The Path of Initiations
Hello dear Friends,
My name is Tatyana Nickolaevna Mickushina and I am greeting you from the south of Western Siberia, from the Omsk city.
We offer to your attention the series of fragments of the seminar “The Path of Initiations” that took place in March 2007 in Moscow. We also hope very much that a film shot on this seminar will appear and we will be able to offer it to you in the near future.
For the first time the knowledge of the Path of Initiations was given to the sufficiently wide audience by Blavatsky. You know that in her works she gave almost exhaustive information about the Path of Initiations.
Once very long ago the humanity was not like me and you absolutely. It was millions of years ago and people represented huge etheric giants more than 50 metres high. And they neither had a physical body nor even any shape. They were alike plants. They were sleeping, dreaming and in some way developing very slowly during millions of years. This was the First Root Race, which inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
Then in the course of the evolutionary development, these huge etheric giants were gradually becoming denser and finally by the way of gemmation or similar to the way amoeba develops secreted the Second Root Race from themselves. And the remainder of the First one transformed to the Second Root Race, which had denser bodies and were about 30 metres high. They also didn’t have any physical body. That Race was also developing during millions of years. After that the next Race, which became the Third Root Race, formed from it in different ways. I will quote from Blavatsky’s “The Secret Doctrine”: «However strange this way of reproduction might seem, the early Third Race, was formed from drops of "sweat," which, after many transformations, grew into human bodies. On the whole, these different methods of reproduction are characteristic of the Third Race, which was separated into three distinct divisions and consisted of differently procreated men.
The first two of these are produced by an oviparous method, presumably unknown to modern Natural History. While the early sub-races of the Third Humanity procreated their species by a kind of exudation of moisture or vital fluid, the drops of which coalescing formed an oviform ball -- or shall we say egg? -- which served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein of a foetus and child, the mode of procreation by the later races changed, in its results at all events. The little ones of the earlier races were entirely sexless -- shapeless even for all one knows; but those of the later races were born androgynous. It is in the Third Race that the separation of sexes occurred. From being previously a-sexual, Humanity became distinctly hermaphrodite or bi-sexual; and finally the man-bearing eggs began to give birth, gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first, to Beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to distinct men and women». This Race reached 18 metres tall, gradually growing denser. You can see the Lemuria continent on the map. The globe in those ancient times also looked different. There was no America, there was a sea instead. There was only a part of Africa, no Europe, Asia, but in the place of Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans there was a huge horseshoe-like continent, which description is also given in “The Secret Doctrine” by Blavatsky. And where we are now, there was a huge inward see.
This Race, the Third Root Race in fact represents nothing else but us. In other words the humanity passes in its development through all these Races, i.e. some time we were the huge etheric giants – during the times of the First Root Race, then we gradually became the Second Root Race and the Third Root Race. So as we are speaking now about the history of the humankind evolution we are speaking about our history. And we for the first time acquired the physical body during the times of the Third Root Race, in the middle of it. First this body was androgynous, i.e. having the characteristics of both of the sexes, but then gradually the man and woman started to differ from each other and the reproduction in the form it is now inherent in humanity firstly began in the times of the Third Root Race.
Even when the man already acquired the human body and become similar to me and you - they were only a little bit taller – about 18 metres, they didn’t differ from animals in their development. We were people only by our shapes, but we didn’t differ from animals in our inner essence, for we didn’t have mind. At that moment the question arose about the elimination of that humanity. Before people inhabited the Earth, you see, there were several more evolutions, including some sea ones, and many of them were also left as unsuccessful. And later when the human being was progressing very slowly during the times of the Third Root Race the question was risen about its extermination. And the following thing happened: the Masters of Wisdom, i.e. those Masters who had completed human evolution in the previous manvantaras, sacrificed themselves and descended from Their evolutionary level to a much lower evolutionary level and They gave Their parts to us. They endowed us with mind and gave us one of the higher bodies, which is now called the Christ Self. If we look at the chart of our Divine Self... this part is the Divine Part in us which has always abided in us: it abode in us in the times of the First Race and the Second one, and the Third, and the Forth and is abiding now. These are our four lower bodies – this bigger figure, the astral body, the etheric body, the mental body and the physical body. And they are in the process of constant changes. Some bodies were absent in the First Race. Then we became denser and denser, acquired the physical body, but there was no mental body. Then we obtained our mental body. And our four lower bodies constantly undergo evolutionary changes. What the Masters of Wisdom gave us is this figure on this chart, it is our Christ Self or the Higher body.
So, at that time the humanity was at another level of vibrations. It had not yet descended into such dense matter by then, as it has descended by now. And the human being was Divine human in his essence. From the very birth he experienced the connection with his own Divine Self and automatically had all the knowledge existing in this universe in his possession. And we actually were gods at that time. God gave us the free will. When we receive Divine Energy we can spend it in this world out of our own free will. We have acquired mind and this mind is merely a tool like a knife. We can take it and use it for, let’s say, slicing bread, but we can also use the same knife as a murder weapon. It is just the same with our mind, we can use it both for good and for evil. When the humanity received the mind, thanks to the descending of the High Spirits, it began to use it for directing the Divine Energy in different ways. That means that sometimes we succeeded in directing it in the right way - when we developed some Divine qualities, inherent in the Divine world. Then we multiplied our treasures laid up in heaven. This body, shown as these iridescent spheres is our causal body. When we came into incarnation as people, at the time of the Third Root Race, we didn’t have a developed casual body. When we used the Divine Energy in the correct way and developed Divine qualities, we multiplied our treasures laid up in heaven, we developed our casual body, this very priceless experience for which, in fact, the humanity was intended - the multiplication of the Divine qualities in the universe. However, we didn’t always act this way. We thought: “As we have incarnated in this world and live in it, why don’t we derive some pleasure from this world?” When we thought like that we spent the Divine Energy not in the way God wanted us to do. In other words, we received very high Divine Energy and when spending it on the needs of this world and on some kinds of personal purposes, including selfish ones, we lowered the vibrations. The whole universe simply represents energy. There is nothing else but energy. This energy has various levels, various frequencies and various vibrations. Thus, when we used Divine Energy for the needs of our ego, we lowered our vibrations and automatically lowered vibrations of the surrounding world. Thus, we descended and submerged deeper and deeper in the matter. We were becoming denser and denser. Finally, a human height reduced from 18 metres to our present height. We have now reached the maximum possible density in the universe of matter. During the Third Root Race the Masters and High Cosmic Beings could communicate with people and teach them directly, because people had not created karma yet – hadn’t distorted the Divine Energy. Therefore the level of people’s vibrations allowed the High Cosmic Beings to come and provide teaching directly. As the humanity created karma, i.e. used the Divine Energy not according to Its purpose, and the vibrations of this world were getting lower and lower, the Teachers of humanity couldn’t come anymore; gods couldn’t walk among people. At that moment the human being began to feel separation from the Divine world. The veil began getting dense. It happened at the time of the Fourth Root Race, which inhabited the continent of Atlantis. This continent of Lemuria started to sink to the ocean floor as time went by, and only a part of it remained which was at the place of the Atlantic Ocean. And on this continent the Fourth Root Race evolved, being the next one after the Third. At the times of the Fourth Race the humanity separated so much from its Divine Teachers that couldn’t directly communicate with Them. There were Divine Dynasties which governed people, but the representatives of these Dynasties were physical embodiments and they had dual nature. It means that they could teach both good and evil. Accordingly, they could direct people both to good and to evil. They were not pure sources of the Divine Truth or Its pure conductors. The Race of Atlantis divided into two huge categories: adepts of the right hand and adepts of the left hand. The latter were magicians and sorcerers. As the matter of fact Blavatsky says that only one thing differentiates the white magic from the black magic: the presence of even a single evil thought. Because the way we use the Divine Energy is the foundation of both white magic and black magic. So if we use this Energy to fulfill the plans of God for the material world, we create good. But when we use this Energy to get something for ourselves in this world - power, fame, money, some kind of pleasures, sex; we simply use the Divine Energy incorrectly and we create karma. The people of Atlantis, as this Race had utilized this Energy wrongly, began a feud with each other. Why did it happen? It happened because the vibrations became very different. The people who were trying to fulfill their Divine destiny had higher vibrations, while those who used the Divine Energy to satisfy their personal desires had lower vibrations. Thus, they started feuding between each other - the white magicians and the black magicians. That led to an endless war, and eventually, as the people’s vibrations influenced the vibrations of the surrounding world, the continent of Atlantis gradually began to collapse and then sank to the ocean floor just in few days.
At those very times of the Fourth Race the Schools of Mysteries were created. So the times of Atlantis may be called the beginning of the Path of Initiations. That happened because it was necessary to protect the Divine Knowledge from the dirty hands, in order to restrict access to the Divine Knowledge and Divine Energy and to deny it for the people who used this Energy incorrectly. The Teachers of humanity used such a method as the Path of Initiations or the Schools of Mysteries. Not all who wished were accepted to these Schools, but only those people who had come through certain terrible trials. They proved their right to gain access to the Divine Knowledge. In fact this Knowledge is the key to the Divine Energy. The Source of this Energy is infinite, so to get access to this unlimited Source it was required to take the Path of Initiations and to obtain Powers at the cost of total renunciation of any human qualities and any human attachments. These Powers make very quick changes in the physical world possible. The access to them is safely blocked for humanity at the moment. And these Schools of Initiated came afterwards to the Fifth Root Race to which the humanity belongs now; so this Race also had the Schools of Mysteries. The remnants of these schools were situated in the Ancient Egypt, Syria, China, India, Tibet…
I turned to the book “Initiation” by Elisabeth Heich, so that we could get a rough idea of what it was and what it was like. She tells about a mysterious manuscript which described ancient Orders of the Brotherhood. According to Elizabeth Heich a person comes into contact with the Brotherhood when he reaches such a level of his development that he completely renounces his personality and devotes all his life to easing the sufferings of the others. When a person made such a decision, a member of the secret Order got into spiritual contact with him. The person who had renounced himself and reached, thus, universal Love, was at such a level of his development that automatically responded to the vibrations coming to him. First he heard within himself the voice of the guide and adviser warning him about the difficulties, dangers and consequences of his decision: “You must constantly remember your decision, you must never do anything contradicting the Great Laws of Life. No mortal man can play with Divine Powers. You must never use the Powers you acquired to achieve your personal goals. You must not have personal feelings or look at something from your personal point of view. It is better to continue your personal life as all the others than to fail as a co-worker. I warn you.” If this person all the same didn’t renounce his decision, the Secret Order existing in order to help the humanity out of the chaos, made him its member. First he came through a trial period of seven years, knowing nothing about it and left completely on his own. At this time he does not have any contacts with the Order, but he comes through several tests one by one. Seven of them are connected with human virtues: liberation from sensuality, anger, conceit, greed, stinginess, envy, sensitivity and the test on the ability to resist outside influence. If the neophyte passed these tests and abode by his decision, he was definitively accepted to the Order. At that very day he would find it out by a seeming coincidence. Then he receives a thorough training and special tasks, easy at the beginning and more and more difficult afterwards. These tasks are various as various are the positions of the people admitted to the Order. They are rich and poor, famous and unknown. All of them must fulfill their tasks as the servants of the great Plan. Being a co-worker of the Brotherhood means duty and sacrifice. The members of the Brotherhood bear full responsibility for their every action. And the higher they ascend, the bigger their responsibility becomes. The one who refuses to bear the responsibility for his actions trying to shift it to another member of the Order, the one who doesn’t consider the work he does his personal affair but regards it as an errand from the Order and himself as a spiritual instrument of the Order, is considered a betrayer. He loses at once all his contacts with the Order. He does not realize this, however, and may think himself to be the co-worker of the Order for yet many years, while the Order uses him for testing other people. Only those people can be the members of the Order who rely on themselves and endure outside influence. The people who do good or avoid evil only out of obedience or in expectation of a reward, wishing to get to Heaven or avoid hell, can not be the members. On the contrary, in life and in death the members of the Order act according to their deepest beliefs. This is because they hear the messages of the Order in their hearts perceiving them as their own most profound beliefs.
Everything written in this book is one hundred percent true for each person who wishes to take the Path of Initiations. The task of this seminar is to bring the essence and the meaning of this Path to the consciousness of all the present. Actually, if you do not have the right model in your consciousness, you cannot follow it. And all the wrong orientations blearing the eyes that come from the outer world: from books and all kinds of events like seminars given by some people, simply lead you astray. We will try to deliver the understanding of the Path of Initiations, which Ascended Masters have taught, to your consciousness. You alone will take a decision whether to follow it or not. The Path of Initiations, unlike many other ways existing in this world, is given by the Ascended Masters or the Masters of Wisdom. You can see here their images. This is Sanat Kumara, Lord Surya, Lord Maitreya, El Morya, Kuthumi. These Teachers, these Masters have been teaching the humanity this Path of Initiations for hundreds of thousands of years. And I can just draw my own conclusion: if now They take the risk of giving this Teaching to such a big audience, it means that perhaps a certain time has come.
So, we return now to the book “Initiation” by Elisabeth Haich. It reveals how the people, aiming to pass through the Initiation, prepared to it. The physical exercises and the process of their training are described here. It must be said that this process of preparation was very long and took much more than a year or two. “Every morning at dawn we gathered in the garden and started our training with physical exercises, which required intense concentration. We adopted various postures and doing breathing exercises directed our consciousness to various parts of our body. After a long and diligent practice we managed to make our whole body completely conscious. We could control all its areas and all internal organs. That is we made it an excellent instrument.” This concerns physical body, but our astral body and our mental body also need certain preparation. The preparation in the ancient Egypt was done under the direction of experienced instructors who saw whether it was appropriate to make training more or less intense for every particular disciple. Anyway, to get an idea of what it was like I will read an extract. The first level of training for astral and mental bodies: “The instructor created illusions, which had to be perceived by neophytes as clearly as if they were a reality. Neophytes evoked various emotional states and learned to control them. The instructor taught to remain calm and collected irrespective of what was happening. The students could, due to this, orient themselves in the most difficult situations and instantly take correct decision. Having mastered this, neophytes passed to the next level. At the second level neophytes had to feel various emotional states at command and without any special mental images. They had to feel them so profoundly as if they really had a reason for it. Starting from the worst negative state and moving step by step they came to the best positive state. For example, they started from the deepest depression, moved gradually to indifference, then higher and higher to joy and finally to the supreme state of happiness. Having succeeded in this after a long practice, the neophytes learned to move quickly from one emotional state to another, experiencing them one by one and doing it as easily as the musician plays the scale from the lowest note to the highest. At the third final level it was demanded to experience contrary emotional states, one after another without intermediate ones, for example to move instantly from the deep sadness to the greatest extent of gladness, or from feeling fear to bravery.
The neophytes were only allowed to do these exercises under the direction of the teacher. They demanded great nervous strain. Only after a long time neophytes were able to experience, without the help of the mental images, various emotional states so vividly as if they were external events of their lives. Even more time they spent learning to feel all the scale of emotions from the most negative to the most positive ones. Only when they had learnt to calm down their nerves after these exercises and were keeping them in this state of calmness during the whole day, were they allowed to the most difficult exercises. That is experiencing directly opposite emotions without any intermediate stages.” As the matter of fact all this took place at the times of ancient Egypt and, as you see, people trained there artificially. They artificially evoked some emotional states in themselves. But the humanity of the Earth learns very unsuccessfully and had to be on a higher level by the Fifth Root Race. For some reason, however, we do not hurry to part with illusion and the whole life around us gives us good lessons. You can remember a lot of examples from your life when you experienced those opposite states of your consciousness, coming at once from one to another. For instance, you were at a very good and balanced state when you got a phone call which filled you with rage or sadness. That is you go through the same training process in your own life. You simply need an explanation of what is going on in your life: we are all going through Initiations. There is no time any more to organize some special schools. So, “The aim of these exercises was to make disciples independent of both external events and their personal states. It means to give them opportunity to determine their states themselves, and to maintain emotional balance regardless of what was happening. They were taught constant introspection and self-control. People think that they always have reasons to be cheerful or happy. Thanks to the exercises with the imaginary pictures, pictures-fantasies, we for the first time realized that we actually don’t have such reasons, i.e. we have to imagine them intentionally. In other words, we always have a reason for any mood and we can learn to manage our reasons. Then there goes a stage of experiencing emotional state in itself, without reasons, without imagining a situation that could cause this state. After a long practice, we discovered that we always imagine that we have a reason for sadness or for joy, and we learnt and assured ourselves that the events of our lives must not exert any influence on us. Every state of consciousness only emerges inside us. One and the same event makes one person laugh, another one cry, and leaves the third one indifferent. All this happens because each one simply projects outwards his own inner attitude, while it is this attitude alone that causes our reaction – not outer events. Finally the disciple acquires an ability to always keep complete emotional balance in all situations in his life. And these exercises teach one more thing: everything that happens on the Earth is merely a transient dream, imaginary picture, which we ourselves project in time and space; and all this should only be taken as seriously as much it enriches our experience.” This confirms the words of the Masters that everything surrounding us is only a mirror reflecting our consciousness. As the matter of fact, this whole world is a gigantic illusion. Everything we experience, all our emotional states are just the same illusion. And we should constantly… When you reach a certain level of Initiations, it just allows you to remember constantly that this is illusion, and always react equally and evenly, no matter what happens around you. This is achieved through training, only through training…
The next part is called “The Initiations of Pythagoras”. There is an organization in America called “The Summit Lighthouse” and I have used the information they provide for this fragment of our today’s lecture. This text, as it seems to me, illustrates very well the way the neophytes were treated. If you remember, the neophytes were subjected to fearful trials before being accepted to the temple for taking the Path of Initiations. It was done to check how strong was their desire to learn and go though the Initiations. “Pythagoras, well-known to everybody since their schooldays, possessed other secret knowledge, besides the knowledge in the sphere of Geometry. Pythagoras was Initiated. He founded the school of Pythagoreans, established on the principle of Community. In his young years Pythagoras undertook a long journey from Samos to Egypt, being moved by his aspiration to know the deepest truths of life. In the temple in Memphis, however, he was told that foreigners were not admitted. After long talks, having assured himself that the foreigner was an exceptional person, the servant of the temple told him to come to the secret door of the temple at midnight sharp and then he would be let in. At midnight the stiff wind was blowing. Pythagoras came to the door and knocked. There was no answer. He went on knocking and asking to be let in. At last he heard a gruff voice ordering him to leave. “Why? - Asked Pythagoras – I was told to come at midnight and I would be let in.” The gruff voice answered: “But you weren’t said when you would be let in. Wait for the sunrise.” Freezing, he was waiting for the sunrise. Savage dogs attacked him. Slaves going past him at dawn jeered and hurled stones at him. Finally the sun rose. A massive door he leant against opened and he fell to the ground. Some hands grabbed rudely his long beautiful hair and dragged him to the hall. “Do you want to continue?” – The voice asked. “Yes, I do” – Pythagoras answered. His golden hair was cut. He was dressed in rough clothes. He was given some stale brown bread instead of food and was locked in the basement. Hot sand started to pour down into the basement from above and that went on until he was waist-deep in it. Near death, he again heard the voice: “Do you want to go on?” “Yes, I do.” – He said.
Back at the inner temple, he was ordered to go to some door and to wait nearby. Then they blindfolded him and told him to go in when the door opened. He made a step forward and fell into the well with icy water. Floundering, he heard the voice once more: “Do you want to go on?” His answer was: “Yes”. Another time he was tied to the donkey which was lead along a narrow path above the precipice. And yet again the voice asked: “Do you want to go on?” Pythagoras replied: “Yes”. Then the donkey was thrown down into the precipice. It turned out, however, to be not more than two feet deep. The bay at the bottom of it was the illusion made with the help of the lights gleaming from the holes in the wall. Such tests allowed making sure of the illusive nature of this world and also allowed to realize the reality of the invisible world. The readiness of the disciple to move on towards the cognition of the Truth is checked at every stage of these tests”.
Now we have finished this part, which gives you a chance to get some very rough idea of what the Initiation is, where it started, and how it was dealt with in the past, e.g. in ancient Egypt. The task of this seminar is, actually, to reveal the essence and the meaning of the Initiation and to let everybody understand what it is and how it is taking place now, in our life. If we succeed in this task, every one of you will have a concept of it. And you will bring this concept to the cities and to the countries where you live. You will not have to say anything to others, because they will receive all the information from your aura. You only have to be there. You only need to be there, to go on following the path, and to only take care about one person: you yourself, and about the level of your consciousness. One shouldn’t try to save the humanity. It is needed to save only one person: you yourself. The Path of Initiations is an individual Path. On this Path every human being works only with himself.
“The inner meaning of Initiations”. This part is mostly compiled from the lecture by Annie Besant. She was the President of the Theosophical Society after Blavatsky. In 1912, in London, she gave a lecture “Initiation. The Perfecting of Man”. Now I will read some extracts of this lecture and later you will have a chance to compare and see how the same knowledge, given through Annie Besant a hundred years ago, is given now in the dictations of the Masters. The same Truth, the same knowledge is given during hundreds of thousands of years. So, in her lecture in London, in 1912, Annie Besant provided the main meaning of the Path of Initiations. According to her, this Path is recognised in all the great religions,
and the chief features of it are described in similar terms in each of the great faiths of the world. You may read it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: The Path of Purification or Purgation; the Path of Illumination; and the Path of the Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussalmans in the Sufi - the mystic - teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You find it in the great faith of Buddhism and also in Hinduism.
Path is the short though difficult way by which the man evolves more rapidly than in the ordinary course of human and natural evolution.” That is, the man himself makes a decision whether to follow this Path or not. And when he makes this decision inside he starts going along this Path. “The first step of all, absolutely necessary, without which no approach is possible, by which achievement ever comes within reach of realisation, may be summed up in four brief words: the Service of Man. And in whatever life the man begins to think more of the common good than of his own individual gain, whether it be in the service of the town, of the community, of the nation, of the wider joinings of nations together, right up to the service of humanity itself, every one of those is a step towards the Path, and is preparing the man to set his feet thereon. And there is no distinction here between the kinds of service, provided they are unselfish, strenuous, moved by the ideal to help and serve. Anything that is of value to human life is included on that way. Choose then what way you will, because of your capacities and your opportunities; it matters not as regards the treading of the first steps. Commerce, industry, anything of use to man, production, distribution; they all come within Service for man and supply man’s necessities. Truly, men follow all these ways and many more; they produce, they distribute, they take part in industry or commerce, they are writers, artists, politicians, social reformers, doctors, what you will; but with what object, and moved by what motive? There lies the difference between the man who is on the ordinary road of evolution, growing by his work or his study, and the man who, while growing, is growing with the object of Service and not of personal success, with the object of lifting the world a little higher and not only of earning his livelihood therein.”
So, every man occupies a certain position in the world, has his source of income, profession and social status. And as the Path of Initiations doesn’t depend on belonging to any religion, the same way it doesn’t depend on the position and profession a man has. Everything depends on the way he does, what he does in his life. If he heals people and thinks how quickly and how much he will earn, or if he aims at having a political career in order to buy a cottage on Hawaii or get some kind of advantages… Everything depends on his goal. But if he does one little thing selflessly, if he does it in order to serve his neighbour, serve the world and all living beings, he has already stepped on the Path of Initiations, regardless of whether he knows that he is following this Path or not.
The very first element - you do something for the Common Good, for the living beings, you help your neighbour. You don’t go to your work in order to earn some money to buy something for yourself. You go to work in order to fulfill your duty completely honestly and to serve people. If your profession does not allow you to do it, you can find any other field. You can serve your children, your parents, your brothers and sisters, you can serve anybody. When you start doing it, you take the Path of Initiations. The Path of Initiations is not when you pray or keep fast. The Path of Initiations is when you serve selflessly, simply serve Life unselfishly. Annie Besant says: “I am not speaking with any idea of looking down upon, or with contempt for, those who are merely walking in the ways of the world with the ordinary worldly objects. That is a part, and a necessary part, of evolution. How should man evolve his mind, how should man train his emotions, how should man develop even physically, unless he considers the ways of the world, and makes efforts to succeed therein? It is well that men should work for the fruit of action, well that men should struggle in order to succeed, well that men should be ambitious, should grasp after power and place, after fame, honour, and success. Toys! Yes, they are toys; but they are the toys by which the children learn to walk, the prizes in life’s school by which the boys are stimulated to exertion, the crowns in the struggle of life by which strength and energy and future possibilities are developed. Do not despise the common world of men, in which men are striving and struggling, making many an error and many a blunder, committing many a sin and even a crime, for all these are lessons in life’s school, all these are stages through which every man must pass. As the fierce struggle in the world of the brute develops strength and cunning and the power to guard the life, so do the fierce struggles among men develop the power of the will, the power of the mind, the power of the emotions, even the power of muscle and of nerve. In a world which springs from infinite Wisdom and infinite Love, there is no lesson in life that has not its purpose, and in all the prizes of the world … in all the fruits of action which in the higher life you are bidden to renounce and to cast aside; in every one of these God is hiding, in every one of them Isis attractiveness is the only power that allures, and, although they break into pieces when you have grasped them, although ambition turns to ashes when it is satisfied, although wealth becomes a burden when it is gathered, although pleasure becomes satiety after it has filled the cup of delight; still this breaking and disappointment is a necessary and indispensable lesson”.
In other words, we cannot say that people are busy with something else in their lives, that they all live incorrectly. Every person comes to this world to learn his/her own lessons, and many people belong to different stages of the human evolution, i.e. there are people who belong to the 4th Root Race and to different sub-races of the 5th Root Race and they haven’t got their lessons yet. They have to try, to enjoy the fruits, they need to try everything and then to reject that. We can’t condemn anybody for doing that.
You don’t condemn a monkey for eating bananas or a dog for gnawing a bone. It’s their stage of the evolution. They do that because they belong to that stage. If you would like to belong to another stage, then you have to serve your neighbour disinterestedly, no matter what you do in your life.
According to Annie Besant, serving is not charity. “Much more than that is demanded from you, O you who would tread towards the entrance to the Path. You must give yourself, and not only what you possess - and in that there is an immensity of difference. You must feel the sorrow of others as you feel your own pain; you must feel the grief of others as you feel the piercing of your own heart. It must come to you as an intolerable goad to action, that presses you along the Way of Service, which you cannot deny nor resist. There, then, is the first great step.”
The charity which many people bestow, they think they have given their money and they’ve paid their debts to God by that. God wants to get us completely. God would like you to go back to Him. And we neither can pay Him off with a tithe nor with our own wealth. We have to give ourselves completely to Serving God.
Besant says, “wherever you see that, the person is approaching the Path, though he may never have heard of it. He is coming towards the Masters, though he knows not that They exist. There are some who are still in the twilight of unbelief in the spiritual life, who are nearer the entrance to the Path than many so-called religious men, who know the theory of religion but do not follow its practice. And there is one thing true of the value of the training of passing through a period of materialism - that in that there is absolutely no reward, no talking about the joys of heaven, nothing about “he that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord, and lo, what he layeth out it shall be paid him again”. In the life of the unbeliever, he sacrifices himself for man, and has no reward to look to, no return of outpoured riches to expect, and, in that, he gains a perfection of the sacrifice of the lower self that many an earnest Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu might envy him”
According to Besant’s thoughts, the occult rule judges of the motive, and not of the outer action in which that motive materialises itself in the world of men… …what you have to study is your motive more than your action.
So, that world religion, which is called atheism, that the Soviet Union followed, gave its fruit for Initiations. And every person made his/her choice, i.e. there were people who, in that system that existed in the Soviet Union, tried to get something for themselves, some personal benefit. You see, that is just a stage, the whole world is just a stage, and everyone can either express his/her divinity here or try to get something for himself, for his own ego to satisfy it. And there were people, who stood up for the idea, they died for this idea, they were ready to give themselves as a sacrifice to reach the tops of the communism. And there were other people, who used those to get something for themselves, some extra bread, caviar, a country-house the government could offer, etc, etc, etc... So everyone made his choice.
All that God wants from us is our development and our choices.
And further, A. Besant gives the qualities, needed to go through the 1st part of the Path – Purification. These qualities are formulated the following way: the ability to distinguish between something that is real and something that is unreal. That means that in order to follow the Path we have to possess one of the first qualities - the ability to distinguish between something that is real and something that is unreal. The 2nd quality is the absence of any attachments to the physical world.
We will listen to the dictations of the Masters, and the most part of these dictations is dedicated to the way how we can reject the attachments to the physical world.
The Masters give us the tools, spiritual techniques how we can do it.
The next point is the qualities of the mind, control of the mind, including control of thoughts and feelings, control of actions, tolerance and patience, belief in God, expressed inside and the belief in God in the Teacher, balance and the absence of desires and passions. These are the qualities needed to go through the 1st part of the Path of Initiations. We will listen to the dictations, and you try to understand that everything is given there about the same Path of Initiations.
When at the beginning, Lord Maitreya told me that it was necessary to organize a seminar “The Path of Initiations”, I was upset. I had that mood, because I didn’t know where I could find the material. And I tried to find something necessary for that seminar in Agni Yoga, in “The Secret Doctrine” and in the books by Elizabeth Haich and Annie Besant. And during one of the meditations I got a thought that I just had to read the dictations. So I started to read the dictations. I read all the dictations from the 1st one to the last one, and I read them from the point of view of The Path of Initiations, only from that standpoint. And I found out that there was everything there – everything that we could find in “The Secret Doctrine” by Blavatsky. The dictations are given in the different language for our level of consciousness, for Russian mentality that we have now. There is everything there. And then I was so happy: “that is so good!”
Let’s see how the same things that Annie Besant speaks about in her lecture are given in Buddhism. Buddha stated that the source of sufferings and all people’s troubles was darkened consciousness, desire and craving. Ignorance is the biggest evil and crime. He founded that the way to get rid of sufferings was in the enlightenment of the consciousness and in the gradual perfection of oneself. Opening the way to that Truth, Buddha divided it into 8 sound steps: discerning, based on the knowledge of the "Law of Cause and Consequence/Effect", thinking, speech, action, life, labor, vigilance, self-discipline and concentration. The noble way of 8 steps is the way to harmonize feelings and achieve the perfection of an arhat – compassion, morality, patience, courage, concentration and wisdom. On the way of self-knowledge 10 obstacles or fetters lie in wait for the man: the illusion of personality, doubt, superstition, body passions, hatred, earth attachments, pleasure desire and quieting desire, pride, self-satisfaction and ignorance.
The same is in Buddhism. The same is given in any world religion. That is the same Path. And in any religion - in Buddhism, in Christianity and in Islam, there are people who just abuse … the same was in the Soviet Union, there were people who sincerely believed and served and they got their reward, and there were people who used everything for themselves, for their personal self-interest. And many religious figures in order to live here and now act in a way to get something from those people who sincerely aspire to God.
As Besant says: “…there are subtler desires that may trip up the feet of the unwary traveller. There is the desire to see the results of one’s work. We work with all our heart and all our powers; we build our life into some project for the helping, the uplifting, of men. Can you, without a pang, see your project crumble in the dust, and the walls that you had built for shelter break down as ruins at your feet? If not, you are working for results, and not purely for the love of humanity; for if one has built ill instead of well - though meaning well - the great Plan breaks the work into pieces, and it is good. But the material is not lost. Every force put into it, every aspiration it embodied, every effort made in order to build it, are garnered up as materials for the raising more wisely of a greater building, which shall be according to the Plan of the great Overseer of the universe. And so we learn to work, but not to demand payment in results for our labour, sure that what is good must last, and willing that what is evil shall be broken.”
And when we prepared this seminar with the organizational committee we tried to act in a way that we were not interested in the result. Actually, it is not important how this seminar will go off. It is more important that we did it right from our hearts, and we did the work for God. It is not important for us how this will end because we’ve already done everything.
Besant argues: “Now what does this Initiation in the Mysteries mean? Quite frankly, it means an expansion of consciousness. Initiation itself is a certain series of events through which the man passes; actual events and experiences taking a certain amount of time, not a vague indefinite series of feelings, but actual communications and thoughts and actions gone through by a man out of the physical body, in the presence of a great assembly of the Masters. The result is that the man becomes conscious of a new world, as though some great new sense had been given to him which opened to him a new world surrounding him. As a man born blind might know the world by hearing, taste, touch, but if his eyes were opened would see a new world he had not dreamed of stretching around him on every side, so is it with the man who, having passed through the great ceremony of Initiation, comes back into Iris body, into the mortal world of men. Another world is around him, a new phase of consciousness belongs to him. He sees, where before he was blind. He knows, where before he only hoped or guessed.”
We will speak further about how each of you can get what is written here about, how you can get messages, how you can have certain states without abandoning your usual life but living your life. Now you are really able to get what was given at those times at Schools of Initiations. There’s also one important moment. Very many people try to follow the Path of Initiations and leave the world, seclude themselves from it. So… “We are going through something here; we live in the forest, in a hut…” You must not leave and seclude yourself from the world. If you do not become proficient in this material world, if you do not get your profession, get the highest possible level of education, intelligence, self-development, if you do not do it but just go to live somewhere in the forest – this is not the Path of Initiations. You must not look at people who are busy in their life with their business and say: “How materially-minded they are, that they cannot see anything but their own chores, and I’m high, I’m great, I’m on the Path of Initiations, I’m in a hut, in the forest…” No, you have to master this material world completely, you have to play all the toys of this world and reject the illusions in your consciousness. That is the Path of Initiations, i.e… because if your game with any toy is not over, at the narrow part of the Path of Initiations this toy will hit you badly. And the same is … the example of this is a man that wanted to go further in his spiritual path and read that one shouldn’t eat meat. One shouldn’t eat meat when going along the spiritual path – that means one shouldn’t eat meat. But the level of the vibrations of his physical body is not ready to reject meat, he needs food of meat. So he forces himself, limits himself: “No, I shouldn’t eat meat, I shouldn’t eat meat” … and eggs, and the rest of things along with it. With the power of his will he tries to lie to God forcing himself not to do something. The more he tries to do that the stronger the pendulum swings to the other side at some inappropriate moment and hits him, i.e. everything should happen naturally. However, you cannot go along the Path without such qualities as aspiration and constancy. It’s the 2nd moment, which A. Besant spoke about in her lecture. The 1st thing is your disinterested service to the world, to common good, and the 2nd thing is aspiration and constancy.
I’d like to read the extracts from the book by Elisabeth Haich “Initiation”, where she clearly and briefly speaks about the Path of Initiations.
“Initiation is the way that leads to the acquisition of the consciousness of the higher Divine Plane. A man becomes conscious at every level of his being. Before he becomes conscious at the highest Divine Plane, he needs a long physical and spiritual training. It is necessary to endure high vibrations without any harm for the organism. To become conscious at that plane, it is necessary to transmit the vibrations of that plane to the nerves and through them to the body.” That means to become conscious at the Divine plane. The vibrations of the Divine plane differ from the vibrations of the world around us. So, in order to reunite with the Higher Self and to raise the consciousness to a different level, a higher level, it is necessary that the vibrations of the physical body have become higher and been pulled up.
When we met Nicholas Seyanov, he said that he was concerned about the problem why sages had always had very bad health. They healed people, they lived in perfect conditions in huts somewhere, in solitude and nevertheless their health was not the best.
The answer to that question is given in these citations.
Our physical body belongs to the material world, and it consists of the things that we nourish it on. And as our physical body has the lowest vibrations, when we try to raise to a higher stage with some of our achievements, the physical body becomes the brake that holds us down. And gradually we have to learn how to raise the vibrations of the physical body.
And it is an inevitable process. Many people are terrified by the things they encounter on the Path of Initiations. There is a common prejudice that a man that follows the spiritual path correctly should have perfect health, be of good cheer and full of joy. Actually, those people, who have the appropriate vibrations of this world, for whom this world is natural according to the level of vibrations, are adapted the best in this world. When you try to get higher, it is obvious that you face different states of your consciousness. And your physical body starts to resist. These are the important things that it is desirable to make clear. We gathered here at this seminar for you to understand them. And then some people have the question that arises: “Why do we need that Path of Initiations, if it gives no health, wealth, but nothing… It’s not clear where we are called!” It is exactly on the Path of Initiations the man loses his job, health, wealth and the rest of things… So, the people who do not understand that, I guess, they do not attend such seminars. We’ll try to explain it to those who still do not understand that. The whole choice that we make is to decide between this world and the Divine World. And the whole level of Initiations doesn’t come to the fact that we become intelligent, we know everything; the qualities of the intellect confuse us on the Path of Initiations. When we reject this world we reach certain stages of Initiations.
If you remember the examples of ancient Egypt we illustrated, all the tests and trials of those poor miserable examinees were related to the situations in which they were tried to be scared to lose the body…in cold water or hot sand – poor they were tormented in different ways. And the examinee had to withstand that because he understood he was not that physical body, he was more than that, he was God, and he aspired to that Divine world.
And in that Divine world there are no such things that exist in this world, you see… So as soon as we begin to understand that and live in accordance with those principles, then we become initiated… You see what a dangerous teaching that is… It turns out, that we do not need anything in this world.
Now you understand those first Christians who got the understanding of that Teaching from Jesus Christ. That is a true Teaching that Jesus gave. And you understand why they died with such joy, because they realized very well they were not those bodies, they were happy to die, happy to overcome the torments.
Now we’ll continue…
Elisabeth Haich “Initiation”…
“The Great Initiation means a conscious experience of the vital energy and creative vibrations at every stage of development in their original purity without any transformation, with the simultaneous transmission of them to the nerves and the body, which needs appropriate resistance, to generate which physical and psychical training is needed. That means that it is necessary to prepare and awaken appropriate nerve centers gradually and carefully and to learn to control them.”
You know that the man has got 7 bodies. And all those bodies are connected with each other according to the system of chakras. And as our world and most people who live in our world have very low frequencies of vibrations, their chakras are polluted; i.e. there is a direct relation between the purity of the 4 lower bodies, the level of consciousness, the purity of chakras and the degree of Initiations. Actually, all these things mean the same. We can use different words to name them. We can speak about the broadening of consciousness; we can speak about the Path of Initiations; we can speak about the purification of the 4 lower bodies, but these all are the same. That will be just the process of perfection of the man, his approach to the Divine man. That’s the same. And all those nerve centers that we have – chakras, they are not entirely involved and do not work properly and, as a rule, many people do not have their chakras work. To make the energies flow through the body correctly the easiest you can do to start with is to begin with the physical body, its purification… Because… How can we purify it? One way is to remove from the body harmful substances and then try to have fewer unwholesome things. It’ll be correct. But the point is that when we start bothering about our physical body a lot, we leave the Path of Initiations, because we show the attachment to our physical body. The more we care about our physical body with the right diet, the way of life…it’s a pleasant thing to have rather a healthy body, but it won’t be the Path of Initiations, because we need the physical body, which causes us minimum troubles, and doesn’t bother us. That is the only physical body requirement on the Path of Initiations, because the attachment to the physical body is one of the attachments to the physical world.
“The Path of Initiations leads to the achievement of the consciousness of the Divine man. The man acquires oneness with his inner true essence that is not revealed in this world. The body is the visible half of the true essence; the other half is left in the unrevealed unconscious part of the being. Uniting these 2 halves we can return to the Divine Oneness.”
So, if you remember, in time of the Third Root Race the humanity was one with the Higher part. They had access to the whole fullness of the Divine Knowledge. And when a man was born at that time, he knew everything. Then we decided to play in this illusion and to get some pleasure for ourselves. The more pleasure we got for ourselves the more we went into the illusion and lost contact with the Divine World. And now our purpose is to return back to the Divine World. And, in fact, the Path of Initiations is related to that, to our return to God, to the Divine Oneness. “The man can broaden his consciousness, making the unconscious part of himself completely conscious, deliberately experiencing his unrevealed invisible Half, and reach the Divine Oneness in his consciousness that way. Although his body is left in the visible world, he can reunite his consciousness with his True Self that he fell away from. And then, right here in the earthly lifetime he experiences perfect bliss and can experience the state of consciousness of God, become God. Until the man is looking for his missing Half outside himself in the created world, he will never find oneness, just because it is not outside him, but inside, in his unconsciousness. There’s no creature that could live without the second unrevealed half. Uniting these two halves, the man finds his way back to the infinite All and Nothing and becomes identical with God. And then, the everlasting passionate desire of his revealed being will come to the end, and the sexual desire of his body will come to the end at once and completely. He will become Complete inside himself, right here, in the physical being he will experience the Divine state of immortality, bliss and realization, and he will become identical with the True Essence of every consciousness at once and awake in his True Self. He will reach oneness with God and the whole Universe, raise consciousness from his body, from his personal being and experience an overall cosmic consciousness, feel his True Self, the Being that is in every creature, in the whole Universe, in God. Then he will get from the world of Effects to the world of Causes, from the transient Realm to the Eternal Realm, from the created to the Creating, from the Realm of Death to the Realm of Life, in short, he will reach resurrection in the Eternal Essence. And that is Initiation.
During the Initiation the man experiences the highest 7th level of consciousness, but after it he gets back to the former 6th level of consciousness. When after the Initiation the man succeeds in getting conscious in the Eternal Being again and again, and he can experience that state during his meditations again, if he frequently enough raises from the 6th plane to the 7th Divine Plane by his own strength, he fortifies his position in that plane, and that plane becomes the only plane he lives in from day to day. Only then he becomes the Divine man. Only the one, who is tranquility and peace in his consciousness so that everything he does, thinks and feels flows naturally from that Divine State, expressing the Divine Will always and in all circumstances, always radiates only positively giving power of the Divine Love – only that man is truly the Son of God, the Divine man.
After the initiation the man uses his body only as an absolutely impersonal tool of God. The duty of every initiated person is to continue the work on the Earth to help other people to break away from fetters of the matter, body, blind fate and return back to the divinely spiritual state of Oneness again.”
That means
that those initiations which were at Schools of Mysteries… that was several
thousand years ago, during the Initiation, during the period of preparation to
the Initiation, the man was brought to an exalted state of consciousness by
altering the vibrations of all the bodies. And they got the Divine Insight,
bearing all those vibrations, they reached the other level of consciousness, the
sense of Oneness with Creator, the feeling of infinite Love. But then, as the
influence of those energies was over, they returned to their natural level of
consciousness and had to gain that state of Bliss again with their constant
efforts during meditations, raising by their own strength.
In other words, the Schools of Initiations, the Schools of Mysteries gave that
opportunity to the man to feel those exalted states so that he could know where
he had to aspire.
“After the initiation the man uses his body only as an absolutely impersonal tool of God. The duty of every initiated person is to continue the work on the Earth to help other people to break away from fetters of the matter, body, blind fate and return back to the divinely spiritual state of Oneness again.
But if the initiate works in the counter direction, i.e. uses his high spiritual energy for himself, directing higher creative ever-penetrating forcers from his divine consciousness to his body, he falls lower than an ordinary man who does the same with the consciousness fallen away from the Divine Oneness. The ordinary man transmits only the forces originating from his material being into his body. He uses physical forces in his body, and that doesn’t mean a fall for him, as he uses his forces at the level they come from. Material forces stay at the material level.
The initiate doesn’t work only with physical forces, transmitting his higher spiritual energies to the body, he falls away from his high state and falls very low - the higher the energy is, the lower he falls. That is why after the initiation the man shouldn’t do the things ordinary people do remaining unpunished, as he puts in action and radiates divine but not human forces. Directing them into the body, he will burn down the nerve centers and fall into an abyss.
The initiate, as he still can’t constantly keep himself at the 7th level of consciousness, represents the danger of a fall and the beginning of a new full wheel of fate. He has become conscious in the divine creative power, though with someone else’s help, and that tremendous power throws him away again, and then he has to pass a much bigger cycle than after the first fall, as he has become conscious in the Divine Power.”
Now I’ll tell you what it’s about in my own words. As you go through initiations the vibrations of your body raise and you become a conductor of the Divine Energy. Most people do not have that bond, their chakras are dirty and their bodies are polluted, so they live only in the material plane and use only material energies, material forces. As you become able to transmit more Divine Energy due to the purity of the four lower bodies, then the danger of incorrect use of the Energy appears. One thing is, for instance, I receive little energy and waste it, I got that amount, wasted it and it’s easy for me to work it out then. And another thing is that due to my achievements, I get a very big volume of the Divine Energy, i.e. I get access to the infinite source of the Divine Energy, and I must use this energy for the good of all living creatures, so if I do not direct this great waterfall of the Divine Energy for a good purpose, I create far bigger karma than the man who gets his little portion of the Divine Energy everyday. And that is how I roll back millions of years in my evolution.
For instance, there is the Peak of the Divine Consciousness, and there is a way to the Peak that goes through the deep forest, shrubs, and goes farther and farther…
So, if you fall in the meadow where birds sing, you don’t risk anything, well…, you might hurt your knee; but if you climb steep rocks, (and fall) you might never come back at all, or roll back very far, and you would have to start your trip again from the beginning.
That is why this Path is a rapid, accelerated way. That is the difference.
The man may evolve along with the whole society, i.e. the whole society is at some level, and nobody forces you to climb rocks, well…actually, you can wallow in here, but…when you aspire and start your accelerated evolution, you are given an opportunity within one life to attain the level of consciousness that a common man achieves may be in a million or several million years. How? – By the accelerated development, following the Path of Initiations that the Masters give.
But you may ask: “What is that for? What will that give?” In fact, it will give nothing to you personally but difficulties and problems. And a normal man will never follow the Path of Initiations. You should have perfectly Divine Consciousness to follow the Path of Initiations. In fact, if only one person in 100 years goes through the Path of Initiations, he gives that chance for the whole humanity of the Earth. I’ll tell you how that happens roughly.
For instance, some Cosmic Council hold a session somewhere on the Great Central Sun and say: “So, what is that humanity again? We torment ourselves over them, so much energy they have devoured, let’s cut them down…” now the others say: “No, see what we have here, our disciples, what achievements they have. One was crucified, another… they bear all that and their consciousness allows them. – All right then…” - they say…
So, those people with the Divine Consciousness are left as a deposit in the Bank; imagine some Cosmic Bank where all those unique people are in pawn for the opportunity for the Earth to develop further, you see… So, those people who are aware of that, they are ready for the Path of Initiations, those who are not… so what is that wallowing for, climbing somewhere, it’s quite all right here...
Actually, it’s the matter of…well, you do not have to aspire anywhere or go anywhere. And in fact, nobody is forcing you. If you would like to, you may follow or you may not…i.e. you are not forced to, you do not have to… But, there is a certain corridor of the evolutional opportunity, and we are at the border of this corridor now. There are those individuals, who say: “We don’t want anything, it’s so good here, we croak alright here, we have a wonderful swamp, so we won’t go anywhere, and we don’t want anywhere”. So the time comes when the patience is over, and They say: “That’s enough, they are no good for anything, they cannot develop”. So if the decision is made by some cosmic government body, and they say that the Earth should be the planet of freedom, it should be the Divine Star, it is obvious that those people, who do not want to develop, won’t have place on that Divine Star. And they, as retarded evolutions, will be moved from the Earth to some other less comfortable planets, like Saturn, etc, etc, etc…
Similarly the Earth once sheltered other civilizations from Maldek, Mars, i.e. those people, who didn’t want to develop there, were accepted here, but after that those, who will not want to develop here, will be moved to Saturn, another part somewhere else and etc…
That is the evolutionary development, but everyone should make their own decision, nobody calls anywhere or forces anybody. You see, I am not telling you that you all have to follow the Path of Initiations. My task is just to say that it exists and to say what it represents.
The Masters won’t be able to work with you without your “go-ahead”, without your free will. First, you have to wish to follow the Path of Initiations. You should express your willingness to serve. Then 7 years, when you are left alone, pass, and it seems to you that nothing happens; you forget about everything. And in 7 years… At that time you go through your tests which are related to the main qualities you have to get rid of: greed, stinginess, jealousy, craving for power, sexual desire, i.e. some imperfection. During those 7 years you face different situations in your life in which you have to make your choice. I tried to remember what had been in my life, how that had happened. And I remembered that in 1991, 1992 or 1993 I started reading the books by Blavatsky and “Agni Yoga”. And evidently I read something connected to the willingness to serve in those books, and I expressed that willingness. After that there were the years of absolutely testing situations, i.e. I faced an endless train of choices, and it was necessary to make decisions. Those were very hard choices which I’d better not mention here, but the sense of that was that if I had just made one mistake, nothing would have worked out. And actually, all the choices are connected with very ordinary things, i.e. it’s not related to anything global, but it’s some choices connected with common living situations.
But what, in fact, happens when you But what, in fact, happens when you your willingness to follow the Path of Initiations? They just turn on your tap to add the Divine Energy. Your Higher Self – that’s the outline – the Divine Energy is just added to you, and that Energy comes to the four lower bodies, more energy, and it starts pressing out everything from your four lower bodies, accelerating your karma. Your karma accelerates and you don’t have enough time to solve one situation when another one occurs and so on. That means that the problems or situations you would have to solve in usual way in several lives, now unceasingly arise during one life. And then comes the moment…yes, and in 7 years, 7 years later I found a Teaching by The Summit Lighthouse, the Teaching of the Ascended Masters that was given through an American organization The Summit Lighthouse. And very quickly in 2 or 3 years I got into contact with my Higher Self and through my Higher Self got into contact with the Ascended Masters. But after that the most difficult test began. The most difficult test is the fight with the unreal part (of you). I had a very strong ego; it was an indecently strong ego. And as you understand, it’s impossible to serve God and the Masters having a strong ego, i.e. somebody had to win. And that happened around 2002 when that fight took place. That resembled …I don’t even know what that could resemble. But during those 4 months that was, well, literally everything, i.e. I was fired; then my parents stopped talking to me, all my friends forgot about me… those 4 months although I was in the center of Omsk, I was all alone. Not a creature called me at that time. Then health problems began, I started falling into pieces, everything began falling apart. It is obvious, it can be explained, because the flow of the Divine Energy was increased, and my 4 lower bodies, especially my physical body, it was not ready for such energies. It started falling apart right before my eyes. Everything was broken down in me, every possible thing failed in me – my heart, kidneys, liver… And eventually, it came up to the fact that I hardly could walk about the flat, not because my knee was ailing, as it is ailing now, but because I had no strength to reach the kitchen to have something to eat. So… and those were very poor states psychologically, that went on until once, during the meditation…And my meditations continued, every day, the meditations continued and the contact was very good – everything was heard clearly. However, the Masters left me at that time, i.e. nobody talked to me. The only Master, who was still with me, was Lord Maitreya. Nobody just could bear that, but Lord Maitreya was bearing all that because of His Love towards the humanity and me personally.))) And once, during the meditation I managed to attain such a state of consciousness when I understood that I was nothing, God was everything and I was nothing. That was like resignation, so complete and absolute resignation, when I understood that, in fact, everything was in accordance with God’s Will. God has the right to do whatever He wants, and I have just to obey that Will. If God wants me to die, I agree. If God wants me to go about trash dumps to collect bottles, then that means I’ll do that i.e. that was a complete state of such resignation. And now if I cannot come to the state to take the dictations sometimes, I remember that state that I experienced at that time and I am connected up right away. Then, that state was repeated again the next day, and again, to consolidate that skill. They consolidated that skill, and then, as if with a wave of a magic wand, as it had been screwed up, it started to untwist backwards. The health started getting better, a job was found, and everything started falling into its place. But I had already made that final choice I had to make; I had overcome my unreal part.
When the moment of the battle with your unreal part comes, it is really similar to a fight. All your bodies are covered with wounds. You wound yourself. Your unreal part does not understand what happens. It can seem to you that you go mad, that you are incurably sick. It is really a dark night for the Spirit. It is a temptation in the desert. And it lasts long. It all depends on the degree of your "ego" resistance.
But as soon as you overcome your "ego" and strike your guardian of the threshold - your unreal part - you become a different person. Yes, you continue wearing a human body, you still stay on the physical plane, but the major part of you stays in another reality. You become a citizen of two worlds, staying simultaneously above and below. You become a point at which the worlds meet.
Now such a moment has come when for a big number of individuals the opportunity to follow this Path and to start movement on it appears much more real than it was literally a year ago. Space and Energies themselves support this movement.
That’s why the Ascended Masters give this seminar “Path of Initiations”. When the understanding of the Path of Initiations appears in your outer consciousness, it becomes much easier for the Masters to work with you. And the opportunity to take the Path of Initiations opens not only for a few, but for thousands and millions of people.
As long as 150 years ago, when Ascended Master Kuthumi was in incarnation and worked with Blavatsky, he corresponded with A.P. Sinnett. His letters are published in a book named “The Mahatma letters”. And already then he wrote:
“Why is it that doubts and foul suspicions seem to beset every aspirant for chelaship? My friend, in the Masonic Lodges of old times the neophyte was subjected to a series of frightful tests of his constancy, courage and presence of mind. By psychological impressions supplemented by machinery and chemicals, he was made to believe himself falling down precipices, crushed by rocks, walking spider-web bridges in mid-air, passing through fire, drowned in water and attacked by wild beasts. This was a reminiscence of and a programme borrowed from the Egyptian Mysteries. The West having lost the secrets of the East, had, as I say, to resort to artifice. But in these days the vulgarization of science has rendered such trifling tests obsolete. The aspirant is now assailed entirely on the psychological side of his nature. His course of testing -- in Europe and India -- is that of Raj-yog and its result is - as frequently explained - to develop every germ good and bad in him in his temperament. The rule is inflexible, and not one escapes whether he but writes to us a letter, or in the privacy of his own heart's thought formulates a strong desire for occult communication and knowledge. As the shower cannot fructify the rock, so the occult teaching has no effect upon the unreceptive mind; and as the water develops the heat of caustic lime so does the teaching bring into fierce action every unsuspected potentiality latent in him.”
So, now the student is assailed entirely on the psychological side of his nature. Therefore, no artificial buildings need to be constructed. There is no need to throw anybody down the precipice or into cold water, or to shower him with hot sand. Everything happens on the psychological level.
Here lies the difference between the test and the returning karma. When karma returns to you, you face some kind of problems in life for real, i.e. they exist objectively outside you. When you go through tests on the Path of Initiations, it seems to you that the situation is so bad, but in fact nothing changes outside you. The whole clash, the whole battle, everything happens inside you. For example, you work with the quality of some old fear, which has arisen in you, and it seems to you that you will die of starvation, your money will run out, and you don’t know where to get it, and you do not have a job and so on. You begin worrying about it, experiencing it just as if it was real. The test continues until you overcome this state in you. It is interesting that the amount of money stays just as it was - your attitude to the situation changes. Everything happens in your consciousness; nothing changes on the physical plane.
This is the new thing that happens now and that you may meet in your life.