TOPICS: The essential shift on the spiritual path – How to look at spiritual gifts – Discovering your gift – What is a spiritual gift? – Human ambitions and false gifts – Multiplying your gifts – Multiplying your gifts – Giving without a return – Never being alone –

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Ascended Master Mother Mary, June 26th, 2016, through Kim Michaels.

I AM the Ascended Master Mother Mary, and I welcome the opportunity to speak to you about the topic you have had a conversation about, namely your spiritual gifts. Much has already been said that came directly from us through this messenger, but I would like to add a few thoughts here.

There are millions and millions of people in embodiment right now who have reached the level of spiritual attainment in past lifetimes that means that they have certain gifts. I do not want to define gifts in too narrow of a way because some people have gifts that have not really been seen on the planet before.

The essential shift on the spiritual path

In order to bring humankind into the New Age, there needs to be an incredible shift in consciousness. Most of you cannot – with your conscious minds – grasp how big of a shift this is. You can grasp aspects of it by looking at yourself and the changes that you have gone through since you started your individual path, perhaps many years ago.

You will know that when you first started, you had certain ideas that you believed were absolutely true. You had those ideas because when you are in embodiment on a planet as turbulent as earth, you need to have some foundation. You need to have something to grasp on to that gives you a sense of stability and continuity.

Of course, the challenge on the spiritual path is to come to the point where you realise that: “What I thought was an absolute truth, what I have never really questioned and what I have felt gave me stability in an insecure world has now become a hindrance to my progress. Therefore, I need to question it, I need to look beyond it and I need to let it go.”

How to look at spiritual gifts

So many of you have gifts and as the messenger said: Before you come into embodiment, you are not looking through the filter of your four lower bodies. The four lower bodies are filled with the influences from your culture, your parents, your family, people around you, all of the things that you take in as you grow up. You are not looking through this while you are outside of embodiment. Therefore, you decide that there is a certain gift you want to bring forth and it looks perfectly logical for you before you come into embodiment.

After you come into embodiment and your mind is clouded by the filter, then all of a sudden your gift looks entirely different. Many people cannot even see it or at least they do not dare to consciously look at it. Other people certainly cannot see that it is a gift they have chosen because it does not fit into the boxes created by their filter, by their upbringing. That is why it is not necessarily constructive to lock your mind on a certain idea of what it means to have a spiritual gift and what you should do with it. You need to be careful not to fixate your mind by looking at other people and what they have done.

Now be mindful that there are two aspects of this, it can be helpful to look at people who have a gift and be inspired. There is a reaction you need to avoid. You need to avoid looking at a person who has a certain gift and saying: “Oh I could never do anything like that” because that will, of course, not inspire you to bring out your gift.

Perhaps you are right that you could not do what that person is doing, but you might be able to do something else that is equally important. You need to be willing to realize that if you feel you have a gift, but if you feel you are not expressing that gift or you don’t know exactly what it is, then it is because your gift does not fit into the mental boxes you have in your four lower bodies.

Discovering your gift

You need to ask yourself the question: “What is it, what are the beliefs that I have not questioned, that I think are absolute truths, what are the things that are giving me stability and how do they stand in the way of the expression of my gift?” Then, you need to start gradually questioning some of these beliefs and ideas, including the ones you have gotten from without, but including sometimes ideas you have got from spiritual or religious teachings.

There are many spiritual teachings that do not have the concept of gifts. They are not really designed to empower you and to inspire you to find your gift. There are certainly very few religions who have these concepts and are designed to inspire you. Many religions are, in fact, designed to make you deny that you have any special gifts or abilities and therefore be like everyone else. Conformism is not the way to develop or become aware of your spiritual gifts.

You need to start this process where you become consciously aware of what “the path” is all about. The path really is about coming to consciously see that there is something in your psychology, in your mind, that is standing in the way of the flow of the Spirit through you. This may be beliefs, it may also be a certain trauma you have had from experiences in your life. It may be certain psychological patterns or misunderstandings. It may be a certain view of yourself that you have from past lifetimes where you tend to put yourself down and feel that you are not important or that you are not valuable. It may even be a certain ego-based view that you are important and you are better than others and this can also stand in the way.

As the messenger expressed, there are many people who have had an ambition of being an expression or a messenger for Spirit. If there is a human ambition, then that will also stand in the way of the expression of your true gift.

What is a spiritual gift?

Now, my beloved, consider the word “gift.” There are many, many spiritual people who are talking about gifts. They think that this is something that they receive and that gives them a special ability that sets them apart from others. You see, a “spiritual gift” is not something you receive to keep. It is not something you receive so that you can use it to make yourself seem more important than others. A spiritual gift is something you receive so that you can give to others, so that you can help others, so that you can help the ascended masters. That is a gift.

A spiritual gift is not something you keep, it is something you give on. If you can adopt this attitude and truly lock in to what that means, then you will find that your awareness of your spiritual gift will increase and you will receive a much more clear idea of what is your individual gift.

Many of you, I must say, will have to go through quite a process before you are ready to express your gift. This messenger went through quite a process himself and it took him many years to get to the point where he was at that total surrender, the ability to totally surrender, and this is a good point to strive for. You have no human ambition, you are not seeking validation, you are simply open and attuned to what Spirit wants to bring forth.

Human ambitions and false gifts

Of course, we see many spiritual people who want a gift because they think it will give them some advantage. Some want to receive attention, some want to be acknowledged, some want to have power over others, some want to make money. These are the human ambitions that will stand in the way of the expression of your real gift. There are some people who have been so unbalanced in their desire for a spiritual gift that they have tuned in to lower forces than the ascended masters and therefore have had certain abilities but they are not true spiritual gifts.

If you see someone who has an ability to impress others that makes them feel that he is special, or perhaps even to control others or make them co-dependent on the person, then you know this is not a spiritual gift that comes from the ascended masters. It comes from lower forces who need something from people in embodiment, namely their energy. As the messenger said, we do not need your energy, we do not need to be worshipped as people have been worshipping God for thousands of years. This is not our need or our desire.

What good would it do me to have people worship me when I know who I am and I know my relationship to God? I do not see myself as God, for I know I am only a part of the pyramid of life and there are beings beyond me, who have much greater awareness and attainment than I do. It is from them that I receive the energy that I pass on to you. When I know this, why do I need anyone on earth to worship me as a God, or worship me even as the Catholics do, thinking that if they light a candle or say so many “Hail Marys,” then I will be like Santa Claus who will do something for them so that they do not have to take responsibility for themselves.

This is not who I am as an ascended master, but this is how there are lower forces that will impersonate me and other masters, or other spiritual beings or even God, in order to get people’s attention and through their attention get their energy. My beloved, there are, of course, many false teachers in the world. Beware of those who want something from you and seek out those who do not want to receive anything from you but only want to give.

Multiplying your gifts

You understand, my beloved, that the concept of the multiplication of the talents does not mean that when you multiply what you have been given, then we receive the multiplication. It is not so that if I give you a gift of positive energy and you multiply it, then I receive the energy back and I can now absorb or use this energy. The reason you need to multiply what you have been given is that this is how we can continue to give you more.

When I say multiply, I do not mean multiply in a quantitative way where you increase the amount. Multiplying what has been given means that you use it selflessly to help others, to raise up other parts of life. That is when you have multiplied the gift, and that is when we know that we can safely give you more because you will not use it for selfish purposes. It is when we see this that the law allows us to release more to you.

What do you also have to give up in order to express your gift? You have to give up the idea that you are the doer as a separate being and that you have abilities and powers that enable you to act as a separate being. This is, of course, a very delicate process that does take a long time, but it is part of Christhood, it is an essential part of Christhood.

As Jesus has said, there are ten thousand people who are ready to manifest and acknowledge a very high degree of Christhood and there are millions more who can very quickly manifest a certain degree of Christhood. They need to become aware of the fact that you need to overcome the focus on self and the illusion that you are a separate being and that you can do things.

How we can do anything

Surely, you can do things with the physical body and it may seem like you don’t need any energy from the ascended masters to do certain things with the physical body. This is to some degree true because you do receive energy from the food you eat and other sources. My beloved, if you received absolutely no energy from the ascended masters, your body would die instantly, you could not even keep the body alive.

There are many people on earth who only receive the amount of energy needed to keep the body alive because they have not multiplied anything. For most of you, you receive far more from us, and the essence of Christhood is that you come to the point that Jesus expressed when he said: “I can of my own self do nothing.” He acknowledged that it is the Father within, it is Spirit within, it is the ascended masters who are the real doers because we provide the energy that you can only get from Above. You cannot get it horizontally, you cannot steal it, my beloved, you cannot take with force the energy you get from us.

What Jesus meant when he said that the violent take heaven by force is that they attempt to take it by force, but it is not truly heaven they take. They cannot take high-frequency spiritual energy by force. They can take energy by force from other people and then they can use it to perform certain feats that may make it seem to the unaware that they have spiritual gifts or abilities but it is all a facade. Those who have true spiritual gifts do not use them that way to impress or control others. They use them selflessly to bring forth something that helps other people by setting them free by empowering them.

Giving without a return

When you truly lock in to the Spirit, you realize that you need nothing from this world. Of course, that is a statement that must be qualified because you do need to feed your body and you do need to have a roof over your head. You do need to have money to do this in the kind of society you are living in. Nevertheless, when you realize that you do not truly need it, then you can shift your attitude to the point where you are not coming from a sense of lack, feeling you need something and therefore you feel that in order to give something you have to receive something in return.

You can come to the point where you are willing to give freely because you know that the universe will multiply what you give freely and therefore find the way to give you what you need so that you can have food on the table and a roof over that table and you can do your work. You don’t need to see a direct payback for the gifts that you give freely. This is the beauty of the consciousness that Jesus was in and maybe he demonstrated it two thousand years ago in a more extreme form than most people need to demonstrate.

Nevertheless, you see that how he walked around and owned nothing and therefore nothing owned him. He freely gave but somehow he also received from the universe what he needed to continue his ministry. When you adapt this attitude, then the universe will give you what you need to continue giving your gift to others. That, my beloved, is the beauty, the essence of working with the ascended masters. Freely ye have received—freely give.

Never being alone

When you truly understand this principle, then you have manifested the beginning stages of Christhood and then you can truly start going upwards from there. It can be a beautiful journey where we walk hand in hand and you know you are walking with us and we are walking with you. You are never alone and you are never lost. You always have a sense that you are on the right path towards the goal that you and we have set for this lifetime.

My beloved, should you reach the goal that you have set for this lifetime, then you can do even more than you envisioned when you made your Divine plan. This, of course, is the higher stages of Christhood where you are doing more than you envisioned before you came into embodiment. This is what Jesus did, what many other people have done, what some of you have already done and what many of you can do, if you are willing to follow the path that we have so carefully outlined in so many ways that there must be some way that resonates with your heart.

It may not be what we have been bringing forth through this messenger, but surely if you are open there will come a point where you find what resonates with you and can help you become aware of your gift and start giving it in a more conscious way than you have done before. With this, I thank you for providing me a platform where I could multiply what you have given and therefore reach wider into the collective consciousness than if you had not been willing to be the chalices for my release. My gratitude, and my blessing from my heart.