Everything that we’re told by others, even by great spiritual teachers, cannot equal what we experience for ourselves.
Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Today’s topic is initiation which has a lot to do with evolving to higher states of spiritual consciousness. Just a word about Lucis Trust. Alice Bailey is the founder of Lucis Trust and she’s written twenty-four volumes of books, and all the dialogue that you hear on this show emanates from the works of Alice Bailey. Our thought for today: “Today, human beings on a large scale can pass through the experience of the birth initiation. Thousands can experience the birth of Christ within themselves.” I’d like to know more about that. Can you explain what this opening thought means, and also perhaps before we do anything else, recap a bit from last week’s discussion?
Sarah: We were talking about initiation in a general overview in the previous program, and perhaps a few essential points to keep in mind are that initiation marks an entrance into a new realm of consciousness, of awareness; it also is not a ceremony or a confirmation that is conferred upon one through some kind of divine entitlement. It’s achievement through self-effort, through self-growth in consciousness, making one’s way forward on the spiritual path, and taking oneself in hand. So, initiation is not given to one by some outside source. Another point to keep in mind is that initiation is a process at every stage of the spiritual path where knowledge and theory about spiritual truth is transformed into a direct conscious experience. It transforms theory into experience, and initiation marks the incorporation of greater and greater degrees of conscious, direct, personal experience of spiritual reality. Everything that we’re told by others, even by great spiritual teachers, cannot equal what we experience for ourselves in our own consciousness, even if it’s on a much lower level. That which we have personally experienced, we know beyond doubt to be true, and it becomes our own. It’s incorporated within us. The whole path of initiation has to do with that. It’s, in a sense, recognition. When we recognize something, we see it as it truly is. We are able to recognize its truth and to see its place within the larger spectrum of reality, and that’s an aspect of initiation.
Dale: Yes, and I think last time we talked about the five stages, essentially, that involve initiation. Initiation is a long, long process that goes over many, many lifetimes. Each stage is a whittling away and a releasing from the impediments that block the flow of the divine light of God into the world, through humanity. So, there are five initiations that were demonstrated by Jesus in his lifetime, in his ministry. Essentially they were: the birth initiation, the baptism, the transfiguration, the crucifixion, and then the resurrection. There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than we might think. I think there’s much more that Jesus went through than being arrested, tried and convicted, nailed to a cross and dying, and then three days later he arose from the dead. The point is that every human being at some time in their life, in their many lives, will go through these stages. Now that doesn’t mean that we’re all going to have to be nailed to a cross sometime, but symbolically we are impaled on a cross. There is a lot more that goes on, and we’ll get into some of that in a minute.
Sarah: But I think it’s important to stress that when we speak of the stages of initiation as enacted by Christ, we’re not talking about the fact that one has to be a Christian to go through this spiritual process.
Dale: Absolutely not.
Sarah: It’s so important to emphasize that. Christ enacted something on behalf of humanity. If one doesn’t accept that or believe that, it doesn’t really matter, I don’t think, because all spiritual traditions, all the great religions have some understanding and some teaching that at least skirts around the idea of initiation. It’s a concept that’s very deeply anchored in the world’s spiritual traditions. It might be called by different names and terms, but essentially it’s five stages of spiritual awareness, the first one being what Alice Bailey—who was herself an ardent Christian—called “the birth of the Christ in the cave of the heart.” What that is referring to is the birth or the coming into expression of the inner soul principle, wouldn’t you say?
Dale: Right. That’s the first contact perhaps that an individual may have with his own higher self, his own inner being. That’s a major state of awakening because the soul begins to make its impact, and the qualities of the soul, those energies of the soul, begin to pour through into the lower personality life, and great changes can take place.
Sarah: It’s really a transformative experience—the birth of the Christ principle, or if you want to call it the birth of the Buddhic principle—this inner soul presence that one realizes exists within them and is awaiting recognition, awaiting its coming into its full being. When one becomes aware that there is this spiritual potency, it really transforms the life, and yet it’s only the beginning. The first initiation is the first step in conscious spiritual awakening. It’s only the beginning, but it’s transformational because it has to do with spiritual fixation on the physical plane, on the outer plane of life. It often has effects that are quite physical in expression. What’s interesting is that the writings of Alice Bailey say that many thousands of human beings today are ready for or have already taken the first initiation in the sense of awakening to their inner spiritual Christ self. It’s seen or it can be considered as an event that has taken place in the life of anyone who has really taken themselves in hand and is making every effort to tread the spiritual path, who is really dedicated and serious about their spiritual awareness.
Dale: The other thing about that, it’s not just an individual—well, in a sense it is individual—but it’s also a group process too because there are so many, literally tens of thousands of people, probably millions by now, in the world who have gone through this process of the first initiation. They may not call it that, they may not understand it in those terms, but they have gone through this awakening process to the soul, and somehow it is beginning to transform their inner attitudes, and a new orientation to life may be taking place, and a new world of thought is beginning to open up which is much more expansive and inclusive in their consciousness.
Sarah: It also has physical plane effects. In the past, quite a while ago, we did a series of programs on the seven rays, which are the seven expressions of divine life. The rays are also conditioning factors in each of the initiations, the first initiation being governed by the seventh ray which is the divine energy that brings about the fusion of spirit and matter, or of divine life and form. So, you can imagine that this energy governing the first initiation means that one sets about to transform his physical plane life. You can see this in individuals, and you can see it in humanity today, the great concern being placed on physical rhythms of diet, exercise, health, great discipline in care of the physical body. Those are indications of the first initiation: purification on the physical level. Often people who are in the process of that initiation are extremely focused on a high degree of purity in their diet and their physical practices.
Dale: Yes, and another aspect of the effect of this energy of the seventh ray is that the seventh ray, as you say, brings together; it forms a relationship between spirit and matter, between soul in form, or soul in personality. So, when those energies of the seventh ray begin to pour through, as they are now, more and more, it’s not the fault of the energies themselves, but the human reaction to the energies, to that emphasis on relationship. This is one reason, probably, why the emphasis on sex and sexuality today is so strong. I think we could point to this as being a direct causal point of the activity of the seventh ray, and it’s bringing all of this up to the light.
Sarah: What had been hidden and buried is now screamed from the rooftops, but ultimately, it will lead to a more spiritual understanding of the purpose of sex as part of life and the attraction of the pairs of opposites. First, we go through the stage of everything being highlighted and overdone, just like the overemphasis on care of the body, sometimes to the point of neglect of the inner spirit. It’s a stage. Another aspect of the first initiation which has to do with the remaking of the physical plane life, has to do with giving up the emphasis on materialism in order to move forward in spiritual life, and we can see this underway in the world. It’s said that there is actually a stage where there’s a need for real physical poverty in order to achieve detachment from things and to rebuild the outer life on sounder values. Maybe that’s part of the increasing poverty that we see in the world today. It’s actually deepening. Yet the people who are undergoing the terrible deprivation of poverty stand every chance of moving forward on the spiritual path, more than those who are engrossed in a life of materialism and overabundance of material things, because at some point all of it has to be released. One needs enough to live, but one cannot lead a spiritual life if one is overwhelmed with material preoccupations. That’s an essential lesson of the first initiation.
Dale: Yes, it’s a very hard lesson that we have to reach a point where we become so dissatisfied with all the material things of the world—we think we need all of these material things—that it’s a very painful process to have to let go of all that.
Sarah: What’s so interesting today is the focus on Bethlehem. In the life of Christ, his first initiation birth was in the house of Bethlehem. Bethlehem means literally, “house of bread.” We can see the focus not only in the Middle East tension in Bethlehem and the terribly wrong relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but we can also see it in the economic problems of the world. The house of bread should be the demonstration of the sharing of abundance, of material abundance with the whole of humanity. But at the present time, it symbolizes more of the guarding and piling up of resources in the hands of a few and the refusal to share material wealth: the lack of distribution. This is a major theme for humanity to work out if we are going to achieve this first initiation: the transformation of the material plane life and the right use of material resources for the good of all.
Dale: I think that’s a good point, and it’s a good demonstration of the initiation process at work. If we can see initiation in terms of the whole of humanity struggling with this—symbolically, the house of bread—the redistribution and the right distribution of the energy of sustenance in the world, and you see, we haven’t quite made it yet.
Sarah: Not quite.
Dale: No. We’re still struggling with this stage of first initiation and it’s very evident, I think, if you look at the world scene as a whole.
Robert: It’s said that many people are facing the second initiation. What does that entail?
Sarah: The second initiation is equated in the life of Christ with the baptism in the river Jordan. As Dale said earlier, it indicates the purification of the emotional body. It’s an initiation marked by a capacity for emotional control. The capacity to feel certainly remains, but one is no longer imprisoned or handicapped by the power of desire, emotional longing, fear; whatever the whole gamut of emotions are, they no longer have a complete grip on the human being. So, one is capable of thought. One is free to a certain degree—on the level of the mind—even though there is the capacity to feel and to suffer, one can withdraw or focus the consciousness in the mind. The readiness for this second initiation is said to be demonstrated by a devotion to truth. I find that very interesting because it implies that one is at a stage where no matter what the truth might reveal, no matter what the truth might exact of one in terms of responsibility or sacrifice or whatever, one is devoted to truth at any cost. And that’s a stage that you reach or you don’t, but you know it if you’re ready for it, I think. That’s one of the major signposts of the second initiation.
Dale: And if you’re going to pursue that truth—which is always lying just ahead—in order to arrive and to reach that higher state of truth, then the purification process must come about first. You can’t get to truth unless you go through the stage of purification because it involves the elimination of all that hinders the nature of divinity, the full expression of the life of God. It necessitates the leaving behind of stage after stage and life after life of every tendency in the personality life that hides the glory of God.
Sarah: So, are you saying one can no longer have a beer or smoke a cigarette?
Dale: Yes.
Sarah: Or say a curse word?
Dale: Oh, now you’re putting me on the spot here, aren’t you? (laughter)
Sarah: Well, when we talk about purification, probably a lot of people wonder what exactly we mean.
Dale: Well, I don’t mean you have to lead…to lead a pure life can also be one of the misunderstandings that you run into—but no, it doesn’t mean to be all…
Sarah: Never eat a hot dog.
Dale: No, it’s okay to eat a hot dog. It has more to do with what you were saying earlier, the emotional hang-ups, the thought forms that we carry around with us that condition our lives, which keep us from moving ahead and expanding our consciousness.
Sarah: So, the impurity in the mind and in the inner thinking process and feeling process is really where the focus is.
Dale: Right. So much of the confusion, I think, is because in this striving for purity, we’ve emphasized the physical, like in diet. There’s a strong emphasis today on pure foods and vegetarianism and so forth, giving up meat.
Sarah: Which is fine if one is happy with that.
Dale: Sure. It’s very necessary and also the purification of the air and the environment, that’s all part of this process of initiation that we’re going through. All of humanity is involved in this, in a way.
Sarah: But we start on the lowest level, so the most physical level.
Dale: That’s right. There’s been so much emphasis on the physical level that there isn’t enough, as yet, towards the light. In other words, the thinking needs to shift from downward into matter, into material substance, to an upward direction into the light, into the spirit and to truth, as you were saying earlier.
Sarah: But I think people are sensing that there’s an inner purity that is important because we hear people, when they’re talking about subjects that are a bit troublesome, they will say, “don’t go there,” meaning don’t even think about it, don’t talk about it. I think that’s an indication they realize that it’s best to keep one’s thought life clear of certain issues. Don’t even think about them. Don’t enter those rooms where there is real impurity of any kind. I think each of us has to figure out what those impure thoughts and ideas and experiences are and then stay away from them.
Dale: Right, absolutely. That brings up why it’s so difficult to get through this emotional stage, this second initiation stage, because it involves a lot of conflict. The case a minute ago about if you have a beer. Someone is really going to worry themselves about whether this is going to create more toxicity in their system, so maybe they shouldn’t have this beer. You go through all of this.
Sarah: But I’ve known a lot of people that have stayed free and clear of a beer, but they have never a good word to say about anybody, and they’re totally overcome by their own emotional fog. So then, it’s possible to be very pure in one’s physical processes and yet be quite impure in one’s thought and feeling.
Dale: Yes, well, that’s part of all the glamour and the illusions that have arisen around this whole idea of purification.
Sarah: One of the funny stories reminds me of the Dalai Lama who had lunch with Václav Havel, the Czech president, and the Dalai Lama said, “You know, he drank beer and smoked cigars throughout the luncheon, but you know, I think he’s a very spiritual person.” (laughter)
Dale: There you go. (laughter)
Sarah: So, the emotional purity of loving kindness, of inclusiveness, of reason, of commitment to truth, of the ability to think free of the realm of feeling and desire, those are all indications of the second initiation.
Dale: Yes, and I think it’s a stage that a vast number of people in the world are going through right now, and that’s part of the problem, especially in this country. I think we have this very material orientation and there’s also a very spiritual orientation, and they’re coming together and they’re trying to battle it out. It’s the same battle that every human being goes through.
Robert: That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
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