Rule XI for Disciples and Initiates and the meaning of the Crucifixion.
This paper is dedicated to
Callimachus, the first curator of the Library of Alexandria.
Rule XI.
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.
The Crucifixion “has always been the outstanding, dramatic episode upon which the entire structure of Christian theology has been founded. …Millions of words have been written about it, and thousands of books and commentaries have attempted to elucidate its meaning and to explain the significance of its mystery.” (BTC, p.175)
Ah Callimachus, another scroll, mea culpa!
*
The “fourth great cycle of attainment” or the Fourth Initiation, is known in the Western esoteric tradition as the Renunciation or the Crucifixion. By the time of the Fourth Initiation the antahkarana has been built between the monad and the personality, and the causal body of the soul - which forms the “midway point” of this bridge - must now be destroyed. The Life of the jewel or monadic point at the centre of the egoic lotus is liberated into the triad.
The Crucifixion is achieved according to
the Law of Sacrifice, which is the basic law of all group work. (TCF, p.1216)
Thus Jesus, overshadowed by the Christ, achieved this great Renunciation through
suffering, in service to all humanity. The Piscean Christ is the world Saviour.
He made the choice to take this Initiation in occult obedience to the Father,
thus more firmly anchoring Spirit in the three worlds. This was an act of Will:
At the Crucifixion “Christ, for the first time, anchored on Earth a tenuous
thread of the divine Will as it issued from the Father's House (Shamballa)”.
(ROC, p.53) And it was an act of Love: “He was permitted to embody for us the
great cosmic principle of love; He thus revealed to us, for the first time, the
nature of the heart of God.” (EOH, p.473)
“After the advent of Christ, the door stood
wide open for all time, and the
It is indeed a mystery that an act of violence and cruelty could result in the access of greater Love; that the dark purposes of human will could result in the anchoring of the Will of the divine. This was achieved because even through the injustices of earthly law the divine Law was obeyed. Although to our mortal minds it may seem a paradox, greater freedom is attained by following the Law.
“There are no free souls anywhere, except those who of free choice imprison themselves and find themselves within and by the law of service.” (DINAI, p.289)
THE WORD
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. (Rule XI)
What is the “Word” that must be found to lift the Life within the soul into the triad? It is the sound of the soul, the middle principle, for “sound, in an occult and deeply metaphysical sense, stands for that which we term "the relation between".” (LOM, p.4.) It is this sounding of the soul note which both instigates incarnation and which also invokes initiation, carrying the soul back on the Path of Return. The “true Word” of the soul emerges from the centre of the egoic lotus, “until the three enshrining petals burst open, and the central spark is revealed. Then the Word is fully known”. (TCF, p.772.) The Word of the soul is in turn derived from that of the monad: “The personality—the reflection of that monad at the densest point in evolution,—is linked to the monad by the attractive force of the Sacred Word sounded by its monad on its note and on its own subtone.” (LOM, pp.56-7.)
As Jesus hung crucified upon the Mount of Golgotha
“…there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the Sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” (Luke, 23:44-6)
He cries out, and then with his last words
he surrenders Life to the Father. Jesus is “the Word made flesh”, the son of
the Logos born into this earthly plane. (BTC, p.7) He offered himself in
sacrifice to lift the souls of humanity. So we must each follow the path of
initiation until we can fully express the Love and Will of the Christ within and
our word becomes an expression of our divine purpose.
The Word always comes from the centre: It “progresses outward from the centre to the periphery (for, occultly understood, the Word is "spoken from the Heart")”. (TCF, p.1188) The Fourth Initiation is an initiation of the heart centre, the central chakra of the body. (RAI, p.340) The heart is the centre of Life as well as Love, for the sutratma is anchored in the heart. The Word comes from the monadic centre of the soul – the jewel in the lotus. The Word of the group comes from the centre of the group soul, and must be allowed to “spontaneously and automatically” arise from the core. (RAI, p.220)
After the death of Jesus on the cross one
of the Roman soldiers pierced his side with a spear – a custom to verify death
- “and forthwith there came out blood and water”. (
RENDING OF THE VEIL
“And the Sun was darkened, and the veil of
the temple was rent in the midst.” (Luke,
“According to the Mystery teachings, there
are three
The
The Tabernacle of Moses was built to house
the
“During the time of
The
“METAPHYSICALLY and esoterically there is but One
ELEMENT in nature, and at the root of it is the Deity; and the so-called seven
elements, of which five have already manifested and asserted their existence,
are the garment, the veil, of that deity; direct from the essence
whereof comes MAN, whether physically, psychically, mentally or spiritually
considered.” (SD I.2.XIV, p.460)
At the Crucifixion “the rending of the second veil…let in light on to the second level of the etheric plane, and a new type of illumination was spread abroad upon the earth. Law and Love could now penetrate into the consciousness of humanity in a new and direct manner...” (RAI, p.193)
It is our obedience to the divine Law
inherent in our own true nature that both liberates us and rends the veils: “The
Law, when rightly kept and interpreted, defines man's attitude upon the mental
plane and serves to make a rent in the etheric veil, separating the etheric
vehicle in its fourfold aspect from the dense physical form.” (RAI, p.193)
ROBES OF GLORY
Before Jesus was taken to be crucified “they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!” (Matthew, 27:28-9)
Jesus is made to wear a robe and crown in pretence of worldly kingship, in ignorance of the true heavenly and earthly dominion of the Christ as the Prince of Peace. Afterwards they took the scarlet robe from him and gave him back his own garments, as he was led away to be crucified.
“Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be”. (John, 19:23-4)
It was the custom for the Roman soldiers to
draw lots for the clothes of the crucified. This division into four parts symbolises
the quaternary, the four-fold lower self (concrete mind, astral body, prana and
physical/etheric body) – the bodies he will leave at death. (IHS, p.223) The seamless coat also prefigures the winding
shroud of the dead Christ.
And we recall that when the Christ when he reappears on Earth again will use the three vestures of the Buddha: (DINAII, p.627)
"The three Buddhic bodies or forms are styled: Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, Dharmakaya. The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body—having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the path. …Sambhogakaya is the same, but with the additional lustre of three perfections, one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns. The Dharmakaya body is that of complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but an ideal breath; consciousness merged in the universal consciousness, or soul devoid of every attribute..."—Voice of the Silence, p.98. (TCF, p.1193, ft.)
The Nirmanakayas are “perfected
beings who renounce Nirvana (the highest state of spiritual bliss) and choose a
life of self-sacrifice, becoming members of that invisible host which ever
protects humanity within karmic limits.”
(IHS, p.222) Most of the Nirmanakayas have taken the sixth and the
seventh initiations. (RAI, p.735) At the Crucifixion
when Jesus took the Fourth Initiation the Christ took the Sixth. (RAI, p.524) At
the Resurrection Jesus took the Fifth Initiation and the Christ the Seventh. However
the Seventh “is left incomplete, and the Voice is not recorded, because at the
Resurrection and Ascension we are not told of the hearing of the affirmative
sound. That will be heard when the Christ
completes His work at the time of the Second Coming.” (RAI, pp.83-4) The Christ
will eventually return to the atmic plane of the Cosmic Physical in his
Nirmanakaya body, and would be capable of creating a body of physical
manifestation to appear as a Master in the three worlds.
THE SKULL
Jesus was crucified upon the Mount of
Golgotha which is Aramaic for ‘the place of the skull’. According to the Legend
of the True Cross (compiled around 1260 by a Dominican friar Jacobus de
Voragine) three seeds from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden were
placed in the mouth of
(See http://www.abcgallery.com/list/2003apr03.html)
The skull is a memento mori, a symbol of death; but to the disciple it is also a memento of eternal Life: It reminds us of the instruction to withdraw the thread of consciousness through the fontanelle at the crown instead of through the solar plexus at the death of the body.
When the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus they placed a crown of thorns upon the head. The thorny crown symbolises how we suffer from the constriction of our mental limitations. True ‘kingship’, true Mastery, is attained by overcoming the limitations of mind and rising to buddhic consciousness.
THE CROSS
On the Mount of Golgotha the cross of the
Crucifixion is both a symbol of death and of Life. It is the new tree of
The secret of the Cardinal Cross is the secret of Life. “The Christ was the first of our humanity Who, having achieved divinity…was permitted to see the "golden thread of light and of living life which links the light within the centre of all the manifested Crosses"; He was allowed to know the meaning of life as it expressed itself in the Cosmic Crucifixion, which is an episode of cosmic life and not of death, as is generally supposed.” (EA, p.315)
The Fourth Initiation is governed by the Fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict and the fourth or Buddhic plane. This involves “the harmonising of the lower centres with the higher, the harmonising or establishing of right relations between the three worlds of human evolution and the buddhic plane”. (RAI, p.701) Well might our Earth be experienced by humanity – the Fourth Creative Hierarchy – as a globe of conflict, suffering and pain, for our planetary Logos himself is undergoing the Fourth Initiation. (TCF, p.384)
The Sun / Son is exalted in Aries, the first
sign of the Cardinal Cross. “Here the Sun stands for the life of the spirit
which comes to full expression as the result of the great evolutionary process,
initiated in Aries. The life of God which in this sign is ‘swung into activity’
eventually achieves consummation.
Latency becomes potency and
EX LIBRIS
(An irresistible
bibliophilic detour.)
The Legend
of the True Cross tells the history of the cross of the Crucifixion from its
origins as the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Through a long and
miraculous series of events the wood of the tree comes eventually to be used as
a bridge into
When all
the books can be offered up into the fire humanity will have been liberated into
the buddhic plane. Then perhaps we will rediscover the true “lost Word” of
Spirit. (BTC, p.118)
COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
From the perspective of the three worlds it is a deep Mystery that Jesus overshadowed by the Christ - the great embodiment of the soul principle - took the Fourth Initiation at which the causal body – the body of the soul - is destroyed. But the return of the Son to the Father only strengthens the Light of the World. The destruction of the causal body does not destroy consciousness. Even the buddhic Nirmanakaya is a state of consciousness. (TCF, p.779) The destruction of the causal body liberates consciousness to its source.
“The Son of God has found His way back to the Father and to His originating Source, that state of Existence to which we have given the name Shamballa. The consciousness of the Universal Life is His”. (RAI, p.730)
And from this source more Life and Love are
released back down into the lowest planes.
A disciple becomes self-conscious upon the Mutable Cross and group conscious upon the Fixed Cross. The Master on the Cardinal Cross “is distinguished by a universal consciousness which passes finally into cosmic consciousness... The first hint of the growth of cosmic consciousness comes when the disciple passes through the sixth Initiation of Decision.” (RAI, p.694)
*
After 2,000 years we still have not learned the lessons of the Great Teacher. What does it merit us to study Rule XI and the Fourth Initiation as a group when we are ourselves far from taking this Initiation and perhaps cannot even fulfil the first preparatory requirement to cease falling into “sentiment” and maintain a loving impersonality? (RAI, p.209)
“Only when we have achieved expression of divinity in and through the lower personal nature shall we have attained to that of worth and value which can be permitted, under the divine Plan, to be crucified. This is a forgotten truth.” (BTC, p.158)
At the death of Jesus “the Sun was
darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” (Luke,
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07435a.htm)
To rend the veil we must enter together into the darkness that is the suffering and search for meaning upon the Fixed Cross. Our liberation will come from our deep recognition of God as the divine author of the Word of the soul.
BAM
Leo full Moon
30.07.04