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The Rays and the Initiations - Part One - Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation
The AUM and the Amen are both of them an expression in sound of the principle of active intelligent substance in the divine manifestation, the third aspect, and have served human need in that phase of material and form development. I refer here also to the development of mind or of the mental form. The personality as a whole, when perfected and brought under control of the soul, is the "Word made flesh." The mass of aspirants and of disciples are today learning the meaning of the OM, which is not the Word made flesh, but the Word released from form, and expressing itself as soul-spirit and not as body-soul-spirit. It might, therefore, be said that: The AUM (note that I separate each aspect of this triple sound) brings the soul-spirit aspect down on to the physical plane and anchors it there by the force of its outgoing vibration. Using a symbol to make my meaning clear, it is like "a strong wind that pins a man against a wall and makes free effort difficult." It vivifies form; it intensifies the hold of matter upon the soul; it builds around the soul a confining prison - a prison of the senses. It is the "sound of enchantment," the sound that is the source of glamor and of maya; it is the great beguiling and deceptive energy, the note of the involutionary arc. In it are hid the secret of evil or matter, the uses of form, first as a prison, then as a training ground and as a field of experience, and finally as the expression for the manifestation of a Son of God. The OM rightly sounded, releases the soul from the realm of glamor and of enchantment. It is the sound of [53] liberation, the great note of resurrection and of the raising of humanity to the Secret Place of the Most High when all other Words and sounds have failed. It is not a triple sound as is the AUM, but a dual sound, significant of the relation of spirit and soul, and of life and consciousness. This lost Word, symbolic of the loss in the three worlds (typified by the degrees of the Blue Lodges in Masonry) must be recovered and is in process of discovery today. The mystics have sought after it; the Masons have preserved the tradition of its existence; the disciples and initiates of the world must demonstrate its possession. The Sound is the sole expression of the Ineffable Name, the secret appellation of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, and Who is known to the Great White Lodge through this name. Remember always that name and form are synonymous terms in the occult teaching, and these two words hold the secret of manifestation. The goal of the initiate is identification with all forms of the divine life, so that he can know himself to be an integral part of that Whole and can tune in on all states of divine awareness, knowing for himself (and not just theoretically) that they are also his own states of awareness. He can then penetrate into the divine arcana of knowledge, share in the divine omnipresence and - at will - express the divine omniscience and prepare himself to manifest in full consciousness the divine omnipotence. I am using words which are futile to convey the underlying meaning of the Word. Understanding can only be arrived at when a man lives the Word, hearing its soundless Sound and breathing it forth in a vital life-giving breath to others. The masses are hearing the sound of the AUM and, in their higher brackets, are finding that AUM the expression of something from which they seek release. The aspirants and disciples of the World are hearing the OM and in their personal lives the AUM and the OM are in conflict. This may represent a new idea to you, but it conveys an idea of an eternal fact. It may help you to gain an understanding [54] of this phase if I point out for you that for this first group the OM can be portrayed in the following symbol as expressing the material M nature whereas the second group can be portrayed by the symbol m expressive of the soul enveloped in matter. You will see, therefore, how the teaching leads man progressively onward and how the occult science brings man in touch with great mental reversals and divine paradoxes. For aeons the Word of the soul and the Sound of spiritual reality are lost. Today, the Word of the soul is being found again, and with that finding the little self is lost in the glory and the radiance of the divine Self. This discovery is consummated at the time of the third initiation. The initiate and the Master, along with those of higher rank who are approaching identification with Shamballa, are steadily and ever more clearly hearing the Sound emanating from the Central Spiritual Sun and penetrating all forms of divine life upon our planet - via our Planetary Logos Who hears it with clarity and with understanding - the Sound of the lowest syllable of the Ineffable Name of the One in Whom all the Planetary Logoi live and move and have Their Being, for They are centers in the Life which is expressing itself through the medium of a solar system. You can see how little use there is in my enlarging further upon this. Its sole usefulness is to give an expanding impulse to the consciousness of the disciple and to stir his imagination (the seed of the intuition), so that even whilst occupied in expressing the M and then the m, he will be reaching out after the Sound. Earlier I pointed out that the sound of the AUM, the sound of the OM and the Sound itself are all related to vibration and to its differing and varied effects. The secret of the Law of Vibration is progressively revealed as people learn to sound forth the Word in its three aspects. Students would also do well to ponder on the distinction between the breath and the Sound, between the process of breathing and of creating directed vibratory activity. The one is related to Time and the other to Space and they are distinct from each other; and (as the Old Commentary puts it) "the Sound, the [55] final and yet initiating Sound, concerns that which is neither Time nor Space; it lies outside the manifested All, the Source of all that is and yet is naught." (No thing. A.A.B.)
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