CHRIST ANDHISMISSION 381
whenever desired or required. He used all his own vehicles,
taking only the vital and dense bodies from Jesus. When the
latter was 30 years of age Christ entered these bodies and
used them until the climax of His Mission on Golgotha.
After the destruction of the dense body, Christ appeared
among His disciples in the vital body, in which He
functioned for some time. The vital body is the vehicle
which He will use when He appears again, for He will never
take another dense body.
It is encroaching upon a subject to be dealt with later to
remark that the object of all esoteric training is to so work
on the vital body that the life spirit is built up and quickened.
When we come to deal with Initiation it may be possible to
give more detailed explanations, but no more can be said on
the subject just now. In chronicling the events incident to
postmortem existence, this subject has been partially dealt
with and the student is here asked to note that a man is
supposed to have conquered his desire body to a
considerable extent before attempting esotericism. His
esoteric training and the earlier Initiations are devoted to
work on the vital body and result in the building of the life
spirit. At the time Christ entered the body of Jesus, the latter
was a disciple of high degree, consequently his life spirit
was well organized. Therefore, the lowest vehicle in which
Christ functioned, and the best organized of the higher
vehicles of Jesus, were identical; and Christ, when He took
the vital body and the dense body of Jesus, was thus
furnished with a complete chain of vehicles bridging the gap
between the World of Life Spirit and the dense Physical
World.
The significance of the fact that Jesus had passed several
initiations lies in the effect that has on the vital body. Jesus'