Armageddon

Armageddon, Nicholas Roerich (1936)

From time immemorial, men have predicted the end of the world and the coming of the great battle of Armageddon.

Har-Magedon means “hill of Megiddo.” The Canaanite fortress of Megiddo guarded the pass to the Valley of Jezreel, through which ran the major commercial route from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Whoever controlled the pass governed the economy of Israel. Therefore, the stronghold has been the scene of many battles, ancient and modern. Thus Armageddon, both as a name and as a place, came to symbolize the final battle of the forces of Light and Darkness.

In the last two thousand years, this battle has been associated with certain eschatological concepts—the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, the rapture of the saints, the punishment of sinners and the coming of the New Jerusalem.

Many Christians who are troubled by current trends expect the prophecy of the reappearance of the Christ to be fulfilled at any time. Some feel that the signs of the times are preliminary to the battle of Armageddon. Others have believed at one time or another that we were engaged in the war that would end all wars. These find in the doctrine of “final ends” a hope of the appearing of a new order of the ages that will terminate the injustices of the old and establish a Golden Age of peace and harmony in every country upon earth.

We have a profound hope that because God wills it, ultimately all these things shall come to pass and shall be fulfilled as a blessing, not only to contemporary man, but also to men of the future. However, we are well aware of God’s commandment to man to take dominion over the earth. Thus, human destiny is not only in the hands of God but also in the hands of man. Man’s destiny is fulfilled through his willingness to become an active follower of the divine plan. As long as mankind insist on having their own way, they will be buffeted by their own returning karma.

Spiritual Warfare

The battle of Armageddon is, in reality, a battle between Light and Darkness, between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil, between the Real Self and the synthetic self. It is a spiritual warfare waged so that the world might be stripped of illusion and prepared for the coming of the radiantly victorious Christ into manifestation in every heart.

This battle has been waged from the beginning of the manifestation of Good and so-called Evil. For the Light of the Christ has always been opposed by the Antichrist, and the Christ is the Lamb of God who has been “slain from the foundation of the world.”

Paul referenced the continuing battle that must be waged by all who would truly manifest the Spirit of the Christ when he said, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” His advice to the Ephesians was to put on “the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”

Updating this advice for disciples in this age, El Morya says:

The tube of light that the students have been given is very effective in shutting out and screening from man these discordant vibrations. The violet flame is also most helpful. But men must diligently practice these services and must call forth forcefields of spiritual protection around themselves daily—and even hourly when under attack. In the name of God, I say to all: You are in a battle! The battle of Armageddon is not a mere clashing of spears and chariots in the arenas of the world. It is a spiritual battle for the minds and hearts of men.

Armageddon in the world and in the individual

In the Book of Isaiah and in the Book of Revelation we read of the destruction of Babylon and its rulers—part of the apocalyptic message of Old and New Testament writers. It is a vision that is seen again and again: the alchemy of the judgment and the fall of the mighty and how they are put down, the coming of the remnant and the intercession of God. It is the message of Armageddon. It has a very present definition to our service in this time.

This message of Armageddon contains archetypical patterns that will occur in the life of the soul who becomes the saint, who becomes the ascended master. Everyone who has ever ascended has gone through this specific prophecy, perhaps only in the microcosm. Today we are seeing its imminent manifestation in the macrocosm of life upon earth; but if it were not so, if you were living a thousand years ago or you were living on Atlantis or Lemuria, the day that you determined to be God incarnate and to walk the path of your ascension, you would have the confrontation of your personal Armageddon.

Because the Christ is the highest manifestation (in man) of the Presence of God, the battle of Armageddon is more central to the individual than it is to the world. Therefore, there is an action of Armageddon that occurs simultaneously in the world of the advanced disciple and in the world at large. This is an example of the law of correspondence between the Macrocosm and the microcosm. The way of overcoming is the life of the initiate. This way of life is inextricably identified with the battle of Armageddon that is taking place on the world scene.

Our service in this life does not hang on the anticipation that all of these events will be absolutely concrete and physical around us (though all signs point to that fact). In the days following the ascension of Jesus Christ, the early Christians expected the imminent descent, the Second Advent, the destruction of world power, and they did not realize that it was taking place in the very nucleus, in the very heart of those souls who had reached that point on the path of initiation.

Each man has his own Armageddon, and each person and each earth has their own battle of Armageddon, and each solar system has a struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness. In fact, Armageddon began millions of years ago on other systems of worlds.

We are in a time when people are making final choices. The battle of Light and Darkness must be waged and won by us while we are on earth. That is really why we are here today: to solve this problem and to go out and make our voice count for the victory for souls.

El Morya says:

For it is there in the arena of life and of consciousness that you must fight the battle of Armageddon, that you must overcome the hordes of evil, that you must put down all oppressions that you have created against any part of life until, washed pure and clean and robed in fine white linen, you are brought before the Lord of the Universe in the knowledge that you are his son and conductor of his energies.

The personal Armageddon

While the prophecies of scripture have led many people throughout the world to believe that Megiddo in the land of Israel is the biblical, prophetic site of man’s final days upon this earth, the word Armageddon has also come to mean the personal battlefield of every individual in a spiritual sense; it pertains to the battle between Good and Evil in his own world—the world of his thoughts, or the reflective world spoken of by the contemplatives.

The personal Armageddon may be defined as (1) the spiritual battle that the individual who is becoming the Christ must wage with the dragons of his own past creation (the slings and arrows of hatred, greed, resentment, fear and malice that he has sent forth into the world that have returned to roost in his electronic belt as records of infamy and injustice); and (2) the spiritual battle that the overcomer must wage with forces outside himself that work diligently to betray the Light of every son of God (demons of pride, fallen angels, discarnate entities, witches and black magicians).

The biblical admonishments “Resist not evil” and “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” must be balanced in the light of the teachings of the ascended masters. Evil, the veil of imperfection that shrouds the immortal Light of the soul, must be effectively dealt with by every student if he would ensure his freedom to progress spiritually in the Light.

Everyone who puts his foot on the path of the ascension is opposed by forces from within and from without, both personal and impersonal. Forces from within consist of the pressures of the records of momentums of imperfection carried over from past embodiments as well as the present. From without looms the mass consciousness, that imperfection that draws the individual consciousness down to the lowest common denominator of human vibration. This force may be focused personally as projections of hatred, malice, jealousy, and so on, or it may simply be the impersonal ebb and flow of the tides of human creation.

Whatever the form, whatever the source, none of these forces have any power, presence or permanence—for there is only one Reality, and that is God. Man derives his very life from this Reality, this God. However, insofar as man places his attention upon imperfect conditions, he prolongs the existence of that which is unreal by giving freely of the energies of God’s radiant Reality to that which claims a separate identity apart from the Creator.

Because it is man and man alone who originated imperfection through ambition and pride of intellect, it is man and man alone who must undo this false creation by withdrawing those energies of God that he has unwisely invested in incomplete matrices—the products of his incomplete, ego-centered consciousness.

At some time or other we must face ourselves and determine what we are going to make of our life in our personal relationship with God and with this giant aspect of life we see all around us. We have our immediate families. We also behold the many families of nations. We behold the multitudes of people. But when all is said and done, we come down to a monad, to an expression of God. We are each a monad. We can never be more than a monad as man or as a manifestation of man. We will always be one.

But in a like manner, when we attain that mystical union with our spiritual Self that enables us to call the Father “Our Father,” we will find that there is a flow or exchange of consciousness whereby we become integrated into the Godhead as our personal Armageddon finally ends in the epic manifestation of peace—the true Om, the true Shalom, or the true recognition by man. And what we have to recognize is that through the doorway of our monadic self, through the doorway of our personal self, we must come to that place where each man knows himself, and in knowing himself, knows God.

For more information

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Paths of Light and Darkness, Chapter 3, section one, “A Personal and Planetary Battle.”

Sources

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Paths of Light and Darkness, pp. 201–206; 208–210.