point where you are free. What does it mean to be free? Well, from the 48th to the 96th level it means to be free from the mass consciousness, free from the dualistic selves. I trust you realize that you need a deeper understanding of these selves. We have explained that when you go below the 48th level of consciousness you go into separation and you use the duality consciousness to create these selves so these are dualistic selves. Then as you rise above the 48th level of consciousness you are walking towards the 96th level. But because of the density of the planet, you will still carry some of these dualistic selves with you that you have not yet overcome. In other words, it is not so that once you reach the 48th level you have overcome all of the selves that were created in duality.

This might take a little bit of contemplation because perhaps we have been a little too linear in our previous explanations. But look at it this way, there are 144 possible levels of consciousness on earth. If you start at the top and go to the1444th level from where you started at your I AM Presence, in order to go down to the 144th level you take on a particular illusion. This is not a dualistic illusion. It is just an illusion that relates to the physical octave on a planet like earth with the density of matter. What does it take for you to feel that you can even take embodiment, that you can even integrate with a physical body? You take on an illusion at the 144th level, you take on the next illusion, you go down to the 143rd level and you keep going till the 96th level.

These are illusions that basically at this level, help you integrate with an identity body, a mental body and an emotional body so that you can start creating the selves in these bodies that can give you experiences in the physical octave. Then at the 96th level you create more selves that relate to integrating partly with the emotional body still but also with the physical body. So that when you first descend into embodiment at the 48th level, your being, your conscious self is integrated with the physical body. You have structures in your identity mind, mental mind, emotional mind and even the mind connected to the body that allows you to function and actually do something on earth.

These selves are not dualistic selves. Then when you go below the 48th level, go down to the 47th level, you take on another illusion, create another self and you can keep going to the lowest level. What I am saying is, for each of the 144 levels there is a particular self that allows you to be at that level of consciousness. However, there are many more than the 144 types of selves that people have created on earth. Because when you are at a particular level of consciousness, there is a particular illusion that takes you down to that level but a particular self that keeps you at that level. But you can still horizontally create selves at that level. Where this becomes relevant is that as you go below the 48th level of consciousness, go into duality, there is a very large number of dualistic selves that people have created throughout history and some of these have become collective selves that are now in the collective emotional, mental and identity bodies.

There are many more than 144 selves that have been created on earth and it is inevitable that you take on some of these selves or rather you create your own personal version of them. What I am saying is that as you reach the 48th level and start the spiritual path, this does not mean you have overcome all of the dualistic selves. You still carry some with you and you can even carry some of the more subtle dualistic selves with you above the 96th level. These are, of course, not what you would call aggressive selves that are harming other people but still selves that relate to the dualistic illusions, the dualistic view of the world.

For what is it that Nada described that the Hindu Brahmins have done? Well, they had, many of them, used the duality consciousness to project onto the spiritual realm. Lanto explained very eloquently how there is this concept of No-Self that has been created. There is the concept of Brahman, the concept of nothingness, but they are dualistic concepts and these kinds of selves can be carried with you even above the 96th level because they can be very difficult for people to resolve. You, in fact, see spiritual teachers out there who have reached beyond the 96th level but they still carry with them some of these dualistic selves because they have not resolved the illusion. They have not seen through the illusion.

The second challenge of Christ at each level of the path

What I am saying is that there comes that point when you approach the 96th level and go beyond where you cannot use the linear mind to plot what course you should take from the 96th to the 144th level of consciousness. I know that from a certain perspective it seems like you are just continuing the growth that you went through from the 48th to the 96th level. After all, at the 96th level what is the challenge? To overcome the illusion that brings you to the 97th level. At that level the challenge is to overcome the illusion that brings you to the 98th level and so forth. But you see, this process cannot be done with a linear mind. You could even say it cannot really be done with the linear mind from the 48th to the 96th level because the linear mind cannot help you see through the illusions.

It is actually only the Christ mind that helps you see through an illusion. But especially above the 96th level it is necessary to step back and really consciously acknowledge the limitations of the linear mind and really acknowledge that even up till the 144th level you are still at each level facing that second challenge of Christ. Will you use the Christ consciousness to transcend your level, or will you attempt to pull the Christ consciousness into conforming to the illusion, the worldview you have at that level? And at the 96th level and above you need to be constantly aware of this challenge because you can theoretically stop at the 143rd level and not go above it because you think that Christ has validated the worldview you have at that level. But there is, as we have said so many times, no ultimate truth, no ultimate worldview on earth and you will only rise, you will only ascend by transcending it.

The danger of becoming trapped at any level

Again, some of the students from previous dispensations would vehemently object to this. They will say this is a completely false teaching, it goes against everything that was said in previous dispensations. But it does not actually go against what was said, it only goes beyond. And my beloved, if progressive revelation does not go beyond what was given previously exactly how is it progressive?
Let that thought take root in your mind because it is the key to navigating the very subtle initiations above the 96th level.

There is a certain dilemma, a certain dichotomy, that will always be there on a planet like earth because of the density of matter and the collective consciousness. In a sense, as you rise to the higher levels of the path, you reach the higher levels of consciousness, clearly you do. But—and it is an important but, this does not mean the initiations become easier. The tendency for many people when they reach higher levels of consciousness, and I am not just talking about ascended master students but spiritual people in general, is that they look at the path they have followed, they look how far they have come and they say: “I have made tremendous progress compared to where I started 30 or 40 or however many years ago”. There is also a tendency that people look at other people and say: “I am clearly at a higher level of consciousness than these people, I know much more about the spiritual path, I have overcome many illusions and attachments.” And I am not in any way saying this is wrong.

There are many people who have reached a high level of consciousness compared to the average person on earth. There are many people throughout history who have reached a certain level, set themselves up as gurus or spiritual teachers. There are many people today who have genuinely reached a high level of consciousness, higher than the 96th level, higher than the general population. They have set themselves up as spiritual teachers. And they look down from their level of consciousness and they clearly see: “I am at a higher level.” But what they do not always realize is that it now becomes very easy for you when you are looking down to see the initiations that other people are going through, it is very easy for you to see the illusions that they hold on to and so you think you have acquired the ability to see through all illusions.

It is always difficult to see the next illusion

You might even think you are enlightened or awakened or ego-free or have attained a state of non-self or whatever labels people put on it. But what many people have failed to realize is that you are not at the top level of consciousness that can be reached on earth because if you were, you would have ascended. And when you look up to the initiations you have not yet passed, to the illusions you have not yet seen, well, despite all of your accomplishments, it has not become any easier to see the next illusion.

For whatever level you are at, it is always difficult to see the next illusion. The illusion you have not seen at the 143rd level is just as difficult to see as the illusion at the 48th level. Why? Because this is the illusion that brought you down to that level and it is as difficult to see at the 143rd level as any lower level. You have gained momentum, you have expanded your awareness, you have seen through all of these lower illusions. But with your present level of consciousness, it is still difficult to see your present illusion. Which means what? It means that whatever level of consciousness you are at, you need the Christ mind. You cannot, with your present state of mind, see through the illusion by yourself. You cannot reason through the illusion. The Conscious You, when it is looking from inside the self at your current level, cannot analyze, rationalize, use logic or a spiritual teaching to see through the illusion. You always need to step outside the self, experience the Christ perspective, then you can see through the illusion.

You will not be home free until you ascend

But you cannot do this if you think you have reached some ultimate level. If you think the self you are currently seeing through is an enlightened self, then you cannot step outside of it. That is why you can become trapped at any level and many people throughout the ages have done so. There are many people who have set themselves up as gurus, who have been revered as gurus, who have been looked up to as ‘this guru was certainly enlightened’. And the guru might have attained a high level of consciousness, say the 140th level, which is very high compared to the average person and so it is understandable that people look at this guru and say: “Oh he is surely enlightened, he surely understands so much more”. And he does, and he might be able to help people, but is he really enlightened if he has stopped at 140th level and does not acknowledge that there is something he has not seen, some illusion he has not seen? Is there not the danger that the guru will, without maybe even realizing this consciously, pass on to his followers that this is the highest level you need to go to and then you will be home free. But you will not be home free at the 140th level. You cannot ascend from there, or from the 143rd for that matter.

If a guru stops at a certain level, what happens? Well, he becomes a false guru. Now everything he says might still have some truth to it. And he may still point out a genuine path leading upwards. But he is a false guru if he says there is nothing above that level. Or he is a false guru if he preaches that the goal of the path is to attain a state of no-self instead of the ever-self-transcending self.

The Christ mind is spherical not linear

These were some remarks that I wanted to make, to bring out there as part of our ongoing teaching. But in terms of the topic here, the topic at hand of tuning in, connecting to your spiritual teachers, how do you best connect to the Seventh Ray? Well, in a sense the teachings I have given can help you connect because it can help you realize that to truly connect you need to free yourself from the image created by the linear mind of how your path should progress.

There is, as I said, a phase where you need to follow that path, that linear path. But above the 96th level or at the 96th level you need to realize that the path in a way becomes more spherical. Instead of following this linear progression, you can actually above the 96th level—you can jump. You might go from the 97th level and suddenly you see through the illusion at the 108th level. Then you jump to the 120th, then you jump back to the 98th, then to the 104th. In other words, these illusions are not quite as linear. You do not have to see through the 97th and then the 98th and then the 99th. You can jump more from one to the other.

This of course, is another subtlety because you can think that: “Oh I have seen through the illusion at the 120th level so I am above the one at the 97th.” But if you skip the one at the 97th, well, you are not ready to ascend. But nevertheless, what you need to do with your conscious mind is consciously realize that the linear mind has taken you as far as it can take you and now you need to focus more on the intuitive spherical mind and that is the Christ mind. The Christ mind is not linear. I know this can be subtle to understand because we have said that there is an aspect of the Christ consciousness for each of the levels so that even at the lowest level you can see through the illusion at that level. But the Christ mind is not linear. Why? Because the Christ mind is the one mind, the undivided mind and if the Christ mind is undivided, how can you create a linear progression? You can only create linearity when there is a division into different steps, different levels.

Freedom from and freedom to

You could say that there is a certain danger in giving you this view of the 144th level of consciousness because the linear mind will project that it is an entirely linear process. But that is why we have given you the many teachings about the Christ consciousness and the Conscious You stepping outside of your current illusion. When you are willing to do this, when you lock into this process, then you will go beyond the linear mind. What we can say also is that between the 48th and the 96th level, you are striving to attain ‘freedom from’. Ultimately freedom from the mass consciousness, but also freedom from the illusions. But the shift you need to make at the 96th level is, instead of seeking ‘freedom from’, you are seeking ‘freedom to’.

‘Freedom to’ what? Freedom from is easy to understand. You have a limitation you want to escape. You can say: “Well, I am in jail, but now I have the key and now I walk out the door, now I am free from the jail.” But you will notice that many people who have been in jail for many years and are released, they stand there: “What do I do now?” They do not know what to do with their lives now that they are free from the jail and this is one of the difficult initiations when you go beyond the 96th level. You are free from the mass consciousness. You are free from a lot of illusions in your own mind: “What do I do now? What am I supposed to do with my current level of consciousness?”

“My Father worketh hitherto and I work”

And this is where you need to step up and realize that being the Christ is not what you have thought it was based on how you looked at it through the linear mind. Because many people have with the linear mind created this image that when you attain the Christ consciousness, well, your I AM Presence or the ascended masters are telling you what to do. Basically, they think that you give up your free will, you become a marionette and some have even looked at Jesus’ teachings who said: “I can of my own self do nothing, it is the Father within me who doeth the work”. And so they think: “When I reach that level, I can say whew, the work is done, now my I AM Presence can take over, I do not need to think, I do not need to make decisions, just let the Presence do it.” But that is not what being the Christ means because what did Jesus also say? “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”.

As the Christ, you recognize something you cannot recognize with the linear mind. In the linear mind you think: “I am a separate being, I have certain powers, I have certain abilities, I can do something.” And you can. Even in the duality consciousness you can do something. Everything has a price, everything creates karma, but you can do something. There are even those who have the sense that only when you go into duality you gain truly free will because now you can do whatever you want without feeling restricted by all this karma nonsense and consequences and being considerate of other people and turning the other cheek and all of this stuff.

There are people who think that once you reach the Christ consciousness, now God or the ascended masters or your I AM Presence will tell you what to do. But what have we said? You are created to be a co-creator and as a co-creator you do not think that you are a separate being who has separate abilities. You realize that everything you do is done with the energy coming from your I AM Presence so your father, the I AM Presence, works by giving you energy. It may also give you directions because the I AM Presence has desires for what it wants to experience on earth.

But within those parameters it is up to you, the Conscious You, to still make decisions. What do you want to do on earth? How do you want to express your Christhood? What experiences do you want to have on earth? And this can be a tricky challenge for many people, especially if they have been very dedicated to following this very disciplined path: “What do I do now?”

The rest of this dictation, along with an invocation based on the dictation, is found in the book: Connecting with Your Spiritual Teachers.