Chapter 7. University of the Seven Rays
The eleventh conference of the University of the Seven Rays was dedicated to the problem that has for a long time interested me: new esoteric schools. The time for their creation has come. Once again, was this by chance?
I came to America with the secret hope to learn, if such an opportunity would present itself, about the American experience of running esoteric and theosophical schools, and to become acquainted with the programs of instruction in such schools.
I have long known, that the program for the Crimean Mysteries School was a long way from perfection, that it had a bias towards oriental instruction, and that the truly authentic esotericism is not yet sensed or felt within it. The reason lies with me alone. I, its founder and director, have not yet become an esotericist in the full sense of that word.
I became convinced of this during the course of the conference. The conference opened my eyes to the method of esoteric teaching, and I began to understand, what was the true essence of authentic esoteric education. At the conference I saw this method in action. I acquired an experience, which I would not have been able to receive anywhere in Russia.
The conference, to which I had been invited by Dr. Michael Robbins, president and one of the founders of the Institute and University of the Seven Rays (www.sevenray.com), was dedicated to just that theme, which concerned me more than any other. It answered many questions, which had troubled me in former times. The same answers I received during the solemn ceremony, the lectures, the round tables, the relaxation evenings and the concerts.
Other answers were received while mixing with the participants of the conference, listening to their presentations, chatting with them during the intervals between sessions. A third set of answers came to me later, when I returned home, and started to study the literature, slowly reading books by Alice Bailey, and listening to the audio-tapes of speeches from lecturers and honorary guests.
Some of the answers came to me unexpectedly, as a rule, early in the morning. In the evening I would lie down, thinking about a question, but not knowing the answer. Then in the morning it would quietly and unexpectedly emerge into my consciousness. Answers gave birth to new questions, the main one being about a university in Russian conditions. Even today, I do not quite understand how to integrate theosophy, the Living Ethics and the Teachings of the Tibetan from a meditational point of view. Like a teacher, I need to clearly imagine their correlations.
How great was my surprise, when in summer I received the theme for the 1998 conference – “Living the New Discipleship: Our Role in the Divine Plan”.
My arrival in San Diego helped me to find myself, though not for long, inside one of the most popular esoteric schools of the West. Then I read in a magazine how it had all begun:
"... the Seven Ray Institute also plans to offer a course of study focusing upon the psychological approach to soul experience. Its curriculum will be especially designed to help students gain a broad, yet detailed, understanding of the three core sciences, and their applications to the theory and practice of esoteric psychology, as well as to the issues of individual evolution, the expansion of consciousness and, in general, to all issues touching on personal and transpersonal growth and development (Esoteric Psychology, Vol. I, P. 9). Today the Seven Ray Iniversity is a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. It is an institute for inquiry into the science of esoteric psychology. Investigating the relationship between soul and personality, its programs draw upon the sciences of esoteric astrology, the etheric centres and the seven rays.
Its purpose is to conduct research, to explain, disseminate and put into practice esoteric principles and conceptions, and to establish a forum, in which the deepest thoughts in the field of esoteric philosophy would be discussed and developed, and the results of investigations would be published.
The University of the Seven Rays, a division of the SRI, is an alternative institution of higher learning granting degrees in the esoteric sciences. The mission of the University is spiritual, and its programs of study are primarily designed to strengthen the spiritual will, the spiritual love and the practical spiritual intelligence of its students. All academic curricula are based upon the esoteric doctrine known as the "Ageless Wisdom" or the "Trans-Himalayan Wisdom" deriving from the teaching of the Christ, the Buddha, the Masters Moria, Khut Humi, Djwhal Khul, and other members of the Spiritual Hierarchy of the planet... The University will grant degrees in the following 12 fields of study, based on the "Seed Groups", introduced by the Master Djwhal Khul. Esoteric studies in:
; Communications Science,
; Science of Consciousness,
; Science of Healing,
; Science of Education,
; Political Science,
; Science of Religion,
; Scientific Occultism,
; Science of Psychology,
; Science of Economics,
; Magical Work of Creative Manifestation,
; Science of Astrology,
; Culture and Arts."
The correspondence course requires a four-day session once every
four or (for foreign students) six months. Students regularly send in completed assignments and reports on meditation to the University and pay expenses of the University for training and research work.
There is no point in describing all the educational subjects taught in the esoteric university. I would say in advance that participation in the work of the eleventh conference taught me many things. It helped me to formulate the requirements, which it would be possible to present in a Russian esoteric school, which has still to be created in Russia. What lessons have I drawn from the conference?
Lesson One. The school must give in its preparatory course, a deep theosophical training. Students must firmly master the principal ideas presented in the “Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnet”, “The Secret Doctrine”, and “Isis Unveiled”.
Lesson Two. Study of the history of the Theosophical Movement and the principles of theosophy, must be closely interwoven with study of the Living Ethics. The Russian/Slavic way of thinking was taken into consideration in Agni Yoga.
Lesson Three. Esoteric educational work must be combined with group meditation, with the work of the group of World Servers for the good of humanity. Without such a synthesis, it would not be possible to master the foundations of esotericism by the eve of the coming New Century.
Lesson Four. True theosophy is to the old occultism, much as the higher mathematics is to elementary mathematics. And so students must deeply master the principles of theosophy and occultism.
With every century, the study of esoteric science becomes more complicated. Now, a student needs to master everything that has accumulated in the field of occultism during the past thousand years, and only after that to supplement the history of occultism by a study of Blavatsky–Roerich–Bailey. New conceptions in cosmology, anthropology, anthroposophy, the Living Ethics, the occult science of Ray energie (esoteric psychology and education, astrology and healing, sociology and political science) have so extended the global community and cosmic horizons of humanity, that today it simply wouldn;t be right to remain captive to vulgar materialism and primitive level of spirituality, though unfortunately for the greater part of humanity, lack of spiritual development is the norm. A change of consciousness in humanity can only happen at the same time as the birth of a quite new universal system of knowledge and new global community culture.
One life is not enough to learn this huge stratum of esoteric knowledge. Today this stratum is being purified, away from the extremes of crystallisation, prejudice and unverified knowledge. For the first time in the history of humanity, there is emerging a scientific occultism as an integration of esotericism, theosophy and science, which is the very foundation to the newest technical achievements in information technology