The Initiation of Humanity—Our Responsibility

 A Co-Worker

One of the objectives of the Aquarian Age Community is to work for the preparation of the reappearance of the Christ and the externalization of the mysteries, which we have been asked to make well known to the average person. One of the three pillars of the Aquarian Age Community purpose is the intention to "evolve the principles and techniques of the Aquarian Age and to help humanity prepare for initiation."

How do we help to prepare humanity for initiation? By teaching what initiation is and why it matters to the average person. Why should the average person care about initiation? And who, exactly, is the "average person"? How do we find him? How do we get his attention? What do we do and say when we do have his attention? How do we communicate with him? These are the questions that we, the spiritual workers in incarnation, must answer in terms of plans for action in the three worlds and in time and space, and having formulated such plans, must go out into the world of the average man and implement those plans.

What is our message? How do we explain what initiation is and why our average person needs to understand it? The word "initiation" comes from the Latin initio meaning "entering into" or "beginning". And this is a very important idea. Too often, initiation is spoken of as if it were a reward for good behavior, and the promise of that reward becomes the motivation for the good behavior. This is not initiation. In my personal experience in the military and in business, promotion to the next rank—at least in the lower grades—is largely a matter of simply spending the requisite time in one's current position. But organizational leaders are increasingly realizing that promotion should not come simply as a result of one's fulfilling the expectations of one's present grade. Rather, the candidate should already be exhibiting some of the traits and behaviors of the next grade before he should be entrusted with the higher powers of that next grade. Many managers now understand that promotion is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an initiation into a whole new field of knowledge, wisdom, responsibility and power. They know that it is important that their young charges should not only perform the requirements of their current grade to the utmost of their ability, but also study the requirements of the next level, and to begin performing somewhat at that next level before they are promoted. So it is also with initiation. Before each initiation, we work in the dark for a while, proving our mettle before we are given the means to see the causes behind the effects experienced on the previous level.

As spiritual workers and disciples within the periphery of the Hierarchical Ashram, we know that promotion does not come automatically as a result of one's chronological age or by perfecting the performance of responsibilities below our potential. Our task in the Aquarian Age Community is to seek out those thousands—perhaps even millions—of average people who are outgrowing the old, deceivingly easy ways of promotion (including self-promotion) in the man-made hierarchies and who are longing for a system of steady advancement based on truevalues. They are looking for the path of initiation but don't even know such a thing exists. We know this, because each of us has been there ourselves.

How do we introduce the concept of initiation to these average persons searching for meaning in their lives? We tell them, and show them through the example of our own lives, that the path of initiation is a path of ever widening consciousness. Each initiation results in a new way of seeing oneself, one's environment, the previously familiar and the previously unfamiliar, and it results in greater power to do good along with greater responsibility to exercise that power.

This explanation is likely to deter many average persons from consciously and deliberately joining the growing ranks of the aspiring disciples. It doesn't sound like much fun. It sounds like a lot of hard work for an average person who isn't really an average person at all but rather a budding disciple who is settling for mediocrity, while he secretly yearns to expose his true self and step up to his true calling. There are millions of these "average people". What can we say to encourage them to take that first frightening step out of the familiar and seemingly safe? For only when these millions step onto the path of initiation will humanity make real progress in its collective initiatory journey.

How do we communicate to the average person that the path of initiation exists and that they should care? Because he is already undergoing daily little initiations, albeit blindly, as a result of his normal progress in trying to lead a good life. Because he is in pain due to his ignorance of the fact of brotherhood and the oneness of all life. Because there are "natural" laws governing the means and methods of overcoming that ignorance; and that only by adherence to these laws is one led to the hidden but open portals into greater awareness and power. Because to not choose the path towards initiation is to be relegated to the long, hard road of natural evolution. Because without his help, the whole of humanity will be condemned to untold future generations of continued pain and struggle. Because withhis help, he is assured of finding what he is seeking, and humanity is that much closer to completing its mission on earth.