| Answer
from Jesus:
You raise an important question,
namely when to give up on a spiritual technique. The short answer is
to never give up, meaning that you never leave yourself in a vacuum.
You never go backwards, feeling like you have no faith in anything or
nothing to look forward to. You only stop using a technique when you
have found a better one with which to replace it.
What I present on this website is a systematic path that leads you gradually
toward a higher state of consciousness. When you fully understand this
path, you realize that progress never stops. When you fully commit yourself
to ongoing progress, you realize that you never give up. You never allow
your ego or the forces that oppose your progress to manipulate you into
a corner where it seems like your only way to go is backwards.
When you are committed to growth, you realize that you always have the
option to go forward, to come up higher. So if you feel a given technique
is not working for you, you have more than one option for responding
to that situation. You do not have to reason that your only option is
to give up and have nothing. This is precisely what your ego and the
dark forces want you to feel—they want to stop your progress.
It is for good reason that people say discouragement is the sharpest
tool in the devil’s toolkit.
Therefore, the rule is simple. If you get a strong inner impulse that
it is time to stop practicing a spiritual technique and look for a better
one, then by all means follow it. If you have not received such an impulse
– an impulse you know comes from your Christ self – then
don’t stop using your current technique. Instead, consider how
you could improve the way you practice the technique, including your
approach to it or to spiritual techniques in general.
Here are the main reasons a spiritual technique might not be working
for you:
-
It is not a valid technique.
For example, it might be released by the forces seeking to deceive
humankind. One of the main lessons I give on this website is the
need to develop your discernment so that you can get intuitive insights
from your Christ self. You can then learn to expose false techniques.
-
It is not an efficient
technique for you. Again, this can best be determined by an intuitive
insight from your Christ self.
-
You have outgrown the
technique and you need to look for a better one but your outer mind
has not been open to doing so. Again, your Christ self is the only
way to know, but very few people outgrow a technique in a year.
-
The technique was once
valid – meaning that it was sponsored by the Ascended Host
– but this is no longer the case. Again, your Christ self
is the best guide although we generally do find ways to communicate
this.
-
The technique is valid
for you, but you have not practiced the technique long enough to
see results.
- The technique is valid
for you but you have not taken the right approach to practicing it.
The techniques on this website
– and especially Mother Mary’s rosaries – are both
valid and very efficient. No technique can produce equal results for
all people, yet consider the saying: “When the student is ready,
the teacher appears.” There is a reason you were attracted to
this website in the first place and felt the inner urge to use the techniques
offered. Therefore, it is prudent to reason that the techniques will
work for you. I strongly encourage you not to give up but to instead
consider how you could improve your approach to using the techniques.
To help you on this, let me use your letter to make some suggestions.
Idea 1
You say: I have faithfully said all the prayers for the last one year
as much as a normal man can in a day. I find that there is no change
in my external conditions.”
There is a reason I said, “In your patience possess ye your souls.”
Although I commend you for practicing the prayers on this website for
a full year, I must say that it is not long enough for most people to
see changes in their outer situation. Many people have practiced valid
spiritual techniques for decades without seeing visible results (but
feeling many inner benefits).
Idea 2
You say: “I find that there is no change in my external conditions.”
As mentioned above, you always need to be on guard against your ego
manipulating you into a corner where it seems like you have to make
a black-and-white or an either-or decision. Your ego does not want you
to continue using a valid spiritual technique, so when you do start
using a technique, it is trying to set you up to become discouraged.
One way of doing so is to induce into your mind the expectation that
a spiritual technique should produce physical results and that it should
do so within a certain time frame. Thus, when the time is up and the
results are not manifest, your ego will tell you that the only possible
conclusion is that the technique is not working and thus you should
give up. This is an age-old trick and many people have fallen for it.
Please don’t join them.
Idea 3
You say: “I find that there is no change in my external conditions.”
There is no valid reason for assuming that practicing a spiritual technique
should and must produce a physical result. This is an expectation created
by the ego and dark forces and it has caused millions of religious people
to feel that their prayers were not answered—even causing many
to lose faith in their religion or in all religion.
As I explain throughout this website, the universe is a mirror. The
physical conditions you encounter are simply the mirror images of your
own state of consciousness. In other words, the cause is your state
of consciousness and your outer conditions are only the effects. As
I trust is obvious, if you want to change something, you must change
the cause instead of seeking to work at the level of the effects. If
you want to change the movie on a screen, don’t seek to change
the screen. Go to the projection room and change the film strip in the
projector.
My point is that the only way to truly change your outer conditions
is to change your consciousness. Thus, if you pray or practice a spiritual
technique with the expectation that this will – in itself and
automatically – change your outer conditions, you are seeking
to do the impossible. ALL valid spiritual techniques are designed to
help you change your state of consciousness. And when you do so, your
outer conditions will change—in due time, as they filter through
the four levels of the
material universe.
Idea 4
You say: “I find that there is no change in my external conditions.”
It makes a fundamental difference when you start practicing a technique
with the direct aim of transforming your state of consciousness instead
of expecting outer results. You will see far better results. They will
be inner results, but they will be significant enough that you won’t
even consider giving up on the technique as long as it improves your
state of mind.
In fact, it is preferable to practice a technique without expectations
of physical results. It is only when you are non-attached to whether
or not you get physical results that the technique will be fully effective.
Thus, we might say that you will only get the maximum physical results
when you are no longer looking for such results—you practice the
technique for the reward of raising your consciousness.
I am well aware that many people begin praying or practicing a technique
specifically because they are suffering from physical limitations and
their motivation is to change those conditions. I am not trying to make
light of people’s suffering or belittle their motivation—you
have to start with the motivation that is relevant to you. Yet if you
truly want results from a technique, you must be willing to refine your
motivation as you grow in awareness.
Thus, here are some higher motivations for practicing a spiritual technique:
-
You realize the truth
that your consioucness must change before your outer conditions
can change. Thus, you make it your main goal to use the technique
to raise your consciousness.
-
You feel more peace,
more clarity or more energy after practicing a technique, and this
is a reward in itself.
-
When you give a rosary,
you feel the light of God flowing from your higher self through
your being and this is more than enough motivation to keep going.
-
You realize that the
light will gradually transform you outer situation.
-
You realize that the
light you invoke will also transform planetary conditions, and you
feel a love for helping other people and the Earth itself.
- You feel such a love
for Mother Mary and the cause of the Ascended Host that you simply
cannot help giving a rosary.
Perhaps you can see that
what I am describing here is a gradual transformation away from self-centered
motives and towards motives that are focused on improving the conditions
for all life. This is an essential key to achieving maximum results
from any spiritual technique. A valid spiritual technique simply will
not reinforce your ego’s desires. It will only work when you separate
yourself from the ego’s desires and reconnect to the higher desires
of your spiritual self.
Idea 5
You say: “ Is it time for us to give up now? or is our past karma
so heavy that we have to spend a lot more time to improve our living
conditions. (I am from Mumbai India).”
You must always consider that when you live in a particular area, you
not only have your personal karma but also the collective karma of the
area. There is a reason you chose to embody in that area, and for many
spiritual people part of the reason is that you wanted to help improve
the conditions for all people in the area. In other words, you might
have volunteered to hel carry the burden of the collective karma. You
have taken on a portion of that karma in addition to your personal karma
(if you had any) and only when that is transmuted can you improve your
outer conditions.
Thus, it might take some time to transmute this burden. You may also
have chosen not to go too far above the other people in your area because
it is part of your spiritual mission to help them take the next step.
This can be revealed only through inner attunement with your Christ
self, so that you begin to remember your divine plan.
Idea 6
You say: “ If we give up this site I don’t think we will
have any more faith in anything else ever.”
This can only be your ego talking. There is no way your Christ self
would make such a statement. This is precisely the plot of the ego that
I described earlier. Simply see it for what it is and dismiss it as
an outright lie.
When you truly commit to the spiritual path, you will gradually develop
a faith in the process of growth itself. This inner faith is beyond
your experience with any outer teacher, organization, teaching or technique.
In other words, no matter what disappointment you might experience on
the outer, nothing can shake your faith in the inner process of growth.
Many people have been disappointed by some outer organization and they
have allowed their egos to use this as an excuse for giving up on the
path itself. Yet the truth is that nothing can prevent you from moving
forward on the path except the choices you make. Other people, dark
forces or your ego can influence your choices, but no one can make choices
for you.
Idea 7
You say: “We will be not co-creators but wanderers in this universe.”
An interesting statement that reflects the fate of many people who found
a spiritual teaching or technique and allowed their egos to make them
discouraged. There are indeed many souls who are – for all practical
purposes – wanderers and refuse to fill their intended role as
co-creators.
Yet this is a choice they have made, and it is a choice that springs
from an unwillingness to make a commitment – an absolute
commitment that the ego cannot touch – to inner growth that is
independent of any outer conditions. One example of this is the unwillingness
to refine one’s approach to a spiritual technique, thus using
an easy excuse for not continuing to practice it until your consciousness
truly is transformed and your ego defeated—or at least dethroned
as the supreme ruler of your life.
Idea 8
You say: “ We are catholics anyway so we just go back to our old
Sunday church routine and when we come up we can meet and say that I
at least tried my best to follow your path on this website.”
As I said, if you are truly committed to growth, you never go backwards.
You are not a Catholic because no earthly label can define you. You
are a son of God, and you are intended to go beyond all outer labels
that cause you to deny your Christ potential.
If you think I will accept the claim that “I at least tried my
best to follow your path on this website” you do not know me as
a spiritual teacher. Why do you think I said that only those who are
willing to lose their lives for my sake are worthy to be my disciples?
You have the potential to become my disciple in this life. Yet to fulfill
that potential, you must give up all of the illusions that your ego
seeks to use to trap you into denying your Christ potential. Until you
have given up every last illusion, you have not done your best.
Study the situation of the rich man who would not give up his possessions
to follow me (Matthew 19:20-23). It does not apply only to those who
have material possessions. It applies to all who have “possessions”
of the mind – meaning attachments – that they are not willing
to give up. And this first of all means the dualistic ego-illusions
that cause people to deny their Christhood or their potential to self-transcend
by following the inner path to the very end. Mother Theresa once said,
“Give until it hurts.” I say, “Surrender until there
is nothing human left to surrender—and then surrender even the
emptiness and be filled with the Light of God.”
Idea 9
You say: “I have asked many questions earlier but michaels is
a barrier and if I give up on you and this site he will partly be responsible
for my decision.”
One of the main ideas I seek to get across on this website is that everyone
has a Christ self that is the open door between your conscious mind
and the spiritual realm—including your I AM Presence and the Ascended
Master who is your personal teacher. When you truly begin to make the
intuitive contact with your Christ self, you see that no one can stand
between you and God. That is why I said that the kingdom of God is within
you.
As you grow on the spiritual path, you need to question the assumptions
that are a product of your religious upbringing. In your case, being
from a Catholic background, you need to overcome the idea that only
one person can communicate with the spiritual realm.
I go out of my way on this website to make sure people do not view Kim
as some kind of replacement Pope. Thus, he is not a barrier between
you and me and he cannot prevent you from seeking answers to your questions
from inside yourself. On this website I give teachings and practical
tools for expanding
your inner connection—if you did not already have some inner
connection you would never have recognized anything of value on this
site. So focus on getting answers from within instead of using another
person as an excuse for giving up on the path.
The fact is that the path is an inner path—it is all between you
and God. The key to walking the path is to realize that you are completely
responsible for your inner conditions, your state of consciousness.
Everything is a result of choices you made. No one can force you to
make certain choices, which means that no one can prevent you from overcoming
your past mistakes by making better choices to replace your old choices.
The real key to progress is to NEVER use any outer condition as an excuse
for not walking the path—you must take full responsibility for
your own situation and your own growth. If you allow your ego to make
you think that another person is partly responsible for YOUR decisions,
you demonstrate that you have not yet taken FULL responsibility for
your path. This then becomes the major hurdle you need to overcome in
order to adopt an approach that will give you the results you desire.
Thinking another person is responsible for your salvation is another
example of Catholic baggage, and I give ample teachings on this website
for you to let go of this burden that you no longer need to carry. Leave
your nets, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
For whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth
(Hebrews 12:6).
Idea 10
As I seek to explain throughout this website, there is no mechanical,
automatic, guaranteed path to salvation. The reason is that salvation
– eternal life – is a state of consciousness that can only
be attained when you stop identifying yourself with the ego and start
identifying yourself as the spiritual Being you truly are. Thus, the
results on the path are completely dependent upon choices that only
you can make—meaning that no force can make them for you and no
force can prevent you from making those choices.
The dream of this false path to salvation – where you practice
an outer technique and achieve results without changing yourself –
is very pervasive and is heavily reinforced by people’s ego’s
and the dark forces seeking to prevent humankind from ascending. It
has been promoted by many outer teachings and religions, including the
Catholic Church.
From the perspective of a spiritual teacher, it is always sad to see
people who are sincere seekers yet are fooled into the trap of looking
for a guaranteed result and becoming discouraged when it does not happen.
I truly wish I could help all who are open to this website understand
that behind the outer desires and expectations is the real path, and
it is filled with joy and the infinite peace that comes from knowing
you are flowing with the River of Life itself.
As long as you are still seeking a result that can be denied or that
depends on outer conditions, you have not truly discovered the inner
path. On the inner path, the results are not automatic, but they are
guaranteed—as long as you are willing to keep transcending yourself.
Thus, the real key is the willingness to discover all your limitations
and the willingness to go beyond every limitation you discover. When
you adopt this approach to the path, you WILL see even outer results.
When you are willing to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
all else truly will be added unto you—if you still want it.
We might say that as long as you think you need something from this
world in order to be whole, you can’t have it. Yet as soon as
you fully know that wholeness comes only from within, you can have whatever
you want—because having or not having something will no longer
keep you from being whole. The most important result of following a
spiritual teaching is the realization that nothing in this world can
prevent you from being who you are.
Being does not depend on having or not having. It simply IS. But in
order to BE, you must stop defining yourself by what you have or don’t
have.
BE ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew
5:48).
Perfection does not mean
stillstand—it means that you are flowing with the River of Life
that is constantly transcending itself in a never-ending cosmic dance
that does not go in circles but follows an ascending spiral. Seek to
always ascend and you will forget all thoughts of giving up. Simply
give UP the desire to give up.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
