Nonresistance

Resistance is to strive against, or oppose, the capacity to resist. The is the act or an instance of resisting or the capacity to resist, a force that tends to oppose or retard motion. Biologically, resistance is the capacity of an organism to defend itself against a disease, or to withstand the effects of a harmful environmental agent. In psychology, resistance is a process in which the ego opposes the conscious recall of anxiety-producing experiences. In electricity, resistance is the opposition of a body or substance to current passing through it, resulting in a change of electrical energy into heat or another form of energy.The Oxford English Dictionary

Nonresistance is the practice or principle of complete obedience to authority even if unjust or arbitrary; the practice or principle of refusing to resort to force even in defense against violence.The Oxford English Dictionary

On the Via Christa, we practice nonresistance as letting. The principle of nonresistance is the ultimate control of Power’s distribution. The law of nonresistance is the liaison principle of power control between heaven and earth, God and mankind. Nonresistance is an absolute and abstract principle, rooted in the Logos; a law of being, a law of doing, which you exercise as acceptance and agreeing and adjusting, and a soul virtue.







Edna Lister on Nonresistance

Nonresistance is our principle of healing because you never use Power to heal anyone of anything. You learn in this work that you cannot use spiritual Power. You can use physical power, you can use mental power, but you cannot use spiritual Power. When you enter the realm of Spirit, Power uses you; you cannot use Power.
  Power is omnipotence, and you are its servant. Therefore, when you work according to the principle of nonresistance, you do not use Power to cure disease, to provide supply for anyone, or to overcome sin. You just know the truth that every appearance of evil is simply a form of mental malpractice.—Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.


Nonresistance encompasses the degree initiations of Crucifixion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.—Edna Lister, Prayer: The Broad Highway, May 15, 1935.


"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."—Matthew 5:5. You must transmute passive meekness into dynamic nonresistance. Nonresistance, the greatest power that God can bestow, is the key to equilibrium as the law of balance, which comes under it. Nonresistance is also a magnetic law of attraction, but when passive, it always attracts darkness. Active nonresistance attracts Light.
  Some come to lift earth, letting God’s Power use them, others to use God’s Power. Balanced nonresistance takes the just and middle course, unmoved by failure or success. Your personal interpretation of nonresistance is either passive (indifferent), or active (a burning flame of desire for God), depending on your attitude and interpretation of life.—Edna Lister, Be-Attitudes, September 12, 1935.


Nonresistance sends just enough Power through the soul to control, not to destroy.—Edna Lister, December 22, 1942.


You cannot criticize or be hurt by criticism unless you "settle" and become tight in your body. The law of nonresistance establishes you loosely in the body and keeps your consciousness diffused.—Edna Lister, To Seek the Light, June 10, 1951.


"The meek shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). Meekness is dynamic nonresistance, not wringing your hands. To practice nonresistance, put on the whole armor of God and stand on principle and law.
  Nonresistance is absolute immovability from principle, which is not intellectuality.—Edna Lister, July 19, 1951.


"Resist not evil"—Matthew 5:39 means to agree with your adversary quickly, and is the law of nonresistance.—Edna Lister, July 27, 1951.


"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him"—Matthew 5:25, perfectly expresses nonresistance.—Edna Lister, July 27, 1951.


The law of atomic energy is the law of nonresistance.—Edna Lister, Atomic Energy and Creative Mind, September 30, 1952.


Jesus used the law of nonresistance as complete surrender to be used by Light and thus fulfilled his ascension.—Edna Lister, Surrender and Transfiguration, July 12, 1953.


“Poise moves up on a deep breath to mate with Power,
and the offspring are the twins, Peace and Patience.”


Nonresistance is a principle rooted in the Holy Spirit. When it moves through you, it is the most dynamic Power action of the universe. The difference between resistance and nonresistance is that resistance says, "I was created to use law." Nonresistance says, "I was created for law to use." This is a positive and complete surrender for Wisdom to act through us as the freedom of Wisdom’s will. The Wisdom of God’s will, as the absolute perfection of God, holds everything within its framework. Love is compounded of graciousness and compassion and all the other glorious qualities backed by the Wisdom of God. Under the law of nonresistance, you can keep your golden silence and stand serenely, confidently immovable under the will of God.
  When the Prince of Peace, or nonresistance, moves through you, your desire to be right fades. What does it matter if the other fellow thinks you are right or wrong? Agree with God and adjust to your fellow man. Draw in your personal will so that it does not extend beyond your own aura. When you draw in your self-will to become the will of God, you see the Holy Spirit act as you. When you have touched the height of nonresistance, you lose your identity in the Power of God.—Edna Lister, Dynamic Nonresistance, October 2, 1953.


Some people consider it nonresistance to accept their place in life hopelessly, but this denies the Source. You can’t pull your plug from the Source of Power and still have the energy to run efficiently here, then go to bed accepting the resulting physical weakness.—Edna Lister, I Accept, June 27, 1954.


Obedience to the law of blessing forms an auric sheath around us. Blessings invoke the principle of nonresistance to fill that sheath with "rays of repulsion," which absorb anything the world can send.—Edna Lister, Four Phases of the Word, February 1, 1955.


Oversoul, carrying the full power of the principle of nonresistance, descends on a joy vibration.—Edna Lister, Heavenly Manna, August 14, 1955.


Under the worldly view, people fear that nonresistance will make them nonentities because most advocates of nonresistance act passively and inactively. Passivity, which many think is nonresistance, attracts darkness. Active nonresistance attracts Light until you become a burning flame of glory. Nonresistance is "letting" all things vital be added, to inherit the earth and all good. "Let" is the heart of nonresistance.—Edna Lister, Free Will, September 11, 1955.


When challenged, self stands with its hands on its hips in resistance. Instead, fold your arms, right over left, before your breastbone, and just stand and love God. The power of nonresistance then acts as the Love ray to quell a riot. You release all Power when you fold your hands over the "breastplate of righteousness" in defense. Cross your arms in a natural way to invoke this protection, and it will rout any enemy. Use it only when someone is outrageous, dictatorial, demanding, or when you are in physical danger. Use the left over right arm position to quiet another.—Edna Lister, March 7, 1957.


When you ascend in consciousness and agree and adjust, you become nonresistant.—Edna Lister, The Miracle of Increase, April 27, 1958.


Nonresistance is forgiveness in action. The instant the power of nonresistance flows through, you feel nonresistant. You can’t be bothered to find fault or become irritated. When the law of nonresistance goes into action, forgiveness takes over. Love forgives, but pride can’t forget while it holds resentment. Love, flowing through the principle of nonresistance, sweeps everything before it, melts ice, dissolves lumps and absorbs darkness until nothing is left but love. Nonresistance is born of love enough.—Edna Lister, As God Sees Me, June 8, 1958.


"Blessed are the meek" is the law of nonresistance. Meekness is the most actively aggressive power in the world because it is based on the principle of nonresistance of Jesus Christ. Religion lives on active resistance. Resistance includes rebellion, impatience, lack of peace and irritation. Nonresistance does not bristle at someone’s statement. When you feel yourself prickling, you are not practicing the law of nonresistance. Eventually, no matter what people say, you do not retaliate. Meekness results from cleaning out self to accept what comes. Say, "I accept," and reach up for the Light.—Edna Lister, August 28, 1958.


The active law of nonresistance is "How wonderful is holding my tongue." Because of this law, one lives in peace and gives peace.—Edna Lister, October 9, 1958.


Man’s resistance, not illness, "kills" him, and costs him eternal youth. Resistance causes your body to push 14.7 lb psi constantly. No wonder people are tired at night.—Edna Lister, October 30, 1958.


The Priest stands, worships God and lets the Power move through under the principle of nonresistance.—Edna Lister, Ten Commandments and Beatitudes, November 4, 1958.


Nonresistance is not a passive state, but an active, dynamic principle of God. Nonresistance is the overall theme for the Sermon on the Mount, which covers every emotional need, and includes an attitude to meet every emotion prompted by darkness.
  Nonresistance is God in action. The power of nonresistance is running the universe in equilibrium, harmony, and balance. It is the one great law of life, nonresistance that will lead you straight back to God.—Edna Lister, The Key to Right Action, October 1, 1961.


All healing comes under the great principle of nonresistance. It gives you the attitude of "having done all, to stand," face front, boldly. Under nonresistance, no fight, no conflict can disturb the confidence of the devotional soul.—Edna Lister, Healing, November 3, 1961.


The royal path is sacrifice, nonresistance and forgiveness.—Edna Lister, December 19, 1962.


The law of nonresistance is the most energetic of the whole Decalogue. When Power meets inner resistance, it causes trouble. You can vitalize soul debts rather than produce something good.—Edna Lister, Earth’s Final Age, July 16, 1963.


The law of forgiveness is the outer expression of the great principle of nonresistance.—Edna Lister, Healing Through Forgiveness, November 24, 1963.


The law of forgiveness, which means to "give something for," is humanity’s outer expression of nonresistance, the greatest of all universal principles of Power. Nothing is weak or passive in nonresistance. Every Power in universe backs the one who will stand and know without any inner conflict, letting Power do the work.—Edna Lister, January 28, 1964.


When Love and Wisdom are one, they become nonresistance, which is the most powerful of all primary laws.—Edna Lister, Love and Wisdom, February 7, 1964.


Nonresistance is an aggressively defensive law that upholds its own.—Edna Lister, November 6, 1964.


Nonresistance is a challenge to all enemies of Light. Nonresistance has two phases, unresisting or irresistible. Being unresisting is being a weak worm, a doormat, one who hardly dares to breathe for fear of offending. Such a person has no life of his own at all; self-pity takes over and leads to martyrdom. Irresistible nonresistance is the most aggressive law on earth, for it never stops pushing. Irresistible love uses you. Beauty takes charge, covers others’ transgressions and never leaves them naked in sin. Your love invokes the irresistible Power of the universal law of nonresistance, and it moves through you, bursts through your body-sheath as strength and health.—Edna Lister, What Is Nonresistance? May 23, 1965.


People die by the score rather than live by nonresistance, which is pure law of love.—Edna Lister, Decree and Establish, June 26, 1966.


Faith operates under the great principle of nonresistance. The keynote virtue of faith is to stand and hold, immovable and untouchable. Nonresistance operates through the law of endurance. To apply faith as nonresistance means to hold, to stand, to endure; this is the background, the foundation and the reason for miracles.—Edna Lister, Do I Want to Be Strong? December 18, 1966.


If you apply high laws, nonresistance will rule your life.—Edna Lister, Comprehension and Nonresistance, June 25, 1967.


Obedience under divine will is called nonresistance.—Edna Lister, Religion and the World, November 5, 1967.


Nonresistance is the power principle composed of Wisdom, Love and Energy. The longer you use nonresistance, the stronger it gets.—Edna Lister, May 23, 1968.


You can’t reach humility until you give up self. Humility is pure nonresistance from the Source in expression. You can’t have real faith without humility.—Edna Lister, November 24, 1969.


Nonresistance is the practice of complete obedience to divine authority, and of refusing to resort to force.—Edna Lister, Undated Papers, 1933-1971.


Nonresistance requires the utmost self-discipline until the soul wins, not the self.—Edna Lister, Undated Papers, 1933-1971.

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Faith as Nonresistance

As you face the need to rid your consciousness of old ways of thinking and feeling, you discover that the world has taught the law of nonresistance erroneously. They taught that to be nonresistant meant to sit and wait passively for whatever fate sent you. They said that it was the "will of God" for you to be unhappy, ill or impoverished. They taught that if something was fun to do, and you indulged yourself in a good time, you were shut out of the kingdom of God.
  If the law of nonresistance as taught by Jesus the Christ was the weak and puerile thing interpreted by those who were supposed to know, it would have been wiped from the minds of men long since. Instead, nonresistance has become the most powerful expression in the world today. The cry of "peace for all men" is no longer a puny cry, but is a shout, loud and long.
  When you understand your own responsibility for your life, you understand what Jesus meant when he said, "Turn the other cheek also." Today you must recognize and accept your own responsibility in all matters. If you are stupid enough to allow yourself to get in a position where someone wants to slap your cheek, turn the other gladly just to impress the lesson involved upon your consciousness. Gladly accept that cheek-slapping comes because you are in either the wrong place, not minding your own business, or you have said or done the wrong thing. You may have said the right thing at the wrong time, in the wrong tone of voice, or used the wrong words.
  Nowhere is it written that you must return to the same person or situation to be slapped again just to prove that you live by the law of nonresistance. Surely common sense dictates that you should know enough to stay out of such a mess. Learn the lesson involved by conquering the lower self that caused it, realizing that by the faith of God you can learn anything in one lesson, if your desire to conquer self really is burning.
  When you accept that the law of nonresistance is the most dynamic, positive action of the faith of God, it becomes your strong fortress into which you may retreat from any earth storm. Nonresistance makes you impervious to the "darts of the enemy" from the outside. To be nonresistant does not mean you must give up living by your own idea of God’s principles, your own convictions or that you must allow others to push you around.
  You might define the law of nonresistance this way: Being possessed by the full faith of God to stand nonresistant, making no excuse for standing while the Power moves through you—to stand still, unmoved within and immovable without, while agreeing with the other fellow that his own directed path and plan of life are good and very good for him to follow.
  To say, "Yes, you are right," does not mean "Yes, I shall follow you in your way." It only means that you agree with him that he has found his own right plan of life and pathway to follow. You never need to explain. You need no further speech, for the law of nonresistance is based upon "Let your communications be, Yea, yea; nay, nay" which you interpret as a direct command of law to stand quietly in the heart of the golden silence, granting all others the right to do the same.—Edna Lister, Faith, the Challenger, 1953.

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The Law of Nonresistance

For centuries we have misunderstood the law of nonresistance, the most powerful, most commanding law in the universe. Nothing about nonresistance is weak or negative. It is nonaggressive as earth knows aggression. It is a law of perfect peace, the only real peace, yet it is all-powerful. Your use of the law of nonresistance makes you king or queen in your own right, not a weak worm in the dust! Not a doormat. Nor are you like a tumbleweed, being tossed about by every dust-laden wind that blows from the world deserts. When you move under sanctuary of this law, you stand straight and tall before the world, arms crossed, silently waiting upon the law to take care of you.
  Acceptance of the law of nonresistance is possible only when you have gained an identity with the Source of Creation. Identity with your Source is the place of conscious knowing that anything is possible under the great Creative Impulse of Mind which does the work. This is the place where the things men try to do are impossible, where the "possibles" of God take over.
  The law of nonresistance is not earth-aggressive. It is just immovable. It stands against all powers of darkness and very quietly "lets" true Power do the work. "Letting" is not being passive or pushed around. It starts with deep breathing, which creates poise in fourfold man, a poise that nothing on the outer can disturb.
  Poise moves up on a deep breath to mate with Power, and the offspring of this mating are the twins, peace and patience. To spend time just working for peace and patience is quite futile. The harder you work for them, the more things enter your life to call for peace and patience. It becomes a regular merry-go-round to see which will win, patience or impatience. Holding peace and patience as your goal only invites life to send more situations upon which to exercise peace and patience.
  An attitude that works for "perfect peace" deters you from exercising nonresistance as a way of life. Nonresistance stands and knows. Nonresistance is a creative attitude that becomes its own protection from the snares of the world. It even opens the door to a "second sight," which is also a protection from darkness.—Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, 1956.

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New Testament on Resistance

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.—Matthew 5:38-42.


Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him.—Matthew 5:25.


Resist not evil—Matthew 5:39.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884—1971
The original Pioneering Mystic,
Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of resistance: Latin re- "again" + sistere, "to set, to place, to stop, to stand."


Nonresistance is an absolute principle.

Nonresistance is an abstract principle.

Nonresistance is a law of being.

Nonresistance is a law of doing.

Nonresistance is a soul virtue.


References

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, editor. Oxford University Press, 1971.


Related Topics

Acceptance

Agreeing and Adjusting

Letting