Jesus said, “I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes.”
The Master comes with a holy fire, a fire-consuming fire, making all like unto itself, Divine. The Master imparts the fire, kindles the fire, and tends the holy fire until it blazes and transforms the disciple. The disciple, too, once receiving the holy fire, must kindle and tend it until it blazes, the Master and disciple acting together so that initiation comes to fruition.
Now rightly, it is said that, without the blessing and guard-ianship of an adept or master, whatever spiritual practice you might take up is not fully alive and empowered, and thus cannot develop beyond a certain degree and come to fruition. The master generates and imparts substantial spiritual energy-intelligence, energy on the one hand that the disciple needs to actually fuel spiritual practice and, on the other hand, a field of energy that serves as a protection against other forces that would hinder or obstruct. Fire is an appropriate symbol of this substantial spiritual power, a power that transforms and illuminates and, indeed, serves to protect.
There is a holy continuum adepts or masters tend that empowers the continuum of spiritual practice and spiritual living among their disciples and at the same time blesses and protects those they have received as disciples. Once such a connection is actually formed, it remains until it is brought to fruition or completion, the actual completion occurring when the disciple imparts the initiation to another person. Here, the Master speaks of this secret continuum. In this way, passing from one to another, the whole world is set on fire with the Word of the Lord.
The Master is also speaking of something more, for Yeshua Messiah is an incarnation of the great World Teacher. More than a prophet, he is Messiah, and he brings into the world a new Divine consciousness-force along with a new dimension of teachings and initiations corresponding to this Supernal Light-force. Embodying this Divine consciousness-force, he transmits it to his immediate disciples and, through his disciples, to the larger collective of humanity and the world, initiating a Light-transmission that passes from one generation to another through the succession of apostles, the initiates who hold the secret keys of the mysteries that the Master taught and who embody something of the Light-force he brought into the world.
The nature of this supernal consciousness-force is akin to “fire” in that it transforms and illuminates all that it touches. It illuminates and transforms every level of consciousness into the likeness or image of itself. To describe this holy fire today, we would speak of it as a spiritual nuclear fire, a secret Divine energy or light that is hidden within the center of everything, within the center of every particle of matter, and that when fully actualized and released can radically transform, not only consciousness, but matter itself. The self-radiance of the Transfiguration and the demonstration of the resurrection body reveal something of the nature and transforming power of this spiritual consciousness-force.
Now, indeed, the person of the perfect Master has departed the world, yet his presence and power remain, the Holy Spirit with which the Lord initiated and ordained the apostles. The Divine presence and power lives and moves among us today in the secret apostolic succession within certain esoteric orders, and wherever Grace manifests it, as in the case of St. Paul. Likewise, the Lord is present wherever his name is spoken with understanding, and so, indeed, the Master continues to cast fire upon the world and to guard it until it blazes.
In these words, there is a prophecy of the transformation of humanity and the world by this Supernal Light-force of Messianic consciousness. While some would think in terms of a rapid and radical change, long before the appearance of such a quantum leap in evolution, the transformation is being worked out on invisible and hidden levels as nature slowly savors her process of development through ever more refined and higher forms of life. A radical change occurs on a perceptible level only when the ground and conditions for it are prepared. When, where, and how this great transformation will happen is not known; yet according to the prophets and the Word of the Lord, it is certain that the great transformation will take place.
That the Master is speaking of himself as transmitting and guarding this spiritual power until it comes to fruition in the great transformation or resurrection of the world indicates the duty of the faithful and all initiates to labor toward this greater advent of the Second Coming—hence, active engagement in the great work. For this holy fire to blaze, many must embody it and bring it into the world full force. You must give the Lord a body and life to accomplish the great transformation. What the Master does, the disciple must also do, and the Lord has promised that his disciples shall do even greater things than they have seen or heard him do. This is the very essence of a mystical and Gnostic Christianity, that you also must embody the Spirit of the Messiah and labor to bring about the Second Coming in your own lifetime.
In this verse is the secret teaching of the soul of the Messiah coming forth from the universe of Adam Kadmon, the primordial human being, and passing through the universe of Atzilut, bringing forth something of the fire of Atzilut with him. Why would this be necessary for redemption? To burn away the husks and liberate the holy sparks and so restore the body of Adam Kadmon to its primordial state, and more than to restore the image of the Lord, to recreate the holy body of the primordial human being according to the image of the Lord revealed in a new heaven and new earth. Bear in mind that the Master ministered not only upon the earth and in the heavens, but descended also through the gates of hades to liberate souls bound in the hells. What is new about the heaven and earth transformed by the Supernal Light-force or Messianic consciousness? Hell and demonic powers no longer exist, for even Darkness realizes the Light hidden within it.