One of the perhaps most difficult things to quit, to give up, when one seeks to adopt a “spiritual” way of life is the modern addiction to salacious gossip in all its forms. One could say that gossip is a bedrock of social media and that it sells newspapers and magazines. Humanity lives vicariously through the lives of others presented for our consumption. Gossip is pushed like a wrap of fentanyl laced heroin.
Many would say, “oh no not me, I am not a gossip”. Well they may not be a pusher but they will score a wrap from time to time. This pays the pushers.
Quite a while back I was thoroughly shocked by an old acquaintance from school. We met up and he wanted to know the ins and outs of both my private life and those of anyone we knew in common. I was genuinely surprised because it was so obvious that he was almost salivating. “Really?”, I thought.
I have joked that the collective noun for a group of academics is a gossip of academics.
In principle an academic is detached and has a cool considered oversight. But that is not the case, they seemed obsessed about who got which grant, who has the higher measure of esteem and where people are in the “blessed” league tables.
Lofty pursuance of academic thought, nah. One upmanship and gossip about who is on the up and who is on the down are readily to be found. If there is any sex scandal, all the better. In the past academia had its own version of the casting couch too. Academia gets a metaphorical hard on for scandal. It likes the salacious just like anyone else.
Trungpa suggests that the Ego is forever trying to use spiritual teachings for its own benefit. Thus, gossip about whichever guru may masquerade as intelligent inquiry, when in fact it is just gossip clothed differently.
If you look at various publications you can classify a very large amount of their content as being gossip related and much of it hearsay carefully couched so as to avoid libel court action. It seems we all want to know what people are speculating as to the minds of Harry and William. There are “clairvoyant” royal “experts” who can read their minds for our “benefit”.
I know that at various stages of my life I have been a subject of gossip. The use of “a” is deliberate because I was only one topic amongst a host. It rarely occurs to people that gossip can damage even ruin careers. But people, it seems, cannot resist and love the attention from listeners which a juicy titbit might offer them
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“Have you heard about…”
“Really? Well, I never…”
I will make a postulate.
You cannot achieve liberation whilst you are a purveyor and consumer of gossip. If you are in anyway attached to gossip you are not free. You are addicted and suffer from the fear of missing out on the latest juicy and salacious titbit. You damage the web of life by your obsession.
You may be able to do the most complex asana but if gossip has you, then you are simply a bendy gossip.
In order to be free one has to reorient oneself apropos of gossip, maybe go cold turkey.
Here are some questions to help. Honesty instead of justification may help.
Do I like to hear gossip?
Do I find it a tad salacious?
Have I ever damaged anyone by gossiping about them?
Have I ever been damaged by gossip?
Am I perhaps more addicted to gossip than I would like to admit?
Realization of unity, wide-mindedness, tolerance, humility, gentleness and love.
This is the ceremonial ray, the ray which makes a man delight in “all things done decently and in order,” and according to rule and precedent. It is the ray of the high priest and the court chamberlain, of the soldier who is a born genius in organization, of the ideal commissary general who will dress and feed the troops in the best possible way. It is the ray of the perfect nurse for the sick, careful in the smallest detail, though sometimes too much inclined to disregard the patients idiosyncrasies and to try and grind them in the iron mill of routine.
It is the ray of form, of the perfect sculptor, who sees and produces ideal beauty, of the designer of beautiful forms and patterns of any sort; but such a man would not be successful as a painter unless his influencing ray were the fourth. The combination of four with seven would make the very highest type of artist, form and color being both in excelsis. The literary work of the seventh ray man would be remarkable for its ultra-polished style, and such a writer would think far more of the manner than of the matter in his work but would always be fluent both in writing and speech. The seventh ray man will often be sectarian. He will delight in fixed ceremonials and observances, in great processions and shows, in reviews of troops and warships, in genealogical trees, and in rules of precedence.”
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As I may have mentioned before my personality ray is ray seven. If you look closely you will be able to see the influence in the blog content.
The incoming ray is this ray ceremonial order or magic. Inherent in this is a major challenge for humanity, which so often is disorganised and in disarray. Winging it, is not seventh ray. The seventh ray may be précised as “the ray of having your shit together”. This is a long way from higgledy-piggledy and in some ways anti-hippie but in other ways it is the ray, par excellence, of natural rhythm. Everything should be in synch and on time with natural law and rhythm.
Yes, ritual traditional magic, craft, and mantra are a part, but only a small one.
Organisation, vivification, and energising are what proper order brings. An organism needs to organise and carry out its given physical plane learning. Karma can be thought of as residual “shit” that you have to deal with. Hence in working off your shit you get your shit together, less new karma, debt paid off.
Many people resist being organised and have never experienced the slick and the smooth of all cogs working in unison. People who are self-obsessed are separative and do not view themselves as part of the holistic whole. ME is a luddite spanner in the works. It causes discordance and discord, dis-chord, the sound jars.
The challenge of the incoming ray is to eradicate this notion of self and alchemize it into the holistic-whole, or ONE. The one humanity.
To say to a sloppy ill disciplined person, who is fond of the weird and the whacky, that they need to have their shit together is to ask for resistance.
“Hey man, that is not New Age!”
“Yes, it is! Get a haircut and pull up your trousers. You need to focus and stop being so dissipated!”
If one meanders and only cherry picks the easy fruit off the tree of teaching, then one will not taste the golden apples higher up the tree, which need more and continued effort to attain. Many choose only those teachings that are strap-on to normal life. Few want radical change. One could say people want to keep their cherry pie and eat it.
The seventh ray is also the ray of constant evolution and application. This is because Synthesis takes new learning and incorporates it with the knowledge heretofore garnered. Knowledge is never complete, because of constant synthesis one could say that knowing is a present participle synonym of evolving, knowledge relates to evolution. True knowledge cannot ever be concrete and finished.
Synthesis is an antithesis of Idealism and Devotion, the departing sixth ray. Sixth ray separates, cleaves and divides, seventh ray heals, stitches the rent wounds of division and stirs its synthetic pot of alchemy in search of the new.
The seventh ray is unlike the division with which our current world is so very badly scarred!!
It is time to synthesise and not cleave, the synthetic cauldron of inspiration must overcome the axe of cleavage.
This dream was three weeks after I fell and broke the neck of my femur. I was sleeping downstairs in the hospital bed, using a zimmer frame to get about, taking medication for pain and hence constipation. I was on heparin for blood clots and my broke leg was a lovely shade of bruise all the way from hip to my toe. I had the titanium pin put in while fully conscious. They injected fentanyl into my spine and held up a curtain so that I could not see the surgeon with his Black and Decker. It felt like he was using a large guage masonry bit from the skeletal vibrations.
The dream was most welcome.
Still a bit shaky. I have just woken from my afternoon nap, which usually results from my midday codeine. Wow! That was the most intense dream I have ever had.
I arrive at the edge of a walled garden and am welcomed through a large gateway by an upright Ganesh. He has all the typical elephant features, but his gait is that of a human being. He is iridescent blue in colour and has a twinkle in his eyes. I am welcomed into his “humble abode”. He shows me around his palace gardens, gardens that are tropical and scented. There are flowers everywhere. The garden is filled with water features. He takes me to a partially covered courtyard which has red-brown gravel. The pieces of gravel are near perfect spheres. He sits me down and we take tea together brought by his servants. I understand that this courtyard is where he practises his dancing.
A group of Indian musicians file in and seat themselves on the ground. Ganesh signals to them and they start playing. He gets up and starts to dance. His movements are exquisite, and his hands alternate between mudras beautifully and each mudra is exact and precise. He beckons me and starts to teach me some steps of his dance. {In the dream my leg functions fine.} Slowly I get the steps and we are starting to whirl and circle. It is entrancing. He stops suddenly and takes a blue-metallic AUM symbol out of his tunic. He walks over to me and presses it on my Anja centre. Slowly it penetrates and dissolves into me. I am left with a tattoo like impression on my skin. Ganseh smiles radiantly and we continue to dance.
I look at my body and notice that it has somehow taken on the same hue as Ganesh, which pleases me greatly in the dream. He laughs, at my surprise.
I awake with a start and my first instinct is look at my arms. They are not blue. They are lightly tanned and freckled with a few bruises from all the needles. It takes a while to assemble the reality of the room. I get up and go outside to smoke.
I think it fair to comment that a swathe of humanity is somewhat obsessed with material things; houses, ‘phones, cars and maybe even yachts. There is a desire for the less concrete material things, the man-made things, like position, status and kudos. These are the markers, the accoutrements of the show-and-tell story of success, material success. People attach a lot to objects and stuff. Some houses are brimming. There is a like of the shiny, the medals, the trophies of societal conformity. One can even have a trophy wife and post-nominal letters. These things can be taken away, an event which causes distress and suffering because of the attachment, thereto. People have possessions and are possessed by them. That which they are attached to has power over them. In the hunger for acquisition rarely does it occur that people are giving their power over to their possessions.
If you are to be free then the equation of freedom is that the fewer things that have material power over you there are, the freer you become. In the limit of no possessions, one might wander the streets penniless dependent upon the hand-outs of others. This, depending upon mind-state, is a state of powerlessness. This can also not be free, because of the dependency. Is there perhaps a happy medium? Well in a world where relative might operate, there is. One can have only those belongings which one actually needs and that suffices. Many acquire way more than this, perhaps in a vain attempt to satiate some hunger, some hole in being. Their “happiness” is correlated somehow, to number count of material accoutrement. It is straightforward to see that, in such cases, the thinking behind is faulty.
Even then it is likely that some degree of clinging to accoutrement occurs. This clinging is needy and not free. If one uses, with respect the needed things, knowing that their use is a temporary gift of the universe and without a sense of entitlement, there is less attachment. Non-attachment without respect is wasteful and profligate, it engenders a throw-away society. Non-attachment with respect is perhaps a hallmark of a free being. In this one has no belief that the universe owes us a living or anything much at all. Thereby one is grateful for the loan of the material things offered, yet not attached to having them.
Materialism implies a lack of spirituality, which comes in many flavours and degrees. Despite all the reason, logic and justification, many find that some sense of spirit is the icing on the cake of life. Without it life is incomplete, unfinished. In our times spirit seems to be dying in favour of material, it may be that this underlies the tremendous levels of world angst and anger. This is an opinion for you to consider.
There are many wise quotes that suggest materialism is a hollow path, that whilst shiny and bauble laden, offers no lasting happiness or peace. This gnawing materialism is insatiable; at the end of its rainbow is the pot of enough, which cannot be found because for those so oriented it simply does not exist. This elusive enough, often sought, can cause suffering. It is sought with the wrong mind-set and motive and ergo, is elusive. There is a Buddhist expression which I am fond of; hungry ghosts. A ghost then is a being divested of spirit seeking always to quench a thirst and silence a hunger pain, in the netherworld of materialism. If you don’t believe in “actual” ghosts, perhaps you can see the manifest hungry ghosts walking alongside you on our streets? They are quite common, and they do come out during the day.
In order to walk towards freedom, it is necessary to reorient in respect of the material so that it all but ceases to have power over you. Despite the prevalence of totems, relics and the like, they have no inherent power. The power is only in the mind of the reverential and acquisitional. This power is a mental construct attached by the being who holds it. These attachments can bind and hold.
Objects can be the talismans of memories, markers of stories and anchors of such. They evoke baggage and strengthen its hold. To be free of the past is to reconcile and dissolve it. To evoke and bolster it is unwise. In this respect sentimentality is a burden.
A major part of the obsession with materialism is, as I have hinted, this show-and-tell competitive social behaviours based in comparison mind and exploited by the advertiser. This fear of missing out on the latest grooviest thing is the marketer’s dream and a fundamental weakness in the herd of consumers. So many buy stuff they do not need so as to partake of a show-and-tell life. This to the extent of living beyond means in many cases. A trophy cabinet is of little solace when the creditors foreclose. You could say that this attraction to shiny baubles is a little primitive and yet pervasive.
If one looks ever outward to the material world for “happiness”, reward and acknowledgment, the inner world becomes barren and untended. There is no balance, no centre. It is difficult to be free when near perpetually off balance. In this respect simplicity is a counterpoint to acquisition, where need as opposed to want or desire, is the basis of interaction with the material world. Not everyone can tolerate the idea of monastic sparseness, yet relative comfort without excess is liveable for most. And in not feeling owed, or attached, knowing that your tenure of goods is transitory not guaranteed, equanimity can be found. The concept of ownership and permanent ownership at that, is a human invention. Nature can at any time challenge human perceived ownership of goods and irrevocably so. This construct of ownership and possession is of human origin and thereby a part of the illusion of the common dream, the prevailing world version. The mantram of “must have” is chanted daily by millions and it is not a mantram of peace or fulfilment. It is mantram of hunger. “Must have” is not free.
In order to be free, one must at least lessen the power which things and awards have over one. There needs to be a responsible lessening of attachment, perhaps in a stepwise manner. Slowly the umbilical to the world of materialism needs severed. To be possessed by possessions is to be hooked to them and their purveyors. And short of a full-blown exorcism it is best to wean yourself towards autonomous living and thinking. This addiction to materialism is powerful and it holds power over most.
In this pamphlet I have discussed in general terms freedom, equanimity and balance, now there is this controversial idea of fate. Fate implies karma a concept that underpins eastern thinking, but which is less popular in the west. Nevertheless, cause and effect are a major part of scientific method. Newtonian mechanics are taught widely. There is a disconnect because we accept this concept in the world of things but are less comfortable in the world of people. The consequence of cause and effect is karma and the summation of karma is fate. It does not take too much to see how some acts, some words even, cause things in the world of people. There are consequences to our actions, so although not expressed as karma, karma it is. As a rule, people fail to acknowledge just how much interconnectivity there is, this is because responsibility tends to be avoided. There is some immature childish behaviour which suggests that so long as one does not get caught there are no consequences for the person acting. There may be consequences for the person acted upon, but they do not matter provided deniability holds.
It is convenient to imagine that God and sin do not exist and that there is no reckoning for indulgence, for enacting every whim as and when. If you look around this mentality can be found easily. Provided that there is some perceived advantage many do not care less what they do nor how it affects others. They inflict themselves, their wants, desires and ambitions in a willy-nilly fashion. Yet there it is unspoken, unacknowledged and ignored, cause and effect. If you don’t like the word karma, these will suffice.
What has fate got to do with freedom?
If you are reading this tract, then at some level the idea of freedom is of interest. The circumstances of this life and perhaps the others that went before, have lead you here, today, to this. All the actions you have done, each cause has effected your life, so that as a consequence you are here, right now, reading this. It is your fate to read it. What you do subsequently is up to you. Fate has lead you here. You could argue that this is mere coincidence. But what has caused things to co-incide? Is it pure chance or has your education, place of birth and career made it possible? Has your life always been heading directly at this moment, however fleeting it may be?
Advocates of free will may put it down to choices made. But the summation of those choices has had the effect. At any point different choices could have been made, but they weren’t.
Without being specific if you are considering freedom then perhaps you were fated so to do, by your life experience. Otherwise you would be like many, unquestioning. What matters most is the next football match, the next soap opera episode or the “news” and gossip on Facebook. Somehow, you the reader have found yourself in an eddy in the stream, away from the current of modern living, with sufficient curiosity to be reading this. The odds against this are quite high. There are seven billion people on the planet yet here you are. For how long, who can say?
There may be a counter-intuitive problem with the very notions of fate and freedom. If something is fated, then it implies a lack of freedom. This is a kind of logic. Yet if freedom is your fate and you are fated to be free, then you have to follow that fate. There is freedom in evolving that fate in the general direction of freedom, one can’t avoid the fate, but one can be free in following it. This is as opposed to trying to shoe horn your existence into one of the available life templates extant in the epoch of your birth. Cutting a swathe through life which differs from the societally pre-ordained is much more liberating. Being able to think for and by yourself is less constrained and blinkered. Stepping outside of the hive to inhale the fresh air, if so fated, is fresh.
In order to get to a position where the tried and tested holds less pull, there has to be work on self, this is a cause and the effect is an increasing sensation of freedom. This is karma in action and the evolution of a fate, it is not succumbing. In various philosophies all that you do in this life is an effect of all that has gone on before in others. In this sense each life has a fate and the summation of all fates is your destiny. If it is your destiny to acquire more freedom, then surely that is the only acquisition worth anything in the long term; especially given the impermanence of the material and the social. One could say that of all the fates available, freedom is not a bad hand to be dealt.
Thus, we each of us contribute to our evolving fate by every single action, each thought and how we respond to life. If it is your fate to not yet contemplate freedom in a meaningful way, then you are not yet ready for freedom. Any act may do it, may turn you towards freedom and the quest of it. Freedom cannot be hurried, it can only come when one is prepared for it. If you are fated to start out on such a quest, then there is nothing that you can do to stop it. You can however stymie and hinder it by being stubborn. Pause for a moment and consider; is there any freedom in being stubborn? The only freedom is to express pig-headed mind, not an altogether free state of being.
If you discount the concept of fate, then within the logic of fate, you are fated so to do. We each have to learn. And such a discounting is an effect of your state of mind, your education and your peer group influences. These have caused your current mental make-up and operative world version through which you interpret the physical and social world. You alone have not made up your mind, others have influenced you, so free will isn’t as free as. Whilst we might like the ideal of free will, in practice no being lives and evolves in isolation. The only thing that one can hope to control in any sense of entirety is one’s own mind. It is not as easy as it sounds.
This urge to freedom comes as a response to life, largely when the dissatisfaction grows, and its illusory quality is sensed. Beyond this threshold there is a whole bunch of work and only if that work causes a deeper understanding can one effect, that is make real, a growing sense of genuine mental autonomy and freedom.
If it is your fate to seek freedom, then in time it must be also your destiny. To this end application to task must be unceasing, and unhurried. One needs to be mindful of distraction and avoidance, because some of the things needed to achieve freedom are both scary and at first difficult. Your fate will ask them of you and if you are to evolve your fate then best get on with it. You had better take responsibility for your words, acts and deeds so as to become an authentic being and as authenticity increases so does freedom. It is not a bad fate, nor an unworthy quest, this freedom thing.
Modern living is very complex and highly entangled, it is perhaps considered a sign of success to be well connected, to be busy and have loads of social contacts and a big circle of “friends”. One can measure virtual success by the number of followers one has on line and the thumbs ups given therein. This desire to be connected is a major barrier on the road to freedom. Life is hectic and very busy. Unless you are willing to be a yogi in a cave there seems to be no easy to way to change this situation. There is one simple mantra that might help, and this is quality over quantity. One could say that this is a wheat from chaff approach. In our complex modern world, complexity is seen as good. But by the very nature of it, there cannot be found freedom. Spread thin and thereby disperse and dissipated it is nigh on impossible to use one’s energy to obtain even a measure of freedom. By seeking simplicity and reducing the number of contacts that eat time, one can focus and give proper attention to whatever it is one is doing. By not being pulled in all directions it is possible to introduce quality as a guiding concept.
There is a lot of stuff and a lot of people who are not needed and drain, in the lives of most. For some the overarching terror of missing out has them stretched past their elastic limit. Relationships are facile and without depth. It is not possible to address profound questions whilst one is flapping around like a fish caught in the shallows. If one is to seek a measure of freedom, then quite quickly one comes upon the need to make life more simple, less hectic and uncomplicated. It does not need the extreme alluded to above, but I’ll pretty much guarantee that if you reduce the complexity of living you will feel, maybe not initially, but ultimately, more at peace and develop a measure of equanimity. To do this one has to face and overcome this fear of missing out. Constant distraction and involvement in socio-political drama does not bring a calm and measured equanimity. The counter argument is perhaps that multiple contacts and alliances afford freedom, a freedom of choice. Yet a little more careful analysis suggests that an alliance is not free, alliance implies a degree of dependency. The energy needed to sustain all those complex relationships negate one’s freedom, the freedom to be quiet and alone, away from the noise so that one can get a view on life and thereby develop an understanding of it. If life is chock-a-block with perceived devoirs, there is no time left to devote to the understanding of self. All that stimulus causes endless reactions. The draw of sociality eats time faster than a Pac-Man.
What is so very wrong with being simple, straightforward and uncomplicated?
This is a very good question and the sophisticated and successful might think that to even ask such a question is naïve. That it is perhaps backward and uncivilised. The highly politicised world of positional gain and self-advancement holds no truck with sentiments such as this. Life after all is about acquisition, kudos, power and fame. Be clear here, each of us makes choices, one path leads to freedom and the other to “power” of a kind, that kind is material power and not spiritual power. In a very real sense one cannot have material power and freedom in its emptiest, most free sense. If you are interested in material power, what the hell are you doing reading this? Perhaps it has lost its gloss, its allure?
It is an aspect of all development and evolution, that one has to find out for oneself and by oneself. Human nature being what it is, rarely takes advice. Oftentimes it is only when one sees or begins to sense more profoundly that something is not working that any alternative is sought. People, in our times, are overwhelmed by a pseudo-connectivity within the species. In so doing they lose sight of self in the outer presentation and any notion of true nature is abandoned in the needy desire to “fit in”. As ever the common denominator is not all that high, yet for some bizarre reason many seek to be “normal”, to blend chameleon like with the herd. If this is you, then you had better put aside any notion of high level freedom. You might get a little freedom, but not a lot; dependency has you.
Even should you seek to become uncomplicated, society is not keen on you doing this. It does not like the rejection and its normative ethos seeks to corral the wayward. And should you be uncomplicated, society will foist its own complexity in regard of moral and motivations upon you, by means of its perceptual lens. Being complex and full of motivations, it cannot perceive that you are not. It will transfer its “shit” onto you and only see those aspects of you which mirror self. It will imagine and expound upon your motives, even when they aren’t present. It will make up stories so as to cognitively assimilate you within the confines of its world version. Society has a taste for soap opera and will invent a script which bears little resemblance to the actual reality. Where there is no drama, it will attempt to manifest some.
To be uncomplicated is almost beyond the bounds of possibility for those prone to and beset by a love for complexity and intrigue. People are enamoured and hence entranced by interpersonal power dynamics and chicken coop pecking order interpretations. It is very simple, intrigue and freedom, cannot walk hand in hand. One excludes the other, if you are free there is no interest in intrigue, if you love intrigue then you are bound by it. Lasting freedom comes not at the personal and the interpersonal, it is not associated with the soap opera dynamics of the personality.
To be uncomplicated is to approach life as it is and not with the shoe horn of how it should be or according to the dictates of will, how one wants life to be. Life is way bigger than petty human will and to recognise that you cannot have life on your own terms, one cannot dictate to the universe, is a very liberating thing. It removes all that force, all that effort, all those expectations and thereby alleviates suffering and angst. This desire to be something, one is not, leads away from authenticity. Simplicity brings a mental freedom like nothing else. Strangely though in our times it is very difficult to practise this, because the minds of our fellow men do not like to countenance or encompass such a simple this as being uncomplicated. Removing complexity saves energy which can be used in the direction of liberation. Simple really…
Bodhisattva Literally, he whose consciousness has become intelligence, or buddhi. Those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect buddhas. As used in these letters the Bodhisattva is the name of the office which is at present occupied by the Lord Maitreya, who is known in the occident as the Christ. This office might be translated as that of World Teacher. The Bodhisattva is the Head of all the religions of the world, and the Master of the Masters and of the angels.
Buddha (The) The name given to Gautama. Born in India about B.C. 621 he became a full buddha in B.C. 592. The Buddha is one who is the “Enlightened,” and has attained the highest degree of knowledge possible for man in this solar system.
Buddhi The Universal Soul or Mind. It is the spiritual soul in man (the Sixth Principle) and therefore the vehicle of Atma, the Spirit, which is the Seventh Principle.
Causal Body This body is, from the standpoint of the physical plane, no body, either subjective or objective. It is, nevertheless, the center of the egoic consciousness, and is formed of the conjunction of buddhi and manas. It is relatively permanent and lasts throughout the long cycle of incarnations, and is only dissipated after the fourth initiation, when the need for further rebirth on the part of a human being no longer exists.
Chohan Lord, Master, a Chief. In this book it refers to mind an those Adepts who have gone on and taken the sixth initiation.
Deva (or Angel) A god. In Sanskrit a resplendent deity. A Deva is a celestial being, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Devas are divided into many groups, and are called not only angels and archangels, but lesser and greater builders.
Egoic Groups On the third subplane of the fifth plane, the mental, are found the causal bodies of the Individual men and women. These bodies, which are the expression of the Ego, or of the individualized self-consciousness, are gathered together into groups according to the ray or quality of the particular Ego involved.
Elementals The Spirits of the Elements; the creatures involved in the four kingdoms, or elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Except a few of the higher kinds and their rulers they are forces of nature more than ethereal men and women.
Etheric body (Etheric double) The physical body of a human being is, according to occult teaching, formed of two parts, the dense physical body, and the etheric body. The dense physical body is formed of matter of the lowest three subplanes of the physical plane. The etheric body is formed of the four highest or etheric subplanes of the physical plane.
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From Initiation, Human and Solar – Chapter V – The Three Departments of Hierarchy
The Work of the World Teacher, the Christ
Group two has the World Teacher for its presiding Head. He is that Great Being whom the Christian calls the Christ; he is known also in the Orient as the Bodhisattva, and as the Lord Maitreya, and is the one looked for by the devout Mohammedan, under the name of the Iman Madhi. He it is who has presided over the destinies of life since about 600 B.C. and he it is who has come out among men before, and who is again looked for. He is the great Lord of Love and of Compassion, just as his predecessor, the Buddha, was the Lord of Wisdom. Through him flows the energy of the second aspect, reaching him direct from the heart center of the Planetary Logos via the heart of Sanat Kumara. He works by means of a meditation centered within the heart. He is the World Teacher, the Master of the Masters, and the Instructor of the Angels, and to him is committed the guidance of the spiritual destinies of men, and the development of the realization within each human being that he is a child of God and a son of the Most High.
Just as the Manu is occupied with the providing of the type and forms through which consciousness can evolve and gather experience, thus making existence in its deepest sense possible, so the World Teacher directs that in dwelling consciousness in its life or spirit aspect, seeking to energize it within the form so that, in due course of time, that form can be discarded and the liberated spirit return whence it came. Ever since he left the earth, as related with approximate accuracy in the Bible story (though with much error in detail) has he stayed with the sons of men; never has he really gone, but only in appearance, and in a physical body he can be found by those who know the way, dwelling in the Himalayas, and working in close cooperation with his two great Brothers, the Manu and the Mahachohan. Daily he pours out his blessing on the world, and daily he stands under the great pine in his garden at the sunset hour with hands uplifted in blessing over all those who truly and earnestly seek to aspire. To him all seekers are known, and, though they may remain unaware of him, the light which he pours forth stimulates their desire, fosters the spark of struggling life and spurs on the aspirant until the momentous day dawns when they stand face to face with the one who by being “lifted up” (occultly understood) is drawing all men unto himself as the Initiator of the sacred mysteries.
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From “From Intellect to Intuition – Chapter Eight – The Universality of Meditation”
The Method in Chinese Buddhism
One of the main contributions to the process of enlightenment is an understanding of the way in which the Buddha found the Light. It demonstrates in a most remarkable way the use of the mind to overcome ignorance and its subsequent futility to carry a man on into the world of Light and spiritual being. Dr. Suzuki, Professor of Zen Buddhism at the Buddhist College at Kyoto, tells us about it in the following illuminating paragraphs. He tells us that it was through “supreme perfect knowledge” that the Buddha arrived at the wisdom which changed him from a Bodhisattva into a Buddha. This knowledge is
“…a faculty both intellectual and spiritual, through the operation of which the soul is enabled to break the fetters of intellection. The latter is always dualistic inasmuch as it is cognizant of subject and object, but in the Prajna which is exercised ‘in unison with one-thought-viewing’ there is no separation between knower and known, these are all viewed in one thought, and enlightenment is the outcome of this…
“Enlightenment we can thus see is an absolute state of mind in which no ‘discrimination’ …takes place, and it requires a great mental effort to realize this state of viewing all things ‘in one thought’. In fact our logical as well as practical consciousness is too given up to analysis and ideation; that is to say, we cut up realities into elements in order to understand them; but when they are put together to make the original whole, its elements stand out too conspicuously defined, and we do not view the whole ‘in one thought’. And as it is only when ‘one thought’ is reached that we have enlightenment, an effort is to be made to go beyond our relative empirical consciousness… The most important fact that lies behind the experience of Enlightenment, therefore, is that the Buddha made the most strenuous attempt to solve the problem of Ignorance and his utmost will-power was brought forth to bear upon a successful issue of the struggle… Enlightenment therefore must involve the will as well as the intellect. It is an act of intuition born of the will… The Buddha attained this end when a new insight came upon him at the end of his ever-circulatory reasoning from decay and death to Ignorance and from Ignorance to decay and death… But he had an indomitable will; he wanted, with the utmost efforts of his will, to get into the very truth of the matter; he knocked and knocked until the doors of Ignorance gave way; and they burst open to a new vista never before presented to his intellectual vision.” – Suzuki, Daisetz Taitaro, Essays in Zen Buddhism, pages 113-115.
Earlier he points out that the attainment of Nirvana is after all essentially the affirmation and realization of Unity. In the same essays we find the words:
“They (Buddhists) finally found out that Enlightenment was not a thing exclusively belonging to the Buddha, but that each one of us could attain it if he got rid of ignorance by abandoning the dualistic conception of life and of the world; they further concluded that Nirvana was not vanishing into a state of absolute non-existence which was an impossibility as long as we had to reckon with the actual facts of life, and that Nirvana in its ultimate signification was an affirmation – an affirmation beyond opposites of all kinds.” – Suzuki, Daisetz Taitaro, Essaysin Zen Buddhism, page 47.
The term Prajna used above is very interesting. It is
“the presence in every individual of a faculty… This is the principle which makes Enlightenment possible in us as well as in the Buddha. Without Prajna there could be no enlightenment, which is the highest spiritual power in our possession. The intellect… is relative in its activity… The Buddha before his Enlightenment was an ordinary mortal, and we, ordinary mortals, will be Buddhas the moment our mental eyes open in Enlightenment.” – Suzuki, Daisetz Taitaro, Essays in Zen Buddhism, pages 52-53.
Thus we have the mind focused and used to its utmost capacity, and then the cessation of its work. Next comes the use of the will to hold the mind steady in the light, and then – the Vision, Enlightenment, Illumination!
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From Initiation, Human and Solar – Chapter XI – The Participants in the Mysteries
The Departmental Heads
The Manu. The Bodhisattva. The Mahachohan.
As has been said, these three great Beings, represent the triplicity of all manifestation, and might be expressed under the following form, remembering that all this deals with subjectivity, and therefore with the evolution of consciousness and primarily with self-consciousness in man.
Consciousness
The Manu
The Bodhisattva
The Mahachohan
Matter aspect
Spirit aspect
Intelligence aspect.
Form
Life
Mind.
The Not-Self
The Self
The relation between.
Body
Spirit
Soul.
Politics
Religion
Science.
Government
Beliefs
Civilization.
Races
Faiths
Education.
All human beings belong to one or other of these three departments, and all are of equal importance, for Spirit and matter are one. All are so interdependent, being but expressions of one life, that the endeavor to express the functions of the three departments in tabular form is liable to lead to error.
The three Great Lords closely cooperate in the work, for that work is one, just as man, though a triplicity, is yet an individual unit. The human being is a form through which a spiritual life or entity is manifesting, and employing the intelligence under evolutionary law.
Therefore the Great Lords are closely connected with the initiations of a human unit. They are too occupied with greater affairs and with group activities to have any relationship with a man until he stands upon the probationary path. When he has, through his own effort, brought himself on to the Path of Discipleship, the particular Master who has him under supervision reports to the Head of one of the three departments (this being dependent upon a man’s ray) that he is nearing the Portal of Initiation and should be ready for the great step during such and such a life. Each life, and later each year, report is made, until the final year upon the Path of Probation, when closer and more frequent reports are handed in. During this final year also, the applicant’s name is submitted to the Lodge, and after his own Master has reported upon him, and his record has been briefly summarized, his name is balloted, and sponsors are arranged.
During the initiation ceremony the important factors are:
The Initiator.
The triangle of force formed by three adepts or three Kumaras.
The sponsors.
In the case of the first two initiations, two Masters stand, one on each side of the applicant, within the triangle; at the third, fourth and fifth initiations, the Mahachohan and the Bodhisattva perform the function of sponsor; at the sixth and seventh initiations two great Beings, who must remain nameless, stand within the esoteric triangle. The work of the sponsors is to pass through their bodies the force or electrical energy emanating from the Rod of Initiation. This force, through radiation, circles around the triangle and is supplemented by the force of the three guardians; it next passes through the centers of the sponsors, being transmitted by an act of will to the initiate. Enough has been said elsewhere in this book anent the Lodge of Masters and their relation to the applicant for initiation, whilst the work of the initiate himself has been likewise touched upon. That work is not unknown to the children of men everywhere, but remains as yet an ideal and a far-off possibility. Yet when a man strives to reach that ideal, to make it a demonstrating fact within himself, he will find that it becomes not only a possibility, but something attainable, provided he strives sufficiently. The first initiation is within the reach of many, but the necessary one-pointedness and the firm belief in the reality ahead, coupled to a willingness to sacrifice all rather than turn back, are deterrents to the many. If this book serves no other purpose than to spur some one to renewed believing effort, it will not have been written in vain.
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From Letters on Occult Meditation – Letter VI – The Use of Form in Meditation
The Line of the Bodhisattva
This is the line of religion and of philosophy, and of the development of the indwelling life.It deals with consciousness within the form more than with the form itself. It is the line of least resistance for the many. It embodies the wisdom aspect of the Logos, and is the line whereby His love is manifested in a predominant fashion. The solar system being in itself a direct expression of the Logos, and of His love aspect, all in manifestation is based upon it – love in rule, love abounding, love in activity, – but in this second line the above manifestation is supreme, and will eventually absorb all the others.
The man who meditates on this line seeks ever to enter into the consciousness of all that breathes, and by graded expansions of consciousness to arrive eventually at the All-Consciousness, and to enter into the life of the Supreme Being. Thus he enters into the life of all within the Logoic Consciousness. He broods not so much upon the Law as upon the life that is governed by that Law. Through love he comprehends, and through love he blends himself first with his Ego, then with his Master, next with his group egoic and then with all groups, till finally he enters into the consciousness of the Deity Himself.
There is no need for me to enter into the symbolic details anent this initiation. The whole theme is adequately dealt with in a book written by A.A.B. entitled From Bethlehem to Calvary – a book to which I gave my approval and endorsement as presenting the subject of the five initiations in a form suitable for the Christian West. I would like to recall to you the fact that this third initiation is in reality the first of the major initiations and is so regarded by the emanating Source of our planetary Logos, Sanat Kumara, and in the two great planetary centers, Shamballa and the Hierarchy. I refer to that stupendous Source of our entire planetary life, the sun Sirius, and to the Lodge of Divine Beings Who work from this heavenly Center.
The first two initiations – regarded simply as initiations of the threshold – are experiences which have prepared the body of the initiate for the reception of the terrific voltage of this third initiation. This voltage is passed through the body of the initiate under the direction of the planetary Logos, before Whom the initiate stands for the first time. The Rod of Initiation is used as the transferring agent. The second initiation freed the initiate from the astral level of consciousness, the astral plane – the plane of glamor, of illusion and of distortion. This was an essential experience because the initiate (standing before the One Initiator for the first time at the third initiation) must be freed from any magnetic or attractive “pull” emanating from the personality.
The mechanism of the personality must be so purified and so insensitive to the material attractions of the three worlds that there is henceforth nothing in the initiate which could offset the divine initiatory activity. The physical appetites are subdued and relegated to their rightful place; the desire nature is controlled and purified; the mind is responsive primarily to ideas, intuitions and impulses coming from the soul, and begins its true task as an interpreter of divine truth and a transmitter of ashramic intention.
You will note, therefore, how this third initiation is a climaxing point and also inaugurates a new cycle of activity leading to the seventh Initiation of Resurrection. I would call your attention to the fact that the third, fifth and seventh initiations are under the control of the fifth, first and second rays. These, as you might expect, will constitute the emanating energies transmitted through the application of the Rod of Initiation.
Initiation III. The fifth Ray of Science. This inflowing energy produces its major effects upon the mind, or upon manas, the fifth principle; it enables the initiate to use the mind as its major instrument in the work to be done, prior to passing through the fourth and fifth initiations.
Initiation V. The first Ray of Will or Power. At this initiation the disciple appreciates for the first time the significance of the will and uses it to relate the head center and the center at the base of the spine, thus completing the integration started at the third initiation.
Initiation VII. The second Ray of Love-Wisdom is here active, as the major planetary ray. The application of the Rod of Initiation by the Initiator (working this time from the highest plane, the logoic plane) produces in a mysterious way an effect on the totality of humanity and – to a lesser extent – upon the allied kingdoms. The effect is similar to that produced in the individual at the fifth initiation, wherein the head center and the center at the base of the spine became closely en rapport – through the use of the will.
Aspirants and disciples should remember that after the third initiation, the effects of the initiation which they may be undergoing are not confined simply to the individual initiate, but that henceforth at all the later initiations he becomes the transmitter of the energy which will pour through him with increasing potency at each application of the Rod.He acts primarily as an agent for the transmission, for the stepping down and for the consequent safe distribution of energy to the masses. Each time a disciple achieves an initiation and stands before the Initiator, he becomes simply an instrument whereby the planetary Logos can reach humanity and bring to men fresh life and energy. The work done prior to and at the third initiation is purely preparatory to this type of service required from an “energy transmitter.” That is why, at the seventh initiation, the dominating ray of our planet – the second Ray of Love-Wisdom – is employed. There is no energy upon our planet of equal potency, and no expression of it has so pure and constructive a quality as that to which the initiate is subjected at the seventh initiation. This seventh initiatory climax marks another culminating point in the career of the initiate, and indicates his entrance into an entirely different cycle of experience.
You will have noted, if you are comparing these instructions with the outline given by me on page 340, that in this third initiation it is the ajna center (the center between the eyebrows) which is stimulated. This is a fact of great interest, because it is at this initiation that the disciple begins consciously and creatively to direct the energies being made available to him, doing so via the ajna center and directed towards humanity as a whole. These energies are:
The energy of his own soul. This has a purely group effect and though working through his personality, is consciously directed outward into the world – after the transforming process brought about as the energy received permeates his threefold mechanism.
The energy of the Ashram to which he belongs. Both this energy and the one above mentioned are necessarily the energy of his soul ray and of the Ashram which is representative of that ray. The effect produced – according to his capacity of absorption and direction – will further the working out of the divine Plan.
The energy of the Hierarchy Itself. The Hierarchy is primarily controlled by the energy of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom, though this dominant ray is modified and enriched through blending with the other six rays. His use of this energy will at first be largely an unconscious use and he will register at this point no definite intention. This is due to the magnitude of the great reservoir of energies; he is a recipient of the incoming energy largely because he is an initiated member of the Hierarchy and is also a pure channel for transmission.
The peculiar energy which is transmitted to him by Sanat Kumara at the time of his initiation. This is a totally different energy to that transmitted to him at the earlier initiations. It comes from Shamballa and is uniquely (in a sense undefinable and hence incomprehensible to you) the energy of the planetary Logos Himself. He directs extra-planetary energy (in the initiations which follow the third initiation) from the ajna center of which He is possessed, to the head center of the initiate and from thence immediately to the ajna center of the initiate. Then this energy is directed outward into its destined field of service. This energy is of so high a quality that there is nothing of a registering mechanism in the initiate’s equipment capable of registering its admission and circulation through his three head centers. Nevertheless, this energy does pour through him and out into the world, in spite of the fact that he remains unconscious of its presence.
The ajna center is the “center of direction”; it is placed symbolically between the two eyes, signifying the twofold direction of the life energy of the initiate – outward into the world of men and upward towards the divine Life and Source of all Being. Where the direction of the energy is consciously undertaken (and there are certain energies of which the initiate is constantly aware), the ajna center is controlled and dominated by the indwelling spirit of man; this spiritual man bases all action in relation to these entering energies on the ancient premise that “energy follows thought.” His thought life becomes, therefore, the field of his major effort, for he knows that the mind is the agent of direction; he endeavors to concentrate within himself so that eventually he may consciously control and direct all the incoming divine energies. This is, in reality, the major hierarchical endeavor and the work to which the Masters are pledged and for which They are in constant training. As the evolutionary process proceeds, new and higher energies become available. This is particularly the case now, as They prepare for the reappearance of the Christ.
There are three words which are directive words for the disciple as he handles his life, his environment and his circumstances. They are: Integration, Direction, Science. His task – as he faces it after the third initiation – is to produce a greater personal integration so that he becomes increasingly a soul-infused personality, and also to integrate himself with his environment for service purposes. To this must be added the subtler task of integrating himself into the Ashram so that he becomes an integral part of the Master’s band of workers.
As the work of integration proceeds, he is striving all the time to learn the uses of the ajna center and consciously and with right understanding to work with, absorb, transmute and distribute energy as his major ashramic service. His keynote is right direction as the result of right reaction to hierarchical intention and the injunctions of his own soul. Both integration and direction, he discovers, require understanding of occult, scientific knowledge. He works then as a scientist, and for this reason all the three keynotes of his life as an initiate – before and immediately after the third initiation – are conditioned by and directed by the mind; the mental plane becomes the field of his major endeavor as a server.
Again you see that I am presenting you with no glamorous picture of the initiatory process but only one of hard work, constant effort and strenuous mental and spiritual living. There is much here for you to consider, and what I have here given warrants sound reflection and much thought. It is my earnest hope and wish that you may realize that the teaching here given can be appropriated by you and that the initiatory process is one that eventually you will understand and in which you will participate.
Ray Five
It posits an ability to function with clarity upon the mental plane, to collate information, rightly to interpret and relate that information, and to create the needed thought-forms or concepts for those interpretations.
These thought-forms fall into three major fields of thought or thought-form areas of consciousness:
Science. Under this word I include all that which the educational processes cover or are supposed to cover, and such a useful science as medicine.
Philosophy, with its presentation of great conditioning ideas.
Psychology, with its effort to account for humanity and to discover what man is essentially and how he functions.
You will note that I have not included religion in this analysis. The reason for this is that If the world religions were really controlled by concrete knowledge or science, they would not be the vague, speculative, mystical and glamor-controlled systems which they are at present.Some day the minds of men – illumined by the light of the soul – will formulate the one universal religion, recognizable by all. Then the Kingdom of God will be known for what it is, another kingdom in nature. Speculation, wishful thinking and hopeful aspiration will disappear. The science of occultism is the first step upon the way of true religion, and the scientific investigation of human psychology will greatly help toward this end.
Today we find this ray energy expressing itself mainly through science – a science sadly debased and corrupted by materialism and human greed, but a science which (when animated entirely by goodwill) will lift humanity on to higher levels of consciousness, thus laying the foundation for that time when humanity on a large scale can pass through the Transfiguration Initiation. Steps in this direction are already being laid and the existence of the press, the radio and the rapid means of transportation have done much to further the revelation of that unity and that Oneness which is the major characteristic of the Universal Mind.
These developments can be regarded as the initial steps of the initiatory process for the third initiation – far ahead as that initiation may lie for the mass of men. It is unification and a growing sense of oneness which is required in order to take this initiation, and it is the integrated personality which takes it. The major sin of Russia, and that which has prostituted and warped the initial divine impulse underlying the ideology of that country, is the determination she demonstrates at this time to be separate and to shut the Russian people away from world contact, using the implements of deception and the withholding of information. It is not the totalitarian nature of the Russian government which is the prime disaster; it is the refusal to develop the universal consciousness. Many governments today are totalitarian in nature, either openly or subtly, but – at the same time – their peoples have free access to press and radio and are not kept in ignorance of world events. Russia is drifting into a pronounced expression of the great heresy of separateness. There lies her problem – a problem which is refused recognition by her rulers.
The existence of a closed mind on a national scale is dangerous in the extreme, just as the individual is in a dangerous “state of mind” when he closes it to world contact, world news and world understanding, and when he refuses to admit new ideas and new modes of behavior. Fortunately, the influence of this fifth ray energy – which is always present, whether the ray is in incarnation or not – is steadily leading humanity towards illumination.
This ray energy operates always in connection with the Law of Cleavages. Today, tremendous cleavages between the past and the present are in order. The importance of this statement is to be found in the fact that – for the first time in human history – humanity is aware of cleavage at the time it is being brought about. Hitherto cleavages have been noted during an historical retrospect. Today, all men everywhere are conscious of the fact that the old order, the old cultures and civilizations are rapidly passing away, and they are universally clamoring for the new. Everywhere men are laying the foundation for the new order, the coming of which is threatened only by one country, Russia, owing to its separativeness (and not because of its ideology), and by one world group in every country, those guilty of financial greed and consequent aggressiveness.
Before humanity can pass through the Transfiguration Initiation the new world order must be functioning and the coming civilization must be at its height. It is useless for me to consider with you this third initiation in connection with humanity as a whole, or its preparatory or subsequent initiatory process. All this lies too far ahead for even advanced humanity to consider; there are, however, senior disciples who are preparing for this initiation, just as there are a few who are passing through the initiatory process, prior to taking the fourth initiation.
The outstanding expression of this fifth ray energy can be seen in the rapid formulating of the many ideologies which have taken place since the year 1900. Such words as Fascism, Communism, National Socialism, Socialism as the British accept it, and the names of many schools of psychology and philosophy, were unknown one hundred years ago; today they are the common talk and phrases of the man in the street. The inflow of this mental energy into the world of men, the attainment in consciousness of mental ability by many thousands, and the achievement of mental polarization by aspirants all the world over, are all due to the activity of this fifth ray energy; this may be regarded as preparatory work for the first and the second initiations. Some of this success is due also to a little-realized function of this fifth ray energy – that of telepathic interplay. Few people realize in the slightest degree how naturally telepathic every human being is or how impressionable are their minds; this again is an effect of fifth ray influence.
The creation (and, I should add, the over-creation) of the millions of material things which men everywhere regard as essential to their well-being is also the result of the creative activity of the fifth ray consciousness. This is, of course, as it demonstrates upon the physical plane. When it demonstrates upon the mental plane, we then talk of ideas, concepts, philosophies and ideologies. When it demonstrates upon the astral plane, we are aware of the religious impulse, of mysticism and of the emotional and conditioning desires. All these aspects are present in the consciousness of men everywhere today. Everything is crystallizing in human consciousness, and this takes place in order to make man aware of where he stands upon the ladder of evolution, and of what is wrong and what is right. All this again is due to the influence of fifth ray energy. This will begin to transform human living and human desires and also human affairs and attitudes, and will lead eventually (in the middle of the sixth root race) to the great Transfiguration Initiation in which the reality that lies behind all human phenomena will stand revealed.
Let us now consider the effect of this ray energy upon the life of the individual, as he faces the third initiation. This third initiation is, as earlier said, the first initiation, from the angle of the Hierarchy; it is the one in which the spiritual man demonstrates his complete control of the personality. The physical body has been controlled through the medium of the physical disciplines; the emotional nature has been reorganized and made receptive to spiritual impression coming from the plane of pure reason (the buddhic plane) through the transforming processes of the mind or the fifth principle. In this connection, the mind has acted as an organizer of astral reaction and as a dispeller of glamor. The disciple is now focused in his everyday consciousness upon the mental plane, and the triangular relation of the three aspects of the mind upon this plane is now dominant. In the next initiation, the Renunciation, this relationship becomes a dual one instead of a triangular one, through the destruction of the soul vehicle which is no longer needed. Soul fusion with the personality is now completed.
During the initiatory process preceding the third initiation, the mind works in a new manner. Its transmuting work with the physical body has been accomplished; its transforming work with the emotional nature has been successful, and now its transfiguring work with the personality as a whole is carried forward, making the initiation of the Transfiguration possible. It is of value to the student to consider these three activities of the mind. The transmuting agent in the first case is the lower or concrete mind; the transforming agent is the soul, whilst the transfiguring agent is the Spiritual Triad, working through the higher or abstract mind. You will here note the wonderful synthesis of the spiritual work. When this work is concluded, you have the initiation of the third degree made possible. This produces impelling and new contacts. It should here be remembered that when I use the word “new” I mean that which is new in consciousness, for the basic synthesis and fundamental relationship always exists in factual recognition, but is only progressively realized by the evolving spiritual man.
It is well nigh impossible to differentiate the results of fifth ray energy in the various aspects of the personality, for the reason that the initiate is now functioning as a soul-infused personality, and therefore the three aspects of that personality are nothing more or less than agents of the soul, and thus are progressively responsive to the inflow of triadal energy. It might therefore be said that, as a result of the Transfiguration Initiation – the culminating point of strictly human unfoldment – the three types of energy which are expressed through the Spiritual Triad can begin – only begin – to flow through the reflection of itself in the three worlds. Let me state this as follows:
The directing energy of the higher mind is – as a result of the Transfiguration Initiation and via the antahkarana – thrown into the brain; therefore the man upon the physical plane is guided, directed and controlled by group purpose and by the hierarchical plan.
The illuminating energy of pure reason, emanating from the buddhic plane, pours down into the clarified and organized body of sensitive response which is all that remains of what has been called the astral body. This produces complete freedom from glamor and the creation of “a limpid pool of such reasonable response to the love of divine relationship” that the initiate becomes a sensitive revealer of that love.
The dynamic energy from the atmic plane (the highest aspect of the Spiritual Triad) pours into the mind and begins slowly to reveal the will-to-good, which is essentially the will of God.
Behind these three differentiations which are all of them expressions or aspects of the divine or the universal mind, the initiate dimly senses or becomes consciously aware of what has been called the Monad or Spirit or Life. This is subtly revealed in the Transfiguration Initiation of the Master Jesus Who re-enacted all the five human initiations for the benefit of humanity. In this dramatic picturing of the third initiation, the three disciples (or the three vehicles of the personality) prostrate themselves upon the ground and the Master Himself (the glorified personality) is transfigured before them. At this climaxing point they hear that which is called “the voice of the Father” speaking to the transfigured Jesus.
The personality is now possessed of knowledge, for fifth ray energy has done its needed work; the disciple is also aware that he is in possession of the wisdom which enables him to use knowledge in the furtherance of the Plan, and therefore to work as an illuminating factor in the world of men. He knows clearly what has been accomplished and senses something of what lies ahead. The great principle of cleavage (which the fifth ray governs) is the dominating factor in his time sense; he now differentiates sharply between past and present and that which has to be ascertained in the future. Cleavage, in the sense of separateness, is finished for him and he now feels and knows something of the essential unity of all manifested life; therefore, from the angle of space, he has dominated and overcome cleavage and division; in the sense of time he has not. The great heresy of separateness no longer exists in his consciousness; the consciousness of the initiatory process is not yet over, however for that involves the recognition of time.
During the initiatory process between the second and the third initiations, the initiate has to battle with illusion in exactly the same sense as he earlier had to battle with glamor. Illusion is, in the last analysis, the control of the mental processes by great and massive thought-forms; this conflict persists from the moment that the disciple has achieved mental polarization (at a midway point between the second and the third initiations) until he stands before the Initiator at the sixth Initiation of Decision, when the last illusion disappears. You will feel and comment that the Masters are therefore subject to illusion. This They definitely are, and there are great and basic illusions governing life within the Hierarchy. Nevertheless, they are illusions of such a high order that – for advanced humanity – they would signify achievement. I may not give you more than one instance of such illusion, but that should prove clear and sufficient. It is not until the sixth Initiation of Decision that the illusion of the planetary ring-pass-not finally disappears. The Master then knows that such a limitation is non-existent. For Him, the choice between the seven Paths becomes possible. This basic illusion constitutes for mankind a great hierarchical mystery and is based upon the Principle of Privation, by means of which the planetary Logos chooses to circumscribe His freedom and to limit His activities.
This curious freedom from successive limitations is experienced at the third, the sixth and the ninth initiations; these are, all three of them, related in a mysterious manner to each other. Transfiguration leads eventually to Decision, which culminates in due time with a final refusal to accept any planetary limitations whatsoever.
It will be obvious to you that the higher the initiation, the less will any involved energy have a personality control or connection. Progressive and recognized fusions have taken place as one initiation after another is undergone; the effect of the energy involved will be noted in relation to humanity as a whole, to the work of the Ashram within the Hierarchy and to the planetary life. This must ever be borne in mind and must necessarily limit the scope of the teaching which I am able to give you.
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Excerpted from
The Rays and the Initiations – Part Two – Section Two – The Aspirant and the Major Initiations
Traou an Dour 
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