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Ascended Master Lanto through Kim Michaels, September 5, 2021. This dictation was given during the 2021 Webinar for America –Towards Golden Age Relationships.
I am the Ascended Master Lanto, Chohan of the Second Ray, often portrayed as the Ray of Wisdom.
What is wisdom? Well, many times it is considered to be knowledge. But if you look back to the long tradition, even in the Western world going back to Plato, who portrayed Socrates as the wise teacher, you will see that the wisdom of Socrates was not centered on knowledge. It was centered on something deeper, which we might call an understanding, a deeper understanding of life and how it works.
What can you do from the perspective of the Second Ray to improve your relationships? Well, most of you are, of course, spiritual students. When you became aware that there is a spiritual path, what did you do? What was the first thing that most of you did? You started studying the spiritual path. You realized that there was no way you could really practice the spiritual path without having some understanding of what the spiritual path is about. And a way to get this understanding is to study the topic.
Many of you have an education, where you have gone to school and studied a particular topic, until you gained a deeper understanding of it than the average person has. Most of you have passed your driver’s tests, and what did you have to do in order to pass the theoretical part of the test? You had to study. Why is it that so many of you have not made a real determined effort to study relationships?
One could argue that one of the most important aspects of your lives is your relationship to other people, primarily your love relationship, your relationship to your children, and then to your parents, co-workers, friends, and so on. But all of you are in a variety of relationships. Relationships have a certain dynamic. How come you have not studied that, as you have studied other topics? I am talking here generally, because if you look at people at large, you will see that all people are in a relationship, but very, very few people have studied it.
This, of course, is easy to understand when you consider that even the more advanced democracies, they find it necessary that children in school learn about reading, writing, and arithmetic, but not about relationships, not about psychology. Naturally, you have all grown up in a culture where you are not brought up to study relationships. Now, if you look at this and step back from it, what is the underlying assumption that must be ruling these societies? It is that a relationship is just something that works itself out. It is something that people know how to do.
Then, of course, there is the Hollywood illusion that being successful in a relationship is simply a matter of finding the right person. If you find the right person, the relationship takes care of itself, and it will be happily ever after. Well, how many times has this worked out for people? Certainly, you can find examples of people who met each other, fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after. But you will find far more instances of relationships that were not happily ever after and many relationships, of course, breaking up.
Now, if you look at people who have been through several relationships, you will see that in many cases, these people have a certain issue in their first relationship. They come to a point where they decide that this issue is because their partner is a certain way and will not change. Therefore, they want to get out of the relationship and find a different partner. So people get divorced, they break up a relationship, they find another partner, but in many cases, the dynamic is exactly the same in the new relationship. Perhaps it is a little bit different but there is a core of it that is the same. This is something that you can observe some of you can, if you are honest, observe it in your own lives. Others can observe it in the lives of people you know.
What is the conclusion one must draw, when you see that so many times, the same problem repeats itself? People, actually, in some cases attract a partner who is even more extreme, in a certain way, than their previous partner. What is the conclusion one must draw? Well, it is that relationships are not an easy thing. It is a complex thing. And does this not mean that relationships need to be studied? If you want to be successful in relationships, you need to study the topic.
You cannot simply assume that in order to attain a profession you need to study, in order to make progress on the spiritual path you need to study, in order to get a driver’s license, you need to study. But in order to have a relationship, you don’t need to study at all. It is supposed to just happen by itself. Nothing, my beloved, happens by itself. It all requires that you apply yourself to the process.
Now, here is where we run into a particular difficulty that is not specific to spiritual students, but most of you have this in one form or another, as do all people out there in society. And this can only be understood when you understand reincarnation.
The simple reality is that most people have, in past lives, been hurt in relationships. They have been in relationships with different people. They have had a very turbulent, very inharmonious relationship and they have been hurt by it. For most people, if you start studying relationships, it will be painful for a time. When you start studying relationships, you will reconnect, or rather, you will activate these selves that you formed in past lives, and it will be painful. And there might even be selves that you have formed that make you think that relationships cannot work, or that you are not good at relationships, or you can’t make it work, or that there are other people and it is so difficult to find a person with whom a relationship can work.
For most of you who are avatars, there is a specific consideration that comes into play because, in past lifetimes and most likely also in this lifetime, you have been in some kind of relationship with one or more fallen beings. And quite frankly, we need to be honest here and say that when you are in a relationship with a fallen being, that relationship cannot work. Fallen beings, whether you call them narcissists, or whatever you call them, they cannot be in a relationship that is an equal relationship between equal partners. They cannot be in a harmonious, successful relationship unless, of course, they are in total control of their partner and their partner submits him or herself to the fallen being. And this, of course, is something that an avatar is reluctant to do.
Many avatars have, from previous lives, been in relationships with fallen beings and you have formed certain selves based on your relationships with fallen beings. Be aware, my beloved, that a fallen being does one thing primarily: that person is always projecting out—the problem is out there. If you have been in a relationship with a fallen being there were problems in the relationship, of course, but the problem was not with the fallen being or with both of you, it was with you.
If you have experienced this over several lifetimes, it is possible you have created certain selves that believe that it is you that has the problem, and you that cannot be in a relationship because of whatever it may be in your individual case. I fully understand that there are many spiritual people, many avatars, who because of this are reluctant to study relationships because doing this reconnects you to these selves. Suddenly you have these thoughts that come up: “Oh, there must be something wrong with me If I can’t have a successful relationship, if I can’t figure out how to get along with other people.” And it is painful for you to deal with this. But what is the spiritual path all about? Again, Master More talked about this. But I want to bring up another facet.
The spiritual path is not just about overcoming illusions and coming to see what you cannot see. It is also about overcoming emotional hang-ups. When you talk about an illusion, you are often talking about something that is in the mental mind, something you understand with the mental mind, the rational, logical, often linear mind. But what I am talking about here that you experience when you start thinking about relationships, is that you reconnect to these selves that were created in a past life in the emotional body and these selves are dominated by emotional pain.
Just as you need to overcome a certain illusion, in order to rise to a higher level on the 144 levels, you also need to overcome the associated pain, the emotional pain that is associated with that illusion. You can again, do what Master More said, look at ascended masters, and ask yourself: “Do you think an ascended master has lingering emotional pain from their time on earth?” I can assure you that we have no such pain. Why do we not? We were in embodiment on earth, we experienced what you have experienced on earth. It was equally painful to us as it has been for you.
Do not fall into this idolatrous view of thinking that when we were in physical embodiment, it was easier for us and therefore it was not as painful for us when we encountered the fallen beings as we did. We had the same pain you had. We had the same level and intensity of pain. How did we ascend? By letting go of that pain, by resolving that pain, by transforming it. But in order to let go of something, you have to be willing to look at it. And that means you have to be willing to endure the pain for a time.
What I am saying here is that the one thing I want to give you from the perspective of the Second Ray is, you need to study relationships. If you find you have a problem with relationships, you need to study them. And this, of course, can mean study our teachings. The book by Paul the Venetian, on the Initiations of Love talks a lot about relationships, other teachings talk about it. There are other spiritual teachings that talk about relationships, but do not overlook the fact that in the world at large relationships is a big issue. Many books have been written about it. There are various courses and workshops you can participate in. And even though they may not have the same depth of understanding as a spiritual teaching, there is much to offer in the worldly teachings on relationships.
The reality here is that pretty much all of you can benefit from studying relationships. Now, mind you, you are not studying relationships in order to learn intellectually, how to make a relationship work. In a sense, you could say that as a spiritual person, you do not really need to study the worldly books in order to figure out techniques for making a relationship work.
Your primary reason for studying relationships is to bring to your conscious mind these selves that you have from past lives, concerning relationships and also bring up the pain that you may not have resolved yet. The outer books are really just a catalyst for getting in touch with what you have in your own three higher bodies that is unresolved about relationships. And when you then are willing to look at your reaction, try to use the tools that we have given you for uncovering these selves. You can make much progress by doing this.
We are not seeking to make you experts on relationships in the sense that you can give a dissertation, an intellectual dissertation on relationships. We are seeking to, first of all, help you free yourselves from the separate selves, the illusions and the accumulated emotional energy, regarding relationships. Also, of course, at the deeper level, we are seeking to help you shift your identity concerning relationships. And this is something we will talk more about.
But the reality is that, when you have been in a relationship with a fallen being, it is very, very easy to form a certain self in your identity body that influences how you look at yourself in relation to relationships. What kind of a person are you? What kind of relationship are you capable of having or incapable of having? And this can have a profound effect on your relationships.
Really, the main thought here is: study the topic. If relationships are at all important to you, especially if they are a source of disharmony or conflict, then study the topic. Now, be aware also what Master More said: the essence of spiritual growth is that you observe yourself.
You are not studying relationships in order to come to understand them intellectually and in order to come up with a way that you can present to your relationship partners for how they can change. You are not even really studying relationships in order to change the relationships. You are studying relationships in order to change yourself, in order to heal your psychology, overcome certain illusions, so that you are changing yourself. This is the real purpose. Again, we have said, you are not making progress by changing your partner in a relationship. You are only making progress by changing yourself.
Make a decision here that you are not doing this to change your partner. You are not even doing it to change the relationship. You are only doing it to get in contact with something in your own psychology and change yourself. And then you are willing to be non-attached to whether that changes the relationship or how it changes the relationship. If the relationship changes, that is a bonus for your study, but it is not the goal of your study. This is, in a sense, how you attain wisdom because wisdom is not about creating outer changes.
Wisdom is about getting to know yourself. It has always been so. ‘Know thyself’, as it is said on that ancient temple. This is how you acquire wisdom. You do not acquire wisdom if your intention is to produce specific outer results in this world, but only if your intention is to get to know yourself. You need to get to know yourself in relationships. How do you function? What patterns do you have, often coming from past lives?
And, of course, an aspect of wisdom is to realize that, as Master More said, many of you are in your last embodiment. What have you done? What does this mean? It means that you can ask yourself this question: “Am I stupid or not?” I can assure you that you are not stupid! And if you are not stupid, what does that mean?
It means that before you came into embodiment, you were creating your divine plan. And you were creating that divine plan, as we have said, from a higher, broader, more neutral perspective that you had when you stepped into the four lower bodies and are now colored by the perception filter. You determined in your divine plan at least some of the people that you wanted to have a relationship with, your parents, your spouses, your children. This was not something that just happened by chance. You deliberately chose to embody in a physical circumstance where you were likely to meet these people and therefore likely to enter a relationship with them.
Now, there is, of course, a tendency that many of you have, especially when you have just gone through or you are going through a difficult relationship. You are always asking yourself, “Why on earth did I choose to be in a relationship with this person? Was I stupid or what?” And it is understandable that you feel this way, but what I am saying is that a part of wisdom is that you step outside of your immediate feelings. You make that conscious effort to step outside and say, “Assuming I am not stupid, I must have had a reason when I made my divine plan for entering a relationship with this person. Now, what could that reason be?”
And what have we said? If you are in your last embodiment, you know there are certain things you need to overcome, certain illusions you need to see, certain reactionary patterns, certain separate selves. And you are deliberately choosing to put yourself in physical situations where you force yourself to confront these issues in a way that your outer mind cannot ignore. And what is one of the most common ways that people are forced to confront certain issues that their outer minds cannot ignore? Well, it is through a relationship, especially a difficult relationship, a tumultuous, chaotic relationship with people who have very difficult psychology.
This messenger grew up with a father who had a very difficult psychology. He deliberately chose to be the son of this father, not because he wanted to help his father but because he wanted to learn a lesson for himself. He has also been in other relationships with people with difficult psychology and although he has from time to time wondered why he was in a relationship with these people, the reality is, of course, that he chose to do this in order to force himself to confront certain issues in himself, so that he would overcome them and therefore attain maximum growth and qualify for his ascension.
Many of you have done the exact same thing. Wisdom is to recognize that whatever you have encountered in your life, it did not happen by chance. It was planned by you in your divine plan and the purpose was to force yourself to confront the issue so you could learn the lesson and be free of that issue in your psychology.
Now, I know very well that there is an attitude in the world that a relationship must be a two-sided thing. And there is, of course, a certain reality to this. I am not here telling you that you should be completely selfish and egotistical about how you look at relationships. But what I am telling you is that wisdom is that you go through a period where you say, “I am not going to focus on my partner. I am not going to focus on changing my partner. I am only going to focus on changing myself. What is it that I need to learn? How can I grow? What is in it for me?” And you look at your partner as the guru disguised as an ant, the physical guru that can force you to confront your issues. This may require you to expand your view of what it means to have a guru.
Even if you take Yogananda’s book [Autobiography of a Yogi], you will see—and this messenger took particular note of this when he first read the book—that there is a situation in there where Yogananda’s guru confronts him in a very direct manner with something in his personal psychology. There is even a point where Yogananda leaves his guru because he has this unrealistic idea that the perfect guru should be sitting in a cave in the Himalayas and he wants to go find this more advanced guru, rather than the more worldly (so he sees it) Sri Yukteswar.
There is often this sense that your spiritual guru should be this elevated person who has completely resolved psychology, who is enlightened and who therefore gives you this wonderful spiritual wisdom that flows freely and always makes you feel good. But the reality of the matter is that the most useful guru is the one who forces you to confront what your ego does not want you to see. And you do not need, in many cases, a spiritual guru to do this. You actually need a person who is so wrapped up in their own psychology that they react to you in these inharmonious ways, which then brings out your reactionary pattern when you react to them.
This is the guru disguised as an ant. And it is—for certain initiations or certain levels of the path—the most effective way to make progress. The guru disguised as an ant or as a very difficult person is often the most effective guru, at least for specific initiations. We have said before that even the fallen beings are substitute teachers, because they are willing to do to people what the ascended masters would never do, and what a person with a higher level of spiritual evolution or consciousness would never do to people.
You need to hear again: Be grateful. You need to be grateful for whatever you have been exposed to by the difficult people in your life. We are not hereby condoning if people have abused you. And, of course, there are certain types of abuse that you should not accept. You should not accept this as just an opportunity to learn a lesson, but you need to recognize that it is an opportunity for you.
Now, of course, specifically, we need to talk in this context about abuse. Fallen beings are always—or at least often—willing to abuse other people. They may not see it as abuse, but it is abuse. And naturally, you, especially when you are in your last embodiment, you should not accept that you are being abused by other people. I am not here telling you that you should look at a person who is abusing you and say, “Oh, he is just this wonderful disguised guru, who is teaching me a lesson and therefore I shouldn’t object to what he is doing”. Well, my beloved, the reality is, that person is teaching you a lesson but you should indeed object. Perhaps part of your lesson is that you do object. Because, as we have said, many of you have been in relationships with fallen beings in past lives, and what do fallen beings want? They want to be in control, so that they get other people to submit to them, to submit to their abuse. And some of you—not all of you but some of you—have done this in past lifetimes.
You have deliberately put yourself in situations in this lifetime where you are forced to deal with this issue so you can come to this point where YOU draw the line for what you will endure in a relationship. Now, once you have drawn that line and said no to abuse and potentially removed yourself from the abuser, you still need to say, “Yes, but I chose to deliberately put myself in a relationship to this person. Why did I do this? What is the lesson that I want to learn about how I look at relationships? What is it that I need to overcome from the past in terms of accumulated emotional energy, past traumas and these separate selves that were created as a result of my interaction with an abusive personality?”
It is not just a matter of saying no and removing yourself. It is a matter of learning the deeper lesson, but it can certainly be necessary for some of you to make that conscious decision, “I am going to stop the abuse. I am going to remove myself from the abuse right now”. And then you can work on the lessons later. You do not have to be so long-suffering that you say, “Oh, I have to stay with this abusing person until I have learned my lesson fully”. You can, of course, do this, but you do not have to.
With this, I have given you what I wanted to give you. Study the topic of relationships. Study the psychology of relationships. Study your own psychological reaction to relationships. And it can lead to much wisdom. Lanto, I Am, and I seal you in the golden flame of illumination.
Copyright © 2021 Kim Michaels