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The Rays and the Initiations - Part One - Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation
In the familiar words (familiar to all esotericist) which are so often said or chanted at moments of highest spiritual aspiration, the neophyte refers to the time when "we stand where the One Initiator is invoked, when we see His star shine forth." Two ideas then stand forth: the idea of invocation and of the result of that invocation, which is the sudden and unexpected shining forth of the Star. This star is simply a point of vivid light. This invocation, though used as the affirmation of a fixed objective by the aspirant to initiation, is nevertheless a mantram definitely appropriate to the third initiation. It is only effective in its invocative appeal when used in conjunction with a Word of Power. This Word of Power is communicated to the candidate (ever an initiate of the second degree) by the Christ Who has initiated him in the first two initiations but Whose protective aura (in conjunction with the initiate's Master and another Master or an adept of the fourth initiation) is required before the star can shine forth - the focused light of the One Initiator. For the first time the expanded consciousness of the initiate can contact Shamballa and the One Who rules there, the Lord of the World. For the first time, the focused purpose which brought Sanat Kumara into incarnation makes an impact upon the enlightened brain of the initiate, bringing something new and different into his equipment, into his nature and his consciousness. I know not how else to express these ideas. It is a blinding conviction of an unalterable will, carrying all before it, oblivious of time and space, aware only of intensity of direction, and carrying with it two major qualifications or basic recognitions to the initiate: a sense of essential being which obliterates all the actions and reactions of time and [176] space, and a focused will-to-good which is so dynamic in its effect that evil disappears. Evil is after all only an impelling sense of difference, leading inevitably to separative action. The dualities are then resolved in synthesis and, again for the first time, the initiate comprehends the meaning of the ancient words, so inappropriately translated "isolated unity." To him, in the future, there is no light or dark, no good or evil, no difference or separation. The star that has shone forth, veiling and standing between him and the Lord of the World, the Ancient of Days, is seen as the entrance or doorway and as the admitting agency into something other and larger than simply the planetary life. In the earlier two initiations, the Angel of the Presence stood between the disciple-candidate and the Presence. At the later initiations, the Angel of the Presence is the Christ Himself, one with the soul of the candidate (the individual Angel of the Presence). Through the heart of Christ passes the dynamic power of the One Initiator, as a stream of light, stepped down or toned down by the Christ in order that the candidate can appropriate its potency without risk or danger. After the third initiation, the candidate must face the One Initiator alone, with no protective Individual standing between him and the eternal source of all-power. The Christ is present, supporting and attentive. He stands directly behind the initiate so as to arrest and distribute the potency passing through the initiate's body and centers; the candidate is also flanked on either side by a Master. Nevertheless, he faces the Initiator alone and unprotected. Even now, at this much later initiation, he cannot see "eye to eye" - as the phrase goes. He becomes aware of a growing point of light which, from a pin-point of intensest brilliance develops before him into a five-pointed star. At the fourth initiation, it is not a star which shines forth before him, but a triangle; and within that triangle he will perceive an eye regarding him, and for the first time he does see the Most High "eye to eye." At the fifth initiation no [177] symbol or light substance separates or protects him, but he stands before the Initiator face to face, and the freedom of the City of God is his. He is not yet a Member of the Great Council, but he has the right of entrance into Shamballa, and from that point he passes on to a more intimate relation, if that is his chosen destiny. He may not even finally become a Member of the Great Council; that is reserved for relatively few and for Those Who can take even still higher initiations within the ring-pass-not of our planet - a task of profound difficulty. There are other and interesting alternatives, as I have elsewhere told you. The initiate may pass out of this planetary life altogether along one or other of the various Paths by means of which a Master can start upon the Path of the Higher Evolution and for which all that has transpired in the past will have prepared Him. Whichever Way He goes, the Master remains a part of the purpose; He knows forever the secret of the darkness which brings light, and the "inscrutable will of God" is no longer a mystery to Him. He comprehends the divine idea and can now cooperate with it; He has reached a point of realization which enables Him to fathom what lies behind the Plan for which the Hierarchy has worked for aeons. Just as the disciple enters the world of meaning and so can interpret events, just as the Hierarchy works in the world of mediation, applying the Plan which the world of meaning has revealed, so the higher initiate works consciously in the world of purpose which the Plan implements, the world of meaning interprets, and the world of events expresses in sequential order and under the evolutionary Law. The symbol which expresses the door of evolution is the crescent moon; that of the process of evolution - as it affects the material or substantial life of the man - is the waxing and the waning moon - the symbol of growing desire and of the dying out of desire. The symbol of the world of meaning is Light - the light which shines upon the ways of men, interpreting events and bestowing revelation. The [178] symbol of the world of mediation is the revolving Cross, whilst the symbol of the world of purpose is a twofold one: the five-pointed star and then the radiant heart of the Sun. Remember that when we talk and think in symbols, we are placing something between ourselves and reality - something protective, interpretive and significant, but something nevertheless veiling and hiding. After the fifth initiation all veils are rent and naught stands between the initiate and Essential Being.
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