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Ascended Master Gautama Buddha through Kim Michaels, August 4, 2024. This dictation was given at a Healing Retreat in Chicago: Heal your heart and the heart of America.

I AM the Ascended Master Gautama Buddha, as you have all guessed. You may normally associate me with the crown chakra, but I am of course also very aware of the importance of the heart chakra. And that the opening of the heart is the key to opening the crown. For no one has ever opened the crown chakra without having at least a high degree of opening of the heart chakra. For what would happen if by some black magic someone forced their crown chakra open? Well, their mental capacities would be magnified, but it would be in an unbalanced way because the mind, the thinking, analytical mind, cannot avoid becoming unbalanced if it is not balanced by the heart. What do you see in many people in the world? What do you see in some of these scientists that use the analytical linear mind to discover some secret about how the physical universe works and now they are suddenly able to split the atom and create a bomb that has much greater power than any other weapon? They had the capacity of mind to do this, but did they have the capacity of heart to ask whether what could be done, should be done?

Instead, they got caught up in this typical reaction of the mind: “If we don’t do it, those other people will.” What is behind this kind of reasoning, this serpentine logic? It is really one group of fallen beings saying: “Well, if we don’t do it, that other group of fallen beings will do it, and they will have greater power than we have, and we don’t want that, so we have to do it.” They have no heart. Am I saying the atom bomb should not have been developed? Nay, that is not the issue here. It is irrelevant. I am using it as an example that the mind that is not balanced by the heart has created some of the greatest problems on earth, some of the greatest conflicts.

The mind with no heart

Look at America. As Jesus said, many people are now at the mental level, focused at the mental level, which is the level of the mind, the thinking mind. What do you see? They are locked, their minds are locked on a certain track. They can only think in terms of conflict, right and wrong, good and bad: “We are good. Those who oppose us therefore must be bad. And if we are really good, then it is justified that we use force against those who are bad, because we have to save America from these bad people who will destroy it.”

That is the mind talking, the mind that has no heart, that is not balanced by the heart, because the mind is the one that comes up with this epic mindset, the epic thinking that there is some ultimate goal that must be reached. And if it is not reached, disaster will follow—“America must become a Christian nation or everything will go to hell.” This is the epic mindset that the fallen beings have used over and over again on this planet and other planets and in previous spheres. It only fools them who are in the mind and do not have an open heart. Because when you have an open heart, you experience the One mind that unifies and therefore you cannot believe that life can be reduced to this black and white thinking. That some people are good and some people are bad. And that it is justified that the good kill the bad to avoid some calamity and manifest a brave new world. The ends can justify the means.

Denying the Christ within you

You see what Jesus said, what every religion basically says on earth: “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want them to do to you.” But the mind can override it by saying: “Oh but these other people are so bad that they will prevent God’s epic goal from being fulfilled. And therefore, even though we claim to be good and it is not actually good to kill other people, well for the greater cause it is justified that we do it. Because the end that is so epically important can justify the means even though we know the means are wrong.” This is the mind talking. And when you are at that level of the mind, you can, as we have said, justify anything. You can reason for or against anything. You can come up with all the subtle serpentine logic that seemingly validates why the end must justify the means.

But when you have heart, you just look at this and you know in your heart this is not reality. This is a mind game. Jesus has often talked about him challenging the scribes and Pharisees. But there is not so much awareness in Buddhism that I also challenged the Brahmins of the Hindu religion and that they challenged me. Now they never got into the extreme measure of crucifying me but it was partly because I challenged them not in as direct a manner as Jesus did. But they did feel very provoked by me and the teachings I brought forth. Because what did I say 2,500 years ago that was exactly the same that Jesus said? I essentially said with different words: “The kingdom of God is within you.” And I said: “You don’t need an outer religion and an outer priesthood to get to the kingdom that is where? Oh yes, within you. If the kingdom is within you, why would you have to go through anything outside yourself? Any institution or priest in order to get to that kingdom that is within you.” That is what I said. I said everything is the Buddha Nature. Meaning you do not need the priesthood of the Hindu religion to get to the kingdom. And that always provokes the fallen beings. They have done everything they can to obscure this one truth—that you have access to the Christ mind, the One mind, the Buddha Nature within yourself.

This is the truth preached by all valid religions or spiritual teachers. It is the truth that has been denied by all of the religions, philosophies, ideologies created by the fallen beings. I know that Buddhism is not a dominant factor in the United States. But as Jesus said, certainly Christianity is. And what is the purpose of official Christianity starting with the Catholic Church? It is to deny that one truth, that you have access to the kingdom of God within you and that the only way to get to the kingdom is to change your psyche, to transcend your sense of self.

Shifting the equation in America

Many, many people in America have actually already acknowledged this, but many more are on the brink of acknowledging it and will come to acknowledge this as a result of the impulses we have sent out during this conference. Once you acknowledge that you can go within your own heart and gain a frame of reference that allows you to evaluate any idea and sense, experience whether it is real or unreal, then you can shift the equation. Not only for yourself but for others. When a critical mass of people do this, you can shift an entire nation. Even a large one like America. This is precisely what is happening right now. This conference is shifting the equation in America.

I am not saying this at all to give you a sense of pride, to inflate your egos. But it is definitely valid to acknowledge that even a few people coming together in oneness with each other and in oneness with the ascended masters can influence an entire nation. I am not thereby saying that all problems will be solved by this one conference. But I am saying, as Godfre said, there is a certain configuration of the energetic matrices that are clicked into place. This conference is shifting the equation to a higher level than before. Whether this leads to a decisive shift in the political debate is up to people’s free will. You cannot feel defeated if it does not happen. You need to be content that you have shifted the equation. This will, as I have said before, turn the rudder of a ship a critical degree. Maybe in the long run it will seem like the ship has not really changed course. But you know that a very slight change of the rudder, as the ship moves forward, it leads to a greater change in the destination it is headed for.

We want you to realize this, that with God all things are possible. Or rather, with the ascended masters, all things are possible. Not all things are possible in the sense that anything could be changed. We might modify the statement and say: “With the ascended masters, all things that are possible are possible.” Because at any given moment, given the interdependent originations, certain things are possible. There is a low potential and a high potential of any situation. At any given moment, in any situation, those who will reach out for the ascended masters can shift the situation to the highest potential. That is what we would like all ascended master students to accept and of course many more people who do not necessarily hear about ascended masters, but who are still able to tune in to something inside themselves. You do not need to consciously know about ascended masters to tune in to us. Many people have never heard about ascended masters or ascended master teachings, but are still able to tune in and receive some kind of impulse.

Why has the world progressed the way it has? Because over these past several thousand years, there have been people here and there and everywhere who have been able to tune in to the ascended masters and receive some kind of idea, some kind of impulse. They have implemented it and the equation has shifted a little bit. And this is of course what needs to continue to bring about the golden age. I know very well that there was a previous ascended master dispensation where many students believed that their organization was the one who was going to bring the Golden Age of Saint Germain and that there would come a point where they would get the credit for being the forerunners of this. They would be as famous as Jesus’ disciples and seen as the ones who first recognized the reality of the ascended masters. This is of course not what we are looking for and I know that this is not what you are looking for or you would not be in this dispensation because we do not cater to this feeling, this need to feel special. You are special, but not in the way the ego conceives of it.

Giving up the last ghost of self-focus

I know that all of you sense this. All of you have some awareness of it. You can shift into realizing this and realize this profound truth that is not about me in terms of the outer self. This is the way to overcome this focus on self that we have talked about now several times. I wish to make a certain contribution to help at least some people do this. I want you to envision in your mind that here is this person, he is very much like yourself. Even if you are in a female body, you do not need to feel excluded certainly. Here is this person sitting under a tree. He has walked the spiritual path for some time. He has been very, very focused on himself, on raising his own consciousness. He has even taken some extreme measures. He left a comfortable palace. He left his wife and child. He abandoned everything in the world to go out and live as an ascetic in the forest. But he did this because he was focused on himself, raising himself up, raising his consciousness. He had a sense that this was important. He had a sense that he had some mission, that he was on his way to something, so he ignored everything else in his life and focused on this. Here he is, sitting under this bodhi tree. He has made progress on the path, but he is not quite ready to go into Nirvana, so he has to go through this experience that here are the demons of Mara parading before him, attempting to tempt him, force him, beguile him, fool him into reacting to them. And he is sitting there observing.

You do understand this is a metaphor correctly, right? You do understand that this situation did not literally happen like this. You do understand that the demons of Mara parading before me is simply a symbol for what you are experiencing in your life. You could look at your life as everything that is happening is the demons of Mara parading before you. What is their goal? Well, this is what I realized when I sat there. I observed them and I observed myself, how I was tempted, really tempted to react to them. I know the Buddhists want to think that, oh, I was so advanced that the demons of Mara could not tempt me. But I had a moment, actually many moments, a period of time where I felt the pull and I could not quite overcome it. I did not react to it. I did not go into a reaction, but I felt the pull. And I knew that as long as I felt the pull, I could not go into Nirvana. What I finally realized is that it was not these outer manifestations that they paraded before me that created the pull. It was not any particular aspect of my psychology, like you could say I had a particular trauma that was not resolved, and this is what created the pull, or, I had a particular belief that created the pull.

And I realized that what it was, what was left, the one thing that was left was the focus on self. I had walked this path, and I realized that this sense of the “I”that had walked the path, could not take me into Nirvana. It was the last ghost. I was not nailed to the tree—I was just sitting under it. But it was like Jesus hanging on the cross, realizing that he still had the focus on self. That he was so important that God would somehow save him from dying on the cross. And I saw also that the very self that had driven me to walk the path, was the self that could not take me further. In a sense, the self that I had used to walk the path could not take me beyond the path. And as I saw it, in seeing it, I was outside of it. The Conscious You stepped outside of that self that I hithertofore had seen everything through. That colored my entire path. And as I experienced myself as being outside of it, it was not that I consciously decided to let it go—I just felt this spontaneous release. I released it. I let it go. I gave up that last ghost. And then, I was ready to go into Nirvana.

You can discuss, did I ascend at that point and come back? But I would rather present it this way. That at that point, I had qualified for my ascension. But instead of ascending, which would have entailed leaving the physical body behind, I decided to continue living in the same physical body and teach. But at that point, I was free from earth. Which really means, I was free from the focus on self. And therefore, I could come back and teach without the focus on self.

The self that wants drama

And why am I telling you this? Well, because you have the potential to also overcome your focus on self while you are still in embodiment. You see my beloved, there is an inherent danger in what we are doing. By telling the story of how I overcame, and how Jesus overcame, and how other ascended masters had these important embodiments before they ascended, the danger is that you think that earning your ascension must entail some dramatic circumstance. But as we have said, if you want drama, all the dark forces will give you all the drama you can want. But you see, as long as you have the sense that winning your victory entails some kind of drama, how can you give up the focus on self? For, it is only that separate self that focuses on you as a separate self, that wants the drama. Because it wants to seem important. And this ties in with all we have said about avatars. You come as an avatar to this planet and there is something that motivates us to come here. I am not only saying you but including myself. And we feel that it must be fulfilled before we can leave. We must have that sense that we made a difference. But this is also a focus on self. We think therefore that: “Ah, if there is something dramatic, then we have fulfilled. Then it was justified to come here.”

This is the danger—putting ourselves up this way, especially when people who do not really understand the meaning behind it create this idolatry around us. If you look at what idolatry Buddhists have created around the Buddha, you will be astonished. You see that the danger is that the example can become the exception, can become the idol. But you have freed yourself from this idolatry. You realize that you have the potential to ascend. But some of you have not quite reached that level of awareness where you can see that, there is a certain self that is so focused on itself that it feels like it should be as important as Jesus or Gautama or other ascended masters. In other words, you feel that if this is your last embodiment, you should do something important in this embodiment. You should have some important role. Some of you even look at this messenger and say: “Oh, but look at all Kim has accomplished, all of the books, all of the websites. Surely, he has done something important.” And he used to look at himself that way as well and feel that: “Well, at least I have accomplished something on this planet.” But he saw there was a self that felt: “But is it enough? What if I published another 80 books and created another ten websites and another 500 YouTube videos?” When is it ever enough?

What I am saying here is this: this self that causes you, the Conscious You, to be focused on self, it wants to not make an entrance, it wants to make an exit, some dramatic exit, to leave some kind of legacy. And the messenger had this self, until not so long ago, when he finally, without sitting under a tree or being nailed to a cross, saw it. And you all have the potential to do the same. Now, take note. Of course it is important what the messenger has done. Of course, some of you have a Divine plan that needs you to do something that society or other people would see as important. But there is a very subtle discernment to be made. Because, if you still have that self that feels the need to be seen as important, that self will prevent you from ascending. And it will also often prevent you from actually fulfilling the higher potential of your Divine plan. Because you are trying to force it. You want it to happen so badly.

I am not asking you to go into a mindset where you think there is nothing important you have to do. You may or you may not. I am asking you to switch your perspective and realize that in the end, when it is your time to ascend, you do not do it by some dramatic circumstance. You do it by just letting go, letting it all go, walking away. And you do not need drama. In fact, the more drama, the harder it is to walk away.

Again, be careful here. Do not let the outer mind take you to these extremes. Be open to the potential that you have something important to do. But be non-attached to it. Contemplate the difference between doing this from this focus on self, where you are trying to reach some dramatic goal, and doing it from a state of freedom, where you can let it flow from your I AM Presence and the ascended masters. You are just letting it flow without this focus on self, the intent that the self should feel validated and justified and elevated and important. And this or that or the next thing. That is freedom. That is what I experienced as I taught for those years until the physical body was left behind. And I desire all of you to come to that point where you have overcome that focus on self. And then you can live the rest of your life with this freedom. And you may see your service unfold and you do something important, but the self is not there to want it, and want more. Because of course, that self, it will never be enough. This is, in a sense, the problem of the fallen beings, you could say. That they have such a focus on self that they feel they want to achieve something ultimate. But as the Presence of Love said, nothing will ever be ultimate. And there are beings who have fallen and who have continued in the fallen consciousness for eons because they still have that dream of reaching some ultimate state for this separate self. And it is all that is keeping them in the fallen consciousness. And letting go of that focus on self is the ultimate freedom.

And how do you do it? Well, very carefully, gradually. You see what the mind does when I say this: how do you do it? How do you overcome the focus on self? Do you see in your own minds what is coming up? Oh, there must be some ultimate way to do it, some ultimate experience, some drama. But the way to overcome the focus on self is not drama, it is anti-drama. What was it that happened under the tree there when I was sitting there? There was no drama that unfolded. I came to see that the self wanted drama and that this was what was keeping me from Nirvana. And when I saw the drama, I let go of the drama, the need to have any kind of drama. Oh yes, Buddhists look back at this and glorify it and idolize it. But at the moment I gave up the self, there was no drama. Because, if I had had a drama, I could not have given up the self. Because it is only the self that wants the drama. I separated the Conscious You from the self that wanted drama. And I just gave it up without any drama. With Jesus, it may be a little harder to see because he was nailed to the cross. And there were people around him crying and wanting him not to leave. That is why, in a sense, it was harder for him to give up the damn ghost, as we might say. And it took him all this agony. But, as Mother Mary said, he did have a flair for the dramatic.

But I was just sitting there under the tree, and I just let it go, without any drama. This messenger came to the same point, of realizing there was no drama there. That is why he cannot even point to a single event that caused it. Because there was no drama, it just happens. But it happens of course as a result of the process where you are willing to look at yourself and look for that beam, that self in your own eye. And then it just happens. It actually happens when you have come to see that need for drama. And you see how silly, unreal it is. And you let go of that need for drama.

Look at the self-improvement industry, as we might call it. Of all of these teachers out there, that talk about instant enlightenment, instant awakening, higher states of consciousness, ego freedom. They are caught in the mechanics of the marketplace. What do you see when you open your TV, at least here in America, where everything is driven by commercials? There are companies that advertise. Why? To tell how their products are so better than anybody else’s. Here you are, you want to set yourself up as a guru in the modern age. You have to have something that nobody else has. You have to be special, so you want to create a drama. Awakening is some dramatic event. Enlightenment is the ultimate drama. The ascension is the ultimate drama, as many students in the Summit Lighthouse believed. And they looked forward to this dramatic event, even someone having their physical ascension. And some students envisioned that they would ascend physically, and thousands of people would be standing around saying, ooh, aah. But if you have the desire for the ooh and aah, how are you going to leave? Because nobody in the ascended realm is going to be particularly impressed by you ascending. There will be ascended masters greeting you when you ascend, but we are not going to stand there saying, ooh, aah.

Consider this. This is what I wanted to get out here. Your freedom, your ascension, your freedom to be who you are while you are in embodiment, does not entail any kind of drama. It entails no drama. In a sense, you could say anti-drama, but even that is a little bit easy for the ego to start doing. The ego can turn everything around. This is what this messenger realized that he is different from many gurus in the sense that he does not make the claim to be special. And there was this little voice that said: “Oh, but you are so special because you do not claim to be special.” And he said: “I don’t need to believe that.”

Consider this. Be drama free, not ego free. Stop thinking about ego free. Make the ego obsolete by being drama free. Because all dramas come from the ego.

As much as I would like to continue this interaction with you, which is enjoyable for me as an ascended being, perhaps a slightly different form of enjoyment than what you can have when you are un-ascended, but nevertheless it is enjoyable for me. But I will bend to the constraints of time and space. Even though for me time is not, I know that for you time is. I would once again say, take a moment. Can we not rejoice in each other’s Presence? Can we not feel fulfilled in having reached this point, this point of oneness? With this, I greet you. I greet the Buddha Nature within you. Gautama Buddha I AM. And I leave you without any drama.