The Third Approach

The esoteric teachings outline three great approaches to or from our divine source.

The third phase approach is concerned with the first or life aspect in the trinity of life, love, activity or monad, soul, personality.

It is self evident that this contact can only be made consciously when the second or conscious principle of the soul has been developed. However the consciousness does not have to be fully developed before contact with the life principle is undertaken and indeed early contact, properly guided can speed up the process of soul development.

A useful analogy is the situation as it occurs between the disciplines of exoteric psychology and esoteric psychology.  The leading edge of mainstream exoteric psychology, while acknowledging the transpersonal worlds, cautions against developing transpersonal awareness until the ‘personality’ is fully developed and integrated. There is obviously some wisdom in this approach and many will have anecdotal experiences of individuals becoming ‘ungrounded’ or imbalanced through premature soul contact. On the other hand there is the equally valid truth that soul contact can speed up personality integration through alignment with the wisdom and purpose of the soul.  Esoteric psychologists level a legitimate claim that prolonged focus on ‘personal development’ can be an overemphasis on the third aspect and an unwillingness to progress the identity into the second or soul aspect. Trainings like Psychosynthesis attempt to bridge the gap between these two approaches.

In the future we might isolate a third approach to psychological development and integration – a spiritual psychology - that emphasizes our primary identity as spirit or monad. Indeed it is indicated by the Master DK that the new esoteric schools will train students in contact between monad and personality through the science of occult meditation. [1] The emphasis upon the soul or second aspect is today becoming exoteric - forming part of many mainstream approaches to education and organizational development. The inherent wisdom and creativity of the individual and the collective synergy of groups aligned to purpose are increasingly being valued.

This third approach will have its own strengths and weaknesses but will increasingly become recognized as a distinct pathway that will attract certain types of individuals and groups. It is in reality a third approach to initiation. When the process of initiation was introduced it began with a focus upon the individual. Gradually the emphasis has shifted as we enter the Aquarian Age into a focus upon the group. This third method places the emphasis upon the whole. There is also a third method of individualisation which will become the normal method for the next solar system – individualisation through abstraction. In the first system individualisation occurred through the evolutionary progression of the third aspect. In the current second system the method of individualisation is via the aid of the agnishvattas or the conscious principle. We have help from our ‘higher selves’ which are naturally group conscious. Thus the development of consciousness through ‘education’ or the ‘drawing forth’ of the consciousness principle is the keynote of this system. In the third system the keynote will be the life principle and activity and consciousness will be developed in an accelerated way through identification with the monad, the One. [2] The core identity will, in effect, be abstracted from the lower five worlds of the personality and the triad.

These three forms of development can be related to the three primary rays of the monad. Indeed the different approaches will be favoured by those on different ray lines. A major distinction on the planet is between those who individualised on the moon chain, where the third aspect was dominant, and those who have individualised on earth  (earth humanity) where the second aspect is dominant. In time we might also include mercury chain humanity – those who are showing signs of fifth chain development and beginning to respond to the third method of development.

Of course this third approach will also attract (with less long term benefit to them) those who have strong first ray at the soul and personality level. It will be most suitable to those upon any of the rays who have reached a certain level of soul/personality integration and therefore those in whom the will principle is becoming increasingly expressed.

In the worlds of time and space we develop awareness of our three levels of being sequentially (personality, soul then monad) but in terms of our essential identity the order of relative importance of these aspects is reversed – monad, soul then personality. When we attempt to place first things first we must therefore consider whether we are primarily anchored in the world of Being or the world of Becoming.

There is another reason for developing and strengthening the third approach to divinity or responsiveness to the energy of Shamballa, and this lies in a later synthesis. When the monad, the soul and personality assume their rightful balance and order of relative importance in both inner and outer worlds then the revelation of that which lies behind these three aspects becomes possible. Just as the three vehicles of the personality, when integrated, reveal the synthetic principle of the soul operating through them, so too do the three vehicles of the cosmic physical planes hide a synthesizing energy – a fourth quality of deity waiting to be revealed. [3]

The development of the will and monadic identification is not therefore an end in itself but part of a process – a process of synthesis. Those who develop the will aspect will still need to achieve full rounding out of the consciousness and activity principles in time and space. They will do this however with the aid of the synthetic fourth principle which ‘sees the three as one’.

Within the esoteric community the emergence of this third approach will be likely to raise a divergence of opinion just as the emergence of the second approach is a challenge to the first. Just as there are those who say the acquisition of outer knowledge and skill is more important than the development of the innate wisdom of the soul there will be those who say that the development and unfolding of consciousness is more important than the identification with the life principle. Of course everyone is ‘right’ and merely emphasizing a partial truth in a pre-synthesised triad.

There will be those who say that an attempt to contact the monad is presumptuous when we have only just begun to know and develop the soul. There will be those who say that we have not yet understood and applied the first and second phases of the ageless wisdom that has already been given out and so why bother trying to delve into the’ third phase.’

There will be those who say that the most important requirement on the planet is the building of the bridge between personality and soul not that between soul and monad.

Of course different perspectives emphasise different priorities. Different aspects of the one synthetic whole are seen as differentially important by entities within it. Synthesis however occurs after each of the three strands are balanced and not before. A synthesis of opinion in the minds of men is an even more difficult undertaking and so, as always, pioneers must demonstrate their priorities and values in the face of prevailing status quos. They do this by testing out new pathways in the context of experimentation, allowing time and evolution to weave their work into the greater whole.

The work therefore of the third approach is to complete the higher antahkarana through identification with the Whole so that the synthetic operation of the three centres in man and in the planet can occur - bringing revelation of a fourth quality of deity. This revelation is essential to the Aquarian Age. We can fit ourselves to aid in this process if we, as DK indicates, ‘walk humbly with our God’ [4]

So far we have looked at this third approach with respect to the individual approach to divinity but it applies equally to our planetary life as a whole. Two Great Approaches by spirit to form have already been made with two lesser approaches embodying the Great Approaches by individual avataric members of the human family.

The first Great Approach occurred in Lemurian times and resulted in the individualisation of animal man, the birth of the fourth kingdom in nature and the appearance of the human soul. It was literally the arrival of Light. [5]

The second Great Approach occurred when humanity had grown through the ages in sensitivity and intelligence. It was the approach of the Spiritual Hierarchy to Humanity and made them aware of the path to God, the path of initiation. God had hitherto been a purely transcendent and unapproachable reality but now God became immanent and the path of sacrifice could be walked by advanced humanity via the Christ or soul principle residing at the core of their own natures.

The Buddha was an embodiment or expression of the first approach and the Christ an embodiment of the second. The second Great Approach will be consummated in humanity with the Reappearance of the Christ and the Externalisation of the Hierarchy.

The third Great Approach already has its beginnings with the coming into relationship of the energy of Shamballa with humanity. In the early stages the new approach is not recognized for what it is – ‘ the will of God in a new and potent livingness’ [6]. It has effects but these are largely unconscious. As humanity develops responsiveness to this new energy it is able to begin conscious cooperation with it through the science of invocation. That invocation is beginning to occur in two ways – through the largely unconscious call to freedom from the masses of humanity and the concerted invocative appeal by the New Group of World Servers.

Just as the first two approaches have their outer representative embodiments, so too will the third approach. We await a coming avatar who will embody in Himself the principles not only of Light and Love, although developed in lesser degree to His predecessors, the Buddha and the Christ, but also the energy of Power. He will thus synthesise the three great qualities of deity and make possible the revelation of that which lies behind their expression.

Coincident with the coming of this avatar will be the founding of the Temple of Power upon the physical plane, which will make possible the restoration of the mysteries and the taking of the first initiation as a recognized outer event within the human family. Already two temples exist – a Temple of Light upon the mental plane presided over by the Buddha and a Temple of Love on the astral plane presided over by the Christ. [7]

The three approaches – of spirit to matter (and vice versa) through the threefold workings of consciousness - form part of one great whole and when they are consummated we will have the ‘new heaven and new earth’ [8]. This is the promise that the combination of the energies of Aquarius and the seventh ray make possible. [9] Only then we will not use the terms ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ or ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ for there will no longer be experienced any sense of such a duality.  Light supernal, the light of life itself will reveal the One Life pervading all levels of manifest being and humanity will take its conscious place as a divine centre. Then this planet will manifest a truth in consciousness which has ever been a timeless divine reality. Earth has always been in heaven.

Bruce Lyon

[1] Rays & Initiations p121

[2] A Treatise on Cosmic Fire p 349

[3]http://www.shamballaschool.org/mercury/Fourth%20Quality.htm

[4] Rays & Initiations p 258

[5] Externalisation of The Hierarchy p 411

[6] Destiny of The Nations p 17

[7] Esoteric Psychology II p 280

[8] Externalisation of The Hierarchy p 537

[9] DINA II p 425