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Pioneering Mystic Lectures, 2007
Christi Carlson, March 22, 2007, Cleveland, Ohio
As I head north I see a patch of green on the horizon; what a blessed site as I exclaim “There it is; I’m almost there!” I huff and puff my way forward, gasping for breath that is rapidly becoming more labored. My body is feeling so tired as I have traveled non-stop for almost 500 miles. I must keep going; I have come so far. I must avoid any wind turbulence, even at this juncture or I could perish at sea. I cannot stop, it is only a little bit further and I will be home. As the green space grows bigger and bigger, I notice there are mostly buildings and structures and the resting spot appears to be someone’s backyard. I spot some lovely trumpet flowers on a fence and drop from the sky completely exhausted. Despite the modest conditions, the vine leaves will provide a safe place to rest and the trumpet flower will provide much needed nourishment for the next leg of this trip.
This traveler is a Ruby-throated hummingbird, and it has just completed a 500-mile journey across the Gulf of Mexico from South America. It is headed to Ohio where it will find a mate and raise a family for the summer. The bird will make this same trip in reverse in September. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird weighs about the same as 2-1/2 paper clips. It would have doubled its weight for its migration journey. On this first day of spring, hummingbird sitings have already been reported in the southern United States. The precise guidance system involved in hummingbird migration is unknown, yet their fortitude and perseverance during migration is unwavering. They do not migrate in flocks as many other birds do, so they are going it alone. They may commit to different migratory paths, they may stop over in different places, they may become aggressive when looking for food; despite these challenges and hardships, they share a single migration strategy and have great fidelity to their migration routes.
Every spring, birds migrate north and an arrival in our backyards of a Red-winged blackbird, Robin, or even a Grackle, announces that spring is around the corner. Even the buds on a tree and that of a flower have held on all winter, surviving the harshest of weather conditions, are waiting to reveal their beauty. Their most important task still lies ahead of them, the seeds will hopefully be germinated, the flowers pollinated, and the birds will mate & raise a family. These cycles continue every year.
What is the limit of our endurance? What is our fortitude and perseverance on our path to God?
The glossary on The Via Christa defines fortitude and perseverance as follows:
Fortitude: is holding fast to your principles, which gives soul the power to exercise choice. Fortitude is an abstract principle, a law of being and of doing, a cardinal virtue and a Via Christa Degree under the principles of Power and energy.
Perseverance: is constant persistence in a course of action, purpose, or state, steadfast pursuit of an aim, tenacious assiduity (as-i-doo-i-tee: constant effort, diligence, devoted attention.) Perseverance, a soul virtue and an initiatory degree, is continuance in a state of grace, leading finally to a state of glory. You may characterize your perseverance with dogged determination or deliberate joyousness; the former makes your task grimly onerous, the latter a pleasure. Your Ascension work must equal the Power moving through you, and you must back it with persistence, perseverance and a continuous soul-need to move higher, reach higher, understand more, comprehend more. All obstacles become a challenge for the initiate to practice steadfastness and perseverance. Persevere in standing under the Light, which will shine on your path to the goal
Edna Lister performed a sermon on November 15, 1953 called “Wearing Your Armor ” that I thought would be appropriate to read here.
You can read it here:
Cycles
(From Edna Lister’s Life in a Nutshell
)Spring announces itself with the greening of branch and opening of buds. Nature’s life looks up and pushes up to its capacity during the summer season of growth. Winter announces its campaign with turning leaves in autumn. Falling leaves foretell that nature’s life is sinking into a rest that simulates a little death.
The compelling urge behind the seasons springs from the same life, and differs only in the direction it takes.
You are a thinking, choosing, feeling, conscious being, and you may choose your direction, either up into greater increase or down into a rest that ends all growth. You need not wait for spring’s gentle urge to be up and doing, although you must follow the logic behind the seasons in pursuing your plans.
You must plow, harrow, plant and cherish your ideas, if you are to create anything new. Yet your ideas can die from lack of nourishment.
It’s so simple — you may contact the same Power that propels the seasons in their endless cycles, and you may appropriate as much life for your enterprises as does the tree for its growth. Yet you need not wait blindly for the fulfillment of your destiny.
All you need is one flaming desire, one definite choice, added to enough persistence to hold your mind on one point long enough to win!
Linda Mihalic, May 17, 2007, Cleveland, Ohio
Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
–1 Timothy 6:6-10
Since leaving corporate America in 1982, having decided that sacrificing my ethics in exchange for job security, promotions and raises was too high a price to pay, I have not lived in my money, driven my money, or worn my money. This was a conscious decision, long considered. Having decided that money is a perfect metaphor for a have
versus a have not
consciousness, I predicated my philosophy of life on believing that my glass is always half-full versus being half-empty.
The choice was simple once I realized that money, in and of itself, could give me nothing that I truly valued as being important to my soul or to my consciousness. If you don’t have God at the center of your life, you will believe that you need money to fill that perceived void. Money is a physical symbol for credits,
and a worldly proof
of your value.
A prevalent major illusion and delusion is that physical money can alter a metaphysical or spiritual state, or address a spiritual problem that is value-driven, motivated, or based.
More money can buy more lattes, clothes, new cars, pay for vacations, and club memberships. Money can pay for a surgery, but it cannot prevent cancer. Money is a medium of exchange based solely in the physical world. It buys physical things that satisfy physical needs and/or urges, impulses and cravings of the appetitive soul.
However, money cannot buy anything of lasting spiritual value. While it may pay for an education, it cannot educate a mind. Money cannot give you more knowledge or understanding, merely an awareness of different states of being and experiences. Therefore, to make money a value creates a materially-based slavery of mind and soul, which is why St. Timothy wrote For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
–1 Timothy 6:10
With money, the more you spend, the less you have. With giving from the heart, mind, and soul, the more you give, the more you have. For example, you can give books to your local library. You can shop the library book sale if it is an extension of your values-set. You need not be a formal student to use a library to educate yourself. All colleges and universities began as collections of books and people who sought to educate themselves then gave their books to others, thus sharing the wealth of knowledge and wisdom.
Steer clear of believing in the appearance of things. Deal only in the good, the true, the real, and the beautiful. Always remember, the true coin of the realm is love, which produces your soul’s spiritual and mental riches, security and supply.
Linda Mihalic, December 13, 2007, Cleveland, Ohio
This essay is a response to the statement, God values us all equally.
Value
is both a noun and a transitive verb: As a noun, value is
1. An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else.
2. Monetary or material worth.
3. Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit.
4. A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable.
5. Precise meaning or import, as of a word.
6. Mathematics. An assigned or calculated numerical quantity.
7. Music. The relative duration of a tone or rest.
8. Color. The relative darkness or lightness of a color.
9. Linguistics. The sound quality of a letter or diphthong.
In the following definition, I estimate the value of souls in the short term (this life) according to definitions 1 and 3, not exclusively by definition 2.
As a transitive verb, "to value" is
1. To determine or estimate the worth or value of; to appraise.
2. To regard highly; to esteem.
3. To rate according to relative estimate of worth or desirability; to evaluate. [From Latin valere, meaning to be strong, to be well, to be worth; strong; power, strength.
]
The insight and facts upon which I base the logical judgment of value include the following:
Within the time-space continuum (of which we are embodied parts), consciousness needs substance as its carrier (e.g., as a wave or packet, as in light). Light-as-substance, of which all souls are composed and consist, is not necessarily fully conscious, but has the potential for well-nigh cosmic consciousness. You acquire consciousness through your experiences and by making choices as a result of them.
Soul substance, in absolute terms, is good, and it has a set value to God, its Source. Light-as-substance is precious, and of enduring value. All substance, no matter what form it takes in manifestation, must return to God eventually, for it is part of Him.
Human consciousness, by its very nature of being acquired is relative, but is even more precious than its container (the soul substance), for its acquisition ultimately (as in "the final stage of ascension") requires the perfect union of desire and will to become like God. Thus, the absolute ultimately and inevitably must subsume the relative.
Therefore, the greater the degree of consciousness of the soul, embodied in substance (which is good and of great intrinsic value to its Creator), the greater its relative value to its Creator: For example, a soul in human form is more precious than the substance in a rock, in terms of consciousness.
"Beliar" is the Hebrew root of the name Belial, the Father of Lies; it translates as utterly worthless,
which means having no value. (Note, beliar also contains the word "liar.") Actions can lie as loudly or quietly as words. Consider the Parable of the Talents in this context of truth or falsehood, as a metaphor for the acquisition of consciousness:
“The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.
“After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
“Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
“Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”–Matthew 25:14-30
This leads us finally to the ultimate value judgment:
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”–Matthew 25:31-33
Thus, in the end, cosmic consciousness, which we gain through complete ascension to become one with God, becomes the absolute value of our individual consciousness, as an embodied soul. We, the embodied souls, as extensions of God-consciousness and God's consciousness, are how God expands as consciousness through the greater experience that we provide Him.
A Great Day of Manifestation is many billions of years in duration; within it are many lesser Days and Nights. God is always learning, yet learns through us. Our value, as “learning tools” is relative, according to the degree of our will and desire to learn for God.
Does learning change God the unchangeable? No, for God is the One Absolute Eternal and Infinite Reality, encompassing all things relative within its Being. No creation can match or exceed its creator. Therefore the potential for what the lesser creation may choose to do is already inherent within the Absolute.
Our soul substance is absolute, and has a primary, fundamental set value. Consciousness is infinite value added. Therefore, logic insists that the statement that “God values us all equally,” is false unless one adds these preceding qualifiers.
Webster's definition of value is [Latin valor, from valeo, to be worth.] “Worth; that property or those properties of a thing which render it useful or estimable; or the degree of that property. The real value of a thing is its utility, its power or capacity of procuring or producing good. Hence the real or intrinsic value of iron, is far greater than that of gold. But there is, in many things, an estimated value depending on opinion or fashion, such as the value of precious stones. The value of land depends on its fertility, or on its vicinity to a market, or on both.”
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The Pioneering Mystics
The Mystics pioneering in the high territory of ascension were and are life-long students of the work and teachings of Edna Miriam Lister as revealed through her by Jesus the Christ. Here we share our ideas and insights into what she taught about Life on the Via Christa, God’s original Magna Carta, the Way of Ascension that Jesus taught, the Plan of Salvation, universal and personal, and how to conquer self to become what God intended us to be and to do.
As participants in Edna Lister’s Society of the Universal Living Christ, we are part of her legacy, her life, and her spiritual teachings. We have each learned and practiced the soul conquering and self-disciplines she prescribed as an optimal way to walk the Via Christa, the Path of Ascension. We have experienced such positive results using her methods that we have spent decades teaching and disseminating her life’s work. We are glad to share the results of her efforts and ours with you.
Christi Carlson
Christian Platonist, American Idealist,
student, teacher, and creator of the Via Christa Study Guides. Christi came to Edna Lister’s work in 1987. Her earnest desire to more fully comprehend and share Edna Lister’s work led her to create these study guides, which we find to be a great aid in remaining focused on our personal ascension of consciousness.
Linda Hildebrand Mihalic
1946 –
Christian Platonist, American Idealist,
minister, teacher, lecturer, author, Via Christa
site editor, head of the Society of the
Universal Living Christ
When they met in 1971, Edna Lister chose Linda as her successor, following Lotus Judson Landis (whom Edna Lister had met in 1932 and ordained in 1956). In 1982, Linda left corporate America to work for the Society of the Universal Living Christ full time. She was ordained by Lotus Landis and assumed formal leadership of the Society in 1991.