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Humanity occupies a midway point between the subhuman and the superhuman kingdoms, and each of these groups of evolving lives has its own important destiny—important to all contained within the group ring-pass-not. They have their own chosen and differing modes, methods and ways of achievement. Just as individual man has to learn the art or science of relationship to other men and to his environment, so humanity as a whole has to learn its relationship to that which lies above and beyond mankind and with that which is below and left behind. This involves a sense of proportion which can be attained only by the mind principle in man and by those who are beginning to be mentally polarised. This sense of proportion will reveal to men their place upon the ladder of evolution and lead them to the recognition of the peculiar destiny and unique goals of other kingdoms in nature, including the fifth kingdom, the Kingdom of God, the Spiritual Hierarchy of our planet.
The Hierarchy is itself also at a point of Spiritual crisis. Its initiates stand before the Door which leads to the Way of the Higher evolution and the entire personnel of the Hierarchy waits to make a united move forward, paralleling—on its own level—the move forward which humanity is also destined to make.
But, my brothers, here is the point of interest. Under the great law of synthetic expression (called by us the Law of Synthesis, the law governing the first divine aspect) the Hierarchy must move forward in such a manner that the effort must encompass the Physical plane as well as the higher planes. The activity engineered must cover the three worlds of human evolution as well as the three worlds of the Spiritual Triad. Forget not the overlapping of these two worlds which takes place upon the Mental plane and warrants the well-known phrase "the five worlds of superhuman evolution."
Hence, therefore, the necessity for the externalisation of the Hierarchy and the demonstration of Their united ability to work from the Physical plane up to the highest, in order to move unitedly through this Door on to the Way. Speaking symbolically, this externalisation is for the Members of the Hierarchy an act of sacrificial service, but it is also a symbolic gesture. The Hierarchy incarnates on Earth again, and for the first time since its last incarnation in Atlantean days. It is, however, a group incarnation and not the incarnation of individual Members.
The externalisation of the Hierarchy, therefore, and the restoration of the Mysteries, are not something done for humanity or simply carried out because men have earned a closer contact, have the right to some reward or are now so Spiritual that the Hierarchy can have a good and useful time helping them.
The picture is entirely different. What looms with such importance in the consciousness of men is, in reality, quite secondary in relation to the hierarchical crisis which we are considering. This reappearance upon the Physical plane and the consequent life of service (involving factors of profound significance to men) are an expression of the inherent Spiritual impulse which is impelling hierarchical action in two directions but involving one unified movement, embracing all the five planes of superhuman evolution and necessitating a group recapitulation of incarnated process.
The Hierarchy has its own life and its own goals and objectives, its own evolutionary rhythm and its own Spiritual expansions; these are not the same as those of the human kingdom. These goals and rhythms will become more familiar to thinking men as the Hierarchy approaches closer to the Physical plane.
The Mysteries are revealed not primarily by the reception of information anent them and their processes, but by the action of certain processes, carried out within the Etheric body of the disciple; these enable him to know that which is hidden; they put him in possession of a mechanism of revelation and make him aware of certain radiatory and magnetic powers or energies within himself which constitute channels of activity and modes whereby he may acquire that which it is the privilege of the initiate to own and to use.
The disciple upon the Probationary Path starts off on his quest for the door of initiation, and for that which he will contact after passing through that door, with a definite equipment and created mechanism. This has been acquired, and facility in its use has been attained, through many cycles of incarnation. An incarnation is a definitely determined period (from the angle of the Soul) wherein Experiment, Experience and Expression are the keynotes in each incarnation. Each successive incarnation continues the experiment, deepens the experience and relates the expression more closely to the latent unfolding divinity. Every initiation is approached by the disciple or initiate in a Spirit of divine experimentation, but with a scientific aspect, because an initiation is a culminating moment of achievement, and success is a graded series of experiments with energy.
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