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The Reappearance of the Christ - Chapter V - The Teachings of the Christ
All this flood of information about the mysteries of initiation - some of it indicative of a hidden truth, some of it the fabrications of an aspirational imagination and some commercially instigated - has definitely prepared humanity for the teaching it is believed Christ will give when again here with us in physical Presence. Little as the orthodox Christian may care to admit it, the entire Gospel story in its four forms or presentations, contains little else except symbolic details about the Mysteries which are (as far as humanity is concerned) five in all. These Mysteries indicate, in reality, five important points in the spiritual history of an aspirant; they indicate also five important stages in the progress of human consciousness. This advance will become definite and clear in a manner not understood today, at some point during the Aquarian Age. Humanity, the world disciple (through its various groups all at various stages of unfoldment) will "enter into" new states of awareness and into new realms or spheres of mental and spiritual consciousness, during the next two thousand years. Each age has left a reflection of a modern fivefold development upon it. Four ages have just passed away, astronomically speaking: Gemini, Taurus, Aries, and Pisces. Today Aquarius, the fifth age, is coming into power. In Gemini, its symbolical sign of the two pillars set its seal upon the Masonic Fraternity of the time [127] and the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz - to give them their Jewish names which are, of course, not their real names - came into being approximately eight thousand years ago. Then came Taurus, the Bull, wherein Mithra came as the world Teacher and instituted the Mysteries of Mithras with an (apparent) worship of the Bull. Next followed Aries the Ram, which saw the start of the Jewish Dispensation which is of importance to the Jews and unfortunately of importance to the Christian religion, but of no importance to the untold millions in the other parts of the world; during this cycle came the Buddha, Shri Krishna and Sankaracharya; finally we have the age of Pisces the Fishes, which brought to us the Christ. The sequence of the Mysteries which each of the signs of the Zodiac embodies will be clarified for us by the Christ, because the public consciousness today demands something more definite and spiritually real than modern astrology, or all the pseudo-occultism so widely extant. In the era which lies ahead, after the reappearance of the Christ, hundreds of thousands of men and women everywhere will pass through some one or other of the great expansions of consciousness, but the mass reflection will be that of the renunciation (though this does not mean that the masses will by any means take the fourth initiation); they will renounce the materialistic standards which today control in every layer of the human family. One of the lessons to be learnt by humanity at the present time (a time which is the antechamber to the new age) is how few material things are really necessary to life and happiness. The lesson is not yet learnt. It is, however, essentially one of the values to be extracted out of this period of appalling deprivations through which men are every day passing. The real tragedy is that the [128] Western Hemisphere, particularly the United States, will not share in this definite spiritual and vitalizing process; they are at present too selfish to permit it to happen. You can see, therefore, that initiation is not a ceremonial procedure, or an accolade, conferred upon a successful aspirant; neither is it a penetration into the Mysteries - of which the mysteries of Masonry are, as yet, only the pictorial presentation - but is simply the result of experiencing "livingness" on all three levels of awareness (physical, emotional and mental) and - through that livingness - bringing into activity those registering and those recording cells within the brain substance which have hitherto not been susceptible to the higher impression. Through this expanding area of registration or, if you prefer it, through the development of a finer recording instrument or responsive apparatus, the mind is enabled to become the transmitter of higher values and of spiritual understanding. Thus the individual becomes aware of areas of divine existence and of states of consciousness which are always eternally present but which the individual man was constitutionally unable to contact or to register; neither the mind, nor its recording agent, the brain, were able to from the angle of their evolutionary development. When the searchlight of the mind is penetrating slowly into hitherto unrecognized aspects of the divine mind, when the magnetic qualities of the heart are awakening and becoming sensitively responsive to both the other aspects, then the man becomes able to function in the new unfolding realms of light, love and service. He is initiate. These are the mysteries with which the Christ will deal; His acknowledged Presence with us and the presence of His disciples will make possible a far more rapid development than would otherwise be the case. The stimulation [129] of the objective Hierarchy will be increasingly potent and the Aquarian Age will see so many of the sons of men accepting the great Renunciation that world effort will be on the same scale as the mass education of mankind in the Piscean Age. Materialism as a mass principle will be rejected and the major spiritual values will assume greater control. The culmination of a civilization, with its special note, quality and gifts to posterity, is significant of the reflection of the spiritual intent, and (through its massed populations) of one of the initiations. History will some day be based and written upon the record of the initiatory growth of humanity; prior to that, we must have a history which is constructed around the development of humanity under the influences of great and fundamental ideas. That is the next historical presentation. The production of the culture of any given period is simply the reflection of the creative ability and the precise consciousness of the initiates of the time - those who knew they were initiate and were also conscious of admittance into direct relation with the Hierarchy. At present, we use neither of these two words, civilization and culture, in their rightful sense or with their true meaning. Civilization is the reflection in the mass of men of some particular cyclic influence, leading to an initiation. Culture is esoterically related to those within any era of civilization who specifically, precisely and in full waking consciousness, through self-initiated effort, penetrate into those inner realms of thought activity which we call the creative world. These are the realms which are responsible for the outer civilization. The reappearance of the Christ is indicative of a closer relation between the outer and the inner worlds of thought. The world of meaning and the world of experience will [130] be obviously blended through the stimulation of the advent of the Hierarchy and of its Head, the Christ. A tremendous growth of understanding and of relationships will be the major result.
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