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Ascended Master Gautama Buddha through Kim Michaels, January 7, 2024. This dictation was given during the New Year’s webinar 2024: BEING the Flame of Peace in a world in transition.

I AM the Ascended Master Gautama Buddha.

Let me begin by talking about the thoughtform for 2024. Naturally, it is still valid to give the affirmations or mantras you have been giving so far: “Gautama Buddha, you are the perfect mirror for earth”, Saint Germain for the economy, Mother Mary for women, Jesus for Christianity*, and you can even create your own mantras to other masters. But I will also give you a specific thoughtform for this year.

The thoughtform for 2024

And the thoughtform is that I, Gautama, am sitting on one side of the Sea of Samsara. I am sitting, in a typical Buddhic posture, as a golden Buddha. Not as one of these solid brass or gold leaf Buddhas that you see, but as a Buddha of golden light. In front of me, therefore, is the Sea of Samsara. You and humanity are on the other side of that sea. It is turbulent with waves, chaotic waves. I reach out my hands like this and I part the sea. Not the Red Sea, but the Sea of Samsara. There is now a dry passage, and the waves are held back on both sides. And therefore, those who are willing, those who have a certain balance, can walk across that Sea of Samsara towards the golden Buddha. But in order to walk, you have to be so balanced that you are not pulled in either direction. You can hold that image for yourself, that you are walking on this narrow line, across the Sea of Samsara, without looking to either side, but focusing only on the golden Buddha, the golden light of the Buddha. You can hold the vision that many among the top 10% of the people will also be drawn to the Buddha and will be able and willing to walk that path, to cross that sea, and regardless of the outer turmoil, reach for the peace of the Buddha.

What is the Conscious You?

My contribution to this webinar will be somewhat multifaceted. But let us begin with a concept of self. We have said that the Conscious You is really a sense of self. What is a sense of self? We have also said that the Conscious You is pure awareness. Whereby we mean that the Conscious You is not the outer selves, the identity, mental and emotional bodies and the contents of those bodies. Another way to describe this, and mind you all of this is words, but another way to describe it is to say that the Conscious You is really the consciousness of the I AM Presence focusing itself in the material world. But because the Conscious You is not the totality of the Presence, the Conscious You can experience itself as a distinct being, that can even feel like it is separated from the I AM Presence.

But really the Conscious You is what? It is the ability of consciousness to focus itself in a particular location. It is sort of a concentration of consciousness. What happens when the Conscious You goes into a certain self? Well, the consciousness that is the Conscious You focuses itself inside that sense of self and experiences the world through the perception filter of that self. What allows people to identify themselves with their physical bodies? The Conscious You is focused inside the body, for many people, inside the brain, and therefore, experiences the world through the perception filter of the physical senses and the brain.

And you can say that the Conscious You, as we have said before, is whatever it thinks it is, is whatever it experiences itself as being, depending on where it has focused itself. But as we have also said, no matter what outer selves you create and no matter how strong they are and how firmly you are identified with them, you do not become the selves because the Conscious You is still just that, a focalization of consciousness, and you know very well that you have the ability to shift your focus. If you are sitting, watching TV, being engrossed in a movie, but you hear a loud noise outside, your attention immediately goes to the noise. You are shifting your focus from the movie to the outside noise. That is all you are doing. That is all the Conscious You is really doing, shifting its focus.

The ability to shift your focus

Now, in many cases, for most people, certainly when you are in the immersion phase, this happens unconsciously. You are unconsciously shifting your focus from this to that to the next thing.

Now, what happens when you start the awakening phase? Well, ideally, what should happen is that you become conscious of your ability to shift your focus. And instead of allowing your focus to be drawn hither and yon by outside conditions or by internal conditions in your four lower bodies, you can consciously decide where you focus your attention. This has certain subtleties. You might say that traditional forms of meditation are focused on concentrating the mind, controlling the mind, suppressing thoughts and feelings, disciplining the mind. And I am not saying that this cannot achieve some results, but in the end, the question really is, does it shift your focus? Does it help you become aware of your ability to shift your focus?

What we have attempted to give you is a set of teachings and tools for becoming aware that you are the Conscious You, you are neutral pure awareness, meaning you are not all of those selves in your three higher levels of the mind. And therefore, when you realize this, when you begin to experience this, you can experience that your focus can shift out of the selves, and to pure awareness and you can become more and more conscious of this, more and more able to do this.

The dualistic state of nothingness in non-dual teaching

However, there is a certain subtlety that we wish to give you at this point because some of you are ready to take advantage of it. It is possible to think that when you experience yourself as pure awareness, you are experiencing that there is no self. This is what has led many people throughout the ages to go into this state of experiencing nothing or nothingness or no self, as it has now been called in this modern non-duality movement. And they have a certain experience, as we have talked about before, because there has been created in the collective consciousness, this state of ‘seeming nothingness’ or ‘seeming no self’.

But what is it that is really happening here? Well, what is happening is that when you are completely, when the Conscious You is completely identified with the outer selves, the outer personality, this is an example of an extreme focus on something that has form. You are focused on this particular sense of self. And this, of course, is what the fallen beings have done to an extreme degree. It is not a point-like sense of self they have created, it is a somewhat broad and sophisticated self. But their Conscious You is completely focused as and within that sense of self.

This, of course, is a self that is based on duality. It has the built-in contradictions and therefore, it causes suffering. This self is seeking to raise itself up to become immortal, but since this is an impossible task, the self will always be suffering. There are beings who have been in this state of suffering for so long, beyond even the lifespan of this unascended sphere, that they have had enough of it. But they have now gone to the opposite dualistic extreme of instead of glorifying the self, denying that there is a self, thinking that thereby they can escape the process of having to consciously dissolve all of the subconscious selves they have created over such a long period of time—they have created this concept that there is this realm or this experience of nothingness, no differentiation, not two. Some even call this nirvana or enlightenment.

But enlightenment and nirvana, as I used the concepts even 2,500 years ago, does not mean nothingness. I actually, as the incarnated Buddha, warned against going into a state of nothingness or a state of ‘no-self’ and the reason for this is very simple.

The state of dis-focus

What have I said the Conscious You is? It is the focus of consciousness, focusing in a specific location, we might say. But what is the flip side of the focus of consciousness? It is to dis-focus, to not focus consciousness in a specific location, but to un-focus so there is no specific sense of location or sense of self. Yet what happens when you do this? Well, you lose the sense of self. But why did the Conscious You come into existence in the first place? To give the I AM Presence a specific experience in the world of form.

Everything in form, in the world of form, can be said to have a certain location, certain localization. That is why the Conscious You is consciousness focused in a certain location, so it gives a certain experience. When you dis-focus the Conscious You and go into this artificial state of nothingness or no-self, what happens? Well, you lose your sense of continuity, you lose yourself, of who you are, and many people in the world, even right now, are experiencing this.

Throughout history, many people have experienced it because they have been ensnared by the fallen beings into thinking that, instead of going through this process of consciously un-creating the subconscious selves, there is a shortcut. They can leapfrog this arduous process and therefore, reach instant enlightenment, instant nirvana, whatever they call it. But this is a lie created by the fallen beings and the effect of it is that you still have all the subconscious selves in your being. Therefore, you are not free to merge back into the I AM Presence. You cannot go into the I AM Presence. But at least temporarily, you cannot either focus yourself in the selves.

The spiritual coma of the no-self land

What does it take to let a self die? To dis-identify yourself from the self. You must focus on the self without going into it, and then see the illusion and let go of the illusion. If you are in this state of no-self where you are not focused, you cannot go in that direction. But neither can you go to the I AM Presence, because the I AM Presence is not nothing. It is not no-self. It is a clearly defined self. You now go into this no-self land, and you have two ways to go here.

Some people end up in a mental institution, in a straitjacket or on heavy medication, because the psychological profession has discovered this condition and has labeled it in various ways. Others go into some kind of spiritual setting and you find a substantial number of them in Buddhist monasteries around the world, but also in other forms of spiritual monasteries or retreats, where they try to turn this into a virtue, into a sign of spiritual growth. They might sit there in this dissociative state for a period of time, but they are not growing from this. They are held in suspended animation so to speak. These are the two main options that people take. And many, many people throughout the ages have believed that they have achieved some kind of spiritual growth in some kind of higher state of consciousness, even nirvana or enlightenment or awakening or no-self, but they have just gone into this spiritual coma.

Focusing on the higher selves

What is the alternative if you have experienced this? It is to realize the fallacy of this state, the unreality of this state, and again be willing to focus yourself. If you are not able to focus on the I AM Presence, then be willing to focus on the subconscious selves. Use our tools and teachings to gradually dissolve, and let die, those selves. And as you allow more and more selves to die, the Conscious You becomes more and more free to consciously choose where it wants to focus itself. And then you can either focus on the I AM Presence, or you can focus on an ascended master. For many people, it will be easier, to begin with, to focus on an ascended master than on the I AM Presence. This may sound paradoxical, but it can be easier, for many people, to do this. Partly because there are ascended masters who are ready to work with unascended people and therefore, give you a focus.

You see what I am saying here. Spiritual growth, higher states of consciousness, is not a matter of losing your focus. It is a matter of shifting your focus, from the selves in this world to selves that are beyond this world. Whether it be the self of an ascended master or the self of your I AM Presence. As an ascended master, I am not in a state of no self. I have a clearly defined self as the Ascended Master Gautama Buddha. I can trace this self all the way back to my embodiment as Gautama, where I qualified for my ascension. And I can trace it further back to my first embodiment on earth and beyond that to a natural planet, actually several natural planets. And the self that I have is based on all of the experiences I have had, and I recognize the value of all these experiences.

The illusion of a shortcut vs. the purpose of life

Now I have said that the fallen beings have created such a conglomerate of subconscious selves, that when they become aware of this and aware that these selves are the cause of their suffering, they refuse to deal with it. They want to find a shortcut so they can get back to nirvana, or peace of mind or the ascension or enlightenment or whatever, without having to go through the arduous process of dealing with the selves. But this is again a misunderstanding of the purpose of life. What does it mean that you have free will? As we have said, within a certain context you have freedom of choices. You can go this way to the ascension or that way to the ascension. What does it mean? It means that you have free will because anything you do as the Conscious You with free will, any place you focus yourself, is an experience that helps the I AM Presence grow and expand its sense of self. Creating the separate selves, and focusing yourself as the Conscious You inside the selves, is an experience for the I AM Presence.

But uncreating the selves one at a time, seeing through the illusions, is another type of experience that helps the I AM Presence grow. You see, the I AM Presence, as such can be said, it is not a good expression to say it does not care, but the I AM Presence is not attached to whether you go into duality and separation and how many separate selves you create because creating the selves gives it an experience and uncreating the selves gives it an experience. If the Conscious You decides that it does not want to give the I AM Presence the experience of uncreating the selves, well, that is what the Conscious You can do with its free will. But it also can only be done when the Conscious You is not willing to shift its focus to the I AM Presence and sense what the I AM Presence wants.

Because clearly, the I AM Presence wants the Conscious You to go through the entire process of uncreating what it has created. There is no judgment on the part of the I AM Presence. There is no judgment on the part of the ascended masters. There is no judgment on the part of the Creator. At least not this judgment of right and wrong. There is discernment, but this is not judgment, the dualistic judgment based on the dualistic value scale.

Some of you will be ready to take these teachings and begin to realize that it really is just a matter of where you, as the Conscious You, focus your attention. And you will gradually become able to consciously become aware: “Oh, I am focusing my attention on this. I do not want to do that anymore.” And then you can consciously learn to shift your attention. But of course, shifting your attention on a more permanent basis can only be done when you dissolve the selves that pull on your attention. So the Conscious You can always shift out of the subconscious selves and experience a reality outside the selves. But it cannot permanently, on a long-term basis, shift outside the selves until it has resolved the selves, dissolved the selves so they are not pulling on the Conscious You.

The process of the growth of self and ascension

In other words, the purpose, we might say, of the journey that the Conscious You is making in the world of form, in the unascended sphere, is to first allow its attention to be pulled into the world, then awakening from this identification with the world, with the identity, mental, emotional bodies and the physical body, and learning to consciously shift its attention to the I AM Presence or the ascended masters, allowing its attention to be pulled upwards instead of outwards or even downwards.

The fallen beings are attempting to pull your attention downwards to be focused on them. They want your Conscious You to become a chela, a slave, of them as gurus. They want the Conscious You to see them as the ultimate gurus and follow them as their slaves, follow them blindly. The ascended masters, of course, want you to go in the opposite direction and free yourself from any downward or outward pull. But we, of course, allow you to outplay your free will and have enough experiences of focusing your attention in various locations in the world of form, the unascended sphere, until both the Conscious You and the I AM Presence have had enough of the experiences you can have.

We might say that first you are going out and you are creating all of these subconscious selves that give you various experiences in the world, even as a separate self. You can come to a turning point where now you switch your focus and you start going back. But that also is an experience you can have in the world of form. When both the I AM Presence and the Conscious You have had enough of both types of experiences, the immersion, the awakening, the going out, the going in, then the Conscious You comes to that point where now there is nothing in the world of form, in the unascended sphere, that pulls you outwards or downwards. And that is when the Conscious You can then stand there, although standing is, of course, metaphorically speaking, but you can be at that point where the Conscious You looks back at earth and it has to sense: “Is there anything pulling me back there? Is there any desire I have, anything I want to do, anything I want to accomplish, any experience I want to have?” And if there is nothing that pulls you, then you can turn around, metaphorically speaking, focus your attention on the I AM Presence, and merge back into the I AM Presence.

This does not mean that the Conscious You ceases to exist. It means that the Conscious You realizes itself as the I AM Presence, realizes that it was never separated from the I AM Presence. It was just a focus, a localized focus of the I AM Presence in the unascended sphere. But now it is the fullness of the I AM Presence with all of the experiences incorporated in the causal body that the I AM Presence garnered through the Conscious You.

I am an ascended master. I am not constantly thinking about all of my past lifetimes on earth and on natural planets, but the experiences I had, are in my causal body and my causal body is part of the totality that I am. And that is why I have a much broader awareness than I had when I was this new I AM Presence created a long time ago on a natural planet in this sphere. And this is the process of life, the process of the growth of self, the transcendence of self. It is a beautiful process, a wondrous process, a magnificent process.

I know this is much easier to say for an ascended master than for an unascended being who is still swimming in the Sea of Samsara, struggling to keep your head above the water. But perhaps by hearing this and hearing that this is your potential, this can be inspiring for you, especially when you realize that I started out as an I AM Presence just like your I AM Presence. I started out with a localized point-like sense of self just like yours. There is nothing special about me that enabled me to go through this process but that would exclude you from going through it. This is, again, where you need to look beyond the idolatry of the Buddha created by the Buddhist religion, by those who are still in the consciousness of duality and therefore, have a need to project that their religion, their religious leader was superior to all others. What one has done, all can do—this is the motto of the ascended masters and it is true. It does not mean that all will do it but it does mean that all can do it.

The reality of any genuine spiritual teaching

The difficulty we always face as ascended masters is that we have a fundamentally higher state of consciousness than unascended beings on earth. Our ultimate goal is to raise people, beings, to our level of consciousness. But the distance is so great that despite whatever claims may be out there, this cannot be achieved in one leap. We cannot even tell unascended beings about our state of consciousness because they cannot fathom it. When we give a teaching, we must look at their state of consciousness, what separate selves they have, what worldview they have, what illusions of Maya they have taken on, and we must give them something that they can relate to in their present state of consciousness.

You may look at this image of this turbulent Sea of Samsara. The waves are chaotic, up and down, in and out. Here is a person in the sea who is drowning. Some ways away, there is this luxurious cruise ship that spots the drowning man. But the drowning man is so focused on just keeping his mouth above water that he cannot even see the cruise ship. He just sees the waves. Now the cruise ship throws out this life belt with a rope attached. And this, the man can see and he can grab onto it, pull himself through it and in the beginning, he cannot do anything else. He is so exhausted that he just finally realizes: “I am not going to sink and drown.” He just sits there without looking right or left, just feeling: “Ah, I have escaped drowning.” All he can grasp right now is the life belt that is keeping him afloat.

Now, after some time he may have rested and he may be able to open his eyes and see: “Hey, there is a rope attached to the life belt. What happens if I pull on it?” And it may actually be that pulling on the rope for a time will increase his trouble, because now he is pulling against the waves and they are again threatening to wash over and fill his mouth. He may have to go through some adjustment process before he finds a way to pull on the rope that does not drown him. And then gradually he pulls himself into the lee of the ship where the waves are not as big, they become smaller and smaller. But he is still just focused on the rope. And he has the sense that he needs to pull on it but he does not really have any clear idea what is at the other end but he hopes that it is a place that is not wet and where he is no longer in danger of sinking. And only when he has pulled himself a certain distance, can he suddenly look up and see the cruise ship. And this is the situation of the ascended masters. We can throw people a life belt with a rope attached but even when people grab ahold of the life belt, we cannot pull them in. They must pull themselves in.

But when the person is drowning, would it do us any good to tell him about this wonderful cruise ship? Nay, he will not be able to fathom it or even accept that it exists. He is just looking for something that can keep him from drowning. This is why you see all of the different religions, all of the different teachings on earth. It is because people who are in the Sea of Samsara cannot fathom what it is like to be outside the Sea of Samsara. There are two reasons why there are so many religious and spiritual teachings. One is that we of the ascended masters give different teachings for different people who are at different levels of consciousness. As I said, we must go in, look at the illusions they have, give them something they can grasp, but that can help them rise above their current sense of self.

Spiritual teachings created in the unascended sphere

Now, there is no other source of genuine spiritual teachings than the ascended masters. But there are, of course, other sources of spiritual and religious teachings. There are beings in the identity realm who are attempting to give spiritual teachings, beings in the mental realm, beings in the emotional realm. And there are beings in physical embodiment who are attempting to set themselves up as gurus and give their own teachings. There are those who are not seeking to reach up for higher level, but who are basing their teaching on a tradition that reaches back into the past. This is what you see many gurus in India do. You see many gurus who are basing their teachings on an older teaching. It can be Buddhism, it can be the Vedas, it can be other things, but they are reaching back instead of reaching up. You see that there are teachings that are originated with the ascended masters. They are the ones who have the ability to help people ascend. But this does not mean that all the teachings we have given are some ultimate teaching, because they are always adapted to people’s level of consciousness.

But there are also many teachings that are created in the unascended sphere, in the four levels of that sphere. They may not be malevolent. They may actually help people raise their consciousness. But a being in the lower identity realm is not an ascended master, and cannot connect to the ascended masters, because if a being in the lower identity realm had been willing to connect to the ascended masters, it would have ascended. The lower identity realm is a sort of a holding place for those who have risen above the mental realm but not been willing to ascend. So what will it do for people to follow these teachings, these beings? It may raise your consciousness for a while, but then you will stop where the teacher has stopped. You cannot, you can rarely, at least, go beyond the teacher unless you shift your focus to another teacher by acknowledging that this teacher cannot take you further.

There are these teachers that are benevolent but have limited ability. And then, of course, there are fallen beings, even some in the identity realm, who are deliberately trying to derail you and tie you to them and make you their chelas, in the meaning of their slaves, who will do anything they are told to do because you think this will lead you to spiritual growth, that you blindly obey the guru. This, truly, is the scenario on earth. And this is why, for any teaching that we could give from the ascended realm, there is a false teaching that seems to invalidate it or be more sophisticated than the teaching from the ascended realm.

There are beings, even in embodiment, who will look at what I have given in this dictation and say: “Ah! This is primitive, we have the higher teaching, the non-dual teaching.” And the same in the other realms as well. And that, of course, is the outplaying of free will.

How to discern between what is real and unreal

But where this is relevant to this year of 2024 and beyond, is that, how will you discern between what is real and what is unreal? Only by learning to shift your focus so that it is not pulled downwards by the fallen beings, it is not pulled into the emotional realm by the gurus there, not in the mental realm by the gurus there, not in the lower identity realm by the gurus there. But it is pulled up towards the ascended masters and your I AM Presence.

And the Conscious You has the ability to become aware of what is pulling on it and which direction it is pulling in. And once you become conscious of the pull and the direction of the pull, that is when you can shift your focus, first temporarily, then, as you dissolve the selves and free yourself from any ties to these teachers in the lower realms, you can permanently shift your focus on the ascended masters, on the I AM Presence and that then brings you gradually to that ascension point where now you can permanently shift your focus into the fullness of the I AM Presence.

With this, I have given you what I wanted to give you. It is my joy, my privilege to seal this conference in a Flame of Cosmic Peace that I AM. Gautama Buddha, I AM. And I am grateful to have been able to interact with you and that through your attention, the words spoken have become fohats of light that have radiated into the collective consciousness.

Remember my thoughtform, for it has rarely been more important in a year to find that Middle Way that allows you to cross the Sea of Samsara without being pulled in either direction. Focus on the golden light of the Buddha and you will make it through the Sea of Samsara of this year of 2024. Gautama I AM.

*Gautama Buddha, you are the perfect mirror for earth”

“Saint Germain, you are the perfect mirror for the economy”

“Mother Mary, you are the perfect mirror for women”

“Jesus Christ you are the perfect mirror for Christianity”