Episode Transcript
We’ll be on our way in a few moments in our etheric bodies to a retreat in heaven concurrent with a bend on the Rhone River in rural Provence, a scenic area in the south of France. If you visited this area in our physical octave, you’d see that this is a beautiful part of the world. Artists in love with nature have been coming to the south of France for generations to capture the golden qualities of the sunlight, the vibrant colors and the feeling of peace. It’s the warmth, the abundance of beauty, the rich changes in lighting at every hour of the day. These qualities of the light are easy to see and feel as you immerse yourself in the quest of the artist.
So, if the physical octave along the Rhone is already outstanding, how do we describe the beauty at the higher vibrating frequencies of heaven? Come with me in your etheric body and don’t expect to be in any hurry at all. This is a place where you take your time to drink in exquisite beauty at the heavenly level and be ready to be surprised. What you learn about yourself from heavenly beauty will become a permanent part of you.
The retreat we’re going to visit in this etheric setting is called the Chateau de Liberte. The master of the retreat is a teacher of surprising power, who, for the asking, is able to gently unfold the divine understanding of love. This divine understanding has dimensions that can gradually expand, so that your foremost thought every day would become, how to please God in the people you know. That’s a different discernment from simply pleasing people. The key is to perpetually anticipate that God is alive and partially hidden in the people you meet. And, of course, you pray for the gift of discernment of spirits to see that aspect of God.
Now, before we leave for the Chateau de Liberte, I should tell you that the name of the hierarch there, our teacher, the one who will help us grow a new awareness of these dimensions and gifts, is Paul the Venetian.
You likely haven’t heard of him because many ascended masters are not yet household names in our world. My job is to guide you through the ceiling between our world and heaven and for a few moments to introduce you to a master who used to be a contemporary with us in our own history on Earth. All the masters, like us, have a divine plan and a study curriculum but they’ve graduated from the schoolroom of Earth, just earlier than we will. And yes, now they’re ascended masters and immortals, but you can think of them also as our elder brothers and sisters. They’re uniquely qualified to explain exactly what it takes to graduate from lifetimes of mortality to oneness with the Son of God.
For a moment let’s remember the etheric retreats we’ve been to recently. When we visited El Morya we were shown the power and the will of God to get things done with discipline, honor, determination and integrity. Then we were in the presence of ever-practical wisdom, with Lanto. We understood that we have a soul major, a sense of purpose, a mission for this life and something important to build. So, we combine the will to get things done with the understanding of what we need to do and why. Sounds like a plan.
Not yet. In our world there are plenty of accomplished people with the deliberate will and misdirected knowledge to build say, a high-tech monopoly or central banking monopoly that could be used to control or manipulate populations, divide them into factions, so that people would be preoccupied and never have the peace to realize their innate divinity. What kind of mind would want to do that? These people exist in positions of worldly power. So, the qualities of human will and human knowledge are not enough to create or sustain the universe. God so loved the world that he gave us the free will to realize our divinity. Our choice. Jesus was the great example we were given, so we could come to understand there is a Way. This means the qualities of will, knowledge and understanding have to be governed or tempered by the same love God the creator of all has for us. Without our return love for God as our motive for co-creation everything we would make would be brittle, out of balance and not permanent. The figure-eight flow of love is the key to temper will and knowledge.
Paul the Venetian is the exemplar of love in creation, as drawn from God, to govern our will and understanding. This is why he is qualified to teach us about the love that builds and sustains universes. To prove it we’ve got to meet him. Now, as your tour companion I’m thinking we should get going with our angels and I’ll explain a bit more when we get there. There’s a fantastic balcony on the river side of the chateau that I want to show you. Then, when we’re invited into the Chateau de Liberte one of the masters will begin showing us around the various levels and galleries and giving us a lot more background on Paul the Venetian’s lives, hopefully before we meet him. But remember, expect the unexpected, meaning he could be in council or even on another continent.
Now, our angels have been listening to this too. They’re never far away and if you look up, they’re arriving now to escort us, yes, overseas, no passport or visas required. Even if you’ve never been to France in your physical or etheric bodies the angels know exactly where the Chateau de Liberte is, set in the gardens along what we call the Rhone River. This tour is going to be something new for you to contemplate, because it’s about the highest creative part of you aligning with an unfolding spiritual understanding of what you, your family and your nation need most.
Here they are! Alright, hold on tight to your angel’s arm and we’re up and on our way, heading to the south of France.
At the speed of thought and in the vibration of holiness our angels provide us with safe and rapid passage through and beyond the nightmare labyrinths of human dreams and lower thought. Oh, look, down through the clouds. We’re now in the bright, clean air of the etheric Earth, banking high over what we would think of as southern France. Yet as you recall, there are no separate nations in heaven. Hang on now as we turn.
We’re gliding now, wind in our hair. Below us is the Rhone River of heaven. Here, it’s early morning. Banking again and descending down to just a few feet above the river surface we could almost clip the water with our fingertips. The sunlight reflecting off the water ahead immerses us with an uplifting feeling, like flying into golden rays of joy.
Not far ahead in the sunrays we see the trees along the riverbank giving way to lawns, gardens and the luminous, multi-story Chateau de Liberte, golden pennants flying from the tops of the towers. On the river side there’s a wide semicircular balcony on the third level and that’s where we rise up from the river, arc over the flowers on the marble balustrade and land gently on the flagstones. We’re here, the Chateau de Liberte. Looking around, it’s clear now that the chateau is in the center of a beautiful campus.
The view from the balcony over the lawns and the river is magnificent but the best way to describe the feeling in our hearts is, it’s a lot like Kuan Yin’s Temple of Mercy. That’s because in heavenly terms this is a retreat of the love of God for his creation. Even the air around the chateau seems to have a pink hue of love. It makes you feel one with everyone here and throughout the universe.
And there are a lot of people here, mostly young, from all over the world. It’s apparent that this is one of the universities of the spirit. There are hundreds of students sitting along the riverbank, strolling the paths or sitting on the lawns in groups before their next class.
We look around for our tour master, but no one comes forward to claim us, so we’re more than content to cluster along the balustrade and look down on the scene. We’re in no hurry at all. In such a beautiful atmosphere now might be a good time to get in a few minutes of briefing before our tour does start. I’ll understand if you get distracted by the people and the golden river below. You can ask questions later if you miss hearing anything.
So, while we’re waiting, let me explain a bit about Paul the Venetian himself. This Paul is not the same Paul as in the Bible. We’ll meet him two tours from now. This Master, Paul, has the awesome assignment from God of showing us the standards of heaven through culture. We somehow find it easier to grasp new and higher ideas about our divine plan in the form of holy patterns, perceived by the soul faculties in fine art, beautiful music, sculpture, poetry, literature, myths and moral stories. Conversely, in the more subversive ways of the world, those with a vested interest in preventing us from realizing our divine plan use inverted symbols and images that represent spectacular self-destruction. They expect that for everyone. You’ve seen their old darkness often enough in what we’re told is the prevailing culture and must-see entertainment.
They appear to have a virtual monopoly on everyone’s attention, on cable and online. But not for you. Walk away from their assumptions about you. Declare your independence and go to the source of divine love. You have free will to see through their false prevailing culture and to choose life and light every day. There, you’re at one with the creator of cosmos, with family. You can visit the divine source every night in these universities, in your etheric body, for free. You can pray and mediate on holiness while you are awake, while you’re working.
Your focus would be on holy symbols, holy light and holy colors, which brings me back to Paul, the master of lighting and colors. Paul is known as ‘the Venetian’ because in his last life in our world he was a famous artist who developed his career in Venice, in Italy. In his final physical life he was born in 1528 as Paolo Cagliari in Verona, Italy, and then did his apprenticeship in Venice. He was a master artist of the Renaissance by age 25 and made breakthrough innovations that set new standards of brilliance in color, lighting, grace and realism. He experimented with new colors and techniques that people had never seen before. Always looking for more realistic ways to illustrate beauty he got away from the dull browns and grays of his predecessors by placing his models in full sunlight. His figures were and are still graceful, in some cases nearly transparent and in others stand out as real personalities in iridescent skin tones and clothing. The new colors Paolo Veronese developed glistened on the canvas and included azure, coral, pearl, lilac and lemon that startled and fascinated his patrons.
Do an online image search for ‘Paolo Veronese paintings’ and you’ll see he loved rich, bold colors, combined with textures, lighting and contrasts that got people’s attention and their wonder – ruby and velvet green, pink and emerald, aquamarine and violet. For the mid-1500’s this was unheard of. He was way out ahead of his peers.
But the insights of the master went far beyond new colors, shades and textures. He wanted to demonstrate the permanence of beauty through both art and science. Through trial and error, he discovered a technique of pigment preparation that preserves oil paint indefinitely. It still does. The colors you can see in his art online are just as radiant as the canvas originals are, well over 400 years after he painted them. Compare the colors of the fading Sistine Chapel or Tiepolo’s frescoes, painted 200 years later, with Paolo Veronese’s canvases now. They’re still bright. What was his secret? Integration. The art of extending the love of God’s colors, or Paul’s visualizations manifest as careful brushstrokes, combined with a proven chemical formula that protects pigments against ultraviolet damage. Art combined with science.
Then, there was his reverence for Jesus. Paolo Veronese saw beauty as the most powerful catalyst for enlightenment and so he gave his figures of Jesus, the apostles and saints, lifelike expressions and emotions. By associating them with easily identifiable places, things and feelings he put them with the reach of the common people of Europe in the mid-1500s. Far from the overly serious clerical view of Jesus at the time Paul made his paintings of Jesus and the saints feel refreshing, bright and joyful, even a little irreverent for orthodoxy.
Paul understood the steps of initiation on the path of Christhood that Jesus made plain by his actions. These steps of initiation were the topics Paul chose for his paintings. When you get a chance tomorrow take a look online at his vast painting, The Marriage at Cana, which is now in the Louvre. Many of his other great paintings are about important initiations in the incremental preparation for Christhood. He knew more and taught more through his art about mystical Christianity than most of the leading clerics of the time. His ministry was through fine art.
How did Paolo Veronese come to be such a fearless innovator in color, style, beauty and permanence, at age 25? And how did he, later in life, successfully defend the artist’s freedom of imagination against the Church’s Inquisitors, who tried him under suspicion of heresy for his artistic ‘irreverences’? Where did this bravery come from?
The answers are ancient and are seen in the akashic records. Long before the final stage of the sinking of Atlantis the soul of Paul served in the government of Atlantis in Caiphul, as head of cultural affairs, which was also a high spiritual office. How high an office? At that time the Atlantean government wanted to build up a far-off colony in what is now Peru. To give the colony the necessary impetus of culture, beauty and wealth the soul of Paul was entrusted with the transfer and placement of a divine flame from a temple in Atlantis to a temple in the Andes, which then became the spiritual center of the earliest Incan civilization.
He reembodied later in the growing Incan civilization as an artist who used paints that didn’t fade. His efforts in his spiritual, administrative and artistic lives in the Andes provided a positive, upward momentum of holiness and set high moral and cultural standards that helped the early Incan civilization to flourish.
Thousands of years later, the soul of Paul worked closely, as an esoteric architect, with the soul of El Morya, the master mason of the pyramids of Giza, in ancient Egypt. But the point of origin for these eons of lives of service on Earth came much earlier. Like Lanto, Confucius, Gautama and Jesus, Paul was one of the 144,000 volunteers who came on the rescue mission to save the evolutions of Earth. He too stood outside Sanat Kumara’s palace on etheric Venus and he also cried out, “We will go with you. We will not leave you.”
This is the Paul we’re going to meet here, inside the chateau. Over hundreds of thousands of years, he found and lived the Way that Jesus demonstrated, which is service, surrender, sacrifice and selflessness, customized through his own God-given gifts as a culture-shaping artist. He combines the will, the understanding, and the love to teach you how to present beauty in all forms of art and culture, as the most effective instrument of divine change in our civilization. Would you be an artist, actor, photographer, singer, a documentary or film director or editor, a poet, novelist or screenwriter, a shaper of culture? This is your university of the spirit.
And here’s our introductory tour master, one of Paul’s students, here at the Chateau. Everyone gather round and we’ll introduce ourselves.
Our friendly tour guide turns out to have been a venerated acting coach in his final, physical life in Paris and New York, mostly unknown to the media and public. He offers a few interesting comments as we stand on the balcony in the sunshine.
“I am very pleased to meet you, because whether you know it or not, you are the elect. You have elected to be here because you sense your soul’s future is here in heaven. Only a handful of my former students feel that and want that. Most of the actors I coached have never made it here in their etheric bodies. Most still remain distracted by career frustrations or various addictions. They have no idea that their prayers to God would be answered, if they prayed to know God’s will. Fame and contracts are their focus, for career advancement. And yet they’re actors, so they immerse themselves in the life lessons of other souls. The irony is, they won’t accept free coaching for soul advancement as life lessons, while their bodies sleep. The higher immersion is here. They take the very long road. To you, the elect, once again, welcome. Please come inside, to tour your chateau.”
We enter a long, carpeted foyer, ornate stairways going up on either side and are then ushered through polished double doors to a broad hallway lit by chandeliers. On either side of the hallway elegant galleries with curved walls and nooks display hundreds of examples of fine art. The luminous quality and realism of the paintings far eclipse worldly collections in value and impact, by sheer beauty and simply because only the art that is acceptable to God could be displayed here.
Our guiding master lets us gravitate to the works that interest us most and only after a generous interval of meditation calls us together and says, “It’s time for me now to introduce you to the hierarch of the Chateau de Liberte, the ascended master, Paul the Venetian.”
As he steps to one side Paul strides into the hallway and greets us warmly. Like El Morya he’s so instantly at ease with us that it’s like he’s known us forever. And also, like El Morya he’s tall, six-foot five, with intelligent blue eyes and a noble, disciplined bearing. He has short, wavy blond hair, a trimmed reddish beard, and he’s dressed in a tailored green sportscoat and light-colored slacks. His demeanor is project-oriented, like a contemporary film director, but more balanced and confident and patient. Dignified, good-humored and radiating the gravitas of holiness, the thought jumps to mind that we would benefit greatly if we could borrow Paul the Venetian for a while to direct a few hundred films in our world. But he passed those tests in the physical long ago and his work now is to coach us to change our culture for the better. We are the authority for our world. He’s the coach, we’re the players on the field.
Paul invites us to accompany him along the hallway to galleries we hadn’t seen earlier. As we gaze at the amazing array of art the question comes up, do we know these artists?
Paul pauses to consider the question. “These gracious works are by students of the light from every nation, every religion. Beauty and the love of God in man are the common factors. And look at these early sketches from some names you might know. DaVinci, Constable, Monet. Who are they now, in your physical world? Norman Rockwell studied here, before and during that life and he still comes here, preparing for the next.”
Then, Paul gestures for us to follow him along the hall and as we walk, he says, “There’s something in this next room you need to see.”
We enter a wide workshop area lit by sunlight coming in through large windows. Outside there are views of fruit trees and gardens. Inside, there’s a series of nooks separated by folding wooden partitions and floral baskets. In each nook is a golden easel with a large, blank canvas resting on it.
Paul speaks to each of us, as if we already know which nook and canvas is ours.
“This is yours. You have a unique genius waiting to be expressed in the likeness of your celestial nature. You think you know your worldly self, by opinions about your shortcomings. But your soul is made in the image and likeness of God. Understand your celestial self incrementally. Each time you visit here you’ll make a few changes to the sketch. You’ll perceive an aspect of the Christ in you and add it to the canvas. It may be joy, it may be the comforter, it may be the fearless you, or all of these. What you see in your higher self you may also see in others. There’s no hurry about your work with this canvas at all.”
There’s a moment of silence as we contemplate unknown, higher parts of our nature that we’re being asked to illustrate. We stare at the blank canvas. What if we make a mistake? What if we can’t draw a straight line? Only portrait artists can do this, you know.
And as we look around to Paul to express our hesitation, we realize he’s no longer in the studio. We also realize that the nook is actually private enough so that no one can see the first faint pencil line we draw, and then erase, and draw again and then step back to think about.
Who knows how time passes in heaven when you’re staring at hints of your higher self, in your mind’s eye, standing thoughtfully in front of a few stray lines on a mostly blank canvas? After a long while the moment seems to unfold gently with the sound of a calm, friendly voice.
It’s Paul, calling us to follow him, out into the broad hallway, where we head to a different part of the chateau. He talks as we walk.
“I’d like you to keeping coming back to the sketch you’re starting to realize. I am able, in the Holy Spirit, to be in an unlimited number of personal discussions with each of you - at the same time, about the qualities you’re starting to see. These divine qualities are the future you. While that process is unfolding over time, I have another venue you should know about.”
And just like that, while we’re walking and listening to him, the soft, carpeted hallway we’re in fills with a bright light and we’re in a tunnel, a long, dazzling tube of light, like when we arrived in the high country of the Western Shamballa, in Montana. Blue and white blurs of light around us coalesce into angel forms, holding us as we come out of the tunnel and into mid-air, a thousand feet or so over lush green coastal land. Just as before, when we didn’t know where we were over etheric Montana, looking down now we have no idea where we are.
We spiral in with our angels over what appears to be a huge gold and white temple complex next to an ocean, far bigger than the campus around the chateau we just left. This is clearly an important place in heaven, with boulevards and many tree-lined streets, gardens, libraries and grottos spread all around the central temple. By the looks of it, many souls must live here between lives, probably studying and preparing for their next life in our world. The spiral flight pattern gives us a long look at the boulevards, the central temple and concentric rings that must be lesser temples and shrines.
When our angels bring us gradually down to a soft landing on a lawn near the largest temple Paul is right there to answer our wide-eyed surprise.
He says, “You may not recognize where we are because the topography in heaven is different from what you know in your world as New York City. We are now on what you would call Liberty Island. In the etheric there’s no harbor around us. The Hudson River has a different entrance to the ocean and here, New York harbor is raised land. That rise to the west is what you know as New Jersey. The villas and woodlands to our north you would call Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. In heaven, Liberty, Manhattan and parts of New Jersey are joined. This city is known in heaven as the Temple of the Sun.”
Without Manhattan’s skyscrapers and the wide Hudson, we still don’t recognize the location as New York, but this city is awesome in its own right. It’s infinitely more beautiful. There’s no rectangular street grid, project housing or gray tones in the skyline. Here, as we saw spiraling in, all the temples and villas are in gardens arranged on concentric boulevards and tree-lined avenues around the central temple, on higher ground where Liberty Island would be.
A small group of golden-robed brothers and sisters approach from the central temple and greet Paul. We are introduced and Paul invites them to walk with us on a marble path, up through the gardens to the temple. He continues his explanation about the Temple of the Sun.
“I teach here more often than at the Chateau de Liberte because the tide of the people of light coming here in their etheric bodies is far greater than the tide in France. They come here from Europe, they come from Asia, every continent, because there’s more freedom to innovate and to create in this land. And, because there’s someone very dear to me here: my teacher, who I think of as my spiritual mother.”
The beauty of the gardens and trees, the bluebirds and the constantly changing fragrances of the flowers waft around us as we follow the path up toward the gold-domed temple. And Paul continues, while we walk.
“Thousands of years ago during my lives as an Atlantean I was adopted so to speak by an ascended lady master who sharpened my awareness of the long path to Christhood and helped me pass many tests, especially in the Andes. This Temple of the Sun existed in your physical world 12,000 years ago, as did the Chateau de Liberte.”
“Wars of corrupt priests brought about the final sinking of Atlantis. Before the deluge though, while Noah and his family were building the ark, my teacher took the flame of God from the physical temple on this site to safety in the Chateau de Liberte. The physical temple was destroyed by the tsunami, which changed all the land around it. Only the etheric temple has existed since then.”
“Over the centuries, my teacher, my mother in God, assisted me lifetime after lifetime to such a degree that I was able to pay off all my karmic debts and complete my divine plan in the physical world, in my last life as Paolo Veronese. By the grace of God, I won my immortality and went right back to serving humanity again, by invitation, at the Chateau de Liberte. Now, by invitation, I teach here as well.”
For a moment Paul pauses and looks up the long flights of stairs to the great, shining doors of the main temple. There, robed in gold, a majestic and noble lady master with a radiant yellow-gold aura stands with her arms outstretched. Paul leaves us and goes ahead to the top of the stairs to greet her. After a few moments he motions for us to come up the stairs to be introduced. We’re close enough now to see golden light rays emanating in all directions from the lady master’s aura and, as if in the presence of royalty, we wonder if we’re ready for this. It seems we should wait another thousand years or so or kneel where we are at the foot of the stairs. And yet, though we hesitate in humility there’s something familiar about her, like an authority in whose presence we have appeared more than once.
We obediently ascend the flights of marble and approach the lady, who continues to radiate rays of golden light. Paul addresses her as Mother and introduces us.
“My students, I am sure you have met my Mother before on several occasions. At the end of each life, in your soul awareness, you would remember her as the leader of the Karmic Board of spiritual overseers who review with you the life you had recently concluded.”
“And in your conscious awareness, in your physical world, you would know of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, the purpose of the lamp and the book of the Law she holds. The presence of the Divine Mother stands before you.”
We kneel and bow our heads, but the lady is not as formal as we expect. She addresses us calmly.
“Rise. I’ve seen each of you before under less auspicious circumstances. Today, there is reason for celebration as you are here for merit in the light. I will see you again, now and then, and certainly before the conclusion of this life. I ask you to remember your vow.”
We are surprised when she bows to us and then in a moment is out of sight, inside the temple.
Paul seems pleased with us and walks us down to the wide path at the foot of the stairs. Under a flowering peach tree, he gathers us together and speaks thoughtfully to us.
“Each of you heard the plea, ‘I ask you to remember your vow.’ What did you vow to complete in this life? Your vow is what we will study in your next visit, here or in the Chateau de Liberte. When you understand what you promised God and why, you will be able to complete the drawing of your higher self. Your face will show the victory already won.”
Perhaps the look on our faces is still a bit wide-eyed at our realization that there’s more to the Statue in New York harbor than the outward appearance. Paul seems to appreciate that we’ve taken in a lot more new information than our conscious mind could handle when the alarm goes off in an hour or so, on another workday morning. All this we will retain as etheric memory, intuition.
He glances up and announces that our angels are arriving and that he looks forward to one-on-one time with us in our nook at the Chateau. It’s reassuring to have something to look forward to, beyond our workdays. And then the words of Liberty come across the mind again, ‘reason for celebration as you are here for merit in the light.’ We must have done something right in our world to deserve a friend in heaven like Paul the Venetian and the kind regard of the living Liberty represented by the statue.
Thinking about everything we’ve seen, as something to celebrate, we hold on to the strong arm of our angels and in their holy auras we’re banking up over etheric New York and heading back home to our sleeping bodies.
A thought before you relax and hit that pillow: note that your nighttime calendar is filling up with classes. And there’s a little homework. If you need the reference book, The Masters and Their Retreats it’s available on ascendedmastersspiritualretreats.com. If you want to research Paolo Veronese, enter ‘Paulo Veronese paintings’ in any online search engine. Look for The Wedding at Cana.
Next trip we’re going to Egypt, on the Nile River, south of the pyramids. We’ll be visiting the Ascension Temple and Retreat at Luxor for an introduction to a concept you think only applies to saints. If Paul the Venetian could get used to immortality you might at least consider it’s gifted by the grace of God and eventually meant for everyone of proven merit in the light.
And then, as you wind down from this amazing tour think of that sketch of the higher you, the Christ in you shining through the drawing, your face already showing the victory won and realize why the masters ask us to affirm, with love, Always Victory!
