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The Rays and the Initiations - Part One - Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation
In considering this Law of the Supplementary Seven, I would like to point out that the word "supplementary" is of real significance. It brings in a factor of great interest, from the angle of initiation. You must bear in mind that when the antahkarana is constructed and in use, there is consequently a free play of energy in a direct line between the Spiritual Triad and the personality; i.e., between the Monad and its "earthly anchor." You will also remember that the soul body, the form on the higher levels of the mental plane which has "shrouded" the soul, eventually disappears. This, as you know, takes place at the fourth initiation and is one of the best recognized facts in the occult teaching. In the three worlds, the correspondence to this disappearance of the form of the second divine aspect, the soul, is the dissolution of the astral body - the second aspect [162] of the personality. Then the personality stands free from its control. Sensitivity and reaction to contact in the three worlds has been perfectly developed, but it no longer holds the disciple a prisoner. Then, at a later stage upon the Path of Initiation, the causal body also disappears and the initiate stands free in the three worlds. The astral body and the causal or soul body are - in the language of esotericism - supplementary to reality. They have had a temporary reality during the evolutionary process, but (having served their purpose and having endowed man with certain required assets - consciousness, feeling, sensitivity, the ability to establish and register contact) they pass away and the initiate remains, possessed of power over form and a fully awakened consciousness. He is a soul and the fusion is complete. What is true of the individual is true too of the Heavenly Man, the planetary Logos. In the long period of a world cycle there comes a time when the Hierarchy itself, as a body organized and functioning in order to implement certain evolutionary ends, is no longer needed. It is then regarded as "supplementary," and under the Law its life, its potency and its entire consciousness are absorbed into the planetary head center, Shamballa. A great process of abstraction or of withdrawal takes place, covering necessarily a long period of time, and which is consummated only when evolution - as we know it - comes to an end and the planetary Life (again as we know it) also comes to an end. This process of abstraction is always going on. Men become disciples and then initiates. Some stay as hierarchical workers, choosing to work with the planetary forces of evolution. Others pass on into the great Council Chamber of the Lord of the World, and still others pass out of our planetary ring-pass-not altogether. Thus the Law of the Supplementary Seven is ever in force. It functions in the processes going on in the seven centers of the individual man, gathering energy from one center into another until all are centered, controlled and directed in the head. In the stage of what the Hindus call [163] "samadhi" the vital energies from all the centers are concentrated in the highest head center in the etheric body, in the area just above the physical head. Thus the analogy is complete. The processes of abstraction are (as you may thus see) connected with the life aspect, are set in motion by an act of the spiritual will, and constitute the "resurrection principle which lies hidden in the work of the Destroyer," as an old esoteric saying expresses it. The lowest manifestation of this principle is to be seen in the process of what we call Death - which is in reality a means of abstracting the life principle, informed by consciousness, from the form or the bodies in the three, worlds. Thus, the great synthesis emerges, and destruction, death, and dissolution are in reality naught but life processes. Abstraction is indicative of process, progress and development. It is this aspect of the Law of Life (or the Law of Synthesis as it is called in certain larger connotations) with which the initiate specifically deals when wielding the Law of the Supplementary Seven. The group angle of the matter can be seen if you remember that the individual initiate, when wielding this law, draws upon the united energy of the Will as the group is expressing it in "unified rhythm." It is by the use of the "united breath" of the entire group (as much of it as his individual will can assimilate, focus, use and direct) that he augments his own will and its directed force. The breath, as we well know, is the life; this Law is the one wielded by the living or risen Christ, in perfect harmony with the will of Shamballa. Herein lies one of the mysteries of the resurrection initiation about which so little has been told, and it is the very heart of the mystery of the ascension initiation. In this latter initiation the living risen Christ withdraws or abstracts Himself and enters consciously and permanently into the great center, Shamballa. The resurrection and the ascension are the results of the death or destruction of the causal body. It can be seen, therefore, how true the Gospel story is to the purposes of Shamballa. Let us now briefly interpret or rather paraphrase the [164] four sentences by means of which I have sought to embody this law, or as much of it as it is possible to put into words, for the enlightenment of the initiates of the future.
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