The black hole teachings allow us to experience something of our monadic reality and therefore something of the energy of planetary purpose. We need this to balance our personality and solar identities and then to open up the door to the cosmic astral plane. In the Taurus chapter of Working with the Will, DK reminds us that we are essentially cosmic desire that has set up three stations on the cosmic physical plane – the monad, soul and personality, and then ‘fallen twice’ so that by the time we are in deep physical incarnation we primarily identify with the personality, and so the spiritual path begins. When we are able to re-identify as monad on the monadic plane then the cosmic paths open as you indicate – well, they open to our awareness on the buddhic as they have always been there but we get the opportunity to leave on one of them from the monadic. These paths mainly lead to the cosmic astral but also the cosmic mental and in one case the cosmic buddhic. So when the monadic identity turns in on itself in the seventh direction, Being gives way to Beness and we know ourselves as cosmic desire without substance (cosmic physical substance anyway). We are insubstantial, but the cause of the animation and sentiency and life on all the seven planes. This is like going through the black hole instead of residing as it. This is also a cosmic physical reality. If black holes as monad represent the higher three ethers, the suns as souls representing the central three planes and planets etc. as personalities representing the lower three cosmic physical planes, then cosmic desire or the cosmic astral is what all these entities are manifesting within just as our astral plane surrounds and penetrates (to some degree, i.e. the higher four ethers) our physical.
So when we pass through the black hole we rest as desire – both full and empty and yet we know there are more and more subtle levels. To touch these mysteries and those of the cosmic paths we can look at the analogy of the cosmic physical plane.
When we find the door in the centre of the personality it opens into soul (the esoteric path). When we find the door in the centre of the soul it opens into monad (the occult path). We could liken this to going to the centre of the Earth and finding a ‘path’ that leads to the sun (and indeed many esoteric groups make this connection). Once we identify as the sun and integrate the six directions we enter the centre and find the path in the core of the sun that leads to the black hole – the monadic path. In the centre of the monad we find the doorway to the cosmic paths.
Ok, so this is the transcendent journey – transcend , include, integrate, penetrate. Now let’s consider the immanent path – the more feminine approach. We go to the core of the Earth, feel the path to the sun open and REFUSE that path. Now we can refuse because of fear, greed, etc., or we can refuse out of SACRIFICE – really a deeper love and instinctual knowing that there is more. This is a key to some of the indigenous races and the ‘so called sins of the mindless, etc.” If we refuse the soular door out of sacrifice then the door to the monad opens behind it – or in the cosmic analogy – the path to the galactic centre. This is what I think happened in the Mayan culture. They made the shift from polar centre (the northern centric traditions from Siberia, etc.) to solar – equatorial realities – Pleiades etc. – to galactic. In their mythology their is a door in the centre of the Earth that leads to the galactic centre. Presumably if one refused that door then perhaps a door in the centre of the Earth would open directly into the universal.
This understanding gives a much more subtle understanding abut the three monadic rays and the arguments between all the traditions. The Christians blame the Jews, for example, for refusing the Christ – tantamount to refusing to take the path to and through the sun. The Muslims – “there is no God but God” – want to surrender directly to the monad, etc. etc. Synthesis will allow for all traditions to be honoured and their particular brand of cosmic daring acknowledged. It takes soul courage to leave all one knows and embark on behalf of everyone on a divine adventure. It takes courage to give up the thrill of new discoveries and stay home. There are different types of courage. And this is why the wise are slow to judge anyone else’s chosen path.
So then we must consider doorways and also degree of immersion in substance. A planet for example is less able to participate in universal realities and energies than a black hole UNLESS it had all four doors open. The more the prakritic immersion the more doors there are (think Maxwell Smart).
We might imagine then in the Central Council of Earth – those guarding the door to the sun and helping others take intitiation, those guarding the door to the monad and helping others take ‘identification’, and those guarding the door to the cosmic astral.
When we consider Earth Service – there will come a time when a group of initiates refuse to take their chosen cosmic path and together choose out of sacrifice and love for the Christ, humanity and the Earth, to choose together the Path of Earth Service. In other words they choose to stay on the cosmic physical plane so that a deeper doorway (deeper in the sense of immanence) opens and a more subtle energy of divinity can be present on Earth.
No doubt some of us will be there.
Synthesis between the Three
This perspective and identification with synthesis also points the way to how the three phases of the Theosophical presentation can be integrated, as well as the three Abrahamic religions and also the three great races, Lemurian, Atlantean, and Aryan. Monadic identification eliminates the subtle arrogance that is inevitably present in the lower realms of prakritic immersion. On the mountain top of the soul one bends the head and is decapitated – a symbol for the release of the ‘self’ identification that has been necessary in order to ascend. It is realised too that the transcendent path is only one way to go and not necessarily the better. Those members of the human race who have ‘ascended’ can be seen as our heroes but also as the ‘failures’ in that they failed to stay and take their medicine of forgetfulness. Like sooks we/they ran home to daddy when the mission we undertook got too hard Dualistic thinking like this falls away and the perfection of what IS emerges. Beings in Shamballa have genuine admiration for beings in the human kingdom and the same applies for all interaction in the Shamballa, Hierarchy, Humanity triangle and should also apply in humans appreciation of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms.
But anyway, back to the Theosophical tradition. We might therefore imagine that there are those within the first dispensation or phase who are anchored there not because they are fundamentalist in their outlook or unable to embrace the second and third phases, but because it is the deep call of their heart serving purpose out of straight knowledge that this is their place. The same applies to the second phase – Bailey, Steiner, Cedercrans, etc. The second phase often regards the first in the same way that some Christians regarded Jews – rejecting the all encompassing validity of their personal messiah. It is only in the third phase that we can SEE the whole picture because of the transcendence of the monadic or black hole perspective. But perspective is not Life – it is a function of consciousness and it is the synthetic consciousness that can build the whole into coherence. So it will be up to those fully anchored in the third phase perspective but also fully present in the Life, which is synthetic to all phases, to seek out and build relationship with those who are resting at the core of each phase in the spirit of life and sacrifice. The Agni Yoga teachings through HR, DK says were a transmission of the first aspect – i.e. identification with life but did not have the consciousness aspect fully developed. When life and consciousness operate together we get the opportunity for Plan and Purpose to come together. There are clues here for the integration in the Trans-Himalayan tradition.
The same process of synthesis goes on between the races and indeed inside our own brains. We have the neocortex, the limbic system, and the reptilian brain. If all cells were neocortex cells, who would beat the heart and run the metabolic and hormonal functions? When we approach the reptile brain in Life with full appreciation for its function and gifts to the brotherhood of the body – when we approach our physical body with as much reverence as we approach the monad, then some sense of a brotherhood emerges that is not based in Hierarchy (although does include the hierarchical process), but is based in Life.