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Ascended Master Paul the Venetian (1), January 3, 2015 through Kim Michaels

I AM the Ascended Master Paul the Venetian. I AM the Chohan of the Third Ray that has normally been called the ray of love.

It is my aim for this series of discourses to continue the work we have begun of exposing to the people in embodiment the initiations that you face under the seven Chohans. These initiations are geared towards helping you build the momentum that takes you to the 96th level of consciousness. It also takes you beyond that level so that you pass the initiation where you truly begin the path of Christhood, rather than falling down, using your creative powers to build the ego.

The physical and the personal journey

My retreat is located over the South of France. It is called the Château de Liberté, which is the building that is the focus for the retreat in the physical. There is nothing wrong with traveling to the physical place where one of our retreats is located, but you do need to remember that the retreat is located in the etheric realm. That means you have to tune in to a higher level of vibration than the physical. If you can do so better by going to the physical place, this is perfectly fine, but you do not have to go to the physical place in order to tune in to the vibration. It must be said that there are many times when people have to make a physical journey in order to make the corresponding journey in consciousness.

This is the whole idea depicted in the legend of Odysseus who made the Odyssey. This epic journey was a symbol for his journey in consciousness, confronting his own internal momentums, or his internal spirits, as we call it today. You, too, are engaged in such a journey. It may never be written about in poetic form, it may never be known by anyone but yourself, but it is a journey of some importance. I will not say epic importance because we have given you teachings about the epic mindset [See Freedom from Ego Dramas]. It is an important journey, not only for you personally but because you are carving a trail in the collective consciousness that makes it easier for others to walk the path.

The Conscious You is always flowing

Do not overlook this, for one of the greatest dangers on the path is this sense of discouragement, the sense that you are beginning to become used to walking the path, used to following the instructions of the ascended masters. You may become used to a certain level of consciousness. It is not you who become used to anything. It is your ego who becomes used to something.

The core of your being is what we have called the Conscious You. It is created out of the Creator’s Being, and the Creator’s Being, regardless of the images you may have in your mind, is not standing still. It is the ever-flowing stream of life. Your Conscious You is never standing still but is always flowing. Your ego is what wants to stop the passage of time, stop the physical universe, so that it feels it has life under control. When your Conscious You identifies itself with the ego, then you think you have a need to be in control. You even think you have a need to be in control of your path. When you come to the initiations at our retreat, you come with a certain preoccupied opinion about who you are, who we are as the ascended masters and what the path of initiation should be like. Do you understand that the danger of giving you an outer teaching is precisely that you form a mental image of how we should teach you? What have we said over and over again? What keeps you trapped in the material universe is your mental images, your sense of how the world works, how God is and how you are. You need to transcend those images! You need to go beyond them! How can we help you go beyond your mental image of us and our teaching if we conform to it, thereby validating the image, keeping you trapped in it?

This is what the false hierarchy will do. They will tell you: “You are right. You now have the highest teaching on the planet. You just need to continue doing this for the rest of your life and you will be guaranteed to qualify for your ascension.” They tell you this because they want to sabotage your ascension, and the best way to do this – they know – is to keep you clinging to some aspect of the ego and the sense that you are in control.

Do you know how many people have found the ascended masters’ teachings over the last century and who felt that now they have arrived. Now they have come home; now they have found the highest teaching on the planet, the teaching that will take them to the ascension. They have then used the teaching to reinforce their ego’s sense of being in control. They have felt that now that they have this outer teaching and this outer set of practices, they are in control of their path.

My beloved, if you want to be in control of your path, then you do not need the ascended masters, do you? You need a graven image of the ascended masters, which you keep affirming as the real thing. Then I cannot help you. No ascended master can help you. You cannot even enter my retreat of the Third Ray if you hold on to these mental images.

The image that you need to be willing to shatter as the first step on the initiations under me is your image of love. If you are willing to, in some measure, transcend your mental images, then you can enter my retreat.

I can assure you that you cannot graduate from Lanto’s retreat, unless you show some willingness to transcend your mental images. I am giving this warning at the beginning of this book because there are those who may start reading this book as the first one without going through the two previous books.

I am not hereby saying that there cannot be people who have already passed the initiations of the first two rays, and are ready for the initiations of the Third Ray without reading the other two books. They have passed these initiations at inner levels, but there are few of those. It would be wise to be humble and go through the first two books before you engage in this one, but if you do have a strong inner sense that you are ready for this book, then I will not discourage you. Make sure that this sense comes from within, and not from the ego’s pride of wanting to show that you are an advanced student and that you are ready for the initiations of love.

The rest of this dictation is available in the book: The Mystical Initiations of Love.