The Rays and the Initiations

by Alice A Bailey

  It will be apparent to you, therefore, that in this achievement of planetary tension it is not life in the three worlds that is the sphere of this tension, but the realm of hierarchical activity. The shift resulting from this point of tension, the “moving” which is its consequence, is in the realm of soul experience and soul awareness. The secondary effect can be noted in the human consciousness by the awakening which has been going on among men—an awakening to the higher spiritual values, to the trends and ideologies which are everywhere appearing, and to the clear lines of demarcation which have emerged in the realm of human determinations and objectives. These are all the results of great changes in the field of the higher consciousness and are conditioned by the soul of all things, lying largely in the realm of the anima mundi; of this great sumtotal the human soul and the spiritual soul are but aspects or expressions.

  It is these changes in the “moving, shifting realities” of the soul consciousness and spiritual awareness of the Members of the Hierarchy which are responsible for the new trends in the life of the Spirit and the new methods in training disciples—in such an experiment, for instance, as externalising the Ashrams of the Masters. It is this new approach to life conditions, as a result of the inflow of new energies, which is producing the universal trend towards group awareness, and its highest result in the human family is the taking the first steps towards group initiation. Such a thing as group initiation was never heard of prior to the present time, except in connection with the higher initiations emanating from the Shamballa centre. Group initiation is based upon a uniform and united group will, consecrated towards the service of humanity and based upon loyalty, cooperation and interdependence. In the past, the emphasis was upon the individual, his training and approach to initiation, and his solitary admittance to the Temple [18] of Initiation. But this individual concentration will, in the future, give place to a group condition which will enable several disciples unitedly to move forward, unitedly to stand before the Initiator, and unitedly and simultaneously to achieve the great realisation which is the result and the reward of successful discipleship.

  In the first thesis which I presented to the public I outlined the Rules for Applicants, (Initiation, Human and Solar, pp. 192-208), summarising the past propositions and indicating the individual preparation and requirements. These will now apply to the probationary groups of disciples, and not to accepted disciples. They must and will still remain the character and purificatory objectives of the dedicated individual, but are regarded as adequately grasped by humanity; they have been proclaimed by all the great world religions down the centuries and have been recognised as the main conditioning qualities of all disciples.

  These same Rules or Formulas of Approach are the lower correspondences of higher rules to which groups of disciples are pledged to conform, and which they must follow and obey together. The Hierarchy into which they will enter when full acceptance and demonstration have been shown will be the same Hierarchy, characterised by the same soul awareness, animated by the same spiritual activity, functioning under the same laws, but conditioned by two progressive and evolutionary developments:

  1. A much closer contact—invocative and evocative—with Shamballa, and therefore a fuller responsiveness to the Will aspect of divinity.

  2. An invocative attitude on the part of humanity, based on a fundamental decentralisation of the selfish human consciousness and a rapidly awakening group consciousness.

  In reality, this means that the Hierarchy will be more closely related to the Great Council at Shamballa, and very much more closely interrelated with humanity, so that a dual fusion will be taking place. This will bring about that integrative [19] process which will be the quality of the New Age and will inaugurate the Aquarian phase of planetary history.

  I would now like to bring into a close relation the earlier imparted Rules for Applicants and the new Rules for Disciples, embodying the new group activity and group discipleship, resulting in group initiation.

  These Rules are fourteen in number. Today I will simply give you, first of all the rule for the individual disciple, and then its higher corresponding rule for groups in preparation for group initiation, reminding you that such groups are ever composed of those who have taken the first initiation, and the name of these is legion. They are to be found in every country. There are not, however, so many who are ready for the new era of group initiation.

  Rule I.

  For Applicants: Let the disciple search within the heart’s deep cave. If there the fire burns bright, warming his brother yet heating not himself, the hour has come for making application to stand before the door.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Within the fire of mind, focussed within the head’s clear light, let the group stand. The burning ground has done its work. The clear cold light shines forth and cold it is and yet the heat—evoked by the group love—permits the warmth of energetic moving out. Behind the group there stands the Door. Before them opens out the Way. Together let the band of brothers onward move—out of the fire, into the cold, and toward a newer tension.

  Rule II.

  For Applicants: When application has been made in triple form, then let the disciple withdraw that application and forget it has been made.

  For Disciples and Initiates: The Word has now gone forth from the great point of tension: Accepted as a group. Withdraw not now your application. You could not, if you [20] would; but add to it three great demands and forward move. Let there be no recollection and yet let memory rule. Work from the point of all that is within the content of the group’s united life.

  Rule III.

  For Applicants: Triple the call must be and long it takes to sound it forth. Let the disciple sound the call across the desert, over all the seas and through the fires which separate him from the veiled and hidden door.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Dual the moving forward. The Door is left behind. That is a happening of the past. Let the cry of invocation issue forth from the deep centre of the group’s clear cold light. Let it evoke response from the bright centre, lying far ahead. When the demand and the response are lost in one great SOUND, move outward from the desert, leave the seas behind and know that God is Fire.

  Rule IV.

  For Applicants: Let the disciple tend the evocation of the fire, nourish the lesser lives and thus keep the wheel revolving.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group see that all the eighteen fires die down and that the lesser lives return unto the reservoir of life. This they must bring about through the evocation of the Will. The lesser wheels must not for aye revolve in time and space. Only the greater Wheel must onward move and turn.

  Rule V.

  For Applicants: Let the applicant see to it that the Solar Angel dims the light of the lunar angels, remaining the sole luminary in the microcosmic sky.

  For Disciples and Initiates: In unison let the group perceive the Triad shining forth, dimming the light of the soul and blotting out the light of form. The macrocosmic Whole is all there is. Let the group perceive that Whole and then no longer use the thought “My soul and thine.” [21]

  Rule VI.

  For Applicants: The purificatory fires burn dim and low when the third is sacrificed to the fourth. Therefore let the disciple refrain from taking life and let him nourish that which is lowest with the produce of the second.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group know that life is one and naught can ever take or touch that life. Let the group know the vivid, flaming, drenching Life that floods the fourth when the fifth is known. The fifth feeds on the fourth. Let then the group—merged in the fifth—be nourished by the sixth and seventh and realise that all the lesser rules are rules in time and space and cannot hold the group. It onward moves in life.

  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 Ma
ya.

  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.

  Rule VIII.

  For Applicants: When the disciple nears the Portal, the greater seven must awaken and bring forth response from the lesser seven upon the double circle.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group find within itself response to the greater seven groups which carry out the hierarchical will with love and understanding. The group contains all seven, the perfect group. The lesser seven, [22] the greater seven and the planetary seven form one great whole, and these the group must know. When this is realised and the Law of the Supplementary Seven is understood let the group understand the Three and then the ONE. This they can do with the united breath and the unified rhythm.

  Rule IX.

  For Applicants: Let the disciple merge himself within the circle of the other selves. Let but one colour blend them and their unity appear. Only when the group is known and sensed can energy be wisely emanated.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group know there are no other selves. Let the group know there is no colour, only light; and then let darkness take the place of light, hiding all difference, blotting out all form. Then—at the place of tension, and at that darkest point—let the group see a point of clear cold fire, and in the fire (right at its very heart) let the One Initiator appear Whose star shone forth when the Door first was passed.

  Rule X.

  For Applicants: The Army of the Voice, the devas in their serried ranks work ceaselessly. Let the disciple apply himself to a consideration of their methods; let him learn the rules whereby the Army works within the veils of maya.

  For Disciples and Initiates: The rules for work within the veils of maya are known and have been used. Let the group widen all the rents within those veils and thus let in the light. Let the Army of the Voice be no more heard and let the brothers onward move within the Sound. Then let them know the meaning of the O.M. and let them hear that O.M. as it is sounded forth by Him Who stands and waits at the very centre of the Council Chamber of the Lord.

  Rule XI.

  For Applicants: Let the disciple transfer the fire from the lower triangle to the higher and preserve that which is created through the fire at the midway point.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group together move the fire within the Jewel in the Lotus into the Triad and [23] let them find the Word which will carry out that task. Let them destroy by their dynamic Will that which has been created at the midway point. When the point of tension is reached by the brothers at the fourth great cycle of attainment, then will this work be done.

  Rule XII.

  For Applicants: Let the disciple learn to use the hand in service; let him seek the mark of the Messenger in his feet and let him learn to see with the eye which looks out from between the two.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group serve as Aquarius indicates; let Mercury speed the group upon the upward Way and let Taurus bring illumination and the attainment of the vision; let the mark of the Saviour, as the group toils in Pisces, be seen above the aura of the group.

  Rule XIII.

  For Applicants: Four things the disciple must learn and comprehend before he can be shown the inmost mystery: first, the laws of that which radiates; the five meanings of magnetisation make the second; the third is transmutation or the secret lost of alchemy; and lastly, the first letter of the Word which has been imparted, or the hidden name egoic.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group get ready to reveal the hidden mystery. Let the group demonstrate the higher meaning of the lessons learnt, and these are four and yet are one. Let the group understand the Law of Synthesis, of unity and fusion; let the threefold mode of working with that which is dynamic carry the group together towards the Higher Three where the Will of God holds sway; let Transfiguration follow Transformation and may Transmutation disappear. Let the O.M. be heard right at the centre of the group, proclaiming God is All.

  Rule XIV.

  For Applicants: Listen, touch, see, apply, know.

  For Disciples and Initiates: Know, express, reveal, destroy and resurrect.

  [24] These are the rules for group initiation and I am dealing with them to give you a fuller understanding of the Laws of Group Life with which I dealt in some of my other books.

  I will take these rules and expound for you somewhat of their meaning and indicate their significances as far as these can be grasped now. These instructions are written for future disciples towards the end of this century. They form part of the last volume of A Treatise on the Seven Rays and will, therefore, go out to the general public who will not understand, but thus the needed teaching will be preserved.

  RULE ONE

  [25] We now begin our study of the fourteen rules for those who are seeking initiation, in one or other of its degrees. In Initiation, Human and Solar I gave the rules for those proposing to enter the grades of discipleship. I would like for a minute to deal with the significance of the word “Rule” and give you some idea of its occult meaning. There is much difference between a Law, an Order or Command, and a Rule, and these distinctions should be pondered with care. The Laws of the universe are simply the modes of expression, the life impulses and the way of existence or activity of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. There is no avoiding these laws in the last analysis, and there is no denying them, for we are eternally swept into activity by them and they govern and control (from the angle of the Eternal Now) all that happens in time and space. Orders and commands are the feeble interpretations which men give to what they understand by law. In time and space, and at any given moment and in any given location, these commands are issued by those who are in a position of authority or who seem to dominate or are in a position to enforce their wishes. Laws are occult and basic. Orders are indicative of human frailty and limitation.

  Rules are, however, different. They are the result of tried experience and of age-long undertakings and—assuming neither the form of laws nor the limitations of a command—they are recognised by those for whom they exist and hence evoke from them a prompt intuitive response. They need no enforcement but are voluntarily accepted, and are put to trial in the belief that the witness of the past and the testimony of the ages warrant the effort required for the expressed requirements.

  This is true of the fourteen Rules which we are now going to study. I would remind you that only the initiate consciousness will truly comprehend their significance, but [26] also that your effort so to do will develop in you the beginning of that initiate consciousness, provided you seek to make practical and voluntary application of these rules in your daily lives. They are susceptible of three forms of application—physical, emotional and mental—and of a fourth application which is best designated by the words “the response of the integrated personality to soul interpretation and understanding.”

  Another point which I would call to your attention, prior to interpreting this rule, is that your group endeavour must be to seek group application, group meaning and group light. I would emphatically emphasise the words “group light.” We are dealing, therefore, with something basically new in the field of occult teaching, and the difficulty of intelligent comprehension is consequently great. The true significances are not the simple ones which appear upon the surface. The words of these rules would seem to be almost tritely familiar. If they meant exactly what they appear to mean, there would be no need for me to be giving hints as to their underlying significances and ideas. But they are not so simple.

  To sum up, therefore: these Rules are to be read w
ith the aid of a developing esoteric sense; they are related to group initiation in spite of their having individual application; they are not what they appear to be on the surface—trite truisms and spiritual platitudes; but they are rules for initiation which, if followed, will take the disciple and the group through a major spiritual experience; they embody the techniques of the New Age, which necessitate group activity, group procedure and united action. Earlier I said that these rules are the result of tried experience, and my use of the word “new” in this connotation is related to human knowledge but not to the initiatory procedure. That has always existed and always, at the great crises of initiation, disciples have moved forward in groups, even though they have not been aware of so doing. Now disciples can become so aware, and the various ray ashrams will not only present their groups (large or small) to the Initiator, but the personnel of [27] these groups will now be aware of the fact of group presentation. They will also have to grasp the fact of the extent of their knowledge being dependent upon their decentralisation. I would ask you to ponder and reflect upon this last statement.

  Let us now proceed to a consideration of Rule I.

  Rule I.

  Within the fire of mind, focussed within the head’s clear light, let the group stand. The burning ground has done its work. The clear cold light shines forth and cold it is and yet the heat—evoked by the group love—permits the warmth of energetic moving out. Behind the group there stands the Door. Before them opens out the Way. Together let the band of brothers onward move—out of the fire, into the cold, and toward a newer tension.

  It will be profitable if we take this Rule I sentence by sentence and try to wrest from each its group significance.