Ascended Master Jesus, August 24, 2008 through Kim Michaels.

This never has been – and never will be, and never can be – a collective path. You can form a community, and you can help each other, but you must go each one individually. For each one individually must establish that contact to his or her Christ Self and I AM Presence and spiritual teacher. For only when that vertical degree of oneness is there, can there be true horizontal oneness.

Even those on the sporting teams of the world, or those who are individually striving for excellence, are in a sense on the path of personal growth – of raising up that separate self above the multitude – so that they can earn the potential to turn that separate self towards a higher quest. Many of the people that you have seen at these Olympic games are indeed people who have risen above that collective consciousness of the multitudes and manifested a stronger sense of individuality. Many of them have made great personal sacrifices in order to excel in their sport, setting aside many normal endeavors. And this has caused them to develop great self-discipline, great focus, great dedication to a cause, that can indeed be turned into a higher pursuit of going beyond seeking to raise the separate self.

I can tell you, that many of the people who have tasted this excellence in the sporting world will – during this lifetime – come to realize, that even though they were caught up in this pursuit of excellence and competition – even though it gave them a great adrenalin rush, a great sense of accomplishment, even superiority – it still left them empty. It still left them wanting more. It still made it difficult for them to come back to an “ordinary life” after they could no longer excel in their sport.

Some of them will indeed go beyond that stage of the warrior consciousness, to the beginning stages of the consciousness of the sage, who begins to look for something more than this world can offer. For you see, when you have stood in a sporting arena and had billions of people focus their attention upon you – through the television – well, then you have indeed, in a certain sense, tasted some of the highest of what this world can offer, in terms of giving attention to the separate self.

And then, when the conscious self begins to realize, that this was not enough, that there has to be something more, well, then the lifestream has the potential to engage in the true path to Christhood—of seeking not to raise up itself for the sake of raising itself, but seeking to raise up its separate self in order to go beyond that separate self and use its attainment and accomplishment to serve the All. So that the ultimate stand-out individual is indeed the one who gives the greatest service. For did I not say, that he who would be greatest among you should be the servant of all?

In their next embodiment, many of these sporting stars will indeed become more spiritual and will begin to walk the spiritual path in earnest. Some of you who are walking the spiritual path today have indeed tasted that fame or glory in past lifetimes, whether through sports, through wars, politics, or in other fields of human endeavor, such as the arts. This is a perfectly natural part of the evolution of an individual. Of course, I look to you, who have come to a conscious awareness of the spiritual path, to go beyond this and to see that there is something beyond these outer pursuits of material excellence—and that is spiritual excellence. Which is not as some of you still think – dedicated to raising up the separate self, but to raising up the All in service to all life.

The high and the low road

What I am telling you here is, indeed, that many of the people who make up the bottom 10 percent, as we call them, are indeed also people who have walked this path of raising their individual sense of self beyond the multitudes. Even before you can – so to speak – excel in the control games, in the money-making games, well, you still have to attain some individuality—to even have that drive for power, for control or for money, concentrated in the hands of one person.

When an individual being reaches beyond the consciousness of the multitude, it has the potential to find the path of personal Christhood. But it also has the potential to find the left-handed path – not the broad way that leads to destruction that is taken by the multitudes – but the false path, the path of anti-christ, of indeed using one’s attainment to raise up that separate self for the glorification of the separate self or some material cause.

Some of the people who have attained great power or great money on this planet, have indeed walked that path of first raising the separate self on the path of personal growth, but then turning it into the left-handed path, the path of anti-christ, of using their attainment to attain power and glory for the separate self. If you want examples, look to China, to the chairman Mao Tse-Tung, who was an example of this. Look to North Korea, look to the former Soviet Union—Stalin and Lenin. Look to Hitler. Look to Napoleon, who had the opportunity to work with Saint Germain, but ultimately took the left-handed path.

Look to many other world leaders who have taken that path. And then learn from their example, and realize that even you, who are the spiritual students – even you who are students of my course in Christhood – face that initiation—that very subtle initiation, where you know you have great attainment, where you know you have reached a high level in terms of raising up your individual self. But now the question is, will you then take the path of continuing to raise the separate self for the sake of the separate self, or will you take the path of Christ, where you realize the truth in my statement—that he who seeks to save his life shall lose it, he who seeks to save that separate self shall eventually lose it. But he who is willing to lay down that life, that separate self, for the sake of following Christ, shall indeed find the eternal life through the Spirit of Oneness with all life. This is the challenge that all of you face, this is the challenge to which I call you in my course to Christhood.

This is an excerpt from a longer teaching. You can read the full dictation HERE.