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It dawns on the initiate, as he proceeds from one initiation to another, that each time he moves forward on the path or penetrates into the heart of the Mysteries in company with those who are as he is, who share with him the same point in evolution, and who are working with him towards the same goal, that he is not alone; that it is a joint effort that is being made.

This is in fact the keynote of an Ashram, conditioning its formation. It is composed of disciples and initiates at various stages of initiate-unfoldment who have arrived at their point of ashramic consciousness together, and who will proceed together until they arrive at that complete liberation which comes when the cosmic Physical plane drops below the threshold of consciousness or of sensitive awareness and no longer holds any point of interest for the initiate.

Have carefully in mind, therefore, the fact of group initiation, and forego the process of considered thought anent your preparation for initiation. Some groups are being prepared for initiation in which the following factors control—as far as the individual is concerned:

1. A group of men and women whose Souls are on some one Ray are gathered together subjectively by a Master on the same Ray, for group training.

2. Opportunity is given to such people to contact on the Physical plane some of those who are thus subjectively linked, and thus mutually convey a sense of group solidarity. The subjective relationship is assured by an objective contact. Recognition is therefore a preliminary test of initiation, and this should be remembered.

3. Such people thus being trained and related are, from the angle of the initiation to be taken, at the same point in evolution. They are taking the same initiation and are being subjected to the same tests and difficulties. These tests and difficulties are due to the fact of the Personality Ray which may be (and usually is) quite different to the Soul Ray. It is the Personality Ray which works to prevent contact, to mislead in recognition, to retard progress and to misinterpret information. As long as a disciple in training is focussed in his personality, group initiation will not be possible for him, his recognition of co-aspirants will be fleeting and rapidly disturbed by the critical lower mind, and a wall of thought-forms, created by the personality, anent the group members, will be thrown up and prevent a united moving forward through the Door of Initiation.

4. Group initiation cannot be achieved by a group in training until the members, as a group, have developed their particular "Spiritual enterprise." It is the law of the Spirit that the disciple must appear before the Initiator empty-handed, but that in group formation the group members unitedly contribute something to the enrichment of the Ashram. This may take the form of some considered project in line with the Plan, whereby they testify to their comprehension of that Plan and demonstrate to the initiate-company in which they find themselves, and those senior disciples to whose contact they are to be admitted, that they have already proven their fitness for acceptance and have proven it along the line of service. It has to be a group enterprise, a group service and a group contribution. The specific contribution of the individual does not appear.

This thought of group initiation must be remembered, for it will colour all that I shall seek to convey to your minds and will hasten the day of your own acceptance. No one is admitted (through the processes of initiation) into the Ashram of the Christ (the Hierarchy) until such time as he is beginning to think and live in terms of group relationships and group activities. Some well-meaning aspirants interpret the group idea as the instruction to them that they should make an effort to form groups—their own group or groups. This is not the idea as it is presented in the Aquarian Age, so close today; it was the mode of approach during the Piscean Age, now passed.

Today, the entire approach is totally different. No man today is expected to stand at the center of his little world and work to become a focal point for a group. His task now is to discover the group of aspirants with which he should affiliate himself and with whom he must travel upon the Path of Initiation—a very different matter and a far more difficult one.

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