Delta: OK, I put some pages on as reference on the blackboard. These are in Cosmic Fire, pages 607 & 609. (I am just trying to start at square one here.) Simply put, it says that the rays are the second aspect, there are two tabulations. Page 607 says “The seven Rays manifesting through the seven planetary schemes”, and on 609 it has it under the second aspect …
I am just correlating this. First of all the major thrust was second ray so the seven rays would be the second aspect (at least in this part of the book, now some of the other references, as you say, Alpha, contradict each other.)
Alpha: I want to point out a symbolism, that a ray is necessarily second aspect for the very reason that it is an emanation of a subject which reaches and object and hence binds them. So ray automatically means second aspect, the relation between, right? A ray comes from some place, falls on something else thus connecting two.
Delta: But I was just saying, well … it wouldn’t be so self evident to everyone that it is second aspect.
(There is also a very interesting thing to go into another time, the combination of the seven into the twelve Creative Hierarchies. But we will skip over that now.) At the very bottom of 703 to the top of 704:
“Let us bear carefully in mind, that the Rays are the positive aspect in manifestation and pass down into negative matter, deva or hierarchical substance, thus causing certain evidences of activity. The Hierarchies are the negative aspect as far as the Rays are concerned and are responsive to Ray impulse. But within each Ray and each Hierarchy in this system a dual force again will be found. The Sons of God are bisexual. The deva substance is also dual ...”
So here it is saying that the rays are positive, the Hierarchies are negative, but they each have a positive and negative polarity. Then the other references are 1195 (very top of the page):
“The "Rays" are but the primordial forms of certain Lives who "carry in their Hearts" all the Seeds of Form. The Hierarchies are the manifold groups of lives, at all stages of unfoldment and growth who will use the forms. The Rays are vehicles and are, therefore, negative receivers. The Hierarchies are the users of the vehicles ...”
(a few chuckles)
But that would make sense cause as each Hierarchy goes through the nine initiations then it would go on to another ray.
Alpha: It would go on to another ray?
Delta: Yeah. It would become another Hierarchy. It would become the next Hierarchy once it goes through all the nine initiations. … right, going through the nine initiations and then becoming another Hierarchy, this is backed up on 1208. Anyway back to 1209.
“The distinction between a Ray which is the expression of logoic energy and a positive emanation, and a hierarchy which is a negative emanation of the Logos, upon which His positive energy impresses itself, driving that hierarchy on to self expression and forcing the ‘marriage of the poles’."
Anyway ... those are a few references.
Alpha: And in each one apparent contradiction is arising.
Delta: Not completely. You might want to look at 1208 for just a moment. It says ...
“This can also be viewed in terms of energy. The negative lives of a hierarchy follow the following sequence:
1. Negative energy.
2. Equilibrised energy.
3. Positive energy.
The positive lives of one hierarchy become the negative lives of another when they pass into it ...”
That would be after they’ve gone through the nine initiations.
“... and this it is which leads to the general confusion of ideas under which the average student labours. If he is to comprehend the matter with accuracy, he must study each hierarchy in a threefold manner, and view it also in its transitional state, as the negative blends and merges into the positive, and the positive becomes the negative pole of a higher vibratory stage. There are, therefore, nine states of consciousness ...”
... which I am interpreting as the nine initiations. There are, therefore, nine stages related to the second aspect.
“There are, therefore, nine states of consciousness through which each hierarchy has to pass, and some idea of the significance of this and their relativity can be gained by a consideration of the nine Initiations of the fourth Creative Hierarchy.”
... and this would also show how one verges into the other.
Alpha: This is a very important section. It rather reminds me as well, the three decanates with nine …
Delta: ... tests.
Beta: This is incredible.
Alpha: Yeah. This is a magnificent section. So it is a relativistic ...
Delta: So, each Hierarchy is in the same situation as we are; they are all going through nine initiations and … yeah, the first and the ninth these are extreme, you are touching the previous over the next situation or stage of life as they overlap.
Beta: Yeah. In the one case, 1209, you have “The distinction between the a Ray which is the expression of logoic energy and a positive emanation...” So from the point of the logos the ray is a positive emanation for the negative hierarchies. But from the point of view of the Hierarchies, the units of the hierarchies are the hosts of them, on 1195, they’re working through the rays as vehicles.
Delta: Yeah. I think that captures it.
Beta: Which is interesting ... too.
Delta: So we seem to have some closure on this.
Alpha: I’m not sure I fully understand. … The Hierarchy can be driven by a ray, or a Hierarchy can work through a ray? Do we have a human correspondence here? We’re a Hierarchy. We are working through a ray and we are also driven by a ray. Can a ray be our vehicle in some way?
Beta: Yeah, exactly. Isn’t that interesting.
Epsilon: Yeah. We may wield the energy of the ray.
Alpha: We wield the energy of a ray, and we are wielded upon a ray.
Epsilon: We are ....we are … fashioned by rays.
Gamma: You know it is just that this kind of meditation we should not meditate with the centre but work through the centres.
Alpha: Un-haa. And there is also the ray which passes through us and the ray which emanates from us.
Epsilon: Um-hmm.
Delta: What about this as an analogy: Let’s say the planetary being is using us for its evolution. We are part of its ray. But, we (as the fourth Creative Hierarchy) get to use that ray the way we see fit. We can advance and be intelligent, we can thump on the wall, we can do crazy things.
Alpha: Would it be the same ray necessarily? In other words is the same ray that drives us the ray we wield?
Beta: Yes.
Epsilon: I would say no, because, for example, the sun is second ray, and it goes though certain planets and they don’t transmit second ray.
Alpha: That is a good point. The planets are driven by second ray, all of them, but they wield first ray, or sixth ray, or seventh ray ... within the context of the larger ray by which they are driven they wield the lesser ray. It is just the endless chain of positive-negative-positive-negative.
Beta: And (inaudible) ... this is electricity, right?
Alpha: Yes. The electron of today is the nucleus of tomorrow ...
Beta: This is also energy and force too.
Alpha: That is right. Energy-force-energy-force ... positive-negative-positive-negative.
Gamma: I think this problem we have between the life which informs, the triads, for example, is love is a Hierarchy. We will find it all the time, as it was those hierarchies which with the triads are in groups which are informed by something else ...which are ... So, is it really worthwhile to continue forever like that, instead of trying to pin down OK this life here, instead of going to find the origin of the life of this particular Hierarchy.
Alpha: Well, we have to, within a reasonable range, find some origins, but it is not profitable except speculatively to take it on for ever. Then we need to define the functions of the ones that are most proximate and immediate to us.
Beta: It is the knowledge that has to be used ... after this is a wisdom.
Alpha: Yeah. I mean it is nice to know but if it can’t be used then you can’t concentrate on it forever otherwise that is an invasion.
Delta: Is there any interest in discussing the footnote on 1195 for the twelve Creative Hierarchies, and how they are created out of the seven? … OK, the footnote. I think this is very profound statement.
The Twelve Creative Hierarchies. Students are often puzzled in trying to account for the "twelves" in the cosmos. A correspondent sends the following suggestion: In a Study in Consciousness, the three, by an arrangement of internal groupings, show seven groups; these may be represented as ABC, ACB, BCA BAC, CAB, CBA, and a seventh, a synthesis in which the three are equal.
Beta: My gosh!
Delta: In other words, where they are all identical in effect, they are not...
Beta: In the sequence, sequence wise, right?
Delta: Yes.
A second six would be represented by (AB) C, C (AB), A (BC), (BC) A, (CA) B, B (AC), the two bracketed being equal and the third stronger or weaker. The two groups of six, and the group in which the three are equal, would make thirteen. "This thirteen may be arranged as a circle of twelve, with one in the centre. The central one will be synthetic, and will be that class in which all three are equal. The physical correspondence of this will be the twelve signs of the Zodiac with the Sun at the centre, synthesising all of them. The spiritual correspondence will be the twelve Creative Orders with the Logos at the centre, synthesising all." The arrangement is quite legitimate.–The Theosophist, Vol. XXIX, p. 100.
Alpha: That is really interesting. Which logos? Capital ‘L’ Logos? Yes. Well, don’t forget that the first Creative Hierarchy (of seven manifested) is breathed out from the central spiritual sun or the heart of the sun. It is not exactly planetary in origin, however much it may be planetary in function. It may have been breathed out by the sun for all planets and we may just be talking about our own. …
Well, actually, I think the important thing here is to have it drawn to our attention so now we can play with it. We know where it is and we can even compare it with signs in the zodiac and ... if it is true, it tells us something about the structure of units within the twelve. And it may reveal to us certain things about the zodiac. If we play with this and relate it to different signs of the zodiac we may find structural factors about the zodiacal signs that were not visible in other ways.
Gamma: I have a question here in the principle itself. How much new things are generated by permutation?
Alpha: Almost always.
Gamma: This is very important, you know.
Alpha: Very important. It is the whole principle of creativity.
Beta: And also you have a six with the one in the centre because of the three equal ...
Alpha: Yeah. That is right. You know the six with the one is extremely important and that is related to the thirteen, as the one with the twelve. Incredible.
So, OK we can look at that later. Now tonight, actually, we’ve penetrated to some degree a very, very difficult subject. And I just say to ‘some’ degree. This is a subject which leaves most students feeling hopelessly overwhelmed or incapable of illumination. There has been some degree of illumination. I would say that, you know, we have done about fifteen percent, or something,
Gamma: And it is finished by occult. I would just like to say that I mean why permutation, why this method is used for creation? Why not another method? … I am just stricken by the ...
Alpha: ...why permutation? Because there are … let’s put it like this ... there are only certain fundamental units which are in themselves non-replicable. And beyond that point you cannot achieve complexity without referring to the non-replicable units. In other words, it is just nature’s way of complexificaiton. It looks like it is just the principle of creation to start out with what is simple and not keep on differences that are essential differences, but to create complexity by combining simplicities.
Gamma: That should tell us something very fundamental about the universe. That God can only create something which is himself … He can only replicate himself in a different arrangement, and that goes very far.
Epsilon: Because there is only Him, or It.
Alpha: Actually it is all monad. Monad is number one. Monad is number one and Monad is essence and every other entity is simply a combination of God itself. One plus one is two ....that is two gods. Two plus one is two gods plus another, and it is all the same: it is God in relation to Himself.
But, it is interesting because our system of Arabic numbers at least, ends at nine, the number of completion, and after that everything begins to replicate. You could say that up through nine we have essential numbers (even though they are composed of fundamental monad), see that is the Pythagoranism, that there is no way to create any complexity except through the addition of the monad. But after that, after the nine, comes repetition. Now, the question is, is this born out in cosmic structure? The answer is probably yes.
Gamma: Yes, nine initiations.
Alpha: Yeah. That is right. Nine completes it, doesn’t it? What is the figure that we should use in relation to nine? There is a system of triangles … That one is very important.
Beta: The nine which makes twelve.
Alpha: The nine which makes twelve. Yeah. That is the nine which makes twelve. And there might be a way of reducing this to a ten as well. … somehow, see this central triangle is a three and it is a one at the same time.
Delta: Yeah.
Alpha: You know it is very interesting that every complexity is really essence. All numbers beyond one are false, in a certain respect. They are not essential. But, even one through nine, though two through nine, they are not essential, they are that from which all other things are derived because they can be used as units. In other words once they are established through addition of the essential they can be left in their state and used as inseparable units to create other units.
Delta: Well (although this is a little far afield) this is our system but what about the sexidesimal system which was used by the Babylonians, or the system of thirteen’s used by the Mayans.
Alpha: Well here is the point, does Mind, which is all of these systems, correspond with cosmic structure? That is why I say, is it born out in cosmic structure?
Beta: This makes a lot of sense, because this is the nine which is twelve. This is the structure of the causal body to a certain extent. This is also the three intersecting ethers in the head, or six.
Alpha: Ah-haa, creating the third eye, this is the eye of Shiva, that nine which is twelve is important, isn’t it? Maybe there is a point in the middle of it all, isn’t there? There has to be a point. Thirteen is really important.
Delta: We should probably set up horoscopes based on the ninth harmonic and the seventh harmonic, use the nine’s and seven’s. … In that thought we make a new horoscope.
Alpha: Um-hum. That is a whole field of analysis....
Epsilon: Did you do it?
Delta: Yeah. And its more of an Indian astrology. They always put the ninth next, they have the natal horoscope and just put the nine right next to it.
Beta: That is the ninth harmonic. The noviles?
Gamma: And what does it show?
Delta: Well, what we’re saying here is it shows our evolution in consciousness, and the seven deals with the change of form. That is how I understand what the Alice Bailey work was saying about this ... Completion and then change into another form.
Whereas, in Indian astrology they use the seventh for children (I think) and ninth they use to show you ... marriage partner ... and also this [sounds likeà] ristatillian idea of intellect. Once you get to nine it comes back on yourself, in other words it comes to ten, which is back to the one again. Your natal horoscope is like the seed and the ninth harmonic is like the fruit that it will grow into once it becomes a tree and bears fruit.
Alpha: Would you say that initiatory wise you could use the different harmonics to correspond to the nine initiations. In other words the likelihood or possibility of talking a particular initiation as indicated by the different harmonics.
Delta: Gee ... I don’t know.
Alpha: I don’t know either, just a thought, well of course it wouldn’t be the normal ninth harmonic. I mean, the possibility of the ninth initiation is very remote. But, one wonders about fourth harmonic, fifth harmonic, third harmonic and so forth.
Beta: … It is actually calculated as the ninth harmonic? … they do it in sort of an unusual way, right? Don’t they displace the planets. They create a new chart altogether?
Delta: They make a totally new chart, yeah. Actually, they multiply everything by nine.
Gamma: They multiply everything by nine starting from where.
Delta: Well, in other words, if you had something in three degrees of Aries ....you multiply that by nine so it would become twenty-seven degrees of Aries. If you had something at 33 degrees of Taurus, you multiply that by nine which would be 296, or 26 degrees of Capricorn.
Beta: That always assumes the Aries point, right?
Delta: Yeah. Aries is by definition zero. Don’t they use [sounds likeà] ‘critica’ or Pleiades as a zero point.
Delta: See this gets back to the idea of the sidereal zodiac. They used to use critica as zero point a few thousand years ago and then they got together in the year 500 and said, Gee, critica no longer corresponds with the spring equinox we will have to swing it back (inaudible). They used it for a couple of thousand years, then with the procession of the equinoxes they got together and redefined the sidereal zodiac.
Beta: They didn’t somehow think of the Pleiades as the centre of the chart, centre of all?
Delta: Well, maybe they do, but here is another provocative idea. The first one in Sagittarius was called Mulha like Mulha Darha the root chakra, which means root. So, that gives a hint that that is the true root ... Zero Sagittarius to 13 degrees 20 Sagittarius, sidereally.
Alpha: Now this is … OK ....
Delta: That is a speculation, over the millenniums.
(many voices)
Alpha: We can’t end on technicalities. It is fascinating. We have to ...
Delta: If anyone is interested I can show at some other time I’ll show you how to calculate this thing like that [snaps fingers] without having to go through all those multiplications by nine and seven, just instantly. … You can do it mentally faster than the computer.
Alpha: He can do it.
Delta: I will show you a fast way to do it so you can cut through all that multiplication.
Alpha: OK, Speaking of cutting through we need to after all pack up everything here tonight ... so, we need to come to some sort of summary statements. Not statements about what has been learned, because that would take a while and tax the memory, but about what has been accomplished. There is a difference. …