In the equinoctial splendour, as the Light flashes its regenerating blaze across the Ecliptic, let us celebrate the Sun’s solemn entry into Aries (1), the Power of Life that bursts into Space and, cycle after cycle, “makes all things new”.
At the same time let us sound ardently into the Living Space, as one planetary Server, the Christic Assertion associated with this Sign (see the introductory article).
I am the Resurrection and the Life
The Gospel testimony makes present the dismay that Mary of Magdala felt when, approaching the tomb where Christ had been buried, she found it open and empty. And the words that a luminous figure beside the tomb, perhaps an angel, pronounced in response to the woman’s mute question, provide us with the answer to all our possible uncertainties: “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.” (2)
These words are echoed by the vibrant exhortations St Paul addresses to his brothers in Christ in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. (…) That which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.”. (3)
These in turn echo, in a more incisive form, the invocation of the prophet Hosea: “Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?” (4)
The figure of Christ thus rises, by virtue of his resurrection, over all Scriptures as a “certainty of Glory”, as that Light capable of transfiguring all material resistance to make us put on that body of light that is the robe of the new man, the terse image of his divine Model.
“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (5)
“It was this that Christ came to do—to show us the nature of the ‘saved’ life; to demonstrate to us the quality of the eternal Self which is in every man; this is the lesson of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection: the lower nature must die in order that the higher may be manifested, and the eternal immortal soul in every man must rise from the tomb of matter.” (6)
The proclamation of the Resurrection, which in Aries unfolds as the unstoppable power of cosmic cycles, sweeps away “the sting of death” and opens once and for all the door that leads back to the One by recapitulating in the life of Christ the initiatory path that every consciousness must follow in order to return to the Source from which it emanated. The steps that enable Humanity to ascend back to the One have in fact been formalised for centuries according to a hierarchy of initiations (of which we know those shown to us by the Christ, namely Birth, Baptism, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection), i.e. expansions of consciousness that attest to the search for, and consequent step-by-step taking possession of, the essential divinity concealed within each man, of which the members of the spiritual Hierarchy bear witness.
The religion that has hitherto emphasised the death of Christ and the dramatic and mournful symbol of the cross will gradually give way to that New Religion in which the highest point of spiritual realisation will be the Resurrection.
“… the important point is not His death [of the Christ], though that was climactic in the evolutionary process, but the subsequent Resurrection, symbolising as it did the formation and the precipitation upon Earth of a new kingdom in which men and all forms would be free from death—a kingdom of which the Man released from the Cross should be the symbol. (…) He then rose from the dead to tell us that the long task of evolution had at last reached its final phase—if we so choose, and if we are ready to do as He did—pay the price, and, passing through the gates of death, attain to a joyful resurrection.” (7)
“Resurrection is the keynote of nature; death is not. Death is only the ante-chamber of resurrection. Resurrection is the clue to the world of meaning, and is the fundamental theme of all the world religions—past, present and the future. Resurrection of the spirit in man, in all forms, in all kingdoms, is the objective of the entire evolutionary process and this involves liberation from materialism and selfishness. In that resurrection, evolution and death are only preparatory and familiar stages. The note and message sounded by the Christ when last on Earth was resurrection, but so morbid has been mankind and so enveloped in glamour and illusion, that His death has been permitted to sidestep understanding; consequently, for centuries, the emphasis has been laid upon death, and only on Easter Day or in the cemeteries is the resurrection acclaimed.” (8)
“… the Hierarchy is a community of successful men, Who earlier submitted Themselves to the purificatory fires of daily living, working out their own salvation as men and women of affairs, as business men, as husbands and wives, farmers and rulers and that they know life, therefore, in all its phases and gradation. They have surmounted the experiences of life; Their great Master is the Christ; They have passed through the initiations of the new birth, the baptism, the transfiguration, the final crucifixion and the resurrection.” (9)
Christ announced: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (10) and the disruptive force of the Resurrection lies in its being that Magnet that will enable men to disengage themselves from the oppressive gravity of material burdens in order to be drawn to the spiritual Kingdom, with the help of the fire of Christic life that dwells irrepressibly in every heart.
The essential “magnetic” nature of the 2nd Ray (which also relates it to the Law of Attraction, the rule and canon of the development of consciousness in this Universe) is shown in its purest and most vibrant nature in the figure of Christ, Master of Space, inexhaustible source of the Principle of Love that innervates our cosmos.
“To say magnetism is to say love, through whatever medium it may be manifested and in whatever way it may be expressed, and love is the load-bearing energy of Neochristianity as well as the ancient one. To study the profound nature of love is a Christian act, and how to do so without love? Loving connects to Space. He who succeeds in loving in an impersonal way extinguishes the separate self in spatial infinity, frees himself from it, and in the same instant rediscovers the higher Self.” (11)
Resurrection and Life are therefore one and the same, they are the splendour of Being that is no longer veiled and burns with its very essence; Resurrection and Life are the testimony of the passage from the mortal to the immortal condition; Resurrection and Life are the ever more tangible emergence of our power to live as “Children of God”.
“Christ had risen, and by His Resurrection proved that humanity had in it the seed of life, and that there was no death for the man who could follow in the steps of the Master.” (12)
The victory that is achieved by following the steps of the Master of Love is the definitive victory over death, that is, over that identification with matter that until that moment “forced” the spirit into repeated immersions in the ocean of form; from such immersions one re-emerges by ascending, step by step, the very stairs of substance, crossing its Planes and regaining that Unity that seemed lost.
Thus Substance seems to travel a path that through the Crucifixion, the ultimate sacrifice of the inferior and involutive aspect, leads to the fullness of the Resurrection where substance has become “sacred” and where the Life aspect of the divine is revealed in all its incontrovertible truth.
“The Son of God has found His way back to the Father and to His originating Source, that state of Existence to which we have given the name Shamballa. The consciousness of the Universal Life is His.” (13)
The Resurrection, therefore, is the fulfilment of that path that leads man back to the One: in this sense we can see this Initiation as the “cornerstone” on which the New World Religion will be founded:
“… Upon the revelation of the risen Christ must the new world religion take its stand. Christ upon the Cross… showed us love and sacrifice carried to their extreme expression; but Christ alive from all time, and vitally alive today, is the keynote of the new age, and upon this truth must the new presentation of religion be built and, later, the new theology be constructed. The true meaning of the Resurrection and the Ascension has not yet been grasped; as a divine subjective reality those truths still await revelation. The glory of the new age will be the unveiling of those two mysteries, and our entrance into a fuller understanding of God as life. The true Church of Christ is the assembly of all who live through the life of Christ, and whose life is one with His. This will be increasingly realised and will bring forth into clearer and more radiant light the wonder and glory which lies, unrevealed as yet, in God the Father.” (14)
We are on the threshold of this New Age and, waiting for Him, we prepare the way for the Master who will come in the near future with the whole host of those who have already conquered death and are in the “Life more abundant”:
“Before, however, Christ could come with His disciples, our present civilisation had to die. During the coming century [written in 1948], we shall begin to learn the meaning of the word “resurrection”, and the new age will begin to reveal its deep purpose and intention. The first step will be the emergence of humanity from the death of its civilisation, of its old ideas and modes of living, the relinquishing of its materialistic goals and its damning selfishness, and its moving forward into the clear light of the resurrection. These are not symbolical or mystical words but part of the general setting which will surround the period of Christ’s reappearance; it is a cycle as real as the cycle of conferences now so busily organising. Christ taught us when He came before the true meaning of Renunciation or of the Crucifixion; this time His message will be concerned with the resurrection life.” (15)
“We know the course of the battle,
the Plan of the Creator cannot be altered.
From the Beginning the dark ones struggled.
From the Beginning We conquered.”
(Agni Yoga, Leaves of Morya’s Garden – The Call § 231)
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1. This article celebrates the Sun’s entry into the Sign of Aries. The videos of the online ritual Celebrations of the Entries into the 12 Signs with the Christic Assertions are available at the following Playlist: Ritual·e · Rituel – Zodiac 2023
See the calendar of all the celebrations online (passages into the 12 Signs and Solar Festivals of the full and new moons 2023 – in UTC hour) – with related links: Online celebration dates 2023
2. Gospel according to Luke – 24, 1-9
3. Saint Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians, 15
4. Book of Hosea, 13
5. Saint Paul, Second Letter to the Corinthians, 5, 17
6. Alice A. Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary, p. 199
7. Ibidem, p. 186
8. Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 470
9. Ibidem, p. 473
10. Gospel according to John – 12, 32
11. E. Savoini, Lecture notes of the 3rd Septennium. Magnetism, unpublished paper, March 2001
12. Alice A. Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary, p. 234
13. Alice A. Bailey, Rays and the Initiations, p. 730
14. Alice A. Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary, p. 163
15. Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, p. 23
