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THE THREE CROSSES

It will be necessary to remember nevertheless that there are an infinite number of permutations possible, of complexities and relationships, due to the vast number of possible combinations existing in the path of life of the individual and dependent upon his stage of evolutionary unfoldment. These might be divided into three groups through a broad, but necessarily inadequate, generalisation:

  1. Average and undeveloped man, living below the diaphragm and with the emphasis of the incoming energies and forces focussed either in the Solar Plexus or in the sacral center.

  1. A large number of people who are in an interim stage, with the energies and forces focussed mainly in the lower center but at the same time playing quite frequently through the Throat center and evoking a faint response from the heart and the Ajna centers.

  1. People upon one or other of the final stages of the Path, with the emphasis passing rapidly away from the lower centers into the higher triad and with the highest Head center in process of awakening. These people also fall into two major groups:

  1. Those who are using the Solar Plexus center as a vast clearing house for the incoming

        energies and who are beginning to work through the throat and the Heart centers, with the

        goal of completely awakening the Ajna center.

  1. Those who are using all these centers, but in whom the Heart center is fully awakened and

        the triangle of force in the head (from the Ajna center to the Head center and from the head

        center to the center found in the medulla oblongata) is beginning to function.

When these centers are all awakening, their simplest combinations are the following triangles. The Science of Triangles underlies all astrological deduction as well as the centers in the human body. This you know, but the four triplicities of orthodox astrology are only the rudiments of this true science, which lies behind the orthodox interpretations.

The Cardinal Cross

The Fixed Cross

The Mutable Cross

Initiation

Discipleship

Evolution

The Planetary Logos

Humanity

Kingdoms in Nature

Cosmic Initiation

Solar Initiation

Planetary Initiation

Spirit

Soul

Body

Life

Consciousness

Form

Monad

Ego

Personality

Three Initiations

(Initiates)

Two Initiations

(Disciples)

(Average Man)

I would ask you to remember that though I shall trace the progress of the man from sign to sign around the zodiacal way, yet there is not necessarily this ordered sequence of travel or the smooth passage from sign to sign as I may portray it. All Souls come into incarnation in the sign Cancer. By this I mean that the very first human incarnation was always taken in this sign which has been recognised down the ages as "the doorway into life of those who must know death," just as the constellation Capricorn is ever regarded as another door and is called esoterically the "doorway into life of those who know not death." As the ages slip away, the man passes into and out of all the signs, the particular sign being determined by the nature of the Personality Ray which itself changes, as you know, from life to life. In those signs he learns the needed lessons, broadens his horizon, integrates his personality, begins to sense the conditioning Soul, and thus discovers his essential duality.

When he is upon the Path of Discipleship (and here I include the Path of Initiation) occult rumour says that he then becomes conditioned by the tireless Watcher, the Soul, and is subjected (during the final stages of the path) to exactly twelve incarnations, passing one in each of the twelve signs. In them he has to prove himself, attaining great moments of crisis in each of the constellations of the Fixed Cross in particular. From point to point, stage to stage, and finally Cross to Cross, he fights for his Spiritual life, in all the twelve houses and all the twelve constellations, subjected to countless combinations of forces and energies—ray, planetary, zodiacal and cosmic—until he is "made anew," becomes the "new man," is sensitive to the entire range of Spiritual vibrations in our solar system and has achieved that detachment which will enable him to escape from the wheel of rebirth. He has accomplished this by mounting the three Crosses—the cross of the Personality or the changing form, the Cross of the Disciple or the eternal Soul, and the Cross of the Spirit. This means that he has passed through three momentous crises in his life cycle.

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