Address by

BELOVED SERAPIS BEY

March 30, 1954

"Candidate for the Ascension, what bring ye to this Retreat? I bring to you the blessings of my Light and the victory that is within it!" 

So, have I addressed you, beloved ones, age after age, century after century when your light brought you to the door of the halls of Luxor. Do you remember those hours? I have endeavored to recreate within the substance of your etheric bodies that memory, to CHARGE through my energies that Cosmic Fire which at the very moment when the call for your Ascension comes, shall, render the assistance in removing the final magnetic pull of Earth, assisting you into the glory of that full God freedom! That is my reason for being! I have guarded... I have guided... I have stood within the Ascension Flame in order that there might be a way and means by which the mankind of Earth, when through with the folly of the senses, could return to their God Estate. Since the "fall of man" if there were not a Guardian Brotherhood of the Ascension Flame, there would be no way back HOME! Have you thought, have you pondered, have you within the deepest recesses of your being realized what it would be if there were no way back home?

To this end have we remained, many of us, prisoners of love upon this dark star. Your names are written in the Book of Life. You are among those whom the Lords of Karma chose previous to your incarnation as possible candidates to pass into the Ascended Master Octave at the close of an Earth life. For this reason, have you been given extraordinary opportunity in contact with the Ascended Master Brotherhood, that you might "make things right" in your individual worlds, that you might in service, cooperative and individual, render the balance to life required to cut and sever forever the necessity for reincarnation.

Let us IMMEDIATELY and FOREVER remove from the consciousness the feeling and the attitude that service is such a magnificent gift of your life to the Universe. It is rather an OPPORTUNITY given you individually so that you may be set free. You have been especially chosen. Across the bosom of your etheric body has been written by the Brotherhood of the Ascension these very words Candidate for the Ascension, within the course of an Earth life." You have been given a Sponsor who throughout this Earth life has stimulated within your outer consciousness and feelings the desire to know Truth. This Sponsor has loosened your consciousness from the mass mind, from the orthodox channels, has encouraged you to seek the spiritual law in occult knowledge and to get even a smattering of understanding of the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy.

WHY! In order that through the energies of your being voluntarily consecrated to setting life free, you might earn the privilege of wiping the dust of Earth from your feet, FACING your Source and hearing that great clarion call which comes at a cosmic moment to every man. Then entering into the glory of your God-free body, standing in the Sphere with those you love, you serve the Universe in light, harmony and beauty throughout all eternity! Would that I might convey to the consciousness of mankind the happiness of the Ascended Master Octave! Would that you might feel within yourselves for an instant the joy of that freedom from those sense-bound bodies that you wear! Nothing no service, no discipline would ever be a pall upon you as you faced that glorious goal.

I Am dedicated to see that you pass through the fires of purification and that you who have applied for the opportunity of gaining the Ascension might preserve unto that victory!

Let me again give you the story of your entrance into Luxor. You have all been there. We are heart-friends of many ages. Few times I have left the Retreat. at Luxor. Few times I have taken incarnation outside of the sacred Land of Egypt.

Within the heart of the Ascension Temple at Luxor is a magnetic power of the Sacred Fire which draws within the compass of that Retreat, (either in the finer inner bodies or, on rare occasions when the individual is very developed, within the flesh) those who have the possibility within the lifestream to attain the Ascension within the compass of an Earth life. No other individual even enters within the outer walls, those who do enter stand before my Presence. There I speak as I spoke to you this day, each hopeful aspirant standing before my Presence and hearing those words which open the door to the mental and feeling world - "Candidate for the Ascension, what bring ye to this Holy Place?" Then there is externalized from within the lifestream the thoughts and feelings which are the gifts of the consciousness. It is possible within the matter of a moment to design the discipline for the neophyte. Uncomfortable indeed is the externalization of the thoughts and feelings and yet it is the very first initiation through which the hopeful and the brave must pass.

Then he must successfully pass through the disciplines of the seven great Temples. The neophyte first must learn the great surrender, must learn within his heart, soul and spirit to find and desire to cooperate with the Will of God. The neophyte is placed within a cell and allowed to commune there with his own Holy I Am Presence, endeavoring to contact that God-Self and to develop within himself a humility before it. Within this first great Temple, under the direction of the great Morya and his assistant Chohans, comes the dissolving of rebellion. Rebellion within the lifestream is the feeling which brought every man and woman from a state of grace and constant communion with the God-Self. Rebellion took Lucifer from the Heart of Heaven, and the rebellion against discipline and self-correction is a BARRIER to real spiritual progress. It does not mean one should assume servility to any human self, or submission even to the Will of the Master, but the quality of rebellion that is within the consciousness must be melted away. We have various ways and means of drawing out of the dormant consciousness those qualities and a good number of our candidates remove themselves from the Temple before passing through this first initiation, I regret to say. That is why at this time I have set into motion at inner levels those currents which will bring forth particular melodies to dissolve rebellion in the feelings, rebellion not only against injustice... rebellion against conditions... rebellion against limitation. They are all ramifications of the same quality within the feeling world that must go. Let me point out that it does not require "submission" to limitation to substitute for rebellion, but a constant alert awareness setting into action the law which is in your hands to remedy conditions and yet keeping yourself harmonious, peaceful, constructively employed during this process. Thus, you are master of your energy.

Those few who pass from the First Temple are taken into the Second Temple, known as the Temple of Learning. Here under the Brothers guarded and guided by Kuthumi, or one of his assistants, they are given the instruction in the Law. Here they develop understanding of the laws of cause and effect and all those laws which you are presently engaged in learning. It is a pleasant and a happy time, a time of the sowing of the seeds, a time of the breathing of life upon those seeds and bringing forth a harvest in works. It is a time when the artist develops his skill; the musician develops the dexterity of musical accomplishment; a time when the teacher becomes eloquent in the capacity to convey knowledge and stir enthusiasms in the students; it is a time when the statesman gains the vision similar to that which has been incorporated in the founding of your beloved United States of America; it is a time when all that is good develops and grows and the enthusiasms of the Brothers and Sisters is tremendous.

From this initiation, most pass successfully into the Third Temple under the great protection and guidance of our Beloved Paul, the Venetian. Here again, we come to the discipline of living with our brothers, of becoming our brother's keeper. Here the neophytes are placed in living quarters with lifestreams who have within themselves those tendencies which are particularly aggravating to the others. Here again the numbers dwindle and with great feelings of relief, the neophytes rush for the door and leave us. It is unfortunate, but to live with one's fellowman is one of the greatest tests of the unascended state. Yet, although the graciousness, the beauty, the kindliness of this great and mighty Chohan are so great that they would melt a heart of stone, the discipline which he gives in learning tolerance and understanding is such that few survive!

From there we move into the Fourth Temple (my Temple). This is the first personal contact I have with the neophyte since the entering of the lifestream into the Retreat. It is the time when the neophyte must, for the first time, draw enough purity to see his Presence or his Holy Christ Self face to face. It is an initiation when the Master himself must stand within the aura of the initiate. It is a time when many nefarious presentations from within the inner bodies come to the consciousness of the student, when the "many voices" speak; when only discrimination, prayer, selflessness and humility can discern the Voice of the Silence. It is a time when, if possible, the ego is inflated, when the voices speak of great things the self shall do. It is the time when "self" is shorn of all egotism, subtle and apparent and after passing through this initiation (during which I stand within the aura and pray the prayer of my heart to God), the lifestream is ready for the consecration.

When the ever-dwindling numbers enter into the Fifth Temple, under the great Hilarion, we come to the beautiful Festival of Consecration. In this Temple, we then dedicate the priests and priestesses of the Flame-the Sacred Fire. Up to this point, they are not permitted to attend the Flame, or to officiate on the altar; they are the congregation, they are the supplicants, they are the neophytes with the shaved heads, the linen garments, the bare feet and the hopeful hearts. When they enter Temple Five, having passed through the initiation of joining the Christ Self in humility, selflessness and service. they are ready then to have the garments of consecration, the vestments, placed upon them, the golden sandals on their feet, the silken garments upon their bodies. Then the great Hilarion, or the Beloved Raphael, or one of the Members of their Court, perform the Service of Consecration. The light is consecrated before it enters into the body. The emotional body is consecrated and it is made visible to the entire assembly. The etheric body is consecrated. The mental body is consecrated and after those inner bodies are so blessed, every one of the senses is consecrated by the presiding Priest and by myself. It is a magnificent ceremony and it shall one day be woven into your ceremonies of the future before the lifestreams go forth in more than ordinary service. There is given the consecration of the hands through which flow the Flame of Healing… the consecration of the feet which become the anchorage of the Sacred Fire wherever that body moves... the consecration of the lips to speak the Sacred words which invoke and command the manifestation of precipitation and healing powers… the consecration of the energies through the eye's enable the lifestream to see perfection and call it forth.

It is a magnificent activity, the details of which I cannot describe at this moment because of the human limitation in the outer world of so-called time.

The Priests and Priestesses then, magnificent in their robes, each one representing the Ray which is the natural activity of the lifestream, are assigned to the Temple worship. Here they serve for shorter or longer periods, some go no further than this initiation. Many of you within this room have remained the Priests and Priestesses of the Sacred Fire during an entire embodiment because, again, when you come into Temple Six, the initiation in selflessness and service is such that many do not choose to incorporate their energies in a mission that might not be successful, and lose the accumulated good which brought them to the Temple worship.

In Temple Six the Brothers become ministering mendicants, leaving Luxor to test their light in the world of form. The beautiful vestments are taken from their shoulders and folded away, also, the silken garments, the magnificent headdress, the jewels of light, the scepters of power are all removed. Clothed again as a wandering beggar, the ministering beings, under the Devotional Ray, go into the world of form with no credentials and with a vow of silence... there is no way to make even the spiritually alert and worthy know of their qualifications except in the expansion of their own light which, through the eyes, the gesture, the radiation and the aura have to render the service of expanding the light and encouraging the Ascension within those they contact.

Here I lost you many times. Many times, you went forth to set the world on fire! Many times, I saw your receding backs as you walked clown the steps, out the door and the sands of the desert claimed you and only too soon thereafter, the senses! Yet it is all part of evolution and we are allowed by Law to feel no pain. Yet we can feel added happiness when you return, as here you are today.

Those who do return and have through the ages, bringing back the sheaves of their service in the world of form, are ready to enter into the Seventh Great Temple and in the action of the Violet Fire, every atom and cell of their being becomes a ceremony of externalizing God's Will. They become, each one, like a window through which the God life flows without impure qualification of any kind except to expand the borders of the Kingdom. Each one is like a fountain which has neither form nor self and in this cloister, they remain until the close of the Earth span and the Ascension from my own arms and heart is assured.

I hope you have enjoyed this cursory sketch of our endeavors, because your life in the world of form is subjecting you to much the same initiations and you can measure yourselves, your successes and your failures without the promptings of a Guru, knowing within the honesty of your own heart wherein you need to develop more light and wherein you are already master. In this way, each man becomes his own teacher and you pass through the Ascension Flame into the perfection of the great Priest or Priestesses of Ceremonial and at the close of your Earth life shall have your Freedom.

Remember, beloved ones, I Am Embodied Discipline! For many centuries people have feared that discipline. Yet what is discipline but application of a mechanical law, which changes the quality of your energy and connects you with the source of all good, harmony, supply and with your own Christ Self! Discipline is nothing more than applying the mechanical law of consciously changing the quality of your energy. Get away from the sense of rebellion against discipline. There is, you might say, a discipline in the mechanical world... your automobile runs on petrol and if you place water within it you do not have the result you require. Your physical body will give you the greatest possible service if you abide within the laws of harmony, if you restrain yourself from taking into the physical vehicle those certain substances which change its natural vibratory action, disconnect it from the Harmony of the Spheres and in every way make you an unfit conductor for your God Presence.

In the outer world, there is discipline... even your rugged football heroes abide within the discipline of a good night's sleep, of abstinence from smoke and drink, to make themselves efficacious in this game. Your opera singer, your pianist, everyone who rises above the masses and becomes more than ordinary in development, abides within the discipline to train the body and to make the mind alert. Those who do not wish to accept that discipline are the mediocre masses that have not yet the stimulus to wish to be the best, to be the highest, to be the greatest expression and exponent of their art as God incarnate. Do you see? Blessings from the Heart of Luxor.