Yesterday we defined initiation from the viewpoint of second ray through blue book IHS. Today we shall try to intuit the elephant of initiation from the perspective of the ray 7. Contemplate on these phrases are from the red book AP.
A. Initiation as identification with a particular state of awareness/consciousness :
1. Initiation is the culmination of one particular phase of growth and development. In that sense, it is the “death” of something. It is also at the same time the beginning or birth of a new phase of growth and development. Therefore, initiation is both an end and a beginning, both a death and a birth.
2. It is, first, an identification which includes and which defines a particular state of awareness. What is that state of awareness or consciousness? It is awareness of the Wisdom; all of the basic concepts of Truth which have been brought into a relationship with an identified focus, and are contained within a ring-pass-not, are a part of, constitute in their sum total, the state of consciousness of that identified focus. What you have to initiate is a particular state of consciousness, a particular field of knowledge which you call the Wisdom, a particular identification within the world of affairs. This is what you are bringing to birth. It cannot be initiated by any identity outside of yourselves. You in this respect are the initiator, and this is what you have to initiate.
3. Of what is this an ending, a culmination, and therefore a death? The persona, the former identification and its sphere, its field of knowledge, its state of awareness or consciousness. It is the death of the mortal identification with its particular state of consciousness, its particular field of knowledge, its particular limitations. It is the birth of the new identification with its state of awareness, its field of knowledge. That death and birth must take place within the energy, force, and substance of the structure which houses that which has to die and will house that which is being born.
4. Realize that this initiation is completely dependent upon your own action, that it is the impulse which sets the initiation into motion, must be an act of the will which originates within your own consciousness. Then initiation becomes a much greater, more meaningful experience than any of you have contemplated. The requisite to the initiation would be a full understanding and the knowledge of that which is to be initiated.
5. At some time, some moment in one of your cycles, you will achieve, through an act of the will, a positive focus, and in so doing, face and through persistence overcome the effects of opposition. Thereby, you will be placing yourselves in a somewhat different position in relationship to these effects in the next cycle. There is a beginning of that focus. I would strengthen that will, urge it forward, and move with it. Realize that such a focus, though it appears to stand alone, moves with many other focal points.
6. Every senior disciple within the Ashram, including those who stand at its center, is with you the moment you achieve the focus whereof I speak. That Intent, that polarization of will, is not something that can be doubted or wondered about. You will know that you have achieved. Those few of you who have, know, and in that knowing you move the group into a new experience. Because this type, strength, and quality of energy has been brought into a focus within the over-all group life, others of you will aspire to it, can reach it more easily. It is a gathering together of all the forces of one instrumentality in a perfect and complete alignment with the focused will to serve.
7. Your degree of identification at any particular time is your degree of initiation. You are initiate if you are a primitive man in one way. You are a man. It is your degree of experience, of evolution, of realization. As you proceed in that identification, you become eventually identified in such a way that you have mastered the form nature which imprisons humanity. This is the evolutionary process up to that particular point—the Mastery. But still you make higher degrees of identification, of initiation, all by way of that great Heart, the Lord Maitreya. He holds it for you.
8. In the life of the disciple there is one initiator and that is the incarnating consciousness. Initiation is always, in the life of a disciple, the self disciplining of the individual to a new cycle of growth, and that initiation is not a momentary thing; it is carried out by the application of basic concepts of truth in the daily life and affairs of the disciple. You have entered one phase in the initiation of a new activity, that of an overall expansion program; the initiation is completed by putting the formulated plans into manifestation in the world in which you live. It is application which counts.
9. Initiation relates to a new birth of consciousness from Soul levels into the three worlds of the persona. In this case, it involves a new birth of consciousness into the world persona. This is brought about via the expansion of the identified focus to include within its field of awareness a greater consciousness of love. The identified focus is then expanded spiritually to include a greater awareness, not only of that which lies above his sphere of perception, but horizontally into that which lies in his breadth, outside his field of perception. As the consciousness or the identified focus expands upwardly to include within its awareness the world of ideas in whatever degree is possible to it, the consciousness is expanded at the same time below the present level of perception via its ability to relate these newly considered and newly grasped ideas to the world in which he lives. I do not refer to that outer world on a horizontal level, but rather to the world within which he stands, that inner world which includes the sum total of all his experience. As the identified focus expands his consciousness, both upwardly and downwardly (and again, remember that this is symbolic), he consciously expands the identified focus horizontally. The lower expansion, so called, is almost automatic in that it is an effect of expansion, but that expansion must take place horizontally as well. This is an activity in which the applicant to initiation initiates himself, and as he does so, becomes group conscious.
10. New ideas and hence new frequencies of energies are impacting upon the identified focus, this so-called individuality. As the new ideas and energies impact, stimulating within that small sphere a greater consciousness of light, they must be incorporated into his instrument in such a way as to permit his right use of them on a horizontal plane of relationships. The initiatory process consists (regardless of the initiation which is being taken) of testing—not only of the consciousness as a totality, but of the consciousness which is polarized within each of the three vehicles of appearance. I am bringing to you a concept which has to do with the fact that the consciousness itself, the identified “I” consciousness, while it is polarized more predominantly, more positively, in one or another of the three vehicles of appearance, nonetheless is focused into and through each one of these vehicles, so there is a mental consciousness, there is an astral consciousness, and there is a so-called physical consciousness—these three being separately identified, each as the “I”.
11. Only experience, that is, experience in consciousness, ever actually expands the sphere of identified focus. You
experience this realization gradually, bit by bit. And as you experience it, it is being experienced likewise, or shall I say
similarly, on astral and mental levels. There is greater understanding on mental levels, a greater depth on astral levels.
There is a greater feeling grasped of this, though with much more glamour, on astral levels than there is in the physical
brain awareness itself. The physical brain awareness is the last to know and finally experience that which is.
This initiatory process that I am discussing now permits an integration of the apparently separated consciousness so
there is a greater focus of the “I” consciousness. The initiatory process is that which concerns the totality of the consciousness. It concerns not only the man in the brain, it concerns the man in the astral counterpart in the brain, the man in the mental counterpart of the brain, and the Soul on its own plane. The Soul is endeavoring to integrate these three aspects of its incarnate self in order to have a greater control over the three-fold activity of that incarnate self.
12. The initiation consists of, again, not only the expansions of consciousness, but primarily the externalization of the ashramic group consciousness into the brain awareness of the group membership, and as a result, the manifestation of the Plan for humanity via the service activity of the groups. The subjective group to which the individual belongs on soul levels may not necessarily be the same group with which he is working in the outer world.
13. What is the relationship between the Hierarchy and these disciples who have applied for initiation and are cooperating as a result of a soul decision with the Hierarchy in this new effort? That on soul levels, these are already members of the ashram, though their place in that ashram will differ according to the individual point of development. On soul levels, then, according to the point of development, each one shares to some degree with the Hierarchial state of consciousness which is the focal point for that ashram. In other words, on soul levels there is contact with the Hierarchy to that degree which is determined by the individual point of development. And here, it is extremely important that you understand a concept: It is the divine right of the disciple to share whatever of the Hierarchial consciousness, he by his own development, is capable of putting himself in contact with. Whatever knowledge, whatever understanding, whatever of the Light, the Love, and the power of the Hierarchy that he is able to contact as a result of this development on soul levels, is his divine right. Furthermore, it is his divine prerogative to put of that knowledge, of that light, of that love, and of that power, whatsoever use he will.
14. Understand this: On Soul levels, you are now functioning within an ashram. You are to be trained in the Soul, Mind, and Brain contact which will make it possible for you to utilize the Science of Impression according to your own initiatory effort. In this way, you yourselves will establish, via the use, the application of techniques you will receive, your own contact (and I do not mean that you will receive communication as you think of communication, but that you will be put in touch with the Hierarchial consciousness, will therefore share in its knowledge and will apply that knowledge according to your own wills to do so). It is that creative act of will which formulates, which creates a planned service activity. When we refer to a group activity, we do not necessarily refer to an activity which is carried out by a group of individuals on the physical plane in constant physical contact with one another, each one carrying out the same activity. This is a group in the sense that it is a shared state of consciousness. Each member is not only sharing in the consciousness of each other member, but in the consciousness of that which is overshadowing the group. Each one shares in a common purpose, a common goal. Each one, then, contributes to the group effort through his own individual activity, which is his contribution to the group effort. That is what externalizes the group: that each individual is contributing to the group effort through his embodiment and his application of the shared consciousness.
15. This is quite a concept. I mean it is not the concept of a team; it’s more than a team. It is the concept of a team, plus a shared state of consciousness, and that team may be strung out all over the world so that one of its members may bein New York, and another of its members working in Chicago, and another one in Los Angeles. You see? Each individual is carrying the group consciousness, each individual contributing to the group and both in consciousness and in activity. And even in the physical plane of appearances, there would be four individuals as members of one group, in that the physical brain consciousness, the same group consciousness would be shared. Please understand that the disciple is related to the Hierarchy within an ashramic group consciousness and does not discuss or refer to this relationship in the outer world.
16. The most important concept to bear in mind is what does initiation mean? It does not mean individual attainment.
For regardless of how much you might attain as an individual, or of how spiritual you might become, or of how soul-
infused, or actually of how soul-conscious, your initiation will depend upon this entire movement of consciousness
which I have described in the foregoing. Therefore, it is how much attainment you make possible, you inspire, and you
impress, for all those who are directly related to you in the lower levels of consciousness. And, I do not mean “directly
related” in the way in which you think; but I refer to “ray” groups.
In other words, it’s according to how many aspirants you can bring up into relationship, and how many members of
humanity you bring into this relationship as a group. As far as ray is concerned, it would be the relationship of the soul
ray and the persona ray.
17. In this new activity, the relationship is more specifically the First, the Second, and the Seventh Ray. Almost all who take
part in the initial activity between now and the next fifty years will be found on one or the other of these rays.
You will find, as you enter into the field of teaching, that you will attract those who are karmically related to you as
students. And these will be found upon that combination of rays with which you are particularly related. Until there is
more knowledge of your own relationship to the various rays, or various ray combinations, it is a little difficult for you
to attempt to place, or to define what combination of rays you might work with. Also, I might add that this varies with
the individual point of development.
18. Initiation, this particular initiation, which is a combination of several, and which is, remember, a new effort, a new plan, a new method, depends upon the disciples’ (and I am speaking now of the group) ability to lift that line of consciousness which lies below him. It depends upon his ability to manifest that aspect of the Divine Plan with which he is particularly related. And, that Plan always relates to the evolution of consciousness. So that is not the evolution of his own consciousness (speaking again of the group) that he is concerned with; but of that consciousness which lies below him and to realize that he must not only expand the consciousness of the aspirant, inspire that aspirant into service, but in such a way as to relate the aspirant with humanity itself. As the Plan manifests within the body of humanity in a mass sense, the disciple takes that initiation.
19. First: the Initiatory process is a process of self-initiated growth which is three-fold in nature. It involves (1) the
expansion of consciousness (2) the precipitation of consciousness into a point of focus, and (3) the embodiment of that
consciousness, as intelligent activity in the daily life and affairs.
The second statement: the Initiatory process is carried out by the total consciousness of the One Life, involving
therefore each unit of the One Life.
20. You are separated now in awareness because every time you think “I”, every time you identify it by name, it is as a separated tiny sphere of consciousness which knows only that which lies within that tiny ring-pass-not. This, then, is the effect you create in substance, for this is the realization which you place within that sound, that you place into the thought, the thoughts you think every day, the realized Truth. Become aware of the fact that your consciousness is but the consciousness of the One Life. For instance, now, at this moment, what does ‘I Am’ or what does the term mean to you? What is the meaning you give this sound or this note which is radiating constantly its effects in the three worlds of human endeavor? Realize that this is not a technique which is utilized only in high moments of meditation, or in moments of formal meditation, but that it is utilized, it can be initiated, at the period of the morning formal meditation, and is then carried with you throughout the twenty-four hours a day, until your radiatory life, your radiatory quality, in the three worlds of human endeavor, is the radiation of the One Life.
21. It can be simple; that depends, of course, upon how you will make it—whether the initiatory process shall be easy, or whether it shall be difficult. It can be very easy. When you realize the meaning underlying this sound, it will be impossible to want anything for that separated self, because you are no longer identified with that separated self. Your wants must be for the One Life. It is only as this point of realization is achieved that the individual can truly be rightly motivated so long as he is a member of Humanity. As you relate to the One Life, you do so by relating yourself to that One Life, rather than by relating the One Life to yourself. In other words—as has been said—in saying, in thinking, in sounding forth this word “I”, it is the sound of the One Life, rather than the sound of the tiny life, that life which has separated itself, imprisoned itself within a ring-pass-not. If it can be considered as the One (and of course, because the consciousness is in a process of embodiment, it is necessary to consider the form, and this will become more apparent as the Seventh Ray comes into more predominance during this next Age), therefore, it is considered as the One Life within the many forms, so that that One Life is not separated within the many forms, but is synthesized within the many forms. The many forms are absorbed by the One Life.
I did take one recently during my docotoral studies. From the last two posts you will know whether you did take any initiation in this incarnation. Did you take one or are you inwardly preparing for one in this incarnation ? Images of the Statue of Boddhisatva Maitreya, or the Christ in the West, or Krishna Kalki Avatar are from Diskit Monastery in the Nubra Valley of India. (taken by Ujjwal Kishore on pexel)
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