What this means is that the Hierarchy can be externalized, from its interior reality to being manifested outwardly. The most general meaning of Hierarchy includes all levels of souls, but in this meaning of Hierarchy we are speaking about its higher levels of Masters, Teachers, and soul Initiates. Living humanity is helped and guided by those in the higher levels of Hierarchy who are dedicated in sharing their love and wisdom to all of humanity.
One of the major Purposes known by these more evolved souls is to serve life and humanity; specifically to teach and guide, and to bring more Love and Light into humanity, so that humanity in general will create more harmony, beauty, goodness, love, and wisdom in life. In other words, this Hierarchy of Masters and Teachers, including their Group-Ashrams, are the great guides of humanity, who have been helping for many thousands of years in the spiritual evolution of humanity.
These Teachers and Ashrams shine forth their radiance of love and guiding wisdom, in order to compassionately help us. With love and compassion, they help us by sharing their conscious understanding of the divine Self and the purpose of existence, and also by sharing their understanding of universal truths and the principles of right living.
But this Hierarchy is not some kind of distant place, far removed from us and the world. Rather, the Hierarchy of Teachers and Guides is accessible from our higher mind, our intuitional mind. And as well, the Hierarchy can be known within our heart. All great spiritual beings, Masters and Saints, can be found in the heart, because they live in the Heart Centre of our planet, and our own heart centre is within that greater Heart. So there are two access points to the Hierarchy: higher mind and deeper heart. Yet when in meditation our mind and heart are fused in oneness, then this very distinction disappears.
So we could understand the Hierarchy as being in the realm of mind; not just ordinary mind, but higher intuitional mind, and it is here that we can contact the Hierarchy and receive guidance from them. Yet we can also understand the Hierarchy as being in the wisdom of our heart. For our heart centre has its own love-wisdom, which is vibrationally connected to the Hierarchy - the Heart Centre of our planet.
Unfortunately though, the average person hasn't developed any ability to be in their intuitional mind, nor in their wisdom heart, and therefore they do not have this access. Therefore, the higher guidance coming from Hierarchy cannot reach the average person. So this higher wisdom guidance must be received by those capable of hearing it, and then passed down from these persons to the rest of humanity. This is the work of an intermediate group that we call the world servers.
World servers are those souls alive at this time in the world who are conscious of the divine purpose and thus work at serving the evolution of humanity. They step down, as it were, the love and wisdom rays being transmitted from the highest Masters and Teachers within the Hierarchy.
So the Masters help humanity, but often this happens indirectly, through intermediate souls and living world servers. They often cannot help directly, because ordinary minds and hearts have not developed the capacity to hear and receive from them.
For this reason, Masters and Teachers will ever so often incarnate, if it is useful to do so and if there is a good opportunity of circumstance. Then, when in incarnation, they will hopefully have opportunities for influencing some groups of humanity in positive evolutionary ways. Sometimes, humanity or portions of humanity need a living great Master, Teacher, or Saint to awaken them from sleep, to spiritually inspire them, or to guide them in a better direction. It is said that at no time is humanity left totally alone without any living help from higher souls. So the great Masters and Teachers do incarnate. The Bodhisattvas do occasionally arrive.
Therefore, the universal Love-Wisdom is also shared with the rest of humanity through living Teachers and higher souls. The Guides, Teachers and Masters of the Hierarchy will re-incarnate in order to personally share the wisdom of love and the divine teachings. They incarnate into physical life, into physical bodies, so they can teach, lead, and sometimes share a higher level of artistic creativity.
Maybe at some time there might be many great Masters living in physical bodies on Earth, all at the same time. This is the vision, or possibility, known as the 'externalization of the Hierarchy'. In other words, instead of the Hierarchy of Guides and Wisdom being beyond this world, all of this can just as well be present in this world. This is the externalization of the Masters and the Wisdom who had previously only been inwardly known. In essence, this is the externalization (manifestation) of greater potential capacities and powers.
Some degree of externalization of the Hierarchy has been occurring throughout history and will be occurring in the future, and it may be happening right now. For at various times, greater Teachers and Masters have incarnated to help evolve and inspire humanity, or one area of the world. The Hierarchy itself decides what is best needed, which is called the Plan, so there might be a decided plan for one particular Master to incarnate or maybe many at the same general time. This Plan is not decided by God, but rather by the Souls of the Hierarchy.
Yet, this act of incarnation may not be easy, and it is not guaranteed to succeed, since many existential and social factors make for hazards that can even challenge the greatest Masters. No one has ultimate power over all of life and over all possible physical and social circumstances; so thwarted plans are a possible hazard. Thus, many attempts might have to be made, before a great Master or any incarnating higher soul successfully regains his/her soul-abilities in this particular life. This is partly because the vehicles of a living person, (their mental, emotional and physical components), need to develop in a soul-compatible manner, which can be thwarted by various social factors. Yet when the incarnation and subsequent personal development of a great advanced soul is successful, there can then be a living Teacher or Master externalized on Earth.
Also, just because a few spiritually advanced and wise Souls might be incarnated does not necessarily mean that they will be recognized or received. Some people will recognize them. Some will recognize their radiant love presence and understand their words of wisdom, yet many will not because they lack spiritual sensitivity. So this reason, it might be an un-opportune time for many of the higher Masters to incarnate, if so much of humanity is unprepared to recognize them anyways.
Thus, the Masters have to weigh the usefulness of an incarnation, deciding if it is more effective to incarnate and work as a person on earth, or to remain as an influential radiance in the Hierarchy of Souls. The former has more exoteric influence, while the latter has more esoteric influence; yet both are important.
So understand that even if the whole higher realm of the Hierarchy
were to immediately incarnate, this would not necessarily transform
humanity and the world, because any transformation or spiritual
evolution depends on a capacity for recognition, receptivity, and a
will-to-good which is needed to make any realized wisdom into
practical manifestation. It is naive and wishful fantasy to think
that one Great Savior will suddenly appear or a great Hierarchy of
spiritual Teachers will appear -- which will then make everyone
loving and everything right and suddenly bring heaven on earth.
Two factors necessarily come into play: one is free will, and the other is people's capacity to recognize spiritual presence and wisdom. So until the average person steps up a bit more in their evolution, and until certain powers at work are willing to give up their violence and injustices, there is no use in much of the Hierarchy incarnating at this time. More practical ground work still needs to be done.
An externalization of the Hierarchy, which is one of the greater aims in hierarchical plans, means that many Masters and other advanced souls will incarnate, to be present in physical bodies on Earth, and with all of their spiritual capacities at work. Yet everyone else will still be in their particular learning process, and they will have to do their own self work and spiritually advance by their own efforts.
An externalization of the Hierarchy is not like a coming of Master magicians or Miracle workers, who will now make everything in the world right, who will now heal and solve every problem people have, or who will then immediately make the world into a divinely beautiful place. The Masters and Guides will come, and so too a whole multitude of conscious souls, but the work towards divine beauty, love and peace, will not simply be an easy path.
The incarnation of Masters, Teachers, Prophets and Guides will not instantly transform humanity. The average person, wrapped in a separatist mind, a closed or prejudiced heart, or preoccupied with building wealth and personal success, will not be able to recognize and learn from real Teachers. Any advice of the Wise will merely fall on deaf ears.
Spiritual Masters cannot make people into what they are not ready to be. No one, no matter how spiritually advanced they are, not even Christ nor the Buddha, has the ultimate power to make people immediately become loving and wise. For this will take time and effort, and it will depend on the people themselves. People, and humanity in general, will still have to go through lessons of learning and move through their own self-transformational process; but they can be guided and inspired by others, which will accelerate the transformational process.
So, world transformation cannot be accomplished easily. It will not be accomplished by miracle workers. Instead, it will require everyone to become more responsible for the kind of person they are and what they do. Yet as the Hierarchy externalizes more and more, there will be more spiritual teachers and more examples of true spiritual being, which will catalyze an ongoing world spiritual transformation.
There still needs to be a lot of ground work done, the work of preparation. A great Master from the Hierarchy would not waste time developing a physical body, if few are ready to hear or understand what they might offer. So to make needed preparations, advanced Teachers first send out Initiates from their Ashram. Or in general, intermediate souls incarnate to prepare the way for more advanced ones later on.
But everyone needs to do whatever is possible to help in the overall spiritual evolution of humanity, helping to evolve the minds and hearts of all humanity, and to help protect the Earth from squander by the ignorant and the selfish. And all people can awaken to the divine Purposes of life, one of which is to bring forth divine possibilities into manifestation -- that is, to bring forth more love, more spiritual realization, more beauty and harmony into the world.
The Hierarchy is the inner realm of spiritual realization, which needs to externalize into the manifest world. But remember that the very Purpose of this life is to manifest, or externalize, our spiritual being and the multi-layered beautiful qualities of our soul. The love, wisdom, and beauty of each spiritual soul is meant to externalize into the world. So we are all involved with externalization, in some way, potentially. Thus, the goal of externalizing the Hierarchy has always been inherent in the very Purpose of life.
A usual interpretation of this idea, externalization of the Hierarchy, is about how great Masters and Teachers will suddenly appear on Earth to guide and transform the world. But rather than focus on the role of great Masters and Guides, and how they might positively change the world; consider the importance of great values, principles and qualities. Consider this possible meaning of 'externalizing the Hierarchy': to externalize the great spiritual values, principles and qualities that exist in the love-wisdom of the Hierarchy, or that which comes down from on High. This would be the true miracle - that people finally realize and get tuned into these spiritual values and qualities. This would be the most magnificent externalization -- if people realized and began expressing the wisdom of love, the values and qualities of love.
So it is not so much of importance to hope for great Teachers to appear and lead humanity or to save the world. Instead, concentrate hope and prayer on bringing spiritual values and qualities into the minds and hearts of humanity, that more and more of humanity will directly realize the spiritual purposes of life and help work for this fulfillment.
Bring God into manifestation, bring Love and the highest Qualities into manifestation; this is the true externalization of the Hierarchy. And especially bring the Love and Goodness within your own being into manifestation. Externalize the Spirit within you, the Love within you, the Christ within you. Externalize Christ into the world, through you. Allow Christ to live and externalize through you. This is the Christ within you. The light of Love within you. Externalize Christ or any great being in the Hierarchy through you.
What we mean by Christ, esoterically, is the great Love-Light that is within all humanity and at the core of guiding all humanity. This is the esoteric meaning of Christ. If one tends to identify this Christ with Jesus, then this is fine. See this as Jesus. But esoterically, Christ is not exactly the same as Jesus. Jesus, in his purity of motive and self-sacrifice, allowed the Christ to manifest through him, to live through him. Yet who Christ really is is the highest Love-Light of humanity.
Christ is the awakened child of God. Christ is the divine child within us, yet awakened and thus able to lead us. Christ is the deepest spiritual seed or essence in each human being. Christ is the essential core Soul in each individual soul. Christ is the deepest Soul within every soul. As such, Christ is the Soul-being at the head of the soul Hierarchy, the greatest Soul above and within all souls. Thus, Christ is also known as the Great Light, the great Love, or simply as the Savior. This meaning is beyond any religion. It is not about religion. It is about who is in your heart and the essence of who you are.
For those familiar with the invocation, May Christ return to earth; this can be interpreted as a prayer for oneself -- for Christ to live through me (I being the earth).
So to externalize the Christ is to allow Christ to come through you. The key to this is to first recognize Christ, the beingness of Love in your own heart; then allow Christ to live and externalize through you. This might sound like a quaint religious suggestion, but not so; it is very profound.
In a more simple way, this just means to allow God to manifest
through us -- to be a consciously manifesting child of God. God is
certainly willing, but are we?
End-note:
There
is also possibility that greater Souls can incarnate through living
people. In other words, for a greater Soul to incarnate, or to
externalize, they do not not necessarily have to incarnate as an
infant and then proceed to develop that personal vehicle. Instead,
the greater Soul could incarnate into a living mature person,
someone who is a disciple of the Divine and who is open to a
spiritual re-birth and is receptive to becoming a higher spiritual
being, willing to die to their previous self in order to receive and
become this newer, higher self. This is what some teachings say
about Jesus; that he died to his own personal self in order to
become an even greater Soul, the Christ. Yet in some degree, we can
each do this. We can die to our lesser self, to receive and become
our potential higher self. In fact, this spiritual rebirth can be an
ongoing spiritual process.