In our introduction to discipleship, it was mentioned that the primary objective of discipleship is to move a monad from the 4th to the 5th Kingdom of Nature. This transition is known by many terms in esoterics and each author on the subject seems to have their personal view. This can confuse a student so let us attempt to bring some clarity to the subject.
One of the main sources about discipleship and the transitions that occur have come to us from Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater. Laurency considers a lot of what they said to be misleading. He feels it was a mistake to make extant any information about initiations. Worst still, they let slip the names of certain ‘masters’ and this led to incessant chatter about them, something frowned upon by the Hierarchy. Laurency is at pains to point out that discipleship is collective work.
Between the periods 1875 to 1920, the Theosophical movement produced copious amounts of documents, which Laurency describes as being highly unsatisfactory. There were mitigating factors, as there was too little information made available at the time to make a rational system of orientation possible. Terms such as “discipleship” and “initiation” should not even have entered the lexicon. Being an “aspirant” is about as far as we need to describe our path forward. The term “master” has been thoroughly abused. It should be made clear that no disciple, this side of Armageddon, would ever name or speak about their master, let alone tell you what level they have personally attained.
A seeker is free to call themselves an aspirant. Most seekers, even if they do not know it, are aspirants. If you have reached the 4. Compassionate stage of development, (47:4), then you can guarantee you are an aspirant, even if you are an atheist, agnostic or sceptic. People, focused in their mental body have in previous incarnations, worked their way through religion and philosophy and realised that neither is capable of giving a rational picture of the Laws of Life and Nature.
So, if you wish to pass into the 5th Kingdom, what do you need to know? You have to get into contact with your guardian angel. That is a good start. You need to assimilate and understand the Hierarchy’s views on Human evolution, often called the “Divine Plan” and last but not least, you need to acquire the necessary qualities and abilities. Many will be happy living in the world of Man, in a world of culture. If you wish to reach the Causal and then pass on to the Essential/Unity worlds, you need to really focus your energies.
We can look at our own development as our most immediate goal. Unfortunately, our development is totally at the discretion of the Planetary Hierarchy. They do not need initiates, they need helpers. Monads who are prepared to work tirelessly, to assist the bulk of Humanity to move their game along. Without co-workers, the Hierarchy can achieve very little here on Earth. There is a huge challenge to alleviate the burdens of lying ideologies, brutalisation and the general repulsive and hateful tendencies prevalent in all of us, to a lesser or greater degree. We can all work to raise the level of social, economic, political and scientific discourse in society. The fundamental objective should be to make available to any, who seek the knowledge of reality and life. We should also, suggest how it is possible to lead a constructive and happy life. This quest for knowledge about life is the minimum requirement to become an aspirant. At this stage, the individual can partake in the application of the Laws of Destiny.
In our egotistical, self-absorbed, selfish lives, we fail to realise that everything is a collective, not least the God-head itself. You would think this was self-evident. Everything we have comes from a collective. Our civilisation, our culture, and our living environment are all collectively realised. This is a debt we have to repay in some way.
As mentioned in the last presentation, prior to 1920, discipleship was a personal endeavour between yourself and someone from the 5th Kingdom. Due to an influx of monads, ready to take the next step, the model of support went from an individual to a group setting. A telepathic rapport with a group of like-minded souls became a prerequisite. The objective of this group is not primarily consciousness development, this will happen automatically. The objective is to work for the collective advancement of Humanity. This new form of discipleship establishes a group soul in the Essential/Unity World. This is an envelope, not dissimilar to a causal envelope, except that it contains more than just one set of memories. Just as the causal envelope is presided over by a solar angel, the Unity group soul is presided over by a monad from the 5th Kingdom. One of the many advantages of forming such a group soul, although I prefer to call it a soul group, the term group soul being better suited to the three lowest kingdoms of nature, is that members of the group complement one another. This compensates for the emotional, mental and causal deficiencies within themselves.
Humanities transition to the 5th Kingdom (46) is done in stages. It should be noted that this process needs assistance. We can not do it by ourselves. It is technically feasible but has never been achieved until now. This transition takes a monad from the 1st to the 2nd-Triad. From here, after further series of incarnations, the monad will focus in the 47:1, then the 46:1 and finally in the 45:4 permanent atoms/molecule. According to Laurency, it is even possible to focus into the 45:1 permanent atom on the 3rd-Triad. With the more stringent rules to enter discipleship, there is less of a focus on becoming one of the three selves possible in the 2nd-triad. It is now more about becoming a 2nd of 3rd-Self, period. The objective is to conquer all three types of consciousness in the upper two triads. Although this is done in stages, these steps happen rapidly enough to be taken as a percentage of all three, even if you are on the first rung of the ladder. This does make life more strenuous for our teachers, our solar angel and our protogonos. Remember the Protogonos, the First Born? This is the deva that will hold our memories on the 3rd Triad, when our globe dissolves, prior to entering its next phase of evolution. Ah, back to my favourite topic; chains, rounds and globes.
Apparently, the Hierarchy is working on new methods to aid human evolution, allowing us to assimilate the necessary energies for development. You see, nothing is set in stone, even our betters seem to be winging it. So what do we have control over personally? We can focus our lives on one of service, forget ourselves and improve our attitude to life. Laurency quotes as exert of a letter from a brother on the “path”.
“Personally, I don’t ponder how far I have come, nor how many incarnations remain. I don’t think that matters. For when you have finally learned what love is, the consequences must be that you incarnate with joy, even under the most trying circumstances, however often. The conclusion is obvious: to make the best possible use of every incarnation you have got. To ennoble qualities, not in order to quickly reach the goal but to set a good receiver for the transmission of higher powers; and to be a connecting link between others in the wholeness of life. That is a job you can do for any length of time.”
Our planet is a penal colony for ‘repulsive’ monads. It may be true that suffering only exists on the three lowest Emotional (48:5-7) and Physical (49:5-7) planes. It is, however, only on the Physical plane that we learn our lessons. It is here that we sow and reap. We should therefore try to rationally live our lives, using whatever model of the meaning of life that floats our boat.
To end this presentation is worth reiterating that the Hierarchy wants no disciples that are focused on their self-development. They want those that forget themselves and serve others. “He is greatest who is the servant of all”. The corollary to this is that “he is the least who is lord of all”. The wise man knows he “knows nothing” worth knowing”. These are truisms worth pondering over.