The Mystic's Path Home: Teachings of the Ascended Masters

By Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Are you a mystic seeking oneness with divinity?

You walk the steeper path, but the high cliffs hold no fear for you who are drawn upward by the heart of the Divine Mother.

Whether you follow Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Mother Mary, Saint Germain, Kuan Yin or others, this book shows the inner path to taking their hand as they lead you Home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Summit University Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781609884178

Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Elizabeth Clare Prophet is a world-renowned author, spiritual teacher, and pioneer in practical spirituality. Her groundbreaking books have been published in more than thirty languages and over three million copies have been sold worldwide.

Book preview

1

Mystical Union

The spirit of adventure is a thirst in people’s hearts. It drives them to mountains, to separation from the familiar and from home, to the rigors of arduous journeys where the rewards seem few. It is this same thirst to discover reality that has pulled so many beyond the familiar confines and dogmas of the popular religions of their day.

The mystics of the world have often been scorned and scoffed at, as have been the arbiters of science and alchemy—those who have sought to discover in little-known or understood phenomena the internal reaches of man’s being and the domain of his destiny. As civilized man stands above savage minds, so the luminosity of the teachings of the Christ, of the Buddha, of the Hindu rishis, of the high lords of the Incas, of the mysterious initiates of past and present, remains above men’s current devices to discern destiny, a star of shining hope to a world awaiting the dawn of a new age.

Perhaps you picked up this book because you seek something beyond organized religion, and though you may not know it, you are ready for the spiritual experience and the spiritual path as taught by the adepts of all time. Surely this is the mystical path of the soul’s deep desiring for union with God.

The path of the mystic has no borders, no set religion, no priest class. Mystics seek the true and direct experience of God through whichever spiritual beliefs their hearts recognize. This is a path of love and not a path of dead ritual or the dead letter of the Law, though the letter of the Law be vital. True adeptship is the path of love. This is not just a platitude. It is an initiation.

The great mystics of all time talk about this initiation in terms of the arrow of love. Kahlil Gibran wrote: When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.¹

The Christian mystics talk about spiritual union and the love initiations that accompany it. Thérèse of Lisieux said that from the age of fourteen she experienced assaults of love that consumed her like a veritable flame.²

I was in the choir, she once wrote, when I felt myself suddenly wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I should die… . There is no comparison to describe the intensity of that flame. It seemed as though an invisible force plunged me wholly into fire… . But oh! what fire! what sweetness!³ So enflamed was she by a love that is beyond this world that she wrote in her autobiography, "O Jesus, my vocation is found at last—my vocation is love."⁴

In a vision, Jesus told Catherine of Genoa that these flaming darts of an irresistible love are like waves of fire. They flow from My breast and communicate such ardor and interior power to man that he can now do nothing else but love, remaining inseparably united with his God.⁵ It is this personal union with God that defines the mystical experience.

Unfortunately, today much of orthodox religion is a man-made religion that worships a man-made God. Often those who follow it do not find the true path of salvation but instead are circumscribed by a rote orthodoxy that binds them to the wheel of rebirth. And the coup de grâce is that the Western clergy denied the twin pillars of reincarnation and karma, which, if acknowledged, would have led Christians to the throne of their immortal birthright. The devotees who do attain union with God here on earth do so purely by the fervor of their hearts.

However, even within those religions there can be found a mystical path, one that bypasses the man-made control and focuses on one’s individual connection to the Divine.

Some have described mysticism as a yearning for Home. It is a deep soul knowing that we are sparks of divine light in the darkness of this world seeking our way back to the heart of the Divine. Many mystics from many different backgrounds have found their way Home and have become ascended masters. These ascended masters are reaching out to the mystics of our time to help us climb the highest mountain of the spiritual path.

Ascended Masters

Those who have been through near-death experiences often speak of meeting wondrous beings of light. Although some, such as Jesus, were easily identified, others did not reveal their names but simply radiated love, compassion, and guidance. These are the ascended masters. They are not only our teachers, but also our brothers and sisters who have walked the path of the ascension before us.

Since the dawn of time, these masterful beings have emerged from all races and nationalities, from all walks of life and all religions. Some you will recognize from major religions, others from names handed down through myth, for the ancient people yet retained the memory of spiritual beings who were revered on Atlantis before its fall.

The ascended masters form a part of the Brotherhood of spiritual beings and angelic hosts known as the Great White Brotherhood. This Brotherhood consists of all those who have reunited with God in the ritual of the ascension. In Hinduism they are the gods and goddesses who are aspects of the one God, Brahman. In Buddhism they are the Buddhas who have gained enlightenment and freed themselves from the wheel of rebirth. They are referred to in the Book of Revelation as the saints robed in white who come as a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.⁶ The term white describes the great aura of light that surrounds them. It is written that they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,⁷ meaning that they have transmuted their karma and purified their souls; and so they wear the deathless solar body.

Those who arise and attain union with God are not from any one school of thought, time, region, race, religion or profession. They no longer have to incarnate for they entered into the heart of the Christ Self. Because of this, the ascended masters are the most qualified teachers available to illumine the mind and heart of those whose goal is reunion with God and who are determined to achieve it by attunement and discrimination applied to the path of love.

Jesus Christ exemplified this reunion with God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was… . Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.⁸ That which Jesus did, we are meant to do also.

Those striving on a spiritual path are reintegrating their souls with their own inner Divine Presence through their Higher Self or Christ Self. This merging of Creator and creation through the intercession of the Christ Self is the foundation of the Path by which the aura of man becomes the aura of God. It is the foundation whereby the soul integrates with Spirit.

The Christ Self

What does it mean when we say that the ascended masters entered the heart of the Christ? Why would they have a Christ Self if they come from many different religions?

The reality of the Christ goes beyond Christianity. The Christ Self is your True Self. It is what you really are as an individual reflecting the individuality of God. It is your real personality that is a part of the personality of God. The Christ Self is your mentor, your personal Guru, until the day when, merging with that Self, you affirm, I AM the Christ, I AM the Mentor, I AM the Guru. The separation from this Self, from this reality, is sustained only so long as you, by your free will, choose to sustain the components of the synthetic image.

The word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos meaning anointed. The Holy Christ Self is the light, or Christos, whose flow of love, wisdom, and power is the conductor of life’s energy from the Spirit to the body, soul, and mind. The Holy Christ Self is the illuminator of the heart.

This concept is indeed much older than Christianity. In Hinduism, this inner essence of each individual is called the Ātman. The Upanishads speak of the Ātman as the immortal Self, the indwelling Spirit, the supreme universal Self. Just as the Christ Self is one in divine consciousness but still individual to each person, so too, the Upanishads teach that the Ātman is both one with Brahman and a distinct identity.

Jesus embodied his Christ Self—as did Buddha, Zarathustra, Moses, Mother Mary, Kuan Yin, Saint Germain, Padre Pio, El Morya and all ascended masters. While each religion uses its own terminology for those who have ascended, all of them have let go of their mortal human self and reunited their soul with this True Self, their immortal God Self.

The Christ Self of each man is therefore his own direct link to God, his own divinely ordained Mediator. The mediatorship of the Christ Self is the open door whereby the soul passes from its nonpermanent existence in Matter to the permanent atom of being in Spirit.

As the one fire, after it has entered the world, though one, takes different forms according to whatever it burns, so does the internal Ātman of all living beings, though one, takes a form according to whatever He enters and is outside all forms.

—Katha Upanishad

The soul is the living potential of God. Our souls have been evolving as long as we have been sojourning in the material universe. We can think of the soul as a glisteningly transparent sphere that is constantly evolving—or devolving.

The soul is the mortal part of ourselves that can become immortal—that must become immortal if she is to survive. To achieve immortality, the soul must be fused, or bonded, to her Higher Self, who is her Holy Christ Self. Until this bonding takes place, the soul is impermanent and therefore can be lost.

Guru and Chela

As we walk the Path to our own divine union, we can follow the footsteps of the ascended masters. When we reach out for help, they are there to throw us a lifeline. Just as a lifeline may be thrown from a ship to a sinking man, so the ascended masters’ rays of light’s assistance pour forth—yet it is up to us to take a firm hold on this, which is truly our own lifeline, and hang on while being raised. No power on earth can make the contact or hold it for us unless we have the willpower and determination to do it for ourselves.

It is true that on rare occasions one of the great ascended masters descends on this lifeline and actually ties it around a sinking one, sustaining and aiding that one even though the person may be wholly unconscious of the very real assistance being given. Even then, when the strength has returned to such a one it is expected that the individual shall learn to shift for themselves in calling forth and sustaining their progress in God’s kingdom.

When this personal assistance is given by an ascended being it is usually because of a previous connection with that lifestream—a past service rendered to the light. The ascended masters help us as our own karma and consciousness allows, but we can open the door to far greater help and a much deeper relationship as Guru and chela.

This relationship is seen in Christianity in Jesus and his apostles, and it is also fundamental in Hinduism and Buddhism. The words Guru and chela may be translated as spiritual teacher and student. But the heart connection between the Guru and the chela is much greater and deeper than these terms imply, for a chela is someone with whom the Guru shares his very life and breath.

You may already have an ascended master as your Guru and only need to rediscover that master with your conscious awareness. Once chelaship is granted by an ascended master, it is not withdrawn as one would snatch from you a cape, then give it again, then snatch it again. When an ascended master bestows the mantle of chela, he stands by that chela.

As our Guru is here for us, so we must be there for our Guru. When there is nowhere else to turn in darkening world conditions, the ascended masters turn to the heart of the chela, even as we turn to the heart of Christ in each and every ascended master.

The search for the Guru is something that is deep within our souls. It is the seed searching for a pattern in whose spiral it may follow. The association of the chela with the ascended master is unique in each and every case. For every chela there is a special oneness, and each encounter is a special moment in eternity when time is not and space is consumed. These experiences with the ascended masters come day by day to those who have the will to leave behind the patterns of the lesser self and merge with the solar consciousness of the Greater Self. And though we may make mistakes, the ascended masters always seek to draw us back to the Path and take us into a higher dimension of understanding.

The ascended masters have mastered life in time and space by controlling their thoughts and feelings, their words and actions. They have brought themselves by many means (whether by any religion or none) into alignment with the Spirit of God. The ascended masters have chosen to stand between mankind and oncoming personal and planetary karma. This they can do by establishing a tie with those of us who allow ourselves to be the instrument of their release of light.