I would ask you to think much about this point which I have just made. Group initiation means that the bulk of the members are correctly oriented; that they are proposing to accept the discipline which will prepare them for the next great expansion of consciousness, and that none of them can possibly be deviated from their purpose (note that word with its first ray or Shamballic implications), no matter what is happening in their environment or their personal life. You need to reflect on this if you desire to make the needed progress.
In these short instructions, which aim only at a “tentative indication” (note that phrase), it is not necessary to enter into explicit details. In any case, if the Formulas or Rules are not intuitively clear to your minds, anything I could say would only hinder and frustrate my purpose.
Finally, these Formulas or Rules are susceptible of [37] three forms of application or interpretation and I would have you remember this, because you can thereby discover where your individual focus of attention is and if you are consequently functioning as an integrated personality. Remember always that only an integrated personality can achieve the needed soul focus. This is a fundamental requirement. These three forms of application are physical, emotional and mental in nature. But those words in their simplest connotation have true reference to the task of achieving one or other of the higher initiations. The only way their significance can truly appear is by grasping the following meanings:
1. The physical application refers to the usage by the group of the given knowledge and intuitively perceived information in such a way that the needs of the larger group, of which the group itself is a part, are constructively served. The consummation of this ideal is to be found in the activity of the Hierarchy itself which, from progressive point to progressive point, finds itself in the position of intuitive interpreter and force transmitter between the centre of Shamballa and Humanity. The individual initiate, on the way to one or other of the higher initiations, has in his lesser degree to achieve the same dual function and thereby fit himself for the wider cooperation.
2. The emotional application has definite reference to the world of meaning, interpreted in a group sense. At present, well-meaning aspirants are satisfied if they are able to interpret their personality conditions, events and happenings in terms of their real meaning. But that still remains an individual reaction. The aspirant who is seeking to comprehend these Rules is more interested in seeing the situations which he contacts in terms of a world whole, and in searching for their meaning in terms of their group significance. This serves to decentralise him and to convey into his consciousness some aspect of that larger whole, and this in its turn contributes to the expansion of the consciousness of humanity as a whole. [38]
3. The mental application has to be grasped and considered in terms of the “great light.” It must be remembered that the mind is the organ of illumination. Therefore it might be asked: Do the united mental processes of the group as a whole tend to throw light on human problems and situations? How much does the light of the individual group member aid in this process? How much light do you, as an individual, register and therefore contribute to the greater light? Is the group light a dim flicker or a blazing sun?
Such are some of the implications lying behind the use of these familiar words, and the careful consideration of their meaning might bring about a definite expansion of consciousness. This expansion normally follows certain clear and definite stages:
1. A recognition of the goal. This goal is often expressed under the word “the door.” A door permits entrance into some place larger than the area covered by the standing room of the would-be initiate. This statement refers to the “door of incarnation” through which the incarnating soul enters into life—limited and restricted from the angle of the soul. The door of initiation admits “into a larger room” or sphere of extended expression.
2. The approach, under regulated and imposed and well-tried rules, of the entering one towards a visioned goal. This involves conformity to that which has been tried, known and demonstrated by all previous initiates.
3. The arresting of the steps of the initiate before the door in order that he may “prove himself to be initiate” prior to entry.
4. The passing of certain tests in order to demonstrate fitness.
5. Then comes the stage of entrance—under due and set rules and yet with full freedom of action. You will see, therefore, why ever the need for understanding is emphasised.
Before proceeding to study the final phrases of Rule [39] One, I would call your attention to the fact that the initiate has faced two major tests, symbolically described as “the burning ground” and the “clear cold light.” Only after he has successfully passed these can he—or the group, when considering group initiation—move forward and outward into the wider reaches of the divine consciousness. These tests are applied when the soul grips the personality and the fire of divine love destroys the loves and desires of the integrated personality. Two factors tend to bring this about: the slow moving forward of the innate conscience into greater control, and the steady development of the “fiery aspiration” to which Patanjali (The Light of the Soul (Book II, Sutra 1) page 119.) makes reference. These two factors, when brought into living activity, bring the disciple into the centre of the burning ground which separates the Angel of the Presence from the Dweller on the Threshold. The burning ground is found upon the threshold of every new advance, until the third initiation has been taken.
The “clear cold light” is the light of pure reason, of infallible intuitive perception and its unremitting, intensive and revealing light constitutes a major test in its effects. The initiate discovers the depths of evil, and at the same time is enticed forward by the heights of a growing sense of divinity. The clear cold light reveals two things:
A. The omnipresence of God throughout nature, and therefore throughout the entire personality life of the initiate or of the initiate group. The scales fall from the eyes, bringing about—paradoxically—the “dark night of the soul” and the sense of being alone and bereft of all help. This led (in the case of the Christ, for instance) to that appalling moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, and which was consummated on the Cross, when the will of personality-soul clashed with the divine will of the Monad. The revelation to the initiate of the ages of severance from the Central Reality, and of all its attendant implications, descends upon the one who is attempting to stand “in isolated Unity,” as Patanjali (to quote him a second time) calls the experience. (The Light of the Soul (Book IV, Sutras 25.34) pages 420, 428)*
[40] The omnipresence of divinity within all forms pours in upon the consciousness of the initiate, and the mystery of time, space and electricity stands revealed. The major effect of this revelation (prior to the third initiation) is to bring to the disciple a realisation of the “great heresy of separateness,” as it focusses in him, the separated fully conscious individual—aware of his past, conscious now of his ray and its conditioning power, focussed in his own aspiration, and yet part of the great whole of nature. From that moment onward he knows that divinity is all there is, and this he learns through the revelation of the inherent separativeness of the form life, through the processes of “the dark night of the soul” and its culminating lesson of the significance of isolation and the freeing process which brings about the merging into unity through the emission of the sound, the cry, the invocation, such as the cry of the Christ upon the Cross symbolised. His exact words have not been transmitted to us. They vary for each ray, but all bring about the recognition of divine merging, in which all separating veils are “rent from the top to the bottom” (as The New Testament expresses it).
B. The omniscience of the divine Whole is also brought home to the initiate through the medium of the clear cold light, and the phases of “isolated experience,” as it is sometimes occultly called, is forever ended. I would have you realise what this can mean in so far as possible to your present consciousness. Up till the present, the initiate-disciple has been f
unctioning as a duality and as a fusion of soul-energy and personality-force. Now these forms of life stand exposed to him for what they essentially are, and he knows that—as directing agencies and as transitory gods—they no longer have any hold over him. He is being gradually translated into another divine aspect, taking with him all that he has received during the ages of close relation and identification with the third aspect, form, and the second aspect, consciousness. A sense of being bereft, deserted and alone descends upon him as he realises that the control of form and soul must also disappear. Here lies the agony [41] of isolation and the overpowering sense of loneliness. But the truths revealed by the clear cold light of the divine reason leave him no choice. He must relinquish all that holds him away from the Central Reality; he must gain life and “life more abundantly.” This constitutes the supreme test in the life cycle of the incarnating Monad; and “when the very heart of this experience enters into the heart of the initiate, then he moves outward through that heart into full life expression.” Such is the way that the Old Commentary expresses this. I know no other way in which to bring the idea before you. The experience undergone is not related to form, nor is it connected with consciousness or with even the higher psychic sensitivity. It consists of pure identification with divine purpose. This is made possible because the self-will of the personality and the enlightened will of the soul have both equally been relinquished.
4. Behind the group there stands the Door. Before them opens out the Way.
Note how this passage reverses the usual presentation. Hitherto, in the occult books, the Door of Initiation has been presented as ever moving forward ahead of the initiate. He passes through door after door into a wider experience and expansion of consciousness. But in the initiate consciousness, after the first two initiations, this is not the realisation. It is simply the adhering to an old form of symbolism with the implied limitations of the truth. I would here remind you that the third initiation is regarded by the Hierarchy as the first major initiation, and that the first and second initiations are initiations of the Threshold. For the bulk of humanity, these first two initiations will for a very long time constitute major initiatory experiences, but in the life and realisation of the initiate-soul, they are not. After the two initiations of the threshold have been undergone the attitude of the initiate changes and he sees possibilities and factors and revelations which have hitherto [42] been totally unrealised and unknown, even to his consciousness at his highest moments.
The door of initiation looms large in the consciousness of the neophyte; the higher Way is the determining factor in the life of the initiate of the third degree. It is the Transfiguration; and a new glory pours through the transfigured initiate who has been released from every type of grip by either the personality or the soul. For the first time, the goal of the higher Way and the attainment of Nirvana (as the Oriental calls it) appears before him, and he knows that no forms and no spiritual complexes and no pull by either soul or form, or by both united, can have any effect upon his attaining his final destination.
I would like for a moment to refer here to the door symbology as the initiate begins to grasp the inner meaning of those simple words. For long the teaching, given in the clear cold light, anent the door and the emphasis put upon the presentation of the door lying ahead of the aspirant has been made familiar, but that has been working with the lower aspects of the symbolism, even if aspirants did not realise it; they have been taught the fact of the light in the head, which is the personality correspondence to the clear cold light to which I refer. At the very centre of that light, as many aspirants know theoretically or factually by inconstant experience, is a centre or point of dark indigo blue—midnight blue. Note the significance of this in view of what I have been saying anent the “dark night,” the midnight hour, the zero hour in the life of the soul. That centre is in reality an opening, a door leading somewhere, a way of escape, a place through which the soul imprisoned in the body can emerge and pass into higher states of consciousness, untrammelled by form limitations; it has also been called “the funnel or the channel for the sound”; it has been named the “trumpet through which the escaping A.U.M. can pass.” The ability to use this door or channel is brought about by the practice of alignment; hence the emphasis laid upon this exercise in the attempt to train aspirants and disciples.
Once alignment has been achieved, it will be realised [43] (remembering the symbolism of the head, the light and the central opening) that many occasions arise in meditation when “behind the group there stands the door; before them opens out the Way.” This is the lower correspondence of the higher initiate-experience with which our rule is dealing.
Again, this time in relation to the soul, comes the repetition of the discovery of the Door, its use and its appearance, finally, behind the initiate. This time the door must be found upon the mental plane, and not as earlier upon the etheric level; this is brought about by the aid of the soul and of the lower mind and through the revealing power of the clear cold light of the reason. When discovered, the “revelation of a terrible though beautiful experiment” faces the initiate. He finds that this time alignment is not his need, but the definite undertaking of a creative work—the building of a bridge between the door which lies behind and the door which lies ahead. This involves the construction of what is technically the antahkarana, the rainbow bridge. This is built by the disciple-in-training upon the basis of his past experience; it is anchored in the past and firmly grounded in the highest, rightly oriented aspect of the personality. As the disciple then creatively works, he finds that there is a reciprocal action on the part of the Presence, the Monad—the unity which stands behind the Door. He discovers that one span of the bridge (if I might so call it) is being built or pushed forward from the other side of the gulf separating him from experience in the life of the Spiritual Triad. This Spiritual Triad is essentially, to the initiate, what the threefold personality is to the man in physical incarnation.
I wonder if I have succeeded in giving you at least a general idea of the possibilities lying ahead of the disciple, and incited you to definite conscious response to those possibilities. I cannot do other than speak in terms of consciousness, even though the life of the Triad—leading in its turn to identification with the Monad, as the personality life leads eventually to soul control and expression—has naught to do with consciousness or sensitivity as those terms are [44] commonly understood. Yet remember how, in all my teachings upon occult unfoldment, I have used the word IDENTIFICATION. This is the only word I have found which can in any way convey the complete unity which is finally achieved by those who develop a sense of unity, and who refuse to accept isolation; separateness then fades out entirely. The isolated unity achieved is unity with the Whole, with Being in its totality (and this cannot as yet convey much to you).
5. Together let the band of brothers onward move—out of the fire, into the cold, and toward a newer tension.
Here, in very brief form, certain basic instructions are given. Each of them indicates the new attitudes imposed upon all who have taken initiation. They cannot be interpreted in terms of the Path of Discipleship or of Probation. The ordinary and easily-arrived-at significances mean little to the initiate mind. Let me briefly consider them so that clarity of concept, though not of detail, may prevail.
a. Out of the fire. This is a symbolic way of indicating that the personality life is definitely and finally left behind. It is this phrase which gives the clue to the initiation which is referred to in this Rule. Each of these Rules contains within itself the clue to the particular initiation to which reference is being made. The Rules are not placed in their right order, having sequential reference to the seven initiations. The intuition of the aspirant must be invoked if he is to arrive at right knowledge. I shall sometimes indicate the initiation involved, but not always, as it would profit not. The clue to the seventh initiation which lies ahead for such high Beings as the Christ would be of no service to you at all. The clue
to the initiation of the Transfiguration can be of importance, as it involves the personality, and many of you in the not so distant future (from the angle of the aeonial life cycle of the soul) will face that. The secret of the third initiation is the demonstration of complete freedom from the claims and demands of the personality. It does not involve the achievement of [45] a completely perfect expression of the spiritual life, but it does indicate that the service of the initiate and his life demonstration—regarded in a broad and general way, from the angle of the life-tendency and of entire dedication to humanity—remains untouched by the limitations, still existent, of the personal lower self.
b. Into the cold. This means that the focus of the life is now in the realm of clear truth and of pure reason. The life of the initiate is being rapidly transferred out of the egoic centre, the soul vehicle, on to the level of the buddhic life or state of being. Note, I do not say “of consciousness.” This is formless, but preserves the fruitage of form experience. It is being oriented towards a realised unity and identification with the life aspect of divinity, and yet preserves its own recognised and achieved identity. On this level of pure impersonality and of right orientation the group stands, obedient to the rule which governs this particular stage of development.
c. Toward a newer tension. The interpretation of the phrase presents difficulty. This is owing to the false impression which the word “tension” conveys at this time. It is associated in the minds of the reading public with the thought of nerves, with points of crisis, with courage and with fatigue. Is this not so? But in reality tension, occultly understood, is not associated with these aspects of personality reaction at all. The esoteric significance of tension (as far as I can explain it by limiting words) is “focussed immovable Will.” Right tension is the identification of brain and soul with the will aspect, and the preservation of that identification—unchanged and immovable—no matter what the circumstances and the difficulties.
The Rays and the Initiations Page 5