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The Rays and the Initiations - Part Two - Section One - The Aspirant and the Mysteries of Initiation
The Dual Life of the Initiatory Process

In all the many books which I have written, I have said relatively little about the brain and its relation to the personality and the soul. It is not possible to enlarge at any length on that theme here, but I will make certain statements without which this whole process of dual living would be most difficult to explain. I will sum up what I have to say in the form of three basic statements:

  1. The brain is a most delicate receiving and transmitting apparatus:
    1. It is responsive to information relayed to it, via the senses, from the emotional plane and from the mind.
    2. Through its medium the personal lower self becomes aware of its environment, of the nature of its desires, and of its mental peculiarities, as well as of the emotional states and the thoughts of the people contacted in the environment.
  2. The brain is largely conditioned by the endocrine system, and this far more than the endocrinologists would care to admit:
    1. It is powerfully conditioned by three major glands which are found in close relation to the brain substance. These are the pituitary body, the pineal gland and the carotid gland.
    2. These form a triangle, practically unrelated in primitive man, occasionally related in average man, and closely related in the spiritual man.
    3. These glands are objective correspondences of the three energy centers, by means of which the soul, or the indwelling spiritual man, controls his physical vehicle.
    4. Where the relation is close between the three glands - as is increasingly the case where disciples are concerned - a triangle of circulating energies is always established.
    5. This triangle, through the carotid gland in the [432] medulla oblongata, becomes related to other glands and centers.
  3. The brain, as transmitter, becomes a powerful directing agency:
    1. As a recipient and transmitter of pure energy or life it uses the carotid gland controlled by the alta major center, and establishes a close relation with the heart and the heart center.
    2. As a recipient of mental energy or of energy from the soul, the ajna center becomes the directing agency; this is the center which controls the pituitary body.
    3. These energies are received via the head center, which controls the pineal gland. Emotional energy enters the personality system via the solar plexus center, where it either controls or is transmuted and elevated.

It is this triple mechanism in the head - both objective and subjective - which uses the physical brain as a receiving agent and as a transmitting agent. It is this which is brought into creative activity and thus under the control of the disciple in training or in process of being prepared for initiation. I have not hitherto emphasized this, nor do I wish to do so, for it is not desirable for the disciple or aspirant consciously and deliberately to deal with the mechanism in the head. Let him learn to control and consciously employ the mind; let him train his mind to receive communications from three sources:

  • The three worlds of ordinary living, thus enabling the mind to act as the "common sense."
  • The soul, and thus consciously become the disciple, the worker in an Ashram, illumined by the wisdom of the soul, and superseding gradually the knowledge gained in the three worlds. That knowledge, rightly applied, becomes wisdom.
  • The Spiritual Triad, acting as the intermediary between the Monad and the brain of the personality. This can eventually take place, because the soul and personality [433] are fused and blended into one functioning unit, this superseding again what we mean when we use the erroneous phrase "the soul." Duality then takes the place of the original triplicity.

It has been necessary to make these somewhat elementary remarks and to clarify these points, if there is to be true understanding as to what constitutes the dual life of the disciple or the Master, and wherein they differ.

One of the tests of the initiatory process is a hitherto totally unexpected one. Tests which are expected and for which preparation has been made do not constitute true tests in the real sense of the word, esoterically understood. It is a test - imposed with increasing rigidity as initiation after initiation is taken - to see just how far the initiate is capable of retaining or preserving in his brain consciousness the registered facts of several worlds or planes of consciousness; i.e., the three worlds of human endeavor and the world of soul consciousness, or both of these and the world of the Ashram; or again these and the activity of the Hierarchy itself, viewing it as a complete whole; or again, all of these and the world of Triadal experience, until the point is reached where a straight continuity of consciousness can be registered and held which comes directly from the Council Chamber of the Lord of the World to Those Masters Who are functioning in a physical body and must therefore use a physical brain. In every single case the test (in order to be passed correctly) must involve the brain consciousness; the facts, registered upon the subtler planes, must be correctly registered, recognized and interpreted simultaneously upon the physical plane.

You can see for yourselves that this is a major and most necessary indication of a developing awareness; a Master has to be aware at any time on any plane and at will. It will also be obvious to you that this will be a growing and an increasing perception for which the intermediate stages, between initiations, prepare the initiate. Gradually, each one of the five senses, plus the common sense (the mind), has to demonstrate the effectiveness of its higher correspondence [434] and thus of a developing subtle apparatus. Through this apparatus the initiate is put in touch with widening areas of the divine "state of mind" or with the planetary consciousness, until "the mind that is in Christ" becomes truly the mind of the initiate, with all that those words entail of meaning and esoteric significance. Consciousness, Sensitivity, Awareness, Planetary Rapport, Universal Consciousness - these are the words which we must consider, sequentially developed and in their truly esoteric sense.

You have here a wide and general picture, involving the goal, the means or mode, the testing point and the physical brain; these are four factors which have received little or no attention where initiation has been dealt with in the occult writings. They are nevertheless of major importance. I am dealing with them here because of the stage of development now reached by the human mind, because of their increasingly close relation to the physical brain, and because there are now so many aspirants ready to tread the Path of Discipleship, the Path of Initiatory Training. They are now in a position to work consciously at the task of a dual and constant process of spiritual and physical recognitions.
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