Tag: the Great White Lodge

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:

  1. The work of the Hierarchy in relation to man and to the three worlds of human evolution.
  2. The interior constitution of the Hierarchy and its internal activity.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. Those disciples and workers who are already integrated into some one of the Ashrams.
  2. 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

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.

—————————

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

By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

    Esoteric, Musings, Questions

    Matter or Spirit, Evil or Good, Light or Dark?

    The contest, the battle, the rivalry between good and evil lies aback many books, films, and cartoons.

    In so many of these cases the protagonists are brothers, erstwhile friends, or other kinds of siblings. Usually, they both start out OK and then one gets jealous of the other and has the hump with them. One is light, the other exposed to power becomes corrupted by it and evil. One turns to the dark side of the force, the other remains a true Jedi patient in the light. Vengeance and domination are common motifs for the ensuing drama.

    In times gone by a wayward prince would have been dealt with in a final manner via sharp implements. Now they get to make Netflix documentaries and whinge about family. The royal soap opera continues to unfold. Who is dark and who is light here? Who has gone for the lucre? Who has someone whispering in his ears?

    The struggle between tyranny and freedom is another major theme in history. Those in power, have for example, slaves. Today’s terrorist becomes the historical freedom fighter. The status quo always tries to suppress and oppress any upstarts who arrive. It is a kind of Groundhog Day in which they, sometimes brutally, cling to power. The status quo always imagines itself just and right when the 20:20 hindsight of history shows it to be barbaric, coercive, mean, and oppressive.

    “We are not a foreign power Mr Ghandi, India is British”, shows the level of delusion to which some are prone.

    I know several people who have been pissed off with me because I did not materialise for them the money which they anticipated I might. I walked away.

    A lot of people who deem themselves just are anything but. In their sense of entitlement, they deem themselves owed usually in a material and often in a pecuniary sense. They might deem themselves Optimus Prime when they are in effect Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. People can so easily deceive themselves that the sun shines out of their arse and that butter does not melt in their mouth, whilst they sit in white armour aback their steed, the trusty white stallion.

    People can mistake coercive and threat based interaction, backed up by quasi-quantitative personal development planning for effective “management”, when it can easily stray into bullying and manipulation. It need not, but there are some nasty folk out there. Give an insecure person with a grievance a stick and they will use it.

    —————————————–

    I guess I have one question and an ancillary.

    Are you imbued with the light side of the force, or have you turned to the dark side?

    Do you have goodwill?

    —–

    ॐ, buddhism, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Philosophy and Buddhism, Quotations, Rāja yoga, Yoga, Zen

    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.

    ———–

    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.

    —–

    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!

    —–

    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 ManuThe BodhisattvaThe Mahachohan
    Matter aspectSpirit aspectIntelligence aspect.
    FormLifeMind.
    The Not-SelfThe SelfThe relation between.
    BodySpiritSoul.
    PoliticsReligionScience.
    GovernmentBeliefsCivilization.
    RacesFaithsEducation.

    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:

    1. The Initiator.
    2. The triangle of force formed by three adepts or three Kumaras.
    3. 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.

    —

    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.

    Dreams, Musings, personal

    Ex-Science Boffin Remembers Atlantis

    Today the hunters have been close. There have been various reports in the local newspapers about a man accidentally killing his wife with a stray rifle shot. Bearing in mind I wear camouflage combat trousers, when the shots are close it is best to stay away from the perimeter fence. By the sound of it, they were using shotguns and not rifles. That is not so dangerous. The spread at decent range is large. I have not seen the ducks for a while, perhaps they have been eaten…When the hunters came to get the Coypu, one of them told us that apparently, they are nice to eat.  

    There is perhaps one more mega-strimming session left for the year. The butterfly “meadow” down by the pond is now gone. This promotes a variety of growth in spring. The wagtails were on it as soon as I finished.

    I tasted the water coming out of the well today. I had three good palmfuls and it was reminiscent of a Welsh mountain stream. I used to drink from them as a child. I have had water from brooks in the Lake District as an adult. It is very refreshing.

    As I was strimming, I was thinking about newspaper headlines. The Daily Star might write something like the title of this post if I contacted them and claimed to remember some of my lives on Atlantis. The Mail and The Sun might put their own spin on it. I suspect many of my former colleagues would think me a nut-job, whacko, a few cards short of a pack and in need of a lost marble detector as sold by ACME industries of road runner fame.

    For the tabloids it does not really matter if it is true, they try to entertain and like a bit of click bait.

    When I was first unemployed and doing the occasional team development courses, I had a dream saying that I must find the Great White Lodge. I also had a series of dreams concerning the Sons of the Dragon.

    These dreams were set in Atlantis…

    “At the time when the white adepts had lost their grip and Atlantis was no longer ruled by a white initiate king/emperor the priesthood sought to fight a rear guard action so that at least some of the white adepts and initiates could lead others off the land and escape before the destruction.

    Thus, word went out to all the schools which had a member of the priesthood at head to keep an eye out for talent using their clairvoyance. Should a suitable candidate be found an envoy was dispatched to observe the child. If the child “passed” they were taken to a special school to develop their talents. They were trained very rigorously in the light arts and exposed to the dark arts as training.  Some were taught the dark arts too.

    Their job on graduation was to hunt out the dark initiates and where possible trap them into a psychic gaol or prison. They did this by using themselves as bait. Thus, there was a high casualty rate amongst the Sons of the Dragon as they were called.

    The thing about the dark initiates which is their big weakness is that they are prone to yield to temptation. There were a growing number of nagals who had turned to the darkened evil paths, they had lost their battle with power. At first it was relatively easy to tempt them until word got around about the unexplained disappearances. To catch a nagal the Sons sent a nagal or several.

    Deep in the underground caverns special chambers were hewn out of the quartz rich rocks. They were prepared by incantation and magic to receive. The white nagals learned how to cloak themselves so as to appear dark. Then on the promise of special secrets they lured their dark brethren into the chambers, wherein they were sealed. 

    Only specially trained personnel were allowed to feed and look after the prisoners, they had to be not susceptible to the “voice” and the wiles of the prisoner. The wails were sometimes heard at many leagues. But it was forbidden to take life for the priesthood and the Sons. In time they, the prisoners, passed.

    The configurations of the prisoners were observed and recorded. The records were kept to advise of a subsequent incarnation. And so it was that cat and mouse played out across multiple lifetimes…

    I remember the day of my graduation and the terrible wail of my first capture. Dark initiates used to tricking and tempting others do not like it when the tables are turned. They get mightily pissed off…”

    ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations, Rāja yoga

    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.

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    Human Thought and Consciousness in the Coming New Age.

    There are certain fundamental truths which lie behind all revealed religions. They are essential to the spiritual growth and the progressive realizations of divinity by man. All else found under the term “doctrine” and allied phrases are but expansions of these fundamentals, explanatory in nature, expressive of human interpretations, and formulations of evolutionary recognitions. These are mainly additions and are in the nature of adornment, speculation and prediction; they are constantly subject to change, to rejection or development as man’s intellect and spiritual perception unfolds; they are not basic or unalterable. It is the unalterable truths which must be discovered and recognized as the new world religion takes form on Earth and conditions human thought and consciousness in the coming New Age.

    —

    The Basic Truths to Date

    These basic truths never change because they are related to the nature of Deity Itself and have become apparent to mankind through revelation, as evolution has proceeded and man has developed the needed perceptive faculties and the required persistence of search, plus the unfolding of the inner light of the soul. These truths, inherent in the divine nature, reveal the soul of God. They are:

    1. The Law of Compassion. This is the truth of right relationship, of loving understanding, of actively expressed Love. It is the foundation of brotherhood and the expression of the inner unity.
    2. The Fact of God. This is the truth that Being is God Immanent and God Transcendent; it involves the recognition of the great Whole and the related part; it is the knowledge of divinity, ascertained through right relationship and identity of origin. It is the revelation of the life of God, pervading all that is (God Immanent), and of that same life, providing that still greater cosmic relation (God Transcendent) which is the final guarantee of all progress and of progressive revelation. ‘Having pervaded this whole universe with a fragment of Myself, I remain’ is the challenge of Deity and the eternal hope of humanity. This is the answer of Life Itself to the demands of humanity, to the enquiries of science and to the whole world problem. God is here, present among us and in all forms of expression; He includes, pervades and remains beyond. He is greater than all appearance. He reveals Himself progressively and cyclically as man gets ready for further knowledge.
    3. The Continuity of Revelation. Ever down the ages and at each human crisis, always in the hours of necessity, at the founding of a new race, or in the awakening of a prepared humanity to a new and wider vision, the Heart of God – impelled by the law of compassion – sends forth a Teacher, a World Savior, an Illuminator, an Avatar. He gives the message which will heal, which will indicate the next step to be taken by the race, which will illumine a dark world problem and give to man an expression of a hitherto unrealized aspect of divinity. Upon this fact of the continuity of revelation and upon the sequence of this progressive manifestation of the divine nature is based the doctrine of Avatars, of divine Messengers, divine Appearances, and inspired Prophets. To all these history unmistakably testifies.
    4. The Inevitable Response of Humanity. I have expressed in these simple words the instinctive spiritual reaction of man and of the undying human spirit to the three above foundational truths. This divine spirit in humanity must ever, and most surely does, respond to the divine Appearance. The witness to this is sure and proved. There is that in mankind which is akin to God and which recognizes its own when it appears. Such is the unshakable reality in the human heart, and recognition is the inevitable reward and result of revelation.
    5. Progress. The reaction of the individual man and of the masses of men to the continuity of revelation – historically proved – cannot be denied. It is the basic fact of religion. The types of that revelation may vary but each new revelation – given in response to human need and demand – has ever led humanity onward towards a steadily brightening goal and a greater glory. The revelation may come on varying levels of the human consciousness. It may be the revelation of new lands to conquer, terrestrial or mental. Some person pointed the way. It may be the recognition of new laws and facts in nature, scientifically grasped and used; it may be the response of intelligent man to increased knowledge, producing a new type of civilization. Some liberated spirit pointed the way. It may be the response of the human heart to the Heart of God, leading to the mystical beatitude, and to the recognition of spiritual Being. It may be the reaction of man to some new teaching, some further unfoldment, resulting in a new and enriched religious approach to the center of life. Some Messenger pointed the way. But always it has meant progress, a moving forward, a rejection of some existing limitation, a repudiating of the undesirable and the evil. Always it involves the recognition of the possible, the ideal and the divine.
    6. Transcendence. This means the innate capacity to pass beyond so-called natural law. This surmounting of limitation is ever taking place and this process of transcendence will call forth increasing recognition. It marks the next major phase in the manifestation of divinity in man; it signifies domination over physical law and humanity’s imminent triumph over the forces which have for so long held him to earth. Of this transcendence the present mastery over the air is the symbol. Man is rapidly mastering the four elements. He cultivates the earth; he rides the waters; he controls the electrical fires of the planet, and he flies triumphant through the air. The question now emerges: What, my brothers, next? Another transcendence lies ahead. It is one of the things which the coming Avatar will reveal.

    With the lesser leaders, whom the human spirit evokes to its assistance, I shall not deal. I seek to unfold somewhat the Doctrine of Divine Messengers, of Avatars. From whence come They? What is Their nature? Who are They and what is Their relation to humanity, to the Hierarchy and to still greater groups of Lives? These are questions which normally arise and need clear answering.

    An Avatar is a Being Who – having first developed His Own nature, human and divine, and then transcended it – is capable of reflecting some cosmic Principle or divine quality and energy which will produce the desired effect upon humanity, evoking a reaction, producing a needed stimulation and, as it is esoterically called, ‘leading to the rending of a veil and the permeation of light.’ This energy may be generated within the human family and focused in a responsive Messenger; it may be generated within the planet itself and produce a planetary Avatar; it may be the expression of the life impulse and energy of the solar system, or of sources outside the solar system and therefore cosmic. But always it is focused through a manifesting Entity, is called forth by a demand or massed appeal, and evokes response and consequent changes in the life activity, the culture and the civilization of mankind.

    The response or reaction of humanity to the divine Messenger establishes in due time the recognition of something transcendent, something to be desired and striven for, something which indicates a vision which is first a possibility and later an achievement. This is the historically proven process and testifies eventually to a fact. This new fact, when added to the facts established by other and earlier Avatars, enriches the spiritual content of the human consciousness, enhances the spiritual life of the race, and stimulates man to move a step forward into the world of reality and out of the world of illusion. Each revelation brings him nearer to the world of causes.

    At the present time the Avatars most easily recognized and known are the Buddha and the Christ, because Their messages are familiar to all and the fruits of Their lives and words have conditioned the thinking and the civilizations of both hemispheres; because They are divine-human Avatars and represent something which humanity can more easily understand; because They are of like nature to mankind, “flesh of our flesh and spirit of our spirit.” They therefore mean more to us than any other Divine Emergence. They are known, loved and followed by countless millions. I would ask you to ponder on the potency of the nucleus of force which They have set up. The establishing of a nucleus of energy, spiritually positive, is the constant task of an Avatar. He focuses or anchors a dynamic truth, a potent thought-form or a vortex of attractive energy in the three worlds of human living. Then, as the centuries pass, that truth and the effect of Their lives and words begin steadily to condition human thinking; the established thought-form acts increasingly as a transmitter of divine energy as it expresses a divine idea, and this in time produces a civilization, with its accompanying culture, religions, policies, governments and educational processes. Thus is history made. History is but the record of man’s cyclic reaction to some inflowing divine energy, to some Avatar or some inspired Leader.

    —

    Excerpted from “The Externalization of the Hierarchy – Section III – Forces behind the Evolutionary Process”

    By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

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    Rule Seven – Three Doors into Shamballa

    Rule VII

    For Applicants: Let the disciple turn his attention to the enunciating of those sounds which echo in the hall where walks the Master. Let him not sound the lesser notes which awaken vibration within the halls of Maya.

    For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group life emit the Word of invocation and thus evoke response within those distant Ashrams where move the Chohans of the race of men. They are no longer men as are the Masters, but, having passed beyond that lesser stage, have linked Themselves with the Great Council in the highest Secret Place. Let the group sound a dual chord, reverberating in the halls where move the Masters but finding pause and prolongation within those radiant halls where move the “Lights which carry out the Will of God.”

    Of real importance, though relatively small, are two contrasts. These emerge with clarity if you compare the instructions given to applicants for discipleship and those given to initiates. The applicant (or young disciple) is addressed as an individual and is told to give forth “those sounds” which will be heard by the Master in His Ashram – for that is the true significance of the words. The initiate functions in a group (always in a group) and has developed or is rapidly developing group consciousness; in unison with his group and as an integral conscious part of it, the Word must be enunciated; this is not a medley of sounds, but is one clear Word of invocation. You need to remember that the disciple is occupied in resolving the many sounds into the Word; when he has done this, his individual approach to reality terminates, and he begins to act with his group where all activity is concerned. This is a point of major importance for the newer type of disciple to grasp. In the past, the emphasis has been on what the individual initiate had to do in order to fit himself to take initiation, and so become a Master of the Wisdom and a member of the planetary Hierarchy. In the coming new cycle the emphasis will be upon group work and activity, upon group initiation and group approach to the Center of Life. The required mode of life and the needed individual eliminations and adjustments are now so well known (theoretically, at least) that they should have dropped below the threshold of consciousness and should consequently be automatic in their effects. This should also provide a steady inducement to thought which will make the initiate what he ought to be, because his conscious mind is free for group functioning. This is a concept which must be increasingly cultivated; “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” The lower mind should be the organ of heart expression and be as unconscious in its functioning as is the rhythm of the heart itself – the physical heart. The higher mind is intended to become increasingly the field of the initiate’s effort, and hence the constant need for him to build the antahkarana.

    In this Rule we are therefore dealing with the work to be done by a group of pledged disciples and initiates; they are learning together to make an approach to Shamballa (involving the Will element); this is as much a goal of the Hierarchy as approach to the Hierarchy is the goal of advanced humanity. It concerns the interrelation of great centers of force. This is a point which esoteric students should attempt to grasp for it completes the planetary chain of Hierarchy and throws a light upon the Way of the Higher Evolution.

    Great movements and progressions have always taken place upon the subjective side of life; it is these subjective activities which have made it hard for disciples to grasp the truth and arrive at some true realization of the subjective situation which ever exists between the Hierarchy and Shamballa. The energies concerned are so subtle, and the Beings involved are so advanced and so highly developed (even from the angle of the initiate of the third degree), that it is well-nigh impossible for the teachings (which I seek to give) to be worded in such a manner that they become comprehensible. All that I can do is to make certain statements which (from the standpoint of those I teach) are not verifiable; they have to be accepted on trust and with the reservation that time and the point of view of the individual disciple will later prove their truth – or their non-truth.

    The objective of all training given to the disciple is to shift his conscious awareness from the point where he is to levels which are higher than those in the three worlds of definitely human evolution; the intention is to teach him to function on those planes of conscious contact which are as yet so subjective that he only accepts them as existent in theory. The trained initiate knows that they have to become his natural habitat, and that eventually he has to relegate the ordinary and normal human experience to the three worlds of daily expression. These become eventually the worlds that exist below the threshold of consciousness; they are relegated to the realm of the subconscious – recoverable consciously, if necessary for right service of humanity, but as much below the threshold of consciousness as are the ordinary emotional reactions of the average man. These are always recoverable (as modern psychoanalysis has demonstrated) and can become capable of expression and of formulation into conditioning concepts – thus actuating mental perception if deemed of adequate importance. However, it should be borne in mind that the greater part of the emotional life of the disciple must become increasingly subconscious, just as the physical plane life of the normal, healthy human being is entirely automatic and thus subconscious. When the disciple has striven to expand his consciousness, when he has learnt to stabilize his consciousness in the Spiritual Triad, then he becomes part of a great and constant hierarchical effort which strives upwards towards the “Place of Clear Electric Light,” to which the clear cold light of the reason is the first key to the first door.

    There are three doors into Shamballa, speaking figuratively:

    1. There is the door of the reason, of pure perception of truth. Christ gave the clue to this teaching when He said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Of that Way we know much, because upon the Way a vast body of teaching has been given, and that teaching, if followed, brings a man into the Hierarchy. He then becomes a factual part of the hierarchical membership. Of that Truth, we know (as aspirants) relatively very little. Truth – as we understand it during the early treading of the Path of Discipleship – is concerned with great verities which are (from the insight of the Enlightened Ones) only the ABC of life. These truths are:

    • The manifestation of divinity on the physical plane.
    • The doctrine of Avatars. This religious history reveals.
    • The nature of consciousness, through the development of psychology.
    • The doctrine of the Trinity, as it expresses itself through the aspects and the attributes.

    These four expressions of truth will be found to convey all the knowledge with which the initiate must stand equipped when he climbs the Mount of Transfiguration at the time of the third initiation. They have given him a spiritual perception of the Plan.

    Of that Life, we know nothing whatsoever. The contemplation of its significance belongs to Those Who can move at will within the “precincts of the Lord of Life” – in Shamballa itself. All we can know about it is its lowest step. This enables us to study the impulse or instinct which enables all forms of life to function, which embodies the principles of responsiveness to contacts and to environment, and which embodies itself in the breath of life; this is also related to the air in some mysterious manner, and also to fire. More anent this subject it would be useless for me to say.

    2. There is also the door of the will. This is a penetrating power which relates Plan to Purpose and which has in it the faculty of coherent persistence. The reason for this persistence is that it is not dependent upon the content of the form – whether it is the form of an atom, of a man or of a planet – but upon a vital dynamic and immutable purpose, latent in the consciousness of the planetary Being Who, “having pervaded this entire universe with a fragment” of Himself, Remains – greater, more inscrutable and “firmer in intent” than any of His creations, even the most advanced and the closest to Him. Only those have clear perception of His divine purpose who do not belong to our earth humanity at all; these are the Lives who came with Him to this planet when He came, and Who remain with Him as “the prisoners of loving intention” until the last weary pilgrim has found his way home.”

    This spiritual will is something of which humanity knows nothing; it is hidden and veiled by the self-will of the individual and the group will of the soul. Through both of these experiences the human being moves until his individual will is developed and grounded, focused and reoriented, and his group will is unfolded so that it includes and swallows up the dedicated, conscious, individual will. When this fusion has taken place (at the third initiation) a great revelation unfolds itself, and for the first time the initiate senses and then contacts the universal will; from that moment the initiate says, “Father, not my will but Thine be done.” Just a little of what that will includes may emerge as we study this seventh rule and some of the succeeding rules.

    3. I can find no words to express the nature of the third door. Let us, in default of a better term, call it the door of the monadic sense of essential duality. Body and life, soul and personality, the Spiritual Triad and its expression, the Christ in incarnation – all these dualities have played their part. Man has passed from one expansion of consciousness to another. Now he comes to the final duality of spirit and matter, prior to their resolution into something to which the terms “isolated unity” and “universal synthesis” give only faint and inadequate clues. To the development of this system of identification the initiate of the degree of Master of the Wisdom, and also (on a higher turn of the spiral) of the degree of the Christ, are focusing all Their efforts. Up to the fourth initiation, the term “system of expansions” would seem illuminating; after that great initiation, the term “system of identification” would appear more appropriate.

    When the initiate has passed through the three doors, symbolically speaking, he then faces all life, all events, all predeterminations, all wisdom, all activity and all that the future may hold of service and progress from the angle of the pure reason (infallible and immutable), of true spiritual will (completely identified with the purpose of the planetary Logos), and of the highest possible focused relation. The mystery of relationship becomes revealed to him. Then the entire scheme of evolution and of the intention of the One in Whom he lives and moves and has his being becomes clear to him; he has no more to learn within this planetary scheme; he has become universal in his attitude to all forms of life, and is also identified with the “isolated unity” of Sanat Kumara. Few of the great Lives Who form the inner group of the Council Chamber at Shamballa are now of greater advancement than he; the “Supernal Three,” the “Radiant Seven,” the “Lives embodying the forty-nine Fires,” the “Buddhas of Activity,” and certain “Eternal Spirits” from such centers of dynamic spiritual life as Sirius, or from the constellation which at any one time forms a triangle with our Sun and Sirius, and a Representative from Venus are of greater – far greater – advancement. Otherwise, all initiates of the sixth degree, and a few of the Masters Who have undergone specialized training because They are upon the first Ray of Will or Power (the ray conditioning Shamballa itself), form part of the Great Council. Many Masters and Chohans, however, after serving upon the planet in various capacities, working with the Law of Evolution, pass out of our planetary life altogether.

    All the above information concerning the Lives which are far in advance of the disciples of the world contains little of moment for you, except in so far as it falls into a diagrammatic pattern of our planetary life and purpose, and enabling you, therefore, to get a faint glimpse of a synthetic theme and purpose to which all evolving lives must and will eventually conform.

    It must ever be borne in mind that the great theme of Light underlies our entire planetary purpose. The full expression of perfect Light, occultly understood, is the engrossing life-purpose of our planetary Logos. Light is the great and obsessing enterprise in the three worlds of human evolution; everywhere men rate the light of the sun as essential to healthy living; some idea of the human urge to light can be grasped if you consider the brilliance of the physically engendered light in which we live when night arrives, and compare it with the mode of lighting the streets and homes of the world prior to the discovery of gas, and later of electricity. The light of knowledge, as the reward of educational processes, is the incentive behind all our great schools of learning in every country in the world and is the goal of much of our world organization; the terminology of light controls even our computation of time. {Atomic clocks?, my addition} The mystery of electricity is unfolding gradually before our rapt eyes and the electrical nature of man is being slowly proven and will later demonstrate that, throughout the human structure and form, man is composed primarily of light atoms, and that the light in the head (so familiar to esotericist) is no fiction or figment of wishful thinking or of a hallucinated imagination, but is definitely brought about by the junction or fusion of the light inherent in substance itself and the light of the soul.

    It will be found that this will be capable of scientific proof. It will also be shown that the soul itself is light, and that the entire Hierarchy is a great center of light, causing the symbology of light to govern our thinking, our approach to God, and enabling us to understand somewhat the meaning of the words of Christ “I am the Light of the world.” These words carry meaning to all true disciples and present them with an analogous goal which they define to themselves as that of finding the light, appropriating the light, and themselves becoming light-bearers. The theme of light runs through all the world Scriptures; the idea of enlightenment conditions all the training given to the youth of the world (limited though the application of this idea may be), and the thought of more light governs all the inchoate yearnings of the human spirit.

    We have not yet carried the concept up to the Center of Life where dwells the Ancient of Days, the Eternal Youth, the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, Melchizedek – God. Yet from that Center streams what has been called the Light of Life, the Light Supernal. These are empty words as yet until we know, as trained initiates, that light is a symptom and an expression of Life, and that essentially, occultly and in a most mysterious way the terms, Light and Life, are interchangeable within the limits of the planetary ring-pass-not. Beyond those limits – who knows? Light can be regarded as a symptom, a reaction to the meeting and consequent fusion of spirit and matter.

    Therefore, where that great point of fusion and of solar crisis (for that is what it is, even when producing a planetary crisis) appears in time and space, light also immediately appears and of such intensity that only those who know the light of the soul, and who can bear the hierarchical light can be trained to enter into and form part of the light of Shamballa and walk in those “radiant halls where move the Lights which carry out the Will of God.

    To carry the concept a little nearer home: only when the will of the personality and the will of the soul come together – evoked by love – does the light of the soul dominate the material light of the personality. This is a statement of importance. Only when the will of the Monad and the will of the Hierarchy of souls meet and blend in the “upper brackets” (if I may use such a modern business phrase) can the radiant light of Life dominate the blended lights of Humanity and of the Hierarchy. Faintly this group fusion and junction can be seen to be taking place.

    It is also the first touch of the radiance of Shamballa which is bringing the universal revelation of evil, a radiance which is now producing the world unrest and which has brought about the lining up of good and evil; this touch of radiance is the conditioning factor behind what is called postwar planning and the ideas of reconstruction and of world rebuilding which are dominating the best human thinking at this time.

    It should be carefully borne in mind that evil (cosmic evil or the source of planetary evil) is much closer to Shamballa than it is to Humanity. The Great Lives there move entirely free from glamor; Their vision is one of extreme simplicity; They are concerned only with the great and simple duality of spirit and matter, and not with the many forms which the fusion of these two brings into being. The domination of spirit (and its reflection, soul) by matter is what constitutes evil and this is true whether the statement is applied to the development of the individual or of the group. The “Lights which carry out the will of God” move free from the spell of evil. The Light in which They move safeguards Them, and Their Own innate and inherent radiance repels evil. But They “move alongside the evil to which all lesser forms are prone”; They are part of a great observing Group which “moves forward in time and space”; its members watch the great war and conflict proceed on Earth between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Evil. They have let loose upon Earth the Forces of Light, whilst the Forces of Evil are inherent in substance itself – of which all the many forms of life are constructed.

    At this time, the work of the Great Council at Shamballa, ‘Working until now through the Hierarchy, is with the life within the form; They have to proceed with the utmost caution as They thus work, because these Lights know that the danger of premature direct contact with humanity, and of consequent over-stimulation, is great. One of the causes of the present cataclysm is the fact that humanity was deemed capable of taking and receiving a “touch from Shamballa,” without stepping it down via the Hierarchy, as has hitherto been the custom. The determination to apply this touch (which is in the nature of a great experiment) was made in 1825, when the Great Council had its usual centennial meeting. The results you know; they are working out before your eyes. The industrial movement began to take shape one hundred years ago and received a great impetus from this touch. The evil in nations – aggression, greed, intolerance and hate – was aroused as never before, and two world wars occurred, one of which is still raging (written October 1943). Paralleling this was an uprising of good, again in response to the divine “touch,” resulting in the growth of understanding, the spread of idealism, the purification of our educational systems and the inauguration of reforms in every department of human life. All has been speeded up and little such growth was seen on a worldwide scale prior to 1825. The knowledge of the Hierarchy is also spreading over the earth; the facts anent discipleship and initiation are becoming common property; humanity has consequently moved onward into a greater measure of light. Good and evil stand out in clearer focus; light and dark are in a more brilliant juxtaposition; issues of right and wrong are appearing with cleared definition, and humanity as a whole sees the great problems of righteousness and love, of sin and separateness upon a worldwide scale.

    The old age and the coming new age, old rhythms of thought and new approaches to truth and consequent new and better ways of life are presented with clarity to the minds of men. The guarantee of the success of the experiment started more than a century ago is the fact that (in spite of much that is undesirable) so many nations have ranged themselves upon the side of right, and only two definitely and altogether upon the side of evil. The evil is more concentrated, and therefore more powerful temporarily upon the physical plane; the good is more diffused and not so pure in its concentrated essence being colored by many undesirable aspects; the good, however, is concentrating rapidly and will triumph. The “Lights that carry out the will of God” now wait to give another touch which will enable the reconstruction work to move forward along right lines, but They wait for the invocative cry of humanity and for the dust of battle and of conflict to die down.

    ————

    Excerpted from: The Rays and the Initiations – Part One – Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation

    By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul

    ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, New Age, Rāja yoga, Yoga

    Initiation, Human and Solar

    INITIATION DEFINED

    The question anent initiation is one that is coming more and more before the public. Before many centuries pass the old mysteries will be restored, and an inner body will exist in the Church – the Church of the period, of which the nucleus is already forming – wherein the first initiation will become esoteric, in this sense only, that the taking of the first initiation will, before so very long, be the most sacred ceremony of the Church, performed esoterically as one of the mysteries given at stated periods, attended by those concerned. It will also hold a similar place in the ritual of the Masons. At this ceremony those ready for the first initiation will be publicly admitted to the Lodge by one of its members, authorized to do so by the great Hierophant Himself.

    Four Words Defined

    When we speak of Initiation, of wisdom, of knowledge, or of the probationary Path, what do we mean? We use the words so glibly, without due consideration of the meaning involved. Take, for instance, the word first mentioned. Many are the definitions, and many are the explanations to be found as to its scope, the preparatory steps, the work to be done between initiations, and its result and effects. One thing before all else is apparent to the most superficial student, and that is, that the magnitude of the subject is such that in order to deal with it adequately one should be able to write from the viewpoint of an initiate; when this is not the case, anything that is said may be reasonable, logical, interesting, or suggestive, but not conclusive.

    The word Initiation comes from two Latin words, in, into; and ire, to go; therefore, the making of a beginning, or the entrance into something. It posits, in its widest sense, in the case we are studying, an entrance into the spiritual life, or into a fresh stage in that life. It is the first step, and the succeeding steps, upon the Path of Holiness. Literally, therefore, a man who has taken the first initiation is one who has taken the first step into the spiritual kingdom, having passed out of the definitely human kingdom into the superhuman. Just as he passed out of the animal kingdom into the human at individualization, so he has entered upon the life of the spirit, and for the first time has the right to be called a “spiritual man” in the technical significance of the word. He is entering upon the fifth or final stage in our present fivefold evolution. Having groped his way through the Hall of Ignorance during many ages, and having gone to school in the Hall of Learning, he is now entering into the university, or the Hall of Wisdom. When he has passed through that school he will graduate with his degree as a Master of Compassion.

    It might be of benefit to us also if we studied first the difference or the connection between Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. Though in ordinary parlance they are frequently interchanged, as used technically they are dissimilar.

    Knowledge is the product of the Hall of Learning. It might be termed the sum total of human discovery and experience, that which can be recognized by the five senses, and be correlated, diagnosed, and defined by the use of the human intellect. It is that about which we feel mental certitude, or that which we can ascertain by the use of experiment. It is the compendium of the arts and sciences. It concerns all that deals with the building and developing of the form side of things. Therefore it concerns the material side of evolution, matter in the solar systems, in the planet, in the three worlds of human evolution, and in the bodies of men.

    Wisdom is the product of the Hall of Wisdom. It has to do with the development of the life within the form, with the progress of the spirit through those ever-changing vehicles, and with the expansions of consciousness that succeed each other from life to life. It deals with the life side of evolution. Since it deals with the essence of things and not with the things themselves, it is the intuitive apprehension of truth apart from the reasoning faculty, and the innate perception that can distinguish between the false and the true, between the real and the unreal. It is more than that, for it is also the growing capacity of the Thinker to enter increasingly into the mind of the Logos, to realize the true inwardness of the great pageant of the universe, to vision the objective, and to harmonize more and more with the higher measure. For our present purpose (which is to study somewhat the Path of Holiness and its various stages) it may be described as the realization of the “Kingdom of God within,” and the apprehension of the “Kingdom of God without” in the solar system. Perhaps it might be expressed as the gradual blending of the paths of the mystic and the occultist, – the rearing of the temple of wisdom upon the foundation of knowledge.

    Wisdom is the science of the spirit, just as knowledge is the science of matter. Knowledge is separate and objective, whilst wisdom is synthetic and subjective. Knowledge divides; wisdom unites. Knowledge differentiates whilst wisdom blends. What, then, is meant by the understanding?

    The understanding may be defined as the faculty of the Thinker in Time to appropriate knowledge as the foundation for wisdom, that which enables him to adapt the things of form to the life of the spirit, and to take the flashes of inspiration that come to him from the Hall of Wisdom and link them to the facts of the Hall of Learning. Perhaps the whole idea might be expressed in this way:
    Wisdom concerns the one Self, knowledge deals with the not-self, whilst the understanding is the point of view of the Ego, or Thinker, or his relation between them.

    In the Hall of Ignorance the form controls, and the material side of things has the predominance. Man is there polarized in the personality or lower self. In the Hall of Learning the higher self, or Ego, strives to dominate that form until gradually a point of equilibrium is reached where the man is controlled entirely by neither. Later the Ego controls more and more, until in the Hall of Wisdom it dominates in the three lower worlds, and in increasing degree the inherent divinity assumes the mastery.

    Aspects of Initiation

    Initiation, or the process of undergoing an expansion of consciousness, is part of the normal process of evolutionary development, viewed on a large scale, and not from the standpoint of the individual. When viewed from the individual standpoint it has come to be narrowed down to the moment wherein the evolving unit definitely apprehends that (by dint of his own effort, aided by the advice and suggestions of the watching Teachers of the race) he has reached a point wherein a certain range of knowledge of a subjective nature, from the physical plane point of view, is his. It is in the nature of that experience wherein a pupil in a school realizes suddenly that he has mastered a lesson, and that the rationale of a subject, and the method of procedure, are his to use intelligently. These moments of intelligent apprehension follow the evolving Monad throughout his long pilgrimage. What has been misinterpreted somewhat at this stage of comprehension is the fact that at various periods the emphasis is laid on different grades of expansion, and always the Hierarchy endeavors to bring the race to the point where its units will have some idea of the next step to be taken.

    Each initiation marks the passing of the pupil in the Hall of Wisdom into a higher class, marks the clearer shining forth of the inner fire and the transition from one point of polarization to another, entails the realization of an increasing unity with all that lives and the essential oneness of the self with all selves. It results in a horizon that continuously enlarges until it includes the sphere of creation; it is a growing capacity to see and hear on all the planes. It is an increased consciousness of God’s plans for the world, and an increased ability to enter into those plans and to further them. It is the effort in the abstract mind to pass an examination. It is the honor class in the Master’s school, and is within the attainment of those souls whose karma permits and whose efforts suffice to fulfil the aim.

    Initiation leads to the mount whence vision can be had, a vision of the eternal Now, wherein past, present, and future exist as one; a vision of the pageant of the races with the golden thread of pedigree carried through the many types; a vision of the golden sphere that holds in unison all the many evolutions of our system, deva, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and elemental, and through which the pulsating life can be clearly seen beating in regular rhythm;

    • a vision of the Logoic thought-form on the archetypal plane,
    • a vision that grows from initiation to initiation until it embraces all the solar system.

    Initiation leads to the stream that, once entered, sweeps a man onward until it carries him to the feet of the Lord of the World, to the feet of his Father in Heaven, to the feet of the threefold Logos.

    Sotāpanna

    Initiation leads to the cave within whose circumscribing walls the pairs of opposites are known, and the secret of good and evil is revealed. It leads to the Cross and to that utter sacrifice which must transpire before perfect liberation is attained, and the initiate stands free of all earth’s fetters, held by naught in the three worlds. It leads through the Hall of Wisdom, and puts into a man’s hands the key to all information, systemic and cosmic, in graduated sequence. It reveals the hidden mystery that lies at the heart of the solar system. It leads from one state of consciousness to another. As each state is entered the horizon enlarges, the vista extends, and the comprehension includes more and more, until the expansion reaches a point where the self embraces all selves, including all that is “moving and unmoving,” as phrased by an ancient Scripture.

    Initiation involves ceremony. It is this aspect that has been emphasized in the minds of men, perhaps a little to the exclusion of the true significance. Primarily it involves the capacity to see, hear, and comprehend, and to synthesize and correlate knowledge. It does not necessarily involve the development of the psychic faculties, but it does entail the inner comprehension that sees the value underlying the form, and recognizes the purpose of pervading circumstances. It is the capacity that senses the lesson to be learnt from any given occurrence and event, and that by means of these comprehensions and recognitions effects an hourly, weekly, yearly growth and expansion. This process of gradual expansion – the result of the definite effort and strenuous right thinking and living of the aspirant himself and not of some occult teacher performing an occult rite – leads to what one might term a crisis.

    At this crisis, which necessitates the aid of a Master, a definite act of initiation is performed, which (acting on a particular center) produces a result on some one body. It keys the atoms to a certain pitch, and enables a new rate of rhythm to be attained.

    This ceremony of initiation marks a point of attainment. It does not bring about attainment, as is so often the misconception. It simply marks the recognition by the watching Teachers of the race of a definite point in evolution reached by the pupil, and gives two things:

    1. An expansion of consciousness that admits the personality into the wisdom attained by the Ego, and in the higher initiations into the consciousness of the Monad.
    2. A brief period of enlightenment wherein the initiate sees that portion of the Path that lies ahead to be trodden, and wherein he shares consciously in the great plan of evolution.

    After initiation, the work to be done consists largely in making that expansion of consciousness part of the equipment for the practical use of the personality, and in mastering that portion of the path that has yet to be traversed.

    The Place and Effect of Initiation

    The ceremony of initiation takes place on the three higher subplanes of the mental plane, and on the three higher planes, according to the initiation. The five-pointed star, at the initiations on the mental plane, flashes out above the head of the initiate. This concerns the first initiations which are undergone in the causal vehicle. It has been said that the first two initiations take place upon the astral plane, but this is incorrect, and the statement has given rise to a misunderstanding. They are felt profoundly in connection with the astral and physical bodies and the lower mental, and affect their control. The chief effect being felt in those bodies the initiate may interpret them as having taken place on the planes concerned, as the vividness of the effect and the stimulation of the first two initiations work out largely in the astral body. But it must ever be remembered that the major initiations are taken in the causal body or – dissociated from that body – on the buddhic plane or atmic plane. At the final two initiations which set a man free from the three worlds, and enable him to function in the body of vitality of the Logos and wield that force, the initiate becomes the five-pointed star and it descends upon him, merges in him, and he is seen at its very center. This descent is brought about by the action of the Initiator, wielding the Rod of Power, and puts a man in touch with the center in the Body of the Planetary Logos of which he is a part, and this consciously. The two initiations called the sixth and seventh take place on the buddhic and atmic planes; the five-pointed star “blazes forth from within Itself,” as the esoteric phrase has it, and becomes the seven-pointed star; it descends upon the man and he enters within the flame.

    Again, the four initiations, prior to that of the adept, mark respectively the attainment of certain proportions of atomic matter in the bodies – for instance, at the first initiation one-fourth atomic matter, at the second one-half atomic matter, at the third three-quarters atomic matter, and so on to the completion. Since buddhi is the unifying principle (or the welder of all), at the fifth initiation the adept lets the lower vehicles go, and stands in his buddhic sheath. He creates thence his body of manifestation.

    Each initiation gives more control on the rays, if one may so express it, although this does not adequately convey the idea. Words so often mislead. At the fifth initiation, when the adept stands Master in the three worlds, He controls more or less (according to His line of development) the five rays that are specially manifesting at the time He takes the initiation. At the sixth initiation, if He takes the higher degree, He gains power on another ray, and at the seventh initiation He wields power on all the rays. The sixth initiation marks the point of attainment of the Christ, and brings the synthetic ray of the system under His control. We need to remember that initiation gives the initiate power on the rays, and not power over the rays, for this marks a very definite difference. Every initiate has, of course, for his primary or spiritual ray one of the three major rays, and the ray of his Monad is the one on which he at length gains power. The love ray, or the synthetic ray of the system, is the final one achieved.

    Those who pass away from the earth after the fifth initiation, or those who do not become Masters in physical incarnation, take their subsequent initiations elsewhere in the system. All are in the Logoic Consciousness. One great fact to be borne in mind is, that the initiations of the planet or of the solar system are but the preparatory initiations of admission into the greater Lodge on Sirius. We have the symbolism held for us fairly well in Masonry, and in combining the Masonic method with what we are told of the steps on the Path of Holiness we get an approximate picture. Let us enlarge somewhat:

    The first four initiations of the solar system correspond to the four “initiations of the Threshold,” prior to the first cosmic initiation. The fifth initiation corresponds to the first cosmic initiation, that of “entered apprentice” in Masonry; and makes a Master an “entered apprentice” of the Lodge on Sirius. The sixth initiation is analogous to the second degree in Masonry, whilst the seventh initiation makes the Adept a Master Mason of the Brotherhood on Sirius.

    A Master, therefore, is one who has taken the seventh planetary initiation, the fifth solar initiation, and the first Sirian or cosmic initiation.

    ——–

    Excerpted from:

    “Initiation, Human and Solar – Chapter II – Initiation Defined” By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

    ॐ, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Quotations, Rāja yoga

    Path IV. The Path to Sirius

    This path is of all the Paths the most veiled in the clouds of mystery. The reason for this mystery will only be apparent to the pledged initiate, though a clue to the secret may be gained if it is realized that in a peculiar and esoteric sense the sun Sirius and the Pleiades hold a close relation to each other. It is a relation analogous to that which lower mind holds to higher mind. The lower is receptive to, or negatively polarized to the higher. Sirius is the seat of higher mind and mahat (as it is called, or universal mind) sweeps into manifestation in our solar system through the channel of the Pleiades. It is almost as if a great triangle of mahatic energy was thus formed. Sirius transmits energy to our solar system via that

        “…sevenfold brooding Mother, the silver constellation, whose voice is as a tinkling bell, and whose feet pass lightly o’er the radiant path between our worlds and hers.”

    Within the solar system there is an interesting correspondence to this cosmic interplay in the relation between the Venus scheme, our Earth scheme and the Venus chain in our scheme.

    Curiously enough it will be through a comprehension of the human antahkarana, or the path which links higher and lower mind and which is constructed by the Thinker during the process of evolution, that light on this abstruse matter will come. There is (in connection with our planetary Logos) just such an antahkarana, and as He builds and constructs it, it forms part of the fourth Path, and permits the passage of the bulk of our humanity to this distant objective, and this without obstruction. A clue to the nature of this Path and as to the reason why so many of the human Monads seek this particular stream of energy lies in the right understanding of the above suggestion.

    The initiates who tread this way are primarily those of the fourth and the sixth order. As earlier pointed out, this is the Path that the “lords of compassion” most frequently follow, and at this time the Egyptian Master and the Master Jesus are preparing Themselves to tread it. The mystics of the Occident who have come into incarnation during the past one thousand years are a peculiar group of Egos whose impulse is towards this type of cosmic energy. In this system they have developed certain basic recognitions and the “ecstasy” of the occidental mystic is the germ, latent within him, which will some day flower forth into that cosmic rapture for which we have as yet no name.

    Cosmic rapture and rhythmic bliss are the attributes of the fourth path. It is a form of identification which is divorced from consciousness altogether. The reason also why the majority of the sons of men follow this Path lies in the fact of its numerical position. These units of the fourth kingdom, the bulk of the fourth Creative Hierarchy on this fourth globe of the fourth scheme in a solar system of the fourth order are innately compelled to seek this fourth WAY in order to perfect themselves. They are called the “blissful dancing points of fanatical devotion.” This is as near as we can get to the true description. They have also been described as the “revolving wheels which turn upon themselves, and find the open door to perfect bliss.”

    The energy of Path IV reaches us from Sirius via the Sun. This must be understood as a blind behind which one of the signs of the zodiac veils itself.

    The hierarchies concerned with this specific type of cosmic force hide themselves under the numbers fourteen and seventeen. This will serve as a complete blind to the average reader, but will carry to the pledged chela the hint needed to produce illumination.

    The method whereby the adept fits himself to pass upon this path is termed that of duplex rotary motion and “rhythmic dancing upon the square.”

    The symbol, which is first given to the pledged disciple to study but which may, however, be described, is a duality of interlocked wheels revolving at a great pace in opposite directions, and producing a unified whole. These wheels are portrayed as manifesting electric blue flame, rotating and revolving with great rapidity around an equal-armed Cross. The Cross is pictured in orange fire with a deep emerald green circle, flaming at the point in the center where the four arms of the Cross meet. The symbolism of these colors links this fourth path to the solar system preceding this one. In that system the Sirian influence was more potent than in the present one.

    It is not possible to add more to this beyond pointing out that the quality gained by the adept who treads this path may not be revealed. He comes under the concentrated influence of the energy which is identified with the planetary antahkarana. It is not permitted, therefore, to state what its specific quality may be, as it would convey too much information to the intelligent reader as to the nature and the objective of our particular planetary Logos.

    PATH IV. THE PATH TO SIRIUS

    • Attributes – cosmic rapture and rhythmic bliss.
    • Source – Sirius via the Sun which veils a zodiacal sign.
    • Hierarchy – veiled by the numbers 14 and 17.
    • Method – duplex rotary motion and rhythmic dancing upon the square.
    • Symbol – two wheels of electric fire, revolving around an orange Cross, with an emerald at the center.
    • Quality – unrevealed.

    Above excerpted from “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire – Section Three – Division B – The Nature of the Cosmic Paths”

    Below excerpted from “The Rays and the Initiations – Part Two – Section One – The Aspirant and the Mysteries of Initiation”

    4. The Path to Sirius

    I have frequently hinted in my various books that the Sun, Sirius, is closely related to our planetary Life; much is known in the Hierarchy anent this connection, and the particular relationship of this fourth Path to humanity, the fourth kingdom in nature, but little can be communicated to the general public. I may, however, tell you certain things which may make your imaginative rangings (if I may use so strange a phrase) creatively profitable to you.

    This great Sun which is to our solar Logos what the Monad is to the spiritual man, has a peculiar part to play where our Earth is concerned. It might be considered by those with a sound sense of occult proportion that our tiny planet with its planetary Logos (one of the “imperfect Gods” of The Secret Doctrine) would be too small to enter in the slightest way into the consciousness of that Supreme Illumined Entity Who is greater even than our Solar Logos. Such, however, is the case. There is a relationship of very ancient date between our Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, and the Lord of Sirius, and this exists in spite of the fact that our planet is not a sacred planet. It might be added that our planet is, in the immediate cycle, owing to the factors I have lately considered with you, rapidly passing out of this category, and on the inner planes and subjectively considered is a sacred planet; the effects of this transition from non-sacred to sacred have not fully demonstrated themselves objectively. The mystery of this relationship is partially revealed at one of the higher initiations and it is then realized by the initiates that there is a good and adequate reason for the relation and that the following esoteric events, relations and happenings are simply consequences:

    1. The majority of liberated humanity, and therefore a large number of the initiates who have to make decision, choose this way to the cosmic center.

    2. The relationship as it expresses itself is between the Hierarchy and Sirius, and not between Shamballa and that stupendous Sun. The energy evoked in response to this relationship enters the Hierarchy via the Heart of the Sun, creating as a consequence a triangle of spiritual energy of enormous potency. You have, therefore;

    Sirius

    *

       The Hierarchy *                                                             * Heart of the Sun

    3. As progress is made in the course of taking the higher initiations, it becomes apparent to the initiate that two major streams of energy enter our planetary life:

    • A stream of energy coming from the cosmic mental plane and from that focal point which is to Sanat Kumara what the egoic lotus, the soul, is to the spiritual man; it carries the life principle of our planet and centers itself in Shamballa. From there it is dispersed throughout all forms upon the planet and we call it Life. It must be remembered that this life principle embodies or is impregnated with the will and purpose of That which over-shadows Sanat Kumara as the soul over-shadows the personality.
    • A stream of energy coming from the sun, Sirius; this enters directly into the Hierarchy and carries with it the principle of buddhi, of cosmic love. This, in a mysterious way, is the principle found at the heart of every atom.

    The life principle follows the line of 1.3.5.7, whilst the buddhic flow follows the line of 2.4.6. Thus atma-buddhi becomes the blended reality which is brought to full unfoldment as evolution proceeds. The energy of Sirius by-passes (to use a modern word) Shamballa and is focused in the Hierarchy. Its effect is not felt until after the third initiation, though the Masters use this energy whilst training disciples for the second, the fourth and the sixth initiations.

    4. The entire work of the Great White Lodge is controlled from Sirius; the Ashrams are subjected to its cyclic inflow; the higher initiations are taken under its stimulation, for the principle of buddhi, of pure love (i.e., love-wisdom) must be active in the heart of every initiate prior to the initiation of the great decision; it is therefore only initiates of the fifth, sixth and higher initiations who can work consciously with the potent buddhic “livingness” which permeates all Ashrams, though unrecognized by the average disciple.

    5. This Sirian influence was not recognized, and little of it was definitely focused in the Hierarchy, until Christ came and revealed the love of God to humanity. He is the expression, par excellence, of a Sirian initiation, and it is to that high place He will eventually go – no matter what duties or hierarchical obligations may take Him elsewhere between that time and now. The Buddha was originally to have chosen the fourth Path but other plans confront Him now and will probably claim His choice.

    6. Sanat Kumara is not on the Sirian line but – to speak in symbols, not too deeply veiled – Lucifer, Son of the Morning, is closely related, and hence the large number of human beings who will become disciples in the Sirian Lodge. This is the true “Blue Lodge,” and to become a candidate in that Lodge, the initiate of the third degree has to become a lowly aspirant, with all the true and full initiations awaiting him “within the sunshine of the major Sun.”

    7. None of the above facts indicates divergence of view between Shamballa and the Hierarchy, nor do they signify cleavage or differing aims and goals. The whole subject is reflected in such minor relations on Earth as those between:

    • The Spiritual Triad and the Personality.
    • The mental unit and the manasic permanent atom.
    • Atma-Buddhi.
    • The Christ and the Buddha.

    The above somewhat uncorrelated items of information will give you a general idea of the significant connection between our unimportant little planet and that vast expression of divinity, the Life which is manifesting through Sirius; it is an expression which is organized and vital beyond anything man can vision and which is free to a completely unlimited extent, again beyond the power of man to comprehend. The principle of freedom is a leavening energy which can permeate substance in a unique manner; this divine principle represents an aspect of the influence which Sirius exerts on our solar system and particularly on our planet. This principle of freedom is one of the attributes of Deity (like will, love and mind) of which humanity knows as yet little. The freedom for which men fight is one of the lowest aspects of this cosmic freedom, which is related to certain great evolutionary developments that enable the life or spirit aspect to free itself from the impact, the contact and the influence of substance.

    It is the principle of freedom which enables Sanat Kumara to dwell on the Earth and yet stand free from all contacts, except with Those Who have trodden the Path of Liberation and now stand free upon the cosmic physical plane; it is that which enables the initiate to achieve a state of “isolated unity”; it is that which lies behind the Spirit of Death and forms the motivating power of that great releasing Agency; it is that which provides a “pathway of power” between our Hierarchy and the distant sun, Sirius, and gives the incentive towards the “culture of freedom” or of liberation which motivates the work of the Masters of the Wisdom; it is that which produced the ferment and the vortex of conflict in far distant ages and which has been recognized in the present through the results of the Law of Evolution in every kingdom in nature; this is that which “substands” or lies under or behind all progress. This mysteriously “exerted influence,” this “pulling away” from form (as we might simply call it), emanates from Sirius and for it we have no name; it is the law of which the three cosmic laws – the Laws of Synthesis, of Attraction and of Economy – are only aspects. None of these three subsidiary laws imposes any rule or limitation upon the Lord of the World. The Law of Freedom, however, does impose certain restrictions, if one can use such a paradoxical phrase. It is responsible for His being known as the “Great Sacrifice,” for (under the control of this law) He created our planetary life and all that is within and upon it, in order to learn to wield this law with full understanding, in full consciousness, and yet at the same time to bring release to the myriad forms of His creation.

    The Law of Economy affects humanity as a whole today throughout every phase of its life; the Law of Attraction is beginning to gain some control, particularly in the work which the Hierarchy undertakes to do; and many initiates and senior disciples are becoming aware of the significance of the Law of Synthesis and are reacting to its impact. Later on, when moving to one of the seven Paths, the Master will work with the Law of Freedom. This is not, as you may well surmise, its true name, for in the last analysis, freedom and liberation are effects of its activity. This unique and mysterious law governs the Life and the Lives upon Sirius, and it is to that unknown “sphere of functioning and intelligent activity” what the Law of Economy is to our planet – the lowest of the laws controlling existence in planetary form.

    This Law of Economy includes, as you know from my earlier writings, many lesser or subsidiary laws; it might therefore be stated that this Law of Freedom also does the same. Until more divine attributes are realized as existing and recognized as aspects, it is not possible for the name of the law which embodies the Law of Freedom to be given, for there is no word in our language adequately available. The above information will, however, link Sirius and our little planet, the Earth, in your minds.

    Below excerpted from “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire – Section Three – Division C – Seven Esoteric Stanzas”

    STANZA LXXVII

    (From Archive 49)

    PATH IV. The Path to Sirius.

    The mysterious Lhas of the sacred hidden fire withdraw Their thought, emerge from meditation, and all that is – between the first and third – is lost to sight. Naught is. Sound dies away. The Words are lost, for there is none to hear. The colors fade, and every point grows dim.

    The ocean passes into quietude. The Mother slumbers and forgets her Son. The Father too retreats within the unknown place where fire lies hidden.

    The serpent stretches forth inert. Its coils smother the lower fire and choke the sparks… Silence reigns. The absent Lhas forget the worlds and play at other games… All passes into nothingness. Yet still the Lhas themselves remain.

    * * *

    The mysterious Lhas of the fivefold force unite Their thought, sink into meditation deep and link the first and third. The worlds emerge, and – rushing into forms prepared – pursue their cycles.

    * * *

    The twelve-pointed play Their part and are the result of the communion of the One above the Sun with one of the seven wives.

    * * *

    The Master of the Sacred Heart is He who builds a Path between the sphere whereon His lot is cast and the great manasic orb. He builds it knowingly, calling in the aid of points of blue. These emerge from the heart of one of the seven. (The PLEIADES.)

    These He bloweth upon and they find their place as stones in the one Way He constructeth for the treading of the many as they wend their way through mind to mind and thence to understanding. (Manas to mahat and thence to buddhi.)

    .