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Certain Questions and Their Answers
I indicated that in this treatise we would give our main attention to the central one of the three aspects, and would concentrate upon quality. What do I mean by this? I mean that we shall occupy ourselves with that which is emerging through the medium of form, with that which veils or hides itself behind the appearance, which is expressive of life or spirit, and which is produced through the interplay of life with matter. This, when posited of man, the reflection of divinity, and when applied to the subject of his quality, involves three recognitions:
1. That a human being is, as earlier said, an embodied Life, expressing quality and registering that quality in consciousness or as sensitive response to the interplay going forward, during the evolutionary process, between spirit and matter.
2. That man, being a synthesis (and the only complete synthesis, except the Macrocosmic Deity), registers a self-recognition which is potent enough today to enable him to differentiate reactions to
a. The triplicity (as the Bhagavad Gita calls it) of the Knower, the field of knowledge, and knowledge.
b. A growing realisation that the field of knowledge is but an appearance or an illusion, that knowledge itself can be a hindrance unless transmuted into wisdom.
c. An evolutionary growth in responsiveness to one or other of these three, and which indicates a developing sensitivity. This is leading to a growth of interest in the Knower and to a belief that this Knower is the Soul, one with Deity, illimitable and eternal andin time and spacethe determining factor in human existence.
3. That the endless diversity of forms hides a subjective synthesis. Man can therefore eventually see, expressing itself through all forms in all kingdoms, a universal septenate, and when this happens, he is then entering into the world of subjective unity, and can proceed on his way consciously towards the One. He cannot as yet enter into the consciousness of that basic essential Unity, but he can enter into that of his own ray-life, of the emanating source of his own temporarily specialised life.
This triplicity of ideas requires careful study. It might be expressed thus:
o The One Life. Unity.
o o o The Major three Rays)
o o o o The Minor four Rays ) Making seven
o The Unity of Appearance
With the one Life we shall not concern ourselves. We accept it as a basic truth and we realise that we are on our way back from the unity of form-identified existence, through the varying unfoldments of a conscious response to divine interplay and activity, to a final identification with the one Life. Form awareness has to give place to the qualified radiation of the self-conscious spiritual identity which is that of a son of God, appearing through form. This will be finally superseded by two phases of expression wherein there is:
1. A sense of divine synthesis, of which our bodily 'well-being' is the lowest form of material, yet symbolic, reflection. It is a sense of coordinated blissful satisfaction, based on realised Being.
2. A withdrawal from even this life-awareness to a phase still more intensive and detached, which involves an awareness of the life of God Itself, free from form, but still, in a mysterious sense, aware of quality.
In the language of mysticism it might be expressed this way:
'I take a body. That body is alive. I know its life. I therefore know my mother.
'I use a body. That body is not me. I serve the group and in this serving live within the body, detached, a son of God. I know my Self.
'I infuse a body. I am its life and in that life shall I see life. That life is known as love. I am the love of God. I know the Father, and know His life is love.
'I am the body and its loving life. I am the Self, whose quality is love. I am the life of God Himself. The Mother-Father-Son am I.
'Behind these three there stands the unknown God. That God am I.'
Let us be perfectly clear even at the expense of reiteration. In this treatise, though we may touch upon form and consider its nature, we shall lay emphasis upon self-consciousness as it expresses itself as responsiveness, as awareness of a peculiar kind which we call the 'quality of consciousness,' or its inherent characteristic. We have always the subsidiary triplicities, which are only adjectival terms employed to express the quality of the appearing life.
Form Mutability, conscious response to radiation. Matter.
Self-Consciousness Responsiveness. Awareness of identity. Soul.
Life Immutability. Emanation. Cause. Source. Spirit.
The synthesis of all these in manifestation we call God, the Isolated, the All-pervading, the Detached and the Withdrawn.
The above abstract truths are difficult of apprehension, but need here to be expressed, so that our platform is understood and we are not open to the criticism that we neglect reality and regard diversity as the only truth.
We shall now answer five questions that I have formulated and answered for the reader.
Here I shall give but four definitions which will serve as a basis for all that follows.
A. The soul can be spoken of as the Son of the Father and of the Mother (Spirit-Matter) and is therefore the embodied life of God, coming into incarnation in order to reveal the quality of the nature of God, which is essential love. This life, taking form, nurtures the quality of love within all forms, and ultimately reveals the purpose of all creation. This is the simplest definition for average humanity, being couched in the language of mysticism, thus linking the truth as found in all religions. It is necessarily inadequate, for it fails to emphasize the truth that what can be posited of man can also be posited of the cosmic reality, and that just as a human appearance on Earth veils both the quality and purpose (in varying degree), so does that synthesis of all forms or appearances, within that unity which we call a solar system, veil the quality and purpose of Deity. It is only when man is no longer deluded by appearance and has freed himself from the veil of illusion that he arrives at a knowledge of the quality of God's consciousness and at the purpose which it is revealing. This he does in a triple way:
a. He discovers his own soul, the product of the union of his Father in heaven with the Mother or the material nature. This last is the personality. He then, having discovered the personality, discovers the quality of his own soul life, and the purpose for which he has 'appeared.'
b. He finds that this quality expresses itself through seven aspects or basic differentiations, and that this septenate of qualities colours, esoterically, all forms in all kingdoms in nature, thus constituting the totality of the revelations of the divine purpose. This, he finds, is essentially a septenary aggregation of energies, each energy producing differing effects and appearances. This discovery he makes by finding that his own soul is tinctured by one of the seven ray qualities, that he is identified with his ray purposewhatever it may beand is expressing a particular type of divine energy.
c. From this point he proceeds to a recognition of the entire septenate, and upon the Path of Initiation he gains a glimpse of a Unity, hitherto unrealised, nor even sensed.
Thus from a consciousness of himself, man arrives at an awareness of the interrelation between the seven basic energies or rays; and from that he proceeds to a realisation of the triple deity, until at the final initiation (the fifth) he finds himself consciously at-one with the unified divine intent lying behind all appearances and all qualities. It might be added that initiations, higher than the fifth, reveal a purpose wider and deeper than that which is working out within our solar system. The purpose of our manifested Logos is but a part of a greater intent. It might also be noted that in the fourth kingdom of nature, on the path of evolution and of probation, a man arrives at a knowledge of his individual soul, and glimpses the quality and purpose of that soul. On the path of discipleship and of initiation, he glimpses the quality and purpose of his planetary Life, and discovers himself as a part of a ray Life, Which is appearing through the form of a planet and is embodying an aspect of the divine purpose and energy. After the third initiation he glimpses the quality and purpose of the solar system; he sees his ray life and energy as a part of a greater whole. These are but modes of expressing the emerging quality and the hidden purpose of the graded Lives which inform all appearances and colour them with quality
B. The soul can be regarded as the principle of intelligencean intelligence whose characteristics are mind and mental awareness, which in turn demonstrate as the power to analyse, to discriminate, to separate, and to distinguish, to choose or to reject, with all the implications conveyed in these terms. As long as a man is identified with the appearance, these aspects of the mental principle produce in him the 'great heresy of separateness.' It is the appearance of the form nature that glamours him and completely deludes him. He regards himself as the form, and then proceeds from a realisation of himself as the material form, and as identified with the outer appearance, to a realisation of himself as an insatiable desire. He then becomes identified with his desire body, with his appetites, good and bad, and considers himself as one with his moods, his feelings, his longings, whether they ray out in the direction of the material world or inward toward the world of thought or the Kingdom of the soul. He is torn by a sense of duality. Later, he becomes identified with still another of the appearances,with the mind body or nature. Thoughts become to him so tangible that he is swayed, turned and influenced by them; and to the world of material appearances, and to the world of the great Illusion is added the world of thought forms. He is then subjected to a triple illusion, and he, the conscious life behind the illusion, begins to unify the forms into one coordinated whole, in order the better to control them.
Thus the Personality of the soul makes its appearance. He stands then on the verge of the probationary path. He enters the world of quality and of value, and begins to discover the nature of the soul and to shift the emphasis from the appearance to the quality of the Life which has produced it. This identification of the quality with the appearance grows steadily upon the path until the fusion of quality and appearance, of energy and that which it energises, is so perfect that appearance no longer veils the reality, and the soul is now the dominant factor; consciousness is now identified with itself (or with its ray) and not with its phenomenal appearance. Later, the soul itself is superseded by the Monad, and that Monad becomes, in verity, embodied purpose.
The process can be expressed by a very simple symbology, as follows:o.o.o. or o.oo or oo.o., thus portraying the separateness of the three aspects. The union, then, of the aspects of appearancequalitypurpose or life, results in an abstraction from the appearance, and therefore the end of phenomenal existence. Ponder on the simple arrangement of these signs, for they portray your life and progress:
Unevolved man. . .o o o. appearance, quality, life.
Disciple. . . . . . . . .o o. .o.appearancequality. . . . . .life.
Initiate. . . . . . . . . .o..o o.appearance. . . . . . qualitylife.
Finally. . . . . . . . . .
within the
circle of infinity.
This is true of the human being, of the Christ in incarnation; it is equally true of the cosmic Christ, of God incarnate in the solar system. In the system a similar fusion and blending is going on, and the separated aspects are entering into an evolutionary relationship, resulting in an eventual synthesis of appearance and quality, and then of quality and purpose. It might be noted here that the Hierarchy as a whole is distinguished by the sign o..oo; the New Group of World Servers by the sign oo..o; and the unevolved masses by o o o. Forget not, that in all three groups, as in nature, there are the intermediate stages composed of those who are on their way to a transitional accomplishment.
The work before all students of this Treatise on the Seven Rays is the fusion of quality and appearance, and therefore they need to study the nature of that quality in order to produce a true appearance. In the ancient rules given to mystics in Atlantean times we find these words:
'Let the disciple know the nature of his Lord of Love. Seven the aspects of the love of God; seven the colours of that manifesting One; sevenfold the work; seven the energies and sevenfold the Path back to the centre of peace. Let the disciple live in love, and love in life.'
In those olden days no thought of purpose entered into the minds of men, for the race was not mental nor was it intended so to be. The emphasis was laid upon the quality of the appearance in all preparation for initiation, and the highest initiate of that time endeavoured to express only the quality of God's love. The Plan was the great mystery. The Christ, cosmic and individual, was sensed and known, but purpose was as yet veiled and unrevealed. The 'noble eightfold path' was not known, and only seven steps into the Temple were seen. With the coming in of the Aryan race, the purpose and the plan began to be revealed. Only when the appearance is beginning to be dominated by quality, and consciousness is expressing itself in directed awareness through the form, is the purpose dimly sensed.
I seek in various ways to convey through the symbol of words the significance of the soul. The soul is therefore the son of God, the product of the marriage of spirit and matter. The soul is an expression of the mind of God, for mind and intellect are terms expressing the cosmic principle of intelligent love,a love which produces an appearance through the nature of mind and thus is the builder of the separate forms or appearances. The soul also, through the quality of love, produces the fusion of appearance and of quality, of awareness and of form.
C. The soul is (and here words limit and distort) a unit of light, coloured by a particular ray vibration; it is a vibrating centre of energy found within the appearance or form of its entire ray life. It is one of seven groups of millions of lives which in their totality constitute the One Life. From its very nature, the soul is conscious or aware in three directions. It is God-conscious; it is group-conscious; it is self-conscious. This self-conscious aspect is brought to fruition in the phenomenal appearance of a human being; the group-conscious aspect retains the human state of consciousness, but adds to it awareness of its ray life, progressively unfolded; its awareness then is the awareness of love, of quality, of spirit in its relationships; it is God-conscious only potentially, and in that unfoldment lies, for the soul, its own growth upward and outward after its self-conscious aspect is perfected and its group-awareness is recognised. The soul therefore has the following points, or appearances:
o. . . .Consciousness of God, of solar system. Unity.
.
.
The Soul ooo. . . .o. Consciousness of the ray, of one of the seven,
- of divine quality. Group Consciousness.
/
/ .
/ .
Aspirant o. . . .Self consciousness, awareness of appearance.
Diversity of form life.
Aspirants who are studying and training themselves to live the life of service might be regarded as having reached the point where the line is to be found. To visualise this correctly the sign should be regarded as in rapid revolution, thus producing a turning wheel, which is the wheel of life.
Let me again repeat:
1. The soul is the son of God, the product of the union of spirit and matter.
2. The soul is an embodiment of conscious mind, the expression, if one might so phrase it, of divine intelligent awareness.
3. The soul is a unit of energy, vibrating in unison with one of the seven ray Lives, and coloured by a particular ray light.
The personality of the soul is intended to be an embodiment of love, applied with intelligence and producing those 'attractive' forms which will serve to express that loving intelligence. The soul in its turn is intended to be the embodiment of divine purpose or will, intelligently applied in the great creative work, which is produced through the power of creative love.
Each son of God can say: I am born of the love of the Father for the Mother, of the desire of life for form. I express, therefore, the love and the magnetic attractiveness of the God nature, and the responsiveness of the form nature, and am consciousness itself, aware of Deity or Life.
Each intelligent point of life can say: I am the product of intelligent will, working through intelligent activity and producing a world of created forms which embody or veil the loving purpose of Deity.
Each vibrating unit of energy can say: I am part of a divine whole, which in its septenary nature expresses the love and life of the One Reality, coloured by one of the seven qualities of the love of Deity and responsive to the other qualities.
For our purposes in this treatise, we must grasp the fact that the world of appearances is energised by and vibrating to the world of qualities or values, which world, in its turn, is energised by or vibrating to the world of purpose or of will. Therefore, as is stated in The Secret Doctrine and in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, the electric fire of will, and the solar fire of love, in cooperation with fire by friction, produce the world of created and creative forms. These proceed under the law of attractive magnetic love towards the evolutionary accomplishment of a purpose at present inscrutable. This purpose remains unknown only on account of the limitations of the 'appearance' which is not yet responsive to the quality. When the illusory appearance and the veiled quality of the life are known and comprehended the underlying purpose will emerge with clarity. Indications of this can be dimly sensed and the attribute of this growing awareness can be noted in the tendency of modern thought to speak of patterns and of plans, of blue prints and synthetic formulations of ideas, and in the tracing of historical developmentsnational, racial, human and psychological. As we read, ponder and study, the dim outlines of the Plan appear, but until the consciousness has transcended all human limitations and has included the subhuman, as well as the superhuman, within its range of contacts, the true Plan cannot be rightly grasped. The will, lying behind the purpose, cannot be understood until the consciousness has transcended even that of the superhuman man, and has become one with the divine.
Will or the energy of life are synonymous terms and are an abstraction, existing apart from all form expression. The will-to-be emerges from outside the solar system altogether. It is the all-pervading energy of God which informs with a fraction of itself the solar system, and yet remains outside. Plan and purpose concern the emanating energies of that central Life and involve duality,will or the life urge plus attractive magnetic love which, in its turn, is the response of the vibrating universal substance to the impact of the energy of will. This initial activity precedes the creative process of form building; and the play of the divine will on the ocean of space, matter, or etheric substance produced the first differentiation into the major rays, and their mutual interplay produced the minor four rays. Thus the seven emanations, the seven potencies and the seven rays came into manifestation. They are the seven breaths of the one Life, the seven basic energies; they streamed forth from the centre formed by the impact of the will of God on divine substance, and divided into seven streams of force. The radius of the influence of these seven streams determined the extent or scope of activity of a solar system and 'outlined' the limits of the form of the incarnated cosmic Christ. Each of these seven streams or emanations of energy was coloured by a divine quality, an aspect of love, and all of them were needed for the ultimate perfecting of the latent and unrevealed purpose.
The will of Deity coloured the stream of energy units which we call by the name of the Ray of Will or Power, the first ray, and the impact of that stream on the matter of space insured that the hidden purpose of Deity would inevitably and eventually be revealed. It is a ray of such dynamic intensity that we call it the ray of the Destroyer. It is not as yet functioning actively. It will come into full play only when the time comes for the purpose to be safely revealed. Its units of energy in manifestation in the human kingdom are very few. As I earlier said, there is not a true first ray type in incarnation as yet. Its main potency is to be found in the mineral kingdom, and the key to the mystery of the first ray is to be found in radium.
In the vegetable kingdom the second ray is peculiarly active, producing among other things the magnetic attractiveness of flowers. The mystery of the second ray is found to be hidden in the significance of the perfume of flowers. Perfume and radium are related, being emanatory expressions of ray effects upon differing groupings of material substance. The third ray is, in its turn, peculiarly related to the animal kingdom, producing the tendency to intelligent activity which we note in the higher domestic animals. The correspondence to radioactivity and to emanatory perfumes which we found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, we here call devotion, the characteristic of the attractive interplay between the domestic animals and man. Devotees of personalities might more rapidly transmute that devotion into its higher correspondencelove of principlesif they realised that they were only displaying an animal emanation.
The desire of the Deity expresses itself through the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. Desire is a word which has been prostituted to cover the tendency of humanity to crave material things or those pleasures which bring satisfaction to the sensuous nature. It is applied to those conditions which will satisfy the personality, but in the last analysis, desire is essentially love. This desire expresses itself by attractiveness, by its capacity to draw to itself and into the radius of its influence that which is loved. It is the bond of coherence, and is that principle of magnetic cohesion which lies behind all creative work and which produces the emergence into the light of manifestation of those forms or appearances through which it is possible to satisfy desire. This second ray is pre-eminently the ray of applied consciousness, and works through the creation and development of those forms which are found throughout the universe. They are essentially mechanisms for the development of responsiveness or awareness; they are sensitive machines, responsive to an enveloping environment. This is true of all forms, from that of a crystal to that of a solar system. They have been created in the great process of satisfying desire and of providing the media of contact which will guarantee a progressive satisfaction. In the human family, the effect of this dual interplay of Life (desiring satisfaction) and of form (providing the field of experience) is a consciousness which is striving towards a love of the formless instead of desire for form, and the wise adaptation of all experience to the process of transmuting desire into love. Hence this ray is, par excellence, the dual ray of the solar Logos Himself, and hence colours all manifested forms, directing all consciousness in all forms in all kingdoms of nature, and in all fields of development; it carries the life through the range of forms in that basic search or urge for the attainment of bliss through the satisfaction of desire. This urge and the interaction of the pairs of opposites produced the varying types of conscious reaction to experience which, in their main stages, we call consciousness, animal consciousness, and allied differentiating phrases.
This second ray is the ray of Deity Itself, and is coloured by distinctive aspects of desire or love. They produce the totality of the manifested appearances, animated by the Life Which determines the quality. The Father, Spirit or Life, wills to seek the satisfaction of desire. The Mother or matter meets the desire and is attracted also by the Father. Their mutual response initiates the creative work, and the Son is born, inheriting from the Father the urge to desire or love, and from the Mother the tendency actively to create forms. Thus, in the language of symbolism, have the form worlds come into being, and through the evolutionary work the process is going forward of satisfying the desire of spirit. Thus in the two major rays of Will and Love we have the two main characteristics of the divine nature, which lie latent behind all the myriad of forms. The aeons will see these two energies steadily dominating all appearance and driving the created world on to a full display of the divine nature. This is true of gods and men.
But in the same way in which the Father contributes to the Son the divine qualities of will and love, so the Mother contributes much also, and the initial duality is increased and the qualities are enhanced by the addition of a quality inherent in matter itself,the quality or Ray of Intelligent Activity. This is the third of the divine attributes and completes, if I may so express it, the equipment of the appearing forms, and predisposes all creation to an intelligent appreciation of the true goal of desire and to an intelligent use of the technique of form building in order to reveal divine purpose. The Knower (man) is the custodian of that wisdom which will enable him to further the divine plan and bring the will of God to fruition. The field of knowledge is so constituted that it vibrates with intelligent response to the slowly emerging will. Knowledge itself is that which knows its own ends and works towards those ends through the process of experiment, expectation, experience, examination and exaltation which produces a final exit. Words such as these are synthetic symbols, conveying a cosmic story in terms of constructive brevity.
Thus the three rays of Will, Love and Intelligence produce appearance, donate quality and, through the life principle which is the underlying aspect of unity, ensure continuity of growth until such time as the will of God has evidenced itself as power, has attracted to itself the desired, has with wisdom utilised the experience of a gradually growing satisfaction, and has intelligently applied the gain of experience to the production of forms more sensitive, more beautiful and more fully expressive of the quality of the life.Each of these rays is dual in time and space, though only the second ray is dual when they are regarded from the standpoint of the final abstraction. In their temporary duality can be seen, for each of them, the interplay which we call cause and effect.
Ray I.Will, dynamically applied, emerges in manifestation as power.
Ray IILove, magnetically functioning, produces wisdom.
Ray III..Intelligence, potentially found in substance, causes activity.
The result of the interplay of these three major rays can be seen in the activity of the four minor rays. The Secret Doctrine speaks of the Lords of Knowledge and of Love, and also of the Lords of Ceaseless Devotion. We might, in order more clearly to understand the mystical significance of these names, point out that the dynamic persistent will of the Logos expresses itself through the Lords of Ceaseless Devotion. Here devotion is not the quality to which I referred earlier in this treatise, but is the persistent directed one-pointed will of God, embodied in a Life which is that of the Lord of the first ray. The Lords of Love and of Knowledge are the two great Lives Who embody or ensoul the Love-Wisdom and the creative Intelligence aspects of the two major rays. These three are the sum total of all forms or appearances, the givers of all qualities, and the emerging Life aspect behind the tangible manifestations. They correspond, in the human family, to the three aspects of Personality, Soul and Monad. The Monad is dynamic will or purpose, but remains unrevealed until after the third initiation. The Monad is Life, the sustaining force, a Lord of persevering and ceaseless devotion to the pursuit of a seen and determined objective. The soul is a Lord of love and wisdom, whilst the personality is a Lord of knowledge and of intelligent activity. This use of terms involves the realisation of an achieved goal. It is not true of the present stage as regards expression, for this is the intermediate stage. None are as yet working with full intelligent activity, though some day each will do so. None are as yet manifesting Lords of love, but they sense the ideal and are striving towards its expression. None are as yet Lords of ceaseless will and none realise as yet the plan of the monad nor the true goal towards which all are striving. Some day all will. But potentially every human unit is all these three, and some day the appearances which were called personalities, that mask or veil reality, will fully reveal the qualities of Deity. When that time comes, the purpose for which all creation waits will burst upon the awakened vision, and we shall know the true meaning of bliss, and why the morning stars sang together. Joy is the strong basic note of our particular solar system.
One of the foundational septenate of rays embodies in itself the principle of harmony, and this fourth Ray of Harmony gives to all forms that which produces beauty and works towards the harmonising of all effects emanating from the world of causes, which is the world of the three major rays. The ray of beauty, of art and harmony is the producer of the quality of organisation through form. It is in the last analysis the ray of mathematical exactitude and is not the ray of the artist, as so many seem to think. The artist is found on all rays, just as is the engineer or the physician, the home-maker or the musician. I want to make this clear, for there is much misunderstanding on this matter.
Each of the great rays has a form of teaching truth to humanity which is its unique contribution, and in this way develops man by a system or technique which is qualified by the ray quality and is therefore specific and unique. Let me point out to you the modes of this group teaching:
Ray I Higher Expression: The science of statesmanship, of government.
Lower Expression: Modern diplomacy and politics.
Ray II Higher Expression: The process of initiation as taught by the hierarchy of adepts.
Lower Expression: Religion.
Ray III Higher Expression: Means of communication or interaction. The radio, telephone, telegraph and the power to travel.
Lower Expression: The use and spread of money and gold.
Ray IV Higher Expression: The Masonic work, based on the formation of the hierarchy, and related to the second ray.
Lower Expression: Architectural construction. Modern city planning.
Ray V Higher Expression: The science of the soul. Esoteric psychology.
Lower Expression: Modern educational systems and mental science.
Ray VI Higher Expression: Christianity and diversified religions. (Notice here relation to Ray II.)
Lower Expression: Churches and organised religions.
Ray VII Higher Expression: All forms of white magic.
Lower Expression: Spiritualism of 'phenomena.'
The fourth ray is essentially the refiner, the producer of perfection within the form, and the prime manipulator of the energies of God in such a way that the Temple of the Lord is indeed known in its true nature as that which 'houses' the Light. Thus the Shekinah will shine forth within the secret place of the Temple in its full glory. Such is the work of the seven Builders. This ray is expressive primarily on the first the formless planes, counting from below upwards, and its true purpose cannot emerge until the soul is awakened and consciousness is adequately recording the known. The planes or manifested spheres of expression are influenced in manifestation in a numerical order:
Ray I Will or Power Plane of divinity.
Ray II Love-Wisdom Plane of the monad.
Ray III Active Intelligence Plane of spirit, atma.
Ray IV Harmony Plane of the intuition.
Ray V Concrete Knowledge Mental Plane.
Ray VI Devotion, Idealism Astral Plane.
Ray VII Ceremonial Order Physical Plane.
The fifth ray therefore works actively on the plane of the greatest moment to humanity, being, for man, the plane of the soul, and of the higher and the lower mind. It embodies the principle of knowledge, and because of its activity and its close relation to the third Ray of Active Intelligence might be regarded as a ray having a most vital relation to man at this time in particular. It is the ray whichwhen active, as it was in Lemurian times,produces individualisation, which is literally the shifting of the evolving life of God into a new sphere of awareness. This particular transference into higher forms of awareness tends, at the beginning, to separativeness.
The fifth ray has produced what we call science. In science we find a condition which is rare in the extreme. Science is separative in its approach to the differing aspects of the divine manifestation which we call the world of natural phenomena, but it is non-separative in actuality, for there is little warring between the sciences and little competition between scientists. In this the workers in the scientific field differ profoundly from those of the religious. The reason for this is to be found in the fact that the true scientist, being a coordinated personality and working therefore on mental levels, works very close to the soul. The developed personality produces the clear distinctions of the dominant lower mind, but (if one may use such a symbolic way of expression) the close proximity of the soul negates a separative attitude. The religious man is pre-eminently astral or emotional and works in a more separative manner, particularly in this Piscean age which is passing away. When I say the religious man I refer to the mystic and to the man who senses the beatific vision. I refer not to disciples nor to those who are called initiates, for they add to the mystical vision a trained mental apprehension.
The sixth Ray of Devotion embodies the principle of recognition. By this I mean the capacity to see the ideal reality lying behind the form; this implies a one-pointed application of desire and of intelligence in order to produce an expression of that sensed idea. It is responsible for much of the formulation of the ideas which have led man on, and for much of the emphasis on the appearance which has veiled and hidden those ideals. It is on this ray primarilyas it cycles in and out of manifestationthat the work of distinguishing between appearance and quality is carried forward, and this work has its field of activity upon the astral plane. The complexity of this subject and the acuteness of the feeling evolved become therefore apparent.
The seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Magic embodies a curious quality which is the outstanding characteristic of the particular Life which ensouls this ray. It is the quality or principle which is the coordinating factor unifying the inner quality and the outer tangible form or appearance. This work goes on primarily on etheric levels and involves physical energy. This is the true magical work. I should like to point out that when the fourth ray and the seventh ray come into incarnation together, we shall have a most peculiar period of revelation and of light-bringing. It is said of this time that then 'the temple of the Lord will take on an added glory and the Builders will rejoice together.' This will be the high moment of the Masonic work, spiritually understood. The Lost Word will then be recovered and uttered for all to hear, and the Master will arise and walk among His builders in the full light of the glory which shines from the east.
The spiritualising of forms might be regarded as the main work of the seventh ray, and it is this principle of fusion, of coordination and of blending which is active on etheric levels every time a soul comes into incarnation and a child is born on earth.
D. The soul is the principle of sentiency, underlying all outer manifestation, pervading all forms, and constituting the consciousness of God Himself. When the soul, immersed in substance, is simply sentiency, it produces through its evolutionary interplay an addition, and we find emerging quality and capacity to react to vibration and to environment. This is the soul as it expresses itself in all the subhuman kingdoms in nature.
When the soul, an expression of sentiency and quality, adds to these the capacity of detached self-awareness, there appears that self-identified entity which we call a human being.
When the soul adds to sentiency, quality and self-awareness, the consciousness of the group, then we have identification with a ray-group, and there appears the disciple, the initiate and the master.
When the soul adds to sentiency, quality, self-awareness and group consciousness, a consciousness of divine synthetic purpose (called by us the Plan), then we have that state of being and knowledge which is distinctive of all upon the Path of Initiation, and includes those graded Lives, from the more advanced disciple up to the planetary Logos Himself.
But forget not that when we make these distinctions it is nevertheless one Soul that is functioning, acting through vehicles of varying capacities, of differentiated refinements and of greater and lesser limitations, in just the same sense as a man is one identity, working sometimes through a physical body and sometimes through a feeling body or a mental body, and sometimes knowing himself to be the Selfa rare and unusual occurrence for the majority.
Every form in manifestation does two things:
1. Appropriates, or is pervaded by, as much of the world soul as its capacity will permit. The atom of substance, the molecule or the cell all have soul, but not in the same degree as has an animal; and an animal has soul, but not in the same degree as has a Master, and so on up or down the scale.
2. Through the interaction between the indwelling soul and the form, two things occur:
a. Sentiency and quality are expressed according to the type of body and its point of evolution.
b. The pervading soul drives the body nature into activity, and forces it forward along the path of development, and thus provides for the soul a field of experience and for the body the opportunity to react to the higher soul impulse. Thus the field of expression is benefited, and the soul masters the technique of contact which is its objective in any particular form.
The soul therefore, viewed from one angle, is an aspect of the body, for there is a soul in every atom comprising all bodies in all kingdoms in nature. The subtle coherent soul which is the result of the bringing together of spirit and matter exists as an entity apart from the body nature, and constitutes (when separated from the body) the etheric body, the double, as it is sometimes called, or the counterpart of the physical body. This is the sum total of the soul of the atoms constituting the physical body. It is the true form; it is the principle of coherence in every form.
The soul, in relation to the human being, is the mind principle in two capacities, or the mind expressing itself in two ways. These two ways are registered and become part of the organised equipment of the human body when it is adequately refined and sufficiently developed:
1. The lower concrete mind, the mental body, the 'chitta' or mind stuff.
2. The higher spiritual or abstract mind.
These two aspects of the soul, its two basic qualities, bring into being the human kingdom and enable man to contact both the lower kingdoms in nature and the higher spiritual realities. The first, the quality of mind in its lower manifestation, is owned potentially by every atom in every form in every kingdom in nature. It is a part of the body nature, inherent and potential, and is the basis of brotherhood, of absolute unity, of universal synthesis and divine coherence in manifestation. The other, the higher aspect, is the principle of self-awareness, and when combined with the lower aspect produces the self-consciousness of the human being. When the lower aspect has informed and pervaded the forms in the subhuman kingdoms, and when it has worked upon those forms and their latent sentiency so as to produce adequate refinement and sentiency, the vibration becomes so potent that the higher is attracted and there is a fusion or at-one-ing. This is like a higher recapitulation of the initial union of spirit and matter which brought the world into being. A human soul is thus brought into existence and begins its long career. It is now a differentiated entity.
'Soul' also is a word used to express the sum total of the psychic naturethe vital body, the emotional nature and the mind stuff. But it is also more than that, once the human stage is reached. It constitutes the spiritual entity, a conscious psychical being, a son of God, possessing life, quality and appearance [Page 56] a unique manifestation in time and space of the three expressions of the soul as we have just outlined them:
1. The soul of all the atoms, composing the tangible appearance.
2. The personal soul or the subtle coherent sum total which we call the Personality, composed of the subtle bodies, etheric or vital, astral or emotional, and the lower mental apparatus. These three vehicles humanity shares with the animal kingdom as regards its possession of vitality, sentiency, and potential mind; with the vegetable kingdom as regards vitality and sentiency; and with the mineral kingdom as regards vitality and potential sentiency.
3. The soul is also the spiritual being, or the union of life and quality. When there is the union of the three souls, so called, we have a human being.
Thus in man you have the blending or fusion of life, quality and appearance, or spirit, soul and body, through the medium of a tangible form.
In the process of differentiation these various aspects have attracted attention, and the underlying synthesis has been overlooked or disregarded. Yet all forms are differentiations of the soul, but that soul is one Soul, when viewed and considered spiritually. When studied from the form side, naught but differentiation and separation can be seen. When studied from the consciousness or sentiency aspect, unity emerges. When the human stage is reached and self-awareness is blended with the sentiency of forms and with the tiny consciousness of the atom, some idea of a possible subjective unity begins dimly to dawn on the thinker's mind. When the stage of discipleship is reached, a man begins to see himself as a sentient part of a sentient whole, and slowly reacts to the purpose and intent of that whole. He grasps that purpose little by little as he swings consciously into the rhythm of the sum total of which he is a part. When more advanced stages and more rarefied and refined forms are possible, the part is lost in the whole; the rhythm of the whole subjects the individual to a uniform participation in the synthetic purpose, but the realisation of individual self-awareness persists and enriches the individual contribution, which is now intelligently and willingly offered, so that the form not only constitutes an aspect of the sum total (which has always and inevitably been the case, even when unrealised), but the conscious thinking entity knows the fact of the unity of consciousness and of the synthesis of life. Thus we have three things to bear in mind as we read and study:
1. The synthesis of life spirit.
2. The unity of consciousness soul.
3. The integration of forms body.
These three always have been at-one, but the human consciousness has not known it. It is the realisation of these three factors and their integration into the technique of living which is, for man, the objective of his entire evolutionary experience.
Let us, talking necessarily in symbols, consider the universal Soul, or the consciousness of the Logos Who brought our universe into being. Let us regard the Deity as pervading the form of His solar system with life, and as being conscious of His work, of His project and His goal. This solar system is an appearance, but God remains transcendent. Within all forms God is immanent, yet persists aloof and withdrawn. Just as a thinking, intelligent human being functions through his body but dwells primarily in his mental consciousness or in his emotional processes, so God dwells withdrawn in His mind nature; the world that He has created and pervaded with His life, goes forward towards the goal for which He has created it. Within, however, the radius of His appearing form, greater activities are going forward; varying states of consciousness and stages of awareness are to be seen; developing degrees of sentiency emerge, and even in the symbolism of the human form we have such differing states of sentiency as are registered by the hair, by the internal organisms in the body, by the nervous system, by the brain, and by the entity we call the self (who registers emotion and thought). In the same way does the Deity, within the solar system, express as wide a divergence of consciousness.
There is a body consciousness; there is a sensory apparatus, registering reaction to the environment; there is a consciousness of moods, of quality, of mental reactions to a world of ideas; there is a higher consciousness of plan and of purpose; there is a consciousness of life.
It is interesting to note in connection with the Deity that this sensory response to environment provides the entire basis for astrology and for the effect of the constellations upon the solar system and the interplanetary forces.
We might sum it all up in relation to man as follows:
Man's form nature reacts in its consciousness to the form nature of Deity. The outer garment of the soul (physical, vital and psychic) is part of the outer garment of God.
Man's self-conscious soul is en rapport with the soul of all things. It is an integral part of the universal Soul, and because of this can become aware of the conscious purpose of Deity; can intelligently cooperate with the will of God, and thus work with the plan of Evolution.
Man's spirit is one with the life of God and is within him, deep-seated in his soul, as his soul is seated within the body.
This spirit will in some distant time put him en rapport with that aspect of God which is transcendent, and thus each son of God will eventually find his way to that centrewithdrawn and abstractedwhere God dwells beyond the confines of the solar system.
These are words which are formulated in an endeavour to convey an idea of order, of plan, of universal synthesis, of the integration and incorporation of the fragment in the whole, and of the part with the all.
Let us endeavour now to answer the second question, remembering as we proceed, that it is not possible for us to do more than enter symbolically into the practical purposes of Deity. As I write for simple aspirants, I cannot convey the truth until such time as their rapport with their own souls is complete, or more complete than is now the case. The effort, however, to grasp that which cannot be expressed in words produces a downpouring of the abstract mind or of the intuition, and this, in its turn, stimulates and develops the brain cells and produces a steady stabilisation of the power to stand in 'spiritual being'; then it becomes possible to grasp the inexpressible and to live by its power.
The seven rays are the sum total of the divine Consciousness, of the universal Mind; They might be regarded as seven intelligent entities through Whom the plan is working out. They embody divine purpose, express the qualities required for the materialising of that purpose, and They create the forms and are the forms through which the divine idea can be carried forward to completion. Symbolically, They may be regarded as constituting the brain of the divine Heavenly Man. They correspond to the ventricles of the brain, to the seven centres within the brain, to the seven centres of force, and to the seven major glands which determine the quality of the physical body. They are the conscious executors of divine purpose; They are the seven Breaths, animating all forms which have been created by Them to carry out the plan.
It may perhaps be easier to understand the relation of the seven rays to Deity if we remember that man himself (being made in the image of God) is a seven-fold being, capable of seven states of consciousness, expressive of the seven principles or basic qualities which enable him to be aware of the seven planes upon which he is, consciously or unconsciously, functioning. He is a septenate at all times, but his objective is to be consciously aware of all the states of being, to express consciously all the qualities, and to function freely on all the planes.
The seven ray Beings, unlike man, are fully conscious and entirely aware of the purpose and the Plan. They are 'ever in deep meditation,' and have reached the point where, through Their advanced stage of development, They are 'impelled toward fulfillment.' They are fully self-conscious and group-conscious; They are the sum total of the universal mind; They are 'awake and active.' Their goal and Their purpose is such that it is idle for us to speculate about it, for the highest point of achievement for man is the lowest point for Them. These seven Rays, Breaths and Heavenly Men have the task of wrestling with matter in order to subjugate it to divine purpose, and the goalas far as one can sense itis to subject the material forms to the play of the life aspect, thus producing those qualities which will carry the will of God to completion. They are therefore the sum total of all the souls within the solar system, and Their activity produces all forms; according to the nature of the form so will be the grade of consciousness. Through the seven rays, the life or spirit aspect flows, cycling through every kingdom in nature and producing thus all states of consciousness in all fields of awareness.
For the purpose of this treatise students will have to accept the hypothesis that every human being is swept into manifestation on the impulse of some ray, and is coloured by that particular ray quality, which determines the form aspect, indicates the way he should go, and enables him (by the time the third initiation is reached) to have sensed and then to have cooperated with his ray purpose. After the third initiation he begins to sense the synthetic purpose towards which all the seven rays are working; but as this treatise is written for aspirants and disciples, and not for initiates of the third degree, it is needless to speculate upon this ultimate destiny.
The human soul is a synthesis of material energy, qualified by intelligent consciousness, plus the spiritual energy which is, in its turn, qualified by one of the seven ray types.
Thus the human being emerges, a son of God incarnate in form, with one hand (as the Old Commentary says) holding firmly to the rock of matter and with the other hand plunged into a sea of love. An ancient scripture puts it thus:
'When the right hand of the man of matter grasps the flower of life and plucks it for himself, the left hand remains in emptiness.
'When the right hand of the man of matter grasps the golden lotus of the soul, the left descends seeking the flower of life, though he seeks it not for selfish ends.
'When the right hand holds the golden lotus firm and the left hand grasps the flower of life, man finds himself to be the seven-leaved plant which flowers on earth and flowers before the Throne of God.'
The purpose of Deity, as it is known to the Creator, is totally unknown to all save the higher initiates. But the purpose of each ray Life may be sensed and defined, subject of course to the limitations of the human mind and to the inadequacy of words. The planned activity of every ray qualifies every form found within its body of manifestation.
We come now to a technical statement which must be accepted for the sake of argument, being incapable of proof.. All the Lords of the rays create a body of expression, and thus the seven planets have come into being. These are their major expressions.
The Sun (Veiling Vulcan)
Jupiter
Saturn
Mercury
Venus
Mars
The Moon
The energies of these seven Lives however are not confined to their planetary expressions, but sweep around the confines of the solar system just as the life impulses of a human beinghis vital forces, his desire impulses, and his mental energiessweep throughout his body, bringing the various organs into activity and enabling him to carry out his intent, to live his life, and to fulfill the objective for which he created his body of manifestation.
Each of the seven kingdoms in nature reacts to the energy of some particular ray Life. Each of the seven planes similarly reacts; each septenate in nature vibrates to one or another of the initial septenates, for the seven rays establish that process which assigns the limits of influence of all forms. They are that which determines all things, and when I use these words I indicate the necessity of Law. Law is the will of the seven Deities, making its impression upon substance in order to produce a specific intent through the method of the evolutionary process.
We shall now express the ray purpose in the form of an ancient teaching preserved on leaves that are so old that the writing is slowly fading. I now translate it into modern language though much is lost thereby.
THE FIRST PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray I. Will or Power.
Behind the central sacred sun, hidden within its rays, a form is found. Within that form there glows a point of power which vibrates not as yet but shines as light electric.
Fierce are its rays. It burns all forms, yet touches not the life of God incarnate.
From the One who is the seven goes forth a word. That word reverberates along the line of fiery essence, and when it sounds within the circle of the human lives it takes the form of affirmation, an uttered fiat or word of power. Thus there is impressed upon the living mold the thought of. .. (the hidden, inexpressible ray name.)
Let dynamic power, electric light, reveal the past, destroy the form that is, and open up the golden door. This door reveals the way which leads towards the centre where dwells the one whose name cannot be heard within the confines of our solar sphere.
His robe of blue veils his eternal purpose, but in the rising and the setting sun his orb of red is seen.
His word is power. His light, electric. The lightning is his symbol. His will is hidden in the counsel of his thought. Nought is revealed.
His power is felt. The sons of men, reacting to his power, send to the utmost bounds of light a question:
Why this blind power? Why death? Why this decay of forms? Why the negation of the power to hold? Why death, Oh Mighty Son of God?
Faintly the answer comes: I hold the keys of life and death. I bind and loose again. I, the Destroyer, am.
This ray Lord is not yet in full expression, except as He causes destruction and brings cycles to an end. The Monads of power are much fewer in number than any others. Egos upon the power ray are relatively not so few. They are characterised by a dynamic will, and their power within the human family works out as the force of destruction, but in the last analysis it is a destruction that will produce liberation. We shall see as we continue to study first ray egos and personalities [Page 64] that death and destruction are always to be found in their work, and hence the apparent cruelty and impersonality of their reactions. Form does not count with first ray types their energy produces death to form, but ushers in great periods of cyclic pralaya; the first ray is the controller of the death drama in all kingdomsa destruction of forms which brings about release of power and permits 'entrance into Light through the gateway of Death.' The intent of the Lord of the first ray is to stand behind His six Brothers, and when They have achieved Their purpose, to shatter the forms which They have built. This He does by passing His power through Their bodies, and Their united effort leads to abstraction and a return to the center whence the initial impulse came. The first ray purpose therefore is to produce death, and some idea of that purpose may be gleaned if we study some of the names by which the ray Lord is called:
The Lord of Death
The Opener of the Door
The Liberator from Form
The Great Abstractor
The Fiery Element, producing shattering
The Crystallizer of the Form
The Power that touches and withdraws
The Lord of the Burning Ground
The Will that breaks into the Garden
The Ravisher of Souls
The Finger of God
The Breath that blasts
The Lightning which annihilates
The Most High
The qualities and characteristics of this Lord Who brings release may be gathered from the following six aphorisms which, an ancient legend says, His six Brothers gave to Him, as They begged Him to hold His hand till They had had time to work out Their purposes:
1. Kill out desire when desire has fulfilled its work. Thou art the one who indicates fulfillment.
Qualityclear vision.
2. Seek out the gentle way, Oh Lord of Power. Wait for thy brother on the path of Love. He builds the forms that can withstand thy power.
Quality dynamic power.
3. Withhold the hand until the time has come. Then give the gift of death, Oh Opener of the Door.
Qualitysense of time.
4. Stand not alone, but with the many join thyself. Thou art the One, the Isolated. Come forth unto thine own.
Quality solitariness.
5. Lead thine own forth but learn to know thine own. Hate not attachment but see its plan and purpose.
Quality detachment.
6. Through thee the life pulsates, the rhythm is imposed. The life is all. Love life in all its forms.
Qualitysingleness of purpose.
The six qualities enumerated above express the force of this ray as it makes its presence felt in the fourth kingdom in nature. The effects in other kingdoms differ, but we shall confine our attention to the standpoint of humanity. The purpose of the first ray, and its main work, is to produce cessation and the death of all forms in all kingdoms in nature and on all planes. The energy of this ray Lord brings about the death of an ant or of a solar system, of an organisation, a religion, or a government, of a race type or of a planet. His will or purpose works out through the law of periodicity.
THE SECOND PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray II. Love-Wisdom
The Word is issuing from the heart of God, emerging from a central point of love. That Word is love itself. Divine desire colours all that life of love. Within the human hierarchy, the affirmation gathers power and sound.
The Word in the beginning was. The Word hath dwelt and dwells with God. In Him was light. In Him was life. Within His light we walk.
His symbol is the thunder, the Word that cycles down the ages.
Some of the names of this ray Lord which convey his purpose are as follows:
The Displayer of Glory
The Lord of Eternal Love
The Cosmic Magnet
The Giver of Wisdom
The Radiance in the Form
The Master Builder
The Conferrer of Names
The Great Geometrician
The One Who hides the Life
The Cosmic Mystery
The Light Bringer
The Son of God Incarnate
The Cosmic Christ
The legend tells us that the six Brothers summarise His qualities in the following aphorisms:
1. Send forth the Word and speak the radiant love of God. Make all men hear.
Qualitylove divine.
2. Let the glory of the Lord shine forth. Let there be radiant light as well as radiant love.
Qualityradiance.
3. Draw to thyself the object of thy search. Pull forth into the light of day from out the night of time the one thou lovest.
Qualityattraction.
4. When light and love are shewn forth then let the power within produce the perfect flower. Let the word that heals the form go forth. That secret word that then must be revealed.
Qualitythe power to save.
5. Salvation, light, and love, with the magnetic power of God, produce the word of wisdom. Send forth that word, and lead the sons of men from off the path of knowledge on to the path of understanding.
Qualitywisdom.
6. Within the radius of the love of God, within the circle of the solar system, all forms, all souls, all lives revolve. Let each son of God enter into this wisdom. Reveal to each the Oneness of the many lives.
Qualityexpansion or inclusiveness.
The third ray, which is one that has a very long cycle, having been in manifestation since A.D. 1425, has a direct effect upon the fifth root race, the Aryan, and has connected with it a set of curious phrases which express its purpose.
THE THIRD PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray III. Active Intelligence or Adaptability
Let the Warden of the South continue with the building.
Let him apply the force Which will produce the shining living stone that fits into the temple's plan with right exactitude. Let him prepare the corner stone and wisely place it in the north, under the eye of God Himself, and subject to the balance of the triangle.
Let the Researcher of the past uncover the thought of God, hidden deep within the mind of the Kumaras of Love, and thus let him lead the Agnishvattvas, waiting within the place of darkness, into the place of light.
Let the Keeper of the sparks breathe with the breath divine upon the points of fire, and let him kindle to a blaze that which is hidden, that which is not seen, and so illumine all the spheres whereon God works.
I would call attention to the fact that all I can do here is to put into words certain ancient symbols, and so emphasize the process (adopted by the early initiate-teachers) of enunciating a word or sound, which produces a symbolic form, which in its turn, is capable of translation into words. These must in their turn be comprehended intuitively and adapted to individual need, and thus be assimilated into the life practice. Otherwise these ancient and interesting ideas, these interpretative names, and these aphorisms, conveying the 'power of qualities', are worse than useless and serve but to increase responsibility. The capacity to see objective significances and then apply them to life is an expression of the true esoteric sense. If one studies these tabulations and phrases with care, they will be found to convey indication as to one's individual ray, life tendencies and purpose; if the appeal the various statements make anent a particular ray evoke an intuitive understanding on the part of the student, so that he recognises himself, his ray energy and aspects of his latent and deeply desired spiritual nature, then these communications I am making here as to Purpose, Name and Quality will be profitable and useful.
Some of the names of the Lord of the third ray indicate His use of force and His real nature. They are as follows:
The Keeper of the Records.
The Lord of Memory
The Unifier of the lower Four
The Interpreter of That Which is seen
The Lord of Balance
The Divine Separator
The Discriminating Essential Life
The One Who produces Alliance
The Three-sided Triangle
The Illuminator of the Lotus
The Builder of the Foundation
The Forerunner of the Light
The One Who veils and yet reveals
The Dispenser of Time
The Lord of Space
The Universal Mind
The Threefold Wick
The Great Architect of the Universe
and many others terms which indicate relation to light, to time, to space, to the manifested Logos, to matter and to the 'power which evokes the form.'
If all these names are studied in connection with modern developments or modern culture and science, it will become apparent how potent and influential in our day and time is this particular ray Life, and how His energies (having produced the tangible objective worlds) are turned to the manifestation of our modern civilisation, with its material emphasis, its search as to the nature of time and space, and that mental unfoldment which it is the glory and the destiny of our particular race to demonstrate.
The qualities which characterise this ray Lord might be enumerated in the following phrases. We must bear in mind that the seventh or synthetic characteristic of each of the rays is denoted by the ray name and is not specifically stated in the other six qualities. His six Brothers, Sons of the one Father, chanted these injunctions to Him on the day of His renewed activity (on what we call the day of creation):
1. Produce the dual form and veil the life. Let form appear, and prove itself divine. All is of God.
Qualitythe power to manifest.
2. Conform the shell to that which dwells within. Let the world egg appear. Let ages pass, then let the soul appear. Let life emerge within a destined time.
Qualitythe power to evolve.
3. Let mind control. Let the clear shining of the sun of life reveal the mind of God, and set the shining one upon his way. Then lead him to the central point where all is lost within the light supernal.
Qualitymental illumination.
4. God and His form are one. Reveal this fact, Oh sovereign Lord of form. God and His form are one. Negate the dual concept. Lend colour to the form. The life is one; the harmony complete. Prove thus the two are one.
Quality the power to produce synthesis on the physical plane.
5. Produce the garment of the Lord; set forth the robe of many colours. Then separate that robe from That Which hides behind its many folds. Take off the veiling sheaths. Let God be seen. Take Christ from off the cross.
Qualityscientific investigation.
6. Let the two paths converge. Balance the pairs of opposites and let the path appear between the two. God and the Path and man are one.
Qualitybalance.
Thus the three major rays sum up in themselves the process of creation, of energising, through the urge of the divine will; and the work of the four minor rays (as they are called, though with no idea of there being lesser or greater) is to elaborate or differentiate the qualities of the life, and so produce the infinite multiplicity of forms which will enable the life to assume its many points of focus and expressthrough the process of evolutionary manifestationits diverse characteristics.
THE FOURTH PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray IV. Harmony, Beauty, Art
Colour, and yet no colour now is seen. Sound and the soundless One meet in an infinite point of peace. Time and the timeless One negate the thoughts of men. But time is not.
Form is there found, and yet the psychic sense reveals that which the form is powerless to hide,the inner synthesis, the all-embracing prism, that point of unity whichwhen it is duly reachedreveals a further point where all the three are one, and not the two alone.
Form and its soul are merged. The inner vision watches o'er the fusion, knows the divine relation and sees the two as one. But from that point of high attainment, a higher vision blazes forth before the opened inner eye. The three are one, and not alone the two. Pass on, O pilgrim on the Way.
In reading these words, the student must bear in mind that the antechamber has been left behind and man stands (when he has allowed the fourth ray to do its work and can therefore function on the fourth or buddhic plane) within the temple of the Lord. He has found a measure of light, but in that light he now sees light, and visions a greater revelation and brilliance. This now becomes the object of his search.He has mastered the uses of duality and has learnt to at-one soul and body into one instrument for spirit. Now he passes on his way to achieve the greater synthesis.
The Lord of the fourth ray has many names which warrant careful study and much consideration. In less than a hundred years this Lord of harmonising power will have more influence and will offset some of the Saturn disruption of the first decanate of Aquarius. In the meantime a study of His names will produce a simplification of His efforts and build up a body of constructive thought which will facilitate His work when He is again in active manifestation. He is always, however, more or less in power where the human family is concerned, for there is a numerical alliance between the fourth ray, the fourth Creative Hierarchy, or the human monads, and the fourth kingdom in nature. His power is always consequently active.
The Perceiver on the Way
The Link between the Three and Three
The Divine Intermediary
The Hand of God
The Hidden One
The Seed, that is the Flower
The Mountain whereon Form dies
The Light within the Light
The Corrector of the Form
The One Who marks the parting of the Way
The Master
The Dweller in the Holy Place
The Lower than the Three, the Highest of the Four
The Trumpet of the Lord.
The aphorisms connected with this fourth ray are not easy of comprehension. They require an exercise of the intuition and are conveyed by six short and excessively brief commands uttered, curiously enough, late in the creative period and at the time when the fourth Creative Hierarchy came into incarnation:
1. Speak low the Word. Speak low.
Qualitypower to penetrate the depths of matter.
2. Champion desire. Give what is needed to the seeker.
Qualitythe dual aspects of desire.
3. Lower the thread. Unfold the Way. Link man with God. Arise.
Qualitypower to reveal the path.
4. All flowers are thine. Settle the roots in mud, the flowers in sun. Prove mud and sun, and roots and flowers are one.
Qualitypower to express divinity. Growth.
5. Roll and return, and roll again. Cycle around the circle of the Heavens. Prove all is one.
Qualitythe harmony of the spheres.
6. Colour the sound. Sound forth the colour. Produce the notes and see them pass into the shades, which in their turn produce the sounds. Thus all are seen as one.
Qualitythe synthesis of true beauty.
This instruction on the rays is of deeper significance than can as yet be comprehended. Careful systematic study and a sane refraining from the forming of rapid deductions will be the wisest way in which to approach its consideration. It is not possible for me to deal with the definite human psychological applications at this early stage. I am occupied with starting a general outline, with the impartation of ideas, with the grounding of a few basic concepts in the consciousness of the reader, and with an attempt to clothe this most abstruse and difficult subject in such a form that some new rhythm of thought may be set in motion, and some new realisations be grasped and held. These concern at present a prototypal cosmic process, and will lead eventually to an understanding of the part an individual may play in a stupendous cosmic whole.We begin with the universal and end with the particular, which is ever the truly occult method.
However, all that I am positing about a ray Life may be equally well posited anent a human life, but it should be borne in mind that the pure ray type does not as yet exist, for there is not to be found that perfect form, mechanism or expression of the ray quality, nor that absolutely purified appearance in the human family, except in such rare cases as the Buddha, or Christ, and (in another field of expression) an Alexander or Julius Caesar. Leonardo da Vinci was an analogous expression. The rays concern energy and consciousness, and determine expression, but where the matter utilised and the vehicle informed is as yet imperfectly evolved, there is then limitation and the 'tuning out' automatically of much of the energy. The effect of ray force, working through imperfect forms, must be distorted and curtailed and misapplied. Let me illustrate. I have said that first ray energy works out as the destruction of forms; it must be remembered that a pure destroyer is utterly unknown, and mercifully for the race this is so. It is a beneficent condition that as yet a first ray ego is so handicapped and limited by the form nature and the quality of that form nature that it is unable to make adequate or intelligent use of its destructive force. First ray personalities are oft destructive, as well you know, but the energy generated is insufficient to work much harm. Again, pure love is incapable of expression today, its flow being impeded by the form nature. A consideration of these two cases will help the reader to appreciate the situation. But the time is near at hand wherein there will be a fuller expression of ray purpose, type or quality, and therefore a truer appearance.
This is owing to the imminent appearance, or manifestation, of certain great Lives Who will embody the energy of rays two, three, five and seven. They will thus constitute focal points for the inflow of these four types of divine energy and, this will produce a tremendous stimulation of their corresponding and responding units of life. These four Beings, Who will appear as human beings in the field of the modern world, may be looked for before the end of this century and Their united effort will inaugurate definitely the New Age, and usher in the period which will go down in history as the time of glory for the fifth root race. Each of these four Masters, for that They will be, is also subjectively the focal point for a triple inflow of energy from the centre in the Body of God which is symbolically spoken of as 'the heart of the Sun.' For each ray is in its turn a triple manifesting entity as is the solar Deity Himself. Love will be Their outstanding characteristic, and through that attractive magnetic force the new forms will come into being which will permit of purer ray types, and thus of more truly expressive appearances. A great deal of the destructive energy extant in the world today is due to the presence on the astral plane of a first ray disciple of the planetary Logos. His work it is to clear the way for the manifestation of these other four major Disciples, Who are primarily Builders; They will enter on Their work when the task of the wreckers of form has been accomplished.
I should like here to give a suggestion, for it is necessary that some of the methods of the Hierarchy should begin to be understood. The work of what in the West is called 'the Christ Principle' is to build the forms for the expression of quality and life. That is the characteristic work of the second aspect of divinity. The work of the Antichrist is to destroy forms, and this is essentially the work of the first expression of divinity. But the work of the destroyer is not the work of black magic, and when ignorant humanity regards Antichrist as working on the black side, their error is great. His work is as beneficent as that of the building aspect, and it is but man's hatred of the death of forms which makes him regard the work of the destroyer as 'black,' as being against the divine will, and as subversive of the divine programme. The work of the representatives of that mysterious power which we call cosmic evil, and their responding representatives, is indeed worthy of the word 'black'; but it is not applicable to the work of Antichrist. It might be added that the work of the black forces wells up from below, whilst the work of the destroyers is impelled from above. The symbols of these two ways are the sword and the cross.
After these preliminary remarks, which are intended to indicate the magnitude of the subject, we shall now proceed to an analysis of the three rays which still remain to be considered.
THE FIFTH PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray V. Concrete Knowledge or Science
The thunders crash around the mountain top; dark clouds conceal the form. The mists, arising from the watery sphere, serve to distort the wondrous found within the secret place. The form is there. Its note is sounding forth.
A beam of light illuminates the form; the hidden now appears. Knowledge of God and how He veils Himself finds consummation in the thoughts of man. The energies and forces receive their secret names, reveal their inner purpose, and all is seen as rhythm, a returning on itself. The great scroll can now be read. God's purpose and His plans are fixed, and man can read the form.
The plan takes form. The plan is form. Its purpose is the revelation of the mind of God. The past reveals the form, but the present indicates the flowing in of energy.
That which is on its way comes as a cloud which veils the sun. But hid behind this cloud of immanence is love, and on the earth is love and in the heaven is love, and this,the love which maketh all things newmust stand revealed. This is the purpose back of all the acts of this great Lord of Knowledge.
Before enumerating the names of this great Life, I should like to point out that the fifth ray is one of unique and peculiar potency in relation to the human kingdom. The reason is that the fifth plane of mind is the sphere of His major activity and it is on this plane that we find the triple aspects of mind:
1. Abstract or higher mind, the embodiment of a higher triad.
2. The concrete or lower mind, the highest aspect of the
lower self.
3. The ego or solar Angel, the pure Son of Mind, Who expresses intelligence, both abstractly and concretely, and is the point of unification.
This Life has also much power today in connection with the fifth root-race and with the transference of the consciousness of humanity into the fifth or spiritual kingdom. Students would learn much if they contrasted the building power of the higher mind with the destroying power of the lower. Just as the personality has no other function in the divine plan than to be a channel for, and the medium of expression of, the soul, so the lower mind is intended to be the channel for the pure inflow of higher mind energy.
This fifth ray is a Being of the intensest spiritual light and in His manifestation on this fifth plane, which is peculiarly His, He symbolises the three aspects in a way achieved by no other ray. Through His quality of higher mind, this ray is a pure channel for the divine will. Through the septenary grouping of the solar lives on the mental levels whereon they appear, He brought into functioning activity seven corresponding reflections of the seven centres of Deity, as far as our planet is concerned, a thing which none of His six brother rays have done. This statement means little to you, but the tremendous sacrifice and effort thus involved are paralleled only by the life of the Buddha, and this is one of the reasons why, in this fifth race, love and mind must eventually and mutually reveal each other.
Some of the names given to the Lord of this ray are as follows:
The Revealer of Truth
The great Connector
The Divine Intermediary
The Crystallizer of Forms
The Three-fold Thinker
The Cloud upon the Mountain-top
The Precipitator of the Cross
The Dividing Sword
The Winnower of the Chaff
The Fifth great Judge
The Rose of God
The Heavenly One
The Door into the Mind of God
The Initiating Energy
The Ruler of the Third Heaven
The Guardian of the Door
The Dispenser of Knowledge
The Angel with the Flaming Sword
The Keeper of the Secret
The Beloved of the Logos
The Brother from Sirius
The Master of the Hierophants
This fifth ray has so many names, owing to His close connection with man (since man was originally created), that it has not been easy to choose those which are of the most use in enabling the student to form an idea of the fifth ray characteristics and mission; but the study of the six aphorisms, and the qualities which they indicate, will show how potent and important is this ray Lord. These six aphorisms were chanted by His six Brothers at that momentous crisis wherein the human family came into existence and the solar Angels sacrificed themselves. Esoterically speaking, they 'went down into hell, and found their place in prison.' On that day souls were born. A new kingdom of expression came into being, and the three highest planes and the three lower were brought into a scintillating interchange.
1. God and His Angels now arise and see. Let the mountaintops emerge from out the dense wet mist. Let the sun touch their summits and let them stand in light. Shine forth.
Quality emergence into form and out of form.
2. God and His Angels now arise and hear. Let a deep murmur rise and let the cry of seeking man enter into their ears. Let man listen. Let man call. Speak loud.
Qualitypower to make the Voice of the Silence heard.
3. God and His Angels now arise and touch. Bring forth the rod of power. Extend it outward toward the sons of men; touch them with fire, then bring them near. Bring forth.
Quality initiating activity.
4. God and His Angels now arise and taste. Let all experience come. Let all the ways appear. Discern and choose; dissect and analyse. All ways are one.
Qualityrevelation of the way.
5. God and His Angels now arise and sense the odor rising from the burning-ground of man. Let the fire do its work. Draw man within the furnace and let him drop within the rose-red centre the nature that retards. Let the fire burn.
Qualitypurification with fire.
6. God and His Angels now arise and fuse the many in the One. Let the blending work proceed. Let that which causes all to be produce the cause of their cessation. Let one temple now emerge. Produce the crowning glory. So let it be.
Qualitythe manifestation of the great white light. (The Shekinah. A.A.B.)
There is much of practical usefulness to the reader in a study of these qualities. When he believes himself to be upon a particular ray, they will indicate to him some of the characteristics for which he may look, and perhaps demonstrate to him what he has to do, what he has to express, and what he has to overcome. These qualities should be studied from two angles: their divine aspect and their reverse aspect or the form side. This ray, for instance, is shown to be the revealer of the way, and it should be remembered therefore that this fifth ray reveals the way down into death or into incarnation (which is the death-like prison of the soul), or it reveals the way up and out of darkness into the pure light of God's day. I mention this as I am exceedingly anxious that all who read this treatise should make application of this teaching to their daily lives. I am not interested in imparting weird or unusual items of information anent these matters for the delectation of an unhealthy mental appetite. The stocking of the memory with occult detail which serves no useful purpose only strains the brain cells and feeds the pride.
THE SIXTH PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray VI. Devotion or Idealism
This ray which is just going out of manifestation, is of vital interest to us, for it has set its mark upon our western civilisation in a more definite way than any of the others. It is for us the most familiar and the best known of the rays. The mantram which defines its purpose is unlike the others and might be expressed somewhat as follows:
The Crusade is on. The warriors march upon their way. They crush and kill all that impedes their way, and aught that rises on their onward path is trampled under foot. March towards the light.
The work goes forward. The workers veil their eyes from pity as from fear. The work is all that counts. The form must disappear so that the loving spirit may enter into rest. Naught must arrest the progress of the workers with the plan. They enter upon the work assigned with paean and with song.
The cross is reared on high; the form is laid thereon, and on that cross must render up its life. Each builds a cross which forms the cross. They mount upon the cross.
Through war, through work, through pain and toil, the purpose is achieved. Thus saith the symbol.
It will be noted how this purpose, when applied by man to himself, works his release. When applied by man to man, it has produced the corrupt and awful story of man's cruelty to man. In the above mantram you will find the clue to the sixth ray purpose as it appears in the human kingdom, and a close expansive study (note that paradoxical phrase) of the underlying ideas will reveal a little of the larger purpose. The soul is and should be pitiless to its form and its problem. The soul can, however, comprehend the need for pain and difficulty in the world, for he can extend a knowledge of his own technique with himself to the technique of God with His world; but he does nothing knowingly that could possibly increase the world's pain or sorrow.
Some of the names for this beneficent yet somewhat violently energised Lord of a ray are as follows:
The Negator of Desire
The One Who sees the Right
The Visioner of Reality
The Divine Robber
The Devotee of Life
The Hater of Forms
The Warrior on the March
The Sword Bearer of the Logos
The Upholder of the Truth
The Crucifier and the Crucified
The Breaker of Stones
The Imperishable Flaming One
The One Whom Naught can turn
The Implacable Ruler
The General on the Perfect Way
The One Who leads the Twelve
Curiously enough, this sixth ray Lord has always been a loved enigma to His six Brethren. This comes out in the questions which They addressed to Him on one occasion when They met 'under the eye of the Lord' to interchange Their plans for united, divine, harmonious action. They asked these questions in a spirit of heavenly joy and love, but with the intent to throw some light upon the somewhat obscure quality of Their loved Brother.
1. Why is desire red? Why red as blood? Tell us, Oh Son of God, why thy way is red with blood?
Qualitypower to kill out desire.
2. Why do you turn your back upon the sphere of earth? Is it too small, too poor? Why kick it as a ball upon a playing field?
Quality spurning that which is not desired.
3. Why set the cross from earth to heaven? But earth can be a heaven. Why mount the cross and die?
Qualityself-immolation.
4. Why battle thus with all that is around? Seek you not peace? Why stand between the forces of the night and day? Why thus unmoved and calm, untired and unafraid?
Quality.. endurance and fearlessness.
5. See you not God in all, the life in all, and love in all? Why separate yourself and leave behind the loved and the well-known?
Qualitypower to detach oneself.
6. Can you arrest the waters of the sixth great sphere? Can you stem the flood? Can you recover both the raven and the dove? Can you, the Fish, swim free?
Qualityovercoming the waters of the emotional nature.
This out-going ray of devotion to the ideal, and the incoming ray of magical order or organisation are largely responsible for the type of man's consciousness today. Man is essentially devoted (to the point of fanaticism) to whatever may be the goal of his life's attention. This goal may be to achieve discipleship, or to raise a family, or to get money, or to achieve popularity, or any other objective to which he consecrates his time and energy; but whatever it may be, to it he devotes all that he is or has. Man also is essentially and inherently a producer of law and order, though this quality is only just beginning to make its presence felt. This is because mankind is, at last, becoming mentally centred, and hence we have in the world at this time the many and varied attempts to straighten out affairs along business, national, economic, social and other lines, to produce some system and order, and to bring about the re-arranging of all energies with the objective (unrealised consciously as yet) of inaugurating the New Age. Owing, however, to defective mental control and to an almost universal ignorance as to the laws of thought, and in addition, to a profound lack of knowledge as to man's own nature, man works blindly. The ideals sensed are not correctly interpreted by the mind nor applied in such a way that they are of general and appropriate application. Hence the confusion and the chaotic experimentation going on, and hence also the imposition of personal authority to enforce an individual's idea of the ideal.
The need today is for sound teaching as to the laws of thought, and the rules which govern the building of those thought-forms which must embody the ideas sent forth from the universal divine Mind. Men must begin on the subjective planes of life to work out the needed order. When this is realised, we shall have every important group of men engaged in world affairs, or in the work of government in all its branches, aided on the mental plane by trained thinkers, so that there may be right application and correct adjustment to the Plan. This time is as yet far away, and hence the distortions and misrepresentations on earth of the Plan as it exists in heaven, to use the Christian phraseology.
It was the realisation of the present world need for illumined thinkers and subjective workers which prompted Those Who guide so to direct the incoming spiritual energies that the formation of the esoteric groups everywhere came about; it led also to the publication of the mass of mystical and Oriental literature on meditation and allied topics which has flooded the world today. Hence also the effort that I, a worker on the inner side of life, am making to teach the newer psychology in this treatise, and so show to man what is his equipment and how well suited he is to the work for which he has been created, and which he has as yet failed to comprehend. The force and the effect of the seventh ray influence will, however, reveal to him the magical work, and the next twenty five hundred years will bring about so much change and make possible the working of so many so-called 'miracles' that even the outer appearance of the world will be profoundly altered; the vegetation and the animal life will be modified and developed, and much that is latent in the forms of both kingdoms will be brought into expression through the freer flow and the more intelligent manipulation of the energies which create and constitute all forms. The world has been changed beyond belief during the past five hundred years, and during the next two hundred years the changes will be still more rapid and deep-seated, for the growth of the intellectual powers of man is gathering momentum, and Man, the Creator, is coming into possession of His powers.
THE SEVENTH PURPOSE OF DEITY
Ray VII. Ceremonial Order or Magic
'Let the Temple of the Lord be built', the seventh great Angel cried. Then to their places in the north, the south, the west and east, seven great sons of God moved with measured pace and took their seats. The work of building thus began.
The doors were closed. The light shone dim. The temple walls could not be seen. The seven were silent and their forms were veiled. The time had not arrived for the breaking forth of light. The Word could not be uttered. Only between the seven Forms the work went on. A silent call went forth from each to each. Yet still the temple door stayed shut.
As time went on, the sounds of life were heard. The door was opened, and the door was shut. Each time it opened, the power within the temple grew; each time the light waxed stronger, for one by one the sons of men entered the temple, passed from north to south, from west to east and in the centre of the heart found light, found understanding and the power to work. They entered through the door; they passed before the Seven; they raised the temple's veil and entered into life.
The temple grew in beauty. Its lines, its walls, its decorations, and its height and depth and breadth slowly emerged and entered into light.
Out from the east, the Word went forth: Open the door to all the sons of men who come from all the darkened valleys of the land and seek the temple of the Lord. Give them the light. Unveil the inner shrine, and through the work of all the craftsmen of the Lord extend the temple's walls and thus irradiate the world. Sound forth the Word creative and raise the dead to life.
Thus shall the temple of the light be carried from heaven to earth. Thus shall its walls be reared upon the great plains of the world of men. Thus shall the light reveal and nurture all the dreams of men.
Then shall the Master in the east awaken those who are asleep. Then shall the warden in the west test and try all the true seekers after light. Then shall the warden in the south instruct and aid the blind. Then shall the gate into the north remain wide open, for there the unseen Master stands with welcoming hand and understanding heart, to lead the pilgrims to the east where the true light shines forth.
'Why this opening of the temple?' demand the greater Seven. Because the work is ready; the craftsmen are prepared. God has created in the light. His sons can now create. What can else be done?'
'Naught!' came the answer from the greater Seven. 'Let the work proceed. Let the sons of God create.'
These words will be noted by many as of deep significance and as indicating a wide intention (during the coming cycle) to open the door wide into the temple of the hidden mystery to man. One by one we shall undergo the esoteric and spiritual counterpart of the psychological factor which is called 'a mental test.' That test will demonstrate a man's usefulness in mental work and power, it will show his capacity to build thought-forms and to vitalise them. This I dealt with in A Treatise on White Magic, and the relation of that treatise to the magical work of the seventh ray and its cycle of activity will become increasingly apparent. A Treatise on White Magic is an attempt to lay down the rules for training and for work which will make it possible for the candidate to the mysteries to enter the temple and to take his place as a creative worker and thus aid in the magical work of the Lord of the Temple.
The names whereby this ray Lord is known are many, and their meaning is of prime significance today. The work of the future can be seen from a study of these names.
The Unveiled Magician
The Worker in the Magical Art
The Creator of the Form
The Bestower of Light from the Second Lord
The Manipulator of the Wand
The Watcher in the East
The Custodian of the Seventh Plan
The Invoker of Wrath
The Keeper of the Magical Word
The Temple Guardian
The Representative of God
The One Who lifts to Life
The Lord of Death
The One Who feeds the Sacred Fire
The Whirling Sphere
The Sword of the Initiator
The Divine Alchemical Worker
The Builder of the Square
The Orienting Force
The Fiery Unifier
The Key to the Mystery
The Expression of the Will
The Revealer of Beauty
This ray Lord has a peculiar power on earth and on the physical plane of divine manifestation. His usefulness to His six Brothers is therefore apparent. He makes Their work appear. He is the most active of all the rays in this world period, and is never out of manifestation for more than fifteen hundred years. It is almost as if He whirled in and out of active work under a very rapid cycle, and His closest relation, symbolically, is to His Brethren of the second and fifth rays in this world period.
He builds (using second ray cooperation) through the power of thought (thus cooperating with the Lord of the fifth ray and on the physical plane, which is His own essential and peculiar sphere). In another world period His relation with the other ray Lords may undergo change, but at this time His work will be more easily understood when He is recognised as aiding the building Lord of the second ray and utilising the energies of the Lord of concrete thought.
The aphorisms embodying His qualities run as follows, and were esoterically whispered into His ears when He 'left the most high place and descended into the seventh sphere to carry out the work assigned.'
1. Take thy tools with thee, brother of the building light. Carve deep. Construct and shape the living stone.
Qualitypower to create.
2. Choose well thy workers. Love them all. Pick six to do thy will. Remain the seventh in the east. Yet call the world to enter into that which thou shalt build. Blend all together in the will of God.
Qualitypower to cooperate.
3. Sit in the centre and the east as well. Move not from there.Send out thy force to do thy will and gather back thy forces. Use well the power of thought. Sit still.
Quality power to think.
4. See all parts enter into the purpose. Build towards beauty, brother Lord. Make all colours bright and clear. See to the inner glory. Build the shrine well. Use care.
Qualityrevelation of the beauty of God.
5. Watch well thy thought. Enter at will into the mind of God. Pluck thence the power, the plan, the part to play. Reveal the mind of God.
Qualitymental power.
6. Stay in the east. The five have given thee a friendly Word. I, the sixth, tell thee to use it on the dead. Revive the dead. Build forms anew. Guard well that Word. Make all men seek it for themselves.
Qualitypower to vivify.
Thus we have studied a little the work of the seven rays. The teaching has had to be conveyed symbolically and its understanding necessitates an awakened esoteric sense; to comprehend it all is not as yet possible.
The Chohans of the sixth initiation have the guidance of those units of consciousness in whom their particular ray vibration and colour predominate. The vast importance of this fact is often overlooked, even when theoretically acknowledged by aspirants to initiation. Hence the importance of determining the ray of the ego and of the Monad,something of vital moment after the third initiation. A majority and a minority always exist in every department of life. So it is in the work of the Logos, for at the end of the greater cycle (manvantara) the majority will find their way to the synthetic love ray; a small minority will find their way to the power ray. This minority are destined for an important function. They will constitute the nucleus which (in the next solar system) will constitute the majority, finding their synthesis on ray one. This is a great mystery and not easily understood. [Page 88] Some hint towards its solution will be found hidden in the real meaning of the words 'exoteric' and 'esoteric.'
The fact should be remembered that only five rays dominate at any one time. All manifest, but only five dominate. A distinction should be made between the rays dominating in a solar system and those dominating in a scheme, or a chain. To this reference has been made in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. Three rays out of the seven synthesise. One ray out of the three will synthesise at the culmination. For the first solar system the third ray was the synthetic ray, but for this solar system the second ray is the synthetic ray, and for the next solar system the first ray will perform a similar function.
Two rays are largely the goal of human endeavour, the first ray and the second ray. One ray is the goal of the deva or angel evolution, the third ray. All these three rays contact the two poles, and the attainment of the goal at the end of the cycle marks the achievement of the solar Logos. This again is hidden in mystery. The seventh ray and the first ray are very closely allied, with the third ray linking them, so that we have the relation expressed thus, 1. 3. 7. There is a close association also between rays 2. 4. 6., with the fifth ray in a peculiar position, as a central point of attainment, the home of the ego or soul, the embodied plane of mind, the point of consummation for the personality, and the reflection in the three worlds of the threefold monad.
Ray I..Will, demonstrating as power in the unfolding of the Plan of the Logos.
Ray IIIAdaptability of activity with intelligence. This ray was the dominant one in the past solar system; it is the foundation or basis of this system, and is controlled by the Mahachohan.
Ray VII..Ceremonial ritual or organisation. This is the reflection on the physical plane of the two above, and is likewise connected with the Mahachohan. It controls the elemental forces and the involutionary process and the form side of the three kingdoms in nature. It holds hid the secret of physical colour and sound. It is the law.
These three rays together embrace and embody all. They are Power, Activity and the Law in manifestation.
Ray II.Love and Wisdom, the synthetic ray which is the goal for this system, holding all in close harmony and relation.
Ray IVThe expression of Harmony, beauty, music and unity.
Ray VIThe ray of Devotion to the ardour of aspiration, and of the sacrifice of the personal self for the good of all, with the object in view of harmony and beauty, impelled thereto by love.
These two groups of rays might be related to each other as follows:
Rays 1. 3. 7 are the great rays connected with the form, with the evolutionary process, with the intelligent functioning of the system, and with the laws controlling the life in all forms in all the kingdoms in nature.
Rays 2. 4. 6 are the rays connected with the inner life, expanding through those forms,the rays of motive, aspiration and sacrifice. Rays pre-eminently of quality.
Rays 1. 3. 7 deal with things concrete and with the functioning of matter and form from the lowest plane to the highest.
Rays 2. 4. 6 deal with things abstract, with spiritual expression through the medium of form.
Ray 5 . . . .forms the connecting link of the intelligence.
Our third question comes up now for consideration and is as follows:
The soul has been satisfactorily disproved from the standpoint of academic science. For ages the search has gone on, with the objective of the searchscientifically speaking being laid on the demonstration of the location of the soul in the human bodv. That has been the emphasis and the important factor to the scientific mind, which is so different to that of its more mystically inclined brother.
All research, especially that carried on lately in connection with the modern materialistic schools and with the fuller understanding of the mechanism of the human body, has tended to prove that the soul is a superstition, a defense mechanism, and that conscious thought with all the higher manifestations of the human mind (and hence also the lower expressions of personality, selfhood and conscious integration) can well be provided for and accounted for by man's present equipment of brain, nervous system and the endocrine system. All these in their turn are understood to be the result of a long evolutionary and selective process. The wonder of the machine itself is divine in its completion and in its scope. From a primeval germ, developing under the pressure of nature's laws, and of environing conditions plus a consistent adaptation to requirements and a most careful selection, man has developed; he now possesses a mechanism which is responsive to the natural world, to sensation and to thought. That which is called the soul is regarded frequently as the result of this selective process and as constituting the sum total of the responsive and discriminating powers of the cells and organs of the body, plus the life principle. All, we are told, is inherent in the parental germ, and the conditions of the environment, added to heredity and education, are sufficient to account for the phenomena of the human consciousness. Man is a machine, a part of a still greater machine which we call nature, and both man and nature are run on immutable laws. There is no free will except within certain clearly defined limits, which are defined by equipment and by circumstance. There can be no immortality, for when the machine breaks down and disintegrates there is nothing left but the dissociated cells and atoms of which it was originally composed. When the principle of coherence or of integration ceases to function, that which it producedthe coherent functioning bodylikewise ceases to function. Consciousness and choice, awareness and affection, thought and temperament, life and love, character and capacitiesall disappear, and there is nothing left but the atoms of which the body had been composed. These in their turn are dissipated and disappear, and all has finally been reabsorbed into the general reservoir of forces and atoms.
Of the countless millions of human beings who have lived and loved, suffered and rejoiced upon our planet, what is left today to guarantee to us their existence in the past, not to speak of their continuing existence in the present? A few bones, a few buildings, and, later, traces of their historical influence; later still, we note what they have left behind of beauty in the field of literature, of architecture, of painting, and in those forms in which they have embodied their thought and aspiration, their visions and their ideals. On the planet today we find a humanity at all stages of development, with mechanisms of varying kinds, adequate and inadequate. We find all of them, without exception, breaking down under test and limited by disease, or hiding the seeds of disease; the perfect equipment is totally unknown, and every man harbors the germs of trouble. No man possesses a perfect mechanism, but owns one that must inevitably break down at some point that is conditioned by an under-developed or over-developed glandular system, that hides at some point inherited disease and racial weaknesses, and that fails somewhere, in some portion of the mechanism, to meet the needs (physical, emotional, and mental) of the day and hour. Of what does this speak? Of the sum total of the united cell life; of the environing group in which a particular form finds itself; of the life, impersonal and abstract in nature, which pervades it; of a vague group spirit that is expressing itself through the fourth kingdom in nature; of a temporary and impermanent self; or of an immortal entity who is the dweller in the body?
Such are some of the questions which arise today; and in the last analysis, belief in the soul can be posited as being largely a matter of temperament, of the wish and desire of the ages wherein man struggled and suffered and relieved the strain of living by constructing a body of thought around a happy immortal being, who was to be free, eventually and finally, from all the difficulties of physical existence. The soul can be regarded as a beautiful vision or as an hallucination, for all that tends to prove its existence is the testimony of the many mystics down the ages to a contact and an experience which can be accounted for in terms of dream life, of brain lesions or of escape reactions, but which rests on no sure foundation. So say the materialists and the upholders of proven scientific facts. Belief, verbal testimony, hope, curious and inexplicable psychic happenings, the mass of untrained opinion and the findings of visionary people (who were probably psychopathic cases) are not enough to prove the fact of the soul. They prove only man's power to imagine, to build images and pictures, and to lose himself and his dreadful present in a dream world of a possible and ardently desired future in which frustration will end, in which full expression will be achieved, and in which each man will enter into an impossible heritage which he has himself constructed out of the unrealised hopes and dim unuttered longings of his deeply hidden thought life. Belief in God and Heaven and in an immortal future have grown out of the ancient awe and ignorant terror of infant humanity. They saw in all the phenomena of nature (incomprehensible and terrifying) the activity of a gigantic man, built on lines which were the projection of their own consciousness, and who could be propitiated or angered by the behaviour of a human being. The result of a man's effect upon this deity provided man's destiny, which was either good or bad according to the reactions of this God to his deeds. Thus we have the origin of the heaven or hell complexes of the present religious faiths. From this grew, automatically, the idea of a persistent entity called the soul, which could enjoy heaven or suffer hell at the will of God and as the result of actions done whilst in the human form. As the forms of man grew in sensitivity; as they became more and more refined under the influence of the law of selection and of adaptation; as the group life grew closer and the group integration was improved; as the heritage of history, of tradition and of the arts grew richer and made its impress, so that ideas of God grew, and likewise ideas of the soul and of the world, man's concepts of reality grew richer and deeper, so that today we are faced with the problem of a thought inheritance which testifies to a world of concepts, ideas and intuitions which deal with the immaterial and the intangible, and which testify to an age-long belief in a soul and its immortality for which there is no true justification. At the same time we have demonstrated to us by science that all we can really know with certainty is the tangible world of phenomena, with its forms, its mechanisms, its test tubes and its laboratories, and the bodies of men 'fearfully and wonderfully made,' diverse and different. These in some mysterious way produce thoughts and dreams and imaginings, and which, in their turn, find expression in the formulated schemes of the past, the present and the future, or in the fields of literature, art and of science itself, or in the simple everyday life of the ordinary human being who lives and loves and works and plays and bears children and eats food and earns money and sleeps.
And then what? Does man disappear into nothingness, or does, somewhere, a part of him (hitherto unseen) live on? Does this aspect survive for a time and then in its turn disappear, or is there an immortal principle, a subtle intangible entity which has an existence either in the body or out of the body, and which is the undying immutable Being, belief in Whom has sustained countless millions down the ages? Is the soul a fiction of the imagination and has science satisfactorily disproved its existence? Is consciousness a function of the brain and of the allied nervous system, or shall we accept the idea of a conscious dweller in the form? Does our power to become aware of and to react to our surroundings find its source in the body-nature, or is there an entity who beholds and takes action? Is this entity different to and separable from the body, or is it the result of the body type and life, and so either persists after the body disappears, or disappears with it and is lost? Is there nothing but matter or energies in constant movement which produce the appearances of men who react in their turn and express the energy that is pouring through them blindly and unconsciously, having no individual existence? Or are all these theories partially true, and shall we really comprehend the nature and being of man only in the synthesis of all of them and in the acceptance of the general premises? Is it not possible that the mechanically minded and scientific investigators are right in their conclusion anent the mechanism and the form nature, and that the spiritually minded thinkers who posit an immortal entity are also right? As yet perhaps something is lacking which would bridge the gap between the two positions. Is it possible that we may discover a something which will link the intangible world of true being with the tangible world (so-called) of form life?
When humanity is assured of divinity and of immortality, and has entered into a state of knowledge as to the nature of the soul and of the kingdom in which that soul functions, its attitude to daily life and to current affairs will undergo such a transformation that we shall verily and indeed see the emergence of a new heaven and a new earth. Once the central entity within each human form is recognised and known for what it essentially is, and once its divine persistence is established, then we shall necessarily see the beginning of the reign of divine law on eartha law imposed without friction and without rebellion. This beneficent reaction will come about because the thinkers of the race will be blended together in a general soul awareness, and a consequent group consciousness will permit them to see the purpose underlying the working of the law.
Let us put this a little more simply. We are told in the New Testament that we must endeavour to let the mind which was in Christ also be manifest in us. We are working towards the perfecting of the rule of Christ on earth; we are aiming at the development of the Christ consciousness and at the bringing in of the rule or law of Christ, which is Love. This will come to fruition in the Aquarian Age, and we shall see brotherhood established on earth. The rule of Christ is the dominance of the basic spiritual laws. The mind of Christ is a phrase conveying the concept of the rule of divine intelligent love, which stimulates the rule of the soul within all forms, and brings in the reign of the Spirit. It is not easy to express the nature of the revelation which is on the way. It involves the recognition by men everywhere that the 'mind-stuff,' as the Hindus call it, to which their own minds are related and of which their mental bodies are an integral part, is also part of the mind of Christ, the cosmic Christ, of Whom the historical Christ isupon our planetthe ordained representative. When men, through meditation and group service, have developed an awareness of their own controlled and illumined minds, they will find themselves initiated into a consciousness of true being and into a state of knowledge which will prove to them the fact of the soul, beyond all doubt or questioning.
The Mystery of the Ages is on the verge of revelation, and through the revelation of the soul that mystery which it veils will stand revealed. The scriptures of the world, we know, have ever prophesied that at the end of the age we shall see the revelation of that which is secret, and the emergence into the light of day of that which has hitherto been concealed and veiled. This, our present cycle, is the end of the age, and the next two hundred years will see the abolition of death, as we now understand that great transition, and the establishing of the fact of the soul's existence. The soul will be known as an entity, as the motivating impulse and the spiritual centre back of all manifested forms. The next few decades will see certain great beliefs substantiated. The work of Christ, and His main mission two thousand years ago, was to demonstrate the divine possibilities and powers latent in every human being. The proclamation which He made to the effect that we were all sons of God and own one universal Father will, in the future, no longer be regarded as a beautiful, mystical and symbolic statement, but will be regarded as a scientific pronouncement. Our universal brotherhood and our essential immortality will be demonstrated and realised to be facts in nature. He came, He said, not to bring peace but a sword, and esoterically, He has been the 'Cosmic Divider.' Why? Because, in establishing unity, He also makes a distinction between body and soul. Body and soul are, however, only two parts of one whole, and this must not be forgotten. In establishing the fact of the soul and its expression, the body, the totality emerges in completeness.
How will this revelation come? We enter here into the realm of foretelling and of prevision to which many have an objection on the ground that the thing of the moment is that which aids the soul's spiritual living; they feel that the holding out of promises of future help and revelation, and the encouragement in the aspirant of a happy speculation and an idle expectancy carry the seeds of danger, of static inertia, and of idle imaginings. But 'where there is no vision, the people perish,' and so much has happened during the last two hundred years, and so much has already been revealed, that we are provided with a firm basis for all our forward looking. Had the unfoldments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the departments of science and psychology alone, been forecast to the thinkers of the world in the sixteenth century, how strange and impossible it would all have seemed to them! Stranger than anything I might here prophecy to you, for we have already seen so much occur, and the testimony to the world of true being is accumulating so fast, that we can no longer stand amazed at any occurrence.
The fact of the soul will be brought to the racial recognition in many ways, and the revelation will come along so many lines that all types of minds will be satisfied. I shall indicate only a few.
The psychics of the world are increasing greatly in number, and the growing sensitivity of the race to impression is a cause of rejoicing and of danger. All over the world aspirants are registering contacts hitherto unknown, are seeing a phenomenal world usually hidden to them, and are generally becoming aware of an expansion of consciousness. They are registering a world of phenomenaoften astral, sometimes mental, and occasionally egoicwhich does initiate them into a new dimension of consciousness and into a different state of being. This expansion of consciousness serves both to encourage them in their endeavour and to complicate the way of the aspirant. This growing sensitivity is universal; hence the rapid growth of spiritualism and of the psychic sciences, and hence also the increase among men of nervous tension, of neurotic conditions, and of the greatly increased problems of the psychiatrist; hence also the spread of new nervous and mental diseases. This sensitivity is the response of the mechanism of man to the approaching developments, and the race as a whole is being brought into a condition wherein it will be ready to 'see and hear' that which has been up to the present unrevealed.
The growth of the colour sense and the capacity to respond musically to quarter tones and subtle nuances indicate a thinning of the veil which separates the world of external and tangible phenomena from that of subjective being and of more subtle matter. The growth also of etheric vision and the largely increased numbers of clairvoyant and clairaudient people are steadily revealing the existence of the astral plane and the etheric counterpart of the physical world. More and more people are becoming aware of this subjective realm; they see people walking around who are either the so-called 'dead,' or who in sleep have dropped the physical sheath. They become aware of colours and distinctive hues and streams of organised light which are not of this physical world; they hear sounds and voices which emanate from those who are not using the physical vocal apparatus, and from forms of existence which are not corporeal.
The first step towards substantiating the fact of the soul is to establish the fact of survival, though this may not necessarily prove the fact of immortality. It can nevertheless be regarded as a step in the right direction. That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body, is steadily being proved. If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted. Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness. This development along psychic lines does not prove the fact of the soul, however; it only serves to break down the materialistic position.
It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognition of the soul will come, and this event will be the result of the study and analysis, by the psychologists of the world, of the nature of genius and the significance of creative work.
Some men and women in the world tower above their fellow men, and produce that which is superlative in its own field; their work has in it the element of divinity and of immortality. The work of creative artists, the intuitive perception of great scientific investigators, the inspired imagination of the poets of the world and the vision of the illumined idealists, have all to be accounted for and explained, for the laws under which such men and women work have yet to be discovered. The close study, by the psychologist, of the abnormal and the subnormal, of warped and distorted minds and of defective equipments, has been over-emphasized, and due attention has not been given to the divinely abnormal, and to those types of consciousness which transcend the ordinary human state of intelligent awareness. These latter super-normal states find expression through the medium of the great artists, musicians, dramatists, writers, and the many other types of creative workers who have been the glory of the human kingdom down the ages, and who will flame forth during the coming century with greater glory still.
When the hypothesis of the soul is accepted, when the nature of the spiritual energy which flows through the soul is admitted, and when the mechanism of the force centres is studied, we shall make rapid progress towards knowledge. When, through meditation, experiment is made to produce creatively some of the beauty contacted, some of the ideas revealed and some of the patterns seen, we shall learn to cultivate genius and understand how to train people to work creatively. Then much will be discovered about the centres in man where the divine principle has its dwelling, and from which the Christ within can work. The study of the super-conscious must be undertaken, and not simply the study of the self-conscious or of the sub-conscious. Through this study, carried forward with an open mind, modern psychology will eventually arrive at a recognition of the soul.
The range of investigation is so wide that I can only indicate some of the possible fields of research:
1. The investigation of the nature of genius, and its definite and specialised cultivation.
2. Training in creative work and a study of the difference between this kind of training and training for vocational work. Creative work proves the fact of the soul; vocational training demonstrates the type of the personality.
3. Scientific investigation of the powers in man, with particular attention to telepathy. It will be found that telepathic work is from mind to mind, or from soul to mind, and does not necessarily imply brain to brain communication and contact. This is one of the most promising fields of investigation, though it still presents much difficulty. The fact of the existence of the soul will not be proved through the medium of telepathy until after the year 1945. By that time an event will have happened in the world and a particular new teaching will have been given which will put the entire subject of telepathic phenomena in a new light.
4. The scientific training of clairvoyants and the intelligent development of clairvoyant powers by the intelligentsia of the world leaves as yet much to be desired, but it will come as the result of mind control and illumination. Men will learn to subject the mechanism of the body to a downflow of spiritual energy and stimulation, and thus will bring the powers of the psychic nature into activity, and the old method of sitting for development in order to awaken the centres will be seen as dangerous and unnecessary.
In the field of modern psychology we can look for a gradual recognition of the fact of the self. The problem of the psychologists is to comprehend the relationship or the identity of that self with the soul.
It is, however, from the field of science that the greatest help will come. The fact of the soul will eventually be proved through the study of light and of radiation and through a coming evolution in particles of light. Through this imminent development we shall find ourselves seeing more and penetrating deeper into that which we see today. One of the recognised facts in the realm of natural science has been the cyclic change in the fauna and flora of our planet. Animals, plentiful and familiar many thousands of years ago, are now extinct, and by means of their bones we endeavour to reconstruct their forms. Flowers and trees that once covered the surface of our planet have now entirely disappeared and only their fossilized remains are left to indicate to us a vegetation vastly different to that which we now enjoy. Man himself has changed so much that we find it difficult to recognise homo sapiens in the early primitive races of the far distant past. This mutability and obliteration of earlier types is due to a major factor among many. The quality of the light which promotes and nurtures growth, vitality and fertility in the kingdoms of nature has changed several times during the ages, and as it has changed it has produced corresponding mutations in the phenomenal world. From the standpoint of the esotericist, all forms of life on our planet are affected by three types of light substance, and at the present time a fourth type is gradually making its presence felt. These types of light are:
1. The light of the sun.
2. The light in the planet itselfnot the reflected light of the sun but its own inherent radiance.
3. A light seeping in (if I may use such a phrase) from the astral plane, a steady and gradual penetration of the 'astral light' and its fusion with the other two types of radiance.
4. A light which is beginning to merge itself with the other three types and which comes from that state of matter which we call the mental planea light in its turn reflected from the realm of the soul.
An intensification of the light is going on all the time, and this increase in intensity began on the earth at about the time when man discovered the uses of electricity, which discovery was a direct result of this intensification. The electrification of the planet through the wide-spread use of electricity is one of the things which is inaugurating the new age, and which will aid in bringing about the revelation of the presence of the soul. Before long this intensification will become so great that it will materially assist in the rending of the veil which separates the astral plane from the physical plane; the dividing etheric web will shortly be dissipated, and this will permit a more rapid inflow of the third aspect of light. The light from the astral plane (a starry radiance) and the light of the planet itself will be more closely blended, and the result upon humanity and upon the three other kingdoms in nature cannot be over-emphasized. It will, for one thing, profoundly affect the human eye and make the present sporadic etheric vision a universal asset. It will bring within the radius of our range of contact the infra-red and ultra-violet gamut of colours, and we shall see what at present is hidden. All this will tend to destroy the platform upon which the materialists stand, and to pave the way, first, for the admission of the soul as a sound hypothesis, and secondly, for the demonstration of its existence. We only need more light, in the esoteric sense, in order to see the soul, and that light will shortly be available and we shall understand the meaning of the words, 'And in Thy light shall we see light.'
This intensification of the light will continue until A.D. 2025, when there will come a cycle of relative stability and of steady shining without much augmentation. In the second decanate of Aquarius these three aspects will again be augmented by increased light from the fourth aspect, that is the light from the soul realm, reaching us via the universal 'chitta' or mind stuff. This will flood the world. By that time, however, the soul will be recognised as a fact, and as a consequence of this recognition our entire civilisation will have changed so radically that we cannot today even guess at the form it will take. The next ten years will see a greatly increased merging of the first three forms of light, and those of you who are awake to these issues and happenings will find it interesting to note what is going on. The consensus of opinion in the religious and spiritualistic fields and in the field of biblical prophecy, and likewise a study of the symbolism of the Pyramid, lead students to believe that the immediate future will see some great event and some unforeseen spiritual happening. This should be duly anticipated, and careful preparation should be made for it. I refer not to any coming of any individual. I refer to a natural process with far-reaching effects.
There are certain other fields of activity which will all do their part in demonstrating the fact of the soul.
There is an aspect of human consciousness which has for long baffled the materialistic psychologist, and this is the curious power of prevision, the ability to foresee and foretell with accuracy events coming in the immediate future, or distant happenings. There are warnings given by some inner monitor which have again and again saved man from death and disaster; there are the appearances, to their friends and relatives, of men or women who have just died, before any word of their death has been received. This is not in the field of telepathic knowledge of the death, but involves the appearance of the person. There is the power to participate in events in distant places and to recover the recollection of what transpired with accuracy as to place, personnel and detail. These powers and many similar previsions and recognitions have long bewildered investigators and must find correct explanation. In their wise investigation, in the accumulation of responsible evidence, and in the later substantiation of the prevision, it will begin to be seen that some factor exists in man which is not bound by space-time limitations, but which transcends the normal human consciousness. The present attempted investigation and explanations are inadequate and do not account satisfactorily for all the facts. When, however, they are approached from the standpoint of the soul, with its faculty of omniscience and its freedom from categories of past, present and future (for they are lost in the consciousness of the Eternal Now), we shall begin to understand the process a little more clearly. When the true Dweller in the body is recognised and the laws of prevision are discovered, and when the power to foresee is generally prevalent, then we shall begin to find ample proof of the existence of the soul. It will be impossible to account for the ordinary phenomena then current without admitting its existence.
Along these various lines proof of the soul will accumulate. In the massing of testimony and of evidence a fruitful field of activity lies. In the training of the higher types of men in the use of the soul force and soul powers, and in the trained control of the mechanism, that evidence so produced will be seen to be of so high an order and will be so scientifically presented that it will be regarded as of as much importance and as justifiable as any views presented by our leading scientists in their various fields of research today. The study of the soul will before long be as legitimate and respectable an investigation as any scientific problem, such as research into the nature of the atom. The investigation of the soul and its governing laws will, before long, engross the attention of our finest minds. The newer psychology will eventually succeed in proving the fact of its existence, and the paralleling intuitive and instinctive response of mankind to soul nurture, emanating from the invisible side of life, will steadily and successfully prove the existence of a spiritual entity in man,an entity all-wise, immortal, divine and creative.
But the process would be slow were it not for the work now being done by a group of disciples and initiates working in collaboration with the Master P, Who has His headquarters in America and Who, with His disciples, is doing much to stimulate the various psychological schools in the world today. It is needless for students to endeavour to ascertain His identity. He works through movements and schools of thought, and does no work with private individuals. He works practically entirely on the mental plane, with the power of thought, and is quite unknown and unrecognised, except by His fellow workers in the various countries in the world, and by the disciples on His ray, the fourth ray. Much that is opening in the world of psychology today is due to the work He does in stimulating the minds of the leaders of movements. He works with them on the mental plane, but does not contact them as physical plane individuals.
The urgency of the time is great, and the Masters are exceedingly active and profoundly concerned at this time with the work of salvaging the world. They have not the time for personal work, except with Their own groups of accepted chelas, all of whom are active in the world work, or they would not be in the Masters' group. Also They may work intermittently with small groups of probationers to whom They offer opportunity and give an occasional hint. Each of Them has a few, a very few, probationers in training, to take the place of chelas who pass on to initiation, but beyond these two groups, during this century, They do no personal work, leaving the many aspirants to the care of lesser initiates and chelas. Even Their work and Their personal chelas at this time are much restricted, and word has been sent out to the working disciples in the world to stand on their own feet, to use their own judgment and not handicap the Masters at this time of intense strain and danger by attracting Their attention needlessly. The world issues today are of such importance, and the opportunity before humanity is so great, and the Masters are so entirely occupied with world affairs and with the dominant and prominent figures in high places in the nations, that the instruction of unimportant people in the various little occult groups and societies is temporarily suspended. The time is relatively so short in which to accomplish and carry out certain aspects of the Plan as entrusted to the Great Ones, that all true chelas are going about their work and endeavouring to solve their own problems without having to call on the Master's help, thus leaving Him free for more important work. The closer a disciple is to a Master, the more deeply he realises this fact, and the more he endeavours to fulfill his duty, learn his lessons, serve humanity, and lift some of the load of work off the shoulders of the Master.
The world today is full of disciples of varying degree, and each of them is, in his place, able to guide and help some aspirants. The world is full of teaching and of books able to inspire and help all true seekers after spiritual knowledge. The last fifty years have seen much teaching given out and much esoteric training given to the world and available now to all who earnestly seek it. Aspirants have much to work upon and much theory to render into practice, and this leaves the Masters free for more important work.
One of the interesting things that is happening, and one of the factors which will serve eventually in the work of demonstrating the fact of the soul, is the mass of communications, inspired writings, and telepathic dictations which is flooding the world today. As you know, the spiritualistic movement is producing a vast amount of this inspired or pseudo-inspired literature, some of it of the very highest order and unquestionably the work of highly evolved disciples, and some of it most mediocre in quality. The various theosophical societies have been the recipients of similar communications, and they are found in every occult group. True communications are frequently of deep spiritual value, and contain much teaching and help for the aspirant. Students of the times would do well to remember that it is the teaching that is of moment, not the supposed source; by their intrinsic value alone these writings and communications must be judged. These communications emanate in the majority of instances from the soul plane, and the recipient or the communicator (the intermediary or scribe) is either inspired by his own soul or has tapped the thought level and knowledge of the ray group to which his soul belongs. He tunes in on a reservoir of thought, and his mind and brain translate these thoughts into words and phrases.
In a lesser number of cases, the man who is receiving a dictation or writing is in telepathic rapport with some more advanced disciple than himself, and his mind is being impressed by some chela in his group. This chela, who is closer to the Master than he is, passes on to him some of the knowledge that he has absorbed through being able to live within the Master's aura. But the Master is not concerned in the process; it lies between the chela and the aspirant. In these cases the receiver of the communication is often misled, and thinks that the Master Himself is dictating to him, whereas in reality he hasthrough a more advanced chela than himselftuned in on the Master's thought atmosphere.
None of the Masters of the sixth initiation (such as the Masters M. and K. H.) are at this time working through dictation with Their disciples. They are too much engrossed with world problems, and with the work of watching over the destinies of the prominent world figures in the various nations, to have any opportunity to dictate teaching to any particular disciple in some small field of activity and upon subjects of which sufficient is already known to enable the disciple to go ahead alone and unaided. Two of the Masters are working telepathically and through dictation with several accepted disciples, and Their effort is to inspire these disciples, who are active in world work, to greater usefulness in the Plan. They are working in this way in order to impress a few of the prominent thinkers in the field of science and of social welfare with the needed knowledge which will enable them to make the right moves in the emergence of the race into greater freedom. But I know of no others, in this particular generation, who are so doing, for They have delegated much of this work to Their initiates and disciples. The bulk of the communicators today (working through aspirants on the physical plane) are active working chelas of accepted degree who (living as they do in the thought aura of the Master and His group) are steadily endeavouring to reach all kinds of people, all over the world, in all groups. Hence the increasing flood of communications, of inspired writings, and of personal messages and teaching.
When you add to the above the equally large flood of communications which emanate from the transmitters' own souls and from the realm of the subconscious, you have accounted for the mass of the material going out now. In all this there is need for deep thankfulness at the growing responsiveness and sensitivity of man.
That the first reaction and effect of such an outpouring of communications is oft an increase of spiritual pride and ambition, and that the stepping down of the teaching from the mind to the brain and from the brain into words and sentences often fails in adequacy is sadly true, and that there is frequently misapprehension as to the emanating source of the instructions is also true, for the lack of humility in man and the lack of a true sense of proportion are great. But out of this inflow from the subjective side of life are coming new knowledge, increased devotion to the Plan, and those indications which will eventually bring us assurance. Men will know, and know soon, that the soul is not an imaginary fiction, that it is not just a symbolic way of expressing a deep-seated hope, and is not man's method of building a defense mechanism; nor is it an illusory way of escape from a distressing present. They will know that the soul is a Being, a Being that is responsible for all that appears upon the phenomenal plane.
We have two more questions to consider now, and they are as follows:
Question 4. Of what value is it to know about the seven rays?
Question 5. What is the significance of the outstanding soul qualities such as sentiency, consciousness, awareness, and light?
Question four is of importance on account of its vital practicality. In the last analysis, definition conveys mental satisfaction but is no criterion as to applied knowledge.
Above everything else, it is necessary that the aspirant be practical. The days of a mystical and dreamy consciousness are rapidly passing away, and as man, through understanding of psychology, comes to a more accurate knowledge of himself he will begin to act with precision and with intelligence; he will know with exactitude the way that he should go, and will comprehend the forces in his own nature which will lead to specific action when brought into touch with the forces of his environment. Aspirants should endeavour to make practical application of the imparted truths, and so minimise their responsibility. Where there is acquired knowledge and when no use is made of it there exists a condition of danger and subsequent penalty.
Much has been given in previous books which awaits your adaptation and useful service. Much will be given in the present volume, but students need to remember that they themselves evoke and call forth the teaching they receive. The position between me and those who are reading is not that of a teacher imposing a system of knowledge upon a group of waiting pupils. The group is simply the channel through which a particular aspect of the Ageless Wisdom can reach a waiting world. I do not regard you as a body of good men and women, who, because of your point in evolution, are deemed worthy to receive something esoteric and unusual, and hence withheld from the rest of the race. I regard you as sincerely interested in the spiritual life, as concerned with the endeavour to be intelligent, and as willing (more or less) to try to live as souls, and to use as much of the imparted teaching as can be understood. What use students make of it is entirely their own affair. But the value of any group of aspirants and disciples consists [Page 111] in this: They canif they so choose and if their united aspiration is strong enoughdraw forth the teaching, and so form a centre through which that teaching may go forth and begin its work of moulding human thought, of throwing light upon the problems of psychology, and of so expanding the point of truth (anent the seven rays, an ancient septenate, but little comprehended) that a new realisation may be evolved and a new science of psychology may be launched upon its career.
You ask, therefore: What must we as a group do that we may be of service, and so constitute a good channel for the helping of humanity?
First of all, you must see to it that your attitude towards all teaching is that of willing service, with no thought of self. The growth in spiritual realisation and the lifting of humanity is that which is of moment, and not your own personal growth or development, nor your own satisfaction at receiving special and new information. You will grow, and your soul will take increasing hold upon its instrument, when your mind and effort are turned towards group service, and when your tongue is rendered harmless, through the inflow of Love.
Secondly, let not your mind be occupied with idle speculations as to the identity of the teacher. What matters it who he is? Can you prove his identity in one way or another? And of what value is it to accept the statements of any fellow student who may claim to be informed on the matter, be he who he may? You cannot prove him right or wrong, and therefore it remains a waste of time which could well be given to more fruitful service, to closer study of the life-essentials, and to meditation.
What is taught should matter. The aspects of truth which I present to your consideration should count; the measure of help which I can give and the spiritual and mental stimulation which I may impart are of moment to you. The training of the intuition to recognise spiritual truth should be the subject of your effort. The sole authority is the teaching, and not the teacher; upon the rock of authority many schools have foundered. There is but one authorityeach man's own immortal soul, and that is the only authority which should be recognised.
Learn to grasp the teaching correctly, and see it for what it is. Some of it is written for a distant time, and the true significance of this Treatise on the Seven Rays will begin to emerge as part of the general knowledge of humanity only towards the close of this century, unless the imminent outpouring evokes greater change than is now deemed possible by the watching Hierarchy. Some of the teaching is of immediate usefulness to all of you. Some of it will throw light upon the problems of modern psychology, and link the many aspects of the science of the soul. Disciples grow these days by finding out the reservoir of their soul's nourishment; they will discover that the source of their strength is to be found in group teaching and in group endeavour. We are training men to live as souls and not as children to be nursed and cared for in a protected nursery run by rules and orders. As souls, men derive their life from the ocean of the universal, and not from the tiny well of the particular. Carrying their little pitchers, they find their way to that ocean, and for themselves they draw into that receptacle that which they need. In the light of your own intuition and illumined mind (developed and brought to usefulness through meditation) take that aspect of the teaching which suits and aids you, and interpret it in the light of your own need and growth.
The days of personality contact, of personality attention and of personal messages are over, and have been over for quite a while, save in the vale of illusion, on the astral plane. This is a hard message, but no true disciple will misunderstand. From the depths of his own experience and struggle he knows it to be so. It is the group of Masters, the Hierarchy as a whole, that is of moment and its interaction with humanity; it is the Masters' group of disciples that counts, and its relation to probationary disciples on the physical plane, who are seen by the group as existing in group formation all over the world, no matter where its units may be; it is the body of teaching that can be made available, and its effect upon the collective mind of the thinkers of the race, that is of vital importance; it is the interplay between the subjective group of world workers andon the outer plane of objectivitythe lovers of humanity which seems to us, the teachers, to be of supreme importance. The satisfying of individual aspiration, the meeting of the desire of the probationers and the feeding of spiritual ambition appeal to us not at all. The times are too serious, and the crisis too acute.
It is of course a fact that there are today groups of aspirants receiving definite instruction, and disciples being subjected to definite training. But it must be remembered (in spite of all statements by the devotees of the world to the contrary) that no training is given in these cases as to the handling of the details of the personality life; the specific problems of health, finance and family concerns are not dealt with nor considered; nor is comfort given or time taken to reassure or satisfy the unstable personality. Training aspirants as to the technique of spiritual growth is undertaken; correction of the hidden factors producing emotional conditions may be suggested; meditations may be arranged in order to bring about certain results; and instruction in the laws governing soul union may be offered; but no personality work is attempted. Disciples handle their own personalities. In the pressure of world work, the Masters are finding Themselves with less and less time to give even to Their disciples. How then do those who are not in the ranks of accepted disciples expect the Master to have the time to deal with their little affairs?
In the future, however, groups will be formed increasingly, which will function on a new basis, and some of these new 'group organisms' are forming in the world at this time. They are still in the nature of an experiment and may prove premature or undesirable. The teaching given in these new groups, the suggestions made, the experiments in training to be attempted, and the technique imparted will not be given personally and privately to an individual group member, but all of it is open and can be read, known and considered by every other member in the group. These groups are as yet necessarily few, and very small in number. They are in the nature of an attempt to see if it will be possible eventually to externalise the groups gathered around a Master on the inner planes. These groups of accepted disciples on the inner side are sensitive organisms, and each member of these circles gathered around a Master is aware of that which concerns his fellow disciples' spiritual unfoldment, within the radius of the circle in which he finds himself. These small outer attempts at a tentative duplication are in an embryonic condition as yet. It is a test and a trial effort, and may fail. The members of these tiny outer groups (whose membership and grouping are known only to those who form part of them) have to be willing to be instructed and developed as group units, with the other members of their group aware of their failures or successes. They have also to preserve complete silence as to the existence of the group, and a breaking of this silence warrants their elimination from the group. The personnel of these groups is forgotten in the life of the group entity as a whole. The members are trained in the group, and the group is trained as a whole, with no emphasis upon the individual but only on the group interplay and interaction, its integration and growth. Only those factors in the life of the individual are noted and handled which would hinder the growth of the group life and expression. It is the group note, the group colour, and the group development which count with the training staff of workers, and the individual is never considered as an individual, but only in his relation to the group. What he is told to do, and the discipline applied, is all based on the desire to preserve the group balance, and not on any personal interest in the individual. In this experiment a man is tried out to see his fitness. He will be tested early in his career as a group unit. If he passes the test and makes the grade, the group is enriched and grows thereby. If he fails, he drops out and others take his place until such time as the group unit is attuned and completed, and those who are sincere and true, impersonal and mentally poised, self-forgetful and loving, are found to work together in harmony. Thus they can, as a group entity, form a focal point for the transmission of spiritual force to a needy and waiting world.
But it is important to remember that the attitude of the training initiate or teacher is one of complete detachment and impersonality; he is aware of the soul light and condition, and of the mental state, but he does not turn his attention to the handling of the affairs of the aspirant on the physical plane, nor to the training of his emotional nature and his astral development. Aspirants learn to be master and adept by handling their own physical plane affairs and their astral idiosyncrasies. This they must do in the light and strength of their own souls. We who teach would break a law and hinder their development if we attempted to enforce conditions which come not naturally. We should also overstimulate their lower natures. When will aspirants learn that the teachers and senior disciples in charge of them work only on mental levels and with the soul? When will they grasp the fact that until a man has contacted his own soul, and has learned to function as a controlled mind as well, there is little we can do for him? Again I say, we are not interested in personalities and their small affairs. We have neither the time nor the inclination to interfere with the way and method of a man's daily life. Why should we, when enough has been printed and taught to occupy the attention of the aspiring man for many a day? When a man is beginning to live as a soul, and when his consciousness has shifted away from the world of illusion, then he can be useful. The first lesson he has to learn is a sense of values in time and space, and to know that we work with souls and do not nurse the personality.
Seems this too hard a saying to you? If it is indeed so to you, it means that you are as yet somewhat self-centred and in love with your own individual soul, having not yet duly contacted it, and having but perhaps sensed its vibration and no more. You have not yet that true picture of the world's need which will release you from your own ambition and set you free to work as we (on the subjective side) work, with no thought of self or of spiritual happiness, and with no desire for any self-appointed task; with no longing for glittering promises of future success, and with no demanding ache for the tender touch and contact with those greater in consciousness than ourselves. If this lies still beyond your realisation, recognise the fact, and understand that there is no blame attached. It only indicates to you the ground whereon you stand, and that the illusion of the astral plane still holds you in its thrall and still leads you to place personality reactions before group realisation. As long as you walk on that plane and function on that level of consciousness, it is not possible to draw you consciously into the Masters' groups on mental levels. You are still too destructive and personal; you would be apt to hurt the group and cause trouble; you would see things (through the group stimulation) with a clarity for which you are not yet ready, and would be shattered thereby. You have need to learn the lessons of accepting guidance from your own soul, and of learning to work with harmony and impersonality on the physical plane with the group or groups to which your destiny impels you. When you have learnt the lesson of self-forgetfulness, when you seek nothing for the separated self, when you stand firmly on your own feet and look for aid within yourself, and when the trend of your life is towards cooperation, then you may pass from the stage of Observer to that of Communicator. This will happen because you can be trusted to communicate only that which is impersonal and truly constructive, and which will not feed the emotional nature and satisfy the desire-self.
An interesting point might here be noted and a question answered. In A Treatise on White Magic I referred to the two groups of Observers and Communicators (the third group lies outside our present discussion), and the question was asked: Who trains these Observers and Communicators? I should like to make it clear that the observers train themselves ormore accuratelythe soul of each trains the personality in true observation. In the case of the communicators, they are slowly and gradually trained by senior disciplesworking on the physical planeengaged in training groups of communicators to be employed later by the Hierarchy. In this matter (as in all else in the spiritual life) the disciple first trains himself to be responsive to his own soul, and then trains himself to be responsive to the inner group of workers, who later, as a result of his self-intiated effort, teach him to be a communicator, an intermediary. The hallmark of such communicators is mental clarity, true impersonality, spiritual tolerance, and a frugality in the use of words, when embodying concepts. It should be remembered that in the wealth of psychic writings pouring into the world today, the work of the true communicators will concern itself with the Plan and not with personalities; with principles and not with individual purposes; and that all such communicators will be mental types, channels for the love of God, and group conscious. There will be nothing in their work to produce separativeness, and nothing to feed the fires of controversy, antagonism or partisanship. Much of value may come along other lines than through this group of communicators, and you may look for an increased flood of inspirational writings of a high order, and for an outpouring of wisdom from the world of souls through the hundreds who are in touch with their own souls; there will also be much emanating from the highest level of the astral plane, of a high order along devotional lines, but none of this will be the work of the band of communicators now in process of forming. Only a handful are doing this work as yet, and the true influx of communicators will not start for another fifteen years.
To return to our two questions, and particularly to the one concerning the value of studying the rays. I have felt the need to write on this matter for the following reasons:
1. Modern psychology is in a cul-de-sac. The many psychologies have made their contribution to the whole subject, and all of them have value, for all have embodied an aspect of truth. Through them we have arrived at an amazing knowledge of man, of his instincts and animal mechanisms, of his reactions to his environment and of his sensitive apparatus; we have learnt much about the sub-conscious, through which ancient racial sins and knowledges, suppressed complexes and latent desires, as well as highly organised psychic reactions, well up into the conscious mind so disastrously. We know much anent the man as a whole functioning unity, and of the interactions existing between the nervous system, the glandular system, the muscles, and their expression, in forms of quality, character, personality, and the environment. We have learnt much, therefore, about that composite being called man, and man, as a psychic entity, is an established fact in nature, as is man, the animal. But man, the soul, remains still a speculation, a hope, a belief. The fact of the soul is not yet substantiated; and in helping the truth into the light I seek to bring the subject of the seven rays to the notice of the thinkers of modern times, so that the light of this esoteric knowledge may be thrown upon the science of psychology. Thus may the work of revelation be aided.
2. If there is one thing that has emerged into the minds of investigators, as they have studied man, it is the fact that he is essentially dual. Psychology has shown that in the consciousness of every human being is a sense of duality, that man is in some mysterious sense two beings, and that it is the warfare between these two which has led to all the neuroses and complexes which tax the ingenuity of trained psychologists to solve. The initiate Paul referred to this when he spoke of the eternal warfare going on between the carnal mind and the heavenly nature, and all aspirants who are occupied with an intelligent struggle towards liberation bear witness to the same. Paul points out that victory is won through Christ, and I give a clue to the importance of this study of the rays when I state that, esoterically, these seven rays are the sevenfold expressions of the Cosmic Christ, the second Person of the Trinity. Bewildered men and women go in their thousands to the clinics of the psychologists, carrying with them the burden of their dual natures; and psychologists in their thousands recognise this duality and seek to unify the dissociated aspects. When the true nature of the seven rays is grasped, and when their effect on humanity in expressing the seven types of men is also understood, we shall then approach the subject of man's duality with greater intelligence. We shall comprehend better the nature of the forces which constitute one or another of these dualities. This is the true esoteric science. The science of the seven qualities or rays, and their effect upon the myriad forms which they mould and energise, is the coming new approach to the correct method of training and developing the human family. Modern exoteric science knows much about the outer form, or matter aspect, and its electrical nature. Esoteric science knows much about the nature of the subjective energies and the qualities which colour and condition the form. When these two knowledges are brought intelligently together, we shall evolve a truer and more accurate psychology and a new science of human culture. Then the work of unifying manman, the psychic entity, and man, the conditioning soulwill go rapidly forward.
3. A knowledge of the rays and their tendencies and energies will bring much illumination to the workers in the field of the various sciences. All the sciences find themselves on some one or other of the rays, and a science is literally the light thrown by a ray into a particular field of divine manifestation. The four kingdoms in nature are embodiments of four great Lives Who are found, each on one of the four minor rays. The Being Who is the life of the fourth or human kingdom in nature (regarding that kingdom as a distinct organism, just as man's body nature or personality is a distinct organism, separable from him as a soul) is on the fifth ray. The Being Who ensouls similarly the third kingdom, the animal kingdom, vibrates to the sixth ray. The Being Who is the expression and active force of the entire vegetable kingdom is to be found upon the fourth ray. Therefore we have:
Humanity 4th Kingdom 5th Ray Concrete Knowledge.
Animal 3rd Kingdom 6th Ray Devotion upwards or forwards.
Vegetable 2nd Kingdom 4th Ray Harmony and Beauty,
Mineral 1st Kingdom 7th Ray Organisation and Ritual.
These statements mean little to you at present, but we shall elaborate them later, when we come to the consideration of these rays in greater detail. I am but giving a general impression at this time. It is apparent nevertheless that when the nature of the energy permeating and animating any particular kingdom in nature is recognised and accepted (even if hypothetically) by the scientists, much light will be thrown upon the outer form qualified by a particular force and life.
There is, for instance, a definite reason why the bulk of the wild flowers and garden flowers in the occident, and also those found during the autumn season, are at this time found in tones of yellow and orange; and the mental calibre of the later sub-races of the Aryan race, as well as its general tone throughout the Aryan age, is also related to the same reason. The influence of the fourth Ray of Harmony and Beauty, and the developing power of the fifth Ray of Knowledge (synonymous to the merging of the intuition and the intellect in highly evolved man) have a definite effect upon the vegetable kingdom and upon the human aura. Yellow-orange shines forth in both. I mention this as an illustration of an externalisation of ray force, and as an indication of the value of the esoteric science when applied to the exoteric.
The blue ray of devotion passes now into the violet of what we term the ceremonial ray. What do these words mean? Simply that the great Musician of the universe is moving the keys, is sounding another note and thus bringing in another turn of the wheel, and swinging into the arc of manifestation the ray of violet, the great note G. These rays bring with themin every kingdom in natureall that is attuned to them: Human beings, devas of order high or low, elementals of a desirable or undesirable nature, flowers, fruits, and vegetable life of a certain kind, and animals and forms of varying species. It is the passing out of a ray that signals the ultimate extinction of some particular form, some type of animal life, and leads to some vegetable aspect coming to an end. Hence the confusion among the scientists at this time. The process of coming in is slow, as is all work in nature, and as is the process of passing out. Simultaneously with the cyclic birth and emergence of a new ray is the slow return to its source of the prevailing ray, present at the advent of the new.
At this time the sixth ray is passing out and is taking with it all those forms whose keynote is bluethose people, for instance, who with devotion (misplaced or not) followed some particular object, person or idea. With it passes, therefore, those whom we term fanatics, those who with one-pointed zeal work towards some sensed objective. Many of the flowers in which you now rejoice are passing out, the bluebell, the hyacinth and the olive for example; the sapphire will become scarce and the turquoise will lose its hue. Flowers of violet colour, of lavender and of purple will come into favour. Behind all this lies a purpose profound.
The physical plane, in its densest aspect, holds little of mystery for man today; he has knowledge on these matters. But the rarer levels of the physical plane lie hid and are, for man, his next field of discovery. The ceremonial ray brings with it the means whereby that knowledge may be acquired and revealed to all, and thus not be the sole property of the wise and of the occultists. The three higher etheric levels, with their denizens, are waiting to become the property of all, and with their inhabitants comes the next approximation.
It is possible at this time to foretell certain events which will come to pass during the next one hundred years.
First, in about ten years time the first ether, with all that is composed of that matter, will be recognised scientific fact, and the scientists who work intuitionally will come to recognise the devas of that plane. People coming into incarnation on this seventh ray will have the eyes that see, and the purple devas and the lesser devas of the etheric body will be visioned by them.
Secondly, when He Whom both angels and men await, will approach near unto this physical plane, He will bring with Him not only some of the Great Ones and the Masters, but some of the Devas who stand to the deva evolution as the Masters to the human. Forget not that the human evolution is but one of many, and that this is a period of crisis among the devas likewise. The call has gone forth for them to approach humanity, and with their heightened vibration and superior knowledge unite their forces with those of humanity, for the progression of the two evolutions. They have much to impart anent colour and sound, and their effect upon the etheric bodies of men and animals. When that which they have to give is apprehended by the race, physical ills will be nullified and attention will be centred upon the infirmities of the astral or emotional body.
These violet devas of the four ethers form, as you may imagine, four great groups with seven subsidiary divisions. These four groups work with the four types of men now in incarnation, for it is a statement of fact that at no time in this round are more than four types of men in incarnation at any one time. Four rays dominate at any given period, with one in excess of the other three. I mean by this, that only four rays are in physical incarnation; for on the plane of the soul all seven types are of course found. This idea is brought out in the four castes in India, and you will find that these four are found universally. The four groups of devas are a band of servers to the Lord, and their special work is to contact men and to give them definite and experimental teaching.
They will instruct in the effect of colour in the healing of disease, especially the effect of the violet light in the lessening of human ills and in the cure of those physical plane sicknesses which have their origin in the etheric body or double.
They will teach men to see etherically, by heightening human vibration by action of their own.
They will demonstrate to the materialistic thinkers of the world the fact that the superconscious states existnot the superhuman onlyand will also make clear the hitherto unrecognised fact that other beings, besides the human, have their habitat on earth.
They will also teach the sounding of the tones that correspond to the gradations of violet, and through that sounding enable man to utilise the ethers, as he now utilises physical plane matter for his various needs.
They will enable human beings so to control the ethers that weight will be for them transmuted, and motion will be intensified, becoming more rapid, more gliding, noiseless, and therefore less tiring. In the human control of the etheric levels lie the lessening of fatigue, rapidity of transit, and the ability to transcend time. Until this prophecy is a fact in consciousness, its meaning is obscure.
They will also teach men how rightly to nourish the body and to draw from the surrounding ethers the requisite food. Man will in the future concentrate more on the sound condition of the etheric body, and the functioning of the dense physical body will become practically automatic.
They will enable human beings, as a race, and not as individuals, to expand their consciousness so that it will embrace the superphysical. Forget not the important fact that in the accomplishment of this the web that divides the physical plane from the astral plane will be discovered by the scientists, and its purpose will eventually be acknowledged. With that discovery will come the power to penetrate the web, and so link up consciously with the astral body. Another material unification will have been accomplished.
Then what else will occur, and what will be the method of approach to these devas?
More and more, during the next fifteen years, will men receive definite teaching, often subconsciously, from devas to whom they are linked. This will be done telepathically at first. Doctors today get much information from certain devas. There are two great devas belonging to the green group on mental levels who assist in this work, and some physicians get much knowledge subjectively from a violet deva working on the atomic subplane of the physical plane, aided by a deva of the causal level who works with, or through, their egos. As men learn to sense and recognise these devas, more and more teaching will be given. They teach in three ways:
a. By means of intuitional telepathy.
b. Through demonstration of colour, proving the accomplishment of certain things in this way.
c. By definite musical sounds, which will cause vibrations in the ethers, which in their turn will produce forms.
The ether will eventually appear to the enhanced vision of humanity to have more substance than it now has, and as etheric vision increases, the ethers will be recognised as being strictly physical plane matter. Therefore when in sickness men shall call a deva, when that deva can destroy diseased tissue by sounding a note that will result in the elimination of the corrupt tissue, when by the presence caused by the vibration new tissue is visibly built in, then the presence of these devas will be generally acknowledged and their power will be utilised.
By what means will their presence be realised and their powers employed?
First of all, by a definite development of the human eye, which will then see that which is now unseen. It will be a change within the eye, and not a form of clairvoyance.
Next, by a steady experimentation with invocations, and through their use the method of calling the devas will be discovered. This development must be approached with caution, for to the unprotected it leads to disaster. Hence the necessity to inculcate pure living, the learning of protective invocations and formulas, and the power of the church and of Masonry to protect. Forget not that evil entities exist on other planes than the physical, that they can respond to analogous vibrations, and that the invocations that call a deva may, if sounded inaccurately, call a being that will work havoc. In ritual lies protection. Hence the emphasis laid upon church forms and on the Masonic rituals,an emphasis which will increase and not grow less as the years slip by. The force of invocations will be known later.
Every individual vibrates to some particular measure. Those who know and who work clairvoyantly and clairaudiently find that all matter sounds, all matter pulsates, and all matter has its own colour. Each human being can therefore be made to give forth some specific sound; in making that sound he flashes into colour, and the combination of the two is indicative of some measure which is peculiarly his own.
Every unit of the human race is on some one of the seven rays; therefore some one colour predominates, and some one tone sounds forth; infinite are the gradations and many the shades of colour and tone. Each ray has its subsidiary rays which it dominates, acting as the synthetic ray. These seven rays are linked with the colours of the spectrum. There are the rays of red, blue, yellow, orange, green and violet. There is the ray that synthesises them all, that of indigo. There are the three major raysred, blue and yellowand the four subsidiary colours which, in the evolving Monad, find their correspondence in the spiritual Triad and the lower quaternary. The Logos of our system is concentrating on the love or blue aspect. Thisas the synthesismanifests as indigo. This matter of the rays and their colours is confusing to the neophyte. I can but indicate some thoughts, and in the accumulation of suggestion light may eventually come. The clue lies in similarity of colour, which entails a resemblance in note and rhythm. When, therefore, a man is on the red and yellow rays, with red as his primary ray, and meets another human being who is on the blue and yellow rays, with a secondary resemblance to the yellow, there may be recognition. But when a man on the yellow and blue rays, with yellow as his primary colour, meets a brother on the yellow and red rays, the recognition is immediate and mutual, for the primary colour is the same. When this fundamental cause of association or dissociation is better understood, the secondary colours will be made to act as the meeting ground, to the mutual benefit of the parties concerned.
Of the colours, red, blue and yellow are primary and irreducible. They are the colours of the major rays.
a. Will or Power Red
b. Love-Wisdom Blue
c. Active Intelligence Yellow
We have then the subsidiary rays:
d. Orange.
e. Green.
f. Violet.
and the synthesising ray, Indigo.
4. It is of course to the human interest that a study of the rays makes its main appeal. It is this study that will vivify and awaken psychologists to the true understanding of man. Every human being finds himself upon one of the seven rays. His personality is found, in every life, upon one of them, in varying rotation, according to the ray of the ego or soul. After the third initiation he locates his soul (if one may use such an inappropriate word) on one of the three major rays, though until that time it may be found in one of the seven ray groups. From that exalted attitude he strives towards the essential unity of the Monad. The fact of there being seven ray types carries great implications, and the intricacy of the subject is baffling to the neophyte.
A ray confers, through its energy, peculiar physical conditions, and determines the quality of the astral-emotional nature; it colours the mind body; it controls the distribution of energy, for the rays are of differing rates of vibration, and govern a particular centre in the body (differing with each ray) through which that distribution is made. Each ray works through one centre primarily and through the remaining six, in a specific order. The ray predisposes a man to certain strengths and weaknesses, and constitutes his principle of limitation, as well as endowing him with capacity. It governs the method of his relations to other human types and is responsible for his reactions in form to other forms. It gives him his colouring and quality, his general tone on the three planes of the personality, and it moulds his physical appearance. Certain attitudes of mind are easy for one ray type and difficult for another, and hence the changing personality shifts from ray to ray, from life to life, until all the qualities are developed and expressed. Certain souls, by their ray destiny, are found in certain fields of activity, and a particular field of endeavour remains relatively the same for many life expressions. A governor or statesman has learnt facility in his craft through much experience in that field. A world Teacher has been teaching for age-long cycles. A world Saviour has been, for many lives, at the task of salvaging. When a man is two-thirds of the way along the evolutionary path his soul ray type begins to dominate the personality ray type and will therefore govern the trend of his expression on earth, not in the spiritual sense (so-called) but in the sense of pre-disposing the personality towards certain activities.
A knowledge therefore of the rays and their qualities and activities is, from the standpoint of psychology, of profound importance, and hence this treatise.
5. Groups of people, organisations, nations and groups of nations are all the result of ray activity and magnetism. Hence an understanding of the forces which stream forth from the divine creative centre, and which we call the rays, is of value in understanding the quality, nature, and destiny of vast human masses. The seven planets are governed by one or other of the rays. Countries (viewed independently of their nationals) are likewise the result of ray activity, and thus the importance of the subject cannot be overestimated.
We shall now consider our last question, and I shall indicate to you, in general terms,necessarily limited by the inadequacy of language,the significance of the outstanding soul qualities:
a. Sentiency, or sensitive response to contact, and by that means the subsequent growth in knowledge.
b. Consciousness, awareness of environment, and the development of instruments whereby consciousness may be increasingly developed.
c. Light, or radiation, the effect of the interplay between the life and the environment.
The first point that I seek to make is a difficult one to grasp for those beneath the rank of initiate or accepted disciple of the higher stages. The soul is that factor in matter (or rather that which emerges out of the contact between spirit and matter) which produces sentient response and what we call consciousness in its varying forms; it is also that latent or subjective essential quality which makes itself felt as light or luminous radiation. It is the 'self-shining from within' which is characteristic of all forms. Matter, per se, and in its undifferentiated state, prior to being swept into activity through the creative process, is not possessed of soul, and does not therefore possess the qualities of response and of radiation. Only when,in the creative and evolutionary process,these two are brought into conjunction and fusion does the soul appear and give to these two aspects of divinity the opportunity to manifest as a trinity and the chance to demonstrate sentient activity and magnetic radiatory light. As all that we shall posit in this treatise is to be approached from the angle of human evolution, it might be stated that only when the soul aspect is dominant is the response apparatus (the form nature of man) fulfilling its complete destiny, and only then does true magnetic radiation and the pure shining forth of light become possible. Symbolically, in the early stages of human evolution, man is, from the angle of consciousness, relatively unresponsive and unconscious, as is matter in its early stages in the formative process. The achievement of full awareness is of course the goal of the evolutionary process. Again symbolically speaking, the unevolved man emits or manifests no light. The light in the head is invisible, though the clairvoyant investigators would see the dim glow of the light within the elements which constitute the body, and the light hidden in the atoms which constitute the form nature.
As evolution proceeds, these dim points of 'dark light' intensify their glow; the light within the head flickers at intervals during the life of the average man, and becomes a shining light as he enters upon the path of discipleship. When he becomes an initiate, the light of the atoms is so bright, and the light in the head so intense (with a paralleling stimulation of the centres of force in the body), that the light body appears. Eventually this body of light becomes externalised and of greater prominence than the dense tangible physical body. This is the body of light in which the true son of God consciously dwells. After the third initiation, the dual light becomes accentuated and takes on a still greater brilliancy through the blending with it of the energy of spirit. This is not really the admission or the re-combining of a third light, but the fanning of the light of matter and the light of the soul into a greater glory through the Breath of the spirit. Something anent this light has been earlier indicated in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. Study it and seek to understand the significance of this process. In the understanding of these aspects of light comes a truer perspective as to the nature of the fires in the human expression of divinity.
It must never be forgotten that the soul of all things, the anima mundi, as it expresses itself through all the four kingdoms in nature, is that which gives to our planet its light in the heavens. The planetary light is the sum total of the light, dim and uncertain, to be found in all atoms of radiatory and vibratory matter or substance, which compose all forms in all kingdoms. Added to this, there is, within the planet and also within each kingdom in nature, the correspondence to the etheric body with its centres of radiant energy, found underlying or 'substanding' the outer physical form. Man's etheric body is a corporate part of the planetary etheric body, and constitutes its most refined and most highly developed aspect. As the aeons pass away there is a growing intensity of light radiating forth from our planet. This does not necessarily mean that a dweller on Neptune would see our planet glowing with an increasingly brighter light, though this does happen in a few cases in the universe. But it means that, from the standpoint of a clairvoyant vision, the etheric planetary body will grow in vivid radiation and glory as that radiation expresses more and more the true light of the soul.
The soul is light essentially, both literally from the vibratory angle, and philosophically from the angle of constituting the true medium of knowledge. The soul is light symbolically, for it is like the rays of the sun, which pour out into the darkness; the soul, through the medium of the brain, causes revelation. It throws its light into the brain, and thus the way of the human being becomes increasingly illumined. The brain is like the eye of the soul, looking out into the physical world; in the same sense the soul is the eye of the Monad, and in a curious and occult sense, the fourth kingdom in nature constitutes on our planet the eye of the planetary Deity. The brain is responsive to the seven senses:
1. Hearing 5. Smell
2. Touch 6. The mind, the common-sense
3. Sight 7. The intuition or the synthetic sense.
4. Taste
Through these seven senses contact with the world of matter and of spirit becomes possible. The seven senses are, in a peculiar way, the physical plane correspondences of the seven rays, and are closely related to and governed by them all. The following tabulation will be found suggestive. That is all that it is intended to be:
1. Hearing 7th Ray Magic The Word of Power.
2. Touch 1st Ray Destroyer The Finger of God.
3. Sight 3rd Ray Vision The Eye of God.
4. Taste 6th Ray Idealism The Desire of Nations.
5. Smell 4th Ray Art The Beauty of Revelation.
6. The Intellect 5th Ray Mind The Knowledge of God.
7. The Intuition 2nd Ray Love-Wisdom Understanding of God.
Through the Words of Power the worlds came into ordered being, and the Lord of the Ray of Ceremonial Magic brings about the organisation of the divine organism.
Through the application of the Finger of God in its directing and forceful work, we have the cyclic destruction of forms, so that the manifestation of Deity may grow in power and beauty. Thus the Lord of Power or Will performs the task of destruction, thereby bringing beauty into being and the revelation of God's will and His beneficent purpose.
By means of the Eye of God light shines forth upon the way of the sun, the path of the planets, and the path of man. The Lord of Adaptability and the Intellect brings into expression and into objectivity the intelligent working out of the divine idea and Plan.
When the 'Desire of all nations' shall come, and the Cosmic Christ shall stand revealed, all men and all creatures shall occultly 'taste' or share in that great happening, and the Lord of the Ray of Devotion and Idealism shall see the consummation of His work and be 'satisfied.'
Also the Lord of the fourth Ray of Harmony, Beauty and Art will add His share to the great creative work, and it will be found that, in the elusive following to its source of that mysterious revelation which we call beauty, there will be expressed that subtle quality of which 'smell,' in the animal sense, is the symbol. The great search and the esoteric 'following of the scent' will come to an end. This fourth ray is pre-eminently the way of the seeker, the searcher and the sensitive reflector of beauty. The Jewish nation has a close relation to this fourth ray and to the fourth root race, and hence their eminence at this time in the world of art, and hence the magnitude of their endless symbolic wandering and searching.
When the Knowledge of God shall shine forth universally (and this is not the knowledge of, or awareness of a great Being but the expression through human instrumentality of the divine omniscience), then will the Lord of Concrete Science, Who is the embodiment of the fifth principle of mind, see His work brought to a conclusion. He stimulates the sense of awareness in humanity and nurtures the consciousness aspect in the subhuman kingdoms, producing the response, therefore, of matter to spirit, and bringing about the interpretation of that to which there has been a sentient rapport.
The intuition is literally the synthetic and immediate grasp of the truth, as it essentially exists, and the Lord of the second ray will bring to a conclusion the entire evolutionary process through the development in humanity of that perfect insight which will make every human being a complete and intelligent cooperator with the Plan.
A close study of these ray forces in relation to the creative work and the furthering of the Plan (in so far as we can, at this time, grasp it) will reveal how closely the entire building-wrecking-rebuilding process is tied up with the question of the three qualities of the soul, sentiency, consciousness and awareness, and will demonstrate how the problem of light, with which I have just been dealing, has a definite relation to our ability to interpret and comprehend these three qualities.
Consciousness, in the esoteric teaching, concerns the response of the form aspect in the three subhuman kingdoms:
1. To the world of living, vibratory and magnetic forms, in which each form is immersed. Every form, through its radiation, affects every other form, and according to the quality of the form and according to its evolutionary status, so will be its response to its environment.
2. To the subjective world of forces which we call the etheric world. All forms in all four kingdoms thus respond in some degree and manner.
3. To the world of quality, or of desire intent. All forms in all kingdoms respond, en masse, to the urge or the desire aspect of divinity which lies at the root of the entire evolutionary process. This is recognised as an incentive and is more or less self-directed in the human family; it is blindly followed by the forms in the other kingdoms, who respond according to the nature of their response mechanisms to these varying urges.
When we deal with the inflow of mental energy and with the forces emanating from the fifth plane of mind (higher mind, lower mind and the egoic intelligent entity) we enter more entirely into the domain of human evolution itself, and the vague word 'consciousness' could well be superseded by the word 'awareness.' In varying degree man is aware, but only man is aware that he is aware. His response apparatus responds to, and is influenced by, all the contacts to which the subhuman forms respond, but he is also aware of himself, and his response mechanism is capable of reacting, not only to external stimuli but to contacts emanating from within himself, from the Self so called, and also from the worlds of introspection and of mystical vision which seem sealed to all subhuman forms of life.
In the larger picture, with which we are not to occupy ourselves in this treatise, the planet constitutes the response apparatus of a superhuman Life, and that Life responds consciously to impacts emanating from the solar system as a whole, and from certain constellations (embodied Lives) with which our solar system is linked. Similarly the solar Logos functions through the medium of that gigantic response apparatus which is bounded by the ring-pass-not of a solar system. Each form, from that of the tiniest atom to that of a vast constellation, is an embodiment of a life, which expresses itself as consciousness, awareness, and responsive sentiency through the medium of some type of response mechanism. Thus we have the establishing of a universe of lives, interacting and interrelated, all of them conscious, some of them self-conscious, and others group-conscious, but all grounded in the universal mind, all possessing souls, and all presenting aspects of the divine Life.
Life, quality, appearance remain thus the primal triplicity. Appearance is objective, and forms have been studied scientifically, analysed and classified, for ages. Now we are introverting and introspecting, and have the commencement of a cycle wherein the world of quality and of meaning will be subjected to a similar investigation and classification. This will result in the giving of new values to life, to an enriching of our understanding, and will produce, as a result, the growth and substitution of the intuition for the intellect.
May I urge upon all to live more continuously in the world of meaning and less in the world of appearances? It is a truer world and less full of illusion. When the understanding is developed, when men have learnt to see below the surface and have cultivated true vision, then we shall have the steady emergence of the quality of the soul in all forms and the relative subsiding into the background of the power of the form nature. It is this world of meaning which it is the privilege of humanity to reveal, and all true esoteric students should be pioneers in this field.
III. Ten Basic Propositions.
1. There is one Life.
2. There are seven Rays.
3. Life-Quality-Appearance constitute Existence.
4. The seven Rays are the seven creative Forces.
5. The Rays manifest through the seven Planets.
6. Every Human Being is on one of the Rays.
7. There are one Monad, seven Rays and myriads of Forms.
8. The Laws of Evolution embody the Life Purpose of the seven Rays.
9. Man develops through Self-expression and Self-realisation.
10. Individualisation leads eventually to Initiation.
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