The Rays and the Initiations

by Alice A Bailey

  Initiation has been defined as “a progressive sequence of directed energy impacts.” These impacts are characterised by points of tension, and these lead inevitably to points of crisis; the whole process is governed by the Law of Cause and Effect. It is this latter point which I seek now to emphasise, because it has a definite and mysterious relation to this sixth initiation. The Master, as He makes His decision and chooses one of the seven Paths which unitedly form the planetary antahkarana, is forced thereto by the accumulation of past karma. All evil karma has necessarily been worked off, but His accumulated good karma makes His final decision inevitable; from that instant of decision He stands entirely free and liberated from all aspects and all forms of planetary karma, which is greater and more vast than his little individual karma, be it good or bad. He is then—in Himself—the summation of all past experience. Unless He deliberately chooses the Path of Earth Service and decides to remain within the field, scope or influence of the planetary Life, He faces a solar or a cosmic future of which He knows relatively little, but for which the Path of Evolution, the Path of Discipleship and the Path of Initiation have fitted Him. Even He does not know the conditions into which His “decision” commits Him, or those into which He will have to penetrate; He does know, however, and “appropriates the fact and the faculties” (as one Master has expressed it) of complete revelation and future opportunity.

  You have oft been told that there are four Lords of Karma associated with the Council Chamber at Shamballa. They represent—in Their totality—the three Rays of Aspect, and one of Them represents the four minor Rays of Attribute. It is the Lord of Karma Who implements the destinies of Those Who are conditioned by the third Ray of Active Intelligence (and this is ever the case with Those Who are taking the sixth initiation) and Who—symbolically speaking—”wipes clean the slate” of this particular group [725] of initiates at this particular time. Karma no longer holds Them.

  The revelation accorded to the Initiate in the first stage of the initiation gives Him a complete picture “in a flash of endless time” of the processes which have brought Him to this creative moment of decision. Immediately He achieves a point of tension which He will continue to hold until the final or ninth initiation, the Initiation of Refusal, wherein He rejects, refuses or repudiates His entire past and enters upon His chosen path entirely “free of recollected concepts, but exhibiting to Those Great Lives Who welcome Him upon the new and untried path all that He is and the essence of His Being.”

  In dealing with these higher initiations of which I myself have no experience, there is naught for me to do but clarify your minds, and mine also, through the use of ancient phrases and the oral teaching which is permitted to escape into the minds of men.

  The point of crisis which ever follows the attainment of tension is the expressed moment of the final decision. Then follows the revelation of what may be, and the initiate knows that he faces the final resurrection and that from being the eternal pilgrim or the planetary wanderer, he now becomes a fixed point upon another cosmic plane, for the physical is, for him, eternally left behind.

  This initiation is therefore governed by the third ray, the Ray of Intelligent Activity. This ray is closely related to the mental plane of our planetary life, to the Law of Fixation and the Law of Cleavages. Much anent this I have written earlier, and a search for the significance of certain passages in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire may bring enlightenment. Fixation is not permitted to the eternal pilgrim upon our little planet, the Earth, but when that is left behind entirely at the ninth initiation the initiate becomes a “fixed or stationary point of light within his chosen Place, the Place of the Most High and the point of fire upon the mountain-top. From that point he will no more go out.”

  [726] The concept of cleavage is latent here also. The Master severs all connection with the past and with the planet, but never with the One Life which permeates all spheres and forms of being, which makes possible all states of consciousness and leads to endless activity.

  Creativity was one of the three words which I gave you earlier (see page 340) in connection with this sixth initiation. The final four initiations are all distinguished by a “revelation in the living light.” At the sixth initiation the Master is brought to an understanding of the nature of creation, of the reason for the intelligent manifestation of substantial forms and their creation to provide forms for Being and for Life, and of the quality of that which He—in the future—must and will create. At the seventh Initiation of Resurrection, He is accorded a revelation of the quality which must express itself through all created forms: the quality of love-wisdom which has animated our planetary Logos and is the basic quality of our entire solar system. In other spheres and in other solar systems and on other cosmic planes, other qualities, unknown to us, may be demonstrated by the appropriate initiates; but those who attain resurrection and liberation upon our planet will always be spiritually qualified by divine love, and that will also be the underlying quality of all that they may later create when freed from our planet. You can see, therefore, why the phrase “God is Love” is really our planetary keynote.

  At the eighth Initiation of Transition the purpose of all our planetary activity is revealed to the Master, and all Masters or initiates of this eighth initiation (working either through the Hierarchy or in Shamballa) are needed at this initiation so as to stimulate the point of tension of the new initiate in order to make the revelation possible.

  It might be said that They act like a lens through which the living light flows which makes the revelation possible, and They also fulfill the need of acting as a protecting factor. This protection is needed because at this initiation the initiate is shown not only the eternal good [727] underlying planetary purpose, but he is allowed “to see that which is hidden behind the fast sealed door and be in touch with cosmic evil for it can no longer hurt him.” He needs nevertheless the protection of Those with Whom he has fitted himself to associate. What the planetary purpose is I know not; when I say that part of the purpose is to liberate light and love into a wider universe and to free the solar system from the attacks of cosmic evil, I am stating a truth, but a truth which remains as yet meaningless to those who have not been put in touch with the completed purpose; it remains a mystery, for the true nature of light, the mystery of electricity, the constitution of the good, the beautiful and the true, the origin of evil, the nature and purpose of the Black Lodge, the place which that Lodge plays within the divine scheme of being, are all unknown to you in their essential significance. Remember that when a Member of the Hierarchy uses the word essential, He does not mean (as you oft do) that which is needed or necessary; He is referring to the inmost essence which is found at the heart of all things—both the good and the evil. Therefore, when I say to you also that at this eighth initiation the nature and the purpose of duality is revealed to the initiate, it is again meaningless.

  At these three final initiations, therefore, the significance of creation, of quality and of purpose are successively revealed to the Master, and that which makes the revelation possible is not only the action of the One Initiator and of the initiating group (when such a group is required), but the major factor is the developed sensitivity of the initiate himself—a sensitivity which has developed through many aeons of lives and of vital experience.

  The objective of the evolutionary process to which all lives on our planet have to submit has been to develop this sensitivity which will make revelation possible, and it might be said that (from one definite angle) the goal of all experience has been revelation—each revelation “carrying the initiate closer to the Heart of the Sun wherein all things are known and felt, and through which all forms, [728] all beings and all things can be bathed in love.” Ponder on these words, for the microcosmic correspondence to the macrocosmic fact is full of teaching value. See to it that “each lesson learned each day, each revelation grasped and understood, makes your heart full of love and enables you to love your fellowmen with ardent, fiery war
mth.” I am quoting some ancient aphorisms for disciples.

  At the ninth Initiation of Refusal, the revelation presented to the Master concerns the nature of Being and of existence. There is naught I can say to you which could be in any way explanatory of Being, for Being is related to THAT which creates, to the universal point of planetary or solar Life which is, and has ever been, responsible for the life of all forms from the greatest manifestation to the smallest. When that revelation is accorded to the initiate, he for the first time receives his initial contact with what is called in the occult and esoteric books “the Central Spiritual Sun.” He realises for himself that those words concern a basic fact and are related to the purpose of the solar system, just as “the Heart of the Sun” revealed to him the quality of the solar system. When it is realised that our planetary purpose is mysteriously related to the revelation of love upon our little planet, the Earth, through the process of creation, the concept emerges that there is the probability that our planet has a unique relation to the Heart of the Sun. There are many hints for you in what I have said; they are hints to me also, only I can bring to their expansion into ascertained fact a wider knowledge than is as yet your possession.

  There is little more that I can say anent this crucial and decisive sixth initiation. It embodies the Master's recognition of liberation, and in its processes He demonstrates that liberation by making free decision anent His future state of Being and of purpose. The future, for the average person and for the average disciple, is contained within his past and is implemented in his present. This is not so with the initiate of the sixth initiation. He is entirely liberated from his past; the Law of Karma no longer [729] has any hold over Him; He makes free decision, and His future is decided by Him not on the basis of its inevitability or as providing Him with a field in which to work off karma, but on the basis solely of qualification for service. This creates a very different situation. The decision once made is a fixed decision, and there is no turning back or relinquishment of it, nor (so free is the Master from all possible hindrances) is there any desire to turn back or possibility that He could do so.

  The remaining three initiations demonstrate these points still more clearly and definitely, and the light in which the initiate walks waxes ever brighter and brighter. Light reveals to him the nature and the purpose of the cosmic etheric physical planes (the four highest planes of our planetary Life); this light brings to his attention the nature of certain extra-planetary conditions, and for the first time these become factual to him and not simply hypothetical; the light reveals to him his future opportunities once his final choice or decision is made, and—as said above—it also reveals to him the nature of divine purpose as our planetary Logos conceives it under the inspiration of the solar Logos.

  He can now express himself fully upon the monadic plane, the plane of universal life; the great heresy of separateness has slipped away from him and he knows nothing but love, unity, spiritual identification and a universal awareness. Because of this, he can become a creator, for creation is the expression of life, love and purpose, and all these three he can now understand and fully express.

  He is now an intelligent cooperator with the Building Forces of the planet and also of the solar system, and upon his chosen ray he will carry out his creative intentions.

  Initiation VII. The Resurrection

  There is no idea more cultivated subjectively by humanity than that of the resurrection; when life seems hard and circumstances carry in them no grounds for happiness, and when nothing calls to one of such a nature that one [730] goes forth happily to the day's enterprises, and when the nights of sleep are haunted nights, the thought of rising up and out of all these circumstances, of leaving all behind and of entering into a new life, carries with it strength and hope. In the West, the Festival of the year which is regarded as of the most importance is that of Easter Day—the Day of Resurrection. Yet two thousand years ago the Christ did not rise out of a rocky sepulchre and re-assume His discarded body. He passed through the great seventh initiation which we will consider today, and knew the secret of life, of which immortality is only one of its many attributes. Humanity lays emphasis so frequently upon attribute, quality and reactions, and not upon that which is the basic underlying reality; men deal with effects and not with causes; for instance, mankind is concerned with war and with horrified preparations for more war, and is not primarily occupied with that which causes war and which, if rightly handled, would prevent war. Let us consider some few aspects of the seventh initiation.

  The word “resurrection” has deep significance latent in its derivation and one that is not often emphasised. The usual interpretation has been that the word comes from “re,” again, and “surgere,” to rise, therefore to rise again. Yet a consultation with the dictionary shows that the prefix means “back to an original state” by rising. This return to an original state is pictured for us in The New Testament under the story of the Prodigal Son, who said “I will arise and go to my Father,” and by the story of the resurrection in which the Master Jesus arose out of the tomb; the chains of death could not hold Him. At that time of His “rising,” a far more important event took place and the Christ passed through the seventh Initiation of Resurrection and returned back to His original state of Being—to remain there throughout all the eternities. This is the true and final resurrection. The Son of God has found His way back to the Father and to His originating Source, that state of Existence to which we have given the name Shamballa. The consciousness of the Universal Life is His: this [731] is far more than simply the consciousness of immortality, because the idea or concept of mortality is not contained within it at all. There have been many deaths within the aeonial life cycle of the initiate:

  1. The familiar and constantly recurring death of the physical body, incarnation after incarnation.

  2. The deaths of the astral and the mental vehicles, as the undying soul discards them life after life—only to create new ones until mastery is attained.

  3. Then—as a result of the incarnating process and its evolutionary effects—there comes the death of desire and its replacing by a growing spiritual aspiration.

  4. Then, through right use of the mind, comes the “death” of the personality or, rather, its repudiation and renouncing of all that is material.

  5. This is followed by the death or destruction of the causal or soul body at the great Initiation of Renunciation. This process of death and resurrection goes on ceaselessly in all the kingdoms of nature; each death prepares the way for a greater loveliness and livingness, and each death (if you analyse it with care) prefaces resurrection in some form or another until we come to this final resurrection and into the position of final attainment.

  I will not here elaborate upon this process of constant death followed by constant resurrection, but it is the evolutionary keynote and the evolutionary technique, and only because men love unduly that which is material and hate to lose contact with the form aspect of nature do they fear death. It is wise to remember that immortality is an aspect of the living spiritual being, and is not an end in itself, as men seek to make it. To the Knowers of Life such a phrase as “I am an immortal Soul” is not even true. To say “I am Life Itself and, therefore, am immortal” approaches closer to the truth, but even that sentence is (from the angle of the initiate) only a part of a larger truth. Symbolically, nature is ever portraying to us the essential facts in the annual progress of the four seasons, in the cycles of light and dark and in the wonder of the emergence of beauty or [732] colour or useful function out of a seed which has struggled—because of its inherent life—into the light of the sun.

  The fear of death is one of the great abnormalities or distortions of divine truth for which the Lords of Cosmic Evil are responsible. When in early Atlantean times they emerged from the place where they had been confined, and forced temporarily the retirement of the Great White Lodge to subjective levels, their first great act of distortion was to implant in human beings fea
r, beginning with the fear of death. From that time on, men have laid the emphasis upon death and not life, and have been ridden by fear all their days.

  One of the initial acts of the reappearing Christ and of the Hierarchy will be to erase this particular fear and to confirm in peoples minds the idea that incarnation and the taking of a form is the true place of darkness to the divine spirit which is man; it is death to the spirit temporarily, and imprisonment. Evolution, men will be taught, is in itself an initiatory process leading from one living experience to another, culminating in the fifth Initiation of Revelation and in the seventh Initiation of Resurrection.

  At the fifth initiation it is revealed to the initiate that life in form is indeed death, and he then knows this truth in a manner which my few short words cannot convey. Form dies for him and he knows a new expansion of life and undergoes (if I may so express it) a new understanding of living. The seventh initiation is divorced from all considerations of form, and the initiate becomes a concentrated point of living light; he knows in a manner indescribable that life is all that IS, and that it is this life and its real fullness which makes him a part of THAT which lies outside of our planetary Life; he may now share in that extra-planetary Existence in which our planetary Logos lives and moves and has His being. This is the “life more abundantly” of which Christ spoke and which only an initiate of the seventh degree can understand or convey.

  After the fifth initiation, the initiate has slowly been sensing the nature of this greater Life, the Life of “The [733] Unknown God,” as it has been called, which enfolds all livingness and all forms upon and within our planet and yet remains—greater than our planetary Life, more all-encompassing than is our planetary Logos, and Whose greatness, beauty, goodness and knowledge are to our planetary Logos what His life is to the lowest form of life in the third or animal kingdom. It is only by such inadequate comparisons that one can arrive at some faint comprehension of that great WHOLE in which our planet and our planetary Logos are but a part. It is this revelation which is accorded to the initiate at this seventh Initiation of Resurrection. He takes this initiation upon what (for lack of a better phrase) we call the “logoic plane,” or on the level of consciousness of the Lord of the World.