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LEGEND

the Key & 4th Fundamental

The Seven Ray Cycles

Occult Cosmology

Science of the Antahkarana & Ray Words of Power

Esoteric Astrology
Superimposition

Scorpio

On the Reverse Wheel

October 22nd to November 22nd

And the Word said:
Warrior I am and from the battle I emerge triumphant

Decanates

First decan            Mars             October 22nd to November 1st

Second decan       Venus           November 1st to 11th

Third decan          Pluto             November 11th to 22nd

 

Please read the prefatory material before investigating your own Decanate Stage, as proper assignment is required. i.e., your birth date does not indicate the stage of development, rather, you must employ a subjective recognition of the state of consciousness (point of advance along the Path of Initiation) which you, or another, has achieved.

See this note on determining the decanate.

Step Four: Man the Aspirant

October 22nd to November 1st

Mars

Proceeding upon the Reverse Wheel the sign of Scorpio is entered via Mars in the first decan, Venus in the second and Pluto in the third. The lessons of discipleship in the Mars decan of Scorpio are difficult to learn, and with these lessons you will be confronted as the years slip away and lifetime follows lifetime—until you choose to 'face the music'. Eventually the discords must be resolved, the conflicts ended, and you must learn to play out your life theme in harmonious rhythm.

Mars excites in you the fight to attain longed for liberation and release. In fact there is no cause for anxiety, for the future is assured. Your initial work is to develop your spiritual intuition so that your intellect is increasingly illumined by the light of your soul. The initiatory tests throw you headlong into the battle that will eventually result in your release from the hydra of personality desires, the proverbial Dweller on the Threshold. Remaining weaknesses in your personality equipment will have to be dealt with.

The tests of Mars severely challenge the handling of your sexual relationships, your appropriation of physical comforts and your means of making money. These constitute the well-known tests of the physical appetites. To prove your readiness for initiation you must learn to demonstrate selflessness in all these affairs.

One of your steady objectives is the constant cultivation of the attitude of the observer. Pay closer attention to your daily duties as an aspirant and develop a more observant attitude towards your own actions, words and thoughts. Likewise you are becoming more aware of your life on the astral plane—your dreams and experiences during the hours of sleep. Remember however, that these also are a part of the Great Illusion. Your immediate goal is to develop your powers of observation as a soul and to cultivate the power to register through the medium of your brain the thoughts of that divine Perceiver.

You will learn the hard way, as do all Scorpio aspirants to Selfhood, to demonstrate full sensitivity to your higher Self and reorient your whole personal life effort in that direction. You are beginning to reconcile and heal psychological cleavages by demonstrating all that you have managed to integrate, thus expressing yourself as a coordinated personality ready to begin the fusion process with the higher Self.

You have begun to demonstrate a highly developed character and are beginning to unfold the qualities of the soul. Here Mars aids you in the process of personality decentralization. The law of desire which has dominated you for many ages, must now give place to the law of repulse. The undesirable and unworthy must be repudiated. Your sensory vehicle, your astral impulses and the impulses of your wish-life have to be correctly reoriented and properly directed. You must focus your energies on a definite physical plane activity under the motivation of an intelligent aspiration to serve and contribute.

Begin to live a life directed by purpose, idealism and planning instead of one which is impelled by the urges, promptings and desires of your personal agendas. Practice a wise conservation of energy and eliminate non-essential activity. This will bring about an inner organization of your forces and will greatly increase your usefulness in service.

Do not make decisions based upon personality agendas. Indecision will end when you understand your soul purpose more clearly. The important first step is the elimination of selfishness and the development of a genuine unconcern as to the experiences of the personality. Have patience and refuse to move hurriedly. Learn that when right decision is arrived at, soul starts energy working along the desired lines and one must then move slowly in the wake of the wave of energy.

The day-by-day regulation of your energy usage and the maintenance of your alignment through meditation practice will result in greatly increased efficiency. Your alignment is still somewhat weak, however your motivations are as positive as could be hoped for based upon your level of knowledge, and you are genuinely devoted to the cause of uplifting humanity. Your love of your fellow men is very real. Your mind is active and alert and you are deeply interested in life and in all human relations.

The doors of spiritual opportunity have opened wide for you, for the stimulation of your group affiliation has so enhanced your potency that your soul vibration has increased. As a Scorpio aspirant you have a certain magnetic power. Now soul magnetism must be harnessed through reticence, control and service, and from that point of soul influence you will one day work. The soul magnetizes all three bodies, therefore you must learn control and make right use of soul energy, otherwise soul force pouring through the uncontrolled vehicles will inevitably have a destructive effect.

Your soul now demands intensification that will permit greater usefulness in your group work. Remember that it is not where you are but what you are that matters. The power of an unimpeded channel in the hands of the Hierarchy is far greater than you know, and your place is in the front rank of the battle. The Hierarchy itself stands behind the scene of world affairs and works ever through others; it stands with those who bear the burden of direct contact and the immediate work of humanity in the battle now raging between the Forces of Light and the Dark Forces of materialism, chaos, fear and terror.

Learn to hold to a vision. What, for example, are your spiritual goals? What spiritual incentives are strong enough in you to hold you steady to the purpose and true to your immediate initiatory objective that will lead you to the next stage of Accepted Discipleship? No-one can formulate the vision for you. This is your own unique spiritual problem. Upon the strength of the inner vision and the beauty of the spiritual picture painted with your creative imagination will depend much that you do and become upon the Path of Discipleship.

Constantly gauge the quality of your motives and measure the relative degree of selflessness you have attained. You must demonstrate a real desire to serve and a willingness to be obedient to the light within all beings before the fifth step can be taken. Release yourself from the thralldom of self-determination and the grip of your personal thought-life. Subdue your desires and urges and seek direction from the soul for the benefit of the greater life of humanity.

Your motivation must not stem from desire for your own release but from a love for all beings and the wish that each should be liberated from pain and suffering. Your own personal growth and spiritual satisfaction are to be relegated to a secondary place. The key to your transformation is the exercise of the discriminative faculty in coordination with the goal to serve, aid, contribute and heal with dispassion, courage and an open heart. Offer yourself in service to lift, aid and succor your fellow humanity.

One of your immediate tasks is to learn to use your mind in order to develop the intuition and to control the lower psychic nature. Psychic glamour at times unduly distorts your point of view and constitutes a dangerous and disturbing element. You are wary of this lower psychic sensitivity and the knowledge which it brings, yet this is the astral environment in which you must learn to walk with freedom and with grace. It is not an environment which is forced upon you and which you must seek to escape, but an aspect of manifestation that you must learn to work with and function within but with complete detachment—just as in the physical environment you do not identify yourself with phenomena such as snow, wind, rain or storm.

Glamour exists on the astral plane. Perhaps your work may lie in helping those who are sensitive to the lower psychic realms to find a path though the glamours of the astral plane. An aspirant, for example, who has been astrally and psychically controlled by the glamour of selfish desire and material goals will make a real step forward when he escapes from the glamour of devotion to a spiritual teacher. Reflect on this. It would benefit you to study the methods of transmuting the lower glamours into the higher powers which lead eventually to liberation.

The Scorpio aspirant can do much to solve the glamour of lower psychic sensitivity by the right handling of the time equation, for the timing and rhythm of right relationship has much effect on the proliferation of glamour—or in contrast, the elimination of glamour by the release of non-essentials. Release yourself from the grip of lower psychic glamour by coming to a more active mental grasp of its nature. Therefore expect to face a life of testing and constant physical and emotional change. The tests will be predominantly upon the astral plane with repercussions or energetic effects upon the buddhic or intuitional plane.

Pay careful attention to the inner stirrings of revolution and rebellion that have in them the seeds of liberation. You have as yet but little understanding of their depth and purpose. Rebellion in the Scorpio aspirant may be based on purely selfish desire for a way of life more suitable to the demands of the personality; or rebellion may in fact be a soul demand to overcome the limitations of the personality.

Sometimes rebellion is a defense mechanism stimulated from some sense of inferiority; sometimes it is a response to circumstance or popular opinion. Or it may be the acting out of some aspect of the mind of the race, or a response to others with whom one is associated through ancient ties, karmic liabilities or self-chosen responsibility. The neophyte must learn to recognize the real nature and source of what directs and conditions him; whether it is some Aspect of the personality, or the personality as a whole, or whether it is the soul.

Changes in the life of a pledged aspirant can be due to two main causes: Firstly the working out of personal karma which is unavoidable and which presents opportunity; secondly, change can be directly initiated out of free choice and decision.

Changes and innovations made while following the self-directed line of your life work have little to do with precipitating karma. They are the intelligent initiation of new karma which will in its turn produce its inevitable spiritual effects. You have now reached the fourth stage on the Path wherein you can consciously engineer situations and conditions which are not effects or results but mark the beginning of new cycles of soul activity.  It marks a significant level of spiritual progress upon the Path when conscious decisions can be made with due appreciation of consequences.

The future holds much of useful service for you if you continue to be open to instruction. To develop your service potential will take time and require of you a certain humility, and also an inner recognition of your place and position in the chain of Hierarchy. Do not allow the pressures of family life and the exigencies of the world work or the activities of an active mind, to interfere with the inner learning process which is so essential to initiates. Inevitably your personal karmic situation in relation to the group work for which you are responsible, as well as your personal and family life, has entailed much turmoil, violence, sacrifice and strain due to the warring energies of Mars. You have had to face these conflicts essentially alone. You are in hierarchical training for discipleship, and under Mars and Scorpio you must learn that you can stand alone only if you love enough. 

As a pledged and Accepted Disciple you have the power of your Master's Ashram behind you and are supported by the love of your fellow disciples. A disciple entrusted with a definite task by his Master and working from within the Ashram must operate from a sense of duty and deep devotion, from a sense of karmic responsibility and obedience to the injunctions of the soul, but also under the inspiration of true Love. Under the loving influence of the soul the resistances of the personality are overcome. If you work with correct motivation, humility and right self-effacement of personality, you will be given much responsibility and power. Go forward therefore, in your group training and service with joy and confidence.

At the threshold of the fifth step it is important for you to continue with your occult studies and work practically along occult lines. Continue to teach and assist occult students. Take appropriate spiritual pride in the truth that you have made real progress, that you have eliminated much in your life that was non-essential in order to make more time for service. In this no-one assisted you but you found the ways and means alone and unaided. You have been "grounded in your place" (DINAII, p.746) and must now master the technique of moving forward along your line of service.

You will be more effective if you can learn to concentrate and centralize the inflow of all your soul forces in active, focused service upon the physical plane. When to this you can add a trained and illumined mind, then you will become a focal point of spiritual attraction polarized at your own center. When your life has an ordered rhythm and you express a steadfast adherence to carry out the Plan, you will then take your rightful position as a representative of an Ashram. The shouldering of your ashramic responsibilities will mark your attainment of spiritual maturity. Go forward in strength, knowing that the power of the soul and the solidarity of the Ashram can ever be relied upon.

 

Step Five: Man the Disciple

November 1st to 11th

Venus

Under Venus you have developed a sound sense of values, but now this needs to be shifted up to a new level. Your gifts of understanding, wisdom and compassion and your psychological intuition are exceedingly good, yet also require further development. The old claims of your personality life that may perhaps bring you temporary satisfaction, require reorienting to the present life demand and to the urgency of the present time.

You must appreciate that in spite of your rich experiences, deep desires and remarkable insights, your occult perception is imperfect and at times totally blind. Be ready to recognize and admit error; be equally ready however, to perceive when your work with your group has been successful. Learn also to perceive failures where the outside world or your contemporaries or other disciples on the Path may see only success and spiritual achievement.

It is said that the central Way of Light is unveiled by pushing away that which intrudes. (EPII, p.163) You have had moments of deep depression mounting at times in the past to great crises of despair. Venus eventually ends suffering and pain, ushering in a state of spiritual peace and the healing of all old wounds. In the interim period however, you will be attacked, much maligned and generally misunderstood by your family, friends, peers and contemporaries. However these conditions, which are perfectly normal at this step, simply set the stage and are not sufficient deterrents to the completion of your life-work, your karmic duties, your appointed mission. This is a lesson to you not to treat your brothers in a similar manner; not to abuse power in the group field. There are many temptations to abuse power in any group, whether that is a spiritual community or a business or a school, and you will be severely tested.

At first you will likely fail these tests. Invaluable discipleship experience is gained in the process and out of the multitude of failures will eventually come a few small successes. Your karmic slate cannot at this stage be cleansed and wiped free of past failures and present shortcomings. All you can do is recognize them for what they are.

Recognize also the way towards a more full expression of discipleship. Always work to evoke the best and highest within the group, act as a healing agent sensitively operating through the laws of Love and magnetic control within the group. Disciples everywhere have to work hard at the task of perfecting themselves, for the world situation demands trained and skilled workers. No group can be used in world service that is not working in perfect accord and harmony. This must be brought about not by members of the group withdrawing themselves thus inhibiting whatever unbalances the group equilibrium, but by the process of loving self-forgetfulness. Use your powers as a contribution to group life and by means of your loving radiation strengthen the group structure and stimulate group love.

All advanced Scorpio disciples need to learn to direct their own naturally powerful forces and energies instead of being directed by them. You must demonstrate steadfastness, poise, humility, caution, enthusiasm and dynamic purpose in order to be trusted to handle with wisdom the powers conferred. Your problem is predominantly to establish a dynamic relation between all the inner and subtler forces that are focused in your etheric body so that you can occultly "bring through" (DINAI, p.135) into outer expression via the physical brain, all your riches of realization, understanding and wisdom.

Astral calm, self-forgetfulness and the development of wisdom are the three things to which you need to pay careful attention. Your orientation towards learning must now be replaced by the active expression of your understanding and wisdom. You are well on the way to transmuting knowledge into wisdom.

You are aware of all your faults and follow true direction instinctively, even if at times you choose the longer way around towards your objective. Latent wisdom must be developed, and for this your group work and service will provide a most useful field. Do not be swayed by personalities, but take your stand upon your own wisdom and preserve the group integrity by definite effort. Attempt more often to give outer expression to your inner nature and seek to make the conscious link between your personality and soul more dynamic and real.

The strength, wisdom and love of every disciple in the world today is very earnestly needed. Humanity is demanding help and the Hierarchy is asking for your cooperation. Remember that right action is the result of being. If your awareness of being is of a personality nature, your activity will also be. If your consciousness is focused in spiritual being, a spontaneous, creative and active service will be the result of the consequent radiation.

The successful negotiation of the trials of the central decan brings about the expression of spiritual transcendence, illumined living and loving soul control. You will eventually eliminate all residual forms of astral dualism. Your greatest initial challenge is to overcome the swing between the polar opposites and not feel torn between the warring dualities within yourself, your co-workers or within your material circumstances and environment.

Through familiarity with the pairs of opposites your work is then to discover that which is neither of them. The mark of success is that you will stop wrongly judging others. You are ready for the sixth step when you have learned to think of yourself as a saving regenerating force, to think of the world as a field of service, and to think of others as souls. Then and only then will the light of your lower self wane in the blaze of glory which emanates from your higher Self.

Finally at the successful conclusion of the fifth step it is said, "the greater glory obliterates the lesser". (EA, p.207)

I call you to preparedness and to freedom from the glamours of the familiar, of family and surroundings. The subjective tests with which you are most concerned appropriately deal with lower residual desires on the astral plane, and these peculiar trials are subtler than those concerning the gross physical appetites.

You are being tested on your ability to master the uncontrolled desires of your astral body, dissipate personal delusions, incorrect views, non-virtuous actions and in general work on astral glamours both individual and planetary. The creative work of disciples in every field of service involves the destruction of glamour and illusion to which all humanity are prone.

Naturally the initial emphasis is upon the release of any remaining desires of the three-fold personality. All manner of physical, emotional and mental problems must be resolved and the numerous deep-seated issues, unconquered residues and potent entrenched liabilities of your personality make this task exceedingly difficult. You must always be ready and able to call in the light of your higher Self along with the reasoning power of your brilliant, insightful and highly trained mind. Your conditioning motivation must be love used as the primary, magnetic, attractive factor conditioning all of your personal and group relationships.

Recognize that you have learned to use your mind in two directions: Increasingly at will you can instantly turn the searchlight of your brilliant mind into the inner world of your soul and also into the world of illusion for the dissipation of glamours.

Do not lose sight of the fact that your soul has deliberately chosen for you the karmic life circumstances that will almost unavoidably or inevitably face you with opportunities for the self-initiated trials and the purging disciplines necessary for your onward evolution. After some progress has been made the fierce opposition of your personality to your inner work will be further tested to provide the opportunity for your soul to fully irradiate your emotional body. After the completion of these specific tests you will no longer feel the usual fear, possess no personal desire and express no personal animosity or hatred. You will be joyous and free from any form of personal angst or delusion and finally released from any entrapment in the worlds of maya, glamour and illusion.

This in no way involves the negation or disabling of outward opposing forces, people or conditions, but rather the attainment of joy and inner peace as a result of the establishment of what Buddhists term 'correct view'. Right relations with your environment does not necessarily connote peaceful conditions in the three worlds of human endeavor, but rather an inner state of peace as you fulfil your soul mandate regardless of what is transpiring in the outer world.

This is not an easy task because the sum total of all your instinctive tendencies, all your inherited glamours and all your wrong mental attitudes have to be conquered, subdued and overcome before you can move forward. At this stage as you are still dwelling in a personality and have not yet taken the Third Initiation, you have major work ahead.

The esoteric school or group that you lead or to which you belong, is both your proving ground and training ground. You belong to the new school that is entrusted with the task of producing the modern esoteric curricula of psychology, healing, astrology and science. As the established arena of initiatory endeavor, this will prove sufficiently challenging and difficult a battleground. Your soul is asking of you an intensity and a dynamic one-pointed focus. Your salient task is to deepen and enrich the group life of which you are an integral part. Many new experiences and much advanced instruction is being given as training.

The forming of your group was not an easy matter, and its continuation will also be difficult. You question your ability to conform to your own self-imposed requirements and to submit to the self-imposed group discipline of your own making. Doubtless you have sincerity of purpose and of life intent, but do you have the necessary steadfast determination to tread the Path towards your Aquarian Group goal with true brotherly love and deep occult recognition? Hold to your decision to form your own group or school in spite of failure at times to achieve even your own standards of spiritual living.

Endeavor to conform to the group requirements of your own free will and for the purposes of group unity and integrity. It is wise to make the effort and to accept spiritual opportunity by a temporary acquiescence and voluntary group obedience to prove that there is a purpose and a planned understanding behind group living and the new advanced Aquarian technique of group training. It takes time for adjustments to be made and for the needed subjective unfoldments and revelations to be brought about.

Be patient my brother. You have already demonstrated remarkable courage, great restraint and a steadfast will, and can achieve much in this life if you continue to so apply yourself.

Endeavor to grasp in a new and dynamic manner the dual life of discipleship. You must learn to function simultaneously in the field of service and the field of karmic obligation. Your primary responsibility is to set an example for those who are at the first stage of group consciousness and group service. You seldom act without due consideration of consequences. Work with your group so that each person learns intelligently and powerfully to master glamour in their own lives. When you have learned to dominate conditions through the power of your soul, then you can work constructively in the midst of group conditions untouched by glamour. Do not permit this dutiful expression of your high calling, this expression of honor and sacrifice, to weigh heavily upon you, but bear the burden with joy. Be occupied with the problem of sensitive response and not with the glamour of leadership surrounding your role in the group.

Deal with causes and not with effects. Strive to dispel fear, doubt and uncertainty in the minds of others. Ever strive to clarify your group field with the illuminating rays of science, logic and clear, precise thought. To the best of your ability use the First Ray of Will and Power to cleanse your group field and to render service on the astral plane, that sphere wherein so much group healing needs to take place among your co-workers and associates. Reveal to others the joy of the soul that is discovered through the pure perception of the illuminating rays of the light of Truth. Accept the limitations of your group field, which is your principal vehicle of world service. In all cases the way to overcome personal limitations in the group field is through the expression of true selflessness. However at present there is still far to go to attain this goal.

Venus guarantees your eventual spiritual victory. Here this means that your whole divine Self, although not yet in perfect expression, will ground itself upon the physical plane with sufficient accuracy and clarity to be pilloried and made example of. Yes even though rent to shreds you must have, as H.P. Blavatsky has said, "the heart of a Lion to scorn the savage barking of the dogs of envy, malice and ignorance and the soul of a dove to forgive the poor ignorant fools". (HPB)

The drastic tests of the central decan are designed to ultimately lead you to a state of illumination expressive of the triumph of the soul. Give up your attachment and desire for benefit in this lifetime and concentrate upon your soul's contribution to the welfare of humanity. Your work will take many lifetimes to fulfil so expand the range of your vision to encompass a real understanding and appreciation of what gifts and contributions you have to make to the future. How else can you survive the present, with the memory of your past suffering?

The spiritual imagination is the most creative faculty. Can you picture to yourself by any flight of imagination the task ahead for your spiritual group or school project?

For instance, in the 21st century what changes do you envisage occurring? Outer changes mean nothing unless they are the result of new vision, for if they emerge out of criticism of what has been done in the past they will prove useless from the perspective of the spiritual life, no matter how useful they may be from the angle of outer organization.

Have you the perception to deeply understand what an esoteric school or spiritual group essentially has to be?

What would it be like if you had to be the one to teach, to inspire others, if there was no more advanced initiate to take on this role?

From where would you draw inspiration, and how would you make the world of meaning and the spiritual realities real and provocative to the neophyte?

What would it be like to have to shoulder all the blame for any group failure, even when you are not personally responsible?

How would it be if you had to accept without retaliation the attacks of those you are trying to help, who expect too much from you and who force you to live in the blazing fire of group opinion?

What will you do when your co-workers fail to understand or prove disloyal or criticize without warrant or pit their ambitions against you, willfully refuse to see your point of view and gossip about you to others and thus seed resentments and misunderstandings about you without foundation?

And what if some of those resentments and misunderstandings did have foundation and some of the criticisms were justified, warranted, applicable and true?

These scenarios are not easily and gracefully accepted by the Scorpio personality. Therefore exercise your creative imagination to deal with these problems so that the emerging principles of conduct may stand clear before you.

Have you the inner grace of heart to admit error and weakness and to say that you made a mistake of judgment or an error of expression in your understanding of a given teaching, or a mistake of technique, method or approach?

Would you be willing to admit your mistake if the need arose to heal a breach and in the interests of the work? Even at the stage of Accepted Discipleship this proves an almost insurmountable task.

In order to increase your output in your group and world service, and to aid you to reorganize both your inner and your outer life, you must work more conscientiously and scientifically with the factor of time. You must also cultivate more definitely than you do the trained attitude of the Observer of life, of people and of yourself. Cultivate the attentiveness of the one who looks on at life and at the life struggles of others. You are a sound therapist, teacher and psychologist, not only from academic training but from rich experiences in former lives that have given you a natural intuitive grasp of people's problems, their motives and their impulses. You know people because you love them. You are developing harmlessness.

Your ability to do well along so many different creative lines means that there are many ways in which you can reach others, and this is your chief asset upon the Path. Right discrimination about how to help people is rare, but you can achieve it when the appropriate personal sacrifices have been made. When you can avoid identifying yourself so closely with people, when you can refrain from suffering so consciously with them, you can be of greater service to them and a finer friend and helper.

At the fifth step detachment is an outstanding requirement and a quality to be cultivated. This is not the detachment of self-protection or a self-immunization or aloofness, but that detachment which sees all life in the light which streams from the soul, regarding everything from the standpoint of the Eternal Now.

Apply to people and to circumstances the same process of questioning and understanding which you endeavor to employ when you apply yourself to study, or when you appreciate a piece of art, poetry, or music. Relate to your co-workers with love and wisdom and this will greatly assist the process of group integration.

You are in a position to aid many people locally, nationally and worldwide.  See that you aid with wisdom, discernment and discretion and that you place your sincere effort where the best group results can be achieved.

Proceed along the Path with confidence my brother, for the sixth step now awaits. You are becoming more and more immersed in your group service, studies, school work and the active aid of your fellow men, thus you are drawing closer to the goal of initiation. Enter into that full demonstration of the Will-to-Good which brings joy and effectiveness.

Concentrate your occult attention upon wise, creative and skillful living which produces beauty and harmony in the outer life so that others can see the achievement. You know that inner effectiveness produces illumined and potent service. Now you must learn the reverse side of this truth: When your compliance as a disciple with service demands upon the outer plane is as full and as effective as it can be, you then acquire an inner effectiveness within the Ashram that will enable you to become truly initiate.

You present yourself within the Ashram as a wise server and a trained companion on the Way. Go forward with a sense of renewed strength, confident in the power of the soul, the solidarity of the Ashram and the protective aura of your Master.

 

Step Six: Man the Initiate

November 11th to 22nd

Pluto

For many lifetimes now you have served without any deviation from the path of duty, and so you have gained "the privilege of entrance." (DINAII, p.713) You will find your Master at the inner point. The way into the Ashram stands open to you and the Master is ever accessible to those who have worked and served in difficulty and distress.

Now under Pluto the initiatory processes continue through points of crisis and stressful moments of reorientation which require you to establish stabilization and right direction. When through all these tests you have achieved victory, right relationship will then be permanently established with your Monad directly in relation to your physical environment.

Pluto's rulership of the last decan of Scorpio indicates that the final tests of initiation have to be fought out subjectively and solved in the light of the higher mind. Under Pluto your cerebral intelligence is released into full governing activity through a one-pointed focus dedicated to group response, group service and group awareness. Your task is to shed light upon the way of humanity. The tests of initiation to which humanity is being subjected are recognized and estimated at their true value.

Through correct mental analysis and understanding solutions are found and all past mistakes are rectified. You have brilliant powers of concentration and apply them to all work you undertake. Let fellow disciples and co-workers find in you an understanding and wise friend. Under the strain of active service for the Hierarchy, let them feel that in you they have a detached and pure observer to whom they can turn, who sees with clear eyes not dimmed by the fog and smoke of the outer world battle.

Ponder on the work of the Destroyer; on why there is destruction and loss of beauty. Pluto bestows you with the ability to destroy all within your chosen sphere of work which limits the spiritual progress of others. This destruction brings about the death of all forms of lesser desire, and without desire the personality and the form side of life does not exist. You subdue everything that retards the advancing cause of humanity. You confront evil and the forces of darkness and deal a death-delivering blow. You are a true adamantine warrior, sword in hand. In the Pluto decan the "scimitar of reason rules". (Source?) It is the destructive force of Pluto that aids you in your epic fight and leads to the eradication of all forms of base human desire.

With the complete repulsion or repudiation of evil you become the perfect instrument to effect right group relations because nothing that stems from isolation or separation remains. Pride, separation and cruelty are non-existent. Under Pluto the initiate has overcome all forms of egotism, arrogance, willfulness, domination, anger, violence, ambition, impatience and obstinacy. There is no despondency, dejection or dispiritedness. True optimism and joy are realized and cultivated despite the severity of the initiatory tests.

Under Pluto the specific initiatory tests will call in the Will Aspect of your soul and so enable you to demonstrate that the usual conditions of the environment and the material world are no longer controlling factors. The secret of Being has blossomed in your consciousness. Your life pattern is now established; seek not unduly to change it, but make your center or temple a place of spiritual light. Seek to make the order of your group life so vibrant, so alive, that other groups may gain stimulation from it. This is your life's work in which all aspects of your nature will find full expression.

You know first-hand that it is only through the gates of death that we enter fully into the Greater Life, and that the great Destroyer is in fact a liberator and a regenerator. Under the First Ray of Pluto you become the "Destroying Angel" (EPII, p.352), attaining complete spiritual regeneration, transcendence and freedom. Purity of life expression is achieved by sheer force of character and an unfaltering step through the strait gate and along the narrow Path.

The tests of Pluto place an extraordinary strain on your heroic powers of endurance and tremendous stamina, calling into expression all your special gifts. You will ever be confronted with the problems of evil, sorrow, suffering, temptation and transgression. The agonizing conflicts of the human dilemma are insistently forced upon your attention and often seem overwhelming. You accept all physical hardships and severe conditions, making the best of things with exemplary discipline well suited to the more difficult tasks and responsibilities in life.

There is nothing careless or casual in your manner, and every aspect of the inner life has a spotless purity. You have great inner strength and great efficiency, so that the more difficult the initiatory task the more relentlessly you rise to the challenge. When hard at work the usual necessities of food, reasonable rest or sufficient sleep quite escape your attention. Thus you succeed in working well beyond the normal boundaries of human endurance. You pay the cost for your achievements, but to you also is given the honor and glory of spearheading that aspect of the Great Plan which is the next immediate phase of human discovery.

Initiates must learn to cultivate a detached attitude of mind that overcomes the limitations and hindrances imposed by the physical body, thus freeing the spiritual consciousness. Learn to function as a Messenger with an inner sense of freedom, despite all handicaps and demands of the body, the environment and material circumstances. Place all your strength and light behind the workers who serve the Hierarchy upon the open battlefield of life.

For years you have brought many valuable gifts to the work. You have a rare and vital recognition of occult principles upon which all true work is securely founded. You have the gift of impersonality which is a great safeguard. You are a gifted teacher, with clear insight and executive ability and a loving heart easily sparked to compassion. You have a steadfastness of purpose and an unswerving adherence to duty and dharma, and a capacity to shoulder responsibility that has proven invaluable.

You have the gift of the written word and an increasing ability as an orator, and these are valuable assets indeed when wielded by the soul on behalf of others. Your attitude as an initiate in training however, is one of extreme personal reticence and of withdrawal from any contact or conversation which might reveal too much of your individual soul growth.

You have already demonstrated mastery of the first steps towards comprehension of that "isolated unity" (DINAI, p.710) which is distinctive of a Master of Wisdom. Initiation is taken alone, and so you travel alone—spiritually and mentally. The initiate stands alone because there is no-one else with the same quality or grade of spiritual perception. The spiritual life is full of paradoxes: We set out to develop a sense of unity and of oneness with all beings, yet at times we must learn the lessons of loneliness and of isolation. A great "aloneness" is the supreme test of the Fourth Initiation. (DINAII, p.759) It is in the last analysis, a question of recognition.

Do not fear loneliness. The soul that cannot stand alone has naught to give. Life is a series of revelations, some of which we recognize in consciousness while others pass by unnoticed. The occult solitariness you have consciously developed rests on soul attainment and upon no spirit of separateness. You have many friends but few, if any, are admitted to the point of sacred peace. Your solitariness shuts none out, yet withholds the secrets of the Ashram from those who would prematurely seek to penetrate them.

The revelation of a certain type of spiritual loneliness is one through which all initiates have to pass; it is a test of that occult detachment which every initiate has to master. In you this solitariness has produced two realizations: Firstly, a realization of your exact point on the Path of evolution; secondly, you have developed an intuitive perception of the point in evolution of those you contact along the way.

You have no false humility and are noted for your clear assessment and recognition of status—a recognition that necessarily requires intelligence and contains no note of pride. You truly do see co-workers as they really are with all their virtues and their faults, their pettiness and their grandeurs, and without the fear of a critical spirit because you have become adept at the true practice of loving understanding.