Omnipresence

Omnipresence is presence in every place at the same time; unbounded or universal presence; ubiquity. Omnipresence is an attribute peculiar to God.The Oxford English Dictionary


“God is omnipresent as Light substance,
everywhere evenly available, in all places, at all times.”


Omnipresence is an absolute and abstract principle. Omnipresence is all Love-as-Substance present in all ways and in all places of all creation, all Love-as-Substance present through all unconscious things, and all Love-as-Substance present as all conscious beings.

God is both immanent, indwelling His Creation, and transcendent, exceeding His Creation as its container. This concept is named panentheism, which stresses God’s active presence in the world.





Edna Lister on Omnipresence

Omni means "all, of all things, in all ways, in all places." Omniscient means infinite knowledge of God, wide information, all knowledge. Omnipresent means ubiquity, widespread, all-pervading all present. Ubiquity is omnipresence, being everywhere at the same time. Omnipresent refers to presence of Mind, Power, and Substance.—Edna Lister, God’s Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence, October 5, 1934.


A man went to study with a teacher. He was ready to start, eager to have information imparted to him, like Christmas ornaments hung on a tree from the outside. His teacher told him, "Go sit on that little knoll and ponder on the omnipresence of God." He went to the hill and sat for ninety minutes, became distressed, and endured the rest of day.

The next morning, the teacher again said, "Go to the little knoll and meditate on the omnipresence of God." The man at first refused to be made a fool of while others watched; he finally went three hours later.

The third day, the teacher said, "Go up and contemplate the omnipresence of God." Disgusted, he went and sat on the hill, wondering why folks even came to the camp, wondering what they got from it, how and from where they got it. He became lost in thought and sat on the hill, forgetting everything else for twenty-four hours; he had no meals, no sleep.

When he returned to the camp, he was radiant of face and transfigured. In the silence, alone, when you are aware of nothing but God, you receive your private lessons with God. Truth grows from within you, like peaches on a tree.—Edna Lister, All Revelation Comes Through the Silence, November 28, 1934.


Remain faithful in all ways, in all places, of all things, and so shall the omnipresence of the Source of Glory shine upon you unto the fulfilling of all promises.—Edna Lister, October 20, 1939.


God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. These three great fundamental principles of expression in the life of creation expand from all that is into all that becomes. God the Absolute is Wisdom, Love and the Logos. God expresses omnisciently, omnipresently and omnipotently. Omnipresence is the transmutation principle, and its function is vibration, for example, the electromagnetic spectrum. Omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, the outer trinity of principles, operate through three primary laws of doing (action) based on philosophical statements of being. Omnipresence operates through the law of becoming: God gives Substance the power of becoming. Mind must condition it.—Edna Lister, A Design for Ascension, 1941.


God’s gift to you is all when you "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."—Matthew 6:33. Cooperation, Power, Love, Wisdom and answers are unlimited, if you listen. This is God’s Allness—omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence.—Edna Lister, Nor Shadow of Turning, July 15, 1956.


Three trinities of the Truth of Being operate in 33 Via Christa Degrees: Omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. The prefix, omni, means "in all ways, in all places, of all things," both in the Source and throughout its creations. The second great truth is that omnipresence is God as the principle of ever-present substance in all ways of all creation, ever-present substance in all places of all creation, ever-present substance through all things unconscious, and ever-present substance as all things conscious. Omniscience represents the Mother of Love aspect of God as personality. This ever-present substance is Wisdom, Love and Joy combined as one, flowing as the River of Life. Joy is the Holy Ghost, the presence of God as all substance ready and available to become form and action in all places.—Edna Lister, Three Covenants Between God and Man, December 8, 1959.


You can never be outside God’s kingdom is the law of omnipresence, a primary law based on fundamental principle. Many who are unaware of this law want to be "converted." You have no place else to go. Wherever you go, you are in the now. You can have no "inner" other than where you are right now. Don’t waste time thinking about being in the kingdom. Where else could you go? "If I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me."—Psalm 139:9-10.

"I know I am in the kingdom of heaven here and now." To doubt this is as if you were to feel foreign at home, a stranger, like standing in the living room and asking God, "Where is my home? Please lead me home." When you feel lost or alone, you are not holding to this first law of life. The Father is just upstairs. You are now in the kingdom of heaven. "I am at home in the kingdom, being and becoming in the kingdom, here and now." This is the most important law to know and to apply; it is always ready to work instantly when you are conscious of it.—Edna Lister, How Can I Apply Law to My Life? June 7, 1960.


"God is everywhere evenly present and available in all His parts, potentialities and qualities" is a metaphysical statement of faith in God’s omnipresence. No particle anywhere in the universe is devoid of God. He is present and available in all His parts, attributes and substance. God’s Substance is life sparks, which fill the Emanations, endowed from the Source. Everything consists of life sparks. God gives the living soul the power of conscious direction and control over substance, the primordial essence of which He has made all things. He has given substance the power to become. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."—Hebrews 11:1. In inanimate objects, faith is unconscious as the life sparks. However, "Faith without works is dead."—James 2:20. Therefore, the living soul’s expression of faith must be conscious.—Edna Lister, Is Faith Enough? June 21, 1960.


Faith, the principle of omnipresence, is our expression of hope and aspiration on earth. Faith challenges the living soul to "believe to see." Faith carries us from God as Light into outer expression as form and back to God.—Edna Lister, Is Faith Enough? June 21, 1960.


Cosmic consciousness includes omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, attributes of the Godhead. "Omni" means "in all ways, in all places, of all things."—Edna Lister, Your Contact With Cosmic Consciousness, September 7, 1962.


Reality is the property of being real, with no delusion; it is what underlies appearance. God is omnipresent as Light substance, everywhere evenly available, in all places, at all times. This dispels any illusion of possible separation from God, which is a prevalent world illusion. To the soul has been given freedom of choice, the power of conscious direction and control of his or her own life. To substance has been given the power of becoming, but it cannot become anything of itself alone; it must be acted upon by Mind.—Edna Lister, Deity and Reality, October 13, 1964.


The ability of the Universal Father to be everywhere present and at the same time constitutes His omnipresence. Omni means "in all ways, in all things, of all places." Early metaphysicians said, "God is everywhere evenly present." The psalmist proclaimed: "Whither shall I go from Your spirit or whither shall I flee from Your presence?"—Psalm 139:7.

"I am a God at hand as well as afar off, saith the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth?"—Jeremiah 23:23-24. God fills all in all, and He works all in all. No analysis of effects can ever reveal God. The living God is immeasurably greater than the sum of Creation that has come into being as a result of the creative acts of His unfettered free will.

God is revealed throughout the cosmos, but the cosmos can never contain or encompass the entirety of the infinity of God. "His going forth is from the end of the heavens and His circuit to the ends of it; and there is nothing hidden from the light thereof."—Psalm 19:6.—Edna Lister, Omnipresence, the Father’s Primacy, November 24, 1964.


God’s omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience know no time or space.—Edna Lister, May 16, 1966.


Ubiquitous deity deals with the everywhere evenly present God, but does not interfere with divine omnipresence; it is a lesser vibration. God unifies time and space through the lesser principle of ubiquity.—Edna Lister, October 21, 1968.


We find the scientific approach to religion under the philosophical principles of God’s omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. "Omni" means "of all things and of all places." When we speak of an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God, we mean God as principle, God as all substance, God as all Power. God is all that is. Science says the universe consists of one substance — we have just so much substance — we cannot add to or subtract from it. However, we can change the form and renew substance. This is our way of producing miracles.—Edna Lister, Five Important Mysteries, October 27, 1968.

Top ↑


Omnipresence, the Principle of Substance

God is Omnipresent, ubiquitous and all-pervading as the Mother of Love. God is everywhere evenly present and available as the Mind that thinks and plans, as the Power that moves and energizes and as the Substance of which He forms all creation, according to degree and kind.

The Mother-God principle contains all feminine aspects of God as personality. It is the blue ray of Love or the spirit blue color of the Mother-God principle of Substance that nourishes and sustains all the Father’s creations. She fills all His molds with Substance under the spoken Word.

Substance is the Mother’s healing Light. She is also the devouring death ray without which nothing could disintegrate, the beneficent in-drawing ray of life that absorbs the life from old and useless forms. Without the death ray, we could never free ourselves from our earthly bodies. God the Father uses Love to draw all vibrations back to the Source, to absorb the magnetic walls at the end of a Day of Manifestation, while preparing for a Night of Rest and Assimilation.

Substance Is Present in All Ways: The primary universal unit of Substance is the life spark of Light, which is the beginning of all the Substance that is. Substance is given the Power of becoming.

Substance is unconscious of being substance, and is incapable of action. Power must act on Substance to move it from one state of being to another. Substance can become only what the Creator desires or loves, thinks or wills into expression.

God gives each living soul the priceless gift of conscious direction and control. God desired to create and a universe was born. God must first desire to express or no outer form of Creation can manifest.

The Creative Impulse is the cause of all Creation, and the purpose of Creation is to embody the Creative Impulse. Creation sustains the Creative Impulse. The Creative Impulse sustains Creation as the heartbeat empowers physical life, eternally oscillating between poles of activity and rest.

God’s nature is to give. Without active manifestation, we have only the memory of past planning, action, experience and love. God desired to lavish infinite love on expressions like unto Himself, Sons and Daughters who would receive, express and return His Love. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.—Luke 12:32.

Any creative desire expands the Creative Impulse. Desire carries the power to express as growth under the principle of increase. The Creative Impulse causes Mind to plan the beginning and end of manifestation, it causes Power to express as Energy and return as Power, it endows Substance with the power of becoming all that experience may bring.

Substance Is Present Throughout All Places: Through the centuries, scientists have proposed two basic theories about matter: First, matter is a single universal substance whose contraction or expansion produces the variety of matter observed in the universe. Second, matter is a limited set of basic elements, whose recombination produces the seemingly endless variety of observable matter.

We lack a perspective broad enough to encompass the truth about Mind, Substance and Power. Both theories are true. We can never exhaust the infinite capacity of the Three-as-One. The discoveries of the "original" subatomic proton, neutron and electron have expanded to dozens of different particles, including particles of antimatter.

In each Day of Manifestation new creation is the continued rule. The Three-as-One is limitless in its ability to differentiate from the ninety-two naturally-occurring chemical elements into new compounds, alloys and synthetics. The creation of new physical forms, different types and combinations of thought-forms is unlimited.

All phases of Light, color, tone, number, expression and form are subject to the choices of God’s Sons and Daughters. Even God the Mind of all Wisdom does not know how many combinations and variations can result from our choices.

Substance Is Present in All Unconscious Things: Substance is not conscious of being Substance. Unconscious life is subject to instinctive urges. An urge is an impelling motive, force or pressure. Instinctive intelligence obeys the unconscious urges to appropriate Energy and Substance, to renew life and grow, to propagate and follow the Light. Appropriation, growth and propagation form a trinity of earth urges, as do eating sleeping and mating.

From the beginning of time, each life spark has ensheathed a particle of soul substance that became the first instinctive, unconscious intelligence and desire in the fish, fowl and animal stages of evolution. The unconscious inner urge in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms is always to appropriate life because each expression is part of the whole.

Unless interfered with, this inner urge never disrupts the upward progress of evolution. All unconscious urges operate under the principle of desire, which is the first step toward consciousness in evolution. This inner urge has always been and always will be unconscious.

Substance Is Present as All Conscious Beings: Mind, Substance and Power are all that is. The One God used the Three-as-One to form the soul’s vehicle as a perfect instrument. Your head, the golden bowl, contains your brain and glands, equipment for real, perfect expression of the Three-as-One through your faculties.

God endows each living soul with all the Godhead’s capacities. You may use cosmic universal Mind infinitely for thinking and planning, directing and controlling. You may call on inherent, potential Power and active, kinetic Energy. You may draw on an open account of perfect and complete Substance, accessible at any moment for all needs.

The finite mind, while still in the creature stage, has difficulty in comprehending the process of creation. So we have classed creation with the greatest of all mysteries, holding it inviolable and sacred among the unknown secrets of God. Dogmatic theologies require acceptance on faith. This emotional approach satisfies the devotional nature but leaves intellect hungry for answers beyond what some call a blind, unthinking belief.

Emotion and intellect are two approaches to God. All is the One God. One Mind creates all. One Power, life itself, operates all. One Substance forms all and science itself reveals the process. We can and must know God.

We can form new situations, circumstances, even new personalities, because as individualized living soul expressions, we are free to think, choose and act for ourselves after God creates us from the Substance of Light that contains all of the One God. Yet desire, thinking, planning, directing and controlling must be conscious.

We acquire consciousness and creative conscience. Thus, the results of our desires and thinking frequently surprise us. Witness what combinations of form have resulted from our misusing the Three-as-One on earth.

God the One has learned much about what can occur in His creation under certain combinations of imagination, thinking and desire. God will never allow such darkness again, for He has learned just how far He may trust His creation with free will. He knows exactly when He must divinely restrain that creation from misuse of law, and He does know how to hold His Sons and Daughters in check.—Edna Lister, A Design for Ascension, 1941.

Top ↑




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


Edna Lister


Etymology of omnipresence: Latin omni-, "all" + Latin praesens, present participle of praeesse, "to be present."


Omnipresence is an absolute principle under the Love Emanation; God is omnipresent.

Omnipresence is an abstract principle.

Omnipresence becomes relative as Substance and is a law of being.


References

Culp, John. "Panentheism," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2016, Edward N. Zalta, editor [accessed February 18, 2017].

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

Webster, Noah. Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language. New York: S. Converse, 1828.


Related Topic

See Substance