The Journey Continues – Chapter 3

The Journey Continues is a sequel to Journey of a Lifetime: A Group Story and continues the account of the group’s journey through more than thirty years’ work.   We continue to post a chapter each month.  Here is this month’s chapter. Please Note: Copies of the book are available from Sydney Goodwill. 

CHAPTER THREE – Aspects of Miniature Hierarchy

It may be said that Hierarchy is a structure, a way of working. Hierarchy, being the heart centre of the planet, has the Christ as its great leader at the heart of Hierarchy itself. This is the method whereby the work proceeds out from the very central point which carries the purpose, the plan, the work for this period of time, outward into expression through the ranks of the initiates and disciples, all the way out until it becomes available to humanity to take human affairs and understanding into the next and higher phase of expression.

Any group working in line with Hierarchy is working in the same way: From the point of inspiration, moving out through coordination of that contacted and into a point of application in the world work. So the structure might be seen symbolically from the point of focus (or heart) at the centre with a series of concentric circles all the way out to the periphery, enabling movement outward. At the same time, the centre remains protected from those areas further out which do not share the same degree of realisation, and yet all have the same opportunity to work with the same energies out into expression.

In the first phase of the Group, over thirty years ago, we understood the expression of a miniature Hierarchy in its most obvious interpretation. This may apply to any group. Here we have a group of people drawn together in service and attentive to impression from the subjective planes and their inner group. Here you have people recognising where everyone stands; we have people with various capacities and degrees of understanding and the group as a unity functions under the inspiration provided by those who may, coordinated within the field of the work by others and thence carried on outward into the point of application in the world of human affairs and expression. There is a miniature Hierarchy in operation.

When we moved into the second phase of the Group, into the public arena, it was a very different environment requiring more formal structures although the subjective work continued unabated behind the scenes. Miniature Hierarchy took on yet another significance, a further aspect, in terms of the group work. It could be seen that there was an emphasis upon its protective nature and capacity, protection of the central focus of the newly established work, the seed that must not be disturbed or allowed to die under any circumstances. No personality disruption or interference could be allowed to hinder or destroy. Again the protection is understood in terms of ‘concentric circles’ – everyone is included and incorporated but nothing is allowed to disturb that centre.

A third aspect of miniature Hierarchy started to appear within the group awareness as the Group began to recognise the Life aspect and move into an understanding of life-sharing. It was realised that the whole group moves together, and as a group. It makes no difference that the group members may be at various points of understanding or realisation. We are not considering differences or separate states. The group at this point is an entity in its own right.

Humanity itself is a group, the world disciples, progressing through time and growing in conscious awareness through life experience on this planet and this is not clearly seen while we focus our sight myopically on specific individuals, groups or peoples at any particular time. Humanity also moves ‘together and as a group’.

We may observe the same story with the spiritual Hierarchy of the planet. We narrow down the true picture if we believe that the Hierarchy’s only concern is to assist a struggling humanity. The Hierarchy has a goal of its own and onward they move, together and as a group, incorporating in their conscious awareness not only the planes upon which humanity lives and expresses but also those planes higher and beyond the average human awareness. They incorporate the five planes of human evolution within their conscious expression. It matters not at what stage its members all may express. It is a unified group and we need not study the ‘cells’ within it.

At this point in a group’s life previous emphasis upon individuals must have dropped below the levels of conscious focus in the recognition or overwhelming realisation that the group is an entity, and the whole group can and must go onward together as a unit. Is it any surprise that the group Entity itself at this stage has so lost interest in any individual within the group that it never occurs in consciousness to think in such a way? That certain individuals may at times be uncomfortable may be true but if that is so then they are uncomfortable and the Group is moving on along its life path regardless. There are those in the group who are so decentralised and so captured by the vision that is the group’s work that the movement onward of the whole group is assured.

Basically, those workers who are drawn together in group service have karmic links of group relationship from the past and although at times some may appear to drop out of the work they are never really lost to the group, they cannot opt out, and will return in another moment in time or another incarnation to take up the task together with their group. And those who may step through the illusory veil of death are still part of the group. This is a group. We are a group because we have known one another through time, because we have karmic working links. This constitutes the realisation that the whole group not only can go together but that they do. And the group Entity comes to a practical, demonstrating realisation of that understanding.

The group in Aquarius, just like Hierarchy, moves as a group. Any group that has come to a point where it can operate as a miniature Hierarchy knows that everyone is not at the same stage of awareness but that they are all so integrated into that one life that they move together and as a group. Then they understand that they will one day arrive together at that ultimate realisation where the planes we now exist on drop below the level of consciousness and another great vista, a new adventure in Life experience, will open before the group.

Another understanding which dawns upon the Group at the present stage is that the teachings and principles that guided the Group through its earlier stages, now absorbed in their essence within the group awareness, drop into the background of the group life. They are known as guiding principles and working tools but it is recognised that there is no longer any necessity for the Group to discuss these matters which allows for ‘free space’ through which the newly emerging realisations or revelation may enter. Discussion within the Group enters into that which can be known and not merely that which is known.

Since the emphasis is not on the individual in the Group, as each one may speak or contribute, the speaking is not of oneself but represents the group expression. When truly understood, as group members speak they are not relaying something of themselves but that which is newly emerging within the next stage of expression.

Perhaps the best symbolic illustration we may find to describe such a unified group, a miniature Hierarchy, is the human hand. The hand has to have everything operating otherwise there is some impediment to free movement and dexterity, therefore to what can be achieved. One cannot perform any task properly with the hand if each part is not working together with the others as a cooperative whole. But those fingers do not have to think about how they will work in cooperation. They just do. They are a group entity. They may operate singly with certain movements but the fingers and thumb respond automatically and in unison as they receive a message from the brain to perform any function.

Sometimes one person in the group may come to the fore for some reason or function but that is still not seen as an individual contribution; it is still a group expression of a totality. And no ‘digit’ considers itself better or lesser than any other because they all know that every one of them is needed, together in full functioning capacity, to perform their group task with understanding and with no loss of time or energy.

A fourth aspect of miniature Hierarchy that we may identify is that Hierarchy itself is not occupied with the present; it builds for the future. So any group expressing as a miniature Hierarchy, and as an outpost of the inner group, reflecting Hierarchical method, finds itself working for the future. Although such a group may be seen in its outer function in the work as a whole, it is truly a subjectively focused group. That which it has to convey is ‘lived into being’, lived into human consciousness, bearing significance for the future expression of the race. It works in and for the future – a deeper, wider, more expansive area of working than experienced before.

So here we have a group working in the world, related to the inner Ashram, working on all these planes simultaneously. This may not be seen or understood by those whose work and conscious focus lies mainly in the outer world but this does not deter the group any more than Hierarchy can be deterred. All workers are needed and fulfill their respective work within the whole. Hierarchy builds for the future and so likewise does the group that is an externalized point of the inner Ashram. All that is done is with the intent to open the way through into a wider and more expansive world.