Ascended Master Jesus Christ through Kim Michaels, March 8, 2026. This dictation was given at the conference in Vilnius, Lithuania: Making a Difference in a Turbulent World.
I AM the Ascended Master Jesus Christ. You have heard the old joke, what do you want first, the good news or the bad news? I will begin by giving you the bad news. You are all going to die. Now I will give you the good news. You are all going to die. You will see, even from the scriptures that I talked about, let the dead bury their dead and made other references to people being in the death consciousness but that is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about that you all know that the body comes to the end and the body dies and you of course continue to live but you leave the body, you leave that life.
Leaving your body behind
Now there are various spiritual teachings also in Buddhism where they contemplate this, the fact that your current life will come to an end. What does that mean? It means actually that you, of course, will go on but what is to you that goes on? Not the physical body and not many of the ways you look at yourself in this lifetime that you have come to look at yourself as you were growing up, as you were so to speak programmed with a certain sense of identity based on your family, your culture, your nationality, your religion, all of these outer things.
All of this will drop away. It is valuable at a certain point of the spiritual path to contemplate that your current lifetime will actually come to an end because among many other things you can contemplate, that you will leave the body, you will leave your life behind. Some people will remember you, perhaps only your family or closet friends, perhaps you have some public position where more people will remember you. But once you leave the body that means nothing to you because you move on, especially when you are a spiritual person, you move on from this life and you rise up, for most spiritual people, to the identity realm where you meet your spiritual teachers and you start a process of processing your current lifetime for the purpose of setting you free from it so you can move on to the next lifetime or to your ascension. That means that there are many things that you currently consider important for you that will fall away after you leave the body. And what that means is that you can now begin to realize gradually that many of the things that matter to you right now will not matter to you when you leave the body. After you have left the body they will not matter to you.
I know this will sound harsh in a certain way because you have family members that they want you to still think about them after you leave the body. They want to still be important to you. But there will be some of the people that have been close to you in this lifetime that you will leave behind, especially if you ascend. But even if you move on to another embodiment you will not embody with all of the people you have known in this lifetime. There is a certain finality to the death of the body, the end of this lifetime.
The fear of expressing your Christhood
And why am I bringing this up? Well because, what is the most powerful thing you can do in a turbulent world to make a difference in a turbulent world? Well—be a Living Christ in embodiment and dare to express your Christhood. That is the most powerful thing you can do. But were you brought up in this lifetime—did your life up until you found your spiritual path prepare you to express your Christhood? On the contrary, it gave you all of this subtle sense of how you should behave and how you should not behave. And there is no society that encourages the expression of your Christhood.
Therefore, we see so many spiritual students over the years in various spiritual movements, whether they know about ascended masters or not, who reach a certain level of consciousness but who do not dare to express it, they do not dare to show it outwardly. And why not? Because, as you have been growing up and living your life, however old you are now, you have taken on from the collective, from your environment, these limitations of: “Oh this would not be appropriate, oh this would not be right. Oh people would condemn me, they would get angry, I would hurt people’s feelings, or they would feel left behind, or they would think I am crazy.”
You may have your own variation of this but I am asking you right now to imagine that you are somehow stepping out in front of a big group of people and expressing your Christhood. What is the fear you have of what the reaction will be? You do not need to think about this, I am asking you to quickly tune in. You are there, standing in front of a big group of people, you are expressing your Christhood. They are not approving of it, what is the fear for you individually? What do you fear most could happen if you expressed your Christhood?
It will not matter any more
And you see, whatever your fear is, it might matter to you now but after you leave your body at the end of this lifetime, it will not matter to you anymore. Why? Because you are not in the body. You are not in the body, you are not in this life.
Many people have never contemplated this. You have the concept of discarnate souls, who get stuck because they cannot leave the physical body and their life behind. But you also have so many near-death experiences, where they experience their body dies. They leave the body, go into some light realm where they feel so much better, so much more at peace and many of them do not want to come back. What you will feel as a spiritual person is that you are not losing something by leaving this life behind. You are rising to a higher level of peace, fulfillment, joy, no matter what you think about yourself, no matter what your psychology is right now.
When you leave the body, you will rise to a more pleasant, so to speak, realm. And that means that your fear that you are having right now expressing your Christhood, it just will not matter to you because you are not in the body.
The birth trauma and the primal self
What can they do to you? I am just giving you this as a way to make it clear to you what your fears are. And you can, of course, contemplate this in the times ahead. You might, as we have said before, take a notebook, ask yourself this question, or visualize that you are standing in front of a group of people, somehow expressing your Christhood. What is the worst reaction you could imagine? Then write down whatever comes to you. And then you can, of course, use our tools and teachings about the subconscious self because your fear of the reaction can only come from a subconscious self. Now it may very well be that this subconscious self was created in a past life where you were condemned and put down for expressing some aspect of Christhood, taking a stand for something. I am not saying that your fears are not real, in the sense that they are based on an actual experience.
It can even go back to the birth trauma, cosmic birth trauma and the primal self. The primal self was for many of you, most of you, created in a situation where you came to earth, you expressed Christhood, you were brutally put down and therefore, you decided: “I never want to experience that again.” And therefore, the primal self, maybe it does not have exactly those words, but the primal self will fear that you express your Christhood and will discourage it because the primal self is just a computer program, programmed to prevent you from having the experience of being put down again and being shocked by it. But as we have said before you could never be as shocked again as you were the first time because then it was a surprise.
Now, well, quite frankly, you have been on this planet for so long, not much can surprise you anymore. Not much—been there, done that. And it is important to connect to that and realize that there is not much on this planet that can surprise you. By contemplating this, by being willing to work on these fears, as this messenger has had to do many times, even before he started, back so many years ago but even continually, you can come to a point where you have overcome that resistance in you to expressing your Christhood.
Attaining Christhood
Now, before you can express it, you, of course, need to attain it. You need to reach the 96th level and go beyond, which is, of course, what we have given many teachings, including the path to self-mastery course, to help you achieve. And many of you are there, right there, or have gone a little bit beyond. Some of you are very close but have not yet turned the corner. The thing is, in order to express Christhood, you have to reach a certain level of consciousness. You cannot, at the 48th level, read a book about Christhood and decide to express it. Or can you? Well, it depends on what you mean by Christhood. You see, you can express a certain aspect of Christhood at the 48th level. You can, for that matter, express a certain aspect of Christhood below the 48th level, if you are open to looking at yourself and rising, say, from the 30th level of consciousness to the 31st. You can express to others that aspect of Christhood to help you see the illusion at the 30th level and rise.
However, what we are really talking about when we are talking Christhood is when you come to the 96th level and you have a conscious connection to the Christ mind.
And with that, again, words are words. Does that mean I am saying you do not have a connection at the 48th level? No. But you have a more tenuous, more foggy, more spotty connection. When you reach the 96th level and pass that initiation of overcoming the focus on self, the Christ consciousness becomes the backdrop. It is not something you need to connect to at a distance. You see, at the 95th level, you still think that you are connecting over a distance to the Christ consciousness. And you pass that initiation at the 96th level and overcome the focus on self, you are not connecting to the Christ. The Christ becomes the backdrop, it becomes the normal.
It is as if, up until the 96th level, you are reading a book and you are focusing on the black letters on the page. At the 96th level, you shift your focus and you discover the white page behind the letters. You can still see the letters, but now you are seeing the white page and it gives you a different perspective. Whatever is happening in the world, whatever is happening in your life and consciousness, there is a different perspective because what is the focus on self that we are talking about?
It is an identification with something in this world. And at the 96th level, you are letting that identification die. You are letting the dead bury their dead. And you are willing to not only follow Christ but to let your sense of identity as a not Christed being die and be reborn in Christ to a new sense of identity. These are just words, I know and I can feel that some of you do not quite connect to the words, but still at the 96th level, there comes that point where you shift and you see yourself in a new way, where suddenly the things that mattered to you last week do not have the same importance. It is like you have separated yourself from that sense of self. This does not mean you cannot take an active part in life. It does not mean you cannot have a family, a relationship and so forth. But it does not define you. Nothing on earth defines you.
The mental image of Christhood
What does that mean? Well, what have we seen over these decades, or we have talked about in previous dispensations, personal Christhood? We have seen that many people have done two things.
First of all, they have not looked at: “What is my fear of expressing Christhood.” They have not dealt with the psychological resistance they have. But second of all, they have formulated a mental image of what Christhood means to them. They take whatever culture was in their spiritual movement and teaching and in their minds they build this image: “This is how I am supposed to be as the Christ.” You can then try to, so to speak, force yourself into living up, conforming to that image. But what is the self that I just talked about that needs to die before you overcome the focus on self? Even at the 95th level, you have some remnant of this self—created in reaction to this world— where you are putting a mental image upon yourself of what you are supposed to be like. You were brought up, as I said, in a society that does not encourage you to express Christhood, but actually discourages it. Well, that means you took on an image from the outside but through your spiritual studies, you might have built an image from the inside of what it means to be the Christ.
And as long as you are trying to live up to that image, you cannot be the Christ. You can pretend to be the Christ. You can walk like the Christ, talk like the Christ, think like the Christ, feel like the Christ but you are not the Christ.
Relating to something beyond the world
When the focus on self dies, you can, as some of you have experienced, go through a period where you feel like: “I am a nobody. Who am I? I do not know who I am anymore. I do not have any opinions. The things that used to matter to me do not matter to me in the same way.” You can almost feel like life becomes bland. It is almost like you are experiencing life through a fog from a distance. You cannot really engage in anything and that is an understandable reaction that can take you some time to work through. It does not necessarily come at the 96th level. It can come also at higher levels. But it can, for some of you, come there when you are just right there on the 95, 96th level. You have given up most of your focus on self, but not all. When you give up that focus on the self that you have seen yourself as in relation to the world, you are reborn into a new sense of self where you see yourself in relation to the I AM Presence.
You may not at the 96th level have a totally clear experience of your I AM Presence, but still it is as if you are, instead of relating to the world, you are relating to something beyond the world. And that is a clear shift.
Discovering vs. defining the I AM Presence
Now be careful, because we have also seen previous ascended master students who formulated a mental image of their I AM Presence. You are seeing your I AM Presence up there, far removed from you. But you have a mental image of how it is, especially in the I Am Movement, they had a more, almost God-like image of the I AM Presence. But such an image will actually prevent you from connecting to the Presence. Because what is it that actually happens in Christhood? What did I say 2000 years ago?—“I cannot of my own self do nothing, the Father within me, as I hear, I speak”, and so forth. That means what? It means you are setting yourself free from the images that you were brought up with of how not to be the Christ. You are setting yourself free from the images you created as you were following the spiritual path of how to be the Christ.
But you are also setting your I AM Presence free from the images that you have created on the spiritual path of what or how the I AM Presence is. And that means that as the Christ, you are not a specific personality. You do not have specific opinions. Many students have thought that when you attain Christhood, you always have the right viewpoint, you have the truth about every issue on earth and you can express that truth even in black and white terms, many people think. You are always right. But when you actually attain Christhood, you are not seeking to be right or make other people wrong. You do not have a preconceived image of how you should be, what you should say. You are just letting it flow. When you reach this 96th level, it is important to contemplate a shift in how you relate to your I AM Presence. You go beyond seeing your I AM Presence from a distance, but you also can contemplate how you relate to the Presence, where you actually come to that point where you allow the Presence to express itself through you without knowing ahead of time what it will express. You are, so to speak, seeking to discover your I AM Presence instead of having a predefined image created here below.
Being the open door—nothing less, nothing more
But how do you discover the individuality of your I AM Presence? There are students who have thought: “Oh, when I reach Christhood, I can see my I AM Presence clearly up there.” But this is not how it works as we have actually hinted at before. The Conscious You will never, ever experience the I AM Presence from a distance. You will never have a vision of your I AM Presence up there, this individuality. The Conscious You can only experience the individuality of the I AM Presence as it is being expressed through you and through your four lower bodies. You experience as it is expressed. If you could know ahead of time what it was going to say, that is not really certainly the highest expression of Christhood. Christhood is really being neutral, being the open door with no filter. I am not saying you can achieve this at the 96th level, but I am saying you can begin to grasp that this is the goal and this is the only way you are going to move higher is to remove whatever filters you have so that you come to a point whenever that happens for you, where you are the open door—nothing less, nothing more.
Because you have no opinion about how the I AM Presence should express itself. You are content to watch it as it is unfolding. And if you really want to make a difference in a turbulent world, that is the way to make the highest difference you can make. But you see, in order to really do this, achieve this, it is not something you are doing, it is something you are allowing to unfold.
Christ will never conform
It is again valuable to contemplate. You only have a limited time left in this embodiment. And this embodiment is a unique opportunity for you to express Christhood. And therefore, you can come to a point where you make a shift. It is not a decision you make with the outer mind, but you make that shift where you realize: “I only have a limited time left, why not make the most of it? Why should I care what happens, what other people think, whether they are offended or not? Why should that matter to me? Why should I not say in the time I have left, I just want to be the open door and express whatever my I AM Presence wants to express. I want to make sure that when I leave this body, everything that could be expressed in this situation has been expressed. Come what may.”
You have this popular expression, devil may care. But you could say: “Christ may care.” What would the Christ care about people’s reactions? Because what is the Christ? What is Christ? It is that which helps people transcend their current sense of self. That is why, as we have said before, if the Christ conforms to people’s mental images, how can the Christ help them transcend their current sense of self which is projecting those images and expectations? The Christ, per definition, cannot conform to any society. It does not matter what it is. Christ will never conform. Now be careful here. This does not mean that the Christ will always oppose. The Christ is not entering a dualistic struggle with those who are in the dualistic state of mind. The Christ is not trying to prove them wrong or prove itself right. But it does not conform.
This messenger many years ago was sitting in the chapel of the Summit Lighthouse when the messenger Elizabeth Clare Prophet was giving an informal talk. And she said, without really being fully consciously aware of what she was saying, that even though they had this community of very spiritual people, if the Christ entered this community he would be persecuted. And he took note of that. Because here you have a community that is actually talking about Christhood but they had a mental image, both individually and collectively, of what it meant to be the Christ. They thought that if the Christ entered their community, the Christ would conform to the image they had of what Christhood is. But how would the Christ then help them transcend their current sense of self that was not at the level of Christhood? You would be, or rather people who were members of the Summit Lighthouse would be shocked if they realized how few people in the Summit Lighthouse had even approached the 96th level, even though many people thought they had.
You see, whatever the community is, whatever the collective consciousness is, whatever images people have of the Christ, the Christ will never conform because then the Christ cannot help you transcend your current sense of self. You could for that matter say that if you are at the 144th level of consciousness and you just have one illusion left, then I appearing to you as the Christ from the ascended level, I would not conform to that image. Because how could I then help you transcend it? Therefore, it is extremely important to realize that you do, when you pass that initiation on letting go of the focus on self, you are manifesting Christhood. You are the Living Christ in embodiment, but not the fullness of what you could be. Therefore, you need to continually look at yourself, look at your psychology, and look for what you need to transcend. One thing at a time, of course. We are not asking you to jump from the 96th to the 144th level. But you see, at the 96th level, if you do not express your Christhood, you cannot climb beyond that level. You can attain something but if you still want to remain hidden from the world, you cannot go beyond that level.
Because what is Christhood? It is that you are in the flow from above to below, from your I AM Presence and from the ascended masters, through your being into this world. And that flow requires you to gradually let go of all the images, all the sense of self you have, from the 96th to the 97th to the 98th and so forth. It is a continual process until you are ready to ascend. There is no ultimate level of Christhood, no ultimate expression of Christhood.
Going down into incarnation as Christ
You can benefit from contemplating when you reach these levels this concept of the Incarnation and this requires a little bit of a shift, because what is it we have told you? You discovered a spiritual path, perhaps at the 48th level, perhaps you are at a higher level in this life and you discovered it, but ultimately at one point in the past you reached that 47th level, you saw the illusion there, you reconnected to something beyond your own mind and that is when you started the spiritual path of coming into greater and greater awareness of what you are connected to, leading to oneness with what you are connected to. And you could say oneness is achieved at the 96th level, but not complete oneness, but at least a conscious awareness of your Presence, as I said, the white page beyond the letters written in your four lower bodies.
And at the 96th level, you have the potential then to accept the incarnation, but the shift required is that in order to climb to the 96th level, what is the focus of your attention? It is to climb higher and higher. You are going up, as we have said, from the 48th to the 96th, it is like you are creating this rocket to take you beyond the gravitational pull of the mass consciousness. You are going up, everything in your mind is geared towards going up, up, up, up. But what is it that the Christ wants to do? It wants to come down, to come in. In what? Incarnation. The Christ wants to be expressed in the world so that it can help set people free. But because of the law of free will, the Christ must be expressed through someone in embodiment who reached that level of Christhood.
And that is why at the 96th level, as I said, you can really not grow by continuing to focus on going up. You might say that below the 96th level, you can walk, take the path, the course to self-mastery, and you can go from one step to another, and you are still focused on going higher and higher. But you cannot say: “Aha, I am focused on going from the 96th to the 97th level. What is the initiation? Masters, when are you coming out with a continuation of the path of self-mastery that takes me from the 96th to the 97th and beyond, all the way to the 144th? Come up with those books so I can follow it step by step.” But you see that is not the way it works, because at the 96th level, in order to go higher, you have to reverse the focus of your intention. You again, you are not thinking going from here up, it is not that you are thinking about going down either, but you are thinking about how can you be the open door for the Christ to express itself. And as I said, the Christ wants to go down to people at lower levels of consciousness and give them something that can help them rise to the next level.
The rest of this dictation, along with an invocation based on the dictation, is found in the book: Making a Difference in a Turbulent World.
Copyright © 2026 Kim Michaels