AAB: [Reading from DK�s commentary on Rule One for Group Initiation]:

As we continue our studies of the rules to be followed by those receiving initiate training, I would remind you of certain things, some of them already touched upon but requiring re-emphasis.  Any usefulness that these Rules may have for you will be dependent upon your grasping a few basic ideas and then proceeding to make them factual as far as in you lies.

First, I would call your attention to what should be the basic attitude of the would-be initiate:  It should be one of purpose, governed by pure reason and working out in spiritual activity.  That is a sentence easily written, but what specifically does it convey to you?  Let me enlarge upon it somewhat.  The attitude of the initiate-in-training should be one of right spiritual motive � the motive being the intelligent fulfillment of the will aspect of divinity, or of the Monad.  This involves the merging of his personality self-will into that of the sacrificial will of the soul; and this, when accomplished, will lead to the revelation of the divine Will.  Of this Will, no one who is not an initiate has any conception.  It means, secondly, the release of the faculty of spiritual perception and of intuitive understanding, which involves the negation of the activity of the lower or concrete mind, of the lower personal self, and the subordination of the knowledge aspect of the soul to the clear pure light of the divine understanding.  When these two factors are beginning to be active, you will have the emergence of true spiritual activity upon the physical plane, motivated from the high source of the Monad, and implemented by the pure reason of the intuition.

The Rays and the Initiations, pp. 33-34

The thing that has always interested me in the Tibetan�s writings, particularly on discipleship, has been the appalling height of the requirements and his ability to make them seem so simple that you feel an idiot if you don�t fulfill them. �When these two factors are beginning to be active �� � a little thing like that.

M: I am glad he feels that we can make the grade. In so many of his books I would feel that I had some light, and then he would say that that particular teaching was for the next generation.

AAB: An interesting point. You were thrown back behind the idea of personality �in the next generation.� Lots of us are way ahead of our generation. Take the mass average, not of the submerged masses but of the intelligent people we meet all around us. We are way ahead of them. It is a matter of consciousness rather than of generation.

M: It made me determined.

AAB: That is good. [Reading further]:

It will be apparent to you, therefore, that these higher spiritual faculties can only be brought into play when the bridging Antahkarana is beginning to play its part.  Hence the teaching that I am giving on the construction of the rainbow bridge.

These Rules are in reality great Formulas of Approach, but they indicate approach to a specific section of the Path and not approach to the Initiator.  I would have you reflect upon this distinction.  The �Way of the Higher Evolution� lies open to the aspirant to the Greater Mysteries, but he is often bewildered in the beginning and frequently questions in his mind the difference between the progress or evolution of the personality towards Soul consciousness and the nature of the progress which lies ahead and which is essentially different to the unfoldment of pure consciousness.

Ibid., p. 34

The Tibetan is giving a teaching that is not concerned with consciousness. The higher initiations after the first three have nothing to do with expansion of consciousness. It is very interesting for us to grasp that, because every day we deal easily with things as abstruse to the man in the street as this teaching is abstruse to us, and that is a good thing to grasp regarding the continuity of revelation. We are dealing with facts not related to consciousness, and therefore we have no words for them, for language is built upon awareness. [Reading further]:

Had you grasped the fact that, after the third initiation, the initiate is not concerned with consciousness at all, but with the fusion of his individual will with the divine will. He is not then occupied with increasing his sensitivity to contact, or with his conscious response to environing conditions, but is becoming increasingly aware of the dynamics of the Science of the Service of the Plan. This distinctive realization can only come when his fused and blended personality and Soul expression of will has disappeared in the blazing light of the divine Purpose � a purpose which cannot be frustrated even if at times delayed, as it has been during the past fifty-five years.

Much of what I have said above will seem meaningless to you because the finished contact between Soul and personality has not been brought about and the will aspect in manifestation is not yet understood in its three phases: Personality, Egoic and Monadic.  But, as I have earlier told you, I write for those disciples and initiates who are now coming into incarnation and who will be in the full flower of their consciousness and service at the latter end of this century. But the effort you make to understand will have its effect, even if the brain registers it not.

Ibid., pp. 34-35

M: He says that over and over again in all his books.

AAB: He is pioneering, and we have the equipment. �It will have its effect even if the brain registers it not.�

C: It is awfully discouraging.

AAB: I don�t think so. There are a lot of things we know that we cannot express.

RK: You actually express it under stress.

M: What would you call that?

AAB: It is related to the intuition, an intuition that has not yet become an idea. If you keep up the pressure, that brooding intuition becomes an idea; then you have it. You no longer sense it; you know it. [Reading further]:

In the last analysis, these Rules or Formulas of Approach are primarily concerned with the Shamballa or life aspect. They are the only Formulas or embodied techniques at present extant which have in them the quality that will enable the aspirant to understand and eventually express the significance of the words of Christ, �Life more abundantly.� These words relate to contact with Shamballa; the result will be the expression of the will aspect.  The whole process of invocation and evocation is tied up with the idea. The lesser aspect is ever the invoking factor, and this constitutes an unalterable law lying behind the entire evolutionary process. It is necessarily a reciprocal process, but in time and space it might be broadly said that the lesser ever invokes the higher, and higher factors are then evoked and respond according to the measure of understanding and the dynamic tension displayed by the invoking element. This many fail to realize. You do not work at the evocative process.  That word simply connotes the response of that which has been reached. The task of the lesser aspect or group is invocative, and the success of the invocative rite is called evocation.

When, therefore, your life is fundamentally invocative, then there will come the evocation of the will. It is only truly invocative when personality and soul are fused and functioning as a consciously blended and focused unit.

Ibid., pp. 35

I would like to have an open discussion on this sentence, which the Tibetan deemed so important that he repeated it again this week: �What should be the basic attitude of the would-be initiate � one of purpose governed by pure reason and working out in spiritual activity.� And you could couple it with this sentence: �When therefore your life is fundamentally invocative, then there will come the evocation of the will.� That really goes with that first statement.

RK: May I reiterate what struck me last week? Purpose, Pure Reason, Spiritual Activity � here he outlines the entire life of the Triad.

            Purpose                      Pure Reason                         Activity

              Atma                          Buddhi                               Manas

AAB: Which is related to personality by the Antahkarana.

RK: Which is to Monad as personality is to Soul.

AAB: Exactly. As we read these instructions you will find, as I have found, that we confuse the Plan and the Purpose. I think there is the whole subject for discussion. We cooperate with the Plan more or less. It is a Soul thing. But what is the distinction between Plan and Purpose?

FB: The Plan is the main function of the Hierarchy in relation to its activity with human beings; the Purpose is the goal of the Hierarchy as it moves up in its links.

AAB: I would say it is in relation to the Hierarchy�s activities in the three worlds and not just with the human kingdom.

JL: What about the invocative life?

AAB: Here is an example. When the HQ group is invocative in its whole life toward the School, it will evoke something out of the students, but it won�t set out to be invocative. If I can set up a rapport with a student, meet his or her needs in some way, I shall discover that a relationship has been established. An evocation is a recognition by the evoked party of the invoking source. Also, this HQ group needs to become invocative toward the world. It�s a kind of chain. We shall never be invocative unless we are responsive to the students� invocation and become evocative.

RK: To be invocative doesn�t mean a relationship of duality, but the relationship of a triangle. You are invocative by stimulating another to draw down the third factor. The fusing life is evoked, and that is the third factor between the two.

AAB: There is also the great chain of Hierarchy that Roerich mentions. The lesser invokes the higher response. The higher invokes something still higher, and you have a chain of Hierarchy. The thing now needed is the invocative power of massed humanity, of massed Hierarchy and of massed Shamballa in order to realize the Purpose. The great problem before the Lord of the World is to produce simultaneous focusing everywhere.

RK: The Tibetan says that the first aspect can only work in synthesis.

AAB: Exactly. That is the problem, how to get the synthesis. The mind always comes in and prevents synthesis. This business of seeing the good everywhere and infusing it and planning it so that it becomes one unified, dynamic force � that is what we have to do in the goodwill work or any other work we undertake.

FB: The Tibetan said that the New Group of World Servers is in fact the savior of humanity and that goodwill is the saving force. When we invoke the saving force we are not only invoking an entity, but the active expression in the human family of the will-to-good. When you fuse and bring together all the goodwill in humanity, you have ample force to save humanity.

M: Do we have enough goodwill?

AAB: I am sure we have, but we limit it to goodwill for family, for the group, for the nation. It is separative; whereas it is goodwill for the whole that we need. Goodwill is to the will-to-good what emotion is to love. You have sentiment and emotion, but they are the lower aspect of love. Goodwill is everywhere, but it is separative. Goodwill must become the channel for the will-to-good and emotion the channel for love.

P: The Tibetan said that the great defending wall is built of goodwill. You can understand that the saving force is goodwill, but that the defending wall is goodwill carries that conception a step further.

LM: The united animating power of a nation � I call that a defending wall. The attitude that Britain showed toward Germany is an example of all the people creating a defending wall.

AAB: Yes, but I think there�s a difference. The Tibetan says the masses of people are more sensitive to goodwill than individual intelligent people. The intelligent people could be far more powerful if they worked consciously. Mother love is the lower octave to divine love. So far that capacity resides mainly in the instinctive nature � something that humanity shows only in emergencies. When it gets on the level of the mind, you have the fifth principle, the obstructing wall, coming in.

JL: What are we building a defending wall against and, if forces of evil are eliminated, what is the use of the wall?

AAB: Cosmic evil has existed since the world started. Mrs. Besant said in Avataras that the substance of our planet, and the material from which the solar system was made, is tinged with karma. We have to deal with what is. I came into incarnation with a body of emotional matter and mind already tinged with karma. Watch some people and you will see that the balance is perfect; it is nip and tuck as to which will preponderate. With people like us, the good predominates. Beyond that point of balance you have evil predominating and good becomes a negative thing. After this great world crisis we shall move on into a world period in which humanity as a whole will be very like what you and I are now. We are not evil; we are battling all the time. I can be selfish and so can you; I can be irritable and so can you. The Tibetan said that evil is to be pushed back to the place from which it came. Evil is useful in its proper place, but it has come out and asserted control where it should have no control.

P: That is not because the mass is evil; it is just the result of inertia and ignorance. Their drive is not to do evil.

AAB: Yes it is; it is the drive to materialism, and they have to deal with it in the place where they are because they have to learn by experience. From our point of view that is evil.

P: You have to have a certain materialism to exist. The mental selfishness of the so-called higher classes has much more to do with evil.

AAB: Don�t forget that there is always an evil lodge. We talk about good and evil in the abstract. At our point goodness is focused in the Hierarchy, paralleling it is the Black Lodge, which possesses more power than the Hierarchy on the physical plane. The Black Lodge promulgates evil and stimulates selfishness and separativeness. It is only within the past fifteen months that the White Lodge is beginning to get the upper hand. The fight of the White Lodge was lost in Atlantis. One of the most hopeful signs is that the Great White Lodge is not lifting a finger to help us. They don�t need to; they know we can do it ourselves.

P: They believe we can do it ourselves. I most worry about the very good people, the highly developed individuals who are called on to let go of the old ways. I know one such man who is swimming with all his strength against the tide of this new age. He believes in the old ways, that they are the only things worthwhile. There are lots of these people.

AAB: The lower mind is active in them.

P: They cannot believe that the things that were good in the past are no longer good.

AAB: In all countries there are reactionaries. They are the ones who are blocking the Great White Lodge.

FB: One of the first things I ever learned about the Hierarchy in the Theosophical Society was that the Great White Lodge stood between humanity and its karma, and now we find that it was the Lodge that precipitated this crisis of the war.

AAB: They were ready to fight.

FB: Any they deemed humanity ready, and the evil that is let loose is that accumulated karma, and the Black Lodge is using it. But the Black Lodge is running out of munitions � the accumulated karma of humanity is running out and goodwill is increasing. Victory is assured unless you stop goodwill.

AAB: That is what they are trying to do, stop the goodwill.

FB: Now the Hierarchy says to build the defending wall, to come together with the will-to-good, which is the saving force. It is the energy of goodwill coming out of humanity � the munitions of the spiritual forces � that will win the battle. We never understood the significance of goodwill, of the things we have been asked to do. The invoking process going on in the Arcane School makes that will strong enough and it will accomplish the task.

M: How can selfishness be offset?

AAB: By arousing goodwill in ourselves and everyone we meet, and all together spreading goodwill over the world. The difficulty is this. Take myself: I can talk to intelligent people, but I can�t get down to the level of Tom, Dick and Harry. They don�t know what I�m talking about.

M: Won�t it be marvelous when we can express goodwill without having to will to good? The Tibetan said that we don�t really express love, but rather the will to love. He says love is spontaneous, like breathing and service.

AAB: Some day goodwill will be a habit of consciousness. Good is the divine purpose. When you take the third initiation you will know.