At the highest levels of the planetary Hierarchy of Soul are the Masters and Ashrams. The Masters {no gender implied} are the highest and most advanced souls – advanced in their inclusive union with Love, advanced in their integrative encompassing wisdom, and advanced in their spiritual power of will towards serving the Divine Will (or the Divine Purposes). Also in the Planetary Hierarchy are advanced soul-Groups {which we call Ashrams} who are guided by the highest Masters – each Master being the leader of one of these Ashram-Groups of advanced souls.
Ashrams are spheres of consciousness-light and love-wisdom. They also act as a reservoir of the Divine Qualities for humanity, sharing these with humanity through the spiritual principle of radiance; yet this is only effective with receptive recipients. So as such, the Ashrams are intermediary spheres of Light between the Absolute Divine Light and humanity. An Ashram could also be understood as a group of collective minds working on one kind of spiritual emphasis or field of manifestation.
Each Master and Ashram in the Hierarchy is working within the greater Spiritual Purpose of unfolding Love, Light and Beauty in the world, which is the spiritual evolution of life. For remember that this whole creation is an ongoing process of manifesting love and beauty and all the Divine Qualities; of which the higher Groups (Ashrams) in the Hierarchy are helping to bring forth.
Masters and Ashrams give higher wisdom to humanity. They share their love-wisdom {love's wisdom}{the wisdom of love}. They share with us higher principles and higher vision, in alignment with Higher Purposes (which they have realized). These spiritual Purposes come from the Divine Will. The Divine Will is for humanity and the world to increase its wisdom, love, harmony, and creative power to enhance beauty. These are some of the spiritual Purposes of life. So those who have a will towards these Purposes, and who use their creative powers towards these goals, are in alignment with the Divine Will.
Each Master, as well as the advanced souls {Initiates} of their Ashram, are on a spiritual path towards higher wisdom and enlightenment; for all self-conscious souls are on a path towards greater and greater God-knowing {gnosis}. Yet as well, every Master and advanced soul are also spiritually inspired to serve humanity and the planet, towards the spiritual aim of manifesting the Divine {and all of the Divine Ray Qualities} on Earth. For this is the Goal of all those who have realized the Will and Purpose.
All conscious souls are on a two-fold path: on the one hand, increasing their wisdom knowing of Divine Will, Purpose, and Vision, and also expanding their inclusive love being; then on the other hand, each soul is seeking to serve the Divine Will, Purpose, and Vision.
So the Masters and Ashrams are working to inspire and guide humanity - meaning all living souls on Earth. Some of the souls on Earth are soul-conscious, while others are not; but everyone needs some higher guidance and help. Some souls in the Ashrams are even living here right now; perhaps even some of the Masters are here as well. But since the Goal is a complete spiritual transformation in humanity and spiritual manifestation on this Planet, everyone here needs to be awakened and get on board. Thus, the Master's and Ashram's work is to spiritually inspire and guide humanity, through whatever creative way they can. They inspire humanity with higher wisdom - higher principles to work with and visions of what is possible.
The Masters and Ashrams of the Hierarchy inspire and help guide humanity, the younger ones as they say, towards a greater Goal of Harmony, Love and Wisdom manifested in the world. They help individuals - (those who are receptive) - but overall they are helping guide the whole world towards a higher spiritual vision of joyful and cooperative harmony, a world full of love and beauty. There are many spiritual values for the whole world to unfold, all towards love, wisdom, and beauty. Many of us have some spiritual vision of what our world can be and the importance of a spiritual awakening in all of humanity. We know that humanity can become much more united and in harmony, and the world an even more beautiful planet as we take better care of nature. But it is so often difficult to know what to do and how to bring people cooperatively together.
The Hierarchy is always pondering this question and working out solutions, but it would be a mistake to think they have all the answers or that they will be doing all the needed work. No. All they can do is to share with humanity their realizations of higher Purposes and Principles, which will guide us if we can get aligned with these. We have to do most of the hard thinking and hard work. Their power and influence is limited, because they can only reach those who are receptive in an inward or telepathic way. They can only really reach and help guide those who are listening, or who are willing to listen. And they really do not know what exactly to do to solve each problem, for their function is to provide general higher principles and visions for our guidance.
So here on Earth there has to be people who actually care about the whole world and its spiritual evolution, and who are willing to work towards those higher visions and goals. These people form into different types of service groups. They might not think of their groups as “service groups”; it doesn't matter. Many of these people may not even actually join a group; yet by what they do, they are part of a service group - doing their part in that type of service for the world evolution, or working towards that aspect of the World Vision. Of course not all spiritual workers will be going on tour around the world to multinational meetings or teach their world followers. For most people, their spiritual work will be much more localized. Yet it is every step that is important. The Great Pyramid was built brick by brick.
Masters and Ashrams spiritually inspire and give new vision to humanity, always guiding humanity towards further spiritual evolution. Their service work is to wisely consider what is needed at the time and for different places. Yet much of this wise consideration needs to come from workers on the ground, as it were. So the Hierarchy needs world servers to actually fulfill its aims. God needs world servers.
The Masters and Ashrams are most particularly focused on world service groups – those groups on Earth who are working to help evolve humanity and help make the whole planet more harmonious. World service groups are the groups of goodwill and social change -- those groups with a social or ecological aim-to-better. Each field of work is inspired and guided by a Master and an Ashram. This giving of inspiration and guidance to humanity is a major purpose of the Planetary Hierarchy – led by the most enlightened Souls of our Planet, the Masters and Ashrams.
The Ashrams act as a Group of Spiritual Guides for these externalizing groups. Ashrams are the Over-soul of these groups -- the Guiding Group above these world service groups. For example, each Ashram will be a Guide for a number of groups working for positive change in the world. Each Ashram will then help spiritually inspire and share new vision to those particular world service groups under their respective guidance.
Those particular world service groups, under the guidance of an Ashram, will often be spread out all the world, and the many groups will often not know the other groups. Some will know one another and be working together, but many will not. Some groups will be quite organized; others might be less organized. Mostly, the many service-oriented and positive-change groups in humanity are scattered, disconnected, and dis-unified. Their group power-to-make-change will be limited as long as they remain un-unified. But if groups realize their common purposes with other groups, then come together in unity, their collective power will multiply greatly.
This is the power of united synthesis – a larger group synthesis with a much larger collective power than if the groups remain in separation or without cooperative unity. Cooperation, unity and synthesis is always possible, because each group shares many common purposes with many other groups.
The Ashrams help to bring these related outer groups cohesively together - to build integration, synthesis and unity. The Ashrams already have realized and actualized this; so they can help other groups also build cooperation, integration, synthesis and unity. And all of this is ultimately inspired by an emerging world awakening of love.
So a main work of an Ashram is to act as a cohesive and integrating guide for those living service groups it seeks to help. The Ashram will provide a magnetic integrative force which will help bring groups together and help them relate harmoniously, cooperatively, integratively, and cohesively. Thus, besides giving general spiritual inspiration and guidance to these groups, the guiding Ashram's work is to help bring cohesion and cooperation among its groups, to help integrate and unify these groups, and to help create a greater Group Synthesis.
Our meaning of 'Group Synthesis' is a building of a new and more evolved unity-of-complexity. In a true synthesis, the diversity of qualities, as contributed by the democracy of its members, is not lost in a homogenized soup but rather is preserved in the new integrated unity. In other words, like a piece of art or a gourmet soup, the unique colors or flavors are not lost in the unity, but instead contribute significantly to the very building of unity. So this unity is not mere conformity to sameness, but rather a unity embracing diversity, and whereby the unique members of this diversity contribute to making the unity what it will be.
This is a new unity, whereby greater degrees of complexity and diversity are embraced, integrated, and unified. In ordinary language, this is when many diverse people and groups unify into a new cohesiveness and cooperatively work for the same greater Aim. People will need to build this new unity, a unity with their mind, heart, and cooperative activity.
However, in order to have unity of mind, there needs to be a dedication and working towards the same general Goals or Purposes. Cooperation, Integration, Synthesis, and Unity in humanity are some of the Great aims of the Spiritual Hierarchy. And of course we should also add the supreme Quality of Love. This is what those in the Hierarchy work for. They work for the spiritual evolution of all humanity and for the whole planet, which is an evolution of love and spiritual enlightenment. In regards to overall humanity, as groups of people and as social structure, the aim is Cooperation, Integration, Synthesis, and Unity. The Spiritual Hierarchy guides humanity towards these great aims.
The Hierarchy has already built these Qualities into its own sphere of existence. Those Souls and Groups in the higher levels of Hierarchy have developed Cooperation, Integration, Synthesis, and Unity in their own relationships. Because these are the most advanced Souls of humanity's history, they are already ahead of the rest of humanity in their spiritual evolution; so they have already realized and actualized Cooperation, Integration, Synthesis, and Unity amongst themselves. Thus, they vibrationally resonate these Qualities and all of their love-wisdom to all humanity; not imposing or manipulating, but sharing with those who are ready to realize the great Vision.
So it is possible that humanity can eventually become as cooperative and unified as those in the Hierarchy. Yet this Goal will take time to unfold; one step at a time, humanity can become evermore unified - working cooperatively together to build love and harmony in the world. The many different groups in the world will need to realize this greater Vision and be spiritually inspired to manifest these greater Qualities in the world.
Our world is in a gradual evolutionary process of manifesting the integrated unity already present in the Spiritual Hierarchy. This will unfold as many and then many more groups of the world become more integrated and unified with other groups, which will produce Larger integrated unified Groups. Then these Larger groups will need to make even Larger comprehensive Groups, until finally everyone is unified.
In effect, various groups of people will build a larger Group Unity, as they build more communication, more cooperation, and more love with one another. Groups that already have their own group cooperative unity will build cooperative unity with other groups, and thus a larger Group will form. Thus, a larger Group will be built from the smaller groups coming together in mind and heart, and cooperating towards common higher Purposes. This is the process of spiritual Group Synthesis. In this way, by this process, a new spiritual Synthesis of Group-consciousness is being built in humanity.
Groups will need to realize their own importance in this new step for humanity. The many groups (national, ethnic, political, social, academic, spiritual) will need to realize the importance of their next step - which could either be forward or a continuation of the usual. For the next step to realize and manifest is the Vision of Cooperation, Integration, Synthesis, and Unity among the many diverse groups of humanity.
Soul-Groups at the higher levels have been called Ashrams. An Ashram is a group sphere of consciousness with a higher level of vibration which radiates outward as conscious light, higher love and wisdom. Each Ashram has its own purposeful work to do and its own integrity of unity to maintain. It's power of influence -- to radiate light and love, to uplift aspiring people, and to guide humanity -- depends on the light of each member, but also depends on the power of its own group unity and selfless dedication to its spiritual Purpose and work. The quality and effectiveness of an Ashram, or any group, will depend on the self-propelled efforts of its members, on the quality of their being. It will also depend on the finer ideas and visions that are brought into the group by each member. But also it will depend on the unity and synergy of its members.
This truth will also apply to any world-serving spiritual group, who's own group-power of spiritual influence will depend on its unity and dedicated purposeful work. Unity builds a power of synergy, which is especially significant in the realm of mind and consciousness, and unity-in-focus is especially powerful in directing higher mental and emotional energies. In addition, every Ashram is continually expanding its love and consciousness, which each world-serving spiritual group must do as well; because expansion in heart and mind is the ladder of ascent.
The effectiveness of group world service and spiritual transmission will depend on the group's unity in purpose and vision. It will depend on the group's cohesive focus on the ideas and visions being shared, and it will depend on the quality of being in the members. Of course now, we are speaking about any spiritual group, not merely speaking about soul-groups. In fact, all that has been said here is applicable to any group, even though we began this discussion on the topic of soul groups in the Hierarchy.
For any living spiritual group may stand at least on the periphery of the Hierarchical Sphere, if not inside it. And remember that, really, we are all souls. So as souls we are already in a Group of the Hierarchy, at some level of it. But as a living being we can also be part of a living spiritual group, a group that is physically meeting and doing some kind of meditative work or prayer work or study work. These physical groups have a relationship with the soul-groups, though the correspondence may not be exact, and seldom is. Yet the physical groups are under the same principles as the soul-groups. So as they follow these principles, as outlined here, they will then be working in and through the Hierarchy, similar to any soul-group.
So a key principle in any Group, whether of the Hierarchy or right here in humanity, is that its positive effectiveness and influence is in its power of unity. This is related to the principle of synergy: a greater accumulated force is created from individuals working effectively together than if those individuals were only working alone. So there is a potential power in group work, if this is accomplished with unity of purpose and vision, and with harmony in the group. This can simply be called the 'power of unity', which depends on the members having a common shared purpose and vision. It also depends on the love in that group, which is everyone's sense of group-relatedness, along with respect and caring about each member.
Unity must be achieved with respect and mutual understanding, rather than with forced compliance. Members in a group need to be respected, so that all ideas are shared and considered, rather than relying just on one leader to tell everyone else. Love means a mutual caring about one another and trying to help in each person's quest for wisdom and spiritual unfoldment. A well working group is like a team helping each other and working cohesively toward shared visions and goals. Also, a group will develop greater cohesive unity as each person realizes the importance of a Greater Purpose of which the group can serve.
Unity in a group is essential to its effectiveness. However, not all in a group must be exactly the same. There will be some differences, but this is not a negative thing. Rather, the differences add to a group's diversity and functionality, if those differences can be made useful and if they do not derail the unity. There can be unity-in-diversity, or diversity harmoniously integrated. Overall, unity develops in any Group through love and through common purpose.
Each group contains souls with possible differences; a soul group does not mean that each in it are exactly the same. There will be some essential sameness, yet also differences. These differences does not mean that they have to argue or fight. Not at all. The differences make the group more diverse and integrated; then the group has more ableness, because there are more different talents in it. It is similar to a successful large business, where there is a need for different talents and functions.
So the differences are respected and even appreciated. But each must make effort to work with the others and harmonize together as one. For it is in the harmony-of-diversity that a group gains power and effectiveness in the divine work. Power (spiritual power and effectiveness), in the group work of receptivity and transmission, will be gained according to the degree of unity achieved in the group. This unity is achieved through the principles of love.
First needed is respect of differences, meaning that one is not immediately judgmental of those who seem different. Second, is a recognition of what unique value there is in someone with a different viewpoint or different way. Third, is working at trying to understand this value, if it is not yet apparent. Fourth, is working at harmonizing differences, which is to find out how they can work together towards a Common Vision or Goal. And Fifth, we all actually work together as one united team to accomplish our Aim, while making use of every different soul/person talent that is present.
Once again, unity develops in any group through love and through common realized spiritual purpose.
Also Read -- Inclusive Unity