Help Needed Regarding Initiation.

[Fool]

Hello everyone. This is my second thread here since I joined the community. I’ve mostly been studying the tarot archetypes quietly behind the scenes and I regret that I haven’t been as active with you all as I feel very at home here. Anyways, I come here to you all with a request for help. I’m struggling with fear regarding initiation or death and rebirth. Some part of me is afraid to turn it all over perhaps. I’m not in any danger so you don’t need to fear for my safety everything is okay. I’m not in a bad way or anything. I humbly ask for your support in whatever way that you think might be beneficial. I think being able to discuss the subject would help me greatly as I have very few in the physical to talk about such things with and I think some wise love can only aid me. Thank you.

[Infinite]

It's your ego afraid to cease to exist. It's the only thing that dies, as it's part of the third density illusion. Remember that there are several levels of initiation. So don't worry that you won't go through the resurrection until you're ready for it.

[Sacred Fool]

My suggestion is that you make friends with these feelings because you will encounter them again and again.  You might think of it as first roughing out a shape to be sculpted or carved, then refining and refining it, then polishing it, and so forth.  It's a very long process to become comfortable with this, and when you eventually realise that this is just fine, you will find yourself relaxing into it more and more.

There are so many levels of consciousness and so many places you will have stashed away resistance over the years and over multitudinous incarnations.  It's no big deal.  Just keep moving one step at a time.  At each step you will become more open to experiencing love, and the experience of resistance will slowly find its way out the door.

[Fool]

Would there be a harm in “powering through” so to speak with shear force of will or would it be wiser to pace myself until it is without resistance as you say. I almost feel a debt to go forward as I consider how lucky I am to be here where so many are not and how much more of service I could be to others if I did. However the feeling of processing the idea does sound quite nice. Thank you Sacred Fool. Thank you Infinite.

[Sacred Fool]

This is just my personal bias, but I don't think there really is such a thing as powering through, if look at the big picture.  You are seeking and you are resisting.  If you push through the resistance, then you are overcoming yourself?  Is that really possible?

The main thing, in my view, is to encompass yourself, to know yourself.  This is what consciousness is all about.  Therefore burrowing into the resistance, encompassing it, understanding it and learning to love it moves one more directly towards the longer term goal of self acceptance.  But it's your choice, naturally, how to balance short and long term concerns.

[Fool]

You are probably right. Maybe the effect of overcoming the resistance would be a ever increasing amount of resistance until I digest it. Thinking on it, I think infinite is certainly right in it lying in a attachment to the material and maybe an over astonishment with the extraordinary. Have you passed through such an experience my Sacred Fool friend?

[Sacred Fool]

Have you passed through such an experience my Sacred Fool friend?

Yes, many times.  The fear of death and annihilation is anything but simple as it has been experienced over countless lifetimes.  One's energy system becomes seasoned with it in various places so that experiencing the complete package of fear, distrust, pain, need for love, etc. is inescapable.  In my view, it's best to assimilate it one piece at a time.  So, what part of you is suffering now with these feelings?  What exactly are the feelings?  Enquire within.  Search for your own inner experience which is happening within you even now as you read this text.  Some part of you is loudly declaring its need for love.  (Be very clear about this.)  Try to find it and offer it your best version of love.  Over time your versions of love will flower more beautifully and you will be able to offer deeper love to parts of you which suffer more deeply, but for now just work with what is calling to you at this time.

I understand that it is tempting to conceive of the game as one of linear accomplishment where one moves from initiation to initiation, from level to level of accomplishment.  But consider a different model where, as you move to deeper levels of self love, the "levels" metamorphose in a non-linear fashion.  If your goal is transformation, then consider that the path to the heart is not a function of linear accomplishment. 

Actually, this is one of the confounding peculiarities of becoming capable of working with 4D light: Love and the need for love are hidden behind our "knowing."  The mind informs you about the illusion while the search for love and the experience of the need for love lead you to a relationship with Divinity and 4D love & light.  Knowing this stuff is superfluous; find it, find the places calling for love and find the places which offer love freely. 

Then try to relax.

[Sacred Fool]

Here's an analogy.  You find that you have four parts of your being which are connected and form your conscious self, but you realise that there are six more parts in your unconscious which are not connected.  So, you connect one part and that is an initiation and you connect another and that is a subsequent initiation.  But then your awareness becomes more acute and you realise that you have, not 10 pieces, but 200 to connect.  Oh, my!  So you plod along accepting and connecting these until at some point you realise that you actually have 3000 pieces.  Oh, my!

So, there's no point hurrying too much.  The point is to understand what it takes to encompass more and more of self.  Along the way, trust me, you will find various forms of resistance.  That's just a normal part of the process of slowly discovering the expanse of self.  Resistance is one little part of what you are among many others.

[Dtris]

Due to the influence of the hermetic tradition and western magical tradition it is common for people to think that initiation is something that happens "to you". This is not accurate. Initiation is something that you experience, and it can only be experienced when ready. Once you are at the threshold, a skilled teacher or group can initiate you at any time, or thru your own efforts you will experience a spontaneous initiation.

What people fail to realize is that initiation is nothing without the prior work. When someone fails to put in the effort and is initiated anyways, they are merely fooling themselves and undergoing an empty initiation. For the psychodrama of classic initiation to be effective it must work upon the individual who has already moved a certain amount along the path on their own.

This is why initiation cannot be forced, it cannot be powered thru, and it cannot be rushed. True initiation will happen when you have done the work and you are ready for it to happen. A teacher can greatly shorten the process, but ultimately each individual determines their own pace of progress.

[Fool]

Thank you all for your help. You have helped me put a lot of nervous energy to rest. Even though I progress and find this door, it is okay to wait until I’m ready to walk through it. You have brought me peace.

[Fool]

Here's an analogy.  You find that you have four parts of your being which are connected and form your conscious self, but you realise that there are six more parts in your unconscious which are not connected.  So, you connect one part and that is an initiation and you connect another and that is a subsequent initiation.  But then your awareness becomes more acute and you realise that you have, not 10 pieces, but 200 to connect.  Oh, my!  So you plod along accepting and connecting these until at some point you realise that you actually have 3000 pieces.  Oh, my!

So, there's no point hurrying too much.  The point is to understand what it takes to encompass more and more of self.  Along the way, trust me, you will find various forms of resistance.  That's just a normal part of the process of slowly discovering the expanse of self.  Resistance is one little part of what you are among many others.

I wish to tell you my visualization. I see a circular room with light emanating from the center. The light reaches out in all directions encountering barriers of different shapes and sizes casting shadows at different distances from the center. I with conscious effort go to places within myself where the light reaches farther out and connect that light with a mirror to illuminate the darkness elsewhere spreading the light. I should not worry of the total square footage, so to speak, which the light covers. Rather I need, in this example to understand good mirror placement or how to illuminate. Do I have a good visualization here of what would seem to me to be a balancing process?

To your point Dtris. In my example is the initiation made empty by the possible fact that being illuminated through a psychodrama means little if you do not know how to do the work of illuminating?

[Dtris]

Here's an analogy.  You find that you have four parts of your being which are connected and form your conscious self, but you realise that there are six more parts in your unconscious which are not connected.  So, you connect one part and that is an initiation and you connect another and that is a subsequent initiation.  But then your awareness becomes more acute and you realise that you have, not 10 pieces, but 200 to connect.  Oh, my!  So you plod along accepting and connecting these until at some point you realise that you actually have 3000 pieces.  Oh, my!

So, there's no point hurrying too much.  The point is to understand what it takes to encompass more and more of self.  Along the way, trust me, you will find various forms of resistance.  That's just a normal part of the process of slowly discovering the expanse of self.  Resistance is one little part of what you are among many others.

I wish to tell you my visualization. I see a circular room with light emanating from the center. The light reaches out in all directions encountering barriers of different shapes and sizes casting shadows at different distances from the center. I with conscious effort go to places within myself where the light reaches farther out and connect that light with a mirror to illuminate the darkness elsewhere spreading the light. I should not worry of the total square footage, so to speak, which the light covers. Rather I need, in this example to understand good mirror placement or how to illuminate. Do I have a good visualization here of what would seem to me to be a balancing process?

To your point Dtris. In my example is the initiation made empty by the possible fact that being illuminated through a psychodrama means little if you do not know how to do the work of illuminating?

Conscious initiation, to my knowledge, is done in two ways.

The first is pychodrama. This is best seen as a classic initiation such as the Golden Dawn, or Free Masons. A more common version of this is graduation ceremonies, weddings, and rights of passage.

The second way is thru intense experience. The intense experience can catalyze an initiatory experience and if guided by a teacher the intense experience can be calibrated to the student for most effectiveness.

Self-initiation methods typically involve the creation of the psychodrama on your own.

Spontaneous initiation is just that. It cannot be planned, cannot be expected, and cannot be forced. It will happen on its own time and in its own way.

More to the point initiation is an event, it is something that happens, it is discrete. There is a marked difference before and after initiation. Think of a hill going up slowly, then every so often there is a small cliff face. You walk 10,000 steps slowly uphill to reach the cliff, then climb the cliff in 10 steps. Then you start the slow ascent again.

Your visualization is fine, but in my opinion it is more of the "doing the work" variety, than the initiation variety. But the way you get to initiation, is by doing the work.