Step Four: Man the Aspirant
November 22nd to December 1st
Jupiter
Upon the Path of Return the sign of Sagittarius is entered
via Jupiter in the first decan, Mars in the second and the Sun in the
third. You must now come of age spiritually, for the world needs mature
workers at this time and you can meet the need. You can make a soul impact
upon those around you. You can cease from being a destructive agent and
become a constructive worker. But this will only be possible if your likes
and dislikes, your personality determinations and affections, your feelings
and your physical ailments fade out of the picture and only the world's
need remains and the longing to meet it. You have this capacity.
Firstly understand your work as an aspirant now falls into
two main departments—one connected with your own inner development
and the other connected with what service you can render in the world;
yet these two are one. In the New Age, aspirants are trained for group
work by achievement through service, with the emphasis upon the service
and not upon the achievement.
Furthermore, there are three basic principles
governing entry into the Ashram and the performance of all ashramic work;
these are the governing principles in training: Occult Obedience, Group
Integration and Right of Access. It would benefit you to research these,
study them and meditate well upon them.
Secondly, understand that clear thinking and the elimination
of idle, destructive and negative thoughts are essential to your immediate
progress. The development of discreet appreciation takes time, and as
a neophyte you must always be on guard against any intrusion into your
organized field of determined and imposed rule. Instead develop the capacities
of self-government.
You have been on the periphery of an Ashram for some time.
As an aspirant your task is to facilitate certain liberating processes
taking place in your life. A simple, humble life of service and of self-forgetfulness
will do more to free you than aught else. At this stage you are dealing
with the germ or seed—and only the seed—of your nascent spiritual
life.
Do not think so much about the 'flowering' or 'fruit' of your spiritual
life in the future years but rather focus on the daily and immediate moment-to-moment
nurturing and fostering of the seed of your soul life. Stay focused in
the present moment. You stand much freer from entanglements than here-to-fore;
you face fresh opportunity for service and for growth.
Your problem is
how to capitalize on the past so that you can make the future a more fruitful
period than ever before. Take responsibility for living with a daily recognition
of the past, an understanding of the purpose of the present and with an
eye to the future. Do not allow an unhappy sense of duality to produce
undue distress and sorrow.
Learn to acquiesce and submit consciously to
the inevitable process of transmutation which must occur before your personality
can be considered a fit instrument of the soul, and stand steadfast in
spiritual being maintaining a firm position upon the Middle Way between
the pairs of opposites. Stand steady at the midway point and the secret
of duality will be revealed. The inner key to attaining wisdom is to maintain
a positive, dynamic viewpoint and strive always for right understanding
and right activity.
You must now learn to perform actions without attachment
to the fruits of achievement, thereby laying the foundation for complete
relinquishment without pain or sense of loss. Learn to correctly diagnose
and discriminate against all forms of selfish unselfishness. Free yourself
from the desire to possess, from acquisitiveness. Attain selflessness
motivated by the wish to appropriate nothing for the separated self. Carry
selflessness to the heights of full surrender. You are learning remarkably
fast, my brother, and can break through to a deepened and more realized
knowledge of the spiritual Path if you can train yourself in detachment
from selfishly motivated personality activity.
At the fourth step you
struggle to identify and coordinate all your personality activity with
the inner life-plan. Sometimes you have great clarity of vision in relation
to the spiritual challenges and problems with which you are faced and
develop unique responses to them. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with a
devastating sense of aloneness and feel the power of the forces arraigned
against you, and in comparison you feel weak and inadequate—but
do not give up. Focus on strengthening a powerful sense of your core identity.
Centralization is the key to personality integration because an inner
reinforcement of your essential identity will enable you to detach yourself
from the non-essential.
You now begin the stage of spiritualization and relinquishment
of the personality or form life. As the process of complete personality
satisfaction has already taken place upon the Ordinary Wheel, the initiatory
lessons of the fourth step concern emergence into Light.
You have already
experienced satiety, and now desires which used to be so dominant and
so often satisfying no longer attract. Towards the end of your long pilgrimage
you have grown truly tired of grasping the non-essential. You have played
your part in life and developed your share of interests and attachments,
but now as a somewhat world-weary aspirant you are ready to learn detachment.
Your soul now holds the purpose of liberation before it and has no desire
for further physical plane existence. You are attracted now to the unseen,
the true, the subjective and the Real—which is only possible when
detachment from the seen, the false, the objective and the unreal has
been achieved. Through the right use of the thought processes you can
increasingly throw soul light upon your life problems, bringing right
solution and correct understanding. You wrestle with your problems, my
brother, for your sincere desire is to follow the Path of spiritual development,
but you make the astral body your battle ground, whereas the whole problem
should be elevated to mental levels.
Think this out and then carry forward
right action in two directions: on the mental plane to discover guidance,
and then on the physical plane to carry out actions as a demonstration.
If you can work out these methods of right action on your own in relative
isolation, this will open for you a perfect floodgate of impelling new
relationships and group opportunities. Your goal is to intensify mental
illumination so that the searchlight of the mind can be turned upon the
miasmas of the astral body.
As a committed aspirant over the coming years you will
have to vigilantly fight astral glamour—a necessary preparation
to clear your aura for increased service. Your still restless, grasping,
unsatisfied mind must now be clearly dealt with. Look closely at the quality
of your mental equipment and formulate the wise procedure for your future
contentment and happiness, free from the tendency of the mind to grasp
and concretize; free from a nervous restless discontent and deep spiritual
dissatisfaction. For the Path of Discipleship cannot be trodden until
the glamour of your mystic vision has been dissipated and the vision itself
has been lost to sight in identification and spiritual accomplishment.
At this stage the soul seeks clarity and accuracy resulting in occult
certitude and not mystical belief. Your first goal is to clear the atmosphere
of destructive thought and to bar fast the doors of selfish egotism, pride,
cruel speech, poisonous gossip, fear, jealousy, hate and pain. No longer
prostitute thought to the base uses of desire. You are divided in battle
against the afflictions in your own mind. Now the time has surely come
for you to defeat them. You have seen through the narrow perspective of
this life. Now you must battle to achieve the correct view.
Through the activity of your increasingly illumined mind,
with ever greater clarity of definition you will develop an intelligent
appreciation of true values and a deep and true love of your fellow men
which will draw you towards genuine sacrifice for the good of the whole.
Seek to see humanity liberated, free and able to live their daily lives
in the light of love, and do your share in bringing this about on all
the planes in which you can consciously function.
This is the beginning
of group consciousness and of your group work. Your purpose is to establish
a sense of Reality as the ruling principle of life and achieve complete
liberation from the control of the lower mind. Naturally questions about
your spiritual life and future ashramic responsibilities sometimes powerfully
intrude into your consciousness.
Up until now, after a period of inner
wrestling and consequent decision, you have evaded facing the full implications
of Accepted Discipleship and the effect this will have upon your lifestyle.
You often wonder where the difficulty lies in your non-acceptance of the
requirements for active discipleship in the Ashram of a Great One. These
inconsistencies lie as unsolved problems which serve to bewilder your
subconscious nature. They are behind your half-realized inability to work
out right relations with people, fretting and gnawing at the lower layers
of unformulated thought. They fuel a state of inner rebellion against
life, against people, against your own decisions, which form a most definite
orientation of your personality.
You are a sincere and intelligent devotee. Intelligence
and devotion go hand in hand in the life of the aspirant, balancing each
other and then producing a definite focus of power. For you this is an
incarnation in which the life focus becomes irrevocably oriented toward
the soul.
The keynote of renunciation is wisely sounded, however this
must not be over-emphasized in case the power of renunciation is wrongly
or unnecessarily applied. Make the results of higher orientation and reflection
practical and thus learn to know when to speak and when to be silent,
remembering that the elimination of possessiveness and self-reference
will reduce speech to its spiritual essentials.
Develop the ability to
listen, for this is the keynote of your inner life for the remainder of
this incarnation and will give you the right of ashramic access. Then
group integration will take on new and vital meaning for you. Within the
outer circle of those who talk together on the periphery of the Ashram
there is no group integration. Right of access comes to those advanced
aspirants who have learned the Law of Silence.
Jupiter's beneficent influence grants you enormous power
to make progress upon the Path and to tread the Way commensurate with
an ever-growing sense of soul direction and guidance. The outstanding
effect of Jupiter's stimulation is a steady inclusive expansion in the
direction of truth, love and wisdom. Jupiter encourages an intuitive and
focused attentiveness like a clear shaft of light in the fully soul-illumined
disciple. It gives an unrelenting faith, undying trust, constant hope
and a dynamic optimism.
All forms of fanaticism, negativity and glamorous
personal devotion are being overcome. Strive to live from a growing recognition
of the ordered direction of the soul's thought. Realize that true direction
in life is found by following the plan of your soul. Though fluid, perfect
cooperation with your soul lies as yet in the future, the establishment
of an inner contact and relationship is magnificently possible and for
this you must strive, pursuing your duty and shouldering your responsibilities.
Recognize that the only way to grow into the light and find your own soul
path is through service, through experience gained, through mistakes made
and lessons learned.
Do not let the lesser voices crowd out the voice of your
soul. If you keep your soul channel clear, then you will be able to face
all the decisions of moment that come your way in the light of the soul,
supervene with clear, prompt action and achieve good results. The advice
that you are able to give others will not then be based on fear or any
weakness of personality love, but will carry the triumphant note of the
soul's wisdom. Lesser loves must be sacrificed for the greater love of
the soul.
In your life the reassuring consolation of the superficial exchange
of personality affections vanishes, but the love of the soul takes its
place, along with many new and significant group contacts. Make no fanatical
attempts to convert or persuade anyone to your personal spiritual vision.
Consciously and diligently cultivate a real awareness of the needs of
other people. The work of the disciple is based upon love for all and
service to the entire human race. The ways and means are many; there are
many paths to the one goal.
This is the time for skill-in-action. You say to yourself
time and time again: "If there were some one thing I could do to
break the prison of thought in which I find myself, how easy it would
be and how quickly I would do it." (DINAI, p.507)
But my brother,
you know that there are several key personality issues and needed integrations
that have yet to be faced. Silence, serenity and loving service to all
without exception and without thought of your personal self should be
your goals during the final tests of the fourth step.
In place of restlessness,
detachment, criticism, over-sensitivity, resentment, self-pity, fear,
distrust and suspicion, evoke love. Use the power of love to break your
chains so that you may freely serve. Jupiter ensures victory and will
enable you to transcend all personal illusions, glamours and limitations.
The beneficence of Jupiter will aid the development of the intuition so
that you reach the foot of the mountain of Initiation. In the final analysis
it is Jupiter which inevitably guarantees the soul's expression upon Earth
and the power to pour out Love and Wisdom upon the spiritual Path. You
will attain the fifth rung of the ladder when you realize and practically
demonstrate that the work is one, the Path is one, the goal is one, and
it is Love that unites us as One.
Do not over-estimate your importance in ratio to the tests
you undergo and your reactions to them. Overcome a deep self-interest
that isolates you in a cloud of your own thoughts so that the light of
your soul is no longer shut out. You often see things in wrong proportion
and sometimes you develop a fixed idea of persecution.
Your real problem
is your glamour of isolation. Your spirit of criticism also induces many
states of personal glamour. Do not subject others to the negative impact
of your personal thought and criticism. You fail frequently to see people
as they really are for you view them through the illusion of criticism,
which also influences the opinions of others, further distorting how they
are perceived. Is your initial response and reaction to people in general
kindly or critical? Are you prone to see the good and ignore the weaknesses
and errors? Does some wrong action or mistake immediately invoke in you
a critical interest, or do you lock up your knowledge of people's faults
in the secret of your heart, loving your brother more because of his frailty
and refusing to pass comment or to criticize even to yourself?
When harmlessness
and kindness in thought and word are practiced and automatically become
a part of your daily life expression, you will become an Accepted Disciple.
Three things if persisted in and practiced, will do more to aid you in
the attainment of Accepted Discipleship than any other:
- First, assume
more definitely the attitude of the Onlooker who sees all people and happenings
through the light of Love and from the angle of eternal values.
- Second,
leave everybody free to live their own lives and shoulder their own responsibilities,
knowing that they are souls and are being led towards the light. Simply
give them love and understanding.
- Third, fill your own life with the practice
of service so that you have no time for the moments of mistrust, lack
of faith, doubt and suspicion that have brought so much trouble to so
many aspirants.
The evolved Sagittarian knows that the power to produce
the needed integration and to end the cycle of duality lies within. It
is realized that all discomfort, lack of coordination, pain and distress
are symptoms of spiritual aspiration and the reaction of the conscious
integrated aspects of the personality to those subconscious aspects which
are seeking recognition and integration. Release comes from the realization
that the innate capacity to use the creative imagination to act "as
if" holds the key. (DINAII, p. 554)
The creative imagination builds
the bridge between the lower and higher aspects. Endeavor in your higher
creative and spiritual imagination to always live within the Ashram and
act 'as if' the consciousness of the Ashram were intrinsically your consciousness.
Go forth in service 'as if' you remained immovable in the Ashram; live
always 'as if' the eyes of the Ashram were upon you.
For the remainder
of your life let this esoteric philosophical concept 'as if' actuate all
you do. It is this constant awareness which these two words embody that
will produce in you a fresh use of the creative imagination and open the
door to the Ashram. Begin to comprehend the creative purpose of your soul,
seek to develop the creative imagination constructively and also train
your directional will, and much will be accomplished. Exercise your power
of choice in coordination with directed purpose to find ways to fulfil
soul goals. A future of greater service and world work opens wide for
you at the next step if you steadfastly persevere in this training phase
of soul instruction.
Maintain a steadfast adherence to your already well-established
spiritual regimen, disciplines and habits. Always too little emphasis
is placed upon the necessity for the aspirant to stabilize an existing
spiritual rhythm, and too much emphasis is given to the new and to making
some sort of 'progress'.
Learn from your daily spiritual habits an instinctual
spiritual responsiveness—which is the higher correspondence to the
instinctual reactions of the body. When this is accomplished you can then
depend upon yourself to automatically do or say the right thing. More
important still, your watchful Master will know that you can be depended
upon and you will be permitted entrance into the Ashram without impediment.
You will go your way in peace, knowing that the ferment of living energies
within you will enable you to act as if you were the soul.
The love of
the Master surrounds you and your inner connection is growing steadily
in strength and potency. For the remainder of your life with ever increasing
personality detachment seek to serve the Plan. Here lies the secret of
Accepted Discipleship.
You have lived for years at a high point of aspiring tension.
Your life has been filled with the fires of aspiration which in an earlier
phase were destructive, but as you have spiritually matured others have
found them increasingly warming and nurturing. When the fires within you
have burned away the intervening barriers between your soul and personality,
and your soul note has been sounded, you will be accepted by your Master.
Only then can your note be safely added to the sound of the Ashram, enriching
its volume, adding quality to its tone and conveying the required creative
qualities.
Deepen your inner thought life, increase your capacity to serve,
make every word you speak resonant to those you teach and then you will
attain Accepted Discipleship. Your Master and elder brothers have held
you safe from harm while you have reoriented your life and passed through
the various initiatory tests of your strength; but that time is now past.
You are now invited to "full acceptance" (RAI, p.18) and asked
to enter into ordered ashramic work shouldering responsibility and coming
into spiritual maturity.
Step Five: Man the Disciple
December 1st to 10th
Mars
These words are for the Sagittarian disciple who through
concentration and meditation has gained entry into the realms of higher
thought. You have a free mind and much intuitive insight. You are exceedingly
well equipped to serve and your soul now seeks to give even more effective
service. It is a source of soul satisfaction that you are functioning
as a recognized member of an ashramic group.
Be joyous because you stand
now within the Ashram with clearer knowledge and a more assured faith.
Opportunities for fuller service open up before you—service you
can render in your outer life situation and the occupation in which you
are presently placed. Use your energies to produce that ordered rhythm
and life structure which are required to make a definite impact upon the
minds of those around you.
Mars being the ruler of this decan, the forces of conflict
here are powerful and in the life of the disciple usher in strife, thus
precipitating the battle to the 'death' of the personality (occultly understood).
This is a terrific battle of a truly momentous nature wherein the disciple
as the Sagittarian Archer must achieve and hold a steady stance with masterful
control of hand and eye before shooting the arrow which when accurately
aimed, will inscribe a trajectory through the portal of Initiation.
Sagittarian disciples under the influence of the Sixth
Ray are intensely devoted, focused and intuitive, thus they can demonstrate
either an intense soul focus or an equally intense resistance to the plan
of the soul. Your goal is to strive to live as if the soul is in constant
control and the dominating aspect of your expression.
This may involve
close thinking about the soul and its relation to the personality, but
it requires more than a mental focus. It requires that the control of
your entire lower three-fold vehicles by the soul become increasingly
automatic. Mars provides the field of energy wherein the one-pointed disciple
can become the initiate. As your attention shifts to the realm of the
higher energies, the stimulation of Mars will enable you to dominate and
discipline your personality.
The successful conclusion of the subjective
tests and trials of the central decan will bring the elementals of your
three-fold personality under the complete control of the soul. Scientifically
perfect your newly created mechanisms of spiritual contact and your response
apparatus. Make steady measured progress in the process of inner perfection
until eventually nothing further remains to be done within your individual
framework.
Strive one-pointedly with stamina and endurance, allowing
no obstacle to stand in the way of spiritual progress towards your initiatory
goal. Overcome all forms of personal malice. Without any deviation from
the appointed Path, work hard to unfold the capacity to direct and control
your life efforts.
The faults of the Sagittarian under Mars rise easily
to the surface and can be speedily detected. Any deviation in behavior
is invariably exposed and any attempt to disguise inadequacy is pointless.
Rather attempt to overcome the last vestiges of personality separativeness,
intolerance, self-centeredness and self-reference. Altruism, selflessness
and broad inclusive group sensitivity must be developed.
Do not waste
time and strength through worry, self-condemnation or refutation. The
development of an all-inclusive Love is the major requirement of the fifth
decan. Let go of all narrow personal attitudes and biases. In matters
of principle adhere to a definite position with unswerving devotion and
unwavering loyalty. Inspired dedication and commitment to the motivating
goal of soul fusion must be primary.
Release yourself from the world of seeming, from the realm
of myriad effects and the plane of illusion. Face the hard lessons and
prepare to take the Martian training which will allow you to wield energy
and control forces in conformity with the Plan. Realize that as yet, you
are still regarded as unstable and a potential hazard in hierarchical
work.
Enquire within yourself exactly where you still suffer from illusion
and do not be held back by sloth or tardiness. When you learn to use your
energy more wisely and direct your power more intelligently, you will
know yourself to be part of a great interlocking directorate through which
the will of your soul is working out. Your major responsibility and duty
is to permit no hindrance to the potencies of divinity flowing through
you. When this is achieved then you will be fully trusted to cooperate
with the purpose behind the Plan.
You cannot pass onward and take initiation
into the potency of the higher worlds of Being until you have demonstrated
within your individual framework a definite control of energy, purity
of motive, single-hearted and one-pointed intent, selflessness, love of
humanity, clear vision, spiritual insight, a developed intuition and a
willingness to follow the light no matter where it leads. You must appreciate
that it is only with appropriate safeguards and due security that you
can move another step into greater light.
Under Mars your emotional body will finally become dominated
by the love of the soul. All forms of superficial personality sentimentality
will end. Periods of destitution will mark your individual life-path and
a series of definite crises will intervene, purifying your motives and
incentives but in the process leaving you unappreciated by others.
The
severity of these crises will necessitate complete readjustment of your
personality. You will be tested until you achieve victory over the thralldom
of your physical body, although paradoxically this does not mean freedom
from form itself. Reflect on this. Only then will you be trusted to work
unselfishly for the benefit of the group.
Mars gives you tremendous idealism as well as the capacity
for spiritual vision of your soul's life-plan. Your task is to direct
your life-course accordingly with surgical skill and precision. Mars grants
you the power to achieve your goals and spiritual undertakings, and to
achieve high and noble ideals.
The vision must now be held with sufficient
clarity to make it possible to work with perfect unanimity of purpose,
objective, technique, method, and with complete understanding of this
oneness of approach. You recognize that only your soul has the power to
hold the spiritual vision and to direct your course towards it. Do not
allow yourself to become lost in uncontrolled aspirations or the glamours
of your personal thoughts. You will be severely tested on your ability
to disassociate yourself from all forms of limiting personal vision, personal
reactions, adored truths and beloved ideals.
Do not try to force others to dedicate themselves to that
which you hold dear. The thoughts of others are irrelevant to your immediate
task at hand. Learn to stand still and peaceful at the center of your
spiritual being. Only from this central point of poised alertness can
a sense of vision and right proportion be demonstrated. Your spiritual
perspective must be broadened to include all visions, all forms of truth
and all dreams of reality, and discover the essence of Deity informing
them all.
You should now concern yourself with "the fire of
comprehension." (DINAII, p.554) It ever precedes the blinding light
of realization because it destroys all the glamours that hide or veil
the immediate point of soul illumination for the disciple.
You have approached
this Sixth Ray Martian fire from the standpoint of the emotional nature
and it has been associated in your mind with the waters of the astral
plane, thus producing mist and fog which are ever the result of the bringing
together of fire and water. This astral interpretation has conditioned
your experience, process and thinking. But now consider glamour in the
light of the fires of mental comprehension incited by Mars.
Have confidence
in your inner wisdom, learn to stand by your beliefs and find ways to
act practically upon them to apply what you know. Developing this inner
confidence will activate the fire of comprehension, the results of which
will be often surprising and are likely to be painful. So the blazing
fires of Mars are an appropriate symbol for the disciple at the fifth
step.
Do not be over-anxious thinking that the Way of Fire means
pain and sorrow. The nature of spiritual fire will be brought more clearly
and essentially into your consciousness. These are not the fires of personality
purification. You have already moved through the burning ground and passed
out the other side to stand before your Angel of the Presence at the very
door of Initiation.
The major trends of your spiritual life, practice, work
and service are now firmly established. Do not seek to unduly alter the
rhythm of years. You have accumulated much soul knowledge in this life.
Deepen your meditation and intensify the inner silence. Think humbly,
speak wisely and work ceaselessly.
The soul opportunities are great and
the soul potencies at your disposal are more vital than ever before. Draw
what you need for your teaching from the ancient reservoir of wisdom within,
and not so much from the outer pool of knowledge. Lift and comfort your
fellow men, welcome truth and become an agent of revelation to other minds.
Focus yourself on teaching those who look to you for guidance and this
will automatically take your attention off your little self. Your teaching
work offers many soul opportunities which when rightly used, will allow
you to progress from the Path of Discipleship to the Path of Initiation.
Under the influence of Mars the God of War you are a commanding
figure. Out of compassion fight for the cause of those who are educationally,
economically, religiously or politically oppressed. Become one-pointedly
and constantly oriented to some line of action which is a part of the
divine Plan. Master the art and science of relationship so that you may
live in harmony with others and with your environment.
Progress into the world of meaning and values with utter
simplicity. From the three worlds of kaleidoscopic movement and change,
penetrate further into the world of causes. Reduce life to the simplest
terms so that informed decisions and conclusions hit the mark of truth
as straight and swift as the flight of an arrow.
Seek to attain quick,
accurate intuitive thought and clear vision. You know that if you could
achieve detachment and attain a stable focused mind that the whole of
life would greatly simplify for you. Initiation is simplification. Complication
lies only in the mind of the disciple; the initiate knows it not. Ponder
on this. Simplify your discipleship practice by acting 'as if.' Through
this living process let loose the full fires of comprehension.
Govern
yourself always 'as if' your divine comprehension was perfected and you
will find that in your daily life experience all glamorous and concealing
deceptive veils will disappear. Act 'as if' you are initiate and discover
that "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he" (DINAII, p.168)
because the heart is the custodian of the power of the imagination. Your
spiritual imagination is released into full creative activity when you
act 'as if' you are the soul in full expression, 'as if' the Master is
ever aware of your actions, 'as if' you are a fully liberated being. Endeavor
always to live within the Ashram, which is insulated from astral glamour;
and act 'as if' the consciousness of the Ashram were intrinsically your
consciousness. It is this constant awareness of the potential which the
two words 'as if' embody that will produce in you a fresh electrical surge
of spiritual intuition and propel you to the sixth rung of the ladder.
You have taken the "royal route" (DINAII, p.586)
to the very heart of the Hierarchy. You have realized that occult obedience
is not the carrying out of rules and orders imposed upon you by your soul;
rather it is for you simply a rapidity of spiritual reaction to soul impression
as it emanates from your Ashram. It is the sensitive, immediate and correct
registration of the quality of the Ashram with which you are affiliated,
and consequently an automatic undertaking of the required tasks. Your
duties are ever self-assigned, self-initiated and self-implemented, and
you perform them with exemplary care.
At the apex of the fifth step you
are now a safe, sound, secure and self-directing disciple being trained
and prepared for higher initiation. Seek to link up with your Master and
group brothers each day and count on their watchful, supportive and sustaining
love. Your Master's skills, care and attention are always available. When
need arises you can count on his aid. He has recorded on your ashramic
chart your strong and constant effort to fulfil the requirements for initiation
and for the attainment of the sixth step.
Step Six: Man the Initiate
December 10th to 21st
The Sun
At the sixth step the premise of the soul is a forgone
conclusion and you have succeeded in silencing all doubt as to the essential
divinity of your nature. Consequently your ministrations for the good
of humanity are finally to become completely free from any touch of self-righteousness,
and ever serve to enlighten and not to chastise human ignorance.
The rays
of the Sun provide a constant source of inspiration, illumination and
ample nourishment. Fertile creativity, expediency and good judgment are
all valuable factors contributing to your success. With courageous and
heroic effort you may attain the height of human fame, but you do so with
clear and definite purpose, preserving self-respect and complete self-command.
Your soul-illumined genius is one with every part of the universe, and
gives rise to innumerable forms of creative composition.
Your chief characteristics are an extraordinary power of
mental illumination, observation and inclusive reason. You have an ability
to reduce equations to the simplest terms and eliminate unnecessary details.
You have also accelerated the inherent divine capacity enabling the details
of any subject to be grasped in meticulous entirety. This wide yet detailed
scope or universal recognition requires a very high degree of synthetic
comprehension. You live an intricate internal life of organized creation
released from all material pettiness and self-centeredness.
The scope
of your vision takes in not only the outer periphery of the Whole but
also the beauty and purpose of every aspect of its inner structure. You
have an incredible vastness of knowledge because you understand living
structures as expressions of divine Ideas; you recognize the intricate
beauty of the inner relationships within the expressing Whole. You can
follow the circulation of the energy which is working out the divine Idea
as well as the focal points of force and of energy which act as power
and light stations within that Whole.
You possess a faculty of reason
that is that pure infallible intuitional comprehension, grasping cause
and effect simultaneously, understanding why and to what end all things
are moving. This simultaneity of reception is the result of having reached
a point in your meditative life wherein soul, mind and brain reaction
are fully aligned.
You manage the heights and depths of your life journey
so that events have little demonstrable effect upon your equilibrium.
Mastery of the tests and trials of the Sun decan entails the attainment
of an illumined point of balance. Whatever may come your way—sickness,
fame, wealth or poverty—you maintain an even path between the pairs
of opposites, inwardly unaffected by the alternating highs and lows of
any one particular life cycle.
The pattern of soul consciousness stands clear and you
have a deep realization of the true significance of Light, which is the
inner point of life in all manifested forms. All theoretical knowledge
is usurped by the direct, infallible soul-illumination of the mind. Your
creative imagination is occupied with ways to shine light into the dark
and unplumbed depths of human creative potential.
Ruled by the Sun, you
work consciously as a light-bearer. This produces an intensification of
your life of service to those dark places. First you bring the light of
knowledge to the unenlightened, then desiring nothing for the separated
self you transport the light of Life, carrying true selflessness to the
heights of full surrender.
As a highly evolved Sagittarian you are a superbly commanding
figure well adapted to succeed by progressing in a straightforward manner
on the Path of Initiation. The power of the Sun in the final decan guarantees
you victory in the greatest adventure, the spiritual quest. It proves
beyond doubt the presence of your soul as an eternal reality in past,
present and future.
In life you are the keenest observer of the actions
and ways of your fellow men. You bring illumined reason to bear upon every
phenomenon that comes under your astute observation. Your transparent
mind has become sensitive to the highest form of pure intuitive mental
perception. You know that pure thought is the supreme power and that there
is no true purpose, reason or direction in life without it.
The initiate
Archer aims well, rarely missing the mark. Known for an unfailing and
uncompromising frankness in pointing out the faults and foibles of your
fellows, you exhibit a freedom of thought and an openness to discussion
that may at times take the ordinary person aback. Although outspoken in
your criticism, you are never unduly harsh or contemptuous because you
truly understand and correctly identify the position, essential characteristics
and mental attitudes of others.
When a principle is at stake you never
yield your position. A highly skilled dialectician, you possess an immediate
intuitive knowledge of the weak points in your opponent's reasoning. Consequently
you are an excellent teacher, often following the Hermeneutic or Socratic
method of interrogation. True to the nature of the Sun you can often be
quite entertaining and humorous with witty and insightful repartee.
You have tremendous endurance, incredible vigor and boundless
energy which will enable you to live a long, productive and eventful life,
retaining your full faculties to the last breath. Likely you will die
'in the harness' as it were, from sheer exhaustion or heart-failure due
to overwork in the cause of the illimitable freedom of the human spirit.
But not even the dimming of your faculties will prevent you from completing
your body of work.
Sagittarian initiates are the custodians of inner spiritual
vision. You act with forethought, foresight and practical idealism. You
have a remarkable child-like transparency which makes you easy to understand
and ensures your speedy transition along the narrow razor-edged Path,
and your straight and rapid progress along the line of creative endeavor.
You are a true examiner who will directly meet others fair and square
on their own ground, proceeding honestly, reasonably and logically. Inquiry
and investigation come naturally to you, as does an understanding of the
Law of Cause and Effect.
What are your gifts and what is your ashramic contribution?
Your gifts are a pure and unselfish spirit and a rare capacity to give.
You are driven by an urge to give selflessly with no motive but a pure
and loving spirit. The pure lights of reason and understanding have dispelled
all the fogs in which you have long walked upon the Path of Discipleship.
The clouds of care have been dispersed within the radiant light of your
soul. Speaking in occult symbols, the Sun is found within your mind and
within that Sun you now stand. With certitude you can now depend upon
yourself to automatically do or say the right thing; more important still,
your Master knows that you can be depended upon. You are permitted to
move throughout the Ashram without impediment, as the secret Plan of the
Ashram is safe with you.
As you have proceeded in the spiritual life,
intensified your understanding of your Master and entered more deeply
into the life of the Ashram, and as your vision has grown—revealing
possibilities for service and also the limitations of your equipment—you
have dropped all personal possessiveness. As you have developed divine
indifference and begun to regard all that you do as a natural response
and contribution to the work of the Ashram, your personal self has faded
out of the picture. Now only the need and the power of the Ashram to meet
that need remain. Thus you stand initiate.
It is this attitude of selflessness
and this capacity to be a channel for the power, the love, the knowledge
and the life of the Ashram that constitutes occult obedience. You now
comprehend the balancing potencies of speech and of silence, and demonstrate
both as practical effects of occult obedience. They form a well-established
rhythm of voluntary response to the power of the life of the Ashram and
to the Master. You now embody the complete freedom that governs the entire
circle of ashramic life, encompassing the inner field of Being as well
as the outer field of service.