The First Purpose of Deity
Ray I. Will or Power

Behind the central sacred sun, hidden within its rays, a form is found. Within that form there glows a point of power which vibrates not as yet but shines as light electric.

Fierce are its rays. It burns all forms, yet touches not the life of God incarnate.

From the One who is the seven goes forth a word. That word reverberates along the line of fiery essence, and when it sounds within the circle of the human lives it takes the form of affirmation, an uttered fiat or word of power. Thus there is impressed upon the living mold the thought of... (the hidden, inexpressible ray name.)

Let dynamic power, electric light, reveal the past, destroy the form that is, and open up the golden door. This door reveals the way which leads towards the center where dwells the one whose name cannot be heard within the confines of our solar sphere.

His robe of blue veils his eternal purpose, but in the rising and the setting sun his orb of red is seen.

His word is power. His light, electric. The lightning is his symbol. His will is hidden in the counsel of his thought. Naught is revealed.

His power is felt. The sons of men, reacting to his power, send to the utmost bounds of light a question:

Why this blind power? Why death? Why this decay of forms? Why the negation of the power to hold? Why death, Oh Mighty Son of God?

Faintly the answer comes: I hold the keys of life and death. I bind and loose again. I, the Destroyer, am.

This ray Lord is not yet in full expression, except as He causes destruction and brings cycles to an end. The Monads of power are much fewer in number than any others. Egos upon the power ray are relatively not so few. They are characterized by a dynamic will, and their power within the human family works out as the force of destruction, but in the last analysis it is a destruction that will produce liberation. We shall see as we continue to study first ray egos and personalities [64] that death and destruction are always to be found in their work, and hence the apparent cruelty and impersonality of their reactions. Form does not count with first ray types; their energy produces death to form, but ushers in great periods of cyclic pralaya; the first ray is the controller of the death drama in all kingdoms - a destruction of forms which brings about release of power and permits "entrance into Light through the gateway of Death." The intent of the Lord of the first ray is to stand behind His six Brothers, and when They have achieved Their purpose, to shatter the forms which They have built. This He does by passing His power through Their bodies, and Their united effort leads to abstraction and a return to the center whence the initial impulse came. The first ray purpose therefore is to produce death, and some idea of that purpose may be gleaned if we study some of the names by which the ray Lord is called:

• The Lord of Death
• The Opener of the Door
• The Liberator from Form
• The Great Abstractor
• The Fiery Element, producing shattering
• The Crystallizer of the Form
• The Power that touches and withdraws
• The Lord of the Burning Ground
• The Will that breaks into the Garden
• The Ravisher of Souls
• The Finger of God
• The Breath that blasts
• The Lightning which annihilates
• The Most High

The six qualities enumerated above express the force of this ray as it makes its presence felt in the fourth kingdom in nature. The effects in other kingdoms differ, but we shall confine our attention to the standpoint of humanity. The purpose of the first ray, and its main work, is to produce cessation and the death of all forms in all kingdoms in nature and on all planes. The energy of this ray Lord brings about the death of an ant or of a solar system, of an organization, a religion, or a government, of a race type or of a planet. His will or purpose works out through the law of periodicity.