The Blazing Apostle

Good afternoon and welcome to our full moon meeting in Sagittarius, a sign associated with fiery aspiration towards an envisioned goal. There is great beauty to be found for the individual disciple as well as a discipleship group in the keynote of Sagittarius, "I see the goal. I reach that goal and then I see another". The goal moves ever on ahead, beckoning us from one lighted recognition to another, and at this time of the year, we recall the glorious truth that all men and women are destined to follow in the footsteps of Christ through the spiritual journey of birth, baptism, transfiguration, renunciation and ascension - a journey which is so simply and beautifully depicted for us in Alice Bailey's book, From Bethlehem to Calvary.

The influence of the planet Mars, so prominent in the preceding sign of Scorpio, is also present to a lesser degree in Sagittarius and can reignite militant sixth ray tendencies. We are familiar with the possible effects of Mars in Scorpio in connection with St. Paul, who was blinded and converted by the light of the Christ on the road to Damascus. His over-zealousness has coloured the presentation of Christianity with fanaticism and conflict eclipsing the fundamental message of love that should have characterised this religion. Here we see that, even in such an advanced disciple as St. Paul, elements of the personality can still distort spiritual vision. Nevertheless his writings are some of the most inspiring in the New Testament and his ardent, aspirational nature sped him along the road of discipleship towards the goal of ascension, at which point he became known as the Mahatma, Hilarion.

St. Paul's cathedral in London was built in honour of Paul, and it's interesting that the Occupy movement ended up camping here, protesting for some kind of conversion in those that are fanatically following the road of capitalism. The sea of tents seemed peculiarly apt as St. Paul was originally a tent maker himself. Paul is widely regarded as the thirteenth apostle – apostle meaning "a messenger sent forth," or, in a more modern and figurative sense, "the chief advocate of a new principle or system". This is a fitting description of those who set foot upon the path of discipleship, and in the fiery sign of Sagittarius, the disciple becomes the blazing apostle –speeding towards the goal through the and expression of a new and higher set of principles that are above the norm. Let's take a few moments now to consider the principles of the spiritual path and the goal to which they lead; we'll then say together, 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. OM

At this time of the year in the northern hemisphere, we enter deep into the darkness of winter when the search for a lighted goal naturally becomes more focused. And we might see the Christmas tree in its lighted glory as symbolising the disciple in the form of the blazing apostle aspiring towards a high spiritual goal, his own energy bodies radiant with light. In Trafalgar Square each year, stands a huge Christmas tree which is presented by the people of Norway to the citizens of the UK to thank them for their help during the World War. This conifer stands like a great symbolic triangle or arrowhead pointing to the heavens, adorned with coloured lights, like the awakened chakras of the disciple on fire with ardent spiritual aspiration and radiating that light into human consciousness to reveal the principles and truths that can help lift humanity out of the darkness of materialism. The angel or star at the top of the Christmas tree reminds us of the five-pointed star of initiation and blazing forth on the mental plane during the ceremony itself. In the book Initiation, Human & Solar, we read:

"The five-pointed star, at the initiations on the mental plane, flashes out above the head of the initiate...At the final two initiations…the initiate becomes the five-pointed star and it descends upon him, merges in him, and he is seen at its very centre...The two initiations called the sixth and seventh take place on the buddhic and atmic planes; the five-pointed star „blazes forth from within Itself,' as the esoteric phrase has it, and becomes the seven-pointed star; it descends upon the man and he enters within the flame."

Of course, the Christmas tree has a wider symbolism than just that of the aspiring disciple – on a larger scale it could be seen to represent many spiritual deities including the Planetary Logos Himself, and the aspiration of His creation towards some glorious, unknown destination. In this scenario, the lighted baubles that decorate the tree would be reminiscent of planetary centres, major and minor, and the trunk of the tree the axis mundi, the central world pillar along which column, rising and descending energies electrically feed and sustain the whole. In religion or mythology, the axis mundi is the connection between heaven and Earth and expresses a point of connection between sky and earth. "At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all."

The author and researcher of Global Mythology, Rens Van Der Sluijs, says that the custom to erect a Christmas tree during the winter solstice is likely to be an old and ingrained part of traditional culture in North eastern Europe. In the following extract from an article entitled "O Christmas Tree! Thy Candles Shine So Brightly!" Rens Van Der Sluijs evokes some enchanting spiritual imagery that deserves a place in our reflections this afternoon. The decorated Christmas tree, he says, may have represented a single mythical prototype and around the world there are many fables and stories venerating a mythical „tree of light'. In the Icelandic Edda, the numinous ash was lauded as 'the radiant, sacred tree' and 'a high tree, soaked with shining loam'. The central textbook of Qabbala, the medieval Jewish work entitled Zohar, owed its name to the luminosity of the „tree of life'. 'In this tree exists one radiancy: zohar, radiance, all colours inhering there. Those colours ascend and descend, not settling anywhere except in that tree. Indeed, for adepts of this brand of mysticism the tree 'is the Sun which illumines all. Its radiance commences at the top and extends through the whole trunk in a straight line'. Further afield, the Omaha, of Nebraska, tell of 'a luminous tree' frequented by the Thunder birds: 'When the Thunder birds alight upon the tree it bursts into flame and the fire mounts to the top. The tree stands burning." [This reminds one of planetary kundalini rising and Sagittarius is very much connected with the planetary fires.]

While Balto-Finnish ancestors of the Christmas tree also used to be ritually burned, many other parallel traditions attribute the light to smaller units of fire, often compared to suns, gems or flowers, that were distributed across the tree like Christmas lights are today from Alaska to New Zealand. Hindu literature knows of 'a golden wish-tree, decorated with gems, shining like the sun'.. and which may trace to an early Vedic belief in a fiery heaven-spanning tree from whose branches the gods as the 'other fires' were suspended like baubles on a Christmas tree – 'to be a light unto the Ārya' [saintly persons]. In the early days, the flaming pillar had been personified as the fire god, Agni, who 'like a builder raised his smoke to heaven … Eager he rises like the new-wrought pillar which, firmly set and fixed, anoints the victims'. Later, Buddhists would represent their hero, the Buddha, as 'a fiery pillar, with wheel marked feet, supported by a lotus, and with a triśula "head" …' Many others appear in Chinese lore, the people of Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands, the heavenly tree of the Mohawk have their examples too. Apart from the various lights, several other properties of the Christmas tree resonate with global ideas about hallowed trees. The „angel' or star crowning the tree brings to mind the supreme deity at the pinnacle of the axis mundi, often conceived as a sun or a star. Garlands and ribbons draped around the tree resemble the respective vines, ropes and „serpents' wrapped around the column in helical form.

The choice of an everlasting tree could hardly be separated from the world tree as an emblem of life, immortality and durability. Baubles compare to spirits and deities inhabiting the tree's branches. The decoration of the tree with communion wafers, paper roses, apples, and so forth, as was common in medieval Germany, meshes with cross-cultural rituals involving the dispersion of „goodies' from a cosmic tree. With so many similarities with the sacred trees of non-European cultures it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Yet the bottom line is that a unified image appears to have existed worldwide of a „tree' reaching into the sky that supplied light to the world during a time of persistent darkness and displayed a number of discreet structural forms.1

The author goes on to speculate that the global memory of a blazing „tree' in the dark sky preceding the time of „creation' may have arisen in response to a low-latitude aurora of an extraordinary intensity which remained visible for a prolonged time during the late Neolithic period. Computer models and analogies with plasma z-pinches in laboratories suggest that this aurora for much of its existence took the form of a giant column sprouting dendritic lightning-like branches. Plasmoids and spiralling filaments formed in the column would produce a spectacle quite like that of a tree ornamented with baubles and ribbons. Whatever the truth of this, from an esoteric point of view, it's interesting to reflect on the blazing trees in some of these mythologies as the World Man, the Logos, and by extension, that of man, who is made in His image.

One of the sutras of Patanjali that corresponds to the image of the burning tree we have been considering runs, "Through Mastery of the Binding Life, comes radiance". According to the Upanishads, this binding-life unites the upward-life to the downward-life, and these lives have their analogies in the "vital breaths" in the body. When the personality is brought under control of the spiritual man, through the life-currents that bind them together, the personality is endowed with a radiant new force, described as the "vesture of the colour of the sun". For this to occur, and the etheric body of the disciple to blaze forth as a radiant beacon of light, all that relates to the lesser life, the personality, must be actively and consciously repudiated. Because the physical body whether for mankind or the Solar Logos, is not a principle, it should no longer be the focus of the disciple's thought. For this reason we read that Man must slay his "lunar body", his Ancestors, for evil is that which can be controlled and subdued by the positive energy of the soul but instead is permitted to rule. It is that which did have a place but must now be left behind. We must instead work through the fiery centres of light within our personality vehicles disseminating the principles that pass through them into the body of humanity to take root as part of the great tree of life.

The fire of Sagittarius provides us with that needed enthusiasm and right zeal to overcome obstacles and hindrances, those old inherited thought forms and latent tendencies in the body of desire. Although enthusiasm can be misplaced and distort one's vision, through the intelligent supervision of thought, desire and life, fewer effects are present to be worked out helping to sever the chains which tie us to incarnation. A tremendous step forward in the liberating process is made when, through conscious experience, we recognise the chains to be limitations and when the struggle is carried inward into "the unmanifested life" or subtler planes, the Hall of learning is entered and the fetters of desire and wrong use of the mind are cut.

As we approach the end of the year, and look forward to renewed opportunity, it's important to become indifferent to the personal crises, the fatigue and the often monotonous effort demanded of us in our service and daily round of duties. Those who have served over many years on the "plains of earth" are encouraged to persevere just "as if" it were entirely new and fascinating. This enthusiasm is something all of us need to consciously rekindle, recapturing the earlier vision and „shraddha' – that implicit faith in ourselves, in humanity, in the future and in the fiery love which underlies the happenings of the time.

At the time of the full moon we work as part of a worldwide group – apostles of the Plan – to carry through its ideas and to safeguard humanity by acting as the bridge between two worlds, keeping that vision and possibility alive as best we can. By focusing on the life side of nature, we can assist human evolution through the transforming powers of the spiritual Will, remaining detached in the knowledge that no thing lasts forever. This is the great lesson, that worldly things are destined to be constantly changing, and that in order to do so a process of crystallisation, decay and breakdown is natural and inevitable to make way for new expressions of life. Because the veils of illusion, glamour and maya are so dense, humanity's sense of the higher vision tends to waver and flicker along with its sense of spiritual anticipation and expectancy, it therefore clings to the known and familiar as the basis of truth.

The esoteric groups of today, together with the new group of world servers are charged with renewing and strengthening this vision and rending the veils so that the real truth may once again be clearly seen. St. Paul, through his one pointed dedication and sincerity, was able to pierce through one of these obstructing veils and so, to a lesser extent, he added to the greater rents already formed by Moses and later by the Christ and the Master Jesus. The rending of the second veil at the time of the Crucifixion let in light on to the second level of the etheric plane, and a new type of illumination was spread abroad upon the earth. Law and Love could now penetrate into the consciousness of humanity in a new and direct manner, as the brain of man became involved through the substance of the etheric counterpart of the physical brain. These rents were made on behalf of humanity. The next one is predicted to be made by the "massed intent" of humanity and it seems clear that these years before the reappearance of the World Teacher are crucial ones for recognising the impermanence of material living and entering the spirit of sharing and of goodwill. The veils are described "as curtains over the windows of vision", preventing humanity from glimpsing that which lies beyond mundane experience and the light from penetrating.

As we work in meditation now, we still our minds, directing them to the light of the soul so that no extraneous thoughts disturb its stillness. In such a way can the "third heaven" described by St. Paul be entered, where the mind communes with the universal mind and whose door stands ever open to those minds which can be sufficiently quieted and controlled. The "thoughts which the soul creates" are encountered before returning to set the world on fire with their radiant, living intuitive energy. In this way the group disciple disseminates spiritual energy as gift waves from the tree of life and, as the blazing apostle, points the way heavenward.

Festival Of Sagittarius –
London – December 2011
Christine Morgan

1. http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/101224candles.htm