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Initiation, Human and Solar - Chapter IX - The Path of Initiation
The application of the Rod of Initiation at the first two initiations by the Bodhisattva enables the initiate to control and utilize the force of the lower self, the true sanctified energy of the personality in service; at the third initiation the application of the Rod by the One Initiator makes available in a vastly more extensive manner the force of the higher self or Ego, and brings into play on the physical plane the entire energy stored up during numerous incarnations [92] in the causal vehicle. At the fourth initiation the energy of his egoic group becomes his to use for the good of planetary evolution, and at the fifth initiation the force or energy of the planet (esoterically understood, and not merely the force or energy of the material globe) is at his disposal. During these five initiations those two great beings, the Bodhisattva first, and then the One Initiator, the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, are the administrators or hierophants. After these ceremonies, should the initiate choose to take the two final initiations which it is possible to take in this solar system, a still higher type of energy in expression of the one Self comes into play, and can only be hinted at. At the seventh initiation that one of whom Sanat Kumara is the manifestation, the Logos of our scheme on his own plane, becomes the Hierophant. At the sixth initiation the expression of this Existence on an intermediate plane, a Being who must at present remain nameless, wields the Rod and administers the oath and secret. In these three expressions of hierarchical government - Sanat Kumara on the periphery of the three worlds, the nameless One on the confines of the high planes of human evolution, and the planetary Spirit himself at the final stage - we have the three great manifestations of the Planetary Logos himself. Through the Planetary Logos at the final great initiation flows the power of the Solar Logos, and he it is who reveals to the initiate that the Absolute is consciousness in its fullest expression, though at the stage of human existence the Absolute must be regarded as unconsciousness.

Each of the great initiations is but the synthesis of the smaller ones, and only as man seeks ever to expand his consciousness in the affairs of daily life can he expect to achieve those later stages which are but culminations of the many earlier. Students must get rid of the idea that if they are "very good and altruistic" suddenly some day [93] they will stand before the Great Lord. They are putting effect before cause. Goodness and altruism grow out of realization and service, and holiness of character is the outcome of those expansions of consciousness which a man brings about within himself through strenuous effort and endeavor. Therefore it is here and now that man can prepare himself for initiation, and this he does, not by dwelling upon the ceremonial aspect, as so many do in excited anticipation, but by working systematically and enduringly at the steady development of the mental body, by the strenuous and arduous process of controlling the astral body so that it becomes responsive to three vibrations:

  1. That from the Ego.
  2. That from the Master.
  3. Those from his brothers everywhere around him. He becomes sensitive to the voice of his higher self, thus working off karma under the intelligent guidance of his own Ego. He becomes conscious, via the Ego, of the vibration emanating from his Master; he learns to feel it ever more and more, and to respond to it ever more fully; finally, he becomes increasingly sensitive to the joys and pains and sorrows of those he daily contacts; he feels them to be his joys and pains and sorrows, and yet he is not incapacitated thereby. [94]
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