Contents

Seed Thought
Reading Assignment
Written Work
Letter from Teaching Staff
More on the Fourteen Rules for Applicants
The Stupid Old Body and The Wandering Lunatic Mind
Compendium of Rhythmic Life of the Soul continued from Study Set 6

Reading Assignment:
INITIATION HUMAN AND SOLAR Pages 192-208

1.) List seven qualities or characteristics that the loving service-minded person needs to cultivate to make him spiritually effective as a force for good in his daily life.

2.) It has been said that love makes the world go round. Below are listed different expressions of love.

    A mother's love for her child
    A man's love for success
    A gourmet's love for an excellent dinner
    The Christ's love for humanity
    The patriot's love for his country
    The aspirant's love for Hierarchical teaching
    The healer's love for his patients
    The child's love for his pet animal.

a. Do you see these as being expressions of one and the same energy?

b. Are any of these examples more noble than others?

c. In what way might some of these examples take selfish form, thereby masquerading as love instead of expressing the spiritual nature of the soul which is pure love?

d. Describe the most idealistic way true love could be expressed in each of the above examples.

    The fact that you are persistently progressing with the work assigned in the study sets and searching for the deeper meaning of life's experiences, places you among those who are, or are rapidly becoming, group conscious. You may not be aware of this, for the student is the last to see his own growth, and subjective growth is always greater than has yet been expressed outwardly. You see, the soul is group conscious; and sensitivity to the influence of the soul attracts one to the meditative path and kindles the desire to understand the laws of the soul. The life of the soul is the area of life we are exploring and some day will fully comprehend.

    In the meantime we can persevere even though we see no evidence of improvement. The hard work of attending to the refinement and purification of the emotional and mental bodies over a period of time, which varies with the individual, tends to expand consciousness. Study and meditation (both important forms of service) produce subjective growth and expansion of awareness. With each successive study set the teaching deepens, opening up new levels of consciousness and new areas of service possibility.

    In the process of growth one becomes keenly aware of duality, of the difference between personality development and soul unfoldment. The personality is naturally self centered and the soul is group centered; these two contrary motions within the individual inevitably produce emotional conflict. Through the intelligent use of the reasoning power of the mind, the emotional nature is gradually brought under control and self concern is merged with group concern.

    Reading and study give us information and theoretical knowledge about the subjective growth of the soul. Such knowledge is the preliminary step to making the effort to steady the lower mind so that it is receptive to impressions from the soul. When the mind is habitually steady and focussed, we learn to "hold the mind steady in the light of the soul" and register ideas that will serve the evolution of all men. The soul uses the mind to transmit spiritual ideas to the brain and this explains why it is so important to be mentally polarized and emotionally controlled.

    Physical events reflect spiritual, mental or emotional conditions. Therefore it is necessary to distinguish between the various planes of consciousness and sources of energy, and to recognize that to which we respond most readily. In doing this each can find his place on the ladder of evolution and know the next step he must take. The meditator is working on mental levels with the subjective (soul) energy that eventually works out as some form or other of expression of the soul's radiance and love and powerful goodness. We must learn to become the observer of our own thinking and carefully watch our own mental processes and the thoughts we formulate. We must learn to be selective in the use of mental and emotional substance. We must learn to be discriminating as to which forces we are feeding and perpetuating.

    Learn to discriminate between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. One tends toward the right hand path and the other toward the left hand path, so often referred to in the Wisdom Teaching. When this is known, we make every effort to cooperate with the forces of light and do our share to serve the One Purpose of the Plan.

    Daily meditation, particularly the persistent effort to meditate in an environment that is not conducive to quieting the mind for prolonged concentration, is itself serving the Plan by building a center of quiet in mental substance which makes it less difficult for others in the neighborhood who may be learning to meditate. Spiritual growth manifests by means of the benefit to and blessing of other lives. A center of quiet on any of the three lower planes (physical, emotional or mental) exerts a quieting influence upon the surrounding area. The extent of the quieting influence depends upon how dynamic is the quality of stillness in the quiet center. A dynamic quiet is stillness that is more deeply rooted and more steadily sustained than the surrounding noises.

    Let us quietly persist in the background of events to give our support to the forces of Light.

Your fellow travelers,
The Staff of ARCANA

As the student becomes increasingly familiar with the Tibetan's teachings, he realizes that one distinguishing characteristic of hierarchical teaching is that it meets the spiritual needs of students at different stages of soul unfoldment. It is as though the teaching were presented in layers; and it is left to the sound judgment of each student to select and apply the layer of meaning that is appropriate to his present place upon the spiritual way.

The reading assigned for this study set (see section a.) covers fourteen rules for applicants to the first initiation.

In a later portion of the teaching, the Tibetan restates and reinterprets those fourteen rules as they apply to applicants to a higher initiation.

The first initiation, sometimes called the "Birth initiation", was symbolically enacted in the Bethlehem birth of the baby Jesus. The details and circumstances surrounding that birth some two thousand years ago, depict the birth of the spiritually tested and ready aspirant into the ranks of the world's servers. There he discovers that serving souls do indeed work as souls; for the soul is indeed group conscious, and the one company of all true servers is indeed a company of groups.

Quoting now from THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS:

In the first thesis which I presented to the public I outlined the Rules for Applicants, (Initiation, Human and Solar, pp. 192-208), summarizing the past propositions and indicating the individual preparation and requirements. These will now apply to the probationary groups of disciples, and not to accepted disciples. They must and will still remain the character and purificatory objectives of the dedicated individual, but are regarded as adequately grasped by humanity; they have been proclaimed by all the great world religions down the centuries and have been recognized as the main conditioning qualities of all disciples.

These same Rules or Formulas of Approach are the lower correspondences of higher rules to which groups of disciples are pledged to conform, and which they must follow and obey together. The Hierarchy into which they will enter when full acceptance and demonstration have been shown will be the same Hierarchy, characterized by the same soul awareness, animated by the same spiritual activity, functioning under the same laws, but conditioned by two progressive and evolutionary developments:

1. A much closer contact -- invocative and evocative -- with Shamballa, and therefore a fuller responsiveness to the Will aspect of divinity.

2. An invocative attitude on the part of humanity, based on a fundamental decentralization of the selfish human consciousness and a rapidly awakening group consciousness.

In reality, this means that the Hierarchy will be more closely related to the Great Council at Shamballa, and very much more closely interrelated with humanity, so that a dual fusion will be taking place. This will bring about that integrative process which will be the quality of the New Age and will inaugurate the Aquarian phase of planetary history.

I would now like to bring into a close relation the earlier imparted Rules for Applicants and the new Rules for Disciples, embodying the new group activity and group discipleship, resulting in group initiation.

These Rules are fourteen in number. Today I will simply give you, first of all the rule for the individual disciple, and then its higher corresponding rule for groups in preparation for group initiation, reminding you that such groups are ever composed of those who have taken the first initiation, and the name of these is legion. They are to be found in every country. There are not, however, so many who are ready for the new era of group initiation.

For Applicants: Let the disciple search within the heart's deep cave. If there the fire burns bright, warming his brother yet heating not himself, the hour has come for making application to stand before the door.

For Disciples and Initiates: Within the fire of mind, focussed within the head's clear light, let the group stand. The burning ground has done its work. The clear cold light shines forth and cold it is and yet the heat -- evoked by the group love -- permits the warmth of energetic moving out. Behind the group there stands the Door. Before them opens out the Way. Together let the band of brothers onward move -- out of the fire, into the cold, and toward a newer tension.

For Applicants: When application has been made in triple form, then let the disciple withdraw that application and forget it has been made.

For Disciples and Initiates: The Word has now gone forth from the great point of tension: Accepted as a group. Withdraw not now your application. You could not, if you would; but add to it three great demands and forward move. Let there be no recollection and yet let memory rule. Work from the point of all that is within the content of the group's united life.

For Applicants: Triple the call must be and long it takes to sound it forth. Let the disciple sound the call across the desert, over all the seas and through the fires which separate him from the veiled and hidden door.

For Disciples and Initiates: Dual the moving forward. The Door is left behind. That is a happening of the past. Let the cry of invocation issue forth from the deep center of the group's clear cold light. Let it evoke response from the bright center, lying far ahead. When the demand and the response are lost in one great SOUND, move outward from the desert, leave the seas behind and know that God is Fire.

For Applicants: Let the disciple tend the evocation of the fire, nourish the lesser lives and thus keep the wheel revolving.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group see that all the eighteen fires die down and that the lesser lives return unto the reservoir of life. This they must bring about through the evocation of the Will. The lesser wheels must not for aye revolve in time and space. Only the greater Wheel must move and turn.

For Applicants: Let the applicant see to it that the Solar Angel dims the light of the lunar angels, remaining the sole luminary in the microcosmic sky.

For Disciples and Initiates: In unison let the group perceive the Triad shining forth, dimming the light of the soul and blotting out the light of form. The macrocosmic Whole is all there is. Let the group perceive that Whole and then no longer use the thought "My soul and thine."

For Applicants: The purificatory fires burn dim and low when the third is sacrificed to the fourth. Therefore let the disciple refrain from taking life and let him nourish that which is lowest with the produce of the second.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group know that life is one and naught can ever take or touch that life. Let the group know the vivid, flaming, drenching Life that floods the fourth when the fifth is known. The fifth feeds on the fourth. Let then the group -- merged in the fifth -- be nourished by the sixth and seventh and realize that all the lesser rules are rules in time and space and cannot hold the group. It onward moves in life.

For Applicants: Let the disciple turn his attention to the enunciating of those sounds which echo in the hall where walks the Master. Let him not sound the lesser notes which awaken vibration within the halls of Maya.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group life emit the Word of invocation and thus evoke response within those distant Ashrams where move the Chohans of the race of men. They are no longer men as are the Masters but having passed beyond that lesser stage, have linked Themselves with the Great Council in the highest Secret Place. Let the group sound a dual chord, reverberating in the halls where move the Masters but finding pause and prolongation within those radiant halls where move the Lights which carry out the Will of God.

For Applicants. When the disciple nears the Portal, the greater seven must awaken and bring forth response from the lesser seven upon the double circle.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group find within itself response to the greater seven groups which carry out the hierarchical will with love and understanding. The group contains all seven, the perfect group. The lesser seven, the greater seven and the planetary seven form one great whole, and these the group must know. When this is realized and the Law of the Supplementary Seven is understood let the group understand the Three and then the ONE. This they can do with the united breath and the unified rhythm.

For Applicants: Let the disciple merge himself within the circle of the other selves. Let but one color blend them and their unity appear. Only when the group is known and sensed can energy be wisely emanated.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group know there are no other selves. Let the group know there is no color, only light; and then let darkness take the place of light, hiding all difference, blotting out all form. Then -- at the place of tension, and at that darkest point -- let the group see a point of clear cold fire, and in the fire (right at its very heart) let the One Initiator appear Whose star shone forth when the Door first was passed.

For Applicants: The Army of the Voice, the devas in their serried ranks work ceaselessly. Let the disciple apply himself to a consideration of their methods; let him learn the rules whereby the Army works within the veils of maya.

For Disciples and Initiates: The rules for work within the veils of maya are known and have been used. Let the group widen all the rents within those veils and thus let in the light.Let the Army of the Voice be no more heard and let the brothers onward move within the Sound. Then let them know the meaning of the O.M. and let them hear that O.M. as it is sounded forth by Him Who stands and waits at the very center of the Council Chamber of the Lord.

For Applicants: Let the disciple transfer the fire from the lower triangle to the higher and preserve that which is created through the fire at the midway point.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group together move the fire within the Jewel in the Lotus into the Triad and let them find the Word which will carry out that task. Let them destroy by their dynamic Will that which has been created at the midway point. When the point of tension is reached by the brothers at the fourth great cycle of attainment, then will this work be done.

For Applicants: Let the disciple learn to use the hand in service; let him seek the mark of the Messenger in his feet and let him learn to see with the eye which looks out from between the two.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group serve as Aquarius indicates; let Mercury speed the group upon the upward Way and let Taurus bring illumination and the attainment of the vision; let the mark of the Savior, as the group toils in Pisces, be seen above the aura of the group.

For Applicants: Four things the disciple must learn and comprehend before he can be shown the inmost mystery: first, the laws of that which radiates; the five meanings of magnetization make the second; the third is transmutation or the secret lost of alchemy; and lastly, the first letter of the Word which has been imparted, or the hidden name egoic.

For Disciples and Initiates: Let the group get ready to reveal the hidden mystery. Let the group demonstrate the higher meaning of the lessons learnt, and these are four and yet are one. Let the group understand the Law of Synthesis, of unity and fusion; let the threefold mode of working with that which is dynamic carry the group together towards the Higher Three where the Will of God holds sway; let Transfiguration follow Transformation and may Transmutation disappear. Let the O.M. be heard right at the center of the group, proclaiming God is All.

For Applicants: Listen, touch, see, apply, know.

For Disciples and Initiates: Know, express, reveal, destroy and resurrect.

These are the rules for group initiation and I am dealing with them to give you a fuller understanding of the Laws of Group Life with which I dealt in some of my other books.

I will take these rules and expound for you somewhat of their meaning and indicate their significances as far as these can be grasped now. These instructions are written for future disciples towards the end of this century. They form part of the last volume A Treatise on the Seven Rays and will, therefore, go out to the general public who will not understand, but thus the needed teaching will be preserved.

Also included here for your interest is part of the commentary on Rule VI for the group applicant. The narrow minded and fanatical application of this rule by individual applicants to the first initiation has in the past imposed considerable strain upon family relations, social relations and even upon interpersonal relations within esoteric training groups. From the point of view of the loving serving soul, surely right human relations are more important than insistence upon rigid rules of conduct. The best reason for disciplining and refining the three bodies, is to ensure that indulgence of the form nature, or undue preoccupation with the form nature, will not impair or impede the full expression of the soul's loving and light.

Quoting further now from THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS:

If you will refer to my exegesis upon that rule in Initiation, Human and Solar, you will find that the objective of that rule was physical purification with the emphasis upon the need for a vegetarian diet at a certain stage of the preparatory process. The reasons for such a discipline were two in number: purification and the necessity for the applicant (at that stage) to refrain from sharing in the benefits incident to the so-called "taking of life." But, can one take life? I think not. Life IS. Naught in heaven or on earth can touch or affect it. This is a point oft forgotten. The rule as given to applicants consequently concerns their ability to accept and adhere to a self-imposed discipline. Through the means of that discipline, the control of the physical and astral natures are demonstrated by the applicant to himself, and the effect of the discipline is to reveal to him certain inevitable and basic weaknesses, such as control of the animal nature, the powerful imposition of desire, a sense of superiority, of pride and separativeness. His ability to sustain the discipline and his appreciation of himself for so doing, plus a sense of superiority to those who are not so disciplined, are all indicative of essential weaknesses. His fanaticism, latent or expressed, emerges in his consciousness with clarity, and -- when he is sincere -- he is conscious of having brought about a measure of physical purity; but at the same time, he is left with the awareness that he perhaps may be starting with the outer and the obvious when he should be beginning with the inner and with that which is not so easily contacted or expressed. This is a great and most important lesson.

It is also an interesting illustration of the technique of the Masters, whereby They permit a fallacy to remain uncorrected (because it is originated by the disciple himself and must be dissipated by him also) and the use of language which conveys a wrong impression. By so doing, the user of the language discovers eventually his erroneous approach to truth. Life cannot be taken in the spiritual sense. This error or mistake in the approach of truth enables men and women upon the Probationary Path to demonstrate the earnestness and sincerity of their aspiration by the discipline of substituting the produce "of the second," and to refrain from sustaining life on the produce "of the third." By sacrificing the life of the second kingdom in nature (to use the applicant's own misstatements) and by nourishing the physical body thereby, the probationary disciple does succeed in ending the grip or potency of the physical nature, and that is always helpful. He as yet does not know that he is adhering to lesser "rules in time and space," and that once he has demonstrated to himself that he can hold them and obey them, he is then freed from them and needs them no more. The disciple and the candidate for initiation knows that life is one, whether it takes form in the second kingdom or in the third or the fourth; he knows that the life in him is one with the life in the first kingdom, the mineral; he learns too that life is impregnable; that it cannot be taken or destroyed but "passes on" from form to form, from experience to experience, until the perfect will of God is expressed through life.

The true disciple does not need vegetarianism or any of the physical disciplines, for the reason that none of the fleshly appetites have any control over him. His problem lies elsewhere, and it is a waste of his time and energy to keep his eye focussed on "doing the right things physically," because he does them automatically and his spiritual habits offset all the lower physical tendencies; automatically these developed habits enable him to surmount the appeal of those desires which work out in the fulfillment of lower desire. No one is accepted into the circle of the Ashram (which is the technical name given to the status of those who are on the eve of initiation or who are being prepared for initiation) whose physical appetites are in any danger of controlling him. This is a statement of fact. This applies particularly and specifically to those preparing for the first initiation. Those preparing for the second initiation have to demonstrate their freedom from the slavery of ideas, from a fanatical reaction to any truth or spiritual leader, and from the control of their aspiration which -- through the intensity of its application -- would sacrifice time, people and life itself to the call of the Initiator -- or rather, to be correct, to what they believe to be His call.

I would point out that the third initiation is approached from a level tableland of experience and of consciousness, and not from the heights of aspiration, or from fanatical sacrifice, or from the standpoint of a devotion which handicaps the service of the devotee and of the Master he seeks to serve. He knows, as a candidate for initiation, that:

His sense of proportion as to form becomes adjusted. He is forward-looking towards the soul, and not backward-looking towards the form nature. Some very sincere devotees and promising applicants are so preoccupied with form and its disciplining that they have no real time to give to soul expansion. They are so interested in their reactions to their self-imposed discipline or to their capacity to conform or their failure to accept the discipline, that the spiritual truths -- seeking entrance into their hearts -- fail to make such an entrance. Temperance in all things, the wise use of all sustaining forms and self-forgetfulness are the hallmark of the disciple, but not of the beginner. Many disciples today who should be functioning in the Hall of Wisdom are still fanatically working in the Hall of Knowledge and are still so earnest over the physical disciplines that the disciplines of the soul are ignored. I would ask you to reflect on this. Applicants have to learn the significance of the words of Rule VI for disciples "the lesser rules are rules in time and space and cannot hold the group."

Let me repeat: the physical disciplines are of value in the beginning stage and impart a sense of proportion and an awareness of defects and of limitations. These have their place in time and space, and that is all. Once the world of the soul is entered, the disciple uses all forms wisely, with understanding of their purpose and with freedom from excess; he is not preoccupied with them or fundamentally interested in them. His eyes are off himself and are fixed on the world of true values. He has no sense of self-interest, because a group awareness is rapidly superseding his individual consciousness. The words:

are of prime importance to those who would and can profit by what I am seeking to convey, as I interpret -- as far as may be -- these Rules. The knowing of the fifth kingdom in nature through the medium of the consciousness of the fourth and the sacrifice of the fourth kingdom to the fifth, of the human being to the soul and of humanity to the kingdom of God, is the parallel (on a higher turn of the spiral) of the sacrifice of the third kingdom, the animal kingdom, to the fourth, the human kingdom. Thus it proceeds down the scale -- sacrifice always of the lower to the higher.

It therefore behooves the individual disciple to decide whether he is an applicant, and consequently to be controlled by the "rules in time and space," or a candidate for initiation who knows that life is one and that the form is of no material significance, except as a field of experience for the soul.

Do not pay too much attention to the stupid old Body.

When you have trained it, made it healthy, beautiful, and your willing servant,

Why, do not then reverse the order and become its slave and attendant.

(The dog must follow its master -- not the master the dog.)

Remember that if you walk away from it and leave it behind, it will have to follow you -- it will grow by following, by continually reaching up to you.

Incredibly beautiful it will become, and suffused by a kind of intelligence.

But if you turn and wait upon it -- and its mouth and its belly and its sex-wants and all its little ape-tricks -- preparing and dishing up pleasures and satisfactions for these,

Why, then instead of the body becoming like you, you will become like the body,

Incredibly stupid and unformed -- going back in the path of evolution -- you too with fish-mouth and toad-belly, and imprisoned in your own members, as it were an Ariel in a blundering Caliban.

Therefore quite lightly and decisively at each turning point in the path leave your body a little behind -

With its hungers and sleeps, and funny little needs and vanities -paying no attention to them;

Slipping out at least a few steps in advance, till it catches you up again,

Absolutely determined not to be finally bound or weighted down by it,

Or fossilized into one set form -

Which alone after all is Death.

Do not pay too much attention to the wandering lunatic Mind.

When you have trained it, informed it, made it clear, decisive, and your flexible instrument and tool,

Why, do not then reverse the order and become the mere fatuous attendant and exhibitor of its acrobatic feats (like a keeper who shows off a monkey).

Remember that if you walk away from it, leaving it as dead, paying it no attention whatever -- it will have to follow you -- it will grow by following, by reaching up to you, from the known to the unknown, continually;

It will become at last the rainbow-tinted garment and shining interpreter of Yourself, and incredibly beautiful.

But if you turn and wait always upon it, and its idiotic cares and anxieties, and endless dream-chains of argument and imagination --

Feeding them and the microbe-swarms of thought continually, wasting upon them your life-force;

Why, then, instead of your Mind becoming your true companion and interpreter, it will develop antics and a St. Vitus' dance of its own, and the form of a wandering lunatic,

Incredibly tangle-haired and diseased and unclean,

In whose features you, in sadness and in vain, will search for your own image -- terrified lest you find it not, and terrified too lest you find it.

Therefore quite decisively, day by day and at every juncture, leave your Mind for a time in silence and abeyance;

With its tyrannous thoughts and demands, and funny little fears and fancies - the long legacy of ages of animal evolution;

Slipping out and going your own way into the Unseen -- feeling with your feet if necessary through the darkness -- till some day it may follow you;

Absolutely determined not to be bound by any of its conclusions; or fossilized in any pattern that it may invent;

For this were to give up your kingdom, and bow down your neck to Death.

Edward Carpenter, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY

Rhythm, ebb and flow, and the measured beat of the pulsating life are ever the law of the universe, and in learning to respond to the vibration of the high Places this rhythmic periodicity must be borne in mind. The same law governs a human being, a planet, a solar system. WHITE MAGIC 323

The aspirant in his daily life has to register the distinction between intense outgoing activity, periods of withdrawal, and interludes wherein the outer life seems static and free from active interest. This he must do if he is to avail himself fully of the opportunity which life experience is intended to furnish. The whole of life is not concentrated in one furious continuous stretch of rushing forth to work, nor is it comprehended in one eternal siesta. It has normally its own rhythmic beat and vibration and its own peculiar pulsation. WHITE MAGIC 514

Assimilation of rhythm is a step toward the distant worlds. No one can perceive subtle vibrations if he has not assimilated rhythm .... Not the rhythm of mediocre music but the fiery rhythm of the heart is what I have in mind. AUM 572

A flickering lamp is unbearable for prolonged work ..... And according to the law of justice a flickering lamp injures itself. I counsel My lamps not to blink. The dynamo is not damaged because of the quality of the lamps, but uncoordinated voltage often results in a grievous -- zing! And the basic metal must be provided anew. COMMUNITY 22

He who has a stable mental body, ..... he who has an astral body that is clear, uncolored and still, he who also has a physical body with steady nerves and stable rhythm (it will be like a casket, beautiful, yet strong as steel) will serve as a vessel meet for the Master's use, a channel through which He can unhindered pour His blessing upon the world. WHITE MAGIC 133-4

What is a disciple? He is one who seeks to learn a new rhythm. WHITE MAGIC 58

An appreciation of the above thoughts should build in the aspirant a realization of the value of his meditation work, whilst the idea of a cyclic response to soul impulse lies back of the activities of a morning meditation, a noonday recollection, and an evening review. A larger ebb and flow is also indicated in the two aspects of the full moon and the new moon. Let this be borne in mind. WHITE MAGIC 64