Episode Transcript
This tour in our etheric body will not only take us to an exotic place you may have seen in photos, but I hope it’ll be a welcome step up in how you see your identity and role as a son or a daughter of God. That identity is never static but always self-transcending, because God in you is always self-transcending, or growing. We’re starting with a high concept this tour because, as you may have noticed, our tours are more than light entertainment.
The exotic place we’re going to visit in the etheric level of Earth is the Ascension Temple and Retreat at Luxor, on the Nile River in what we know as Egypt. It’s also an exotic place in our physical world because most of the ruins of the Temple at Luxor are somewhat intact and seeing the photos gives you just a hint of what we might expect of the beautiful equivalent on the etheric level. Before we get going with our angels feel free to pause this audio for a moment, jump over to any internet image search and search for: ‘Temple at Luxor,’ to give you a sense of the proportions and grandeur of the temple on the physical level.
This 3,400 year-old temple at Luxor suggests that serious resources were available to the architect and builder, Pharaoh Amenhotep III. But when you look closely at the geometry of the proportions of the columns and the floorplan, you quickly realize that the love of precision in the design was for purposes beyond ornamental construction. The proportions of the temple itself were, at the time, a form of visual instruction for the soul. That soul instruction is now only available from mentors and teachers in the etheric plane. The old mystery schools were taken up to the etheric or heavenly world long ago. There are now only a few physical retreats of the ascended masters on Earth. But more about that later.
The temple at Luxor was built around 1,400 BC, thousands of years before we saw sacred geometry appearing in the great Christian cathedrals of Europe. You’d be right to wonder if the sacred architecture is connected across time – derived from the same divine geometry of the Creator of sub-atomic proportions, of galaxies, ourselves and all of cosmos. But sacred architecture remains invisible until someone like Amenhotep III builds it on the ground. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Pharaoh was still around in our time, under another name? If he was, maybe he would know the teaching coded into the architecture. So, we’re expecting a lot more to emerge from this tour than a series of tourist photos. Expect the unexpected.
With these thoughts in mind our angels are ready and waiting on us. We hold onto the strong arm of our blue angel and we’re up, out of our quietly sleeping physical body and on our way at the speed of thought, straight through the lower frequencies of mere dreams, avoiding the endless distractions of the subconscious or astral realm. We’re heading straight up in vibration to the etheric realms.
Here we are now. If you look down you can see the Nile, as it is in heaven. It’s so different from what we’re used to seeing. Everything’s a lot greener here because we’re at a frequency above the human karma of the physical level and so there’s no desert, no crowded cities of the nation of Egypt.
Now we’re spiraling in so we can see more detail along the river, grasslands, woodlands and there’s the temple complex at Luxor. It’s not huge or spread out. Your eye goes straight to the main rectangular temple. The ruins on the physical level are impressive. In the etheric the Temple at Luxor is dazzling. Its luminous white walls are like looking into sunlight. Brilliant gold trim runs along the edges of the great columns. The terraces and gardens are spaced exactly right, and the word majestic comes to mind. I can’t tell you from up here what the length and breadth and height of the temple is, but from above the proportions are, let’s say, pleasing to the eye.
We’re heading for an expanse of lawn between this grove of trees and several clear pools. As soon as we land we thank our angels, they wave to us and leave. And we’re here, shading our eyes as we stand facing the white and gold Temple at Luxor. Waiting close by, a brother from the temple greets us with the surprising comment that we’re on time. I can tell you that that’s a clue, related to the love of precision that we’ll learn about from the hierarch of the retreat, Serapis Bey. Another note, the Pharaoh and architect I mentioned earlier from around 1,400 BC, Amenhotep III - that was one of Serapis Bey’s embodiments.
The brother who greets us describes himself as an instructor and after welcoming us says the master would like to see us shortly in the Temple. In the meantime, he’s asking us to relax, walk around the grounds and gardens and take in the Temple from all sides.
So, let’s go this way, along the long side of the temple while I offer you some background about Serapis Bey. I can keep an eye out for the instructor’s signal as we’re walking.
Serapis Bey is part of this amazing group of spiritual volunteers I’ve been talking about, the 144,000 advanced souls from etheric Venus who partially realized the dangers and hazards that Sanat Kumara would face on this planet, long ago, when all light had gone out in the people. These volunteers came to teach and resuscitate a people who had been made in the image and likeness of God but had lost the light through skirmishes and wars and devolved to something closer to the animal level – without self-consciousness or awareness. Serapis Bey was one of those who came to defeat a hostile takeover of the planet, where the rebel angels, many living as rulers of great attainment, were by God’s grace, given eons of time to repay their debt, for enslaving humanity in misery. It was never going to be a short mission. Serapis understood that, from the school of hard knocks, early on.
How many of those 144,000 volunteers completed the mission, like Jesus did? The masters we’ve visited and those we’ll meet soon completed their personal mission but stayed with Earth’s people because the majority of the 144,000 rescuers need to be rescued themselves. Remember the term, ‘bodhisattva’ we learned about from Kuan Yin? All these masters are bodhisattvas, vowing to stay with Earth until everyone is free from the karma of imitating the rebels.
I say this because, of all the masters, you might think Serapis Bey is the most intense. He’s known as the Great Disciplinarian but he’s also incredibly smart about tailoring his teaching to each student. One size doesn’t fit all. Everything Serapis teaches is customized to help you.
So, here’s where the master’s long history of care for you, his brother or sister, begins. Initially, Serapis Bey came from etheric Venus with the 144,000 to support Sanat Kumara. Then, because of his understanding and attainment, Serapis was a priest in the Ascension Temple in Atlantis. Like Lady Liberty and other masters around 12,000 years ago, he responded to God’s warnings prior to the final sinking of Atlantis. As guardian of the Ascension Flame his mission was to carry the sacred flame across the Mediterranean and far enough up the Nile River to a place of safety at Luxor. There, he and the brothers who went with him built the Ascension Temple in the physical and guarded it perpetually.
In a subsequent Egyptian embodiment, the soul of Serapis was the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza, assisted by Paul the Venetian and the master mason El Morya. The Great Pyramid also exists here in heaven where it remains a holy place of teaching on the process of becoming immortal, or the path to the ascension in the light. The physical version of the Great Pyramid is a shell of its former focus and function, because of the misuse of its energy by black magicians and others who would take heaven by force, if they could.
Thousands of years later, in another Egyptian life, Serapis was embodied as Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned from 1417 to 1379 BC. During this reign Egypt was at the height of prosperity, peace and achievement. Amenhotep III had peaceful diplomatic relations with all neighboring nations at the time and held an ongoing communion with the masters above him in hierarchy, all the way to the Ancient of Days in Shamballa, on the other side of the world. As Pharaoh he enlarged the Temple of Karnak on the Nile and built the Collossi statues on the Nile, in reverent commemoration of the philosopher kings of light who had ruled in golden ages long before the fallen angels arrived on Earth.
Then, about 900 years after Amenhotep’s passing Serapis embodied in Greece as the great Spartan King Leonidas. Leonidas’ genius in both military strategy and combat tactics enabled him to defeat repeated attacks by an enormous Persian army at the narrow pass of Thermopylae, on the east coast of Greece in 480 BC. On the third day of battle Leonidas’ army was surrounded. The Persians told Leonidas to surrender or the sky above them would be blackened with arrows. Leonidas responded, “Fine. We’ll fight in the shade.” He and his remaining royal guard of 300 fought to the last man. Leonidas’ strategy was to focus the Persians’ anger on him for three days while the nearby Athenian fleet was able to embark the retreating Greek army, regroup and decisively defeat the Persian navy a short time later.
In his final physical embodiment, almost immediately after his death and passing his tests at Thermopylae, the soul of Serapis was reborn with a completely new mission and became known in Athens as the master sculptor Phidias. Phidias is recognized as the greatest of the Greek sculptors. Think about the range of attainment of this great soul, from the esoteric architect of the pyramids to the self-sacrificing discipline of the warrior king Leonidas, who understood the strategic picture, to the artistic discipline of a master sculptor whose statues were described by historians as, “sublime and precise, with a permanent moral level.” It is possible we knew him, saw his work, or knew of his high standards, as a contemporary in one or more of his physical lives.
I’m looking over at the main entrance to the Temple and thinking, it’s time we moved closer in, to watch for the instructor. I think that’s him at the top of the stairs. Let’s go see if our timing is right.
Look, the instructor, in the white turban and robe, he’s waving. That’s the signal.
We compose ourselves and calmly walk up several flights of stairs. At the top the instructor bows, looks at each of us and explains that the master will talk with us in an anteroom off the main entrance.
As we wait in the anteroom, with these luminous pearl-white walls, statues, flowers and beautiful wood trim, I should note that this relative informality with the master is because this is an introductory visit. Respectful familiarity with the setting, the instructors and the master are considered important first steps for you. Another note, the reason the masters bow to us is that they are acknowledging that they see the presence of God within us.
Two white-turbaned instructors enter the room, including the one we met earlier. They bow and our instructor addresses us. “May I introduce to you the ascended master, Serapis Bey.”
The master, in plain white turban and robe, enters the room, bows, smiles and asks us to be seated. He’s tall, strongly built and magnificent to look at. El Morya, referring to Serapis Bey, affectionately described him once as, ‘A Spartan, if ever I saw one.’
We’re seated in the presence of the master who was once the Spartan King Leonidas. But that was one life, long ago and as you’ve noticed in all our tours there’s always the unexpected. The tone of the master is gentle and this being heaven, the topic he begins to discuss with us is: perfection. He notes that in our world we think of perfection as humanly impossible. But in heaven, where the masters see the presence of God unfolding in us, they’re both serious and compassionate about explaining how God sees perfection.
The master asks if we consider there’s no point in even trying for perfection where we work and live. Looking at our expressions he continues, firmly but kindly.
“Do not be dismayed at the requirement of the Law for perfection. Perfection is the requirement of the Lord Christ, who said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect.”
And then, referring to how we think of the meaning and purpose of perfection in our world he says, “I think that those who think they cannot be perfect imagine that perfection is a straitjacket or a sterile quality lacking any verve or joy or spontaneity. Perfection is the flowering of the lilies, of the gentle violets. Perfection is a smile upon a face. God measures the motive of the heart, the love in the heart. God is not concerned with whether or not the drawing of the little child is letter-perfect according to the great artists of the times. God is concerned that the little hand has drawn the flower as the little heart has seen the flower, and unto God this is a perfect offering.”
“Therefore, count perfection as a noble effort, as working the works of God the best you know how, and striving for the better and making it better again, a new level of perfection that is your best. God is a God that transcends himself perpetually. Shall we say that yesterday’s God was imperfect because today’s God has transcended that state?”
The master pauses a moment, to allow us to think that through. Then he continues.
“Shall we say that man and woman are God today but not yesterday? He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and the sameness does not imply stagnation or sterility but an eternally unfolding, golden spiral of energy, increasing God consciousness within your heart. And receive the reward daily of the divine approbation, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God can be pleased today. You need not postpone pleasing him, for God is pleased with all that you are when all that you are is the purity of love.”
“This, then, is the requirement of perfection. This is how you are measured. And you should know this because the angels of record, who record your words and deeds, your thrusts of feeling and energy from your chakras, have several columns in the book of ledger in which they write their recordings. And these columns are listed as “Motive,” as “Act” and as “Energy Intensity” – Motive, Act and Energy Intensity, that is marked by a certain degree of positive or negative charge.”
“And these angels of record fill in with dexterity the reading that they take, and that reading is read in their chakras, in their centers of God-awareness. And these centers are endowed with “clocks,” as it were, that measure, as meters of energy, all that you are and all that you do.”
“And isn’t this the marvel of cosmos – that no matter what you do, the future is wide open as opportunity to do it better, to increase perfection, to increase the cosmic cube, to increase the cosmic sphere, to live in an expanding cosmic consciousness.”
“And this is the challenge of initiation, that every day and every hour you can excel! You can excel! You can excel!”
“This is the excellence of ascension’s flame! Go forth and excel, brothers and sisters of sacred fire! I am Serapis, always.”
The master rises, and in his glance, he seems to be reading our reception of the increase in his intense love for us. There’s the same sense we’ve received from the other masters we’ve visited, that he’s counting on us to complete something important that we don’t yet fully understand. That this intense love is transferred as a reserve, as reinforcement for those days of testing that will surely come.
The master bows. We bow and then he retires from the room with one of the instructors. The instructor we first met leaves the room with us, all of us walking out into a perfect day outside. We stand still for a while at the top of the stairs, looking out on gardens and groves of flowering trees, contemplating the purity of the invisible fire we absorbed in these moments, from a master of such long and dedicated love for the big picture. We are part of the long game, that strategy of the victorious return. The victory Serapis is seeing is that Sanat Kumara’s 144,000 volunteers who came from immortality in heaven, descended into mortality and the ultimate danger of no return, might one by one remember there is a Way to come home. Serapis’ loving coaching is meant to help us receive the teaching willingly, to teach it well and to bring the children of God home to heaven with us. That’s the something important we’re here to understand. The love we’ve received is the reinforcement for the journey home and our effort to demonstrate the example, the signposts for the children of God who look to us.
Our guiding master in the white turban invites us to stroll with him through the gardens and explains that there will be more reinforcement available every time we come here for classes. He adds that the classes here get more difficult over time, for a very good purpose. How does Serapis’ teachings interact with the teaching in other masters’ retreats, we ask.
The master acknowledges the question and says, “Everything is integrated, as one family. Serapis’ curriculum in purity, precision and discipline is practically aligned with the classes of every other master you’ll study with. The classes in Luxor are designed to integrate excellence for committed sons and daughters of God in any working career and spiritual endeavor.”
“It’s good that you ask questions. But there are more questions you should be asking yourself. Why are you tied to the physical world and can only visit here in your etheric body? Is it some random outcome? Or is it a temporary setting, for the purpose of you gaining mastery of time and space and energy, in the densest level of Creation that will still allow for intimate contact with God? Is it so God, as formless Divine Idea, can also be God in densest form, enjoying creating perfection?”
Enjoying creating perfection. The master’s questions ring in our minds as he gestures for us to look up. In the distance we see shining auras of our blue and white escort angels coming to take us back to our sleeping bodies. As they arrive, our instructor adds, “Think on your new understanding of perfection. Think of what pleases God. Strive for that and let’s talk about noble effort when you’re here again.”
Moments later, holding on to our angels, we see him signal from below and then we’re on our way over the Nile, thinking about the meaning of God transcending yesterday’s perfection.
As we head home to our sleeping body and sort through what we learned, remember there’s a reference book, The Masters and Their Retreats that can offer a lot more information on Serapis and the ongoing classes at Luxor. The book is available, as always, on ascendedmastersspiritualretreats.com. And if you want to research even more detailed information there’s also a book of teachings from Serapis Bey himself called, Dossier On the Ascension, and that’s on ascendedmastersspiritualretreats.com as well.
Next tour we’re going to Crete, the Greek island in the Mediterranean. We’ll be visiting the Temple of Truth and a master you’ve probably already heard of, who was once Jesus’ apostle. His name initially was Saul, Saul of Tarsus, then after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus he became Paul. And if you remember from the New Testament Paul the apostle had a bit of negative karma with Jesus’ students. So, he needed another lifetime to repay the debts. In that final, fourth-century lifetime, in Arabia, Palestine, Sicily and Cyprus, he was known as the great healer Saint Hilarion. Hilarion’s focus on truth and healing is for everyone in the light but this master goes out of his way to comfort those who have stepped out of the light as agnostics and atheists.
We’re nearly home, after this liberating tour, so relax and feel good about every time in your life that you’ve genuinely given your best to get something done. You were perfect, by God’s standard of a noble effort. That’s the spirit! Always Victory!
