This is perhaps one of the two most occult rules which the initiate has to master, whether as an individual or in conjunction with his group. The group recognizes and works under the pervasive influence of the purpose; the individual initiate works with the plan. The group expression, as far as in it lies at any given moment in time and space, is in line with the will of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, the Life of all that is. The individual initiate uses the attractive force (to which we give the oft misleading name of love) of that fundamental Life to gather together that which will give body to form and so manifest the will. The group can be, and frequently is, responsive to the "bright center," Shamballa, where the initiate by himself and in his own essential identity cannot so respond. The individual must be protected by the group from the terrific potencies which emanate from

These must be stepped down for him by the process of distribution, so that their impact is not focused in any one or all of his centers but is shared by all the group members. Here is the clue to the significance of group work. One of its major functions, esoterically speaking, is to absorb, share, circulate, and then distribute energy.

This process of protection and of distribution is one of the functions of the great meeting of all the Hierarchy, under the aegis of the three Great Lords (the Manu, the Mahachohan and the Christ) in that high and sacred valley in the Himalayas where annually - after due preparation - the Hierarchy makes contact with Shamballa and a relationship is then set up between the "bright and living center" and the "radiating and magnetic center," in order that the "acquiescent waiting center" may be stimulated to move forward upon the ladder of evolution. Even the Hierarchy [69] itself needs the protection of its full membership in order rightly to absorb the incoming energies, and later wisely to distribute the forces of the divine will in the three worlds where lies Their major responsibility. The focused will of God, in its immediate implications and application, constitutes the point of tension from which Shamballa works in order to bring about the eventual fruition of the divine Purpose.

There is a definite distinction between Purpose and Will; it is subtle indeed, but quite definite to the advanced initiate, and therefore the dualistic nature of our planetary manifestation and our solar Expression appear even in this. The Members of the Council at Shamballa recognize this distinction and therefore divide Themselves into two groups which are called in the ancient parlance, Registrants of the Purpose and Custodians of the Will. Will is active. Purpose is passive, waiting for the results of the activity of the will. These two groups are reflected in hierarchical circles by the Nirmanakayas or the Planetary Contemplatives, and the Custodians of the Plan. The function of the Registrants of the Purpose is to keep the channel open between our Earth, the planet Venus and the Central Spiritual Sun. The function of the Custodians of the Will is to relate the Council, the Hierarchy and Humanity, thus creating a basic triangle of force between the three major centers of the planetary Life. This is the higher expression (symbolic, if you like) of the six-pointed star, formed of two interlaced triangles. A replica of this fundamental triangle and of this symbol of energy, with its inflow and distribution, is to be found in the relation of the three higher centers in the human being - head, heart and throat - to the three lower centers - solar plexus, sacral center and the center at the base of the spine. The Science of Invocation and Evocation is also seen to be symbolically proceeding along evolutionary lines. Worship, the attitude of the mystic, must give place to Invocation in the man who knows he is divine. This symbolic revelation is to be seen in the lifting up of the three lower energies and their evocative response to the three higher, thus producing [70] an eventual unity at the point of tension. I realize that this is a hard thing to comprehend because it embodies truths which are difficult for the disciple to grasp. But they will be grasped and mastered by each one as he proceeds along the Path of Discipleship and submits to the needed training for initiation. They will also be mastered, later in this century and in the next, by the rapidly developing humanity, thus demonstrating that the initiation of the moment becomes the past achievement of the masses eventually. This enhanced liberation will later appear as a definite result of the war. The Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms, formulated in the tension produced by the world agony and strain, are the reflections of this, and embody all that it is possible for average materially-minded man to grasp of the present will of Shamballa as it conditions the plans of the Hierarchy and is impulsed by the Registrants of the Purpose. This is as far as the two groups of Custodians have been able to convey this revelation to the best human intellects - the first group dealing with the senior members of the Hierarchy and the latter with those initiates and disciples who are closely related to humanity.

Here again we come up against the fact that the Science of Invocation and Evocation, with which this Rule fundamentally deals, is primarily a great and scientific activity of which modern humanity knows practically nothing, but which is related to thought power and to thought-form building. Only initiates of the highest degree - such as the three Great Lords - have the right to invoke alone and unaccompanied by any protective agency, such as a group, and the reason for that is that They Themselves are members of the Council at Shamballa and are individually Registrants of the Purpose. The annual appearance of the Lord Buddha is the outer demonstration or symbol of the emergence of this Science of Invocation and Evocation in the waking consciousness of humanity. Prayer is the dim, faint and inadequate expression of this; affirmation of divinity in order to gain material well-being is a distortion of this truth. This needs to be remembered. The true significance of this [71] emerging science is that, in the early or first stages, it embodies the seed concept of the new world religion.

Prior to taking up the study, phrase by phrase, of Rule III, I would call your attention to the relation between this Rule and the earlier one given to applicants. The applicant sends out his cry - across the desert, over all the seas and through the fires. His entire personality, integrated and oriented, is focused at a point of tension; then he utters his cry (symbolic of a voiceless expression) and this cry beats against the door which separates him from the soul, in the first instance, and from the Hierarchy, in the second. The door is only a symbol of separation; it divides one place from another location, one sphere of activity from another, and one state of consciousness from another. It fosters in the aspirant a sense of duality. It is a word descriptive of the mystic attitude. This attitude embraces the concepts of here and there, of soul and body, of God and man, of Hierarchy and humanity. But Rule III, as voiced for initiates, demonstrates that this mystical realization finally goes; the sense of separation disappears, and the door is left behind.