Let us begin by considering the question: “What are you?” If we go to the very core, we can say that you are a self-aware being. You are aware that you exist (awareness) and you have a sense of identity, a sense of who you are (self). Thus, you have self-awareness. Currently, your self-awareness is focused here in the material world, centered around your physical body. Yet this is not your only option.

An ascended master is also a self-aware being. Yet an ascended master has raised or accelerated its self-awareness, so it is no longer focused in the material realm. Instead, it is focused in a realm of higher vibrations, which we normally call the spiritual realm.

Going through this acceleration process, which culminates in a process called the ascension, is the potential of every self-aware being. You have the potential to raise your self-awareness, until you attain mastery over your own mind and mastery over the material realm. You can then make a quantum leap and raise your self-awareness to an entirely new level, where you no longer need a material body. Instead, you function within a light “body,” made from the higher vibrations of the spiritual realm.

Some ascended masters have been in embodiment on earth, just like you and I. They know exactly what we are going through, because they have struggled with the density of the material world just like we struggle. And that is why they can serve as the perfect teachers for showing us how we can avoid reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes all over again. Instead, we can follow the trail that the masters have blazed through the jungle of the human consciousness.

There are, of course, also ascended masters who ascended from other planets than earth, and there are some that never descended into embodiment in our sphere. Thus, there are various groups of beings in the spiritual realm, and they are described in more detail here.

Let us look at both types of ascended masters:

Beings who took embodiment and ascended

Let us first explain this from our point of view as human beings in embodiment on earth. The material universe is truly a sophisticated feed-back “device” that is designed to facilitate our growth in self-awareness.

Many people don’t really like the word school, but there is one aspect of the concept of a school that applies here. Most schools have a final exam, and when we pass it, we are free to move on with our lives without looking back. So if we keep raising our consciousness and transcending our self-awareness, what happens?

Well, at some point we reach the final “exam,” meaning we enter a process that leads to our “graduation” from the schoolroom of the material universe. This is a profound and complex process, that involves us dis-identifying from the separate self and embracing a new self-awareness as one with the spiritual realm above and one with all life in this world. It also involves letting go of all desires or attachments related to this world.

This process is often called the spiritual path, but the final stages of it are called the ascension spiral, leading to the ascension. After we ascend, we are permanently free from earth and the material universe. And given that the only way to complete the ascension process is to gain mastery over our own minds, we have now earned the title: “Ascended Master.”

Throughout the long history of planet earth (far longer than recorded in official history), many lifestreams have ascended. A newly ascended master faces a choice: Will it move on in the almost infinite rungs of the spiritual realm, or will it remain with earth and seek to help other beings ascend?

Many ascended masters have made the vow to stay with earth in order to help those of us, who have not yet ascended. So technically, these are what we call ascended masters, because they have experienced what it is like to be in embodiment on earth (or other planetary systems) and then ascend from this very dense realm. Given that they have experienced what we are going through, they have a unique ability to help us pass the same initiations that they have passed.

Beings who did not take embodiment

The universe is created as a hierarchical structure. The realm, or sphere, in which we live was created by beings in the sphere immediately above ours. Yet their realm was created by beings in a higher realm, and so forth, forming a hierarchical structure that leads back to our Creator.

The important point to grasp is that the beings who are able to create a new – unascended – realm have earned this power by coming into oneness with the beings that created them and the entire hierarchical structure above them. In other words, the essential difference between the material realm and the spiritual realm is that in the material world, we tend to see ourselves as separate beings living in a separate world. In order to ascend to the spiritual realm, you must overcome this illusion and truly merge into oneness with all life.

So when beings in a higher realm create a new – unascended – realm, they do so out of their own beings. In other words, they don’t see the new sphere as being separated from themselves. However, the new sphere is created with a lower or denser vibration than the spiritual realm. The purpose is that the beings who create the new sphere will now send extensions of themselves down into the new sphere to take embodiment in bodies made from the energies of the sphere.

This has a two-fold purpose. One is to raise the vibration of the new sphere until it ascends and becomes part of the spiritual realm. Yet the real purpose for this process is that the beings in the spiritual realm create individualized extensions of themselves, who then grow in self-awareness by helping their sphere ascend.

So in one sense, we can say that the beings who created our sphere have not taken embodiment in their fullness. Yet in a sense they have taken embodiment through the individualized extensions they have sent down. These individualized extensions are not some mysterious or perfect beings that are fundamentally different from the rest of us. They are us!

Even though we have been programmed to look at ourselves as human beings, who are limited, perhaps even sinners, we are extensions of the very beings who created our sphere. In fact, the very purpose of the spiritual path and the ascension is for us to truly accept our identity as individualized extensions of the entire spiritual hierarchy above us.

The important point to grasp here is that even though there are many beings among the Ascended Host who have not taken embodiment in their fullness, they have indeed taken embodiment through us—the extensions of themselves. Thus, ascended beings simply do not fit into the traditional image of the remote – and often angry – God in the sky. They are not seeking to judge or condemn us; they are ONLY seeking to raise us up.

For even though we have forgotten that we are extensions of ascended beings, they have not forgotten. And obviously, you only want to raise up what you know is part of your own being.

Yet being raised up does not mean we lose our individuality. On the contrary, it means we merge with our spiritual individuality and transcend the limitations of our human “individuality,” the separate self. This is not a loss but a gain.

Next: What the ascended masters can do for us