The seventh ray person is someone who has the innate desire to bring through the sense of divinity in some outer way—who understands the link between the spiritual value and the outer form and wants to reconcile them.
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. Our topic for today is the seven rays—part 8. Today we’re going to be speaking about ray seven. It’s the Ray of Order and Organization. When we speak about rays what we’re really talking about is unseen energies, forces and perhaps even frequencies that affect us. And more and more we’re finding out that there are so many aspects of the universe that, although unseen, they do have a profound effect on us. And if we want to explore that in other ways, we could even take a look at the recent findings in quantum physics. But let’s begin today with a thought by Alice Bailey: “There is one Life which expresses itself primarily through the seven basic qualities or aspects, and secondarily, through the myriad diversity of forms. These seven radiant qualities are the seven rays. Alice Bailey is the founder of the Lucis Trust organization, and so every bit of dialogue that emanates from this show is really based on the literature of Alice Bailey. Sarah and Dale, before we move forward into our discussion of ray seven, can you please recap for us what’s gone on in the past?
Sarah: We’ve talked about six of the seven rays; there are seven in all. We’ve discussed how the world, the universe, is a sevenfold composition. Seven planes of existence are an essential aspect of the esoteric view of the world that runs through all the major world religions. There’s the biblical view that the world was created in seven days, there are the seven colours of the spectrum, and so on. The seven rays refer to the sevenfold expression of divinity. In other words, the Godhead, the Creator, the Source of all life, manifests in a sevenfold manner: the first Ray of Power and Will, the second Ray of Love-Wisdom, the third Ray of Active Intelligence, the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict, the fifth Ray of Knowledge and the sixth Ray of Idealism and Devotion. And we talked in our last program about the sixth ray, which has governed our world for the past two thousand years, according to the Ageless Wisdom. It’s the Ray of Idealism and Devotion, and this has fostered the spiritual aspiration within the human being over the past two millennia. It has developed in the human consciousness an orientation to the abstract realms of life, and this has led to the development of the various philosophies and ideologies. It’s also been the period in which Christianity and Islam, two of the major world religions, developed.
Dale: There’s also another very interesting aspect resulting from this sixth Ray of Idealism, and that’s the growth in the development of the science of psychology, which is very apropos to our work, too. As the mind focuses on these ideals, it has a tendency to help awaken the mind and as the mind awakens through more stimulation, certain diseases and neuroses appear, because this is a new kind of development in the human being. So, the science of psychology has arisen because of this, and we’ve got the great forerunners of Freud, Adler, and Jung, around the beginning of the twentieth century. So, this is one of the major developments of the sixth ray, coming right at the end of the age, almost.
Sarah: Right, and the end of the age leads up to the point that’s been touched upon, that as a ray energy withdraws in its influence, one sees the more negative effects of it and the negative side of the sixth ray is the fundamentalism and the fanaticism that’s so prevalent in the world today—the religious fanaticism, but there are other types of fanaticism, too. The tendency of thought and ideology to crystallize itself around some particular ideal or idea is very much a sign of the withdrawing of the sixth ray.
Robert: Well, before we explore the seventh ray further, I’d just like to mention another quote from Alice Bailey, our founder. Alice Bailey by the way, is the author of twenty-four volumes of books and that’s what this show is based on—all that literature. This quote from Alice Bailey is interesting about the seventh Ray of Order and Organization: “One of the first lessons that humanity will learn under the potent influence of the seventh ray is that the soul controls the personality through ritual, or through the imposition of a regular rhythm, for rhythm is what really designates a ritual.” Now, before we go on, what does Alice Bailey mean by ritual and is it the ritual of a religious service?
Sarah: Well, it can be, but it can be more than that. It’s said in the writings of Alice Bailey that the work of the seventh ray is the relating of life and form: in other words, the inner subjective spirit aspect and the outer form aspect. It’s the bringing together of the two, and this is done through the impact of ritual, which is the gathering up in the marshalling and organizing of forces. Now, if you think about it, most of the world’s religions have rituals that are very sacred to their tradition. There is the Catholic mass. There’s the moment in the Jewish New Year when the rabbi unveils the Torah, which is a sacred moment in the Jewish faith. There’s the Hindu funeral ceremony. These are aspects of religious ritual that carry tremendous spiritual power. But there are other kinds of rituals too. Dale, can you think of some?
Dale: Oh yes, I mean as Alice Bailey has said, no one on Earth can evade rituals and it’s something we can’t get away from because our whole life is governed by rituals and rhythms of all kinds.
Sarah: Sort of like the subway trains. (laughter)
Dale: The subways—supposedly they run on rituals and rhythms, but sometimes they don’t and so do the buses. (laughter) But yes, I mean everybody goes through a regular rhythm and we just couldn’t get through daily life without a certain amount of rhythm and cyclic coming and going. We get up in the morning, we go to work, we do our work and we come home in the evening and then we go to bed and all of this constitutes like an in breathing and an out breathing. Our own breathing, in fact, is a part of a ritual, and our heartbeat is a ritual. All of nature is governed by rituals and rhythms of some kind—the seasons, the sun rising and the moon rising. It’s all due to the regular rhythmic spin of the Earth. Nature is totally governed by rhythms, and so is the animal kingdom. The birds and the animals migrate back and forth in spring and summer and winter. So, all of life is very much governed by this kind of rhythmic ritual.
Sarah: Coming back to this opening thought of Alice Bailey, that the soul governs the personality through ritual. I find that an amazing and fascinating thought to ponder on because a lot of people who approach the spiritual path are given to making a stab at it now and then, to having periods of enthusiasm where they really try to practise their meditation, their yoga, or their prayer on a daily basis, or they might become very committed to a vegetarian path, or whatever. But then when the results don’t come—as usually they don’t because all spiritual growth is slower than we would like it to be—then they might lose interest and go back to their normal, outer, more material focus. And yet Alice Bailey says that “the soul controls its personality, the outer person, through rhythmic ritual,” which suggests that the persistent repetition of even a little spiritual practice, whether it’s prayer or meditation, is more important than occasional fervent efforts.
Dale: Yes, I think things get done when there’s a rhythm to it. Just in your own life—things get done, things get accomplished. And this works all the way down from nature to the human kingdom. We just couldn’t get through life really without a certain amount of rhythm. This is why slow persistent effort really accomplishes so much.
Sarah: Is that why it’s said that “if you want something done, give the task to a busy person”?
Dale: Probably, because that busy person is using his or her energy in the most efficient way.
Sarah: With organization and control of it.
Dale: Organized and controlled, and this is very much a seventh ray quality.
Sarah: One of the interesting things that I think we’ve all noticed in the aftermath of September 11th is the search for rituals and ceremonies that have helped people to deal with the tragedy and with the grief that we all feel for the five thousand or more souls that died. There was the creation of those boards of remembrance in Union Square, and there were all kinds of interfaith gatherings that were held in the few weeks afterward; we went to one. So many of the gatherings were interfaith, where they brought together representatives of many different religions, which I thought was really nice and rather new. And there have been a lot of spontaneous gatherings. The other day I saw a photograph in The New York Times of people who gather every day down on the West Side Highway just above Liberty Street with signs of gratitude and appreciation that they hold up for the workers who are driving to and from the site, working there on a daily basis. This was entirely spontaneous, and apparently it’s been carried on every day since the tragedy where people just show up to thank them. That’s a kind of a ritual.
Dale: Yes, very much so. It’s a ritual that expresses love and that’s the best kind.
Sarah: Another is, if anybody’s walked past one of the firehouses—there’s one in the vicinity of our office, where I think twelve men died and their photographs are there, their names are enshrined on the wall outside on the street; there are flowers and votive candles. And it’s the same up on 51st street.
Robert: Based on my understanding, where each of us is dominated by a particular ray— maybe perhaps because of a karmic incarnation—but whatever it is, each individual is dominated by a ray in this lifetime. If that’s so, what are some of the characteristics of a person influenced by the seventh ray?
Sarah: Well, traditionally such a person is viewed as someone who’s highly organized, who copes well with detail and with organization and ritual, who is skillful on the outer physical plane of life. Someone who can handle tasks in a disciplined manner. Sometimes, though, the negative aspect of it is someone who’s extremely rigid in their approach to how they handle responsibilities.
Dale: Yes, that rigidity tends to be one of the lower expressions and one of the crystallized expressions. I was struck also by the fact that Russia is also governed by the seventh ray in its soul factor—the seventh ray soul of Russia. That has had an interesting expression already in its lower expression, you might say, because there you see the regimentation that was founded under Communism. It was a very regimented type of society. It didn’t work very well, but they tried it and it was kind of the first expression of that national soul, perhaps you could say.
Sarah: And it was imposed upon a nation that is a sixth ray personality with a tendency to fanaticism.
Dale: Right. And those two combinations just were always at loggerheads along with the rest of the world. So, those are two examples that express the seventh ray through persons and also through nations.
Sarah: The seventh ray person is the builder, the creator of form. On a spiritual level it’s someone who has the innate desire to bring through his sense of divinity in some outer way—whether it’s creating through art or through some more mundane pursuit like the way he handles money or business—but it’s someone who understands the link between the spiritual value and the outer form and wants to reconcile them.
Robert: How will the seventh ray help humanity advance spiritually?
Sarah: The seventh ray, in terms of the cycles of these rays—because they all have their cycles—is just now coming into greater and greater prominence. Its energy is building and its power will be more and more visible in the world in the few centuries to come, and one sign we can look for is the growth of the urge to fuse spirit and matter. In other words, to go back to what I said before, the person who’s governed by the seventh ray has a driving urge to bring about a fusion, a merging, a harmony between the spiritual aspect of life and the outer form. There’s a great concern with beauty, but it has to be a spiritual beauty and I think we can look for that not only in art but in all human institutions, whether we’re talking about government or science or business. For example, the writings of Alice Bailey say that a sign of the seventh ray is the discovery of radioactivity within the mineral kingdom. The expression of the radiation is a spiritual power.
Dale: There is as you mentioned the integration in the fusion process and that’s going to be in the future a very strong evidence of the seventh ray at work because the sixth ray influence has brought forth the soul, but the seventh ray is going to give us knowledge of the soul and it will advance human consciousness and awaken humanity to the kingdom of souls which is mentioned a lot, that will actually come into fruition in the next age that’s directly now ahead of us. So, there is this seventh ray tendency to relate the higher and the lower and that is very much a strong characteristic.
Sarah: I wonder if these experiences that are being more and more documented—the near- death experiences of people—are a preparation for knowledge of the soul. You did quite a lot of research into that.
Dale: Yes, there is a growing body of work out there of studying the soul because it’s a real thing. It’s not just a word that we use, it’s a real divine part of us. So, there are more and more scientific studies and these will come out more in the future. It’s great.
Sarah: Another aspect of the spiritual expression of the seventh ray that I think we will see more and more, is the realization that spiritual development has to be grounded, that it can’t just be a one-day-a-week kind of expression of religious belief and then one goes about living one’s life in just the same old way. There can’t be this divergence between one’s moral and spiritual values and one’s actual outer practices and habits. There has to be a transparency between the inner consciousness and the outer practices, and that’s what I think is making people more and more appalled by the discovery of hypocrisy. Whether we find it within ourselves or within our institutions, it’s more and more intolerable. I think that might be a sign of the seventh ray, revealing that which is not what it appears to be, and it’s coming to light for us to rectify. It’s a good thing.
Robert: In our last program, we talked about the sixth ray going out of manifestation, and you said the seventh ray influence is now growing more prominent each year. What effect is this having on our lives? And is this changing of the rays affecting the way we think and feel? And what evidence is there that this change is taking place? That’s a lot of questions I’ve asked you! Sorry.
Dale: (laughter) Now we need a whole show for this, but I think we’ll try to wrap it up quickly here. We’ve already touched upon some of the effects, and I think because one ray prepares the way for another ray, and the reason for the manifestation of one ray or another is dependent upon the Plan and the divine purpose and that’s what is always unfolding. In spite of all the conflicts that we’re going through, there is a Plan unfolding here underneath it all. So going from one ray to another, there is apt to be a lot of conflict, and that’s the kind of period we are in right now because there is a clashing of rays and a clashing of influences, and in the future I think we will see that there will be a lot of different changes taking place.
Sarah: Well, one thing I think that’s becoming apparent is people are kind of falling into either the old conservative fundamentalist view of life or the more progressive transformative view, and there’s a sense of cleavage among the two realms that’s quite noticeable. For example, look at globalization: in some points of view, this is seen in a very positive light, but by other people it’s seen in a very negative light. Probably it’s a little of both, but it’s definitely an expression of the seventh ray because the seventh ray fosters synthesis and amalgamation. And amalgamation on the outer level is the joining together of nations through treaties based on trade, or the European Union, or whatever. There is this very noticeable tendency to form blocks and amalgamations that can either be a kind of tyranny if it’s not oriented toward the good of the entire world, or it can be a strengthening of the smaller nations in particular. It’s very much a phenomenon that’s noticed today.
Dale: Yes, in the previous era, the age we just came out of, there was a sense of individualism developing. In the seventh ray influence, you will find the group aspect, the group work that will characterize much of life in the world.
Robert: Well, our series of shows on the seven rays is coming to an end with this show. Do we have any final thoughts?
Sarah: Well, I would remind people that if they are interested in this science, to study it in depth and to use it as a means of understanding themselves and others. It’s not meant to be a way of stereotyping people. It’s intended to reveal the diversity of God in manifestation.
Dale: I’d just like to remind listeners again that this science of the seven rays is rather complex and we need to study it over and over again, and the Bailey books go into this in great detail. The divine purpose of all the seven rays is working out as the Plan of God, and ultimately, that’s what all humanity is responsible for.
Robert: And once again, you can order those two books from the Lucis Trust organization. They’re called Esoteric Psychology, Volumes One and Two, and that will give you a chance to really explore in depth the seven rays. 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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