(9 April, 2020)
Group Initiation is a process of accelerating evolution on earth through a procedure we could call the assisted transmission of the energy of Freedom into a prepared field - in this case humanity. The preparation for this process has been going on for at least a hundred year cycle and its inauguration will coincide with the 2025 epicentre. Initiation is a subject often viewed from the angle of the individual or group undergoing the process, but I seek to give you the perspective of Hierarchy or the world soul.
In an earlier work (The Mercury Transmissions), I outlined the stupendous decision made in 2001 to give humanity as the planetary personality full freedom in making its decision about the way forward. The world soul stands in full readiness to support and to externalise - if humanity chooses to ask for help. The pressure of this decision is unconsciously registered in the heart and underlies the growing unrest in the general population about the way it is being led by those in positions of temporal power. More and more people will turn towards the soul for guidance, both internally through their own gnosis and externally to those sources of collective wisdom that have arisen from the world soul. This is a second ray system, and evolution proceeds via help or assistance. The personality is often too busy, arrogant and self-assured to ask for help. It wants to proceed and rely on its own intelligence; but eventually a crisis comes that exposes it for what it really is - an intelligent instrument for soul service and not an independent and separately-willed entity focused purely on its own survival and betterment. A decade of such a global crisis is upon us and the current virus, which has shut down the world, is simply the beginning. It exposes the pronounced homocentric and separative tendencies that now pervade the human race. When human life is threatened, the base centre is activated and the impulse to freeze all activity in order to ensure survival results. Love and care for other humans is also a part of that impulse. However, love and care for the earth as a whole and for the other kingdoms of nature is sadly lacking. The global annihilations of vast numbers of other species, the climate change warnings, the vast inequalities of wealth and economic exploitation of resources, the degradation of the environment - none of this has stopped humans from focusing on their short term interests and parochial concerns. The education is not the problem. The problem is a lack of collective will, arising out of a lack of collective love, anchored in a separative intelligence that reinforces a practical disconnection from the sacred and the soul.
The group initiatory process is designed to correct this. Firstly it is anchored in the Will - not the will of humanity which, due to its separative nature, is weakening by the decade instead of strengthening - but the Will of the Earth as a whole. Shamballa is the crown centre for the planet, a reservoir for the Will of the soul of the Earth; and it is not the Will of the Earth soul that the whole evolutionary process to date ends in the widespread depletion and exploitation of the resources of the planet, so that millions of humans can spend their days in wasteful and harmful activities, then sit on their couches eating unhealthy food and watching steadily more puerile reality TV shows.
The Will of the soul charges and electrifies those sections of humanity that reach for something more; that remember they are part of a grand adventure, sourced in the Mystery and driven forward by powerful evolutionary energies that ask for alignment and sacrifice of what is less important for what truly matters. This newly emerging energy of planetary Will, when it is responded to firstly by consent, eventually by request and finally by demand, will radically enhance the initiatory process. The world soul needs outposts for its expression and externalisation in the three worlds of human evolution. Humans undergoing initiation think in terms of their own liberation or expansion of consciousness. The soul of the world thinks in terms of precipitation and the extension of its inherent love and freedom more and more deeply into and through the personality. One indicator of initiation is the shift in perspective from the individual who is a conscious part of the world soul, to the world soul that is present in the individual. The ocean is in the drop as well as the drop in the ocean. This requires a fundamental shift in the identity or ‘I’. The group provides a bridge between the individual 'I' and the collective 'I' of the world soul so that the transfiguration of identity can happen more easily. When the individual 'I' becomes simply an outpost for the great 'I' of the Earth, then the Will of the world soul can be made manifest on Earth.
So if Will is the driving force in the process of group initiation, love is the energy through which that Will is applied. Love coheres and holds together. Indeed, one definition of love is ‘that energy which is present at the centre of any system and which permeates and coheres it.' The energy at the centre of the personality (or the three worlds) is the emotional heart. The energy at the centre of the soul (or the five worlds) is the causal body. The energy at the centre of the cosmic physical plane (the seven worlds) is the soul in the ashram on the Buddhic plane. The energy at the core of the greater zodiac (twelve creative hierarchies) is the monad, and so on. The three centres through which the Will operates in any system are the crown, the base and the heart. The greater system always includes the lesser, but it also has the capacity to repress it or become unconscious of it. The lesser system can exclude the greater through the operation of a seemingly separative will. This exclusion has effects in terms of activity and consciousness in the container or field of operation, but it is ultimately illusory. When the will of a greater system is applied to a lesser one, it enters through these three centres. Via the crown or designated north pole of a system, it manifests as an electrical inspiration, the descent of spiritual Will or purpose. Via the base or designated south pole of a system, it manifests as kundalini or the power of spirit in matter rising and purifying. Via the heart it produces at-one-ment - the active realisation that the lesser system is and has always been part of the greater, and its willing surrender through its own centre as an expression of this revelation of love.
As mentioned in an earlier work, one of the karmic liabilities incurred through the dissemination of such a vast body of information on esoteric matters is that of inertia. People get intellectual stimulation from learning this, then build complex thought-forms about the new world and their place in it. These thought-forms can end up blocking the flow of spirit rather than channeling it, with the result that evolution is delayed rather than accelerated. For this reason the Ashram of Synthesis brings a circulation of the energies between the planetary etheric and the three worlds. It provides a verticality that helps to offset the lateral expansion of mind. Let me make this clearer with some diagrams.
The second ray generates an inclusive cohesive field of consciousness. For most of humanity (see the first sphere) the point of focus is the emotional plane, which creates a form of ‘astral ashram’ - a cohesive field of personal affiliation and relationship. The first ray direction lifts the focus to the mental plane where shared ideology supports the affiliation and the physical plane anchors the relationship in matter. In the second sphere, this field is focused on the mental plane. The first ray lifts and extends the field to the Atmic while the seventh ray makes sure it has a practical application on the physical plane (primarily the etheric). In the third sphere, the focus is toward the ashrams on the Buddhic plane. The first ray lifts the awareness to the Logoic or first plane of the cosmic physical, while the seventh extends it fully into the physical or seventh plane. The process of group initiation is designed to lift the first sphere into the second and the third through a process of expansion and re-polarisation.
The role of the first ray is to bring purity of motive and alignment. Ultimately, the source of that alignment needs to be with Shamballa or the planetary crown centre. The role of the seventh ray is to ground that alignment into practical application in matter or the base. A physical plane project allows the group to directly apply what it is learning. The first ray focuses the group in and up in a spiral of response to purpose. The seventh ray spirals them down and out into service in the manifest world.
The second ray allows for group cohesion, and the process of group initiation allows for a circulation of the electric fire of spirit in such a way that each member of the group receives the needed stimulus and the group as a whole can pass through into a more liberated field of service. Millions of humans now need to pass through the initiatory fires, which in the past only a few here and there were called to do on behalf of us all.
The major emphasis of Hierarchy at this time is to get enough souls liberated from the mental plane and focused on the Buddhic, that they can serve as an incarnated ashramic outpost to support the mass process of group initiation in humanity. The difference between organisational cohesion on the mental plane and on the Buddhic is the difference between vision and Life-force. Mental plane groupings share a perspective, a vision for humanity, and sometimes an ideology or plan. They seek to continually refine the vision to become more inclusive and pervasive. Buddhic plane ashram groupings transmit the Life-force. They are able to hold the tension of different perspectives and paradoxical visions within a field of fiery love. They step down, circulate and transmit the electric life of spirit into the cosmic physical body of Earth which comprises the mental, emotional and physical planes of the system. They not only integrate different perspectives but also the seven rays of the soul, each with their distinct vibration of that which is most sacred to them.
There is another critical distinction between those operating from the mental and those operating from the Buddhic plane. The causal body is like the top of a mountain - it gives perspective and high vision. When a soul is in its high place, it looks down into the three worlds and sees the necessity for development. It seeks to lift others, to ‘raise consciousness’ and inspire. Third degree initiates like Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, have ‘been to the mountain top’ and know what matters most. They direct the minds and the consciousness of the masses towards evolutionary goals and spiritual progress. From the time just prior to the third degree, however, the initiate is able to spend more and more time free of the causal body and active on the Buddhic plane. At the fourth degree, the causal body is let go and the Buddhic becomes the stable resting place for the soul. If the higher mental plane is like the mountain top, then the Buddhic plane is like the air around the mountain, the lightning descending to its peak, the volcanic fire within and the Life-force welling up inside the atoms of the mountain themselves.
The pervasive love of the Buddhic plane permeates the whole field of the personality - or the mental, emotional and physical planes. It no longer ‘preferences’ consciousness or the development of consciousness. It accepts, loves, embraces and penetrates all the planes equally. It rises up through the body, clarifies the emotions and expands the mind like yeast. It does not much inspire the souls of others to grow by presenting the vision of a better world; free itself, it lets all those still caught in the three worlds get a breath of that freedom, and a taste of the experience that ‘all is well.’
The energy of Freedom is associated with the fourth path to Sirius and it is this cosmic path that allows for the inflowing of trans-solar energy at the time of 2025. Its effect is the drawing away of soul from form. This will allow an enormous opportunity for mass initiation. Firstly, it will provide for large numbers of incarnate souls to make the transition from the planetary personality to the planetary soul, or from the mental plane to the Buddhic. This will have its flow-on effect for the first and second initiations, which will eventually become part of public ritual. Secondly, it will provide for a much greater experience of what I have called radical awakening - essentially, this is when the soul finds itself free from the whole seven planes of the cosmic physical. This can happen via the centre of the Buddhic plane and becomes a more stable reality when the monadic plane becomes the point of polarisation after the fifth initiation.
An analogy that may help is when a long distance runner experiences the ‘second wind,’ or a new cycle of energy that arrives when they push through a level of exhaustion as an act of will. The will of the runner, in the face of depletion, forces devic lives (the agnichaitans) up out of the physical body and into the etheric, resulting in an increase of energy. It can be an exhilarating experience. The physical body of the planet consists of the lower three planes while the etheric body is the higher four. Therefore the transition between mental and Buddhic marks the movement from the one to the other {i.e., from the planet's physical body into its etheric body - Ed.}. The soul operates on the planetary etheric as well as the causal body, so the more human devas (agnishvattas) it can free from the mental plane, the more energy it can run through its ashrams.
The experience that the physical body has just before the second wind kicks in is one of exhaustion and depletion - it sends messages to the brain, saying it needs to stop and rest. So we can expect exhaustion to set in for the planetary personality, between now and 2025. Those who see from the inner will know this is merely the necessary precursor for the planetary ‘second wind,’ or the group initiatory process for humanity to activate. This will be activated by the Shamballa Impact of 2025 and the coming in of the fourth ray. Those souls able to reach for the energy of Freedom will be helped to lift out of the body and take their place in the ashrams of Hierarchy. From there, they will be able to help in the transmission of these liberating energy into the three worlds. Thus, the promise of Aquarius and the seventh ray will begin to be fulfilled. The dead (those buried in the matter of the lower three planes) will be raised to Life through the sharing of the water of immortality (the energy of Freedom). Thus the group (of initiated souls) will be the salvation of the group (those souls still embedded in the planetary body) and the fall of the angels will be reversed. At the same time, once the planetary antahkarana (the link between personality and soul) has been rebuilt through the livingness of humanity, the seventh ray will allow for those living waters to penetrate all the way down into physical matter (and indeed to well up through it). The form and activity on the lower three planes will now be ‘sacredised’ - or begin acting in harmony with the planetary soul rather than acting independently, driven by survival needs. This atonement and re-connection to the sacred will eventually allow for what is called the Great Revelation - the revelation of the purpose of the whole cycle of human evolution, which can only happen when the soul and personality are fused.
When the energy from the fourth planetary ether (the Buddhic plane) is able to reach the fourth etheric on the lowest or seventh plane, then the temples of the soul or the Mystery schools can be restored. This will also occur as a result of the implementation of the energy of planetary Will. As the energy of Freedom pulls souls up out of matter, the Shamballa force can act to drive the planetary soul deeper in, so that initiates are able to hold full awareness of the ashram on the physical plane. A temple is thus a place where the planetary soul, under the impress of Shamballa, holds a stable vortex on Earth.
As more and more of these nadi points are held, then the energy stored in matter itself will be able to activate and support more landings of the soul. The seven pairs of esoteric schools are therefore an outer expression of the Buddhic plane ashrams in manifestation via the fourth etheric plane of the physical. They are planetary chakras. As such, they are points of inflow for the planetary soul in terms of inspiration and activation. They are also points of outflow from the planetary personality into the planetary soul, as groups drawn into their field are liberated. At the third degree, the initiate reaches the mountain top, experiences the light supernal of the ashram and then comes back down the mountain in service. Fully anchored on the physical plane and yet fully aware in the ashram, he or she is able now to let the causal body go and become a stable pillar in the return of the temples. Thus each chakra needs at least one fourth {in context, shouldn't this read "third"? -Ed.} degree initiate to hold the vortex in place.
There is another way that the second group will support the process of global initiation, and this is via direct transmission to the masses of humanity who are polarised on the emotional or astral plane. The heart chakra channels both the first and second rays, and just as the first group will focus on leadership, so this second group will work in this way {i.e., via direct transmission to the masses of humanity who are polarised on the emotional or astral plane -Ed.}. The first ray operates directly through the centre of all entities. In this way, the centre of the soul on the Buddhic plane transmits directly through the centre of the personality, which for most human beings is in the emotional body. In order for this penetration of the ‘will to love’ to occur, the monadic centre is also required, thus linking the second, fourth and sixth planes. This transmission will result in the experience on the emotional level of ‘feeling loved’, which is both the principal aim and driving force of the astral body.
This love between the centre of a greater sphere and the centre of a lesser or smaller sphere is related to the love between a child and a parent. The lower self is contained within the womb of the personality (green sphere) but it in turn is contained within the womb of the soul (blue sphere); thus, the love of the mother reaches the child through the heart vibrations of matter. The Father’s love of the child is expressed through the capacity to penetrate the lesser with the essence of the greater, so that the child experiences that 'I and the Father are One.' When the masses of humanity experience both the vibration and the identification of enough incarnate souls transmitting from the Buddhic plane, their hearts will recognise and respond to them. This is what will change political leadership through the democratic process. At the moment, most people are forced to respond to educators and politicians who are mentally focused but are not fully functioning through their hearts. They have learned to somewhat trust the scientific ashram (operating from the higher mental plane) but the masses long to feel loved and not to merely follow mind. This second group will support the first in bringing that tangible message of love into expression. They will do this via the sutratma or life thread anchored in the heart chakra. It operates through the direct transmission between the centres or cores of any entities, and is a fusion of the Law of Synthesis with the Law of Being. It relies on the monadic truth that all singularities are essentially the same, although operating at different levels of intensity and at different levels of immersion in matter.
Love is the means by which the reality of the singularity of Life is conveyed to all seemingly separate entities in a system. It is not the connecting energy between them as much as that which reveals their essential indivisibility. Love expressing Will is not simply inclusive of others; it wells up inside them, as them. It is the medium in which Life lives and Being propagates itself.