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The Rays and the Initiations - Part Two - Section One - The Aspirant and the Mysteries of Initiation
The Construction of the Antahkarana - Past In connection with this there is no need for elaboration, as it must be obvious that only the man who is the product of a very long and fruitful past experience is equipped to undertake the task of bridge building. The process involves much scientific experience in the art of living, and only the highly trained human enquirer can soundly and safely build the bridge between the highest and the lowest. Each of the major human races has been responsible for the expression and the employment of the threads which together form the antahkarana: 1. In ancient Lemuria, the life thread, the sutratma per se, was the dominant factor in the life expression; the physical body, the animal form nature, and the dense outer factor was the focus of life exuberant, productive and vital. 2. In old Atlantis, the consciousness thread began to function in a way unrealized in Lemuria. Sensitivity, awareness and - as a result - desire and reaction were the keynotes. Active sensitivity as a prelude to full consciousness distinguished the human being. The astral vehicle was a controlling factor. The mind was relatively quiescent, except where the foremost members of the human race were concerned. The humanity of that world cycle were, however, all of them extremely psychic and mediumistic; they were "sensitives," in the modern use of the term. The state of awareness was astral, and human beings were - as a race - clairaudient and clairvoyant, though in no way able to interpret that which they contacted; they were not able to distinguish astral phenomena from ordinary physical life (particularly in the middle period of their racial history), and the interpreting mind revealed nothing to them. They [478] simply lived and felt. Such was their life history. Two of the threads were functioning; one was not functioning at all. The bridge was not built. 3. In our modern Aryan race - modern as far as racial histories are concerned - the third thread, the creative thread, comes into active expression and use. I would remind you that all these threads exist from the beginning of human existence, and that all these three streams of energy have been indissolubly present from the beginning of human consciousness. But for the greater part of human history, up to the present, men remained unaware of them, and quite unconsciously made use of and continued to make use of their presence. The process of recognizing creative ability and of opportunity falls into two phases or stages: The stage wherein the mind principle is developed and unfolded and man becomes a mental creature. This produces the full activity of the mental unit, the integration of the three aspects of the personality, and the consequent awareness of the Son of Mind or soul. The stage of creative activity wherein the creative thread is brought into full use. This personality use of the thread - as distinguished from racial use - is characteristic of the Aryan race. It is only during the past five thousand years that it has gradually become the outstanding quality of mankind. In the other two races, and in the early stages of the Aryan race, although great creative monuments appeared everywhere upon the planet, they were not the product of the minds of the men of the time, but were the imposition of the creative will of the planetary Hierarchy upon those who were sensitive to the higher impression. The responsive sensitivity to creative impression was the outstanding quality of the later Atlantean consciousness and of the early Aryan period. It is today giving place to individual creativity, and consequently to the conscious creation of the bridging [479] antahkarana, which is the outcome of the fused and blended threefold thread. This brief summation of the past process is intended simply to give a synthetic background to all the work now to be done, and to convey to you an almost visual concept of the method whereby man has reached the stage of conscious life, of full self-awareness and creative expression. All of these were the expression of divine energy as it poured into his mechanism, via the silver thread of divine potency. This might be regarded as a threefold demonstration of the vertical life which becomes the horizontal life through the expression of creativity. Man then indeed becomes the Cross. When, however, he succeeds in constructing the rainbow bridge (which can only be done when man is upon the Fixed Cross), then finally the Cross gives place to the line. This takes place after the fourth initiation - that of the Crucifixion. There remains then only the vertical line "reaching from Heaven to Hell." The goal of the initiate (between the fourth and the seventh initiations) is to resolve the line into the circle, and thus fulfil the law and the "rounding out" of the evolutionary process. Another summation of the entire process may be found in the lines from Stanzas for Disciples which I gave out some time ago (June 1930) and which will also be found elsewhere in this volume. "In the Cross is hidden Light. The vertical and horizontal in mutual friction create; a vibrant Cross scintillates, and motion originates. When the vertical assumes the horizontal, pralaya supervenes. Evolution is the movement of the horizontal to upright positiveness. In the secret of direction lies the hidden wisdom; in the doctrine of absorption lies the healing faculty; in the point becoming the line, and the line becoming the cross is evolution. In the cross swinging to the horizontal lies salvation and pralayic peace."
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