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The Rays and the Initiations - Part One - Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation
This injunction is worded as follows: Let Transfiguration follow Transformation, and may Transmutation disappear. [278] I would here remind you that in these fourteen rules we must approach our theme from the angle of the initiate-consciousness and not from that of the blended soul-personality consciousness. It is the higher approach which is here indicated, the problem of the initiate-group and not that of the individual within the group. Hence the great difficulty in putting any of these teachings into words. To the average aspirant to accepted discipleship, the three words which distinguish this third major injunction (but which symbolically constitute the fifth injunction in the rule) might be defined as follows: The ideas conveyed are those of an aspirant to the Mysteries as he faces initiation. Let us take these words in the order given in Rule XIII. Transfiguration - that stage upon the Path of Initiation wherein the third initiation is undergone, wherein the personality is irradiated by the full light of the soul and the three personality vehicles are completely transcended; they have become simply forms through which spiritual love may flow out into the world of men in the salvaging task of creation. Transformation - the evolutionary process which is carried on upon the Path of Discipleship, in which the disciple transforms his lower threefold "appearance" or personality and begins to display divine "quality." His physical body becomes obedient to the dictates of his mind, which is becoming responsive to the higher mind through the medium of the soul; his emotional nature becomes the receptacle of buddhi or of the intuition; then, after the third initiation it disappears altogether, and the buddhic vehicle becomes the main instrument of sentiency. The mind, in due course, is equally transformed by impression from the higher mind, as it endeavors to implement the will nature of the Monad. Transmutation - the method whereby that which is lower is absorbed by the higher, whereby force is transmuted into energy, whereby the energy of the three lower centers is carried up into the three higher centers (head, heart and throat) and which later enables the initiate to [279] centralize all the energies in the three directing centers, in the head. This transmuting process goes forward under the pressure of daily life experience, under the magnetic effect of soul contact, and as the inevitable result of evolution itself. All these three spiritualizing processes are well known, in theory at least, to all spiritual aspirants; they are expressions of soul-personality intention and effective interplay; they also constitute a paralleling activity to the task of building the antahkarana, as modes of alignment play a large part in the process of transmutation. It is not, however, with these attitudes, processes and interpretations that the initiate is concerned, but with the significance of these processes in terms of the completed antahkarana and from the point of view of the "angle of intention" of the Monad. In other words: What do Transfiguration and Transformation signify to Members of the Hierarchy as They face the Way of the Higher Evolution? What can these words imply to Those for Whom the soul, the mediating principle, no longer has any factual significance? Consider for a moment that the initiate who has undergone the first major initiation (the Transfiguration) and the two initiations of the threshold (the Birth and Baptism of the Christian Mysteries) has created the antahkarana in order to establish direct relation between the Monad and the personality, between the center of universal awareness or identification and the form-expression in the three worlds. The antahkarana is constructed and constitutes an active channel of contact. The soul which has for ages directed the various and varying personalities is no longer in existence; the causal body has disappeared, shattered at the moment when the initiate (at the fourth initiation) cries out and says: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" The Temple of Solomon, the spiritual temple "not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens," is no longer required; it has served its ancient purpose, and that which has been deemed eternal must disappear in the light of [280] That to which eternity is only a phase of that which shall later be revealed. All that now remains for the initiate are the two points of living purpose to which we give the names of spirit-matter or life-appearance. The lesson ahead of the initiate is to realize the inner meaning (not the obvious and easily grasped meaning) that spirit is matter at its highest point, and matter is spirit at its lowest. This involves the free interplay of life-energy, consciously applied as the result of agelong processes, and matter-force, via the antahkarana. The "rainbow bridge" becomes a channel for the impact of monadic or life energy upon substance, so that substance, taking form under the cyclic intention of the planetary Logos, may become increasingly colored or qualified by the energy of universality. You can see from the above somewhat involved sentences how inadequate is language to express the understanding and the intention of the Hierarchy. To the initiate, therefore, the two words, Transfiguration and Transformation, mean something quite different than they mean to a disciple, whilst Transmutation is now meaningless to him, for there is nothing within him which requires transmuting. It might consequently be stated that: Transmutation concerns the expression of the life force upon the three lower planes of human living and evolution. Transformation concerns in a most peculiar manner the three aspects of mind upon the mental plane: The lower mind The son of mind, the soul The higher mind. Transfiguration concerns the life of the Spiritual Triad upon its own three levels of identification. To this might be added the fact that: The three lower planes of transmutation are the dense, liquid and gaseous subplanes of the cosmic physical plane. The mental plane is a unique location (or state of consciousness) whereon or wherein the lower planes are [281] subjected to impression from the three higher. The higher three and the lower three are subjected to a definitely esoteric and mysterious process, and it is on this plane that the work of transmutation is completed - from the angle of the initiate. The three planes of the Spiritual Triad are the spheres whereon transformation goes forward. This transformation has naught to do with the transforming of the personality, but is uniquely related to the interior work of the Hierarchy and the effect of this living, developing intensity upon the Members of the Hierarchy. Five planes are therefore involved in these two phases of the divine work. The two highest planes (the monadic and the logoic) are the planes of transfiguration, from the point of view of the higher initiate. By then the processes of transmutation have dropped below the threshold of consciousness, and though the initiate (working with forms in the three worlds) has his instrument upon the outer physical plane, his own work and hierarchical activity is strictly triadal and monadic, with a steadily growing responsiveness to logoic intent.
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