How to avoid the false teachers

One of the major initiations on the spiritual path is that you are willing to recognize that there are forces inside of you – your ego – and forces outside of you – the false hierarchy of anti-christ – that oppose your progress on the path. This discussion talks about how to avoid being trapped by the false hierarchy that is deliberately seeking to keep you stuck at a certain level of the path, preventing you from taking the very next step.

Kim: Jesus, in a previous discussion, you said the following:

At an even deeper level, it is a fact that when most people find the spiritual path, they are still partly in the duality consciousness. Thus, they will inevitably be in a state of consciousness that attracts the dualistic opposites.

Even if you find a teaching that is truly from the Ascended Host, your ego will still use your dualistic beliefs to distort your view of that teaching. As you become more familiar with the teaching, your ego is also educated in the concepts and lingo used by the teaching. Thus, your ego and any external false teachers can actually use a true teaching to slow down your growth by causing you to close your mind. The only way to avoid this is to constantly be open to being disturbed by your Christ self and the Ascended Host, which means that you are willing to let a new idea take you beyond your comfortable beliefs. If you are not willing to be disturbed, you will turn even a true teaching into a mental prison.

When you come up higher on the path, you can completely transcend the level of duality, and thus false teachers and false teachings will no longer be a threat to you.

I sense that here is an important teaching here that is relevant to our discussion about the psychology of anti-christ. Could you elaborate on how our state of consciousness attracts the dualistic opposites?

Jesus: Let me briefly summarize some of the points from our previous discussions that have a bearing on this. The central problem on earth is that people have become trapped in the duality consciousness. In this state of mind they cannot see the one, absolute truth of Christ—the Spirit of Truth. Instead, they see only a relative “truth.” This truth is relative because it is defined in relation to two dualistic extremes, such as good and evil. In the Christ mind, there is an absolute definition of good (what is in harmony with God’s laws) and an absolute definition of evil (what is out of harmony with God’s laws).

In the dualistic state of mind, there are only relative definitions of good and evil, meaning that neither good nor evil are defined based on God’s law. They are defined in relation to each other, but what is called good is not absolute good because it too springs from the consciousness of duality. Thus, people can define good as that which suits their purposes and evil as that which opposes them, which is what you have seen in many cultures and still see today. My point being that what people call good might not be good in an absolute sense. It is a relative definition of good that is not based on Christ truth.

The problem we face as spiritual teachers is that we need to awaken people from the dualistic state of mind, which is truly spiritual death because people have no life in them—they do not have the life of the Christ mind. From a surface viewpoint, this might seem like a simple task. After all, why not simply give people a spiritual truth or a religious doctrine that defines what is true in an absolute sense. The reality is, however, that it is not possible to express absolute truth in words. When you translate a spiritual teaching into words, you bring that teaching into the realm of duality, and thus people can argue for or against that teaching indefinitely. They might feel they are very knowledgeable and pious – as did the scribes and Pharisees – but in reality they are no closer to escaping duality.

To help people overcome duality, we must inspire people to go beyond the outer teachings and rituals and use the key of knowledge to enter the kingdom within them—in which they can encounter and experience the Spirit of Truth. Only through this direct inner experience – often called a mystical, spiritual or “Aha” experience – will people take a step out of the duality consciousness. When people have such an experience, they receive a morsel of the body and blood – the consciousness – of Christ, and it becomes a leaven that can raise their consciousness to a new level.

Do you see my point? It simply isn't possible to formulate a spiritual teaching that will automatically raise people out of the duality consciousness and into the Christ consciousness. This spiritual transformation is not a mechanical process; it is a creative process. We can give people spiritual teachings and tools, but unless people multiply what we give them by reaching for the Spirit of Truth behind the outer offering, they will not grow in personal Christhood.

The main ally we have is that people can never fully forget their spiritual origin. They will always have a subtle inner sense that there is something more to life, and it will make it impossible for them to be fully satisfied by the things of this world. By stimulating this inner longing, we can often awaken people to the spiritual path. In ages past, you will see that many people were not aware of the spiritual side of life, spending all their attention on physical survival. In today’s world, you do see the beginning of a spiritual awakening, but making people aware of the spiritual path is only part of the task we face. We also have to make sure they follow the true path and not the path that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12).

As I said in the previous discussions, we form a hierarchy of light that is dedicated to setting all people free from the duality consciousness. However, there is a hierarchy of darkness, a false hierarchy, that is dedicated to keeping people trapped in the mind of anti-christ. Their main weapon is the relativity of the duality consciousness.

The main characteristic of the mind of anti-christ is that it forms a graven image of what it thinks reality is like, and then it projects that upon reality. When we transfer this to the field of religion, or spirituality, we can quickly see the essential problem. The Ascended Host will seek to awaken people by giving them a spiritual teaching. The purpose of this teaching is to help people rise above the duality consciousness. Therefore, the teaching contains certain elements that are aimed at neutralizing the outer mind. Yet if people are completely identified with the human ego, they will not be able to find these keys and use them to reach beyond duality. Instead, they will formulate a mental image of what they think the religion is all about and then project that upon the spiritual teaching.

This is precisely what has happened to every major and most minor religions. The followers used their mental images to change the outer religion, and often its teachings, to conform to their dualistic beliefs. They were not willing to multiply the talents they were given but buried them in the ground of the ego. This often causes them to create the image of an automatic or guaranteed salvation, meaning that by being a follower of the outer religion, they will inevitably be saved. I addressed this mindset when I said, "For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20).

Today, you see many Christians who believe that if they declare me as their Lord and Savior, they will automatically be saved. You see many New Age people who believe that as long as they follow a certain teaching or practice, they will make their ascensions. In reality, the only true road to salvation is to attain the Christ consciousness and this will not happen by mechanically following an outer religion. It is an inner process that involves transforming your entire state of consciousness.

In today’s world, communications technology has made it easier than ever for people to find a teaching about the spiritual side of life. They can find many teachings that talk about a genuine path to spiritual growth. They can even find this website which talks about the path to Christhood in a more direct and straightforward manner than any other teaching on this planet. The result is that it has become much more difficult for the false hierarchy to prevent people from finding the spiritual path. Therefore, they are now focusing on trying to get people to follow the false path instead of the true path.

In practical terms, this means that we of the Ascended Host will always seek to help people transcend duality. Therefore, we will tell them what they need to hear, not what their egos want to hear. We practice tough love and we are always seeking to challenge people’s existing beliefs. It is only by challenging people’s dualistic beliefs that we have hope of helping them rise above the consciousness of duality. We are therefore constantly seeking to challenge people’s mental images, their idols, about the spiritual path. We are seeking to challenge the dualistic beliefs with which people are comfortable because they do not challenge their egos.

On the other hand, the false hierarchy wants people to remain trapped in duality. So they seek to reinforce people’s dualistic beliefs by telling them exactly what their egos want to hear. Obviously, the more people identify with their egos, the more reluctant they are to challenge their comfortable beliefs. Therefore, they are more likely to listen to the false hierarchy – who tells them they don’t need to change – than to the true hierarchy who is telling them they need to change everything.

My point here is that when people are trapped in duality, they can always use a relative line of reasoning to impose an interpretation upon a true spiritual teaching, an interpretation that makes it seem like they don’t really have to change themselves or challenge their egos. For example, many people are extremely comfortable with their membership of an outer religion, be it a mainstream Christian church or a New Age organization. They literally believe they have it all figured out and that if only they keep doing what they are doing, God simply has to save them.

If we are to help such people, we must first shake them out of their sense of comfortability. If they ar not willing to leave their comfort zones, we often can do nothing, and people will instead follow the blind leaders of the hierarchy of anti-christ.

That is very clear to me, but what exactly do you mean with the words, “a state of consciousness that attracts the dualistic opposites?”

As I said in the previous discussions, the mind of anti-christ has a fundamental duality, meaning that it always sees everything in relation to two opposites, such as good and evil. As long as people are trapped in the duality consciousness, they will attract to themselves situations in which it seems as if the only option they have is to choose between two extremes. Yet both of these extremes are defined by the mind of anti-christ, meaning that no matter which extreme they choose, they will only become more trapped in duality.

To give you a historical example of this, take the crusades. One aspect of the duality consciousness is that it thinks in terms of black and white, meaning that if one religion is true, then all religions that are different must be false. So we had members of Christianity and Islam who each believed that theirs was the only true religion. They also believed in the lie – promoted by the forces of anti-christ through their willing representatives in embodiment – that it was justified in the eyes of God to kill nonbelievers.

So it seemed to people that they had to choose between going to hell or going to war. Or it seemed that by going to war they were doing God’s work and coming closer to heaven. In reality, they were only sinking deeper into the duality consciousness and thus removing themselves further from the Christ consciousness that is the open door which no man – meaning the dualistic state of mind – can shut.

My point is that the false hierarchy of anti-christ has created innumerable versions of this artificial conflict between two opposites, and they are constantly seeking to draw people into such a battle. They do this in any way they can think of, and that is why I said, "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39). It is only by refusing to engage in this eternal, dualistic struggle – by turning the other cheek no matter what other people do to you – that you can avoid being caught in the trap set by the false hierarchy.

In reality, and I know this will be difficult to accept for many sincere spiritual seekers, the false hierarchy can use even a true spiritual teaching to create such dualistic opposites. You have to realize that the duality consciousness will always present the spiritual student with a dilemma. At any level of the spiritual path, you will face two extremes that are created by the duality of anti-christ. The inexperienced student will invariably choose one extreme and think he is doing the right thing. Yet the mature student sees through this plot and therefore chooses the golden middle way by always seeking to transcend the duality of any situation. It is only through this self-transcendence that you grow in Christhood. Otherwise, you only stay in the dualistic struggle, which can go on indefinitely.

You also said, “Even if you find a teaching that is truly from the Ascended Host, your ego will still use your dualistic beliefs to distort your view of that teaching.” You already explained how our egos project dualistic images upon a true teaching, but I would like to take this in a different direction. I know many people who for decades have followed a teaching that was given by the ascended masters. Yet they are afraid to look at this website or many other teachings besides their chosen religion because they fear they could be fooled by the false hierarchy. Likewise, many Christians find this website and think it is of the devil or a false Christ.

Obviously, based on what you have said, it is legitimate to be concerned about the false hierarchy. Yet you also seem to say that as long as we stay in the consciousness of fear, we will attract what we fear. I mean, fear is not found in the Christ mind, so it must be part of duality. So if you fear something, it seems like you will attract to you what you fear, is that correct?

Certainly. As I have said many times, the universe is a mirror. If you send out fear, the universe will return to you what you fear. This is not actually as ominous as it might sound. The universe is set up to help you become free. Fear keeps you trapped in duality. All fear is based on an illusion; it is a fear of the unknown, meaning what is partially understood. You fear something because you have not taken a closer look at it, whereby you would have seen that it was nothing but a dualistic illusion with no reality in God. So how can you overcome this illusion? Only by being confronted with what you fear, so that you can no longer ignore it. The universe returns to you what you fear so that you can overcome the fear and be free. The only way to overcome fear is to confront it with the mind of Christ.

My point is that there is a fundamental difference between being aware of the false hierarchy and actually fearing the false hierarchy. Some New Age people advocate the idea that people should ignore anything negative in order to avoid giving it power. Yet a tumor will keep growing even if you ignore it, so a spiritual seeker cannot afford to ignore the existence of the false hierarchy. You must be aware of it as you are aware of bacteria that can give you disease. In reality, it is only when you fear something that you give it power. When you are aware that something exists without feeling fear, you do not give it power—you simply separate yourself from it. Thereby, you empower yourself to stay free of the darkness and you can also help free other people, which is how the planet progresses.

I am well aware that many members of the organizations that we have previously sponsored are afraid to look at any progressive revelation we have brought forth after we stopped speaking through their organization. This is comparable to fundamentalist Christians who say I could not bring forth anything beyond what is said in the Bible. It is exactly the same mindset, although many New Age people refuse to see this and feel that they are far more open-mined and advanced than fundamentalists.

Now, there is a point on the path, where it is prudent to be cautious. You do not let small children play on the street because they are not mature enough to keep an eye out for cars. Yet as the children grow, you have to let them out because keeping them locked up inside the house would hamper their natural growth. So it is with your mind. When you are new to the path, it is best to find a reliable teaching and to focus on it for a while. Yet remember what I said earlier. The purpose of a true teaching is to increase your Christ discernment. When you multiply your talents, you will become better at telling the difference between the truth of Christ and a dualistic lie. Therefore, you no longer need to fear the false hierarchy, and thus you don’t need to confine your studies to any one teaching.

It is sad to see people who have been following a true teaching for decades and who are still afraid to exercise their Christ discernment. You cannot develop discernment in a sterile environment. It must be done through hands-on – or rather minds-on– experience. What I am saying is that as you mature, you are no longer so concerned about the false hierarchy and you are not afraid to seek truth wherever it can be found. For example, you are not afraid to read a book that might contain some error because you can separate the chaff from the wheat. A person with full Christhood can read The Satanic Bible and still find some truth. Obviously, you can find the same truth elsewhere, so there is no real reason to read The Satanic Bible, I am simply giving an extreme example.

Let us now take this to the next level. If you fear the false hierarchy, your fear becomes an open door whereby the false hierarchy can influence you and thereby control your path. As I said, when people find the path, they are still partly in the duality consciousness, and as long as you have dualistic beliefs, the false hierarchy can use them to take you in the wrong direction. The more fear you have in your consciousness, the easier they can control you. The problem here is that fear makes you reluctant to take a look at your dualistic beliefs, which means that you cannot free yourself from those beliefs.

Let me make this more practical. When a person finds a genuine spiritual teaching, and perhaps joins an organization, it does not mean that the person is home free. As long as you are in embodiment, the prince of this world – the false hierarchy of anti-christ – will follow you every step of your path. The blind leaders will seek to take you off the true path and get you to follow the path that seemeth right unto a man. Now, you will also be followed by the true hierarchy and by your Christ self. So we might say that every step on the spiritual path represents a decision that you must make. And for every decision, you will have two voices inside your head seeking to influence your decision. The true voice, the still small voice, will seek to help you overcome duality and transcend yourself. The false voice, often a very loud or manipulative voice, will seek to coerce or fool you into staying in the duality consciousness by making you afraid to transcend your current beliefs or so proud that you think you know everything.

My point is that as long as you are afraid to look at something or as long as you are attached to your current beliefs, you will make yourself vulnerable to the false hierarchy. You will literally magnetize these forces to you. Take note of what is quoted above, “Your ego and any external false teachers can actually use a true teaching to slow down your growth by causing you to close your mind.”

My point here is that many students have found a genuine teaching that was released by the Ascended Host. Yet through their fear, attachments or pride, the false hierarchy has managed to use the outer teaching to make people feel that they don’t need to change beyond a certain point. People now feel very comfortable, often feeling that they are the most sophisticated students on the planet or feeling sure they have everything they need to make their ascensions. Yet in reality, the true teaching has now been turned into a false path that only traps them even more firmly in duality. The only way to avoid or escape this scenario is to maintain your willingness to self-correct, to self-transcend. You have to “be open to being disturbed by your Christ self and the Ascended Host, which means that you are willing to let a new idea take you beyond your comfortable beliefs.”

You have to be alert to the fact that as you follow the spiritual path, you are not simply educating yourself, you are also educating your ego. Your ego learns the words and concepts used in a specific spiritual teaching, and it quickly finds out how to use them to maintain or even expand its control over you. That is why you can never stand still. You have to keep moving faster than your ego or you will inevitably start sliding backwards. If you become comfortable at a certain level, your ego will quickly use this opportunity to get you to stop at that level.

You always need to remember that the path is an ongoing process. The moment you stop moving, you are no longer on the true path. You are on the path that seems right to the ego. Remember the motto, “From this point, forward—always forward!”

What do you mean by saying, “When you come up higher on the path, you can completely transcend the level of duality, and thus false teachers and false teachings will no longer be a threat to you.”

As I said, the false teachers will follow you every step of the way. They will be with you as long as you are in embodiment—at least until they are removed from the Earth. Yet as I describe in the Bible, there can come a point where they are no longer a threat to you, “For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). This does not fully happen until you are free of all dualistic beliefs. Yet you can make this threat much less significant by entering into the state of mind in which you are always willing to self-correct and self-transcend. You have decided that you will not let anything – from within or without – prevent you from taking the next step on the path.

Remember that the true hierarchy is always seeking to help you grow, to take the next step. The false hierarchy is always seeking to stop your growth by preventing you from taking the next step. So as long as you are always willing to take another step, the false hierarchy has little power over you. It is your attachments that give them power over you and magnetize them to you. Whenever you start to feel comfortable or attached to anything – including a spiritual teaching, organization or practice – thinking that you don’t have to go beyond it, at that moment the false hierarchy will have gained power over you and they will use it mercilessly to keep you at that level of the path.

Believe me, we have seen this happen numerous times to our students. We give them a dispensation of light, a grace, so that they can discover a true spiritual teaching. Yet although the outer teaching is necessary for growth, the outer teaching is not the key to growth. The real key is to multiply what you have been given by using the outer teaching as a stepping stone for establishing direct contact with your Christ self.
So we always hope that our students will come to understand this principle and thus multiply their talents instead of burying them in the ground. Unfortunately, a large percentage of our students quickly begin to feel that now that they are members of this or that organization, they have found the ultimate. So they just need to believe in the organization’s teachings and follow its practices, and they will automatically qualify for salvation or their ascension or whatever the organization defines as the goal.

The moment you begin to feel this way, the moment you close your mind to the possibility of self-transcendence, you are no longer a student of the ascended masters. You have now made yourself a student of the false hierarchy. You might still be proudly referring to a teaching that was given by the ascended masters, but you have perverted that teaching into something that seems right unto you but has nothing to do with the truth we released.

So you are actually saying that as long as we are reluctant to grow, we can follow a true teaching and still be the blind followers of the blind leaders because we listen to the wrong voices inside our heads?

Correct. There is no automatic path to salvation. That is why you can never allow yourself to confine your path to one particular teaching or organization. You have to be open to your inner teacher and be willing to go wherever you are directed to go, even if it means leaving behind a teaching or organization with which you have become comfortable. In many cases, it is exactly the comfortability that makes it necessary for the student to leave the old teaching and find a new one that is more challenging for the mind.

This is where many students get stuck. They often feel they have followed an organization for so long that they have finally created a secure position for themselves. And they are not willing to leave their nets and follow the Living Christ when he appears to them in disguise. They are like the rich man who would not sell his possessions in order to follow me (Luke 18:22). What could I do for that person? I could do nothing and had to leave him behind. Likewise, the ascended masters have had to leave behind many former students who found our teachings and started applying them with great hope. Yet because they were not willing to truly let go of some aspect of the ego, they used a dualistic line of reasoning to convince themselves – and often other people – that they do not need to grow beyond a certain point.

Although we love our students, we do not have a possessive love. So we will leave students behind if they lose their willingness to take the next step. We are constantly moving higher on the path of life, and if you are not willing to follow along with us, you will be left behind until you decide that you are willing to leave your comfort zone. It has been said that discouragement is the sharpest tool in the devil’s toolkit. In reality, comfortability is a far more dangerous tool because it is so often based on spiritual or intellectual pride—spiritual blindness.

The most dangerous form of ignorance is not that you know nothing, because people who know nothing are often willing to learn. The most dangerous form of ignorance is thinking that you already know everything you need to know, for such people are not willing to learn.

When a person is using the relativity of the mind of anti-christ, the person can always construct a mental image that gives the perfect justification for not taking that next step, for not confronting the next aspect of the ego. Such a person can feel absolutely certain that he or she is an advanced student of the ascended masters. In reality, the person is a student of the false hierarchy, a blind follower of the blind leaders, and both of them are headed for the ditch.

In a previous discussion you said that the false teachers are good at portraying themselves as very spiritual. So I assume they might actually appear as genuine or benevolent spiritual teachers. I also assume there are non-material forces that appear to be genuine ascended masters?

Correct. Life is not like the old Western movies where the hero always appeared in white clothes and the bad guy in black clothes. Whenever the Ascended Host introduce a new spiritual concept to humankind, the false hierarchy will seek to counteract it by creating the false duality I talked about earlier.

For the last century we have given people the concept of ascended masters as the spiritual teachers of humankind. The false hierarchy has sought to counteract this by creating a false duality. On one side you have what most people would see as dark forces, namely demons and other forces that are clearly evil. On the other side the false hierarchy has set up a group of non-material beings, residing in the mental or emotional realms, that imitate the ascended masters. These false "masters" will appear to be exactly like us and they will use the same terminology. Yet they have two main goals.

One goal is to draw you into a dualistic struggle against the "dark forces." So they will try to make you think that you are a servant of the light and you are here to fight the darkness, and as long as you are following their directives, you are doing just that. In reality you are simply trapped in the endless dualistic struggle between two opposing forces, none of which have the life of Christ in them. The other goal is to make you follow the false path that only makes you comfortable at a certain level of attainment but does not guide you on to eternal self-transcendence. Obviously, these two goals can be combined, and when people buy into them, they feel very convinced that they are doing the exact right thing and that they have to keep doing it for the rest of their lives.

I can understand why this can be confusing to many people and why they find it hard to tell the difference between a genuine spiritual teaching from the Ascended Host and an imitation from the false hierarchy. Obviously, we need to have another discussion about this topic.

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Copyright © 2005 by Kim Michaels