BEING: Beyond the Soul

The theoretical interface between matter and spirit of course continues to be recognized, understood, used and respected but this inclusive or relationship consciousness is only a means to an end. The soul is not our destination. Nor is it an entity to be worshipped for itself even in the name of love. Heaven forbid.

We, too, embody symbolic relationships as did the Christ and the Buddha. This was fine for the past two thousand years, I suppose. But no longer.  Today, we are not to personify relationship in forms separate from ourselves (such as gods, guides, souls, angels, or so-called ascended masters) because such personification is divisive and fragments our intelligence, distorting our abstract effectiveness and blocking spiritual maturity. 

We can only work as the one soul inclusively not exclusively. In abstract terms, even viewing consciousness as energy is too concrete, too inflexible, especially if we associate magnetism or radiation with forms like channels and flow. Relative meaning relates the one and the many, Shamballa/Humanity, monad/personality, higher/lower mind, spirit/matter. As an interface (not the man) it is clear why Christ, speaking as the soul, pointed out to humanity that none may come unto the Father but by me. There is no other way to go from exclusive intelligence to synthetic intelligence but by inclusive abstraction. There is no other way to work with shamballic purpose but by recognized and accepted hierarchical affiliation--acceptance of the hierarchical nature of all intelligence. 

Eventual acceptance of this hierarchical nature of consciousness is inevitable (even if willfully or habitually delayed) because of its inherent relationship with shamballic synthesis.  We are all aspects or elements of the One Life, regardless of our beliefs.

HIERARCHICAL INCLUSIVITY

The most noteworthy characteristic of hierarchical consciousness is sequential perception. And we all have it.

Interfacing as hierarchical awareness does with lower mind, consciousness comprises a finite temporal realm governed by sequential (albeit relatively illusory) dual appearance as past/future. The Tibetan says the original pattern or purpose of consciousness was not of planetary or solar origin yet it occupies and fully connects both systems within the interfacing sphere of time and space. 

And as soul-infused people, we are stuck with it. Like time-lapse photography, sequential awareness creates the appearance of steps and stages stretching from near infinite complexity to near infinite simplicity in what appears as a vast hierarchy of abstraction—unfolding patterns of force and energy in interlocutory or provisional dimensions of intelligence, inclusiveness and will. This conscious exclusive/inclusive software of conceptual energy configurations, relative influences, and sub-human, human and super-human relationships is expressed in a multiplicity of languages, images, disciplines and sciences. Change, growth and transformation characterize this intelligent inclusivity linking the One and the Many. The theoretical interface between past and future is planetary consciousness whose nature is progress, whose meaning is relativity, and whose name is now.

To initiate the shift from inclusive to abstract intelligence, from soul consciousness to monadic awareness, we supersede the middle or soul principle of mind for the synthetic higher mind with its new governing techniques, laws and principles. It is not easy to leave behind ages-old attachments to the soul, the master, the teachings, and consciousness as we have known it. But abstraction is not a vacuum. 

Synthetic intelligence, thinking as one, includes the wisdom of the soul, yet is more. Inclusive thinking is left behind, not lost. Initially, abstract thinking is not yet a habit and maybe we don’t fully understand synthesis—but we can still work as one on the wisdom side of consciousness synthesizing the unified soul with spirit. As our interest slowly shifts from the meaning of what we know to the significance of our subjective oneness, we begin to identify more easily with humanity’s experience than with our own personal affairs which seem somehow incidental. Spiritual progress ceases to be an issue for through monadic influence, our interest shifts from planetary spirituality to solar divinity.

ASPIRANT, DISCIPLE OR INITIATE?

As aspirants to greater understanding, we emerge from the cocoon of logical mind still making judgments based on some combination of appearances and informational intelligence, flawed or not. Depending on our thinking skills, life is perceived in terms of circumstance and the serendipity of opposing forces of good or bad. As we discover the Path, the flawed integrity of exclusivity might describe our very human awareness.

As disciples, we cope with sequential consciousness and try to make sense of the meaning of emotion and mind, heart and soul. Of ‘two minds’, we struggle to balance ordinary daily life with the complicating intensity of spiritual aspiration. Whether we know it or not, we think as the soul as we gradually materialize our vision of what we believe is possible. We contemplate but do not fully realize the potential of the inclusive intelligence of the one soul. Acutely aware both of ‘above and below’, human trial and spiritual error describes our hierarchical awareness.

When Alice Bailey speaks of initiates, she assumes two things—that we function with varying degrees of ease with monadic or shamballic abstraction, and that we express in some degree the significance of oneness based not on unity but synthesis. If we are willing to work as one intelligence we are liberated from process, from the symbolism of obscuring aspirational trappings about life, and from all spiritual or intellectual dependencies. 

As we exercise our abstract potential and use synthetic intelligence, we gradually supersede the symbolic restrictions of our transitional triadal inclusiveness. Functioning as one, we resume our role as an agent of Life Itself. This, after all, is a return to familiar territory, a return to monadic awareness. It is important to grasp that when inclusive intelligence (love) is sufficient to be superseded by synthetic intelligence (will) the world is seen in terms of relativity rather than dualism for one’s perspective is as One. When we love enough, we are in no danger of taking things personally. Our quiet acceptance of oneness, our spiritual maturity, best describes shamballic awareness.

"...[T]he group antahkarana becomes a channel of unimpeded communication direct from Shamballa to the group because every member of the group is a member of the Hierarchy. In this manner the three planetary centres arrive at the needed relationship, and another great triangle reaches true functioning activity. When this takes place, a revelation undreamed of will be manifested upon the Earth; a new divine quality, of which no knowledge at present exists, will make its presence felt, and the work of the Buddha and of the Christ, and the work of the coming Avatar, will be superseded by the One for Whom both Shamballa and the Hierarchy have unitedly waited and of Whom the doctrine of the Messiah and the doctrine of Avatars have been and are today only the dim distant symbols....

"The group, therefore, to whom I address this instruction is not the group or groups who will first receive these papers. The instruction is intended for a group which will come later and which will prepare the way, and of which some of the more advanced aspirants can form part if they ‘walk humbly with their God’. This, my brother, is one of the most advanced injunctions in any of the world Scriptures and is found in The Bible. It has no reference to humility as usually interpreted and understood. It signifies the ability to view all life with a sense of divine proportion and from the angle of spiritual mathematics, and (paradoxical as this may sound) with no sense of dualism. The usual meaning is not correct. It involves acceptance and comprehension of purpose, and this in such a manner that the consecrated personality—under control of the Monad, via the antahkarana, and in cooperation with the one known God—walks the ways of Earth as a channel for the three divine qualities (love, will and intelligence), but also as a channel for that which these three qualities will enable him later to sense, know and reveal.

"These are solemn and important statements. They have within them the element of prophecy, but it is prophecy which has no relation to the salvation of humanity in any sense at all. It is related to an active Appearance which will, under the Law of Synthesis, indicate That which the three great planetary centres of divine life are unitedly intended to reveal. Something lies behind the three divine aspects of so great an importance, beauty and revelatory strength that all the happenings of all time, up to the present emerging Aquarian Age, have been only the initial and the initiatory preparation".25

As we, as individuals, practice oneness and identification with synthesis, symbolic ideas (including initiation and shamballic involvement) become open doors bidding us enter. Experimental thinking requires considerable time and effort. Although no one holds us back, at times we exclude ourselves from deeper understanding in such trivial, poignant ways that it is sad and painful to consider. If we lack either the abstract imagination or the inclusivity of spirit to effectively include ourselves as an element of the hierarchical whole, then by default are we excluded. If we can’t effectively count ourselves in when we contemplate masters and initiations, then only by default are we out (for the moment) and less symbolic thinking is required to interpret our understanding more inclusively. 

AVOIDING SELF-DECEPTION

The primary risk with inclusive thinking is that ‘counting ourselves in’ creates self-deception if based either on spiritual ambition or wishful thinking. And if we have cordoned off part of our intelligence as guides or angels, synthetic inclusivity is impossible. As oneness is personally experienced and demonstrated in some form acceptable to the abstract mind (which is distinctly more subtle than what we ordinarily might find reasonable), we can safely extrapolate from our increasingly inclusive perspective.

THE SKILL OF ABSTRACTION

The abstraction of our spiritual understanding is a skill that takes commonsense, practice, and the profound understanding acceptance that the heart, the soul, is a mental quality—the middle principle of mind—inclusive intelligence. Only if we see all that we are as aspects of our intelligence can we work effectively with abstraction to transfigure our own perception. At this point it is insufficient to work symbolically ‘as if'’ with Love and Light, with bridges and projections, for a technical understanding of inclusivity and of synthesis is required. 

By weaving our abstract comprehension of the implications of solar awareness into the inclusivity of our spiritual or planetary understanding of oneness, we become wisdom. Persistence and focus determine success when working (playing) as one with synthetic intelligence. As we approach the top of the temporal ladder and sense divinity, we choose (by commission) to adapt to synthesis by thinking abstractly ‘as one’ or we choose (by omission) to remain in the comfortable seclusion of spiritual inclusivity. 

We can choose to reshape our intelligence using the conceptual template of oneness and accept the mandate of synthesis for participation in the greater context of the divine intelligent will—or not. We are each free to decide against which wall stands our ‘ladder of consciousness’. If we choose synthesis, inclusive symbols give way to the direct perception of abstraction where our thought life becomes sufficiently clear to see for ourselves the divinity of the One.

"When we pass from looking to seeing, we do not lose our sight of the objects observed. Seeing, in fact, does not disturb our looking at all. It rather places us in that territory as its genius, aware that our imagination does not create within its outlines but creates the outlines themselves. The physicist who sees speaks physics with us, inviting us to see that the things we thought were there are not things at all. By learning new limitations from such a person, we learn not only what to look for with them but also how to see the way we use limitations".26 

TRYING ON TRANSFIGURATION

If we believe that transfiguration is some mysterious event which will instantly or magically transform us, perhaps a more abstract understanding may be called for. We try on the perspective of oneness and ideas about synthesis to prove them true—not false—and our joy is observing the reconfiguration of our awareness. Like wonderful new clothes, we try on spiritual principles and divine laws (as we study them thoroughly) and view our resulting perspective from various angles with the understanding that if we can see things in just the right light—shamballic light—they will fit. And they do.

As we identify with oneness and being and explore new lines of thought appropriate to divinity and eternity in such a way that clarification results, as one, we ‘see’ each other not in a negative (exclusive) way, not in a positive (inclusive) way, but in an objective (synthetic) way. All things are possible when Oneness is our destiny.