Meditation is using the mind and it’s on the plane of mind where the impressions from the Hierarchy can be picked up and seen.
Robert: Welcome. 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 we’re continuing our discussion on the Hierarchy. All the dialogue that you hear on this show, its main inspiration emanates from the works of Alice Bailey. Alice Bailey is the founder of the Lucis Trust Organization. She wrote twenty-four volumes of literature and the following thought comes from the works of Alice Bailey: “The great Hierarchy of Being, that chain of life in which the smallest link is of importance and the greatest link is related to the smallest through the electrical interplay of spiritual energy. There is naught but Hierarchy.” Rather interesting thought, I would say, and Sarah, Dale, I hope you wouldn’t mind recapping what we spoke about last time.
Sarah: We talked about hierarchy last time more in the general sense of the term, which is kind of in disrepute today because people seem to view the idea of a hierarchy—whether we’re speaking about a business structure or any kind of organization or society—as something that denigrates some people and exalts others. There’s a great impulse and longing for an even-leveled democracy, which I don’t think is a realistic view of life. And it would in fact work against the evolutionary impulse, which is what this opening thought implies: that there’s an electrical interplay of spiritual energy that is transmitted from the higher link to the lower; that’s how evolution proceeds. We talked last time about how this transmission of energy—which is called the “great chain of Being” or the “Hierarchy of Being”—enables all living things—not only the human species, but all levels of life, from the minerals through the vegetable and animal kingdoms as well—to evolve by the sacrifice of the lower and by the service of the higher. “The greatest among these is the servant of all,” Christ said. And that’s how the inner spiritual impulse within any particular form, at any level of being, is quickened by the impact of a greater spiritual energy upon it. Think of the great influences that you’ve had, the people that have been prominent in your own life and you can see how you have grown as a result of the impact of someone—I’m sorry to say—greater than you, more knowledgeable than you, wiser, more evolved, more powerful. We have evolved by their impact.
Dale: Yes, this is the whole great thing about mentors and role models we have…
Sarah: Parents, teachers.
Dale: … that act as inspiration for the children of today or any of society. This is how we progress. There wouldn’t be evolution without this hierarchical structure because there have to be many gradations of hierarchy for progress to move forward.
Sarah: In fact, it’s said that “to deny hierarchy is to deny existence” because a non-hierarchical state of affairs—if it could be found, which it can’t—would be a state of entropy, of stasis, I suppose you can say, in which no progression would be possible.
Dale: Everything would be the same. Even within one’s own body there is this chain of hierarchy, even down to the organs and to the molecules and the very atoms that make up our body there is this hierarchical structure, and it works even at that level.
Sarah: When we talk about the disparaging of hierarchy, a hilarious image comes to my mind, and probably, if I talk about this, it will show how deranged my mind is but if you remember the program Archie Bunker, if you remember how Archie and his daughter Gloria would go through the doorway at the same time and they would get their rear ends caught in the doorway. It was hilarious! They would always try to go through the doorway at the same time and they would get stuck, and to me, that’s the perfect image of a non-hierarchical view of life, where there’s no sense of who should go first, or there’s no sense of place and—I don’t know—deferment. It’s hard to find the right terms because it shouldn’t be seen as something that denigrates the worth of one being and exalts another. It’s not that. That’s how we see it and misunderstand it, and I think that’s why it’s feared. But it’s not a denigration.
Dale: No, and I think in democracies that we live in where we have a very strong democratic tradition and belief that there is a tendency to look down upon or to not be in favor of hierarchical structures and authority figures. Hierarchy is seen always as an authority, and if it is that way, then that’s a misuse of the structure.
Sarah: Yes, it violates human free will.
Dale: Right. It need not be that way. It isn’t really that way in truth, because as we’ll talk about today, the spiritual Hierarchy is very much there and needed, just as the hierarchical structure that we have in the world today is needed.
Robert: Could you say more about the chain of Hierarchy as it applies to the Masters of the Wisdom?
Sarah: Yes, this gets into a very important and vital part of the Ageless Wisdom as it’s given in the books of Alice Bailey, among other writers. The spiritual Hierarchy is called by various names, the Kingdom of Souls, the Kingdom of Saints. Sometimes it’s called the White Brotherhood—not referring to race. It has nothing to do with the Caucasian race— The Great Ones. There are many names for these beings that are recognized, I think, through many different world cultures as being of a higher attainment, a higher spiritual level than the strictly human, and yet we’re told that these members of the Hierarchy have progressed through the human stage. They have progressed through it and moved beyond it so that they are truly examples of “been there and done that.” They have experienced every aspect of the human condition, and they retain the wisdom and I suppose the benefits of the pain and the struggle of being human, and yet they’ve transcended it. They remain with our planet to guide and prompt its evolution, but they don’t interfere in a direct way because that would violate human free will.
Dale: They impress human consciousness with certain great ideas.
Sarah: Maybe you could say how they impress.
Dale: Well, it’s by projecting ideas that are necessary, are needed in the human condition, in human consciousness, to move human progress along in the right direction, in line with that which is their responsibility to carry out. They are called the Custodians of the Plan. They don’t force ideas on humanity, but from time to time they project them into human consciousness, and if they’re picked up and acted upon by human beings, then the actions taken by humanity will gradually fall into line with the necessary requirements of the Plan.
Sarah: One of the interesting aspects of the writings of Alice Bailey about the Hierarchy is the realization that it’s extremely well-organized and structured. It’s not just a kind of a free-form grouping of Great Beings but actually highly organized. One of her books, called The Externalization of the Hierarchy, explains in great detail the structure and organization of the Hierarchy. It’s said that there are three major divisions into which all members of the Hierarchy fall. One is the field of government. There are some Beings or Masters who oversee world government. I’m sure they are most directly involved in and working through the United Nations because that is the only truly global institution on the level of government. But they would also be impulsing ideas of good governance and the growth of a right and wise political system in all nations. Another department is the religious department, which would also include education and healing. And the third department is that of economic progress.
Dale: I think that’s an important point to get across, that these great Masters of the Wisdom are great spiritual Beings. They have succeeded in working through the human condition but they are not just involved in religion. They’re involved in all departments of human life and human activity, as you say, they’re concerned with government, they’re concerned with religion, they’re also concerned with science and with culture and the arts and with world finance and economics. These all fall into the purvey of the domain of Hierarchical concern and this is the important thing to get across to people, that they are not just Beings sitting up there on the right hand of God waiting for humanity to shape itself up and do it right.
Sarah: Nor are they going to save us from ourselves.
Dale: Exactly, right. No, they provide us with the inspiration so that we find the way to save ourselves.
Sarah: It’s said in the writings of Alice Bailey that there are four basic tasks that the Hierarchy has taken responsibility for, and it’s interesting to reflect on these. One of them is to develop self-consciousness in human beings. Well, we might think we’re all self-conscious and far too much so, but it’s not that kind of self-consciousness. It’s the consciousness or the awareness of who one really is, the true self, the soul within. That’s one of their major endeavors, to develop that realization of the real indwelling self, which is one with all human beings. Another is to develop or foster consciousness in the lower kingdoms. One might not think of vegetables or minerals having a consciousness, and yet the Ageless Wisdom says that consciousness pervades every sphere and level of life to the tiniest atom; there is in every atom some degree of consciousness. The Hierarchy seeks to stimulate this consciousness principle because that’s the means by which every being and every atom of life evolves by the quickening of that consciousness. And they work to transmit the Will of God as they are able to intuit it into human consciousness, as Dale says, by impressing human minds with the divine purpose. And finally, the fourth example or the fourth task: they set an example for humanity. They are—having been human—supreme examples of how we should live.
Dale: Right, and I think perhaps the purpose of why we’re talking about the spiritual Hierarchy on this program is to get the idea across that this great level of Being does exist and that this inner plane life does exist. There seems to be a great veil of ignorance that separates the two, the human kingdom and the spiritual kingdom, and that’s what has to be broken down and severed so that the light of this great spiritual kingdom can pour through into human consciousness.
Robert: You are speaking about how the spiritual Hierarchy is something that people are not aware of. Just because we can’t see or touch them, that they’re definitely there.
Dale: Well, that they’re inspiring, whether we realize it or not. They do inspire, and many of the ideas that have been working out in the world are a direct result of this inspiration. I mean, the old League of Nations was an example of that. The inspiration for that idea came from those inner Beings. So, there is this activity going on because they’re intensely concerned about what’s going on in the world and they’re directly involved.
Sarah: The point that I want to make is that sometimes people feel that the idea of the Hierarchy, is in some way denigrating to the spiritual worth of the human being. That definitely should not be an interpretation of this whole concept of Hierarchy. Every human being has a spiritual worth and a spiritual integrity that is inviolable. And I think the impact of the truly great upon a more typical human being is to awaken and quicken that sense of inner spiritual worth, because we couldn’t respond to the greatness of another being if we didn’t have something of that same potential within us. So, the idea that the Hierarchy somehow implies that ordinary humanity is worth less is simply not true. It’s a misunderstanding. We all have that potential within us and we all are developing in our own way toward mastery and becoming Masters. We do it by gaining mastery over ourselves to begin with, mastering our physical and emotional and mental bodies.
Robert: Well, it’s a wonderful concept, and I certainly enjoy hearing about it. But how do we cooperate with the Hierarchy? If we’d like to be in alignment with them, how can we cooperate with them?
Sarah: Well, first of all, we have to cooperate with them because they depend on their disciples, their workers in the world to implement their plans. They don’t directly interfere in human affairs, and as Dale was mentioning earlier, they impress ideas about the Plan of God where minds that are receptive can register and grasp and then begin to adapt and carry it out in the world. This is how the transmission of Hierarchical plans is brought about in the world, and I think the major beginning step for that cooperation is meditation.
Dale: That’s an excellent way to begin to work because meditation is using the mind and it’s on the plane of mind where the impressions from the Hierarchy can be picked up and seen.
Sarah: It begins with an idea.
Dale: Right. An idea is a force in action. We carry through those ideas. We develop a great desire to see the idea worked out and we gather the people together and the forces and the materials that are needed to work out that idea, and we do it. That’s how progress is made.
Sarah: Another way that everyone, regardless of what their circumstances might be, can cooperate with the Hierarchy and the Plan of God is by assuming their full quota of their individual responsibility. There was a book a couple of years ago that came out. I think it was titled Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I loved that book! One of the first rules that the author learned in kindergarten was: if you make a mess, clean it up. I love that thought because it applies on every level of life. If you make a mess, clean it up. This is personal responsibility, being responsible for whatever you do or fail to do in the world on any level. I so often think of that when I’m inclined to want to pretend that I didn’t notice something that happened that really I was responsible for, or even if I didn’t make the mess, I’ve seen it, and it’s therefore mine to do something about since nobody else is attending to it. If we all lived our lives that way, that would be the assuming of a personal responsibility that then grows and grows and magnifies. We begin by shouldering the little things, the little tasks.
Dale: And one of those little tasks—which may seem little, but it has tremendous implications—is the development of the spirit of goodwill. This energy of goodwill is so vitally important, especially in the world now, with so much divisiveness all around us. To build relationships in the world based on goodwill is so very important.
Sarah: This doesn’t mean a kind of a Pollyannaish view of the world. We’ve all seen what’s happened in recent times with the terrible division that developed over the war in Iraq and the loss of goodwill on all sides has been discouraging and troubling. But this isn’t saying don’t have an opinion. In fact, you have to follow world affairs to cooperate with the Plan, you have to pay attention to something other than your own personal life, you have to look beyond your family and your friends and your job and you have to study the world situation and be informed, but to learn to do so without breaking the bonds of goodwill that bind all human beings; that’s a real achievement.
Dale: Yes, and just to expand on what you were saying there about informing yourself about problems that we face in the world, because that’s very important too. Not only will it help your understanding, but it will deepen your own consciousness and expand your own consciousness. The more knowledge and awareness that you gain of other people in the world and other nations and problems that they face then the more expansive will be the work that we do.
Sarah: And expansiveness is a good theme for cooperating with Hierarchy because the Hierarchy is totally inclusive in its view of humanity and the world condition. They don’t perceive barriers of race or color or sex or economic level or class or religion or nation. Those barriers are non-existent on the level of the soul. So, learning to understand and identify with the lives and concerns of people whose outward lives are radically different from your own makes your consciousness more elastic, more expansive, and that’s a very important way to aid the Hierarchy. Don’t look at the world just through your own lens but expand your view to incorporate very different life views and not just force everything through the strainer of your own experience.
Dale: And realize that there is a great pattern working out here, that there is behind it all a Plan of God, who’s called the Originator, the Great Planner, the Creator. The more that we understand about the whole picture happening, the more that we can cooperate with that Plan.
Sarah: Another way to aid the Hierarchy is on a very concrete level of money. Sharing one’s financial resources, that is so important because there is money needed for the working out of the plan through charities, through nonprofit groups, through sharing, through the redistribution of the world’s wealth so that it’s not just in the hands of a few but is truly distributed in a fluid way throughout the world. That’s a terribly important means, and another way to cooperate—coming back to meditation—is to develop the sense of the soul, because the Hierarchy is the kingdom of souls, and as we become aware of our own soul, we merge and begin to fuse and blend with the Hierarchy and can become their instrument in the world.
Robert: 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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