The Sleeper Must Awaken – Dune

I came out of hospital yesterday with a newly fitted prosthetic hip. There remains pain but already I can sense enhanced movement. While I was in hospital I was re-reading “Dune” by Frank Herbert. As I suspected the text differs from some of the screen adaptations. What can be said with some certainty is that Herbert had a wide and vast imagination. To create self consistent “worlds” of that scope and complexity is no mean feat.

The Dune series have had a fairly deep impact upon my life, somehow it struck something of a chord. The observation  of politics religion  and power therein is well considered.  It presents a world in which the power of prophecy has massive impact. Where sayings passed on down are used to change the course of history. In the first book it introduces Paul Atreides the ducal heir and one who might fit the foretelling of Kwisatz Haderach. It shows how seeds of “prophecy” sown by a religious order can be used to manipulate events.

Paul hears perhaps his own Delphic entreaty “the sleeper must awaken”. In which he is in search of his true inner self. In his case this refers to a latent power and skill set . In the narrative he is the first of kind and struggles with what his nascent prescience suggests. He is caught in a perception where time is not distinct, quantised,  where past present and future are to an extent co-extant. This notion that we all might want to wake up to our inner potential is one which is perhaps universal to all of humanity. We need not lead a quasi-religious war simply work on self. In order to fully awaken Paul takes the potentially fatal “water of life”. This is an initiation of some sort after which he is markedly changed.

It is not lost on me that perhaps by analogy my dreams bring snippets of prior lives. I have fallen asleep in between incarnations. And perhaps extrapolating wildly I too need to wake up {some more}.

I am fairly sure that I had no choice in making the life choices I made about two decades ago. No matter how much I may have tried to shoe-horn myself, it just did not work. That was a waking of sorts. I am now at a bit of a watershed. We prepared for this operation over weeks and now there is a little limbo to heal in. In the new year we shall find out if hip number 2 is a goer or not. {It probably is.} It seems mildly anti-climactic for now.

Because I am not really sleeping due to pain, for now I am not dreaming. This may of course change tonight or any night after that. The physio has been and I now ache…

It is kind of weird but I did not feel so drawn into Dune-world this time. The sands of Arrakis were a nice contrast to my LED lit sanitized new hospital room and bed. One minute it was blood pressure measurement next it was a gom jabbar…

The story of initiation and rite of passage is a common one in the arts and literature. It is in the ceremonial magic of award of university degree. The near step function change from before to after is perhaps dramatic. Yet all churches including science have rites. This includes Nobel prizes.

Every time I read Herbert I do wonder at the scope of his inner vision. It was pretty epic.

Expansion of Consciousness and Letting Go

Before I get into this I will take a little diversion. It is to do with karmic “debt” which is another way of simply saying imbalance. If you take more than you give that is unbalanced and ultimately unsustainable. If we “wrong” someone we may feel guilty especially if we are socially caught in so doing, found out, reported to teacher. We may be socially required to say “sorry” even if we do not mean it. It does not change the “wrong” one iota. It is the sort of thing our mothers might require of us if we stole our sister’s Maltesers. It is a social “peace” keeping. It does not change the karma one tiny bit. Until such time we feel it in our hearts to be wrong, we will continue to accrue karmic debt from similar acts. Were the scales to fall from our eyes one fine day we might want to change our ways. We might re-orient our behaviour towards our fellow human beings, try to stop being selfish bellends and do some nice self-less stuff for a change. We would not do this for “show” or PR. Karma does not give a toss about PR. We can never undo a wrong we have meted out to someone nor can we “make it up to them”. What we can do is ensure that we do not inflict that behaviour on others.

Say for example you were to slag me off. You could never undo that. What you could do is make a general effort not to repeat this behaviour, not to inflict it on others. You could strive to be generally more positive and less derogatory. You could balance out your unpleasantness by being more pleasant generally. In so doing you would start to balance your books with the universe. There is no requirement to do anything in respect of me, rather a more general debt to the universe. I personally am unlikely to feel aggrieved or owed. So to try to make it up to me would be silly and probably disingenuous.

Here we have an example of a consciousness expanded away from the petty and personal to the wider and universal. At the moment it seems Trump takes everything personally and vindictively so. His focus is centered on him and does not have a wider universal view. It is all about his personality and his sense of self. He feels hard done by a lot of the time and is prone to playing angry victim.

This sense of victimhood is shared by vast tracts of humanity; they bemoan that life is unfair and complain that things are not as they should be. They imagine life a burden forced upon them. They try to have life on their own terms. If they don’t like how they look they will pay a plastic surgeon to surgically disfigure them. Their consciousness is not expanded beyond their perception of how the meat looks. They are fixated on something arguably silly.

In the blue books opus the Tibetan discusses initiation as a sequential expansion of consciousness, here diagrammatically represented.

In the diagram, the scale is reconfigured at the end of each open cone. The diameters represent the breadth of consciousness and width of inclusiveness. Each successive cone is an order of magnitude increase in breadth of consciousness. The scale is perhaps logarithmic.

According to the text the consciousness of a fifth degree initiate differs very markedly from your normal common or garden human. What might concern them is not the same as the house home heart wallet and genitals of normal people. Normal people worry about a host of mundane things which in the wider evolutionary scheme do not matter very much. Your much sought after promotion in job is of no consequence in terms of your spiritual evolution.

If you think of a snake as it grows and evolves it has a tendency to shed its skin so that it, no longer constrained, can grow. A similar view can be had here. As a person evolves the ways and thought patterns of the old life must be shed. Let go of. So that a newer nascent consciousness can expand unburdened by the habits {bad} of the past. The fresh new skin does not need the scaly old ways to constrain it. This letting go can mean relationships which drag you down or they can simply need recalibrating. Old habits die hard and these are the detritus that needs letting go of.

Being obsessed  with little trite details can prevent the expansion of consciousness. One needs to move from the petty and personal to more universal and joined up. To recognise there is but one life to which we all pertain.

To the would be initiate expansion of consciousness and spiritual evolution are the only goals of merit. They seek to rise above the mundane and not remain trapped in the mire which is often petty and of a deeply personal nature.

Letting go is vital in order to enable expansion of consciousness. Mental skin, rigid self-image must be shed again and again.

You cannot expand your consciousness by keeping the same view of the world you currently have. It acts as barrier to evolution, a ghetto wall which keeps you constrained.

Letting go is a truly vital component to the expansion of consciousness. Letting go vivifies.

The Stage of the Forerunner and Experimentation

In the Blue Books Opus Kuhl suggests that the stage of the forerunner might change into the start to the externalisation of the so-called hierarchy, mooted for this year. He suggests that many experiments would be being carried out in preparation for this externalisation. By this I guess he means some kind of incarnation.  As is well known in military circles no plan ever survives first contact intact. The blue print he provided in that opus is over 70 years old.

Various people around the globe are getting further instructions as it were even though he says that he took the fifth initiation in 1875 as an old man making him something like 200 earth years old today. The scientific establishment is very unlikely to believe in telepathic rapport by / with a being who outlives the Guiness book of records most aged. Common sense suggests a measure of frailty and a lack of truth / reality.

He suggests that many experiments will fail. Each failure providing insight into later method and approach. The gist being that the more initiations some being has taken, the less like common or garden humanity they will be. If I understand it correctly direct physical plane contact would be very uncomfortable for the initiates of higher degree and some are / were being trained specifically to endure this process.

The initiates of first and second degree will have much more in common with “normal” people. Life in the throng would be less uncomfortable.

When a ship sails it is always the prow which bears the brunt. Those engaged in the stage of the forerunner can be likened to the prow. It is those who will carry the brunt of experimental failure. The failure must be irreversible because space-time is unidirectional on the physical plane. These failures will also unleash karma, a failure is a cause and it will have an effect rippling out into the web of life. Those who played a role in causing the failure when give an opportunity to soar, might accrue difficult karma. They missed the boat so to speak, and badly so.

I speculated earlier in this blog that those in power are unlikely to welcome such a putative externalisation. The purveyors of academic knowledge would not be keen on a master of wisdom usurping their deity at university.

At the moment the new president in the USA is not spreading goodwill, he is talking up very materialistic ideology and making retrograde steps pertaining to climate change in order to make more money. He is pushing a divisive and selfish agenda using techniques borrowed from the British in India of divide and rule. He is attracting sycophants from UK politics who want power by association with the don.

This might seem opposite to the light and goodwill flavour of the White Lodge but is does present an interesting backdrop because it makes the need for externalisation even more timely.

The world has changed markedly in the last seventy years.

Kuhl comments that it is only at the third initiation, the transfiguration, that the being on the receiving end is fully conscious of the events and procedure. I can confirm that this is the case because of the events of 26th April 2009. Kuhl implies that there may be first and second degree initiates amongst us, unaware of the fact, yet somehow sensitive and receptive to hierarchical impulse. Those on the lighted path will have goodwill and tend to be less graspingly selfish and materialistic. They probably won’t be nasty and unpleasant.

It might be useful to look at another meaning of initiate. To initiate something is to start something, to take the initiative. It is likely therefore that the initiates mooted by Kuhl will have something of an entrepreneurial mentality, getting things off the ground and starting new groups, new ways. Those who go first are forerunners, they are path finders, explorers and pioneers. It is clear from history that pioneering does not come with a high life expectancy. The status quo never likes new blood, new kids on the block. Pioneering often fails, at least at first. Soon others come.

I speculated earlier some initiates might find their way into academia others into politics dependent upon which ray they are upon. My rough perusal of new age groups associated with the Opus has shown that psychology trained people are interested, there are artists and writers. I have not come upon many physicists, though I know of one other. For some Astrology is a way in. It is not my cup of tea.

The world is tense place just now. There are many problems which humanity is struggling to face / solve. The Elastoplast approach to problem solving or as Johnson called it whack-a-mole is not really working. The change must be much more profound otherwise humanity will continue to fight both metaphorically and on earth, fires.

My prediction is that things will have to get very bad indeed before humanity is ready to face reality and knuckle down to make the hard choices needed. It has gotten vane, distracted and complacent. The just one mouse click away mentality has it taking way too many things for granted.

We shall see if Kuhl’s prediction comes true. According to the Opus the general council of the Great White Lodge is scheduled for the end of this year.

I wonder will it be by Zoom or Cisco Webex this year…

Sacrifice Petals in the Blue Books Opus

Selected extracts following on from the guidance in my dream.


I would point out also that even the black magician possesses these qualities, for they are the sine qua non of all magical art, both black and white; the black magician passes through the door of initiation as it opens twice for the first two initiations. He passes through on the strength of his will and his character accomplishments and because the group conscious aspect of the soul is active in him as in his brother seeking affiliation with the Great White Lodge. The love aspect is, however, lacking in the black magician. Forget not that all is energy and there is nothing else. The energy which is an aspect of the soul and which we call magnetic attraction (the group-building quality) he shares with the spiritual aspirant. He is essentially group conscious, and though his motives are separative, his methods are those of the group, and these he can get only from the soul.

You see again another reason why the first and second initiations are not regarded by the Lodge of Masters as major initiations. Only the third is so regarded, because at that initiation the entire personality life is flooded with energy coming from the Spiritual Triad, via the “sacrifice petals” of the will and purpose aspect of the soul. To this type of energy the black magician is not responsive. He can and does respond to the knowledge – most ancient and hardly won – stored up in the “knowledge petals” of the soul; he can appropriate and utilize the energy of attraction (erroneously called love by some students) stored up in the “love petals” of the soul, but he cannot respond to and use the energy of divine love, working out in the divine Plan which controls all knowledge and converts it into wisdom, and which actuates and clarifies the motive which brings loving magnetic attraction into action and which we call true group consciousness and group cohesion. It is at this point that the two ways – of darkness and of light – become widely divergent. Until the third initiation is taken, glamor may condition the attitude of those seeking to understand the life of a man upon the Path, and they may mistake the spurious for the real. The black magician leads a disciplined life, analogous to that of the spiritual aspirant; he practices purity for his own safeguarding and not in order that he may become a channel for the energy of light; he works with power (the power of magnetic attraction) with and in groups, but he does this for his own selfish ends and for the fulfilment of his own ambitious purposes. But at the third initiation there comes to the true spiritual initiate the revelation which is the reward of perseverance and purity rightly motivated – the revelation of the divine purpose, as the soul records it in terms of the hierarchical plan, though not yet in terms of the Monad. To this purpose and to the loving Will of God (to use a trite Christian phrase) the black brother cannot respond; his aims are different. You have here the true meaning of the oft-used and misunderstood phrase, “the parting of the ways.”

—————

For long, aspirants have noted and have been taught the effect of the will upon the astral, or emotional body. It is one of the primary and most elementary of the initial tensions, and is taught upon the Probationary Path. It leads to the purifying and the reorganizing of the entire psychic and emotional life, as the result of its destructive action. “If you will only think,” “if you will only use a little will,” and “if you will only remember that you have a mind,” we say to the children of the race and to beginners upon the Path of conscious Return. Little by little, then, the focus and the orientation shift out of the astral life and from the emotional level of consciousness into the mental, and consequently into the reflection of the world of purpose, found in the three worlds. When that stage has been somewhat developed, then there follows, upon the Path of Discipleship and of preparation for initiation, an effort to grasp and understand the higher aspects of this mental process, and the will aspect of the egoic life begins to influence the disciple. The “petals of sacrifice” unfold and the sacred sacrificial aspect of life is revealed in its beauty, purity, simplicity and in its revolutionizing quality.

Upon the Path of Initiation, the monadic will (of which the egoic will is the reflection and the individual self-will is the distortion) is gradually transmitted, via the antahkarana, direct to the man upon the physical plane. This produces the higher correspondence of those qualities so glibly spoken of by the well-trained but dense esotericist – transmutation and transformation. The result is the assimilation of the individual will and the egoic will into the purpose of the Monad which is the purpose undeviating and unalterable – of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. This is the field of the true burning, for our “God is a consuming Fire.” This is the burning bush or the burning tree of life of Biblical symbolism. This highest of all the fires, this deeply spiritual and hitherto seldom recognized burning ground, has its effects summed up for us in the next phrase or sentence of Rule I.

Extracted from “The Rays and the Initiations”


Through the application of the Rod of Initiation, the work of separating the spiritual self from the higher self is furthered, and the imprisoned life gradually escapes, whilst the causal body is slowly absorbed or dissipated.

This has led to the expression, sometimes used in occult books, of “the cracking of the causal body” at each initiation, and to the idea of the inner central fire gradually breaking through and destroying the confining walls, and also of the destruction of the Temple of Solomon through the withdrawal of the Shekinah. All these phrases are symbolic wordings, and are attempts to convey to the mind of man fundamental truth from different angles.

By the time the fourth initiation has been reached, the work of destruction is accomplished, the solar angel returns to his own place, having performed his function, and the solar lives seek their point of emanation. The life within the form mounts up then in triumph to the bosom of its “Father in Heaven,” just as the life within the physical body at the moment of death seeks its source, the Ego, and this likewise in four stages:

  1. By the withdrawal from the dense physical body.
  2. By the withdrawal from the etheric body.
  3. By a later vacating of the astral body.
  4. A final leaving of the mental body.

Another way of emphasizing the same truth is to regard the egoic body as a center of force, a wheel of energy, or a lotus, and to picture it as a lotus with nine petals, hiding within these petals a central unit of three petals; these in their turn secrete the central life, or the “jewel in the lotus.” As evolution proceeds, these three circles of three petals gradually unfold, having a simultaneous effect on one or other of the central three. These three circles are called respectively the petals of Sacrifice, Love, and Knowledge. At initiation the Rod is applied to the petals in a scientific manner, and regulated according to ray and tendency. This brings about the opening of the central bud, the revelation of the jewel, the withdrawal of that jewel from the casket which has so long shielded it, and its transference to “the crown,” as it is occultly called, meaning its return to the Monad whence it came.

We must clearly recognize that all the above is but an attempt, through the limiting agency of words, to describe the method and the rites whereby spiritual liberation is finally achieved in this cycle; first, through the method of evolutionary unfoldment, or gradual development, and then in the final stages through the Rod of Initiation.

Extracted from “Initiation, Human and Solar”


c. Third Group of Petals – Sacrifice Petals:

  1. The Petal of Knowledge for the mental plane; its unfoldment marks the period wherein the man consciously utilizes all that he has gained or is gaining under the law for the definite benefit of humanity.
    Each of the groups of petals is distinguished by a predominant coloring; Knowledge, on the physical plane, with the coloring of the other two subsidiary; Love, on the astral plane, with the light of sacrifice weaker in tone than the other two, which practically show forth in equal brilliancy. On the mental plane, the light of sacrifice comes to its full display, and all that is seen is colored by that light.
  2. The Petal of Love on the mental plane is unfolded through the conscious steady application of all the powers of the soul to the service of humanity with no thought of return nor any desire for reward for the immense sacrifice involved.
  3. The Petal of Sacrifice for the mental plane: demonstrates as the predominant bias of the soul as seen in a series of many lives spent by the initiate prior to his final emancipation. He becomes in his sphere the “Great Sacrifice.”
    This stage can be seen objectively to the eye of the clairvoyant as dual in effect:
    • The mental unit becomes a radiant point of light; its four spirillae transmit force with intense rapidity.
    • The three higher petals unfold, and the nine-petalled lotus is seen perfected.

The causal body is then (expressed in terms of fire) a blazing center of heat, radiating to its group warmth and vitality. Within the periphery of the egoic wheel can be seen the nine spokes rotating with intense rapidity and – after the third Initiation – becoming fourth dimensional, or the wheels “turn upon” themselves. (Bible. Ezekiel, 1:15:21.) In the midst forming a certain geometrical triangle (differing according to the ray of the Monad) can be seen three points of fire, or the permanent atoms and the mental unit, in all their glory; at the center can be seen a central blaze of glory growing in intensity as the three inner petals respond to the stimulation. When the fire of matter, or “fire by friction,” becomes sufficiently intense; when the fire of mind, or solar fire (which vitalizes the nine petals) becomes equally fierce, and when the electric spark at the innermost center blazes out and can be seen, the entire causal body becomes radioactive. Then the fires of substance (the vitality of the permanent atoms) escape from the atomic spheres, and add their quota to the great sphere in which they are contained; the fire of mind blends with its emanating source, and the central life escapes. This is the great liberation. The man, in terms of human endeavor, has achieved his goal. He has passed through the three Halls and in each has transferred that which he gained therein to the content of his consciousness; he has in ordered sequence developed and opened the petals of the lotus – first opening the lower three, which involves a process covering a vast period of time. Then the second series of petals are opened, during a period of time covering his participation intelligently in world affairs until he enters the spiritual kingdom at the first Initiation; and a final and briefer period wherein the three higher or inner ring of petals are developed and opened.

——

Let us now continue with our consideration of the petals and Initiation.

Each of the three circles of lotus petals is closely connected with one of the three Halls. This has been earlier referred to. Much of the work connected with the first tier of petals is part of the experience in the Hall of Ignorance. The act of organizing and preparing for unfoldment is the most important stage, and that with which man is the most concerned. The act of petal opening is of briefer duration, and is produced by the pouring in of solar heat or fire, and thus bringing about a fresh access of energy. This is produced in our earth scheme through the cooperation of the Mahachohan, of the Chohan of a man’s egoic group, and the particular Ego concerned.

The following tabulation may be found helpful:

  1. Knowledge Petals – First circle
    1. Organized in the Hall of Ignorance.
    2. Guided by the force and energy of the Mahachohan.
    3. The third group of solar Pitris affected.
  2. Love Petals – Second circle
    1. Organized in the Hall of Learning.
    2. Guided by the force of the Bodhisattva.
    3. The second group of solar Lords affected.
  3. Will or Sacrifice Petals – Third circle
    1. Organized in the Hall of Wisdom.
    2. Guided by the force and energy of the Manu.
    3. The first group of solar Angels affected.

At the stage which we are considering (that of the organization and unfoldment of the first tier of petals), the egoic influence felt at the beginning is but small, but when the three petals become sufficiently active and alive through the energy accumulated and stored up in the ego during the activities of the personal life, a form of initiation then takes place which is a reflection (on a lower plane) of the great manasic initiations. The energy in the outer circle of petals causes it to spring apart from the next circle, and to unfold. This threefold energy becomes interactive and a very definite stage is thus reached. This series of initiations is seldom recognized within the physical brain consciousness owing to the relatively inchoate stage of the bodies, and the unresponsiveness of the brain matter. Yet they are nevertheless initiations of a definite though less important character, and they involve primarily the display (within the personal life of the man) of an intelligent recognition of his group relationships on earth. This recognition is frequently selfish in character, as, for instance, that which the union worker displays, but it is indicative of group interplay.

—————–

Sacrifice involves even more than what has been already pointed out. It involves the following factors:

  1. Knowledge of the purposes and intentions of the planetary Logos,
  2. Realization of the particular and peculiar type of energy, and of the quality of his own Ray Lord,
  3. Comprehension of the different groups of existences who are participating in planetary evolution and in solar manifestation,
  4. A revelation as to certain cosmic enterprises in which our planetary Logos is acting as an intelligent cooperator. Thus is brought in the factor of extra-systemic force.

When all these and other factors are considered, it is evident that the energy set loose in sacrifice to these plans and intentions involves such a vast field of comprehending wisdom that it is not possible for the average man ever to sense it. It deals with the purposes and plans of the Silent Watchers over the three planes – the five, and the seven; it deals with the dynamic force of the great Destroying Angels on all the planes, who will eventually – through the manipulation of the three forms of energy – bring to an end all that is. These angels are a mysterious group of fohatic Lives Who sound forth the trumpets of destruction, and by means of the notes sounded produce that shattering which will set loose the energy of forms.

The second point is very briefly given. It concerns the innermost circle of petals, or that set of three petals, or those three streams of whirling energy, which immediately surround the “jewel in the lotus.” Each of these three petals is related to one of the three circles, and is organized as each of the three circles is unfolded. They form, therefore, a synthesis of knowledge, love or sacrifice, and are closely connected through the type of force flowing through them with one of the three higher centers of the planetary Logos of a man’s particular ray. This central unit of threefold force is dealt with in a specific manner at initiation.

At the first, the second, and the third Initiations, one of the three petals opens up, permitting an ever freer display of the central electric point. At the fourth Initiation, the jewel (being completely revealed) through its blazing light, its intense radiatory heat, and its terrific outflow of force, produces the disintegration of the surrounding form, the shattering of the causal body, the destruction of the Temple of Solomon, and the dissolution of the lotus flower. The work of the Initiator in this connection is very interesting. Through the medium of the Rod of Initiation and of certain Words of Power, He brings about results of a coordinating, transmuting and liberating nature.

Through the action of the Rod as wielded at the first two Initiations, the two outer circles unfold, the energy of the two is set free and the two sets of force as embodied in the six petals are coordinated and become interactive. This stage of petal adjustment succeeds upon that called earlier “unfoldment” and has to do with the simultaneous action of the two tiers of petals. The interplay between the two circles is completed, and the circulation of the force currents perfected. According to a man’s ray and subray, so is the Rod applied to what might be termed the “key” petal. This of course differs according to the unit of force involved. It is of interest to note here that, as the petal substance is deva substance and as the energy of the petals is the energy of certain manasadevas (one of the three higher orders of Agnishvattas) the initiate is over-shadowed (the word is not entirely satisfactory in explaining the type of deva service here necessitated, but it must suffice) by a great deva who represents the equilibrium of substantial vibration which is brought about by the efforts of the initiate, aided by the adepts who present him, and who each represent one of the two polarities of force. This is temporarily stabilized by the Initiator. These three factors,

  1. The representing deva,
  2. The two adepts,
  3. The initiator,

form, for a brief second, a triangle of force with the initiate at the center. Through them circulates the terrific power, the “fire from Heaven,” which is brought down from the higher triad through the agency of the electrical rod.

———-

A similar process takes place when the second circle of petals is organized and ready for unfoldment. This time the World Teacher, the Master and the Ego concerned are cooperating, for these smaller initiations deal with the love nature, with astral or emotional organization, and with the recognition (by the man in his personal life) of some form of unselfish love, and of a love for some object, person or ideal which leads to altruistic endeavor, and to the negation of the lower self.

This brings us to the third group of petals or to the unfolding of the will or sacrifice petals, based on intelligent purpose and pure love. The force in this group calls in a different factor, that of the Manu, as well as the force of the Bodhisattva, and the desired effect is produced through the full cooperation of the fully awakened Ego, aided by his own Master (if he is evolving in a cycle wherein hierarchical effort for humanity takes the form it does in this present one), and the Manu. Eventually (after the second Initiation) the Lord of the World comes in as a factor, – the Lord of world power, fully expressing itself in love.

Speaking generally, therefore, it might be stated that egoic groups in whom the knowledge petals are being organized and unfolded come under the primary influence of the Mahachohan; those in whom the love aspect, or the second circle of petals, is opening come under the primary influence of the Bodhisattva, with the knowledge unfoldment paralleling the work; whilst those in whom the third tier is being opened come under the energy direction of the Manu, with the two other types of force coordinated. It will be apparent to the careful reader that in this fact lies hid the secret of why the Mahachohan holds office longer than either of His two Brothers, holding it as He does for an entire world period. The key to these cycles lies hid in the following thoughts: the Bodhisattva and the Manu change more frequently and pass on to other work owing to the fact that They each embody one type of triple force, whereas the Mahachohan is the focal point for five types of energy, each in its turn triple in nature.

In each case of petal unfoldment, certain types of force are generated, dealt with, assimilated, and used, at first unconsciously and finally with full intelligence.

——-

There is no need to enlarge further on this subject. I would like to enumerate the lines of alignment of the third group which eventually transcends the other two, and effects the final illumination and liberation of the man.

Group III.

  1. The sacrifice Petals.
  2. The sacrifice petals in the two outer groups.
  3. The three major centers in each of the three planes of the three worlds, producing thus absorption of the lower four centers on each plane.
  4. The head center, or the thousand-petalled lotus.
  5. The pineal gland, producing the vivification and irradiation of the entire lower nature.

These three groups of forces in man, when synthesized, produce eventually that perfect coordination and adaptation to all conditions, forms and circumstances which eventuate in the escape of the liberated vital spark. This is technically accomplished when the “bud” opens, and it becomes possible for the Hierophant at initiation to liberate the energy of the Monad, and to direct that energy (through the agency of the Rod) so that eventually it circulates free and untrammeled through every part of the lower threefold manifestation. As it circulates, it destroys by burning, for it arouses the kundalini aspect perfectly by the time the fifth Initiation is taken. The destroyer aspect becomes dominated, and the form is “burnt upon the altar.”

These ideas can also be studied in their larger aspect; a clue to the mystery of cosmic evil may be found in the difference existing between the sacred and non-sacred planets, and in the purpose and place, hitherto unrecognized, of the lives of the informing existences of the many planets and planetoids in the solar system. Some are purely mahatic or of the third Aspect, dominated by the devas. Others (of which the sacred planets are examples) are controlled by the second Aspect, and that second aspect will work through unconquerably into manifestation. A few, like our Earth planet, are battlegrounds, and the two Aspects are in collision, with the indication of the eventual triumph of the “white” magic.

——–

The Sacrifice Petals

The energies or forces flowing through, and thus producing activity in the inner tier of petals, the Sacrifice Petals, are again similar in nature to those already enumerated, plus a definite stimulation of power in two directions.

One stimulating influence comes from the Will Aspect of the Monad, and thus (through transmission) from the first Aspect of the planetary Logos, and the other emanates from the “Sacred Bud which veils the Jewel.” This is a particularly strong vibration because, when the inner circle is unfolded, the jewel is revealed, and the three “veils” or “sacred petals” open successively when the three tiers unfold.

It is thus apparent what numerous energizing agencies are responsible for the “motion,” occultly understood, of the egoic lotus. There is the inherent life of the atomic units forming each petal, and the circulatory life of the petal itself, regarding it as an individual unit. There is likewise the life of the circle of three petals and to this we must add the unified activity of the outer three circles, or the blending of knowledge forces absorbed from the personal self, of love forces which are the natural energies of the solar Angel, and of sacrifice forces pouring in from the Monad. Thus we have a marvelous aggregate of streams of energies, all representing interior and still greater (because cosmic) energies.

Finally, we have the dynamic force of the “Jewel” at the Heart, which is itself the focal point for the life of the planetary Logos, and through the planetary Logos of all the other Logoi.

Thus the potentialities latent in the incarnating jiva are stupendous, and he can become as God, provided he submits to the evolutionary process, and does not “refrain from being stretched upon the wheel.” Thus the expansions of consciousness, which will admit an individual point of spiritual life into the councils, and the Wisdom of the Deity, are no idle promise but are guaranteed by the very constitution of the vehicle employed, and the place in the scheme of the “developing Point,” as the Ego is sometimes called. Naught in time and space can hinder, for every form being simply an expression of energized life, tends to serve every other form. Stimulation of some kind, the tendency to increase the vibration of contacting streams of energy, the accentuation of the activity of each centralized point as it contacts other points in the general heightening of the vibration through the interplay of those forces, all this sweeps the entire system on to its consummation, and to the revelation of the “glory which shall some day be revealed.” (Bible. I. Peter, 5:1.) All these forces form the aggregate of what is called “fohatic life.” As the system, or the body of the Logos, is carried forward through the energy in all its parts, so is each infinitesimal part speeded on to its similar individual glorification. The many which form the All, and the units which constitute the One, cannot be differentiated as the consummation is achieved. They are merged, and lost in the general “beatific light,” as it is sometimes called. We can then extend the concept somewhat further, and realize the cosmic interplay which is likewise being carried forward. We can picture the cosmic stimulation and intensification which proceeds as constellations form the units in the Whole instead of planets or human atoms. Whole suns with their allied systems in their immensity play the part of atoms. Thus some idea may be gained of the unified purpose underlying the turning of the great Wheel of the cosmic Heaven, and the working through of the life purposes of those stupendous Existences Who  hold a position in the cosmic Hierarchy similar to that of the “ONE ABOUT WHOM NAUGHT MAY BE SAID.”

It is not possible to give students an adequate idea of the beauty of the egoic lotus when it has reached the stage of complete unfoldment. The radiance of its color is not here referred to, but the brilliancy of the fires, and the rapid scintillation of the ceaselessly moving streams and points of energy. Each petal pulsates with quivering fire “points,” and each tier of petals vibrates with life, whilst at the center glows the Jewel, raying forth streams of energy from the center to the periphery of the outermost circle.

The fires of living energy circulate around each individual petal and the method of interweaving and the circulation of the fires is (as may be well realized) sevenfold in nature according to the sevenfold nature of the Logos involved. Each circle of petals becomes, as evolution proceeds, likewise active, and revolves around the central Jewel, so that we have, not only the activity of the petals, not only the activity of the living points or the deva lives within the petal circumference, but likewise the unified activity of each tier of the threefold lotus. At a specific stage in evolution, prior to the opening of the central veiling bud, the three tiers of petals, considered as a unit, begin to revolve, so that the entire lotus appears to be in motion. At the final stages the central circle of petals opens, revealing that which is hid, and revolves around the Jewel, only in a contrary direction to the rapidly circulating outer lotus. The reason may not here be revealed for it is hid in the nature of the electric Fire of Spirit itself.

Extracted from “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire”


Some Speculations on the Externalisation of the So-called Hierarchy.

In the blue books opus Kuhl outlines a provisional plan for the externalisation of the so-called hierarchy. As is well known no plan survives first contact intact. The major problem in conceptualising this externalisation is one of timescale. Most people struggle to think beyond the span of a lifetime, some struggle with minutes. What he outlines spans many lifetimes and centuries. He suggests that we are now towards the end of the stage of the forerunner and heading into the initial stages of the externalisation proper. This means that there are probably some young disciples and initiates already incarnate and in the process of maturing.

When I first stating kicking around new age circles in my mid-thirties, I noticed a prevalence of grey hair and a mild condescension towards me, despite the fact that I was a lecturer at a top university. I was a bit scruffy smoked Marlboro and drank Stella. I was not into a cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches followed by a slice of Battenberg cake.

There is a generational problem.

I, for example, don’t get social media and rarely use a mobile ‘phone I am not umbilically linked. Now that the broadband has a landline, I will use the mobile even less if that is in fact possible.

I personally, after living hermit-like, would struggle to relate to anyone in their twenties and they to me.

Many of those who paved the way are getting long in the tooth. I had a look at the board make up of one educational charity, the youngest was six years older than me and all the others were seventy plus. Governance by the elderly without new blood is heading to extinction. It is likely to be out of touch with the times. Staid and dated.

There must be a way of attracting and including younger people if these old organisations are to survive. The basic human problem of personality is that many find it hard to relinquish power. Biden is an example in case.

I’ll speculate that a young upstart initiate will grate against the personality of an older disciple no matter how badly they want to serve. There may be cock waving about initiatory status. Even though Kuhl says that most will be unaware stating that it is only at the third initiation that the initiate is fully aware of the fact and procedure.

How would authority react?

In normal politics one might send Anthony Blinken to discuss with the council of the hierarchy. But I cannot envisage some corporate like entity for him to discuss with. Who would be Trump’s hierarchy liaison pick, Jeff Bezos?

It is likely that suspected members of the externalisation would be kept under surveillance.

It would be a non sequitur that tried and tested “normal” ways of political interaction would be inappropriate. People would struggle to get their heads around just how very different an initiate of high degree might be. There will be transference phenomena in which people would transfer their behaviours and thoughts onto a being which does not share them and whose approach to The One Life is paradigmatically different.

Many of the initial experiments will fail leaving behind personal debris and probably karmic problems. Maltreatment of initiates is possibly karmically costly. Those who are first on the beaches in a landing like Normandy have the highest casualty rate. Slowly through trial and error a modus operandi will be found. Those individuals going first will have crisis and their own progress accelerated.

In my opinion the biggest barrier to a successful externalisation remains orthodox academia and science and engineering in particular. Without the key of proof closed concrete mind cannot be unlocked. I cannot envisage progress unless many incarnate into roles which place them in the academic midst. Those on the second or teaching ray may choose so to do.

“Word” grammar has suggested to me that using phrases which express uncertainty lessens impact. AI is going to be a problem too. Not everything is black and white, sorry Word you are a bit of a knob.

Humanity likes the quick, the flashy and the shiny. There may be an aversion to working across decades to get results, for which there are no like buttons or Trustpilot ratings. Genuine work on self is unlikely to attract a horde of followers or paid subscribers….

Hmn…

Selected Dragon Content in the Blue Books Opus

All of these, unless otherwise stated, are from a Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Djwhal Kuhl and Alice Bailey

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In the fifth round, at its middle point, certain things will eventuate.

The fifth Hierarchy will rise to its full power. This will precede the Judgment Day, and will mark a point of tremendous struggle, for the manasic vehicle “manas” (which they embody) will rebel against the translation of the life within (the buddhi). There will, therefore, be seen on a racial scale and involving millions simultaneously, a repetition of the selfsame struggle which embroils the man who seeks to transcend mind and to live the life of Spirit. This will be the final Armageddon, the planetary kurukshetra, and will be succeeded by the Judgment Day when the Sons of Manas will be cast out and the Dragons of Wisdom rule. This only means that those in whom the manasic principle is over-potent or underdeveloped will be considered as failures and will have to wait for a more suitable period for development, while those who are living the buddhic life, and in whom it is waxing stronger – spiritual men, aspirants, disciples of various degrees, initiates and adepts – will be left to pursue the natural course of evolution on this scheme.

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Second. The goal set before humanity is that of becoming Masters of the Wisdom, or conscious units in the Body of the Dragon of Wisdom or of Love. This a man achieves when he can function consciously in the buddhic vehicle, or when the astral permanent atom is superseded by the buddhic permanent atom.

Third. The next reason is that the second aspect of the Logos (that of love or the manifestation of the love nature of the Logos through the medium of the Son) is the one demonstrated in this system. This system is:

  1. A Son of Necessity, or of desire.
  2. Vibrant to the key of the cosmic Ray of Love.
  3. The form through which this ray of cosmic Love (shown in the interrelation between the Self and the Not-Self, or through duality) is expressing itself.
  4. Governed by the cosmic Law of Attraction. The monads of love are the dominating quality. (I choose this word ‘quality’ specifically.)

Fourth. The center in the cosmic body of the ONE ABOUT WHOM NOUGHT MAY BE SAID of which our solar Logos is the embodied force is the heart center. Here we have one of the clues to the mystery of electricity. The sacred planets, with certain allied etheric spheres within the ring-pass-not, are parts of that heart center, and are ‘petals in the Lotus,’ or in the heart center of that great unknown Existence Who stands to the solar Logos as He in His turn stands to the Heavenly Men Who are His centers, and specially as He stands to the particular Heavenly Man Who is the embodied force of the logoic Heart center. Therefore, it will be apparent to the careful student that the entire force and energy of the system and its life quality will be that which we call (having perforce to use handicapping, misleading words) LOVE. This will account for the fact that the force that plays through that cosmic heart center will be the paramount force found in the manifestation of a solar Logos, and of a Heavenly Man; it will likewise produce its microcosmic analogy, and reflective reactions; hence the relative importance of the astral permanent atom within the causal periphery. It is in the direct line of active force emanating from the cosmic existence, and passing to it in ever lessening degree, via the solar Logos in His system of love, and the planetary Logos within a scheme, the Dragon of Wisdom-Love.

This force when rightly directed and properly controlled is the great transmuting agency, which eventually will make of the human unit a Master of the Wisdom, a Lord of Love, a Dragon of Wisdom in lesser degree.

Finally: this solar system, the objective physical manifestation of the Logos, is interpenetrated by His astral body, as is the case with the human manifestation. As the Logos is polarized in His cosmic astral sheath and has not yet attained cosmic mental polarization His force or desire nature is the main incentive for the subjective Life and Eves that underlie the form.

If the student will ponder with care these five facts, he will get a clue to the problems of existence as realized around us, to the causes of the heat of the solar system, to the method of the cosmic Law of Attraction and Repulsion, which governs all atomic forms, and to the question of SEX which is apparent in every kingdom of nature. They give the clue also to the constitution of the Divine Hermaphrodite.

Therefore, it is necessary to bear in mind the relative importance of the permanent atom of the second aspect of the personality within the causal periphery, and to remember that the force which flows through that atom and which is the animating force of the astral body is following the lines of least resistance and really might be considered as bearing upon his physical manifestation in a manner twice as strong as that reaching him through the other two. The Logos expresses Himself now through the Divine Ray, His second aspect, and this Ray is the sumtotal of the radiation of the Lords of Wisdom, the Heavenly Men, the Dragons Who are Unity and Who are Love. Through Them this force flows, and They in turn clothe Themselves with form, or as H. P. B. expresses it ‘The primordial Ray becomes the Vahan for the Divine Ray. Their life animates every atom of substance when built into form, and Their life is the sumtotal of Logoic magnetism, or the great desire nature of the Logos going out after the Not-Self, producing the cosmic Marriage; it is the logoic demonstration of the sex appeal, His search for His polar opposite, and their mystic union.

This process is repeated by the microcosm following the line of his being, and this brings him likewise into incarnation, or into mystic union with form.

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Initiation VI – Decision – Ray III

We have concluded our study of the rays and the five initiations, and there is little more that I can tell you about the remaining four initiations, except one or two points anent the sixth Initiation of Decision; this initiation is governed by the third Ray of Active Intelligence.

The only reason that I am making a few comments upon the sixth initiation is that at this time a number of the Masters are taking this great step, and it has a most peculiar application to the time of the reappearance of the Christ.

At this Initiation of Decision, the Master concerned decides usually which of the seven Paths He intends to tread; some Masters decide to remain until the close of our planetary Life, at which time the “last weary Pilgrim will have found his way home”; the Earth can then be prepared for a new Humanity. When this happens, our planet will no longer be known as the planet of sorrow and of pain, but will be distinguished by a quality of tranquillity and by an aura of calm potency wherein the will of God (to be demonstrated in the next solar system) will be focused; this – in some mysterious way – will enable the solar Logos (not the planetary Logos) to bring the first great divine aspect, that of Will or Power, into expression throughout the solar system. Instead, therefore, of the statement which explains our present solar system, “God is Love,” we shall have a dynamic expression of the will-to-good – an energy which will have been generated to some extent upon our Earth. This is the reward which the present Earth humanity will reap, and this is the consummation of the preordained task of our planetary Logos. He undertook, when He came into incarnation (through the medium of our little planet), to aid the work of the Solar Logos in expressing the will aspect of divinity.

Excerpted from “The Rays and the Initiations” by Djwhal Kuhl and Alice Bailey

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{This below concerns one of the available paths of higher evolution open to the fifth degree initiate or master. My comment.}

Path I. The Path of Earth Service

The nature of the spiritual force which animates the group of our peculiar planetary initiates will become apparent perhaps if the methods and purposes of their work are studied from the standpoint of subjective energy, and not so specifically of the material form. This point of view can be gleaned most easily from a consideration of the animating impulse lying behind all world groups which are particularly consecrated to the uplift of the race. This will necessarily include all political, religious, scientific and metaphysical organizations. It will be found that each and all are definitely related and have a point of at-one-ment with certain of the numerous occult bodies which are (usually unknown to the affiliated group) responsible for the vitalization of the principal units in any of these organizations doing this pioneer work.

This first path is the one that keeps a man linked to the Hierarchy which is pledged to the service of our planetary scheme. It comprises those who work under the Lord of the World in the seven groups into which our Masters of the Wisdom are divided. Not so many Masters follow this Path as some of the others, and only enough are permitted to do so to carry on planetary evolution satisfactorily. More is known about this Path than about any of the others, and more will continuously be found out as members of our humanity fit themselves to contact the Brothers of the Hierarchy. Their field of employ, Their methods of work will eventually become exoteric, and as the seven groups are recognized and known, schools of development for the filling of posts in these groups will be the logical sequence.

The adepts who stay upon this Path are distinguished by a dual attribute, which is their guarantee of attainment along this line of spiritual endeavor. They are animated by wise-compassion. These words should be carefully studied for they hold the clue to the nature of this first Path. The adepts who choose this Path are called esoterically the “beneficent dragons,” and the energy with which they work and the stream of living force upon which they are found emanates from the constellation of the Dragon, working through the zodiacal sign Libra. This special spiritual energy produces in all those groups which come under its direct influence a profound faculty for identification. This identification does not concern the form nor the soul but only the spiritual point of positive life which in the human unit we call the “Jewel in the Lotus.” It should be remembered in this connection that there is a jewel at the heart of every atom. Every jewel has seven facets which are the seven doorways to the seven Paths.

The “beneficent dragons” are distinguished by their “luminosity,” and it is this basic quality which lies behind the injunction given by all spiritual teachers to their pupils in the words “let your light shine forth.”

When the adept enters through the “luminous door” he has before him four very peculiar and esoteric IDENTIFICATIONS. This entrance takes place after he has passed the fifth Initiation and has demonstrated his fitness so to do through a long period of service in connection with our planetary evolution. These identifications eventually bring about within the jewel, which is essentially the true spiritual unit, a momentous happening, and are undergone within the monadic consciousness after the transcendence of the atmic sheath. These four identifications are connected with the fourfold lotus of the solar Logos, or with His twelve-petalled heart center. This lotus is sometimes called the “heart of the Sun,” and concerns the subjective sun. It is not, however, possible to say more along this line.

These four Identifications are only undergone upon this particular Path and are each preceded by three lesser identifications which make a totality of twelve Identifications, corresponding to the twelve-petalled lotus. It will be noted by the accurate student that we are now discontinuing the use of the word “initiation” which has to do specifically with consciousness and therefore with duality and are utilizing a word which connotes synthesis, though very inadequately.

The energy which is manipulated in the process of these identifications is largely that pouring through the sixth Hierarchy, which has an esoteric relation to the sixth Path on to which the initiates of Path I have eventually to fight their way. The form through which the adept must work in order to demonstrate his control of the energy concerned may not here be given. It may only be stated that luminosity is gained upon the battle ground through a fight with a dragon. The following summation may be found suggestive:

PATH I. EARTH SERVICE

  • Attributes – Wise-compassion.
  • Source – Constellation of the Dragon, via Libra.
  • Method – Twelve cosmic Identifications.
  • Hierarchy – The sixth.
  • Symbol – A green dragon issuing from the center of a blazing sun. Behind the sun and over-topping it can be seen two pillars on either side of a closed door.
  • Quality gained – Luminosity.

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SECTION THREE – DIVISION C – SEVEN ESOTERIC STANZAS

STANZA I

(From Archaic Formulas. No. 49)

PATH 1. The Path of Earth Service.

The Dragon who hideth within the lowest of the Sacred Three ariseth in His might. In His mouth He holdeth the balances, and in the balances He weigheth the sons of men who – upon the field of battle – are impaled upon His spear.

In the great balance upon which His eyes are fixed, one scale is veiled in fire of vivid green; the other hides itself behind a screen of red.

Those sons of men whose note responds not to the note of red enter the scale upon the right hand side. From thence they pass upon a path which dimly can be seen behind the dragon’s form.

This path is entered by a fourfold door. The sacred phrases of the Sons of Light define it thus: “The portal of the luminous light, which leadeth from the green into the heart of indigo, by that rare fire and richly colored blaze for which no name on earth hath yet been found.” Its tone is hidden.

The sons of men (and few their number is) enter that door of luminous fire when they surmount the crest of gold which riseth on the dragon’s head above the point where gleams “the eye of fire.”

This eye of fire transmits a strong vibration from the triple Lhas unto a center in the Adept’s head. This, when aroused, reveals the Life that is, the form that shall be, and the work united of the two and four.

These two are drawn together. Their essence blends. The man who seeks this path is then impaled upon the spear and thrust within the fiery light which veils the balance. The mystic process then proceeds and… Thus is the work of SATURN seen, and thus the consummation is effected.

Through SATURN’S fateful force the victor then is swiftly projected to the summit of the crest, and thence to that vibrating disk which guards the fourfold door of luminosity.

Three Words are then committed to the Liberated One. He stands triumphant on the speeding disk and when their utterance has… the door is seen ajar, and from its other side a voice is heard to say: “Son of Compassion, Master of Love and Life, the wheel turns all the time for those who battle on the fiery ground beneath the dragon’s feet.”

The first Word having entered on its mission, the victor lifts His head and seeks to utter forth the second Word. But, as He sounds it forth, He arrests its wide vibration, drawing again its power within His heart.

The motion of the disk slows down. The portal of the fiery light opens more widely yet. A form is seen. Unto the Master of the Fiery Heart, this form presents three precious jewels. Their names are hidden from those sons of men who have not yet attained the dragon’s crest.

These jewels three give to the Master of the Fiery Heart a portion of the triple force which circulates within the planet’s sphere.

With eye intent and heart alive with burning love the Master utters not the final Word. He steps from off the disk and turns His Lotus Feet back to that Path He earlier left behind, and from the other side remounts the Dragon’s crest. Himself a dragon, He now identifies Himself with those who seek the beast. And thus He serves, turning His back upon the door of light. He is the offspring of the dragon and serves His time…

Unknown and unseen by Him, a greater disk becomes apparent, turning unceasingly. He seeth not its movement for His eyes are on the world He has returned to serve. The disk revolves and brings around – before His yet unseeing eye – a greater wider Door… His eye of vision opens… He treads the first great path, yet knows it not.

The note that sounds forth from that first great WAY is yet unheard by Him. Its sound is lost in the uprising cry of the children of the lesser dragon.


NOTE: These seven stanzas form only one true stanza out of the oldest book in the world, and one which the eye of the average man has never contacted. Only the sense is here given and not a literal translation, and certain phrases are eliminated in all of them for one or other of the three following reasons: Either the manuscript from which these extracts are taken lacks certain of the words or symbols which are missing on account of the extreme age of the material upon which the text is indited, or their insertion would convey too much knowledge to the man whose perception is sufficiently awakened. Thirdly, the insertion of the omitted words would only serve to awaken confusion and even ridicule on account of the impossibility of translating them correctly; they concern realizations far in advance of the comprehension of man at this time.

Initiation, Human and Solar

INITIATION DEFINED

The question anent initiation is one that is coming more and more before the public. Before many centuries pass the old mysteries will be restored, and an inner body will exist in the Church – the Church of the period, of which the nucleus is already forming – wherein the first initiation will become esoteric, in this sense only, that the taking of the first initiation will, before so very long, be the most sacred ceremony of the Church, performed esoterically as one of the mysteries given at stated periods, attended by those concerned. It will also hold a similar place in the ritual of the Masons. At this ceremony those ready for the first initiation will be publicly admitted to the Lodge by one of its members, authorized to do so by the great Hierophant Himself.

Four Words Defined

When we speak of Initiation, of wisdom, of knowledge, or of the probationary Path, what do we mean? We use the words so glibly, without due consideration of the meaning involved. Take, for instance, the word first mentioned. Many are the definitions, and many are the explanations to be found as to its scope, the preparatory steps, the work to be done between initiations, and its result and effects. One thing before all else is apparent to the most superficial student, and that is, that the magnitude of the subject is such that in order to deal with it adequately one should be able to write from the viewpoint of an initiate; when this is not the case, anything that is said may be reasonable, logical, interesting, or suggestive, but not conclusive.

The word Initiation comes from two Latin words, in, into; and ire, to go; therefore, the making of a beginning, or the entrance into something. It posits, in its widest sense, in the case we are studying, an entrance into the spiritual life, or into a fresh stage in that life. It is the first step, and the succeeding steps, upon the Path of Holiness. Literally, therefore, a man who has taken the first initiation is one who has taken the first step into the spiritual kingdom, having passed out of the definitely human kingdom into the superhuman. Just as he passed out of the animal kingdom into the human at individualization, so he has entered upon the life of the spirit, and for the first time has the right to be called a “spiritual man” in the technical significance of the word. He is entering upon the fifth or final stage in our present fivefold evolution. Having groped his way through the Hall of Ignorance during many ages, and having gone to school in the Hall of Learning, he is now entering into the university, or the Hall of Wisdom. When he has passed through that school he will graduate with his degree as a Master of Compassion.

It might be of benefit to us also if we studied first the difference or the connection between Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. Though in ordinary parlance they are frequently interchanged, as used technically they are dissimilar.

Knowledge is the product of the Hall of Learning. It might be termed the sum total of human discovery and experience, that which can be recognized by the five senses, and be correlated, diagnosed, and defined by the use of the human intellect. It is that about which we feel mental certitude, or that which we can ascertain by the use of experiment. It is the compendium of the arts and sciences. It concerns all that deals with the building and developing of the form side of things. Therefore it concerns the material side of evolution, matter in the solar systems, in the planet, in the three worlds of human evolution, and in the bodies of men.

Wisdom is the product of the Hall of Wisdom. It has to do with the development of the life within the form, with the progress of the spirit through those ever-changing vehicles, and with the expansions of consciousness that succeed each other from life to life. It deals with the life side of evolution. Since it deals with the essence of things and not with the things themselves, it is the intuitive apprehension of truth apart from the reasoning faculty, and the innate perception that can distinguish between the false and the true, between the real and the unreal. It is more than that, for it is also the growing capacity of the Thinker to enter increasingly into the mind of the Logos, to realize the true inwardness of the great pageant of the universe, to vision the objective, and to harmonize more and more with the higher measure. For our present purpose (which is to study somewhat the Path of Holiness and its various stages) it may be described as the realization of the “Kingdom of God within,” and the apprehension of the “Kingdom of God without” in the solar system. Perhaps it might be expressed as the gradual blending of the paths of the mystic and the occultist, – the rearing of the temple of wisdom upon the foundation of knowledge.

Wisdom is the science of the spirit, just as knowledge is the science of matter. Knowledge is separate and objective, whilst wisdom is synthetic and subjective. Knowledge divides; wisdom unites. Knowledge differentiates whilst wisdom blends. What, then, is meant by the understanding?

The understanding may be defined as the faculty of the Thinker in Time to appropriate knowledge as the foundation for wisdom, that which enables him to adapt the things of form to the life of the spirit, and to take the flashes of inspiration that come to him from the Hall of Wisdom and link them to the facts of the Hall of Learning. Perhaps the whole idea might be expressed in this way:


Wisdom concerns the one Self, knowledge deals with the not-self, whilst the understanding is the point of view of the Ego, or Thinker, or his relation between them.

In the Hall of Ignorance the form controls, and the material side of things has the predominance. Man is there polarized in the personality or lower self. In the Hall of Learning the higher self, or Ego, strives to dominate that form until gradually a point of equilibrium is reached where the man is controlled entirely by neither. Later the Ego controls more and more, until in the Hall of Wisdom it dominates in the three lower worlds, and in increasing degree the inherent divinity assumes the mastery.


Aspects of Initiation

Initiation, or the process of undergoing an expansion of consciousness, is part of the normal process of evolutionary development, viewed on a large scale, and not from the standpoint of the individual. When viewed from the individual standpoint it has come to be narrowed down to the moment wherein the evolving unit definitely apprehends that (by dint of his own effort, aided by the advice and suggestions of the watching Teachers of the race) he has reached a point wherein a certain range of knowledge of a subjective nature, from the physical plane point of view, is his. It is in the nature of that experience wherein a pupil in a school realizes suddenly that he has mastered a lesson, and that the rationale of a subject, and the method of procedure, are his to use intelligently. These moments of intelligent apprehension follow the evolving Monad throughout his long pilgrimage. What has been misinterpreted somewhat at this stage of comprehension is the fact that at various periods the emphasis is laid on different grades of expansion, and always the Hierarchy endeavors to bring the race to the point where its units will have some idea of the next step to be taken.

Each initiation marks the passing of the pupil in the Hall of Wisdom into a higher class, marks the clearer shining forth of the inner fire and the transition from one point of polarization to another, entails the realization of an increasing unity with all that lives and the essential oneness of the self with all selves. It results in a horizon that continuously enlarges until it includes the sphere of creation; it is a growing capacity to see and hear on all the planes. It is an increased consciousness of God’s plans for the world, and an increased ability to enter into those plans and to further them. It is the effort in the abstract mind to pass an examination. It is the honor class in the Master’s school, and is within the attainment of those souls whose karma permits and whose efforts suffice to fulfil the aim.

Initiation leads to the mount whence vision can be had, a vision of the eternal Now, wherein past, present, and future exist as one; a vision of the pageant of the races with the golden thread of pedigree carried through the many types; a vision of the golden sphere that holds in unison all the many evolutions of our system, deva, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and elemental, and through which the pulsating life can be clearly seen beating in regular rhythm;

  • a vision of the Logoic thought-form on the archetypal plane,
  • a vision that grows from initiation to initiation until it embraces all the solar system.

Initiation leads to the stream that, once entered, sweeps a man onward until it carries him to the feet of the Lord of the World, to the feet of his Father in Heaven, to the feet of the threefold Logos.

Initiation leads to the cave within whose circumscribing walls the pairs of opposites are known, and the secret of good and evil is revealed. It leads to the Cross and to that utter sacrifice which must transpire before perfect liberation is attained, and the initiate stands free of all earth’s fetters, held by naught in the three worlds. It leads through the Hall of Wisdom, and puts into a man’s hands the key to all information, systemic and cosmic, in graduated sequence. It reveals the hidden mystery that lies at the heart of the solar system. It leads from one state of consciousness to another. As each state is entered the horizon enlarges, the vista extends, and the comprehension includes more and more, until the expansion reaches a point where the self embraces all selves, including all that is “moving and unmoving,” as phrased by an ancient Scripture.

Initiation involves ceremony. It is this aspect that has been emphasized in the minds of men, perhaps a little to the exclusion of the true significance. Primarily it involves the capacity to see, hear, and comprehend, and to synthesize and correlate knowledge. It does not necessarily involve the development of the psychic faculties, but it does entail the inner comprehension that sees the value underlying the form, and recognizes the purpose of pervading circumstances. It is the capacity that senses the lesson to be learnt from any given occurrence and event, and that by means of these comprehensions and recognitions effects an hourly, weekly, yearly growth and expansion. This process of gradual expansion – the result of the definite effort and strenuous right thinking and living of the aspirant himself and not of some occult teacher performing an occult rite – leads to what one might term a crisis.

At this crisis, which necessitates the aid of a Master, a definite act of initiation is performed, which (acting on a particular center) produces a result on some one body. It keys the atoms to a certain pitch, and enables a new rate of rhythm to be attained.

This ceremony of initiation marks a point of attainment. It does not bring about attainment, as is so often the misconception. It simply marks the recognition by the watching Teachers of the race of a definite point in evolution reached by the pupil, and gives two things:

  1. An expansion of consciousness that admits the personality into the wisdom attained by the Ego, and in the higher initiations into the consciousness of the Monad.
  2. A brief period of enlightenment wherein the initiate sees that portion of the Path that lies ahead to be trodden, and wherein he shares consciously in the great plan of evolution.

After initiation, the work to be done consists largely in making that expansion of consciousness part of the equipment for the practical use of the personality, and in mastering that portion of the path that has yet to be traversed.


The Place and Effect of Initiation

The ceremony of initiation takes place on the three higher subplanes of the mental plane, and on the three higher planes, according to the initiation. The five-pointed star, at the initiations on the mental plane, flashes out above the head of the initiate. This concerns the first initiations which are undergone in the causal vehicle. It has been said that the first two initiations take place upon the astral plane, but this is incorrect, and the statement has given rise to a misunderstanding. They are felt profoundly in connection with the astral and physical bodies and the lower mental, and affect their control. The chief effect being felt in those bodies the initiate may interpret them as having taken place on the planes concerned, as the vividness of the effect and the stimulation of the first two initiations work out largely in the astral body. But it must ever be remembered that the major initiations are taken in the causal body or – dissociated from that body – on the buddhic plane or atmic plane. At the final two initiations which set a man free from the three worlds, and enable him to function in the body of vitality of the Logos and wield that force, the initiate becomes the five-pointed star and it descends upon him, merges in him, and he is seen at its very center. This descent is brought about by the action of the Initiator, wielding the Rod of Power, and puts a man in touch with the center in the Body of the Planetary Logos of which he is a part, and this consciously. The two initiations called the sixth and seventh take place on the buddhic and atmic planes; the five-pointed star “blazes forth from within Itself,” as the esoteric phrase has it, and becomes the seven-pointed star; it descends upon the man and he enters within the flame.

Again, the four initiations, prior to that of the adept, mark respectively the attainment of certain proportions of atomic matter in the bodies – for instance, at the first initiation one-fourth atomic matter, at the second one-half atomic matter, at the third three-quarters atomic matter, and so on to the completion. Since buddhi is the unifying principle (or the welder of all), at the fifth initiation the adept lets the lower vehicles go, and stands in his buddhic sheath. He creates thence his body of manifestation.

Each initiation gives more control on the rays, if one may so express it, although this does not adequately convey the idea. Words so often mislead. At the fifth initiation, when the adept stands Master in the three worlds, He controls more or less (according to His line of development) the five rays that are specially manifesting at the time He takes the initiation. At the sixth initiation, if He takes the higher degree, He gains power on another ray, and at the seventh initiation He wields power on all the rays. The sixth initiation marks the point of attainment of the Christ, and brings the synthetic ray of the system under His control. We need to remember that initiation gives the initiate power on the rays, and not power over the rays, for this marks a very definite difference. Every initiate has, of course, for his primary or spiritual ray one of the three major rays, and the ray of his Monad is the one on which he at length gains power. The love ray, or the synthetic ray of the system, is the final one achieved.

Those who pass away from the earth after the fifth initiation, or those who do not become Masters in physical incarnation, take their subsequent initiations elsewhere in the system. All are in the Logoic Consciousness. One great fact to be borne in mind is, that the initiations of the planet or of the solar system are but the preparatory initiations of admission into the greater Lodge on Sirius. We have the symbolism held for us fairly well in Masonry, and in combining the Masonic method with what we are told of the steps on the Path of Holiness we get an approximate picture. Let us enlarge somewhat:

The first four initiations of the solar system correspond to the four “initiations of the Threshold,” prior to the first cosmic initiation. The fifth initiation corresponds to the first cosmic initiation, that of “entered apprentice” in Masonry; and makes a Master an “entered apprentice” of the Lodge on Sirius. The sixth initiation is analogous to the second degree in Masonry, whilst the seventh initiation makes the Adept a Master Mason of the Brotherhood on Sirius.

A Master, therefore, is one who has taken the seventh planetary initiation, the fifth solar initiation, and the first Sirian or cosmic initiation.


Excerpted from:

“Initiation, Human and Solar – Chapter II – Initiation Defined” By Alice Bailey and Djwhal Kuhl

How Many Fully Enlightened People Are There?

If you type various versions of this question into Google you see that there are people discussing it on line. I have even seen articles on Buddhism which states that the goal is to achieve nirvāṇa. Buddhism does not have KPIs and personal development planning, nor does your line manager tear you off a strip if you don’t achieve your goals.

I’ll speculate whoever considers nirvāṇa a goal is a long way indeed from said goal. He is in a gaol of Western thinking.

In various school of thought nirvāṇa is when the causal vehicle {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} has been blown off. This means there is no requirement to reincarnate, a strictly human thing. Humans are “bound” to the wheel of rebirth. Someone, some being, who has done that, nirvāṇa, is strictly speaking no longer human. In the context at death the being who has attained nirvāṇa achieves the state of parinirvāṇa at the dissolution of the meaty incarnate form. Thereafter “they” remain formless.

We could get into the gender debate about pronouns. What pronouns do you use for some entity which has no body, no observable physical plane presence? What is the correct pronoun for a fully enlightened Buddha? It?

The problem I have with enlightenment as a concept is that is enlightenment an absolute or a relative term? It might be said that someone got enlightenment, does that mean that they are a fully enlightened Buddha or does it mean that they are little less heavy than before. They have attained a quantum of enlightenment, a bit, one step further up the ladder. They are lighter, less dark and thereby enlightened. To progress one gains enlightenment in a stepwise fashion, realisation by realisation. At nirvāṇa the being is lighter because it no longer has a causal vehicle or personality, notions of self have dissolved. It is enlightened, unburdened.

There is the concept of returning high attainment Bodhisattvas, who on death put off the attainment of parinirvāṇa and come back of their own free will to teach. Because they have no causal vehicle, they create a nirmāṇakāya emanation for such a purpose. If I understand it correctly there may be many of these in the Tulku tradition. Arhats can be seen as selfish because they do not come back. But that is a transference of human personality onto someone who has no self. I have seen it prejudiced that Bodhisattvas are good, and Arhats not so. Human folly, methinks.

In esoteric thinking the end of the causal vehicle comes at the fourth initiation. If one cross references, this is nirvāṇa or blowing off. If I understand it correctly this phenomenon is associated often with physical plane death {but not always}. One gets nirvāṇa and sharpish thereafter parinirvāṇa. In that school of thinking there are a few more stages of development, the other initiations, after doing what Siddartha did in getting planetary nirvāṇa.

One might rephrase the question, “how many fully enlightened beings are there?”

In the esoteric school of thought the fourth degree initiate goes on to take the fifth and become what some call masters. This happens, according to my reading, relatively soon.

I think most people would struggle to envision or envisage a “living” awareness or consciousness in the absence of a physical plane body. So, people invent worlds and dimensions or abodes where they might picture some enveloping form even if that be nebulous. The inventions are inspired by life on earth. Being superstitious people like signs and miracles as circumstantial evidence or proof of nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa. There must be a rainbow or a comet. If it is a wholly natural part of evolution why would this happen? It is kind of no big deal. There is a desire for sanctity and holiness where they may just be a natural evolutionary process.

The question itself seeks to quantify and scale because people like to compare, to play top trumps.

“My God is better and more real than yours”, being a root of many wars.

Going a step further “are” implies existence or being. Can something exist if there is no form, no measurable lump of meat. If something is formless, is it?

Instead of quantifying we may now rephrase.  “Are there enlightened beings?” “Do they exist?”

“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it!”

Astrobiology and astrochemistry are looking for life in a chemical-biological entity with a physical existence measurable by modern instrumentation. The assumption being that life can only exist in some kind of form, or particularly a corporeal form no matter how small. Science requires a form {and perhaps reproductive urge} as a basic component of life and its definition.

A formless Buddha after paranirvāṇa would not technically be alive according to human definition.

So maybe according to science enlightened beings do not exist.

The answer is therefore zero and not 42….

Which poses the ancillary question does, zero exist or not?

Mount Sinai – The Clockmaker – Islam Dream 17-11-23

Here is this morning’s dream. The wife says that I was kicking about whilst having it.

The dream starts with me walking down from Mount Sinai past Saint Catherine’s monastery I am to meet someone there. I have just watched {again} the dawn on top of Mount Sinai. As I near the walls of the monastery I am taken suddenly to The clockmaker. I travel instantaneously to his workshop.

In front of me is small man with wispy grey hair who is wearing an Eastern European black cap. He has wire rimmed glasses with circular lens holders perched on his nose. He is wearing a light tan leather apron and a white collarless shirt. He shows me the clock. In front of him is an exquisite mechanical clock mechanism about one metre in diameter. There are fly wheels and rotor arms all in motion. It is truly something. He says to me in a Swiss-German accent that I should watch carefully.

The clock starts to move and transform. It self-organises via a different shape to a nearby part of the workshop. It stutters a bit then continues to mark time. It struggles to regain equilibrium.

The clockmaker says that the clock shows the current lack of harmony in the world. It is struggling to find the simple harmonic motion needed for it to count time. He says that world is dangerously out of balance. He says that he has never seen it this bad.

I am taken swiftly back to the foot of Mount Sinai. At the edge of the car park are two large prayer carpets. On each of them in a few rows about a dozen long are Muslim pilgrims. They are in full stretched out prayer position. One mat has men and the other has women with hijab. They are all dressed completely in white. I understand that they have done purification washing. The white is very marked. They are about to make a pilgrimage to the summit of Mount Sinai. I had shared the night there with another group.

I meet a tall dark haired English man in the car park. He is wearing khaki shorts and an army jacket. He is stood by a fancy black 4×4 vehicle. He greets me and gesticulates to the people in prayer. I say to him that in 2003 I spent the night of my birthday prior to dawn on top of Mount Sinai as I have just done. That time whilst there were a few Muslims the peak was full of Japanese tourists. I say that something profound happened to me back then which I understood to be an initiation. I came down a changed man. The peak this time had many followers of Islam and they were all atop in prayer. I say that the last time I was at Saint Catherine’s I discussed the coming of the Imam Mahdi with my Egyptian guide. I managed to get him to go against guidelines which said not to talk about Islam with the punters.

Dawn 31st August 2003.

He opens the boot of the car and shows me some tourist tatt he has bought. There is a small ornamental sword with red hieroglyph like writing on it he is keen to have my opinion. I look at the sword and say to him that it is a cheap fake. This confirms his opinion.

His wife and two sons arrive and he drives us all across the Sinai Peninsula to the Israel border. As we approach the border, we can see the sign in Hebrew and English saying Israel. There are several small calibre bullet marks in the sign. The border guard stops the car and ushers us into the border post to check our paperwork. He sees my passport and official Science Museum pass.

I go to a computer terminal in the post to check in. The children go to a drinks vending machine. The dark haired man come over to me. We are parting here. I am going back to London. He has a slim notebook computer. He asks me to take this back to the Science Museum, where I am curator, for examination. I explain to him that because I do not know what he has been up to on his computer that would be very, too, risky for me especially given the current world climate.

Dream ends.

*The clock maker aspect of this is reminiscent of Kālacakra tantra, the wheel of time. Perhaps the west “imagines” or “pictures” the same thing but with a different visual vocabulary.