The Rays and the Initiations

by Alice A Bailey

  IV. A Series of Tests Leading to Initiation. When a man is beginning to demonstrate the qualities of his ray and to prove of gradually increasing importance to his group, he will be prepared through tests, through trials, and through temptations for those final stages in development which will put into his power:

  The knowledge of certain laws governing matter and form.

  The keys of the mysteries connected with energy, with polarity, and with group relation.

  Certain Words of Power which will give him control over the elemental forces of nature.

  Insight into the planetary plans.

  Upon these I need not enlarge, nor need I take up with you here the subject of initiation. (Discipleship in the New Age, Volumes I and II). The first work to be done is the stimulating [8] of aspirants and the preparing of the few earnest ones to tread the Path of Discipleship. The final point of our theme concerns:

  V. The Basic Essential of Pure Character. This is something more than just being good. It deals with the matter aspect and has relation to the hold or control that the form has over the man. We might express it this way and therefore give its more occult connotation. If one or other of the three lower elementals (the physical, the astral and the mental) are the controlling factors in the life of the man, he is—by that very fact—put into a position of danger and should take steps to arrest that control prior to an attempt to enter into the formless realm. The reason for this will be apparent. Under the governing law of matter, the law of Economy, the elemental life will attract to itself similar lives and this will result in a dual danger. These dangers are:

  One: the gathering into the form, through the dominant note sounded by the form elemental, of matter with a synchronous vibration. This will tend to increase the magnitude of the task before the Ego and sweep into increasing dominance the lower man. The “lunar lords” will become increasingly powerful and the solar Lord correspondingly less august.

  Two: the man will find himself surrounded in time with thoughtforms of a lower order (from the standpoint of the soul) and before he can penetrate into the Arcana of Wisdom and find his way into the Master’s world he will have to dispel the clouds of thoughtforms which he has attracted to himself.

  Unless the disciple learns that aspiration and self-discipline must proceed side by side, he will find that the spiritual energy he may appreciate and contact will only serve to stimulate the latent seeds of evil in his nature and thereby demonstrate the exactitude of the truth that the great Lord taught when He pictured the man who swept his house, cast out seven devils and eventually was in a worse condition than ever. It is essential that aspirants should [9] understand the nature of the lower man and should grasp the fact that every coherent system has its varying types of energy, and that perfection is achieved when the highest type of energy inherently possible dominates.

  If the lower energy of the aggregate of the form-atoms is the controlling factor three things will take place:

  1. The form itself will grow by accretion and will become ever more potent, until the dominant voice of its ‘lunar lords’ will stifle all other voices and the man be swept back into

  Inertia

  Blindness

  Bondage

  2. Many people are not only under the control of some one or other of their forms but are the captives of all the three. In studying the lower threefold man and the energies or lives that seek to control him it should be remembered that they fall into three categories:

  a. The individual tiny lives which we call the atoms or cells of the body. These exist in three groups and compose respectively the four types of bodies: dense physical, etheric, astral and mental.

  b. The aggregate of these lives which constitute in themselves four types of elementals or separate coherent, though not self-conscious, existences. These four lunar lords constitute what the Ageless Wisdom teaching calls “the four sides of the square.” They are the “lower quaternary,” “the imprisoning cubes,” or the cross upon which the inner spiritual Man is to be crucified. These four elementals have an intelligence all their own, are upon the involutionary arc, are following the law of their own being when they tend to become powerful, and thereby fully express that which is in them.

  c. A dominant controlling lunar lord who is that which we understand by the term the ‘lower personality’; he (if the personal pronoun can be used) is the sumtotal of the physical, astral and mental elementals, and it [10] is this power which at present forces the ‘fiery energies’ of the body to feed the lower three centres. The etheric body has a unique and curious position, being simply the vehicle for prana or life and the centre which it uses exists in a category by itself.

  3. All subhuman forms in their aggregate prove a powerful deterrent factor in the progress towards emancipation of the Real Man. They form the opposite to what we understand by the world of the Master and the two are in direct opposition to each other from the standpoint of the aspirant.

  The adept can enter the world of form, can contact it, work in it and remain unaffected by it because there is nothing in him to respond to it. He sees through the illusion to the reality behind and, knowing where he stands himself, there is naught in the appeal and the demand of these lunar lords to attract him. He stands midway between the pairs of opposites. In the realisation of the nature of this world of form, in a comprehension of the lives which compose it, and in an ability to hear the voice of the “formless One” above the strife of all the lower voices, comes the opportunity for the aspirant to escape from the dominance of matter.

  This is the true magical work, my brothers, the understanding of the sounds of all beings, and the ability to speak the language of the soul is the clue to the work. These faculties rightly used impose upon these lesser lives that control which will lead to the final liberation, and which will in due time, lead these lives themselves into the realm of self-consciousness. This aspect of the matter is as yet but little comprehended by the sons of men. If they but realised that by a disposition to fall under lunar control they drive the tiny lives in their little system deeper into the darkness of ignorance, they might more rapidly assume their just responsibilities; if they realised that by the constant attempt to impose the rhythm of the solar Lord upon the aggregate of the lunar lords, they were driving these lives onward to self-conscious unfoldment, they might proceed more earnestly and more intelligently. This is the message that must [11] go forth, for all the varying aspects of the life of God are interdependent and not one proceeds onward into fuller realisation without benefitting the entire group.

  A few simple suggestions I will give you. These can be useful to all sincere aspirants.

  In the ordered regulation of the life comes eventual synthesis and the right control of time with all that eventuates therefrom.

  In the right elimination of that which is secondary, and in a sense of rightly adjusted proportion comes that accuracy and one-pointedness which is the hallmark of the occultist.

  In the right aspiration at the appointed time comes the necessary contact and the inspiration for the work that has to be done.

  In the steady adherence to self-appointed rules comes the gradual refining of the instrument and the perfecting of the vehicles that will be—to the Master—the medium of help among many little ones.

  I commend the above thought to you knowing that you will apprehend the implications and will seriously consider the purport of my remarks.

  The world today is in the throes of agony. Just as in the evolving Ego, the moment of greatest development is oft the moment of greatest pain (if apprehension measure up to opportunity) so in the evolving world. To those of you who have the inner sight and intuitive comprehension comes the opportunity to aid that apprehension and to lead a despairing world—deep cast into darkness and distress—one step nearer to the light. The work you have to do is to take the knowledge which is yours and adjust its application to the world’s need so that recognition of the truth may be rapid. In the heart of every man
lies hid the flower of the intuition. On that you can depend, and no eternal or cosmic fact clothed in a suitable form will fail to receive its meed of recognition and understanding.

  INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

  [12] I have called you from refreshment to labour at this time (October 1942) because the coming few days are exceedingly busy ones for me as they are for all members of the Hierarchy. I seek to give you some further instructions anent the Hierarchy itself. (This teaching is the continuation of that which appears in “Discipleship in the New Age”, Volume I, pp. 671 - 773.) Students at this time would do well to remember that all basic and fundamental changes taking place upon the physical plane are necessarily the result of inner subjective causes, emanating from some level of the divine consciousness, and therefore from some plane other than the physical. The fact that tremendous and unusual upheavals are taking place in the kingdoms of nature is attributed by men to other men or to certain forces generated by human thinking, frailty and ambition.

  Is it not possible that these changes are being brought about as the result of certain profoundly important happenings upon inner planes of such advanced states of consciousness that all the average disciple can know about them is their word symbols and their much deleted effects—if I may use such a phrase to describe the happenings which are rending humanity today. The evil that is being wrought today on earth, by certain evil members of the human family, are effects of their response to the inflaming energies and indicate their basic wickedness and their prompt reaction to that which is counter to the good. Wherever the consciousness is focussed, there is the point of major emphasis and importance, and this is true of the individual man and of humanity as a whole. The significance of the present happenings is interpreted (and necessarily so) in terms of human awareness and responsiveness. This world war and its inevitable consequences—good and bad—are looked upon as concerned primarily with humanity, whereas that is not [13] basically so. Humanity suffers and experiences as a result of the inner occurrences and the meeting of subjective forces and inflaming energies.

  It is of course not possible for me to give you any true picture of the interior events and happenings in the life of our planetary Being. I can only indicate and point out that the world situation is simply an embodiment of the reaction and the response by mankind to great paralleling and originating happenings which involve the following groups:

  1. The emanating Avatar and His relationship to the Lord of the World, our planetary Logos.

  2. The Lords of Liberation, focussed in Their high place, as They become conscious of the invocation of humanity and become more closely related to the three Buddhas of Activity.

  3. The Great Council at Shamballa and the planetary Hierarchy.

  4. The Buddha and His Arhats as They unitedly cooperate with the Christ and His disciples, the Masters of the Wisdom.

  5. The Hierarchy, the embodiment of the fifth kingdom in nature, and its magnetic attractive rapport with the human kingdom, the fourth.

  6. The effect of all these great groups of Lives upon humanity, and the inherent consequences as they work out in the subhuman kingdoms.

  A study of the above in terms of forces and energy will give some idea of the underlying synthesis of relationships and the unity of the whole.

  There is therefore a line of descending energy which has its origin outside our planetary life altogether; the inflow of this energy, its inevitable effect under cyclic law and its consequences, as they work out upon the physical plane, has produced and is producing all the changes of which mankind is so terribly aware at this time. This swings into immediate conflict the past and the future, and in this statement I have expressed the deepest esoteric truth which mankind [14] is competent to grasp; it brings into a culminating struggle the Great White Lodge and the Black Lodge and opens the door to great contending energies which we can call spirit and matter, spirituality and materialism, or life and death. These words are, in the last analysis, as meaningless as the terms good and evil, which have significance only in the human consciousness and its inherent limitations.

  These descending energies, as they pass through any of the major levels of consciousness which we call planes, produce reactions and responses, dependent upon the state of the conditioning consciousness, and (strange as this may seem to you and well-nigh unintelligible) the effects upon the Hierarchy are even more compelling and transmuting than they are upon humanity. I would add also that the point of lowest descent of the energies has now been reached, and the nature of the present opportunity is therefore changing. These energies have now passed what we might call the turning point and have reached their point of ascension, with all that that phrase implies. As they descend, they produce stimulation; as they ascend, they produce transmutation and abstraction, and the one effect is as unalterable as the other. It is upon this inevitability of the ascending energies, and the effects which they will bring about, that the entire hope of the future depends; nothing can arrest their return or their progress through the planes and back again to their source. Upon this dual process of descent and ascension the whole cyclic panorama of manifestation rests, and upon the inflow and activity of new and higher energies the whole fact of the evolutionary process depends.

  It will therefore be apparent to you that the descent of energy brings with it—under the cyclic law—certain new “inspirations,” certain new “seeds of hope” for the future, and certain active Agents as well, Who are and will be responsible for the task of preparation, of fertilisation and of all the coming new age enterprises. These descending energies evoke also the obstructing forces, and I would here remind you that these obstructing evil forces (so-called) are [15] met with upon the highest spiritual levels because they are—in their turn—evoked by the impelling impact of the coming Avatar Whose “note is heard ahead of Him, and His energy spreads before Him.” This is a great mystery and can only be understood (and then merely theoretically) if you bear in mind that all our planes—even the very highest—are the subplanes of the cosmic physical plane. When this fact is somewhat grasped there comes a simplification of thought.

  As a consequence of all this, great and fundamental readjustments are going on within the Hierarchy itself and within that intervening area of the divine consciousness to which we give the name (as far as humanity is concerned) of the Spiritual Triad—an area covered by the higher mental planes, the buddhic and the atmic levels of awareness and of divine activity. The downpouring avataric stimulation is enabling certain of the Masters to take some of the major initiations, and to do so far earlier than would otherwise have been possible. Thus a great process of ascension and of spiritual attainment is under way, though as yet only its faint beginnings can be traced, owing to the intensity of the point of conflict. Hence also many probationary disciples are finding their way into the ranks of accepted disciples, and many disciples are taking initiation. To this fact of hierarchical upheaval—paralleling and intensifying the upheaval upon the physical plane—can be traced the process of preparation which I have instituted among some disciples, thus hastening the period and point of attainment, provided I receive due cooperation from them. (Discipleship in the New Age, Vols. I and II.)

  As regards the Hierarchy itself, speaking esoterically and technically, its Members (many of Them) are “being abstracted from the middle point of holiness and absorbed into the Council of the Lord.” In other words, They are passing onward into higher work and are becoming custodians of the energy of the divine will and not simply the custodians of the energy of love. They will work henceforth as power-units, and not just as units of light. Their work [16] becomes dynamic instead of being attractive and magnetic, and is concerned with the life aspect and not just with the soul or consciousness aspect. Their places are being taken—under the Law of Ascension—by Their senior disciples, the initiates in Their Ashrams, and (under the same great process) the place of these initiates, who are thus being “raised” to more important work, is being taken by disci
ples and probationers. It is this truth, misinterpreted and shockingly travestied, which lies behind the teaching anent the so-called Ascended Masters, put out by the leaders of the “I AM” movement, thus prostituting and bringing down almost into the realm of cheap comedy one of the most notable happenings which has ever taken place upon our planet.

  There is therefore, owing to the inflow of energy from extra-planetary sources, a general shifting of the focus of consciousness of embodied and disembodied lives at this time; this shift is one of the prime factors producing the present disruption. Students today are searching for the causes in human motives, in past history and in karmic relationships. To these they add the so-called factor of wickedness. All these factors of course exist, but are of lesser origin and are inherent in the life of the three worlds. They are themselves set in motion by far deeper-seated factors latent in the relationship between spirit and matter and inherent in the dualism of the solar system, and not in its triplicity. This dualism, as far as our planet is concerned, is profoundly affected by the will-purpose of the Lord of the World and by the intensity of His one-pointed thought. He has succeeded in achieving a point of tension, preparatory to bringing about stupendous changes in His life-expression, within His vehicle of manifestation, a planet. This point of invocation will be evocative of great happenings, and will involve every aspect of His nature, including the dense physical; this of necessity involves also all that concerns the human family for “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Those three words or phrases express the triplicity of manifestation, for “Being” connotes the Spirit aspect, [17] “moving” the soul or consciousness aspect, and “living” signifies appearance upon the physical plane. Upon that outer plane the basic synthesis of incarnated life is to be found.