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

To Netnews Homepage Previous Next Index Table of Contents

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

The destruction considered is that of the formless structure on which the grosser structure is built. Some understanding of this will come if you consider the relation of the four subplanes of the physical plane, the four etheric levels, and the three subplanes which we call the dense physical planes. These constitute our physical plane in its two aspects. This is only a reflection of the three planes of the three worlds and the four planes from the buddhic plane up to the logoic, which constitute the cosmic physical plane. The destruction considered by the initiate is connected with the subjective worlds of the four higher planes and the three worlds of human living, and of other forms of life such as the three subhuman kingdoms.

In the human family, death supervenes when the soul withdraws its consciousness thread and its life thread; this process of death is contained, however, entirely within the three worlds. The soul has its station on the higher levels of the mental plane, as well you know. In connection with the forms of expression to which I have referred above - cycles, civilizations, cultures, races, kingdoms in nature and so forth - their destruction is brought about from still higher sources than the three worlds in which they manifest. This destruction takes place under the direction of Shamballa as it evokes the will of the Hierarchy or some particular [309] Ashram or some member of the Hierarchy in order to produce a predetermined result in the three worlds in line with the purpose of God. It might be said (accurately to a certain esoteric extent) that the destruction brought about in obedience to this fourth word in Rule XIV is the destruction of some aspect of the plan as it has been functioning in the three worlds, and this under divine purpose and intent.

This destruction is not outwardly so conclusive as is death - on the physical plane - of a man, though that is not essentially the rapidly consummated process as is usually surmised. The physical form may die and disappear, but an inner process of dying of the subtler bodies supervenes and the death process is not complete until the astral and mental bodies have disintegrated and the man stands free in his causal or soul body. So it is, on a much larger scale, with the death or destruction of phases of the divine Plan, engineered by the Hierarchy in conformity with the divine Purpose. There is an overlapping between the building process and the destroying process. Dying civilizations are present in their final forms whilst new civilizations are emerging; cycles come and go and in the going overlap; the same is also found to be true in the emerging and disappearing of rays and races. Death, in the last analysis and from the standpoint of the average human being, is simply disappearance from the physical plane - the plane of appearances.

The form of destruction we are considering however, is more concerned with the destruction of quality than with forms, though the disappearance of these qualities produces the death of the outer form. The withdrawing life of a great expression of the hierarchical plan absorbs the qualities and returns with them, as endowments, later in time and space and manifests anew through the medium of more adequate forms of expression. The soul, however, kills the forms in the three worlds; it is the life aspect (in this higher and more extensive type of destruction) which destroys the innate quality and consequently the form of a civilization, the type of an ideology and the character of a race or nation, [310] preserving only the essentials but discarding the distortions.

This fourth word is closely related to the fourth initiation in which the causal body or soul vehicle on its own plane is destroyed - that beautiful, intangible, qualitative Identity which has motivated and implemented the man in the three worlds. Does this instance somewhat clarify the difficulty of this subject with which we are concerned? Ponder on this as an illustration of this form of destruction, and seek better understanding.

This higher form of destruction does not manifest under the activity or the non-activity of the Law of Attraction, as does the death which the soul brings about. It is definitely under the Law of Synthesis, a law of the monadic sphere of life, and one therefore most difficult for you to comprehend; it emanates from a point outside the five worlds of human and superhuman evolution, just as the destruction of form in the three worlds emanates from the soul functioning outside the three worlds of the lower, concrete mind, the astral world and the physical plane. This statement again may aid you in understanding.

If this is so, it will be apparent to you that only initiates who have taken the fifth initiation and higher initiations can wield effectively this particular form of death - for monadic potency only becomes available after the third initiation, and its first successful use is the destruction of the causal body of the initiate. It is the reward of Transfiguration.

In connection with the use by the initiate of what we might call pure will, it should be remembered that this pure will works into manifestation through one or other of the three aspects of the Spiritual Triad. This activity is determined by the major ray upon which the initiate finds himself, from the angle of his monadic ray. Every spiritual man is upon one or another of the three major rays, for the minor four rays of attribute are all eventually absorbed into the third Ray of Active Intelligence.

To Netnews Homepage Previous Next Index Table of Contents