0˚ Degree - The Earth Initiation -  Winter Solstice

As you read the outlines of these Lesser Mysteries you may like to reflect back on your life and consider when you may have experienced some of these initiations. After the description of each degree I will illustrate it with examples of experiences from my own life in order to familiarise you with some of the main themes within each phase.

The Earth initiation is the preliminary degree as well as the Fourth degree in each cycle. As mentioned previously we may experience several cycles of the 4 degrees within each lifetime and they are a part of the larger cycles of the Greater mysteries.

The Zero degree indicates the moment of awakening, when the personality first becomes aware of the presence of its Soul in each incarnation and the spiritual aspirant once again realises that s/he is more than flesh and blood. We experience glimpses of something familiar but larger than ourselves, a Spiritual being that exist as both within and outside of us. This experience has a relationship to the Birth Initiation spoken of elsewhere.

In order for the person to arrive at this initial awakening to their Spiritual nature and an intuited relationship to things unseen, there is normally a long period of suffering that challenges many of our assumptions about life and makes us demand answers about the nature of our existence. This sets us on the Path to enlightenment once again.

I know in my own case that the Zero degree or Earth Initiation occurred when I was 19. It came after a prolonged period of emotional and psychological suffering. More detail can be found in my book “Spiritual Psychology & the Ageless Wisdom”, but at that time I began to understand that the hedonistic and confused lifestyle I was living was making me miserable and that there must be a better way.

As I started to look around for answers fate led me to a spiritualist meeting, which opened up the possibility of life after death.  I then started yoga and met my Teacher and from then on was a neophyte in the Classical yoga tradition. In a fairly short time frame the practise of yoga and meditation started facilitating the reawakening of my Soul and all sorts of extraordinary experiences occurred.

If my personality had been more integrated it may have allowed the enlightenments I was experiencing to permanently awaken my consciousness. However, as I lacked the integrity to contain them they drained away like water off a duck‘s back. 25 years later, the lesson I have learnt is that one needs to develop one’s personality as a fully functioning person in the everyday world before opening to higher experiences. Then enlightenment may be assimilated with barely a ripple.

It has also helped me to remember that the personality usually has no recollection of its past lives or spiritual career as it were, and so has to relearn and release much of the collected wisdom that remains hidden within the soul. This is the challenging part because the personality (or lower mind) doesn’t accept the spiritual Reality and will resist such awareness with all of its might, especially if the unconscious memory of past suffering is there.  

So the Zero degree introduces us to the initiations once again and we slowly progress through them, often taking one step forwards and two back. Initially, there is a wonderful honeymoon period where we glimpse so much of what is good, beautiful and true in life. It is as if all the accumulated spiritual credit from past lives is glimpsed at this stage, but then we have to surrender to the sometimes harsh realities of spiritual boot camp, which must necessarily play themselves out through the various challenges and initiations that are to come. These mature and purify the personality and make it a fit container of the powerful energies to be released at the appropriate time.

In all this it can help to remember the original vision of the Self that reawakened us to the Path in this lifetime and to have the faith that it will re-emerge in time. For me the occasional glimpse of this enormous spiritual Reality, which did indeed feel closer than hands and feet and yet couldn’t be grasped, was always compelling and has remained so throughout the years.

The insight to be remembered at this initial stage of awakening is that we are Spiritual beings, having an experience of physical incarnation mediated by a mind that is limited to operating within the illusion of the time-space-causation continuum is important. It helps remind us that life in incarnation requires great patience.

Coming Soon: The 1^st Degree – The Water Initiation  - Vernal Equinox