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Ascended Master Shiva through Kim Michaels, June 3, 2023. This dictation was given at a conference in Seoul, Korea.

I AM the Ascended Master Shiva. Certainly, you can appeal to me as well for helping you overcome your fears and you can give the chant to me, the Om Shiva, or just Shiva, to also help you go in and consume those fears in your emotional body. You might even combine Archangel Michael and myself, for we are, of course, not divided by any divisions between Eastern and Western traditions. We are one, yet we have different shadings, different colorings of the light that we bring. The combination of the two is very efficient for consuming fears.

The paradox of the linear mind

Yet my primary purpose for this discourse is, of course, not to deal with fears, it is to take the next step up to the other thing that really takes people away from connecting and that is, of course, the mental mind. Certainly, both Kuan Yin and Mother Mary have addressed this, but we wish to give you some more thoughts on this, because in the modern world the mental mind is the greatest obstacle for spiritual people. This is especially because the Western democracies have spread many ideas throughout the world, especially through science and scientific materialism that are so, we might say, attached to the linear mind, the rational mind, the logical mind, the analytical mind.

What do we really mean when we talk about the linear mind? Well, it is the mind that wants to put everything on a timeline, or on some kind of line that can be divided into smaller increments. It also wants to put everything on a line where there is cause that leads to an effect. The effect may become another cause that leads to another effect, but there is a certain regularity, a certain natural law that determines that a particular cause will always lead to a particular effect in a linear fashion with no exceptions.

As just some examples of this, start counting. One, two, three, four, five and you can go on. How long can you go on? Well, supposedly indefinitely. The question is, who has got the time for that? Who has got eternity? And if you had eternity, would you want to spend it counting and seeing how far you could count? Is that your highest vision of what you could do with eternity? You see that when you actually start contemplating infinity or an infinite number, the linear mind cannot quite cope.

But is it not the very linear mind that defines that you should be able to always add another number and therefore supposedly count indefinitely? So, you see, the linear mind sets up the linear progression, but then when you start thinking about the extreme outcome of the linear progression, then the linear mind almost short-circuits because it cannot quite fathom this. Another example is the Greek philosopher, Zeno, who came up with a paradox that if you are to walk from one city to another, you will never arrive because first you have to walk to the midway point. Then you have to walk to the midway point of the remaining distance and you can continue to divide the remaining distance in half indefinitely. You can always divide any number in half, any distance in half, so you never arrive. And again, when you start thinking about this, you realize that this is what the linear mind does. It sets up a linear progression based on a certain regularity, a certain law of some kind and it supposedly can be extended indefinitely, but when you really start thinking about the extreme outcome of this linear progression, then the linear mind can no longer cope.

For really, how do you get the idea that you can continue counting indefinitely? Well, it is this linear idea you can always add another number. But if you keep going high enough, there comes a point where do you not reach some kind of infinitely large number? And how can the linear mind deal with this? Certainly, it cannot deal with the concept of infinity. But is not that what the linear mind says, that you can continue counting for all eternity? You can continue counting infinitely, so why cannot the linear mind cope with infinity?

You might also look at, as we have said, your world of form was created by an individual Creator. But where did the Creator come from? What was before your world of form existed? And then the linear mind wants to say, but if this world had a beginning, what was before the beginning? What was there when this world was not there, was not created? And when did the creation of worlds start? What was before? And we may say there was always a world of form, but can the linear mind deal with this?

Every form is defined by limits

The linear mind almost short-circuits when you contemplate this. Because the linear mind, even though it cannot deal with infinity, it wants there to be a beginning point. Maybe there is no end point, but there has to be a starting point. You have to start counting somewhere. One, two, three, minus ten, minus nine, minus eight. But you have to start somewhere. But if there is no end, how can there be a beginning? Contemplate this. If you say you can keep counting indefinitely, why would you have to start at one? Where do you actually start and when does it become that you going higher and higher ends up forming a closed circle? As Albert Einstein indeed said, that if you traveled out into space and kept going in the same direction in a straight line, you would one day come back to your starting point from the opposite direction, because the space-time continuum forms a closed loop. Does it not stand to reason that there is nothing infinite in the world of form? You cannot continue counting infinitely in a linear progression, for the world of form has a limit.

The world of form has form and what is form but a limit? A square is defined by four lines. A circle is defined by one line. Yes, you can go around and around on the circle indefinitely, but you cannot go outside the circle. There is a limit. Every form is defined by a limit. If you kept counting long enough and you started at zero, sooner or later you would end up at zero. Contemplate this and see how the linear mind reacts. I am not here talking about some absolute truth. I am only trying to show you the limitations of the linear mind.

Non-linearity of free will

What will the linear mind do when you contemplate the idea of connecting to an ascended master? It will say: “There is a distance between where I am and where the master is and I need to overcome that distance.” But it will then try to set up a progression: “What must I do to overcome the distance? I must do decrees. I must do invocations. I must do so many hours of decrees a day and if I keep doing this year after year, sooner or later, perhaps later, perhaps a long time from now, but someday magically the master will appear to me.” For the linear mind wants to believe that there is cause, there is effect, and there are laws that guide the progression from cause to effect. If you sit here and decide: “I want to connect to an ascended master, I am setting up a logical, rational, step-by-step program for giving decrees and invocations”, and then you decide that if you keep doing this, sometime the master must appear. For surely you think that the ascended masters must follow some kind of law, some kind of progression.

And yes, my beloved, we do follow some kind of law. It is called the law of free will, but the law of free will is not linear. How could it be? How could you have free will if you have to walk on a certain line? How can you have free will if there is only a linear progression so that if you take one step in one direction, you have to keep taking step after step in the same direction and cannot deviate from the course you have set? How could that be free will? You imagine yourself standing in this huge flat square, such as the Olympic Square not far from here. You are standing there in the middle. It is open and flat all around you in all directions. You are contemplating taking a step. But you have 360 degrees circumference around you. You can go in any direction. But now imagine that once you have taken a step in that direction, in one direction, you would have to keep walking in a straight line in that direction.

You may say the first choice is free, but then the others are not. Would that really be free will? Nay, this is what the fallen beings want you to believe. This is why they have come up with the images of the angry and judgmental God that you are a sinner from the beginning or even the strict Eastern interpretation of the law of karma where everything that happens in this lifetime is predetermined by your karma from past lifetimes. But the law of karma is not linear as we have explained, for if you transcend the consciousness that caused you to make a certain decision in a past life, then by the time the karmic impulse comes back it will not descend into the physical, for there is nothing in your higher bodies to reinforce it.

The law of free will means you can take any number of steps in one direction, but you can always change direction. How can there be linearity? How can there be a mechanical progression? How can you in your mind set up a program that says if I follow this program faithfully, one day the master must appear and connect to me? Yes, this is what science has made you believe, that the world is like a grand machine. And if you take these particular steps, such as plugging your radio into the switch, pushing the on button, tuning into the right station, then you get the music you want.

You cannot connect through linear mind

Or if you put some food into the oven, set the temperature and the time, then there will be a ding and the food will be cooked. Science and technology has made so many people in the modern world believe that, if you follow a certain procedure, then poof, like a jack-in-the-box, an ascended master must appear. After all, you have rubbed Aladdin’s lamp by giving so many invocations and decrees for so many years. Surely the master must appear as the genie out of the lamp, saying: “What is your command, my lord? I will give you anything you want. Well, only three wishes, but still better than none.”

This is the mindset that many people are in when they find an ascended master teaching and they start giving decrees and invocations. Again, we are not blaming anyone. We are simply pointing out, this is what the linear mind does, but we of the ascended masters are not in physical embodiment. We are not under this linear law. For that matter, you are not under the linear law either. There is, of course, a certain cause and effect and if you walk in the same direction for a long time and keep being angry with other people, it will have certain effects.

But what is it we have said many times? If you made a choice and it had no consequence, how would you know you had made a choice? The consequences of your choices are not there to force your future choices. They are just there to show you, this mindset led to this consequence. If I do not like the consequence, I change my mindset. I change what I project into the cosmic mirror and then I get something else.

You see, or perhaps you do not see, but you can come to see that nothing is truly linear. Even science has proven this almost a century ago. Quantum physicists discovered that at the most basic level of matter, the mind of the scientist not only influences the observation, but creates the observation, leading to the popular saying, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there, does it make a sound? Or is the moon there when no one is looking? And the reality is that if no one was looking, the moon would not be there. But as we have said, we of the ascended masters are always looking, the elemental beings are always looking. And why is this? Because the entire purpose of the world of form is to help you grow in awareness. We maintain certain forms over time until people have learned the lessons. What is the lesson you learn for being in physical embodiment? It is that what you project upon the Ma-ter light is what the Ma-ter light will manifest. This is what scientists discovered a century ago.

But not many scientists have been willing to really think about what this means. But what it means is that what science has discovered at the quantum level is what we have called the Ma-ter light, which can take on any form, but can only take on form when a mental image is projected upon it through the mind of a self-aware being. What does it mean to be self-aware? It means: “I want to manifest something that I do not have now. I am a co-creator. I am willing to co-create.”

But how do you manifest? Not in a linear mechanical way. You manifest in a creative way by coming to realize that you are holding images in your identity, mental and identity minds that you are projecting onto the Ma-ter light, which then takes on the physical form. This may seem mechanical but it is not, for you can change those images any time and there is not a grand machine where the outcome is predetermined or predictable. On the contrary, nothing is predictable. There are only probabilities, but as the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics proved a century ago, there is no certain outcome.

The trap of the linear mind

Why have scientists not accepted this? Because this is one of the last things that the fallen beings want people to accept. They want you desperately to believe that once you have made a certain choice, you have limited your ability to make future choices and this is the lie that we have exposed many times. But the linear mind finds this difficult to accept because the linear mind wants there to be regularity, predictability, cause and effect, an inescapable cause and effect. This is what the linear mind wants because then the linear mind thinks it is in control because now it can predict the outcome.

What does this have to do with the topic of this retreat? Well, if you think that connecting to an ascended master can be approached as a mechanical process, then you are creating an image in your mind and you are projecting that image upon an ascended master. What would happen if we lived up to your image? Well, we would seemingly validate that your image was correct. You can really rub the lamp and a genie will appear. But what would that do? It would trap you in the linear mind. And in the linear mind you feel you are in control, but on a larger scale the fallen beings feel they are in control because as long as you are trapped in the linear mind they can control you because they can look at what is the regularity, the progression that you have created in your mind. And then they can easily predict where you are going to go next.

You become so predictable when you are in the linear mind. People at large become so predictable when they are in the linear mind and that, of course, is what the fallen beings want. To stop creativity, to stop the uncertainty by stopping freedom of choice, where you think you have no choice other than you had the choice to start the sequence, but once the sequence is started the outcome is predetermined. Every teaching we have given you through this dispensation has been aimed at shattering that illusion so that you recognize the fact that you are not bound by anything and that any choice you have made can be overcome by making a different choice.

Projecting an image upon the Masters

This is the realization we desire to help you come to. For then you can make the choice and say:”So far I have not felt the connection to the ascended masters that I would like to feel. Could it be because I have projected an image upon the Masters, upon myself and upon our connection that traps me in the linear mind and therefore the Masters cannot appear to me because it would trap me even more?”

There are people, quite a number of people, who have found a valid ascended master teaching that was sponsored by us. They have projected and as we have said, even based on some of the older teachings that were given in the Piscean Age, a certain image upon how they could connect to the Masters. And they have had certain experiences with what they thought were ascended masters, but they were beings in the mental realm in most cases, in a few cases the lower identity realm, in some cases even the astral plane. But the vast majority of people who have found ascended master teachings in this modern rational linear age have connected with beings in the mental realm.

Many of the channelings you find out there are from beings in the mental realm and you can learn to spot their vibration instantly, or even read the words and see how they appeal to the linear mental mind. And there are people who have believed that they have had and still have a genuine connection to ascended masters, but it is to these impostors in the mental realm that sometimes use our names or sometimes call themselves other things that are not associated with ascended master names. The latter part at least being honest, even though they sometimes claim to be spiritual beings of some status or authority.

This is what can happen if people have this strong desire for a connection, but they are projecting a mental image upon the connection. We of the ascended masters will not live up to that image, but the beings in the mental realm are not in any way reluctant to live up to people’s images if they can get people to give them energy. These beings in the mental realm need energy from you, human beings in embodiment, because they are cut off from receiving the energy from the source.

We are the ascended masters. What energy could I possibly need from a human being in embodiment? You may say, as some have said, but you are giving this dictation and you are getting people to sit here and listen to you and when they put their attention on you, they give you their energy. Really? You are thinking that I, an ascended master, need the kind of energy that can flow over people’s attention? I have access to the infinite energy of the Creator. Why would I need anything from earth? If you are facing the sun, why do you need the moon?

Shiva – the destroyer of illusions

I am Shiva. I have reached a certain status in the cosmic hierarchy. I need nothing from earth. I need no obedience from anyone. I am only here to offer my service to those who want to be free from any form of bondage, be it in their own minds, be it an attachment to other human beings, or to beings in the mental or emotional or identity realms, or to fallen beings. I am here to cut free anyone who will ask. Who will ask me to come and cut them free from their illusions? This is what I am about.

Yes, I use the name known from the Hindu tradition of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, where Shiva is seen as the destroyer. But I am the destroyer of what? How can I destroy something that is real? The only thing that can be destroyed is an illusion, so I AM the destroyer of illusions. But those who do not want to let go of the illusions had better not apply to me. Of course, you can apply to me all you want, because if you really do not want to let go of your illusion, I will not violate your free will. In a sense it is risk-free to apply to me, even if you will not let go of your illusions and that is the point for you as ascended master students.

Shiva’s offer

I come especially to offer my assistance in helping you let go of the illusions in the mental mind. The illusions that separate you from me or from another ascended master who is close to your heart. If you are an ascended master student, you have at least one ascended master who is very close to your heart. But why can you not make a connection to that ascended master? Because your mind is blocking it. The mental mind is blocking it. Why? Because you are thinking. You are thinking about what it should be like: “What are the mechanics of connecting to an ascended master? I must be able to do what the linear mind does so well. Take a situation, reduce it to smaller and smaller components until you reach the smallest possible component and then you can then understand how the world works.”

Reductionist approach

This is the process that, at least in known history, started with Aristotle but, of course, started much earlier with the fallen beings coming to earth. Reductionism. Everything can be reduced to a smaller and smaller component. Yet, reach back to what I said about the linear mind. It can only be the linear mind that comes up with the idea that everything is made out of smaller components and if we can only understand the laws—the mechanical laws that guide the smaller components—we can also understand how that which is made out of the components works. If all matter is made out of atoms and we can control atoms, then we can control matter.

But the idea of an atom was posited by the Greek philosophers who thought it was the smallest possible level of matter that could not be divided. The atom was indivisible. When scientists in later centuries discovered something that they thought was the atom, they used that name. They thought for a time that it was indivisible, and then they discovered that it was not indivisible. It was made up of a core of two particles and an electron zooming around it. Then they discovered, nay, these elementary particles were not elementary. There were other elementary particles that were smaller. And when does it end?

Well, it never ends. It is like Zeno’s paradox. If only we had a more powerful accelerator that could accelerate particles to the speed of light, then we would discover the God particle, then we would know how matter works. But you will never know how matter takes on form by looking for smaller and smaller particles. For matter takes on form because a mental image from a higher realm is projected upon it. The causes of why forms are the way they are, are not found in the physical realm, the matter realm. They are found in the emotional, mental and identity realms and the spiritual. No matter how you analyze the components of a movie screen, how can understanding everything about the components of the screen predict which movie is going to be played at seven o’clock this evening? It is not determined at the level of the screen.

The rest of this dictation, along with an invocation based on the dictation, is found in the book: Connecting with Your Spiritual Teachers.