20. Discipleship
- What's the difference between the eternal nature of the Christ and Jesus?
- What is the path of discipleship for the New Age?
- If we're all one, where is the place for individuality?
- What do the seven rays have to do with the seven chakras?
How did Jesus establish the path of discipleship for the New Age?
Jesus came as the great Guru, the great Master, the incarnation of the Word. We call him the avatar of the age, the one who was the fullness of God incarnate and who exemplified the person of the Son, although he was the fullness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We speak of the Christ as the only begotten Son of God. There is a bit of confusion concerning this only begotten Son because we have confused the eternal nature of the Christ with the singular Son Jesus. Jesus the Christ gives us the understanding of Jesus the Son. Jesus became the fullness of the Christ and therefore, in the order of hierarchy, earned the title of “Son.” He set this example for all of us to follow.
Beloved El Morya, Lord of the First Ray, explains in his book The Chela and the Path the essential nature of the Christ flame as the real identity of all sons and daughters of God and not only of Jesus:
“You who have discovered the flame within have at last discovered the Christ as the signet of your true being. This Christ flame is the sign, the living proof, that you are a son, a daughter of God. Let no man take thy crown.
“Let no man take from thee this appellation. Behold, thou art the Christ forevermore! The Christ flame is your claim to individuality in God, to immortality—to the perpetuation of selfhood beyond the mortal frame and beyond the planes of time and space.
“The Master of Galilee came to extol that flame, to set the example of a life lived in the flame. So you also have come called by God to be an example to the age, to set your mark upon the page, the mark of the life that is lived in God, of the love that is willed in Christ.
“As you claim the potential of the Christ flame, as you affirm your individuality in God, know that you do so with the absolute authority of your own I AM Presence and of the Holy Spirit. For he said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.”
“The fragments of the light body of the eternal Logos [the Word], the same “Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” are throughout the creation the fullness of the living Christ whom God, because he so loved the world, gave to every son and daughter.
“Understand that in the gift of life, the threefold flame, the LORD God literally gave to all of his children the flaming essence of the Only Begotten that through conformity with this essence the world might be saved from sin, disease and death.”
The great flame of God abiding within us all can be understood in the sense that there is only one God, one Christ and one Holy Spirit. In time and space, God has placed a replica, a duplicate, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as this threefold flame within the hearts of all of his sons and daughters. This flame is still only one God.
One times one times one always equals one. Though there be a million billion sons and daughters, still the flame is only one. We all share that essential oneness. It is through this oneness that we demonstrate the law of our Christhood. It is to this Christhood that Jesus led us.
Where is the place for individuality if we're all one?
It is in the gift of free will, which comes with the threefold flame. By this gift of free will, we choose which path of Christhood we will take. The paths are seven in number, corresponding to the seven rays that come forth out of the white light of the Holy Spirit.
If we have, for instance, a scientific nature and we would pursue the way of science, the ray for us is the fifth ray of science. Or it may be the seventh ray of alchemy and transmutation.
If we are an artist by nature and our whole life is a passion in the arts, we are not excluded from the path of Christhood simply because we are not inclined to demonstrate the law of Christhood in the same way Jesus did. Those who excel in the arts can achieve mastery on the third ray of love under the tutelage of the Ascended Master Paul the Venetian.
By the discipline of art in all of its forms, we come to a discipline in the Holy Spirit and to a total selflessness, because art itself demands the absolute sacrifice of the self for its consummation. Thus we have seen the way of love expressed by the great artists of the ages.
The seven paths of the chohans are each unique and special. Each one has its own frequency and its own way and its own discipline. All of us on earth today as children of God are finding our way back to the central sun of being over one of these rays, which come forth from that sun.
We have free will to choose our ray. And, as a matter of fact, we already chose our particular ray and discipline thousands upon thousands of years ago when our souls first came forth from the plane of Spirit and we began to incarnate on earth.
Many can immediately identify their position on one of these seven rays. It's quite exciting to realize that one's calling and the way of life one has known are truly a part of discipleship in the Aquarian age. Through many past lives we have developed a momentum of service and of dedication, and this dedication is not outside of the framework of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam but is wholly within the Path that God has consecrated through all the world's religions.
Is each of us confined to a particular ray? Does our experience overlap the other rays?
Although we may have been evolving for so many thousands of years in order to perfect a certain ray, many times we have come into incarnation to work on other rays so that we would have the full balance and the full complement.
You may find yourself, for example, very much on the first ray as a person of authority, a leader, and one who excels in the use of energy to draw others to a focal point of service, and yet you may also be inclined toward science. In such a case, you might say that you have a major on the first ray of God's will and a minor on the fifth ray of science. And so we see the blending of the rays creating almost an infinite expression of the personality of the Son, the Christ.
What about the seven chakras in relation to the seven rays?
God has given to us the seven chakras so that we might experience his consciousness in different frequencies. These frequencies correspond to the seven rays.
For instance, the heart is the place where we experience love. So, the mastery of the third ray of love comes through the heart chakra. We experience love through the burning in the heart for the master, and we have the intense love for the beloved.
The mastery of the fifth ray of science and healing comes through the third eye as the focalization of truth and vision and as the precipitation of God's abundance from the Macrocosm to the microcosm.
The seven chakras are a gift that God has placed within us so that we have the seven notes of the scale, the seven rays of the Holy Spirit, right within our own being. If we learn to meditate and use the Science of the Spoken Word, we can unlock the energies of each of these centers. And each of these centers leads us to the master of one of the seven rays (which are of the same frequency as the centers).
Do the seven rays have anything to do with the seven days of the week?
The cycle of seven is a cycle of completion and of wholeness. The cycle of seven in the week is a way whereby God releases to us the seven rays. Each of the days of the week is given to us so that we may master a certain one of the rays of God. And on that day we also have the testings and the initiations of the chakra corresponding to that frequency.
I've heard reference in some teachings to an eighth ray. Where does that fall?
The eighth ray is a ray of integration. It is the perpetual flow between the Buddha and the Mother. It is a transition ray between the seven rays, which are for the mastery in the planes of Matter of the Christ consciousness, and the five secret rays, which are within the white-fire core of being.
Eight Ray Transition To Five Secret Rays
The five secret rays represent a going within for the mastery of God, whereas the seven outer rays represent the coming without and the mastery of the environment. We go through cycles that form a pattern of the going within and the coming without, just as the Eastern teachings represent the going within and the Western teachings represent the coming without.
We see that the West is an arena for the mastery of the outer world. In this period of the turning of cycles that we are experiencing in the West, it is time to go within to the white-fire core of being. This transition of going within is accomplished through the eighth ray, whose symbol is the figure eight.
That's also the sign of infinity, is it not?
Truly it is, and it is infinity that we attain by the mastery of time and space.
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