The Rays and the Initiations

by Alice A Bailey

3. In relation to the individual initiate, the sixth ray produces:

  a. An acute situation wherein a vortex of force is generated.

  b. In this vortex all the emotional and ideological reactions of the aspirant are intensified.

  c. Later, when this subsides, the initiate's alignment becomes astral-mental-soul.

  d. There takes place, in connection with his mental vehicle, a crystallisation of all thought and a fanatical adherence to mass idealism. [584]

  e. These tendencies are later transformed into spiritual devotion to human welfare.

  f. The personality becomes definitely astral-buddhic in nature and expression.

  You will see, therefore, how immediate and important is the opportunity confronting humanity today. Vast numbers of men will take the first step towards the unfolding of the Christ consciousness and thus pass through the first initiation. This often (I might well say usually) takes place without the conscious realisation of the physical brain. This first initiation is—and always has been—mass initiation, even when individually registered and recorded. Thousands of aspirants in every country (as a result of conscious effort to understand) will stand before the initiator and undergo the Baptism Initiation; bread and water are the symbols of these first two initiations; both are basic essentials for life in the physical sense, and are equally basic in their implications spiritually; this the initiate knows. These two initiations are the only two of significant importance at this time, owing to their relative immediacy.

  It is the return of the Christ which has brought these subjective spiritual tendencies of mankind to the surface and made these two initiations possible; it is the activity of the seventh Ray of Order and of the sixth Ray of Idealism which has generated the tendency in humanity towards the white magic of right human relations. They have fostered the trend to ideological control of the human consciousness. It is the passing out of the Piscean Age with its type of energy, and the coming into power of the Aquarian Age (with its potent purificatory energies and its quality of synthesis and universality) which will make the new world order possible. It is therefore apparent that the opportunity confronting humanity has never been so promising and that the corporate relation and fusion of all these energies makes the manifestation of the Sons of God and the appearance of the Kingdom of God an inevitable happening in our planetary life. [585]

  As we study the other ray energies and their initiatory effect, we shall not be able to indicate a great deal in relation to humanity itself. Only the first two initiations which are implemented by the Christ and which are “under the supervisory probation of the spiritual Hierarchy” are as yet possible to humanity. The initiation of the Transfiguration is not yet for the mass of men. We can, however, study the effects of these rays where the individual disciple is concerned, because the later initiations—from the third initiation onward—are administered by the Lord of the World from His high place in Shamballa; in the present world period, these initiations are individually administered and registered, and are undergone consciously and with an entirely awakened awareness.

  It will be apparent to you that I shall necessarily have more to say anent the first three initiations and the ray effects upon the initiate and upon humanity than will be possible when the higher initiations come under consideration. The effects of ray impacts in the first three initiations come via the soul, and the initiate is—during this period—a struggling aspirant, under the inspiration and the stimulation of the Hierarchy of which he is becoming increasingly aware. After the third initiation, which is in reality as you well know, the first major initiation, the ray energy is applied (if I may use such an inadequate word) via the Spiritual Triad, utilising the antahkarana.

  After the fourth initiation, the effects are felt predominantly in the initiate's group and in his field of service; there, he constitutes a point of tension and precipitates great points of crisis. His own points of crisis and of tension are existent but, mysteriously, only in relation to his consciousness of the group in which he plays an increasingly potent part.

  The groups affected by the progressive initiatory process to which the disciple is being subjected are three in number, and these effects differentiate and condition his group service, according to the initiation being undergone; it is from this angle we must study the initiation, [586] the ray effects, and the results produced within the three groups. These are:

  1. The group in which the initiate is working upon the physical plane and which is an externalisation (existing on the mental and astral planes) of some phase of work sponsored by the New Group of World Servers. All disciples and initiates in physical manifestation are at this time members of that group, which is the focal point of the present effort being made by the Hierarchy. Through it spiritual energy from five of the Ashrams is flowing. These five are:

  a. The Ashram of the Master K.H., particularly in regard to the work of education.

  b. The Ashram of the Master D.K. (myself), particularly in regard to aspirants for initiation.

  c. The Ashram of the Master R., particularly in regard to the reorganising and the reconstruction of Europe, from the point of view of economics.

  d. The Ashram of the Master Morya, as He seeks to find, influence and direct the activities of workers in the political field throughout the planet.

  e. The Ashram of the Master Hilarion, as He supervises the discoveries (and the application of such discoveries) of the scientific movement in the world today.

  You will note, therefore, the profound and widespread interest of this field of energy wherein ray energy is now active.

  2. The group which may regard itself consciously as the initiate's own group, in the sense that he is slowly influencing those around him, collecting the personnel and forming the nucleus of the Ashram by means of which he may some day serve the world. All those who are taking initiation do not necessarily create their own ashrams, though a large number do so. The work of those initiates who do not form an ashram is mysterious in the extreme, from the point of view of aspiring humanity, and there is little that I may say about the subject. These initiates work [587] in connection with plans emanating from Shamballa, of which humanity can know nothing; they work with the three subhuman kingdoms in nature, each of which has its own peculiar and specific band of initiate-workers. If they do not do this, they transfer into certain groups of workers who are engaged in activities connected with the deva or angel evolution, or in relation to the manifestation of energies about which I can tell you nothing. We shall deal only with the expansion of consciousness and the experience of those initiates who remain—in their activities and aims—related to humanity and to the Hierarchy. It might here be pointed out that:

  a. The work of the deva evolution comes under the ray energy of the third Buddha of Activity.

  b. The work with humanity comes under the influence of the ray energy of the second Buddha of Activity, Who embodies in a most peculiar sense the conditioning energy of the Hierarchy.

  c. The work with the subhuman kingdoms of nature is under the energy stimulation of the first Buddha of Activity.

  Each of these great energising Lives works through certain Masters and Initiates of the sixth initiation; these Masters work in full consciousness upon the atmic plane, the plane of the spiritual will; from that high level, They function as transmitting agents for the energy of one of the three Buddhas of Activity. These three Buddhas are the creative Agents of the planetary Logos and are Wielders of the Law of Evolution.

  3. The ashramic group of which the initiate is a part and within which his influence or spiritual radiation is increasingly felt.

  The awareness of the initiate and his ability to work consciously within this triplicity of groups becomes the major objective of all his efforts, once the third initiation is left behind. His magnetic radiation and the expression of his controlling energies-prior to this stage of unfoldment—is [588] that of the soul, working through the personality. After the third initiation this radiation
and the energy expressed become increasingly monadic and subject to three stages:

  1. The stage wherein the lowest aspect of the Spiritual Triad (that of the abstract mind) becomes potent as the conveyor of ideas; these are transformed by the initiate into ideals for the service of humanity.

  2. The stage wherein pure reason, plus the spiritual will, makes him an effective server of the Plan and a transmitter, in a progressive manner, of the Purpose underlying the Plan.

  3. The stage wherein pure monadic energy pours through him, focussing the will-to-good, as registered by the Hierarchy, and the sense of universality (not a vague phrase, but a specific potency) upon the physical plane. A close study of these developing ranges of activity and of expanded consciousness will indicate why and how our planetary life is one immense synthesis of ordered activity.

  The ray energies, utilising the created form world and the “world of formless forms” (that is, the cosmic etheric levels of activity), constitute a great and applied process of initiatory activity, governing, controlling and conditioning every expression of divine life in all the kingdoms of nature—subhuman, human and superhuman. It is into this world of active moving energies that the initiate penetrates and within which he must consciously play his part. As you well know, the work of the aspirant today is to become a conscious, self-controlled and spiritual worker in energy within the ring-pass-not of the three worlds and—as I have frequently pointed out—to function, first of all, in control of his physical instrument, demonstrating this at the first initiation and during the succeeding initiatory processes; secondly, to control his emotional, feeling nature, demonstrating that control at the second initiation; at the third initiation, he has to bring into visible activity the mental element, and thus function in the three worlds as a soul-infused personality, utilising the illumined mind as the fusing and synthesising factor. These things [589] accomplished, he can—again in full consciousness—begin to be active as “a radiating point of crisis and a producer of the needed tension.”

  These three groups are essentially points of planetary tension and are producers of crisis in the lives of the individuals influenced and in the Hierarchy, as well as in the planetary life. Thus the conditions are created which make evolution possible. Some day the story of the evolutionary process will be written by an initiate of the great White Lodge, from the angle of its points of crisis and the subsequent points of tension. This enables the living forms, under this dual impact, to emerge into larger areas of consciousness. Each kingdom in nature can itself be regarded as a point of tension within the sphere of Being of the planetary Logos, and each—in time and space—is in process of generating those points of crisis which will produce a potent (and often sudden) moving forward upon the Path of Evolution. Humanity is today, in its present situation as a point of planetary crisis, generating such a point of tension that it will shortly be enabled to move forward into the new age dispensation, culture and civilisation. The study of the individual aspirant parallels this.

  These thoughts and ideas must be borne in mind as we study the remaining three major initiations confronting average humanity.

  Initiation III. The Transfiguration. Ray V.

  The Energy of Concrete Knowledge.

  As all disciples have to be focussed on the mental plane and must operate from that level of consciousness, the understanding of this type of consciousness is one of major importance. It is glibly and most easily said that disciples and (necessarily so) initiates must use the mind, and that their polarisation must be mental. But what does this mean? Let me give you some concise definitions of this ray energy, leaving you to make your own individual application, and from your study of these concepts anent the mind, learn to gauge your own mental condition. [590]

  1. The energy of what is so peculiarly called “concrete science” is the quality or the conditioning nature of the fifth ray.

  2. It is pre-eminently the substance of the mental plane. This plane corresponds to the third subplane of the physical plane, and is therefore gaseous in nature—if you care to use its correspondence as a symbol of its nature. It is volatile, easily dispersed, is the receptive agent of illumination, and can be poisonous in its effect, for there are undoubtedly conditions in which “the mind is the slayer of the Real.”

  3. This energy is characterised by three qualities:

  a. The quality which is the result of relationship with the Spiritual Triad. We call this “abstract mind” and the impact which affects it comes from the atmic level of the Spiritual Triad, that of spiritual will.

  b. The quality which in this solar system is easily responsive to the major ray of the planet, that of love-wisdom. So responsive is it that—in conjunction with emanations from the three worlds—it has produced the one existent form upon the mental plane. This form (in the planetary sense) is that of the Kingdom of God and, in the individual sense, is that of the ego or soul.

  c. The quality which is basically related to the emanations or vibrations arising from the three worlds; these creatively result in the myriads of thoughtforms which are found upon the lower levels of the mental plane. It might therefore be said that these qualities or aspects of the fifth ray of spiritual energy produce:

  Pure thought

  The thinker or the Son of Mind

  Thoughtforms

  4. This energy (as far as mankind is concerned) is the thoughtform making energy, and all impressions from the physical, etheric and astral planes force it into activity on the level of concrete knowledge, with a resultant kaleidoscopic presentation of thoughtforms. [591]

  5. It is fundamentally the most potent energy at this time in the planet, because it was brought to maturity in the first solar system, that of active intelligence.

  6. It is the energy which admits humanity (and particularly the trained disciple or initiate) into the mysteries of the Mind of God Himself. It is the “substantial” key to the Universal Mind.

  7. It is profoundly susceptible to the energy of Love-Wisdom, and its fusion with the love aspect is given the name of “wisdom” by us, because all wisdom is knowledge gained by experience and implemented by love.

  8. This energy, in its three aspects, is related in a peculiar sense to the three Buddhas of Activity. These great Lives reached Their present state of development in the previous solar system.

  9. This energy, in so far as it is considered as the mental energy of a human being—and this is one of its minor limitations though a major one for a human being—is the higher correspondence of the physical brain. It might be said that the brain exists because the mind exists and needs a brain as its focal point upon the physical plane.

  10. The quality of this energy of concrete knowledge or science is twofold:

  a. It is extraordinarily responsive to impressions coming from some source or other.

  b. It is rapidly thrown into forms in response to impression.

  11. The impressions received come from three sources and are sequentially revealed to man. These three are:

  a. Impressions from the three worlds; these come, first of all, from the individual and then, secondly, from the levels of planetary consciousness.

  b. Impressions from the soul, the Son of Mind, upon the level of mentality itself.

  c. Impressions from the Spiritual Triad, via the antahkarana; these come when the antahkarana is constructed or in process of construction. [592]

  12. This energy is essentially a light-bearer. It responds—again sequentially in time and space—to the light of the Logos. It is for this reason that the mind is regarded both as illumined when higher contacts are present and as an illuminator where the lower planes are concerned.

  13. This energy is (from the human standpoint) awakened and brought into activity through the action of the five senses which are the conveyors of information from the three worlds to the mental plane. It might be said that

  a. Five streams of informative energy, therefore, make their impact upon the concrete mind and emanate
from the physico-astral plane.

  b. Three streams of energy, coming from the soul, also make an impression upon the concrete mind.

  c. One stream of energy—during the initiatory process—contacts the mind. This comes from the Spiritual Triad and utilises the antahkarana.

  14. The energy of this fifth ray might be regarded as the commonsense, because it receives all these impacts of varying energies, synthesises them, produces order out of the many ceaseless impacts and interprets them, thus creating the multiplicity of forms to which we give the name of “world thought”.

  15. This energy transforms the divine ideas into human ideals, relating the knowledges and sciences of humanity to these ideals, thus making them workable factors in human evolution, its cultures and civilisations.

  There is much more that I could add, but the above gives you a series of simple definitions of value as you study the mental unfoldment of the disciple, as he undergoes the initiatory process which is our theme at this time. It also throws light upon the ray effects upon humanity as a whole. This ray energy is indeed sadly concrete in its expression in our Aryan race—a race, however, which will see more people take initiation than ever before in human history, and which will, in a peculiar sense, see the descent of the Kingdom of God to Earth as a result of the ascent of so many upon the ladder of evolution. Just as the disciple [593] or the initiate is a soul-infused personality, so will humanity—upon the physical plane—be also soul-infused, thus precipitating the Kingdom of God and giving birth to a new kingdom in nature. This great spiritual descent will be prefaced (if I may use such a word) by the appearance of the Christ among the peoples of the world and by a stupendous inflow of love-wisdom. There is a tendency in the minds of esotericists always to refer to the great lines of force: 1-3-5-7 and 2-4-6. I would have you remember with still greater emphasis the relation of rays II and V and of the second plane, the monadic plane, and the fifth plane, the mental plane; it is the relation of these major energies which makes the initiation of the Transfiguration possible.