Facilitating Study Groups

(From a lecture given to a study group in August 2002)

A study group facilitator is someone who has accepted responsibility for some aspect of the group process. The type and degree of responsibility vary from facilitator to facilitator, depending on their role in the group life. Despite, or perhaps because of these variations, every study group coordinator needs to be aware of the following before and during their efforts to organize a group.

Organization

One thing that must to be kept in mind is that each study group is itself part of a larger group life. This larger group, sometimes known as The Wisdom Group, is a portion of a Synthetic Ashram. This Ashramic Group Life is a synthesis of the First Ray of Divine Purpose, the Second Ray of Divine Love-Wisdom, and the Seventh Ray of Ceremonial Magic.

The Synthetic Ashram has an essential role to play in the manifestation of the Divine Plan for humanity during the next 2,500 years.

The Wisdom Group has a purpose, place, and function in the expression of the Ashramic Purpose, especially in the distribution, teaching, and application of The New Thought-form Presentation of The Wisdom. This new thought-form of Truth was created especially for humanity’s use during this age. It provides the teaching humanity needs to take the next step in its growth and development.

The Nature of The Soul, The Soul and Its Instrument, Corrective Thinking, Introduction to The Path of Initiation, (Wisdom Impressions) and the related courses and materials, are expressions of the New Thought-form Presentation. They are not the only such expressions, but they have an important role to play.

The study groups are a means by which this new Thought-form is moving out to humanity. As groups study and practice The Wisdom, they begin that growth which eventually leads them to their purpose, place, and function in the Ashramic Group Life. As they embody their Ashramic Life in the world of affairs, they help humanity move into its next step; awareness of and as the Spiritual Soul.

This Ashramic Group Life is new. It was created at the beginning of this new age and can incarnate only through the mental, astral, and physical-etheric forms of this age. Thus, this Thought-form Presentation of The Wisdom, and the groups that practice and study The Wisdom, must be organized using Seventh Ray or Ceremonial Magic.

However, few of us have any real idea what this means. Almost all of humanity’s methods of organizing are products of the last age (when Sixth Ray was the predominant ray energy). Our governments, schools, businesses, hospitals, institutes, churches, and other organizations are Third Ray forms motivated by Sixth Ray ideals. A Third Ray organization will work sequentially, toward a pre-determined material goal, and will conceive of that goal in numeric terms. The basic seed-thought for this Third Ray work is:

This method of organizing can be motivated via a higher alignment with the Ashramic Group Life, Hierarchy or Christ, by the united little wills of a group of individuals, or via some mixture of the two. In any case, the basic method will be the same.

For instance, the pre-conceived ideal or goal of a business might be to become the “number one” widget manufacturer in the United States. As part of its preparation for achieving this goal, the organization will develop a “business plan” that lays out the step-by-step actions by which it will achieve that goal.

This is the old method of working. So long as the goal of the organization was to manifest its overshadowing ideal, the Third Ray methods were effective. However, as the Sixth Ray wanes in influence, and the Seventh Ray increases, the goal shifts from manifesting an ideal to performing the Ceremonial Magical process. The old methods of organizing gradually cease working, and new ones must be found.

The forms of the new age are only beginning to come into appearance. They are still quite rare, and as a result, few people have any concept of what a Seventh Ray organizational structure is. A seventh ray organization structure means that the subjective group life (the activity of the consciousness), is focused on the ceremonial magical process of moving an overshadowing intent down into form. The basic seed-thought is:

Any form of activity in the world of affairs is a convenient expression of this subjective group life, and is not an actual form of appearance of that life.

As discussed in The Nature of The Soul (particularly in Lessons 28 through 32), this creative work of the consciousness concludes, on the physical-etheric plane, with a hand-off to a deva of appearance. The manifestation cycle of the ceremonial magic of the Soul is completed with the creation of the physical-etheric structure. Any resulting physical-dense forms are reflections of that structure (created by the physical-dense elementals under the supervision of the deva of appearance). They are not the form of the precipitated Will, but a reflection of that form in time and space, an outer covering that relates those who experience that form of appearance with the actual structure, and via that structure with the indwelling Purpose, Power, and Will.

Thus, any pattern of substance organized via the Seventh Ray magical process cannot and does not manifest below the physical-etheric. This includes any and all organizations. A seventh ray structure never expresses as an organization in the physical-dense world of affairs. Permanent, rigid structures are created by the Third Ray impulse, and one cannot fit the Synthetic Ashram’s activity (particularly what is primarily a seventh ray expression) in a Third Ray structure.

Of course, in order for The Wisdom to move out into humanity, there must be some kind of recognizable forms. However, those forms (the publishing company, lesson materials, study groups, classes, etc.) are temporary reflections of the ongoing magical work. Those involved in that work neither identify with those temporary forms, nor attempt to control the shape of those forms.

Please keep in mind that while the physical-dense is not a principle, it is a reflection of a principle. It is derived from the Divine, and is, therefore, inherently good. In the last age, humanity misinterpreted the fact that the physical-dense is not a principle to mean that it is evil. Unfortunately, this distortion has been so firmly impressed on elemental matter that the physical-dense elemental (responding to the unconsciously-creative humanity) reacts to any impression of intent as though it were evil. This is not the fault of the physical-dense (which is only responding to the intent that was forced upon it). However, it does give us the added task, and responsibility, of re-impressing the physical-dense with the fact of its Divinity, a task we begin by transmuting our own attitudes to and relations with the forms around us.

As a result of the above, the Wisdom Group (that group life working to manifest the Synthetic Ashram via the study and practice of The New Thought-form Presentation of The Wisdom) cannot have any type of central authorizing or organizing body. There are and will be temporary forms expressing some particular aspect of the work, but the overall group life cannot express via one “permanent” form.

This must be clearly understood before the work proceeds. No one can authorize study group facilitator’s, organizer’s, or coordinator’s. There is and can be no official, recognized method of organizing classes or service activities. There is no orthodox interpretation of The Wisdom. There cannot be, for the ceremonial magical process works outside of space and time. It does not manifest sequentially (from one, to two, to three) but in a non-sequential manner. Thus, any attempt to fit The Wisdom into a rigid structure would immediately halt its downward movement.

All decisions about whether to start a group, how to organize it, what the teaching means, etc., are determined by the inner alignments of those involved.

For instance, Wisdom Impressions Publishers, is not, and must not be considered to be, a central directing organization. This fact is seen in their statement of purpose:

That publishing group is here to “help”, “support”, and “facilitate”, not to direct or control. Their outer activity, and much of the subjective effort, is directed toward moving The Wisdom out to those who need it (for their growth, and for their service). It is expected that those who receive The Wisdom will apply it, in whatever manner they are called on to do so, via their own alignments.

The most that Wisdom Impression can do is provide examples and suggestions (based on their own alignment, and the experience of other study groups). The publishing company is not the center of the group life, but a part of it, contributing to the whole by performing its function within that life.

When your alignment indicates that there is a need for a study group, and you are in the karmic position to participate in that group activity by facilitating it in some fashion, then you do it. You, via your meditative alignment, are the only one who can make that decision.

This alignment is produced via an ongoing meditation practice. Daily practice of The Wisdom produces cycles of growth and development of the consciousness, and embodiment of that growth through the form. It is a constant process of transmutation and refinement.

The New Path of Initiation

This ongoing inner performance of The Wisdom is part of a new path of initiation. This new path is a synthesis of the old path with which we are all familiar (because all of the world’s great saviors stood as examples of that path). Via the old path, an individual achieved liberation or spiritual maturity.

In the new path of Group Initiation, a group achieves spiritual maturity via at-one-ment.[1] The members of the group life identify with, and become at-one as, a group. In the process, they discover their group purpose, place, and function within the Ashram, embody that function in the three lower worlds, and reflect it in the world of affairs. At that point, the group has become the Conscious Soul Incarnate and is a Group Disciple.

To place it in its context, group initiation is itself a precursor to another stage, in which humanity will take initiation as a kingdom, and move into identification with and awareness of itself as Soul. At that point, every human being will be aware that they are The Soul, from wherever they happen to be in their individual growth and development. Humanity as a whole, throughout its spectrum of awareness, will be Soul Conscious.

Humanity will have the opportunity to take this initiation at the end of this new age. We are preparing for this transformation now, and the New Path of Group Initiation, and the work of The Wisdom Group, are part of that preparation.

Since part of the work of a group disciple is to reflect their Ashramic Group Life in the world of affairs, it makes sense to use a method of study that embodies the idea of group discipleship. This suggests a flexible structure that enables, encourages, and allows participants to find and take up their active role in the study group.

In the old method of study, one typically had a “sage on a stage” who explained things to his students and directed their studies. Under the influence of the predominating Six Ray of the Philosopher, the teacher was expected to know all, to have all the answers, and to be the fount from which wisdom flowed. The role of the students was to be receptive to the wisdom revealed to them by and through the teacher.

This method of approach was an expression of Third Ray organization in the Sixth Ray age. It continues to have its place, but the new age will see the creation of methods of study and practice that are expressions of the energy of Synthesis, organized along Seventh Ray lines.

While the new age will not and cannot produce a standard method of approach to The Wisdom, there are some identifiable common characteristics. These common characteristics would include the inner work and the outer relationships of the students:

The Facilitator’s Function

The Soul and Its Instrument outlines the karmic relationships that exist within any mature group.[2] These karmic relationships are four group centers, the Crown, Heart, Throat, and Cave. The Law of Correspondences (as above so below) applies to these group centers, and thus they are similar in frequency and function to the equivalent centers in an individual human etheric body.

Each of these group centers is a state or quality of consciousness. That state of consciousness is actually everywhere equally present throughout the group life, but it may be held by a particular group or individual within a particular geographic location. The individual or group responsible for directing that center move into and hold that state of consciousness. Thus, the center is an activity of the group consciousness, and should not be associated with a particular persona or group of personae.

As a group matures into its Ashramic Life, it will slowly develop each of these group centers. However, we must distinguish between a probationer group (which is manifesting its Ashramic Life down through the three lower worlds into the world of affairs), and a student group.

Studying The Wisdom cannot, in and of itself, build these group centers. One has to embody the Ashramic Life of the Spiritual Soul in a subjective and objective group service activity.

However, when a study group is aspiring to and working toward group discipleship, then the karmic relationships that overshadow that student group often have a preliminary expression within that group. The resulting proto group centers will not be fully active, but the potential for them is stirring.

If we look at the facilitator’s function from this perspective, we find that facilitators follow the lines of their karmic relations within the group life. They naturally tend to take up the position, and karmic responsibility, of one or more of these esoteric group centers.

Thus, by taking up that work, the facilitator may be moving toward their karmic position of responsibility, as a Soul, within the Ashramic Group Life.

Each of these four karmic positions or centers has its distinguishing quality of consciousness, predominant ray energy, method of approach to the work, and areas of difficulty. When one is in that position, identified with and as the consciousness within that center, one has then taken up the position of the consciousness or Soul within that particular group center.

There will be a great deal of variation in the expression of these centers, so the following are merely general tendencies.

The First Ray, Crown Center approach to facilitating:

The Crown Center facilitator will hold and sound the note of group purpose. This is the note that initiates the group activity and brings the members together (while it is Second Ray that holds them). They will tend to drive the group toward its goal.

Outer Activity: The group crown center will work to keep the students’ attention focused on the group purpose. For instance, when a discussion wanders off topic, the leader will gently, but firmly, direct the group back to the matter at hand.

Areas of Difficulty: In the cooperative group process, interpreting the overshadowing purpose is the rightful task of the consciousness of the entire group, working in unity. In the past, interpreting the group purpose was part of the function of a “leader”. Thus, Crown Center facilitators need to watch their tendency to take a central, directing position within the group life. They must be careful to sound and hold the note of purpose overshadowing the group, without imposing their interpretation of that purpose onto the other members of the group.

The group member functioning in this karmic position should be practicing the Lesson 8 Transmutation Technique, and the See-La-Aum technique, as and for the group on a regular basis.[3]

The Second Ray, Heart Center approach to facilitating:

Heart Center facilitator’s will hold and sound the Love-Wisdom note of the group. They work to keep the group in right relationship with The Wisdom via its invocative and evocative activity. They will naturally tend toward mystical awareness and the teaching function, with the emphasis on understanding and at-one-ment.

Outer Activity: Via the tonality and quality of their words and actions, the group heart center will relate the teaching to the mind, emotions, and daily life and affairs of the students.

Areas of Difficulty: There will be a strong tendency for the study group to expect a Second Ray facilitator to be a “Sage on a Stage”. In reaction: 1. Group members will either: a) try to depend on the facilitator for guidance and answers, and/or b) reject the facilitator’s function as too controlling. 2. The facilitator will either: a) see their function as being special and important, thus separating themselves from the rest of the group, and/or b) see themselves as inadequate to that function, thus setting themselves up for “failure”.

Again, the group member functioning in this karmic position should be practicing the Lesson 8 Transmutation Technique, and the See-La-Aum technique, as and for the group on a regular basis.

The Seventh Ray, Throat Center approach to facilitating:

Although traditionally a Third Ray center, the Throat is here functioning as a subtle organ of Seventh Ray organization. Thus, it is the coordinating center of the inner activity that precipitates the outer appearance. Its emphasis is on the ceremonial magic that orders the etheric substance of the group. This creative activity of the consciousness takes place outside of time and space (as we are familiar with it), and it may manifest in a non-sequential manner.

Once the physical-etheric form is built, the creative activity of the consciousness is complete. The work is then handed to a deva of appearance, who directs elementals to create the physical-dense reflection of the etheric form.[5] The deva and elementals then perform the intelligent activity that produces the physical-dense form.

Thus, properly speaking, creating the outer forms of the group is not the task of the consciousness of the group (including the consciousness in the group throat center). It is the task of the Intelligent Substance of the group.

The group forms (mental, astral, physical-etheric, and physical-dense) produced by this magical activity, are the means through which the potential members of the group relate with the group life. Thus, the throat is also called the Group Public Relations Center.

The consciousness in the karmic position of ordering the group life may not feel any call to lead or to teach. They perceive the group need for the teaching, and perform the inner work that manifests as an announced time, place, and manner in which to study it.

Outer Activity: The focus here will be on the outer public relations function (flyers, etc., announcing the group activity), and on ordering things so that there is a place to meet and appropriate, flexible structure to those meetings.

Areas of Difficulty: In the beginning, the coordinator will naturally focus on the more familiar outer activity, and may become lost in the forms and details of this Third Ray intelligent activity. With diligent practice of the inner work (including transmutations and adjustments), the coordinator will gradually shift from a Third Ray emphasis to a Seventh Ray, as they transition from the old way of working to the new.

The group will also tend to focus on the outer process. If the group becomes attached to that process, they will tend to identify it as the best or only proper method of study. At this point, the group form has become a rigid, crystallized, impediment to study and practice of The Wisdom, rather than a vehicle for it. Part of the task of the group throat center function is to maintain the focus of the group consciousness on the inner creative process rather than the outer form.

Again, the group member functioning in this karmic position should be practicing the Lesson 8 Transmutation Technique, and the See-La-Aum technique, as and for the group on a regular basis.

The Synthetic Energy, Cave Center approach to facilitating:

The Synthetic Center coordinates the subjective activity of the group life. In a sense, it is the “headquarters” function of the group in that it holds the other centers in relationship, enabling them to function together. This center is primarily concerned with the movement of The Wisdom down into the body of the group (individually and collectively) via the inner group work.

Outer Activity: The Synthetic Center is the last of the four group centers to become active, subjectively or objectively. It is built via the persistent, focused intent of the group consciousness over a period of some years. Thus, it may not have a focus of expression within a study group. If it does, the expression will be very preliminary, consisting of an awareness of the place and function of the other centers, and the necessity of coordinated cooperation between them.

Areas of Difficulty: The basic problem of this center is that of Synthesis. The blending of the First, Second, and Seventh Rays produced a new Energy which, while it is born of the blending of the three, has its unique and distinct characteristics. Formerly “synthesis” was associated with the Seventh Ray, and thus with vertical movement. For instance, it was sometimes defined as the transformation of any thing into its higher correspondent. This is vertical movement of the higher into the lower, the downward motion of Purpose into Substance.

However, the new Energy of Synthesis is purpose made manifest via at-one-ment. Purpose is united with Substance, and Substance is united with Purpose, via Love, and the Three become One.

As with any other formulation of a plan of activity, it is necessary to invoke the will of the soul to manifest harm-less-ness in all levels of your work. Thus, facilitator’s should always qualify their inner work with the following:

“The probationer who is sincere in his conscious aspira­tion to be of service will practice the above techniques as a matter of course.”[6]

These suggested characteristics of group centers are not exclusive. A facilitator may, and often does, incorporate the subjective and objective activity of two or more in their function. Nor are they definitive. The above is just a way of looking at group facilitation, via the perspective of karmic positions within the group life.

Again, there is no ideal, overshadowing thought-form or astral image of a study group facilitator, coordinator, or whatever we might call that function. There cannot be. The concept of group facilitator has to remain flexible, and responsive to the group’s needs (whatever those needs are) as The New Thought-form Presentation of The Wisdom moves out to humanity.

Karmic Responsibility

Since we are discussing karmic relationships within a group life, we must also consider the karmic responsibility that comes with those positions.

Anyone occupying any of these esoteric centers is naturally taking a subjective position of responsibly. It is this, and only this, which sets facilitators apart from the other members of the group.

• It does not mean that one is more “advanced” in any spiritual fashion.
• It does not mean that one needs to know more.
• It simply means that one is taking some type of karmic responsibility, and as a result, whatever kind of karmic responsibility one accepts, one has to account for.

Whenever you initiate any kind of service work, subjectively and objectively, that activity is going to produce effects, within the three lower worlds, within the world of affairs, and within the consciousness involved. That is the point.

Thus, when you initiate that activity, to whatever degree that you initiate it, you are karmically responsible for the consequences. It is up to you to recognize that there is going to be some degree of resistance:

That resistance will produce some type of appearance within the mental, astral, physical-etheric, and physical-dense instrument of the group. Since you have initiated that change, you are karmically responsible for taking this resistance into account, primarily via your inner work.

Thus, whenever you initiate a service activity, you are karmically responsible for doing the necessary transmutation and inner adjustments. You enter the activity knowing that there will be resistance, you invoke understanding of that resistance into your brain awareness, and then do the necessary inner work. You do this from the beginning, starting when you first feel the call to perform that service activity, clear through to its completion. This includes taking any type of responsibility for bringing a study group into being.

In order to do this inner work successfully, you must have already been practicing the transmutation and adjustment techniques on yourself. This practice both prepares your consciousness and instrument for service, and enables you to expand this inner work to the group.

The primary difference between individual techniques and group transmutations and adjustments is the identification of the consciousness. That’s pretty much it.

A basic principle that must be kept in mind here is that the “good guys” never do anything to anyone. You are always practicing on yourself. But, self or identity is flexible. This fact should become apparent by the time one moves up into the Ajna center. By then one has, through the process of growth and development, learned to identify with and as:

Thus, by the time one has an Ajna, one has developed and can move between a number of different states of identity. Depending on what you are doing, you may be identified as your physical, astral or mental instrument, or as your integrated persona.

In addition to these four states of awareness, one has a spark of identity within each of the major, minor, and minute chakras. You can move into any of the centers and experience another state of awareness. Thus, you can experience the consciousness in your Heart, Throat, Ajna, Cave, or Crown centers.

You have access to multiple states of awareness, most of which are associated with your individual persona, and some of which are associated with the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul. This includes the Cave, which is that state of awareness which is the integration of the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul, the incarnate human soul, and the animal soul. You bring all three of these states of consciousness together here.

Once you have achieved that integrated synthesis of the Soul, to some extent, you are then in a position to expand your identity to that of the group which you serve. You are ready to identify with and as the consciousness of the group. As the consciousness of the group, one then performs the adjustments and the transmutations on oneself.

The synthesis of the Soul in the Cave is brought about via the practice of the meditation techniques in The Nature or the Soul. Thus, if one has not been doing the inner work for oneself, on a regular daily basis, then one cannot do it for a group. It would, in fact, be very dangerous for one to attempt to do so.

When you are identified with and as the consciousness of the group, you are that group life, and what affects the group affects you.

To the extent that the group’s consciousness is identified with and trapped within its forms, then you are trapped.

The distortions produced by the group instrument are your mental illusions, astral glamours, and etheric maya.

If you have not been doing the transmutation and adjustment work on your individual equipment before you identify with and as the group, then you will not be able to do it for the group. Your individual instrument will not be prepared for the added stress of group work, and you will not know how to perform the techniques properly.

Another essential factor is one’s attitude toward the group. One must approach the group with the attitude that one is a Servant whose service is to Humanity. This attitude can be established and maintained via the following technique:

At-Oneing With The Group via Foot Washing

The above alignment is even more important than becom­ing one with the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul, for until you have achieved this attitude of humble service, and become one with the group, you cannot become one with the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul.

In closing, it is absolutely essential that one approach the work of service realizing that you cannot give somebody something you yourself do not have.

You cannot model a Throat Center if you do not have one. You cannot model a Heart Center if you do not have one, or an Ajna, Cave, or Crown unless you have one. Nor can one really lead a group through the inner work that involves any of those centers unless you yourself have developed them.

While a Throat Center can be developed via regular book study, the Heart Center has to be actually experienced as a mystical state of unity or at-one-ment.

One can develop an Ajna center only when one already has functioning Throat and Heart centers. One develops the Ajna largely out of the necessity of coordinating one’s Heart and Throat centers (otherwise they are constantly warring with each other).

One develops a Cave Center by consciously integrating or unifying the Crown, Ajna, Alta, and Throat centers. This is a conscious act, the result of years of regular, intense inner work, done in full awareness of what one is creating.

In order to demonstrate the Ajna, Cave, or Crown to someone, one must have developed those centers, and the only way to do that is via the practice the inner disciplines, and the embodiment of those inner disciplines in one’s outer life and affairs.

Thus, one has to actually do the inner work. There are no short cuts. One cannot simply read the proper books or sit at the feet of the right teacher.

However, if one truly practices The Nature of The Soul, one will initiate the path of spiritual growth and development that awakens the consciousness in these centers. One will then become the Spiritual Soul Incarnate.

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