A stream winner, or srotapanna in Sanskrit and sotapanna in Pali, is someone who has entered the stream, of the buddhist eightfold noble path that leads to the end of suffering. Such a being has tasted nirvana and thus knows the truth of buddha’s teaching. He has more than likely achieved this through meditation.

Importantly, because they have tasted nirvana, they have no more doubt. But this is also because meditation has enabled them to penetrate into form and see that there is no self there. This maybe requires some explanation. Traditionally a Buddhist sees the personality as composed of the five aggregates:-form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness. But there is an approach nearer to our culture that does the job just as well.

In the neo-Darwin school, we are nothing more than a mechanism for the survival of our genes. Acquisition whether that’s of things, or personal characteristics is nothing than to ensure the survival of the genes. Richard Dawkins called them the selfish gene. In other words what you think of as your identity has nothing to do with you whatsoever, your identity is nothing other than a strategy by your genes to ensure that they will reproduce. Money, power, and social status are mechanisms through which your selfish genes compete. This gives rise to what you think, feel and experience. Almost all people find this very difficult to accept. But this denial too is nothing other than part of the strategy of the genes.  To see evidence of this you need look no further than a breed of dog or cat.  Why?  Because whole breeds share personalities.  Your personality is not in fact yours.  It’s merely an expression of your genes.

There’s hope. Meditate enough and you will discover that your awareness lies as a substrate beneath thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations, which are fluid. Your awareness lies beneath your personality even. And of course you see the impermanence of these thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. In a sense your genes have captured your awareness, but identifying with them will only lead to suffering for the simple reason that they vanish soon enough and your clinging to them lead to misery. So, it’s awareness that’s interesting and has interestingly enough been there all the time. It’s just that we’ve failed to pay due attention to it. Disidentify the awareness from its content and you will be free.

This view that all form is empty of self is only one part of the understanding. Another part is the interconnectedness of all things. This is not as new age as it might otherwise sound. It is in part an understanding that we have been making a huge mistake by reifying, i.e. creating things. Ask yourself this, when is a tree no longer a seed and then a tree? A tree is really one huge process. Moreover it doesn’t stand in isolation. It depends on the rain, the soil, the sun, the wind, other plants, animals, etc. etc. etc. Everything as much as there are things is interdependent. That we see things as separate is nothing other than a convenient fiction.

So our disciple gets the point and decides to move from identification with form and a separative view to identification with awareness and a holistic interdependent view, realizing that he his not the contents of the awareness, realizing that the contents of awareness are without any self, realizing that everything is interconnected and puts the truth into practice and renounces all separate and form identity.

So how does this match with the western occultism’s view? The alignment isn’t as complete as you might wish, but it’s revealing nevertheless. It centers around the purification of the emotional nature.

In the west this initiation is sometimes called the initiation of the Baptism. Christ was said to have taken the second initiation when John the Baptist submerged Jesus into the stream. At the second initiation the disciple has purified his emotional nature and is ready to be born again into the kingdom of heaven.

The normal human identity is rooted in the emotional nature. Few are the people with a true mental identification, which is why the second initiation is much more difficult than the other for most people. To give up identification with the emotional nature is to give up most of the sense of one’s self. It helps to know that emotions arise as a result of wrong view. That identification with thoughts is another wrong view, is to the western occultist a matter of the third initiation, and a mater for another post.

There is a slight mismatch between the Western occultist’s view point and a Buddhist’s. In one view the disciple has given up identity and doubt, to the other he has given up desire. But as we saw the root of identity for most is in the emotional nature.

At the second initiation the disciple has struck a major blow at the sense of I, such that all that’s left are some habits. Buddha was very clear about that.

Buddha then asked, “What do you think, Subhuti, does one who has entered the stream which flows to Enlightenment, say ‘I have entered the stream’?”

“No, Buddha”, Subhuti replied. “A true disciple entering the stream would not think of themselves as a separate person that could be entering anything. Only that disciple who does not differentiate themselves from others, who has no regard for name, shape, sound, odor, taste, touch or for any quality can truly be called a disciple who has entered the stream.”

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In fact in “The Voice of the Silence”, Blavatsky writes

But let each burning human tear drop on thy heart and there remain, nor ever brush it off, until the pain that caused it is removed.

These tears, O thou of heart most merciful, these are the streams that irrigate the fields of charity immortal. ‘Tis on such soil that grows the midnight blossom of Buddha more difficult to find, more rare to view than is the flower of the Vogay tree. It is the seed of freedom from rebirth. It isolates the Arhat both from strife and lust, it leads him through the fields of Being unto the peace and bliss known only in the land of Silence and Non-Being.

A.A.Bailey writes in “The Rays and initiation”

When a Master takes the fifth initiation He… must become consciously aware of the highest aspect: the Will-to-Good. He has developed in Himself “the love necessary to salvation, His own and that of those He loves, His fellowmen;” all His actions and His thinking are qualified by goodwill, in its esoteric sense, and the significance of the Will-to-Good lies ahead of Him and will be later revealed.

Apparently amongst Christian esoterocists, the initiation when one becomes an arhat is understandably called the Ressurection. But apparently, it is the seventh which is the true ressurection. Hell, what do I know?

The fifth initiation is also called among esotericists: the initiation of revelation. I find this more interesting because of the emphasis within Buddhism on awakening. The word Buddha itself meaning one who has awoken; achieving liberation and revelation/awakening occuring at the same point.

Lest we forget. The Diamond Sutra, in which Buddha speaks to his disciple Subhuti, reminds us that there is no ego here.

“Subhuti, what do you think, can an Arhat have the thought, ‘Have I attained the Way of the Arhat?’” Subhuti said, “No World Honored One. Why? Actually there is no dharma called ‘Arhat.’ World Honored One, if an Arhat had the thought, ‘I have attained the Way of the Arhat,’ that would be an attachment to self, others, living beings and to a life. World Honored One, the Buddha has said that I am foremost in the attainment of the No Strife Samadhi, and I am the foremost Arhat free from desire. Yet, World Honored One, I do not have the thought, ‘I am an Arhat free from desire.’ If I had the thought, ‘I have attained the Way of the Arhat,’ then the World Honored One would not say, ‘Subhuti is foremost of those who delight in practicing Aranya.’ Since Subhuti actually does not practice anything, he is called, ‘Subhuti who delights in practicing Aranya.’”

So, this initiation – The initiation of liberation, of revelation – Is it the initiation of enlightenment? Well, just what does one mean by enlightenment? It does all get hard to fathom. We know the practice works in our own lives. We’ve seen what happens, so looking ahead isn’t such a bad thing.

Buddhism starts counting at Western Occultism’s second initiation. In that light and the light of Buddha’s discussion with Subhuti, here’s what Dogen has to say in the Shobogenzo:

The eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind in the present transcend self and other; correct from head to tail, they are beyond our ability to comprehend thoroughly. For this reason, one’s whole body, as it is, “does not covet and is not defiled.” It does not covet and is not defiled by the whole of “any phenomena, existent or non-existent.” The wholeness, just as it is, of “holding to the four-line verse,” is called “does not covet and is not defiled”; it is also called “the fourth stage of fruition.” The fourth stage of fruition is the arhat.

Just a thought.

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1. Disciples upon the Path of Discipleship are strongly influenced by Mercury and Saturn – one bringing illumination and the other offering opportunity.
2. At the various initiations, the influence of the planets affects the candidate in a totally different manner than earlier. Cyclically the energies from the constellations pour through the planetary centers.
   1. At the first initiation, the disciple has to contend with the crystallizing and destroying forces of Vulcan and Pluto. The influence of Vulcan reaches to the very depths of his nature, whilst Pluto drags to the surface and destroys all that hinders in these lower regions.
   2. At the second initiation, the candidate comes under the influence of three planets – Neptune, Venus and Jupiter. The three centers – solar plexus, heart and throat – are actively involved.
   3. At the third initiation, the Moon (veiling a hidden planet) and Mars bring about a fearful conflict, but at the end the man is released from personality control.
   4. At the fourth initiation, Mercury and Saturn again bring about great changes and unique revelation, but their effect is very different to the earlier experience.
   5. At the fifth and final initiation, Uranus and Jupiter appear and produce a “beneficent organization” of the totality of energies found in the initiate’s equipment. When this reorganization is complete, the initiate can then “escape from off the wheel and then can truly live.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the terminology, here’s what I think. The fifth initiation produces the buddhist arhat and is known as the revelation in esoteric terminology or the ressurection, the fourth is the crucifixion or renunciation, the third is transfiguration when thought is transcended, the second is the baptism or stream enterer in buddhism when desire is overcome, and the first is recognition of the inner Christ or one’s buddha nature when the physical appetite is brought under control. The problem is that these often become a source for spiritual pride and ambition. And if they’re that throw them away. I did. But from time to time they’re an interesting review of the work ahead.

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