Category: Quotations

The Energy of the Will-to-Good. Power.

This initiation has always been called in the Christian church by the name of the Resurrection, whereas it is the seventh initiation which is the true resurrection. The correct name for the fifth initiation is the Initiation of Revelation; this signifies the power to wield light as the carrier of life to all in the three worlds, and to know likewise the next step to be taken upon the Way of the Higher Evolution. This Way is revealed to the initiate in a new light and with an entirely different significance when the fifth initiation is taken. It is the true time of emergence from the tomb of darkness and constitutes an entrance into a light of an entirely different nature to any hitherto experienced.

Development and revelation or (if you so prefer it) a developing revelation, form essentially the entire theme and objective of all activity upon our planet. This gives us a clue to the goal of the planetary Logos. All life, from the first descent of the soul into incarnation, is only a series of revelations, all of which lead up to the revelation accorded at the fifth initiation. The relation between the fifth and the seventh initiations is exceedingly deep and mysterious. It is the revelation accorded in the fifth initiation which makes the seventh initiation possible. The Master, as He emerges at the fifth initiation into the light of day, realizes in that light:

• The true and hitherto unknown significance of the three worlds which he has viewed almost entirely from the angle of meaning. Now its significance is apparent, and the revelation is so tremendous that “he withdraws into the world of light and joins his brothers. He gathers all his forces and seeks new light upon the Plan. That light shines forth and with the force of its revealing power, new loyalties arise, new goals are seen, and that which shall be and the thing which is, both become lost in the radiant light of revelation.”
• That the first vibration or influencing energy of the cosmic ray of prevailing energy in its highest aspect is the Ray of Love-Wisdom, and this is now contacted; this is made possible by the Master’s response to the first Ray of Power or of the Will-to-Good, experienced in its second aspect at the fifth initiation. Forget not that all rays have three aspects, and that all three can be contacted by the human consciousness of the spiritual man, thus placing at his disposal the energies of the seven rays and of the twenty-one forces. It is this synthesis which is revealed at the fifth initiation and – as I said above – the combination of these forces produces the Ascension; this is an exceeding great mystery and one which cannot as yet be grasped by you. From the height of the Mount of Ascension light is thrown upon the hierarchical Plan in such a manner that the purpose in the mind of the planetary Logos is (for the first time) truly grasped.
• From that height also, the mystery of the human soul is revealed and a great triangular pattern will be seen, relating the human spirit to the world of forms, to the united Hierarchy and to the Council Chamber of the Lord. Upon this I may not here enlarge, for we must not diverge too far from our study. One thing only can be said: from that high place, atma-buddhi-manas (will, love and intelligent action) can be seen in united activity and the theory of an existing Plan and the belief in the three divine aspects, or in the Trinity of Energies, is factually demonstrated.

The first Ray of Will or Power is distinguished by the highest known divine quality (there are others still higher). In the word, Goodwill, the secret purpose of the planetary Logos is hidden. It is being slowly brought to the attention of humanity by means of the three phrases: God is Love. Goodwill. The Will-to-Good. These three phrases, in reality concern the three aspects of the first ray.

When a Master takes the fifth initiation He already knows the significance of the first two aspects, and must become consciously aware of the highest aspect: the Will-to-Good. He has developed in Himself “the love necessary to salvation, His own and that of those He loves, His fellowmen;” all His actions and His thinking are qualified by goodwill, in its esoteric sense, and the significance of the Will-to-Good lies ahead of Him and will be later revealed.

As this first ray is not in incarnation at this time, and therefore souls who can fully express it are absent, the entire theme anent this type of energy, and its influence and quality when related to the energies and the forces, is most difficult to express. Each great ray, as it comes into incarnation, transforms the speech of the cycle, enriches the existent vocabulary, and brings new knowledge to humanity; the many civilizations – past and present – are the result of this.

I would ask you to consider the relation of the fifth initiation, the fifth Ray of Science and the first Ray of Will, for there lies the key to the revelation accorded to the initiate-Master.

As you can see, we are venturing into realms far beyond your comprehension; but the effort to grasp the unattainable and to exercise the mind along the line of abstract thought is ever of value.

It must be remembered therefore (and I reiterate) that the revelation accorded to the disciple-initiate is along the line of the first Ray of Will or Power, and that is a ray which is as yet a long way from full manifestation. From one angle, it is of course always in manifestation for it is the ray which holds the planet and all that is upon it in one coherent manifesting whole; the reason for this coherent synthesis is the evolutionary effort to work out divine purpose. The first ray ever implements that purpose. From another angle, it is cyclic in its manifestation; here I mean from the angle of recognized manifestation – and such is the case at this time.

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The Effect of Ray I on Humanity Today

Owing to extra-planetary stimulation, to the immediate planetary crisis and to the present invocative cry of humanity, energy from Shamballa has been permitted to play upon the “center which is called the race of men” and has produced two potent results: first, the world war was precipitated and, secondly, the fission of the atom, resulting in the atomic bomb, was brought about. Both these events were made possible by the pouring-in of the energy and power of the third aspect of the first Ray of Power or Will. This is the lowest aspect, and definite material effects were produced. The destroyer aspect was therefore the first aspect to take effect. It split the thought-form of materialistic living (which was governing and controlling humanity everywhere) upon the mental plane and, at the same time, it produced a great agent of destruction upon the physical plane.

Thus was the new era ushered in; thus was the stage set for a better future. This was the intent and the purpose of Those Who compose the Council Chamber of the Lord. It rests with humanity itself to take advantage of the proffered opportunity which this destructive manifestation made possible.

Shamballa having acted in this manner, it is nevertheless the Hierarchy which will bring into expression a measure of the second aspect of the first Ray of Will or Power, and it is for this that the Hierarchy is preparing; it is for this event that the Christ is fitting Himself to be the distributing Agent and the directing Factor, with the concentrated assistance of the united Hierarchy; it is this that will begin to manifest when He appears. You have here the true reason for His proclaimed Coming or Reappearance. The distinction between material living and spiritual living will be clearly demonstrated. This is made possible by the cleavage of the ancient materialistic thought-form on mental levels; the reorientation of human thinking, as this fact is grasped, will have its first results upon emotional levels through the focused expression of human goodwill; this is the lowest aspect of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom, implemented and strengthened by the second aspect of the first Ray of Will.

On the physical plane, the great scientific discovery, called colloquially the “splitting of the atom,” will be turned eventually to the production of those conditions which will enable mankind to follow the good, the beautiful and the true. This men will then be able to do, freed from the dread presence of purely materialistic thinking. This is no idle vision or vague dream. Many scientists today (and particularly those who love their fellowmen) are not only visioning the non-destructive aspect of atomic energy but are already engaged in harnessing – for the good of humanity – some of its products and its radioactive properties.

Curiously enough, it is the wise, controlled use of the results of this scientific adventure in connection with the atomic bomb which will eventually bring about a specific revelation of the nature of certain forces in relation to light; this event will transform world thinking and lead to a new type of transmutative process, as far as man is concerned.

It must not be inferred from the above that humanity, as a whole, will be taking the fifth initiation, for such is not the case. Many advanced souls (perhaps amounting to many thousands) may and will take this initiation, but the masses of men everywhere, constituting the sum total of the world disciple, will eventually take either the first or the second initiation. The effect however of hierarchical happenings, in conjunction with Shamballa, will lead finally to the great stimulation of the fifth Principle of manas, the intelligence principle in man. A revelation which is not perceived, which remains unrelated and unexpressed, is of no true service to mankind, except from a purely subjective standpoint; nevertheless, through the proposed stimulation, through the efforts of those who have taken or who will take the fifth initiation, and through the new direction of first ray energy from Shamballa, the mental plane will receive such an inflow of energy that the thinking principle, the reasoning factor within humanity, will reach new heights. Thus will the “light stream forth into the minds of men,” and the first stanza of the Invocation prove that it can and does receive an answer to its invocative appeal.

It would be good to let your spiritual imagination look forward into the future, and then vision – if you can – what is the true significance of the tremendous activity of the Hierarchy. One of the signs of the coming of this new light and energy inflow is a definitely curious one; it is to be found in the instability of the human mental mechanism and the human thinking processes at this time. This is due to their premature response to the new incoming potency. It is a mass reaction, and therefore the statistical returns are somewhat misleading. It is the unready who thus react, and this entails no possible reflection upon those thus distressed (and they are to be found today in all classes and nations). The Law of Rebirth will take care of this reaction, and in the next incarnation these same people will enter a physical body with a better equipment. In reality, it is this energy from Shamballa in its third and destructive aspect which is acting upon certain members of the human family and unfortunately evoking a ready response. I tell you this for your encouragement; destruction always evokes questioning in minds attuned to human welfare and in those thinkers who are apprehensive of the suffering to which their fellowmen are subjected.

One of the most difficult things for the average thinking man to understand and to interpret is the destructive processes of what he (for lack of a better name) calls “the will of God.” This is one of the results (and only one) of a purely materialistic civilization which has laid all its emphasis upon the form side of experience and thus regards physical well-being and physical comfort, plus material possessions, as the true goal of all human effort. It is upon this widespread attitude and reaction that the new incoming light will concentrate itself; as the light reveals reality, the world of phenomena and the world of spiritual values will enter into a better, directed relation.

From all the above, you will note that some of the effects upon humanity as a whole and the skeleton structure of the new and beautiful future will take place as a result of the new incoming first ray activity. No details can yet be given, but enough has been written down anent the basic, predisposing cause to enable you who read to ponder upon the possible effect, spiritually speaking. What is coming is a civilization of a different yet still material nature, but animated by a growing registration by the masses everywhere of an emerging spiritual objective which will transform all life and give new value and purpose to that which is material.

Next we must consider what will be the effect of this first ray energy upon the individual disciple as he prepares for and undergoes the fifth initiation, and keys himself up for the promised revelation, thus laying himself open to an entirely new inflow of force. This he must do consciously. It is conscious absorption of energy and its conscious assimilation, plus its conscious use which distinguishes the initiate from the rest of mankind; there are of course many degrees of this desired consciousness. What the initiate will receive as a result of first ray energy will be an inflow of the second aspect of this ray – a blazing forth of the light which will focus clearly for him, and in a flash of time, the significance of that which is slowly being revealed on Earth; he sees this vision in toto for the first time. At the fourth initiation, he responds to the third aspect of this ray, the aspect of destruction; this divested him of everything, and finally and eternally destroyed all that which held him in the three worlds of human endeavor. Thus was harmony produced through conflict, and the success of the individual initiate is the guarantee of the final success of the world disciple.

When it comes to a consideration of the effect of this ray at the time of the fifth initiation, you must bear in mind that the disciple has passed, in a previous incarnation, through the Initiation of Renunciation, and has established within himself a condition of complete harmony as a result of conflict – a conflict which has been raging for millennia of years and whose goal has ever been revelation. Just as a camera has to be correctly focused in order to register correctly that which is visioned, so this harmony, once finally achieved, can be regarded as a form of focused orientation. Throughout the many lives the disciple has lived, there have been many such moments, but they were brief and passing, serving only to stir the aspiration into activity. With the disciple of the fourth initiation, submitting himself to the fifth initiation, the orientation and the focus attained remains a permanent condition. This prefaces an entirely new cycle of spiritual experience – the experience of the higher evolution – leading to that great moment when the revelation of the seven Paths is accorded to him at the following or sixth Initiation of Decision.

Where the ordinary everyday man is concerned, the propelling aspiration (if I may use such an unusual phrase) is of a material nature and concerns his successful progress in the world of everyday physical plane life. It might be wise to consider ambition as the lower expression of aspiration; this ambition covers all the many phases of the Path of Evolution, from the ambition of the raw savage in primeval times to gain food and shelter for himself and family to the ambition of the modern businessman to reach the height of financial gain or power. Having achieved that goal, it frequently happens that, on the way to the higher octave of ambition (aspiration), there may come a cycle of lives where the ambition is directed to the creative arts. Next comes gradually the transmutation of all these ambitions into a steadily growing and consciously spiritual aspiration. The man treads then the Probationary Path and eventually the Path of Discipleship, and as his spiritual ambition grows and is paralleled by an equally steady growth in mental realization, he passes from initiation to initiation, until there comes the culminating fifth initiation.

All his past realizations – both his material and also his spiritual realization – have been renounced. He stands entirely free from every aspect of desire. The spiritual will has been substituted for desire. Then, reinforced by the inflow of the first ray Shamballic energy, and offering no obstructions or hindrances from within himself, as a personality, he is in a position to receive the stimulation which will enable him “to see that which is to be revealed and to accept revelation,” transmuting it into that definite realization which will enable him to live by means of its light. You have, therefore, certain words which are concerned with the method whereby the vision is accorded and revelation given:

• Ambition, implemented by determination.
• Aspiration, implemented by devotion or one-pointed attention.
• Revelation, implemented by the will in its two lower aspects.
• Realization, implemented by the will in its highest aspect.

That, briefly, is the evolutionary story of the “initiate in good standing” and it is basically the story of the will to self-betterment, the will to human service, goodwill, and finally, the will-to-good. You can see, therefore, how the great first aspect of divinity, through its three aspects, is the hidden, basic, motivating potency of life and of evolution, from the very dawn of the evolutionary cycle.

The initiate in good standing looks into the heart of things; he has forced his way to the very “Heart of the Sun” (using those words in a “planetary” and not in a “solar” sense) and – from that vantage point – he becomes aware of the “Central Spiritual Sun” and the Way of the Higher Evolution which leads inevitably to that assured center of the Most High. The three worlds of material living and the inner world of meaning which the soul has revealed to him are now left behind; he is suddenly confronted with the world of significances, with the true world of causes and of origination, and by the realm of the universal. He discovers that all he had thought anent the Law of Cause and Effect was so limited that – in the light of this Higher Evolution – it has practically become meaningless, except as the ABC whereby he can teach the children of men. He realizes, through the revelation accorded, more clearly than has hitherto been possible, the Purpose of the planetary Logos. From the time of the third initiation, this purpose has been gradually revealing itself; he sees it expressing itself through Sanat Kumara, Who is the Personality expression of the planetary Logos. During the coming interval and cycle of preparation for the sixth initiation, that purpose will burst upon him in blazing and synthetic glory.

The way to the Central Spiritual Sun is therefore revealed to him, and he knows that he faces a period of intense preparation (not training, as that word is usually understood) for a length of time determined by world need, the nature of his service and certain undefinable ray conditions.

He has to fulfil the magnetic condition which will enable him to form his own Ashram; he has to unfold a new phase of selective spiritual discrimination. The word discrimination is, however, misleading, because the form of it which he can now express carries no quality of rejection or of separation. It is a right knowledge and understanding of those karmically linked to him, a right use of an impelling attractive force which will, occultly speaking, attract the attention of those who should enter his Ashram, plus an esoteric process of blending himself and his Ashram into the full body of the Hierarchy. New Ashrams within the Hierarchy present much the same type of difficulty and problems as the entrance of a new disciple into an Ashram.

It might be said that that which holds the Hierarchy together, and that which produces a coherent Ashram, is the revelation, received in the light which that revelation produced and which leads to realization. Ashramic responsibility, constant service within the planetary Life and the subjection of Himself and of His Ashram to cyclic stimulation from Shamballa, plus certain mysterious processes which have naught to do with form or consciousness, but with the “sensitivity of the universe,” occupy the interim between the fifth and the sixth initiations.

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Initiation V –  The Revelation

As we undertake the consideration of the next initiation, you will find that three factors will emerge in a new light in your consciousness. That they are factors related to past experiences, and yet which have reference to experiences which lie far ahead of you upon the Path, will also be inferred from what I say; these will not necessarily meet with your real understanding. These factors are:

• The factor of Blindness, leading to revelation.
• The factor of the Will, producing synthesis.
• The factor of the Purpose, externalizing itself through the Plan.

These are all implicit in this new initiatory experience, but they should be approached by you with as much use of the intuition as you can employ; your effort will have to be that you endeavor to think as if you had taken the higher initiations. You have to bear in mind that each initiation enables the initiate to “see ahead” a little further, for revelation is always a constant factor in human experience. The whole of life is revelation; the evolutionary process is, in relation to consciousness, a process of leading the blind out of darkened areas of consciousness into greater light, and therefore into a vaster vision.

As you know, this particular initiation has been called the “Resurrection” by the Christian world, emphasizing that aspect in the experience of the initiate which leads to revelation; i.e., his “rising out of the ocean of matter into the clear light of day.” The thought of revelation can be seen also in the Christian teaching anent the “Ascension” – an initiation which has no factual existence and should not be called an initiation. You have, therefore, the following sequence, connected with the fourth and fifth initiations:

• Renunciation, producing crucifixion and leading to
• Ascension, or a complete “rising out of,” or “mounting higher,” leading to
• Revelation, giving vision, the reward of the two above stages.

Christian theologians have made three distinct episodes out of these two initiations, but this has in no way mattered (as the initiate in the West soon learns); he now knows that the whole series of initiations, with their causes, their effects and their resultant intentions are only a sequence of processes, leading from the one to the other. A corresponding sequence can be seen in the unfoldment of the consciousness of the human being from infancy to full maturity; each unfoldment is part of a series of revelations, as his vision of life and his capacity to experience develops. This is true of all men from the most primitive to the advanced initiate, the difference consisting in that which each brings to the experience as the result of past effort, his point in consciousness and the quality of the vehicles through which that consciousness is developing. With the initiate-disciple this is also the case; he enters consciously into each experience; they are integral parts of his intention.

Having renounced the three worlds, and having returned – back from a contact of great importance and interest – to those three worlds and with all that is familiar in them, the initiate suddenly realizes that he has indeed been liberated, that he is indeed free, that he has been raised out of darkness and is now free in a new world of experiences. He knows that he has climbed to the mountain-top or has “ascended” to the buddhic plane, from which plane he must permanently work and not just occasionally, as has been the method hitherto.

He can work through a physical body (with its subtler sheaths) or not, as he sees fit. He realizes that he, as an individual, no longer needs a physical body or an astral consciousness, and that the mind is only a service instrument. The body in which he now functions is a body of light which has its own type of substance. The Master, however, can build a body through which He can approach His incoming disciples and those who have not taken the higher initiations; He will normally build this body in semblance of the human form, doing so instantaneously and by an act of the will, when required. The majority of the Masters who are definitely working with humanity either preserve the old body in which They took the fifth initiation or else They build the “mayavirupa” or body of maya, of physical substance. This body will appear in the original form in which They took initiation. This I personally did in reference to the first case; i.e., preserving the body in which I took initiation. This the Master K.H. did in creating a body which was made in the form in which He took the fifth initiation.

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Excerpted from “The Rays and the Initiations – Part Two – Section Two – The Aspirant and the Major Initiations”.

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl