Meet the Masters
The ascended masters are people like you and me who have lived and worked among us and who have become one with God. They are the graduates cum laude of every culture and every history and every religion. These masters from the near and distant past are the saints and sages whose lives are marked by self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity, humility before the inner Presence, obedience to the cosmic code, and an overwhelming love for all life. They have inspired every aspect of achievement in our culture, in the arts and sciences, in our government and our economy, in education, and in that indomitable spirit of freedom that yet holds the courage to dream the dream of love, of truth, and of liberty for all mankind.
They are the immortals, who have kept the flame of life and then became one with the flame in the ritual of the ascension. They have merged with the flame through obedience to the inner law of their own God-free being through the sacrifice of the lesser self unto the Greater Self. Following their final earthly embodiment, they have taken their place among the hosts of the LORD. Because they have mastered time and space and accelerated, or stepped up, their vibration to the plane of the I AM Presence, they are called "Ascended"Masters. They, too, are keeping the flame for mankind. Together with their unascended disciples (chelas), they comprise the eternal order known as the Great White Brotherhood.
The Great White Brotherhood is the body of Ascended Masters guiding this system of worlds. They are the "saints robed in white". Dedicated to the salvation of the children of the Light through the World Teachers, its members Above and here below are marked by the white light of their auras, hence the term "white" in the name. Regardless of race, creed, religion, or national origin, all children of God can walk the same path of initiation which the Ascended Masters and their disciples have walked. They, too, can ascend into the Presence of the living God--the Mighty I AM Presence--and become part of the heavenly hosts.
Source: Prophet, Elizabeth C.
The Great White Brotherhood: In the Culture, History and Religion of America. 1976. Summit University Press, Livingston, Montana.