me particular
purpose. Now in the case of Him who was known as Jesus, the subtle
bodies were these particular bodies that are kept on the higher planes,
and He was allowed to use these for a number of years, holding them, as
it were, as tenant for the great personage who was to take possession of
them later. Then came the lofty being known as the Bodhisattva,
who took possession of these vehicles which had thus been kept ready for
Him, and He who was the disciple and now is the Master Jesus took birth
later as Apollonius of Tyana, and so passed onwards step by step until
he became one of the Masters of the Wisdom.

I made that slight digression because otherwise I should have conveyed
a slightly false impression by the phrase "all Founders of religions."
We mean amongst ourselves by the word "Master," when used accurately,
a very distinctly marked rank in the Occult Hierarchy; He is a being
who has attained what is called "liberation" in the East, what is
called "salvation" in the West; a being whose soul and Spirit have
become unified, who lives consciously on the highest plane of our own
universe--the fivefold universe--and whose centre of consciousness is
on the atmic, sometimes called the nirvanic, plane. Living in
full consciousness on that plane, He has no sense of bondage in any
form with which He may ally Himself. He has passed during His
Arhatship beyond all desire for life in form, or life out of form.
He has thrown away those fetters; together with the limiting
"I-making" faculty, the limit of individuality, that also has gone.
His consciousness, then, working on this atmic plane, works
indifferently up and down through all the five planes, and the whole
of these together form to Him but a single plane, the plane of His
waking consciousness. That is an important point to remember, for
there is often a certain confusion of thought with regard to this term
"waking consciousness." It ought not to mean simply the consciousness
that you and I may have as waking consciousness, confined to the
physical world; but the consciousness which--enlarging stage by stage
as the active centre of consciousness rises through the planes
inwards--is aware of all which is below that centre; and is aware
thereof without it being necessary for the person to leave the
physical body, in order that that consciousness may be in an active
and working condition. The waking consciousness is the normal, daily
consciousness, and may include