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Edna Lister’s Lectures 1958
Keys of the Kingdom
Edna Lister, International New Thought Alliance Quarterly Magazine article, Spring 1958
There are many different approaches to God, and many precepts or laws comprising the various methods of approach. Finding a method that works for you under all circumstances is the most important thing in your life once you know the truth, accept it and live it. These precepts, based on the unchangeable principles of God, represent methods that enable you to apply what you know to what you do in your daily expression of truth. They represent the keys to the door that opens your own individual kingdom of heaven, which each must enter alone. Once you choose a particular method you must stand within your creative kingdom in constancy and love, using every precept included in that method. Your choice should be based on your own particular needs to meet your own emotional and mental life and your personal relationships, and above all, to fulfill a perfect relationship with God.
One precept common to all methods is the first and most important: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”–Matthew 6:33, with complete dependence on the fulfillment of the promise it contains that all else shall be added. This is the promise that you shall have your miracles. This command sounds simple to obey; it is so simple that you may fail to realize the magnitude of its importance in your creative life. Seeking the kingdom first requires practice, prayer, and loving God enough and above all things, until you reach the point where you stand fully clothed with a glorious God-consciousness day and night, without a moment’s deviation or letting go. It means that you stand still for an instant before you speak or act, and let the Light of God possess you. It means that you stand in the place where spirit cannot be moved, hurt or dismayed about anything that earth can produce. Obeying this law, you practice complete surrender, to let the Christ Light shine as you. You surrender in love, to be the servant of all the Power of God.
For the second in our series of six creative laws, consider this one: “Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him.”–Matthew 5:25. To many persons, this seems to mean giving up all personal freedom. Nothing is further from the truth. It is only when another is full of opinions and prejudices that he seeks to force his method of living on you, either physically, mentally or spiritually, or to interfere with your own choice of how to live your Christ-life. You need not offend others to remain free. First moving into your own kingdom of heaven for an instant of contact with the Light, you tell the adversary that you are certain that he is right in his ideas and that he has worked out a wonderful method for himself. Then ask him to tell you more about it. Rest assured, he will be only too glad to talk about it, and in the talking, forget his first intentions. The adversary will be happy to see your interest in him, and will never realize that you have not promised to follow his method. Sometimes, because all barriers of resentment melted away when you first called on God, you do find a new way in which to apply a law of truth. An open mind always receives a gift from every adversary. To agree means to be agreeable right now, not tomorrow.
We find the third precept in our series in Jesus’ answer to Peter when he inquired about John: “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.”–John 21:22. While wondering about anyone else, you cannot be all the way inside your own kingdom. Just partway is not good enough—you must seek diligently enough to move in all the way. From your own center of Light, you can be agreeable, leaving everyone else to follow his own chosen way. The only result you can ever expect if you try to force someone to do it your way is confusion and disturbance for everyone concerned. It is only good sense, therefore, to leave others alone, and to see to it that you follow closely your own high law and become a living example of Light.
The fourth precept tells us to “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”–1 Thessalonians 5:22. This means that if it is not good for the whole world to do all the time, it is not good for you to do once. To check yourself constantly as to indifference or carelessness, and to watch all the small details of daily life so that you can never be caught “off base,” is a full measure of service to truth. You avoid the appearance of evil by obeying all the laws of your chosen method of expression of truth; thus, you walk steadfastly toward the goal of your own high calling in Christ Jesus.
The fifth precept is, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”–John 12:32. Everyone has someone else who is dependent upon his expression of strength and courage. Everyone is lifting up someone else. Everyone has the deep desire to lift others higher and higher. This necessitates a constantly increasing effort in practicing all the rules of your chosen method. It means to seek God first more eagerly, so you may be more agreeable in all your contacts. It means reaching forth to everyone who comes to you with arms of love, compassion and understanding. This is a high and glorious lifting.
Sixth, you now declare all your creations good and very good, as God did in Genesis 1. When you use this sixth precept of your method, substance moves forth to fill your molds and bring your creations into visibility. These are the laws of the creator you have now become, and pronouncing, “All is Good,” is the final key that opens the door into your own kingdom of heaven. You have entered the House of the Lord, and there you shall dwell forever as a creator of wondrous miracles of life.
Your Life Plan
Edna Lister, speech outline, February 4, 1958, Truth Temple, Tacoma, WA
This, I know. This, I comprehend. This, I decree: “As oil mingles with oil, as water mingles with water, as air mingles with air, so does God’s love mingle with the love of man.”
Think of the glory of the miracles as yet unborn this year. You are gestating them with your every breath and prayer of love. You must nourish and care for them until they are born.
Your need for love and life moves forth and upward. When it meets with God’s complete need to give—a miracle is born. Plan for more and greater miracles.
Soul Conquering
Edna Lister transcript, May Wilder, scribe, March 2, 1958, Tacoma WA
Throughout religious history man has felt the desire and the need for going apart from the world, to be above the earthy vibration, closer to God so that he might search his soul, and learn his strength and worthiness. In going apart the Elect use prayer and fasting as a preparation for some great work or mission. Before Moses received the Ten Commandments, he spent forty days in prayer and fasting on Mt. Sinai. Elijah heard the Voice and received the directions from God on Mt. Horeb after a period of fasting and prayer. The Master’s forty days in the wilderness prepared him for his ministry. We observe our Lenten season each year during the forty days before Easter in commemoration of his time in the wilderness.
Lent is pre-eminently a spiritual revival and new growth in soul, a time of cleansing and purifying the soul through true repentance, prayer and sacrifice as fasting in preparation for a glorious Eastertide and soul ascension. During Lent, as millions of Christians lift their consciousness in a deep desire and seeking for spiritual attainment, greater Power is constantly released to earth. Every soul who is dedicated to the Master seeks to keep Lent in the true Christ Spirit, the way of prayer and fasting that he taught his disciples, each according to his understanding of it.
As you so prepare your mind and body to receive of this Power, you become constantly more aware of God’s Omnipresence—that He is with you wherever you are and that this at-one-ness presence does care for you and is your constant Protector. You gain a greater sense of security which you need in times of stress. You learn more of God’s Omnipotence that this is God’s Power and through Him all things are possible; nothing is too hard for God at anytime or under any condition. “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”–Jeremiah 32:27; “all flesh” means of all embodied souls. This should give you a greater sense of assurance, of confidence, and of faith that as you surrender to this Power, it shall move through you and God’s perfect plan shall be fulfilled in your life.
You also realize His Omniscience: “The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”–Psalm 84:11. As you seek with true humility and a strong determination to receive His illumination, you know that your life will be well-ordered. You shall be divinely guided and your needs met. However, God has given us freedom to choose what we will do and how we shall do it. You may attain to the highest heights or sink to the lowest depths; what you choose to gain, you may gain. The Father gives of His own Mind, Substance, and Power as we move up to be used by it under law. We make of ourselves what we desire and will into being.
To be saved from your self, you must sacrifice, or give up (fast) from all selfish thoughts and emotions that keep you from conquering. To do this, you must have time alone with God to examine your heart, to note your strengths and worthiness. In silence you renew your vows to climb higher into the Light where God’s Power moves in to strengthen and bring to pass your soul’s desires. Surrender the old past to make room for the new tomorrow. Keep Lent this year by fasting from all thoughts that are unworthy of a follower of Christ, all the hasty sharp words that may hurt another, all fault-finding and criticism, gossip and condemnation. Consider why it is easier to find things to criticize than to praise.
Your greatest enemies of doubt, fear and self-pity only bind you more tightly to the self. Dig these out and offer them to God’s purifying fires to be cleansed and returned to you as strength and courage to meet a new tomorrow. Fill your mind and heart with thoughts of love, joy, understanding: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”–Philippians 4:8
Include more praise with your vows for Lent. Praise raises the vibration and releases Power for your own desires to come to pass. Have you become lukewarm and indifferent in your service to the Master? What about the ready smile, the attitude of joy, the warmth of personality that attracts others who are in need of the love that you give, in the Spirit of Christ? Truth is not solemn, a grievous or doleful thing, but glad tidings for all because you are joyous with the Joy of the Christ.
Let us be determined that Lent shall pay us greater dividends than we have ever known. Seek to speak only the words that Christ would speak in the same situation, to hear only what he would hear, to think only as he would think about any person or condition. Seek to act as he would act toward your family, friends and those whom you may meet. Plan to do something each day to show forth the Spirit of Christ, to say something he would say if he were living here in these times. To “fast from” also means “to loose” or “to let go.” Would you be happier and more productive if you were to let go of or fast from all thoughts of lack and know only God’s abundance. Thank Him! If you refuse to recognize any power in your life but God’s Power of Good and know this is true, then only that which is for your highest good can come to you. Stay up in that place of doing “the greater works” of becoming as “perfect as the Father is perfect,” then moment by moment you, too, shall conquer and be able to face God with a pure heart and clean hands.
The Buried Treasure
Edna Lister transcript, May Wilder, scribe, March 30, 1958, Tacoma WA, 1 Thessalonians 5. Note: Some details in this lecture have been updated to include the most recent discoveries.
Since shortly after the days when Jesus walked among men on earth, some scholars have held a persistent belief that a Fifth Gospel, a lost Gospel, once existed. This Gospel was said to have been written by Thomas, one of the twelve Disciples, who recorded the immortal words of Jesus as he spoke on the Mount, by the shores of Galilee, as well as in Bethany, and on the way to Jerusalem.
For hundreds of years scholars searched in vain for this lost Gospel of Thomas. Then suddenly one day in December 1945, on the banks of the Nile in Egypt, near Nag Hammadi, a group of laborers made one of the most important discoveries of our time. They unearthed a huge ancient jar filled with manuscripts, which had lain buried in an Egyptian cliff for 1,800 years. These documents have added to our record of Jesus’s teachings and shed new light on the role of the disciple who was called “Doubting Thomas.” One of the men most active in evaluating had reorganizing the importance of the manuscripts is the distinguished French Scholar professor Henri-Charles Puech who held the chair of History of religions at the Collège de France from 1952 to 1972. He began working on them in 1948 and has revealed some of his initial findings to the world at large.
The ancient jar which contained this remarkable material was unearthed by Egyptian farm workers who were digging at the foot of a great chalk cliff looking for a natural fertilizer. Suddenly, they stopped digging when one of them came upon the side of a large clay jar. They were jubilant as they lifted it to the surface thinking they had uncovered some hidden treasure. They smashed the ancient jar but found no treasure—that is, nothing that seemed like a treasure to them—only fine dry sand spilled on the ground carrying with it many sheaves of old papyrus and dusty leather bound books in almost perfect condition. The writing was clear, but in a strange script and as they could not read it, they took some of the loose pages and lit a fire to heat water for their meal. As they sat eating, they decided the old papers might have some value after all and they divided the contents of the jar equally among themselves.
That evening, the men showed the books and papers to the village priest, but since he was unable to help them, they sold the entire lot to a local trader for what was about $9.00 in our currency. The pages and books, unrecognized as valuable, were passed from hand to hand and place to place. Some turned up in Cairo where they were identified as manuscripts written in Coptic, which was the final form of the ancient Egyptian language. Although the Cairo dealers could not read Coptic, they shrewdly realized they held something of value and fearing the Egyptian Government might claim them, they sold them secretly.
In the months that followed the manuscripts passed through many hands, so by 1946, only one incomplete volume was found in Belgium and another had reached the Coptic Museum in Cairo. When their existence became known, the news soon traveled to scholars all over the world, and the importance of the discovery was quickly well-established. But the burning question remained, what had become of the rest of the “find” and what did the other materials contain?
As far as we can now determine, they, too, went from dealer to dealer until 1949; three years later they all turned up in possession of one man who had eleven of the thirteen original volumes and many of the loose pages. He finally took these to the Museum in Cairo where experts identified them as a “library” that had belonged to a very early Christian group who had lived along the Nile. Their binding and the way they were stitched proved that they were some of the oldest books in existence. After negotiation the purchaser agreed that they were the property of the Egyptian Government and turned them over to the Coptic Museum. The collection is believed to be complete, save for the pages that had been burned by the men who found them and, the document sold to the Belgian collector. (It is expected that this, too, will be sent to the Coptic Museum in Cairo and the library will be complete.
In 1957, an international committee of scholars was invited to the museum to examine the manuscripts. They spent a month studying the 100 pages and reported that they date from the 3rd and 4th century AD and were probably copies of earlier Greek originals. They also reported that the collection contains forty-eight different writings, all but two being previously unknown. Professor Peuch tells us some of the manuscripts are revelations dealing with creation attributed to Seth, the third son of Adam and that others deal with Noah and the flood. One series is more Christian in character, including several Gospels and Apocryphal writings, including a “Dialogue of our Savior.”
But of the forty-eight writings one stands above the others as the most significant volume of the series. “The Gospel According to Thomas” begins with “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.” Professor Puech reports that this Gospel contains 103 sayings of Jesus, some quite like those in the four Gospels but about forty-three are completely new. Some of the sayings we know are slightly modified and others are treated at greater length. Through this manuscript, other sayings mentioned in our Christian literature are now identified as words spoken by Jesus. The words of a few of the forty-three newly discovered sayings of the Master have been translated as follows:
Jesus said, “He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom.” Again, Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’, say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.’” Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
Many other sayings from the Gospel of Thomas will in time be published. Among them will be this parable of the Wise Fisherman: And he said, “The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.” Then once more we have: Jesus said, “The kingdom of the Father is like a merchant who had a consignment of merchandise and who discovered a pearl. That merchant was shrewd. He sold the merchandise and bought the pearl for himself. You too, seek his unfailing and enduring treasure where no moth comes near to devour and no worm destroys.”
These are some of the words of Jesus which were found on the banks of the ancient Nile in 1945, the year when the first atom bomb was dropped, and we saw the end of World War II. At this critical time in history, Jesus’ words, lost in the long darkness of eighteen centuries, once more came to light. Can this be an accident? or is there a greater design? As the clay was shattered and the words came to light, Jesus spoke again as he spoke of old. Once more he comes to us as he came to those who waited for him on the Mount or at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Once more He speaks as he spoke there with simplicity, and with understanding and love.
A Glorious Adventure
Edna Lister transcript May C. Wilder, scribe, June 1, 1958, Tacoma, WA
Mary Pickford, a world famous actress, learned that success, wealth and even innumerable good friends could be of little real help at a time when trouble strikes, or when worry and despair sweep over one like a black fog, obscuring everything. She shared some ideas, which she had put into practice in her life, in a little book called, “Why not try God?” She found that by so doing she was able to maintain her poise and happiness under all circumstances with the courage to always look ahead with an expectancy of God. She didn’t know then, but found later that a great and beneficent Power was available to her which would comfort and guide her and bring her joy and happiness, even amid trouble and heartbreaks. She wrote about this Power so that others might know it could actually change conditions of every kind, no matter how serious or complicated they might seem to be.
The first idea she emphasizes is that she had been carrying around a wrong concept of God and she felt that many people were doing the same. As a child Mary had formed her ideas from things she had been taught: 1) God would be angry if she loved anyone else more than Him. 2) God would punish her for a number of things she didn’t understand or thought unimportant. 3) She just didn’t like the way this God did things or let bad things happen. She has since learned that sometimes what looks like the end of the road in your personal experience, is only a turn and the beginning of a new and more beautiful journey. So she decided she must discard this wrong concept of God and find out for herself just what God really was like and how and in what way she was related to Him.
It became a glorious adventure, hunting for the truth in herself, in her work, in those she contacted, and in fact, in everything! God came to be an all-wise, loving, friendly Presence, filling all space everywhere and closer to her than the air she breathed. He became her Silent Partner, always beside her. She also learned that God was the great Mind governing all with perfect understanding. She had to find out for herself that God really was around everywhere but she didn’t know it. She had to learn that all Good can be ours if we just tune in with God, but no more good can come to us by tuning in to His Power than can come from electricity if we don’t turn on the switch! If Edison had not set up his laboratory the possibility of the electric light would be there just the same. If Marconi had never lived, the wireless and all that followed it would still be possible. The principle would exist just the same, but man wouldn’t have known how to develop and use them. She reminds us God is that great Power that we may contact whenever and wherever we choose by our own right thinking. As we learn to contact this Power and we let it flow through us, all things become possible to us, all things whatsoever we need come unto us.
Charles Steinmetz, a great electrical genius, when one asked what line of research he believed would see the greatest development in the next fifty years, said he thought the greatest discovery would be made in the spiritual phase of life. He added “Someday people will learn that material things do not bring happiness and are of little use in making men and women creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of God and prayer and the spiritual forces which as yet have hardly been touched. When this day comes, he continued, the world will see more advancement in one generation than it has ever in the past four.”
Mary Pickford says that for too long, we have been trying other ways, resulting in confusion, despair and frustration, and adds, “What not try God?” She then learned that the life of each is a continual process of thought most vital thing in the Universe. A very wise man once said, “We see only our own thoughts, and in some way, they become externalized as our environment and experience and so the world we seem to be experiencing without, is really the world we are seeing within.” How can we possibly think one way and have experiences in the opposite direction? She also says isn’t it wonderful to know that no one in the world can interfere with what each of us chooses to think? That we may tune in the good and instantly shut off TV, the undesirable?
A very good friend once said to her “All the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Neither can all the sorrow and trouble in the world sink a person unless it gets inside the mind.” She reminds us that the Master said, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” We add, let us learn to guard our minds. Do we realize that whatever is happening to us today is absolutely the result of what each of us had been putting into our minds, what we have been thinking for years?
Let us then remember that what will happen to us tomorrow will be the result, in a great degree, of what we are thinking today. We cannot possibly escape the results of our thoughts! Does it not seem rather foolish to believe that this Great Power can be ruled by outer conditions and by beliefs of our own or others and that we can do nothing about it? When we think our way into any kind of trouble, and that is the only way we get into trouble, we can choose at any time to turn and think our way out! Nothing can keep us there but our thinking, and nothing can free us but our thinking. We are each a dictator in our own world of thought, we each set our own boundaries and limits. Let us remember then our thoughts connect us with God and make it possible for us to tune in and contact His Great Power of Life, Love, Joy and peace. We need to plug in with our thinking, good thinking, kind, truthful, unselfish thinking!
Returning to our author, we find her saying if we are irritated, doubtful, fearful, angry, resentful or worried, we are expecting ill and have opened the door to it. That formula will bring its inevitable result; if we are joyful, courageous, cheerful, unselfish and reach out to accept our rights as God’s children, that formula will have its inevitable results.
Faith is the expectancy of Good, while fear is the expectancy of ill. What we expect we invite into our mind and it will manifest in some way in our experience. Why not start NOW on this glorious adventure of expecting good expecting health, plenty and happiness, remembering because we are, we can!
Prayer as Power
Edna Lister, transcript, May C. Wilder, scribe, June 5, 1958, Tacoma, WA
The world today is full of people who are frustrated and confused. Our press, radio and television constantly give forth information that is startling, disturbing, and to many, frightening. Millions are turning to things in the world about them for something that furnishes momentary forgetfulness. Prayer is the only answer. As we properly understand and effectively use it, prayer is the greatest form of Power that can be generated.
Prayer is our means of contact with God, our Creator and the Source of all Power. When one habitually prays with faith believing this prayer will thoroughly alter any life. Only through prayer can we truly achieve the complete harmonious unity of body, mind and spirit which transforms weakness and confusion into unshakable strength. This kind of prayer is not begging or primarily asking for things.
Jesus puts it this way, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” A peasant found sitting quietly before an altar gazing intently at a painting of Christ was asked what the was doing, he replied, ‘I am looking at Him and He is looking at me.” That’s it, no words are really necessary. No one can look steadily at the pure, selfless, forging Christ over a period of time without experiencing a mysterious transformation in his life.
When we pray, we link ourselves with the inexhaustible motive Power that runs the Universe. In faith, we ask that a bit of this Power be sent forth to fulfill our needs and we affirm that it is SO. As we then go quieted and strengthened about our business of living, we find it is True. We have been helped. We are better and happier people.
Some ask, why is it not always true? do we pray enough? Some pray a little morning and evening and then try to go alone the rest of the time. Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.” An ancient teacher said, “Think of God more often than you breathe.” It is true, Prayer is constant communion with the Father and the Great Source of All Power. It must become a constant habit.
Sometime ago I ran across a story of one of our great musical artists whose life has been given to his art and to giving up the great gifts God has given him to bring beauty and the true rhythm of song into the hearts and lives of people. We feel the story will bring us a picture that will be uplifting in times?? when in parts of our own country there still lingers a race problem. Roland W. Hayes has done as much as any other of his race to lift the minds of men above the thought of prejudice and racial enmity.
Jesus put it this way, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” A peasant found sitting quietly before an altar gazing intently at a painting of Christ was asked what the was doing, he replied, ‘I am looking at Him and He is looking at me.” That’s it, no words are really necessary. No one can look steadily at the pure, selfless, forging Christ over a period of time without experiencing a mysterious transformation in his life.
When we pray, we link ourselves with the inexhaustible motive Power that runs the Universe. In faith, we ask that a bit of this Power be sent forth to fulfill our needs and we affirm that it is so. As we then go quieted and strengthened about our business of living, we find it is true. We have been helped. We are better and happier people.
Some ask, why is it not always true? do we pray enough? Some pray a little morning and evening and then try to go alone the rest of the time. Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.” An ancient teacher said, “Think of God more often than you breathe.” It is true, Prayer is constant communion with the Father and the Great Source of All Power. It must become a constant habit.
We can resolve to pray without ceasing for a definite period of time just keeping the consciousness centered on God so Light, Love, joy, understanding and other attributes that come to us as we go about our regular living and the Power of God will bring them into manifestation in our lives. We will then continue to pray without ceasing to live in the state of Oneness of the Father as has the artist in our story who learned the Power of Prayer.
What is in the heart and the soul makes an individual. God measures a man by how he expresses Him.
The Art of Giving
Edna Lister transcript, May Wilder, scribe, June 15, 1958, Tacoma, WA
Sometime ago I read an unusual book entitled, “Try Giving Yourself Away,” by David Dunn. A reviewer has said this book equals the discovery of atomic energy in importance! It is the extraordinary and true story of a man who turned his impulses into an exciting hobby—looking for opportunities to give, not the ordinary gifts one buys, but special little treasures of self that money cannot buy. He came to feel that more than anything else, the world needs the healing influence of a great surge of simple kindheartedness to rid humanity of selfishness and greed and to set the pattern for a kinder world.
Fortunately, each of us has a different assortment of gifts, some have spare time, others have special skill or talents, and we all can give appreciation, kindness, understanding, tolerance and a score of other little portions of ourselves.
New Thought for a New World
Edna Lister, June 29, 1958, International New Thought Alliance 43rd Congress, New York, NY, Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.–Psalm 23.
The sixth of a series of eight articles on “Adventures of the Mind” appeared in the June 14, 1958 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Entitled “The Dimension of Depth,” author Dr. Paul Tillich of Harvard University, says that while man is rushing forward on a horizontal plane, he has lost contact with the religious dimension of depth.
Man can never find answers to any questions about religion until he moves back up into the dimension of depth, which is heaven’s height. He presents this matter in such clearness as to give us answers for an agnostic or one in doubt. New thought then adds the dimensions of height, depth and Light.
We have left the past in many ways: From doing laundry on rocks in a stream to beating clothes with a paddle to agitator washers and spin dryers today. We’ve moved from cooling cream and butter in a bucket lowered down a well, to deep freezers. We’ve advanced from horse and camel to Ford’s Model A, to jets and satellites.
Science and technology have built a new world because its practitioners have been doing the “greater works.” From the most primitive means to our present workable, available methods for every success, new thought has been doing the greater works also.
We have all witnessed miraculous healing manifest under “new thought” declarations of truth. Without new thoughts, science and religion would still be dropping the lard pail down a well, as grandmother did. Science as “new thought” discovers new things. Religion as “new thought” creates new bodies and minds, new lives for old. We, who live by the new thought approach of unconquerable faith, are just as scientific as the scientist in his laboratory.
Every day brings new thoughts to replace the old and to change from old ways. As an example, Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.–Psalm 23:5. New thought teaches that you can have no enemies; therefore, your table is prepared for you in the midst of your loved ones. However, this psalm does not say that the food is on the table. Nowhere does it mention that God provides the food. So, ask yourself, “What am I feeding my loved ones?” Sour looks, criticism, or smiles and the love of God?
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.–Psalm 23:2. Some never leave their first “still waters.” They simply stagnate there. Others lie down in peace in their first green pasture, remaining until it is brown, barren and lifeless. The pasture dries up because they dry up, forgetting to seek another green pasture.
New thought sends you into larger, greener pastures. Sometimes you find yourself in a beautiful, peaceful paradise of love. You intend to remain there forever, but an angel, armed with a flaming sword, drives you out, then bars the gate so you cannot return.
You may never return to the old. New thought demands that you grow and ascend in consciousness. You must add to your old methods or change them to meet the new world. Yesterday’s ideals become tomorrow’s opinions and prejudices unless you add new thoughts to them today, because you outgrow the old.
Science and technology have devised a motor for rudders. The ship’s pilot sets the compass on a certain course. It then sets the motor, which controls the rudder and holds it steadfast to the course. If winds or tides move the rudder, an electrical impulse from the pilot house restarts the motor, which resets the rudder, so the course never varies.
New thought sets your compass in unconquerable faith toward your goal. When winds and storms disturb you, God sends an electrical charge of illumination to hold you fast on your course. General Motors’ Spark Plug Division has invented an electronic device, the Vibracall, which you carry in your pocket; it vibrates silently when it receives a signal, and you call the office. The voice of your conscience acts in much the same way.
The new world of science is using ultrasonics in brain surgery, for painless dental work, and in dish-washing. When you live by the law of unconquerable faith, a definite vibration signals you when God needs you. It touches your brain cells and you answer the call in prayer.
God gives and radiates the compulsion to give. All He can do is to give. When your prayers of need reach far enough into the dimension of height, you invoke God’s good gifts, His perfect gifts from above. New thought is doing “the greater works.” The works can be as great as humanity can “believe to see.”
Ask yourself, “Am I bold enough in the faith of God? Do I know my love of God can bridge the abyss from yesterday across today, and make ready to meet the challenge of tomorrow? Do I know that I can do this with faith unconquerable?”
When you do step up, others will see you as walking in the strength of God’s strength. They will see you as enfolded in the love of God’s love. They will see you as filled with the glory of God’s glory, all radiant, all brilliant, and all beauty, triumphant and victorious.
Keys of the Kingdom
Edna Lister article, International New Thought Alliance Quarterly Magazine, Spring 1958. Matthews 6:33, Matthew 5:25, John 21:22, 1 Thessalonians 5:22, John 12:32, Genesis 1:4
There are many different approaches to God, and many precepts or laws comprising the various methods of approach. Finding a method that works for you under all circumstances is the most important thing in your life once you know the truth, accept it and live it. These precepts, based on the unchangeable principles of God, represent methods that enable you to apply what you know to what you do in your daily expression of truth. They represent the keys to the door that opens your own individual kingdom of heaven, which each must enter alone.
Once you choose a particular method, you must stand within your creative kingdom in constancy and love, using every precept included in that method. Your choice should be based on your own particular needs to meet your own emotional and mental life, your personal relationships, and above all, to fulfill a perfect relationship with God.
One precept common to all methods is the first and most important—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”–Matthews 6:33—with complete dependence on the fulfillment of the promise it contains that all else shall be added. This is the promise that you shall have your miracles. This command sounds simple to obey, so simple that you may fail to realize the magnitude of its importance in your creative life.
Seeking the kingdom first requires practice, prayer, and loving God enough and above all things, until you reach the point where you stand fully clothed with a glorious God-consciousness day and night, without a moment’s deviation or letting go. It means that you stand still for an instant to let the Light of God possess you before you speak or act. You stand in the place where Spirit cannot be moved, hurt or dismayed about anything that earth can produce. Obeying this law, you practice complete surrender to let the Christ Light shine as you. You surrender in love, to be the servant of all the Power of God.
For the second in our series of six creative laws, consider this one–"Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him."–Matthew 5:25. To many persons, this seems to mean giving up all personal freedom, but nothing is further from the truth. Your freedom is infringed only when another, who is full of opinions and prejudices, seeks to force his method of living on you, whether physically, mentally or spiritually, or to interfere with your personal choice of how to live the Christ-life. You need not offend others to remain free.
First moving into your own kingdom of heaven for an instant of contact with the Light, you tell the adversary that you are certain that he is right in his ideas and that he has worked out a wonderful method for himself. Then ask him to tell you more about it. Rest assured, he will be only too glad to talk about it, and in the talking, forget his first intentions. To agree means to be agreeable right now, not tomorrow.
The self-appointed adversary will be happy to see your interest in him, never realizing that you have not promised to follow his method. Sometimes, because all barriers of resentment melted away when you first called on God, you do find a new way in which to apply a law of truth. An open mind always receives a gift from an adversary.
We find the third precept in our series in Jesus’ answer to Peter when he inquired about John—"What is that to thee? Follow thou me."–John 21:22. While wondering about anyone else, you cannot be all the way inside your own kingdom. Just partway is not good enough—you must seek diligently enough to move in all the way. From your own center of Light, you find it easy to be agreeable, leaving everyone else to follow their own chosen way. The only result you can ever expect if you try to force someone to do it your way is confusion and disturbance for everyone concerned. It is only good sense, therefore, to leave others alone, and to see to it that you follow your own high law closely and become a living example of Light.
The fourth precept tells us to "Abstain from all appearance of evil."–1 Thessalonians 5:22. This means that if it is not good for the whole world to do all the time, it is not good for you to do even once. To check yourself constantly as to indifference or carelessness, and to watch all the small details of daily life so that you can never be caught "off base," is a full measure of service to truth. You avoid the appearance of evil by obeying all the laws of your chosen method of expression of truth. Thus, you walk steadfastly toward the goal of your own high calling in Christ Jesus.
The fifth precept is, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."–John 12:32. Everyone has someone else who depends on his expression of strength and courage. Everyone is lifting someone else in the higher Light. Everyone has the deep desire to lift at least one other person ever higher. This requires a constantly increasing effort in practicing all the rules of your chosen method. It means to seek God first more eagerly, so you may be more agreeable in all your contacts with your fellow man. It means reaching forth to everyone who comes to you with arms of love and compassion and understanding. This is a high and glorious lifting.
Sixth, you now declare all your creations good and very good, as God did in Genesis 1. "This is good. Let there be Light." When you use this sixth precept of your method, substance moves forth to fill your molds and bring your creations into visibility. These are the laws of the creator you have now become, and pronouncing, "All is Good," is the final key that opens the door into your own kingdom of heaven. You have entered the House of the Lord, and there you shall dwell forever as a creator of wondrous miracles of life.
Take Time to Live Now
Edna Lister, July 6, 1958
Paul said to the Ephesians as he was exhorting them on the Christian way of living: “See, then, that ye walk circumspectly as wise, redeeming the time.” Our dictionary tells us that circumspectly means cautiously, watchfully and to redeem means to “make good, to compensate". See, then, that ye walk watchfully seeking good the time.
Perhaps if Paul were living today, he might say, “Take time to live, that you may fulfill the purpose of your life.” It seems that most people are today living at such a speed, always trying to keep ahead of time, (not so wisely) as Paul expressed it.
Charles Lamb once declared and truly that “spirits grow gray before our hairs.” One starts out in youth with the thrill of Life in his heart, he looks at oncoming life as an adventure, but how often (ere he has traveled far) life blows cold winds upon him and he begins to plod wearily over a pathway from which much of the glory has fled. Someone has said there is one certain way (with no thought of years) to decide whether one is old. “What is our attitude when we arise in the morning?” Youth awakes with a feeling of excitement in his heart, a feeling that seems to say, “This is a great day, a day in which wonderful things will happen.” beautiful day to be glad in.
Age, on the other hand, arises with heart unresponsive, not expecting any great thing to happen. “This is just another day, about like all the rest.” However some people keep the spirit of expectation at threescore and ten even though some lose it early in life.
What are we expecting? What do we visualize for each new day? A little girl and her mother were saying prayers, “God this has been a lovely day. What do you have for us tomorrow?” Expectations! The measure of one’s age is how well he retains the romance of life, that priceless possession on which the real joy of life depends.
A young girlonce told of how she lay in bed at night and heard the long, low whistle of a train among the hills in Western New York. She said, “I could see in imagination the speeding train with its brightly cars whisking through the night. I’ve always loved a train and to me even today it’s a thrilling sight to see and a great train speeding over a country side, brightly silhouetted against darkness. She added, I even get love to plan to a train trip, it still fascinates me.” How wonderful to keep the joy of her youth even though the years have passed.
Are you still planning for the things you’ve long wanted to realize, to go to places you’ve looked forward to seeing and to do something new and different that you’ve not yet had time to do? All of this is part of the secret of a successful and happy life. This enthusiasm keeps the romance in your life! Robert Lewis Stevenson, although confined to a bed of pain through long years, kept romance in his life by writing happy jingling verses that have made children all over the world radiantly happy. He knew how to “sing in the rain.” He found that a secret of happy living was learning to know the real from the appearance and be content and joyous with the true and the genuine.
Life is an art and to be accomplished in it, one must seek only the fineness of quality that deep in our hearts we know makes?? life, a great experience (when we make it so). Stevenson wrote and the children love, “The world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings.” How they pictured each one, the things to make him happy. Are we still picturing?
Life teaches that it is not the outer things that make us happy. Today we can just push buttons all over our homes for light, music, heat and even television entertainment. Our grandparents had no such buttons, but they were just as happy and knew the joy as well as the art of living. We have to learn to discriminate to choose the vest what kind of light? What kind of music and pictures and as we learn to choose wisely all thing we do (as Paul said) we learn the true art of living.
This hasty, hurrying age can so easily leave us bewildered, out of breath, and filled with frustrations, many then go to psychology for release. Most people need to learn to reduce life’s tempo in order to know it’s deepest meaning and its true happiness. A group of nuns about to travel through Africa employed native bearers, and told them they were in hurry, as American’s usually are. On the third morning, after two days of traveling through the jungle at a fast pace, they found the natives they’d hired resting under trees, refusing to move. Upon being asked why, they anaswered, “We rest today to let our souls catch up with our bodies.” What a lesson on how to find real values of life.
How much of life, how much of the true romance of living we miss by our failure to take time to live, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. The Master Jesus taught us to take the values from simple things of life. He showed man that the true values are not to be found in the material, but in the things of spirit. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.
The supreme values of the world nurture the spirit—true music, pure art, good literature and religion, our Christian Way of Life. These proceed directly from Divine Mind as food for the soul of man. Jesus so wisely said, “man does not live by bread alone.” We must also nourish things of the spirit. Should we not also live by taking time to feed on the beauties of God’s world about us? The “music in air,” the bird song, the unharried sounds of the world of nature, the ecstasy of a beautiful sunset, the inspiration and majesty of a mountain in the glow of that setting sun. All these are manifestations of the Presence of the Eternal. Let us learn to hear the Voice of Mother Nature, which is the Voice of God saying, My child, this is Life. Take time to live it.” A man goes fishing to get out in the open, to commune with God, and adds years to his life.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once said, “We do not primarily live to work, we work to live.” Do not be a slave to life’s machinery. Take time to listen to a beautiful song, read a lovely poem, and to hear the whisper of God in your soul. Take time for consideration, and loving kindness. Express tenderness to those about you, and lend a helping hand when others need it. Bless all men everywhere!
Mark Twin reminded us that good books and good friends are a real part of life. Let us not permit the busyness of life to keep us from the happiness of true friendship. Solomon tells us “a man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.” Take time to be friendly, remembering that a friend loves at all times, is never too busy. The Master’s Way of Life is one of loving, of giving, and of doing. Take each hour’s time to live it fully, even as he lived in a worthwhile way. It takes time to live right and love Life as you live it now!
The Commandments and Beatitudes
Edna Lister trascript, Ruth Johnson, Lotus Landis, Ross and Virginia Whitehead, scribes, November 4, 1958, Cleveland, OH
The Bible is the written revelation of Light. The Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) are the Bible’s chief revelations. The Commandments teach obedience to law, and the Beatitudes teach you how to become that law. To overcome, to conquer and ascend, you must obey the wisdom principles of the Commandments and become the love principles of the Beatitudes.
The Ten Commandments integrate with the first 33 Degrees of the Via Christa; there are three sets of 33 Degrees in the Way of Christ, which are independent of one another. Both sets of law are part of the 33 Degrees in the Order of Melchizedek, which we call the Order of Christed Ones.
The first set of Via Christa degrees deal with the physical and emotional expressions of life. The second set includes the mental expressions of life, and the final set covers the soul’s life of spirit. These comprise thirty degrees of initiation. The 31st Degree is of the Priest; the 32nd Degree is the Christos, and the 33rd Degree is initiation into the Order of Melchizedek, who is the Supreme Father. These degrees form a perfect balance of Love and Wisdom expressed as the Holy Ghost. In Masonry the 33rd Degree is the degree of outer service.
The Ten Commandments in the Great Pyramid: The initiations of the ten Commandments also parallel those taken within the various chambers inside the Great Pyramid at Giza, in Egypt. The Tribes of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years after leaving Egypt, the time it took to purge them of the soul taints they had gained there. Finally, their travels purified them enough to receive the Commandments at Sinai.
The floor of the unfinished subterranean chamber is like a mountain range, while the ceiling is smooth. Called the Chamber of Chaos, it is the “pit of desire.” Anyone who falls into it finds himself in complete blackness.
The soul’s physical expression of the ten Commandments operates in the passage to the entrance. There are twenty-eight steps in the passage and two steps above, which make the thirty degrees of the initiation.
Some people remain in the mere physical expression of law all their lives. The long passage represents the slow disintegration of the world of evil. All evil is being absorbed from earth and sent to the corona of the sun. “Forever” is the time needed to cleanse the life sparks.
The physical ten Commandments represent the first Age of Law. Moses was the first to teach that you cannot afford to live with resentments. He had to because so many among the Israelites resented losing the physical comforts of living in Egypt.
No matter at what point in consciousness you disobey the ten Commandments, you misuse the creative fire. Your soul is composed of this fiery substance of life sparks. Freud never progressed beyond the first descending passage, which leads to misuse of your soul substance.
The Queen’s Chamber represents hearing the truth and being tired of hearing it. You find no way out of the Queen’s Chamber other than by retracing your steps. You do this by declaring, “I accept.” You may fall while coming back from the Queen’s Chamber. We have to become responsible for Law. f you lack the desire to climb, it is slick and down you go, into the Grotto, then must retrace our steps. All fears are gathered in the Grotto.
When the Ten Commandments are conquered on the mental plane, we can go into the mental plane and not be bothered. Once one lifts the self, the Queen’s Chamber becomes the Holy of Holies. The great step is your Initiation and can only be taken by giving up of self. Forgiveness takes you up these two steps. When someone blames you unjustly and you say, “Forgive me for being an offense,” you climb the two steps. Even though you don’t like the idea of this, just say, “I accept tghat there might be a grain of truth in this.” The final Initiation is taken on the Sun.
The Commandments explain your obedient relation to God on the wisdom ray. They teach us how to stand firm and worship God on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Since they teach obedience on the active principles of doing (thou shalt, thou shalt not), we call them laws of right action. Each commandment is a key to an initiation, which is a test of your virtue, or power. The overall theme is ascension of consciousness through obedience to law.
The Beatitudes are part of the law of love revealed through the Begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. We call them “be-attitudes” because they are attitudes of being. They teach you how to become under the love ray, so we call them the laws of right being. Beatitudes deal with love principles like faith, hope and charity. Faith is a matter of logic and reason, and falters only when imagination works overtime. Every life spark contains Mind, Substance and Power. God created form for the descending creator gods to use, and every cell of your body contains Mind as intelligence, Substance as form, and active Power as energy. You can have absolute faith in these principles.
Moses received the Commandments on two tablets of stone, representing the elements of fire and water, the spiritual and emotional-mental levels, or the Father and Mother principles. Fire represents man’s relationship to God under illumination, where you are set afire with zeal and burning desire. The fire element is attuned to Aries, the first appearance of the creative fire principle. Each fiery life spark is a tiny flame of desire. Nothing can contain fire, for it always breaks free. Soul substance life sparks long for the Source. When they break free, it is an acknowledgment of our Source. The water element is attuned to Cancer, the creative principle that embodies Mother love. Water represents man’s relationship and obligation to other men under the emotions or intuition.
The Land of Egypt: “God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”–Exodus 20:1-2. Egypt refers to the three lower vital centers, sacral, lumbar and solar plexus, below the body’s diaphragm (the thin sheet of muscle under the lungs that enables breathing). Creature soul uses these centers to maintain the physical, emotional and mental life. Creature soul rules as Pharaoh at the navel center, the solar plexus.
The “house of bondage” is enslavement to the illusion of the five outer senses. This tells us not to lower our vibration to bondage to “little self” again. On the Wheel of Ezekiel, the Land of Egypt extends from Aries to Gemini.
First Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not have any other gods besides me.”–Exodus 20:3. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”–Matthew 5:3.
These laws exemplify Aries, the pioneer of action. Obedience to law begins the long, slow process of conquering, which leads to the first marriage of the Lamb, when you ascend self-centered desires and will to mate them with the will and love of God. Obedience is remembering that God is your Source, quest and goal. God is indivisible. You cannot take just one part of God and worship it as the whole. God is Light and the creative fire within you. When God is first in your life, finding your way along the Path is simple because you walk in the Light as Light.
“What do I really want?” If the answer is not God, you have put another god before Him. When you completely surrender to God’s will and worship no other gods, Light guides you. Look up to God and worship with an acknowledgment of your Source.
Second Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not make for yourselves a graven image or any likeness which is in the Heavens above or which is in the earth beneath or which is in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow yourself to them and you shall not serve them: for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers on children on the third and fourth generations to those that hate me; doing kindness to thousands, to those loving me and to those keeping my commandments.”–Exodus 20:5-6. “Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.”–Matthew 5:4. These laws epitomize Taurus, which is a feminine earth sign. The Commandment refers to your creative faculties.
God manifests as Light. Light is God. You may not worship a single part of God as the whole. God is Light and a fire that is all-consuming. Light has no outer form. When you make anything in the image and likeness of what you find in creature soul, the world, in negative emotions or thoughts, you have made an image of something besides Light. What you worship, bow to or serve can have no symbol-image. You worship and serve God as the Light first.
Do you model your life, emotions or actions after another? Do you bow before worldly power in others, or to your own opinions and prejudices? Do you serve self or others before God? You make these images and only you can declare them melted, dissolved and absorbed into Light. When you mate your selfish desires to God’s desire for you, you become as perfect as He is, and ascend to the Source. God is jealous of His desire for you, which is nothing less than being full a co-creators with Him. Iniquity is to make a graven image, to form molds of anything less than Light-filled prayer substance.
The “third and fourth generations” are the sacral, lumbar, navel and heart centers and four creative faculties that become muddied when you bow before graven images. “Doing kindness to thousands” refers to Light permeating all seven vital centers, lotus and sun centers to melt, dissolve and absorb all crystallization. The House of Taurus lost its power through desire, the central building faculty of consciousness, when it turned to the “golden calf,” the love of money and possession of material things. Blessed are those who mourn the loss of graven images or things. Yet you can convert mourning to laughter and heaviness of spirit to joy: “Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.”–James 4:9.
Third Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not leave unpunished him who takes His name in vain.”–Exodus 20:7. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”–Matthew 5:5.
God’s name on earth is Good, a great power in the world. You do not take from God, but receive from His bounty of miracles. Taking God’s name in vain is making declarations from the point of self, using the Power of His good name, which is a misuse of creative fire. These laws typify Gemini, the mutable air sign that rules speech. Gemini’s symbol is the dual twins. The higher side knows the sanctity of God’s name, while the lower side takes the name in vain by using force. The “meek” are those on the higher pole of consciousness. Meekness here means being open to Light. You surrender to become the servant of all Power. Stand in a room of Light and make perfect declarations of good.
This commandment deals with creative speech. Use no idle words. “I am tired” or “How stupid I was” or “This is terrible” are curses that take the name of God in vain. “Ye are gods” when you give up cursing yourself and others. Here you apply I AM, a great name of God. Say instead, “I AM dwelling in the River of Life,” or “I AM dwelling in the heart of the flame.” I AM is the key. “I and my Father are one.” You are like unto your heavenly Father, made in His image and likeness.
The three phases of Mind include subconscious, conscious and superconscious. You have three phases of soul expression also. Intuition in the pituitary gland, illumination in the pineal body, and “I AM” consciousness in the Garden of Eden. You use either self-will or God’s will. Which do you choose? When your self-will conforms with God’s will, we open the “I AM” center, the glands and the faculties of the golden bowl. Who are you going to be, “I AM” or “little me?” How do you plan to make the trip home?
Fourth Commandment and Beatitude: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work: and the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work, you and your son and your daughter, your male slave and your female slave and your cattle and your stranger who is in your gates. For in six days the Lord made the Heavens and the earth, the sea and all which is in them and He rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it.”–Exodus 20:8-11. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”–Matthew 5:6.
As the eighth verse, this commandment tells you how to tie your earth to heaven. Jesus fulfilled this when he said, “I and my Father are one,” and that the “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath describes the process by which God breathes the Breath of Life into man to make the living soul. You breathe this Holy Breath of Life daily to rebuild your body temple of the soul. Yet you misuse Holy Breath with self-thinking, negative emotions and idle words.
These laws exemplify Cancer, sign of the Mother of Earth, the house where the incarnate soul dwells. It is the sign of the Cherubim, the wardens of the sacred life force. Remember to keep one day wholly free of self. “Six days of labor” are how you conquer creature soul in the first six desire body vital centers. The seventh crown center, is the door of Oversoul. Remembering the Sabbath means keeping the golden silence and remaining open to Light. These verses describe lifting the little self. “You” is the Oversoul. “Your son” is the rational soul. “Your daughter” is the creature soul. “Your male slave” is the physical body. “Your female slave” includes the glands and plexus centers.
“Your cattle” are the evolving life sparks God charges the soul with lifting. The “stranger who is in your gates” is the dweller on the threshold of consciousness, the entity formed of your soul substance misused throughout all past lives. All these parts of “you” must maintain the golden silence of the Sabbath. The first six vital centers deal with the “Heavens and the earth and the sea and all which is in them”—the physical, emotional and mental phases of life. The seventh day is the spiritual phase of life, the Sabbath, to be kept silent and golden. Remembering the Sabbath is hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
Fifth Commandment and Beatitude: “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long on the land which the Lord thy God is giving you.”–Exodus 20:12. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”–Matthew 5:7.
“Father” and “mother” represent the Father and Mother principles of the River of Life: Wisdom and Love. The first Emanation is the Father of Mind. The second Emanation is the Mother of Substance. The third Emanation is the Son of all Power, the Logos, the Word, combining and equal to the Father and Mother. Honor God for all that He is. Ascend to the Source for understanding. Mind, Substance and Power are gifts bestowed by the River of Life when you ask daily to live, move and have your being in it. This is the key to Eternal Youth. When you breathe of the Emanations in the River of Life, your days are “long upon the land.”
The balance of love and wisdom is keyed to Leo. All ancestor worship stems from the lessons you learned here. The Father is fire, the Mother is water. God sends One Spirit forth through wisdom and the other is receptive in love. The Beatitude means that when you balance your expression of the Father and Mother principles of Wisdom and Love as compassion, you obtain mercy yourself.
The Sixth Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not murder.”–Exodus 20:13. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”–Matthew 5:8
This Commandment and Beatitude covers Virgo, Libra and Scorpio. You may not kill any desire. You cannot really “kill” anything in God’s Creation. You can alter its appearance, state of being or rate of vibration, but you do not change the substance or degree of mind within it. Any attempt to “kill” desire separates the Mind and Substance from Power, and creates force. As a co-creator with God, you are supposed to create only good. This is a call to rise above adept displays and manipulation of Power. You could say, “You shall not control but shall conquer by lifting all for Light to cleanse and purify.”
You cannot sever a line of Light, or you “kill” that vibration. Lift everything and everyone you meet. Allow nothing of earth to lessen, lower or “kill” your soul’s high vibration. For example, if you desire and plan to write a letter, then are delayed on the phone, you may resent it, which “kills” your desire because you use the desire’s energy as resentment. You experience delays because your disobedience kills your desire. You must carry your positive desire to act through to completion.
Seventh Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not commit adultery.”–Exodus 20:14. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”–Matthew 5:9.
These laws, which govern Sagittarius, command you to live a pure life without adulterating Oversoul or Mind, Substance and Power. You adulterate Mind, Substance and Power by separating them through force. Seven is the number representing the Priest who looks back to gain all wisdom from experience yet always goes forward. The Priest stands, worships God, and lets the Power move through under the principle of nonresistance.
You adultrate your own creative faculties with idle words, negative thinking, wild imagination and wrong desires such as revenge, resentment, hatred or jealousy. For instance, you adulterate your vibration when you say, “I’m tired.” You can release Light only on a joy vibration. Any adulteration of Light misuses Substance. So, if you breathe Light but exhale negativity, it returns to you a hundredfold. If you adulterate even a tiny law, you are convicted of misusing all law.
You may have done everything right for a month, but if you miss one point then to family, for instance, it’s as though you had never done anything right. Other people do not frustrate you, but your own disobedience to law does.You adulterate your relationship with God by making demands of the Light. Not using “let” as your open sesame, or living by creature soul urges will close out rational soul and Oversoul, which is your God conscious point of contact.
Eighth Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not steal.”–Exodus 20:15. “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for their’s is the Kingdom of Heaven.”–Matthew 5:10.
These laws govern Capricorn, the Gate of the Descended Gods, the Gate of Man, ruled by Saturn. Saturn is the sign of success when your obedience to law lets it strengthen you. Otherwise, it is a busy police officer writing tickets for your every violation. You need not steal anything from anyone anywhere or any time when you are at one with God. The Love of God is enough to sustain all. This is the number of tying your earth to your heaven. You may not mimic or pretend to virtues or faculties you have not already opened and developed. That is living by false pretenses.
What you “steal” is never yours. You must earn your credits without pretending them before the world. Anything less only delays the day when God authorizes and acknowledges your real assets. Do not steal another’s joy by hurting him emotionally, or his vibration by lessening it. Don’t steal from God by holding out on Him or slipping down the greased pole of consciousness to live by creature nature. To be satisfied with mimicry is to parrot old laws and truth. Ascend for new truths and laws in a difficult situation, and don’t look for causes of the old. Look for new laws to guide you through this new situation.
Ninth Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not testify against your neighbor a witness of falsehood.”–Exodus 20:16. “Blessed are you when they will reproach and persecute you and say every evil word against you, lying, on account of me.”–Matthew 5:11.
These laws govern Aquarius, sign of the brotherhood of man and the Mind of God which was in Christ Jesus. Uranus, the planet that reveals, the all-seeing eye rules Aquarius. Uranus tears away the veils of illusion to open the doors of heaven. You must declare everything good because you are open to the world’s hostility and antagonism. Someone must lift this and you can speak the Word to bring it out of hiding, to lift the participants into the Light.
This Commandment clearly pertains to lying and idle words. Jesus said to let your words be yes or no, for whatever is more than these is from evil. He explained the power of your words: “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”–Matthew 12:31-37.
The greatest danger of false witness is misusing soul substance, which goes forth on every word you speak. Idle words dilute the Power moving through, drain your Oversoul star and add substance to the dweller on the threshold of consciousness, the aggregate of your misuse. You must “bridle the tongue” since no other avenue of misuse squanders soul substance as rapidly. One hour’s idle gossip undoes the lifting and conquering of an entire month. Lifting includes covering others’ transgressions in speech as well. Never repeat gossip or another’s opinion of a situation.
Tenth Commandment and Beatitude: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male slave or his female slave or his ox or his ass or anything which belongs to your neighbor.”–Exodus 20:17. “Rejoice and be exceeding glad!”–Matthew 5:12.
These laws typify Pisces. Disobedience here breaks all law, and throws every phase of your relationship with God into disharmony. You must purify and lift creature soul to Oversoul under the process of Ascension. Coveting is desire turned downward. It arises from comparing what you have and your station in life with another, which is the basis for self-pity, martyrdom and repudiation of personal responsibility.
Make each day a day of judgment of self. Measure yourself only against the Light, never against your neighbor. When you compare your life to that of anyone else on earth, you covet. When you ask God to fill you with Light, anything of the Spirit that you covet will be added to you. Covet only God’s good. Work for it, obey, become law and “all these things shall be added unto you.” Paul say to “covet earnestly the best gifts” of the spirit (1 Corinthians 12:31). God gives spiritual gifts only when you ascend to the Garden of Eden, the golden bowl, the higher creative center in your head.
You must free the centers in the Land of Egypt, the abdomen, of self and deliver your own soul to the Promised Land of the heart center. The heart center is the respiratory point of balance between the three lower centers, the sacral, lumbar and solar plexus, and the three higher centers, the throat, brow and crown. To do this, you must observe Neophyte vows, especially the laws of breath. Once you achieve balance between inner and outer at the heart center, you begin crossing out all self at the throat center, to open the mystical “third eye” at the brow center.
Then you are ready to enter the Garden of Eden for the first marriage of the Lamb, mating self-centered desires with God’s Love and selfish will with God’s will for you. Selfish desires are covetousness, which you must completely lift before you may make this marriage. Begin with conquering self in small things and so prepare the way for full surrender for this great marriage. Let all heaven “rejoice and be exceeding glad” that the sons and daughters of God are returning Home.
Oracles of God
Edna Lister, November 16, 1958, Washington, D.C. Prayer Circle, 1 Peter 4:10-11, Ephesians 4:10-13
“As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”–1 Peter 4:10-11.
“He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”–Ephesians 4:10-13.
What is an oracle? What does it mean to speak as an oracle of God? In the ancient mystery schools, the priest or priestess often spoke from within an image or used ventriloquism to make the messages seem mysterious. People have always stood in awe of the mysterious. Paul’s oracle is different. “I will put the words upon your lips.” An oracle of God surrenders and dedicates himself to truth until he is certain of this conscious contact with God, one who loves God and lives by faith as conscious knowing.
From the creature’s unconscious instinctive intelligence to become an oracle of God is a long pilgrimage. An oracle has made the long pilgrimage, the long climb from resurrection to ascension. Resurrection means to be brought to life. You dig out the old and lift it into the Light. Ascension means to be lifted higher.
An apostle desires to live the truth. He is dedicated and surrendered. A prophet is unafraid to speak the truth. Many of today’s news commentators are prophets. An evangelist travels about preaching truth as he sees it. A pastor is a comforter. A teacher gives law. An oracle is a minister and must become all these combined to attain the stature of the Christ.
You can recognize milestones on the climb. In the beginner’s “leave me alone” stage, young zeal is slumbering. He climbs, falls and climbs again. Since the neophyte never knows whether his prayers are right or wrong, he descends to the cellar before climbing to the tower room. Thus he is a “skull bumper” in prayer, an escapist.
The keynote of soul awakening is the “you are wrong” stage. Here you see all the faults in others while remaining self-satisfied with “knowing the whole truth.” Yet, how can you learn about the wrong or right way to pray unless you see it outside yourself first? If you remain smug and “holier than thou,” you limit yourself to being a “ceiling bumper” in prayer. The first thing to ascend is your prayers. Learning that law governs everything is the first step in Resurrection. No one can penetrate the earthly mists of illusion until the pure love of God enters.
The third step is filled with “I think” and “I’ll do it my way.” This is the part-time “star grabber” in prayer. He still seeks to use Power and drag heaven down to earth intellectually. Brainwashing the old subconscious mind begins here. Talking about it begins the process. At least you are grabbing for the stars at this stage. People say, “It took the heart out of me.” Or, “It put me on a spot.” What spot? Ascend in consciousness, resurrect all old self and begin entering your Garden of Eden again. Being “put on a spot” is the only way God can help you resurrect past indifference, idleness and idle words.
The fourth step sees desire mated to will in the first marriage of the Lamb. Joy enters and you become I AM consciousness, a Christed one, an oracle of God. This is the place of trials by fire, many obstacles on the path, where you finish brainwashing the subconscious. Now comes the glory. Imagination turns upward and becomes vision. What is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven. When you loose imagination from inducting things of earth, you find that you have loosed vision in heaven. You, in turn, are loosed from opinions and prejudices, those violent obstacles, the hindering twins of darkness. You learn that opinions come from willfulness and prejudices from rebellion.
You enter your own Garden of Eden and no longer skid to the cellar. To live in the Garden of Eden is to be resurrected, transformed, changed from old ways to new. The whole process of resurrection from the past is based in the faith of God, and resurrection is faith in action. Your next step is consciousness that you must fill your faith with the love of God. The quality of the love of God you express fulfills ascension. To feel the full glory of being an oracle of God is to ascend through ascension of consciousness, to let ascension take you up to live as I AM consciousness, fully statured as the Christ. This is triumph!
You are no longer limited in your prayers. You are no longer skull-bumping or bouncing off the ceiling. You not only reach for the stars, but ride the stars as the truth of God, the faith of God. This becomes your glory and makes you an oracle triumphant.
Joy is Invincible Power
Edna Lister, November 17, 1958, Washington, D.C. Prayer Circle, John 15:9-11
“As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”–John 15:9-11.
Invincibility is above courage and beyond valor. It means to be untouchable and immovable, yet flexible, not resistant, which really expresses the law of nonresistance. Wisdom, Love and Joy are absolute principles that operate through the universe. You modify principles, numerous beyond counting, such as joy, into laws, such as nonresistance, to suit varying degrees of intelligence on earth. Joy produces invincible, protective rays of repulsion around you.
Life is a constant challenge and trial by fire, yet it must be so to purify the soul of earthly taints. Still, somewhere, some place, sometime, each soul must meet life’s full challenge and cease making self-excuses for being an also-ran. Stop being a puppet of chance and missing the mark. Joy is the answer. Joy, the one all-glorious, all-absorbing quality of God as man, is not even a first cousin to ordinary happiness, and you cannot apply it to another like a sticker on a package. Joy is the energy principle in action, the essence of the Holy Spirit that causes every cell to sit up, and dance with a twinkle in its eye. You can contact joy as such an all-fulfilling vibration when your prayers break the mental barrier. Prayers become invincible when you fill them with the fervency of valor.
Most prayers are merely payable-on-demand checks presented at God’s Bank to cover your needs, or promissory drafts on Power for strength. You collect from God the exact amount left to you after your deductions. You pray, earning the release of just so much Power and Substance. Your deductions may include resentment, rebellion, self-pity, pride, griping and grief. For months you have had perfect thoughts, pictures and feelings, and declared everything good. Since you are such a joy-worker, you attract everyone with a need.
If you are not looking for more invincible joy, you will soon hear yourself pray, “Lord, send me help since everyone calls me to gripe and complain. I can’t take it anymore.” You poor little thing. What’s wrong? Declare instead, “Lord, I am strong. Lord, I am joy.” Then people will say, “How beautiful you look. How lovely you are.” Experiment with invincible joy. It will stand the test of time, take you through any trial by fire, and over any obstacle. Every hour’s joy is your investment in your life annuity for eternal youth and beauty, for God is the youth and beauty we express.
In youth, people say, “I’ll never live this down. He’ll never live that down,” but as they mature, the wise souls learn to declare, “Let’s live this up. Invincible joy goes before me, clearing my way. Joy goes wherever I send it.” Invincible joy propels you into your untouchable, invulnerable orbit of conquering. “I have fallen in love with God, and I am in love with life.” Your tomorrow will be perfect because you are so lovely today.
Joy to the World
Edna Lister, December 21, 1958, John 3:16-17, Luke 2:1-17
Throughout our country, in many places in the other parts of the world today, the most beautiful and glorious story ever to be written or told is being spoken and sung to literally millions of people. This story tells us of the most precious and the most magnificent gift ever given. This gift, [the] Son of God to come to earth as the Holy Babe was given as [the] greatest expression of Love every to have been made manifest. Our Christmas celebrates this gift and so has come to represent to all of us the one thought—Give.
God My Father so loved that he gave—that He sent “His only Begotten Son” to a world that has misused His substance and had fallen into darkness. Only God can truly measure His Gift of the Christ to us. Only He can comprehend the Power of this 1st [first] Christmas gift. This gift that means the beginning of Christianity, the second chance for the world. The hope for peace and the only Way for that peace.
The promise the angels sang is the most wonderful music the world has ever heard. Read verses 13 and 14. Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Glory to God in the highest, sung as keynote of the Christmas celebration. It was not an announcement of the state of the world at the time. But a promising, God’s promise, of what one day shall come to pass. It tells of the one way, The Way, untried and untested folly, the Way of Him who was born a Babe in Bethlehem.
The angel had told the shepherds, “Behold, I bring your good tidings of Great Joy.” Only God could send forth with His Divine Gift, the complete Joy of Giving, for God could never give but in complete Joy. This Joy was and still is shed into hearts of men as they receive of the Christ Spirit. The joy expressed it as we sing of it, as Joy to the World, the Lord is come.” This Joy has become higher Light of our observance of this day, as we send to all about us our greeting of Merry Christmas.
Once upon a time a very young angel was being shown around the splendors and glories of the universe by a senior, more experienced angel. After seeing whirling galaxies and blazing suns, young angel was being shown the galaxy of which our planetary system is but a small part. The senior angel pointed to a small, rather insignificant sphere turning slowly on it axis, saying, “I want you to watch that one particularly.”
The littlest angel said, “What’s special? It looks very small and rather dirty to me.” The senior angel answered, “It is the Visited Planet, it has been visited by our own Prince of Glory.” They went back in time, and suddenly in the upper half of the globe, there appeared a light so bright, both angels closed their eyes, “I can guess,” said the little angel, “that was the Visit, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered the senior angel, “that was the Visit. The Light himself went down there and lived among them and this little sphere is important because he did and is working out his plan upon it.” The little angel said quietly, “I see. I shall never forget that this is the Visited Planet.”
In the eyes of the Eternal World, this planet called earth, is of highest importance for on that Christmas eve, nearly 2,000 years ago, it became the Visited Planet, visited by the Light Himself who became the gift of Love that is changing the minds and hearts of men.
From the small children to the aged, the words, Anno Domini (AD) are sent out into the world carrying their vibration of Joy. Each of us become as little children on this one day of the year and the Joy of our giving is balanced by our gracious and joyous receiving. As we, in JOY and Love honor the Christ, so do we received of Him and of the Father.
Christmas is not only symbolical of the Christ Spirit of Joy which filled the hearts of the Magi as they followed the star and come to the Child that they might present them gifts. It is also synonymous with the Christ Light which descended through that Star and “shone round about where the young child lay.” So we string Lights on the tree in our home, our communities become a fairyland of Light as we celebrate that first birthday. This represents the “Living Soul” as it descends upon man, and as this “Living Soul” we come to understand and comprehend the significance and magnificence of the Joy, Light and Love that Jesus personified. Let us here pretend for a bit, go into the fanciful for a moment with one writer who says,
Once upon a time at this Christmas we are inspired to greater fervency in our devotion to God who gave to His Son who brought the Light, the joy and the love to our earth, [the greater is] the Flame of devotion, the greater is our aspiration for something higher?? and better. We thank God for Christmas.
The hope of the world lies in the Christmas message: Immanuel, God with us. Today we need not only political machinery of many?? (to fashion a new earth) and the ethical endeavors and human planning, but the supreme need now is the influx of a new power from above. Christ as the desire of all nations and the hope of the end of war on earth.
Christmas is a time for Joy. “For God so loved” means that He gave Light to whosoever believeth. You are equipped with the necessarty means to accept the love of God which Jesus Christ came to offer us. This is so simple that nothing more is necessary than to listen to that which God says to you, as He spoke thtough Jesus Christ.
There are many interpretations of this Christmas story. Whatever may be our thought, we do know that through the Love, brought to earth by the birth of the Christ child, man has learned the spirit of the Christ within him that frees him from the bondage of self as he accepts it. And as we become filled with his Love and the Joy it brings, we are released from the world of tensions. The Light of the Star still shining upon earth becomes the eternal Light that reigns within us. As the Master said, he is “the Light of the world.”
.
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.
References
The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).
The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, ed., San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.
Tillich, Paul, “Dimension of Depth,” Adventures of the Mind. Mark Van Doren, editor. Knopf, New York,1959. http://www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeXI_1958/XI-28.pdf