Initiation and the Devas

The question may be asked whether the devas undergo initiation, and we might deal briefly with the point here.Initiation has to do with the conscious development of the self, and concerns the wisdom aspect of the One Self.

It presupposes the development of the intelligence principle, and involves the apprenhension by the human unit of purpose and of will, and his intelligent participation therein throuh love and service.

The devas, with the exception of those greater devas who have in earlier cycles passed through the human kingdom and now co-operating in the evolution of man, are not as yet self-conscious.

They grow and develop through feeling and not through the power of conscious thought. Man, however, grows through expansios of self conscious realisation, self-initiated and self-imposed.

It is the line of aspiration and of conscious endeavour, and it is the most difficult line of development in the solar system, for it follows not along the line of the least resistance, but seeks to initiate and impose a higher rythm.

The devas follow the line of least resistance, and seek to appropriate and experience in fullest tide of feeling and sentiency the vibration of things as they are.  

Therefore the method for them is an ever-increasing intensity of appreciation for the feeling of ever-increasing intensity of appreciation for the feeling of the moment, and not, as in man, an ever-increasing depreciation of things as they are, or of the material aspect, which leads to an endeavour to reach out and enfold within his consciousness the subjective reality, or the things of the spirit-this in contradistinction to the objective unreality, or the things of matter.

The devas seek to feel, whilst man seeks to know. For the former, then, those expansions of consciousness which we call Initiation, exist not, except in the cases of those advanced beings who, having passed through the human stage, both feel and know, and who, under the evolutionary law, expand their knowledge in ever-increasing degree.

Reference: Initiation Human and Solar: Alice A Bailey