Full Moon of Easter

The Full Moon of Easter

The Aries Full Moon is the first of the 3 powerful Full Moons of the Year. It is a special time of meditation to prepare ourselves for the tremendous downpour of spiritual energy. It is also known as the full moon of Easter, and is deeply connected with the evolution of the soul.

During the full moon, a tremendous amount of divine energy pours down into the earth. With so much energy plentifully available, it magnifies everything whether it’s good or bad. For ordinary people it’s a time of crisis. For people on the spiritual path it’s an opportunity to harness this tremendous amount of energy and use it to purify their chakras, disintegrate negative thoughts, negative emotions, etc. With the negativity cleared out of the system, spiritual aspirants can use the downpour of energy to bless their loved ones, their family and friends, their projects, their finances and their life in general.

The connection with Lord Jesus

The Bible talks about the life of Lord Jesus. The Nativity is when His body was born. The subsequent events in His life that followed thereafter were the Baptism, which is also known as the descent of the Holy Spirit. Then there was transfiguration, where he went up to the mountain and basically he turned into brilliant light. Thereafter there was crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.

Imagine God is a gigantic fire. From there sparks shoot out. From each of these sparks is called a Divine Spark. The Divine Spark puts a portion of itself down to what is called the Higher Soul. When the Higher Soul puts a portion of itself down into the lower world, it’s called the Incarnated Soul.

In the esoteric tradition, you have the various bodies used by the Incarnated Soul – the physical body, the emotional body and mental body. These are the vehicles of the I AM, the Higher Soul. The Higher Soul puts a portion of itself down into the physical, emotional and mental worlds to be able to learn lessons and evolve. That’s what is called an incarnation. What we call death actually happens on several levels. First there’s the death of the physical body, the emotional body and the mental body. The soul pulls a portion of itself back up. The Higher Soul incarnates, it learns its lessons, and once it’s done the incarnated soul is pulled back into the Higher Soul. From there, the Higher Soul goes back to what is called the Divine Spark. That’s what we refer to in the soul affirmation, when we affirm that we are not the physical body, thoughts, emotions or mind; that we are the soul, that we are connected and one with our Higher Soul, and that we are one with the Divine Spark, and one with God.

Nativity and Baptism

In the Christian tradition there’s a saying that you have to be born again. It means you have to accept Christ in your heart. That actually has a much deeper meaning. Nativity is actually when the soul starts to take that incarnation seriously. The soul decides it’s going to use this incarnation to start walking on the spiritual path instead of wasting time on sensual pleasures or meaningless pursuits. As it is born into the particular life it has to go through purification. Think of it like like a balloon. In order for the balloon to float you have to let go of the weights. That’s where the baptism comes in. Baptism is purification. As the system is purified, the incarnated soul, who is now serious about the spiritual path, can progress with the spiritual practice.

Transfiguration

As the spiritual aspirant accelerates their spiritual practice, they reach a stage, what is called in the life of Lord Jesus, as Transfiguration. This is when the aspirant begins to realize that they are a being of pure energy, a being of pure light. In transfiguration Lord Jesus was with the apostles Peter, James and John, and they saw his clothes and his face all turning into brilliant light. The aspirant realizes with this description that this process happens in the physical world as well as in the inner worlds when the soul becomes very, very firm with its spiritual practice. It happens when they are able to connect to the Higher Soul substantially. Clairvoyantly seen, the aspirant looks like brilliant light. Spiritually, the soul goes through transfiguration.

Crucifixion & Resurrection

When the soul gets really, really serious about their spiritual practice, they get to a point where they want to work out all their karma. When all the karma is worked out they don’t have to come back anymore. Crucifixion signifies that the spiritual practitioner is determined to get rid of the negative karma so they they can go on to the next world, or the next level of spiritual graduation. This can be likened to a school. There’s elementary, middle school, senior school, college, graduation, and so on. Except instead of graduation, in esoteric parlance it’s called initiations. More information on this is available through the study of theosophy, the teachings of Alice Bailey and in Astara.

It’s important to note that each of the steps – nativity, baptism, transfiguration and crucifixion – take time. Now each step can take one lifetime, or each step can take several lifetimes. Through the practice of Arhatic Yoga, the process can be significantly sped up.

A lot of old karma comes to the surface during the process of crucifixion. Once that is done, the soul progresses further and moves onward to the state of resurrection. This is when the soul is free from the cycle of birth and rebirth. It leaves the incarnated soul’s realm of suffering. Such a soul can be called an Ascended Master. After all the karma has been worked out, the soul doesn’t have to come back. Spiritually it’s been resurrected. However, many Holy Masters choose to come back and help out because they feel pain about the suffering of humanity. This pain isn’t an emotional pain, however; it’s more of compassion and, in fact, there’s no emotion involved at all. Everything they do is from the viewpoint of a higher purpose.

Exodus

MCKS said we have to understand Exodus on the higher level. The Israelites going to Egypt symbolized the incarnated soul putting on garments to live in the physical, emotional and mental worlds. Slavery of the Israelites symbolized the incarnated soul enjoying the physical world so much, it got entangled in the physical pleasures, emotional drama and mental aspect of certain thoughts and ideas. It created a trap for the soul and it became a slave to the physical, emotional and mental bodies and forgot its Divine Origin and who it really was. Moses represented the personification of the Higher Soul and his work as an agent of the Divine Spark. He stirred the incarnated soul out of its stupor so that it could move forward. However, sometimes the incarnated soul is so deeply embedded in the physical world, the Higher Soul decides to send down negative karma to shake it out. That’s what is called the 10 plagues.

When you have not been meditating for some time, you get an inner feeling that you have to get back on the spiritual path. That’s basically the Higher Soul sending you a message telling you to focus again. The Higher Soul allows a certain amount of karma to manifest a little quicker to bring us back into the spiritual path. Instead of saying 10 plagues, we can also say it is the maturing of massive amounts of negative karma.

That’s why, when some of us enter the spiritual path, initially a lot of stuff comes up. This is meant to help us disentangle. That’s why many people say that some form of tragedy or personal loss had sent them on the spiritual path. If life is so good and there’s no spirituality, at some point the Higher Soul decides that the entanglement is getting worse. So if we don’t actively intend to get back on the spiritual path, sometimes certain ‘plagues’ are allowed to manifest so the Higher Soul can pull us back out.

Passover

Passover from the esoteric viewpoint is a celebration of when the incarnated soul is disentangled from the lower worlds to go to the land of milk and honey or the promised land. However, what is called the Promised Land is not the maximum extent to where the soul can reach. When the incarnated soul becomes one with the Higher Soul it is likened to experiencing Heaven. However, that’s just one of the heavens. There are higher targets that have to be achieved.

Ascension

Ascension is the 6^th initiation of the soul. Instead of being just an Ascended Master that doesn’t have to come back, they go even higher. The Holy Master is not only one with their Higher Soul, they achieve oneness with the Divine Spark. As they go higher and higher, they have a fuller oneness with God and ascend to the realm outside of the ordinary human evolutionary path.

The Initiations

According to Theosophy, these are the initiations:

Initiation zero
The vast majority of ordinary humanity lies on the probationary path.
First initiation – “birth” to the spiritual life
At the first initiation one gains full control of the physical body. A soul that reaches this level is referred to as having attained their Individualized “I AM” Presence, the prerequisite for further spiritual advancement.
Second initiation – baptism
At the second initiation, one gains full control of the astral body.
Third initiation – the transfiguration
An individual who is at the level of the third initiation has acquired fully developed clairvoyance and clairaudience.
Fourth initiation – the crucifixion
An individual reaching the fourth initiation is known as the perfected one, or an Arhat (Pali) or a Paramahamsa (Sanskrit).
Fifth initiation – the resurrection
This comprises the first rung of beings designated in Theosophy as Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or Ascended Masters.
Sixth initiation – the ascension
These are the Chohans (Lords) of the Seven Rays.
Seventh initiation – bodhisattva, avatar, or christhood
The seventh initiation is known as the initiation of the Bodhisattava (Buddhism) or the Avatar (Hinduism). The Maitreya or World Teacher (known as Krishna by Hindus, the Christ by Christians, Maitreya by Buddhists, Messiah by the Jews, the Iman Mahdi by Muslims, and the Peshotan by the Zoroastrians) is at this level.
Eighth initiation – buddhahood
Level eight is the level of the Buddha.
Ninth initiation – godhood
Level nine is the “Lord of the World”. Sanat Kumara – “The Eternal Youth” and “The Ancient of Days”, is the governing deity of Earth
Tenth initiation – planetary logos
The tenth initiation is considered to symbolize perfection and is also called the Spirit of the Earth, and specifically denoted as the Planetary Logos of Earth.

References

Leadbeater, C.W. (1925) The Masters and the Path Adyar, Madras, India. Theosophical Publishing House
Bailey, Alice A. (1922) Initiation, Human and Solar. Lucis Trust