Listen to the audio book version of the dictation.

Ascended Master Nada through Kim Michaels, May 23, 2026. This dictation was given at the conference in Kazakhstan: Co-creating with the ascended masters on the seven rays.

I AM the Ascended Master Nada and I speak this time in my capacity as Chohan of the Sixth Ray. The Sixth Ray is often seen as peace and service. To paraphrase the ancient question: “Which came first, peace or service?” Well, that is something we will consider. Because can you indeed have one without the other?

The reductionist approach

To look at the concrete question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, even though we have touched upon it, let us go a little further. When human beings look at the matter world, they tend to focus on the differences between different forms. This is partly because your senses are calibrated to detect and identify differences.

It is, of course, very important for you when you live in this physical world, especially on this unnatural planet of earth, that you can very quickly identify differences between, for example, a deer in the forest or a lion waiting to jump on you. There are so many aspects of life where it is important to be able to quickly identify the differences between forms. But on top of this, you have what has been the primary approach for people’s thinking, at least in the Western world, since the philosopher Aristotle so many centuries ago. This is the reductionist approach.

In other words, you are looking at some aspect of life. You are realizing that every form is made up of smaller components. The body is made up of cells, the cells of molecules, the molecules of atoms, the atoms of elementary particles, and so forth. The thinking that did not really start with Aristotle, it has of course been around for a long time. It really actually started with the fallen beings when they came to earth. But the thinking is that by reducing all the complex variety of forms to their basic essential components, you will be able to understand how matter is created. And this approach has formed people’s thinking for a very long time.

When you look at different forms, you can see, just to take this example, that there is quite a difference between a chicken and an egg. How do you explain that an egg becomes a chicken that can lay an egg? How do you explain this by looking at the forms? They are so different. How do you explain that a human embryo that looks almost like a little fish grows into a human, this very complex human body? How do you explain that one single cell can become a whole, composed of 30 trillion cells? Scientists have been frantically trying to explain this by reducing everything to basic components.

Zeno’s paradox

One aspect of this is that, first, they discovered atoms. This was proposed by the Greek philosophers, the Atomists of course, that there was a smallest possible unit that could not be divided further. Scientists have been on this quest. And first, in the 1800s, they believed they had discovered the atom. It was the smallest possible unit. But it turned out not to be the case. And this should actually have been obvious by the fact that there is more than one kind of atom. If there are oxygen atoms and hydrogen atoms, then the atom cannot be the smallest unit. Because there must be something that creates the difference between hydrogen and oxygen.

Scientists discovered subatomic particles. First, they thought there were only three: the proton, the neutron, the electron. But then, when they built more powerful machines, particle accelerators, they discovered there is more. And now, they have been on this quest to find the ultimate particle, the so-called God Particle. But the question that they have not really asked is: “Will they ever find the ultimate particle, the indivisible particle?” And this can be resolved by considering Zeno’s paradox.

If you are walking from this retreat place to Almaty, what do you have to do? Well, first you have to walk to the midpoint. Then, you walk to the midpoint of the remaining distance. Then, you walk to the midpoint of that. And you keep walking, dividing the distance into smaller and smaller segments. But since you can mathematically continue dividing a distance into smaller and smaller segments indefinitely, the paradox is that you can never arrive at your destination. Because you can always divide the remaining distance in half, so you are never there.

And the reality is here that you can build faster and faster particle accelerators. And the more you accelerate existing particles, the more you will find smaller particles. Now, this cannot go on forever because, as scientists have discovered, nothing that has mass can reach the speed of light. It is the speed limit for the universe. There is not enough energy to accelerate a particle with mass to the speed of light. What does that mean? Well, it means that the reductionist approach is flawed from the beginning.

Elemental particles vs. elemental beings

But what does it have to do with you as co-creators? Well, you might very well—because your thinking has been affected by this reductionist approach and the linear mind—you might very well say: “Well, what exactly do I have to do to co-create? What is the mechanism whereby my mind co-creates?” And when you take the reductionist approach, you will say: “Well, I need to understand exactly how matter is formed. How does the Ma-ter light take on form? And I need to go to the very lowest level of this, the very lowest level of where the Ma-ter light takes on the first form, the first particle, the indivisible particle. And then, I need to learn with my mind to work with these particles and make them build a form.”

This is what you can think when you take the reductionist approach and the linear mind. Because, of course, the reductionist approach is very much built on the linear mind. You want to go to smaller and smaller units until you reach the ultimate beginning. There are indeed ascended master students and even alchemists going further back who have thought this way. There were alchemists who believed that they must be able to discover the basic building block of matter. And when they understood how that basic building block took on the form of lead, they would be able to cause it to then take on the form of gold, transforming lead into gold.

It is an understandable approach, but it will not help you co-create with us. Why not? Well, to give you an illustration of this, let us say you find yourself having a large sum of money. You decide you want to build a house. You envision in your mind what that house is going to look like. And now, you are thinking: “I need to know every aspect of building a house. I need to become an expert bricklayer. In fact, more than just learning how to lay the bricks, I need to learn how to make the bricks, how to take clay out of the ground and make it into bricks. I also need to become an expert carpenter. I need to learn how to join, how to create boards and join them together. But more than that, I need to go out into the forest and learn how to cut down a tree and transport it to the sawmill and turn it into boards. I need to become an expert plumber. I need to learn everything about plumbing. I even need to be able to make the pipes myself. And I need to become an expert electrician. I need to learn how to make electrical wires, how to install them in the house, how to make electrical light bulbs. I even need to learn how we produce electricity and what electricity is and how it functions. I need to learn every little aspect of building that house.”

You set out to study and practice and learn. And it takes you years to become an expert bricklayer. Then, it takes you more years to become an expert carpenter. And at one point, you realize: “Wait a minute. If I have to know everything about every aspect of building a house, I might not get it built in the rest of this lifetime. What do I do? Oh, wait, I have the money in the bank. What if I pay somebody who already is a bricklayer, who already is a carpenter, who already is a plumber? Then, I could get the house built in a very short period of time.”

You see, what are the expert bricklayers, plumbers and carpenters that can help you co-create with the ascended masters? Well, it is not the elemental particles, but the elemental builders of form. They are experts in fashioning the Ma-ter light into physical forms. There is no point in you learning all this. It would just overwhelm your conscious minds. Because, as we have said, the process whereby the elementals take the Ma-ter light and fashion it into a physical form is very complex, so complex that it would overwhelm your conscious minds. And there is no point in learning it because the purpose of the elementals is to do all the practical work so that you can focus on the form you want to manifest. And all you need to do is to project the form onto the elementals and allow them to do all the practical work.

The shift from separate forms to process

In order to shift in your minds, what can you do to shift from this reductionist approach, where you are focusing on these smallest possible parts, to actually manifesting something? How do you shift? Well, what is the problem with the reductionist approach? It is that it looks at separate forms. It looks at a deeper level. For example, you have many different forms that are made out of atoms. It looks at a deeper level than the atoms, so all the myriad confusing array of forms can be reduced to 108 atoms.

Seems like a good idea, right? The problem is the atoms are also separate atoms and they can be reduced further to separate particles. They are always focused on identifying separate things. And they think that if they continue to go to deeper levels, they will get to that one thing that cannot be reduced further. But as I said, that is not going to happen. What is it that scientists and philosophers who take this approach, how is it they see the universe? They see the universe as being made up of separate components. The chicken is one thing, the egg is another thing, another form, a different form.

But if you really look at the chicken-and-the-egg analogy, it is meaningless, as we have said, to ask which came first, because both the chicken and the egg started as a mental image in the identity realm. And that mental image did not first create the egg, then visualize the chicken. The mental image visualized both the chicken and the egg, but not as separate forms, because the mental image that started the entire world of form visualized a process, a flow.

Lowering the mental image of the process from chicken to egg

It is meaningless to ask: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” You think about this question with the linear mind and the linear mind will say: “But there must have been a very first egg. Where did that egg come from? Oh no, eggs are laid by chickens. There must have been a very first chicken that laid the very first egg. But wait a minute, where did the first chicken come from? It must have come from an egg. But who laid that egg?” And you can keep going, Zeno’s paradox again, you can keep going. And the linear mind cannot stop itself until you, the Conscious You, steps in and says: “Oh, I have had enough of these mind games. There must be a different way to look at it.” And there is.

The chicken and the egg appeared simultaneously because the mental image of the process, the flow from chicken to egg, was lowered into the physical octave at the same time by the elemental beings. Started in the identity realm, the elementals there took it on, but they did not take on a static image. They took on the flow. They lowered that to the mental realm where the elementals there took it on. They lowered it into the emotional where the elementals took that on. And they lowered it into the physical where the earth elementals took it on as a process. Therefore, there is no need for the egg to appear first or the chicken to appear first. It is a meaningless question when you step beyond the reductionist approach.

Projecting the image of the whole

What scientists have been trying to do with the reductionist approach is—they are standing in front of a river, they focus on an individual water drop. They say: “Let us pull that water drop out of the river and study that individual water drop.” And then, they study one drop until they cannot think of anything else to study about it. Then, they pull out another drop. And then, they study that. And they think that when they know everything there is to know about the individual water drops, they will understand how the river flows. But is the force that makes the river flow inside the individual water drops? Nay, it is the force of gravity. There is a difference in elevation between where the river starts and the ocean. And the individual water drops are not inside themselves producing the force that makes them flow. They are part of the flow, inseparable from the flow.

By taking something out of the flow, will you ever get to understand the flow? Of course not. You will miss the big picture. You will miss the forest because you are focused on the trees. And as I said, you are not manifesting things. You are not co-creating with us by causing one little particle of the Ma-ter light to form itself in a certain place, then another, then another. That is the elementals’ job. You formulate the image of the whole and project that upon the elementals at the four levels, and you let them deal with the details.

Why is this so? Because what have other Chohans said? The purpose of the entire world of form is to give you an experience. How are you having an experience? By experiencing the forms, by experiencing the whole. Let us say you are standing in a museum where they have one of these impressionist paintings. The impressionist painted by putting small drops of paint onto the canvas. You are standing very close to the painting and all you can see are the drops. You see these blotches of paint and they do not form anything. But if you step back from the painting, the drops of paint will start forming shapes. And if you step further back, you see the entire scene of the painting. And that is what gives you the experience.

You do not need to know how elementals work

What I am saying here, what we have been saying, is it is important for you to realize that all of the forms you see are made out of the Ma-ter light. That is important to realize. It is important to realize that there is this thing called the Ma-ter light, which can take on any form. If you wanted to change this bell into having a different shape, say that of a cowbell, you need to realize that the bell is made of the Ma-ter light, which could as easily take on the form of the cowbell as this one. It is possible to transfer the Ma-ter light that has manifested this form to another form. It is possible to transfer the atoms that make up lead into atoms that make up gold. But this can only happen because both kinds of atoms are made up of the Ma-ter light.

It is important for you to realize that matter is pliable, it is changeable. But it is not important for your minds to be able to reduce lead atoms to the Ma-ter light and then make the Ma-ter light take on the form of gold. It is important for you to know that there is an elemental who has taken on the shape of this bell. But it is not important for you to know exactly how the elemental manifested this bell. Because your role in the world of form is to be a co-creator with the ascended masters.

You see, when the Elohim projected the image of the earth from their minds, they first projected it onto the elementals in the identity level. And you can say the Elohim, of course, can know how the elementals work. But while they were projecting the image, they were not focusing on that. They were projecting the image, allowing the elementals to carry it out. And it is the same with you. The difference is, while the Elohim has the capacity of mind to know how elementals work, you really do not. And it would be counterproductive for you to try and grasp it. Because your role is not to build the form atom by atom, but to project the form onto the elementals so they can do the building.

Surrendering into the flow of the whole

But how do you project the form upon elementals in such a way that they take it on? You see so many people, including ascended master students over the decades, who have been fascinated by this idea of manifesting something by the powers of the mind. And one of the ways to do this is to create a treasure map where you have the picture of the exact house that you want. But most people have failed to do this because they approach it the way science does. They want to manifest a separate form. If you are sitting here, seeing yourself as a separate being who wants to manifest a house, you might be able to manifest a house, not necessarily out of thin air, but you might at least be able to attract to yourself a house. But you are not co-creating it with us. The only way to co-create with us is to put yourself in the flow that we are.

You see, again, you are here in the world of form. Your mind, the linear mind, is focused on separate forms. You take that view, you are projecting it up at the ascended masters. You are identifying: “Yeah, Master MORE has a certain vibration, Saint Germain has a different vibration. I know the differences between the masters now.” What you are not realizing—and again, I am not blaming you, I am just seeking to give you a broader perspective here—what you are not realizing is that we of the ascended masters do not look at ourselves the way you look at us. We, in fact, do not look at you the way you look at yourselves. You see, when you ascend, yes, you do ascend as an individual being. The Conscious You merges into the I AM Presence. The I AM Presence goes through the ascension process and becomes an ascended master. But how do you become an ascended master? Not as a separate being. Not as a separate being! You become an ascended master by surrendering the desire to exercise your co-creative abilities as a separate being.

How do you do that? You surrender into the whole. And what is the whole? It is the flow. You surrender into the flow. It is, as we have said before, that you are standing in a river. There is a rushing current. But you are holding on to a branch, to a tree root that sticks out from the shore. And you are holding on because you are afraid to be swept away by the current. And the self-focused self that we have talked about you need to overcome at the 96th level is that self holding on frantically, because it is afraid that it will be lost when you let go. And indeed, it will be lost when you let go, but you will not be lost.

The interdependent ever-flowing whole

When you ascend, you surrender into the flow. You let go of holding on to anything fixed. And you let yourself flow with the flow. That is the ascension. But you start that process at the 96th level by letting go of the focus on self. And that is when you realize you must stop projecting the image based on the linear mind upon ascended masters and upon yourself. Because as long as you are projecting a fixed image, how can you be in the flow? And as we have tried to explain, only when you flow with us can you co-create with us.

We are up here as ascended masters. Surely, I identify myself as Nada. Serapis Bey identifies himself as Serapis Bey. When we interact, we see our individuality. But we do not see ourselves as separate from each other or separate from the hierarchy above us or separate from the flow. We see that the entire world of form is not made up of separate forms. It is made up of all these interdependent originations that form this whole. But the whole is not static. It is not standing still. It is flowing. It is flowing. It is ever-flowing, ever-evolving, ever-moving. One image of it is as a stream that moves very fast, that has tremendous force of the water, constantly moving. That is how the entire world of form is.

The school of separation

Why have some beings developed this reductionist approach, fixated on the forms? Well, because they came to a point where they have raised themselves up to the 96th level, but they were not willing to surrender the self-focused self and flow with the ascended masters. They kept making that separate self more and more sophisticated, thinking they could eventually turn it into a god. But all they are trying to do is stop the flow and they are failing, refusing to see that this could never happen. Because their individual free will cannot negate the free will of all the myriad beings who have chosen to be part of the flow.

Again, as we have said, planet earth is in an unascended sphere and even the entire unascended sphere has the simple purpose of allowing self-aware beings to experiment with how it feels to be a separate being that is apart from the flow. You are co-creating, you think, you experience, as a separate being who is not part of the flow. Therefore, you can co-create as if you are the only person that matters and you can do whatever you want, regardless of the consequences that it has for others. And as we have explained, it is necessary to have some experience with this level of consciousness. Because if you do not know what separation is, you cannot fully consciously and fully voluntarily give up co-creating as a separate being and surrender into the flow.

Planet earth is, as we have said, a schoolroom that allows the participants to experiment with this consciousness of being a separate being, feeling you can do something, until they have had enough of this experience and they are now willing to surrender that self-focused self and join the flow with the ascended masters. That is really all that the earth is about. All of the things that are going on on earth, all of these things that people imagine—all of the games they are playing, all of the dramas they are creating in their personal lives, all of the epic dramas they are creating, thinking that this has an impact worldwide, or even an impact on the universe, or even an impact on God. All of this has only one purpose. To allow you to experience this form of co-creation, or rather, de-creation, until you are ready to give it up and join the real co-creation with the ascended masters and the entire cosmic hierarchy reaching up to the Creator. That is all the earth is about.

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The rest of this dictation, along with an invocation based on the dictation, is found in the book: Co-Creating with the Ascended Masters.

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