Ascended Master Lord Maitreya through Kim Michaels.
I have now explained that the only people who have the potential to free the Earth from dualistic religion are the members of the top ten percent. Yet for you to fill this role, you must – as always – begin at home, begin by removing the beam in your own eye. What I am essentially asking you to do is to help set the rest of humanity free from the influence of the false teachers. And how can you possibly do this unless you have set yourself free from the influence of false teachers?
I must tell you that one of the most delicate problems faced by the Ascended Host is how to get the most spiritually mature people to recognize that they have been influenced by false teachers and then withdraw themselves from these teachers and their false ideas. There are several aspects to this problem, and I will review them in this chapter.
Let us begin with what should be the most obvious problem. All spiritual people recognize that there is something beyond the material universe, whether they call it God, Source, the Ascended Host or something else. Naturally, a spiritual person feels a great sense of loyalty toward that something, feeling it is necessary to remain faithful to God or the spiritual teacher. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with this, as it is indeed appropriate to feel such loyalty toward the beings who are above you in the spiritual hierarchy. As I have explained, you do not progress as a separate individual, you progress by becoming one with your own spiritual lineage, the River of Life. Spiritual people know this subconsciously, and that is why they feel a conscious need to be loyal to their vision of those whom they see as above them in hierarchy.
Yet while we have a constructive and necessary drive for loyalty, there are two potential problems with this. The first one is that even if you are loyal to a spiritual being who is beyond the Earth, you could potentially be loyal to one of the false gods that exist in the emotional or mental realm. Or you could be loyal to a being in one of these realms who portrays itself as a spiritual teacher, perhaps even as a representative of the Ascended Host. There are beings who impersonate ascended beings and claim to be the real Jesus or the real Maitreya, thus being impostors. If you have become loyal to such a false god or teacher, it can be very difficult for you to break free. For how can you break free unless you question the being, and how can you do that when questioning will be seen as a lack of loyalty? So this can form a catch-22, and the only one who can break it is you.
You must be willing to realize that questioning your God or teacher is not a lack of loyalty. Why not? Because if your God or teacher is true, they will have no problem with being questioned. The real representatives of God have nothing to hide and know that you will grow only by asking questions. Thus, it is natural that there comes a point when you do question your teacher or even your God. As I have attempted to explain, the Creator is beyond the world of form, so there is no image or spiritual teaching that can accurately portray the fullness of the Creator’s Being. So how can you get to know that fullness? You can do so only through direct experience, and you will attain this experience only by being willing to go beyond any outer teaching. You can go beyond only if you are willing to question, and thus the Creator knows that questioning is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, of all progress. Those who think they know everything are always far from the Creator’s true Spirit, no matter how sophisticated they think they are.
The first problem is that spiritual people can be loyal to a false god or false teacher who is beyond the physical world. The second problem is that many spiritual people have come to believe that being loyal to their God means being loyal to an organization, doctrine, religious leader or guru who claims to represent that God on Earth. Thus, they dare not question the outer organization, its doctrines or its leaders, feeling that doing so would be disloyal to God. However, as I have attempted to explain, most spiritual and religious organizations have been affected by the duality consciousness. And how can they ever be set free from that consciousness unless the members are willing to ask questions?
The forces of duality, including your own ego and fallen beings, are not in the least loyal to the true God. Thus, if you do not question their influence on your religion, you are actually being loyal to them instead of being loyal to God. They have perverted your religion and taken it away from what God wants it to be, and you are allowing this to go on by remaining silent. Remaining silent in the name of loyalty to God makes no sense at all. Those who are truly loyal to God or a true spiritual teacher will question anything in an outer organization that is influenced by duality. And they will keep doing so until they either see positive change or until they decide to move on and go elsewhere.
Only the false gods and the false teachers have something to hide, and that is why they will seek to make you believe that you should not question them in the name of loyalty to God. They know they cannot stand up to scrutiny, and the only way they can continue to fool spiritual people is to get them to stop asking questions. For as soon as people do start asking questions, they will clearly see that there either are no answers or that the answers don’t make sense. And then people will begin to see through the false doctrines and realize they need to look for a true teacher. So if the top ten percent are to fill their role of freeing the Earth from the influence of false teachers, they need to start questioning everything about their spiritual lives, including their God, their doctrines, their outer organization or an outer guru. If you are not willing to question – if you have mental holy cows that you see as untouchable – you are not on the true path to spiritual freedom.
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There is misplaced loyalty – you are loyal to the wrong being – and there is false loyalty – you are loyal to an outer representative and not to the transcendental God – and you need to overcome both. How do you begin? In the end it all comes down to discernment, the ability to distinguish between the one truth – the truth with no dualistic opposites – of the Christ mind and the many “truths” of the mind of anti-christ. Obviously, this is one of the main characteristics of Christhood, but it is not an intellectual or analytical capability. It is intuitive, meaning that it is based on a direct inner experience. As you attain Christhood, you attain a direct experience of the reality of God, and thus you can experience the difference – the difference in vibration – between what is one with God’s reality and what is separated from that reality. For example, you can listen to a spiritual teacher, and even though your outer mind cannot find any flaws in the words being said, you experience that there is something lacking in the person’s vibration or intentions. You know there is something not right, even though you cannot express it in a way the analytical mind can grasp or accept.
My point here is that all spiritual people have some degree of Christ discernment—or they would not be interested in the spiritual side of life. So even though you might think discernment sounds abstract or difficult, you already have it. There is no question that if you are reading this book, you have some measure of Christ discernment. However, there are two questions you need to ask.
The first one is whether your discernment is developed to its full potential, and the answer is most certainly a “No!” How can I say that? Because if your discernment was fully developed, you would not be in embodiment on Earth but would have ascended. I am not saying this to discourage you but to help you recognize that as long as you are on Earth, it is prudent to work on sharpening your discernment. And how do you do that? You do it the same way you develop any other skill, namely by practicing it. And that brings us to the second question you need to ask.
I have said that all spiritual people have discernment, but the real question is whether they are using it? Or rather, are they using it selectively, feeling there are some areas of their spiritual lives where they no longer need to ask questions? The ego is on an eternal quest to feel secure, to feel that it is saved. One aspect of this is that it is always looking for a God, a spiritual teacher, a teaching or an outer organization that is the ultimate and can guarantee your salvation. In other words, by merely being a member of this organization or being a follower of this guru, your ego feels that it is saved. And once it accepts this belief, your ego does not want you to question the source of its sense of security. Thus, the ego will try to set up “safe zones” or mental holy cows in your mind, areas where it seems you do not have to question, you do not have to apply your Christ discernment. You might question other spiritual teachers, but you do not question your own. You might question the gods of other religions, but you do not question your own. You might question other religious doctrines, but you do not question your own. You might question the behavior of other spiritual leaders, but you do not question the behavior of your own. You might question many ideas, but there are certain beliefs you never question. In other words, you might question the motes in the eyes of other people, but you do not question the beam in your own eye.
In order to make maximum progress, you need to become aware of these gray areas, these shadowy areas, where you are not applying your Christ discernment. And then you need to start letting your light shine so it can consume all shadows—in which the ego and the false teachers seek to hide. This is a matter of making some clear decisions. Are you truly willing to be part of the movement to set humankind free from the false teachers? If so, start by setting yourself free and you will see more clearly how to set others free. Are you willing to acknowledge that there are false teachers in this world and beyond this world? Are you willing to acknowledge that you have been affected by them, or would you rather remain in ignorance?
Let me give you a useful measure for evaluating whether you have spiritual holy cows, areas of your spiritual life where your ego resists questions. As I have said before, the essence of the ego is resistance to the flow of life, the River of Life. Therefore, the ego is constantly seeking to defend its illusions against the light of truth. In reality, no illusion can stand in the light of truth, as the darkness cannot remain when you turn on the light. So the ego is constantly trying to prevent you from turning on the light in your mind by finding and accepting an understanding that goes beyond the ego’s dualistic illusions. Whenever you detect any hesitancy toward having your beliefs questioned or any reluctance to consider new knowledge, you know the ego is at work.
The equation is very simple, and it was described by Jesus in the parable about building your house on sand versus building it on rock (Matthew 7:24). If your spiritual beliefs are built on the shifting sands of the duality consciousness, they will inevitably be threatened by the light of truth, and thus you will resist truth, you will resist questions. Yet if your beliefs are built upon the rock of Christ, you have no need to resist truth and thus you can openly examine any idea that comes to you, dismissing the ones that do not vibrate with truth and accepting the ones that do. As the Buddha put it, “Accept nothing that is unreasonable. Reject nothing as unreasonable without proper examination.” It is only the ego that resists properly examining new ideas before you dismiss or accept them.
NOTE: The rest of this dictation is available in the book Master Keys to Spiritual Freedom.
Copyright © 2007 Kim MIchaels.