Invoking the Aquarian Christ in Jerusalem
by Uta Gabay

This paper was presented at the 2006 annual conference of the Seven Rray Institute/University of the Seven Rays in Phoenix, Arizona.

Shalom and Salaam to everyone. First I would like to take you on a journey to Jerusalem and then address some of the aspects of what we encounter as an outpost for the Aquarian Christ energy in Jerusalem and the implications of that for the Ageless Wisdom community.

Let us move our inner eye toward Jerusalem. What do we think and feel as we near Jerusalem? The mind immediately classifies it as a problem spot in world politics; and for the emotions it is a magical place, the archetypal City of Peace. It is both a symbol of our highest ideal of peace, of Shamballa, and at the same time one of the major places responsible for the absence of peace on Earth. And this great drama has been held in place in Jerusalem for millennia.

Down the ages an extraordinary number of cultures and religions have left their imprint on this specific spot on the Earth. And these historical imprints are focused into unbelievable density in the Old City of Jerusalem and especially around the Temple Mount, Mount Moriah. On the East side of the Old City there is the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, and on the west side the Israeli part. The everyday life in Jerusalem does not seem much different from any other city. Yet one can feel the charge of many thoughtforms meeting, clashing, mingling, and endeavoring somehow to live together in this small area. This place has a tendency to attract the human projections of the holy and the true and to tightly preserve the thoughtforms which are created around them.

Many of the important events of the three abrahamic religions have occurred in other places, yet it is in Jerusalem that the thoughtforms are centered and preserved.  From all parts of the planet, from both the religious and the secular worlds, vehement thoughts and feelings are sent to this place. Each group holds its thoughtform of Jerusalem in place and contributes to it on a daily basis.  Jerusalem is like a magnet and the Temple Mount is the central point of this magnet. On the Mount, there stand the two Mosques. We know also that the Jewish Temple once stood in the same area. Some people hold that the Roman Temple of Jupiter stood at the same place and that there were earlier structures of worship there as well, including worship of the Goddess.

This little hill, with its layers of temples, keeps the attention of humanity glued to it. It is called Mt Moriah, which means in Hebrew God is my Teacher or the Teachers of God. It is interesting that Michael Robbins says that King Solomon, who built the Jewish Temple, was an earlier incarnation of the Master Morya. Between the two mosques there is a large open space and in this space there is a special atmosphere. There seems to prevail an emptiness, a silence which is quite contrary to the density around it, like the eye of a storm. One wonders if it could be an opening or inlet of first ray energy, a kind of vortex, which could have been the initiating impulse for all this intensity. In a scientific, geological measurement of the intensity of light on the planet, it was found that the strongest physical light in the world is found in Jerusalem. This is definitely a Capricornian place, reaching up into the supernal light and anchoring it solidly in matter, creating manifold thoughtforms on the way.

The name of Jerusalem is very revealing of this fact: Yeru-Shalem means city of the one whole. Shalem means whole in Hebrew. It has the same root as the word shalom, which means peace.  Yet now the city is called Yeru-shalaim, meaning the city of two wholes. When the one whole is brought down into matter, it becomes the many. This natural process of “unity becoming diversity,” the multiplication of form, is ever the way of evolution, but here in Jerusalem it seems intensified to the extreme. The result is what might be called cryptic density. When one goes down into the deep archeological excavations in the Old City, the accumulation of layers of old thoughtforms are very palpable. The dark recesses of history and the human sub-conscious can be accessed here and one can get a sense of what it might feel like to approach the “door where evil dwells.” Evil in this context could perhaps be understood as a suffocating amount of old forms.

So we have here the highest light being rendered into densest matter--which opposes the new. In the last decades much good work has been done towards lightening the density by the progressive streams of the local religions, by the Eastern religions (especially Buddhism, which is steadily growing in Israel), and by the interfaith work which is contributing a lot towards softening and opening.

This lightening of the form is being done from within the religious forms. Each person acts out of his/her particular religious identification. Complementing this vital activity, there must be the esoteric work which works from outside into the religious forms--consciously and scientifically invoking the new. For Jerusalem, because of its complexity, the invocation of this new must be especially precise and perhaps requires a great sacrifice of the old. Invoking comes easily in Jerusalem. It is easy to feel called upon by the divine in this sixth ray climate. You feel impelled to say to the Christ, to God, to Allah: Here I am. I have no other life intention. What do you want me to do?

The next thing you know you get a call on your subjective cell phone:

Hello....Who is this?  Oh my God...The Aquarian Christ?  Really?

Yes, yes....The connection is fine Sir!  What is that?  You are planning your Reappearance when?  That soon...?  So how may I serve You Sir?  Ok, You want to make it a simple, down to earth event.  I understand.

What?  A table for two in the Old City?  Yes Sir.  I can certainly arrange that. Ahhhhh, one question Sir. Would this be in the Jewish, Christian or Muslim quarter?

And what you hear as a response to your invocation is conditioned by your personal belief. That’s why real attention must be given to our relationship with our own childhood belief or our religiosity. As an esoteric worker we have to be able to rise above this identification. We may think we are not identified and yet subconsciously we are conditioned by it. This conditioning is only really challenged when we meet “the Other,” the one who is conditioned differently. Jerusalem’s gift is that one is constantly challenged on this account, giving one the opportunity to become aware of ever subtler limitations inside.

I will give a personal example here. Endeavoring to be an outpost of the new, of the Aquarian Christ in Jerusalem, naturally I draw upon my love for the Christ. This love has been there from early age. As a child growing up in a non-religious family I was secretly praying to the Christ every evening in my bed. As a young adult, when I first came upon the Sea of Galilee, big tears started to stream from my eyes. Something touched me very deeply. There was a deep recognition of something which had to do with the Christ. It felt as though something of this Christ energy was physically present. The tears kept flowing throughout the two days I was there, much to the dismay of the group of young kibbutz people who had invited me to come. From then on I visited the Sea of Galilee every few months, linking up with the Christ energy through the Sea of Galilee is always a very nurturing experience, strengthening me for my work in Jerusalem.

Yet at one point I came to realize that it was the Piscean Christ, the emotional Christ, I was linking into and that I must learn to look forward and look for the Christ in front of me, not behind me. Consequently my relationship to the Christ had to gradually change over the years. I understood that I must relinquish my childhood religiosity, that I have to curb my rather sixth ray, mystical-devotional reaching for the Christ. I sacrificed the heart-approach as I knew it and gradually cultivated a more mental, more abstract, more Aquarian relationship with the Christ energy. I realized that otherwise I would only add my own blend of religiosity based on history rather than become an outpost of the new.

It is this attachment to the childhood religiosity, which holds the old Piscean sixth ray forms in place. The existing forms evoke from us identification--this is part of human nature. Born into a specific family, nation and religion, this is our default and in order to identify with something else or with a higher form of it, one has to make a huge effort. And Jerusalem especially holds these old forms strongly and loudly. The fact that the historical Piscean Christ has walked this land is definitely hypnotizing. It powerfully triggers the childhood religiosity. And so do the religious sites of the other religions. 

The inner process of weaning oneself from the emotional Christ is painful and sacrificial. It is, however, a vital prerequisite in order to compassionately understand those who are hypnotized into their respective religious thoughtforms and are held by their kama-manasic identifications that block their ability to see beyond. One thing which holds this kama-manasic identification, the childhood belief, in place is language.  For example, the Hebrew language is originally a religious language, which means that many spiritual terms will have a specifically Jewish connotation rather than connoting a universal concept. A good example is the word Messiah, the anointed one. For many religious Jews the word Messiah connotes a specifically Jewish savior, rather than a universal world teacher, one who will only come if the Jewish people as a whole keep the religious rules. For the secular Jews, the word Messiah brings up all the pain and exasperation resulting from the domination by the religious Jews, so they totally reject it. We have invented a new term in Hebrew, “Morey Olam,” which is a kind of unfamiliar way to translate World Teacher. We use it in the Hebrew translation of the Great Invocation. It is a big stretch for all.

The attachment to words is a common thing, which holds true for esoteric students as well. Words to which we have become accustomed, especially if they have been in use for a very long time, have a mantric value. They are evocative. We use these words in order to invoke the higher. Just to say the word Christ already heightens the vibration of those who are linked to him. However, that which uplifts one person can prove a major source of conflict for another. In Israel, the word Christ, which is the Greek translation of the word Messiah, brings up many conflicting associations. Christ, for many Jews, is a symbol for those who persecute them. It is easier for the Jews to relate to Yeshua (Jesus). Christ or Messiah is seen as a title which has been falsely given to Yeshua. Even for those who do respond to his energy, to accept that Yeshua was the Messiah would mean to accept that Judaism has missed out on its own Messiah. There are many deep-rooted theological misunderstandings which have become an impenetrable barrier for many Jews to open up to the Piscean Christ message.

Imagine for a moment what it means for us to put this year’s beautiful conference brochure on the entrance table where our classes are held, let alone show it to family or neighbors. A few years ago I would not have dared to do so. Now that I have worked through part of my emotional attachment to the Christ and I am embracing a mental understanding which is strong enough to withstand the challenges this evokes, I did put it on the front table as an interesting experiment, listening carefully to the various reactions: one person looked through the list of presenters and remarked with a mixture of relief and irony: oh, there is a Sara and a Ruth, so it’s okay. Another person responded by saying: oh, it is good that you go there and tell them something about how it really is, you are probably much more open than most of them. I took the opportunity to explain what the Aquarian Christ is all about and that this is not a Christian conference. Last week a Jewish former Bailey student who discovered our website challenged me. He called me a missionary of esoteric Christianity and asked me what right I had to come to Israel and convert Jews.

These examples bring home to us how problematic it is to use Christian terminology and, in particular, the word Christ in the Ageless Wisdom teachings outside the Christian context. The barrier of language is a fatal one. I wonder how much this barrier of language is responsible for the fact that the Bailey teachings are not very widely known and used in non-Christian cultures. There are no Muslim students of the Ageless Wisdom. This is something to think about for the esoteric community. When we call this entity the Christ, we limit it to the Christian thoughtform and make it inaccessible to those outside this thoughtform.

Amidst the hot mystical sixth ray climate that is Jerusalem, we find the cooling fifth ray approach a possible way toward sanity. The safest way to make the esoteric teaching available is to translate the spiritual concepts as much as possible into the language of energy and science. Scientific terminology seems to be very sobering, establishing a common ground for the religious and non-religious people. Scientific language is universal because it is created by humanity as a whole. We are only at the very beginning of this process. It is far from being comprehensive and it is not satisfying emotionally, it has no evocative appeal.  Yet it would lighten our load if all terminology would be along the fifth ray line. It seems so much easier and more effective to shift to a mental universal language rather than trying to explain to each other the underlying universality of the various religious terms, demanding a stretch from those who cannot as yet do so.

For the esoteric student this kind of stretch is easier than for the religious person. Nevertheless, just think of how many of us are very reluctant to replace the word Christ with “The Coming One” in the Great Invocation. Why is that so? At this time when the teaching must be brought to Humanity at large and we are asked to “modify, qualify and adapt” the teaching, what makes us hold on to the Christian language? Part of it has to do with the sacrifice of evocative power. And another aspect is that it challenges our identification. Think for a minute of what is expected of the esoteric student with a Jewish background. The Jewish racial mind is exceptionally strong and resilient. And the Blue Books are asking them not merely to relinquish some terminology but to relinquish the core of their childhood religiosity.

We must ask ourselves a serious question about our own identification. The way from our Christian background to the Ageless Wisdom teaching is admittedly a stretch. Yet, it is not that bad a stretch. After all, as long as it is “our” Christ who is the head of the Hierarchy, all is in good order. The mixture of Christian, Hindu and Buddhist terminology in the Blue Books has become part of our religiosity. The Great Invocation and other mantrams are our prayer book. The personal Christ and our waiting for his reappearance is our form of religiosity, not so different from anyone else’s. Are we not asking of the non-Christians something which we do not ask of ourselves? Perhaps also we Bailey students need to sacrifice some Piscean terminology in order to accommodate a larger whole? The temple of the new requires a sacrifice of the old. We in Jerusalem are certainly challenged to make this sacrifice. We all need to meet our own Jerusalem, our own inner place, where the Shalem, the whole, becomes separative due to the separative nature of the outer form. Let us challenge for a moment our emotional attachment to the way we think and speak about that which we term the Christ; let us imagine eliminating all the religious terms from our esoteric vocabulary which can clash with other religious thoughtforms. Let us feel for a moment any resistance we might have to giving up on cherished, evocative words in favor of more universality.

Only when we ourselves taste this sacrifice, do we start to truly understand those who are not yet able to do so. We can feel their fear and pain of giving up part of their identity. We are compassionate towards them because we know what they are up against. Then we will know how to talk to them, how to build a bridge for them toward the next unfoldment of Divinity. We will know how to present the new without it being threatening.

Here I would like to mention the work of the Dalai Lama as a wonderful example. In his recent visit to Israel it struck me how similar are his work methods to what we are trying to do. He talked about the concept of “secular ethics,” meaning to separate our morality from the religious context. He also stressed the importance of science as a guideline and help. He uses a very simple, general language, no Buddhist religious concepts. The Dalai Lama stayed for about a week holding many meetings, only one of which was about Buddhist teaching. He is not relinquishing his religiosity, but he definitely gives it a second place, holding the universal values as his first priority, thus building a bridge between the old and the new. For a religious leader this is quite a statement and sets a great example.

1. In this transition period maybe a way can be found on the one side to honor our religiosity and on the other to make a further stretch towards embracing a larger whole. A first step for the Ageless Wisdom community is to become aware that we, too, have our religiosity, our own Piscean need and conditioning. To acknowledge this–to ourselves and to others - goes a long way towards true universality.

Apart from the effort to transform the Piscean mystical language into an Aquarian universal language, a kind of update is needed here. In The Rays and the Initiations, p. 254 we read about how the full moon will lead spiritually inclined people to recognize the relation between the work of the Christ and the Buddha--linking the Christian, the Hindu and the Buddhist faith. Indeed the Bailey teachings bring the Far East and the West into relation; however, since their writing, the Jewish state has been established and the Jewish consciousness is very much active as a separate entity; and also Islam, which comprises one fifth of humanity, has become prominent on the human agenda.

I feel that a next step is called for here, and that in our concept of the World Religion or Universal Spirituality, the Ageless Wisdom community must become more inclusive in a new way. To make the teaching truly universal we must complete the picture. We need to soul-fully understand and embrace both Jewish and Muslim religiosity. (Of course there are other religions to be included as well, but I want to confine myself to these two here.) The Tibetan has thrown much light on the Jewish riddle and this light has caused, well, let’s call it some major problems of digestion. Healing is needed, among the Jews and also among the disciples of the Tibetan. Some work has been done toward this healing. Various esotericists have given their thought to it. The Lucis Trust and also the School for Esoteric Studies have formulated a formal compilation about the Jewish subject. This is a very important beginning. However, we are still far from a Tikun (a healing correction). The light and darkness that has been stirred up by the Tibetan and the human knee-jerk reactions must be faced and embraced by the Ageless Wisdom community and then rendered harmless and digestible. Without a process of self-reflection this cannot be done. It is not enough to explain in other words what the Tibetan meant when talking about the Jews. We have to start to see the text in a larger perspective. We must recognize and acknowledge that this material was written at a certain time and for a certain audience. We must ask ourselves where we stand today and what is expected of us in taking the teaching further into the New Age.  

In the Bailey texts we find almost nothing on the Muslim archetype. The Tibetan only states that the Muslim religion is linked to the Christian faith and that it was the Master Jesus who overshadowed his advanced disciple Mohammed. This makes the Muslim religion qualified by the sixth ray, as is Christianity through the sixth ray of the Master Jesus and St Paul’s sixth ray personality. Mohammed may perhaps have been a 6th Ray soul with a first ray personality. But we don’t know. There definitely seems to have been a first ray at work. Much filling in must be done that will call for the use of our esoteric sense. We must rise above the manasic wealth which alone cannot provide a solution and a healing. The best of the heart and the best of the mind must be brought together and synthesized. This then produces the state of consciousness of buddhi, which is needed to transcend the thoughtforms and intuit the causal design, the essence, and see it in the larger context. Tapping the Water of Life from the buddhic plane, tasting this buddhic exquisiteness, is so satisfying, that it loosens the spell of the kama-manasic identification–our own and others.’ This enables us to both pierce and embrace the thoughtform, not breaking it but compassionately softening and dissolving it with buddhic water.

A deeper, soul-ful understanding of both the Jewish and the Muslim archetype is of absolute necessity in our work in Jerusalem. Because of the magnitude of the group glamour involved, it takes the concerted group effort of those who can hold their consciousness above the clouds and, with an embracing heart, pierce the dense atmosphere of Jerusalem with the vision of the new.

I take this opportunity to appeal to you as representatives of the Ageless Wisdom community together to apply our hearts and minds to this world problem. In order to effectively and safely do this work, the sound anchoring of the Jerusalem outpost within the world group is of vital importance. We want to extend a warm welcome to you to be in touch with us.

I would like to invite you now to join the best of our hearts and the best of our minds and invoke the new, coming to us on the wings of love-wisdom, the buddhic exquisiteness, the World Teacher.

Meditation:

We align our personality with the soul. We align with the group soul. We take our stand as an outpost of Hierarchy.

Let us build together a group chalice out of the substance of our heart. And adding a mental rim, we open this chalice to the Aquarian Water of Life, to the buddhic exquisiteness. Let us feel it like a substance. Let us feel its texture, its taste, its quality. Let the deepest core of our hearts and minds resonate with it. Let the group chalice be filled with it. Let this exquisiteness, this life elixir, flow out to all the outposts of the Aquarian Christ, the Maitreya, the Aquarian Messiah, the Aquarian Imam Mahdi; see the outposts come into resonance and may the resonance be so unified that an impact is made on the human consciousness.

Let us see this unified field of the Aquarian Group of World Servers make an impact on human consciousness. We take some of this exquisiteness into our own individual chalice. Let it be full to the brim and may it overflow with clarity, love and power on behalf of humanity.

Let us stay one more minute with the joy and gratefulness of the community of the World Teacher.

Om.

Thank you