The following is based on the transcript of a projection of The Nature of The Soul, Lesson 8, in 2006. In this portion of the online course, the teacher is responding extemporaneously to written questions.
The Question
“1. In the Great Invocation we say: “…restore the Plan”, which seems a contradiction, linear time-wise: a plan is something you do in preparation of something to execute in the future, whereas restoring means to correct something that has already been executed in the past …”
The Response
“A couple of things:
“This does not directly relate to anything we have studied thus far, but to planetary history. I would highly recommend The Secret Doctrine by Madame Blavatsky, and Rudolf Steiner wrote some interesting material as well.
“Keep in mind that when we refer to the Divine Plan, we are referring to something that exists above the three lower worlds in its complete state, … and which is being unfolded or precipitated into the three lower worlds by the hierarchy and world discipleship —by the inner government of the world— and is being manifest in physical dense in the world of affairs. It would be more correct to say was being precipitated, because actually the Plan has not been in a condition of being manifested for a very long time. That will take some explanation.
“This is not something that we’d normally go into at this point in the class, but we do need to understand it at some point, because it helps place in context the critical nature of the time in which we live, and the opportunity we have … living in these times. In order to understand this, we have to mention that we live in a Second Ray Solar System, on a Third Ray Planet, and that therefore the purpose of our planetary life is to realize Divine Love, via Intelligent Activity. Now that we have studied Second Ray, and one lesson on Third Ray, the meaning of that is a little bit clearer.
“While the goal of the current incarnation of this Solar and Planetary Life is the development of consciousness, that was not always the case.[1] In the previous Solar Plan, the purpose or goal was the development of Substance, the Third Aspect. That solar incarnation concluded, producing all the heavier elements that make up our current Solar system. Thus, the majority of that substance of which our bodies are made was the product of the purpose of the plan of the previous Solar system —the ‘perfection’ of substance, the perfection of that purpose. That is why we have Substance of the character and quality that we currently work with.
“That means, also, that every particle of substance, on every level in this Solar system, carries within it the impression or programming of the character and quality of the previous or old purpose and plan.
“The current Divine Plan has been described as ‘the perfection of consciousness.’ This ‘perfection’ is known. That is, it is a known state or quality of consciousness, an end, which has been known from the beginning of this incarnation and toward which we are working. However, that current Plan has not yet been fully realized within the Solar and Planetary life. It is still being unfolded, at all levels to which we have access and of which we are aware. That means that when you compare the old Plan and the New, the old plan appears perfect, and the new Plan appears imperfect.
“However, while the old plan is not the current purpose or goal, in order to achieve the new Plan, we had first to create a vehicle in which the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul —the consciousness that was being ‘perfected’ could incarnate. Since the Soul of this planet was working toward ‘perfection’ via the Intelligent Activity of Substance, we had to have an instrument into which the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul could move and function as Consciousness.
“The necessary preliminary development of the vehicle took many long ages, but was finally achieved, probably around the Atlantean epoch. In this context, ‘Atlantean’ refers to the evolutionary stage of consciousness in which humanity had been focusing its evolution on developing the astral-emotional field (not yet the concrete-rational mind, which existed in humanity only in potential).
“In the spiritual paths of the Atlantean times, there was a lot preparatory focus on purifying the physical-dense and physical-etheric bodies, and on developing a clear, still astral instrument, aligned with and responsive to the Overshadowing Soul. This produced the classic, pure mystical alignment. —the development of the fully functional heart center, an alignment between the heart center and the crown center, and via the heart center to the Spiritual Soul. At that point, the budding mystic had an instrument that was capable of being a vehicle for the development and perfection of consciousness.
“Up to that point, there was no inherent conflict between the two plans, the old and current, and no necessity of choosing between them. Both required the same instrumental development, and there was, up until then, little if any differentiation in the path between one and the other. However, once a vehicle had been built that was capable of being an instrument of the Soul, one had (and has) to choose.
“The choice is not as obvious as some might believe. On the ‘left’ there is the perfected plan, fully embodied in the previous solar incarnation. On the ‘right’ there is the current Plan, incomplete and apparently imperfect —the growth and development of consciousness. The seeker does not and cannot know which choice they will make until the moment of decision.
“During the Atlantean epoch, the world discipleship, and the hierarchy itself, reached that point of decision and had to choose between the old and the current plans.
“A portion of the hierarchy and world discipleship identified with and as the old plan —the perfection of substance. We know them by various names, such as the ‘dark brotherhood’, the ‘Brothers of the Left Hand Path’, the ‘Black Lodge’, etc. They are those who follow and primarily respond to that old Plan, and work with its substance. The substance with which they work, which is still impressed with and primarily responds to that old plan, is called ‘the Dark Forces’.
“That section of the hierarchy which identifies with the New Plan, are referred to by names such as ‘The Elder Brothers of Humanity’, ‘The Great White Lodge’, and ‘The Masters’. The substance which has been impressed with and responds to the current Divine Plan are called, among other things, the ‘Forces of Life’ or the ‘Light of the Soul’.
“Now, returning to the original question, why ‘restore the Plan’.
“The current Plan was in the process of unfoldment up to the point (during the Atlantean epoch) when there was a split in the hierarchy, and humanity in effect chose sides. Until then, the hierarchy had been incarnated in the world and recognizable by humanity. However, the split within the hierarchy, world discipleship, and humanity (between the Left and Right Hand paths) devastated the civilization of the time and destroyed the continent of Atlantis.
“The war was so severe that, in order to stop the terrible destruction, the alignment between the incarnate human instrument and its Overshadowing Spiritual Soul was broken, and the hierarchy (White Lodge and Black) withdrew from the world. The means of horrible destruction was taken away, but peace was never declared.
“From that point onwards, the Plan was no longer in a condition of active unfoldment and precipitation. Instead, we are unfolding what might be called a temporary ‘emergency management’ plan. The goal of the emergency management plan is to ‘restore the Plan on Earth’. That restoration will be indicated, in part, by the reappearance of the Hierarchy and the Christ.
“Thus, the current Plan will be ‘restored’ when it is returned to a condition where it is in the process of enfoldment.
“This might be comparative to the day to day development of a city, in which you have a goal to build that city; a function within the national and planetary life toward which that city is working. The plan of that city is in the process of enfoldment. If disaster happens, devastating that city, they formulate a temporary emergency plan to restore basic, necessary functions, and get the city into a condition where it can again take up its function within the national life.
“The whole planetary life has been functioning in a temporary emergency management plan, working (against the continuing efforts of the Black Lodge) to go back to a condition where the Divine Plan will again be unfolding, and humanity, the world discipleship, and the hierarchy will again take up our work within the planetary and Solar Plan.”
Copyright © 2006 by Glen Knape
[1] See: p. 19, Lesson 1 (of the bound text):