Alice Bailey – Traou an Dour

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Problems Arising From Group Mind

c. Diseases connected with Group Conditions

We can only briefly touch upon this theme, owing to the fact that group work (esoterically understood) is relatively new, and because the individual, working at this time in a group, is scarcely affected at all by these factors, owing to his relatively partial integration. I refer here to his integration in the group. People are still so insulated in their personalities that they are shut off, in many cases, from group stimulation, group effects and group impulses. It is only as they become decentralized and, therefore, more easily responsive to the group ideas, the group idealism, and to the group aura (with its outbreathing and its inbreathing and its group livingness) that they can and do succumb to those difficulties which group life imposes. Today it is the central figure in the group life, the dominant personality or soul, who is the one to whom the group life and the group thought turns, with all the consequences of such turning. It is this person, upon whom the group life pivots (if I may use such a term), who is the group victim and it is he who pays the price of any group weakness. The expression of the group attitude finds its outlet in him and he is, at times, practically “killed” by the group. No group today is a perfect group. They are in the experimental stage and are largely composed of a few Aquarians, many Pisceans and a number of people who are in a transition stage between these two. The leader or leaders of the new groups are usually of as pure a type of the new age or Aquarian character as is possible or available at this time. This accounts for the failure of the group, as a rule, either to understand the leader or to cooperate with the new ideals as is desired. The leader is a pioneer in a new field of thought and of intention and, therefore, suffers the penalties of his daring and of his spirit of enterprise.

It is not my intention to deal here with group difficulties, for that is not my theme. I am considering the difficulties (amounting often to physical disease) and the problems of the individual who is sensitive to group pressures and group life – a very different thing to the usual problems of the mystics of the past. These can only be studied and investigated today by a consideration of the lives, physical condition, problems, difficulties and deaths of group leaders. I would call this definitely to your attention. The group members – little as they may like to recognize this fact – are not as yet prone to suffer much from the group life, the group emanation and the group energy for they are not yet sufficiently integrated into the group.

The problem we are considering falls into two major categories and as I seek to deal with them I realize that there is relatively little that I can say. The next century will see the problems more defined and the difficulties more clearly delineated. They are:

Those arising as a result of the directed thought of the group. On this I can say something.
Diseases, connected with the respiratory tract. On these I can say but little.

Let us, therefore, look at these problems. We shall have to study the first from the angle of the one most affected by them – the leader or focal point of the group. These same problems may also affect the three or four people who, with the group leader and in collaboration with him, direct the group policies.

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Diseases and Problems evoked by Directed Group Thought

It will be obvious to you that the first and most important of these difficulties will be those arising from group criticism, either voiced or strongly felt. This criticism can be based on many things, but is usually rooted in jealousy, thwarted ambition, or pride of individual intellect. Each member of any group, particularly those in the immediate circle of the leader or leaders, is prone to sit in judgment. The responsibility is not theirs; they know not the problems as they truly exist and criticism is, therefore, easy. It should here be remembered that criticism is a virulent poison. It damages in every case eventually the one who criticizes – owing to the fact of voiced direction – it hurts still more the one who is criticized. Where there is purity of motive, true love and a large measure of detachment, the subtler bodies of the one who is under attack may remain immune but the physical effects will be definite and where there is any physical weakness or limitation there will be found the localization of the projected poison.

Unvoiced criticism is very dangerous for it is powerfully focused and strongly, though not individually directed; it issues continuously and as a steady stream, sent forth on the wings of jealousy, ambition, pride in a personal grasp of a supposed situation and a belief that the one who criticizes is in a position to understand correctly and could – given right opportunity – take right action. Where the criticism is voiced and expressed in words, it is consequently strengthened by the cooperation of those influenced by the criticism and the consequences of this group-directed thought may result in the physical undoing, and disruption of the physical body of the leader or leaders. This may be a new thought to some and should cause many in the New Age groups to arrest their thoughts and so release their leaders from the disastrous impact of their criticism.

I refer not here to hate, though that is often present, either consciously or unconsciously, but simply to the “sitting in judgment” and to the idle critical gossip which seems necessary to the average group member. It is like the very breath of death and it can not only kill the leader through accumulated poison and distress but it can also kill the group life and render abortive the efforts which could, if given cooperation and time to develop, prove constructive agencies through which the Hierarchy might work.

From every side and in every group there streams in on the group leader directed criticism, poisonous thoughts, untrue formulated ideas, idle gossip of a destructive kind, the imputation of motives, the unspoken jealousies and hates, the frustrated ambitions of group members, their resentments and their unsatisfied desires for prominence or for recognition by the leader or leaders, their desires to see the leader superseded by themselves or by someone else and many other forms of selfishness and mental pride. These produce results in the physical bodies of the leader or leaders and often in the emotional bodies. The responsibility of the group member is, therefore, great and it is one which they seldom recognize or shoulder. It is hard for them to appreciate the dire effects when one person is the target for group criticism and when the directed thought of a number of persons is focused on one or two individuals.

The more highly evolved the group leader, the greater the pain and suffering. First ray people who have naturally a “technique of isolation” suffer less than many for they know how to shut off these directed streams of force and how to deflect them and – when they are not deeply spiritual people – they can return them to their originators and thus wreak havoc in their lives. Second ray persons do not and cannot work this way. They are naturally absorbers and magnetically attract all that is in their environment which is directed towards them. That is why Christ paid the penalty of death. He was killed, not only by His enemies, but also by His so-called friends.

You might here ask. What can a leader or a group of leaders do in these unfortunately normal and usual circumstances? Nothing, but continue in the work; retreat within themselves; speak the truth with love when occasion occurs; refuse to become bitter over the pain which the group occasions and wait until the group members learn the lessons of cooperation, of silence, of loving appreciation and a wise realization and understanding of the problems with which all group leaders are faced in these difficult and individualistic days. That time will come.

Then there is the reverse of this problem and one that must be faced by many group leaders. In this reverse situation, the leader is overcome and (if I might use such a phrase) is “smothered” by the devotion of certain of the group members. Group leaders can be almost annihilated by the personality love of people. But this is not of such a poisonous nature as the difficulties above referred to, for – though it is handicapping and leads to many forms of difficulty, misunderstanding and group reaction – it is along the line of love and not of separation and hate. It produces what is esoterically called “the crippling of the one who seeks to serve and the binding of his hands and feet.”

One other difficulty I will touch upon for it is important in so far that it is a group activity, carried forward as a whole and is not the act of one individual or a small handful of individuals within the group. I refer to the way in which at this time a group drains the life of its leader or leaders. The umbilical cord (speaking symbolically) is seldom cut between the leader and the group. That was the major mistake of the groups in the Piscean age. Always they remained attached to the leader or – when aroused to hate or dislike – they violently disrupted the tie and severed the relationship, causing much distress and unnecessary suffering to the group as well as to the leader. In the New Age the cord will be cut early in the life of the group but the leader or group of leaders will remain for a long time (as does the mother of a child) the guiding inspiration, the loving protecting force and the source of instruction and of teaching. When this is the case, the group can proceed upon its way and live its life as a self-directing agent even when the leader passes over to the other side or there is a change in leadership for some good reason or other.

According to the general flow of group life and activity so will be the effect – emotional and physical – upon any sensitive group member; the more frequent the physical contact between the group members the more definite will be the group problems and difficulties, however. Groups in the New Age will be held together by a subjective link and not so much by the emotional reaction induced by outer contact. I would ask you to ponder carefully upon this last paragraph for it holds the clue to the successful working of the new groups. It is from group life and group atmosphere that much infection arises, leading to difficulties of a physical nature. Disease is largely of group origin and the mystics and sensitive of the world most easily succumb. In these early stages of true group work, the difficulties which arise from group contacts are frequently of a purely physiological nature and are not so deep seated as those with which we have earlier been dealing. This is a point to be remembered. Physical trouble and disease is not of so serious a nature as psychological.

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Excerpted from:

Esoteric Psychology II – Chapter II – The Ray of Personality – Problems of Disciples and Mystics

Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul

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Training for the Incoming Ray: Ceremonial Order or Magic – Synthesis

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“The Seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Magic

Special Virtues:

Strength, perseverance, courage, courtesy, extreme care in details, self-reliance.

Vices of Ray:

Formalism, bigotry, pride, narrowness, superficial judgments, self-opinion over-indulged.

Virtues to be acquired:

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.

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Discipleship in the New Age – Selected Letters to Disciples

To R.R.R.

May 1939

BROTHER OF MINE:

You may here rightly ask me: In what way do I hinder? I am not ambitious. I do not make trouble of a group kind; I only make trouble for myself. I try to be loving and kind. I work as hard as I think I should. I love the truth and I endeavor to meet requirements.

All of this may be true, my brother, but these statements do not constitute an alibi for what is wrong. The thing that can wreck the building work, which your group is intended to do, is the violence of your reactions and vibrations when you are emotionally upset (and this is of frequent occurrence) and the furious self-assertion whereby you endeavor to justify such violence, and your dramatic self-pity. Unless you can learn to decentralize yourself, and cease this constant self-thought and self-commiseration under all circumstances, and stop visualizing yourself at all times as in the center – yourself as the worker, yourself as the group member, yourself as the sufferer from others’ misunderstandings and mistakes, yourself as of importance – and learn to see yourself as you truly are, you can and do hinder the work and imperil the future constructive work of the group. This you know.

You love no one truly but yourself. If you loved truly and impersonally, you would not cause the pain you do to those who love and believe in your capacity; you would be more magnetic and this on a wider scale, for, as yet, you are only magnetic to those who recognize your personality and love your personality. It is from this lack that your work suffers. Yet it could so easily all be changed, if you learnt that divine indifference which you need – indifference to yourself and to your personality interests, likes and dislikes, indifference to your cares, anxieties and successes. You would then be in a position, really, to sense the importance of the work, the uniqueness of your opportunities at this time, and your really strategic position. But you are too full of fear and of self-interest and so fail to make the needed impact upon those who need your help. They get the impact of your cares and fears and your demand to be liked. Can you change this? I am telling you nothing new. Among the chelas in my Ashram, you are in the position of the naughty, wilful child, for your errors and faults are those of a child and are not adult faults at all. You dream in a child’s dream world.

You must grow up, my brother, for the world needs adult workers at this time and you can meet the need; you can do great and good work; you can make a soul impact upon those around you; you can cease from being a destructive agent and become a constructive worker. But this will only be possible if your likes and dislikes, your personality determinations and affections, your feeling and your physical ailments fade out of the picture and only the world’s need remains and the longing to meet it – as you can. As, I repeat, you can. I and the group need you.

I offer you neither suspension nor the opportunity to resign. I ask you to face the issue and make good. Fight this matter out and fight it out alone. Learn to keep the things which concern yourself to yourself – a thing you have never yet learnt. Do not let your group brothers down by resigning or by a violent explosion – the repercussions of which must hurt and damage. Face life steadily, like an adult who has learnt in the school of wisdom, that the trend of all things is good. Handle life with love as a member of the New Group of World Servers.

NOTE: This disciple is still fighting out the battle but no indication has yet come from the Tibetan that the victory is sufficiently gained to warrant more active work in the Ashram. R. R. R. is still outwardly inactive in relation to the group.

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To P.G.C.

September 1943

BROTHER OF MINE:

It seems to me that so oft I have to say this year to hard-pressed chelas: The way has been difficult. But so it is, and your way in life has been no exception. Great waves of karmic impact have beaten upon our Earth – that little ship adrift in time and space and sailing the great ocean of the cosmos. The Lords of Karma have looked towards our planet. Energy follows thought and that, my brother, is all that karma is – the impact of directed energy upon the Earth, upon the kingdoms in nature, upon man and upon the individual disciple. Much of this karma, especially now, is not individual in purpose, nor is it generated in any way by the individuals affected by it, be it an individual disciple, or an ordinary human being. It is largely incident at this time to the karma of the One in whom we live and move and have our being. It is primarily also in the sphere of Shamballa, and has small relation in the first instance to humanity at all. This means but little to you, I realize. This karma working out in Shamballa has, however, led to the vitalizing of the activities of certain “wilful” men; they have loosed great evil upon the Earth. But this karma will also produce the stimulation of goodwill, and thus lasting good will offset temporary evil. This must not be forgotten.

The problems which have confronted you as an individual, as a disciple and as a member of the New Group of World Servers have been difficult, but you are weathering the storm and your little ship will live through the gale. All is preparatory to an increased output in service – service which will develop normally without undue planning, and which will be accessory to your life task of meeting your home and your healing responsibilities.

This, as I hinted in your six seed thoughts last year, is summed up in the words there found: “Your duty and your goal go hand in hand.” This condition is apt to present more difficulties than a definitely clear-cut distinction. Relationships have to be more carefully adjusted and the time equation most carefully organized and planned. Your second ray nature makes the first possible, your first ray attributes aid in the second. Your major emphasis this year should be the establishing of the most loving “right relations” with all in your immediate environment.

What I am referring to, my brother, is deepening, and this deepening must be consciously carried forward. One of the things which I desire to see in all the members of this group in my Ashram is a process of deepening, carried forward through realization, silence, loving understanding and inner synthesis. That is why it is essential that all of you read and study each other’s papers and instructions, so as to arrive at this depth of insight, vision and source of activity. All the outer relations will then – both of the individual disciple and of the group – be implemented from this inner center, and will therefore be lasting, sound and constructive.

Your particular work in my Ashram is (as well you know) connected with the Network of Light which must be created in the world, and with the furthering of the Triangles of Light… I would ask three of you… to form the inner central triangle, and together and in constant consultation establish some uniformity and continuity of work. Continue with the work you are now doing and in the way you are doing it, but deepen (again that thought) the content of what you give to the people who read the notes you send out.

I feel no need to give you any set meditation. The group meditation, your own reflective work upon your task as a disciple (and this should be intensified), and your subjective meditation upon the Network of Light with your two Triangle members will provide you with adequate focal points for soul emphasis. Here I have given you a definition of meditation given by a Master to a group of disciples. He is not one of the Masters known to you or the outer world, for he only takes into his Ashram those who are in preparation for the third initiation, and then only those who are pledged to undertake certain definite activities for which he trains them. These “focal points of emphasis” are of many differing kinds and should distinguish your type of meditation throughout the coming year. Such focal points are brief, dynamic, potent and emphatic and are only possible when the antahkarana is in process of definite construction, as is the case with your work along this line.

I find little more to say to you, my brother. The reason for this is that we work in a peculiarly close manner at all times and you are very active in the work of my Ashram. You do not require, therefore, to hold lengthy discussions and to receive long instructions from me at various annual points. We talk at times throughout the year, and this again you know. Hence the brevity of this communication.

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To L. T. S-K.

September 1943

BROTHER OF MINE:

Our association together has existed for many years. It also began many lives ago. You should have advanced to a more intimate stage of discipleship had it not been for your always ready and still persistent response to the unreal, the unnecessary, and to that which comes in between you and the clear, steady enlightened progress upon the Path which should be yours. You will note that I use not the word glamor here. The reason is that it is apparently an entirely meaningless word to you, and I felt that I should emphasize the fact that glamor (as far as you are concerned) means that which sidesteps you from the desired service, that which engrosses your attention and prevents you from concentrating on the realities of life and circumstance, that which places you always at the center of some big scheme as the master-mind making some discovery, as the architect of some building which is intended to house humanity, and that which comes between you and the simple duty of a pledged disciple – for that you unchangeably are.

You have, my brother, a good illustration of what I mean in the two plans which you have evolved during the past six months for world salvage and unity. One of them was supposed to be in response to my request for a paper, but another paper which I asked you to write is still unwritten and that paper was more important than the other. These plans were drawn; time was taken in submitting them to various people, and to what end? There was in them nothing new. The minds and some of the best minds in every country in the world are formulating them. Your plans were simply compilations of familiar suggestions which have already been presented in better form to the public. What end, therefore, did they serve? Only to sidetrack you from the simple duty of today; only to feed that inclination on your part to do something great; only to prevent you from a true and practical cooperation in my plans which you know well and which the disciples in my Ashram are pledged to materialize. It is their group duty, not from the angle of authoritative demand, or in a spirit of blind obedience but because from free choice and identity of purpose (as far as they can realize it) they are in my Ashram; they have willingly responded to my planned intentions and in a spirit of dedication to the good of humanity.

All this indicates to me that you are still prone to slip into the thralldom of the vague vision, the grandiose formulations of something and are negatively responsive to the collective ideas of forward-thinking men, for you do no positive or original thinking of your own. Glamor still holds you.

You might well ask, my brother: Why then keep me in your group? Why not wait until I have learnt better and have dropped this tendency? Because you need the protection of the Ashram and you need – from the center of protection – to learn then to accept the duty of obedience to the ashramic intent and to work under the direction of the loving intentions of those whom you do recognize as more experienced disciples than yourself. You are in my Ashram also from old association and because you earned the reward of this recognition and opportunity by being the first to appreciate the significance of my books and the teaching that they convey, and to aid the effort of A.A.B. For that reason you earned the right to my appreciation and hers, and have had them both. That was the one clear bit of spiritual thinking you have done in this incarnation. Therefore, the Ashram protects you, and your brothers stand around you, and for this brief incarnation you are a liability – but a liability which can, with your cooperation, be changed in your next incarnation into a group asset.

There is consequently no need for the slightest discouragement and I say that with definite purpose and truth. There is only room for the acceptance of facts. What facts, brother of mine? Let me (with my usual frankness) tell you. Let me point out to you what I feel and those who know you best feel should be your attitude for the remainder of this life. If you accept these ideas and cooperate willingly, you will do much to free yourself; if you refuse to see the light, you will but delay the process and continue to exact the protecting care of the Ashram for a longer period. Let me first highlight your career of glamor so as to prove to you, intelligently, the points I seek to make.

I shall not deal with your life, prior to the recognition period which enabled you to render me and the world outstanding service. Your recognition and aid of the work I was doing has released certain energies which will have much to do with the changing of the consciousness of humanity. Remember that the Hierarchy has this service of yours in mind.

There was the glamor of the wonderful discovery you were going to make, covering several years of experimentation and leading nowhere. Why? Because you had neither the training nor the capacity to do the work. It will be better done and in other ways and by better minds than yours. Your equipment was not adequate.

There was the glamor of spiritual power which led some of your group brothers astray for months. There has always been a glamorous response to personalities who have misled and glamored you in the business world and led you into devious and difficult situations, and which forced you, eventually, to recognize that they were not the least what you had thought. What is this but the glamor of personalities? Until you have learnt to see people as they truly are, you cannot do the exoteric work of a disciple.

Then came an interlude. I asked for your resignation from the group, and the door of the inner Ashram closed upon you. That was very good for you and you endeavored in that period to attend to the business of life, watching yourself with care. Then the door of the Ashram reopened and you were readmitted to the group life. For a year all seemed well, but the dual stimulation of the Ashram and the active work in my group proved too much, and glamor again enveloped you.

You started by formulating large schemes for world regeneration and for a super-organization, and yet all that time the work that I wanted done and the outlines of the work as indicated by me, and to which your group brothers and my Ashram are pledged, played no part in your planning. You have been unhappy and bewildered because of the lack of sympathy, yet what would you have your brothers do? Would you have them aid me in helping you to free yourself from wild schemes and planning, or would you have them back you up and strengthen the hold that glamor has upon you?

Here are my suggestions, brother of mine, given in all love and understanding, and with a real appreciation of your sincerity of devotion, your great and beautiful staying-power, your essential humility and your very real need for protection.

Accept the fact that you need protection, and be grateful.
Accept the fact that in this life you have neither the mental equipment nor the clear vision to enable you to be a leader, an organizer or a drawer of blueprints for the Hierarchy.
Accept the fact that you are not young enough to make many basic personality changes, for the sixth ray crystallizes too rapidly.
Accept the fact that in the performance of your home and business duties and in the effort to bring happiness to those in your environment lies for you the immediate solution of your problem. A simple, humble life of service and of self-forgetfulness will do more to free you than any violent endeavor to understand and combat glamor. You do not yet even comprehend what it is; it can only be overcome by the illumined mind, and there is therefore, for you, nothing else to be done but to strengthen your soul contact by practical spiritual living upon the physical plane, and by a complete refraining from all thought anent the future world, future scientific discoveries, future world orders, and the manner whereby they can be instituted.

The moment your mind becomes preoccupied with the universal aspects of life it is thrown into confusion; its thought-form-making proclivities become violent, and the illumination of the soul is then unable to penetrate. You need to learn to bring that illumination into your personality daily life upon the physical plane. What measure of it you have received has been retained upon the mental plane and dedicated to matters far too big for you in this incarnation and with your present equipment. This has led to a chronic state of glamor. Live practically, sweetly, humbly and lovingly for the remainder of this life, and demonstrate beauty in personality relations. You will thus release your mind from pressures too great for it, and so begin to tread the way of liberation.

Can you do this, my brother? Can you bring spirituality into business and live in the business world as a disciple? If you cannot do this, you will have to learn to do it, because discipleship leaves no aspect of life unlived, and business is an aspect of human living. Can you bring naught but peace, happiness and confidence into your home and into your association at the Headquarters of my work in the world? Can you begin to be one to whom the enquirer can turn for help, knowing that he will get enough practical assistance to enable him to see the next step ahead? You can do and be all these things, my brother. Your task is to demonstrate discipleship in the daily life, and not to duplicate the discipleship of those more advanced than yourself.

Do the group work and meditation as indicated. I assign you no special work. I seek to see you more closely integrated into the group in my Ashram of which you are a part. Have no doubts and questionings. You are a part of my Ashram, and that brings the needed protection, as well as certain risks of over-stimulation. The love and understanding and gratitude of your group brothers stands with warmth around you. I have no need to assure you of my protecting care and constant interest. The years must have proved it to you.

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To D.E.I.

September 1943

MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

Since you entered the cycle beginning with your forty-second year, life has held for you constant change, many and drastic adjustments and much responsibility. To this must be added the turmoil and the chaos of the war. This has made great demands upon your strength and your judgment. You have responded well. You have helped many and have grown in wisdom. You have shouldered responsibility for some phase of the work initiated in my Ashram or by my co-disciple, A.A.B. She is not a member of my Ashram. You have my understanding and her unfailing support.

Inevitably, my brother, this situation which you have had to handle in relation to the work for which you are responsible, in relation to your personal and family life and to the future which lies open before you, has entailed much strain. To these factors must be added another one which is that you are essentially alone. This basic loneliness is due to several things: First, that you are in training for leadership, and leaders have to learn to stand alone, and can ever do so if they love enough. Secondly, the force of circumstance and the need to work off certain karmic relations has increased your daily contacts, and at the same time has left you far more alone than you were six years ago. Thirdly, because the greater can always include the less is a lesson which all leaders in training have to grasp; the reverse, my brother, is not true, and the result is loneliness. Ponder on all this and accept it; stand free and move forward on your chosen path, refusing to be limited by those who cannot go your pace. This again means loneliness. And finally, a need for a more loving understanding at times isolates you from your fellowmen, particularly from your co-workers, and you need to beware of a growing critical spirit.

The lessons of leadership are hard to learn, and with these lessons you will be confronted as the years slip away – if you so wish and can face the music. The music is there and will emerge in full tonal quality once you have resolved the discords and established the theme and the rhythm.

What are the lessons which all true leaders have to learn? It might be of service to you if I put one or two before you – very briefly, so that you can (if truly in earnest to serve your fellowmen, as I believe you are) begin to master them, to understand their need and to apply them to yourself with a view to fuller and more useful service.

The first lesson is the lesson of vision. What are your goals? What is the spiritual incentive which will be and is strong enough to hold you steady to the purpose and true to the objective? No one can formulate the vision for you; it is your own personality problem, and upon the strength of the vision and the beauty of the picture which you paint with your imagination will depend much that you do and become.

The second lesson is the development of a right sense of proportion. This, when truly developed and correctly applied, will enable you to walk humbly on the Way. No true leader can be anything but humble, for he realizes the magnitude of his task; he appreciates the limitations of his contribution (in the light of the vision) and the need for constant self-development and the cultivation of the spirit of steady inner spiritual learning, if he is ever to make his proper contribution. Therefore, keep learning; keep dissatisfied with yourself and your attainment, not in any morbid sense, but so that the principle of growth and of pushing forward and onward may be fostered in you. We help others through our own effort to attain; this means clear thinking, humility and constant adjustment.

The third lesson is the development of the spirit of synthesis. This enables you to include all within the range of your influence and also to be included within the range of influence of those greater than yourself. Thus is the chain of Hierarchy established. You still hold a somewhat isolated position, and this with the best intent in the world; but you need to love more deeply and more understandingly. The hindrance here lies in your personality, which is more wise than loving. Let your soul control your first ray personality more, and many of your present difficulties would disappear.

Another lesson which in reality grows out of the above is the avoidance of the spirit of criticism, for criticism leads to barriers and loss of time. Learn to distinguish the spirit of criticism from the ability to analyze and make practical application of the analysis. Learn to analyze life, circumstances and people from the angle of the work, and not from the angle of your personality point of view; analyze also from the angle of the Ashram, and not from the angle of the executive or the schoolmaster upon the physical plane.

In the six statements which I gave you a year ago were three sentences to which I would call your further and close attention. They are:

“Let not the doing intervene between the loving.”

This has much to do with the distribution of time.

Study the value of the heart at leisure from itself and its problems.

“Lift up the weak, for you are strong, and strength from many comes to you.”

This has to do with recognition. Be not entirely occupied with helping, but be willing to be helped.

Study the value of the imagination in this connection.

“You move through life with all the power which comes from out my Ashram.”

This has to do with the handling of energy – and with energy of great potency which will not only invoke the best that is in you but will also evoke the latent seeds of difficulty, which must perforce be removed.

Study the task of living ever consciously in the Ashram and working from that point of power and peace – going without, yet ever staying within.

I am speaking thus directly to you, my co-worker, because the future holds much of useful service for you, if you continue to be a learner. It takes time, humility and certain recognitions, within yourself, of place and position in the chain of Hierarchy. I cannot too strongly emphasize that to you. Let not the pressures of family life (and no family life is devoid of pressures) and the exigencies of the work plus the activities of an active mind, interfere with the inner learning process which is so essential to all teaching-leaders. That, my brother, is what you can be.

A.A.B. has spoken to me of you from the standpoint of your place in the work of the School. She has not touched upon the personality angles or the need for special developments and growth, for no trained disciple, such as she is, ever interferes with the relation between a Master and his chela. She knows that your relation to me is that. But she has spoken to me about you from the angle of the future. I asked her what she felt was your major need and one that you must meet as you prepare for a larger field of service when she passes over. She made an unexpected reply. She said: “The need for a more fertile imagination.” She is entirely right.

The imagination is a creative faculty. Wherein are you thus creative? Can you picture to yourself by any flight of imagination the task ahead of the Arcane School, for instance, in the postwar world, and your approach to the problem from the angle of what you would like to change or see altered? Changes mean nothing unless they are the result of new vision, for if they emerge out of a criticism of the past and of what has been done, they will prove useless from the angle of the spiritual life, no matter how useful they may be from the angle of the organization.

Have you the perception to realize what an esoteric school essentially has to be? It is not an organized method of meeting world problems, of organizing new orders and ways of living, or of underwriting the efforts of the men and women of goodwill. It goes far deeper than that. All the above are only effects of the esoteric life. Can you imagine your position when – from the teaching angle, the esoteric angle – you may have to be a source of inspiration, and not A.A.B.? From whence will you draw inspiration, and how will you make the world of meaning and the spiritual realities real and provocative to the neophyte?

Can your imagination picture to you your reaction when – because you are the leader – you have to shoulder all the blame for any failure, even when not personally responsible; you have to accept without retaliation the attacks of those you are trying to help, who expect too much from you and who force you to live in the blaze of public opinion; what will you do when your chosen workers fail to understand or prove disloyal or criticize without warrant or pit their ambitions against you, and willfully refuse to see your point of view, and talk about you among other people and whip up resentments against you – resentments which are probably without foundation? These are not the kind of things that your personality easily accepts, and your creative imagination had better begin dealing with these problems so that the emerging principles of conduct may stand clear before you. Have you the inner grace of heart to admit error and weakness or to say that you made a mistake in technique or method or approach, in judgment or in speech, should need arise to heal a breach and in the interests of the work? That has never come easily to you either, my brother. It is a thing, you seldom do.

And having said all this, let me point out your assets and the valuable gifts which you can bring to the work and have for years contributed; they are the qualities which make A.A.B. your loyal friend and ambitious for your progress. You have a recognition of principles which is vital and somewhat rare, and on principles all true work is securely founded. You have a gift of impersonality, as a general rule, which is a great safeguard; and in those times when your personality impulses have controlled, the phase has not been lasting. You have a gift of teaching, clear insight and executive ability and a loving heart when it is sparked into compassion. You have a steadfastness of purpose and an unswerving adherence to duty and dharma and a capacity to shoulder responsibility which has, in the past, and will in the future, prove invaluable to the work required. You have the gift of the written word and an increasing ability to speak, and these are valuable assets indeed when wielded by the soul on behalf of others. You are impulsive, and this at times creates temporary difficulties, but the general trend and tendency of your impulses is right and truly oriented. This is a major asset in your life. You are a pledged and accepted disciple, with the power of your Master’s Ashram behind you and the love of your co-disciples with you.

You have the understanding and loyal affection of A.A.B., and will – from life to life. Against her wishes, I ask you to give her in some small measure what she has so largely given you. At times you fail to grasp the strength of her belief in you. Her health is precarious and she counts much on you. Fail her not, and seek to understand the problems with which she is faced.

You have also my belief and trust, my confidence that you will carry on – learning and living and loving – and again I repeat, on the strength coming from my Ashram you can count, but it reaches you through your soul, and therefore a closer soul contact is increasingly needed by you as the work grows and develops.

—————–

Excerpted from “Discipleship in the New Age I – Personal Instructions to Disciples”

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

ॐ, Cause & Effect, Esoteric, Karma, New Age, paradigm, Prophecy, Quotations, Rāja yoga

Mode of Approach Toward Externalization

(August 1946)

One of the most important things emerging from the theme of this amazing and imminent event (the reappearance of the Hierarchy on the physical plane) is the factor of the developments and the adjustments going on within the Hierarchy Itself in preparation for this happening. Incidentally, I would here point out that what will take place, and what is already tentatively taking place, is the externalization of the Ashrams. The great official departments, such as the teaching department or that of emerging civilizations, will not at this time reappear. Their activities will still, for a long time, be retained within the Hierarchy upon Its own plane. The first step is the appearance of certain Ashrams, controlled by certain Masters, upon the physical plane, evoking general recognition and guaranteeing to the public the fact of the Hierarchy and the restoration of the Mysteries. Later, if these steps prove successful, other and more important reappearances will be possible, beginning with the return of the Christ.

But in the meantime, great and momentous happenings are taking place within the Hierarchy and in relation to Its Membership. Disciples upon the periphery of any Ashram are apt to be unobservant of the training and attitudes of Those Who are senior to them in an Ashram; they frequently overlook the fact that They too – from the Christ down to the humblest initiate – are in process of steady and increasing hierarchical discipline, training and instruction. Because the senior disciples and initiates have reached a goal which has seemed for long quite unattainable to the average aspirant, it is assumed that they have attained; the fact that they have only passed a milestone upon the endless Way of Bliss is entirely forgotten. But, owing to the impulsion of life itself, progress ever continues; knowledge must ever be transmuted into wisdom; love must ever be accompanied by divine will; planning must ever give way to divine purpose; light must ever be succeeded by life; from the Hierarchy, the initiate must pass to Shamballa, and from Shamballa he will follow one or other of the seven Paths; the Path of Evolution gives place to the Way of the Higher Evolution; planetary recognitions eventually expand into solar contacts; the Christ-consciousness eventually unfolds into something so all-inclusive that we have as yet no word for it or any need of words; recognition of the Father and of monadic being causes all lesser recognitions to fade out, and soul-consciousness and progressive life in form are no longer goals but are left far behind.

In spite of all this, it is necessary to remember that the gain of all experience for ever persists, nothing is ever lost; that which life in form has conferred is still in the possession of the immortal spiritual entity; that which the soul-consciousness has enfolded and included is still the rich endowment of Being, centered now in the Monad; hierarchical experience is merged into the purposes of the Council Chamber at Shamballa, but ability to work in the Hierarchy ever lasts because the hierarchical constitution and institution condition all manifestation – for what reason this is so, no one knows, but so is the divine Will.

In synthesis and in the all-inclusive awareness of the great Life which enfolds all that is, everything (except what we know as evil) is persistent and for ever endures.

You will have noted (if you are true students of what I have given out to the world) that information anent the Hierarchy has fallen into three major categories:

The work of the Hierarchy in relation to man and to the three worlds of human evolution.
The interior constitution of the Hierarchy and its internal activity.
Its superior relation to Shamballa and to extra-planetary livingness.

A great deal that has been conveyed to you in the two final categories has been merged by you into an interested but totally impractical realization that the Hierarchy apparently has a life of its own which proceeds independently of humanity and that it also has its own goals and objectives which are no concern of yours. These deductions are dependent upon your domination by the separative mind, for in reality the work and the activity proceeding in all three centers – Shamballa, the Hierarchy and Humanity – are merged, fused and interdependent; they are all mutually evocative and invocative.

The fact, for instance, that the Hierarchy is approaching closer to humanity and will eventually make an appearance upon the physical plane is due, not only to hierarchical intent, but to the demand of mankind and to the strong vibration and note which humanity has set up. To that extent, humanity controls some of the activities of the Hierarchy and thus precipitates action. At the same time, all that is happening can be traced to Shamballa, is inherent in divine purpose and is impulsed and impelled by Shamballa energy, distributed throughout the planet, via the Hierarchy in the majority of cases. Both the Hierarchy and Humanity are brought under the influence of extra-planetary forces which make their impact upon the planet, via Shamballa. Therefore, a great interdependence emerges, of which the head, heart and solar plexus centers in the individual man’s etheric body are symbols; their unified relation keeps the man functioning and demonstrating as a coherent whole at a particular level of consciousness. It is essential that students endeavor to grasp this, and so develop within themselves at least the rudiments of this synthetic unified grasp of living conditions and of a vital situation.

These instructions can aid all earnest aspirants and disciples to develop this type of understanding with as much speed and accuracy as possible. It is distinctive of the hierarchical type of mind: concerned with itself as a divine group, conscious of the pull and evocative power of the highest center, Shamballa, responsive to the demands of humanity, and sensitive to the “call” of that third major center through which the life of the planetary Logos expresses itself. The consciousness of the Master is therefore preoccupied with three main lines of responsibility, but only one of them is innate within the living organism of which He is a part; that aspect of His life is invocative in two directions: towards Shamballa and towards Humanity; to Him, the other two centers are evocative.

Today, human beings as a whole are so loudly invocative that the entire trend of the life of the Hierarchy and Its plans to date have been subjected to change, to postponement as far as certain interior and purely hierarchical determinations are concerned, and to a hastening of certain plans which were slated (if I may use such a word) to take place several centuries later than this but which – owing to the unexpected preparedness of humanity – can take place, not prematurely really, but securely and in the fullness of time; this fullness of time, as regards the particular planning with which we are dealing, is from now until the year 2025 A.D. – brief period of time indeed in which to see the consummation of the larger purpose of the planetary Logos, working through the three major centers within His body of manifestation. This purpose was threefold in nature:

It involved the ability of Those in the Council Chamber at Shamballa to react to and absorb certain extra-planetary energies and to use them in an intra-planetary sense. It had not been anticipated by the Directing Agents of these forces that our planetary Logos would achieve a certain goal so early in time and space as He has.
It involved a great expansion, numerically and in the consciousness of the Hierarchy. This predicates a great influx of initiates and disciples and a tremendous inflow of what is esoterically called “angelic essence” from the deva kingdom, under the direction of certain great Devas who have affiliated during the past two hundred years with the Hierarchy. This again had not been expected so early. The result of this happening has been that the door of initiation through which mankind passes stands wider open (symbolically speaking) than ever before, and at the same time, the Masters are passing with greater rapidity on to the Way of the Higher Evolution; this is due to the fact that initiates are fitting themselves so rapidly to take Their places, and disciples are moving on into initiate position so fast, that a great pressing forward has become legitimate.
It involved, finally, a great awakening in the human family and a major spiritual reorientation. This again had been believed possible of accomplishment when the sun passed into Capricorn about 2300 years hence. But – it has already taken place and necessarily has brought about a basic adjustment in the plans of the Hierarchy and a renewed emphasis upon the purpose, as registered in Shamballa.

This, being factual, and the time ripe for decision, has caused an intra-planetary ferment and great activity in the three major centers. In the last analysis (and this is the factor of supreme importance) this development – this unexpected right absorption of spiritual energy, and this seizing of spiritual opportunity – is due to humanity itself; above everything else, it is the readiness of mankind for that which is new, and humanity’s determination to create a new and better world, adapted more adequately to their “renewed” spiritual nature, that is responsible for all the activity.

In this section of our training themes (if I may call them so) we shall deal primarily with the response and the subsequent activity of the Hierarchy in relation to humanity. This will take the form of a new Approach and a reappearance exoterically.

It would be wise, therefore, to keep the following ideas constantly in mind; I will enumerate them sequentially and for the sake of clarity:

1. The work of the Hierarchy, throughout the ages, has been fundamentally threefold in nature:

A constant effort to set up a closer and more understanding relation with Shamballa. This involves:
An unfoldment of the will aspect in conjunction with a full use of intelligent love.
A constant adaptation of the developing Plan to the emerging, energizing Purpose.
An increasing ability to transmit energy from Shamballa to the three worlds, from the cosmic etheric levels to the cosmic dense physical planes.
To unfold – within the periphery of the hierarchical center – a life, a plan and a technique which will train all who find their way into an Ashram, which is in itself an aspect of the life of the Hierarchy. This ancient and intelligent effort has created and conditioned what you know as the Hierarchy. However, it is constantly subject to change in response to new situations and developments.
To represent, finally, within the Hierarchy, the qualities of all the seven Rays, through the medium of the seven major Ashrams and their allied and subsidiary Ashrams.

There are many other aspects of the hierarchical constitution and objectives, but these three are the ones with which we are at this time the most concerned.

2. Today, the relation of Shamballa to the Hierarchy is closer than at any previous time, owing to the following factors:

The one-pointed work and plan – pursued by the three great departments in the Hierarchy (the department of the Manu, that of the Christ, and that of the Lord of Civilization) – in which the three Leaders have unitedly acted as a Triangle of transmission between the Council Chamber of the Lord of the World and the Hierarchy. They are, all three, Members of the Council, though none of Them is yet working at the very center of affairs; in order to be of greater service in Their own sphere, They have taken Their stand upon the periphery of the Council’s influence.
The invocative work carried out both consciously and unconsciously by humanity itself, which has been of such a potency that it has penetrated beyond the ring-pass-not (symbolically understood) of the Hierarchy to Shamballa itself, and has evoked response. This invocative work reached a high point of potency as a result of the world war (1914-1945) and its note and appeal are still persistent.
The rapid development of integration among advanced people, which has forced many on to the Path of Discipleship, and therefore into certain of the Ashrams, and has likewise enabled many disciples to take initiation.

3. The recognition by a very much larger number of the general public of the fact of the Hierarchy; this has established a new type of relation between the Hierarchy and humanity. Hitherto the relation was dependent upon recognition, by advanced aspirants, of the nature of their position in relation to the Hierarchy; today, the recognition of thousands who are not in any way advanced aspirants or in any sense prepared for affiliation with the Hierarchy has created a new type of problem; it connotes to the Hierarchy a promising development, though at the same time an embarrassing one, requiring as it does a different mode of adjustment to human demands than that entailed by the admittance of disciples to Their Ashrams; it requires the attention of certain disciples and initiates in all the Ashrams and the ability of the Hierarchy to penetrate and dissipate the thick cloud of inchoate thought-forms which the bewildered, interested and curious public have created anent Them.

4. The use by the Hierarchy of the destroyer aspect of divinity, the first Ray, in such a manner that it is in fact a creative factor and one which, in the last analysis, not only releases the life from its previous limitations, but also calls in – under the Law of Balance – the building activity of the second Ray. The work of destruction is now practically accomplished and over, and the work of the Builders is beginning.

5. The new group of world servers has been created as an intermediate body between the Hierarchy and the general public. This group is divided into two lesser groups:

Those disciples and workers who are already integrated into some one of the Ashrams.
Intelligent and humanitarian aspirants and workers in world affairs and in all departments.

These two groups unitedly form a transmitting agency through which the Hierarchy can reach the mass of men with the new concepts, the techniques of the new civilization and the basic propositions under which humanity will move forward into greater light.

6. The recognition by humanity of its major problems, and the increasing ability of the general public to view these problems in terms of One Humanity, of the whole. This ability indicates to the Hierarchy the position of Humanity upon the Path at this time and the readiness of mankind for the new revelation – to be followed later by the restoration of the Mysteries.

7. The new orientation of the human family within itself to the concept of the One Humanity and the intensely alert spiritual demand which is today distinctive of mankind everywhere, and which has forced the Hierarchy to come to certain basic decisions and to readjust Itself to a much closer cooperation with the human center of life and purpose.

It is interesting to note (though it is of no immediate moment) that the work of destruction initiated by the Hierarchy during the past one hundred and seventy-five years (therefore since the year 1775) has in it the seeds – as yet a very long way from any germination – of the final act of destruction which will take place when the Hierarchy will be so completely fused and blended with Humanity that the hierarchical form will no longer be required. The three major centers will then become the two, and the Hierarchy will disappear and only Shamballa and Humanity will remain, only spirit or life, and substance as an expression of intelligent love will be left. This corresponds to the experience of the individual initiate at the fourth initiation, when the causal body, the soul body, disappears and only the monad and its expression, the personality (a fusion of soul and form) are left. This event of final dissolution will take place only at the close of our planetary existence, when the door to individualization is finally closed for a pralayic period and the Way of the Higher Evolution will be more closely trodden than the Path of Initiation.

Therefore, my brothers, the closer relation of the Hierarchy to Shamballa, the stimulation of its own interior life, and the readiness of humanity for revelation and for certain unexpected development, will condition the cycle into which we are now entering. This is, therefore, the most amazing period in the history of humanity. Added to this, it must be borne in mind that we are entering another greater round of the Zodiac, and this coincides with the lesser zodiacal activity because Aquarius governs the greater immediate cycle of 25,000 years and is also the sign into which the sun is now moving for a period of 2300 years – a most amazing happening and full of import in our planetary history; it is a coincidence of which our planetary Logos is well aware and of which He is making full and intelligent use. It is a cycle also wherein, for the first time, the three major planetary centers – Shamballa, Hierarchy and Humanity – are in direct and unimpeded relation, for today the alignment is correct and adjusted for the first time in planetary history. Even if this be only temporarily so, something has been initiated, the effects of which will never be lost. It is a cycle also in which the planetary Logos, having successfully taken initiation and thus affected His entire planetary life, has also established certain extra-planetary relationships which are necessarily incomprehensible to you and of no moment whatsoever to the individual human being, but which will eventually create a situation in which our planet will become a sacred planet. This process, as it unfolds and develops, will have a potent subjective and deeply spiritual effect upon every kingdom in nature and in the realm also of super nature.

Let us now proceed with our consideration of our theme, after our study of these basic premises.

————–

Excerpted from “The Externalization of the Hierarchy – Section IV – Stages in the Externalization”.

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

Cause & Effect, Karma, personal, Personal Development, Quotations, Vis Viva - A Journey to Sirius

Karmeleon – Vis Viva Chapter 7

For a heterosexual man there are two things that can cause great fear and strike blows to the core, they are linked to his ability to function sexually. Those are to question his sexual orientation and the parentage of his children. These things strike deep at something in him, because perceived masculinity is so often linked to sexual performance.

In one sense one’s children are one’s legacy of sexual activity on the physical plane; in a more metaphorical sense when a man is being creative he fertilises the world through his actions hopefully sowing seeds of positive endeavour, his accomplishments.

The challenge for the cuckold to his sense of masculinity is immense particularly so if he discovers this many years down the line. He has in effect and affect been living a lie for most of his adult life. The statistics suggest that as many as one man in ten is unknowingly raising someone else’s child; in these days of multiple divorce and remarriage the raising of another man’s child is overt as well as covert.

In another sense a child can metaphorically re-present a man’s purpose and its nurturing. Eric reckons that a man nurtures with his heart, it is male love and male warmth which gives a child security to grow and to test the boundaries. He says that this is so important and the absence of this is what causes harm, unfortunately though this lack is self-propagating in that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, cold insecure men raise cold insecure boys.

Eric reckons that this phrase has other meanings than the genealogical sense and that it relates to fate and karma. He says that we should be careful about using the concept of fate and karma because these words have been bandied about by so many on the dharma trails from Katmandu to Goa and back again. He does believe that the quotation below from the works of Alice Bailey is a particularly good springboard from which to do a double twisting back somersault into the topic though.

The Cup of Karma

There is a cup held to the lips of those who drink, by four great Lords of Karma. The draught within that cup must all be drained, down to the nethermost drop, e’er it is possible to fill the cup with a purer, sweeter one. The seven Lords of cosmic Love await the hour of filling.

The cup is naught. The draught within distils forth drop by drop. It will not all be drained until the final hour wherein the Pilgrim takes the cup. He lifts it from the hand of those Who, bending, hold it to his lips. Until that day the cup is held, and in inner blind dismay the Pilgrim drinks. After that hour he lifts his head; he sees the light beyond; he takes the cup and, with a radiant joy, drains to the very dregs.

The contents of the cup are changed; the bitter now becomes the sweet; the fiery essence then is lost in cool, life-giving streams. The fire absorbed within has burned and scarred and seared. The draught now taken soothes the burns; it heals the scars and permeates the whole.

The Four bend down and see the work. They release the cup of Karma. The tender Lords of Cosmic Love then mix another draught, and – when the cup is empty seen (emptied by conscious will) – they pour within that which is needed now for broader, larger living. Until the cup has once been used, filled, drained, and seen as naught, it cannot safely hold within that which is later given.

But when to utter emptiness the Pilgrim drains the cup then to the world in torment now he turns. With cup in hand (drained once, filled again, and refused to selfish need) he tends the need of struggling men who tread the way with him. The draught of love, of sacred fire, of cool, health-giving stream he lifts not towards himself but holds it forth to others. Upon the road of weary man he becomes a Lord of Power – power gained through work accomplished, power reached through conscious will. Through the cup of Karma drained he gains the right to serve.

Look on, O Pilgrim, to the goal. See shining far ahead the glory that envelops and the light that naught can dim. Seize on the cup and swiftly drain, delay not for the pain. The empty cup, the steady hand, the firm and strong endeavour, lead to a moment’s agony and thence to radiant life.

Alice Bailey; “The Rays and The Initiations” Page 762, Lucis Publishing Company, New York. ISBN 0-85330-122-0

The vis viva then picks an aspect of awareness to animate, from time to time this awareness incarnates and the power within has the chance to eke out a physical plane existence and face the challenges therein. Because of the deeds and actions in previous incarnations the awareness of the power within has evolved and it chooses a circumstance, a fleeting moment in the evolution of space-time to incarnate such that it can live out the challenges as a fate, within the context of an overall destiny. Eric finds it interesting that the etymology of sin may have a root that is of the verb to be or être, that as a consequence of being in carnation sins result.

He also notes that fate has an air of fatality about it, a sense of death. Sin and Fate are together. They are existence and death, being and not-being and he reminds me that death is both the end of physical plane carnation and more generally transformation through death of the old. Here in the sense of old perceptions and ways of being.

He says that he doesn’t like these two words ( fate and karma) much and that challenges are better, because these are much less judgmental and finger pointy, they have less baggage. The power within sets things up for it to experience whilst in the form side of life, it chooses the circumstance of birth, the country of birth and the potential capacities and abilities. As a direct result there will be sin, or being, as the aspiration and intent of the power within seeks to further develop its awareness through the process of life. He says that a Warrior treats his death as an advisor because by keeping death present it encourages one to live in what he calls the eternal now and to act to the best of ones capacity and ability at any given time, he says that this is impeccability. So in this sense death is his fate and it is to transmute, transform and transfigure.

This transmutation then is when the power within recognises that it has gaps in its knowledge and goes about finding this missing knowledge, it sets itself up with challenges in order to learn. In a very simple sense, the first acts of transmutation are to find out what those challenges are and then welcome them, to literally live them bearing in mind that they are gifts and not tortures.

The next stage is transformation, which is changing the shape of a life so that finally the power within has the island of existence in roughly the shape it originally intended so as to live out its fate for a given lifetime. He reckons that most people have forgotten what it is that they are meant to be doing and live in a dream. All one has to do is to wake up in the dream and then get busy.

The Greek word hamartia (ἁμαρτία) is often translated as sin, this means miss the mark. If one is missing the mark in living out a life that is not in accord with fate then that is a sin, or transgression against the purpose of the vis viva and one’s own power within.

The nature of one’s challenges called forth in a given lifetime, are karma, there is no such thing as good karma or bad karma, only karma. There is not a direct and linear cause and effect here, karma is more cyclical than that, though there are sequences and when mixed with others con-sequence. Eric sees karma as much more of a pattern woven together with challenge threads and themes running through a life, the circumstance for which may be set up over a number of lifetimes, there are many twists and turns in this as the vis viva goes about its business of evolving awareness as a whole. It is difficult to account for the hubris of mankind against the backdrop of cosmic Manvantaras and Kalpas outlined in the Vedic scriptures.

If then as an aspirant for self discovery one drains the cup of Karma, one is actively taking part in the act of transformation by conscious will, by grasping the challenges in a life one makes way for a wider living both in a current life and those that follow.

Eric says that his fate must encompass things that challenge his sense of masculinity to the core and that in overcoming these he will be exploring masculinity. He says that by choosing a father who was emotionally distant and later physically distant during a traumatic period of his life; he had no one to learn from. In a very real sense then he was making it up as he went along. The ability to cope with extended periods of bullying has given him a sense of determination and self reliance which he can draw on in times of trouble. It is his opinion that if one looks back at the sort of challenges and themes that appear relatively early on in a life you can get a picture of some of the scope of a fate.

Eric says that I should now talk in first person about the events of my second year in boarding school; I am a little hesitant to provide full details. A boy asked me to do something and I guess it was and is not, that unusual a thing to ask, but we were caught in the act. He had asked me to play with his balls. We were hauled up in front of the housemaster and asked to account for ourselves. The other boy was quite clearly nervous because it was he that had asked. He asked me to cover for him and make something up so that he came out of it looking better. I could see that he was in trouble. So I took the blame for something that wasn’t really all that bad; though at the time it was catastrophe.

The whole school soon knew about it and so, “Ali-homo” was born. Can you imagine how young boys might chant that at each other and how after not very long a time this began to wear a little thin? As it happens I was put up a dorm in my second year and there the taunting continued en masse. So I waited and waited, in the end I ended up setting things up so that I fought with each boy in turn, when I had them on their own. This strategy seemed to work.

Ultimately, I got Morris, alone, and actually messed him up to such an extent that the housemaster warned me about exclusion. How strange to be bullied and then punished for fighting back. Needless to say I did not want to discuss this bullying with my parents, most especially my dad.

“How is school?”

“Just fine. Did you know I might be playing rugby for Colts next year?”

Later that year we were on a family holiday in the Kafue national park, this is a game reserve in Zambia. We were staying in some rondavels that were quite luxurious, close by the Kafue River. The Kafue River at Kwafala camp is very broad with some fast flowing water and many large islands. It was great. I could go fishing. We did various game drives and I got to go fishing in small boat with one of the guides. They liked doing this as, should we be lucky, they had some food for their families too. I can’t even remember his name but he was a small man and my parents have a picture of him somewhere.

We worked our way upstream across the fast flowing part to an area of more gentle flow going along the sides of a large island across an open expanse of water to the big reed bed. There we started fishing with spinners in search of bream and pike. Together we caught four bream and five pike. It was fantastic my best ever days fishing. The bream he caught were good sized around four pounds each and would be great to eat. As we rowed back he pointed to the signs of hippos making progress underwater, small rings of bubbles and said that is best to watch out for them. We got back and showed off our spoils, the other guides were excited as was my sister and the son of other guests at the camp. A trip was planned for the next day.

Then we had bream, fresh from the brai, magic, true magic.

The next day we set off, my sister, this other slightly younger boy, myself and three guides, the short man, Richard and a taller older man. The boat was quite full with all of us, the fishing tackle and the big slab of concrete that acted as anchor. We rowed across the fast flowing section and then to the more open space of water heading towards the fishing fields near the reeds.

As I am remembering all this, I stepped outside our house and a squadron of nine biplanes flew over head, making quite a noise. They are probably from the nearby RAF base and practising for an air show, harkening back to a time of white silk scarves and handlebar moustaches, crying tally-ho and let’s get after the Hun. Quite a contrast the English countryside to the depths of the African bush!

Then it happened, we saw the edges of some of those bubble rings and the edges of one by the side of the boat. Next thing we were all in the water and the boat had overturned. I was a good swimmer then but only eleven years old. The older man was close to me and he tried to get hold of me, I pushed him away. He tried again and I swam away. I saw him drift off in the current. He was drowning. Calling this back to memory is hard, because after the event I was wracked with guilt that perhaps I could have saved him, I had a bronze medallion life saving badge after all!!

I am crying slightly now at the thought of it all. Seeing someone drift away is not easy. We all swam to the boat; there were now five of us. Together we tried to right the boat and got it about halfway, it then bounced back and I was hit on the head. This made me a little dizzy. We tried again but that anchor was now holding the boat in place. I said to the guides that we weren’t really helping and that if we swam to the nearby island we would wait there whilst they tried righting the boat without hindrance. They sort of agreed but it was difficult to know who was in charge. So we swam towards the island. I remember thinking it strange that swimming was a lot harder in my new Clark’s Attackers, but that I might need my shoes later. As we neared the shore my sister and the other boy headed for a different landing point than mine. We got to the shore and hauled ourselves up onto land and into the bush.

We watched as they tried to right the boat a number of times, the sun now lowering across the water. They were getting tired. They gave up and came to join us on the island. Richard was the stronger swimmer of the two and headed towards where my sister had landed. The shorter man followed, my shorter route, splashing quite a lot as he swam. All of a sudden he was pulled under the water, he started thrashing about a little more wildly, surfaced once and then the water was silent. I knew what had happened; there are crocodiles in these parts. He had followed the path that I had taken just a few moments earlier. The four of us stood dumbstruck looking west at the empty river with the upturned boat and the now setting sun.

For an eternity we stood and stared. Richard seemed to be very, very far away. I said that we needed to do something because they could not hear us back at camp from here. We needed to let them know and that we must get moving soon as it would soon be dark. The only way was to make our way between the islands until such time as we were close enough to shout for help. So we began. Some of the islands were separated by shallow water, some were waist deep and others we had to swim a little in between.

So we did it, each entrance into the water tinged by the memory of what had just happened and the fear. I don’t to this day know whether the two other children knew what had happened, they were just glad to be on the move. We got to a small uncovered island about two hundred metres from camp, nearby the fast flowing section. We reckoned that there wouldn’t be hippos or crocs there and shouted across to the camp for help. We told them what had happened and it began; the ululation of an African woman at the loss of her man; such a haunting sound to accompany the swift and velvet fall of an African dusk.

There we were, then, cold and wet, in complete darkness on a small island in the middle of a game park, stranded. There was no other boat at the camp. The bush is alive at night. All we had for comfort was each other and the lights of the camp distant across the water and that terrible ululation. We heard that my father was going to drive to one of the other camps in search of a boat and that they would try to get to us, they had heard of a canoe and transporter some distance away.

I think soon after mid-night my father and the other boy’s father got in the canoe and made their way towards our shouts across the water to us with some food and clothing. It wasn’t an easy trip but it was with the current. It would not be wise to go back at night. They landed and we ate. We had a gun now. I remember that dawn very well, the mist rising off the river and that grey, grey stretching your arms and legs, yawning beginning to the day. We saw the canoe and were not quite as reassured as we once were. In the past a hippo had taken a bite out of it. We were ferried across and boy, were we glad. They took the thorn out of my sister’s foot and we were soon to leave. For some reason my mother was no longer keen on game parks. We would have to report the incident to the police and as we would reach the game park borders first, it was down to us to do that.

We got to the gate and went in to explain what had happened to the African policeman there. The dry mud brick hut was both gate house for the game park and police station. I had to give a statement. As I began to talk it was noticeable that the man could not really write. So I gave my first statement to the police in my scruffy handwriting all the while thinking that they might lock me up for not saving that man and thinking that it was weird that here I was writing, what were the grown ups doing why weren’t they doing all this? It was down to me I had to do it. Like a good public school boy I owned up. Nothing happened to me.

When we got back to Kabwe the story quickly did the rounds of the expat community and filtered down to the children. For a while we were quite famous locally, the grown ups though all had a shudder when they thought of it.

Eric says that it was my fate to be in that place at that time and to see that males who are the masculine expression of the vis viva cannot always be relied on and that I as a proto male would have to take charge from time to time. This was a part of my karma which left me with a great fear of swimming in open water and the sense that something unseen and terrible was lurking there. He reminds me that I nearly had a heart attack when that small fish followed me in Italy and that it took nearly twenty years before I could swim out of my depth in tropical waters.

He says that the burden of guilt for letting that man drown stayed with me for many years, unspoken, leaving me with a sense that I could have and should have, done more to save him.

Soon it was time to go back to school and I was dropped back into my original dorm. It was much better here and there was less bullying and conflict.

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations, Rāja yoga

Nirvana in the Blue Books

15. Non-attachment is freedom from longing for all objects of desire, either earthly or traditional, either here or hereafter.

Non-attachment can also be described as thirstlessness. This is the most correct occult term to use as it involves the dual idea of water, the symbol of material existence, and desire, the quality of the astral plane, whose symbol is also water. The idea of man being the “fish” is curiously complete here. This symbol (as is the case with all symbols) has seven meanings; two are of use in this place:

The fish is the symbol of the Vishnu aspect, the Christ principle, the second aspect of divinity, the Christ in incarnation, whether it is the cosmic Christ (expressing Himself through a solar system) or the individual Christ the potential savior within each human being. This is the “Christ in you, the hope of glory!” (Col., I, 27.) If the student will also study the fish Avatar of Vishnu he will learn still more.
The fish swimming in the waters of matter, an extension of the same idea only carried down to its more obvious present expression, man as the personality.

Where there is no longing for any object whatsoever, and where there is no desire for rebirth (ever the outcome of longing for “form-expression” or material manifestation) then the true thirstlessness is attained, and the liberated man turns his back upon all the forms in the lower three worlds and becomes a true savior.

In the Bhagavad Gita the following illuminating words are found:

“For the possessors of wisdom, united in soul-vision, giving up the fruit of works, freed from the bondage of rebirth, reach the home where no sorrow dwells.

“When thy soul shall pass beyond the forest of delusion, thou shalt no more regard what shall be taught or what has been taught.

“When withdrawn from traditional teaching, thy soul shall stand steadfast, firm in soul-vision, then shalt thou gain union with the Soul.” (Gita II, 51, 52 and 53.)

J. H. Woods makes this clear in his translation of the comment by Veda Vyasa which is here appended:

“Passionless is the consciousness of being Master on the part of one who has rid himself of thirst for either seen or revealed objects.”

“The mind stuff (chitta) – if it be rid of thirst for objects that are seen, such as women, or food or drink or power, if it be rid of thirst for the object revealed (in the Vedas) such as the attainment of Heaven or of the discarnate state or of resolution into primary matter – if even when in contact with objects either supernormal or not, it be, by virtue of elevation, aware of the inadequateness of objects – will have a consciousness of being Master…”

The word “traditional” carries the student’s thought away from that which is usually regarded as the object of sensuous perception into the world of thought forms, into that “forest of delusion” which is constructed of men’s ideas about God, heaven or hell. The sublimation of all this and its highest expression in the three worlds is that “devachan” which is the goal of the majority of the sons of men. Devachanic experience must, however, be transformed eventually into nirvanic realization. It may be of value to the student to remember that heaven, the object of aspirational desire, which is the outcome of traditional teaching, and of all formulations of doctrinal faiths has several meanings to the occultist. For the purpose of a clearer understanding the following may be found to be of use:

Heaven, that state of consciousness upon the astral plane which is the concretion of the longing and desire of the aspirant for rest, peace and happiness. It is based upon the “forms of joy.” It is a condition of sensuous enjoyment, and being constructed for himself by each individual is as varied as there are people participating in it. Non-attachment has to be achieved with respect to heaven. It is realized as enjoyed by the lower self, and by the man when bereft only of his physical body, prior to passing out of the astral body on to the mental plane.
Devachan, that state of consciousness upon the mental plane into which the soul passes when deprived of its astral body and functioning in, or limited by, its mental body. It is of a higher order than the ordinary heaven and the bliss enjoyed is more mental than we ordinarily understand by the word, yet nevertheless it is still within the lower world of form and will be transcended when non-attachment is known.
Nirvana, that condition into which the adept passes when the three lower worlds are no longer “attached” to him through his inclinations or karma, and which he experiences after he has:

a. Taken certain initiations,
b. Freed himself from the three worlds,
c. Organized his Christ body.

Strictly speaking those adepts who have achieved non-attachment but who have chosen to sacrifice themselves and abide with the sons of men in order to serve and help them are not technically Nirvanis. They are Lords of Compassion pledged to “suffer” with, and to be governed by, certain conditions analogous to (though not identical with) the conditions governing men who are still attached to the world of form.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Book 1 – The Problem of Union

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Stage VI – The Chela within the Master’s Heart

We arrive now at a consideration of the last of the six stages of discipleship. This was described by me in the following terms:

“The stage where the disciple is in close touch always; he is being definitely prepared for immediate initiation or having taken initiation – is given specialized work. At this stage he is described as a Chela within his Master’s Heart.”

One thing I would here emphasize as I seek to give some light upon this subject. Being within the Master’s Heart in no way indicates a love-relationship between Master and disciple. The normal reaction is that at last the disciple has merited the right to be truly loved and, therefore, to be truly close to the Master. His life or lives of service have brought him at last the reward; he has now free access to the Master in the closest possible and mutual relationship of loving understanding. This stage of discipleship has absolutely no reference to this at all.

For another thing, brother of mine, when the disciple reaches this stage he is no longer what you understand by an accepted disciple. He is an initiate of high standing and of elevated degree and has passed out of the supervision and the safeguarding of a Master into a direct relation with the Master of all the Masters, the Christ, who is the central point in the Hierarchy, just as the Master is the central point in an ashram. The Master is the heart of his group and the Christ is the heart of the Hierarchy. The closer one gets to realization, the clearer becomes the concept that the point at the center and the periphery are one.

The significance of the word “heart” is the significance of life itself, as it beats eternally at the very heart of the universe. Within that life, the initiate now consciously stands, realizing himself not so much as being a recipient of life, but as a distributor of life. This is a very different thing and holds the key to this stage of discipleship.

The “Master’s Heart” is a technical term, indicating the sources of life and many analogous interpretations. There is at this stage and after a certain major initiation, a direct line of energy or of life – sensed, recognized, active and utilized – between the conscious disciple and

The disciple’s heart center.
The heart center in the head.
The egoic lotus, which (until the fourth initiation) is the heart center of the monadic life.
The Master at the center of his group.
The Christ, the heart center of the Hierarchy.
The life of the Monad which begins to make itself felt at the third initiation.
The Lord of Life himself, the heart center of Shamballa.

The line of relationship then extends from these onward and outward, and upward (spherically considered) to the Life at the very center of our Earth’s “alter ego,” the planet Venus, to Jupiter and thence to the solar Lord himself and on to a point in the Sun, Sirius. You can see, therefore, how different this stage is from what might be imagined. It is one which marks a new departure or beginning and a great transition. It is a stage which one enters through the open door of Nirvana, the beginning of the Path of the Higher Evolution. It is a stage which marks a specific location (if such an inappropriate word can be used) of the disciple upon that upward Way which is revealed by the lighted Way; it is the attainment of the innermost point of realization, called esoterically “within the heart.”

Discipleship in the New Age I – The Six Stages of Discipleship – Part IX

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We are on that path of transition (can we call it the Path of Discipleship?) which will lead us into a new dimension, into the interior world of true fact and right energy. It is a world in which only the spiritual body can function and only the eye of spirit can see. It cannot be perceived by those whose inner perception is unawakened and whose intuition sleeps. When the spiritual body begins to be organized and to grow, and when the eye of wisdom slowly opens and trains itself to see truly, then there will come the indications that the Christ, latent in each son of God, is beginning to control and to lead man into the world of spiritual being, true meaning and essential values. This world is the kingdom of God, the world of souls, and – when manifested – is that expression of divine life which we can call the fifth kingdom in nature. But it cannot yet be generally perceived. It is through the process of initiation that this world stands revealed.

Before initiation can be given, the significance of the above ideas must be grasped, and certain great developments are necessarily presupposed. These requirements can be seen working out in the life of every disciple at this time, and, for those who have eyes to see, they can be seen actively bringing changes in the race.

Aspiration is a basic requirement, both in the individual and in the race. Today humanity aspires to great heights, and this aspiration is responsible for the great national movements seen in so many countries. At the same time, individual disciples are striving anew towards illumination, incited thereto by their longing to meet world need. Spiritual selfishness, which has been such a characteristic of aspirants in the past, has to be transcended and transmuted into love of man and a sharing in the “fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.” (Phil., III, 10.) Self must be lost to sight in service. Service is rapidly becoming the keynote of the time, and one of the incentives in racial endeavor. The meeting of disaster and the undergoing of painful experiences is ever the lot of the individual disciple. It is becoming obvious that the world disciple, humanity itself, is now deemed worthy of such a testing. This universality of difficulty, in every department of human life and excluding no group, indicates that mankind as a whole is being prepared for initiation. There is purpose underlying what is happening today. The birth pangs of the Christ within the race have begun, and the Christ will be born in the “House of Bread” (which is the meaning of the word “Bethlehem”). The implications of our present world pain and suffering are too obvious to need further explanation. There is purpose underlying all world affairs at this time, and there is reward at the end of the way. Some day, sooner perhaps than many may think, the portals of initiation will open wide to the suffering world disciple (as they have ever opened in the past to individuals), and humanity will enter into a new Kingdom and stand before that mysterious Presence Whose light and wisdom shone forth before the world through the Person of Christ, and Whose voice was heard at each of the five crises through which Christ passed. Then will mankind enter into the world of causes and of knowing. We shall dwell in the inner world of reality, and the outer appearance of physical living will be known to be only symbolic of inner conditions and happenings. Then we shall begin to work and live as those who are initiate in the mysteries, and our lives will be regulated from the realm of reality where Christ and His Disciples of all time (the Church invisible) guide and control human affairs.

The goal which They have in view and the end towards which They are working has been summed up for us in a commentary upon an ancient Tibetan scripture. The words are as follows:

“All beauty, all goodness, all that makes for the eradication of sorrow and ignorance upon earth must be devoted to the one Great Consummation. Then when the Lords of Compassion shall have spiritually civilized the Earth and made of it a Heaven, there will be revealed to the Pilgrims the Endless Path, which reaches to the heart of the universe. Man, then no longer man, will transcend Nature, and impersonally, yet consciously, in at-one-ment with all the Enlightened Ones, help to fulfil the Law of the Higher Evolution, of which Nirvana is but the beginning.”
– Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, p. 12.

Such is our goal. Such our glorious objective. How can we progress towards this consummation? What is the first step that we must take? In the words of an unknown poet:

“When thou canst see
Beneath the outer seeming
The causes which to all effects give birth,
When thou canst feel, in warmth of sunlight streaming
The Love of God, encircling all the earth,
Then know thyself initiate in the Mysteries
The wise men ever deemed of greatest worth.”

From Bethlehem to Calvary – Chapter One – Introductory Remarks on Initiation

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This rather unexpected responsive activity has necessitated much increased activity on the part of the Hierarchy, in order to offset the consequences of any premature inflow of the will force. After the third initiation, when the soul body, the causal body, starts to dissipate, the line of relation or of connection can be and is direct. The initiate then “stands in the ocean of love, and through him pours that love; his will is love and he can safely work, for love divine will color all his will, and he can wisely serve.” Love and intelligence then become the servants of the will. Soul energy and personality force contribute to the experience of the Monad in the three worlds of life service, and then the agelong task of the incarnating spiritual man is finally accomplished. He is ready for Nirvana, which is but the Way into new fields of spiritual experience and of divine development – incomprehensible as yet, even to the initiate of the third degree. This Way is revealed only when the antahkarana is built and completed and the man becomes focused in the Triad as consciously as he is now focused in the threefold lower nature.

Then, and then only, is the true dualism of the divine nature apparent and the illusory duality disappears. Then you have Spirit-matter, Life-form. For this the triple experience of the unfolding consciousness is only preparatory. Through the unfolding consciousness, the initiate knows the significance of life and the uses of form, but stands completely unidentified with either, though blending these dualities in himself into a conscious synthesis. The attempt to convey his state of mind, in words that but limit and confuse, leads to apparent contradictions, and this is one of the peculiar paradoxes of the occult science. Do the above imparted facts make sense to you? Have they meaning for your mind? I think not. You have not yet the needed equipment through which the type of implied awareness can work, or the realization of that true Self-consciousness which would produce in you an understanding reaction. I simply, make the esoteric assertion; later will come apprehension of the truth and that consequent energizing which always comes when any abstract truth is truly appreciated and assimilated. But the time has not yet come for the comprehension of the above information. Disciples and aspirants grow through the means of a presented vision – unattainable as yet but definitely an extension of the known and previously grasped. Such is the mode of evolution, for it is ever a pressing forward towards the sensed.

The Rays and the Initiations – Part Two – Section One – The Aspirant and the Mysteries of Initiation

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After the major initiations are undergone, the state of consciousness of the illumined and liberated adept is such that language serves only to blind and to hinder true understanding. The consciousness of the initiate is of so lofty a nature that it can only be described in terms of release, of negation, and through the emphasis of that which it is not. It is a state of No-thing and Non-ego, for all egoic awareness is superseded by a state of Being and of consciousness which is only capable of comprehension and expression when form life is of no further use to the perfected spiritual life. It is a state of non-individuality, yet with the subconscious knowledge and gains of the individual experience. The center of consciousness is so far removed from any individual separate identity that that particular factor has faded entirely out, and only the macrocosmic life is sentiently realized. It is a state of non-activity from our present angle of vision, because all individual reactions to the activity of matter or to that state of being which we call egoic, have dropped away, and Life and Mind can no longer be swept into motion by any of the factors which have hitherto produced what we have called soul activity and form existence.

Nevertheless, though the consciousness is other than all that has been hitherto known, and though it can only be expressed in terms of negation, the truth must be borne constantly in mind that the greater awareness must always include the lesser awareness. Consequently all possible actions and reactions, identifications and focusings, awarenesses and contacts, ray impulses, approaches and withdrawals, and all possible expressions of the divine activity and qualities, phenomenal and non-phenomenal, are included in the state of Being which is now the natural state of the liberated and enlightened spiritual Existence. All are possible of recovery through the will or in response to a need, but the spiritual Being is no longer held by them or identified with them. Each of the stages on the great Path of Liberation or Enlightenment with which we have been concerned – Individualization, Initiation and Identification – have led the Life or the spiritual, interior man, from point to point, from quality to quality, from realization to realization, from phenomenal appearance to spiritual living, from physical awareness to sentient, emotional awareness, and from that to mental differentiation and separateness. He has been carried from hell to heaven, from heaven to Nirvana, from the life-conditioning of the personal Ego to that of the group soul, and thence to that of the liberated state of pure intuitional life. He has passed from form experience as a whole to that complete freedom from all vibratory impressions which it is the nature of pure Being (divorced from phenomenal existence) to demonstrate. But at the same time, nothing is lost of capacity, or quality or of sentient awareness. This is beautifully expressed for us in the words of the Old Commentary, found in the archives of the Masters.

“The quality of life fades out.
It flickers and is gone.
Yet the Blessed Ones reveal at will that quality.
The color pure remains.

The nature of life in form fails to appear.
It flashes forth a little while, then disappears.
The Blessed Ones, at will, can take a form,
yet are not then the form.

The seven great rays sweep into manifested life.
They are, and then are not. All is and all is not.
But the Blessed Ones at any time can sweep forth into manifested light.
They carry then the potencies of spirit to meet the need expressed.
Light holds Them not; Their purpose is not imprisoned; Their will is not subdued.
They appear and disappear at will.”

(An expression of the truth of this can be seen demonstrating in the world each full moon of May, when the Buddha flashes forth into manifestation, for the fulfilment of the Plan and at the urgent behest of His own spiritual will.)

“Naught holds the Blessed Ones.
Neither the deities nor form; neither desire nor mind;
nor any quality of life.
Pure life they are; pure being and pure will;
pure love and pure intent;
this is all that unenlightened man can grasp, and only that in part.

The Blessed Ones are not, and yet They are.
The Blessed Ones know naught, and yet know all.
The Blessed Ones love not, yet offer love divine.
The Blessed Ones remember not, yet all is recollection.
The Blessed Ones remain in isolation pure; and yet at will can take a form.
The Blessed Ones dwell ever in the high and lofty place, yet oft can walk on earth in light phenomenal.
The Blessed Ones manifest not through form; yet are all forms and all intents.”

Esoteric Psychology II – Chapter I – The Egoic Ray – The Growth of Soul Influence

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(1) The Period of Pralaya between two Incarnations

This is of a triple nature and affects the substance of the three vehicles, physical, astral and mental, reducing the form to its primitive substance, and dissipating its atomic structure. The energy of the second aspect (that of the form-builder) is withdrawn by the will of the Ego, and the atoms composing the form become dissociated from each other, and are resolved into the reservoir of essence to be recollected again when the hour strikes. This condition is brought about gradually by stages of which we are aware.

The first stage is the withdrawal of the life force in the etheric vehicle from the threefold (dense, liquid and gaseous) dense physical body and the consequent “falling into corruption,” and becoming “scattered to the elements.” Objective man fades out, and is no more seen by the physical eye, though still in his etheric body. When etheric vision is developed, the thought of death will assume very different proportions. When a man can be seen functioning in his etheric physical body by the majority of the race, the dropping of the dense body will be considered just a “release.”

The next stage is the withdrawal of the life force from the etheric body or coil, and its devitalization. The etheric coil is but an extension of one aspect of the sutratma or thread, and this thread is spun by the Ego from within the causal body much as a spider spins a thread. It can be shortened or extended at will, and when the period of pralaya has been decided upon, this thread of light, or of solar fire (note the word “solar”) is withdrawn, and gathered back to the atomic subplane where it will still vitalize the permanent atom and hold it connected within the causal body. The life impulses are then – as far as the physical plane is concerned – centralized within the atomic sphere.

The third stage is the withdrawal of the life force from so that it disintegrates in a similar manner and the life is centralized within the astral permanent atom. It has gained an increase of vitality through physical plane existence, and added color through astral experience.

The final stage for the human atom is its withdrawal from the mental vehicle. The life forces after this fourfold abstraction are centralized entirely within the egoic sphere; contact with the three lower planes is still inherently possible by means of the permanent atoms, the force centers of the three personality aspects.

In each incarnation the life forces have gained through the utilization of the vehicles,

An increased activity, which is stored in the physical permanent atom.
An added coloring, which is stored in the astral permanent atom.
A developed quality of strength, or purpose in action, which is stored in the mental unit.

These are wrought into faculty in devachan.

Devachan is a state of consciousness, reflecting, in the life of the Personality, that higher state which we call nirvanic consciousness, and which is brought about by egoic action. It is but a dim reflection in the separated units (and therefore tinged with selfishness and separative pleasure) of the group condition called nirvanic. In this high state of consciousness each separate identity, though self-realizing, shares in the group realization, and therein lies bliss for the unit. Separation is no longer felt, only unity and essential oneness is known. Therefore, as might be naturally deduced, there is no devachan for the savage or little evolved man, as they merit it not, and have not the mentality to realize it; hence, therefore, the rapidity of their incarnations, and the brevity of the pralayic period. There is little in their case for the Ego, on its own plane, to assimilate in the residue of incarnations, and hence the life principle withdraws rapidly from out of the mental form, with the resulting impulse of the Ego to reincarnate almost immediately.

When the life of the personality has been full and rich, yet has not reached the stage wherein the personal self can consciously cooperate with the ego, periods of personality nirvana are undergone, their length depending upon the interest of the life, and the ability of the man to meditate upon experience. Later, when the Ego dominates the personality life, the interest of the man is raised to higher levels, and the nirvana of the soul becomes his goal. He has no interest in devachan. Therefore, those upon the Path (either the probationary Path, or the Path of Initiation) do not, as a rule, go to devachan, but immediate incarnation becomes the rule in the turning of the wheel of life; this time it is brought about by the conscious cooperation of the personal Self with the divine Self or Ego.

A Treatise on Cosmic Fire – Section Two – Division D – Thought Elementals and Fire Elementals

ॐ, Cause & Effect, Esoteric, Quotations, Rāja yoga

The Nature of Pralaya

We can view pralaya as the work of “abstraction,” and as the method which brings the form under the Destroyer aspect of Spirit, working ever under the Law of Attraction, of which the Law of Synthesis is but a branch. The basic law of the system is that which governs the relation of all atoms to the aggregate of atoms, and of the Self to the Not-self. It is (from the occult standpoint) the most powerful force-demonstration in the system, and should the law inconceivably cease to work, instantaneously the system and all forms therein, planetary, human and other would cease to be. By an act of will the planetary schemes persist, by an act of will the system is; by an act of the egoic will man appears. When the Will of the Logos, of the Heavenly Man, and of the human divine Ego is turned to other ends, the substance of Their vehicles is affected, and disintegration sets in. The five types of pralaya which concern the human unit are as follows:

(1) The Period of Pralaya between two Incarnations

The third stage is the withdrawal of the life force from so that it disintegrates in a similar manner and the life is centralized within the astral permanent atom. It has gained an increase of vitality through physical plane existence, and added color through astral experience.

The final stage for the human atom is its withdrawal from the mental vehicle. The life forces after this fourfold abstraction are centralized entirely within the egoic sphere; contact with the three lower planes is still inherently possible by means of the permanent atoms, the force centers of the three personality aspects.

In each incarnation the life forces have gained through the utilization of the vehicles,

An increased activity, which is stored in the physical permanent atom.
An added coloring, which is stored in the astral permanent atom.
A developed quality of strength, or purpose in action, which is stored in the mental unit.

These are wrought into faculty in devachan.

Devachan ^{45, 46} is a state of consciousness, reflecting, in the life of the Personality, that higher state which we call nirvanic consciousness, and which is brought about by egoic action. It is but a dim reflection in the separated units (and therefore tinged with selfishness and separative pleasure) of the group condition called nirvanic. In this high state of consciousness each separate identity, though self-realizing, shares in the group realization, and therein lies bliss for the unit. Separation is no longer felt, only unity and essential oneness is known. Therefore, as might be naturally deduced, there is no devachan for the savage or little evolved man, as they merit it not, and have not the mentality to realize it; hence, therefore, the rapidity of their incarnations, and the brevity of the pralayic period. There is little in their case for the Ego, on its own plane, to assimilate in the residue of incarnations, and hence the life principle withdraws rapidly from out of the mental form, with the resulting impulse of the Ego to reincarnate almost immediately.

When the life of the personality has been full and rich, yet has not reached the stage wherein the personal self can consciously cooperate with the ego, periods of personality “nirvana” are undergone, their length depending upon the interest of the life, and the ability of the man to meditate upon experience. Later, when the Ego dominates the personality life, the interest of the man is raised to higher levels, and the nirvana of the soul becomes his goal. He has no interest in devachan. Therefore, those upon the Path (either the probationary Path, or the Path of Initiation) do not, as a rule, go to devachan, but immediate incarnation becomes the rule in the turning of the wheel of life; this time it is brought about by the conscious cooperation of the personal Self with the divine Self or Ego.

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45 Devachan. ” ‘Who goes to Devachan?’ The personal Ego, of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego – the combination of the sixth and seventh principles – which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Devachan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a newborn babe. The fact of his being reborn at all shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Devachan. ‘Bad’ is a relative term for us – as you were told more than once before, – and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those who have not slipped down Into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality – go to the Devachan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them.”

“Of course it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences, thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness; for, it its a state of perpetual ‘Maya’. …Since the conscious perception of one’s personality on earth is but an evanescent dream that sense will be equally that of a dream in the Devachan – only a hundredfold intensified.”

” ‘Bardo’ is the period between death and rebirth – and may last from a few years to a kalpa. It is divided into three subperiods

(1) when the Ego delivered of its mortal coil enters into Kama-Loka (the abode of Elementaries);

(2) when it enters into ‘Gestation State’;

(3) when it is reborn in the Rupa-Loka of Devachan.

Subperiod (1) may last from a few minutes to a number of years – the phrase ‘a few years’ becoming puzzling and utterly worthless without a more complete explanation; Subperiod 2nd is ‘very long’; as you say, longer sometimes than you may even imagine, yet proportionate to the Ego’s spiritual stamina; Subperiod 3rd lasts in proportion to the good Karma, after which the monad is again reincarnated.”

“…Every effect must be proportionate to the cause. And, as man’s terms of incarnate existence bear but a small proportion to his periods of inter-natal existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the good thoughts, words, and deeds of any one of these ‘lives’ on a globe are causative of effects, the working out of which requires far more time than the evolution of the causes occupied.”

– From Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, pp. 100-105-106.

46 Devachan. A state intermediate between two earth lives into which the Ego enters after its separation from its lower aspects or sheaths

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(2) The Period between Egoic Cycles

Herein is hid the mystery of the 777 incarnations and concerns the relation of the unit to his group on the egoic plane, prior to the unfoldment of the fifth petal. It concerns man in the period between the savage stage and that of the disciple, when he is an average man but still in the two Halls. The mystery of all root races lies here, and the egoic cycles coincide with the building of racial forms, and civilizations. A man will reincarnate again and again in the various subraces of a root race until a certain cycle has been covered; then he may undergo a pralayic condition until in a later (and sometimes much later) root race he will respond to its vibratory call, and the egoic impulse to incarnate will again be felt. In illustration of this, we should bear in mind that the more advanced humanity of today did not incarnate until the fourth root race. These cycles are one of the mysteries of initiation, though one of the earlier mysteries, and are revealed at the second initiation as they enable the initiate to comprehend his position, to see somewhat the nature of the karmic impulse, and to read his own record in the astral light.

These might be considered the two lesser pralayic periods and concern primarily life in the three worlds.

(3) Next comes the period wherein the man has attained freedom.

A man has at this stage succeeded, under law, in “abstracting” himself, the freed soul, from out of the matter of the three worlds. He has used and worked with deva substance and has gained all the vibratory contact possible, and has secured all the intended “realizations” and “revelations”; he can no longer be held imprisoned by the devas. He is free until, consciously and willingly, and in another round, he can return as a member of a Hierarchy to continue His work of service for the little evolved humanity of that distant time. As this concerns the seven paths of opportunity for a Master we will not deal with it here. This is the great human pralaya.

(4) Planetary Pralaya

Man, after these cyclic happenings, is now a conscious part of his group, and a vibrant point in a center in the body of a Heavenly Man, consciously alive and consciously aware of his place in the great whole. This involves a realization as to the center of which he is a point of energy, a knowledge of the type of force he is to transmit, and to manipulate from cosmic levels, and a conscious relation with the six other centers in the planetary Life with which he is associated.

This period of conscious activity in etheric substance (of which the planetary body is formed) persists according to the karma of the planetary Lord, for the unit is now consciously associated with planetary karma, and is a participant in the working out of the will and purpose of the Lord of His Ray. On the higher planes of the system, this stage persists for the length of the life of a scheme; to which a period of pralaya succeeds that has its beginning towards the end of the seventh round in any scheme or of the fifth if the Law of Persistence of a scheme is working out through cycles of five. I am here generalizing and speaking in broad terms; the karma of the units differ and a man – according to the path he chooses after the fifth initiation – stays and works within his own scheme, but changes may occur through the following factors:

Planetary karma.
The will of the Lord of his Ray.
Orders emanating from the solar Logos which are conveyed to him after liberation via the planetary Logos and through the medium of the chohan of his Ray.

He is then “abstracted” under a mysterious planetary law which only works on cosmic etheric levels, and is transferred to his destination. If we interpret all the above in terms of energy and of radioactivity and thus avoid the dangers of materialistic interpretation, the meaning will become clearer.

——

Excerpted from:

“A Treatise on Cosmic Fire – Section Two – Division D – Thought Elementals and Fire Elementals”

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations, Rāja yoga

Initiation I – The Birth at Bethlehem

Initiation I – The Birth at Bethlehem – Ray VII

The Energy of Order or Ceremonial Magic.

First of all, let us consider the type of energy which the seventh ray expresses and wherein lies its potency and efficacy, from the angle of the initiation. As we study these initiations and their conditioning rays, we will divide our ideas into three parts:

The type of energy and its quality in relation to the processes of the particular initiation with which it is associated.
Its effect upon humanity, regarding humanity as a world disciple.
The stimulating nature of the energy as it expresses itself:

In the three aspects of the initiate’s nature – mental, astral and physical.

Through the soul-infused personality, the initiate “in good standing” – a phrase of the deepest occult implication.

At this particular time in world history, seventh ray energy is of a growing potency because it is the new and incoming ray, superseding the sixth ray which has for so long held sway. When we speak of ray energy we are in reality considering the quality and the will-purpose aspect of a certain great Life to Whom we give the name “Lord of a Ray.” You will find much about these Ray Lords in the earlier volumes of A Treatise on the Seven Rays. His divine intention, will, purpose, or the determined projection of His mind, creates a radiation or stream of energy which – according to type and quality – plays upon all forms of manifested life within our planetary ring-pass-not. These Lords of the Rays are the creating and sustaining energies which implement the Will of the planetary Logos. They cooperate with Him in the defining and the expression of His supreme purpose. Their radiating emanations are cyclically objectified and are cyclically withdrawn. As they radiate forth into the three worlds, the impacting energies produce changes, disturbances, progress and unfoldment; they create the needed new forms and vitalize and qualify that through which the immediate divine intention is expressing itself; they intensify both the quality and the receptivity of consciousness.

At other times, during the process of being withdrawn “to their own place,” they cause the fading out or the dying of form aspects, of institutions, and the “organizing organisms” (to use a peculiar phrase); they therefore produce cycles of destruction and of cessation and thus make room for those new forms and life expressions which an incoming ray will produce. It has been the gradual withdrawing of the sixth Ray of Idealism and of one-pointed Devotion which has been responsible for the ferment, crystallization, destruction, death and cleavages of the past century; old things are passing away as the Lord of the sixth Ray withdraws His attention, and therefore His energy; His radiation is today no longer centered or focused in the life of the three worlds. Simultaneously, the energy and radiation of the Lord of the seventh Ray are becoming steadily more powerful in the three worlds.

This incoming of a ray always produces an intensified period of initiatory activity, and this is the case today. The major effect, as far as humanity is concerned, is to make possible the presentation of thousands of aspirants and applicants for the first initiation; men on a large scale and in mass formation can today pass through the experience of the Birth Initiation. Thousands of human beings can experience the birth of the Christ within themselves and can realize that the Christ life, the Christ nature and the Christ consciousness are theirs. This “new birth” initiation of the human family will take place in Bethlehem, symbolically understood, for Bethlehem is the “house of bread” – an occult term signifying physical plane experience. These great initiations, implemented by the ray energies, must be registered in the physical brain and recorded by the waking consciousness of the initiate, and this must be the case in this amazing period wherein – for the first time since humanity appeared on Earth – there can take place a mass initiation. The experience need not be expressed in occult terms, and in the majority of cases will not be; the individual initiate who takes this initiation is aware of great changes in his attitude to himself, to his fellowmen, to circumstances and to his interpretation of life events. These are peculiarly the reactions which attend the first initiation; a new orientation to life and a new world of thought are registered by the initiate. This will be equally true on a large scale where modern man, the world initiate of the first degree, is concerned. Men will recognize the evidences in many lives of the emergence of the Christ-consciousness, and the standard of living will increasingly be adjusted to the truth as it exists in the teachings of the Christ.

This developing Christ-consciousness in the masses of men will create necessarily a ferment in the daily life of peoples everywhere; the life of the personality, oriented hitherto to the attaining of material and purely selfish ends, will be at war with the new and inner realization; the “carnal” man (to use the words of Paul, the initiate) will be battling the spiritual man, each seeking to achieve control. In the early stages, after the “birth” and during the “infancy of the Christ-Child” (again speaking in symbols), the material aspect is triumphant. Later, the Christ life triumphs. This you well know. Each initiation indicates a stage in the growth and the development of this new factor in the human consciousness and expression, and this continues until the third initiation, when there emerges the “full-grown man in Christ.” The initiate is then ready, at the fifth initiation, to register, realize and record the long awaited revelation.

In connection with the individual and the first initiation, the seventh ray is always active and the man is enabled consciously to register the fact of initiation because either the brain or the mind (and frequently both) are controlled by the seventh ray. It is this fact which is of importance today in connection with humanity, for it will enable mankind to pass through the door admitting them to the first initiatory process. It will be apparent to you why the present period in which human beings (in large groups) can take the first initiation corresponds to a situation in which bread is the major interest of men everywhere. Humanity will pass through this “birth” initiation and manifest the Christ life on a large scale for the first time during a period of economic adjustment of which the word “bread” is but a symbol. This period started in the year 1825 and will continue until the end of this century. The unfoldment of the Christ life – as a result of the presence and activities of the second divine aspect of love – will result in the ending of economic fear, and the “house of bread” will become the “house of plenty.” Bread – as the symbol of material human need – will eventually be controlled by a vast group of initiates of the first initiation – by those whose lives are beginning to be controlled by the Christ-consciousness, which is the consciousness of responsibility and service. These initiates exist in their thousands today; they will be present in their millions by the time the year 2025 arrives. All this, reorientation and unfoldment will be the result of the activity of the seventh ray and of the impact of its radiation upon humanity.

The seventh ray is, par excellence, the medium of relationship. It brings together the two fundamental aspects of spirit and matter. It relates soul and form and, where humanity is concerned, it relates soul and personality. In the first initiation, it makes the initiate aware of that relation; it enables him to take advantage of this “approaching duality” and – by the perfecting of the contact – to produce upon the physical plane the emergence into manifestation of the “new man.” At the first initiation, through the stimulation brought about by seventh ray energy, the personality of the initiate and the hovering over-shadowing soul are consciously brought together; the initiate then knows that he is – for the first time – a soul-infused personality. His task is now to grow into the likeness of what he essentially is. This development is demonstrated at the third initiation, that of the Transfiguration.

The major function of this seventh ray is to bring together the negative and positive aspects of the natural processes. It consequently governs the sex relationship of all forms; it is the potency underlying the marriage relation, and hence as this ray comes into manifestation in this world cycle, we have the appearance of fundamental sex problems – license, disturbance in the marriage relation, divorce and the setting in motion of those forces which will eventually produce a new attitude to sex and the establishing of those practices, attitudes and moral perceptions which will govern the relation between the sexes during the coming New Age.

The first initiation is therefore closely related to this problem. The seventh ray governs the sacral center and the sublimation of its energy into the throat or into the higher creative center; this ray is therefore setting in motion a period of tremendous creative activity, both on the material plane through the stimulation of the sex life of all peoples and in the three worlds through the stimulation brought about when soul and form are consciously related. The first major proof that humanity (through the medium of the majority of its advanced people) has undergone the first initiation will be the appearance of a cycle of entirely new creative art. This creative urge will take forms which will express the new incoming energies. Just as the period governed by the sixth ray has culminated in a world wherein men work in great workshops and factories to produce the plethora of objects men deem needful for their happiness and well-being, so in the seventh ray cycle we shall see men engaged on an even larger scale in the field of creative art. Devotion to objects will eventually be superseded by the creation of that which will more truly express the Real; ugliness and materiality will give place to beauty and reality. On a large scale, humanity has already been “led from darkness to light” and the light of knowledge fills the land. In the period which lies ahead and under the influencing radiation of the seventh ray, humanity will be “led from the unreal to the Real.” This the first initiation makes possible for the individual and will make possible for the mass of men.

Seventh ray energy is the energy needed to bring order out of chaos and rhythm to replace disorder. It is this energy which will bring in the new world order for which all men wait; it will restore the ancient landmarks, indicate the new institutions and forms of civilization and culture which human progress demands, and nurture the new life and the new states of consciousness which advanced humanity will increasingly register. Nothing can arrest this activity; all that is happening today as men search for the new ways, for organized unity and peaceful security, is being implemented through the incoming Ray of Order or Ceremonial Magic. The white magic of right human relations cannot be stopped; it must inevitably demonstrate effectively, because the energy of this seventh ray is present, and the Lord of the Ray is cooperating with the Lord of the World to bring about the needed “reforming.” Soul-infused personalities, acting under this ray influence, will create the new world, express the new qualities and institute those new regimes and organized modes of creative activity which will demonstrate the new livingness and the new techniques of living. It is the distortion of these seventh ray ideals and the prostitution of this incoming energy to serve the unenlightened and selfish ambitions of greedy men which has produced those totalitarian systems which today so terribly imprison the free spirit of men.

To sum up what I have said:

The energy of the seventh ray is the potent agent of initiation when taken on the physical plane, that is, during the process of the first initiation.

Its effect upon humanity will be:

To bring about the birth of the Christ-consciousness among the masses of intelligently aspiring human beings.

To set in motion certain relatively new evolutionary processes which will transform humanity (the world disciple) into humanity (the world initiate).

To establish in a new and intelligible manner the ever-existent sense of relationship and thus bring about upon the physical plane right human relations. The agent of this is goodwill, a reflection of the will-to-good of the first divine aspect. Of this first Ray of Will or Purpose, goodwill is the reflection.

To readjust negative and positive relationships, and – today – this will be carried forward primarily in connection with the sex relation and marriage.

To intensify human creativity and thus bring in the new art as a basis for the new culture and as a conditioning factor in the new civilization.

To reorganize world affairs and so initiate the new world order. This is definitely in the realm of ceremonial magic.

The stimulation of this seventh ray will, in relation to the individual initiate,

Bring into being upon the mental plane a widespread and recognized relation between the soul and the mind.

Produce a measure of order in the emotional processes of the initiate, thus aiding the preparatory work of the second initiation.

Enable the initiate – upon the physical plane – to establish certain service relationships, to learn the practice of elementary white magic, and to demonstrate the first stage of a truly creative life.

As far as the individual initiate is concerned, the effect of seventh ray energy in his life is potent in the extreme; this is easily realized, owing to the fact that his mind and his brain are conditioned by the seventh ray at the time that the initiatory process is consciously taking place. The effect of this upon the mental plane is similar to that seen – on a much larger scale – in the planet, for it was this ray energy which the planetary Logos utilized when He brought together the major dualities of spirit and matter at the commencement of His creative work. The two aspects of the mind (the lower concrete mind and the soul, the Son of Mind) become more closely related and enter eventually into a conscious, recognized association on the astral plane; it is the seventh ray which restores order within the astral consciousness, and (on the mental plane) it is this influence which produces creativity, the organizing of the life, and the bringing together “within the head” of the lower and higher energies in such a manner that “the Christ is born.” This latter point we shall consider in some detail when we take up the significance of the initiations; we shall then find that the relationship between the pituitary body and the pineal gland is involved.

Finally, it is seventh ray energy which – in the initiatory process between the first and the second initiations – enables the initiate (in his physical plane life) to demonstrate a developing sense of order and of organization, to express consciously and increasingly a desire to help his fellowmen, and thereby establish relationship with them, and to make his life creative in many ways.

All these factors are embryonic in his nature, but he now begins to consciously lay the foundation for the future initiatory work; the physical disciplines are at this time of great importance, though their value is frequently over-emphasized and their effect is not always good; the relationships established and fostered are sometimes of small value, owing to the disciple being usually self-centered and thus lacking – from ignorance and lack of discrimination – complete purity of motive. Nevertheless, the changes brought about by the influence of this ray become increasingly effective from life to life; the disciple’s relation to the Hierarchy, the reorganizing of his life on the physical plane, and his growing effort to demonstrate the esoteric sense of white magic will become more and more vital, until he is ready for the second initiation.

—

Initiation I – The Birth at Bethlehem

I have preserved the above Christian nomenclature because of its familiarity and because (symbolically speaking) it conveys an aspect of a major truth. Just as the birth of a child is an entrance into light, literally speaking, and the beginning of an entirely new way of life, so each successive initiation is in an exactly similar manner an entrance into light, involving the revelation of a different world to the one hitherto known, and the undergoing of entirely new experiences. If students would keep this symbology and this definition carefully in mind, they would arrive at a keener concept of the processes which lie ahead of them. This is particularly true in connection with this first initiation; the analogy holds good from the very dawn of history, where humanity is considered.

In ancient Lemuria, with the coming in of the mental idea and mechanism, the low grade animal life (which, to a certain extent, looked human but was definitely mindless, unknowing and unseeing) became suddenly aware of that which threw light upon its way. It meant little to the animal men of those days, but it came increasingly to have significance as millennia of years elapsed; civilizations came and went; races developed and disappeared. In Lemurian days, the indwelling light of perception (though it was a perception so remote from ours as to be practically inconceivable) revealed the physical world and that found upon it which the human being of that time would deem desirable. Later, in Atlantean times, that same indwelling light and unfolding light of the mind served to reveal the world of emotions, and in the later half of that period it revealed the more aesthetic values; the arts began to flourish; color and beauty were registered. In our more modern Aryan race, the light has revealed the world of thought and has brought us to a synthesis of the senses; these senses were developed in earlier cycles of human living. Each of these three races, in a mysterious manner, has a correspondence on a racial scale to the first three initiations.

Today, as we enter the new era, the symbology of the fourth initiation, that of the Renunciation, has application; men face the necessity of renouncing the material values and of substituting the spiritual. The ferment of the initiation process goes on all the time, undermining the materialism of the race of men, revealing more and more of the reality underlying the phenomenal world (the only world recognized by the Lemurians) and – at the same time – providing that cultural field of experience in which those sons of men who are ready to do so can undergo the five initiations, technically understood. This is the factor of importance. This, therefore, is our starting point.

The historical process can (and will) reveal the gradual entrance of mankind into ever-expanding “lighted areas” of consciousness; into these areas the way of evolutionary unfoldment has led the race of men right up to the point where there are many, many thousands (and millions if you consider all of humanity – those in incarnation today and those that are out of incarnation upon the inner planes) who have been enabled to step out of the lighted field of the three worlds into another area where the light of the mind can be blended with the still greater light of the soul. They have (in past lives, even though recollection may be lacking) undergone the birth experience and initiation, and as a result of this, that which can reveal what the mind is unable to illumine is now developing and functioning within them. The “light of life” is now available, in a sense far more literally true than you can at this time perceive, and each successive initiation will see this fact more clearly demonstrated. The Birth Initiation lies behind in the experience of many, and this is factually proved by the lives of those who are consciously and willingly oriented towards the light, who see a wider world than that of their own selfish interests, who are sensitive to the Christ life and to the spiritual consciousness in their fellowmen and who see an horizon and vistas of contact unperceived by the average man; they realize a possible spiritual achievement, unknown and undesired by those whose lives are conditioned entirely by either the emotions or the lower concrete mind. At this stage of unfoldment they have a sense of conscious dualism, knowing the fact of the existence of that “something other” than the phenomenal, emotional and mental self.

The first initiation might be regarded as the goal and the reward of the mystical experience; it is fundamentally not an occult experience in the true sense of the term, for it is seldom accurately realized or consciously prepared for, as is the case of the later initiations, and this is why the first two initiations are not considered major initiations. In the mystical realization there is naturally and normally an emphasis upon dualism, but in the new area of unfoldment – visioned and later to be struggled for and attained, initiation by initiation – unity is achieved and dualism disappears. Students should therefore have in mind the following definite occult concept: The mystical Way leads to the first initiation. Having achieved its purpose, it is then renounced, and the “lighted Way” of occultism is then followed, leading to the lighted areas of the higher states of consciousness.

Thus both ways are seen to be essential; the mystical way is for the majority at this time, and an increasingly large number of mystics will emerge out of the modern masses of men; paralleling this, the occult way is attracting more and more of the world intelligentsia. Its experience is not basically religious, as the orthodox churchman understands the word. The way of science is as deeply needed by mankind as is the way of religion, for “God” is found equally on both ways. The scientific way leads the aspirant into the world of energies and forces, which is the true world of occult endeavor, revealing the Universal Mind and the workings of that great Intelligence which created the manifested universe. The “new man” who has come to birth at the first initiation must and will tread the occult or scientific way, which inevitably leads him out of the world of mysticism into the scientific and assured perception of God as life or energy.

The first initiation marks the beginning of a totally new life and mode of living; it marks the commencement of a new manner of thinking and of conscious perception. The life of the personality in the three worlds has for aeons nurtured the germ of this new life and fostered the tiny spark of light within the relative darkness of the lower nature. This process is now being brought to a close, though it is not at this stage entirely discontinued, for the “new man” has to learn to walk, to talk, and to create; the consciousness is now, however, being focused elsewhere. This leads to much pain and suffering until the definite choice is made, a new dedication to service is vouchsafed, and the initiate is ready to undergo the Baptism Initiation.

Members of the New Group of World Servers should watch with care for all those who show signs of having passed through the “birth” experience and should help them toward a greater maturity. They should assume that all those who truly love their fellowmen, who are interested in the esoteric teaching, and who seek to discipline themselves in order to attain greater beauty of life, are initiate and have undergone the first initiation. When they discover those who are seeking mental polarization and who evidence a desire and aspiration to think and to know, coupled with the distinguishing marks of those who have taken the first initiation, they can, in all probability, safely assume that such people have taken the second initiation or are on the verge of so doing. Their duty will then be clear. It is by this close observation on the part of the world servers that the ranks of the New Group are filled. Today, the opportunity and the stimulation are so great that all servers must keep alert, developing in themselves the ability to register the quality for which search must be made, and giving the help and guidance which will weld into one cooperative band those disciples and initiates who should prepare the way for the Christ.

The first initiation should be regarded as instituting a new attitude towards relationships. This is not yet the case. The relationships hitherto recognized, speaking generally, have been those karmically, physically and emotionally instituted; they are largely objective and predominantly concern the phenomenal plane with its contacts, duties, responsibilities and obligations. The new relationships however, to be increasingly recognized, are subjective and may have but little phenomenal indication. They embrace the recognition of those who must be served; they involve the expansion of the individual consciousness into a growing group awareness; they lead eventually to an eager response to hierarchical quality and to the magnetic pull of the Ashram. Such a development in the recognition of relationships leads finally to a recognition of the Presence of the Christ and to relationship with Him. With the recognition of and the relationship to the planetary Logos we need not at this point deal. All these relationships begin, in their truest connotation and with a correctly realized objective, at the birth of the “new man.” To this the Christ referred when He said: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” I am here using the Christian terminology but prefer to speak of the “new man” rather than the strictly Christian phrase “the birth of the Christ Child in the heart.” It is by means of the touchstone of relationships that world servers can contact the initiates and the accepted disciples in the world, and can discover those aspirants who can be helped and trained.

Let me bring another point to your attention. In the phenomenal world of the average human being who has not yet passed through the initiatory experience of the rebirth, the emphasis has ever been and is today upon the dual relationship of the sexes and to this our novels, plays, movies and affairs of all men bear testimony. Creativity expresses itself mainly through the propagation of the race, brought about through the relation of male and female, or of the positive and negative poles in the human family. This is right and good and part of the divine Plan. Even though men have prostituted their capacities and debased their relationships, the basic plan is divine and ideal. After the first initiation, the entire sex relationship shifts gradually and steadily into its proper place as simply a natural phase of existence in the three worlds and as one of the normal and correct appetites, but the emphasis changes. The higher experience and correspondence, that of which physical sex is only the symbol, becomes apparent. Instead of male and female, there emerges the magnetic relationship between the now negative personality and the positive soul, with consequent creativity upon the higher planes. Of this relationship the head center and the center between the eyebrows (the ajna center) are the agents and eventually – through the medium of the pituitary body and the pineal gland – they condition the personality, rendering it soul-infused.

I have given you so much information anent initiation and the rays and centers in my many books that there is no need for me to repeat it here; there is, however, great need for you to collect and tabulate the scattered information so that you can register it as a whole. Many who read these instructions and who study the books I have written are in process of preparation for one or other of the initiations, and the entire theme should therefore be of major interest to you. You should decide (at least tentatively) which initiation lies ahead of you and then discover all you possibly can about it and its prerequisites, endeavoring to make practical application of the imparted information; either that which I give to you is true or it is not; if true, it is vital to your future progress and you should aim at achieving a measure of real understanding.

You have been taught that the activity or the inactivity of the centers conditions the personality, working through the endocrine system; the energies which the centers channel and the forces which they generate can be controlled and directed by the soul, by the spiritual man. You have likewise been told that the energy of the sacral center (the center most implicated and active at the time of the first initiation) has to be transmuted and raised to the throat center, thereby transforming the physical creative act into the creative process of producing the good, the beautiful and the true. This is the ABC of your fundamental knowledge: the transmutation of sex. In that transmutative process men have greatly erred and have approached the subject from two angles:

They have sought to stamp out natural desire and have endeavored to emphasize an enforced celibacy; they have thus frequently warped the nature and subjected the “natural man” to rules and regulations which were not of divine intent.
They have tried – at the other extreme – to exhaust normal sexual desire by promiscuity, license and perversions, damaging themselves and laying up the basis for trouble for many incarnations ahead.

True transmutation is in reality the achieving of a correct sense of proportion in relation to any phase of human life, and for the race of men today has particular reference to the sacral center and the energies which bring it into activity. When a proper recognition of the place the sex life should play in the daily life is paralleled by the concentration of thought anent the throat center, that center becomes automatically magnetic and attracts the forces of the sacral center upward through the spine into “the place of creative building”; the normal sex life is then regulated and not atrophied, and is relegated to its rightful place as one of the usual faculties or appetites with which man is endowed; it is brought under control through the lack of directed interest and is subordinated to the law of the land as regards its relation to its opposite pole – either negative and feminine or masculine and positive. To the aspirant it becomes mainly the agent for the creation of the vehicles needed for reincarnating souls. Thus by force of example, by the avoiding of all extremes, by the dedication of the bodily energies to the higher uses, and by the acceptance of the law of the land in any given country and at any given time, the present disorder and the current misuse of the sex principle will give way to orderly living and to the right use of this major bodily function.

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

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

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Bodhisattva in the Blue Books

From Initiation, Human and Solar – Glossary B-E

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, Essays in 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.

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Initiation VII – The Resurrection

There is no idea more cultivated subjectively by humanity than that of the resurrection; when life seems hard and circumstances carry in them no grounds for happiness, and when nothing calls to one of such a nature that one goes forth happily to the day’s enterprises, and when the nights of sleep are haunted nights, the thought of rising up and out of all these circumstances, of leaving all behind and of entering into a new life, carries with it strength and hope. In the West, the Festival of the year which is regarded as of the most importance is that of Easter Day – the Day of Resurrection. Yet two thousand years ago the Christ did not rise out of a rocky sepulchre and reassume His discarded body. He passed through the great seventh initiation which we will consider today, and knew the secret of life, of which immortality is only one of its many attributes. Humanity lays emphasis so frequently upon attribute, quality and reactions, and not upon that which is the basic underlying reality; men deal with effects and not with causes; for instance, mankind is concerned with war and with horrified preparations for more war, and is not primarily occupied with that which causes war and which, if rightly handled, would prevent war. Let us consider some few aspects of the seventh initiation.

—

The word “resurrection” has deep significance latent in its derivation and one that is not often emphasized. The usual interpretation has been that the word comes from “re,” again, and “surgere,” to rise, therefore to rise again. Yet a consultation with the dictionary shows that the prefix means “back to an original state” by rising. This return to an original state is pictured for us in The New Testament under the story of the Prodigal Son, who said “I will arise and go to my Father,” and by the story of the resurrection in which the Master Jesus arose out of the tomb; the chains of death could not hold Him. At that time of His “rising,” a far more important event took place and the Christ passed through the seventh Initiation of Resurrection and returned back to His original state of Being – to remain there throughout all the eternities. This is the true and final resurrection. The Son of God has found His way back to the Father and to His originating Source, that state of Existence to which we have given the name Shamballa. The consciousness of the Universal Life is His; this is far more than simply the consciousness of immortality, because the idea or concept of mortality is not contained within it at all. There have been many deaths within the aeonial life cycle of the initiate:

The familiar and constantly recurring death of the physical body, incarnation after incarnation.
The deaths of the astral and the mental vehicles, as the undying soul discards them life after life – only to create new ones until mastery is attained.
Then – as a result of the incarnating process and its evolutionary effects – there comes the death of desire and its replacing by a growing spiritual aspiration.
Then, through right use of the mind, comes the “death” of the personality or, rather, its repudiation and renouncing of all that is material.
This is followed by the death or destruction of the causal or soul body at the great Initiation of Renunciation.

This process of death and resurrection goes on ceaselessly in all the kingdoms of nature; each death prepares the way for a greater loveliness and livingness, and each death (if you analyze it with care) prefaces resurrection in some form or another until we come to this final resurrection and into the position of final attainment.

I will not here elaborate upon this process of constant death followed by constant resurrection, but it is the evolutionary keynote and the evolutionary technique, and only because men love unduly that which is material and hate to lose contact with the form aspect of nature do they fear death. It is wise to remember that immortality is an aspect of the living spiritual being, and is not an end in itself, as men seek to make it. To the Knowers of Life such a phrase as “I am an immortal Soul” is not even true. To say “I am Life Itself and, therefore, am immortal” approaches closer to the truth, but even that sentence is (from the angle of the initiate) only a part of a larger truth. Symbolically, nature is ever portraying to us the essential facts in the annual progress of the four seasons, in the cycles of light and dark and in the wonder of the emergence of beauty or color or useful function out of a seed which has struggled – because of its inherent life – into the light of the sun.

The fear of death is one of the great abnormalities or distortions of divine truth for which the Lords of Cosmic Evil are responsible. When in early Atlantean times they emerged from the place where they had been confined, and forced temporarily the retirement of the Great White Lodge to subjective levels, their first great act of distortion was to implant in human beings fear, beginning with the fear of death. From that time on, men have laid the emphasis upon death and not life, and have been ridden by fear all their days.

One of the initial acts of the reappearing Christ and of the Hierarchy will be to erase this particular fear and to confirm in peoples’ minds the idea that incarnation and the taking of a form is the true place of darkness to the divine spirit which is man; it is death to the spirit temporarily, and imprisonment. Evolution, men will be taught, is in itself an initiatory process leading from one living experience to another, culminating in the fifth Initiation of Revelation and in the seventh Initiation of Resurrection.

At the fifth initiation it is revealed to the initiate that life in form is indeed death, and he then knows this truth in a manner which my few short words cannot convey. Form dies for him and he knows a new expansion of life and undergoes (if I may so express it) a new understanding of living. The seventh initiation is divorced from all considerations of form, and the initiate becomes a concentrated point of living light; he knows in a manner indescribable that life is all that Is, and that it is this life and its real fullness which makes him a part of That which lies outside of our planetary Life; he may now share in that extra-planetary Existence in which our planetary Logos lives and moves and has His being. This is the “life more abundantly” of which Christ spoke and which only an initiate of the seventh degree can understand or convey.

After the fifth initiation, the initiate has slowly been sensing the nature of this greater Life, the Life of “The Unknown God,” as it has been called, which enfolds all livingness and all forms upon and within our planet and yet remains – greater than our planetary Life, more all-encompassing than is our planetary Logos, and Whose greatness, beauty, goodness and knowledge are to our planetary Logos what His life is to the lowest form of life in the third or animal kingdom. It is only by such inadequate comparisons that one can arrive at some faint comprehension of that great Whole in which our planet and our planetary Logos are but a part. It is this revelation which is accorded to the initiate at this seventh Initiation of Resurrection. He takes this initiation upon what (for lack of a better phrase) we call the “logoic plane,” or on the level of consciousness of the Lord of the World.

At this initiation the Initiator is attended by two groups of Beings; one is a small group of the “Knowers of the Purpose, the Custodians of the Will,” and the other is a much larger group, the personnel of which are known as “The Wise Ones and the Attractive Energies of Shamballa.” I am of course endeavoring to translate certain brief words and intricate symbols into phrases which you can understand and which only dimly convey the true significance of Those Who function on this highest level of the cosmic physical plane. On this level, dynamic electricity is held as in a great reservoir of potency and is directed by these two groups which embody the will and the quality of the will of Deity, called by us the Will-to-Good. They are the directing Agents and are a correspondence to the ajna center of mankind, only here it is the ajna center of the planetary Logos, in the same sense as Shamballa is His head center, the Hierarchy His heart center and Humanity His creative throat center. Motion, planned activity and the seven great creative ray energies are directed into action by Them under the influence of the seven Ray Lords; the Ray Lords are embodied livingness qualified by the seven aspects of Love, but Who are Themselves of so high an order that They cannot function as directing creative Agents but work through Their trained and developed Representatives.

Just as there is a group of Contemplative Initiates, called in the Eastern phraseology “Nirmanakayas,” Who function in deep meditation at a point midway between the Hierarchy and Shamballa, so this much higher group of Ray Lords function in the deepest cosmic meditation between our planet, the Earth, and our sister planet, Venus. You would find it useful to read with care The Secret Doctrine and A Treatise on Cosmic Fire and refresh your minds as to this relationship. A lower correspondence to these two important groups has been forming midway between the Hierarchy and Humanity, and to it we give the name of the New Group of World Servers. All these three groups are fundamentally “transmitters of energy”; the two highest are exceedingly susceptible to cosmic impression and to the vibratory quality of the extra-planetary body of Avatars Who hold Themselves in readiness to function as destroying or building Energies in any part of our solar system and are under the direction of the Solar Logos.

The Avatar of Synthesis, Who is working in cooperation with the Christ, is one of Them. Bear in mind that these extra-planetary Avatars have not arrived at Their high state of spiritual unfoldment on our planet or even in our solar system. Their origin, source and spiritual relationships are a great mystery even to the planetary Logoi – to Whose help They go when the invocative appeal of any planet is adequate. Think not that They come to put wrong right or to arrest evil. A few, a very few, may do so, but They work along the line of the seven ray energies in the solar system and produce certain energy effects desired at any particular time; the constructive work of the Avatar of Synthesis will be apparent to you in the name He is known by; He is coming to the Earth in order to further the manifestation of unity, of oneness and of interrelation, and He comes, therefore, to wield and apply first ray energy. He will charge or galvanize the three groups – the directing Agents in Shamballa, the Nirmanakayas and the New Group of World Servers – with dynamic energy and, in a mysterious way, relate them to each other so that a new synthesis and alignment will be present upon the Earth. All these Avatars embody energy to the extent that any particular planet is capable of receiving it.

These are interesting items of information but are only of value in so far as they convey to you a sense of planetary integrity and of solar synthesis, and present to you a closer spiritual interrelation in which you, as individuals, can share if you are linking your fate and service to that of the New Group of World Servers. Then you will be in the direct line of spiritual descent, of divine energy; in this thought you have the clue to the doctrine (so travestied and misused) of the Apostolic Succession. The details, the personnel and the techniques of the two higher groups lie beyond your ken; They work in cooperation with the planetary Logos Himself, and Those Who compose these groups are all initiates of degrees higher than the fifth. Most of the Nirmanakayas have taken the sixth and the seventh initiations, whilst the group which functions midway between the Earth and Venus have all taken the eighth and ninth initiations. Some of Them, as I mentioned earlier, aid the initiate of the seventh degree; a still larger group of them participate in the activities of the two final initiations.

This seventh initiation gives the initiate the right to “come and go in the courts of Shamballa” as Their work may dictate and Their service may require. It is there also that he goes for the needed periodic or cyclic rechargings which enable him to work.

There is one aspect of initiation which is apt to be overlooked. Every initiation is a process of energy transmission from a higher center of energy to a lower; every initiation charges the initiate with electrical force, and this charging and recharging is related to what H.P.B. calls “the mystery of electricity.” These transmissions of energy enhance the magnetic-attractive force of the initiate, and at the same time are eliminative in their effects. In this fact lies a great planetary truth and the key to the science of planetary redemption. When the spiritual and the electrical charging of the three major centers on the planet – Shamballa, the Hierarchy and Humanity – has reached a high stage of receptive efficiency, a certain cosmic Avatar will “become conscious of the vibratory quality of the little point of light within the solar sphere” and will then “turn His gaze and send His force unto that point of light, and cosmic evil will be driven out and find no more a place on Earth.”

Two more initiations remain to be considered, but so high is their potency and so mysterious their working that I find myself unable to deal with them in any way.