Commentary on Rule IV for Disciples and Initiates

2. The “evocation of the Will” is one of the principle objectives of the Divine Plan, along with the “revelation of love” and the “illumination of the mind”.

3. The evocation of the Will is equivalent to the strengthening of the nucleus of power within any disciple. This central nucleus (at first the soul center, but later, and more authentically, the spirit center) is the controlling, dispersing and dissipating agent in the constitution of man.

4. The strengthening of the central nucleus has a subduing effect upon the eighteen lower fires, just as the secretion of the pineal gland (a gland ruled by willful Vulcan, from one perspective) has a subduing effect upon the glandular secretions stimulated by Mars (adrenaline).

5. Mars, which was called the “six-faced planet” (SD II. 399.) is closely correlated to the burning of the eighteen fires which compose the bodies of the “lunar lords” or “lunar pitris”. Mars, therefore, is stimulative of the lower man in his three divisions—physical, emotional and lower mental.

6. When the eighteen fires die down, they do so through the dying down of the Martian vibration within the personality. Vulcan (associated with the highest head center {EA 517}, and with the pineal gland) is the planetary force which is instrumental in bringing this about (though all the sacred planets, especially Venus, help in the process).

7. At the second initiation there is a confrontation between Vulcan and Mars. (In fact, it could be said that at each of the first three initiations, and even at the fourth, there is a confrontation between these planets, though the confrontation at the third initiation is most focal.)

8. Mars represents desire and everything “personal”, and Vulcan is the planet of the will, especially (in this consideration) the spiritual will.

9. The fires of desire (“fire by friction”) must give way to solar fire. Vulcan (agent of the spiritual will) is the means of bringing this about.

10. Every initiation represents the relative triumph of spiritual will over one aspect of the personality. At the first degree, the will subdues and aligns the etheric-physical body (not completely, but to a necessary extent). At the second degree it is the astral body that is subdued by spiritual will, and the transformation of desire into will makes significant headway. At the third degree, the mental body is forced to become an instrument of the spiritual will.

11. It is the spiritual will that subdues the eighteen fires just as it is Vulcan that subdues (even “kills”) Mars (for “Cain” {‘Vul-cain’} kills Abel).

12. The will is closely connected to the highest head center. When the will is stimulated (under the radiatory influence of the Ashram into which the new accepted disciple has entered), the crown center of the disciple is stimulated.

13. The stimulation of the head/crown begins a “drawing action” on the energies which animate the etheric body. The strengthening of the crown center means a reduction in the amount of energy being directed to the stimulation of the lower centers—especially to the sub-diaphragmatic centers under the general rulership of Mars. (There is no major center below to the diaphragm to which Mars cannot be related.)

14. Through the strengthening of the spiritual will, the higher principles, aspects, centers of the man are stimulated and the lower principles, aspects, centers subdued. This change of emphasis (from ‘operates energetically and even chemically. The pineal gland is, in many respects, a “master gland” and its increasing activation corresponds with the spiritual elevation of the evolving individual.

15. We therefore see that when we are successful in bringing the spiritual will into effective expression in our lives, the result will be a gradual subduing of the lower fires (once so necessary but obstructive to the spiritualization of man in the later stages of the evolutionary process).

16. The spiritual will is strengthened through constant effort to fulfill the next duty. When the life is consecrated to the fulfillment of the Divine Plan (as best the disciple understands that Plan), then the spiritual will is inevitably strengthened.

17. A closer association with the inner Ashram strengthens the resolve of the disciple and encourages the necessary fulfillments.

18. Many energies, forces, centers and spiritual sources are cooperating in the desirable elevation of both the individual disciple and groups of disciples. The disciple or discipleship group (stimulated by closer association with the Master and the Ashram) undertake certain initiatives which lead to progress. The Ashram continues to pour forth its elevating influence and the disciple and discipleship group are stimulated to ever fresh initiatives leading to still further progress. A virtuous circle is created and all concerned ascend.

19. Let us be clear about some methods of strengthening the spiritual will:

The Themes Included Under the Sentence 2

1. This type of death is ever brought about by a group, because it is from the earliest moment the one unmistakable expression of soul activity—as influenced consciously by the Monad or Father—and this activity is a group activity which wills the return of the lesser lives to the general reservoir from the very first moment that it has become apparent that the form experience has served its purpose and that the form has reached a point of such resilience and capacity that perfection has been practically achieved. This is definitely consummated at the fourth initiation. (cf. RI p. 104)

2. For the initiate-disciple death is simply an effect produced by life and by his conscious will, and is a mode whereby he directs substance and controls matter. This becomes consciously possible because, having developed awareness of two divine aspects—creative activity and love—he is now focussed in the highest aspect and knows himself to be the Will, the Life, the Father, the Monad, the One. (cf. RI p. 104-105)

This type of death is ever brought about by a group, because it is from the earliest moment the one unmistakable expression of soul activity—as influenced consciously by the Monad or Father—and this activity is a group activity which wills the return of the lesser lives to the general reservoir from the very first moment that it has become apparent that the form experience has served its purpose and that the form has reached a point of such resilience and capacity that perfection has been practically achieved. This is definitely consummated at the fourth initiation.

1. The dying down of the eighteen fires is a kind of “death”. It is a transfer of energy from one form of expression to another and higher. As higher centers and patterns are animated by the transferred energy, the lower centers subside (though are not extinguished) and the patterns associated with them begin to die of attrition.

2. The Tibetan is definite in stating that the kind of death here discussed “is ever brought about by a group”. This “death” is an unmistakable expression of soul activity, and the idea of “soul” is inseparable from the idea of “group”.

3. Man, himself, is a “group”, a composite formed of many lives. There are two main categories of lives which compose the man—the lunar lives and the solar lives, and within each are various categories of lesser lives—i.e., the various kinds of solar and lunar “pitris”.

4. The fourth initiation can be considered and event causing a triple liberation. The human soul is liberated onto the buddhic plane; the Solar Pitris (in their several categories aggregated in relation to the causal body of man), having completed their millions of years of service and servitude, are liberated to return to the “Heart of the Sun” (and some, perhaps, to the “Central Spiritual Sun”—the monadic sphere of the Solar Logos); the lunar lords or lunar pitris are also liberated to return to a temporary pralayic state awaiting the opportunity to either enter the animal evolution, or to be built into the quaternic forms of man (but on a higher turn of the spiral than previously). (cf. TCF 844)

5. If we wish to include in our consideration the tiny atoms (the “elemental essence”) which have comprised the physical, etheric, astral and mental bodies of the reincarnating man, we could say that they, too, are ‘liberated’ to return to the “Reservoir of Life”, awaiting the opportunity to be ‘built into” forms suitable for their advancing stage evolution. Thus, in a way, the liberation at the fourth initiation is fourfold, or quadruple—which is numerologically fitting.

6. We see that, at the fourth degree, groups are being liberated—lower groups and higher groups. As well, there may be a group of human “brothers” who have reached the “fourth great cycle of attainment” together, and they, too, are being liberated as a group. (cf. Rule XI)

7. We see that, although initiation appears to be, from a certain perspective, a very individual matter, its group implications are inescapable. The only unaggregated aspect of man (or, really, of any other being) is the monad. While there are, indeed, groupings of monads, in its essence, the monad is one.

8. From one perspective, a group of higher lives (the Solar Pitris) wills the return of a group of lesser lives (the lunar pitris) to the “Great Reservoir of Life”.

9. The members of the Ashram (those who have achieved the fourth and fifth degrees) are functioning as “liberated souls” working in cooperation with the Solar Pitris. The Solar Pitris are seeking to bring man to perfection and, thus, to complete their ‘Project of Salvation’ which has extended over millions of years.

10. The Ashramic Group (through its radiation and through deliberate thought in the direction of the disciple/initiate who is advancing towards the fourth degree) does all it can to lead towards the consummation which will liberate both the Solar Pitris and the lunar pitris in one great ‘Festival of Liberation’.

11. We can see somewhat the nature of the cooperation between the Solar Pitris and the Ashramic Brothers, remembering ever that the Solar Pitris are of much greater attainment than the members of an Ashram.

12. Even the lunar pitris, however unconsciously, are working in the direction of liberation.

13. It is apparent that no one group is completely responsible for the general liberation which occurs at that highpoint of human attainment, and that all (including the Master, the Christ and Sanat Kumara and His Workers—“the Lights Who carry out the Will of God”) make Their contribution.

14. The fourth initiation marks a very high point of attainment—for the personality as well.

“The form has reached a point of such resilience and capacity that perfection has been practically achieved”.

Nature is ever economical and does not contribute to the perpetuation of already consummated processes. Once the moment of perfection arrives (for patterns, processes and entities {all, really, equivalent terms}), the moment of death is imminent.

15. The form, we note, has many abilities or capacities and is, also, resilient, which means that it is optimally adaptable to spiritual and environmental impress, and can easily recover from impacts, whether from ‘above’ or ‘below’.

16. The ‘Cosmic Process’ moves from one perfection to the next. First ray energy (“driving forward through space”) drives the whole, and urges, ever onward, towards the next fulfillment and engagement in the process which will lead to it. The mantram describing this process would be: “Complete, and move on!”

Now, at the end of the great life cycle of the soul, persisting for aeons, the time is nearing when form-taking and experience in the three worlds must end. The disciple finds his group in the Master's Ashram, and consciously and with full understanding, [Page 105] masters death—the long-feared enemy of existence. He discovers that death is simply an effect produced by life and by his conscious will, and is a mode whereby he directs substance and controls matter. This becomes consciously possible because, having developed awareness of two divine aspects—creative activity and love—he is now focussed in the highest aspect and knows himself to be the Will, the Life, the Father, the Monad, the One.

1. How long is an “aeon”? As usually used, this term connotes simply a very lengthy period of time. Perhaps, however, the Tibetan has some definite measure in mind. Even the word “eternity” can be used in a specific manner. The “Eternal Parent”, we are told, “slumbered for seven eternities”. (cf. opening Slokas of The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I)

2. The symbolism of the number four is coming home to us in many ways. As the fourth degree is approached, the mastery of death is undertaken by the candidate. Finding his “group in the Master’s Ashram” definitely assists the disciple in this mastery.

3. The phrase, “long feared enemy of existence” is interesting. Death is, indeed, the feared enemy of a certain kind of existence—or, rather, the apparent enemy of the perpetuation of existence in the three worlds. Mastery of this enemy becomes possible as the initiate disidentifies with those levels of existence.

4. “Life” is not “existence”.

5. We will ponder on the next sentence pertaining the what the initiate discovers through more intensive association with the Master’s Ashram and its initiates:

“He discovers that death is simply an effect produced by life and by his conscious will, and is a mode whereby he directs substance and controls matter”.

Who is the initiate when he makes this discovery? It sounds very much as if the initiate is the “liberated soul” or, even more, the ‘life-directing monad’. Surely, the disciple-as-personality does not do, and cannot do, what is here suggested. The Solar Angel is a director of substance and a controller of matter, and so are the liberated members of the Ashram (including, of course, the Master). These beings are, in their own understanding, monads in incarnation. As the advancing disciple/initiate enters the consciousness appropriate to the fourth degree, he also is well on his way to realizing himself as the monad in incarnation.

6. To the monad, death is a means to an end; it is a method of ensuring cyclic attainment. Death is necessitated by the inadequacy of the form or of any aggregated creation. Such aggregates have only a limited capacity to absorb and express the ‘intended pattern of spirit’.

7. Death is a method of beneficent re-aggregation. Soul-guided and then, later, monadically-guided re-aggregation enhances the capacity of the form to bear the impress of spirit. As the Grand Design is presently configured, a cosmos without death would be a cosmos-in-stasis. Death destroys limitation; it is Nature’s way of transcending present conditions and improving them, with the end in mind of fulfilling the “Fixed Design”.

8. It obviously takes a considerable amount of detachment to see death in this light. When, however, the human soul is increasingly identified with the central nucleus of identity (a process promoted by the Master, the Ashram and the Solar Pitris), a sufficient ‘distance’ from form life makes this understanding of death possible.

9. When, in Raja Yoga, we practice “pratyahara” or “abstraction”, we are preparing our consciousness for this type of understanding and for the liberations which follow upon the assimilation and application of such understanding.

1. The method of evoking the Will aspect. (cf. RI p. 105)

2. The process of recognising the Life aspect, the Monad, the Father in Heaven. (cf. RI p. 105)

In concluding our study of Rule IV, we are to consider two things:

The result of these two is given in the two closing phrases of this rule:

1. As we continue the study of Rule IV, we will focus on vital processes. We have discussed methods of invoking the Will Aspect of Divinity. We wish to know how the Tibetan suggests that this be done. The will is a great and newly emerging power. We want to learn how to access and use it.

2. Much can be spoken of the monad, and yet, in the consciousness of many, it can simply remain a pale abstraction, its living presence unrecognized. We wish to move beyond a simply academic understanding of the highest aspect of our nature towards the state of being whole—monad, soul and personality, and consciously realizing our wholeness.