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The Rays and the Initiations - Part Two - Section Two - The Aspirant and the Major Initiations
This regulated physical life comes about when the [671] personality is sufficiently integrated and coordinated and the ajna center (the center between the eyebrows) is active and is coming under the control of the soul. This has an immediate effect - automatically induced - upon the gland associated with this center; it becomes a balanced part of the general endocrine system and past imbalance is avoided. Simultaneously, the head center becomes active as a result of the aspirant's mental perception, meditation and service; this brings the allied gland, the pineal gland, into action. All this is again only the ABC of occultism. What is oft omitted from normal consideration is the fact that the increasing activity of these two "points of light within the head" is basically related to what is occurring in the sacral and throat centers, as the transmutative process proceeds and the energies of the sacral center are gathered up into the throat center - without, however, withdrawing all the energy from the lower center; thus its normal activity is properly preserved. The two centers in the head then become correspondingly active; the negative and the positive elements affect each other, and the light in the head shines forth; a line of light, permitting free interplay, is established between the ajna center and the head center, and therefore between the pituitary body and the pineal gland. When this line of light is present and there is an unobstructed relation between the two centers and the two glands, then the first initiation becomes possible. When this takes place, it must not be inferred that the task of transmutation going on between the lower and the higher centers and the relationship between the two head centers is fully and finally completed and established. The line of light is still tenuous and unstable, but it is in existence. It is the energy let loose at the first initiation and distributed into the sacral and the throat centers (via the slowly awakening head center) which brings the transmutation process to a successful conclusion and stabilizes the relationship within the head. This process may take several lives of steadily intensifying effort on the part of the initiate-disciple. [672] Thus the work of magical reformation starts, and it is here that the influence of the seventh ray (which governs the first initiation) enters in; one of the functions of this ray is to bring together soul and body, the higher and the lower, life and form, spirit and matter. This is the creative task confronting the disciple who is engaged in lifting the energies of the sacral center to the throat center and of establishing a right relation between the personality and the soul. Just as the antahkarana has to be constructed and established as a bridge of light between the Spiritual Triad and the soul-infused personality, so a similar bridge or correspondence is established between the soul and the personality, and, in connection with the mechanism of the disciple, between the two head centers and the two glands within the head. When that line of light has related the higher spiritual aspects and the lower, and when the sacral center and the throat center are in true related alignment, the initiate-disciple becomes a creative worker under the divine Plan and a "magical exponent" of the divine building work; he is then a constructive force, wielding energy consciously on the physical plane. He creates forms as expressions of reality. This is the true work of magic. You can see, therefore, that in the creative work three energies are brought into a related activity: The energy concentrated in the ajna center and which is indicative of the personality life. The energy concentrated in the head center as a result of soul activity. The energy of the seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Magic, making possible true creative activity under the divine Plan. There is nothing spectacular to be told anent the first initiation; the initiate-disciple still works in the dimly lit "cave of the spiritual birth"; he has to continue his struggle to reveal divinity, primarily on the physical plane - symbolized for us in the word "Bethlehem" which means the "house of bread"; he has to learn the dual function of [673] "lifting up the lower energies into the light" and - at the same time - of "bringing down the higher energies into bodily expression." Thus he becomes a white magician. At this initiation he sees, for the first time, what are the major energies which he must bring into expression, and this vision is summed up for him in the Old Commentary in the following words: "When the Rod of Initiation descends and touches the lower part of the spine, there is a lifting up; when the eyes are opened in the light, that which must be lowered into form is now perceived. The vision is acknowledged. The burden of the future is assumed. The cave is lighted up and the new man issues forth." That this may be true of all of you who read these words is the prayer and the wish of your friend and counselor.
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