| NOTE:
This answer was given on March 12, 2006, after the NEW
DIRECTION was implemented.
Answer
from Jesus:
Consider my saying:
No man can serve
two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other;
or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot
serve God and mammon. (Matthew, 6:24)
There is no room for compromise
in that statement. You truly cannot serve two masters, you cannot be
equally loyal to someone on Earth or someone in the spiritual realm.
So the question becomes whether you actually have two masters?
If you want to be my direct disciple – or the disciple of another
ascended master – you must develop a direct, inner, personal relationship
with me. Everything I give on this website is designed to help you reach
that goal. Anyone has the potential to reach that goal, although the
more spiritually inclined people are closer to attaining it than others.
Having a direct relationship means that your relationship with me does
not depend on or go through anything or anyone outside yourself, including
an outer teacher or teaching—and including this website. However,
this does not mean that you do not need or cannot have an outer teacher
or teaching. A true teacher knows that he or she is only a temporary
bridge between the student and the Ascended Host. Thus, such a teacher
will never seek to hold back the student from developing the direct,
inner relationship with us. The true teacher will find joy in becoming
obsolete, in helping the student reach a point where the student has
inner communion.
If you have a true outer teacher, that person will not work against
the goal of your direct inner connection to the Ascended Host, and consequently
you do not have two masters. Your outer teacher and your inner teacher
are one in purpose—namely your growth toward spiritual self-sufficiency.
Yet if the outer teacher or teaching starts to come between you and
your inner connection with me, then you need to make some hard decisions.
I cannot give you a general, fool-proof rule for how to find a true
teacher or when to move on from an outer teacher to an inner teacher,
for the path is an individual endeavor. However, let me give you a few
thoughts to ponder:
-
The timeless mottos
is, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
If you have a teacher or teaching now, it is because that is what
you were ready for when you found it. Yet if you grow with maximum
speed, you might be ready for another teacher at some time—and
at some time you should be ready for direct inner communion. When
that time arrives, the teacher – inner or outer – WILL
appear, but the question is whether you can recognize him/her. If
you are not open to moving on and looking for the next teacher,
you might ignore the opportunity.
-
It is a fact that many
of our students become attached to a particular organization, teaching
or guru. There comes a point on the path when you must dare to strive
for inner communion and set this before anything else. If you do
not, the outer teaching becomes a trap that will hold you back.
Thus, what was given as a tool for your liberation, you have now
turned into a prison for your soul.
-
If you are a spiritually
inclined person, your ego knows that it cannot stop you from looking
for a teacher. So it will try to make you accept a false teacher
and then make you believe you have to follow him/her forever. There
are indeed many false teachers in the world. One way to recognize
false teachers is that they seek to make their followers codependent
upon the teacher and will not allow them to have direct, inner communion.
They do this by setting themselves up as being so far above everyone
else that they are the only ones who can commune with the spiritual
realm. They say you are not able to commune directly with the Ascended
Host and thus you should only listen to the outer teacher.
-
Be especially aware
that your first and foremost loyalty must be to your own growth.
The path is ALWAYS an inner path. Regardless of what you do on the
outer, your personal progress takes place inside yourself. An outer
teacher can help you attain progress, but NO outer teacher can do
the work for you. Be very suspicious of teachers who claim they
can “save” you if only you give them your unconditional
loyalty. No true teacher will make you swear allegiance to him/her
above your allegiance to your inner growth and to your inner teachers.
If a teacher wants you to pledge that you will follow him/her forever
and that you give your life or soul to him/her, you need to be careful.
-
There is a legitimate
method of helping a student overcome the ego by pledging unconditional
obedience to the guru. By obeying a true guru, you can overcome
the tendency to blindly obey your ego—thus you can free yourself
from having the ego as your guru. Yet this is not the same as giving
your life or soul to the guru, for it is not yours to give. In the
end, God has given you full responsibility for your path and salvation.
If someone encourages you to give away that responsibility, they
are not working for God’s purpose.
-
As I try to point out
throughout this website, the ego creates two opposites and seeks
to trap you in either one. The opposite extreme to the viewpoint
that you should follow an outer teacher forever is that you don’t
need an outer teacher but can and should do everything on your own.
It is folly – and a subtle form of pride – to think
you can walk the spiritual path without a teacher. Yet the teacher
can take many disguises and may appear in the form of your friends
or family who can give you a balanced perspective on yourself. In
many cases the teacher appears for a brief moment to give you an
instruction you need in order to move on. Be alert and ALWAYS listen
for the teacher in disguise. As El Morya says, “If the guru
be an ant, heed him!”
-
Some students think
they already have inner communion and others seek to take heaven
by force. Such people often establish a connection to the false
masters while being completely convinced that they are communing
with the real ascended masters. Such people are often unreachable
by anyone Above or below, and thus they would have been much better
off had they continued to rely on an outer teacher. Such people
also have two masters in the sense that they have a genuine desire
to serve God but are seeking to fulfill it in an inappropriate manner.
-
Even if you find a true
outer teacher, your ego will try to make you believe you have to
follow him/her forever and not strive for inner communion. It is
not constructive that some people have been in a teaching sponsored
by the ascended masters for decades, and they still do not dare
to even strive for inner communion. The willingness to TRY is essential
for your continued progress on the path.
-
Some people have in
past lives attained a direct inner communion with the spiritual
realm and they can easily reestablish it in this lifetime. Yet for
those who have not done so, it can be difficult to attain this communion
without first following a teacher or teaching that they can see
or hear with the outer mind and senses. That is why we give outer
teachings and train teachers or messengers to represent us. Many
spiritual seekers need an outer teacher for a time before they can
establish inner communion. As long as an outer teacher does not
come between you and your inner communion, then you do not have
two masters—even if you continue to learn from and support
an outer teacher.
-
Even after you start
having inner communion, you can still benefit from having a genuine
outer teacher. The teacher can help you see yourself from the outside,
the teacher can serve as a mirror and help you see what you cannot
see on your own. As long as you have not fully overcome the ego,
you will have blind spots, for the ego cannot see itself from an
outside perspective. Thus, you need a teacher in some form to give
you an objective point of reference. However, this can also be attained
in a community of equals.
As you can see, I cannot
give you a general statement of when you need to go beyond an outer
teacher or teaching and establish direct inner communion. Nor can I
give you a clear-cut rule for when or if you need to leave behind an
outer teacher or teaching. What I can say is that if you never close
your mind to further growth and continually strive for more accurate
inner communion, you will recognize the next teacher when he/she appears.
The willingness to TRY something new, to go beyond present boundaries,
is the essence of walking the spiritual path. Attachment to anything
in this world – or even attachment to a connection to a non-material
being – is the surest way to stop your progress. As always, the
only general rule that can be given is that a balanced approach will
give you maximum progress without taking you into any of the extremes
that so easily become a blind alley.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
