The Rays and the Initiations

by Alice A Bailey

  The seven major Ashrams are each responsive to one of seven types of ray energy and are focal points in the Hierarchy of the seven rays. The central, senior and major Ashram is (at this time) the repository of second ray energy, as this ray governs this second solar system. It is the Ashram of Love-Wisdom—the Ashram in which the Buddha and the Christ received Their initiations and through which each of Them works. It will be obvious that if the process of invocation and evocation governs the interplay of the planetary centres, you have in this fact another reason why the senior Ashram is second ray in quality. Invocation is related [384] to radiation. Evocation is related to magnetism. These are two points worthy of your consideration.

  The other six major Ashrams came sequentially into being as the invocation of primitive man reached such a point of intensity of expression that a response was evoked from Shamballa, via its ray Representatives, working with directed energy in the three worlds. A “point of radiatory force” was established, at first in relation to the second ray Ashram, and later to the other Ashrams. One by one, as the rays cycled into activity in the three worlds and eventually on the physical plane, the seven Ashrams were founded, developed and expanded until the time arrived—several aeons ago—when all seven Ashrams were fully organised, and through them passed a steady flow of human beings liberating themselves from the three worlds.

  In the earliest times this flow of disciples was exceedingly small. One by one, individual aspirants found their way out of the ranks of humanity and inside the ring-pass-not of the Hierarchy. In the beginning, only the first two initiations were given and only through the instrumentality of the second ray; and at these initiations the World Teacher of the period of officiated.

  Then at a time when the seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order (the ray which plays so potent and mysterious a part in the phase of discipleship called initiation) was in cyclic activity, a much greater number of disciples appeared, prepared for initiation; the initiatory process was then administered in a seventh ray Ashram; this seventh ray Ashram was the second to be formed, owing to the fact that the seventh ray is the relating factor between life and matter upon the form side. Again, so the ancient Archives tell us, there came a great crisis in the evolution of humanity; this necessitated one of the rare cyclic changes which have distinguished the fluid policy of the Hierarchy. Men began to demonstrate responsiveness to the Law of Integration and personality appeared with all its potentiality for good and evil. Man became an integrated unit in the three worlds. A great possibility then emerged; man could, through training [385] and the use of the mind, make contact with the soul. This had not hitherto been done except to a slight degree. This crisis therefore led to the creation, or rather to the appearance, of the initiatory process to which we have given the name of the third initiation.

  The Hierarchy for the first time realised the complete success of the vast work, carried on in the human centre for millions of years. Soul and personality could be and were intelligently fused. This is one of the reasons why the Hierarchy regards the third initiation as the first major initiation; it marked a point of complete soul-personality integration. In the earlier initiations, the soul was present but was still only occasionally in control; constant failure in the three worlds was still possible, and the relation between the man in the three worlds and his soul was nebulous and largely potential. You will realise what I mean when I point out that many thousands of people in the world today have taken the first initiation and are oriented towards the spiritual life and the service of their fellowmen; their lives, however, frequently leave much to be desired, and the soul is obviously not in constant control; a great struggle is still being waged to achieve purification on all three levels. The lives of these initiates are faulty and their inexperience great, and a major attempt is instituted in this particular cycle to achieve soul fusion. When that is attained, then the third initiation (the first, hierarchically speaking) is taken. Today this triple process of preparation, purification and fusion is the ordinary practice of the disciple and the process has prevailed for untold years; but when this fusion first occurred, it marked a great hierarchical event. It was a crisis of supreme spiritual import.

  As you know, the first human being out of that “centre which we call the race of men” to achieve this point was the Christ; in that first great demonstration of His point of attainment (through the medium of what was then a new type of initiation) the Christ was joined by the Buddha. The Buddha had attained this same point prior to the creation of our planetary life, but conditions for taking the third initiation [386] were not then available, and He and the Christ took the initiation together. At this initiation, and since then for all initiates of that degree of attainment, They stood in the Presence of the One Initiator, the Lord of the World, and not in the Presence of the Initiate Who was then Head of the Hierarchy. This third initiation was taken in a fourth ray Ashram, the Ray of Harmony through Conflict. This Ashram had taken form and attained functioning activity some time earlier. You can see, under the Law of Correspondences, why this was so. The first human being in the fourth kingdom in nature to take this initiation did so in a fourth ray Ashram and then, esoterically speaking, “the Way lay open toward the Cross”; the initiate faced the process of extension on the Cross, and from that vantage point could view the three worlds. The fourth initiation then became a possibility; the crucifixion faced the disciple of the third degree with its promise of complete liberation and final resurrection.

  You can see, therefore, what a tremendous crisis took place in the relation between Humanity and the Hierarchy—a crisis of such importance that Shamballa became involved and the Lord of time World Himself admitted the initiate to the higher contacts. Between that time and the crucifixion of the Master Jesus, the sixth ray Ashram, the fifth and the third, have all been formed around the nucleus of light, started by the ray Lords much earlier. The point of light and of will energy at the centre of each Ashram has existed for untold millennia of years, but the Ashrams themselves were only slowly formed around the nucleus as the various types of energy swept into manifestation and brought with them human types responsive to the ray energy.

  When the Master Jesus took the Crucifixion Initiation, another crisis arose of equally great import, if not greater. The crisis was brought about because simultaneously with the crucifixion of the Master, the Head of the Hierarchy, the Christ, took two initiations in one: the Resurrection Initiation and that of the Ascension. These are the fifth and sixth initiations, according to the Christian terminology. [387] This was possible because the first ray Ashram was now active, making entry into the Council Chamber at Shamballa possible. When the Christ achieved this, He was deemed worthy of embodying in Himself a new principle in evolution and of revealing to the world the nature of the second ray aspect—the divine principle of love (as humanity calls it) or of pure reason (as the Hierarchy calls it).

  Since that time, all the seven major Ashrams have been fully organised and are steadily increasing in radiatory activity. As you will have noted, the order of their appearance—under ray activity—was 2, 7, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1. In giving this item of ashramic information I am giving you more hints than you will immediately realise.

  Each Ashram, as you know, expresses ray quality in its purest and most essential form. During the process of creating the seven Ashrams, they have shifted their focus (or location) from the lowest of the three levels of the abstract mental plane at each major crisis, until today the Ashrams are to be found on the buddhic plane and not on the mental plane at all. This marks the triumph of the hierarchical work, because pure reason—through the second ray—is now the dominant quality in all the Ashrams. Forget not in this connection that all the rays are subrays of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom, but that in the early days of hierarchical activity, it was the particular quality of the ray which dominated an Ashram that first demonstrated, and not the quality of the great major ray of which they were all a part.

  Today this is all changing, th
ough the process is not yet perfected, and pure reason or true love is beginning to manifest itself through the quality of all the rays, functioning through their respective Ashrams. The secondary ray quality will not die out or in any way be lessened, but each ray quality will serve to implement the expression of pure love, which is the essential and—at this time—the primary quality of the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara.

  As the centuries have slipped away and the potency of the rays has increased on Earth, humanity has become more and more invocative; this has necessitated the expansion of [388] the Hierarchy itself, and each Ashram has become the creator of six other Ashrams (few of them as yet complete, and some entirely embryonic), so that, in fact, all the forty-nine Ashrams are in the making. The second ray, for instance, has five affiliated Ashrams and one of which only the nucleus exists, and all these are working under its inspiration and through the effect of the second ray central fire. All have at their centre a second ray disciple. The third ray has already two subsidiary Ashrams; the sixth has four, and so on. The first ray is the only one at this time with no subsidiary fully functioning Ashram, and this because the will aspect is as yet very little understood and few initiates can meet the requirements of the first ray initiation. This is no reflection upon humanity. It is a question of divine timing and expediency, and Shamballa is not yet prepared for an influx of first ray initiates. Ages must pass before this Will aspect will have reached the stage of unfoldment and expression on the physical plane and through the medium of mankind which will warrant the fusing of six first ray fires—the purest fires there are.

  If you will add all the above information as a background to what you know about ashramic work today, you will have a more complete picture of evocative and spiritual reality. You know much (for I have told you much) anent the Ashrams open today and the requirements for acceptance. It is essential that the uniqueness of the initiatory process be discounted. Down the ages men have achieved, are achieving and will achieve. The only difference is that—as the intellect of man develops—the requirements for initiation become more drastic and exacting, and the initiate therefore becomes of a distinctly higher order. The Master today is infinitely wiser and more full of love and more “occultly reasonable” than was the Master in Atlantean times. This in itself constitutes a reasonable fact, does it not, my brothers?

  In considering the work carried forward in the Ashram as it affects the Masters Themselves, two ideas automatically emerge: [389]

  1. The Masters are also subject to limitation. The general idea of all aspirants is that They represent Those Who leave achieved freedom, have been liberated, and are therefore held by no limiting circumstances whatsoever. This is not true, though—speaking relatively, or so far as humanity is concerned—it is a fact that the limitations by which They were held as human beings are no longer present. But one achieved freedom only opens the door to another and wider freedom on ahead, and the ring-pass-not of our planetary Life in itself constitutes a powerful limitation. Speaking symbolically, somewhere in that great dividing wall of our planetary circumference, the Master must find an exit and discover a door which will permit Him to enter the Way of the Higher Evolution in its more cosmic stages. This Way leads Them in awareness and consciousness and experience into that “life more abundantly” of which Christ spoke; the origin and source of this more abundant life is to be found on cosmic levels, and not on the levels of the cosmic physical plane to which humanity and the Masters have hitherto been confined.

  2. I am dealing with states of awareness and with experiences and spiritual undertakings which lie outside my own personal realisation. But in spite of this truth, just as you in the position of aspirants and disciples know much about the Hierarchy, its life, aims and conditioning rules, so do I, a Master of the fifth degree, know much concerning what lies ahead of me; I can therefore endeavour to make some small part of these essential truths clearer to those who can profit by them. Such people will necessarily be initiated disciples.

  Years ago (in 1922) when I gave the names of the seven Paths along one of which a Master must go (Initiation, Human and Solar), it was felt by Those for Whom I was working that humanity was not ready for the information which I now propose to give. I would here remind you that I have ever stated that even the Hierarchy does not know exactly how humanity will react or what progress they will make within a given time. Since I gave the earlier exoteric information, the world war took place, the forces of hidden evil [390] emerged for a short period and were then routed, and humanity has awakened to truer values and spiritual perception to a totally unexpected extent. Men have been so aroused by the past agony that never again will they fall asleep; they may move slowly but they are, for the first time on a large scale, really thinking and visioning. For this reason, it is now possible to give out teaching hitherto regarded as too advanced. There are those alive today who will understand; there are those coming into incarnation during the next fifty years whose feet are already set upon this Higher Way, and it is for them I write.

  There are certain preliminary statements which would be useful here, if there is to be any real and true measure of clear thinking and understanding. Their significance will emerge as we study the Seven Paths and the Nine Initiations. I shall do no more than state them, but you must regard them as basic:

  1. Our seven planes—the mastery of which is our idealised spiritual goal—are after all only the lowest cosmic plane, the cosmic physical plane. From the cosmic angle, the Masters are only beginners, and even our deeply desired initiations (from the first to the sixth) are simply preparatory initiations for those to be taken later on upon the Way of the Higher Evolution.

  2. This Higher Way is a sevenfold Way. The seven Paths form its seven modes of approach to the One Way and together create it. These seven Paths are not ray-conditioned. By that I mean that entering one or another of them is not in any way dependent upon the ray which conditioned the Master earlier. The Masters and the still higher initiates, such as the Christ, can choose any Path which makes its appeal in such a manner that complete rightness is registered in the initiate's consciousness and He knows that He can go no other way.

  3. At the sixth initiation, called the Initiation of Decision, the Initiate makes His final choice as to the Way that He will go, and from that decision there is no turning back. [391]

  4. Three things will necessarily colour any decision the Initiate may make; His ray, which still determines Him, His past activities as they may fit Him for specialised work, plus a sense of freedom hitherto unrealised. The decision might be regarded as the first gesture of the advancing Master toward liberation from all ray limitations. As He moves forward on the Higher Way, He will find Himself, as a result of the new training and field of experience, able to work on any ray.

  5. The fifth initiation is usually called that of the Resurrection by the orthodox Christian, but this is not its real name; it is in reality the Initiation of Revelation, because the Initiate gains His first vision of the Door through which He must pass on to the seven Paths. He glimpses it and that is all, but between that initiation and the next in which He must perforce make His decision, He comes to understand the nature of the energy which each Path expresses and which will eventually evoke from Him a decisive activity.

  6. By passing through the second great Door of Initiation, the Initiate begins to learn the significance and the attractive potency of the Central Spiritual Sun, to which all the Paths eventually lead.

  7. The fifth and sixth initiations are to the Master what the first and second are to the disciple—simply initiations of the threshold and not true initiations from the cosmic angle. The first true initiation upon the Higher Way is called the Initiation of Resurrection; this has no reference to the fifth initiation.

  8. The decision made by the Master enables Him to take the required training to enter His chosen Path, and this training is taken entirely upon cosmic etheric levels—the four highest subplanes of the cosmic physical plane—the
buddhic, atmic, monadic and logoic planes.

  9. On these planes the spiritual and the divine will is developed and brought into use; these are aspects of that undefinable purpose to which we give the simple name: the Will of God. Intelligence and love have been fully unfolded in the Master, but the will is embryonic still, from the [392] standpoint of Those responsible for training the Master and the higher Initiate. It is only by means of the divine will that the Master begins to free Himself from ray limitations.

  10. I would remind you of an earlier statement that the Hierarchy reacts or responds to the energies and influences coming from the cosmic astral plane; from that level of spiritual life true divine love pours into it. Shamballa reacts to the cosmic mental plane, and therefore to the nature and purposes of the Mind of God; the expression of THAT which overshadows Sanat Kumara is similar to the soul overshadowing the incarnated spiritual man.

  If you will bear these facts in mind, some light may break through and, in any case, when the student or disciple returns to incarnation, this imparted knowledge (stored in the soul's content) will then be usefully available.

  I would like to enlarge somewhat upon an earlier remark. I stated that the “seven Ashrams are 'proving grounds' for all the Masters confronted with the sixth Initiation of Decision.”

  This constitutes part of the problem facing the Masters Who are thus to move forward; it is particularly crucial for Those Who have chosen the first Path, the Path of Earth Service, and for all in preparation for the sixth initiation. This process of changing for a final, conditioning decision—in line, consciously realised, with divine Purpose and entailing responsiveness to Shamballa—is a major undertaking; it is related to the development of understanding the Will, and concerns the spirit or life aspect; it involves an increasing revelation of the purpose and the “fixed intention” of the planetary Logos but (even more than that) it has relation to extra-planetary sources and energies and to those cosmic conditions which are responsible for the Presence of Sanat Kumara upon the Earth. It is will which has brought Him here, and the unfoldment of the will nature of the Masters and still higher Initiates admits Them into His inner deliberations by means of the highest form of telepathic rapport or impression to be found upon our planet. [393] This impression is, however, made possible by the development of the intuition, and has no relation to the mind nature.