We have already dealt with the subject of the founding of the Hierarchy upon earth, and we saw how it came to be, touching likewise upon certain crises which have occurred, and which still affect events in the present time. In dealing with the work and aims of the personnel of the Hierarchy, it will not be possible to state what those aims have been, nor to consider in detail who the active personalities have been during the past millennia of years since the Hierarchy came into existence.

Many great Beings from planetary and solar sources, and once or twice from cosmic sources, have at times lent their aid and dwelt briefly upon our planet. By the energy which flowed through them, and by their profound wisdom and experience, they stimulated earth's evolutions and brought the purposes of the Planetary Logos so much the nearer to completion. Then they passed on, and their places were taken by those among the members of the Hierarchy who were willing to undergo a specific training and expansion of consciousness. In turn these adepts and Masters had their places filled by initiates, and thus constantly has there been opportunity for disciples and highly evolved men and women to pass into the ranks of the Hierarchy, and thus constantly has there been a circulation of new life and blood, and the coming in of those who belong to a particular period or age.

Some of the great names during the later periods are known to history, such as Shri Sankaracharya, Vyasa, [38] Mohammed, Jesus of Nazareth, and Krishna, down to those lesser initiates, Paul of Tarsus, Luther, and certain of the outstanding lights in European history. Always have these men and women been agents for the carrying out of race purpose, for the bringing about of group conditions, and for the furthering of the evolution of humanity. Sometimes they have appeared as beneficent forces, bringing peace and contentment with them. More often have they come as agents of destruction, breaking up the old forms of religion and of government in order that the life within the rapidly crystallizing form might be set free and build for itself a newer and a better vehicle.

Much that is stated here is already well known, and has already been given out in the different occult books. Yet in the wise and careful enunciation of collected facts, and their correlation with that which may be new to some students, comes an eventual synthetic grasp of the great plan, and a wise uniform realization as to the work of that great group of liberated souls who, in utter self-abnegation, stand silently behind the world panorama. Through the power of their will, the strength of their meditations, the wisdom of their plans, and the scientific knowledge of energy which is theirs, they direct those force currents, and control those form-building agencies which produce all that is seen and unseen, movable and immovable in the sphere of creation within the three worlds. This, coupled to their vast experience, is what fits them to be the agents for the distribution of the energy of the Planetary Logos.

As has already been stated, at the head of affairs, controlling each unit and directing all evolution, stands the KING, the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, the Youth of endless Summers, and the Fountainhead of the Will, (showing forth as Love) of the Planetary Logos. Cooperating with him as his advisers are three Personalities [39] called the Pratyeka Buddhas, or the Buddhas of Activity. These four are the embodiment of active intelligent loving will. They are the full flowering of the intelligence, having achieved in an earlier solar system that which man is now striving to perfect. In earlier cycles in this system they began to demonstrate intelligent love, and from the standpoint of the average human being they are perfect love and perfect intelligence, though from the standpoint of that Existence who embraces even our planetary scheme in his body of manifestation, that love aspect is as yet but in process of developing, and the will is only embryonic. Another solar system will see the will aspect come to fruition, as love will mature in this.

Standing around the Lord of the World, but withdrawn and esoteric, are three more Kumaras, who make the seven of planetary manifestation. Their work is to us necessarily obscure. The three esoteric Buddhas, or Kumaras, are the sumtotal of activity or planetary energy, and the three esoteric Kumaras embody types of energy which as yet are not in full demonstration upon our planet. Each of these six Kumaras is a reflection of, and the distributing agent for, the energy and force of one of the six other Planetary Logoi, the remaining six spirits before the Throne. Sanat Kumara alone, in this scheme, is self-sustaining and self-sufficient, being the physical incarnation of one of the Planetary Logoi, which one it is not permissible to state, as this fact is one of the secrets of initiation. Through each of them passes the life force of one of the six rays, and in considering them one might sum up their work and position as follows:

1. They each embody one of the six types of energy, with the Lord of the World as the synthesizer and the embodier of the perfect seventh type, our planetary type. [40]
2. They are each distinguished by one of the six colors, with the Lord of the World showing forth the full planetary color, these six being subsidiary.
3. Their work is therefore concerned, not only with force distribution, but with the passing into our scheme from other planetary schemes, of Egos seeking earth experience.
4. Each of them is in direct communication with one or another of the sacred planets.
5. According to astrological conditions, and according to the turning of the planetary wheel of life, so one or another of these Kumaras will be active. The three Buddhas of Activity change from time to time, and become in turn exoteric or esoteric as the case may be. Only the King persists steadily and watchfully in active physical incarnation.

Besides these main presiding Personalities in the Council Chamber at Shamballa, there is a group of four Beings who are the representatives upon the planet of the four Maharajas, or the four Lords of Karma in the solar system, who are specifically concerned with the evolution at the present time of the human kingdom. These four are connected with:

1. The distribution of karma, or human destiny, as it affects individuals, and through the individuals, the groups.
2. The care and tabulation of the akashic records. They are concerned with the Halls of Records, or with the "keeping of the book," as it is called in the Christian Bible; they are known in the Christian world as the recording angels. [41]
3. The participation in solar councils. They alone have the right during the world cycle to pass beyond the periphery of the planetary scheme, and participate in the councils of the Solar Logos. Thus they are literally planetary mediators, representing our Planetary Logos and all that concerns him in the greater scheme of which he is but a part.

Cooperating with these karmic Lords are the large groups of initiates and devas who occupy themselves with the right adjustment of:

1. World karma,
2. Racial karma,
3. National karma,
4. Group karma,
5. Individual karma,

and who are responsible to the Planetary Logos for the correct manipulation of those forces and building agencies which bring in the right Egos on the different rays at the correct times and seasons.

With all these groups we have little concern, for they are contacted only by initiates of the third initiation, and by those of even more exalted rank.