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CHAPTER VI - The Three Crosses

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CHAPTER VI

The Three Crosses

I shall not be able to handle the subject of the three zodiacal Crosses—the Mutable, Fixed and Cardinal Crosses—in any detail, owing to the fact that they are concerned with the wholes or with the syntheses of manifestation and with the unified experience of an incarnating entity, be it God or man. They can, therefore, be truly comprehended only by those with an inclusive consciousness, i.e., with an initiate-awareness. Some general comments can, however, be made.

These three Crosses are as you know:

1. The Cross of the Hidden Christ—The Mutable Cross.

a. This is the Cross of the four major energies which produce the conditioning circumstances which transform animal man into an aspirant.

b. It is, therefore, the Cross of the personality or of the steadily developing and finally integrating human being. This takes place at first in response to circumstance and later to soul inclination.

c. It is the Cross of temporal and temporary change, of fluidity and of those constantly altering environments which drive the soul within the form from one extreme of experience to another, so that the life shuttles between the pairs of opposites.

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d. It is the Cross of the responsive form, nurturing and developing the life of the indwelling Christ, the hidden Soul or Lord of Being.

The four arms of this Cross are Gemini—Virgo—Sagittarius—Pisces. It is sometimes called the Common Cross because it conditions the common herd, the mass of humanity.

2. The Cross of the Crucified Christ—The Fixed Cross.

a. This is the Cross composed of the four energies which condition the life of the man who is first a probationary disciple and then an accepted or pledged disciple.

b. It is outstandingly the Cross of the soul. The man who is upon the Fixed Cross is becoming increasingly aware of its direction and influences and does not respond as blindly as does the man upon the Mutable Cross. He does not "mount this Cross of Right Direction" in a technical sense until he has attained some measure of soul contact and has had some touch of illumination and of spiritual intuition—no matter how fleeting that touch may have been.

c. It is the Cross of "fixed vision and of that immovable intent which draws the man from points of light to blazing solar radiance." The man upon the Fixed Cross says: "I am the soul and here I stand. Naught shall remove my feet from off the narrow place whereon I stand. I face the light. I am the Light and in that light shall I see Light."

d. It is the Cross whose four energies blend with [555] and transmit the energies of the solar system itself. This it can do because the man upon the Fixed Cross is becoming increasingly conscious of issues which are larger than himself, more engrossing than his previous interests and which concern humanity in its relation to the solar forces and not just to the planetary forces. He is becoming sensitive to a larger whole.

e. The energies of this Cross continue to evoke response until the time of the third initiation.

The four arms of this Cross are Taurus—Leo—Scorpio—Aquarius. It is called the Fixed Cross because the man is stretched upon it by the directed choice and immovable intent of his soul. From that decision there is no turning back.

3. The Cross of the Risen Christ—The Cardinal Cross.

a. This is the Cross whereon, under the occult paradox and in time and space, the Spirit is crucified. Its four energies govern and direct the soul as it moves forward upon the Path of Initiation. Necessarily, as it deals with so exalted a state of consciousness, there is but little I can say anent this Cross except the vaguest generalities.

b. It is, therefore, pre-eminently the Cross of Initiation and of "beginnings." It concerns fundamentally "the beginning of the endless Way of Revelation" which starts when Nirvana is entered and for which all the previous stages of the Path of Evolution have been but preparatory.

The following quotation may carry understanding and help to illumine this most difficult [556] subject, indicating the significance of this Cardinal Cross as a consummating influence and revealing that which lies ahead of those who attain hierarchical standing:

"All beauty, all goodness, all that makes for the eradication of sorrow and ignorance upon the Earth must be devoted to the Great Consummation. Then when the Lords of Compassion shall have spiritually civilised the Earth and made of it a Heaven, there shall be revealed to the Pilgrims the Endless Path which reaches to the Heart of the Universe. Man, then no longer man, will transcend nature and impersonally, yet consciously, in at-one-ment with all Enlightened Ones, help to fulfil the Law of the Higher Evolution, of which Nirvana is but the beginning," (Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. Page 12.)

c. It is the Cross of the "widespread arms, the open heart and the higher mind," for those who lie upon this Cross know and enjoy the significances underlying the words: Omnipresence and Omniscience, and are in process of unfolding the higher phases of Being which we inadequately cover by the word, Omnipotence.

d. The energies of the Cardinal Cross blend with the energies to which we can give no greater name than cosmic energy even though that word is meaningless. They carry the quality of the One about Whom Naught may be Said and are "tinctured with the Light of the seven solar systems" of which our solar system is one.

e. The scope and cycle of its influence in the life of the initiate is utterly unknown even to our planetary [557] Logos Who is Himself stretched upon its "widespread arms."