Good evening friends and welcome to this Festival in Capricorn. Our group aim this evening is to stimulate response to the inflowing energies and to draw out the more refined possibilities that are offered to us. The spiritual thought form that we build in meditation can help strengthen and enhance the newly emerging values that reflect the universality of life in the world today. In this age of globalization and expanding economic power there is a need to qualify this outward movement with the soul-sense of universality. This is the quality that needs to be brought to the forefront of human consciousness. And our subjective work in meditation can be highly instrumental in this effort. We know that we work within a tremendous alignment of groups meeting, as we are, throughout the world. So let us take a moment for silent, loving recognition of them, and of our shared service, and then say together the ancient prayer called the Gayatri:

O Thou Who givest sustenance to the universe,
From Whom all things proceed,
To Whom all things return,
Unveil to us the face of the true Spiritual Sun
Hidden by a disc of Golden Light
That we may know the Truth
And do our whole duty
As we journey to Thy sacred feet.

"And do our whole duty as we journey to Thy sacred feet." What exactly is our "duty" in this long evolutionary journey to the sacred feet of Him Who gives us life and sustenance? Our duty is defined by where we stand on the path. Is it the path on the ordinary wheel of the zodiac? Or is it the path of the initiate moving in the opposite direction on the arduous climb up the mountain of initiation? One’s sense of duty may be to one’s family and community. Or it may be—as is prevalent today—serving in the military as a duty to one’s country. Or the sense of duty may extend far beyond the bounds of country or the Corp or the family; it may include a sense of duty to the planet as a whole—as seen with the concern for global warming. Or it may, if one is a spiritual server, be seen as a duty to the Plan of God. Perhaps we, in our subjective meditation work, could see ourselves in this light. All the different stages of "duty" are necessary as points of learning along the way. Eventually they may all lead one to the path of ascent up the mountain of initiation and the culminating Capricorn experience. What began through the inward portal in Cancer leads finally through the door of liberation in Capricorn.

It is interesting to see, over eons of time in the long journey of the soul, how this sense of duty shifts from selfish ambition to eventual selfless service. This journey is summed up in the two Keynotes of Capricorn. The key words upon the ordinary wheel are "And the Word said: Let ambition rule and let the door stand wide." Here we have the key to the evolutionary urge, to the secret of rebirth, and of that word which reverberates from Cancer to Capricorn. The door of initiation stands ever open, but for aeons of time man prefers the open door in Cancer. Ambition urges him on from life to life until he has discovered the worthlessness of all earthly gratification. Gradually then spiritual ambition and a desire for liberation take the place of worldly ambition, and become an impelling impulse, until finally the moment arrives when a true sense of reality supersedes both earthly and spiritual ambition. The man can then say with truth "Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back." For him there remains now no goal but service.

This is the ultimate goal for the initiate in Capricorn—the experience of the supernal light and the revelation of divine Truth that dawns in his awakened consciousness. As he blends and fuses his light with the supernal light he is absorbed into the consciousness of oneness, the consciousness of the Whole. That greater awareness with its emphasis on service to the whole becomes his own. He can think no other way. Service becomes his life expression.

And because of this total impulse to serve, he knows he must turn his back on that supernal light and serve those who are still behind him on the path. His service may be towards the human kingdom and the uplift and redemption of humanity, or it may be for producing a higher quality of expression in one of the other kingdoms in nature. But wherever his service takes him it will be for the greater requirements of the Plan of God. Ultimately that is why we all are here—as light-bearing agents to bring in and express the power of Light and Love in the world.

The thought has occurred to me: how much lighted energy do we actually generate? An interesting Op-Ed article in the New York Times recently gives us a hint about this. It is an article written by Deborah Blum, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin, about scientific research into the electrical phenomena that appears to be produced or induced in the circuits of the brain. In her opening paragraph she gives us this intriguing bit of information. "The human brain is, in surprising part, an appliance powered by electricity. It constantly generates about 12 watts of energy, enough to keep a flashlight glowing. It works by sending out electrical impulses—bursts of power running along the cellular wires of the nervous system—to stimulate muscles into motion or thought into being" (NY Times, December 30, 2006).

Now if we are generating only 12 watts of power, that doesn’t light the world very much. But if we can generate 12 watts now, why not 100 watts or 500 watts in the future? And is this an indication of the inner light of the soul shining through? If our brain circuits can handle only 12 watts now, then we will obviously need to refine our circuitry, especially if we are ever to handle the greater power of God’s Light. Of course this is why a network of light-workers in meditation is needed—to withstand the potent impact of the power of light pouring into the world. And it is why more effective work can be accomplished by a group; the potency of the energy is more evenly distributed and therefore safer to handle. It’s 12 watts magnified a thousand-fold. This is a case for striving for more refinement in our lower personality nature. A more refined vehicle can withstand higher frequencies of energy.

But apparently the light we do generate is enough to begin the process of illuminating much of the corruption we see in human activity today. And this illumination may be stimulated by certain of the ruling planets now coming into influence in the Aquarian age—planets like Saturn and Mercury. What the Tibetan says of these planets is illuminating: This is strikingly the case in connection with the sign Aquarius into which sign our sun is now entering, its three decanates, Saturn, Mercury and Venus, bringing inevitably difficulty, illumination and brotherly love. On the ordinary wheel, in all outer affairs, Saturn controls, and we consequently find ourselves today in a state of chaos and trouble, but as far as the consciousness of the race is concerned, Mercury is becoming increasingly active. A steady illumination is taking place and light is being thrown on all problems—light on government and politics through experiments and the study of great and basic ideologies; light on the material nature of the world through all the many branches of science; light on humanity itself through education, philosophy and psychology. This light is spreading down to the very darkest places in our planet and its many forms of life.

This is exactly what is happening today. All the worst (and the best too) is being illuminated by our own initiatives, to seek out the truth. But the question now is, do we have the power of will to correct our actions and create in the human kingdom a better, more refined expression of light?

Humanity, says the Tibetan, is destined to become a "station of light in the world." This ability to express God’s light comes through us by way of "the quality of the hidden vision"—one of the supreme qualities that we inherit from God. This quality, on the form side, produces physical sight, astral illusion and concrete knowledge. On the life side it produces illumination. This includes the widespread illumination reflected by our planet in the heavens, as well as that which makes an individual man a light-bearer, and which will eventually enable humanity, (as a whole) to constitute a station of light upon earth.

From this you can see where human evolution is taking us. In general, we are still very much in the self-centered stage, traversing the zodiacal wheel in the ordinary direction. But if we are ever to fulfill our destiny as light-bearers, then we must reverse our path on the wheel and tread the more stringent path of the initiate up to the heights of Capricorn and the light supernal. There the initiate discovers that the supernal light is not the goal, rather, what is significant is what the light reveals.

"Initiation is essentially a process of revelation. For the disciple who is being prepared for initiation the emphasis is laid upon recognition—the intelligent recognition of what is to be revealed.. This requires on his part a definite emergence from the world of glamour so that there can be a clear perception of the new vision; a new light thrown upon the old and well-known truths so that their significance is extraordinarily changed, and in that changing the plan or purpose of Deity takes on an entirely fresh meaning…For the initiate the inutition is ever the revelation of the purpose of Shamballa and the working out of the divine Plan.

To this you are called, and upon your understanding response to the collective need will depend the rapidity with which you will be enabled to achieve the next expansion of consciousness or initiation which may be, for you as an individual, possible. You have, therefore, to consider your individual response to the demands of your own soul and your collective response to the collective need. It is the initiate in you, the Christ in you, which is now called to this collective service and the radiation today of the Christ spirit, actively present in the hearts of all disciples is the one thing which can salvage mankind, enable humanity to move forward on to the Path of Discipleship and thus evoke that new spirit which can and will build the new world.

"Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back." The evoking of the Christ spirit and awakening of the heart of humanity—that is the great service that is revealed by the supernal light. And it is why, when we reach that point on the path, we will turn our backs to the light and serve the greater needs of the new world in the process of becoming.

Every spiritual recognition must be used to illumine the darkness of earth. Always, the initiate must return to the "fields of earth", the plains, after the mountain top experience. For "light supernal" to pour into the world, disciples must create receptive conditions on the physical plane. Even Christ descended from the mountain top after each initiation and returned to daily life to work out the results of each expansive experience.

So as we enter into our group meditation on this first Festival in the new year, let us reflect—as our meditation calls for in the Lower Interlude—on the immediate work to be done in establishing the "pathway of Light" for the coming Christ. The new age of Aquarius will be governed by the seventh ray, an energy that brings about the fusion of spirit and matter and an energy that will awaken humanity to divinity being present in matter. Let us use this opportunity of this Festival in Capricorn to meditate on what it will mean for humanity to set foot on the path of initiation and irradiate the earth with light. That is our spiritual destiny.

Dale McKechnie
Festival in Capricorn
New York,
January 2, 2007