Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - The Rays and the Initiations - Part I

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The Rays and the Initiations - Part One - Fourteen Rules For Group Initiation

There will be, as you can well see, a close relation between this fourth purpose of Sanat Kumara, the fourth kingdom in nature, the human, and the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict. It is the balanced relation of these three, consummated at the fourth initiation, which produces the full beauty of the creative fixed design of the individual soul, or - on a different level of initiatory process - of the fixed design of the universal soul of the Lord of the World. The fourth ray being temporarily out of full incarnation at this time is the reason for the relative interlude in the production of human creative art of a very high order. The cycle of suffering is nearing its close, and we shall later see - when the fourth ray again swings into full objective activity - a recurrence of the arts on a turn of the spiral far more exalted than any lately seen.

e. The fifth great secret underlying the purpose of Sanat Kumara is related in a peculiar sense to the cyclic manifestation of all that is found in the three worlds of human evolution. It concerns that which is working slowly into manifestation through the medium of the lower concrete mind as it controls desire and brings substance and matter into conformity with the divine thought along this line. The sumtotal of the highest phases of human thinking along all lines, materially affects what appears on the physical plane in all the kingdoms of nature, what precipitates civilizations and cultures, and which expresses the best response at the moment of human sensitivity to cosmic impression.

This is all that can be said as we attempt to sum up the fixed desire and the pattern or purpose of divine activity down the ages. We know it to be profoundly inadequate as yet to express or to produce in manifested form the beauty of that design and to create in conformity with God's thought; but - age by age - the thinking capacity of man and his creative imagination have wrought out the slowly unfolding design, and will continue to do so; every [245] great world cycle sees the emergence of greater beauty, and sees the subtle effects of man's thinking upon the subhuman kingdoms in nature steadily bringing the unknown to the surface, altering the nature of the flora and the fauna of the planet, and preparing the way for that time of wonder when the Hierarchy will again be exoterically directing the Plan upon the earth and aiding mankind to work with a fuller understanding of the divine design.

Here again is another reason for the changing plans of the Hierarchy. The Masters have to prepare Themselves for this intended and imminent emergence. They are faced with the necessity of changing Their techniques of work in order to meet adequately the demands upon Them. It is far easier for Them to work, as illumined Minds, upon the mental substance of Their disciples than it will be for Them to work down upon the physical plane, relating the minds and the brains of advanced human beings. People are apt to forget that with each forward advance of humanity, the demands upon the Hierarchy change, new needs must be met, new techniques used, new and experimental methods must be employed. As I write for disciples and initiates, I call this to their attention. Their work of mental training does not end as they attain certain spiritual initiatory goals.

This fifth purpose is therefore closely related to the whole theme of "the garment of God" and to the emergence into manifestation of His "robe of beauty" as it is created and brought into being by humanity, acting as the medium for ideas from the superhuman kingdoms, and then influencing and swinging into creative cooperation the subhuman kingdoms.

f. It is difficult for me to give any idea whatsoever of the purpose with which we are now concerned, because it is expressed in the relation existing between the significance of Desire, Will, Plan and Purpose. All these words are symbols evolved by man in his attempt to grasp logic purpose. He recognizes the impulses of desire, and in the course of the evolutionary process learns to transmute them [246] into aspiration; he passes on to a vague groping forward in an effort to understand and acquiesce in the "will of God," as he calls it; as long, however, as human approach to that will remains negative, submissive, and acquiescent (as it does under the influence of the theological approach and in the manner inculcated by the Churches), no real light on the nature of that Will will be seen. It is only as human beings enter into relation with the Hierarchy and are gradually absorbed into the hierarchical life and begin to take the higher initiations that the true nature of the divine Will will be grasped and the purpose of Sanat Kumara be revealed by an appreciation of the plan, followed by a consequent cooperation with that Plan.

All this will be done through the transmutation of desire into aspiration, and then into fixed determination. When, however, the initiate has related these phases of consciousness in his own inner experience, and has permitted those inner realizations to affect his outer experience and daily living, then the underlying Purpose will shine forth and he will no longer be working in the dark. You see, my brother, that all that I can do in these abstruse matters is to indicate what you can do, as an individual, to fit yourself to grasp divine purpose, and thus see the divine design and patterns as they are in reality. Once you have taken the needed steps and complied with the requirements, the mystery disappears.

g. The final phase of the divine purpose is the most difficult of all to indicate, and when I say indicate, I mean exactly that, and nothing more definite and clear. Does it mean anything to you when I say that the ceremonial ritual of the daily life of Sanat Kumara, implemented by music and sound and carried on the waves of color which break upon the shores of the three worlds of human evolution, reveal - in the clearest notes and tones and shades - the deepest secret behind His purpose? It scarcely makes sense to you and is dismissed as a piece of symbolic writing, used by me in order to convey the unconveyable. Yet I am not here writing in symbols, but am making an exact statement [247] of fact. As beauty in any of its greater forms breaks upon the human consciousness, a dim sense is thereby conveyed of the ritual of Sanat Kumara's daily living. More I cannot say.

Here are hints, therefore, as to the divine purpose; each of the seven supplements and completes the other six. Only by attempting to grasp the whole inner synthesis will we arrive at the merest hint of the nature of that exalted consciousness which has brought our planet and all that is within and upon it into being.

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