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The Rays and the Initiations - Part Two - Section Two - The Aspirant and the Major Initiations
The Relation of the Seven Rays to the Initiations It will be obvious to you that, as energy is the basis of our entire manifested world, an initiation is a condition of consciousness wherein the fully prepared disciple utilizes the available energies (at the time of initiation) to bring about changes within consciousness of a momentous and revelatory nature. Each initiation puts the initiate in a position to control certain related energies and enables him to become increasingly a trained manipulator of those energies; each initiation gives him understanding of the related energy and of its field of activity; each initiation reveals to him the quality and the type of stimulation to be evoked when brought into contact with any particular ray energy; each initiation establishes relationship between the initiate and the ray energy involved, so that gradually [558] (no matter what may be his soul ray or his personality ray) he can work with the quality and the creative aspect of all the rays, though ever retaining a greater facility to work on his own soul ray, and later with the ray of the Monad - one of the three major Rays of Aspect. I would ask you to remember that all human beings must finally express the quality and livingness of one of the three Rays of Aspect, even if - in time and space - their souls may originally be upon one of the four Rays of Attribute. It might be useful here to enumerate the rays, and thus refresh the memory of the neophyte: Rays of Aspect: The Ray of Power, Will or Purpose The Ray of Love-Wisdom The Ray of Active Creative Intelligence Rays of Attribute: The Ray of Harmony through Conflict The Ray of Concrete Science or Knowledge The Ray of Idealism or Devotion The Ray of Order or Ceremonial Magic It is contact with the energy of the third Ray of Active Intelligence or (as it is sometimes called) the "acute energy of divine mental perception" which admits the consciousness of the initiate into the "secrets of the Mind of God." It is the four Rays of Attribute which, in the evolutionary cycle, condition his character (or apparatus of contact) and evoke his essential quality. The three Rays of Aspect enable him to take the four higher initiations - initiations 6, 7, 8, 9 - and are connected purely with Shamballa. The four Rays of Attribute, particularly as they are synthesized through the medium of the third Ray of Aspect, are related more definitely to the Hierarchy, and therefore are related to the first five initiations. The Rays of Aspect are essentially related to the life or will aspect of divinity; the Rays of Attribute are related to the consciousness aspect. Every human being, in the earlier stages of his development (in ancient Lemuria and Atlantis, or possessing [559] today the Lemurian or Atlantean state of consciousness - and there are many such), comes into incarnation upon one of the four Rays of Attribute, because these rays are peculiarly and uniquely related to the fourth kingdom in nature, and therefore to the fourth Creative Hierarchy. During the long, long cycle of the present fifth race, the so-called Aryan race, there came a period (lying now in the far distant and forgotten past) when individuals who had attained a certain state of consciousness transferred on to one of the three Rays of Aspect, according to the predominance of the energy or the line of force which was conditioned by these rays. One of the Rays of Aspect and two of the Rays of Attribute (rays 3, 5, 7) are conditioned by the first Ray of Power or Will, whilst rays 4 and 6 are conditioned by the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. This I much earlier pointed out. A cycle of lives upon the third Ray of Creative Intelligence (as I prefer to call it) always precedes this transference. This ray experience covers a vast period of time. Except in the occult teaching and the Archives which remain in the custody of the Masters, history - as we know it and as it expresses the emergence from primitive and primeval times - does not exist. From the angle of occultism, history only covers the emergence of those cultures and civilizations which are called the fifth root-race, only a small part of it being recognized as Aryan; the latter is simply a modern and scientific nomenclature covering a small period of modern history. The Aryan cycle covers the period of the relation between groups and nations though positing (as a necessary hypothesis) previous but unknown cycles of human living wherein primitive man roamed the earth; or positing sometimes the existence of previous civilizations, which have completely disappeared, leaving behind them faint traces of ancient organized civilizations and cultural remains, plus indications of inter-world relationships of which there is no positive proof; these, it is suggested, must have existed owing to the similarity of architecture, language roots, traditions and the myths of religions. [560] During these earlier periods all human beings were conditioned by the four Rays of Attribute; both as souls and as incarnated persons they were upon one of these four rays. Towards the middle of the Atlantean cycle (untold millions of years ago) the influence of the third Ray of Active Intelligence became exceedingly potent. Certain of the advanced humanity of the period gradually found their way on to, or rather into, the stream of divine energy which we call the third ray. The possibility, therefore, of their becoming integrated personalities was for the first time recognized, and humanly recognized. Such an integration must ever precede conscious human initiation. Forget not my earlier statement that all the Rays of Attribute are focused in and absorbed by the third Ray of Aspect. A study of the charts which I gave and permitted to appear in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire will help you to understand this. They will prove helpful, provided that you remember always that they are only symbolic in nature and constitute attempts to indicate visually a truth.
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