The Benefits of Crisis

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The following talk was given in the Triangles webinar on September 3, 2018:

The Great Invocation famously states ‘May Christ return to Earth’. We read in Alice Bailey’s writings, that when the Christ, the World Teacher called by diverse names in the many world religions, reappears in physical manifestation he will found a focal point on Earth that will be in the nature of a tiny heart centre through which the love energy of the Hierarchy can persistently flow. And, that it will be the harmony produced through the Principle of Conflict, , that will bring about an alignment that will allow the love streaming forth from the Heart of God to persistently enter the hearts of people everywhere through this focal point. It is the task of the men and women of goodwill, stimulated by the work of the group of world servers, to make human hearts responsive and receptive to the World Teacher’s energy.

As we know, this alignment is already in process of being made; but its true effectiveness will come when the Principle of Conflict in producing liberation is more generally recognised. It is the Principle of Conflict, latent in every atom of substance, which produces, first of all, conflict, then renunciation, and finally emancipation; it produces war in some form or another, then rejection, and then liberation. Conflict, we read, is closely related to death, where death means the extraction from form conditions, whether that be temporary or permanent extraction from physical form, from astral glamour or mental illusion. Conflict therefore, succeeds in bringing about conditions wherein the spirit aspect is released (again temporarily or permanently) from imprisonment in some kind of form life, either of an individual or of a group nature.1 Conflict is therefore key to the evolutionary process.

Incarnation symbolises this imprisonment of the soul within the personality and it is through the conflict between the two that their fusion is eventually brought about. Conflict provides those conditions of suffering which the soul has willingly undertaken in order to salvage the lives with which it has an affinity. Suffering of the personality is an important part of evolution, for it brings eventually a recognition of the soul. When we look out over the world and general human affairs suffering is on every hand. We can recognise that much suffering today is a result of the conflict engendered by the soul seeking to express itself within humanity. All world conflict provides the stepping stones to the eventual harmony that will prevail. It is conflict that will bring about the true idealism that will ultimately appear and control, that is, the ideal of right human relations.

In Alice Bailey’s outline of the seven rays, the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict is said to be a controlling factor in human affairs because it is the governing ray for the fourth kingdom in nature. There is understandably, due to the disastrous consequences that conflict can and has caused, a great fear of it within society. This is especially true of conflict between and within nations. The suffering caused by the world wars is still very much part of human consciousness. We are also at a time of rapid advances in the technology of warfare, nuclear weapons are being produced despite knowing their devastating effects and some nations who are producing them have unstable regimes. The suffering that war brings beamed into our homes in real time brings a general revulsion to the effects of war, adding to the fear of conflict which has led to a growing demand for peaceful resolutions. An indication perhaps, of the growing compassion within humanity for the suffering of others and a sign that the idea of the one humanity, the one life, is taking greater hold in human consciousness. Conflict, however, allows release and sometimes the status quo that is often for the benefit of the powerful and therefore the few, can only be fractured through conflict. Perhaps the desire for peace, the revulsion to suffering, can actually inhibit those conflicts that are necessary to bringing about the Plan on earth. Sometime the threat of conflict produces results but it is preferable to keep the conflict on mental levels, such as in the forums of the UN and the High Level Political Forum which has been the focus of the Cycles of Conferences work recently. Humanity needs to learn to look at conflict in a new light; in seeking to identify perhaps where poor human relationships have been released into newer levels of understanding and compassion through conflict, or where the rebuilding that comes after conflict has led to greater harmony, creativity and more inclusive living, may aid better understanding.

Conflict is after all the basis of family life and is therefore universal, as all those who have children, especially teenage children, will be painfully aware. Conflict brings about greater self-knowledge, recognition of intentions and brings to light the relevance of boundaries and whether they fetter or release. It is essential to growth, for it brings underlying issues to light and reveals the true relationships that should be strived for and established. It is conflict within the world disciple, humanity that reveals differing ideologies, but it is a force for change that will eventually bring about greater understanding, right discrimination, greater goodwill leading eventually to a synthesis of ideologies and to harmony. It is, we read, not the government of any nation which will bring this about, but the innate rightness of the people themselves when educated to see the issues clearly, the relationships which should be established and the immense subjective unity of mankind.2

Conflict is familiar to every struggling aspirant for it conditions his or her whole life, producing crises and tensions, some of which may seem past endurance. But much conflict in life does indicate rapid development, and therefore the continuous conflict within humanity that is so apparent today is a sign of steady progress. And, it is in this that lies our faith that the tiny heart centre established by the returning Christ that is in the process of forming, will allow that true harmony characteristic of the fifth kingdom to eventually reign here on earth.

1 The Rays and the Initiations pg. 607
2 The Rays and the Initiations pg. 623

Christine Aagaard