What it takes to be a good president of the United States

Godfre, February 13, 2011. Given at Mount Vernon, which was George Washington's personal estate in Virginia. Georg Washington was one of the incarnations of the Ascended Master Godfre.

I am the Ascended Master Godfre, and I welcome you to the grounds of this historical national landmark, which used to be my gentleman's estate here in Virginia. Many happy hours were spent here, some of the happiest riding on my horses, alone or accompanied only by my personal attendant. Who was not to me a piece of property but was a trusted friend, truly also seeing himself as such.

Nevertheless, was there not an amazingly sharp divide back then between different groups of people? You may look at this nation and see the divide between slaves and free men, but there were many other divisions in American society. Divisions that truly, from the very outset, formed the greatest threat to the establishment of this nation, to the survival of this nation. And even today, they form the greatest threat to the ongoingness and the acceleration of this nation towards its golden age potential.

Could the United States have been established without bloodshed?
Thus, it was in this place that I was able to withdraw somewhat from this divided, fragmented dualistic society and the ongoing dualistic struggle—that was such a big part of my life in that embodiment as George Washington. Truly, even from a young age, I was brought into this dualistic struggle by serving in the British army, and – during the revolutionary war – just another phase of this struggle.

Thus, when I had occasion to walk or ride on this property, I would sometimes contemplate a question, which very few Americans today bother to think about. It was the question of how we might have achieved nationhood without the spilling of blood. Would it have been possible, indeed, to establish the United States of America as a free independent nation without the revolutionary war?

Certainly, at the time I could not see how. Neither could Jefferson or any of the other founding fathers. Even though many of the so-called founding fathers of this nation had a background in in freemasonry – and therefore believed in universal spiritual principles and divine providence – we still were not able to see, how we could achieve greater independence from England without incurring the wrath of the King and the subsequent military clampdown that was – or at least seemed – inevitable in those days.

You, who have grown up in societies or in a time when there was less warfare – or at least without being directly involved with it yourself – will find it difficult to understand the mindset back then, where armed conflict was such an almost natural part of life. And it was often taken for granted that there simply was no other way to work out solutions to what seemed like major conflicts.

Yet, of course, when you look back with the perspective of an Ascended Master, you can begin to see just how many opportunities there were for actually having forged a separate nation. When you look today, you can see that had a different course been set, there would still have been an independent nation on the North American continent today. It would surely have taken longer; it would not have been established when the United States of America was established. Yet, it would have been there today. And in the process of pursuing a peaceful transformation, England itself would also have been transformed faster than it otherwise was.

The eagerness for armed conflict
And so, of course, hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. Nevertheless, there is always validity in looking at and learning from the lessons of history. Back then we were – those of us who started the process of independence and fought in the revolutionary war – we were not only quick to call for armed uprising, we were eager for it. For we saw it as a decisive way to further our own careers, even our sense of personal honor and pride.

This is a mindset that most of the spiritual people of today will find alien to the way they have grown up. But that is because so much has happened in the collective consciousness of humankind since then, that you have been fortunate to grow up in a part of the world, where the collective consciousness is not as steeped in conflict as it is in certain other areas.

Look for example to the Middle East or Africa or other parts of the globe, where there is much more tension and conflict. And consider, that the mindset in which I grew up as George Washington, was fairly similar in some ways to what you see in the world today. Where people are ready to engage into conflict, almost at a moment's notice, because it is always there as an underlying reality in their world view. They see it not only as inevitable, they see it as desirable for a variety of reasons.

The young George Washington
I was born in a not wealthy family in that lifetime, but a family that had ambitions. Even though my father died early, I had absorbed enough of the consciousness that he embodied, the ambition to improve his status in society and become somebody. This was, of course, a mindset that was unique to the colonies, for in Europe people were born into certain stations and most of them would die in the same stations. But here in the United States, there was a new consciousness, even though it was not the United States at the time but the colonies.

There was a new consciousness of realizing that you could improve your station in life. You could be born in a relatively poor family, and you could climb the social ladder and achieve status. Of course, this could not be done if you were a slave. But if you were born free, then you had this opportunity, through your skill and initiative and your willingness to take a risk.

Thus, if you look at the young George Washington, you will clearly see that kind of mentality. I wanted to achieve in my life, what my father had not achieved in his, and I was willing to take a risk to achieve it by joining the armed forces, as that was one of the ways to improve your status back then.

And so, I joined. I threw myself into the uncertainty of armed conflict, and I learned many lessons that became valuable to me, not only in my role as leader during the revolutionary war but about life in general. How fragile it is, how easily it is lost to those who are not, as I came to see it, favored by divine providence. For there were battles, where I saw my friends die around me and where I had bullets flying through my coats—and yet I escaped unharmed.

And I knew – I had a growing realization within me – that it could only have been divine providence that spared my life, because I was selected by that divine providence for some greater mission. Of course, not knowing what it was when I was young, but it became gradually clearer as I grew into a position in the revolutionary war and eventually, of course, as president.

So you see, then, how I started as a young man, having little regard for the lives of others, being willing to further my own personal career by essentially having an occupation that required me to take the lives of other people. This was simply the mindset of the time: kill or be killed, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, whatever was required to prove your valor in battle.

The maturing George Washington
Yet, a change began to happen in my consciousness during the revolutionary war. Especially in that winter at Valley Forge, where I was beyond the brink of complete despair, coming to a point where I completely gave up all personal ambition, all personal desire, all personal expectations of what life should be.

I came to the exact same point that this messenger has described before he started the AskRealJesus website. Of saying, literally, to God: "You can take me home right now!" And I knew that if I had died at that moment, I would have had no regrets, I would have been willing to leave everything in that lifetime behind in order to move on to some other service.

For I truly realized that I of my own self could do nothing. There was no way that I alone – with my leadership and with the men I had at my disposal – could win this war for a new nation. All of my youthful ambitions had made me believe that I had the skills to lead. My early victories had made me even more sure that one day I would eventually triumph, and my personal ambitions to achieve the highest standards would be fulfilled, through my bold choice to lead this nation.

Yet on my knees at Valley Forge, I gave it all up. I gave it all up, my beloved. I surrendered myself entirely unto God as I saw it, the God of nature, the God within, and I commended my life and my spirit to that higher being. Which at the time I sensed, but could not name as the I AM Presence, as Saint Germain later did through me in my role as messenger for him.

And so, from that moment on, the young George Washington effectively died. There, in the cold dark days in that distant forest, he died. And yet, I did not die. I was not taken home. And I realized that there could only be one reason why I was still in embodiment. And that was that divine providence still had some role for me to play. Divine providence had something it wanted to do through me, now that I had gotten myself out of the way, my own ambition out of the way.

Not wanting to be king
And so, I was reborn. And thus came, of course, the process that eventually led to the surrender of the British and the formation of a new nation. This, then, led to the crucial situation, where I stood there – as the hero of the new nation – and I was offered, basically, the highest possible power. I could have taken that power, as Napoleon took it. Yet I declined, and this was the pivotal moment in my embodiment in the public life.

But had it not been for my total surrender in that distant valley, I could never have given up the trappings of power. They surely were pulling at me with all of their might, to get me to take the position as a god for this new nation, thereby thinking that I could do this.

Nevertheless, because of my previous surrender I knew that I could not be a king or an emperor for this new nation. And thus, I was able to once again surrender and decline this position. And this was, indeed, what made it possible for me to then later accept the position as the first president of the United States, and conduct that position in a way that I would have never been able to do before this total surrender to God.

How to be a good president
And thus, what is the moral of telling you this story? For surely, it is not to lament about my personal experiences, that have long been transcended in the ascension fires. It is indeed to show you, what it takes to be a good president of these United States. And it is precisely this one quality: the total surrender to a higher power. The absolute, uncompromising acceptance that you can of your own self do nothing, even though they say you are holding the most powerful office in the world.

You need to be able to stand in front of a mirror, look yourself straight in the eyes and accept: "I am nothing, I can do nothing without a higher power. I can only be successful as president by being the open door, a clear pane of glass."

Thus, this is the key to being a successful president. This is why I could say that eight years was enough, and thus set a precedent for this nation, that otherwise could easily have been broken by those who had not surrendered their desire for ultimate power—and thus could even at an early stage have transformed this nation back towards a more totalitarian form of government.

This, then, is the lesson to learn from the life of George Washington: the surrender onto a higher power. The powers of men may seem intoxicating, when you have them in such a measure that you think nothing on earth could take it away from you. But I tell you, there is no amount of power that can preserve you, when divine providence decides to turn the wheels of destiny.

There is nothing that can stop the wheels of time from taking away anything and everything you think you can own and possess on this earth. And thus, only those who know this will be able to surrender and let go, whereas those who do not know will continue to use whatever power they have available to them, until their ultimate defeat, as you saw with Hitler, Napoleon, many other people throughout the ages. Even people who have not been leaders of nations, but who have continued doing the same thing over and over again, thinking that one day they would surely mount enough force to get a different result.

Practical realism
But you see, when you surrender yourself entirely unto God, you realize a very simple thing: we live in a universe that has certain mechanical properties. What you send into the cosmic mirror, the mirror will reflect back to you. The harder the impulse you send out, the harder the reflection coming back. And if you think that fighting your own reflection requires you to use more force, you only get an even stronger reflection coming back. And this can go on until you are either broken or until you see the light and just give it up, give up the entire dualistic game.

And this, then, is indeed the quality that needs to be manifest, if you are to be a successful leader of this nation or any democratic nation. For even though democracy must be secular and must not be taken over by a particular religion, a democracy cannot function without the acceptance of a higher power, a higher principle, a higher idea.

Nevertheless, I am not thereby saying that in order to be a successful President of the United States, you have to be an idealist. For if you look at my life as George Washington, you will see that even though I clearly had ideals and principles, I was not what you would call an idealist. If you look at my consciousness during the revolutionary war, you will clearly see that I was a practical realist.

I used what I had available to me, and I attempted to multiply it, to gain the maximum effect. But then, when I acknowledged the fact that I would not have more troops, I would not have more gun powder, I would not have more money, then I committed myself 100 percent to doing the best that could be done, and then accepting the result.

And so, the Alpha is the total surrender to God, the Omega is the practical realism of what is possible in the material universe. This is also why I was not able to find a solution to the slavery issue, that you clearly see outpictured here at Mount Vernon.

Yet you will see that even the man who was a greater idealist, such as my friend Thomas, could not resolve the issue either through his reasoning faculties. This was, again in hindsight, partly because of the collective consciousness of the time. It was too difficult for us to see through the fog of the collective consciousness and do what needed to be done to end slavery, at least on a personal basis.

I was too focused on the practical aspects, of not wanting to break up slave families. And yet, had I been more willing to surrender entirely unto God in this issue as well, then I would have found the solution. So you see, the total surrender unto God is not a one-time process; it is something that is required every time you face an issue, where you seemingly cannot solve an enigma, solve a problem.

George Washington's law
My beloved, let me give you George Washington's law: If you do not see a solution to a problem, it is because there is something you have not surrendered. You have not attained total surrender with regards to this issue, for otherwise the solution would become obvious.

This, then, is a rule that you might find occasion to ponder, as you pursue spiritual growth and thereby become the people in today's age who will have potentially an even greater impact on the collective consciousness by setting examples that go beyond the example I set as George Washington or that was set by the founding fathers. For truly, this is a new day and a new age.

So many young people come to this Mount Vernon estate and museum, and they look at the life of George Washington and they think that they should somehow follow my example. But times have moved on; it is no longer the highest solution that this nation of the United States is engaged in conflicts around the world. And therefore still finds it necessary to educate its young people – to program them – to think they have to fight for freedom, as you find in several museums in this nation's capital and even here. This is no longer the highest possible example, and thus there is a need for those who will set a new example, a higher example based on the collective consciousness as it is today and the potential for a Golden Age.

You who are open to a universal spiritual teaching – as I was open by becoming a freemason in my early years – you are the ones who have the potential to set a higher example in this age. And you can learn certain lessons from studying my life as George Washington. But again, you must, of course, go beyond; you must surrender your expectations and graven images as I surrendered mine, when I was kneeling in my tent on that cold winter day, where it seemed like the cause of forging a new nation was lost beyond repair.

Nothing is ever lost for God. It is only for the human consciousness that it can seem as if something is lost. And thus, when you think all is lost, it is because there is a part of your human consciousness that you have not surrendered. And it is this consciousness that thinks all is lost.

What is lost is only your unreal expectations. When you surrender those unreal expectations, you will be reborn into a higher vision, where you see that nothing was truly lost for everything was a transformation. Had we lost that revolutionary war, there would still have been a free nation on this continent. Again, it would have taken longer, but as even democracy was eventually established in England – and India and Canada gained their independence – you could see that, surely, the American colonies could have achieved the same in time.

Thus, there is a time to take leadership, and there is a time to lay down the leadership. There is a time to take arms, and there is a time to lay down your arms and grab the plow. Wise are those who know the timing. I am not hereby saying that I or others in the revolutionary war should not have done what we did. This is not a point of going back and rewriting history. It is a matter of realizing that there was an alternative to what we did. At the time it was not a possible or practical alternative, given the state of consciousness we had, and the collective state of consciousness and physical conditions.

But my point is that you cannot today look back at the founding fathers and the revolutionary war and say that you today should do what we did back then. You should be inspired by our example, but you should transcend the example, surrender your own expectations and graven images and grasp the higher vision for what is the practical solution today.

Thus, with a fond gaze over these grounds, where I had such a sense of peace in my later years, I seal this release. And I give my gratitude to the person who has been willing to be the open door, allowing me to anchor a portion, not of the flame of George Washington but the flame of the Ascended Master Godfre here on these grounds. So that those who come here from now on may indeed be inspired to reach for the higher vision and to understand the need for the total surrender before that higher vision can be grasped.

Thus, Godfre I AM. And this is my flame.