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One of the tests of the initiatory process is a hitherto totally unexpected one. Tests which are expected and for which preparation has been made do not constitute true tests in the real sense of the word, esoterically understood. It is a test—imposed with increasing rigidity as initiation after initiation is taken—to see just how far the initiate is capable of retaining or preserving in his brain consciousness the registered facts of several worlds or planes of consciousness; i.e., the three worlds of human endeavour and the world of Soul consciousness, or both of these and the world of the Ashram; or again these and the activity of the Hierarchy itself, viewing it as a complete whole; or again, of all these and the world of Triadal experience, until the point is reached where a straight continuity of consciousness can be registered and held which comes directly from the Council Chamber of the Lord of the World to Those Masters Who are functioning in a physical body and must therefore use a physical brain. In every single case the test (in order to be passed correctly) must involve the brain consciousness; the facts, registered upon the subtler planes, must be correctly registered, recognised and interpreted simultaneously upon the Physical plane.
You can see for yourselves that this is a major and most necessary indication of a developing awareness; a Master has to be aware at any time on any plane and at will. It will also be obvious to you that this will be a growing and an increasing perception for which the intermediate stages, between initiations, prepare the initiate. Gradually, each one of the five senses, plus the common-sense (the mind), has to demonstrate the effectiveness of its higher correspondence and thus of a developing subtle apparatus. Through this apparatus the initiate is put in touch with widening areas of the divine "state of mind" or with the planetary consciousness, until "the mind that is in Christ" becomes truly the mind of the initiate, with all that those words entail of meaning and esoteric significance.
Consciousness, Sensitivity, Awareness, Planetary Rapport, Universal Consciousness—these are the words which we must consider, sequentially developed and in their truly esoteric sense.
The Dual Life of the Disciple
I have divided this theme into two parts, owing to the fact that the dualism displayed by a Master and that demonstrated by a disciple are not identical or one and the same thing at advancing points of distinction. The subject, when you first approach it, seems of a relative simplicity, but a closer consideration of it will present great and unexpected dissimilarities.
In connection with the dual life of the disciple, the factors involved are the threefold personality (with an awakening or onlooking consciousness centered or focussed in the brain), the Soul which seems at first the ultimate goal of attainment but is later seen as simply a system or collection of fusing Spiritual attributes, and the lowest aspect of the Spiritual Triad, the abstract mind. The disciple feels that, if he can attain the immediate and fused consciousness of the three, he has attained; he realizes also that this involves the construction of the Antahkarana. All these factors, for one who has just been admitted to the Path of Discipleship and who is just finding his place within an Ashram, seem an adequately difficult undertaking and one that engrosses every power which he possesses.
This, for the time being, is true and—until the third initiation—these objectives, their conscious fusion, plus a recognition of the divine planes of awareness to which they all admit him, indicate the disciple's task and keep him fully occupied. To the recognitions entailed he has to add a growing capacity to work on the levels of consciousness involved, remembering always that a plane and a state of consciousness are synonymous terms, and that he is making progress, becoming aware, building the Antahkarana, training as a hierarchical worker within an Ashram, familiarising himself with new and opening Spiritual environments, widening his horizon, stabilising himself upon the Path, and living upon the Physical plane the life of an intelligent man within the world of men.
At first, his registration of that which is sensed or seen upon the subtler planes or the Soul plane is slow; it takes time for contacts and for knowledge gained to penetrate from the higher levels to his physical brain. This fact (when he discovers it) tends to upset his time-awareness, and the first step is therefore taken on the path of timelessness, speaking symbolically. He gains also the capacity to work with greater rapidity and mental coordination than does the average intelligent man; in this way he learns the limitations of time as a brain condition, and learns also how to offset it and to work in such a way that he does more within a set time limit than is possible to the average man, no matter how ardently he may pursue the effort. The overcoming of time and the demonstration of Spiritual speed are indications that the dual life of discipleship is superseding the integrated life of the personality, though leading in its turn to a still greater synthesis and higher integration.
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