The Pain of Exile

 Every person who has any real spiritual sensibility suffers from being in this world, and the more sensibility you have, the more you suffer. As much as you may love certain aspects of this world, you know it is not your real home. For that matter, the 'you' you appear to be in this world is not the real you either. You know there is a greater self somewhere beyond the one you experience in the here and now.  There is always this existential ache but you are fortunate for it is this that drives you to seek out deeper levels of truth than what the world has to offer, even in most of what it provides in terms of religion.

Your spiritual pain has another purpose too, one beyond the impetus towards personal growth. This world is sunk in darkness and separated from its source. The suffering of those who are aware of the soul helps lighten some of that darkness by aiding in reconnection. This is because it is a transmuting element that opens up the world through you as a part of the world to the higher spiritual that you can sense. Therefore, whenever you may feel particular pain or anguish know that you are bringing light into the world through that pain because you are, in however small a degree, piercing the shell of materialism that surrounds the totality of human consciousness. You are letting some light into the world. While you are in the world you are part of it and as a part that is somewhat conscious of higher reality you help to bring that reality into the world as a whole. In this way your pain helps in the healing of the world which may be a small comfort but should be some consolation. You are serving a purpose beyond yourself.

Those who have a foot in both worlds can act as channels between the two in a manner that benefits and uplifts, though they may not know it, many souls on the cusp of spiritual awakening.

Why pain, why suffering is the cry of humanity to God. Usually there is no answer and that causes the faith of many to fail. But if you looked on the fact of pain and suffering as evidence that this is not your natural state, and used it as a motivation to seek that state, you might be better reconciled to it. I am not saying this justifies or fully explains suffering, but the deepest love comes from the knowledge of suffering which breaks open the self. God himself suffers through his incarnation in matter and yet he joyously gives himself so that his creation might grow and become more like him.

The topic of initiation is one which the modern world, egalitarian, democratic, materialistic, has quite forgotten. However, in many traditional societies it was an important concept which could be applied on a variety of levels from the everyday, the movement from boyhood to manhood, for instance, to the deeply spiritual. Fundamentally, initiation means the transition to a different mode of consciousness and it always involves a kind of death. In other words, there is no initiation without suffering and the further one progresses on the spiritual path, the truer this is. The suffering comes about as part of the outgrowing of a previous phase of being and indicates you are being prepared to move to a higher phase. Suffering leads to death which in turn leads to rebirth. There is no proper initiation without suffering so let those who do suffer spiritually understand that this is a sign they are being prepared for a new and higher state of being.

The Spiritual Failure of Tristan

Tristan & Isolde is a great opera, one of the very greatest. The Act 1 Prelude, Isolde's Narrative and Curse, the Love Duet in Act 2 and the concluding Liebstod in which Isolde sings ecstatically of a transcendent union with Tristan after death are some of the most extraordinary moments in Western music. The impact of this opera was profound on late 19th century consciousness and marked all serious music subsequently. Countless writings testify to its enormous influence, and not just on composers but artists across the creative spectrum.

The music is extraordinary, and yet the message of this opera as it comes through in the libretto is one of spiritual decadence and death. Tristan, originally a solar hero, is undone by infatuation with a woman and consequently becomes a weak, pitiful figure whose inner sense of wholeness and integrity is completely undermined by his obsession. He seeks to shun the day and be absorbed in night, and this represents the overcoming of the spiritual strength of the sun by lunar forces which is essentially the overcoming of spirit by matter. 

That is the very reverse of the true spiritual path, especially the masculine path, in which the self is raised to godlike potency through conscious alignment with divine reality. Instead, Tristan seeks to be merged back into the chaos of pre-creation from whence his soul emerged. Overcome by his sensual passions and losing control of his inner centre, he seeks a return to the emasculating arms of the primeval matriarchy and a pantheistic dissolution instead of following the path of becoming a radiant centre of light himself. 

In this path he could still have loved Isolde but would not have let that love overwhelm his spiritual integrity. He would have been master of it although, in the context of the story, he would not have acted on it since she was betrothed to another man so he not only betrayed his oath of loyalty to the King, as related in King Mark's desolate lament, in my view the spiritual heart of the opera, but he also violated the sanctity of marriage.

This does not form part of Wagner's treatment of the legend but the story serves as an illustration of a test for an initiate (Tristan was a hero so at a high level of spiritual development) which he failed. There is no sense of this in the opera which is a straight paean to romantic love which, although ending in tragedy from the worldly point of view, sees the two protagonists finding their fulfilment in death with the implication they have moved onto a higher plane. But have they really or have they succumbed to idolatry? Real spiritual attainment only comes when the soul turns away from seeking fulfilment in creation, any aspect of creation, even a lover as soulmate, and looks for it in the Creator. Then the soul can turn back to creation and move in its confines without attachment or suffering.

Love is an excuse for anything runs the Romantic creed, a creed we have largely adopted today. But this is an illusion. There is love and then there is love. Jesus said that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends. Tristan and Isolde lay down their lives but not as acts of personal sacrifice. They are seeking the delights of heaven not renouncing these delights for the love of God. Only those who are prepared to sacrifice heaven for others are worthy to enter it.

There is a close parallel with that other Arthurian story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Here too sexual obsession and infidelity are the cause of spiritual failure and destroy an ideal kingdom. Lancelot was the greatest of knights but he proved unworthy at the final test, and, because he was the greatest, his downfall impacted the whole world in which he lived. Arthur's kingdom was destroyed. But unlike Tristan, Lancelot worked out his fault through renunciation and repentance as he lived the rest of his life as a monk just as Guinevere, his adulterous lover, became a nun in contrition for her part in the sin. Love does not justify everything. At least, what is called love does not do so. There are higher values which even love must obey.

Wagner's words may carry a misleading spiritual message because his metaphysical understanding was limited. He adopted Schopenhauer's misconception of Nirvana as non-being as Tristan's credo, and saw that as the peak of spiritual realisation. However, in Tristan & Isolde his musical understanding and power of expression exceed his intellectual and philosophical grasp as they also did in Parsifal which is a curious and unsatisfactory mish-mash of Christianity and Buddhism from the story point of view but contains music in the Prelude and Good Friday section that is amongst the most spiritually profound of anything heard in this world. Tristan & Isolde also has music that reaches further into the higher planes than practically any other, but one can see why some people have problems with Wagner. The music can seem too intense while the themes of some of his operas, and Tristan especially, do have something spiritually self-indulgent about them. Nonetheless, Wagner was clearly used by the powers that be to bring through something entirely new and open up higher levels of reality to the physical plane. He was certainly not a saint but then how many saints are creative artists of genius?

The End Times is the End of Term

 Demographers estimate that 109 billion people have lived on the Earth over the last 192,000 years, that being the date at which humans are seen as becoming properly human in the sense we now understand that designation. If you add to that figure the number of people alive today you get a total of 117 billion humans which means that 7% of people who ever lived are living now. It is thought that around 9 billion lived before the Agricultural Revolution in about 10,000 BC and that at that time there were around 5 million humans in the world, but since the Industrial Revolution the number has climbed dramatically with the global population hitting 1 billion around 1800 and then shooting up to where we are now. If you consider that up until relatively recently almost half the population died in childhood our present situation seems even more remarkable.

Obviously, the figures before recent times are highly speculative. But they are not based on nothing and the numbers and general trends they indicate are probably accurate enough. My question is does this mean anything from the spiritual point of view, from the evolution of souls point of view, or is it just a result of technological advances, medicine, agriculture etc? It certainly is a result of that but is that all there is to it?

I don't think so. In my book Earth is a School I said that this world is a training ground for the soul. Part of the mechanism for this training is reincarnation which, in the way I envisage it, involves an infant soul returning to a particular environment in order to develop its inchoate capacities, mental, moral, creative and so on. It is also required to make a choice in a world in which that choice can go either way for the reality of God is not a given here as it would be in the spiritual worlds. Here there is just enough material data to support either the acceptance or rejection of God so the inbuilt orientation of the soul, whether it is aligned to God or to self, is brought into play. Predominantly aligned, I mean, for both tendencies are always present in the soul as a result of free will.

The need for this choice has alway been present but what is happening now is that everything is being brought to a head. This is why there is such a large population and is yet another indication we are in that period known as the End Times. Extending the school analogy, this is the time of graduation. No doubt some souls have already graduated (though I personally think that only a few have) but now is the final exam for many with the choices becoming more marked. We live during a period when religion has lost its power so the choice we make is necessarily more of an individual one. It even has to go against the flow which makes it more personal and a truer test of our inner self. Those that pass will progress to higher spiritual worlds while those that don't make the grade will have to continue on lower levels of being with, no doubt, fresh opportunities further down the line but they will have missed an important cut-off point.

Growth Through Separation

I would like to relate a personal experience of mine to the wider experience of humanity as a whole over the last three centuries. It's not an exact analogy by any means but there are parallels which I find instructive.

Those who have read my Meeting the Masters book will know that from 1979 to 1999, a period of about 21 years, I was spoken to by spiritual beings who seemed to me then and I believe to be now the embodiment of wisdom and holiness. They instructed me in spiritual understanding and development though made clear that this was a long, slow process. That has turned out to be very true. They spoke through the medium of a man some 35 years older than myself. He was, as I was informed, taken out of his body during the procedure and one of them would then use his physical frame to speak to me. He, of course, had agreed to this. The voice was not the medium's, the manner was not his. It was quite literally another person or persons since more than one was involved over the years. I envisaged them as a group or extended family. They were all male except on a  couple of occasions when it was a female spirit who spoke. Even though these beings spoke through a man the female spirit was clearly female. I won't go into more detail here as it's all in the book except to say that this process started as a regular  and frequent occurrence but became much less regular and frequent as the years went by. I mention this because it brings me to the point I wish to make.

As anyone who studies myth and religious history will know, God or the gods were much closer to humanity in the past. The points of contact were many. It wasn't an everyday occurrence insofar as recorded history is concerned (it may have been in the very ancient unrecorded past) but it took place and did so on many levels. This decreased as time went by and by the time Jesus was born it seems to have been rare and exceptional. After the Incarnation it probably picked up a bit again but gradually over the centuries spiritual contact faded until it belonged only to the past. It was accepted as having taken place once but it didn't happen any more. Then, with the Enlightenment, it began to be doubted and was seen as belonging to the realm of imagination or even mental illness. This idea has taken a firmer hold until in the present day most of us regard any supposed contact with God or the gods as purely fictitious.

It is not fictitious. It happened but, by and large, it doesn't happen now. God has withdrawn from humanity and he has withdrawn so far that his existence is denied. We are unable to see that conditions have changed but we live in a different world to that of our ancestors, a different psychological world and, I believe, even a different physical world. It's the same as the child of 5 is the same person as the man of 50 but it is different as these two are also different.

So, God has withdrawn but why has he done this? Is it because of our wickedness? That would be a reasonable supposition but I don't think it is entirely correct. God has withdrawn to see how we get on without him. We have reached a certain stage in our unfoldment, one at which we have to start developing spiritual insight within ourselves. We couldn't do this if God were there holding our hand all the time. Therefore he withdraws to give us the opportunity to grow but also to see whether we will grow like this or whether we will refuse the opportunity. At the moment it seems as though most of us do reject God when he is not there to remind us of himself. We are failing the test of the heart. But perhaps as the situation changes and our material comforts are removed more of us may turn to God. He is merciful and will surely give us every chance to repent. At the same time, the repentance must be sincere. It must come from the heart.

The Masters spoke to me for around 21 years though this was substantially reduced as time went by. Their object was to awaken me spiritually but after a while I had to show that I could do this on my own. They acted as a bridge not a prop and once a certain stage was reached they left. Their medium then died. He was 79 and had done his work in this world. Before he died they told me they would still speak to me but on a spiritual level which means through impression. It was up to me to be receptive to this and to translate the impression as clearly and in as undistorted a form as possible. This was the test of my own inner discernment.

Something like this is happening to humanity. We are being encouraged to leave spiritual childhood and start to become spiritually responsible for ourselves. Humanity is going through a kind of initiation, both collectively and on an individual level. The collective initiation does not appear to be going well but the individual one depends entirely on you. Your individual success may even help the collective.

Jesus Christ and the Mysteries

It has often been remarked that key episodes in the life of Jesus can be taken as symbolising stages on the spiritual path for any true disciple. This goes along with the idea that Jesus's life was an externalisation or enactment of the ancient mysteries, those rituals that initiated the qualified candidate into the realities of the spiritual world, originally through the offices of sage-priests in touch with that world but in later, more degenerate times through drugs as the spiritual quality of both priest and candidate dropped and the materialisation of the environment reached the point at which the windows between the physical plane and higher ones became more opaque. I was once lucky enough to be left alone in the King's chamber of the Great Pyramid for a few minutes and it seemed obvious that this was meant as a place of ritual in which the neophyte would experience death and rebirth while lying in the stone sarcophagus that is the only object there. This was the core of the ancient mysteries. It was a dramatic ritual for the Egyptian initiate but performed literally by Christ as he revealed the hidden secret of life and made potentially accessible to everyone what had been open (and only partially open at that) to an elite few before. He did more than that, of course, but that was part of what he did.

The life of Christ can give us a deep understanding of the spiritual path that we too must tread before we are worthy to join him in his heavenly kingdom. I will examine seven major episodes from his life but there will certainly be more that can teach us new things about ourselves for it is a fact that a study of Christ's life can be endlessly revelatory.

Here are the seven episodes that I see as crucial stages to be passed by the aspiring disciple on his way to eternal life. There follows my interpretations of these stages but each one of them will richly reward further meditation which, of course, has long been known by Christians.

• His Birth.

The obvious beginning. Christ must be born in our heart. This doesn't just mean becoming a Christian for that can be largely an external thing. It means that we acknowledge the reality of Christ as the truth in the light of which all other truths must be seen. We accept his reality as the foundation of everything and resolve at the deepest level of our being to coordinate our soul to that. This is clearly an aspiration. We are a long way off from realising it and will stumble and fall many times but a sincere start has been made. We have reoriented ourself from a focus on this world and its goals to the higher spiritual world. I don't say this has specifically to be directed at the historical figure of Jesus Christ himself but, if it is within the parameters of any other spiritual approach, it should be directed towards something that echoes and holds at least part of the reality of Christ. The highest form of spiritual reality, of truth, beauty and goodness, we can conceive of at the moment.

• Preaching in the Temple.

This is a moment at which we have made some progress on the spiritual path and are able to share something of what we have learnt. It may not be at a very elevated stage. Jesus was only 12 after all! But it will still be better than the worldly wisdom of the "Doctors" who may represent the professionals of outer teaching.

• Baptism.

At this point we are brought into closer contact with the soul or higher self. This is the part of us that exists on the spiritual level, above that of the everyday mind which we normally assume to be the centre of what we are, and which is the source of intuition. It is the real beginning of being guided by this spiritual sense and going beyond the threefold lower self associated with the physical, emotional and mental worlds. We now really know ourself as the soul, something that until this point we have had intimations of but not been able to fully centre ourself in. We still can't do that but a point has been reached at which the balance of power has definitely shifted and the baby Christ within us has reached some kind of maturity. Clearly many people might think they have reached this stage before they have because their intellectual understanding of the soul has outstripped their ability really to be it. This is one of the pitfalls to be negotiated by the disciple, both in respect of himself and in respect of others, outer teachers, to whom he might wish to give spiritual allegiance. By the way, I don't think this stage on the spiritual path has much to do with the religious ritual of baptism. That is a symbolic echo of it at an earlier point in the cycle.

• Temptation in the Wilderness.

Once you have reached a certain stage of spiritual development you will be tested to see if you can maintain that in the face of appeals to egotism. Actually, tests and trials are an ongoing feature of the spiritual life but this is now serious stuff. You have attained a certain level of real knowledge. What effect does that have on you? Does it fuel pride? Is there a temptation to use it for your own ends? Or do you humbly accept the responsibility of it, seeing it not as your possession but as a gift from God, a gift that could be withdrawn should you react to it as your own? The significance of this stage should be obvious. It is perhaps the culmination of all the previous tests with the aim of giving you a clean bill of spiritual health. But it has echoes at many earlier stages of the spiritual path. Tests are one of the more important parts of the path and one to which we should be constantly alert. I say this as someone who has often fallen short where tests are concerned. But I suppose that's the point. We keep failing until we succeed. Failures are to be expected but we have to learn from them.

• Transfiguration.

I interpret this as the moment we become fully aligned with the soul. We are now, as it were, the soul in embodiment. The spiritual self illuminates the whole being of the threefold lower self which become vehicles of expression rather than centres in their own right. Obviously this is a stage in theosis well beyond most of us at present but I think it can be seen in the lives of some of the saints. Our being is irradiated by spiritual light. The process that came into full view at the baptism reaches a culmination. Christ in us has reached full maturity.

• Crucifixion

It is interesting that this last stage is not the conclusion of the path. We seem to have reached the pinnacle of spiritual achievement. What can there be left to do? But there is something more. We have to give it all up. All the hard-won spiritual success must be renounced for it is only by doing this that our motive can really be seen to be true. We give back to God all he has given to us, thereby showing that it is love of God that has driven us forward not the quest for some kind of personal reward. We are prepared to sacrifice all we have attained to prove our dedication to God. This is what Christ showed us in the Garden of Gethsemane. "Not my will but Thine be done". This is what it really all comes down to. The full renunciation of self. But please note this is not the seeing through of the illusion of self as in some forms of spirituality. Self is real. The crucifixion is agony. It is not some kind of peaceful transition to bliss. There is the sense of real and total sacrifice. There was for Christ and I expect there will be for us though it will probably be in the nature of an existential crisis rather than a physical one. For Jesus it was clearly both but that was because of the nature of his mission.

• Resurrection

After the supreme sacrifice comes glory. The risen Christ. The soul loses everything, or apparently does. But it must give up everything, and this is not done with one eye on the prize. It really seems to be spiritual abandonment and darkness. But after death there is rebirth. The soul is remade as a completely spiritualised being, an individualisation of God himself. It is the entry into the fifth kingdom of life, that of immortal souls. For immortality up to this point has been conditional. Now it has been completely won and there is no return. The resurrection of Christ marks the fulfillment of life and the return of the soul to its Creator but this time with full knowledge. The circle is complete.

These are the mysteries of Jesus Christ, demonstrated in his life which also, I believe, actually made them possible of achievement for human beings. He was the trailblazer who through his life and death connected the physical world to the spiritual, bringing them both together and opening up a channel between the two. He created a path that now anyone following after may walk if they so wish - and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifice for just because it is possible does not mean it is easy. But it is possible and we can do it with Christ as our guide.

Question on Esoteric Schools

Here’s a question that follows on from the previous one on how to determine the authenticity of spiritual teachings.

Q. I was interested to read your reply to the question about the books of Alice Bailey. I was a member of an esoteric group that partly based itself on these books, putting itself forward as a school for initiation. I did a lengthy correspondence course which went into all kinds of occult matters such as the make up of the spiritual man, the higher planes, techniques of meditation, chakras and so on. The leaders of the group claimed to bring through occasional messages from the Masters but these never seemed to add much to what was already known until messages referring to the coming world changes associated with 2012 began to come through. But by then I was rather disillusioned with the whole thing because, after the initial excitement of learning so many higher truths, I felt myself to be no different in terms of actual spiritual attainment. I knew many more spiritual facts but was the same person I had always been. What's more the attitude of superiority that some members of the group showed began to put me off. And then, of course, 2012 came and went with none of the anticipated changes. The leaders of the group gave their reasons for this but these were obviously excuses and so I left. However I remain a seeker. Are there any comments you might make about this experience? I don't regard it as completely wasted because I've learnt something from it even if it's not exactly what I was hoping for when I began.

I can make some general remarks. First of all, nothing need be wasted for anyone who treads the spiritual path. Every experience can be used to advance one's understanding both of oneself and of life. That is, if one chooses to react to the experience positively. As you say, what we get out of it may not be what we anticipated at the start but it may be what we needed at that particular point on our journey. In order to learn what is right we sometimes have to find out what is wrong.

Secondly, I must say that if any group claims itself to be a school for initiation you should look at its claims with a sceptical eye. Initiation, in its true spiritual sense, is not something that is organised by any earthly body. These may give basic spiritual training and be useful in that respect but they are probably only so for those who are (to use their own terminology) on the probationary path. That is to say, those have yet to anchor the spiritual current firmly in the heart so that they have actually started to become the soul as opposed to being a personality reaching towards it. These groups can help lay the groundwork and provide a support in which true spirituality can start to take hold, but that is always (always and without exception) an inner thing. Most of them would doubtless say as much themselves, but then that raises the question of what they are really for. Spirituality grows from the inside out, but what many of these groups do is effectively reverse that process because they present the spiritual as it exists when reflected in the mind.

For these reasons I would define most self-styled esoteric schools of the present day as exoteric esoteric schools. One must also consider the possibility that as the esoteric has entered the public domain, which it has over the last hundred and fifty years, any initiatory capabilities it might have possessed have diminished almost as though a quantitative increase inevitably leads to a reduction in the qualitative side of the equation. I am not saying that the publicizing of previously esoteric teachings is a bad thing or that it should not have happened. I believe it to be both inevitable and right as many people were in a position to benefit from the exposure of hitherto hidden teachings. But bringing something out into the light of day often causes it to fade a little. And, even if one disregards this, it has to be said that esoteric knowledge or the lack of it has little to do with initiation as it really is. What is important is (as it always has been) what a person thinks in his heart. How a person perceives the world. Not what he knows, or even what he understands, but what he is.

The concept of initiation can cause unnecessary problems for an aspirant in that it may well fuel pride and ambition. Spiritual training has many levels and we sometimes tend to over-estimate our position on the evolutionary ladder. So it is not really helpful to focus on initiation as a goal, especially since, let us be frank, no one in this world really knows what it is, not from the higher perspective anyway and that's the only one that counts. Far better to forget about spiritual status and rewards and simply seek to bring the lower self under the dominion of the higher so that the focal point of awareness is gradually transferred from the personality to the soul. Initiation might seem an enticing prospect but spiritual training has only one purpose and that is to teach the disciple to become detached from identification with the separate self. We must do this out of love of God and a burning desire for truth not for any other end or goal. If we do pursue the path with a goal such as initiation in mind we will pursue it at the mental level rather than the spiritual one, and so try to think ourselves into the soul. This is obviously impossible, and it was so I might avoid just such an error that the Masters who spoke to me recommended (or perhaps I should say, insisted on) both meditation and prayer for the aspiring disciple. This entails a balanced approach of head and heart. Meditation opens up a channel between lower and higher self, mind and soul, and allows the latter to receive the spiritual influence of the former. But you need the humbling experience of prayer also (in the Master's words) in order to purify the lower self through submission to a higher power because the purer it becomes, the fewer obstructions it places between itself and the soul, the more it will be able to receive and accurately reflect the soul's influence, eventually reaching the point where it may become one with it.

So, the idea of initiation has its problems but it can be helpful too as it introduces the sense of gradual steps along the path, and gets rid of the nonsensical notion that full and complete enlightenment is available to anyone at any time simply because we all have consciousness. Nevertheless the fact remains that initiation, as a spiritual reality, is not something any worldly group or esoteric school can prepare you for, other than by introducing you to the spiritual basics, because it is not gained through method or practice or understanding (necessary as these all may be), or any outward activity of the self.  It comes only with the awakening of the heart. It is entirely dependent on an authentic inner response to the soul, and this response must be sufficiently strong that, of itself, it starts the process of transformation.

Those who feel they benefit from membership of an esoteric school can ignore what I have written above. If something works for you then stick with it. At least until it no longer does. The remarks made here are in response to the question above, but are also addressed to anyone who finds a gap between their inner perceptions and outer presentations of truth. 

A Question on Enlightenment

Q. You sometimes use the words enlightenment and liberation which are normally associated with an Eastern worldview, but then you have also used salvation to describe seemingly the same thing though that is a purely Christian concept. My question is, do you understand these words to have an identical meaning?

A. I must admit to being a bit loose with my terminology at times. For better or worse, I don't come at spirituality from a specifically Christian, Hindu or Buddhist position or from the perspective of any particular form of spirituality, though many have guided my thinking and helped me formulate my own intuitions. I was brought up in a Christian culture and have studied (though not that extensively) many other religions and philosophies. I have learnt something from all of them. However I am not a follower of any of them, and the reason for that is that I feel any belief system would impede the flow of my own understanding, and contaminate the purity of my own perception. It would constitute a barrier between me and the truth, or as much of it I can grasp. Obviously I am not saying I know better than those who formulated the doctrines of these systems, but eventually we all need our insights to be our own if they are to be true for us.

Incidentally, I have sometimes been asked why the Masters came to me as they did. I could fall back on assumed past life connections and these may have existed but I don't know. More to the point is this.  I believe that the Masters can come to us (whether in person or, more usually, through the intuition) when we have exhausted all worldly forms of spirituality and are no longer satisfied by any of them, the highest as well as the every day exoteric. This was something like my position at the time I encountered them, and it was also Michael's when he first made contact with the Masters. He had been a Benedictine monk, received initiation from a swami of the Ramakrishna order, explored Buddhism and so on. Nothing answered his inner questions in a way that did not require some kind of compromise with what he felt to be the truth. When there is nothing in the world that truly satisfies your spiritual yearnings then, perhaps, you are ready for instruction by higher beings even if that instruction takes place without you being consciously aware of it.

Be that as it may, the point is that I have taken ideas from various places if they coincide with what I consider to be reality but I don't go along with anything entirely. I imagine that is true for many of us these days when we are exposed to so many different forms of spirituality in a way that would not have been possible until recently. I have used the word enlightenment, even though the Masters never used that word or even discussed a state that might resemble that, because it is the standard word to describe a state of spiritual arrival and/or completion, and it does describe something real which is the transcending of identification with the world of becoming. But, actually, I don't think of spirituality in terms of enlightenment. As you say, it is a specifically Eastern, in fact, Buddhist idea. The same goes for liberation or realization. I use these terms because they are common nowadays and they do mean something which most spiritual aspirants understand.  But in many ways I consider the idea of enlightenment to be potentially spiritually counter-productive because it puts so much focus on the self and its aims, in reality if not in theory. It is also responsible for massive amounts of illusion and self-deception. So for me a more interesting way of looking at the spiritual journey is in terms of initiation though I freely admit this has very similar risks. But at least it recognises that there are stages on this journey, and it is more realistic to aim for the next stage than to think you might be ready for the grand finale straightaway.

So what is initiation? Many traditions include this concept but I am not referring to anything bestowed by an earthly teacher. Nor to any ceremony or rite that forms part of the trappings of a particular religion or cult. Esoterically considered, initiation is said to relate to stages in the process of purification and disidentification from form on the one hand, and an increase in sensitivity plus growth of intuitive awareness on the other. The first three initiations are sometimes linked to the successive mastery by the soul of its physical, emotional and mental vehicles, but I think this is too simplistic as we address all three aspects of our expressed being at the same time when we tread the path, even if the focus may be on one or another at different stages. I would say that initiation can best be thought of as an opening up of spiritual consciousness and detachment from worldly concerns. It entails the transfer of the centre of awareness from the mind to the soul. That is to say, from the thinking, feeling and doing parts of our nature (which, properly considered, are external to our real self and only exist for the purposes of the expression of that self) to the spiritual consciousness that lies behind them. Despite erroneous claims that enlightenment can happen to anyone at any time, this is a long process and the various initiations mark stages in that process, stages during which the disciple becomes progressively detached from the belief that this world is the real world. He doesn't regard it as false or an illusion (that is actually an intellectual position rather than a spiritual one), but sees it as the manifestation in form of a formless reality, and having no purpose other than as a), a school for the development of consciousness (this is its purely functional side), and b), a platform for the expression of spiritual truth which includes goodness and beauty. That is the side relating to creativity. God is creative and so should we be though our creativity, if it is to be worth anything, should reflect eternal realities and not just be a shallow self- expression.

This world, then, might be said to have a threefold purpose. It exists primarily as a training ground for souls, but it is also a canvas on which to paint beauty and an arena in which to demonstrate goodness. That is why those who use the fact of a higher reality to reject this world and dismiss qualitative differences within it are mistaken. The world may not be ultimately real but it is part of reality and should be made to correspond to what is really real as much as possible. Form is not truth but some forms reflect more of truth than others which is why a stone is not the same as a lump of gold even if both are manifestations of the One Life.

An often forgotten point is that it is the soul that receives initiation not the incarnated person so much of initiation relates to the soul on its own plane. However some of that will inevitably make an appearance in the disciple's earthly consciousness. The first initiation marks the point at which one's initial searching and practice has borne some fruit. The prizes of the world having been experienced and lost their allure, the disciple has looked up and seen beyond this world. He has pursued the path and made some headway on it. The spiritual current is now established in his heart and he is no longer just a seeker but a person of some real knowledge and attainment. But he is still on the outside looking in. He is still a personality, albeit one aware of the soul and able to demonstrate something of its light. His task now is to bring that personality more and more into line with the soul, in effect transferring the centre of consciousness from one to the other, so that gradually he becomes not a personality aware of the soul but a soul expressing itself through a personality. This is said to be the point at which the third initiation can be taken. The disciple is henceforth a fully spiritual being in that he has realised and can be the soul in incarnation. This is a high stage of development, one that the majority of spiritual teachers in the world have still not reached.

But it is not enough. Now everything the disciple has achieved must be given up. The perfection of his being must be renounced and placed on the sacrificial pyre. He must be nothing and nobody. Because the same patterns repeat themselves at different turns of the evolutionary spiral, this experience, which is the culminating point of an individual soul's whole spiritual development, will not be entirely new. The disciple will have suffered abandonment, experienced darkness and been required to let go and give up many times before in the cycle of his earthly incarnations. But this is the crucifixion of the soul, the moment when it is required that you give up not something but everything. You hold back nothing for yourself, indeed nothing of yourself. You give up all. And that is the moment of release.

The soul is now identified with its Maker but, because identification does not mean identity, it remains itself, though in a totally transfigured form with individuality henceforth more a circumference than a centre.

This is the scenario of initiation. Whether it is literally the path trodden by every soul or not is of secondary importance. It is symbolically true for everyone. It is the way of the soul, and it culminates, as all initiations do, in death and rebirth, a rebirth which is enlightenment, liberation and salvation all at one and the same time.