Pioneering Mystic Sermons, 2005

The Pure Christ Mind
Linda Mihalic, March 20, 2005, Cleveland, OH. Matthew 16:13-24, 2 Peter 3:1-10, Philippians 2:5.

  When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.–Matthew 16:13-24
  This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.–2 Peter 3:1-10
  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.–Philippians 2:5. To function as a creator god, you must understand divine Mind, your limited, imperfect use of it, and how you may improve your use. Further, you must better understand Wisdom, which is the first principle of Mind.
  The Oxford English Dictionary defines mind as “the faculty of memory, or recollection as thought, purpose, or intention. Mind is the seat of consciousness, thoughts, volition (will), and feelings, the system of cognitive and emotional phenomena and powers that make up our subjective being, the spiritual part of us, our soul as distinguished from the body.” This definition includes desire (as emotions), will, thinking and imagination.
  Divine Mind is the Eternal and Infinite Intelligence, which permeates, directs and controls the entire universe as omniscient knowing and law, to which all Creation is subject. The Mind of God is the Universal Mainframe Computer, holographic in nature (that is, what is known in one portion may be known in all portions). Since Mind permeates every life spark of Creation, the very substance of the universe is a mainframe component. Thus, Mind-impregnated Substance is the fabric of which God built the time-space continuum and, as such, is instantly accessible. Whatever your location, you can open your contact with divine Mind anytime, anywhere.
  The concept of computing has revolutionized itself repeatedly since Mauchly and Eckert patented the ENIAC computer in 1947. “The ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 1,500 relays, 6,000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints. It covered 1,800 square feet of floor space, weighed 30 tons, consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power. In one second, the ENIAC (a thousand times faster than any other calculating machine to date) could perform 5,000 additions, 357 multiplications or 38 divisions.”–Mary Bellis.
  Developers invented the first integrated circuit in 1961. By 1971, the 4004 chip held 2,250 transistors. The old 286 computers had a chip with 120,000 transistors. A wireless hand-held computer commonly has a chip with 42,000,000 transistors and a processor that performs 624 million operations per second! Inventors modeled computers on the pattern of the human brain, which is your personal subset of the Computer Mind of God. While you use only about 5 percent of your overall capacity at a time for simple daily tasks, researchers believe that people do use most of their brain’s capacity, simply not all at once. The more complicated a task, the more of your brain power you put into play.
  Your brain weighs about three pounds, just 2 percent of average body weight, but uses 20 percent of your oxygen rich arterial blood, making it the most expensive organ in your total energy budget, and the prime user of the work effort of your lungs and heart. You can and do use both hemispheres of the brain sometimes, depending on your activity, but most of us are lazy about it. Most people are more devout about obeying laws of diet and exercise than they are to brain development, which says little for us as a species. The brain is your computer hardware, your mind is your software, and your soul is your computer operator. So, you are the hardware, programming software and user in one.

“God desired to create, and a universe was born. Desire is a craving, a wish, a longing for something lost or missed, a regret. Thus, desire is rooted in memory.”–Edna Lister

  Memory is the faculty you use to remember, your capacity for retaining or reviving thoughts of the past. You could think of memory as your “mental sieve.” Memory also describes your capacity to return to a previous state: To remember is to recover from unconsciousness. Researchers say that we possess one trillion neurons, one quadrillion synapses, and 100 quintillion of bytes of memory, giving us a redundant backup system; in case of trauma, the brain can literally rewire itself. Through your link to divine Mind, your memory capacity is infinite, if you choose to access it.
  Thought is the process of thinking, your overall mental activity, especially of your intellect, how you form and arrange ideas in your mind. Thinking is like a computer program. A low-end word processer may be good enough to write a letter, but would not serve you in writing anything complex where you’d need more expensive or robust software. Critical thinking skills do not come automatically bundled in your system software; you must develop them. How cheap is the thinking software you choose to use in this life? Does it do everything we need? Can you quickly apply logic, reason, discernment, discrimination and discretion? Should you upgrade to a high-end program with more features?
  Your thinking software has innumerable subroutines, processes running in the background, many of which you are totally unaware. This describes the subconscious mind’s effect on your conscious thinking. Spiritual debt (what you owe to the balance scales for disobedience to law), heredity, environment and your response to experiences all affect the content of your subconscious mind. Some psychologists advise thinking aloud to give yourself a valuable window on your underlying mental processes. If you do not listen to the subconscious deliberately, mindfully, as in learning how to enter the Golden Silence, you will never know the subtext of what you think.
  Intellect is the sum of faculties of the mind or soul, by which you know and reason, the power of thought, or understanding. Intellect excludes sensation, undisciplined imagination, emotional feeling and will. Your intellectual potential is unlimited; however, you limit your actual use of your intellect by your choices. An idea is a picture of anything your mind conceives, an ideal form, an archetype, a pattern, a plan, or a standard. Platonic philosophy, in layman’s terms, says that an idea is an eternally-existing pattern or archetype, perfect, as is its Source, which is God, but our execution of that idea is relative, thus imperfect.
  Emotion describes another set of programs that may interfere disastrously with your thinking software and cause your system to crash. An emotion is “an agitation or disturbance of mind, a feeling, any vehement or excited mental state, as distinguished from cognitive or volitional states of consciousness.”
  You use your imagination faculty to form a mental concept of something not physically present; it’s how you mentally consider future actions or events, creating impressions of your expectation or anticipation. Imagination is your mind’s creative faculty in its highest aspect, and is your most expensive and complex software. Imagination can reach out and appropriate the full function of thinking and emotional desires to synthesize them into a perfectly integrated whole that mimics, in large part, the divine Mind itself. Thus, the ancients called imagination “the kingly faulty.”
  God gave us another gift, will, which is the inclination to do something, in contrast with ability or opportunity. Will is your volition, intention, intent, purpose, or determination. Will is the action of choosing, the attitude of the mind that you direct with conscious intention.
  Jesus of Nazareth incarnated 2,000 years ago to become the Christ. He blazed the trail of Ascension for us to follow in our climb home into the Light. He was the Word made flesh to dwell among us. You are a component of the Word. In three short years he gathered and trained twelve men and an unknown number of other women and men, teaching them much that no one recorded in the New Testament. Yet every detail is contained within the memory of the Divine Mind. Jesus did his best to make his mind known to all humanity. What he knew, you can know also, if you so choose.
  One story in the Gospel of Matthew tells us a great deal that is intuitively if not obviously apparent: Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (See Matthew 16:17-18.) How did Peter know this?
  A program often comes with a registration code number that acts like a software “key.” If you need help with that program, the software developer asks you to confirm your registration by using this key number. Peter used his software key to access divine Mind, which promptly gave him the answer of Jesus’ true identity.
  “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”–Matthew 16:19. This law explains that only you can dictate how much of divine Mind you can access. Your key, or lack of one, directly results from your past choices on how you use or misuse divine Mind, Substance and Power. Your choices now are dictating what your key can access in the future. Disobedience to a command will automatically terminate your access beyond a primary level.
  Jesus had accurate foreknowledge of events to come, which we call prescience. “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.”–Matthew 16:21. The verb here is “to show.” Jesus used the holographic dimension of divine Mind to reveal a succession of pictures in imagination. He enabled them to use the eyes of their minds to see these steps in the Plan of Salvation. You can do this also. You can think within Divine Mind, and it comes as intuition, not cold, earthly intellect. When you put some zeal into your effort, you will see it as a flash of illumination.
  Peter objected to Jesus’ foreknowledge, saying, “This shall not happen to you!” His access to divine Mind had just exalted Peter to the heights of consciousness in knowing Jesus’ real identity, then his system crashed on the emotional upset of thinking his Master would die. How typical: You reach the heights and fall to the depths in a single hour.
  Jesus said to Peter, “Get thee behind Me, Satan! Thou art an offense unto Me; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”–Matthew 16:23 The truth of outer appearances is always a temptation, and it is so easy to fall when the appearance triggers emotional software, and you forget. The system crashes, and you must reboot. “Mindful of the things of God” is best summed up in two words, “God as.” When you have God and, you have the truth of appearances and your mind is full of the “things of men,” or intellectual/emotional gibberish.
  Jesus dispensed perfect advice: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”–Matthew 16:24. You could better translate this as, “If you desire to follow me, deny your self and follow me.” Self is the only thing you need to deny as you ascend in consciousness. Yet you need to remember three points:
  First, you have a pure mind, or at least you have access to the pure Mind of Christ within Divine Mind. Second, the Pure Christ Mind can re-mind you, that is, hearing, seeing or reading the truth can return you to a pure mind. Third, you can be mindful of the things that are God’s, that is, you can fill your mind full of God.
  God’s time is always now, and He wants all souls to come home. Earth is now embroiled in the mental phase of the Armageddon, which is the battle for men’s minds. Besides our subconscious interference, we are also subject to constant bombardment from what we call the “world mind.” The world population was more than 8.2+ billion people on July 20, 2025, according to worldometers.info, a website devoted to global statistics. Roughly half the world population is awake when you are, while the remainder sleep, and vice versa. That’s more than four billion other minds working while yours does, with the other four billion+ minds working while you are asleep, a global “swing shift.”
  Even in a relaxed or resting state, your brain is outputting electrical activity. On the electromagnetic spectrum, even thought produces some “noise.” Your brain filters an immense range of noise, admitting only the “audible” section of the spectrum, but the other portions of the spectrum are alive with their brand of “sound.” Even the stars sing. If you could hear all the thoughts and mental noise of the world (WRLD Radio), it would be deafening, as though billions of radios were blaring at once. Into this psychic stew, some are always adding thoughts and declarations of darkness and evil, separation ideas, doubts and fears—the propaganda of God and. You can counteract this by protecting yourself in Light, and by saying, “This is good. Let there be Light.” Pray aloud as often as you find opportunity, broadcasting the propaganda of God as.
  “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” is our battle cry during the war for men’s minds. Use it as a prayer, a mantra: “Let this mind be in me, which was also in Christ.” Let it be your constant mental refrain. Be mindful of the Light and your need to broadcast Light’s goodness and Power aloud during the spiritual phase of the Armageddon. When you become aware of the effects of dark propaganda, use this mental refrain: “I can do all things through the pure Christ Mind, which strengthens me.”
  Upgrade your software to include sophisticated universal versions of will and desire, thinking and imagination. You can desire as God desires, will as God wills, think as God thinks, and imagine as bright a future as God does. We follow a Universal Living Christ, no suffering, dying, always-needing-resurrection cheap, low-end version. The price of this high-end software is discipline of self and ascension of consciousness above the world-bondage. God will keep you in perfect peace if you keep your mind stayed on Him. The idea of Christ is the perfect archetype and pattern of the mind that God designed for you.

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The Flame Within
Linda Mihalic, Pentecost, May 15, 2005, Cleveland, OH. Acts 2:1-7, 2:13-33.

  “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another…Whatever could this mean?”–Acts 2:1-7, 12
  “Others mocking said, They are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them. “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
  “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should beheld by it. For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the Resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear.”–Acts 2:13-33

  We think of the Pentecost as the descent of the flames of the Holy Spirit to set us afire with the desire to serve God in a higher and greater capacity, and so it is. We also tend to think that Pentecost happens just one day a year, fifty days after Easter.
  However, Edna Lister said that Pentecost could happen anytime we gather “with one accord in one place.” Therefore, immediately we could construe that we need a group for the Pentecost to occur. Not so! If we gather “with one accord in one place,” it may also mean that your appetitive soul, rational soul and Oversoul agree that the Heart of God is the one place you need to be.
  Our Declaration of Unquenchable Love says that “Love is a flame and fire that burns ever. Love cannot be quenched.” We may understand that the flames of the Spirit are the fire of Love, which is unquenchable. So much hides behind the obvious that if you only read the words on the page in your Bible, you will miss many enlightening details. We need to ponder the nature of fire to become better educated as pryotechnicians of the soul. Let’s start with the basics:
  Fire needs three elements to survive: Fuel, air, and heat, the ignition source. People in the fire-starting business call this the “Combustion Triangle.” We call it the Combustion Trinity. If you deprive a fire of any of these elements, it dies. You need several types of fuel to start a fire: Tinder, kindling and the main fuel. The primary difference among the three is the speed at which they ignite and burn.
  To build a fire, put plenty of tinder in the center, then build a teepee around it with small kindling. Next, build a square of larger kindling around, and up to the height of the tepee. Add more kindling across the walls to cover the tepee, another layer of larger kindling, but do not cover the top. Now you are ready to light the fire.
  After you ignite the tinder in the center, add more kindling to keep it going. At this stage, you are building up heat to ignite our main fuel. Be careful not to add too much kindling at once, or you could smother the fire. Add your main fuel only after you have firmly established the fire. Voilà! Success!
  Let’s examine how you can apply the Combustion Trinity–fuel, air and heat to your life, spiritually. You all have the potential to evoke the flame from within; it lies in the heart, your personal pilot light, just waiting for the proper kindling. Desire is the igniter, the heat. Your fuel is the array of gifts you can offer to God: Not pretty ones, but opinions and prejudices, the idle words, the nasty comeback thought and remarks, the irritation, resentment and anger you repress every day. These are all tinder and kindling, but kindling, left unburned, can grow.
  The main fuel is the big stuff, the grudges, the desire for revenge on someone who embarrassed you once too often, the hatred you may feel for just one or two people. Repressing emotional hurts can cause kindling to grow the fastest. The best fuel is ultra-dry; it burns quickest and hottest. Water represents emotion. When you allow emotion to dampen your fuel, all you get is choking smoke and burning eyes, not a good fire.
  Water deprives a fire of oxygen, and it cools the temperature below the combustion point of the fuel. We call this “icing” a vibration. Emotional jags affect your breathing in a very negative way. If you are upset, you tend to breathe rapidly and shallowly, depriving your fire of air. Your flame can easily die out under a gush of emotion. Deep, even breathing is essential. You must also feed your fire with plenty of praise, the best accelerant. Prayer must move far beyond supplication and petition, asking, begging and demanding. Everyone must learn to pray “just because” God is there to listen, and to speak to you. If a friend only called when he wanted something, chances are you would not consider him our friend for long. It’s shameful that anyone treats God so. Fortunately, God is not that shallow. He understands you, and waits for you to outgrow your selfish egocentricity.
  For the really big fuel, say a deep-seated resentment that grew from kindling to a log (nearly hatred) half a lifetime ago, we advise special treatment. Choose the biggest log, and stick the end into the fire. As it burns, just keep pushing it into the fire. This requires you to tend your fire hourly, but provides self-healing in the shortest time. Self is really the only thing that needs healing.
  Inviting a Pentecost every day takes some work, besides being “with one accord in one place.” The Scripture describes a mighty conflagration. “Suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”–Acts 2:1-4
  This describes being on fire for God. Speaking in tongues, called the spiritual gift of tongues, seems so important to fundamentalist believers. It is true that we can speak and understand every language spoken on earth through the Holy Spirit, but the gift is much more than this simplistic definition. By the Power of the Spirit, you may instantly know the heart, mind and soul desire of anyone you meet. Peter said of the Master, “Being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear.”–Acts 2:33.
  The Master is just waiting for us to burn hot enough for him to pour out the fire of Spirit upon us. He longs to bestow the gifts that will enable us to see and hear the truth within and behind what people say and do. Knowing the truth, which is understanding their language, you can say the good, the kind, the inspiring, uplifting words that they need, which is speaking their language. This is the gift of tongues, demystified and comprehensible.
  Joel prophesied, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.”–Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2:17-18. God is pouring out the Holy Spirit today and every day, but are we ready to receive it?
  David, the greatest spiritual lyricist, gave us a few simple steps: “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”–Acts 2:25-28. So, you follow these eight steps to properly tend the flame within:
  1. See the Lord always before your face. Stop looking at the world and what people do.
  2. Know that He is at your right hand, that you may not be shaken. Quit fearing, and listen.
  3. Rejoice in your heart. Stop entertaining sorrow, bitterness and anger.
  4. Be glad with your tongue. Cut the sarcasm and nasty tone.
  5. Rest your body in hope. Stop wearing your body out with anxiety.
  6. Know that the situation will change. God will not leave your soul in Hades, nor allow you to see corruption. Hades is the “Hell on earth” consciousness of hatred, depression and despair.
  7. Know that God will make known to you the ways of life. Quit wondering what you should do, and listen.
  8. Know that God will fill you with joy in His Presence. God is not going to punish us. He does not need to, since we do such a good job of that on our own. Trade the fear for joy. Eight is the number that represents integration, or tying earth to heaven.
  These eight steps that will tie our earth to heaven and make us ready to receive the Pentecost flames. Our Master is the Master, and he will never leave us alone. Jesus the Christ, “Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear.”–Acts 2:33.
  Today is the day, and now is the time to begin earning our Certification as a Master Spiritual Pyrotechnician. Let your flame within arise to meet the flames of the Spirit now descending.

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Give Up to Live Up
Linda Mihalic, August 7, 2005, Cleveland, OH. Matthew 16:24-27, 11:28-30.

  Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.”–Matthew 16:24-27
  “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”–Matthew 11:28-30
  Giving up is surrender, which is an agony or torture for some, for others a great sacrifice. For a few, giving up is simply the absolute relief that soul experiences when it is no longer being hung, drawn and quartered by the self. For a very few, surrender becomes the doorway into the ultimate freedom of the spheres.
  The idea of giving up leads us into a problem with semantics, the meanings of the words we use. To surrender, on the surface, means giving in, to resign oneself, to bend, to cave in, to suffer defeat or ruin. We can give up something voluntarily or involuntarily; we may let go or give up as in defeat, when we despair and throw in the towel.
  We must face the fact that we view surrender as a negative, and we fear whatever we view as negative. We know that we must give up fear, and usually we want to. Most of us would never want to give up love, yet we do so all the time by giving love’s space to fear! Fear, like self, expands to fill all available space, stealing that precious room in our hearts reserved for love.
  Heart disease, coronary artery disease, the hardening of the heart, is the leading cause of death in the United states, accounting for 710,000 fatalities annually, according to the American Heart Association. According to the metaphysical correspondences, which Edna Lister taught, heart disease develops through irritation, fear, intolerance, hate, jealousy, envy, and revenge motives. Fear of not having enough causes all crimes and wars. A metaphysical correspondence is an association of cause and effect beyond the physical. If the real reason for heart trouble was merely physical, science would have formulated a drug to cure it long ago. Heart trouble may also develop from a disturbance in romantic love, past or present, or may include heartbreak caused by family or friends. These causes all are metaphysical.
  Once someone or something wounds us, we begin to fear being wounded again. Fear contracts, but love expands. Enough fear about the matters of the heart can harden the heart, making it unhealthy. To treat coronary artery disease, doctors use a balloon angioplasty to ease the constriction. Metaphysically, we all need a divine angioplasty, letting enough love in to widen our hearts to the Light.
  If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.–Matthew 16:24. To deny our self is to surrender the self. When we begin to surrender the self, we also begin to give our heart to God, dedicating our self by vows to serve a higher purpose. This is how we begin to consecrate our self. ”Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”–Matthew 16:25. What does it mean to “save” our life and to “lose” it? Well, it does not mean physical death. The life that Jesus is speaking about here is that part of our life that is lacking God. Each of us spends all too many hours a day without God at the center of our consciousness. The excuses are all familiar: “Well, I’m just too busy! I must concentrate! I can’t be thinking about God while I’m at work, driving, studying,” or whatever.
  The total global population of earth was 8,235,810,472 on July 20, 2025. All those people fear something. Earth is just one planet within a vast universe, yet God knows the hearts and minds of all created beings, everywhere, Jesus said that not even a sparrow dies apart from the Father’s will, and that “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” We declare “Our Creed is Love. Our path is Service. Our goal is God,” to become as God in universal consciousness. Therefore, to love, to serve and to grow in God consciousness are the basic requirements in the fine print of every Ascension Contract.
  “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”–Matthew 16:26. Can you “lose” your soul? Only if you dedicate yourself to consistently making evil choices. When you seek to gain the world and what it offers, without including, God at the center, you begin to fear losing what you have gained, and damage your contact with your own soul. The world will teach you fear. God will teach you love. Bind your self to the world, and you put yourself in bondage to fear. Bind your soul to God, and you bond yourself to love, which is the SuperGlue of the universe.
  You do not die of love, but you can and some do die of fear. Love makes us want to live. Fear makes us want to die. Give up the fear. Surrender to love. To exorcize the fear, you must breathe your way through it. Breathe in the love. Remember what Edna Lister said, “If you seek God one percent, God seeks you 99 percent,” when you breathe and reach for Him. God is the very breath you breathe, which is the love that binds you to Him.
  “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” the Master said 2,000 years ago. He is still saying it, right now, this very minute. Fear is the heavy load every soul carries, whether it is economic uncertainty, emotional hurts, insecurities or performance anxiety. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”–Matthew 11:29. The yoke is love, which is easy when you give up the fear. Instead of giving up love, surrender to love, which will expand your heart greatly enough to let the full love of God enter. Then, the only burden you carry will be the Light, and you can rest easily in the arms of love.
  August 10 is a day set aside for the lifting of darkness from our planet. Fear is darkness, perpetuates darkness, and provides the breeding ground for the growth of evil. Fear is like a virus that replicates itself in healthy cells and co-opts their function. Fear is the loss of courage, yet you know that you can do all things through Christ, which strengthens you.
  God created you as a carrier of His love virus. We have just three days left, until midnight on the tenth, to drastically reduce the amount of fear still holding the world in bondage. If there’s less room for fear, there’s more room for love. Let’s serve God by infecting the world with love. We can do it! Giving up the fear that binds you is as simple as breathing. Surrendering to the Love of God is as simple as taking yet another deep breath. When you have breathed your way through, and have reached for God enough, you recognize that He is holding your hand, and has always been holding you in love. This is how to learn to love your way through any fear that presents itself. Then “the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward you according to your works.” (Matthew 16:27).
  Let there be Light!

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If You Love Me: The Christ Standard
Linda Mihalic, October 16, 2005, Cleveland, OH. John 1:1-5, John 12:46-50, John 14:12-15, 21.

  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it.–John 1:1-5.
  I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him—the Word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority; but the Father who sent me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.–John 12:46-50.
  Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father. And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments…He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.–John 14:12-15, 21.
  Do you know how much you are loved? The harsh mirrors that your inner critic has created for your show only the hard, the rough, the sharp, and the unpleasant aspects of you. You witness only your lacks, view them as failures, and do not remember who your best friend really is.
  In 1938, Edna Lister formulated six steps that are key to keeping the Christos commandments, and they help us in daily living.
  1. I must judge myself each day according to Christ’s standards.
  2. I must turn to Light from all darkness.
  3. I must surrender to the Power of God to overcome all darkness.
  4. I must resurrect my self from all weakness into all strength.
  5. I must follow the Christ all the way, to see the unseen, commune with the saints and bridge the abyss from the visible to the invisible here and now.
  6. I must ascend to our Father-Mother God for the life everlasting.
  Any discussion of love quickly becomes a thorny area. We all believe in a thing called unconditional love. Pop psychology has bandied the term about for years, but how many people love unconditionally? Who do you know who loves that way? Well, God does, and we all expect that from Him, although we rarely love that way in return. To be unconditional is to be unlimited by conditions, to be absolute. To be conditional is to be dependent, contingent, and relative.
  The Master often used if/then statements, which are difficult, because they are conditional statements. The Master used such conditional statements as, “If you love me, then you will keep my commandments.” Further, he made a tremendous promise—also conditionally: “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” In effect, he says, “I will do it, IF you ask”—there’s the condition. “IF you love me” states a condition.
  You want to believe that you really do love the Master. People say, “Oh, I love the Master. I love you, Lord.” If everyone who said that did love him unconditionally, then they would keep his commandments. I you loved him unconditionally, you would keep his commandments, yet you know often you fail to so.
  You must accept that your love for the Master is somewhat conditional, because you, along with everyone else, were raised and conditioned that way in your thinking and relationships. Therefore, you are unlikely to be willing to provide, think about providing, or even to care whether you provide that unconditional obedience to all the laws he taught.
  We’re all experts in conditional love. We want the toys, but few seem to be willing to do all the work it takes to get them. As a culture, we’re privileged, we expect to have things. We call that attitude “entitled” or “elitist” when we see it in others. Today, parents give kids cell phones, credit cards, and even cars, yet think nothing of these lavish gifts. A working generation is buying the next non-working generation those cell phones. Today’s parents are guilty of “buying” their children; bribing them materially is a condition.
  Young people say, “Well, everyone else has one”; there’s a condition. So, to be like the rest of the parents, you say, “I’d better do that, too.” People teach and foster disobedience in a subsequent generation without even understanding what they are doing. Furthermore, most people want those toys for themselves. Many resent that they can’t afford the latest tech gizmo, whatever it may be.
  Some folks want them so much they have lobbied Congress to provide them for free to the unemployed who cannot afford them. That’s how government entitlement programs have fostered the Nanny State. In reality, it’s just the modern version of the Roman buy-offs of bread and circuses. 1 Do you really need to be wired and connected to the world that way? A Pioneering Mystic aims at being in the world but not of it.

1 Bread and circuses originates in Juvenal’s Satire X (circa A.D. 100). The Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the chief desires of the Roman people who no longer care about their historical Republic. In 140 B.C. Roman politicians passed laws to buy the votes of the indigent poor—a grain dole. Thus, free cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses," became the most effective way to buy political clout as it is to this day.

  You may be tempted to think that God’s unconditional love is your Get Out of Jail Free card. People use His love as an excuse for their bad behavior and poor choices: “Well, God loves me.” Yes, He does. But since you are smarter than sheep, it does not maaaaaaa-ter (bleatingly) how infinitely, endlessly, eternally, and immortally God loves you. He cannot set aside your debts, no matter how loudly or long you bleat. So, no such thing as a free pass really exists.

Another imagined credit card promotes the idea God will relieve you of fear, worry, and concern. Yet another assures that the Master will make your burden light enough for you to bear. These promises are true, but you must pay your own soul debts to the last jot and tittle. “Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew 5:18. You owe every last iota (ι the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet) of your debt to the law. You uphold your soul’s honor when you pay your debts.

  The Master made forty-three if/then statements in the Gospel of John, all of which are laws. If/then statements seem commonplace. If you do this, then that will happen. If you practice this, then that will occur.
  You must fulfill many conditions before you can access unconditional love. First, you must do the law, then you must be the law. You must do the law, then you will be love. When you are love, you have an open access, a wide open gateway to that unconditional love you crave. Put another way, when you demand of another, in this case God, what you are not willing to do and be yourself, you are lazy, and fraudulently living by false pretenses.
  The first rule for daily living is, “I must judge myself each day according to Christ standards.” The Standard the Christ is simple, yet absolute: To follow every law of the universe, which briefly stated means to “be perfect,” or to “be the Light.” The bad news about the Christ Standard is that it contains every law that governs the universe, all of them, every last one. The good news is, you can boil this down to be perfect, or be Light.
  What you are is your state of being. Light is perfect; perfection is Light, and this simple truth is absolute. To judge yourself by this standard means that you may not kid yourself, excuse yourself, or lie to yourself. Only a sociopath could spend time kidding, excusing, and lying to himself and feel good about it! You must cease to live by any false pretenses. If you spend much time feeling as though you have sinned and grieving about it, you’ve sent your vibration to the basement and foolishly wonder why you don’t feel “up” in consciousness. Guilt is really a useless emotional state of being. You get nowhere by indulging it.
  God already knows the whole story about you, all your flaws, taints and shortcomings. The only place to take those regrets is to God altar, and leave them there. If a regret returns to your consciousness later, take it to God again, and trade that burden for Light until you feel only the Light. You must do this. This is not a “you should do this” or “it might be a really good idea to do this,” or “you’ll feel better if you do this.” This is mandatory. You have no other way to cast off the ballast of self, which guilt and grief as a sense of unworthiness foster: Weight. Then you’re subject to all the devils of torment in the world. Everything seems worse. Everything is harder. Everything is heavier. That’s pointless. It just wears you down and it wears you out.
  The second rule for daily living is, “I must turn to Light from all darkness.” You say, “Well of course I would. I wouldn’t want to stay in darkness.” You need to reexamine what turning from all darkness really means. Darkness is always enticing the self. For example, you might judge what other people say that irritates, offends, or hurts you; what you see on TV: “Ohhh! Look at that. That was awful.” Or in the grocery store, some woman totally unable to command a three-year-old who is now lying on the floor, kicking, screaming, and knocking cans off the shelf. She’s in your space, annoying you, disturbing you. You’ve turned to the darkness. Judging others is ever so much more appealing than turning to the Light, because in the Light, you may judge only yourself. So that covers opinion and prejudice, which will keep you in the dark.
  The third rule for daily living is, “I must surrender to the Power of God to overcome all darkness.” If you put that in direct language, in active voice, it says that someone and/orsomething must overcome the darkness. When you turn to the Light, the Light moves through you and it overcomes the darkness. Yet Light must have a conduit, which is you when you turn to the Light.
  These are all two-way propositions: you do something and something else happens. If you turn to the Light, then it will move through you. That’s an if/then statement, strictly conditional. Again, these are essentials, not suggestions. This rule of conduct, turning to the Light, seems so simple; yet you trip over it daily. For instance, when a challenge comes (say that someone is angry with you), do you surrender to the Power of God first?
  Or do you become defensive and then offensive? “What do you mean? Grrrrrr.” Bite! They offend you, you get defensive, you offend them. This resonance will never cause more Light, but only more murk. You work so hard at conquering self, but if you use force to overcome darkness, rather than to let God’s Power do the work it is designed to do, you’re still a mere Adept, not a Master. The minute anything happens, most people think think, “What do I do now?” instead of “Father what would You have me to do?” In the higher degrees of Mystic, Master, Priest, and Christos, you are not worried about what you must do, but you maintain a state of mental silence to hear what God wants.
  So this all resolves into a question of What am I? An unthinking impulsive actor? Or a perfectly poised and silent instrument for God to use? You can either worry about what you will do, or you can follow the Master’s instructions: “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.… In your patience possess ye your souls.”—Luke 21:15,19. If you live in the silence of soul instead of the turmoil of self, you will never slip from your base of operations in fourth degree, as a Mystic communing with God. Never let self demote you. Most people surrender to the Power last, not first, then blame God for having let this happen. Letting is surrender to the Power. That’s a law. Letting is surrender to the Power.
  The fourth rule for daily living: I must resurrect my self from all weakness into all strength. Not myself, but my, space, self. I must resurrect my self from all weakness into all strength. This means that no get out of jail free card exists for this either. This rule is: I must do this; I must resurrect self, and then I will be strong. Resurrection says that something must be dead. Self is dead. All except for the little bitty self that you’re busy exercising today.
  Self has killed tremendous amounts of your life-vitality. It has slain your memory of the good that you really did and left you with hideous memories of your failures. Why would you want to do something so silly? So resurrection becomes a process in which you haul out that past, take the memories from what Edna Lister called the deep freeze, examine them and decide; you must choose while you’re conscious.
  Let soul choose the things that you should keep, and remember and give new life to, and you take the rest (which really is the dead husk) and burn it in the fire of love. It’s that simple. It is that simple. However, you must do it first. If you resurrect yourself from all weakness, then you will know all strength. But not unless you do that thing. you do the thing, then you become all strength.
  Moral weakness is a flabby will at the mercy of many strong and conflicting desires. Weakness is soul letting self run the whole show. Weakness is God and me. Strength is God as me. Strength is soul in command of self. Strength is subordinating my self desires and self will to God’s absolute will and desire for me. Strength is putting my soul in charge of choosing which desires will henceforth rule me. Most people can’t get much done because they desire so many different things. They run from one thing to another. At the day’s end, conflicting desires started seven projects and flabby will finished none. When your desires conflict, you usually let them pull your will down.
  The fifth rule for daily living: “I must follow the Christ all the way to see the unseen, commune with the saints and bridge the Abyss from the visible to the invisible here and now.” This rule carries the secret answer to every time you have used the phrase, “I don’t know why,” or “I don’t understand.” You say that you follow the Christ, but do you follow him all the way? All is a tiny three-letter word, and it trips you every day. All means: the entire or total number, the amount, or the quantity; the total extent or the whole; the utmost possible; everything, and anything whatsoever. All the way.
  Being such a small and short word, you may read over the word “all” when studying Law; you forget it when you attempt to recall a law such as, “I am responsible for all debts, past and present.” You probably want to say, “Well, I’m responsible for this debt” or “that debt.” That’s not all debts, and the law says all of them. Not one may be left out. Not one jot or tittle, period. All of it. Following the Christ Standard all the way is your only sure way of bridging the Abyss between the outer and the inner.
  The sixth rule for daily living: “I must ascend to our Father-Mother God for the life everlasting.” Ascension is more than getting off your chair, putting your hands up to pray, praying one great prayer, then forgetting God for three more hours. You constantly deflate your own tires;—bum-bump, bum-bump, bum-bump;—that’s why life is rough.
  Ascension is a constant state of arising and climbing higher. Twenty years ago, White Brotherhood groups started calling themselves ascended masters. You simply may not put a past tense ending on that verb. Ascension will not cease until every thing has been re-enfolded into the Source of All Light. And it will remain there only a brief moment before the Word is spoken again and you begin it all anew. That’s what’s so exciting about knowing what we know. This is endless! It’s a romance, a saga, an epic. It’s exciting!
  Formerly we accepted “the life everlasting” at face value, as immortality. But for those who follow all the way, the life everlasting means continuity of consciousness. If you follow all the way, then no matter how many lives you live, you will know who you are from birth. you will know why you are here, what you are supposed to be doing, and where you are going. If you follow all the way, all of this will be yours. That is a goal worthy of ascension. It puts you at the forefront of the first life wave. It makes you one of the most powerful creator gods ever to have stood on earth.
  The Master’s definition of friendship is “to see and to be seen, to know and to be known, to touch and to be touched, to love and to be loved.” Few of you have many really good friends. The law is that when you truly know yourself, you will know God. If you don’t really know yourself, how can you know another? How can you really know the Master? How can you really know God? Pythagoras engraved “Know Thyself” over the door to his school in Sicily. Knowing yourself and who you truly are is a journey of epic proportions.
  “Are” is another three-letter word that denotes your state of being. You are noble. When you know yourself, you will know everything, because you will know the Master, you will know God, and you will have bridged the abyss between the visible and the invisible. You aren’t your body, so don’t bother looking in that mirror, but into the one your soul holds. You will see a vision of glory.
  Some flinch at the words “sins” and “grief,” yet you must honestly admit that you commit them then grieve about them. Edna Lister said, “Self is the heaviest burden you can bear.” Self is the source of all your sins and griefs. Why should you carry them when you can exchange them for Light?
  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”–John 1:1. The Logos, the Christ, is the Word. The Word of God, which itself has Creative Power, is God’s medium of communication with humanity. John’s Gospel says that the Creative Word of God is incarnate in Jesus, who became the Christ.
  “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness does not comprehend it.” To put that in the past tense is a great mistake. The darkness still does not comprehend the Light. So to say, “That was then, but it’s not happening now,” is false, creates further illusion and fosters delusions. The darkness present in the world still does not comprehend Light. The Christ Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.
  You must resurrect every part of yourself, every memory, every potential self-betrayer of your personal will and desire. you must surrender the darkness of self in exchange for the Light of Life. you must resurrect and surrender all self, all the way. In all your doing, you must remember that you follow the Logos, the Word, so you must also remember to speak that Word. That Word is Light and life and you should speak it wherever and whenever you may so do.
  If you feel inhibited (perhaps the occasion is not right), then speak the Word mentally. As soon as you have “shaken the dust from your feet,” speak the Word out loud. Everyone else will think you’re just using your cell phone if your lips move while you drive. Don’t wait. If you’re at work and can’t get away, go into the bathroom, run water or flush the toilet and speak the Word.
  It’s not enough to think the Word; you must speak the Word. Thinking is great, but when you’ve spoken it, you’ve brought it into outer visible form. Speaking the Word is bridging the Abyss from the visible to the invisible here and now. you cause the invisible to flow over the line of your spoken Word. If you speak the Word, then you bridge the Abyss. If/then, there’s a condition. you must speak the Word.
  Your rewards for doing all these things until you become that Christ Standard are: 1. “He who believes in me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these will he do.” 2. “Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do.” 3. “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
  “He who has my commandments and keeps them…loves me.” you already have the words of Christ. If you are unsure, you can read the laws he taught, anywhere, any time. “He who loves me…I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Manifest means to make it visible. This says, “If you love me…I will be visible to you.”
  Every Abyss you cross is a chasm of self. The more of these abysses you cross, the more clearly all heaven will come into view. The Light of Life inscribes an endless spiral, straight into the heart of the Source of All Light. The Master is waiting for us to join him. All heaven is waiting for us to ascend.

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