The Temple of The Presence:
Latest Activity in the True Lineage of Ascended Master Teachings

By Peter R. Vérité

Throughout the ages, initiates and adepts of all cultures, nationalities and creeds have had access to spiritual secrets, revelations on Cosmic Laws, and unordinary assistance from the Brotherhood of Light. Yet, this occult knowledge was accessible only to the chosen few and was for the most part unavailable to the many.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, the occult law started to be lifted and treasure troves of teachings on Cosmic Law were made available to the West, released by the Mahatmas - Eastern Adepts - El Morya and Kuthumi through their messenger Helena P. Blavatsky. For the first time, the existence of Ascended Masters and the Brotherhood of Light – also called Great White Brotherhood - was revealed to mankind and the Theosophical Society was created in 1875. Volumes of occult teachings were disclosed in "Isis Unveiled" (1877) and "The Secret Doctrine" (1888).

	The Ascended Master El Morya

The Ascended Master Kuthumi

[Ascended Masters are enlightened Spiritual Beings who lived on Earth, faced the same challenges we face today and reunited with God. Today they serve as the Teachers of mankind from the Realms of Spirit. They guide, protect, inspire and heal mankind. They are Teachers in the truest sense of the word. They can help us grow in any area of our lives and achieve the real purpose of life: to become One with God in the Ascension.]

In the 1920s El Morya formed the Agni Yoga Society in Russia by inspiring and training his disciples Nicholas and Helena Roerich to become Messengers for the Ascended Masters. The Roerichs went on to live much of their later lives in India, Nicholas also becoming world-famous for his wonderful paintings of the Himalayan range and other regions of the East. In 1924, Baird T. Spalding's description of his Far East travels and encounters with the Masters have played an important role in introducing to the Western world the knowledge that there are many Masters who are assisting and guiding the destinies of mankind. The book "Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East" remains an old time esoteric classic.

In August 1930, while hiking on the side of Mount Shasta, California, Guy Ballard, a mining engineer, was approached by a most striking individual who was able to work astonishing miracles as a matter of course, as though all of Nature obeyed His beck and call. Yet these "miracles" were stated by this individual to be but the result of applying the Laws of spiritual science. Moreover such phenomena, while useful, were as nothing in importance as compared to the inner, mystical Teaching on how to be the fullness of God that this individual proceeded to dispense first to Guy Ballard, and then to many others.

The "man" in question proved to be named Saint Germain (or "Sanctus Germanus": Holy Brother, lat.), and claimed to be an Ascended Master. That is, one who has gained complete liberation from karma and appears to us in a manifested (not birthed) body, having mastered time and space, and having become the fullness of His Higher Self through the real, tangible process of the Ascension. This Higher or God-Self of each individual is called by Saint Germain the Individualized Mighty "I AM" Presence.

	The Ascended Master Saint Germain

Quite soon, so the account stands, many more Ascended Masters were met by a number of other incarnated men and women, who became Their disciples or students. The original students were admitted into various marvelous ancient Temples and Retreats. These Retreats are largely unknown to and concealed from the outer world of mortals. Ballard devotedly kept notes of his initial experiences, often in the form of letters home to his wife, Edna, and the first series of his encounters with Ascended Masters, and with Their Teachings, was released under the direction of Saint Germain in 1932 in the books "Unveiled Mysteries" and "The Magic Presence".

In the years and decades since then, a number of individuals have continued to enjoy association with the Ascended Masters, and literally thousands of pages of the Teachings of these Masters have been published, in addition to thousands of hours of recorded audio Teachings and much that remains unpublished. This stream of Teaching looks set to play a major role in the spiritual, mystical-experiential, "religious" and philosophical flowering of the twenty-first century and beyond.

Through Guy and Edna Ballard, the Master Saint Germain created the "I AM" Activity in the 1930s, which led to the release in great detail of a number of Teachings not previously known in such clarity and precision outside of the Masters' Retreats and Temples. Other Activities through which further Teachings were released and more disciples trained were The Bridge to Freedom in the 1950s and, from 1958, The Summit Lighthouse. These activities of the Ascended Masters, although still active today, no longer have officiating Messengers.

It is presently accepted by many in this tradition that the current Ascended Master Activity through which the Masters' work is primarily focused today is The Temple of The Presence. This activity of the Ascended Masters, in the full lineage and heritage of the I AM Teachings released in the 1930's, was formally inaugurated in 1995, under the aegis of the Masters Saint Germain and El Morya. Its present Messengers are Monroe and Carolyn Shearer. While the headquarters are in Tucson, Arizona, its mission is considered to be global in scope.

	The Messengers Monroe and Carolyn Shearer

Key Tenets of the Teachings of the Ascended Masters

The Teachings of the Ascended Masters are not intended to be taken and accepted on faith alone. Nor are they remotely intended to be a merely intellectual philosophy. Rather, these Teachings are exceptionally focused upon spiritual practice and all that is practical. The Ascended Masters explain what in this tradition is considered to be the true goal of life (the Ascension) in great detail along with the practical techniques for its attainment, and the stages and steps toward it.

Ascended Masters, moreover, speak to their students - either directly or through an authorized and initiated Messenger - with an authority, power and clarity that simply cannot be conveyed in words. Having transcended mortality, Ascended Masters are accepted within this tradition to be so at-one with God as to be Themselves Godlike, or aspects of the Godhead, and the directors of the forces of Nature.

The core of Ascended Master Teachings is comprised of the following essential tenets:

• Knowledge of the Individualized Presence of God: the "Mighty I AM Presence" — God in Action
• Use of the Violet Flame of Divine Love
• Use of God's Creative Name — "I AM" — in Decrees and Invocations
• The Ascension in the Light

Our Real Self, our Individualized God Presence, has a unique and Immortal Identity that is different from every other God Presence, yet at the same time is ONE with the Mighty I AM Presence in the Heart of the Great Central Sun.

The Violet Consuming Flame is a raising, transforming, purifying action of Divine Love from the very Heart of God in the Great Central Sun, the Mighty I AM Presence of Infinity. The Violet Fire allows the transmutation and consuming of human creation that is not worthy of becoming Immortal, and all negative karmic causes, effects, records, and memories, without the need to individually balance that karma face-to-face with each individual back to the earliest beginning of our individualized manifestation on this or any other world.

The Science of the Spoken Word is the use of Decrees, Fiats, Adorations, and Affirmations to invoke and send forth the Light of God to Bless Life, to bring forth the Perfect Ascended Master solution for every situation, and to fulfill the Divine Plan.

As the Master Jesus demonstrated publicly 2,000 years ago, the goal of life for every human being is the ascension in the light into our immortality through reunion with our own God Presence.

Personal association with one or more Ascended Masters produces an intense feeling of Love and Gratitude that can never be put into words. Following such contact with Their Living Presence, there can be but one overwhelming desire displacing all other desires and that is to BE ALL THAT THEY ARE! Once a student has truly, even for a fraction of a second, experienced the Ecstatic Bliss radiating from an Ascended Being, there is nothing in human experience that one would not endure or sacrifice in order to reach Their Height of Attainment and express the selfsame Dominion and Love.

Since 1880 the Ascended Masters have carefully released to the mankind of earth the understanding of how each individual might cooperate in winning Their final Freedom and attaining the original purposes of incarnation. Precept upon precept, They have built a magnificent, cohesive understanding of True Identity. Further, They have clearly outlined The Path, which has been delineated, but which has yet to be put to the test by men and women who have scarcely ventured into the mildest forms of the Teaching.

The Hallmark of The Temple of The Presence is the kindling of this ever-present Fire of Ascended Master Light and the determination to live LIFE as They do; to live The Ascended Master Way of Life!