Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Esoteric Psychology I - Section I - The Three Objectives in Studying the Rays

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Esoteric Psychology I - Section One - I. Introductory Remarks

Let me also remind you that the career of the Monad (an aspect of energy found on one or other of the three major rays) can be roughly divided into three parts, leading to a fourth:

1. A lower realization of a unity which is the unity of the form nature. In this unity, the soul is so closely identified with the matter aspect that it sees no distinction, but is the form, and knows not itself as soul. This often reaches its height in some life of full personality expression, wherein the soul is completely centered in personality reactions; the lower life is so strong and vital that a powerful and material expression eventuates.

2. A subsequent and painful differentiation of the consciousness into a realized duality. In this condition, the man is distinctly aware of what is termed his essential duality; he knows he is spirit-matter, is form-life, and is the soul in manifestation. During this stage, which covers many lives and carries the man along the path of probation and discipleship as far as the third initiation, the center of gravity (if I may so express it) shifts steadily out of the form side and centers itself more and more in that of the soul. There is a growing consciousness that there is a [14] Reality which embraces, and at the same time extinguishes, duality.

Remember that the entire story of evolution is the story of consciousness, and of a growing expansion of the "becoming-aware" principle, so that from the microscopic interest of the self-conscious man - for we shall retain the parable within the confines of the fourth kingdom in nature - we have a slowly developing inclusiveness which finally leads him into the consciousness of the cosmic Christ.

3. The higher realization of unity follows upon this sense of duality, and in this final stage the sense of being soul and body is lost. The consciousness identifies itself with the indwelling Life of the planet and of the solar system. When this happens, there is the registering of a state of being which lies beyond word, mind and form expression of any kind.

The great Jewish seer sought to convey these three stages in the words, I Am - That - I Am. He thus expressed them tritely and succinctly and adequately, had we but the development to know it. The third (however understood) defies expression, and hints at a fourth type of realization which is that of Deity itself, about which it profits us not to speculate.

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