In the “intention” of the disciple who is consciously occupied with the rainbow bridge, the first necessary steps are:
a. The achievement of right orientation; and this must take place in two stages: first, towards the soul as one aspect of the building energy, and second, towards the Triad.
b. A mental understanding of the task to be carried out. This involves the use of the mind in two ways: responsiveness to buddhic or intuitional impression and an act of the creative imagination.
c. A process of energy gathering or of force absorption. in order that the needed energies are confined within a mental ring-pass-not, prior to the later process of visualisation and projection. [488]
d. A period of clear thinking anent process and intention. so that the dedicated bridge-builder may clearly perceive what is being done.
e. The steady preservation of tension without undue physical strain upon the brain cells.
When this has been accomplished there will be found to be present a focal point of mental energy which previously had been nonexistent; the mind will be held steady in the light, and there will also be the alignment of a receptive attentive personality and a soul oriented towards the personality and in a state of constant, directed perception. I would remind you that the soul (as it lives its own life on its own level of awareness) is not always constantly aware of its shadow, the personality, in the three worlds. When the antahkarana is being built, this awareness must be present alongside the intention of the personality.
2. Visualisation. Up to this point the activity has been of a mental nature. The creative imagination has been relatively quiescent; the disciple has been occupied within the mind and upon mental levels, and has “looked neither up nor down.” But now the right point of tension has been reached; the reservoir or pool of needed energy has been restrained within the carefully delimited ring-pass-not, and the bridge-builder is ready for the next step. He therefore proceeds at this point to construct the blue print of the work to be done, by drawing upon the imagination and its faculties as they are to be found upon the highest level of his astral or sensitive vehicle. This does not relate to the emotions. Imagination is, as you know, the lowest aspect of the intuition, and this fact must be remembered at all times. Sensitivity, as an expression of the astral body, is the opposite pole to buddhic sensitivity. The disciple has purified and refined his imaginative faculties so that they are now responsive to the impression of the buddhic principle or of the intuitive perception—perception, apart from sight or any recorded possible vision. According to the responsiveness of the astral vehicle to the [489] buddhic impression, so will be the accuracy of the “plans” laid for the building of the antahkarana and the visualising of the bridge of light in all its beauty and completeness.
The creative imagination has to be stepped up in its vibratory nature so that it can affect the “pool of energy” or the energy-substance which has been gathered for the building of the bridge. The creative activity of the imagination is the first organising influence which works upon and within the ring-pass-not of accumulated energies, held in a state of tension by the “intention” of the disciple. Ponder upon this occult and significant statement.
The creative imagination is in the nature of an active energy, drawn up into relationship with the point of tension; it there and then produces effects in mental substance. The tension is thereby increased, and the more potent and the clearer the visualisation process, the more beautiful and strong will be the bridge. Visualisation is the process whereby the creative imagination is rendered active and becomes responsive to and attracted by the point of tension upon the mental plane.
At this stage the disciple is occupied with two energies: one, quiescent and held within a ring-pass-not, but at a point of extreme tension, and the other active, picture-forming, outgoing and responsive to the mind of the bridge-builder. In this connection it should be remembered that the second aspect of the divine Trinity is the form-building aspect, and thus, under the Law of Analogy, it is the second aspect of the personality and the second aspect of the Spiritual Triad which are becoming creatively active. The disciple is now proceeding with the second stage of his building work, and so the numerical significance will become apparent to you. He must work slowly at this point, picturing what he wants to do, why he has to do it, what are the stages of his work, what will be the resultant effects of his planned activity, and what are the materials with which he has to work. He endeavours to visualise the entire process, and by this means sets up a definite rapport (if successful) between the buddhic intuition and the creative imagination [490] of the astral body. Consequently, you will have at this point:
The buddhic activity of impression.
The tension of the mental vehicle, as it holds the needed energy-substance at the point of projection.
The imaginative processes of the astral body.
When the disciple has trained himself to be consciously aware of the simultaneity of this threefold work, then it goes forward successfully and almost automatically. This he does through the power of visualisation. A current of force is set up between these pairs of opposites (astral-buddhic) and—as it passes through the reservoir of force upon the mental plane—it produces an interior activity and an organisation of the substance present. There then supervenes a steadily mounting potency, until the third stage is reached and the work passes out of the phase of subjectivity into that of objective reality—objective from the standpoint of the spiritual man.
3. Projection. The task of the disciple has now reached a most critical point. Many aspirants reach this particular stage and—having developed a real capacity to visualise, and having therefore constructed by its means the desired form, and organised the substance which is to be employed in this later phase of the building process—find themselves unable to proceed any further. What then is the matter? Primarily, an inability to use the Will in the process of projection. This process is a combination of will, further and continued visualisation, and the use of the ray Word of Power. Up to the present stage in the process, the method for all the seven rays is identical; but at this point there comes a change. Each disciple, having successfully organised the bridge substance, having brought into activity the will aspect, and being consciously aware of process and performance, proceeds now to move the organised substance forward, so that from the centre of force which he has succeeded in accumulating there appears a line of light-substance or projection. This is sent forward upon a [491] Word of Power, as in the logoic creative process. This is in reality a reversal of the process of the Monad when It sent forth the thread of life which finally anchored itself in the soul. The soul, in reality, came into being through the means of this anchoring; then came the later process, when the soul in its turn sent forth a dual thread which finally found anchorage in the head and the heart of the lower threefold man, the personality. The disciple is focussed in the centre which he has constructed upon the mental plane, and is drawing all his resources (those of the threefold personality and the soul combined) into activity; he now projects a line towards the Monad.
It is along this line that the final withdrawal of the forces takes place, the forces which—upon the downward way or the involutionary path—focussed themselves in the personality and the soul. The antahkarana per se, completed by the bridge built by the disciple, is the final medium of abstraction or of the great withdrawal. It is with the antahkarana that the initiate is concerned in the fourth initiation, called sometimes the Great Renunciation—the renunciation or the withdrawal from form life, both personal and egoic. After this initiation neither of these aspects can hold the Monad any more. The “veil of the Temple” is rent in twain from the top to the bottom—that veil which separated the Outer Court (the personality life) from the Holy Place (the soul) and from the Holy of Holies (the Monad) in the Temple at Jerusalem. The implications and the analogies will necessarily be clear to you.
In order, therefore, to bring about the needed projection of the ac
cumulated energies, organised by the creative imagination and brought to a point of excessive tension by the focussing of the mental impulse (an aspect of the will), the disciple then calls upon the resources of his soul, stored up in what is technically called “the jewel in the lotus.” This is the anchorage of the Monad—a point which must not be forgotten. The aspects of the soul which we call knowledge, love and sacrifice, and which are expressions of the causal body, are only effects of this monadic radiation. [492]
Therefore, before the bridge can be truly built and “projected on the upward way, providing safe travelling for the pilgrim's weary feet” (as the Old Commentary puts it), the disciple must begin to react in response to the closed lotus bud or jewel at the centre of the opened lotus. This he does when the sacrifice petals of the egoic lotus are assuming control in his life, when his knowledge is being transmuted into wisdom, and his love for the whole is growing; to these is being added the “power to renounce”. These three egoic qualities—when functioning with a measure of potency—produce an increased activity at the very centre of soul life, the heart of the lotus. It should be remembered that the correspondences in the egoic lotus to the three planetary centres are as follows:
Shamballa. . . . The jewel in the lotus.
Hierarchy . . . . The three groups of petals.
Humanity . . . .The three permanent atoms within the aura of the lotus.
Students should also bear in mind that they need to rid themselves of the usual idea of sacrifice as a process of giving-up, or renunciation of all that makes life worth living. Sacrifice is, technically speaking, the achievement of a state of bliss and of ecstasy because it is the realisation of another divine aspect, hidden hitherto by both the soul and the personality. It is understanding and recognition of the will-to-good which made creation possible and inevitable, and which was the true cause of manifestation. Ponder on this, for it is very different in its significance to the usual concepts anent sacrifice.
When the disciple has gained the fruit of experience which is knowledge and is learning to transmute it into wisdom, when his objective is to live truly and in reality, and when the will-to-good is the crowning goal of his daily life, then he can begin to evoke the Will. This will make the link between the lower and the higher minds, between spirit and matter and between Monad and personality a definite and existent fact. Duality then supervenes upon [493] triplicity, and the potency of the central nucleus in the egoic vehicle destroys—at the fourth initiation—the three surrounding expressions. They disappear, and then the so-called destruction of the causal body has taken place. This is the true “second death”—death to form altogether.
This is practically all that I can tell you anent the process of projection. It is a living process, growing out of the conscious daily experience and dependent upon the expression of the divine aspects in the life upon the physical plane, as far as is possible. Where there is an attempt to approximate the personality life to the demands of the soul and to use the intellect on behalf of humanity, love is beginning to control; and then the significance of the “divine sacrifice” is increasingly understood and becomes a natural, spontaneous expression of individual intention. Then it becomes possible to project the bridge. The vibration is then set up on lower levels of divine manifestation and becomes strong enough to produce response from the higher. Then, when the Word of Power is known and rightly used, the bridge is rapidly built.
Students need feel in no way discouraged by this picture. Much can happen on the inner planes where there is right intention, as well as occult intention (purpose and tension combined), and the bridge reaches stages of definite outline and structure long before the disciple is aware of it.
4. Invocation and Evocation. The three preceding stages mark, in reality, the three stages of personality work. The remaining three are expressions of response from higher levels of the spiritual life; beyond briefly indicating them, there is very little that I can put into words. The task of Invocation, based on Intention, Visualisation and Projection, has been carefully undertaken by the disciple and he has at least some measure of clear perception as to the work he has done by the dual means of spiritual living and scientific, technical, occult work. He is therefore himself invocative. His life effect is registered upon the higher levels of consciousness and he is recognised as “a point of invocative tension.” This tension and this [494] reservoir of living energy, which is the disciple himself, is set in motion by projected thought, the use of the will and a sounded Word or Phrase of Power.
The result is that his developed potency and its radius of influence are now sufficiently strong to call out a response from the Spiritual Triad. There is then a going forth towards the aspect of the antahkarana, constructed by the disciple, along which the life of soul and body can travel. The Father (Monad), working through the thread, now goes forth to meet the Son (the soul, enriched by the experience of personality life in the three worlds), and from the higher levels a line of responsive projection of energy is sent forth which will eventually make contact with the lower projection. Thus the antahkarana is built. The tension of the lower evokes the attention of the higher.
This is the technical process of invocation and evocation. There is a gradual approach from both the divine aspects. Little by little, the vibration of both becomes stronger reciprocally. There comes then a moment when contact between the two projections is made in meditation. This is not a contact between soul and personality (the goal of the average aspirant), but a contact between the fused soul and personality energy and the energy of the Monad, working through the Spiritual Triad. This does not constitute a moment of crisis, but is in the nature of a Flame of Light, a realisation of liberation, and a recognition of the esoteric fact that a man is himself the Way. There is no longer the sense of personality and soul or of ego and form, but simply the One, functioning on all planes as a point of spiritual energy and arriving at the one sphere of planned activity by means of the path of Light. In considering this process, words prove completely inadequate. At this stage, when very advanced, there is no form attracting the Monad outwards into manifestation. There is no way in which the call of matter or of form can evoke a response from the Monad. There remains only the great pull of the consciousness of humanity as a whole and to this, response can be made via the completed antahkarana. Down—or rather [495] across—this bridge, descent can be made at will, in order to serve humanity and to carry out the will of Shamballa.
This is a statement of the final consummation. But before that can take place in its perfected completion, there must be a long period of gradual approach of the two aspects of the bridge—the higher, emanating from the Spiritual Triad, in response to monadic impulse, and the lower, emanating from the personality, aided by the soul—across the chasm of the separating mind. Finally, contact between that which the Monad projects and that which the disciple is projecting is made, and then come the fifth and sixth stages.
5 and 6. Stabilisation and Resurrection. The bridge is now built. Thin and tenuous may be its strands at the beginning, but time and active understanding will slowly weave thread after thread until the bridge stands finished, stable and strong and capable of being used. It must perforce be used, because there is now no other medium of intercourse between the initiate and the One Whom he now knows to be himself. He ascends in full consciousness into the sphere of monadic life; he is resurrected from the dark cave of the personality life into the blazing light of divinity; he is no longer only a part of humanity and a member also of the Hierarchy, but he belongs to the great company of Those Whose will is consciously divine and Who are the Custodians of the Plan. They are responsive to impression from Shamballa and are under the direction of the Heads of the Hierarchy.
The “freedom of the three Centres” is Theirs. They can express at will the triple energy of Humanity, the dual energy of the Hierarchy, and the one energy of Shamballa.
Such, my brothers, is the goal of the disciple as he begins to work at the
building of the antahkarana. Reflect upon these matters and proceed with the work.
(In some Talks to Disciples, the Tibetan makes the following remarks which apply here with peculiar force. A.A.B.) [496]
“Your major need is for an intensification of your inner spiritual aspiration. You need to work more definitely from what might be called a point of tension. Study what is said about tension and intensity. It is intensity of purpose which will change you from the plodding fairly satisfactory aspirant into the disciple whose heart and mind are aflame. Perhaps, however, you prefer to go forward steadily, with no group effort, making your work for me and for the group an ordered part of the daily life, which you can adjust pretty much as you like, and in which the life of the spirit receives its reasonable share, in which the service aspect is not neglected, and your life presentation is neatly balanced and carried forward without much real strain. When this is the case, it may be your personality choice or your soul decision for a specific life, but it means that you are not the disciple, with everything subordinated to the life of discipleship.
“I would like here to point out two things. First: if you can so change your tension that you are driven by the life of the spirit, it will entail a galvanic upheaval in your inner life. For this, are you prepared? Secondly: it will not produce any outer change in your environing relationships. Your outer obligations and interests must continue to be met, but I am talking in terms of inner orientations, dynamic inner decisions, and an interior organising for service and for sacrifice. Perhaps you prefer the slower and easier way? If that is so, it is entirely your own affair, and you are still on your way. You are still a constructive and useful person. I am simply here facing you with one of the crises which come in the life of all disciples, wherein choices have to be made that are determining for a cycle, but for a cycle only. It is pre-eminently a question of speed and of organising for speed. This means eliminating the non-essentials and concentrating on the essentials—the inner essentials, as they concern the soul and its relation to the personality, and the outer ones as they concern you and your environment.
The Rays and the Initiations Page 53
