Pass the Light ON to others

The Tree of Living Lights

Joann S. Bakula
December, 2012

Group meditation at the full moon in Capricorn for the month of January, is early this year: Friday, Dec 28, 2012, (full moon is at 10:22am UT), with many meetings in the West being held Thursday, Dec 27. This year holds special opportunity for meditators, being the seven-year festival week (Dec. 21-28) of the New Group of World Servers, in honor of all who serve the world on every plane from material to the intuitive energy field--the Higgs field of enlightened Mind, if you will--from which seeds emerge as engagement evolves.

The themes of this world service meditation include attainment of the mountain top altitude and perspective of the new group of world servers. Some attain this view of high altitude by visualizing the earth from the International Space Station, some as the view of the Appollo astronauts from the moon. A common experience of many is viewing the earth from an airplane window seat at night. Rivers of light may be seen traveling along arteries with brilliantly lit hub cities. Stationary points of light, from high rises to street lights, may be seen as beacons of life scattered all over the globe. Each light is emblematic of the fiery spirit of livingness potentially ablaze with creative intelligence, compassion, and the will-to-good. Each one is capable of doing good or great things in their lives, adding to the rich fullness of civilization. Each one of us is capable of adding our enlightened thoughts to the problems that we face collectively in humanity's relationship to the web of life in nature, to spiritual worlds invisible yet existing nonetheless, and to each other. We, the middle kingdom, are the union of spirit and matter, God and nature, and in that borderland our genius exists for transforming our world for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Every thought and emotion, act and policy we commit to is our contribution to the life of the whole.

World service takes place in every field from government, to economics, to education, science, the arts, and religion. It also takes place and can be engaged in by every one of us on every plane of Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs and motivation. We commonly think of world service as material giving and physical volunteering, but this is only plane of service. We also serve with every choice of thought for good or ill, with every emotion from empathy to anger (especially our willingness to express or restrain these publically), with every policy we approve or disapprove of, with every appreciation of beauty or destruction of it, and with every truly intuitive impression that comes directly from the Self, not secondhand from others or from the senses. World service from the plane of intuition may be thought of as reaching the altitude of a Higgs field of Mind where the invisible cloud of energy containing knowable things is engaged and seed potentialities emerge for possible application by those with expertise in a particular field. The primary and crucial question on every plane of service from mind to emotions to social interaction, to security is first do no harm. The first consideration should always be to ask what is the affect this will have on human relationships, on the natural world, and on our responsibility to act as a middle kingdom both to nature and to the spiritual planes where the plan and pattern of the whole web of life exists hidden underneath it all, within us and around us.

The Tree of Humanity

One of the ways in which the intuition is cultivated is through meditation on symbols-- from their physical form and appearance, to their qualities, and to their purpose
discernable and indiscernible. The symbolism of the pine tree brought inside and decorated with colored lights, the Christmas tree, may be visualized as the tree of the one human family and its journey upward. The hierarchical shape of the tree is broad at the base and comes to a highly defined point at the top. It is the same green color of chlorophyll the world around, the substance it produces from sun, rain and earth. It gives us the oxygen we humans need to breathe in, and in a symbiotic relationship uses the carbon dioxide we breathe out.

We decorate the tree with lights, typically a star at the top, with many strands of colored lights circling around it from bottom to top. Each one may be seen as a human being the color of one segment or another of the electromagnetic spectrum of coherent light rays of which white light is composed. Although the archetypal tree exists outside of time and place, we may visualize our tree as composed of living, moving human lights today, each one making its way to the top. Each color expresses itself as such as it makes the journey of life to the star light in the 'heavens' at the top. Each one is brilliant in its own light and contribution to the whole, making one tree splendid with living light, radiant in its final form and countenance. Each human life within the family begins its journey at the bottom and slowly becomes lighted as conscious awareness of all planes is experienced in life as it circles its way heavenward to become the enlightened star at the top in due time.

We adorn the tree with ornaments, as well as lights, which may be seen as the product of human creativity, the added qualities of reflected light in beauty and form. These are the world servers who demonstrate in their lives, character, and contributions the many creations and perfections that a human can give to the whole tree; they are the adornments of quality, added to the appearance of the living lights. In Buddhist iconography each adornment of necklace, lotus flower, manuscript, and religious implement of a bodhisattva stands for a victory of wisdom and compassion over ignorance that has been made for the redemption of humanity through sacrifice. In Christian iconography the halo of light and the open heart are just two of the adornments of saintliness and divinity.

To this tree, the archetypal tree, now lit up as Christmas trees in so many homes, communities and nations, we mat visualize the streams of human lights moving upward through their lives, winding around life's roads which can often contain tragedies, as they have in the United States recently, expressing their qualities from joy to grief, and shining through all obscurations. Underneath deep grief is the joy of having loved someone and experienced in your own heart the love they gave to you, opening your heart to a new fullness, now to be shared with others in the memory of them. We honor the ornaments of human sacrifice and excellence. Each of these may become contributions to world service if they result in greater understanding, greater harmlessness, and a lessening of suffering.

The Star of the Christ

As individuals and groups proceed upward in their evolutionary path, the radiance that comes from the Star we call the Christ and the reflected lights of the ornaments of world servers proceeds downward to infuse every level of sentient life, from its birth to its end, with electromagnetic love, wisdom, compassion and will-to-good. The Star at the top embodies all of the highest and best of the human kingdoms with the knowledge, creative intelligence and power of the One Life in which we live and have our being. Though known by many names in different religions, that Being holds the office of World Teacher of all and is the Star of the Hierarchy of Stars. He is the redeemer and the stainless light that reflects all colors and to which all in their diverse lives may find an archetype of enlightenment and perfectment. He also represents the light at the top of the tree of life, representing the natural liberation from form into pure spirit, the moment of glory we all share when earth rises up to the heaven from which it came. The glory of the Star of humanity blazes forth from an elevation all can see and gives hope that never dies. He is a principle, a presence and a purpose in fulfillment. From this Star gift waves descend to all living lights and sentient beings, touching their lives, minds, hearts, wills or creative abilities with the starlight of beauty. These gifts of abundance are beneath the tree waiting to be recognized and opened. A gift for each of us is there.

World Service

The seed thought for the Capricorn meditation suggested in the Alice A. Bailey books is, as we know, awareness of the highest light: "Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back." From the highest form of subtle light, the world servers turn toward the field of service to let the light shine through them into the world, making it a little lighter for others. For world servers the sole interest is in the soul of humanity and its control of the world through enlightened and compassionate ethics and living. The soul is, as we know, the source of light, love and the willingness to sacrifice for others, and is the pathway for spirit, the will-to-good and the will-to-know. All of these qualities and monadic energies infuse the group life and condition its progress. "An integrated pattern of group thought is a living, lighted mandala through which the Master and the Hierarchy can work." Every group dedicated to world service, altruism, and world betterment is a potential vehicle for light, compassion, wisdom, and a commitment to living ethics.

Three events of especial interest are scheduled to be webcast, two are from London and New York on Dec. 22 on the New Group of World Servers Festival Week, and one from Birth 2012 and Beyond Dec 20-22 from Australia to Los Angeles. All should be available in archives for later viewing.

Best wishes to you, a living light and ornament of creative contribution, that the gift wave of spiritual intuition may be opened by you as a part of the great mandala of the group life of world servers.

Joann S. Bakula

> A blizzard of ONE