Initiatory Cycles

The essence of our being is pure consciousness. When we link ourselves with the god within, with this pure Monadic consciousness, knowledge comes to us of itself. Our understanding expands and finally becomes cosmic; then we realize that our cosmos is but an atom of a still greater cosmos. This is the way of evolution and growth, of the inner and the outer; it is the path of initiation, the path to sublime love and compassion.

The word initiation comes from a Latin root meaning "to begin." Esoterically it signifies making a new beginning, entering upon a course of life and work that will bring forth all the spiritual and intellectual splendor the individual carries within. In fact, initiation is a quickening of the evolutionary process. This does not mean skipping any stage. Since reaching that stage by the natural path would take ages, what is called "quickening" is the condensing of this journey into a short period.

This is why esoteric training is so often painful: to do quickly and powerfully what in the ordinary course of nature would take tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of years means forced growth. Rather than growing slowly enough to see the beauty and harmony of life everywhere, the candidate must learn to master himself with an iron will, to forget himself entirely, and to serve all. To give up oneself for the sake of the universal self, to die daily in order to live the cosmic life: that is another name for it.

From the first moment each human being comes forth from the bosom of the Boundless as an unself-conscious god-spark, until the moment he regains his divinity as a self-conscious god, he will fail again and again; yet as long as he keeps rising and moving forward, he will succeed in the end. Failures are not so important. What is truly wrong is to go backward, to stand still, and to leave something behind by letting the evolutionary current flow past us; this is morally wrong. Our task is to go forward, to become impersonal, to forget ourselves. The expression "going backward" obviously does not mean the actual backward motion of a body; the idea is taken from human experience. We may begin a task with great courage and enthusiasm, then lose heart and turn back before finishing it. In fact it is impossible to go backward, for nature closes the door behind us at every moment; nor does the expression mean undoing what evolution has accomplished. Rather, it means plunging deeper into matter instead of rising more fully toward spirit, that is, changing the direction of our evolutionary journey.

There has never been a Mahatma who did not fail, indeed fail many times. Failure is a misfortune, but it can be remedied and turned into victory by the power of the will. In the words of W. Q. Judge:

We may "fail" in particular acts or efforts; but as long as we keep persevering, these are not "failures" but lessons necessary in themselves. Through resistance and effort we gain fresh strength; we gather into ourselves the strength of everything we overcome (by occult law). Not every "success" is for us; what is for us is constant, persistent effort, and that is "success," not merely the carrying out of all our plans or undertakings. Moreover, however high we climb in Nature, the ladder always has new rungs to climb. (We climb every rung in labor and striving, yet also in the great joy of power and will consciously used.) Even the Adept¹ sees new trials, new tests before him. Let us remember that when we say "I have failed," this shows that we have an aspiration and are still aspiring. So long as this is so, and there are higher degrees of perfection ahead of us to climb, Nature never abandons us. We are rising and aspiring; the sense of failure is the surest proof of it. For one who has reached the limit of his aspirations or left them behind, Nature has nothing more to do. Thus every "failure" is a success. The greater your aspirations at the start, the greater the difficulties you will meet. Remember, then: the only way to reach true success is to keep on trying, even if you fail continually.

W. Q. Judge, Answers to Letters, September 1892

The aim of initiation begins with uniting the candidate with the god within himself and extends to uniting the human being with "the gods." This is not merely establishing a link with the gods; it also means that the initiate, the student, if he succeeds, will lift veil after veil and pass through curtain after curtain: first the material universe, then the other universes within the physical-material universe, and those beyond them... To pass behind each curtain is to enter a greater mystery. In short, the aim is to become self-consciously "one" with the spiritual-divine universe; to expand consciousness, ceasing to be merely human, and to reach out into cosmic spaces. Thus a human being comes to be, in thought and consciousness, at home in every part of universal Being: as much at home in Sirius, the Pole Star, or Canopus as on earth, and even more so in the invisible worlds.

Initiation is a quickening of the evolutionary process; it is the awakening of the inner man in reciprocal relation with the outer, physical man. In its higher stages it brings an unfolding of consciousness that truly belongs to divinity, together with the powers bound up with that unfolding; but it also means taking on divine responsibilities. No one can become an esotericist merely by signing a paper; it is impossible unless the radiance of Buddhi (the principle of spiritual intuition and wisdom) shines in his heart and that light illumines his mind. The born esotericist is one who is born with at least a spark of the Christ-light shining within him. Such a person will be drawn to the path sooner or later, as surely as karma works unfailingly. For this is his destiny, trained and shaped in the past and now wrought into his character; and its fruits blossom as the instinctive recognition of truth.²

The smallest, almost insignificant part of initiation is ritual. No initiation can be handed over to another. All growth, all spiritual illumination takes place within oneself; there is no other way. Symbolic rites and outer paraphernalia merely assist the student; they support the development of the power of inner vision, the inner eye. Hence any stage of initiation, wherever and under whatever arrangements it is held, is in essence an individual inner unfolding. Were it otherwise, there could be no initiation other than an empty rite, as in most churches today. Even these rites, however faded, are reflections of the experiences once undergone by chelas (students trained under the Masters) in the process of initiation.

For example, the mysteries of ancient Greece, those performed at Eleusis, at Samothrace, at Delphi, or at the oracle of Trophonius, were largely ceremonial. Yet in all of them, even in their periods of decline, there was a measure of genuine spiritual experience. Let me add this as well: the hints found in the literature about these ceremonies concerning the difficulties to be met and overcome should not be taken literally. They are not wholly imaginary; but they are symbolic representations of what the initiate must face within himself. For thoughts are mental entities and therefore have a form and power of their own; the individual either masters his own lower nature or succumbs to its demands.

There are actually ten degrees in the cycle of initiation; but we are concerned only with the seven degrees belonging to the seven manifested planes of the solar system. The highest three lie wholly beyond present human understanding and will remain so until our consciousness becomes almost universal, superhuman. These seven degrees are the seven great gates through which the candidate on the sacred journey must pass before attaining semi-divinity. Between each of these gates there are seven lesser gates to be passed, each a step in the training, in the school. Thus there are forty-nine stages in all, just as there are forty-nine planes in our solar system: on each of the seven great planes there are seven subplanes, that is, lesser spheres or kingdoms.

The first three degrees involve working with an unending aspiration to develop and grow spiritually and intellectually, while at the same time living the life. They are symbolic; that is, as long as the rituals continue, they are dramatic in form. Alongside these, teachings are given on the deep secrets of nature (this is the main part of the rituals). These teachings are seldom imparted in a logical (appealing to the lower mind) and sequential manner, for that is the way of the brain-mind; even in such presentations the essential thing is present as a hint, an intimation. The method is not to fill the student's mind with the thoughts of others but to awaken the spiritual fire within him. This in turn awakens the faculty of understanding; thus the candidate in fact becomes his own initiator.

What a person receives from outside through ideas and thoughts are merely outer stimuli; they awaken the inner vibration that prepares for the reception of the inner light. The transmission of ideas is simply a method of speech: impressions arise that form the corresponding chord of vibration in the psychological apparatus of the recipient, and the corresponding knowledge instantly flashes forth in the recipient's own mind. Devotion to truth, to the point of complete self-forgetfulness, opens the channel of reception. Light and knowledge then enter the mind and heart. A person initiates himself through his inner god, which is thus awakened, or rather begins, if only temporarily, to work. The whole process rests on the laws of nature, on understanding, and on the natural development of inner vision.

With the fourth initiation a new series of inner unfoldings begins. Work, aspiration, and living the life continue in the stages that follow; but at this degree something new also takes place. From then on the initiate begins to lose his personal self, or so to speak his personal human outlook, and to merge into divinity; the loss of the merely human is at the same time the beginning of entry into the divine. He is taught how to leave his physical body and his physical mind, and how to advance not only into the vast reaches of the physical universe but especially into those of the invisible realms. Later he learns to enter into the inner consciousness of the beings and spheres with which he comes into contact, to become that sphere or that being.

The reason is that to know a thing fully one must, at least temporarily, become that thing. If one is to understand what a thing is in all its dimensions, one must be it; one's consciousness must unite with the consciousness of the being or thing whose meaning one is learning at that moment. This is the source of the semi-mystical stories of the initiate's "descent into hell" to learn the life and sufferings of the creatures of hell. This descent also takes place partly to awaken the compassion of one who experiences what these beings undergo as the karmic consequence of their own errors. In the same way, in the other direction, the initiate must learn how to become one with the gods and how to communicate with them. To understand their nature and life, he must himself become a god for the duration of that trial; in other words, he must enter into his own highest being.

Thus with the fourth initiation the candidate begins to slip into, and be drawn toward, new realms of consciousness. The spiritual fires of his inner constitution are at their strongest in both quality and function; the spiritual electricity, so to speak, flows with a far stronger current. It is impossible to put these mystical things into everyday words. In addition to the teachings and the symbolic or dramatic ritual, the candidate (and this is always so, however high the degree) learns how to direct the forces of nature; he can accomplish such wonders as consciously leaving the body and passing from our planet to other centers of the solar system.

At the fifth degree comes the final choice: will one return to life not for oneself but to help others, to help the world, like the great Buddhas of Compassion, or will one go forward on the path of self-development alone, like the Pratyeka-Buddhas (those who achieve only their own liberation and withdraw from the world)?

The sixth initiation reaches into still higher realms of consciousness and experience. Then comes the seventh, the last and highest initiation; it involves meeting one's divine self face to face and becoming one with it. When this takes place, one no longer needs any other teacher. This initiation also includes individual communion with the sublime Mahachohan, who is practically identical with the being called the "silent watcher" of the human race.

Each degree has its own rules and principles of training. As a general rule, however, it holds everywhere and in everything that the candidate's greatest guide, that is, the final court of spiritual and intellectual judgment, is the god within himself, while the teacher comes second. The student gladly gives his teachers devotion, but in no case blind obedience; for by then he knows that both his own inner god and the inner god of his teacher are sparks from the selfhood of Alaya (the universal soul).

The higher the degree, the more informal and unceremonious the relationship between teacher and student becomes; and the more the student is expected to live in, and strive to become one with, his inner divine vision. Moreover, in the advanced stages no records are kept; it is a training that never relies on written notes. One is trained to retain the impressions one receives, and this training concerns the memory. The teachings are bound to no written text, picture, cipher, or engraving, in short to no visible record at all; they are carried only in the mind and heart.

The whole effort is directed toward awakening the will-power, the individuality, and the native faculties of the inner god. Hence knowledge is transmitted, in the old phrase, "from breath to breath" and "from mouth to ear." In the highest degrees even this is no longer needed; for the candidate who receives esoteric knowledge and wisdom has by then been so trained that he can receive it, as it were, by thought transference, without even needing to be in his teacher's presence. More and more the teacher communicates through the silent voice: the voice of the silence, through which the teachings are "spoken" and which opens the spiritual doors within the student.

Every step forward is an entry into a greater light; the light left behind at the previous step is shadow by comparison. However high one climbs on the ladder of evolution, even as high as the gods, there is always someone just ahead who knows more than oneself; and ahead of that one stretches an ever-rising series of beings with ever wider cosmic consciousness. Hierarchical flow is the basic framework of nature. Hence none of us is without a teacher; for above us are the boundless universe and hierarchies whose experience of life and evolution is far higher than ours.

When the Monadic essence of a human being leaves our own hierarchy and advances into the sublime realms of cosmic being, it does so as an embryo-entity. There it begins to climb from the first rung of this new ladder of life and, in times of need, requires someone to guide its steps. This need for guides and teachers continues through periodic ages until it reaches the topmost rung of that ladder of life; even then there will be someone standing there with the still more sublime mystery of the innermost depths of its being. What name can we give to this sublime mystery? Human language fails here; we can reach the realms of the divine only through spiritual imagination. Thus the evolving being passes ceaselessly from one field of life to another, from one hierarchy of indescribable experience to another, and advances forever. Since the face of Eternal Truth is covered veil upon veil, is it not clear that man is always a student in the school of life?

Once spiritual understanding has come, it is never forgotten. Herein lies the anguish of the failed candidate: he cannot erase from his memory the splendor he has seen and almost touched. One who has never tasted heaven longs for it in the hope of reaching it. But one who has crossed its border, glimpsed the Divine through its gates, yet could not enter, remembers the vision he saw and lost so vividly that it fills his soul with anguish, even despair.

As for the severe trials of the higher degrees, the mind must be so constituted that it can turn back even the most persuasive outer influences. Such influences arise through impressionability, which is in one sense a great virtue but in many respects a fatal weakness. Another psychological factor to be carefully watched is the very powerful and very swift reasoning faculty of the brain-mind. The mind must be held firmly bound to the higher qualities and must not usurp the place of what is higher; when it is subdued, it gains true value. The higher mind, grounded in the Buddhi principle, has an infallible logic and an intuition of its own; the workings of the brain-mind are its pale and often distorted reflections, and are therefore usually the most dangerous enemies.

One who engages in occultism must not suppose that he will be exempt from the adverse consequences it may bring. The whole nature is aroused, and the battle with the lower self may at times seem hopeless; for the candidate feels instinctively that he must either conquer it or be conquered. But if he faithfully carries out the first duty before him, however humble and simple, that is his path. By overcoming our own weaknesses we help not only our own nature but all humanity, indeed every living thing, everything that feels; for we are the very forces that move through the universe.

The highest aim of initiation is for one to establish the bond of union with one's essential self.³ This is the path to the gods, which means making each of us an individual god. To follow this path is a most serious and most sacred undertaking. One who wishes to advance toward the sublime and the ultimate must bring forth every power his nature contains, all the strength of his will. And this is possible only by setting aside entirely the bonds and knots of the personality. One joins in the smooth, orbital motion of consciousness revolving around the central core of one's being, and finally advances toward fusing and becoming one with the Sublime Wonder, the divinity within.

Behind every curtain there is another; but through them all shines the light of truth, the light that lives forever within each of us, for it is our inner self. Every human being, in the core of his essence, is a sun destined to become one of the star clusters in the depths of space. Our divine-spiritual part has been a sun in embryo since the first moment it began to spread forth within universal Being; it is the child of another sun that existed in space in those ages. Initiation brings forth this inner, hidden stellar energy in the heart of the student.

"Aham asmi Parabrahman": "I am the boundless All; I am beyond both space and time." This idea is the cornerstone of the temple of ancient truth. Our universal home is mother nature, with her divine, spiritual, psychological, etheric, and physical levels. Because we are everywhere, we live in a home that has no particular location.

Here, then, is the path by which every human being can rise, if we have an unshakable will and an aspiration toward a greater light. Man can rise through the different stages of the hierarchy and take every step upward by way of initiation until his being finally becomes one with the Silent Watcher of our globe. In a more distant future his Monad will become one with the silent watcher of our planetary chain; and in a still more distant period of cosmic time it will become identified, as an individual Monadic center of life, with the hierarchy of our solar system.

The universe within us is the innermost part of the universe: every essence, every energy, every power, every faculty, everything that is boundless, is within each of us, active or latent. All the great sages have taught the same truth: "Man, know thyself." This means going inward in thought and feeling, establishing an ever more conscious bond with the divinity at the core of our being (which is also the heart of the universe). There is our true home: boundless, illimitable Space.