The man who has become an Adept has fulfilled the divine Will so far as this chain of worlds is concerned.  He has reached, even already at the midmost point of the aeon of evolution, the stage prescribed for man’s attainment at the end of it.  Therefore he is at liberty to spend the remainder of that time either in helping his fellow-men or in even more splendid work in connection with other and higher evolutions.  He who has not yet been initiated is still in danger of being left behind by our present wave of evolution, and dropping into the next one—­the “aeonian condemnation” of which the Christ spoke, which has been mistranslated “eternal damnation”.  It is from this fate of possible aeonian failure—­that is, failure for this age, or dispensation, or life-wave—­that the man who attains Initiation is “safe”.  He has “entered upon the stream” which now must bear him on to Adeptship in this present age, though it is still possible for him by his actions to hasten or delay his progress along the Path which he is treading.

That first Initiation corresponds to the matriculation which admits a man to a University, and the attainment of Adeptship to the taking of a degree at the end of a course.  Continuing the simile, there are three intermediate examinations, which are usually spoken of as the second, third, and fourth Initiations, Adeptship being the fifth.  A general idea of the line of this higher evolution may be obtained by studying the list of what are called in Buddhist books “the fetters” which must be cast off—­the qualities of which a man must rid himself as he treads this Path.  These are:  the delusion of separateness; doubt or uncertainty; superstition; attachment to enjoyment; the possibility of hatred; desire for life, either in this or the higher worlds; pride; agitation or irritability; and ignorance.  The man who reaches the Adept level has exhausted all the possibilities of moral development, and so the future evolution which still lies before him can only mean still wider knowledge and still more wonderful spiritual powers.

Chapter IX

THE PLANETARY CHAINS

The scheme of evolution of which our Earth forms a part is not the only one in our solar system, for ten separate chains of globes exist in that system which are all of them theatres of somewhat similar progress.  Each of these schemes of evolution is taking place upon a chain of globes, and in the course of each scheme its chain of globes goes through seven incarnations.  The plan, alike of each scheme as a whole and of the successive incarnation of its chain of globes, is to dip step by step more deeply into matter, and then to rise step by step out of it again.