EPILOGUE

A forthright statement by the Master Adept (now Chohan) Kuthumi provides us with two central descriptions as to what the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Adepts is apparently all about:

Plato was right. Ideas rule the world; and, as men’s minds will receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world will advance. Mighty revolutions will spring from them; creeds and even powers will crumble before their onward march, crushed by the irresistible force. It will be just as impossible to resist their influx, when the time comes, as to stay the progress of the tide. But all this will come gradually on and before it comes, we have a duty set before us; that of sweeping away as much as possible the dross left to us by our pious forefathers. New ideas have to be planted on clean places, for these ideas touch upon the most momentous subjects. It is not physical phenomena but these universal ideas that we study. . . . They touch man’s true position in the universe in relation to his previous and future births; his origin and ultimate destiny; the relation of the mortal to the immortal; of the temporary to the eternal; of the finite to the infinite; ideas larger, grander, more comprehensive, recognising the reign of Immutable Law, unchanging and unchangeable, in regard to which there is only an ETERNAL NOW, while to uninitiated mortals time is past or future as related to their finite existence on this material speck of dirt. This is what we study and what many have solved.1

Taking into consideration that idea-forms are themselves groups of elemental entities, historically generated and conditioned by humankind’s own subjective nature in response to long past spiritual innovation, it first of all involves the destruction and sweeping away of those same ideas when they are no longer of continuing use to humankind’s future evolution. Secondly, it involves the study and wisely discriminating assimilation of those future spiritual influences, emanating literally from the Mind of the Solar Logos via the Planetary Spirits (Dhyani Buddhas and Dhyan Chohans), which will be of definite use to future generations of humanity. These two aspects of their work should be sufficient to demonstrate to us that the nature of the true Adept consciousness is far and away beyond that of the purely human, despite many of them retaining human bodies specifically in order to maintain adequate continuity of contact with humanity in general. The “New Age” views of the Adept Hierarchy as a group of merely spiritualized human beings to be worshipped from afar, or as otherwise completely absorbed (i.e., “ascended”) into Universal Consciousness, are so far from practical reality that they are merely absurd.

As otherwise also mentioned, the main point behind the public resurgence of the sacred wisdom tradition was to introduce humankind in general to a new perspective in relation to Divinity itself. Through the work of humanism over the last several centuries (and even of its predecessors in Greek times) plus that of modern science, it has become increasingly obvious that the old religio-mystic idea of God has served its usefulness, that it now serves largely to divide rather than to unite, and that, despite the widening ecumenical movement, it no longer suffices to satisfy all human spiritual need. The “new” perspective revealed by nineteenth and twentieth century theosophy (supported by ancient tradition) has demonstrated why and how the “God” of the main religions is merely a demiurgic hierarchy of divine beings that owes its very existence to the emanations of far superior hierarchies of Intelligence, whose own existence lies on kosmic planes of existence far beyond our own. It has also shown how and why it is that Man in his innermost nature is the very alpha and omega of the universal evolutionary process.

Why should all this have been revealed? We are told that it is because our planetary Life as a whole—itself the vehicle of a divine hierarchy of beings—has reached the point in its evolutionary progress where a great forward surge of development is naturally imminent. This will thereby bring about a huge expansion of consciousness in all its kingdoms of Nature, not just the human. Thus what humankind has been given over the last few centuries is merely a preparation for its accessing and absorption of far greater celestial knowledge and responsibilities, provided that its improved mental development is accompanied by emotional stability. To many this will appear as mere wishful thinking—or a frightening threat. Yet it involves the quite natural progression of the evolutionary process, viewed as a whole, even if as yet beyond modern science’s perceptions.

Indeed, the very nature and history of esoteric and occult philosophy as something after all perhaps rational—by virtue of consciousness itself being recognized as the basis of a science (psychology)—is now being openly considered by academia within university departments of the humanities and of religion. It is also being increasingly acknowledged by steadily increasing numbers of research scientists, in their published books, as the necessary “tool” of all metaphysical thought. This is as a direct result of the coherent literary work of but a few practical researchers of original thought in each of the past few centuries. The modern “New Age” movement is itself merely the cloudy response of partial psychic recognition and much attendant wishful thinking that has sprung up around them. The idea that today’s “New Age” thinkers are those who have given rise to this movement is quite wrong. It follows the equally false assumption that superstition gives rise to myth, whereas the truth is that real myth is based on clearly formulated spiritual metaphor and allegory that, through ignorant literalism, has lost its inner, causal drive and thus degenerated into mere superstition and prejudice. As Frithjof Schuon comments supportingly in his work The Transcendent Unity of Religions:

The exoteric viewpoint is in fact doomed to end by negating itself once it is no longer vivified by the presence within of the esoterism of which it is both the outward radiation and the veil. So it is that religion, according to the measure in which it denies metaphysical and initiatory realities and becomes crystallised in a literalistic dogmatism, inevitably engenders unbelief; the atrophy that overtakes dogmas when they are deprived of their internal dimension recoils upon them from the outside, in the form of heretical and atheistic negations.2

H. P. Blavatsky’s stupendous literary work—much if not most of it directly generated by the Adept Hierarchy—was undoubtedly the “engine” that has driven the leading human intelligence of the last century and a half into recognizing that philosophy, science, and religion are (or appear to be) merely aspects of the same field of universal knowledge. Blavatsky’s work was thus foundational. The later work of A. A. Bailey, in the early-to-mid twentieth century—although as yet less generally acknowledged—provides the superstructure built (also by the Adept Hierarchy) on those same foundations, in preparation for the real New Age of human thought, of which only a few preceding shadows are as yet clearly apparent. To many this too might sound like complete wishful thinking. Yet careful consideration should logically suggest to us that a completely new and more direct view of Divinity, plus the rational application of esoteric and occult philosophy to the combined fields of philosophy, religion, and science—and even in some respects to all other fields of human life—must inevitably lead in that direction. All that is otherwise necessary involves the progressive giving up of those conflicting ancient thought forms that have been produced in response to the underlying involutionary processes in Nature.

The whole emphasis in this book has been on the proposition that the process of spiritual initiation in relation to humanity merely involves an acceleration of the general evolutionary process from within; that it is normally available only to the few because only the few have the drive and willingness to put up with the very real accompanying hardships. However, it is also because of the persistent work of the few that humanity as a whole has benefited and thus now reached a point where it can take a giant step forward as a complete kingdom of Nature. In relation to the latter we might perhaps draw the parallel of the ugly and destructive caterpillar, which becomes a beautiful butterfly, although one might hardly imagine at the outset that such a radical transformation could be in any way possible.

The view held by some critics that the initiatory process was ever “elitist” misses the point completely. That is because they themselves completely fail to understand what the whole underlying process involves and they thus arrive at superficial judgments purely based on normally self-centered human social standards. This needs to be much more clearly acknowledged and put across to the wider public, together with the concept that the long term will-to-good is much more important than the short term will-to-peace (or rather, the desire-for-peace-and-quiet).

That relates to another proposition this work has striven to highlight—that initiation involves not only progressive expansions of consciousness and spiritual faculty, but also a progressively parallel capacity to access and maintain an equivalent psycho-spiritual tension, with its associated focus. Without this capacity—necessitating really great persistence and psychological (as well as physical) effort—no such initiation (or any other form of forward subjective movement) would be possible; nor would it be possible to assess general human experience in any proper perspective. From this proposition, it then becomes rather more possible to analyze human history in retrospect from a wider angle than historians are generally wont to do. It thus becomes an issue of seeing crisis itself as an inevitably necessary part of the movement to forward change—and as a fundamental part of the transitional cyclic process.

Scientists and historians have yet to acknowledge that such cycles exist or have any material impact upon human society, although many theorists have certainly speculated on the subject in relation to economics. However, as astrology is also now becoming an academically acceptable subject at university level (even though largely based on historical grounds as yet), this too may change in due course of time. The fact that our modern science has already begun to realize from its own research and observation that an underlying order of harmonic (i.e., ecologically balanced) interrelationships is apparent throughout Nature, at all levels, will ultimately render the cyclical issue as unavoidably primary.

Referring back to what was said in the first few chapters about the progressively sequential involutionary–evolutionary–devolutionary process, it should thus also become obvious to us that our humanity is increasingly more closely approaching the inevitable “Day of Judgment” of the greater current cycle. The evolutionary consciousness phase necessarily involves a progressive synthesizing of past human knowledge and experience. The involutionary cycle of persistent fragmentation and differentiation is thus at or very closely nearing its end. The “Aristotelian” reductive approach, using purely objective classifications to arrive at inner perceptions, is increasingly being seen as leading us down a path to nowhere.

Having said this, nothing in the way of change in Nature moves very fast. It only appears to do so when it reaches a climax of progressively acquired tension. Our present era certainly contains and expresses a huge amount of psychological tension (globally considered) by reference to previous political history. Before the twentieth century, such tension could only be considered on a locally international basis, at best, as one leading only to unwelcome sociopolitical frictions. However, the present era—which will certainly continue for the next century and a half at least—is actually one of tremendous opportunity, if taken in the right spirit. The great problem for the Adept Hierarchy and the Guides of our world is clearly to ensure that the tension can be maintained productively, leading to a general public recognition that the new perspective is inevitable and, in any case, much more inherently attractive than the one just past, from which we are currently in the process of emerging.

That such an effort naturally involves great challenges, when considered in instinctively racial and nationalistic terms, is obvious. That is why the international mixing of racial identities and cultures—a purely external phenomenon—is so important. Just as important, however, is the increasingly general recognition (also among scientists) of a universality of existence in greater Nature, in which we are all ecologically interdependent facilitators, irrespective of genus, race, creed, gender, or color. It is not a question of losing identity. It is a question of sharing it by inner recognition of the same inner values being superficially obscured by outer forms. The great instinctive fear on many parts is that of losing something that has taken centuries or even millennia to develop. Yet, just as human marriage necessitates a yielding up of some established individualism, to develop an ideal of far greater family potential, so the family of individual human races and nations must be prepared to consider doing the same thing, yet on a far greater scale than hitherto.

Even if we do not realize it, our objective planetary world is a very localized venue or “school of life.” That which lies beyond it—the psycho-spiritual world—is of staggeringly greater perspective and potentiality. Yet, because our instinctive association is almost entirely within the framework of consciousness of the objective world, we are blind to the character of what lies beyond (or rather, parallel to) it. This is the great paradox. Only by a progressive experiencing of the fragmented limitations of the objective world can our inner, more expansive spiritual nature progressively learn to reject them. By so doing so it must thus insist upon the outer being replaced by the more inclusive (because interdisciplinary) spiritual principles of which we are increasingly aware, even if we cannot as yet perceive their full detail.

Because our sense of association is naturally that of a very brief single lifetime (in which the sense of a reincarnating continuity is as yet indifferently present), we also fail to perceive the longer cycle of experience of our Higher Soul-Self. Yet it is the latter recognition that the whole process of expansive spiritual education by the Adept Hierarchy is trying to encourage. However, as in any school, it is up to us how much attention we individually pay and how much general effort we are individually prepared to put in to changing ourselves by acknowledging our own previous limitations of effort.

In addition to developing a general participatory “school” sense along with all others, it is of tremendous help to us individually to understand (in all silent modesty) at what level or in which class of the “school” we personally stand. This must include an understanding of conditioning Ray influences. That, however, can only be done by adopting (or at least exploring) the wider metaphysical and hermeneutic perspective that the philosophy of the modern worldwide theosophical movement presents. In that way we will come to see that there also exists in life’s greater field a “junior school,” a “senior school,” and a “university”—and that it is the latter toward which our inner strivings are ultimately taking us all, if we so will it.