TOPICS: Creativity is opening your mind to ideas outside the collective mental box – creative people often feel rejected – where do ideas come from? – do you work with ascended masters or lower beings? – discernment – empowered by emotional entities – can make people insane – addiction to attention – empowered by mental entities – leads to unclear or complex thinking – intellectual blind alley – lower entities want your energy; the ascended masters need nothing from you – lower and higher creative ideas – why geniuses become unbalanced – be willing to be wrong – important to develop your creativity – how to do so – challenge is to be open without becoming imbalanced –
Question: Why does the tipping point between genius and madness have to be so fine? Creative geniuses bring beauty and progress to this world. Therefore they are a link to divinity. Why must these people have to risk their sanity to provide this service to humanity? Creative insanity may seem exotic to those who will never come close to it, but is a living hell for those who have it and their loved ones who have to witness it. It seems like such a punitive consequence of access to higher realms.
Answer from ascended master Jesus through Kim Michaels: (May 12, 2011)
Let us define creativity. In any given society, there is a mass consciousness, which overpowers the minds of most people and thus causes them to think within certain boundaries, what I have often called a mental box. Creativity can therefore be defined as the ability and willingness to open your mind to something that is outside the mental box of your society, so that you can bring forth ideas that people overpowered by the collective consciousness could not have received.
Of course, in many cases people limited by the mental box may not see a new idea as a stroke of genius. Most people will cling to their mental box and will thus reject anything that is too far beyond the box. Yet as a society evolves, the mental box can be expanded, and more and more people will then begin to accept ideas that were previously rejected. This was the case with the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe and many other ideas.
I mention this because one of the factors contributing to “creative insanity” is that creative people often feel rejected or misunderstood. Yet I might say, based on my own experience, that as long as they don’t nail you to a wooden cross, you really shouldn’t complain too much. However, it is constructive to see your own efforts as part of the larger stream – the River of Life – that brings humanity forward. If you can take this longer view, you will not feel rejected, because you will know that a new idea is rarely embraced in the beginning. Thus, you can avoid some of the feeling of rejection—depending on the strength of your desire for recognition, as I will talk about later.
Of course, it would be naive to say that any idea which is beyond the mental box of a given society is necessarily a creative or ingenious idea. There are ideas which are not creative in the sense that they do not contribute to the forward progression of humanity. Such ideas may be destructive or they may be variations of existing ideas that do not help people or society grow.
So on the one hand, a creative genius can be defined as a person whose mind is open to something beyond the collective mental box of his or her society. Yet when we realize that not every idea is constructive, we need to add a distinction. We need to ask: “When a person is open to something beyond the collective mental box, what exactly is it to which the person is open?”
And here, of course, is where neither mainstream Christianity nor materialistic science can give a satisfactory answer. The key insight missing from both thought systems is the fact that there are several levels of the material universe, namely the physical, the emotional, the mental and the etheric.
Especially on the emotional and mental levels, you find many beings who have become trapped there for a time. These beings will often seek to work with human beings, especially those who are more sensitive than the average person. The disembodied beings will promise people certain benefits, and one of them can be the ability to bring forth ideas that are distinctly outside the mental box of society.
For example, many modern musicians work with beings in the emotional realm to bring forth music that is new and different. At the same time, we of the ascended masters also seek to work with sensitive individuals to bring forth new forms of music. So what is the difference? The difference is that an ascended being needs nothing from you, whereas the unascended beings in lower realms do need something from you, namely your psychic energy.
An ascended being will not descend below a certain level, so we will only work with people who are able to raise their consciousness and tune in to our higher vibrations. All people have the ability to tune in to vibrations beyond the collective mental box, but the question is to which degree it is developed:
The average person has not developed these so-called psychic abilities, and thus he or she rarely receives any impulse from beyond the collective mental box.
Some people have developed their psychic abilities, but they have not developed much discrimination. In other words, they are open to anything beyond the collective mental box and do not discern as to whether it is from the ascended masters or a lower source. A few people have developed their psychic abilities to have various degrees of discernment. Some can tell whether an impulse is emotionally unbalanced, but they can still be fooled by something from the mental realm. Others can tell the difference in vibration between the mental realm and the ascended realm.
So you now begin to see the distinction that must be made. People who are sensitive can receive impulses from a realm beyond the collective mental box. Yet what they receive will depend on their ability to attune their consciousness to certain vibrations. And that in turn depends on the contents of their minds and personal energy fields.
If people have a lot of disharmonious emotional energy accumulated in their energy fields, they cannot tune in to anything higher than the emotional level. Beings in the emotional level are eager to work with sensitive people, and they can give you a certain empowerment. For example, you see certain musicians who have a strong stage presence that can get an audience to go into a frantic state of mind. The reason for this is that the person allows a being in the emotional realm to possess him or her. This being can be strong enough to overpower the audience at a concert and whip their emotions into a highly unbalanced state. This causes them to release light from their chakras, which the being (or beast) in the emotional realm can then absorb and use to survive or expand its powers.
What the person who is open to the emotional being gets in return is the empowerment that can make that person famous because the person can do something that most people would never be able to do. Yet the price that such a person has to pay is that his or her emotions are magnified to a point, where the person simply cannot maintain a normal balance and harmony, which is what can lead to various episodes that can indeed resemble madness. This extreme imbalance also often makes a person highly susceptible to drug abuse, as a way to mechanically recreate the altered state of consciousness experienced when the person is possessed by an emotional entity.
The unbalanced emotions are especially problematic when coupled with a strong desire for recognition. Getting public attention can very quickly become an addiction. The person craving it will then go into more and more extreme behavior in order to get the one thing to which the person is addicted: attention of any kind. There is a saying that bad publicity is better than no publicity, and for some people the same holds true for attention. They will do almost anything to get it, and they can become highly imbalanced if they do not get enough of it. The problem with an addiction being that you can never get enough of what you crave.
Another case is beings in the mental realm, and they do not work with people’s emotions. Instead, they can overpower certain people to set themselves up as teachers in various areas of society, including as spiritual teachers. Some of these beings do have a sophisticated intellectual understanding of many concepts, so they can easily empower a person so he or she can impress the average intellects. Yet what you might learn to sense from beings in the mental realm is that they are often quite unclear and give teachings that are highly complex. This is done in order to overpower the intellect of the average person, so that people surrender their critical thinking to the teacher and thus to the entity overpowering the teacher. Again, this is done to steal people’s psychic energy.
People who are working with beings in the mental realm can often talk and talk, but it is difficult to figure out exactly what they are saying. They often hint at advanced teachings and use obscure language that few people understand—thus giving the impression that if you don’t understand, it is because you are not as advanced as they are. Another characteristic is that such people only talk and rarely or never take action. The beings working through them actually have as their goal to pacify you by having you think about spiritual matters without doing anything to transcend the mental box they have created for you. They want to make you think you are getting advanced teachings and thus keep you engaged indefinitely.
It is one of the facts of life on this planet that many well-meaning people have become trapped in this intellectual blind alley, thinking they understand but failing to realize that real change cannot come from the mental level alone. Only when you take your ideas into the emotional and physical realms, will there be change. Universities and spiritual movements are full of people who think they can think their way to a better world and who can spend an entire lifetime thinking, without locking in to the River of Life that would allow them to flow beyond the mental level.
In contrast, we of the ascended masters are not seeking to appear clever or sophisticated. We are instead seeking to present our teachings in a way that is clear and easy to understand. We are not coming from a need to impress but a desire to awaken. Furthermore, we always encourage action, such as giving invocations, questioning your mental box and engaging in society.
What you now see is that there are many people who have a sensitivity that is beyond the average. Yet if they have not purified their energy fields and have not developed discernment, they are likely to open themselves up to beings in the mental and emotional realms or even the lower etheric realm. And such beings will always want something in return, namely your energy, which they get over your attention and by engaging you, either in endless intellectual musings or inharmonious emotional patterns.
One might indeed say that the collective mental box is both a blessing and a curse. It is a limitation in that it prevents people and societies from embracing constructive ideas. Yet it is a blessing in that it serves as a kind of protection that prevents many people from opening themselves up to lower forces and non-constructive ideas.
This is not to say that I am hereby encouraging people to cling to the collective mental box. Yet I am indeed encouraging anyone with sensitivity to pay attention to the need to develop discernment and to practice spiritual techniques in order to protect one’s energy field from lower forces and to purify it from lower energies.
On our toolbox website, we give various techniques for spiritual protection and for the purification of the energy field, and this is a good place to start. By studying various spiritual teachings and seeking to develop intuition, one can then gradually build discernment. However, this must begin with the recognition that it is necessary to discern between higher and lower “creative” impulses. And this realization must be followed up by a decision that you want this discernment and that you are willing to work for it.
So to return to the question, one might say that there truly is not a fine line between genius and madness. True genius is the ability to tune in to the ascended realm. Attuning to anything below that is a form of madness, and it is only a question of how unbalanced the person ends up becoming.
That question is largely determined by the person’s willingness to learn. You will see many people who are open to something beyond the collective mental box but who are driven by a personal ambition combined with pride. Thus, they have a clear ambition of being recognized as being unusual or even superior. And this often causes them to be very closed-minded to the possibility that they could tune in to lower forces or that they need to work on discernment. They think that any idea or force that makes them stand out from the crowd must be good, and thus they are reluctant to give it up.
This explains why many of the geniuses that have been recognized throughout history have ended up their days in a severely imbalanced state of mind. Many of them were able to occasionally tune in to the ascended realm and receive one or several ideas that brought society forward. Yet then they were later undone by their lack of balance in the emotional body or by the intellectual pride that prevented them from consciously working on discernment.
You cannot develop discernment if you have the attitude that you can never be wrong. You develop any ability only by practicing, and that means you will be wrong many times, but when you learn from it, it can be turned into stepping stones to progress.
So in closing, let me say this. The clear recognition that we of the ascended masters have is that for the Golden Age to become a reality, millions of people must develop their mind’s abilities, so they can become open doors for new ideas. Thus, this website is dedicated to giving people the teachings and the tools to accomplish this. Yet it is highly appropriate to encourage people to use caution. Be willing to take an honest look at yourself:
- Do you find that your feelings are often drawn into inharmonious or unbalanced reactions? Then, go to work on protecting and purifying your energy field.
- Do you find that you have a tendency to think you should always be right and can never have been wrong? Then consider the need to overcome pride by being willing to learn form both your higher self and other people.
- Do you find that you have a desire for recognition? If so, be willing to seek first the kingdom of God, namely a connection to your I AM Presence. For when you have that, you will know that you need no recognition from this world.
- Above all, realize that the foremost key to becoming the open door that no man can shut is to attain balance in all things. Some people think it is necessary to take an extreme stand in order to combat dark forces or demonstrate higher principles to society. Yet taking a stand can very well be done without being in an unbalanced frame of mind.
The brutal fact is that too many people have been the open door for a few ideas. But then their own imbalances have shut the door and their full potential never came to fruition. In other words, becoming the open door that no man can shut has two sides. One is that you do not let dark forces or the mass consciousness prevent you from expressing new ideas. But the other is that you do not allow your own personal imbalances to take you into extremes, where you are no longer the open door. Instead, you have shut the door through your pride, ambition, emotional attachments or other imbalanced conditions in your mind.
So the challenge I put before you is that being a creative genius requires you to be open to ideas beyond the collective mental box while at the same time being extremely balanced. If you think this sounds contradictory, then I submit that this proves you are in a state of imbalance. If you will use the tools we give on our toolbox website and make it your overall goal to find balance, then you will one day come to a point where the contradiction melts away. And you now see that being open to the ascended realm does indeed require balance, namely the balance that only comes from complete non-attachment.
I can of my own self do nothing; it is the I AM Presence within me who is doing the works.
Yet you will see the truth of this only when you recognize that “you” are not the ego and the separate self, which wants recognition. “You” are the Conscious You, a clear pane of glass that has no ambition other than to be an open door for the Presence. And thus, you see that only by being in that state of balance and non-attachment, can you be an open door that does not color what comes from the Presence or seeks to use it for what the separate self perceives as personal gain.
I am not trying to make this sound extraordinarily difficult. What one has done; all can do. And many have already attained a high degree of balance that allows them to be the open door for golden age ideas. Many more could quickly become open doors by paying attention to the need to seek balance in all things.
Seek and ye shall find. The problem is that many creative people are not seeking balance. They are actually seeking to become more extreme, so they can receive what they think are even more creative ideas—that will finally get them the recognition they crave. And that is exactly what brings them to the edge of madness or beyond.
Copyright © 2011 by Kim Michaels