Choice and Separation

Choice is "the preferential determination between things proposed, selection, election, the power, right or faculty of choosing, option." Every choice automatically implies a separation from some previous state. Separation is "the action of parting, of setting or keeping apart, to make a severance or division, the action of separating oneself, withdrawing, or parting company."

“God is One — His name is One.”

You are always choosing one thing or course of action over another. Your choice either draws you close to God or pushes you further from Him. The ascending choice is ever to draw closer, separating yourself from those things that divide you from the divine.

"Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." – Joshua 24:14-15.

During initiations, choice involves separation — Joshua 24:15 tells us to "Choose this day whom thou wilt serve," God or self, then separate yourself from all that does not advance you on the path of soul ascension. The lie, the illusion that you are separate from God is the "original sin" because it separates Mind, Substance, and Power, which sunders the soul's knowledge of its bond with God.

Edna Lister on Choice and Separation

There is no separation in Spirit. – Edna Lister, October 10, 1925.

God is. God appears as your consciousness and your consciousness is the substance of all form for you. As you know this, you never again seek companionship, customers, students, clients or patients. You realize that your consciousness is all this, appears as and constitutes all these, then you see no separation. – Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.

No separation from God exists. All the Father has is yours. You do not experience this because you have a sense of separation born of the materialistic concept that there is a God somewhere else, a God and humanity, that God is pure and you are a sinner. – Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.

Walk your own path, and allow all others equal choice in choosing their own direction. – Edna Lister, August 15, 1938.

Leave everyone free to follow their choice of direction while your choice remains with the Light. – Edna Lister, October 12, 1938.

Your choice makes you of the Elect. Your further choices will keep you among the Elect. You must choose, hour by hour. – Edna Lister, October 13, 1938.

Many are called, but so few choose to listen to God. – Edna Lister, October 30, 1938.

Nothing can separate you from God in any way except by your own will. – Edna Lister, November 24, 1938.

Each runs on the power of choice, and may choose to suit himself, but let him not expect to change God's laws or plans. – Edna Lister, January 2, 1939.

Ascension demands the separation from darkness. The sheep and the goats must go each to their own place. – Edna Lister, January 2, 1939.

God may not interfere with your free will or choice. – Edna Lister, January 9, 1939.

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." – Joshua 24:15, God or self, then separate yourself from whatever does not advance you on the Path of Soul Ascension. – Edna Lister, January 13, 1939.

The veil of illusion is lifted to any soul who is ready to stand in the full Light forever, with no more separation. – Edna Lister, January 25, 1939.

To separate yourself from all darkness, from all limitation forever with one sacrifice, once surrendering, this is joy. – Edna Lister, November 14, 1939.

There is no separation: When you reach out toward someone, regardless of the distance in miles, you are touching him at that moment. – Edna Lister, November 16, 1939.

True love withstands all separation and lives forever. – Edna Lister, Declaration of Unquenchable Love, November 30, 1939.

Have you truly let go of your past? Are you forever separated from it? Or do you hold it by the tail and bring it back again and again? What is choice and what is separation? – Edna Lister, Questionnaire for Daily Self-Examination During Lent, February 13, 1941.

Choose today whom you will serve, a god of darkness or the God of Light and perfection. Choose whether you will serve lukewarmly or at a great point of heat. Choose to be raised high enough for all strength and wisdom to move through you. Choose to serve God always. – Edna Lister, July 20, 1941.

Throughout the ages, lack of love, one for another, has often separated us. – Edna Lister, October 21, 1941.

There is One God, One Mind, One Heart of Love, One Substance and One Power, and there is none else besides. Only in imagination can you ever be separated, either from the highest or the lowest. – Edna Lister, October 29, 1941.

Mutual tongue wagging separates people. – Edna Lister, November 27, 1941.

It is your choice to be burdened by self, or to be free. – Edna Lister, The Millstone, March 1, 1942.

To be separated in the flesh is not separation. – Edna Lister, March 19, 1942.

One chooses and separates soul from self. – Edna Lister, May 16, 1942.

Choose and then stand upon that choice. – Edna Lister, September 23, 1942.

Fret not when things look black, for blackness drives together those who otherwise would cause terrible separation. – Edna Lister, February 25, 1943.

Every word, every choice has a hidden reason plus a conscious one. – Edna Lister, November 1, 1944.

God has given you the power of right choice. You can always discern the one right choice for each hour's problem — cast the self upon the altar of Light, while loving God with a great and a mighty love. Then wait upon Him in praise while He releases enough Power to melt the problem. – Edna Lister, January 10, 1945.

To choose a very great sacrifice always gives the greatest credits of advance in ascension. – Edna Lister, March 14, 1945.

God has given you free will and free choice. – Edna Lister, July 23, 1945.

You must love God so much that you cannot bear to be separated one moment from Him. – Edna Lister, June 27, 1947.

There can never be any separation or darkness where great love for each other lifts every burden into the glory of the Light. – Edna Lister, January 26, 1948.

Law demands this or that of us, but God has given us free choice. It is wise to choose the right. – Edna Lister, June 5, 1948.

One choice is not enough; it does not last long. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. – Joshua 24:15, Light or dark. – Edna Lister, December 9, 1948.

As you make a vow upon the altar at night, instantaneously you set up your choice to agree and adjust with an adversary. – Edna Lister, August 15, 1949.

The Chosen are those who elect or choose the good. – Edna Lister, October 16, 1950.

You could lift all darkness instantly if you eliminated the separation idea from your view of God. – Edna Lister, Promises Fulfilled, September 24, 1950.

A choice such as voting is not an opinion. "I choose this man but I do not criticize the other candidate." – Edna Lister, June 19, 1951.

No one else can interfere with your choice unless you let them. – Edna Lister, November 10, 1951.

No one can really separate his faith from his actions, or his beliefs from his occupation. – Edna Lister, May 22, 1952.

There is no separation in God. – Edna Lister, August 31, 1952.

You must choose between the world, which tears down your life plan and stops you, or God, who builds. – Edna Lister, The Challenge, March 15, 1952.

No separation can exist in faith. – Edna Lister, The Magic in the Sky, October 5, 1952.

God does not judge your choice as wrong. He says, "You could have done better today." – Edna Lister, Surrender and Transfiguration, July 12, 1953.

You always choose from a pair of opposites and give up one or the other. – Edna Lister, The Gospel of the Cross, October 18, 1953.

Separate what people do from what they are. [Consider the whole person before unjustly judging.] – Edna Lister, All Shall See the Salvation of God, November 22, 1953.

By standing immovable upon your choice, upon your chosen, acknowledged goal, each day's debt turns into a well-learned experience-lesson and added law. – Edna Lister, Your Life's Goal, May 30, 1954.

Once you decide to collect your inheritance, you discover that your only choice is God. – Edna Lister, I Accept, June 26, 1954.

When evil must be separated from an individual or a circumstance, it takes the knife of force to cut the crystallization. Evil is always based in hatred and rebellion, and only the almost visible knife of heavy force can cut crystallization. Power melts, dissolves and absorbs what force cuts asunder. – Edna Lister, December 1, 1955.

Discrimination is choosing God's way. – Edna Lister, June 26, 1956.

Once you make a choice in honor to God above all things, ever striving to conquer, all the powers and glories of heaven are opened to you. – Edna Lister, September 1956.

Nothing is separate from the life of God. – Edna Lister, Inspiration, June 24, 1956.

Your worst favorites shine brightest of all when you comprehend God with no sense of separation. – Edna Lister, Inspiration, June 24, 1956.

You face choices hourly. If you make no new choices, you become stagnant. – Edna Lister, Truth: Your Plan, October 21, 1956.

Mind, Substance and Power cannot be separated permanently. – Edna Lister, February 28, 1957.

Always the choice lies with you: Choose you this day whom ye will serve. – Joshua 24:15. – Edna Lister, June 6, 1957.

Never ask why the initiation came or when it will end. When you continue to ask why, you say, "I am turning my back on the Light to stand in the darkness of choice and separation." This is always the answer: There is no separation when you stand under the Light. – Edna Lister, August 13, 1957.

As you choose, you reset the capacity of your rate of vibration. – Edna Lister, The Bond of Spirit, October 6, 1957.

If you don't like what you chose, set a new rate of vibration and make a new choice. – Edna Lister, The Bond of Spirit, October 6, 1957.

Separation is a combination of criticism, condemnation and selfish demands. – Edna Lister, November 17, 1957.

We have different paths, each travels his own way, yet we dwell not in separation but unity: Each is gathering personal experience on a unique mission because we each work under different divisions, but with that same goal, the Source. – Edna Lister, December 16, 1957.

Others see and identify you in the form you have created by your choices and actions, as modifications to the original. – Edna Lister, December 18, 1957.

Choose unity and perfection or separation and darkness, which leads to a lower vibration. – Edna Lister, August 7, 1958.

Lend no ear to the separation idea. Choose unity and perfection, or separation and darkness, which leads to a lower vibration. – Edna Lister, August 7, 1958.

Every time you choose, you will leave something behind. – Edna Lister, August 19, 1958.

You experience a sense of separation if you are unconscious of the whole. – Edna Lister, September 4, 1958.

God does not divide. He unites. Everything that separates is of "the devil." Being separated from the good is the propaganda of evil. – Edna Lister, October 27, 1958.

God is One. His name is One. – Edna Lister, Love Unquenchable, December 7, 1958.

You cannot appraise the capacity for wise choice at a glance. All are of the one God and have equal rights to advance; however, equality depends on individual choice. The individual chooses the high road, then comes action, the progress of right, the hard climb. – Edna Lister, December 12, 1958.

The kingdom of heaven includes earth. The worldly view naturally, casually separates them, even as people separate God and business, but there is no separation. The earth and business are as much in God as God is in the kingdom. Recognize the oneness of all, and that you are in heaven now. – Edna Lister, December 15, 1958.

You have free choice, not free will; the will is God's. – Edna Lister, June 25, 1959.

To move from separation from God under the darkness of self into the Unity of the Light of God in soul, you must place your trust in God. – Edna Lister, What Is Symbolism? October 6, 1959.

Selfishness results from the original sin of separateness — separation. – Edna Lister, The 33 Degrees of Soul Conquering, October 27, 1959.

God has given us the power of wise choice, and the first choice is up or down in ascension. Remember one thing: Test every law by this rule — "Does this law demand from me a more rigid adherence to redeem time, the hours I spend rejoicing, the fervor of my prayers and their quality?" If not, put it in the baby class as a kindergarten law, not for you. – Edna Lister, October 30, 1959.

You will see no separation when you comprehend, and say, "This is good," no matter what. – Edna Lister, June 6, 1960.

Law is separation and unity. The test of your love of God is not in unity, but in separation. – Edna Lister, July 10, 1960.

Some would rather see separation and loss than perfect Light. – Edna Lister, October 10, 1960.

After you seek the kingdom of heaven, really surrender, have everything covered, no longer slip and come up higher under each blow, you finally reach the point where you do not have a single choice, but see five lines [paths] of possible choice open before you. Each line is possible, but they range from easiest to hardest, from most to least likely to attain. Always, the hardest will produce the greatest gain. – Edna Lister, December 15, 1960.

When you ascend under a high sacrifice of self, you choose the way you will go. The first choice is to hold to that high point of contemplation, which is full illumination, despite everything. The other choice is to demand credit for this saintly sacrifice of self to do your clear and only possible duty — and so sink into the quicksand morass of self-pity, frustration and a hopeless "what's the use?" attitude.

When you make a high sacrifice, God invites you to step onto the Via Christa; to forget self is the Path of Destiny. To deny this with even a slight tinge of self, you fall back into the abyss where the path of fate travels. – Edna Lister, January 29, 1961.

God never binds you, but gives you a marvelous area for free choice within His everlasting arms of Light. – Edna Lister, September 7, 1961.

You must base your choices in honor and integrity of soul. – Edna Lister, September 7, 1961.

You modify absolute laws of being into relative laws of doing to fit individual needs of civilization, though humanity has diluted them until not much is left, only enough to foster evil, darkness, and separation. – Edna Lister, God as Personality and Principle, May 20, 1962.

You have the ability to choose. God gave us all wisdom, and we call it will, but He never gave us will to use as we please. He gave us free choice in all ways. – Edna Lister, June 18, 1963.

It takes a month of devotion and prayer to overcome five minutes of interfering. Interference with another's choices evokes waves of resentment from past ages and displays your self-aggrandizement and self-righteousness. – Edna Lister, September 16, 1963.

Demanding of others has put the world in bondage. You must free the other fellow of you, not free yourself of him. Give him and yourself free choice. – Edna Lister, October 6, 1964.

The only way to make certain you make the right choice instantly is to go up on everything first. – Edna Lister, June 10, 1965.

If one door closes, seven shall open to give you a choice, and Light shall send you through the right door. – Edna Lister, May 11, 1967.

The whole world is being forced to face the Tree of Good and Evil and choose. The "good" people are having their noses rubbed into the obscenities by having to face them. You are returning to your Garden of Eden, but you cannot face the angel with the flaming sword unless you are virgin. The virgin soul must turn his or her back on the depravities and adulteries of the world by choice. You are choosing against the evil side of the tree. You must know all about evil to be able to choose the good. – Edna Lister, August 24, 1967.

A powerful choice in strength is to say, "It (the past) never happened. Only the future is real now." When you say, "It never happened," God separates the past and wipes it out, and all things come together for good. – Edna Lister, November 18, 1968.

The lie, the illusion that we are separate from God is the "original sin" because it separates Mind, Substance, and Power. – Edna Lister, Conversion and Mysticism, June 9, 1968.

Separation from God, from the good, is an illusion. – Edna Lister, Conversion and Mysticism, June 9, 1968.

Thinking that you are separated is what separates you from God. – Edna Lister, When Is Healing Lawful? November 22, 1970.

A Treatment for Choice and Separation

Cloud 14 for Choice and Separation: Separate the troublesome ideas from your past. Put all memory episodes on Cloud 14. For memories involving another person's heart, mind or soul, lift once only, then put them on Cloud 14. To treat the people involved under the law of God, put them in a jail on the cloud, and hold them there until Light washes the record white as snow. Restore their life sparks to them. Keep the Power moving through them, to help the vibration to ascend. Declare freedom to ascend for each person: "This is God's child (or servant) living in the now, perfect, whole and complete." – Edna Lister, June 16, 1961.

New Testament on Choice and Separation

Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom [consciousness] divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand – Matthew 12:25.

If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. – Mark 3:24-27. [A group, divided in opinion, will collapse; a personality divided within itself destroys its consciousness.]

Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for [Christ's] sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. – Mark 8:35.

He that is not against us is on our part. – Mark 9:40. [He who is not against Christ is on Christ's side.]

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. – Mark 10:9.

Whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. – Luke 9:5.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself [his self], and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. – Luke 9:23-24.

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. – Luke 11:17-20.

He that is not with me [Christ] is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. – Luke 11:23.

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. – John 15:16.

I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. – 1 Corinthians 1:25-31.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. – 1 John 2:15-17.

Old Testament on Choice and Separation

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live – Deuteronomy 30:19.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. – Joshua 24:15.